Parenthood---Hardest Job, Ever

There comes a point in your journey as a parent when you have to make difficult choices, the kind of choices that will make you seem monstrous to your kids, and to those witnessing this moment. Such a moment has come to pass in our family. Our next door neighbor, who has two kids--one boy and one girl--had invited us to their country home in the Catskills for the Jewish New Year vacation. While the invitation was a lovely, generous gesture, it did seem a bit premature since we have been in the city a total of three weeks, and our, the two moms, conversations have occurred in short fits since we are usually standing at the front door as our two boys careen up and down the hallway of our apartment building. Thank goodness for nice and forgiving neighbors. I had noticed that her son was even more high energy than my son, which is saying a great deal since our kid is like bottle fuel packaged in a 40 pound body.

But since I was raised ever so properly, I accepted for a shorter duration than the five days that had been originally offered. I baked a cake and brought some of the home made pasta sauce I had made and frozen for those days when all I have the energy for is to defrost and boil some noodles.

And so we set off in her station wagon with the three kids in the back, a DVD machine hooked up for the kids' viewing pleasure, and water for two plus car ride. We had left after my son's swim lesson, which was around 4:30 or so. Well, let me say that everyone seemed to have left work early that afternoon, heading their cars for the FDR and destinations in New Jersey and New York State. It took us two hours to snake our way out of the city toward the freeway, or rather, highway that would take us to our final destination--The Catskills. Imagine being marooned inside a small car with three, verbal kids, who are tired, bored, hungry, and now just plain angry. Right, a root canal would be more fun than those two hours in that car. By the way, the total car trip took 5 hours to get to their house. During the course of this lovely car ride, my son, aided by the precocious 7 year old, got into an argument. The outcome being the little girl, who did goad him, started crying.

So, here was the difficult moment when I had to a) reprimand him, b) and then follow through with the threat I had to use for him to quiet down and to then apologize to the little girl. I know I must have sounded like Joan Crawford in "Mommy Dearest" to this mother, who doesn't, obviously, do a great deal of reprimanding of her kids. But I know I'm not trying to raise a precocious, obnoxious, off the hook kid, who is just a general nuisance to the world. We arrived in the darkness, one child already asleep. My son and I slept together, giving us a chance to discuss what had occurred and why we were getting up to have breakfast and to go home.

There was the moment, the difficult moment: we got up and I followed through with my earlier punishment option and left on a Trailways Bus after breakfast. I could have ignored what had occurred during that interminable car ride, the result of which was me being "Mean Mommy," but then that would have meant the possibility of having a child who would always disregard my threats as idle.

A few invaluable lessons were learned by this beleaguered Mom: never accept an invitation from someone who is essentially a stranger, never get into a car headed anywhere outside the city limits during rush hour, and never be held hostage in a car with three kids for more than half an hour, tops. My son fell asleep in the bus so pooped out from the arduous trip there. Relief came in spasms when I saw the first peaks of high rises in the horizon.