Lately I’ve been
feeling more like a chauffeur than a mom. I drive our 12-year-old
daughter to school five mornings a week (she takes transit home), I pick
her up from piano lessons on Monday, I pick up the other daughter on
Tuesday, pick them up from dance lessons on Tuesday and Wednesday
evenings, drive one to the dance studio for 8:50 a.m. Saturday mornings
for work, then the other one to the same studio for 10:15 where she
assists a class for an hour. Thankfully, everything is fairly close by.
We recently drew the line at retrieving them on Saturdays and now they
take the bus home.
Where do we draw the line between parental
responsibility and parental coddling? Should they take the bus more? Our
15-year-old daughter has 7:15 a.m. basketball practices. We explained
to her that she could take transit to the school in the same amount of
time it would take for us to drive her (without my husband or I having
to get dressed and get out the door). She was a little miffed. But we
stood our ground and stayed in our PJs.
We are ever mindful of
doing too much for them. My husband makes their lunches, I do their
laundry. We both rant at them when they leave their things on the floor,
and inevitably, pick up after them.
But on another level, I think that’s what we signed up for when we became parents.
Who knows – one day, I might need a ride somewhere too.
