Show of hands if any of this sounds familiar:
- You walk on the sidewalk, not on people’s lawns, unless it’s someone you know well and you’re spending the afternoon there.
- You let people cut in front of you in the 10-or-less grocery line, but you try to burn holes in the back of their head the whole time they’re in front of you.
- Soup is lukewarm at the restaurant? Steak cooked a little more than the medium-rare you asked for? You eat it but you refuse to enjoy it.
- You won’t call anyone after 9 pm if you don’t know them well enough.
- You have an entire conversation with someone who stopped you on the street to ask directions, even though they creep you out a little, because you’re too nice to look the other way, keep walking, and ignore them.
Did your mother raise you to be nice? Mine did. In my mom’s world, nice trumped everything. if you couldn’t be smart, at least you could be nice. Good girls were seen and not heard, and if you were a teeny bit dramatic (aren’t all nine-year olds?) you got called “Sarah Bernhardt” and were shushed a lot.
That didn’t work for me, and I’m unlearning the niceness thing. And I’m teaching my daughter to speak out about what she wants and feels. I am so breaking this chain, the one that I can trace back to before my mom’s mom.
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Ever have one of those brilliant thoughts when you’re out walking or in the grocery store mindlessly tossing things into your cart or waiting in line to pick the kids up from school or driving home from work? For me, it happens all the time. I go, “OMG! I’m brilliant!” and just KNOW it’s so brilliant that OF COURSE I’ll remember it, I mean who would be unable to remember this great idea that will:
I was leaving the grocery store last night, walking back home through the parking lot, when I heard it.
A hundred or so years ago, this wouldn’t even have been a question. Children, if they had a separate room at all, shared it with whatever other children were in the family, regardless of age or gender.
Sarah Palin’s entry into our consciousness has polarized the U.S., and not just politically. Love her or hate her, much of our opinion about her is based on her identity as a mom.
Ever noticed how many how-to books there are about babies and raising kids? Seriously. Go to any bookstore right now. There must be bazillions. And everybody’s an expert. Doctors are experts, psychologists are experts, people who think they know stuff are experts. Your neighbors, your in-laws, random people on the street, they’re all experts too. All of them are experts on your kids. On YOUR family.
Watch the news much? Had a look at your bank account lately, your 401K statement, prices at the grocery store?
I had a photoshoot this weekend with a professional photographer (because, you know, I’m fancy like that), and she gave me a piece of advice that resulted in awesome photographs.
Autumn.
I figured something out this year about my parenting style: I am really really good at being the mom of infants and toddlers and even preschoolers, but somehow that style does not translate well into being the mom of older kids. The elementary years. The tween thing. The [shudder] teen thing. I am really good at nurturing and creating a supportive and safe environment, but I suck at letting go.