parenting free association

again, these photos have very little (or maybe everything) to do with any themes in my post...in part because i'm on my husband's laptop with only photos from over a year ago when we were in hawaii...and in part because i don't know where this free association will take me or what main points i'm hoping to express...

i like this first one where you can only tell it is a mom holding her 2 children without the specifics (yes, it is me holding story and sea when they were just over 1 and not quite 4, respectively)...as i'm about to be extra indulgent and vent and free associate about my experiences parenting combined with my frustrations with criticisms or differences in parenting in our time here with my in-laws...interestingly my parents probably had a lot of these same differences they just talked about them behind our backs instead of openly...so i'm trying not to be a hypocrite writing here instead of talking to them directly...i just don't think it would be very productive to try to reason or rationalize with either of our parents...we are a product of our own parents and our experiences and it would be hard for either of us to see the other side since we have such different values and styles of parenting..."it is what it is" as my husband says...so here are a few more photos of "little things" about my children before i vent...this photo was taken of sea showing her excitement at a water slide in hawaii...
and then blocking people from going up the same slide...i put this photo in because story has started a new thing where he blocks doorways or holds his arms wide like this in front of people and says "push a button!" to let people pass...it is important to start this post with positive little memories like that since i'm trying to taper my frustration...
finally, here is sea after the slide closed...a little quiet and reflective...i'd like to be that way more often...my children both seem to take after me with their loud, expressive, social, "say whatever comes into their heads" style of relating which definitely can have its down sides!
so i'm hoping that is enough disclaimers to go into my rant...where to start...i suppose it really doesn't matter all the little things like namenee sharing one of her made up stories with a moral about children not listening or obeying their parents and the consequences...i hate the guilt factor and the indirect way of saying sea doesn't listen through telling the story to begin with...but add to this particular story that the mom in the story told her children to stay in their room and not answer the door while she ran to the store (?!)...is it me or is that crazy to tell a 5-year-old even if the story may have been about older children? so in the end of course the child disobeys and the mom issues some punishment and so sea listened quite intently (even added "please don't let her do something bad") and then said "that's why the mommy should have taken the little girl with her" to which namenee said "that is not the point, she should have listened to her mommy" but i got a smirk and thought to myself that IS the point...i believe so much of our job as parents is to set our children up for success and assume they will flourish in a positive environment that expects positive instead of setting them up for failure and/or making poor choices to benefit ourselves and expecting our children to just listen because we are the authority...

so i am a little torn on this topic of listening to authority figures...my parents were very inconsistent in their discipline and gave me a lot of mixed messages growing up...i had a rather unrealistic fear of most authority figures for some reason and manuel, whose parents were very consistent and raised him by the rod so to speak grew up to have no respect for authority whatsoever. so i'd like sea and story to grow up respecting me and i definitely see the importance of having them listen especially in dangerous situations like a car coming when they are trying to pull away crossing the street...but i think respect and listening are in part a function earned and the parents must act in ways deserving of respect. very vague, i know...i'm still working out the specifics...

my father-in-law just came in and said "you know, denise, if you could help out there are some things we need to get done..." so more later...