You're the Worst Mom Ever!

SLAM

That would be from The Scientist. Ah, the preteen hormonal period of a child’s life.

The Vet was mad because they are not going out to play until they locate three overdue library books. Her response to me calling her over to tell her the names of the books was "What!" For her nasty response she was slapped on the arm. I can not remember the last time I slapped one of the kids. I don't really believe hitting or slapping solves anything. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Lately someone has taken my three usually well mannered kids and replaced them with three mouthy, rude, name calling whippersnappers.

Today the final straw occurred with the nasty "what." I slapped her bare arm without even thinking. I believe all the so called child specialists will tell you that if you do decide to use physical punishment you shouldn't use it in anger. Oh well, I've always been a rule bender anyway.

I also think since "child specialists" have started spouting their rhetoric more kids are screwed up than ever. But, that's going to have to be another post.

That slap created a tirade by The Scientist screaming that hitting your kids is illegal and she's going to call the cops. I told her to get me the phone and I'd save her the trouble. By her passionate response you would have thought that I had hit her or beaten her on numerous occasions. I believe the only time I have ever laid a hand her was when I pulled her arm to teach her how much it hurt the dog to have his tail repeatedly pulled by her when she was a toddler. Everything else we tried to get her to stop had failed and quite frankly the dog was getting pretty fed up with it and I was afraid he would take matters into his own paws or worse yet teeth. After that she no longer pulled the dogs tail.

The other two jumped on The Scientist’s band wagon and before I know it all three kids are screaming at me and then at each other. This is going down hill fast. There is no way I'm going to be able to talk rationally with these three so I send them off to their rooms to calm down. That's where the post title comes in. I will not speak to them or get sucked into their arguments if they can not speak rationally and respectfully.

After about 10 minutes The Vet comes out and apologized for speaking to me so disrespectfully. Not long after Baseball Boy joins her. The Scientist is the last to come out, but she is more concerned that I will cancel our trip on Wednesday to a local science museum. Hey, whatever, at least the screaming is over.

So we talk about what happened. They get down to looking for the books, which started this whole thing, and within ten minutes all three missing books are sitting on the coffee table and everyone is off to play.

I think I'm the only one who realizes how much easier it would have been for them to just look for the books in the first place.