Parenting
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Ethics in Foster Parenting
Most of the time when we think about bad foster parents, we think of the worst case scenarios, those relatively few cases where the foster parents never should have been foster parents to begin with, and the children are abused or end up dead. And those are terrible tragedies. But they are also very rare. There are other kinds of bad foster parents, though, foster parents who actually look amazing and loving and wonderful from the outside. I call these the “unethical” foster parents. Nothing they do is against that law. They often love the children they care for very deeply. But the damage they do to children is just…
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Forget “The Talk”
My theory is that puberty does not hit until kids are pre-teens/teens so that as a parent you have time to build up that relationship with them, to know them, to have their inherent trust. You have over a decade to build the relationship you need with your child for the both of you to survive puberty. Pop Tart came to us at 9. I have less than 5 years. And I have known that from the beginning. I have known that I had less than 5 years to establish a relationship in which we could discuss bodies and sex and puberty and boys and girls all the myriad of…
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Book Review: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
I am not certain I can truly write a review of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. I can tell you it is a memoir, well written, and engaging. I can tell you I chose to read it because a friend “gushed” about it on Facebook. But I cannot honestly review the content of the book, because it gets all caught up in my emotional reaction to it. Which, in a way, is a sign of a pretty great book. The Glass Castle is the story of Jeannette’s childhood with her dysfunctional parents and too functional (by necessity) siblings. My friend who loved it so much raced through and proceeded…
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Snippets
I said to someone at work last week that it was like my childhood was dying. Leonard Nimoy’s death last year hit me harder than the ones from this year, but still. Between David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and today Glen Frey, and numerous others crossing my FB page, it really is that the music and actors I grew up with are leaving this world. Of course the hardest part about all of it for me is that they are all about the same age as my parents. And while C and a number of my friends have lost their parents, I still have both of mine, and I am honestly…
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Parenting Fail for the Win??
Today was day of mixed parenting emotions. Pop Tart had a rough day, and while it is nice to still be able to cuddle her after a bad dream, that (and other) parts of the day make me afraid that she is never going to be able to be an independent adult. If she has a bad day, she thinks the rest of the world should bend to what she wants. She loses all ability to understand that she still has homework and chores and those need to get done regardless of what her day was like. She made the choice to put off clarinet practice until today, and then…
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We Censor What Our Daughter Reads
When talking about children and reading, I often come across people who make a specific point of mentioning the either their parents did not censor their books when reading, or that they do not censor what their children read. This often comes in a statement like “I was allowed to check out any book in the library, in the kid or adult section”. Personally, I think this is great, but often it is said in such a way as to imply that any parent who censors their child’s reading is one of those people who thinks the Harry Potter books are Satanic. I do not think the Harry Potter books…
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The Most Important Thing I Can Teach My Daughter
Last Thursday night, in the midst of the struggle to get Pop Tart to actually do her homework, we had to stop and ask her what was wrong. Her response was that since we got home from dinner, all we had done was yell at her, and she did not like it. The intent of this statement is obviously to get us to apologize for what is going on. This is not a conscious intent on her part. But in her mind, she is unhappy because she is getting “yelled” at, and since we are the ones doing the yelling, it is obviously our fault. She did not get the…
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Math is Hard (and that’s ok)
Sixth grade math is hard. I say this as a person who took calculus in high school and started college with plans to be a math teacher. I say this as a person whose husband has a BS in Math. Sixth grade math is hard. But before you tell me I should not say such a thing, that I am perpetuating stereotypes that girls cannot do math, that I need to think of my daughter, let me say that my daughter is exactly who I am thinking about when I say this. The math she is learning is hard. It is algebra without calling it algebra. Tonight, it was basic…
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An Open Letter to the Blogger on Scary Mommy Who Got Arrested for Disciplining Her Child
This is an open letter to the author of this post on Scary Mommy – The Time I Got Arrested for Disciplining My Child. I do not know when it was written/posted, so it might be a year old. But I saw it for the first time today. Dear Samara, You do not know me, and we will likely never meet. But I want to introduce myself. Like you, I am a mother doing the best I can. I am not perfect, far from it. And honestly most of my mistakes come around discipline. It is certainly the area where C and I are most likely to disagree. I…
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The War on Girly
Recently, in a conversation with my daughter’s sister’s mother (trust me, this is not the most confusing relationship you can get when you adopt), I made the comment that if I had had control over the situation, there would be a lot less Barbie in my daughter’s life. But, she arrived at my house with a number of Barbies and a love of playing with them, so, short of taking away some of her favorite toys for no reason beyond the fact that I am not a huge fan, I had no control in the matter. I do not hate Barbie. I just think there are better toys out there,…
