Why the Experts aren't "experts" on my Parenting

I know the experts mean well when trying to advise parents of the “perfect ideal” way to “successfully” raise our children, but I think there are a few factors in their research they don’t have their facts straight on. Though science classes were long ago in my memory, I do believe I recall something about variables and how those variables could skew the scientific findings one way or the other. Parenting isn’t a scientific formula in which the experts can give us the step by step process on how to raise our children to be conformed to society’s standards and expectations. There are so many variables the experts are missing when trying to tell us how to successfully raise our children.
First, you don’t know my individual child. As a teacher of thirteen years and parent of eight I can tell you NO TWO children are the same; therefore, when one strategy may be successful with one it may not be with another. As a parent one of the most amazing things to me is how different my children can be from one another. Learning how to parent isn’t a mastery of one particular skill set that you just put on repeat with each kid that follows the first. Each kid has different needs, different strengths, and different weaknesses, and we are constantly adapting and trying new strategies.

Second variable you are missing  is you don’t know me. You don’t know my flaws and imperfections because believe it or not those things aren’t so easily fixed with some “expert” suggestions either. I’m a continued work in progress and always will be so right there is one huge variable you’re forgetting to consider. You don’t know what baggage and insecurities I carry. You also probably don’t share my beliefs and philosophies. You can’t fit all parents into the same box of ideology and practice. You don’t know each parent’s situation.  Our options on what we can do for our children is varied so much based on our individual financial situations, individual work schedule situations, our extended family situations, how many children we have, how many varied needs and personalities each of our children have.

Experts are too scientifically based in the aspect that they want to solve a problem with a solution so they create a recommend method to put into practice, yet because each child is different, each parent is different, and each family situation is different and unique this one size fits all mentality isn’t going to work with raising children. Pushing parents and children to conform to society to behave, think, and live a certain way actually kills creativity and individuality which is what I also thought we wanted for our children.

I’m not trying to make excuses for poor parenting choices. I know we could all use a little help here and there in getting those mini humans of ours to behave at times, but keep in mind we and them are only human.  We can only do so much in so much time. Honestly what one may think is a bad decision a whole other group of “experts” and parents are going to think is the right decision. The shades of gray in parenting choices is so vast you can’t nail parenting down to the scientific method. Unfortunately, all the “expert” parenting articles on the vast web is mostly just succeeding in making all parents feel inadequate and incompetent even when we’re doing the best we can. Thanks, experts, for your advice, but I'm going to continue to believe I know what's best for my children.

                                     So yes, these little monsters are a handful at times but come on doesn't it look like we know what we're doing???

 

 

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Time for "Our People"

 

Time for "Our People"

As a kid you watch and at times mimic your parents. Though as we get older there are times we resist them and their philosophies and life teachings, before we realize it all that time with them shaped and molded us and before we know it we become extensions of them. We don't know when or exactly how it happened, but as we move forward in life we can look back and see how all those things we loved and resisted about our childhood experiences influenced the adults we become.

Now as an adult raising my kids I often wonder what are the things-positives and negatives- that will influence them in who they become. Though I could manage a list of the negative influences I worry about, the positive that I often hope to have one of the greatest impacts on them is their commitment to their "people".

Every year about March or April we start our rounds that tend to take us up through the New Year. January and February is our "down" time at home. Some wonder why I keep our schedule so full but when your "people"-family and the friends that are like family- are scattered across the country- it takes some planned effort to hit them all and some several times a year. So we load up as a family and hit the road for sometimes no more than a two hour one night trip and other times for a two day drive, week plus trip. When we are home we have the friends we've made in the little town we've made our home we like to hang out with and our Bmore family that's been here with us since the beginning.

In March we went north five hours to spend a weekend with my husband's family; in April we went west where I not only got to spend a week and Easter with my family but had a dinner out with my cousin before her second chemo treatment, an evening sitting on my sister's deck with my best friend since the fourth grade, and as almost always when I'm home an evening drinking and chatting with one of my very best friends from college. In May we had an impromptu celebration for one of our bmore friends' birthdays, spent an evening around a fire with some of our local friends, enjoyed a visit with a cousin I don't get to see very often, and to kick the summer off we headed to Shenandoah where I got to sit outside and have a much needed heart to heart with a girlfriend of mine that lost her cousin recently. In June we got to go up to New York to see my mom's family that I was long overdue to see and enjoy a night of celebrating wedding bliss with cousins I don't get to see enough. In June we headed back west where unfortunately my time to catch others was short and missed for some, but my kids got a full two weeks in with their cousins, aunts, and grandparents while my husband and I got some much overdue time alone. July will be mostly quiet with hopefully some Sat nights spent catching up with local friends.  In Aug we'll head the five hours back up north to spend with my husband's family, and then our little family will head out to spend a long weekend at the beach. In the Fall we'll hopefully get to make a short trip down to visit our VA friends again this year and spend a weekend camping with other friends of ours we only get to see about twice a year. Then we'll get a weekend away with some old college friends of my husbands for a weekend before spending Thanksgivng and Christmas with each of our families again.

Whether it's the effort we put into making the time for the people that matter to us or the effort to plan time that's just for the five of us away from the to do lists and responsibilities where our number one focus is to just enjoy each other's company, I hope it molds my kids to see the value in committing to whoever "their people" may be (which better include us in our old age!).

We live in a highly distracted world these days. I LOVE social media. It does give me the opportunity to maintain relationships long distance. As a mother God knows I love text messaging as it allows me to carry on conversations with friends without them realizing how completely distracted I am by the chaos that surrounds me most evenings.  But those conveniences could easily convince us that it's okay to miss the dinner out with my cousin, the deck night with my fourth grade bff, the late night conversations sitting in front of the street I grew up on with my college bff, or the long overdue heart to heart with my friend that lost her cousin. No I don't get to catch everyone as much as I'd like, but the opportunity to connect with them in person rather than through the computer or phone is something I hope my kids remember to value. Time is fleeting whether it's my children's childhood slipping by or our parents and grandparents getting older. The older we get the more we understand how fast life can change and how unfair life can be in how much time everyone has here.

I want my kids to see this more than how big the houses are that we live in, the cars we drive, the highs and lows of our careers. I want them to see this time away with their immediate family or time with their extended family and friends is some of the best medicine for their soul. We all need the break from the demands of work, home, and life in general. Though technology makes us think we can stay connect to one another, the late night chats in person or the dinner conversations are always better. That time to connect, laugh, and create memories is something we all need in our life.

I want them to know in the end it's not about the money we made, the things we owned, even the places we went or the things we accomplished. It's always about the people. Life is always about the people love.

 

Why I Left My Kids Behind for My Marriage

Over my past eight years of marriage as parents I’ve watched other parents leave their kids behind with family for anywhere from a few days to weeks to take trips or true vacations alone with their significant other. I’ve often caught myself looking at them in two different ways- one in envy that they got to take a trip without their kids and two- how selfish of them to take a trip without their kids. But as the first few years of motherhood started to close in towards a decade of motherhood one of the most valuable things I started to learn was just as there has to be balance in motherhood on so many different levels that also applies to the balance between our selflessness and selfishness. We’re all so easy to condemn the one that appears to exercise too much selfishness and praise the one that exhibits so much selflessness. But there’s hidden danger in selflessness I’ve found. To give and give and give of ourselves to our careers, our kids, our homes, and everyone else but ourselves leads to resentment, anger, depression, and a sense of loss- a loss of ourselves.

I have maxed myself out too often, thinking the more I can load and manage on my plate the “better” I must be. But more is almost always a false illusion of better. But really even though my juggling act may look impressive on the outside sometimes it’s a racetrack of collision on the inside. Too often I think I need to be in the fast lane, knocking one thing after another off my to do list, and around and around I go each day, tackling a new lists of obstacles and to dos. Sure more times than not I get it done. But as I was racing around the track, more times than not I’m leaving too many things I just mulled right over in the dust in my rush to getting ahead to the next thing.

Between my sometimes highly stressful job, the demands of a house, three kids, even two pets, and just everyday life marriage too often comes at the bottom of the list and is the thing left in the dust on my race around the obstacle course that is my motherhood life. Between myself and marriage those two things get tossed back and forth with being last on my things to take care of. The work we have to put into our marriage is some of the hardest work we’ll put into our lives-even harder than raising our kids I believe because we love them unconditionally just as they love us unconditionally- but the love of a marriage is a choice. A choice we have to make over and over again past that initial “I do”.  But just as marriage is the hardest work it is also the easiest and too often the first work we abandon over and over again. We abandon it for our careers, for what needs to be done around the house, for many of life’s ongoing responsibilities, for our own personal interests and pursuits, and probably the most for our kids because as parents we put their needs above our own more times than not. Disney likes to convince little girls that marriage is the finish line but it is really just the starting line.  The true work to happily ever after is just beginning with that “I do”.

Here’s the thing I've learned about marriage. It’s so easy to think it doesn’t require more attention than it’s getting sometimes. When I look at my marriage I see a great team. We’re great at raising kids, we’re great partners at managing the day in and day out work of running our household with balancing our two careers, and though I think we rock as a team I’m not so sure how good we are at marriage sometimes. We don’t get much time alone. We have no family around for hundreds of miles, and with three young children we rarely spend the money to get a baby sitter for a night out. Our kids end up in our beds more times than not. We’re both busy and often overwhelmed with our responsibilities at home and work that by the end of the day we're too tired to put much effort into ourselves or each other.  

 Though we’ve left the kids twice before in seven years of parenthood, about a year ago we decided we needed to make getting away alone more of a priority. In the Fall we took a short two night trip alone while we left the kids with my in laws and then for our ten year anniversary we planned eight nights away to Hawaii while we left the kids with my family. We’re hoping to get away again this Fall again for three nights. I know I’ll get two reactions for this- those that will cheer us on for taking these trips for ourselves and tell us not to worry about the kids and those that will be like I use to that will condemn us as bad parents for leaving our kids to take a vacation alone. That mother that I was a few years ago would totally have condemned me, but for the mom that’s sitting there unsure if it’s the right thing to do for her kids because that’s what I wondered I want to say just stop right there. Don’t think about the kids for a minute. Think about your marriage. Just your marriage and nothing else. What could a 2-10 day trip do for your marriage?

Would it give you some alone time without kids sleeping in between you? Would it allow you to sit at dinner and enjoy live entertainment like you use to without the kids whining that they’re bored or have to go potty for the fifth time since you left the house? Would you be able to venture out on some excursions or into a place you couldn’t normally go because it wasn’t kid safe or appropriate? Would you be able to reconnect with each other like you use to so many moons ago before kids came along and at times between you?

Here’s the thing- your dinner conversations might still be about the kids. You might end every day talking about what each kid would have loved and hated about the day you just had. You are going to miss your kids at times. Maybe more than they actually missed you. But you’ll glimpse a little bit of who the two of you used to be before you became partners for life in this parenthood thing. So drop the kids off with family whether it be for a long weekend or a full week and take the trip with your significant other. Do it for yourself and your marriage. They both deserve you to put them first for a time. The to do lists, the responsibilities, the work, and yes even the kids can wait.  

My Recent Post to my Mini Me

To the Child That's Just Like Me

The Lesson of the Poop Emoji

Does the tween phase start at like age 8? The emotional drama of mine lately has me cringing and wanting to curl into the fetal position in fear for the pre puberty/puberty adolescent years ahead. And my eight year old has always been my easiest child?!?! So if she's becoming a parenthood challenge now what does that mean for us with the other two?!?!

Parents that have been there and survived, how do you not lose your S*&T and patience for the next ten years and then just as we're reaching the golden years with her and her sister not far behind we'll be starting all over with the boy?!?! Is that easier or harder? I'm kind of scared to know.  Either way you should just lie to me and tell me it is easier.

She thinks I'm like the meanest mom ever anyway because I make her empty the dishwasher, put her own laundry away, and clean up her room. Even though some days she'll do it without any complaint; other days she tells her sister how I make her feel like the maid. Yeah, I had a good laugh at that one. I'm pretty sure I was the one rolling my eyes that time and told her just wait until motherhood. I deal with other people's kids' attitudes without much choice in the matter these days if I want to keep my job so I have little tolerance for attitude from my own kids but I'll give her a little credit. I am pretty hard on her and do hold pretty high expectations that probably forget the fact that she is only eight. But I cannot stand when people lack accountability and can't clean up after themselves or do their part so one of my life's ambitions is not to send another one of those people out into society. So her and I butting heads isn't really any surprise but twice now the attitude has even reared it's head with daddy !

Yesterday her dad took her and her sister to see Wonder Woman which I think they enjoyed but I wouldn't really know because the attitude was all over her pouty face when she got in the car because her dad kept telling her no on spending her money. Every time we go to the store and in yesterday's case the mall the girl digs through her piggy bank and brings a little purse hoping she can talk us into letting her buy some toy. She wanted this poop emoji thing and her dad told her she didn't need to spend her money on a poop emoji. What the heck does a kid need a poop emoji for??? Somebody explain this to me. Then she wanted some other things but of course I got the biggest laugh out of
the pouting about no poop emoji. Rather than share what was nice about the movie she rather chose to pout the whole way home in which case my husband then also got irritated with her poor attitude and lack of gratitude for even going to the movie. Mind you this is the same girl who was overly thankful and told her daddy so for taking the time to take her to the father/daughter dance a few months ago. Where did that girl go???

Then tonight I told her I was going to put the $100 I borrowed forever ago back in her little savings account, and she of course holds her hand out and says, "Just give it to me." Haha. Not happening, kid. As soon as this kid has a quarter in her pocket she's looking for ways to spend it. I then go on to tell her how that's the start of her savings that she'll hopefully build up herself later to buy herself a car when she's 16 or 17, and she says, "It's my money. Why can't I spend my money the way I want?" Me of course being me replied with, "Why do eight year olds have to have opinions?" Like, seriously, they're only eight why do they have to think for themselves already. I'm all for self sufficiency as soon as possible but arguing their own opinion so soon? (

We all kind of chuckled at that but it left me thinking. First, I thought this parenting this was suppose to get easier? I think it just changes difficulty. Two, whether it's her piggy bank or her savings account that I'm still not letting her touch until she's older and a bit wiser it is her money. However, how do I teach this kid the value of money? Financial responsibility is huge in my book of succeeding or not succeeding in adulthood so if I can't send her out into the world financially responsible then we have failed as parents in some way.  She and her sister are definitely use to me saying no to things because of my own money habits; which is partially why she sneaks her own money to the store because she knows she won't talk me into spending my money on useless toys.  I get that she's young and again the expectations might be too high and she'll learn as she gets older, but in the meantime the dramatic pouty attitude of not getting her way lately is about to make my momma crazy come out.

Find the Blessing

My thirteenth year of my career and twelfth here in Maryland draws to a close this week. I know by now I have to take the bad years with the good years. I know this; yet I still let the rough ones like this past year drag me down into a dark hole.

I have never felt as pulled in two different directions with my job and personal life as I have this year. Each year the job gets more demanding than ever, and as my kids get older I feel I'm actually needed more at home than ever before. I have never taken off as much time as I did this year without being on maternity leave. Between I think seriously three water issues in the house this school year; about 10 doctor appointments for Lincoln to follow up with his heart diagnosis and possible TS diagnosis; elementary school events; my own health with PPD, pneumonia, and having to have oral surgery; our bad luck impending on the sitter with water issues and sickness, a family death that took me out of town and another out of town trip home for my sister's first baby; and a five year old that what we thought at first was the flu with three different times over the course of a few months of puking may actually be signs of migraines on top of  the stress of the job that so many others in my school and district felt in overwhelming waves this year or that we've been left in uncertain territory about my husband's job position twice now since February for next year due to budget concerns and him being funded out of Title I funds it's been a mentally exhausting year that ended with my dear cousin being  diagnosed and treated for breast cancer. But in one week this school year ends and I get possibly my most needed vacation ever. Hopefully it's the positive reset I need. I need to be able to go back to work at the end of the summer without the crazy anxiety I am ending the year with.

I've tried so hard to be there for everyone that needed me, but too many times it always felt as if I was missing someone or something. So many things got overlooked and missed, and I know as a mom, wife, teacher, and even as a writer I'm going to encounter criticism and disappointments. At some points this year though it just felt like blow after blow.

I've avoided writing much lately because wallowing in all these negative events of the past year just seemed even more depressing so I've avoided writing. Something I haven't done much of in the past five years. So yeah, it's been a shitty disappointing year. It didn't go anywhere near the way I had hoped when I headed back to work after my amazing four month maternity leave. But you know what. Forget the negativity. It's time to turn it around. Someone that I find inspirational once took all the things that were dragging her down and turned them into a blessing so here goes.

So yes, the water issues in our house are a HUGE pain in the ass, but the blessing that I am choosing to see instead is that we have this house in this small town community we love out here in the country something we and our children all love.

Though I am again faced tomorrow with the dilemma of skipping out of work early again to rush the hour home to try to catch an end of the year event at my daughter's school, the stress and anxiety I'll feel about leaving when I should be staying after to sell yearbooks it totally worth it to know how happy and how much she appreciates me making it there to see her. The blessing is in her and all the amazing things she does.

All the time off to run my son to all his appointments this year was as time consuming as I feared it'd be but the most amazing blessing in that is he is doing AMAZINGLY well and is completely on developmental track without any signs of seizures or further benign tumor growths. Though this kid has caused me so many sleeplessness nights the past two school years with worry over his health and then his reluctantance to sleep when I went back to work, the blessing is in him finally being here and healthy with us and being the perfect final fit to our family puzzle.

As much as it saddened me to tell my grandfather good bye on my birthday, I'm comforted in knowing he lived a long life, is now with the loved ones he's been so anxious to see for so long, and am so thankful he got to meet his little namesake, my son, before he passed.

Even though we've been jolted awake in the middle of the night to a puking kid all over our bed and I've tried to catch puke in my hands again even though I know that doesn't work, hopefully she did just have bad luck and got this year's stomach bug three times while the rest of us never did, the blessing is just this girl and her overabundance of love that she always seems to give when I need it most.


Though I had a PPD episode that knocked me down, ended up with pneumonia, finally had to have oral surgery to remove my wisdom teeth and then ended up with nerve damage that messed my tongue up of all things for three weeks, and I am going to have to finally give in and check into getting a hearing aid next week when I see my audiologist because my continued hearing loss really is starting to cause professional and personal problems the blessing is I am overall in good health and have even over the past year managed to keep up with working out 3-5 times a week every week (except 4) the past year which is huge for me since entering motherhood.

Though these jobs have been a major source of stress for both of us this past year, the blessing is in that we have them and they provide financial stability for us now and security for our future. That and we've gotten great support from our superiors with so much of the craziness that has gone on this year.

Though we've had to take several unplanned days off throughout the year because our poor baby sitter encountered way too much of our bad luck with her own water issues and sickness and now deaths too the blessing of course is that we have her and her family in our life.

One of the biggest-if not the biggest disappointments of the year- was learning my cousin was diagnosed with breast cancer. But she's kicking cancer butt and the blessing is she's going to come out the other side of this even more amazing than before she faced off with this monster.

There is so much to be thankful for, and that's what I have to choose to see right now. I don't know what's going to happen from here in the next few years, but I keep telling myself to have patience and faith. Despite the fact that I've felt like one woman trying to do it all this past year, I haven't been doing it alone as one of my other blessings amidst the chaos of the year is my partner in crime. Though we may have butted heads a time or two I am impressed with how much better we've gotten at handling the tougher, rockier moments together as a team than how we use to in our younger years.