Maybe, deep down inside, the Mama did know, but didn’t want to face the inevitable truth. So tempted, I am, to use her real name, because it is a delicious one, but, I will call her simply, Roxanne. Roxanne was wealthy, by small-town standards. Anything Roxanne wanted, Mama bought for her two daughters. If you had observed them, you would have witnessed an easy-going rapport, that implied that the trio was close. Squabbles were rare, and they all shared the same taste in clothes, jewelry and books. Yet, when I watched Roxanne and her sister unwrap the packages from their latest trip to the mall, I felt sorry for them. The extra money came from the government; Daddy never made it home from the war.
Roxanne was also very popular. Especially with the boys. In true, Romeo and Juliet style, Roxanne fell deeply in love with every Mother’s worst nightmare. The town fighter, the town druggie, and the high-school drop-out. I’ll call him, Rocky. Dates, phone calls and visits were strictly forbidden by Roxanne’s mother. This, of course, made the romance all that more exciting. Love always finds a way, and with Roxanne’s brand new car, she drove to his house every day after school, while her Mom was busy at work. Rocky’s Mother saw Roxanne as an elixir of motivation for her son. Roxanne could “turn him around,” the Mom dreamed. This romance was his ticket.
The after-school visits soon turned to overnight ones. How did Roxanne pull those off, you ask? Simple. She simply told her Mom she was at my house. Roxanne’s mother called our house only one time. Not to check up on her daughter, but to simply ask her where she put the cookie sheet. My Mom answered. “No, Roxanne isn’t here, and I haven’t seen her for months,” my Mom honestly said. Roxanne’s mother laughed on the phone, and said, “Well, you certainly don’t know what your daughter is up to, because Roxanne has been spending quite a bit of time at your house with your daughter.” We had a very small house. Roxanne would have been hard to miss. Roxanne’s Mother had a severe case of “Ostrich Parenting.”
You could have put the book, Mama Rock’s Rules: Ten Lessons for Raising a Houseful of Successful Children,
into Roxanne’s Mother’s hands, but you could never make her read it. Yet, this book, would have been the perfect straight-talk-about-parenting-advice that Roxanne’s Mother needed to hear. Practical, down-home advice, yet radical to her, that would have put things back in perspective, and put the Mom, the rule-maker, back in the driver’s seat. Rose Rock raised ten kids, and 17 foster children; and she’s proud of every one of them. Roxanne’s Mom could have benefited from Mama Rock’s advice about the role that family meal times serve in parenting:
Once the kids get a full stomach, things loosen up. They not only eat the beans — they spill the beans. Everything would come out at the table, especially the secrets. The higher the comfort level, the more talk came out.
Looking back now, I rarely remember a family meal around the table at Roxanne’s house. They were one of the few families to have one of the early microwaves. A tool that liberated them to eat whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, so they could freely graze whenever they felt like it. This seemed to create an aura of “isolationism” in the family. Everyone was “on their own.” The girls relished this independence.
Roxanne’s family’s loosey-goosey family rules lies in direct contrast to Rose Rock’s household. In her book, Rock outlines her formula for teaching kids what’s expected, and how structure and consequences keep kids feeling secure. Tough-love rules, that will, in the long run, make your job as a parent much easier over the long haul; especially through the teen years.
The whole thing with rules is this: it’s all about responsibility. When you make guidelines, it makes life easier, it manages expectations. Don’t wait! Start early and start them young.
Mama Rock does give advice for starting them young, with an eye toward preparing them to make good decisions for the day when they will be without you. When you run downstairs to the laundry room, tell your little ones that you’ll be gone for a few minutes, and you expect them to stay right here and color in this book. When you come back upstairs and they have done that, praise them. With a wide-open view to her own family-table discussions, Rose reveals that life is never easy as a parent, and we are never prepared for what life throws at us.
I had already become a single parent when I moved with three young children to South Caroline from New York after the death of my husband. Those were hard times, even for the little things. I didn’t know cars didn’t come filled with gas until after Julius died.
This book is not a memoir, although the antidotes tell quite a few stories. This is a parenting manual, that teaches you how to be tough with your kids, but still show them your love. The book is full of wisdom, and humor:
I want to share with you one of the most important things I learned in parenting. NEVER ask a yes or no question, especially when it relates to crime and punishment. Don’t say, for instance, “Did you break that cabinet door?” Forget it; you’ll never find out because the answer will always be no. Nobody knows “nuthin’” ever.
If no one comes forward to discuss a mess, Wait a day or two. Then, let your children think you already know what’s going on. Sit down with the suspected culprit over a bowl of ice cream or have some cookies together — nice and casual. Phrase your question like this: “When you did this… “
I enjoyed this humorous, tough-talk parenting book, which was sent to me via the Parent Bloggers Network, much more than I thought I would. I’ve found myself picking up the book, time and time again, just to hear Rose talk, like a good, old, wise friend. And especially for this advice for the cookie jar:
The cookie jar should be kept at a kid-appropriate level so they can get at them when the time is right. Our cookie jar was not forbidden; it was no big deal. When we said to go ahead and have a few cookies, that’s exactly what they did. No one had to sneak.
What a difference, maybe it would have been for Roxanne, if her Mother had taken the same stance with boys, and not just the cookies. So, what happened to Roxanne? The romance faded, but not until it had done considerable damage to Roxanne’s habits and her reputation. Years later, when Roxanne’s Mom would pass my Mom on the street, she’d stop her and say, “My daughter was at your house that night,and you didn’t know it.” This used to really tick my Mom off.
Tags: book, kids, parenting, products, self-help, teen by SusieJ
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at the library, right before we left for the lake, and the facts inside have turned out to be our most used tool, besides our marshmallow sticks, that we use up here. Of course, I never anticipated 
