Parenting

Insights and inspirations about parenting.

Mother’s Day

With Mother’s Day approaching in 2 days, I’d like to share my 2 latest videos about parenting. They are completely funny, touching, and real. The first one is “Ten things you wish you would have known before having a baby” and I’ve watched it over and over and always tear up at the end.

The 10 things are:

10. “Don’t listen to anyone else. You’ll know how to take care of your baby. Don’t care one ounce about what other people think about you.” While I DO agree with most of this, I would also say to keep an open mind. We sometimes get in a rut or don’t see clearly the damage we are doing from inheriting unhealthy behaviors from our own parents. So while we shouldn’t be paralyzed with worry about what other people think, we should listen to wise people, especially those with more experience and expertise, to see if maybe they have something better we could be doing.

9. “Get on a schedule.” Yes and yes. Although some parents can do this earlier in the infancy stage because their babies respond to sleeping through the night. I’m always amazed when some mom says her 3 month old is sleeping 6 hours straight. I think, “What drugs are you giving him?” Sleeping was always a hard thing for me. Some of my infants were terrible sleepers and that made me a terribly sleep-deprived Momzilla at times.

8. “Parenting is hard. Take time out to revive and find yourself.” Amen and amen. Ideas they suggested were to get out and treat yourself to ice cream, go to grandma’s and drop the kids off, take a 20 minute nap, and have a weekly date night. I would add that parents need to get away for emotional, social, and physical health. I am SUCH a better mother when I return from a brief (or sometimes lengthy) absence. I think, “Okay you little buggers. I guess still love you after all. I missed you!”

7. “Discover who your children are and let them be.” When we clash with our kids, it’s often because they don’t measure up to our expectations or they don’t agree with us. So what? Most of the time (unless it involves taking drugs, stealing the car, stuff like that…) they are just figuring out who they are and that’s probably going to be different than who we are. Let’s be okay with that.

6. “Be prepared for the unexpected because it WILL happen.” And it usually involved bodily fluids. Like the time my daughter hurled vomit across the isle of the train in Chicago and hit us, the windows behind, and our bags. Just before be boarded the plane. Awesome.

5. “Make room for the baby.” The video talks about the physical needs of a baby. Stroller. Crib. Tons of diapers. Stuff like that. But I would add to make room in your heart for the baby. Especially if this is the first one, our lives are completely turned upside down. It was all about us before having a baby. Not any longer. Now the baby should be our primary focus and we need to give up and sacrifice to be there and meet all his or her needs. That might mean we drop or put aside some personal interests for a time. Change our priorities. Stop watching so many reality TV shows so we can spend time bonding with a new person who is ours to keep forever.

4. “Memories will be the only thing you’ll have so keep these fleeting moments in your heart.”

3. “Be grateful for your kids. It’s ALL worth it.” We may not think this while having to change the sheets in the middle of the night because a child wet the bed while sleeping with you because they were too scared to sleep in their own bed.

2. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. The house can wait. Some days you just won’t have the patience.”

1. “There’s going to be one thing you cannot prepare yourself for, that you cannot know until you experience it is the love you are going to feel. Overwhelming, powerful, consuming love.”

Here’s the link. You gotta watch it. Bring your hankie.

The second video clip is one I found a year or so ago. It’s brilliant! I show it in class to my university students in the parenting class I teach. I have them write a newspaper ad job description of a parent. We share them and then watch this. I hope you still have your hankie from the last video. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY

Get a PhD in Parenting (for free!)

I have a bone to pick with my high school math teacher. Contrary to his promises, I have never used the pythagorean theorem or cared to find the value of X since graduating a hundred or so years ago. That is, unless you count helping each of my 5 children struggle through their math homework.

What I have used, however, is relationship and parenting skills. Every day, all day. So where was the required Parenting 101 class in high school or college when I needed it? How ironic (and sad!) that virtually all adolescents and young adults, who will someday be a mom or dad or at least have to relate to another human, are not formally taught how to succeed in relationships.

Licensure varies across states, but to become a beautician it requires around 2,000 practicum hours in addition to coursework. To drive a car? Forty roading hours plus passing the test and class. To become a parent? Nada. In comparison, what knowledge and skills matter most to children, family life, our community and nation?

This is where voluntary, continuing education steps in.

Parents today have ripe information for the picking. Endless resources are at our fingertips to help us navigate this most important career of raising children. Websites contain information about family health, making kid crafts, homeschooling, parenting children at different stages of development, taking online parenting classes, and marriage and relationships skills, to name a few.

Best of all, most are free. Thank you, Mr. Google and Mrs. Pop-up Ads.

Here is a list of some of my favorite parenting sites. Many of these I have contributed articles to and have enjoyed those written by others.

parenting.com

parents.com

pgeveryday.com

todaysparent.com

familyshare.com

parentscanada.com

ForEveryMom.com

kidshealth.org

The downside is we need to be aware of how to navigate through so much information. I’d like to share 5 tips for being a wise consumer and using internet information successfully.

  1. Keep an open mind.

It’s not enough to say, “I’ll just do what my parents did in raising me and hope for the best.” That’s like keeping the bar so low that if no one ends up in jail, it’s a sign you’ve been a successful parent. Too often we are blinded by old habits, bad attitudes, and cultural trappings with which we were raised. We only see what we are used to, even if that means perpetuating abusive behaviors that seem “normal” to us.

Every mom and dad can and should be actively looking for ways to improve through motivating and informative content. If you were raised by terrible parents, you have some distance to cover in a short period of time. If you came from adequate or even excellent parents, you can always do better.

  1. Trust your instincts.

There will be lots of advice in cyberspace, but as every mother has learned from listening to birthing stories at baby showers, no two kids are alike. They all come packaged with their own special temperaments, personalities, talents, and interests. Therefore, not all advice may be what’s right for your child. Follow general, sound principles, but if a specific practice doesn’t feel right, listen to your gut. Even if something works fabulously with one child, another one may need something different.

  1. Filter, filter, filter.

Do you sometimes feel like you’re hooked up to a fire hose when all you want is to drink a glassful of information? It can be overwhelming. There’s just too much, and even sometimes, conflicting information on the internet. Read and apply in small doses. Let’s not spend endless hours surfing websites and replace it with spending time understanding our children and building a relationship him or her.

Use your filters when looking at airbrushed photos of perfect children, flawless table settings, or crafts that most certainly were created by professionals, not preschoolers. It’s not real, folks! There are also plenty of mommy bloggers who love to shock and disturb with their latest episode in the series of Disasters of Being a Mom. Yes, we all have bad days, but let’s not revel in rudeness. It feels like jumping into a pig sty and rolling around the muck to be part of the “feel-sorry-for-ourselves mommy club.” Be wise instead, and choose websites to be inspired, laugh, and learn.

  1. Let this be a start.

The cyber community is a great gathering place, but it is, after all, a virtual world. Use websites and discussion boards as a safe place to ask questions and find answers and then follow up with live connections in the real world. Talk to trusted family members, friends, pediatricians, and other parents in your community who can offer irreplaceable emotional, physical, and social support. If there is another parent involved in raising your child, share what you are learning so you can both be on the same parenting page. Go to classes together and read books to further your education.

  1. Keep trying.

Methods shared on parenting websites are usually fairly reliable. Responsible experts base their findings on research and extensive experience. When you latch onto an improved parenting approach and try it out with your child, it may be a complete failure the first time or two.

Changing both ourselves and our children is a process. By being consistent, you will show your child that the “new and improved” parent is not going away just because he or she threw a tantrum when you didn’t give in to that cookie right before dinner. When you make a mistake and fall back on a former bad behavior, admit your mistake. “Honey, mommy forgot that she is trying not to slam doors every time she gets mad. Please forgive me. I’m going to do better tomorrow.” Let’s work on getting an advanced degree that requires classes in kindness, forgiveness, love, unity, and respect.

Now that’s a PhD I’d like earn.

Boogers, ABC Gum, and Gut Flora

My husband and I often took road trips with our children to distant places which meant we spent a lot of the time in the car together, eating Happy Meals at McDonald’s, and filling up at gas stations. My husband tried to plan our trips around the most sanitary pit stops and fast food restaurants with the best playgrounds. More than once, however, we needed to make an emergency stop because a small child couldn’t “hold it any longer.”

You know what that means.

You turn off the freeway and hope to find a toilet, quick. If not, at least a bush or deep ravine. This time we found a sketchy gas station that Time forgot. I think the Heath Department forgot it too. It had one of those unisex bathrooms you enter from the outside that you have to beg the cashier for the key to open. We all held our noses and took turns using it. We were lucky the toilet still flushed, but there was no hand soap. I reminded my kids to put toilet paper on the seat and at least to rinse their hands to drown the germs if we couldn’t kill them with Dial.

I crisscrossed over the maze of discarded toilet paper squares on the wet floor like I was in a mine field. I remember the overflowing garbage and the dilemma of deciding how to avoid touching the door handle to open it.

When we packed the kids back in the car, I noticed my toddler, Rachel, was chewing gum. I never give gum to my toddlers because they usually have no concept of chewing without swallowing. So I knew this was not something I had given her. I asked where she got it, but the look of alarm in my eyes must have warned her of danger. She refused to talk or divulge her sources.

We drove away with Rachel still chewing gleefully.

Miles later, a sibling wanted some gum too, and asked for some. It was after I said I didn’t have any that Rachel bragged, “I got mine in the bathroom.” The car jolted a bit from my husband stepping on the brake. As more information leaked out, we discovered she found the ABC gum in that germ-infested gas station bathroom. Toddlers are built low to the ground so they see things that we adults miss. I wanted to yank it out and spray Lysol inside her mouth, but realized the damage had been done.

What else can a parent do at that point?

Boogers

I’ve heard that every child needs to digest at least 10 lbs. of dirt by the time she is 8 years old to survive in this world. Besides, eating boogers may be the only GREEN food they’ll eat. It is organic, after all. So is poo.

Before you rush for the hand santizer, I have to report that Rachel is now 19 and arguably the healthiest of my 5 children. Was it heavy doses of germs early on that made her so robust? With each child, I became more relaxed in my antiseptic approach to parenting. With the first child, if the pacifier dropped on the floor, we boiled it for 5 minutes to de-germ it. By the fifth child, if the pacifier dropped and the dog licked it, I wiped if off on my pants and stuck it back in the baby’s mouth.

No harm done.

I recently listened to a radio interview with the co-author of “The Good Gut” which is all about how our bodies are made up of microflora in our digestive systems. We need good bacteria, like ABC gum and boogers, to help our bodies build immunity and fight the bad bacteria. Kind of like inoculating our children against measles. We give them little doses of bacteria every day when we let them play in the sand mixed with cat poo, make mud pies, and kiss the dog.

If we wonder why so many children are sensitive to foods, the air, and contact with plants, it could be answered by a scientist who studied the Yanomami people in the Amazon. He found that “the microbes from their skin and gut were 40% more diverse than those of modern, urbanised people…the more exposed a group was to modern life, the less diverse the microbiome.”

I’m all about diversity. And I’m all about microbiomes because they sound cool. Imagine a bunch of foreign germs, like Goodwill Ambassadors, from Angola, Tonga, Korea, Canada, and Slovenia meeting in your child’s gut, sharing drinks, swapping stories, eating Chex Mix, and playing Charades. When an intruder tries to crash the party, all these foreign friends band together and bar the door.

Speaking of cool, here’s a great NPR article and accompanying video called “The Human Microbiome.” It reports how gut flora wires our brains and alters our mood. Research done by Dr. Faith Dickerson suggests that introducing good flora in the microbiome “may contribute to an improvement of psychiatric symptoms.”

Of course that makes sense. If there’s a party happening in our gut, it’s going to make us feel better all over.

Pass the piña colada, please.

How Being a Parent Is Like a Rock Star

rock star

The difference is that a rock star is paid bazillions of dollars for his work. A parent, well…nothing. The only Rock in my life was rocking a crying child and the only Star was following the words, “Twinkle, Twinkle..”

How we classify success and happiness, however, is upside down. Do the ingredients of insane amounts of money, fame, and screaming fans make for a good life? I believe they do not, and most find these as transitory. I see the ruin that becomes most rock stars; I see their hardened faces and livers, their broken relationships and wonder why, why? do we promote fame as a desired lifestyle?

I’ve seen too many celebrities with children who can hardly stand the sight of their parents. I’ve read too many stories where rock stars and other famous people use family members for their own popular promotion, using them for their advantage. No, they can keep their mansions, reality TV shows, interviews on Entertainment News and talk shows, and Gucci handbags. I’ll take a quiet, unheralded talk with my teenager about her day at school while we dunk Oreos in milk. I’ll read a book with my son before bedtime and share a laugh about a “knock knock” joke he just made up.

I will never be famous. I will never earn bucket loads of money. The only people who scream my name are my children when trying to find me in a crowded room (and one time when I almost burned down the house, but that’s another story). And although I felt as a young mom like a Mother Hen being pecked to death by her baby chicks at the end of a long day, I still could fluff my feathers and tuck them in at night knowing I was doing the best job in the whole world.

I know that as my children grow and leave the nest, our relationship grows richer. The right kind of rich. The kind that holds your hand when you get old and says, “Mom, thanks for every thing. I love you so much and hope to one day, be half as good a mother as you were.”

Fathers, Be Good to Your Daughters

dad

I heard the song “Daughters” by John Mayer last week at a pizzeria with my husband and son. It’s one of those songs that has so much depth and gut-punching truth to it. It’s so beautiful and sad at the same time. I’m including the lyrics here for us to ponder. The most profound part is his plea:

On behalf of every man
Looking out for every girl
You are the god and the weight of her world

So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

We all need to realize the power fathers and mothers have on the their children, who will one day be parents themselves.

“Daughters”

I know a girl
She puts the color inside of my world
But she’s just like a maze
Where all of the walls all continually change
And I’ve done all I can
To stand on her steps with my heart in my hands
Now I’m starting to see
Maybe it’s got nothing to do with me

Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Oh, you see that skin?
It’s the same she’s been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Now she’s left
Cleaning up the mess he made

So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Boys, you can break
You’ll find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on
But boys would be gone without the warmth from
A womans good, good heart

On behalf of every man
Looking out for every girl
You are the god and the weight of her world

So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Reflections and Perspective of a Mother

Word Press congratulated me today on my 134th post on this website. Well, thank you very much and you’re welcome! In honor of this auspicious day, I’d like to post a quote by Annie Reneau about mothering.

Reflections and Perspective of a Mother

If I had known what sleep deprivation really felt like before I had kids…

If I had known the full measure of bodily fluids I’d have to clean up throughout my children’s childhoods…

If I had known how much the sound of “Mama? Mama? Mama?” could grate on my last nerve after hearing it for more than a decade…

If I had known that sometimes I’d take an extra long time on the toilet, just to have a few minutes to myself…

If I had known that those few stolen toilet moments would almost always be interrupted by tiny fists knocking on the door anyway…

If I had known how often I would have to repeat the same directions and corrections over and over and over and over…

If I had known that every “expert” remedy for whining, crying, moping, disobedience, disrespect, and laziness would be completely ineffectual half the time…

If I had known that loving your children doesn’t mean liking them all the time…

If I had known that I would sometimes cry in the shower because there was no other place to vent alone…

If I had known that I’d be so “touched out” by the end of some days that the thought of getting busy with my husband would repulse me…

If I had known that I would never be able to truly, fully concentrate on anything ever again…

If I had known that it doesn’t get easier as they get older, just hard in different ways…

If I had known I would feel terrified almost every day that I am failing at motherhood in some way…

If I had known how truly unrelenting parenting was going to be…

I would have had my children anyway.

Because if I hadn’t…

I wouldn’t know how miraculous it feels to have a human being grow from a tiny speck to an entire person inside your own body.

I wouldn’t know that the smell of a newborn’s head is the best evidence that there’s a heaven.

I wouldn’t know the magic of having a baby fall asleep in your arms and never wanting to put them down.

I wouldn’t know the unmatchable thrill of watching your child walk, use the potty, ride a bike, or read a whole book for the first time.

I wouldn’t know how the sound of your child’s laughter can lighten even the heaviest of days.

I wouldn’t know how an innocent, wide-eyed stare can melt you right through the floor.

I wouldn’t know how awesome it is to witness the daily, gradual unfolding of a person you helped bring into the world.

I wouldn’t know the pride of seeing your children navigate difficult situations using the tools and qualities you’ve helped instill in them.

I wouldn’t know how much pure, unbridled joy there could be in seeing your children triumph.

I wouldn’t know how much unexpected, humbling grace there could be in the constant struggle of trying to be a better parent.

I wouldn’t know how the act of parenting your own kids can help heal your own childhood hurts.

I wouldn’t know how losing myself in motherhood would result in finding a deeper, stronger, realer version of myself.

I wouldn’t know the warm, sweet fullness of being loved as only a mother can be loved.

I wouldn’t know the raw, fierce power of loving as only a mother can love.

And I wouldn’t know that the pain and pitfalls of the path are ultimately outweighed by beauty, joy, and wonder of the journey.

If I had known what motherhood really was like, I’d have done it all over again.

(I’d just have slept more when I had the chance.)

Believing, Christmas, and Santa Claus

Today I read the original text of the famous newspaper editorial written in response to a child’s, Virginia, letter to the editor. It brought tears to my eyes. I had forgotten how beautifully written it was, and how profound was the truth therein. I share it here for all parents who are teaching the un-provable truth of Santa, sharing, and the joy of Christmas:

We take pleasure in answering at once thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of “The Sun”:

Dear Editor–

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

– Virginia O’Hanlon, 115 West Ninety-fifth street.

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

http://classiclit.about.com/od/christmasliteratur1/a/aa_yessanta.htm

Why We Love People Who Hurt Us

If you are in an unhealthy relationship (manipulator, narcissist, co-dependent, etc.) this is a good radio program.

http://www.byuradio.org/episode/92a164e7-a341-4e8a-8f15-003013c242da/the-matt-townsend-show-why-we-love-people-who-hurt-us

What do you do with a child who is acting out in anger? Here is the BYU radio program on how to parent an explosive child. I come on after the first guest who talks about difficult relationships in general, or in marriage, but I take the parenting angle, as always. I am a guest expert after the 1 hr. 15 min. mark.