What did I ever do whenI was raising my kids and didn't have parents to help me out? My mother died before my kids were born, my dad wasn't living near by and Husband's parents were not the baby sitting sort of grand parents. And so if I felt the need to get away I sucked it up and stayed home taking care of my kids.
It seems that now a days parents feel the need for ME TIME. What the hell that is is beyond me. Me time for me was the five minutes a day that I got to go to the bathroom without a little person attached to my leg. Me time didn't even come after the kids went to bed because at that point Husband felt I should be giving him my undivided attention. Me time was a non existent dream. There was never even a thought that as a parent I was entitled to time to myself. Me time would be that time far far in the very distant future that I would occasionally allow myself to dream about. That day when the kids were all grown and the house was paid off and the dog died so I could actually sit down and do something for myself!
But this is a different world. Parents seem to think that they are entitled to time off. Parenting has become a part time job at which the parent is actually allowed to step away from the roll of chief cook and bottle washer and have time to do things they like to do. The concept that a parent could actually do things they LIKED to do was unheard of. You did what was necessary for the well being of your child and then you went to sleep for a couple of hours, if your were lucky, and then started all over again.
As parents we actually cooked meals for our kids. No fast food, no take out, no microwave meals. You found the time to make a shopping list, get to the store and then prepare a full meal, complete with vegetables and dessert. My mom ALWAYS made sure there was dessert AFTER dinner. Now kids eat dessert FOR dinner if they are lucky enough to have parents who take the time to have food in the house.
Parents now seem to have the idea that they are entitled to much needed time off from parenting. The "adult vacation" without kids. If Husband and I wanted to have a vacation you can be sure there were 3 little people tagging along with us. We never even considered going away without the kids. It just wasn't done. A family consisted of a mom and dad AND the kids. No separate vacations, my kids didn't even get to go to sleep away camp in the summer. We were together 24/7 EXCEPT at night. That was the one time tat a parent got to "get away"from their kids. Come bed time the kids went into THEIR rooms where they stayed for the entire night. There was no sharing the bed with mom and dad. Husband barely tolerated sharing a bed with me never mind 3 kids. If someone got sick in the middle of the night I would be found sleeping on the floor of their room next to their bed. NO WAY were they permitted to share mom's bed. That too seems to be something the "modern" parent has been unable to fathom. Many of my grand kids don't even know they have a bed because they spend so many nights in with mom and dad.
All this comes from the fact that I just spent the past 4 days taking care of my grand kids. I ADORE my grand kids and enjoyed every minute of being with them. (Well maybe not so much at 7:00 AM when they get up.) BUT lets face it, taking care of kids when you are 40is one thing but taking care of kids when you are 72 is quite another adventure. The fact that these kids live in a house with stairs is a game changer right there. My old knees just don't do stairs that well any more and every time I had to go up or down these stairs I was reminded of my age. Luckily these 2 children happen to be awesome when it comes to taking care of themselves and going to bed at night so I think a good part of this past weekend turned into them taking care of me, rather than the opposite way around.
It has been a wonderful experience having this time with these children but I am not going to be lingering when their parents show up tonight with their sun tans and island adventure stories. I love them all but it is time for this grand ma to return to my child free life and to enjoying my remaining years of being a grand ma who only sees the grand kids when I want and then leave at the end of the day to collapse at home to enjoy my hard earned ME TIME !!
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