An expose': The Truth about The Newton Family

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Somewhere on this forum someone suggested that Tom and I offer parenting classes. I hope that person wasn't really serious. Tom wonders if it's really so astounding to have children doing chores. I said that others had written in whose children do way more than ours do. Someone else said something about children in stores, and could Melissa and I do our shopping where he does. I do NOT want to paint too rosy a picture. I was trying to help any who might want encouragement in this area. My children are just that: children. I'll give a few comical examples of what was happening one day when I was e-mailing an old friend. The children were supposed to be doing various chores. I went upstairs to check Nathanael's work in the upstairs bathroom. I saw water all over the upstairs hall and even on the wall. I asked Nathanael how it got there, and here's the story he gave me. Apparently he was cleaning the bathroom when Abby (almost 3) came along and started dancing about singing, "You can't spray me, You can't spray me!" Nathanael (age 13 remember) just had to show her he could. Somebody came downstairs with the remains of a window pane in their hands. Benjamin had been swatting flies with his hands. No, he did not get cut. Not even a scratch. I went to check the older boys' room. Pointing out various out-of-place objects, Josiah said, "That's Nathanael's jacket, and that's Nathanael's sweater, and that's Nathanael's library book, Nathanael's Bible, Nathanael's dirty socks, Nathanael's...." A little pride, maybe?

Our family is not perfect; although we have learned a lot, we are still learning. Tom and I make mistakes all the time. I fall so far short of what a godly mother ought to be, and I know he would say the same about being a father.

Melissa asked us to tell about ourselves; some of us mentioned our tempers. I'm telling you, I have had some really rough battles with my short fuse. My three oldest especially have borne the brunt of that, and although my little ones have hopefully had a better mom, I still struggle with this sometimes. I had begun to pray that the Lord would take away some of the bitter memories I was sure my older ones had. Recently, I began to apologize to Nathanael for being so hard on him and for being so frustrated with him. I cried when he said, "Mom, I really don't know what you're talking about."

Nathanael and Sarah were two of those uncivilized brats Mitch was talking about. Sarah especially with her kicking and screaming fits. We were so thankful that Josiah was more compliant, but we began to see in him a spirit of self-righteousness in sub-consciously comparing himself to the others. Our children were out of control and we really were clueless. By the time our fourth child was about 8 months old, I felt we were losing them. We moved about that time to south Texas, where we joined a church with some basic, biblical, common sense about child rearing. We began to apply some of these principles, and slowly began to see some change. Our first week there, they were having a week-long conference. Nathanael made quite an impression. Five different women introduced themselves to me this way: "Hi, my name is So-and-So, and your son Nathanael...."--by the end of the week I could finish it for them--"....he's bothering your daughter, right?" One night the pastor announced that someone had locked all the stalls in the men's room, and would they please not do that again. Guess who the culprit was. But by the time we moved four years later, we had the more reasonably well-behaved children that were getting compliments in the stores.

The Lord has brought us a long way, but we still have a long way to go. Some of you have grown children; I'm sure you'd agree that our job has only barely started. You are the ones who should be giving us advice. We have lots of theories, but not much experience with teens and young adults. Our children may show promise, but we know many a family who have lost their bright, promising children to drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, etc. Melissa started a thread on advice to new parents. Well, I want to know about teenagers, young adults who may or may not leave the nest, teens and driving, the process of letting them make more and more of their own decisions while they are still at home, etc. I hope there are men reading this, because I want to hear from you, too. Some of you are dads, all of you have been sons. What is your perspective?

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), October 21, 2001

Answers

Oh Cathy, how much I agree with you!! I hesitated to even post a lot of what I have, because I also don't want people to think we are perfect. Every day is a new battle (us against them!!!) As I fall asleep every night I pray to God to help me be a better parent than I was that day, and you know thankfully there are fewer and fewer days when I really blow it!!

Patience is key! Some of my biggest troubles are with talking back, kids fighting with each other, keeping discipline consistent, dealing with the noise!!! Most of the time these areas are under control, but every once in a while, just to keep us from getting bored, they all erupt at once! Ha, Ha!

I really don't have too much trouble with chores, money, honesty, bad language, or school work. In these areas we are truly blessed.

I do have one teenager, soon to be 15 and she is a really nice girl. She is friendly, kind, spends many hours volunteering, and really tries to be a good person. Her biggest troubles are dealing with the impersonal nature of High School, and some teasing from her younger brother and sister. She often struggles with self-esteem, but I don't know why. She is so pretty and well accomplished (good grades, plays piano, athletic, rides horses, and a wonderful artist) I just don't understand why she feels badly about herself sometimes, because to me it is like she has the whole world at her feet!!! This is our biggest struggle with her, just trying to keep her from feeling negative about herself, and the rest of the world.

-- Melissa (cmnorris@1st.net), October 21, 2001.


Melissa, you are FAST! I had just posted that, went to see Mitch's Sunday stumper and a couple other posts, and, just as I went to exit, there was an answer already! Yes, it's all about patience, patience, patience. That's what I am learning more about. Glad to see that others are struggling with talking back, fighting, and NOISE as well as us.

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), October 21, 2001.

Melissa, it is cause she is a teenager! At that age, everything is like that! Everything is new...moods, feeling...it isn't easy to be a teeager. Their hearts are tender as they have no scar tissue.

-- Ardie/WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), October 21, 2001.

Wanna hear my best babysitting story, Mrs. KATIE =), well it was a friday night around eight o clock. I was on the telephone chatting it up with a close friend, and the kids were watching a cartoon. I took a look at the clock, put down the phone and said " ok, time to get ready for bed, snacks, brush your teeth, and get changed!" i went back to my phone call.....phone call,.....phonecall.... half an hour later, i look at Hey guess who aren't in bed. You got it,all four of them. So to my phone friend i said hold on. put the phone down and got all the kids movin. Well my darling sister and i have always butted heads, and she didnt' like me telling her what to do , said she was going to do her own thing and pretty much told me where to go. Being the patient , loving babysitter i am, i got into a pretty long argument/talking to the wall expedition with her. Half an hour more goes by. OOPS, the phone, i run downstairs to find the busy signal, i hung up the phone called back my friend and apologised, but said i couldn't talk, i still had one more kid to put in bed. WELL!!!! Heres my little sister Lia, two years old at the time, sleeping on the front chair. AHH , the little baby, i pick her up, and shes rubbing her eyes, i ask her if shes sleepy (heres my sign), she nods and i walk into the kitchen. Oh no, Lia is hacking and coughing. "lia are you going to be sick?" UH HUH!!!! run into the bathroom , lean over the sink, and she does her thing into the open target. Here i am , holding her to the sink with one hand, waving the smell away with the other. FUNNY i'm sure. But since then, two years later, babysitting is actually a great thing i am able to do, i enjoy planning activities and having chores done. BUT BOY oh BOY, what a night. So no, No family is perfect to any extent. BUt how good God is in giving us children to care for, look after, prepare for life (i'm not even a mother, but i love, trying better to love) and to see grow up. I myself brough lots of pain and hurt to my parents because of my rebellious heart, but by Gods grace and changing my heart, my parents and i now are really close.

-- jillian (sweetunes483@yahoo.com), October 21, 2001.

About teens, well none of ours was perfect, some harder than others, I'll give you an example of our last one to leave the nest. Jake who's always been pretty layed back and a good kid, as he grew he had more responbibility, we watched and waited, well he stayed a good kid so we gave him more freedom each year. When he 1st got his drivers license and a job, I took him to work until he'd saved up enough for a car, (he payed me gas $), when he got the car, we had very strict guidelines and rules about his car, driving, curfews, who could ride in his car and how many, where he could go and couldn't, as he proved he could handle this responsibility without breaking the rules, we let up a bit and let him leave our city limits on a daytime excursion only. See, we live in a very small town, 8 miles out of it actually and for the kids to do anything beside hang out, requires going about 32 miles out of town, I'd rather them have a plan to go bowling than just hanging out doing nothing. Now I'm not saying he never messed up, I can remember taking the car from him for a week one time, again I took him to work, (he payed me gas $) We let him have more freedom, within limits as he grew and proved he was dependable, responsible and didn't get into any trouble, we did this on purpose because I've seen many kids raised up to 18 then go completly wild, making some horrible mistakes, because all of the sudden they have freedom! We're Christians and did our best to instill our beliefs in our children, he wasn't allowed to just run the streets, if he wasn't at school, church or work, I had to know where he was, who he was with, and when he was coming home, he was really good to always call, he had a curfew but his last year and a half home, because he sometimes went out of town, I would extend the curfew the time it took to attend the activity and get other people home and himself home, I feel like we were flexible when we needed to be, in my opinion being to rigid sets up a scenerio for dishonesty. I tried to always remember myself as a teen, if I really wanted to do something, I'd pull any strings I could to do it. We didn't let him always do what he wanted and tried to explain to him why, he was disapointed and mad many times. He's now out on his own, asst. produce mgr at the grocery chain in town and attending junior college part time, he has a roomate and learning to handle the finanical aspects of life on his own has been very hard for him. I don't think he'll go to college next sememster, I really think he needs to mature some before he goes back. WE didn't absolutley forbid dating but strongly discouraged it, encouraged group friend activities. AS of April of this year, he wanted a prom date, ask a girl who gave him her leftover pretzels everyday at lunch, and about 2 mos after the prom, they became better friends, she can't date so they have more or less courted since then.

-- Carol in Tx (cwaldrop@peoplescom.net), October 21, 2001.


Cathy, something I've notcied about these forums; after you've been on them awhile, you can tell quite a bit about the regulars, even to the point of knowing who's posting without seeing his/her name. I didn't think you were perfect, but I sure like to read your posts. Remember, one size doesn't fit all. God Bless

-- Cindy (S.E.IN) (atilrthehony@countrylife.net), October 22, 2001.

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