Raise My Kids, Please

Mrs. Mollison's voice was piercing, and when I heard her yelling that twelve-year-old summer afternoon, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. First she yelled at her own son. "Jimmy, I had better not hear any more swearing back there, or you will be in serious trouble." And then she yelled at the two who really deserved it. "Corey Harbaugh and Pat Fisher, you watch your mouths. If I hear any more bad language out of you, I will call both of your mothers."

Blame adolescence, but we thought it would be cool to toss out a few cuss words while we played some baseball; we were blocks away from home and safe, so we thought. Well, after Mrs. Mollison put us in our places, the spunk went right out of us, and we returned to being the polite kids she required on her property. I don't think she ever called our moms. She didn't have to; she took it upon herself to correct our behavior, and we knew better than to act up again.

My dad was famous for that, too. He didn't care whose kid you were. If you had it coming, he'd give it to you. I remember a time a different friend, a big offensive lineman on our varsity football team, decided to speak back to his mother in front of my dad. Whoa. Bad move. By the time my dad finished with him, my friend was in tears, apologizing as fast as he could to his mom, my dad, me, and probably the dog, too. My friend knows he deserved it, and we still laugh about it to this day. He got the point.

So I don't know where the Mrs. Mollisons are around town nowadays, but I sure hope she's the mother of the friends of all my children. I hope when my son or daughter decides to practice an unacceptable behavior, the Mrs. Mollisons in my children's lives take it upon themselves to put them back in their places. I can't be everywhere, so, as the saying goes, it takes a village. In fact, isn't that exactly why so many of us chose these small towns for our families: we've got a village here. So consider this permission from me to help me raise my kids.

When I was principal I had occasion to work with kids and their parents who had a few things out of whack in their homes. The kids were often calling the shots, and the parents were afraid to upset, confront, or punish their kids; worse yet were the situations where parents were busy making excuses for their kids or trying to be their friends. It's hard to work with a kid when you have to work against the messages coming from their parents.

Let's be clear: kids want limits. They want people to love them enough to put boundaries around them. Yes, they will bump into those boundaries, but that's their job as kids. Our job as adults is to hold the line. And no matter a person's parenting style, all parents want the same thing for their kids: to grow up healthy, capable, strong, and successful. In order to do that, the kids have to learn by making mistakes, having those mistakes corrected, and trying again.

Thanks to my parents, and to the Mrs. Mollisons of my childhood, I turned out okay. But as a parent, I'm still a work in progress. Any help you can me, and my kids, is much appreciated.

Note: This blog post is from a series originally published as personal essays written for the Van Buren County Advertiser from 2008-2014 by Corey Harbaugh under the title It's All Good. The It's All Good columns were written to feature and celebrate life in and around Gobles, Michigan.