Excuses

I've been thinking a lot about my fat excuses after that last post.
Actually, I've been thinking a lot about all my excuses.
Because I use a lot. I hope I'm not the anamoly. I hope a lot of people have excuses.
It's that whole head in the sand thing.

I don't know how to explain it, but I was just thinking about how many times I'll be thinking about some shortcoming or another of mine and then think...well, my parents didn't do this or that for me.
Shouldn't I be trying to make myself a better person if only to SPITE the way I was brought up? Or is that the wrong reason to want to better yourself?
I just know how annoying it is to me when Derek has a million excuses for why he did something he wasn't supposed to. I don't care WHY, I only care that it happened. Perhaps that's the wrong way to look at it.
Tied in with all this is this information we went over in our payroll meeting about "generation Y", born between 1977 and 1994. There were some examples of how parents have tried to give their kids more than they had. Which is fine, to a degree. Some of the examples were things that I didn't particularly care for.
It said that most teenagers nowadays have a spend $100 weekly. I was NEVER given money. Sometimes we were given a food stamp each to go down and buy some candy.
The only money I ever got was when I babysat and then I MIGHT have got $100 a week. I think it was more like $50, and since I was 12, that seemed like a lot.
Another thing they said was that the children are "cherished" and told how special they are from the beginnining, so as workers today, they have to be encouraged a lot.
I read that as they need to be pandered to. I wanted to raise my hand and be like...NO WAY, not me. I was not told how everything I did was awesome. I was only told when I was screwing up.
Additionally, they talked a lot about how people are more close with their parents. How students will call their parents a couple times a day for this or that. Even just advice. And I can see that. I can see that with every parent that calls into the bookstore trying to do everything for their children. I can't help but think that's not really the way to bring a child up to be independent.
I had a lot of objections to that pamphlet. But it's not an iron clad thing anyhow, so I'm starting to let it go.
What fascinates me and even made me LOL was how this information was so neatly put together. Like someone had gone out and studied the elusive generation Y-er.
Like we are animals that they don't understand. I might see that. I get along ok with everyone I work with, but I could see how the differences in ages could make sense of some of the things they do that I think are weird. I suppose that's all they were trying to do in the meeting. Give the older generation some tips on how to deal with the younger.
What reallys makes me think about all this in such detail though is Derek. I can see how some things I do don't necessarily lead him to independence. Like walking him to school every morning. But then I hear about the 8 year old in our neighborhood who got knocked off his bike and bit repeatedly by a pit bull. Only blocks from my house!
Derek might very well be the ONLY middle schooler to have his mom walk him to school and I'm only half joking. The kid doesn't look both ways, and it's not like we don't tell him EVERY time that he should. It just doesn't "stick". =(
The world is scary, and I'm just really hoping I can come up with some middle ground. Some ways of raising him that makes him independent enough without putting him in danger.
The only way I know to raise a completely independent kid is to make him hate me enough to want to leave. That's my experience. I've been on my own since 17, almost 10 years, and it's mostly cause I despised my mom and stepfather. But I'm a different type than some kids. Some runaways who I knew were in the same boat as me and they have just turned into people who pop out kids, get welfare, and still do the same stupid crap they were doing as teenagers. Like they don't have kids or something.
So, hating your parents isn't the all inclusive answer.
I just wish I had some tips. Some sort of "making your kid independent" tips. Like a class or something. I suppose when he is a teenager, he won't necessarily hate me, but he probably won't want to spend much time with me, so that will make him independent to a degree.

I will tell you this. There is no way in hell I'll be giving him $100 a week to spend on teenage crap. He can get a part time job or something. I don't even have a disposable income of $100 a week. Maybe that's part of it. Letting him get a job as soon as he wants to? I wanted to get a part time job, and my mom wouldn't let me. She said it would interfere with my babysitting for her. For free. Oh wait, that's wrong. I babysat for cigarettes. She'd dole out so many and then make me babysit.
But all of this is more excuses I think. I mean, I should be a better parent in spite of how I was raised. I'm doing better so far. I have a lot more time for my kid, seeing as how I only have one, and am not trying to populate a small country, like my mom did. Less kids = more time for each kid. That just makes sense. And I'm hoping that the best thing I can do, the best way to help him become the great person he can be, is to spend time with him. To love him.
Hopefully the rest will come somewhat naturally. Hopefully I'll know when he can walk to school by himself. Hopefully it will fall into place as he gets older. I don't want to developmentally stunt him, just because I'm a worrier.
I just wish like I felt that he had more common sense. Not that all people do.
He should though. Between me and Ben.