I Get No Respect

I am a terrible mother. The evidence I use to support this claim is how my children behave. Never, not as a child, a teenager or now as an adult, never have I ever gone into my mother’s purse and taken anything. I would not dream of touching her purse, let alone digging in it and surreptitiously taking something from it. My mother’s purse always sat on a chair in the kitchen. No one ever went into her purse without her permission or instruction. My children do not respect me this same way and I do not understand why they do not. I don’t remember my mother ever telling me to not touch her purse. I never got in trouble because I dug out a piece of gum or played with her lipstick. Yet, I knew it was off-limits. My children have been told to not bother my purse and yet one of them scrounged in my purse two nights ago and ate an entire bag of candy. As I slept, they came into my room, took out the bag of candy they knew was in my purse because I had given them each two pieces earlier in the day. Then they shoved the candy wrappers and two remaining pieces of candy under my dresser.

 

This is the not the first time something like this has happened. My children have no respect for other people’s things or rules or anything like that. Is it just their “diagnosis” getting in the way or is it my poor parenting? I don’t know. I am tired of trying to guess. I am tired of trying to stay a half-step ahead of them. I want to be able to leave my purse sitting in my bedroom without thinking someone will go digging in it. I want my things to be respected. How do I get that?