Readers Weigh In . . .

Should I keep blogging?  Just kidding – although some days I do ask myself that question.  Then I go a few without writing and I feel like I have all this pent up emotion needing to be released and the blog comes through every time.

Today I’m  thinking about sleepovers after a conversation I had with two friends last night.  One of the reasons summer is so special for Hannie B. is that she meets up with the two girl cousins her age {one on each side of the family} and finally gets to have a few sleepovers.

What?  What’s that you say – no sleepovers?  Let me remind you that I hold the title of Meanest Mom On The Planet.  And since my one desire in life is to make my children miserable I have teamed up with my trusty partner, The Hubby, to ruin their lives.

Since Hannie B. was the ripe old age of seven we’ve been getting invites to sleepovers.  When the first one came, the Hubby and I had to sit down and seriously consider how we felt about this childhood {shoul-be-teenager} rite of passage.

And what we decided was that sleepovers weren’t for us.  We’ve been unpopular ever since.

The amazing thing is that not only to we get whining and persistence from our children, but we also get pressure, questions and ‘negative energy’ from other parents who don’t agree with our choice and can’t  or won’t understand and respect our decision.

And you may be shaking your head right now too, thinking “You are lame mean parents.”

Here are a few of the reasons we made our decision:

• No sleep {or no good sleep} happens at sleepovers.  And when our kids get no {or no good} sleep, they are crabby and unbearable.
• While no good sleep is happening at sleepovers, other things do happen, and they usually fall under the category of 'irresponsible, unchaperoned and entirely stupid’. Both the Hubby and I could name multiple stupidities from our youth that occurred at sleepovers.
• The thought of our children, and particularly our daughter, sleeping in someone else’s home, no matter how trusted a friend the family may be, is unsettling to me. This world is just too scary for that.
• The opposite side of that coin is that we don’t ever want to put my husband in a situation where another child could claim he’d done anything inappropriate around them {which he wouldn’t, but still – better to avoid even the possibility.}

So, currently our position on sleepovers is this:  Our children may ‘lateover’ at a friends house.  This means they can stay until 10:30 or 11:00, at which time we will bring them home to sleep comfortably in their own beds.  If invited to a sleepover, our children have been given our permission to make us the ‘heavy’, hate our decision and tell their friends how lame we are.  We will explain our policy to any questioning parents. Then, when cousins come around in the summer, our children can sleepover as much as they’d like.  I’ve found that usually after two or three nights of horrible sleep, our kids reconfirm our decision by acting like total wackadoo zombies.

Thud.  That was me jumping off my soapbox.  Now I want to know what you think about sleepovers.  What is your family’s policy?

{photo of Hannie B. & cousin W.B.C. taken at Carlson family reunion.}