Chaperons don't enforce morality; they force immorality to be discreet. ~Judith Martin
Remember the abyss I was talking about in my last post? Well, last night the Princess decided it was time to have a talk with both her parents together....As she spoke, I lost my foothold and fell back down to the place from which I had started.
It is not so much that she was confessing to us that for the last two weeks she had again circumvented our rules, it is not knowing how to proceed. On one hand she came to us before we found out on our own, which would have happened eventually. So, we want her to understand that was the better thing to do (with the best thing being not to have done it at all), but we appreciate her coming to us.
On the other hand, she carried on a secret conversation for two weeks purposely knowing that she was breaking our rule...again! The Internet just provides way too many opportunities to socialize. I have the child completely locked down, but she still has access to her Google account, as do I and I see everything. However, I just did not think to be watching in her Google documents. Apparently, if the document is created to be shared, those who have access can make comments on the document. This worked well when she was collaborating with a science project/report, but...well, kids are resourceful and she was having a conversation that I could not read because they both were deleting them as they went.
Let me put this on hold for a moment and evaluate the other part that is digging into me...and I mean that quite literally because I usually do not get increasingly nagging back pains unless I have a nagging emotional issue. Last night, I think I figured it out.
- The school did not inform us about the Princess not handing in but half her work since school began.
- At the retreat, no one informed my husband about the Princess going out early in the morning to meet with a boy who had a crush on her.
- The leaders of the play did not inform us about the Princess breaking their rules until the time that they were taking the leading role from her.
In every instance, we were apart from our child and left her in the care of people we thought we could trust and with that was the expectation—a very reasonable expectation!—that they would enforce their own rules and they would inform us, her parents, if the Princess had broken any. With the play, there was at least enforcement, but we now know that she lost her role because it was a repeated offense...and yet we, her parents, were not told about any of them until they called a meeting to remove her.
On one hand, I have a teenager doing things I think is actually pretty typical of teenagers: making poor choices and breaking a few rules, nothing terribly major, but that need to be addressed. On the other hand, I have people left in charge of her for specific and limited events that act with disregard of us as her parents, which does not allow us the opportunity to guide and correct the child's course.
Now, back to that thought: Just as I was beginning to relax and think that everything is stabilizing, I find that my daughter has been sneaking around me, so I am back to feeling I cannot trust her...and this feeling is compounded by the facts that my husband is away more than home AND the people I trusted with my daughter are not informing me of things I should know as her mother.
My husband and I both are just on the edge of not going to any church for awhile and probably the only reason we have stuck with this one was because our neighbors went there and the play. Our neighbors' daughter is still in the play but they left the church and are back in their old one. Everything with the play ends this week and I just am not sure what we will do after that.
My Lord, please show me where to plant my feet, every little step I need to make.
