Quick post tonight, and I'm sure I'll have something to write about soon, but I gotta get over to my OTHER blog tonight-- sorry dudes.
Just wanted to post a link to a really cute Jack-O-Lantern site. Share any other great Halloween sites please! I LOVE Halloween and I love Jack O'Lanterns, so I am going to plan out my pumpkins to carve this weekend! Happy Halloween folks!!
Jack O Lantern Designer
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
At no time in history have parents been more unsure of their parental role.
This a quote I read on the Parenting with Love and Logic homepage. I feel like this is something I hear all the time, adapted to various roles; "Teachers are unsure of their role as effective teachers. Parents are unsure how to be effective parents. Teenagers are unsure of their roles, college grads are unsure of theirs... People are unsure of how to be effective people." Why is NOW such a time of uncertainty? Did we just know what our roles were in the past, automatically, and never waver from that? Or did we just start thinking a generation or two ago? I read all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a kid, and NEVER did she say, "We were unsure of what our roles as pioneers were." They just got in a wagon and forged westward, and it was pretty damn tough! SO what has happened that is making us question every. single. aspect. of. our. lives???
I can say with very little doubt that our lives have gotten easier over the last several years. But at the same time, we have what seems to me like more people making more mistakes-- or maybe it's more opportunity for mistakes, and therefore everywhere you turn someone is doing stupid things. Things have gotten cloudier. We have more choices, more visibility-- everyone knows my 4 year old daughter has found her betrothed because it was on my Facebook status tonight. I see mothers posting their "Hey, it's BEER-thirty! LOLOL!!" statuses at 1pm, and as the daughter of a recovered alcoholic that makes me sad. On the other hand, no one knew when my dad started to drink earlier in the evening (even before the magical hour of 5pm) because I didn't tweet it. I can order a Netflix so my girls don't understand the drop in happiness when they get to the video store and Strawberry Shortcake is not on the shelf. And with all these CHOICES everywhere we turn and exposure to the 90th degree, our lives have gotten mixed up in the mire and are quite a lot more difficult. I read 1 or 2 parenting books a year, but am I a better mom than my mom was? The jury is out on that. I''ll bet as the years add up I will make just as many mistakes as her. But with all of this extra going on in our lives, we have lost track.
So what do we do when we are not sure if we are on the right path? My natural instinct is to go back to where we started from, and I see some moms trying really hard to simplify their lives. But without a simplier world, I just don't know how we are going to do that.
Yeah, I really think I should consider canceling my DisneyOn-Demand channel. For $3 a month I get thirty minutes a day that my kids are getting the highest entertainment value. That might actually be a bad thing.
I can say with very little doubt that our lives have gotten easier over the last several years. But at the same time, we have what seems to me like more people making more mistakes-- or maybe it's more opportunity for mistakes, and therefore everywhere you turn someone is doing stupid things. Things have gotten cloudier. We have more choices, more visibility-- everyone knows my 4 year old daughter has found her betrothed because it was on my Facebook status tonight. I see mothers posting their "Hey, it's BEER-thirty! LOLOL!!" statuses at 1pm, and as the daughter of a recovered alcoholic that makes me sad. On the other hand, no one knew when my dad started to drink earlier in the evening (even before the magical hour of 5pm) because I didn't tweet it. I can order a Netflix so my girls don't understand the drop in happiness when they get to the video store and Strawberry Shortcake is not on the shelf. And with all these CHOICES everywhere we turn and exposure to the 90th degree, our lives have gotten mixed up in the mire and are quite a lot more difficult. I read 1 or 2 parenting books a year, but am I a better mom than my mom was? The jury is out on that. I''ll bet as the years add up I will make just as many mistakes as her. But with all of this extra going on in our lives, we have lost track.
So what do we do when we are not sure if we are on the right path? My natural instinct is to go back to where we started from, and I see some moms trying really hard to simplify their lives. But without a simplier world, I just don't know how we are going to do that.
Yeah, I really think I should consider canceling my DisneyOn-Demand channel. For $3 a month I get thirty minutes a day that my kids are getting the highest entertainment value. That might actually be a bad thing.
My bad mom moment
I was walking from my massive pile of laundry (yeah, this is gonna be an exciting post) and I told the girls (toddlers, so I was thinking as I said it I knew it was an unreasonable expectation), that they should pick up their room and take off her pull-up because naptime was over... and then this terrible thought popped into my head.
At what point do give up and become bad parents? I feel like with all the chores getting behind, yelling, rushing my kids when my inability to get anywhere on time effects them, expecting too much and helping too little... my lack of coddling, oooooing and self-esteem building--- am I doing enough to be a good mom, or do I really suck? Some much of the time I feel overwhelmed and like I don't have enough me time or me and hubby time. I love spending time with them, but sometimes.... I just don't want to be talked to or touched. Seriously, that is not what *I'm* like at all, so it's kind of weird to say that. But then the other side of that is being distracted by cell phones, chores and computers while I am trying to create two thoughtful, kind, and responsible adults and sometimes I feel like I am letting them just raise themselves and I follow their lead... so at what point does this create a person who is really really anti-social in one way or another?
I have been reading the book Parenting with Love and Logic and in some ways I totally see having a hands off YOUR child's responsibilities. Sometimes it's hard to say, "Hey, are you sure you want to close your sister's hand in the car door??" when you feel like saying, "Oh my God, you are about to close her HAND in that DOOR!!!" And so I think I usually go with the second. They are currently mixing together one anothers' shepherd's pie and salad, and all I said was, "No, I am not going to look at that. I don't WANT to look at the food you mix up." And so they ruined their dinner and I continued typing. (Duke is at work tonight so I broke the computer at the dinner table for just one night so I could finish typing and then clean rooms.) But to myself I knew I was just ignoring it because I was doing something I wanted to do, not because I was trying not to micromanage their dinner. But I noticed I am spending a lot of time these days sitting back and watching them instead of having an active role in everything they are doing. Are they being independent or just tired of asking for attention and I am not paying any...? How do I tell?
I just feel like a bad mom these days. I feel like I am slipping into a lackadaisical parenting style, and that is walking a fine line towards not raising my kids AT ALL. A lot of it is I am spending so little of my afternoon hours at home that I am not getting any of my house-wife work done, and so I kinda feel like I haven't really been doing a great job here so why do I ask for all this freaking help all the time? I'm not super busy. I just feel like I need to slow down a little and try to keep myself less stressed if I want to really focus on being a better mom, not yelling all the time, and doing all the stuff that makes me like this "job." Maybe I just need to suck it up, understand I am going to be stressed until these girls leave the house and I have to find another way to cope with it all.
On the other hand, My four-year-old has gotten the three-year-old ready for bed (but not herself) while I finish this, so that we can read bedtime stories in three minutes. So can I really complain? Even if they are raising themselves, Jesus, they ARE getting raised.
At what point do give up and become bad parents? I feel like with all the chores getting behind, yelling, rushing my kids when my inability to get anywhere on time effects them, expecting too much and helping too little... my lack of coddling, oooooing and self-esteem building--- am I doing enough to be a good mom, or do I really suck? Some much of the time I feel overwhelmed and like I don't have enough me time or me and hubby time. I love spending time with them, but sometimes.... I just don't want to be talked to or touched. Seriously, that is not what *I'm* like at all, so it's kind of weird to say that. But then the other side of that is being distracted by cell phones, chores and computers while I am trying to create two thoughtful, kind, and responsible adults and sometimes I feel like I am letting them just raise themselves and I follow their lead... so at what point does this create a person who is really really anti-social in one way or another?
I have been reading the book Parenting with Love and Logic and in some ways I totally see having a hands off YOUR child's responsibilities. Sometimes it's hard to say, "Hey, are you sure you want to close your sister's hand in the car door??" when you feel like saying, "Oh my God, you are about to close her HAND in that DOOR!!!" And so I think I usually go with the second. They are currently mixing together one anothers' shepherd's pie and salad, and all I said was, "No, I am not going to look at that. I don't WANT to look at the food you mix up." And so they ruined their dinner and I continued typing. (Duke is at work tonight so I broke the computer at the dinner table for just one night so I could finish typing and then clean rooms.) But to myself I knew I was just ignoring it because I was doing something I wanted to do, not because I was trying not to micromanage their dinner. But I noticed I am spending a lot of time these days sitting back and watching them instead of having an active role in everything they are doing. Are they being independent or just tired of asking for attention and I am not paying any...? How do I tell?
I just feel like a bad mom these days. I feel like I am slipping into a lackadaisical parenting style, and that is walking a fine line towards not raising my kids AT ALL. A lot of it is I am spending so little of my afternoon hours at home that I am not getting any of my house-wife work done, and so I kinda feel like I haven't really been doing a great job here so why do I ask for all this freaking help all the time? I'm not super busy. I just feel like I need to slow down a little and try to keep myself less stressed if I want to really focus on being a better mom, not yelling all the time, and doing all the stuff that makes me like this "job." Maybe I just need to suck it up, understand I am going to be stressed until these girls leave the house and I have to find another way to cope with it all.
On the other hand, My four-year-old has gotten the three-year-old ready for bed (but not herself) while I finish this, so that we can read bedtime stories in three minutes. So can I really complain? Even if they are raising themselves, Jesus, they ARE getting raised.
Friday, October 1, 2010
As a mom, this touches my heart, and I could not be quiet about it any longer...
Teen suicide is something that is serious, it is devastating, and it is preventable. Sadly, their have been several cases recently that have gotten a lot of attention, and many of them are a result of cyber-bullying.
Sadly, Rutgers University Student Tyler Clementi was one of these kids, an eighteen year old freshman living in the dorm with a new roommate and adjusting to college life. This is supposed to be an amazing, scary, tumultuous, but happy time in one's life. I remember this as a time I was forging friendships and yeah, I did engage in the occasional teasing. My friend's roommate was a miserable jerk to us, talked down to us, and always tagged along with us. So I picked on him, trying to get him to move out. Now that I'm an adult, No, I'm not proud of the teasing I did as a child. But I still feel guilty about this boy, about *Brendon* (not his real name) from my ninth grade class, who it turns out was "weird" as a victim of physical and sexual abuse and no, of course he didn't talk about that, so how was I supposed to know? I wasn't, but I should have known better.
And Ms. Wei and Mr. Ravi: I hope you realize, you will never live this down. If you have an inkling of a conscience, you will see the smiling face looking into that webcam for the rest of your life. The word "webcam" or "Twitter" will come up, and you will think of Tyler. Instead of making a friend and accepting someone who might be geekier, skinnier, not as popular, or gayer-- you did have a hand in his death. And we forget that the internet can have that sort of effect on someone. But now you sure have learned that lesson the hard way.
Now, as a parent-- I feel a compulsion to help this poor boy. As a friend to other gay men, as a family member and a church member to other gay people, and a sympathetic person and a mother, I want to help this young adult to be part of a world that loves him for who he is. But the only way we can help now is to talk about it. Tyler is gone-- who's next? We need to do what we can to help them, for Tyler's sake.
Parents can talk about bullying with their kids. Teens only see the internet as a place of immediate attention and quick fixes. They can put something up, they can take it down. Tell a kid, "Your Facebook page is cached" and their eyes glaze. Nothing is permanent to a teen, so place limits on them. Monitor their behavior. And even as little babies, preach a value system that accepts everyone as a human being no matter their race, sex, religion, lifestyle, appearance... everyone is a whole person, and never ever take that away from them.
Every generation things like this come up that make us open our minds a little more. We are less narrow-minded than the ones who came before us, and they were less so than their parents. We accept bi-racial couples and single parents, and our parents were accepting of African-Americans and some of their parents even were accepting of Jewish people before that. As twenty-first century citizens it seems odd to think of these people as different but not so long ago mingling with those groups may have been taboo. But now that we do have a melting pot in our society-- or maybe more of a mixed salad, as many people like to see it-- we have to make sure that any prejudices earlier generations had do not get passed down. Because I'm betting Ravi's parents didn't go to sleep at night, thinking: "Gee, we have done a great job teaching our kids to see everyone as a separate soul with feelings and belief and things to give to the world. We've done a great job teaching him to love his neighbor as himself!" Now most parents can't say that, because we are not that selfless. But why can't we at least try?
And as a mother, my heart aches for the mother of this young man. I could never fathom the pain of losing a child. I just hope my child never makes the wrong decision that leads to another child's death. That may almost be worse. All I can do, though, is to make sure my child is raised with most open-minded and caring parents we can be, and never accepts "bullying" as a fair way to treat another person.
Sadly, Rutgers University Student Tyler Clementi was one of these kids, an eighteen year old freshman living in the dorm with a new roommate and adjusting to college life. This is supposed to be an amazing, scary, tumultuous, but happy time in one's life. I remember this as a time I was forging friendships and yeah, I did engage in the occasional teasing. My friend's roommate was a miserable jerk to us, talked down to us, and always tagged along with us. So I picked on him, trying to get him to move out. Now that I'm an adult, No, I'm not proud of the teasing I did as a child. But I still feel guilty about this boy, about *Brendon* (not his real name) from my ninth grade class, who it turns out was "weird" as a victim of physical and sexual abuse and no, of course he didn't talk about that, so how was I supposed to know? I wasn't, but I should have known better.
Now, as a parent-- I feel a compulsion to help this poor boy. As a friend to other gay men, as a family member and a church member to other gay people, and a sympathetic person and a mother, I want to help this young adult to be part of a world that loves him for who he is. But the only way we can help now is to talk about it. Tyler is gone-- who's next? We need to do what we can to help them, for Tyler's sake.
Parents can talk about bullying with their kids. Teens only see the internet as a place of immediate attention and quick fixes. They can put something up, they can take it down. Tell a kid, "Your Facebook page is cached" and their eyes glaze. Nothing is permanent to a teen, so place limits on them. Monitor their behavior. And even as little babies, preach a value system that accepts everyone as a human being no matter their race, sex, religion, lifestyle, appearance... everyone is a whole person, and never ever take that away from them.
Every generation things like this come up that make us open our minds a little more. We are less narrow-minded than the ones who came before us, and they were less so than their parents. We accept bi-racial couples and single parents, and our parents were accepting of African-Americans and some of their parents even were accepting of Jewish people before that. As twenty-first century citizens it seems odd to think of these people as different but not so long ago mingling with those groups may have been taboo. But now that we do have a melting pot in our society-- or maybe more of a mixed salad, as many people like to see it-- we have to make sure that any prejudices earlier generations had do not get passed down. Because I'm betting Ravi's parents didn't go to sleep at night, thinking: "Gee, we have done a great job teaching our kids to see everyone as a separate soul with feelings and belief and things to give to the world. We've done a great job teaching him to love his neighbor as himself!" Now most parents can't say that, because we are not that selfless. But why can't we at least try?
And as a mother, my heart aches for the mother of this young man. I could never fathom the pain of losing a child. I just hope my child never makes the wrong decision that leads to another child's death. That may almost be worse. All I can do, though, is to make sure my child is raised with most open-minded and caring parents we can be, and never accepts "bullying" as a fair way to treat another person.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)