Dear Son,
Why do I want to know where you are and when you will be
home?
Why do I expect you to respect me the way I respect you?
Why do I set expectations for school achievement?
Why do I expect you to do your share of the work around the
house?
Why do I expect you to be at family meals?
Why do I set limits for you?
I do these things because it is the best way I know to prove to
you that you are important to me and that I love you.
Having expectations for you is not easy. It makes a lot of
extra work for me to hold you accountable. You test me
frequently to see if I really do love you and believe in you.
You came home late to see what I would do, and you found
that I limited your going out for a while. You talked back to me
to see if I really loved you, and you ended up giving your sassy
words a lot of thought while you were doing some of my chores
to make up for the energy drain you caused me. You “forgot” to
do your chores and were very surprised when I woke you up
that night from a sound sleep to finish the chores. You tested
me by being slow getting ready for school and missing the bus.
What a long walk that was to school that day. You threw a fit
one day at the mall and had to pay for a sitter the next time the
rest of us went.
Each time I laid down some consequences for you, it broke
my heart. I truly believe that it hurt me as much as it did you.
And it was not easy to listen to you tell me that I did what I did
because I was mean. Oh, how much easier it would have been to
just yell at you or spank you or even excuse your behavior in
some way. My love for you and my belief in what you can
become was all that gave me strength to do what I needed to do.
I know that many adults who lead happy lives were once
lu
(lu)
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