As parents, I’m sure we all deal with unusual requests from our children. From the simple, “I want all my food to be orange,” to the unfulfillable “Can we visit Barbie in her castle at the North Pole?” Honestly, I remember circling EVERYTHING in the Sears Wish book, and handing it over proudly to my Mother. Although, I’m not entirely clear on whether I was actually expecting everything in the book to be under the tree, or if I simply wanted to give Santa a good variety of wonderful things to choose from.
Heck, I’ll even admit that at 15, my best friend and I found a house for sale. We absolutely felt it was the best idea in the whole world to have our parents BUY US THE HOUSE, and let us live there. As roommates. At 15 years old. Our justification for this request was that we wouldn’t fight as much with our parents if we lived on our own. We actually thought they’d go for this, or at least I did..maybe Kristin was more realistic. It was a block and a half from her house, and we just KNEW that her Dad could adequately supervise us from a block away. There was endless dramatic begging, pleading and reasoning for weeks on end, until the house finally sold to some other lucky buyer, presumably of legal age. This made our request a moot point, and eventually we lost interest. Now, to give me credit, I still maintain that at the $30,000-40,000 asking price of 1986, it would have been a good investment. *wink, wink*
Today, with my own kids, I see examples of these unusual requests, but not normally on such a grand scale. I’ve been asked for two birthday cakes-with two different themes, which was indulgent of us, but doable. Or we’re asked for another baby sister or even a brother, which is certainly conceivable. *snort* I even get asked for daily field trips in our homeschool. Unrealistic, certainly, but easily deferred and replaced by another fun activity.
My oldest daughter, though, dreams big~just like her mother. 15 now, she’s never easily defeated, is pleasantly persistent, and is certainly self-confident and assertive with what she wants. One day, however, she stated she wanted to build a robot. She came to me, all of 7 or 8 years old, with a sketch in hand.
“Mom, I want to build a robot.”
“That’s wonderful Beth! I’m sure you will someday. You can do anything you set out to do when you grow up.” (We have a very supportive parenting philosophy.)
“I want to build it now.”
“Oh. Ok sweetheart..why don’t you go borrow Alex’s Legos. I can’t wait to see it!”
“No, I want to build a REAL robot.”~complete with eye roll and pleading voice.
“Oh, I see. Well, sweetie, I’m not sure how to build a robot” (keep in mind, this is before we homeschooled and I was clueless about ideas and resources. If this question popped up now, I’d simply log into my yahoo account, slap a question on the homeschool board, and 15 minutes later, I’d have a list of parts, lesson plans, objectives and scope/sequence).
“Why don’t you draw me a picture of the robot you want to build, and we can research how to do it later?” *Big supportive Smiley Face.~see the beginnings of a homeschool Mom here?
“No, I want to build it NOW!”
“Ummm..honey..what do you want to build it out of?” *slightly less supportive, but hopeful for a reasonable response*
“Parts from the junkyard. We can go buy them right now!” *you can practically hear the Duh Mom in this statement, can’t ya?
“Ummm” *facepalm* (keep in mind, it’s 6pm on a weekday, and Beth has never been to, or even SEEN a junkyard at this point in her young life. I wouldn’t even know where to FIND a junkyard, nor would any amount of junkyard pieces fit in our then-tiny apartment.)
“Bethanie, sweetheart, we can’t go to a junkyard tonight. They’re closed. Why don’t you draw it exactly how you want it, and then build a model out of Play-Dough or Legos, and then we can make a list of what we need and go to the craft store, or the , junkyard in a few days.
“No, I wanna build it now. Why can’t we go to the junkyard NOW?” (not angry, but honestly confused and pleading.)
“Beth. It’s late and we don’t know what you need.”
“Wires and metal plates. And some screws.” Duh Mom strikes again
“Sweetie, that all seems very reasonable and correct, but first, it costs money. Second, we don’t know how to connect it. Third, we don’t have any tools.”
“But Dad has a hammer and a screwdriver.”
*facepalm*
This conversation goes on for 20 minutes with me alternately extraordinarily amused by her insistence and innocence, and being ridiculously exasperated at her unyielding persistence.
I’m positive it ended something like this:
“OH MY GAWD, we canNOT go to a junkyard right this minute, for heaven’s sake. Now, either go draw me a picture of this super-cool robot, or go get your pajamas on-but just drop it ok?????!!??
Quietly: “Okaaay Mom, but can we go to the junkyard before school tomorrow?”
AAAAAAGGGHHHH!
Just think. If my Mom had bought me that house, I could have used the equity to buy her some highly advanced robot kit from Radio Shack, along with some extra parts from the junkyard. I think I’ll just blame all this on the stonewalling Kristin and I got from our parents. Thanks a lot guys, for killing a little girl’s robot dream. Good job. *eye roll*
So, what's the craziest thing YOUR kids have ever requested? Or did you have unreasonable demands as a child that you're only now recognizing as you grow up and understand your parent's point of view? Anyone letting their 15 year olds live in a nearby home?
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