I think when a woman becomes a mom - God gives her the gift of radar/intuition....The ability to know when something just is not right.. There might not be any real and obvious signs - but there's just this feeling we get... A feeling in the pit of our stomach that something just isn't right....
My daughter had befriended a girl a couple of years ago at school... When I met this girl there was something about her that just rang wrong - red flags were popping out all over her - as time went on - my dislike grew larger... The girls did not see each other outside of school so I did not forbid my kid from being her friend - As hard it is for me - I had to allow my kid to learn from her choices in friends.. If I protected her and sheltered her then - how would she learn? Backing off and watching from a distance is something very hard for me to do... My very high "A" personality trait makes me want to take over.. take charge.. protect at all cost...
Yesterday I noticed that my kid was texting a lot more than usual.. I would walk by her and ask who she was talking so much with and she said the girl I don't like.. Out of curiosity, I asked her what they were talking about and she said they were talking about movies, music, and clothes.. I said okay and walked away... As the day progressed my kid had her cell with her every where she went and this is NOT usual behavior. After the newness of the cell phone wore off- she would go days without it and all of a sudden it was her life line? The first feeling of something wasn't right started to hit me... but I let it go....
Last night as I was going to bed - I just got a feeling - a little voice in my head telling me that I needed to find out what was going on with all the texting.... So I went into my kid's room and took her cell... (
Now for those you that may read this - I do NOT see this as invasion of privacy - she is 13 years old and I will be a parent and I will check on things if I feel something is not right...) She had deleted all the incoming texts - there were two (2) left but she did not delete her outgoing... Without going into detail - I did the right thing.... and from my daughter's responses she realized she was way over her head... In an around about way - I have to say I'm proud of her... Not for starting what she did but for realizing what she was doing was wrong...
This morning I asked my daughter who a certain boy was.... She said "how did you find out?" I told her that I had a mom's feeling... She crawled into bed with me and told me everything that happened... She told me that the girl who I don't like had hooked her up with this boy via cellphone who claimed to be a christian.. who claimed to be a "good boy" until he started asking her to do things that no child should hear.... Yep, my kid was introduced to the world of sex texting by the girl I do not like.... My daughter shared how she felt awful and how her stomach started to hurt... She said that she asked him to stop texting her.. I did see those texts... My kid learned a huge lesson..... My child cried.... she said this is not what she wanted but she did not know that until it happened.. I thought that was a very wise statement...
I did not punish her for the type of texting she got herself into - I believe she is punishing herself enough - but I did take her cell phone away for a week.. One of the rules with the cell phone was no calls or texting with boys... She's 13 and she is NOT allowed to date and she broke a rule.... I remember when I was her age and there were party lines. (the 70/80's version of texting) We would accidentally
on purpose hit a party line when a phone had a busy signal - that is where we would meet boys... I remember yelling through the beep beep beep - and my parents heard me in the other room... I broke the rules - I too was not allowed to talk to boys and my phone was taken away..... hmmm
As I have stated before -
I HAVE BECOME MY MOTHER!
