Someday, they will have to feed themselves . . .

People often ask us why we don’t have pets, and my standard answer is, “I don’t have pets, I have children. Children grow up and tie their own shoes!” Except, it seems quite possible that our children won’t grow up and tie their own shoes. They may not know how to write a check, or make a meal or get a job.  Apparently, they might call home if they get a bad grade on a paper in college and ask us to fix it for them. Just as we signed them up for t-ball with a buddy, or requested the “right” teacher for 4^th grade, we seem to be hand holding right through the teen years and into adulthood.

I love my children. They are delightful people and I enjoy them very much. I do not, however, have any plans for them to move home after college. I realize the current job market for college graduates looks dismal, and that life doesn’t always work out as planned, but I worry that we are shortchanging our teens by not providing them the tools for success when they leave home. Beyond that, we aren’t allowing them to fail in safe situations so that failure in real life – which will happen – doesn’t come as a total shock.

Someday, my children will grow up, graduate from college, move out and need to feed themselves. I’m not too worried about this, because they all know their way around the grocery store and the kitchen, but in the meantime, they live here and I have to feed them. As they are 12, 13, almost 15 and 16, and are student athletes training for fall and winter sports, they eat. A lot. Every week it seems that I spend a fortune at the grocery store only to find myself back again the next day because the food is gone. When the food is gone, they complain. A lot.

The complaining. That is what gets me every time. Planning and shopping and cooking are annoying and time consuming, but the complaining makes me crazy.

This summer I have a plan to get this crew in shape for staving off future starvation. If I get a little less complaining and a little more gratitude along the way, so much the better. I’m guessing there will be failure along the way, but I have high hopes for valuable lessons learned.

It’s a summer experiment, teenager training, an educational opportunity. Or maybe just another moment of “Momsanity” as my family calls it.

Here we go, time to learn how to tie your own shoes . . .