Epic Mom FAIL (& a WIN)
Not too many things feel worse than failing your kid. But that happens sometimes. It happened to me a couple of months ago.
I can write about it now because Ryan finally did land a job. An honest-to-goodness, bonafide, paid job for realsies. (Read about that little journey here.) Since he turned 16 in October, he has been “trying” to get a job. By “trying”, I mean sort of looking, kinda submitting applications, that sorta thing. We’ve all been there. But when we moved in December, he got the bright idea that it would be great to work at our little corner market, which is about 2 minutes from home. Great, but they weren’t hiring. So he checked at the pizza place across the street. Again, no luck. Bless his little heart, he was persistent! He checked in with both every chance he got, before school, after school, never discouraged. Then one day, the pizza place told him to come back on Tuesday at 4:00 for an interview. Yay!!! We can do that on the way home from school. That’s just about the time we pass by there anyway. We agreed that morning that I would be “early” in line at pick-up so he could get right in and we could hopefully beat the traffic to get to his interview on time. Well, you know, I had good intentions. Believe it or not, I got distracted typing up the minutes from the last Athletic Booster Club Meeting (for which I shouldn’t even be the secretary cuz I don’t even have an athlete this year!), and guess what, I lost track of time. I was 10 minutes later than I should’ve been getting out the door. He of course was miffed when he got into the truck. I apologized and gave my excuse. He wasn’t having any of it. At some point on the road I suggested he call the pizza place and explain that we would be a few minutes late. He was adamant that he did not want to call, I just needed to get him there. Love being a chauffeur. (The boy has since gotten his driver’s license too.) We arrived 5 minutes late. He walked in. Half a minute later he walked out and my stomach dropped. Oh sh*t. He got in the truck and informed me that he can’t be late to an interview. That’s what the guy said. The guy is right. Crap. It was totally my fault. I offered to go in and explain, but Ryan said no. He was fuming. I would have been too.
Got home and he went straight to his cave (aka, his room) and I fought back tears. I hate when these things happen! Overwhelming emotions and horrible thoughts running through my brain. Yuck! I couldn’t stand it. I called the guy and briefly explained it was my fault. He stood by what he said, as he should, and told me that if Ryan had called him to let him know he would be late, it would’ve been fine, but he didn’t. I get that. I thanked him for his time.
Back to my inner turmoil. This was an epic mom fail. No doubt. On the one hand, I’m a horrible mother. How could I have let such a thing happen? I’m the one who has been hounding him for the last year to get a job! Now look what I’ve done. On the other hand, this was a good learning experience. He can make no mistake about it; being on time for work is UBER important! Better he learn it now than a couple weeks in and he’s late for a shift and gets fired on the spot. That would be worse, right? Plus, in talking to him later, he actually yelled at me that I should have used a timer! A TIMER! Have I not nagged him with the very same advice about 176 times?!? Wow, he actually listened. And yes, I should have used a timer. In fact, I’m using one right now. Soooo, he’s just gonna have to keep at it. Good lesson there too; sh*t happens and you just have to keep moving forward. Yeah, I do.
Now for the WIN! Let me just say that Ryan is gifted athletically and physically, but the boy chooses to not use his gifts. Not even explore them. This is very frustrating for us as parents. Maybe someday. For now, he expressed interest in snowboarding a couple of years ago. We are not snow sport people; it just was never a priority in our day-to-day survival. We love skiing, but haven’t been since we were dating. But when this child expressed interest, we took it seriously. Not so seriously that we took him straight up to Tahoe the next weekend, but after a long enough period of continued interest, we got him a 3-pack lesson/lift pass at our local ski resort. This was his Christmas present, no less, since he wasn’t getting much else last year. (More on that later.) He was excited, albeit not as excited as we’d hoped. Oh well, we’ll give it a try.
Now, I need to point out here that Ryan is the laziest child I have ever known. Lazier even that I ever remember being as a teenager, and I loved me some TV time. Don’t get me wrong; he’s happy. He’s just LAZY. So when in late March, as we were approaching the end of our ski season, we offered to take him up to the snow, he said yes. But then the morning of, when we needed to get out the door early, he had lost interest. He didn't really want to go that day. Well, we figured that we don’t want to take a day out of our lives for something he’s not really feeling, so we skipped it. A week later, even closer to the end of the season, we offered again. He said yes again. Now I’m determined. No more jerking us around. He’s gonna do this whether he likes it or not. Whether we like it or not! Sure enough, the morning of, he’s giving us every excuse he can think of to not go. Finally I put my foot down and tell him “It’s just something different you’re going to go do today. It’s not a big deal. Now go get ready.” He grumbles out of my room muttering about how we’re “forcing him to go snow boarding!” (Read that with all the teenage snark and attitude you can muster.) Oh em gee.
Well, we reach our destination, not without some lecturing in the truck on the way up, but mom sprinkled it with a little light-hearted conversation, so we’re good. In his angry haste to get ready, Ryan forgot his snow gloves, which we had JUST purchased for him. Luckily, they sell things like that at the ski resort, for people like us, at about 5 times the cost. A little treat for mom and dad. So much eye-rolling at this point.
After all this, we were late for the early morning lesson and had to wait around till noon. OK, fine. Husband really does NOT want to be here, but dammit, we’re doing this. Sometimes mom just makes it happen. When noon finally rolled around, we sent Ryan off to his lesson and enjoyed a sigh of relief. For the next few hours, he’s THEIR problem! We watched a little, to make sure he didn’t squirm his way out of it, and then took a walk, lounged in the sun, took another walk. It was relaxing, even if it was forced. Eventually, we could spot him on the little learner slope and what do know, he was SNOWBOARDING! Every time he went up, they’d teach him something new to work on coming down. And he was doing it! For f*ck’s sake! I was starting to feel pretty good about this.
And for good reason. When we finally pulled him off the hill, returned his equipment, made our way to the truck and all settled in for the drive home (at 5:00 pm!), Ryan announced, “That was the MOST fun I have had in a really long time!” Oh sweet manna from heaven! Thank you God! Just what this mom needed to hear. Lordy, that still gives me a little high. I mean, I was drunk on that for days. I told everyone I talked to. Katie told me, “You get a gold star, mom!” Thank you. I’ll take it. Yes, indeed.
Please, indulge me. What’s an epic fail (& win) for you? I want to hear all about it.
Gold Star desktop wallpaper.