How Late is Too Late?

When I was a teenager, I remember thinking that I was not going to be as strict with my own children as my parents were with me. Being the second of five children, but the older daughter, my parents felt that I needed more protection from Life’s diversions than my brothers did. For example, I was not allowed to date until I was sixteen years old. At that time I could only go out on a date on Saturday night as long as I was home by ten o’clock. It didn’t seem to matter whom I was with or where I went; the rules never changed. These draconian restraints made me angry because my brothers, on the other hand, were allowed to stay out late all week long. Sometimes they would smell of stale cigarette smoke and stagger slightly from consuming too many beers and other alcoholic beverages; yet, they were repeatedly entrusted with the keys to the family car. 


Many years later, after I married and had my first child, it seemed every stage of my baby’s development gave me reason to worry or be concerned. When she began to walk, she was forever bumping into furniture, especially table corners and chair arms. Learning to “child-proof” a home became a challenge for me. When I decided it was time to take away her bottle, at the age of eighteen months, she gave up her two-hour afternoon nap. That made me exhausted by the end of the day, so I retaliated by moving up her bedtime by one hour. Although it was a compromise, it seemed to work out quite well for both of us.  I have no desire to relive the potty-training stage. According to the child development books, the magic age is when the toddler is between twenty-four and twenty-eight months. Anything sooner seems to frustrate parents and merely becomes “parental potty training”.  I agree wholeheartedly with this declaration. After several unsuccessful attempts, my daughter woke up one morning and put the disposable diapers away for good. She decided she was ready to outgrow them at exactly twenty-eight months.   When I was in the process of house-training a three month old poodle puppy, curiosity prompted me to know the answer to the following question:  If a puppy can go all night without having an “accident”, why is it he cannot do the same during the day?

Turning back to the subject of curfews, my daughter is now thirteen years old and is allowed to group-date with her girlfriends. Together they go to basketball games, pizza parlors, movie theaters, and dances. When she is ready to begin serious dating, I hope we’ll come to a mutual understanding where trust and responsibility will prevail. If this concept is unacceptable, then she’ll just have to be home by ten o’clock on a Saturday night. 

6 thoughts on “How Late is Too Late?”

  1. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were real true rules for raising children. Each child is different and all we can do is do the best that Jesus has given us the knowledge to do. The real question is, How many people have the belief in trusting in Jesus to make the right decisions, with children and with life in general?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  2. Lol I half jokingly told my kids (when they were really young) they couldn’t date until they were 18. Now that sometime has passed they still have this notion that that is the set date and haven’t yet seemed to challenge it. Now that my son is getting older I’ve told him that we could revisit the age he could consider dating and he has told me that we would cross that path when the time comes. Right now he said he is not ready to date, that he’s having fun being a kid and wants to prolong that for as long as he can. I’ve had discussions with him regarding school dances and have inquired his reluctance to go and his response it that he’s not interested in spending his time standing across a room with a group of boys while the girls are on the other side doing the same. I’m always finding out about these dance after the fact and that he hadn’t gone. Thankfully he’s not in any rush (although I don’t know if my younger one will be the same when the time comes) since I’m not in any rush either. I have noticed though that all the girls seems to know who he is because of his activity in sports. They sit in a group during school tournaments and cheer him on. Nevertheless I often reflect on this verse when it comes to my kids: Proverbs 22:6 (ASV) Train up a child in the way he should go, And even when he is old he will not depart from it. My prayer and hopes are that my children will be able to walk in their (and not my) full measurement and destiny as men of God. I’m just here to help build them up, love them, guide them and the rest will be up to their choices in life. Thanks for your post – loved it!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Don’t worry about your son not wanting to go to the dances. When I was in high school I never went either. He is right, girls on one side boys on the other. And the ones who are dancing, well let us just say you don’t want him dancing like that. I had fun growing up slowly and enjoying my youth. Wish I could go back there now, except for one fact and that is that I am married to the most fantastic lady in the world. Gosh, if I could have only met her back in my youth. I would have been able to spend even more of my life with her.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

Leave a comment