Girls…Part 3

Posted on March 15, 2013 by

today’s post is the final of a three-part series about raising girls. i look forward to hearing your feedback and continuing the discussion!

while there are many things that could be said and many ways to say them, let’s start with this: no matter the gender of your kids we will not get it right 100% of the time. there will be times when we get it wrong, yet they will somehow thrive regardless of our shortcomings. other times, when we amaze even ourselves as we hear the perfection coming from our mouths, they will miss the message entirely, and choose a different path. there is no book, no person, and no blog post that you are going to be able to laminate and put on your bathroom mirror to ensure parenting well.

so, while i do not have this motherhood thing down, i love my girls and i love you who are willing to walk with me on the journey, and believe that collectively we have something of value to share with each other. in the interest of this blog not being a book, and getting milk and eggs before everyone hits the grocery stores, here are my three tips for mothering girls…

1) “more is caught than taught” i have no idea who said this or why it is the most frequently shared quote in my maturation, but i believe that it is particularly crucial in parenting. you cannot teach a little girl to be okay with her body if you are saying “geesh” every time you look in the mirror. you cannot wax and wane on and on about the importance of being kind to people regardless of who they are or what they look like, unless you are in fact kind. to the best of your ability make a concerted effort to observe yourself over the next season. what are you living well and thus teaching well and what do you need to teach yourself before trying to pass it onto your little ones?

2) you were made beautifully, intentionally, and well. there will be about a billion ways that you can teach this one and there are a lot of different tools available to walk through it with your kids, but this is in fact one of the most important things you can spend your time on. the age that a little girl will look to her peers, boys, magazines, or the hollywood ideal to define her worth is shocking and appalling. there are about 8 blog posts that could spring from that sad truth alone, but for now know this: they hear you. tell them they are amazing (they are). notice new things each day that make them specifically them, and relish in the opportunity to dote on them. write and hide notes they will find with ways you delight in who they are and in who they are becoming. compliment them in front of others. show them that you are a fan of them. let them know they are the best one of them there could be. and if it seems to get old or if they seem over it or if it seems it is not sinking in do not stop. never stop.

3) unless your daughter is hurting her body (cutting or needing medical intervention for eating disorders) there is never a reason to comment on her body in any way that is less than entirely complimentary. i have sat around tables with women far too often who begin sharing stories of what their moms always say to them about their appearance. remember, they hear you. teach healthy ways of eating? knock yourself out! show them the joy of exercise? super! then you better run home and check your motives at the door. there are enough voices telling your daughters what they need to do to improve their look including the one in their heads that is often the harshest of all. if you affirm her worst thoughts about herself by your words or your actions you may lose the fight before you begin.

my bonus tip on how to raise a daughter (or anyone really) is don’t go it alone. the saying “it takes a village to raise a child” is popular not because it sounds good in theory, but because it feels good in practice. unless you have some supernatural mad skills in parenting or a superhuman amount of patience, you will in fact need the help and companionship and wisdom of others along the way. this is good news, i promise. as moms let’s be sure to be honest not only with each other, but with ourselves. trying to maintain an unrealistic ideal for parenting is not winning the race, it is injuring those who are observing you and trying to learn in the process. this is a hard road. a beautiful, rewarding, wouldn’t-change-it-for-the-world-yet-hardest-road-i’ve-ever-traveled road, and you injure more than yourselves by trying to make it alone. instead, let’s be an amazing community of people who are strugglin’ right alongside one another, who may have walked that particular trial already and have some wisdom to share, or who simply know that this motherhood thing ain’t no joke and can commiserate and encourage along the way.

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Girls…Part 2

Posted on March 13, 2013 by

“i’m so glad i don’t have girls!”

my temptation here is to say “me tooooooo” really loudly and walk away, but for the sake of discussion, let’s dive into the other big reason given in explanation for this comment:

“they are so emotional and needy and i just don’t think i’d do very well with that.”

first off i’d like to freeze the movie reel and point out that you are talking to a grown-up girl. we are not delineated into male, female and “thank-God-she-grew-out-of-those-emotions” ladies. by discounting females as being “too much” you cause inherent shame to fall on them. you tell them that it is not okay to be who they were created to be and you ask them, through your accusation, to become a more composed, less affected version of ourselves. do not do this to small or grown women! i am fairly confident that i have the two most sensitive and emotional girls ever made, but if i am going to look at my daughters and delight in their fancy dance when they get to wear a dress with sparkles or their shouts of victory when they find the best leaf ever on the scavenger hunt, then i cannot simultaneously ask them to tone it down when their feelings are vocally and publicly hurt. you get both sides of the coin and if we can’t sit with our daughters and delight in both who they are and who they are becoming, then prepare for much deeper battles ahead.

but my first question is “for whom”? they are too emotional/needy for whom? i know that there are ladies out there who could coach the olympic team on drama, but if we take out the outliers and really deal with this implication that there is something wrong with women we see that the standard then becomes… wait for it… a man. now i love and appreciate men. i have had the distinct honor and privilege of growing up with, working with and marrying men of honor who sincerely seek to live life beautifully loving, serving and hoping that their one life will be spent for the good that love might win. but this argument that we are too much only makes sense if those who are not too much (men and those who seek to be identified with them because of their breezy non-emotional nature) are the standard to shoot for. but, and this is one of those big buts, if this were the case then there would be no need to create the woman. God could have brushed the dust off his hands from creating adam and called him very good. but he didn’t. he saw fit to perform surgery and remove a rib fresh out of the creation oven to make woman. he called them very good when they were together living in harmony.

i know that there are two sides of this coin (i’ve seen the bachelor) but my point is that there is such good to be had and so incredibly much to be gained from the soft heart and raw emotion that we ladies bring to the table that i do not see sacrificing the good for what in all honesty we could label as inconvenient. this comment that girls are too emotional/needy says as much about the person saying it as it does about the subject at hand. there is a lack of desire on the speaker’s part to deal with the side of the coin that always asks what that was supposed to mean or that needs a hug, a long conversation, and someone to sit with them a bit so they are not alone in their sorrow. it takes time, i get it. it takes patience which in this day and age is running in crazy short supply. it takes compassion, that even though these feelings may not be expressed in the most attractive version, that they are asking for help, company, and when at all possible, understanding. ENGAGE. instead of discounting what seems too much, dig and find the treasure held within the tantrum. there is a beauty and a richness that your life will never recover from should you let these girls be what they were made to be.

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Girls… Part 1

Posted on March 11, 2013 by

now some of you think that i would have no ability to talk about raising boys as i have never done it and don’t think i will get the opportunity, but you are wrong. i’ve got a bit of a bone to pick. it’s not a large bone, my dog would pass it by without interest, but it has been messing with my brain and so i am going to let that bad boy out. the number of times that i have heard people say that they are so glad they didn’t have girls has reached a somewhat appalling number and so i believe it is time to address what that comment does not only to the young women around you but to the grown woman you are speaking to…

here’s the deal: most of the time when i give a little bit of push-back on the comment there is an “i just mean dealing with the what they can wear/respecting their body so they don’t get pregnant” thing. oh that thing. if you think that it is hard to raise girls because they will want to dress provocatively and get all sorts of physical and so it would be difficult for me because i will have to have those hard conversations, i would reply (in my nicest way possible, but quite firmly as my temp is rising at this point) that maybe the reason that it is so hard to have a girl is because you think you do not have to have hard conversations with your boys. oh no she didn’t! yes, yes i did and i will say it again. the rampant “girl problems” of this generation are not unique and they are not existing from some super high emotional big bang theory. they exist because the standard in this country of what a girl can and should be is more twisted than it is possible to even wrap my head around, and after having worked with young adolescent girls for 12 years i can tell you it is not getting better.

if you are a mom of girls, think really hard about what it is that you value and how your perception of what it is good and right for your girls to become is shaping how you attempt to mold them. if you are a mom of boys do the same, is there an intentional attempt on your part to teach them how to value and respect women? does this lesson include their peers or are we breeding a southern bless-your-heart mentality where respect means you say “yes ma’am” to the mom right before taking her daughter out to see how much you can pressure her into? there is beauty and worth that runs deep in a woman, and the world desperately needs this. if you crush it, if you mar it till it is no longer recognizable for what it was created to be, if you even simply discount it and pass by it as if it were not precious it is not only the girls who suffer. the whole world suffers.

i do not believe that if you think less of women, but keep it somewhat to yourself or only share it with other men then no one suffers as a result. when i first moved to north carolina i got to hang out one night with two men who were working for the same place i was and as we began talking about men and women and the differences between them one of these young men spoke rather harshly about women. when i pushed him on it he said he had never met a woman he respected… that he felt deserved his respect. i had about a gazillion issues with this comment, but sought to get to know a bit more of his story. what enabled me to dig deeper into his story instead of push him out of the moving vehicle we were in was that i knew that his view of women was crippling him. i felt genuine compassion for someone so young who felt he was so wise that he could discount half the population because they didn’t deserve his 21 year old respect. as we dove deeper into the conversation i became aware that he was hoping to be married someday. i asked if he respected his future wife and he got defensive and thought i was trying to trap him. i was not trying to trap him, but i was trying to take the veil a bit from his eyes, you cannot marry, serve, love and honor someone you do not respect. if he has a baby girl what then? God saved “very good” for after he had made man and woman in his image. if you are going to give women less respect and honor than they deserve, prepare to settle for a life of “eh”. a life where you miss the beauty of what we were uniquely created to bring to the table.

wednesday’s post will address being thankful to not have girls because they are so emotional/ needy and friday we will finish it off with a post to moms of girls revealing what i think is key to impress upon them (after working with adolescent girls for 12 years) and some creative ways to work together to instill these in our young ladies. please feel free to give feedback on particular aspects of this phenomenon or with tips for fridays discussion! let’s help each other.

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Grab Your Sharpie

Posted on February 22, 2013 by

well i believe it is time to tell you about wed a month ago…

it started out as a rough morning. one in which it seems you are retraining your children on how to be human instead of incredibly selfish gnomish versions of the super-entitled who believe they should be spared from hardship of any kind. hardship here could be described as putting on clean undies, having your hair brushed or having to eat anything other than your favorite cereal for even one day. after both ma and pa tried to tag out at different times before the lunches were even made, we said let’s just sit and have a nice family breakfast together and start over. it was at this point that my oldest child, who cannot under any circumstance sit in her chair on her bum but whom insists on sitting any other way that could increase her potential for serious injury, fell. the favorite of the day was the half bum side sit as a tribute to the side saddle women of yore and so when she fell out of her seat she grabbed the chair to hold onto for stability thereby pulling the gigantic hard wooden chair down, ensuring the sharpest point of it carrying all the weight would land on her teeny tiny middle toe. there were toenails, blood, and a massive amount of screaming to contend with now, so hubs and i divided and conquered.

i took mc to the pediatrician and dad took hazel to school. man this day is awesome i thought to myself. the stuff dreams are made of! after getting back from the pediatrician who assured me that he didn’t think it was broken…unless she didn’t start walking on it in which case he did think it was broken and we should come on back. with that cleared up we went home and watched a show, got a snack, and tried to recover. when it became clear to me that mc was fine and could return to school i asked her if she would like to go try and have lunch with her friends. if she felt good she could stay and if not i could take her back home except…

that while i was walking my poor sweet injured one to her classroom i fell down the stairs at the school. an ugly “wow the ground seems to be getting rather close to my face-OUCH” kind of fall. at this point the teacher who saw me fall yells at me not to move because i hit my head hard and did i think i was going to black out. i don’t know i said, but i am pregnant and if i do you have to tell them that. first thought was way to go telling the girls over the weekend since mc was still standing there, that could have been an interesting way to share the news. second thought was oh my, this could go very badly. i assured mc that mommy was ok, asked the teacher to take her to lunch and told her the class she was in.

this is where it gets tricky because it takes me about a nanosecond to start beating myself up for falling down the stairs, but then i am interrupted by the principal who comes to check on the lady who fell down the stairs and as she’s saying, “you ok darlin?” she falls in exactly the same place in exactly the same way i did. she cannot get up either so there we are bodies sprawled out like we are trying out for an episode of law and order. so the chit chat begins.

p- “how did you fall honey?”

c- “the exact same way you did.”

laughter from all parties as we realize how silly this must seem to passers by

p- “i think something might be wrong with our stairs!”

c- “i think so, you may wanna get that checked out, but from now on i’ll take the ramp”

p- “no, there’s a big divot in the ramp.”

laughter ensues as the EMTs approach.

at this point despite the fact that i am thinking of starting a poll on what the first color of the bruise on my hip and forehead will be it becomes clear that my wrist is not well and after matt shows up we head to the ER.

upon arrival at the hospital we see the room is separated into flu peeps and non-flu peeps by, well, air. the lady in front of us goes into labor and the lady behind us starts hurling. we step away from the check-in desk and sanitize our hands and burn all of our clothing and then head to our family doc and then the OB. we were all okay.

this was one of the hardest days on record. there was a lot of pain involved in taking the least graceful way down the stairs and breaking my wrist, but more than that there was intense fear. would molly corin be okay? would she be able to use that toe (the one i can hardly look at) ever again? i couldn’t remember how i fell and i didn’t know for hours if the baby was alright. the pain and the fear came gift-wrapped in a blanket of perspective. i skipped my wrist X-ray because no one would check on the baby so i drove myself to the OB till they found the heartbeat and told me that the baby was okay. sometimes a trip down the stairs teaches you more than to hold on to the railing, sometimes it teaches you to hold on to what is most dear and let the rest fade into the background.

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What Do I Look Like, Angelina Jolie?

Posted on February 15, 2013 by

hazel and i recently went to the OB for a routine check up and hazel kept everyone entertained for the entirety of the experience…

first i had to down the orange stuff for the glucose test since i am of “advanced maternal age”, at which hazel automatically chimed in “what are you drinking? is that juice? where did you get the juice?” as she starts walking amongst the other ladies getting worked up by the nurses and starting a riot… “did you get juice?”

from there i had to go ahead and do my urine sample and trying to explain why you would be catching your pee in a cup to a three year old is just not recommended by two out of three doctors. as i explain what i’m about to do she says (and may i remind you that her inside voice is similar to mary murphy’s voice from “so you think you can dance”), “great! i’ll help out mommy:) i’ll hold the cup to catch your pee pee in it!” i declined politely but firmly and then she had to go potty and you can just guess where that went. we all came out proudly displaying our pee cups.

we headed over to the scale, and as i stepped on hazel said, “lemme check this out here mommy… whoa!!!” which was the bit that won her the greatest fandom. she took a bow and we headed back to the room to get checked out by the doc. here we read books brought from home and colored the coloring book we had stuffed into her backpack on the way out. she also pretended to be the doctor, where every single time my prognosis was the same: “mommy, what you need is a hot shepherds pie. i’ll go make one for you!” when the actual doctor came in, we had a nice chat and she found the baby’s heartbeat so that hazel and i could listen. while she was searching for it i explained to hazel that just like when you lean on someone’s chest and hear their heartbeat, we are going to lean this instrument on mommy’s belly to hear the baby’s. the sound came on and we looked towards hazel like she was the star of her own hallmark movie and she said, “ok i am all done with that noise thanks.”

we left the doctors office to get blood drawn, and when the lady tied the thing around my arm hazel didn’t waste any time, “excuse me, but that seems a little bit tight!” the lady explained she was going to get some of mommy’s blood to test and make sure mommy and baby would be healthy. that’s when things got real…

“WHY ARE YOU TAKING MOMMY”S BLOOD?!?!” at this point women are either laughing or grabbing their purses and heading for the door, but the lady taking blood didn’t miss a beat she distracted her till it was done and then took the vial of blood and showed hazel saying, “see, just a little bit so i can do my test. your mommy gets a band aid and we are all done.” hazel had been spending the entire day saying she was going to be a doctor. we checked out every willing member in the waiting room, triage area and beyond (all of whom had a hot shepherds pie deficiency) and yet with that quick view of the vial of blood she turned to me very seriously and said, “all done being a doctor mom. let’s go home!”

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Step Away From The Bat

Posted on January 30, 2013 by

sometimes as a kid you just get plain old fed up and you gotta stage the rage…

for my family it usually ended up with us finding our mother and making mad, huge declarations like we were never going to graduate and get a job because we couldn’t finish our algebra problem or everybody hates us and we are going to have to take dad to the prom because we weren’t invited to a certain party. who knows- sometimes it probably didn’t have a lot to do with anything, but regardless of the injustice, we found mom and yelled and carried on.

until the day that mom snapped…

now, i don’t know if i’ve told you a lot about my mom, but she had five kids and has been married for 51 years. and if that doesn’t impress you then you have lived a very small part of life and at this point you should just oooo and ahhhh so we don’t have to call you out:) anywho, one thing mom did well was not adopt your drama. i used to call her from college during my first semester crying saying that i made a mistake and i needed her to come get me now and she would say oh i’m sorry you’re having a hard day and that she needed to go, but she hoped when she talked to me again i could tell her about one new friend i made. you know where she had to go…. her happy place. you know who wasn’t there? her fifth kid who was spending all the time i could be meeting new people on the phone trying to convince her to drive me home.

so there came a day when mom decided she was all done with getting the verbal beatings from everybody and she just started making a bee line with crazy determination to the basement. we were all very concerned because what could possibly be more important than listening to us whine incessantly and then shoot down any attempt you make to help us feel better? she came upstairs from the basement with an orange foam bat that we had gotten with some nerf baseball game as tiny tikes and then declared in no uncertain terms that she was no longer available for the verbal beatings. she said, “don’t take it out on me! [handed us the nerf bat] take it out on the couch!” and walked away. this may have been the original mic drop.

mom went back to her day, and we were left having to express our rage through a thorough nerf bat beating of our couches or acknowledging that we may in fact be acting a litte bit silly. that nerf bat stayed upstairs for the rest of my upbringing. if you turned into a drama queen and took it out on mom, you were reminded where the bat remained.

we all must decide whether to foam at the mouth, get all irate with people we love and squelch any of their attempts to make the situation less than dire OR whether to simply say… i’m having a hard time, would you be willing to help me? i’m having a hard time trying to figure out this algebra problem, i have no idea how to deal with my kids during this particular season, i’m feeling lame because i wasn’t invited to a (okay, indulge yourself a little bit) THE party of the year.

the one option leaves you banging a foam bat against the couches and the other opens a door to not have all your junk together, allowing someone you love to enter in and walk with you toward a better place.

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Cray Cray

Posted on January 25, 2013 by

the day after mc implied that i had ruined our whole family by getting pregnant again, she went into her class and announced, “there is a baby in my mommy’s tummy and i am so excited!” people’s heads actually tilted at the thought of the precious moments we must have had when we told her of our great news.

of the many lessons learned in parenthood, perhaps the most important is this… your kid is unstable.

don’t get offended. it’s not just your kid, it’s everybody’s kid. they are growing into their bodies and learning how to use their brains and it is a confusing and overwhelming process that includes falling on the floor and weeping if your sandwich is cut at the wrong angle. you can’t have your mood based on that!

we, and several friends, have had irreversible fits of rage over the following…

  • the color of gummi vitamins
  • texture of socks
  • sheets being wrinkly in the “wrong way”
  • jackets/coats/outerwear/acknowledging winter on the whole
  • not being allowed to do the seatbelt
  • the “bankies” is too cold (can’t get a “hot sniff”) or too hot (can’t get a “cold sniff”)
  • anything involving a car seat
  • the wrong  color cup, plate, bowl,straw, etc.
  • mixing cereal into yogurt or not mixing it in, depending on the mood
  • not forwarding past the intro song to a tv show.
  • anything related to grooming
  • the ends of bananas
  • food that touches other food
  • crusts
  • holding another child
  • the inability of a parent to read their mind
  • not recognizing a movie/story/song they are trying to describe
  • tags
  • wind
  • singing and/or dancing
  • laughing when something is funny in a book or on a movie we have seen
  • being asked to wear sweat pants with anything other than a collared shirt.
  • the toe seam on tights

what we can learn from this list is that left to their own devices our children can be ornery about just about anything. this morning hazel cried for 20 minutes because “my jeans look worse”. worse than what? we were all having a really great time all morning what caused the jeans that you did not just put on to become worse? can you tell me about the emotional damage said jeans are doing to you right now?

nope.

“i hear what you are saying, that you don’t want to wear your jeans today, but this is the outfit you picked out. what happens when we fuss?”

“we don’t get what we want.”

“that’s right. let’s read the first few pages of this truck book we got at the library and see if it is any good…”

after the book, she calmed down and came downstairs for breakfast where she refused to eat or drink. i went ahead and gave her a kiss on the head, letting her decide not to eat, and made lunches. when she saw she was getting zero attention she ate but with a big ol’ scowl on. then an aladdin song came on the disney pandora station and she jumped up with excitement and said “this is the song we can play in our rooms!” (on a mix CD someone gave us) and that was it. happy as a clam from then on…until she had to put on a jacket.

for years i have battled with asking am i doing this right? am i causing irreversible harm to my kids? would they be able to handle life better if i read more parenting books, went to more seminars, pow-wowed with more people that have seemingly normal children? and i am here to tell you that although some of these may help for a season, the resounding answer is no. they are growing up and growing up is hard work!!! just look at all the adults you interact with that have tried to avoid it entirely.

when faced with the unstable, do not attempt to reason. do not welcome the guilt train into the station because your kid is unable to deal with a cracker you gave him due to it’s size/ shape/ color. know that your kid is cray cray, but that doesn’t need to become a hand-me-up. grab some tea and watch the sheer volume, the energy and the instability required to display such a phenomenal tantrum and be thankful. thankful that your kid is learning and growing up and that it is no longer acceptable for adults to act in the same manner.

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