I’m much more strict with Justin than my parent’s were with me. I forget about that. Having them over for the holidays reminded me.

I thought about it. We even talked about it a little bit. My assertion at the time was that part of it is simply that we didn’t have 9 years of getting used to having a kid around, and we like our house to look decent, so he doesn’t get to be the normal messy kid. My mom agreed that we’d be more relaxed about some things if we’d had a kid for that long.

“Worn down” might be a better phrase.

Part of it that people don’t see is that there’s 9 years of bad habits we have to deal with, and letting him off the hook once buys us three months of pain in the long run. We’ll never win that battle. Nine of his most formative years in a bad environment can never compete with 9 teenage years with us. Doesn’t mean we won’t try.

I got to thinking about it, though, and that’s not all of it.

Justin isn’t ‘ours’. He’s as much ours as he can be, but he isn’t. We know it, our friends know it, and our family knows it. It’s good, it’s bad… it just is.

If you have a kid, and they do something wrong, and it’s say… the weekend — you’re a little tired, so you decide to let it slide with an admonition, well, you’re just being a parent — making a judgement call. Everyone deserves a break, right?

That works if you’re a parent. THE parent.

If we decide we don’t want to enforce the rules one time… is that because we’re being lenient, or because we don’t care as much, cuz he’s not our kid?

Our friends might never wonder about that. But some people would. I don’t ever want people to think I don’t care about what I’m doing.

So I’m always a hard ass. Cliche. Because I care, and I suppose I don’t ever want that in doubt.

Paranoia is great.