The Circle

I credit my parents with putting a lot of time and effort into raising their children to work hard, have good morals, stand up for themselves and see the good in people. Of course in my teen years I thought they were a bunch of fuddy duds but eventually what they taught me kicked in.
In fact I can't think of much I would change about the way I was raised. My mom tended to yell a lot but with working full time and raising a bunch of kids I can see why. Dad was the logical "let's talk about this" guy and still is. I've seen him snap a few times but now understand why.
I had friends who's father's were at the local tap every night after work and Mom was expected to hold down the fort and make sure the dinner was warm when he decided to make an appearance. I chuckle when I think of my Mother keeping Dad's dinner warm while he was out tipping a few with his buds. Oh Lord, she would have put us all in the car and went to fetch him right out of there. My Mom had balls.
One of my parents favorite quotes was "YGY" (you'll get yours). Whenever we did something wrong they would curse us. Little did I know that these curses would carry over into my life of raising kids. As my kids grew up I found myself using some of their tatics. I would often try to remember my feelings toward my punishments and what was the most effective. Grounding wasn't always the best thing, plus they'd let me off early because I think I drove them nuts. Writing..that was always the most dreaded. I think I hit the nail on the head when that became my favorite punishment to give out. My son would just cringe. To this day we still hear about the camping trip where he was forced to sit and write 500 sentences. Was it effective? I think so because I don't remember him having to do it after that. Both my kids said we were the rottenest parents in the world for the writing punishment and vowed they would never, ever pass this punishment on to their kids. That is until...the other day when I heard my son tell Dylan that if he kept it up he would be sitting down and writing. My head snapped around so fast and I was able to catch the look on my son's face that said "Don't say anything Mom". But see this didn't just happen once in the past week, it also happened with the twins. I came upon them sitting at my kitchen table writing. It was then that I also noticed the Ipods and phones had been taken away. She must be the rottenest mother in the world.