am i still eating boxing day meatballs? why, yes i am. and am i still drinking leftover mulled wine? happily so. (though not at this moment) and is it gray and raining outside? why, yes it is! (though to be fair, we just had some gorgeous rays that lasted for a few days.)
and so begins another year. we put away our decorations last night, the main reason being we are expecting the delivery of a new bed this week, and need all the space we can get. our place seems so much bigger when the tree and decorations are put away. (even if it was a little tree.) i do get so excited to have them up, but then, i do get so excited to take them down. start fresh. clean slate. we had a lovely relaxing christmas day, and my missing of my family was greatly appeased by skyping with the whole family, all at the same time! if you are wondering if a 6 party skype is possible, well, it is! and so much fun. the whole 2 week vacation was chock full of fun: (and i just posted some xmas pics on flickr) favorite movies old and new, (francis got to see his first gremlins!) making cookies, eating cookies, visiting friends, a trip to greg's brothers for an overnight with cousins, a very merry christmas day, our bi-annual boxing day party, some severe vegging, a harry potter marathon, games, and a new year's eve downtown with good friends. many late nights. monday morning's back to school was rough. on all of us.
and now it's a new year.
i do not make new year's resolutions because i do not need any reminders of how many times i fail. but i make lists continually, almost daily, so... on my list for things to do this week is: organize my list!! it has swamped me. i have little lists for things that need immediate action, then i have far-reaching lists of things to do someday, and lists of pertinent things to do at a later date. it is all rather out of hand. for our boxing day party, we cleaned up the "office" portion of the kitchen, meaning: put all my papers in a box to hide in the closet, and i took down all my post-it notes that were all over the kitchen. i have talked about this before. how they become so familiar a sight that the urgency drifts away. they become yellow checkerboard wallpaper in my kitchen. and how strange: things are not getting done!? so. that is top of my new list.
already in this new year, we are dealing with brand new things. one big thing is: the kid finally got his own set of digits! he got his first cell-phone for christmas. we held out for a long time, i do believe he is the last of all his friends. and already: we have had to tackle the discovery of his lacking cell-phone etiquette with -- rules--. no, you are not allowed to call your friend's parents (while they are working, mind you) to serenade them "don't stop believin'". (sorry, rob!) discussions on pranking. but, yesterday marked the first time he texted me: "the 5 just came" (he takes the city bus home from school and it was very late, the main reason we got him a phone in the first place!) and i texted him back and it struck me: we have entered a new form of communication. so i hope for good things.
and along with communication comes another big thing we are dealing with right now: R rated movies. alot of his friends are watching them. monster flicks. zombie flicks. horror flicks. it never even occurred to us. it was not even on our radar. we do not think we are especially strict, as he has been watching many PG-13 movies well before he was 13, and has been allowed, (albeit, begrudgingly) to play Halo for a long time now. but this caught us completely off guard. this is a whole new territory, he has no idea. with R comes language, of course, much more graphic violence, and very likely: sex scenes. how we found out about it is: remarkably, francis told us that while at a neighbor's house, the group of kids wanted to watch the new Predators and francis spoke up to the mom and said he wasn't allowed to watch R rated movies. so then the mom announced "sorry, kids, you're gonna have to pick another movie: francis isn't allowed to watch R rated movies." horror of horrors! needless to say, francis hasn't been invited over to watch any more movies. and now we are put on the spot with having to decide over his mental well-being vs. his social well-being. i would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this matter, for or against. are we being too harsh? isn't that the rite of passage for junior high? --sneaking adult content? i can still remember junior high slumber parties and leaving the room if they were going to watch a horror flick. i guess it's easier for a girl. i don't think it would go over so well with a room-full of boys. i've never liked gory movies and i still don't. but i have friends who love them. even as a kid. did your parents let you? did you sneak them? shoot me an email if it will be long(as i have personally discovered that blogger comments have limited space). so far our status is: we have made a pact: if he will come to us with the movies he wants to see, we will not just say no. he is to make a "movies i want to watch" list: we will assess each request, and if we can accommodate him with a tv version, we ask in return that he accept our judgment. (the list has already started, and at the top is Aliens.) we will try to be most fair, knowing what is at stake. and if we say no for now, it is because he is only 12 (ok, almost 13) and that we may be open to it in a few years, say, when he is 14 or 15. this all sounds so formal, but basically it came down to: let's keep the communication lines open, ok? and to kick it all off, as a show of good faith, we let him watch (the tv version of) Die Hard. he... loved... it...
so there's another thing added to my list: watch Predators. i guess it's time to see what all this hoopla is about...
4 comments:
rachel, so fun to read your post! i totally agree about the resolutions and failing them thing...
wow, rated r movies... that's hard, we weren't aloud to watch them, and my mom would call ahead if we were staying somewhere to talk to parents about it. (i know this now, didn't know it then) I have no idea if this differed from my brother, but he wasn't allowed to sleep over places because he seriously wouldn't sleep at all and was grumpy... he would go hang out and my mom would just pick him up at 10 or something like that(he could only play sports/racing/storyline video game at home - this rule still applies - even thought he'll be 22 in two weeks) i like your idea of screening them first. i still don't enjoy most rated r movies... i don't like blood and cuts, TONS of language, or sex scenes. One thing i heard constantly growing up from my mom was if my friends aren't supportive of the fact that i didn't want to litter my brain of trash and just watch something nice or doing something over then watch a movie, then they are not true friends. but not sure how that works in the boy world. it is sad that his friends are watching them already, (and that the parent was RUDE about it!!!!) craziness in my mind. Good for you guys making a stand even though it's gotta be a tough one, we'll be praying about it with you all
thanks for the insight, sarah!
something to chew on...
i kinda feel that we had it easy compared to kids now. there's so much more easy access to media (hello, netflix instant queue), tv's in every room, movies on your iphone. it's over the top! and the graphics are so much more intense. sometimes they just bombard your senses with very little story, which is a bummer. we also love classics and have enjoyed introducing him to older movies that still captivate, like jaws, or close encounters of the third kind. it is encouraging to see him captivated by a good story!
I agree with you the thing about a lot of R movies I think is that they are so full of the crap but rather lax on the plot. And that was so poorly handled by his friend's mom. When I was at parties growing up I remember simply just not wanting to watch a movie and playing a card game with another girl in the kitchen...so if Francis is in that situation again he could ask if anyone wanted to play a cool game in another room instead of watch the movie. He probably would have some takers...and I know how much he loves games.
But in the end, are a couple R movies going to ruin him? Look at JD and Peter, and me for that matter. I remember seeing True Lies when I was ten and I watched Schindler's list by myself in the Hamacher's basement when I was 13 or 14, and I survived =: )
what a challenge it is to raise children in this day and age...I'll be there too before you know it!
Can't wait to see you soon!
i don't think a couple of R rated movies are going to ruin him, (haha-- i love True Lies! i'll add it to my list) and i am happy to introduce him to some good movies that are R, but i don't want him to think a few R movies means he's allowed to watch R. and i think that's the big trick. they don't understand the differences, why are some ok, and some not? they have no discernment.
i can remember babysitting you guys one time and showing you Speed, because i thought it was good and ok, and had totally forgotten about the swearing! haha. and you cried, "but rachel, this is an R rated movie! i'm not allowed to watch R rated movies!" i think you were about 7! and JD was glued to it! hahah -- what was i thinking? so i guess, i'm more ok with action movies with some language, but scary movies these days are almost always filled with some raunchy sex scene, so i'm really hoping he doesn't get an eyeful this young.
Post a Comment