Parenting is Tough Stuff!

Yesterday Cheyenne and I went to the grocery store and I realized how much I have spoiled my children... which I have been noticing more lately as the money is getting tighter. They dont understand when we say we really dont have the extra money right now. She looked at me yesterday and said "we can never afford anything". Which broke my heart because not too long ago when we did have 2 incomes, we could afford alot more stuff. I call it stuff because most of it was not necessities but wants... Now we have to focus only on necessities and only wants every now and then.

I began to wonder have I done the wrong thing by always giving in to them for thier every little want? As most parents today we want to give our children what we didnt have or make their childhood easier than ours were. But in doing that I feel I have hurt them in some way of not understanding what it means to be said no too. I am the worlds worst at giving in, ask my husband or any of my family... I love them so dearly and just want them to be happy so I say yes or a no can be broken down fairly easily with me...

Most of my reasoning is because I feel sorry for them, they dont have a "normal" childhood with their parents together. They live with me during the week and see their dads every other weekend... I feel bad for what they go through emotionally, since I too lived that way, I know it is hard to live between 2 families and even as an adult now it is hard to juggle the two. So I always of course want to be the good mom so they dont one day say the dreaded words "I want to live with my dad"... I hope it never comes to that, but I have the teenage years coming soon!!!

I know I wont always be the best and here lately I feel more and more like a failure than a good rolemodel to them. In the process of trying to be "the best" mom I can be, I know I have made some bad decisions in the parenting department... So now the question how do I fix this, how do I make them understand that a No is No and I'm not being mean?

Larry & I tell them stories all the time about when we were growing up...you know the ones like we heard from our parents about walking 10 miles in a snow storm...LOL... mostly about that when we went to the store we didnt get everything we asked for and usually we knew better than to ask. That a trip to the mall or a restuarant was maybe once or twice a month not a week! They look at us like we are crazy usually, as Im sure I did at their age too.

With all the technology, the peer pressure, the television shows and advertisements of the kids who have everything how am I supposed to help them understand that just because Hannah Montana has it or your best friend has every video game system made that we really dont need it, we have more than enough, at least in my opinion we do. Being a parent is tough and boy have I grown more respect for mine over the years for all that we did have even when we thought there was never enough!