June 17, 2011 · 6:30 AM
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My Promise to My Children

I ignore a lot of traditional parenting adages that come through my Facebook news feed. But every so often, one pops up that I have a hard time ignoring. A few days ago, several friends had posted this as their status:

My promise to my children. I am not your friend. I am your mom. I will stalk you, flip out on you, lecture you, drive you insane, be your worst nightmare & hunt you down like a bloodhound when needed because I LOVE YOU! When you understand that, I will know you are a responsible adult. You will NEVER find someone who loves, prays, cares and worries about you more than I do! Re-post if you are a parent and agree.♥

Really?

I’ve blogged in the past on my thoughts about being both parents and friends with your children, so I obviously wasn’t a fan right from the start of the quote. But it just got better as I read. Stalk? Flip out? Drive insane? Hunt you down like a bloodhound?

Am I a mom or a troubled suitor from a Lifetime TV Movie? And since when does making someone’s life a living nightmare equate to love?

Here’s my version, and my promise.

My promise to my children. I am your friend. I am your mom. I will protect you, listen to you, respect you, support you, be your strongest advocate & give you wings to fly when you are ready because I LOVE YOU. You will NEVER find someone who loves, prays, and cares about you more than I do.

I’m not here to be the warden. I’m here to be the mom.

Like the Path Less Taken on Facebook

21 Comments

Filed under gentle parenting, parenting

  • Gypsy Chaos

    Really? No comments again??

    I wouldn’t repost that promise when I saw it either. I objected to the tone, the word selection – ugh, the entire concept. I may or may not be my children’s friend. I will always love them – but not in that creepy, stalker-ish way that promise describes.

    What’s the name of that truly creepy {IMO} book? The one with the mother who crawls into her child’s room and creeps to his bed each and every night – including after he’s married?!?!? and says that rhyming thing about always loving him and how he’ll always be her baby??
    The kindergarten teacher read that during a mothers’ day tea. There may have been one other mother with dry eyes. I suspect I was the only one with huge, freaked out eyes. The storyline sounds so wrong! And the fb promise always brings that book to mind.

    • Dana122

      Yes, the tone might be tough, the words might be harsh, but there are times when nothing else works and, in our desperation, we are forced to take the “path less taken” because this might be the only one that could save your children’s life. My story is shocking and ugly – prepare to judge me – I still relive the same awful feeling over and over again – at just 18 years old, my daughter got a boyfriend, who was drug dealer (14 years older than her), quit school and began partying. My husband and I tried everything, but nothing worked. One day before she planned to move out of our house, we got one more chance to save her before being introduced to drugs – an ugly chance we got, but we were too desperate to not take it – We were rather ready to see our daughter in jail, than addicted to drugs or overdosed. Yes, we found drugs in her room and called the police. At the same time, we called the boyfriend and told him that we put our own daughter in jail and we would not hesitate to put him there too – if he comes within a mile of our daughter again. He swore on his life he would never see her again.
      After four days of jail, we got our daughter back. She was extremely traumatized, but nevertheless, it was our daughter, whom we loved very much. Needless to say she never touched drugs again.
      Yes, go ahead, judge me – anyway, you can never do it better than me – after this, I overwhelmed myself with guilt many nights – until one day – the summer of 2010 – the news that I was about to receive was meant to crash my guilt and doubts forever – my daughter’s ex- boyfriend was found shot in the head in a city dumpster. How can I feel guilty now? My action was infinitely milder when staring death in the face.
      Today, my daughter is happily married with a very smart, educated young man and – they love each other very much – She is working towards her Bachelor Degree in Psychology. I guess that life can be great, even after an ugly storm.

      • jen

        Thank you for sharing your story. I am very glad that your daughter is safe, sound and happy, and that you all made it through that difficult time. You’re absolutely correct in saying that I could not have done better in your situation, as you were the one going through it. Not sure why you’d need to assume I’d judge you.

        • Dana

          There will be people ready to judge, for those are my comments.

  • Teresa Vinzant

    I absolutely love your version of promises to your children. I also shared it on my fb page. Hopefully that one paragraph will make a difference in another mom’s life.
    Thank-you for sharing your opinion.
    Teresa Vinzant

  • VLA

    Each version has a place in the story of parental love. And the book you refer to is “Love You Forever” by Munch… he wrote it after the lost of babies… learn the story and then reread the book in a different light.

  • Lynn

    I like both versions and have seen a third which I really like which is just a little different…
    I am your Parent 1st – your Friend 2nd. I will stalk you, flip out on you, lecture you, drive you insane, be your worst nightmare & hunt you down like a bloodhound when needed because I LOVE YOU ! When you understand that, I will know you are a responsible adult. You will NEVER find someone who loves, cares, & worries about you more than I do! If you don’t hate me once in your life – I am not doing my job properly.

  • Amy

    I am coming to this post late, but it is still interesting to read all the different responses. The part that bothers me in all three versions is “You will NEVER find someone who loves, cares, & worries about you more than I do!” What a sad thing to say to another human being. As much as I love my daughter (which is as much as I am humanly capable of loving), I would never tell her that. Because I hope she DOES find people to love her as much (and even more) than me. I would never be so fatalistic as to give her the message that finding a deeper and greater love than mine is impossible. Who knows what the world, the future, holds for her? I hope with all my heart that it holds true love, even after I am gone.

    • jen

      Amy, yes, you are not the first person to take me to task for the “never” part. I agree it could have been better written, and that a much nicer sentiment would have been, “I hope you find someone who loves, cares, and worries about you more than I do.” I wasn’t trying to be fatalistic. I’m human too. :(

      • Amy

        Jen, you are a leader in my heart for living an authentic life, one with faith and freedom. You were purposefully parroting the style of the original post, so people would recognize it. You are the opposite of a fatalist! And you are beautifully human. I love your spirit! The first version is trying to be funny (I guess), but it is sad. It breaks my heart to think that some children grow up without having their parent as a friend. I am so glad that you re-wrote it!

  • Shantell McRae

    I personally love this quote.
    I am not my children’s “friend.” I am their parent which is a much STRONGER relationship than a friendship. Anyone who has ever had a teenager knows what the intent of this poem is.

    Teenagers will try to hide things from you, because their “friends” will temp them in to doing things they should not do. They will miss calls to their cell phones, sneak out, skip school, and party till they are drunk with friends. Our job is to limit this activity, with lectures about how it will effect their future lives. We should be their worst nightmare in some sense of the word. If your children don’t hate you from time to time. You are not doing your job.

    Cheers, good luck to you all. :)

    • jen

      I have a teenager. My teenager doesn’t hide things from me, because we have an honest, open relationship. He doesn’t sneak out or skip school or party with friends until he’s drunk. I think it’s a sad and pessimistic way to view teenagers personally, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

      • Shantell McRae

        Maybe I should have been more clear.

        Some teenages will do those things, even if you have and open honest relationship. :)

        Everyone is entirely different.

        There’s another quote I like, “raising teenagers is like trying to nail jello to a tree.” lol, again not all teenagers. :)

  • Karen

    I totally agree! Where did this quote come from, anyway?

  • kelley

    As a parent who has worked hard at my relationship with my children, I always feel so defensive when people say that if you are just open and honest with your child then you don’t need to check up/look in their rooms/stalk etc. It makes me feel like a failure because my kids do NOT share things with me even though they are fully aware that I love them unconditionally and do not judge them. It reminds me of when I only had one child/baby and he was perfect. He didn’t whine for candy in the grocery store; he didn’t fight me about sitting in a stroller or car seat; he stayed in his crib/bed with no issues; etc. It was so easy for me to judge all my friends who had kids who did NOT do those things. Of course, I attributed my child’s behavior to my parenting. What a great feeling it was. And then….along came number 2 and I quickly lost that feeling of smuggness .
    I like the original FB post and I also really like Jen’s version.

  • Anne

    Out of curiosity, I am wondering what age everyone’s children are. In all honesty, had I read this when my kids were a few years younger, I wouldn’t have been a fan. Now that I’ve walked a mile in moccasins of a mom of a teenager, I love it.

    • jen

      I have a teenager, and I’m still not a fan.

  • Dee

    I have three children, two of which are in their twenties and one of which is still a teenager. I had a very open, honest relationship with all of my children, my eldest, in particular. She shared everything with me, or so I thought. I considered myself a fairly liberal parent but I was strict when I needed to be. We ate dinner as a family, my house was always full of their friends, and I was actively involved in their lives. If my children were hanging out with people who were experimenting with alcohol and drugs I would only allow them to see those friends with supervision, but would not allow them to hang out with them unsupervised. It was not until my oldest children were in their twenties that they shared with me that they experimented with alcohol and mild drugs as well. Now my teenager has met someone who is pulling him in the wrong direction despite all of our best efforts to block this person from his life. All I can say is you NEVER know what your children are up to 24/7 and you can’t say that anything you will never have to stalk them or be their worst enemy. You never know what you’ll do until you’re faced with a situation.

  • Dee

    How’s this slightly revised version:

    My promise to my children: I will always be your friend but first and foremost, I am your mom. If I have to I will stalk you, flip out on you, lecture you, drive you insane, be your worst nightmare & hunt you down like a bloodhound when needed because I LOVE YOU! When you understand that, I will know you are a responsible adult. I hope someday you find someone who loves, prays, cares and worries about you as much than I do! Re-post if you are a parent and agree.♥

  • Kristen

    My children will have friends but only one mother… Friends will come and go but I will always be the MOM!!! if that means I have to be the “warden” so my children are safe, raised right, and know right from wrong, that is what I will be. I do this because I love them more then my own life. I will be playful and we will laugh and have great times, but when it is necessary I will put my foot down.. this because I am the MOM, not a friend… It seems that most parents nowadays don’t want to be a “bad guy.”

  • Coveness

    I must be reading these wrong because somewhere I saw it posted that all the versions say that you will NEVER find someone who prays, loves and worries about you like me but I could have sworn I read one version that said I hope one day you find someone who ……and well Im not going type out the whole thing as I seem to be reading what is not there, :( :(, personally people shouldnt be under verbal attack for opinions and quotes as to how they feel,im sure it wasnt meant quite as literally as it was written, people online need to lighten up and not all parents methods will be the same.AND before posting, notice exactly what was written.Bottom line is all seemed to care enough to have a say whethere from a so called “warden’s” perspective or not.