Engaged Parenting

It’s been a weary parenting week—seems there is always something to address every night, or a sports practice.  In a couple of weeks I will be going to a pretty cool part of the USA for a business trip on a Friday and I asked Hubs if he wanted to go too and we’d farm out the kids and make a weekend out of it—not something previously done.  I was all caught up in the idea but after talking about it we realized that it was far to go for just 2.5 days, flying is a huge hassle, the three boys in three different schools and two in sports…..is a lot going on.  Hubs does have summers off and loves road trips.  And right now it is best for one parent to be here and hold down the fort—I swear these teens keep you on your toes if you are engaged and know what’s going on.

Now that they are 14 and 13 I think a lot about when I was their age and I thought of something I hadn’t thought of in 25 years or so.  Picture high school with all of its activities—sports, clubs, lots of homework, wanting to be with friends.

When I was 15 and my brother was 17, my mother and ex-step-father left us alone at home while they went on a vacation.  I’m not talking about a weekend alone as portrayed in movies, or like my Hubs’ stories of parents leaving for the weekend and the kids had a party.

My folks went to Europe for 4 weeks and left us alone.  This was in the time before cell phones.  My mother had decided that November was a good time to go to Europe (less crowded).  So they went to all the typical countries for a pleasure trip (the two of them during our school year).  

 Making a phone call from Europe was a big deal back then.  There were no neighbors, friends or family  taking care of us (we’d moved to this new part of town 4 months prior).  I have no idea how they could have been reached if something had happened.  My mom called us a couple of times.

I remember she left a well-stocked refrigerator and $200 for groceries and gasoline.  My brother didn’t have his own car so he used hers for getting to school.  He went to a public school located in our old neighborhood about 25 miles away.  I do recall a big lecture later on how much mileage he put on the car—I remember that he took off to see friends on the weekends.

I was 15 and had been going to the same private school for years—my folks moved a lot around a large, metro area, buying, renovating and reselling our homes.  Luckily for me, after 7^th grade,  changing zip codes did not mean I had to change schools every couple years.  There were no buses so it was customary for parents to arrange a carpool, or to pay a senior who had her own car to have riders the whole year.  We lived pretty far from my school but there was a senior in my area who picked me up and brought me home every day for the 45 min ride. 

Amazingly  I got dressed in my uniform each morning and made my lunch every day.  I did my homework each day and studied for tests/did projects.  Who knows what we did for dinner – frozen food I guess (my mom laughed afterward for years at how the salad stuff she left in the fridge had turned to “green soup” while she was gone).  All of my friends from school lived spread-out over miles of this metro area so no friends nearby.  And we had no outside activities such as sports or clubs.  We are lucky that my brother and I were pretty good kids and nothing bad happened.  

Back to the present, the important thing for us is that Hubs and I do want alone time together and we will try again this weekend to see a movie and maybe have a bite to eat together.  That kind of getaway we can do right now.