There may have been something to our parents having us at a young age. When we reached the teen-aged years our parents weren't older than dirt. Parents were in their young 30's and had the potential to be cool. I guess quite truthfully, as much as it hurts, I do not have that potential. I am old, frumpy, grumpy (I sound like a dwarf) and extremely embarassing. This week, I was asked not to go to a game, because I cheer too loudly. I could change this behavior, but why go to a game if you aren't going to cheer? I try to cheer generically - GO ORANGE! I am not even that loud, half my life is spent repeating myself since no one hears me the first time. My cheering makes my children cringe in shame.
Tonight Ian had an indoor lacrosse game, yes I was cheering. May I point out there is always a parent yelling AT their child. I am criticized and I am yelling FOR my child. After we got home, I realized that I probably really was an embarassment. I have a cold, so look stuffy. I also got a massage, so the masseuse had run her hands through my hair and massaged my face. After the massage I put my hair in a ponytail and forgot about it. I looked in the mirror for the first time since 7:30a.m and I pretty much look like a bag lady. Then, Ian told me he doesn't want me to sniff around him, I make a scary face. With the bag lady hair and the scary cold sniffing I feel like a million pesos. I have been sniffing this way for 45 years and presumably look frightening.
Add to this my own adult embarassing moments and my self-esteem is not so high. I helped out at the school doing an art project. We were stacking tiles in piles of 10. One of the other moms asks me how many tiles we had made. I count the number of piles. I know each pile has ten. I can't do the math. I stand and smile. She asks me again how many are on the table, I still can't do the math. I stand at the table and smile like an idiot. I didn't want to say to a room full of strangers that I had a brain tumor and can't do math, way to be a buzz-kill. Instead I just look like a moron. I guess not only do I look like a dork, but I look like a dork.
I really do find the humor in things and can make a joke, but it does make me feel bad when I am letting my kids down.
Toni, just because our kids express such thinking on their part, does not necessarily make it reality. Their thinking can be colored by many things that may not be accurate.
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