I'm a better parent without her

I just realized that I wasn't a really effective parent until I could honestly say that I don't care what my mother thinks and I'm not interested in pleasing her.

Tonight we got home from dinner at 7:30. The children's bedtime is 8pm, and before bed they have to eat, shower, make their lunches, clean their rooms and clean the kitchen. At 7:30 they were upstairs playing. Hadn't done any of the things above. When my parents offered to take the kids tonight they said they would have them in bed reading books at 7:30 when we got home.

So Dave and I went into our bedroom and worked on financial stuff while they all had dinner. After they ate I went out and directed things. I had Griffon in the shower and was telling Sophia to go upstairs to clean her room. She, as she always does, tried to push the envelope: "Can I just leave my dollhouse out?"

And as I always do, I told her that she has to clean up all the little pieces, but the big things can remain set up.

My mother, in the same tone of voice as Sophia, says, "But we spent all afternoooon pulling out the pieces for the dollhouse. What if she just keeps them in a baaag???"

I turned to her and said, "No, we won't be doing that. That's not part of our routine."

"But it's haaard to think that we spent aaallll afternoooon finding those things and we'll have to do it aaaallll again next week."

"Mom, we will work this out, let Sophia and I handle it."

Um. Do I have two 6-year-olds? Do I really need to try to rationally explain to her that Sophia has to pick up absolutely every little thing on the floor or we'll end up spending 4 hours on a Saturday shoveling out her room again? Does it even matter what she thinks, since I am the parent and this is my house and my child?

In the past I would have felt bad for standing up to my mother that way, and I probably would have backed down at least the second time she whined at me. But you know, if that behavior is unacceptable from Sophia, it is certainly also unacceptable from a 65-year-old.

Which brings me back to my original point. Back when I cared what my mother thought, I was an extremely inconsistent parent because there was always a conflict within me between what my mother thought was the right way to raise children, and what I think. That can't have been good for the kids. Now that I'm not concerned with pleasing her, I can be the sort of consistent parent that I think will be best for my kids.