Parenting PSA

Do not act as a helicopter hovering, or a lawnmower to plow down obstacles for your children. You will assuredly end up with full sized ninnies who can't handle the simplest of things when they get remotely unpleasant. If the worst you can handle is a frown, the failure rests with those who did not raise you to learn how to put on the big pants and deal with it.

A few people who criticized my parenting in the past can suck dirt off my shoes. Because the approach I took with my kids is reflecting as such that my kids can handle life in general, and function independently of me and even go so far as to help other people. So my insistence that the boys learn to cook and do laundry is not selfish and lazy on my part. True, I may have had selfish and lazy intentions because I was tired of doing so much for so many capable beings, but at the same time, I've long held that it's a life skill they must learn anyway. I have other interests that I want to develop. I don't want my daughter-in-law to hate me because I failed to teach her husband the basics. I needed to have my own hobbies and life away from my children so that when they grow up, move out into the world and have lives and families of their own, I am not that meddlesome MIL who drives a wedge somewhere it doesn't belong. I don't want my grandchildren living across the country because I'm a pest. If they're that far away, at least it ought to be due to jobs or something else more worthwhile than evading an intruding old woman. If I must invade their territory, I at least hope to be helpful, and maybe entertaining while there.