In a story about a mother who actually takes her important job seriously, we have a woman who calls herself the “meanest mom on the planet.”
I would like to add my voice to the chorus of commendations for Janet Hambleton. She had a rule: no booze. He broke it. There were consequences. Her son now needs to deal with it.
I am a father of three, my eldest being 11 years old. I’m not dealing with driving issues yet, but there are times when I have no interest in compromising with my sons. I said what the rule was, and that’s that. Too many parents are trying to be their kids’ friends, instead of being parents. Some parents throw beer parties for their high school kids, figuring that the kids are going to do it anyway. I don’t think that Mrs. Hambleton is one of those parents.
Even with a 19-year-old, who is technically an adult, parents should not be afraid to use the “not under my roof” kind of language. If she bought the car for her son, she was entitled — and obligated — to make the rules and conditions. He broke them. Frankly, it warms my heart to see that some parents still take this kind of thing seriously.
I can imagine the conversation with her son trying to convince her that the booze wasn’t his:
“It was my friend’s.”
“So?”
“So it wasn’t mine?”
“What was the rule?”
“No booze.”
“Did I make any exceptions?” she asks, going in for the kill. “Is the rule: ‘No booze,’ or ‘No booze unless it belongs to someone else, who happens to have it in the front seat’?”
At this point, he stammers for a moment. I expect that after 19 years, he’s learned that he isn’t going to win an argument with Mom by whining that it isn’t fair.
As I’ve mentioned before, both of my parents are teachers. My mother teaches third grade at a private school and my father teaches 8th grade history at a public middle school. Each of them has ongoing stories of students who can’t be bothered to do their work, and parents who make excuses — my mother assigns too much homework, the poor child can’t do her homework because she has horseback riding lessons, and (my favorite) a child can’t be expected to do his homework because he has “executive issues.”
I figure that Mrs. Hambleton didn’t mess with that. If her son’s third grade teacher sent a note home saying that her son wasn’t doing his homework, I figure he lost TV privileges, was grounded, or some of those other things that parents used to do, back when parents thought parenting was important.
Sure, he made a mistake and is paying a steep price for it. But the point of parental discipline is always, and always has been, to make sure that kids learn. Parents make rules that matter, and breaking those rules has to matter.
Some 19-year-old kids don’t have parents who find booze hidden in the car. Some of them wind up wrapped around phone poles, and autopsies find alcohol in the blood. This kid won’t have that problem. Beyond that, though, he learned an important lesson about responsibility: he was given a huge gift (they’re selling the car for $3,700 , notice) and he took it for granted. Hopefully, he’ll look back on that in later life and understand how to respect gifts and those who give them.
So, I’d like to raise up Janet Hambleton as an early leader in the Parent of the Year, 2008 contest.
