This summer I’ve been trying to get my two teen daughters into some sort of a summer routine.
I’ve been limiting their electronics to try and promote balance in their lives. This has been met with nothing but resistance.
According to my daughters I am ruining their summer. And I have to say that from my standpoint my summer hasn’t been that great either. It is a lot of work to corral a couple teens into having a productive summer. I really don’t think I’m asking a lot. I just want them to do a few chores, get their assigned summer homework done before school starts, do a bit of reading and get outside for a little exercise. You would’ve thought I’ve enlisted them in the Army.
The funny thing about this whole summer is how well my daughters are getting along. They’ve always gotten along pretty well, probably better than my sister and I ever got along. But I’ve noticed they get along even better when they are trying not to do something.
They will be in the living room, hooting, hollering and wrestling on top of the clean laundry they are supposed to be folding. They’ll sit in the living room and have ridiculous conversations that will end in hysterical laughter. They’ll sit in the living room “reading” and I hear their continuous chatter.
When I intervene and tell them they need to “tend to business” (Oh no! Words my mother used to say to me!) they tell me they are “bonding” and I am interfering with their sisterly love. It’s curious to me how much sisterly love they have when they are supposed to be doing something.
If I’m not around, the sisterly love changes venues and separates. One is usually in the computer room, the other in her bedroom. It’s when they have been given a task or when they are in trouble they are most compatible, for they are two separate creatures, and I think it is God’s little joke not to include instruction manuals for each child.
When they were little it was a very similar situation. They would get along when they were most in trouble. They had a “Tom Sawyer” type of relationship, which would usually bend in my older daughter’s direction. When my oldest learned to write her name she was obsessed with writing it on everything: walls, shelves, tables, scratched into the plastic butter dish. It was the last straw for me when I caught her behind our wooden framed futon couch coloring with marker in huge script.
Her punishment was to use sandpaper to sand her name off every wooden surface she had ever marked. Her sister begged to help her. I don’t know if it was the sisterly love kicking in or if my oldest convinced her they would have a lot of fun sanding, but, my youngest was thrilled when I handed her a piece of sandpaper too.
My sister and I fought when I was a kid. My mom sent us to camp one summer just to get a rest from us. When we came home and declared we hated camp, my mom used that as her leverage to keep the fighting to a minimum. If we fought, she’d send us to camp. With my daughters I have no such leverage. I’ve never sent them to camp because we spend most of our summers going to car shows and camping as a family.
So have I been successful at promoting balance this summer? I have no idea. Maybe someday my daughters will come to me and tell me how much they appreciated this summer because they learned the value of leading a balanced life. Probably not. But my oldest is no longer writing her name on everything in the house, so, I know sometimes my points hit home.
If nothing else, I still use the butter dish with my daughter’s name etched in the top.
Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. She is committed to writing about the humor amidst the chaos of a family. You can read more of her writing and her daily blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com.
