I'm an old fashioned mother (sort of)

I am finally starting to get back to being healthy again. There is still a lingering cough, but much better than it was. So I will try to get back to being on here more.

I often wonder at how different things are now then when I was a kid. Not things like technology, I expect technology to change. It is the way people act. When I was a kid, a good parent knew where their child was, who their friends were and the phone numbers of said friends parents. There was such things as calling before you went over to make sure it was ok and calling your parents to let them know if you were going somewhere else. Mr. Fluffy and I have tried very hard to instill that kind of thinking in our own children. The boys had a particular friend that vexed me at every turn. This young child would come over almost every day at supper time and want our boys to go play at his house. Every single day we would remind him that it was a weekday, we were about to eat and no the boys would be unavailable to go play at his house because they would be getting ready for baths and bed soon. We would remind him everyday to try to come over earlier. It never happened. It would be no surprise to go stand on our porch and see this young boy's mother wandering around looking for him and knocking on everyone's door to see if he was there. I may be old fashioned, but in my books that would be reason enough for grounding him. I like to know where my children are at all times. Call it overprotective if you want, but I would rather that then have them missing. The most unfortunate thing is, I find myself a rarity in our neighborhood. Many parents here just let their children go wherever and find nothing at all odd with not knowing where they are.

So, knowing all that, it was a rare treat to finally meet another mother who felt as I did. She is a very nice lady who is quite a bit older than most of the mothers around here, but she was given a blessing late in life and that little blessing has just firmly staked a best friend claim on my daughter. I couldn't be more thrilled with this. Her daughter is very well behaved, and very nice. Her mother insisted on exchanging phone numbers with me before allowing our daughters to have play dates so that we could both keep tabs on them. She will call me and ask my permission before taking my daughter elsewhere or giving her something. Today, I surprised her. My daughter wanted to go play with hers, so I made Little Miss dial her number and ask permission herself. I don't feel the need to do every tiny thing for my children, I like them learning for themselves. Of course the other mother loved this. We live only about 200 yards from each other. I sat on my porch and watched my daughter walk down the street to her house. As soon as she walked in the door my phone rang. Her friend's mother was letting me know she got there alright.

I really wish that more parents from my generation were like this lovely lady. I may be more lax in certain areas regarding my children, but I don't believe manners and common courtesy ever go out of style.