The MEAN MOM

Ok, ah ha moment yesterday that is quite profound, not really. But seriously, as I am steaming mad about my kids and how they don't care about anything in the house I came to the realization that I am just doing what our Father in Heaven is trying to do. The games lose all the pieces, the milk gets left out. They don't care if they leave their muddy shoes in the bathroom sink...obviously I am not getting through to them that I am not here to be their maid ( yes I just said that and yes I can hear my own mother saying that in my head). What I told them was it was my job to make them competent adults and not to make their life easy, they nodded in awe. Oh so true that our own Father in Heaven is trying to teach us the same thing. He is not here to make everything easy for us. We wouldn't grow to become like him. My ultimate goal is not to live with my kids and their husbands and do all their laundry while they live in my basement for the rest of my life! I want them to be able to figure things out on their own and come to me for advice, not a bail out everytime I turn around. Father is the same way. I ask him for advice all the time. I ask for a bail out too, but more often than not, he lets me go through it instead of bailing me out of my disasters. It truly does build character. So I am a "bad" mom. I make them clean their bathrooms, make their lunches, put their clothes away, set the table, unload the dishes, get their own snacks and sometimes their own dinner, find their own shoes, pick out their own outfits, suffer consequences of not doing their homework. I am so MEAN!! Someday they'll appreciate it when their college roomate can't iron or do laundry and eat ramen everynight, and they will cry to their mommy everyday and ask for money every week. I am not raising one of those kids!!