Life During MySpace – Part Two

Here’s what I’ve decided. I am a good mom. Just because I don’t choose to jump into the snowball of togetherness with the rest of the good moms doesn’t mean I am not eligible to join their club. Because I am. I’m a great mom.

Want to know a few more things I’ve had to own this past week? I LOVE the internet. I love it as much if not more than my daughter does. And I have “internet buddies”. Yes, I do.

And, I’m extremely rebellious. It’s part of who I am. It didn’t go away just because I supposedly grew up and had kids and joined a big church downtown. Actually, growing older seems to have made it that more pronounced. But I like to think God is helping me use it for good these days. That should be what I pray every morning anyway.

So what does any of this have to do with MySpace? Lots somehow. Not sure if I can describe it all to you but I’m going to give it a try.

First of all, forget all of my friends taking Yoga Breaths and doing that creative thinking I so nicely suggested. Psshhaw. You go girls. Ban that MySpace. It is, after all, your home and your kid. What was I thinking?

Second of all, about those Internet Agreements. This is just a thought but one that makes sense to me - if it’s over a page long, not only are you way past needing the Agreement, you are in deep deep silly sand with your kid. Ours is a solid two pager. Told you this was messy.

Third of all, that “bad taste in my mouth” I referred to in Life During MySpace – Part One, I now know what it is. Or at least I know why it’s there. Imagine parenting a feisty, bright, ready to take the world by storm young teen. Now imagine parenting her alone for the most part. For all practical purposes anyway.

And now imagine, walking in her shoes (or flip flops) and living in two separate households where every other weekend the rules seem the same but then again they don’t. Where some of the stuff you need for school isn’t in your backpack as you thought but, hopefully, it’s somewhere at your other house where Mom can find it and hopefully, again, she can deliver it to school early Monday morning. Imagine how, despite even the best co-parenting efforts, life is always disjointed, disorganized and consistently not consistent – just as scheduled.

Wow. Imagine watching your child process that when she gets old enough to question it after years of dutifully accepting it. Imagine watching her begin to break away from that dutiful little girl, who has always felt at least a small bit of the world on her shoulders, as she becomes her own self on MySpace.

Yep, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth for good reason. Aside from passing along my rebellious nature, I’ve taken part in creating a life for her that is less than ideal. I mean, really, she has a good life in general. Compared to others even in this country she’s got gobs to be grateful for. “Things” to be grateful for. But, her childhood truly has been less than ideal. Much much less.

There is no replacing what she lost when her Dad and I divorced. And no matter how hard we try to make both of our homes hers, it’s just messed up. It’s one of the messiest messes around these days. And we are spinning our wheels trying to make some sense of it while she watches from the sidelines shaking her head.

Anyway, for tonight, that’s about as far as I can go there. It’s late and I’m feeling my own pain as I put this mess into the words it really is. But there is one more thing.

It’s about Desperate Housewives and how merely hearing the name of the show makes my nostrils flare involuntarily. Bizarre, I know. But why do I hate the thought of watching those women say the things they say, do the things they do and torture the people they torture? Do bits and pieces of them remind me of…*gulp* me? Granted, the old me but still. Ugh!

Well, so quite a week of self realizations and putting myself in my (oldest) little one’s shoes. And looking way beyond the MySpace hype.

Yeah, messy hurts but messy is also real. And real is what I want to reach for every day. And, by the way, thanks but if it’s all the same to you I think I’ll skip the red wine while I work some of this out. ;-)