During the long period of nineteen years… the problem was not in the management of the children. The problem was with my ex-wife. From day one, she did everything for them…clean their rooms, pick them up, etc. If she assigned the kids a chore, she would do it for them if she could get away with it. We were never on the same page on this topic, and I knew if this continued, it wasn’t going to work!
Because of my ex-wife, the boys were being raised to be lazy… spoiled brats… and of course they enjoyed it. If this continued, the children would have problems in school, get a job later, and their self-esteem and confidence would suffer. For all those years, we argued about what the boys did and didn’t do and it all came crashing down in the divorce.
Putting it in simple terms… my wife was a sweet… a pushover! Not only would her boys take advantage of her, but also her people at her workplace, family members, and neighbors down the block. She was a doormat, as everyone would trample on her. Over the years, I tried to do what I could to change it, but I couldn’t. One of the most difficult words to say in the dictionary is the word “NO!” And Wendy didn’t have the ability to say NO to anyone. She tried to be everything to everyone… and she or no one else can do that! There has to be a line drawn in the sand for everything. An example follows:
I pulled into the driveway one day, and near the front door, Jason (age 4) was having a panic attack! Red-faced and yelling at the top of his lungs, throwing a tantrum! He had the front door open and was throwing mud balls and other trash into the living room! Apparently, things were not going as expected that day. Mud balls and other debris were scattered all over the living room rug by this brat. As you can imagine, he was furious!
Where was Wendy in all of this? In the back of the house somewhere. I called her into the living room and told her that this mess needed to be cleaned up, and what did she do? Instead of telling Jason to clean it up, she ran to get the vacuum cleaner and cleaned it up herself. This made me angrier! She didn’t surprise me as she could never confront the boys on anything because they yelled at her! I quickly grabbed the vacuum from him and told him that Jason was going to clean up the mess HE made!
“A man who arranges himself to suit everyone will fade away.” charles schwab
I sent Jason back to his room where he had a mini broom and mini dustpan and put him to work. At age four, Jason began cleaning. Little by little, he cleaned up most of the mess he created. I got him the vacuum cleaner, he pushed it around for a while and sent it into his room.
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Before I met Wendy, she bought a new house and I’ll give the reader an idea of what happens when there is little or no discipline in the home and two kids run amok. Six months after the purchase of the house, the following were present: all the screens were missing from all the windows; the front door was hanging off its hinges; a deep baseball print was on one of the living room walls; head and taillamps were broken and wires were dangling; The plasterboard in the garage was drilled with a hammer; paint was spilled on the garage floor and left to dry and so on! All this from a three and five year old! (These were two children from a previous marriage for her) These two children were trashing the place! After Wendy and I got married, all this bad behavior from the boys stopped!
I come from a large family of ten children… five boys and five girls, and obviously my parents were very busy. Especially my mother who was a housewife. My mother was disciplined and she had a black belt to prove it…literally. My father made a black leather belt for her at work and she wore it when she had to. When my mother spoke… we children listened and obeyed!
In my opinion, a person does not have to spank a child to discipline him. In the nineteen years that Wendy and I were together, I never laid a hand on those boys… I didn’t have to. My policy in the house was as follows: Everyone in the household dirty the house and everyone clean the house. With zero tolerance, everyone picks up their mess… no exceptions!
Wendy’s policy: Clean up the whole family’s waste by herself if necessary, and pick up everyone’s waste, in order to please everyone. If the kids’ friends come and trash the house, she’ll be happy to clean up the mess herself, etc.
In my opinion, parents who spoil their children will pay for it later. When I joined the Air Force, I went to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio for boot camp. About a week after my arrival, about six recruits had been sent home. Why? The US Air Force is not a babysitting service. And, I found out later
one of the TIs, that recruits were sent home because the Air Force doesn’t accept spoiled brats or mama’s boys. What was going to happen to these “boys” was that the army would take them away, and they would soon receive a “salute” from the US Army and, where the parents failed, the army would take the “spoiled brat” away! interns! So parents do a great injustice to a boy OR a girl when they pamper them.
There is no woman in the world who wants a spoiled brat for a husband. Today (2006), husbands don’t help their wives as much as they should. And those husbands who are not “mama’s sons” are lazy! They don’t want to do what they call “women’s work.” Later in the marriage, and from my point of view, wives (can) turn their husbands into spoiled brats, and wives pay for it later, by not standing up to him, etc. (Ever wonder why the divorce rate is so high?)
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Prisons across the country are full of sloths; spoiled brats; mama’s boys and girls; irresponsible; people who are not accountable to anyone; disrespectful to others and property; there is no integrity or values and who is responsible for all this bad behavior? THE PARENTS WHO FAILED TO RAISE THEIR CHILDREN! They did not teach their children a work ethic; they pampered them; no discipline… all in addition to the fact that one of his sons is in prison!
After nineteen years of back-and-forth with Wendy, he was pleased with the way the boys turned out. He had them help me with every project he did around the house. Put up a fence; laying of tiles; lay wallpaper; doing brick work; dump racing; shoveling over 40 tons of gravel (when they were teenagers), and much more. They learned to blister their hands, etc. I was pleased that they both graduated from high school and then also graduated from college…Jason in the medical field and Kevin in criminology.
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I remember an experience I had while driving down the road once. The car sputtered and stalled while I was driving and I had to stop. After 30 minutes of trying to start the car, I finally had to call the car club and ask for help.
When the tow truck arrived, the driver got out of the truck and a boy about 10-12 years old got out from the passenger side. I guess the boy was hanging around with his father to keep him company. Boy, was he wrong! Without a word from his father, that little boy walked around the back of the crane and went to work. Pull chains from the crane; go side to side around the car and line things up; and putting chains around the frame of the car! This ten year old was fixing everything right down to my car! I was impressed!
He was pulling a lever here and a button there, and when he was done connecting, the father inspected everything the little boy had done, and the little boy pulled a lever on the truck and the car rose where he wanted it to! I was standing there, my mouth hanging open watching this kid do his thing. When it was all over with the car, we all climbed into the tow truck, with the little boy sitting between us.
Peering out from under a large baseball cap, I gave the boy the praise he deserved and he was enjoying it. I asked the father if his son helped around the house and he said, “Of course, all the time!” The father was teaching his young son a work ethic and not to be lazy, and how to be responsible at a young age and I can’t tell you how impressed he was.
And this is what he wanted for Kevin and Jason. Not to drive a tow truck, of course, but to have the work ethic that this kid had. And Kevin and Jason DID have that work ethic that he was looking for. Along with Kevin and Jason and the little boy on the tow truck… I’m sorry, but I don’t see any “mama’s boys” around here!