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I talked to my son this morning. This may not sound like a huge deal to most, but believe me when I tell you it is. My son is 19, and for years he prided himself on being a thug-wannabe. He was the sagging-pants-wearing, two-earring-in-each-ear-having, you-don’t-know-anything, Mom-attitude-having, young black man that just about drove me out of my mind. He knew everything, and had been everywhere. Yet, he didn’t know a doggone thing.

Here’s a young man who always prided himself on being the class clown. He went to about 10 different high schools. Literally. The first one was an Agricultural academy. He would show up EVERY day, but wouldn’t do any work. I never understood why he got out of bed and went to school, only to not do anything. The school’s director became concerned about him not graduating on-time because he didn’t have enough credits, so she recommended an alternative school. The problem was, I couldn’t put him in an alternative school because he needed to have disciplinary problems-truancy, etc.-at his regular school, or be referred by the courts (probation, social problems, etc.). I finally talked to a friend in the district who told me how to get him into an alternative school, and my son went there doing the same thing he did at the other school–NOTHING. I met with the administrators one day, with my son in-tow, and told them that I wanted a report from every teacher each day. My son complied. He brought the paper home, and EVERY teacher signed off on the form, and wrote, “slept through class…slept through class…slept through class.” He actually had the nerve to sleep through class, and then ask the teacher to sign off on the form that I gave him.

The daddy dance

One day I was sitting at work and my phone rang. It was a 770-area code. When I picked up, it was him. He and his daddy had orchestrated a plan for him to come live with him in Atlanta without my knowledge. Little did they know how much of a favor they had done me. I no longer had to worry when I heard news reports of a shooting when I woke up in the morning, whether it was him or not. But, that didn’t last long either. It wasn’t long before he wanted out of his dad’s house and headed back to Minnesota to live with his sister. I had packed up and left the state by then. Two months later he got kicked off my daughter’s property, so he packed up and went to Illinois to live with his grandma. Within six months, he was back in Minnesota because his grandmama was “trippin’.”

I was the mean mother. I had several family members who “can’t believe I could just let my son be out there like that. I have never seen a mother ‘dog’ her kids the way you do.” I admit it was hard at first to hear how bad of a parent I was when I know all that I’ve done for my kids. But, I was also outraged at the people who were enabling him to be a pitiful excuse for a man–his daddy, his sisters, and his grandmother. When he showed up at my daughter’s house, I immediately told her to put his butt out. But, she couldn’t do that to him.

Well, let’s just say that he’s had a few incidents and encounters lately that woke him up. And the thug appeal isn’t as appealing as it once was. He has cut his hair, and gotten a job. When he called me last week asking where he could find a reasonable apartment, I just about choked. Don’t get me wrong, my son is no dummy. He knew what he was doing, and he did it as long as he could. Once he saw that no one was going to enable him any longer, he got off his butt and got a job. Not only that, he now makes more money than all of my girls. Speaking of which, my first-born, who did the same daddy dance, and packed up and went to Atlanta without anyone knowing, got a job this week working for a mortgage company in Minnesota. And my baby girl is back in school hitting the books hard, preparing for law school. When she dropped out last year, that was the end of me helping her get financial aid or anything else. And, wouldn’t you know, she somehow managed to fill out the forms herself and get over $14,000 in grants and scholarships. All of this came after being on academic probation. Even I don’t know how she pulled that one off.

I asked my son this morning if today was payday, and he told me that he gets paid every Thursday.

“Oh, so you’re a baller now, huh?”

“Mom, I’m not a baller, I’m a working man.”

“Say what? You sound like you’re growing up.”

“Mom, I’ve been grown. I’m just starting to make wiser choices.”

Oh my goodness, I almost choked again. So, to all the mothers out there coddling their children, you’re not doing them a favor. And to all the mean moms out there, stand your ground. You may not see all of your hard work pay off right away, but they do grow up to be human beings.

Related posts:
1. Helping Our Children Know Where They Come From
2. If You Want a Good Role Model for Your Children, Pick a Good Daddy
3. How to Raise Multilingual Children
4. Jail is not a Career Choice