Helping my kids embrace their "fuck thats"

If you ask my mother, she would probably tell you that even as a young child, I was very in tune with my "fuck thats." (Suffice it to say, I wasn't always the easiest kid to handle.) 

I had (and have) strong opinions and wasn't (and am not) scared to tell anyone what those opinions are. I don't try to knock people over the head with what I think, but if a discussion or debate comes up, I'm not a shrinking violet. 

When I was a kid I hated going to church and made zero effort to try to shut my mouth about it. I let Mom, Dad, my brother, the priest, god, and the devil know how I felt. But I kept going until I was 24 years old (which is about when I learned not only to say my "fuck thats" but also act on them). 

As a teenager, I hated messing with my hair so while other girls had their long locks, I got mine cut at a barber shop. I said "fuck that" to looking like every other teenage girl. 

Despite coming out the way I was, when I had my own children, for a short time I thought of myself as an artist, rendering in clay what my children would become. I would shape, mold, and produce these amazing kids.

I quickly learned that 1. I don't know what I'm doing and 2. they are who they are from the moment they are born and while I can do some things to guide them and provide them a solid basis on which to form, I am not the artist that creates a child. 

At the same time, I also began to resent the idea that my child was an extension of me, both for myself and my kids. Just as I was a person beyond being a mother, my children are not little Carries or little Ds running around. They may have similar things in common with us because they share our genetic code, but they are not us. To not see them for who they are is as wrong as people seeing me only as a person who has produced children. 

N loves to shop, and I despise shopping. It isn't an activity we do together. But we both love reading, so we talk books.

G loves to play video games, and I have zero interest in them. It isn't an activity we do together. But we both like films, so we watch them together. 

M loves.... I'm not sure, exactly. We're still working on activities we do together, but he enjoys being snarky, and I love his snarkiness. 

Recently N and G have been in situations where they have felt like someone is trying to make them into something they aren't or get them to do something that doesn't align with their desires. 

For the past several years, the popular thing is for college students to do "study abroad" for an entire semester or multiple semesters. It can be a cool opportunity, but N doesn't want to do it, yet she feels some pressure from classmates and even some teachers to do it. So we talked about why she shouldn't feel badly that this isn't something she is interested in doing. 

She would rather travel after college when she can feels like she can have total fun and not worry about fitting in schoolwork between visiting new places. Doing a semester abroad is her "fuck that," and it is totally fine if she doesn't do it. 

I had encouraged G to join Beta Club or National Honor Society this year since before long he will apply to college and for scholarships. I figured these groups are the least time-consuming things he could probably get involved in at his high school. He thought about it for a couple days and asked if I was going to make him join one of these organizations. 

"I'm not going to make you do anything beyond go to school and work to the best of your ability which is A and B work," I responded.

Forcing him to join an organization that he has zero interest in doing (his "fuck that") would cause both of us endless grief, so why do it? I was president of my school's NHS when I was a senior, but he isn't me. Would it possibly be beneficial to him to join? Maybe, probably. But would it be beneficial for him to be forced to join when he absolutely doesn't want to? No. 

It has occurred to me on occasion that when my kids ask me a question, and I respond with "I don't care" they may take it as "My mom actually doesn't care," but I try to help them understand that things like what clothes they wear or hairstyles they have or interests they pursue (provided they are legal) doesn't matter to me as long as they are doing what they like and not hurting others in the process. I didn't care about field hockey one iota but I supported N when she played (and complained about it too if for no other reason than to emphasize how much I freaking loved that kid because I did "the sports thing" to support her). 

I think they have learned that mom "not caring" about a lot of trivial things means that I do care about who they are an awful lot. 

If someone did to our free time what we do to kids' free time

Imagine an adult working a job. Maybe this job is 25 hours a week, maybe 40. It doesn't really matter. When this adult is not at work, she or he is experiencing what is called "free time," the time they can use however they wish. 

Most adults, because they are adults and have responsibilities, must spend part of that time doing stuff that keeps them alive: cooking, shopping, cleaning. 

But the rest of the time is theirs to read, play video games, sleep on the couch, watch Golden Girls, play sports, smoke pot, whatever. 

Now imagine if someone said to this adult:

"You must do something productive with your free time even if you don't want to. You have to join a rotary club or a politically-minded group. You have to go to book club three nights a week. You can no longer just enjoy your free time as you want. You have to engage in something that will 'improve' you in some way."

How pissed would you be?

I expect most adults would be furious. How dare someone tell them what to do with their free time?

And yet, it seems to me that parents often do this with their own kids. 

I think the reasons for this are complicated:

First, it can be hard for parents to understand that their children are not smaller/younger mockups of them: "I played football and love football, and therefore I want my child to play and love football." And maybe the parent encourages (pushes) the child into something that the child maybe feels meh about. 

Parents have also bought into this notion that if their kid hasn't set the world on fire by the time they are 17, it's over for them. Like kids have to pack in all these experiences before they go off to college (or to get into college), and if they don't....god help them. If our kids aren't little mockups of us, they are moldable blobs of clay that we are shaping into the next big success or the next awesome scholarship recipient. (The media, colleges, and high schools promote this and feed on the anxiety.)

[Personally, I think if you peak at 17 you're in for a rather disappointing life. I had a good high school experience but FFS, it wasn't the be-all and end-all.]

Of course, there are some kids who legit want to be involved in everything. I was that kid in high school. The paragraph next to my senior photograph is probably six inches long with all the stuff I was involved in. But by the time I got into college, I didn't want to join shit because I was freaking tired from the previous four years. It just wore me out rather than making me a bigger, stronger, faster version of myself (like the Six Million Dollar Woman). 

I'm so much more than I was in college, and I want to scream it from the rooftops to quit putting unnecessary pressure on young people. 

It seems pretty important to let kids be kids, even if it means they don't join stuff, if all they do is go to school, pass their classes, and come home (like my sons do). If G and M wanted to join something, I would encourage them, and sometimes I ask if they'd be interested in something I may hear about at their school, but when they say "no," I don't insist. 

D was never a joiner in school and sometimes I think he regrets it. And maybe one day my sons will regret it, but it is THEIR LIFE and, honestly, their problem. I would rather them be mad at themselves one day because they didn't get involved than be resentful of me because I made them do stuff they didn't want to do. And, lord knows, I don't need a fight. 

It's hard enough to get them to do the basic stuff like wash their hair and wear deodorant and reply back to their grandparents' text messages. If they don't want to do judo or be in the chess club or play with the orchestra, that's fine. 

The kids who are joiners will join, and you won't have to twist their arms to do it. The kids who don't want to join may not want to join now (on your time table), but they may do it one day when they are inclined. And then there are some who will never join anything and will be perfectly fine with it, even if it makes their parent's eye twitch. 

A first for this family: ISAP

When I was attending Catholic school, ISAP referred to In-School Atonement Program, but now it is In-School Adjustment Program. Whatever the acronym, my kid has it. 

Last Friday, before I'd fully pulled the car in the garage, before the motor was off, M had his head sticking out the door. Now this isn't necessarily unusual; he sometimes pops his head out if he has just beaten me home. The clue that something was up was the verbal diarrhea that was coming out of him.

It went like this:

M: "Did you get a call from school?"

I knew something was up. 

Me: "No, why?"

And so the long story of what went down with his table of goofy-ass 7th grade boys proceeded. It involved a milk carton and a fist. And stupidity. 

The entire time he was telling me the story of the assistant principal and his Social Studies teacher and what they said to the boys, I was thinking to myself:

YES! YOU ARE AN AWESOME FUCKING MOM BECAUSE THIS KID LISTENED WHEN YOU SAID THAT IF YOU EVER GOT A PHONE CALL HOME FROM SCHOOL ABOUT SOMETHING STUPID HE DID, YOU WOULD SHOW UP AT SCHOOL AND SIT NEXT TO HIM. HE KNOWS YOU FOLLOW THROUGH ON STUFF SO HE TOLD ON HIMSELF. THIS IS A VICTORY! 

When I didn't hear anything from the school on Friday or Monday, I wasn't sure what the situation was, and he wasn't sure what the situation was, but I could tell he was upset about a possible pending disciplinary measure. So I emailed the AP.

And after chatting with her, I talked to M about when he would get his time in ISAP and whether he really wants to get in trouble for other kids doing stupid stuff. (Technically, he touched the milk carton since the boys passed it around the table. He said he barely touched it because he knew it would explode if he hit it hard. I said to him, "You touched it; you're an accessory. You gotta do your time."

I'm hoping that this is a one-off because I was getting pretty used to coasting with my kids. I'm too old and tired to deal with 13-year-old boy hijinks. 

10-year-olds, abortion, child abuse, and CPS in my yard

I admittedly live a privileged life. My parents did not abuse me or neglect me in any way. I was sheltered, and I shelter my children from harmful things as much as I can within my own home. 

We don't have the news on nonstop. We don't yell at our children. We have never spanked our children. We don't do drugs or abuse alcohol and there is no domestic violence in our home. My husband and I have gotten therapy on our own and together as a couple to ensure we provided our children with love and stability. 

Within that secure foundation, though, I have thought it wise to let them experience the world. They go to public school and meet all kinds of kids. They can read whatever they want. They have phones and Internet access, and I encourage them to talk to me about what they see or hear and educate them to verify everything. They do not get in trouble or lectured for asking questions or being naturally curious. 

But their home is secure. 

This week, I got to see up close and personal what it is like for kids whose lives are very, very different from my children's. 

Without going into detail that would violate privacy, I can say that child protective services was in my yard this week. I can say that I was a witness to the sadness of a mother who chooses a man over a child (which is probably because she is abused too), a woman who loves her child as best she can but has problems of her own and is not meeting her child's needs. 

Most importantly, I saw a child who is in need of a lot of counseling because the adults who are supposed to protect her and love her are not doing it in the way it needs to be done.

With this on my mind, it makes me furious to read about the rigamarole over the 10-year-old in Ohio who got a medication abortion for 6 weeks of pregnancy that resulted from rape by an adult. Having looked at the face of a neglected and emotionally abused child this week IN MY FUCKING FRONT YARD, I take the side of that 10-year-old over a 6-week fetus that is the size of a Chiclet piece of gum.

How do I know a 6-week fetus is the size of a Chiclet? I looked it up. 

And it INFURIATES me that people are choosing something that doesn't speak and has no consciousness and cannot eat or breathe on its own OVER the life of a 10-year-old child who can walk, talk, eat, shit, and feel. 

How can we do this to living, breathing, outside-the-womb children?

As we approach graduation

We have several weeks until N graduates from high school. While she may be counting down, I am neither counting down nor wishing time to stop and keep us frozen in amber to avoid seeing her move onto the next stage of her life. I am going about the days as I always have.

In general, I have a difficult time stomaching sentimentalism and cliches. I have a difficult time with the public proclaiming of how wonderful kids are and how proud we are of them. Primarily, this is because it is all curated. It is all, in its own way, lies. Or if not lies, then abstentions. 

But this is the season of that sort of thing, I guess. 

People have begun asking me "How are you?" in relation to having a senior so close to graduation, and I emphatically say, "I am fine."

Because I am.

Maybe I would be a little sad if I didn't have six more years of middle and high school with her two younger brothers, but by the time they get through, I will be oh-so-ready to be the fuck done with all this. 

Maybe I would be a little sad if I hadn't savored the time with her when she was young. 

But I blogged about it and I journaled about it and I took photos of it and I took videos of it, and I was there for all of it. 

Why would I need or want to stay there forever?

If I put on the rose-colored glasses of sentimentality, I would forget that those times when she was young were not all wonderful.

The times of having to help do projects in elementary school. Ugh.

The times of being woken up in the middle of the night. 

The times I got puked on.

The times I had to go to so many freaking preschool birthday parties. Geez Louise.

The times I played Barbies until I thought my brain would pop out of my ears from sheer boredom. 

Maybe I've read too many Buddhism books, but all, including my children's childhoods and teenage years, is impermanence. 

And I am far more comfortable embracing this fact than feeling the sticky fingers of sentimentalism encroach on me. 

I think for many parents their overwhelming feelings about watching their child graduate have almost nothing to do with the child; it is about the parent. About losing control (as if they had it to begin with). It is about their own death looking them in the face for a moment. They are often sandwiched, as I am now, between parents who are aging, either planting feet into their 80s or already knee-deep, and children who are no longer under our thumbs. 

It is a strange and uncomfortable place.

Well, this got dark.

But that darkness is why sentimentality is allowed to swoop in. It feels better, I suppose. It is warm and fuzzy and maybe makes people feel better temporarily. 

I don't like its texture, though, any more than I like the uncomfortable of knowing the circle of life keeps turning. The clock hands have moved me to a position I remember my parents being at when I was 18. The hands for them are closer to midnight. The seconds continue to tick by.

The most comfortable place is the here and now. This day. This moment. Not the countdown of days until graduation. Not the wallow of time gone past. 

Why milestones aren't sad (to me)

Despite being a bit of a downer personality, I don't usually feel sad about my kids' milestone events. 

I am not in any way, shape, or form sad that N's field hockey career is OVER as of next week when we have the banquet. Yes, she did it for seven years. Yes, she had fun doing it. No, I will not miss seeing her play field hockey. 

I didn't feel sad that my son got promoted to middle school and we left behind the elementary school where we had been for 12 years. It's a great school; my kids had awesome experiences there. But there are other experiences to be had.

The benefit of having three kids is that by the time the last one does anything, I'm kind of "over it." I've done whatever "it" is so much that I'm thrilled to not have to do "it" anymore. 

The truth is, I don't understand the boohooing people do when their kids reach milestones. These milestones are a GOOD thing, a reason to celebrate, a time to move on to the next thing. It seems strange to me to waste away time in nostalgia, where all the shitty gets glossed over as if it was delightful. 

I am thankful to have spent years at home with my children, but I have yet to slide into nostalgia about it. I can watch a video of their cuteness but also remember the sleepless nights and the poopy diapers and the whining over stupid stuff and the toys everywhere and the speech therapy and occupational therapy and endless doctor visits and surgeries and how much shit I had to pack just to go to Target with them. We had to have SNACKS to drive to the freaking post office to mail a letter. 

To lament the milestones is to get stuck in a haze of "It was wonderful in every way" when it wasn't. 

Last year during quarantines, it pained me to see so many people complain about their kids being home all the time. I have already started to see and hear people do the "My kids are going to college and now I'm sad because they are leaving" thing, and I want to yell, "YOU HAD A YEAR OF TIME WITH THEM THAT YOU COMPLAINED ABOUT. YOU WASTED THAT GIFT." 

Now maybe I don't have a heart (it is possible). 

Maybe I'm not in touch with my feelings. 

I am not sad about N graduating from high school because if I want to hang onto this time it means never letting her move on. It means trapping her in a lifetime of 17-year-old-ness to satisfy my own weird feelings. That's the kind of stuff they do to princesses in all the crappy fairy tales; trap them in amber so they can watch time go by without them. 

Plus, I have every reason to think that my relationship with my kids, which is good now, can get better or at least differently good. My relationship with my parents has grown and changed as we have grown and changed, and that has been lovely. 

And besides all this, time doesn't give a shit that you want to hang onto it. All the belaboring of time moving on is just a waste of the time that you have. 

Teaching children to advocate for themselves

I don't want to be handling my kids' stuff when they are adults, so when they enter middle school, I start handing over the responsibility keys to them.

This is a slow process and is somewhat dependent on the personality of the child. I can't do with G what I did with N. M has practically raised himself and is ahead of both his siblings despite being several years younger than each of them. 

Handing over the responsibility keys doesn't mean I throw the kids to the wolves. There are times when my kid doesn't know what's going on, and I need to insert myself into the process. 

But if it is a matter of questions about an assignment or something of that nature, I encourage my children to email their teachers themselves.

When they first learn to do this, I don't just say "Email your teacher" because they don't know what to say or how to say it or anything. They are still under the impression that adults know what they're doing. I try to gently disabuse them of this notion. 

Today, I had to help G advocate for himself.

He was assigned a group project yesterday (Friday) to be done and turned in on Tuesday. It is a long holiday weekend. 

Now I have issues with this assignment from the outset. An assignment over a holiday weekend is plain idiotic.

Also, group work at the start of the school year is usually dumb, especially if things aren't specifically laid out for kids like "Jane Doe is in charge of writing slide 1 and Bob Smith is in charge of slide 2."

(I know this from having assigned things without being very clear and specific about roles and responsibilities; I've learned from my own stupid mistakes.)

I asked G if he and his group had specific roles. He said no.

He said that two of his group mates weren't even at school on Friday and the other had to leave early to complete MAP testing. So G's group on Friday consisted of himself. 

G said he was just going to do the entire assignment, to which I responded, "No, you absolutely are not."

Maybe I'm just at the end of my rope with the pandemic "group assignment" in which some of us have done ALL the work to try to end it (vaccines, masks, social distancing, etc.) while others have done whatever the fuck they want, but I'm not about to agree to G doing an entire project so that the other four members of his group can get an A or a B or even a C on his back without contributing in the least. 

I tell students all.the.time when I sub that giving other people the answers is giving away their brain work for free. And it doesn't help the other person in any way, shape or form. 

So I watched as G wrote an email in which he explained the situation to his teacher and asked what she recommends he does. 

I'm hoping that he gets a reasonable answer back. If not, that's when I'll need to come into the picture and do some advocating.

I was wrong about sports

Many years ago I read the novel Jack Gance by Ward Just. It tells the story of a young man who goes to Washington, DC with idealism and a desire to make change, but the political machine slowly wears him down. He eventually gets sucked in by that machine that rolls over anyone who tries to push it off its course. If there is a lesson in that book, it is that you either conform or you get out. 

Or the machine crushes you. 

I've never been good at conforming. It was one of the reasons I stopped attending Catholic church in my twenties; I would attend out of a sense of obedience/shame and would leave with a massive anger-induced headache every time. My mental health won out, and I got out. 

I couldn't change the church, so I left. (Eventually, I found a church that allows me to be me where I can attend without feeling like my head is going to explode in rage.)

Last night, after a conversation with D, it occurred to me that I have been wrong about this whole sports thing ever since N was in middle school. 

I've written once on this blog about my failed sports "career" as a kid, but it wasn't even failed. It never began. What I realized even then was that sports was focused on results, on winning. People were a means to an end, not an end in themselves. That is what sports is; to try to change it would be like trying to change the spots on a leopard. 

But for me, people have always been more important than winning. 

In a real sense, sports rejected me, and so I rejected sports back. Some people react differently, I suppose. They continue to love a game that didn't love them. They continue to want to be part of the team.  There is an entire field of sports psychology, and I can't even pretend to know all the iterations of people's feelings about sports, winning, losing, self-esteem, etc. But I imagine that for every kid for whom sports gave a leg up, there are as many or more for whom sports let down and so they found something else that they feel a meaningful part of. 

I can find parallels between why I left the church and why I rejected sports: both were an exclusive club. If you didn't meet certain requirements or qualifications, you were out. Or you might be part of the team, but you weren't really part of the team. 

And, of course, there is a need for requirements. I want there to be requirements for lawyers and doctors and mechanics. I don't want some idiot willy-nilly sawing on my brain if I have an aneurysm. 

But religion and sports seem different to me with sports being far below religion in importance. The state of my conscience is way, way, WAY more important that tossing a ball around. 

[I mean, when I really think about it, there is a whole lot of angst/drama/anger/money spent over tossing a ball, and it seems like something Samuel Beckett should have written a play about. But he stuck with religion, which is also often absurd.]

Eventually I found a church that has an open-table. This doesn't exist in sports at least not that I have seen or found yet. The goal is, above all else, winning. 

And my conversation with D last night made me recognize that I have been wanting sports and asking sports and demanding that sports be something it is not, and I'm in the wrong for that. 

My view about sports seems the exact opposite of what sports enthusiasts think. I see it as exclusive and full of drama and half-truths and a whole lot of mind-fuckery. I cannot reconcile "We are a team; let's work together" with "We want to win and will isolate/ignore you in order to do that." Those same ideas are at work in sports, and they seem, to me at least, to be irreconcilable. 

Perhaps the problem is in the openness of joining. "Come join the team" is often followed by "But we're only going to play the same people over and over again." 

For some people who love the sport, I guess that is good enough. 

For me, it has never been good enough. (And gives me a deeper appreciation of women who have said "F you" to the Catholic church's refusal to allow women to become priests.) If you are good enough to be on the team, you are good enough to play. And if you're not good enough to play, coaches should have the guts to cut people, even if it makes the players sad (as it did me when I was a kid). They are going to be sad and/or angry anyway, but especially if they are being told "We love you; we're a team" but then actions are different. 

[As much as I felt rejected when I didn't make the A, B, or C basketball teams as a 10-year-old, it wasn't as bad as what I would have experienced if I'd made the team but was too shitty to actually put on the field/court.]

I truly try to understand sports dynamics, but after seven years of watching my kid play a sport (and I only watch when my kid is actually on the field), I have gotten nowhere. 

Another thing I suppose I've always known about sports but never specifically focused on is that it is a power imbalance that sometimes makes people do things they wouldn't otherwise do. I understand now how Larry Nasser was able to abuse girls. Parents may have spoken amongst themselves, may have wondered or questioned or felt uncomfortable or been downright angry. But to fight and fight and fight means their child loses something valuable to them. Their child would lose an opportunity, and their child would be stuck in a quagmire of uncomfortable. I have seen this dynamic play out in real life so I get it now. 

Parents may be angry as hell and speaking loudly and proudly amongst each other but quiet as mice when the coach is around. I both love and hate that I cannot just be silent, that I can't just let it go, but what I really hate is that other parents allow me to speak out without speaking up with me. I understand why they don't, but I hate it anyway. 

Even parents whose child plays a lot put up with stuff they despise so their child will continue playing a lot. 

I'm fairly sure someone who loves sports would read this and call it a major case of sour grapes, and they aren't wrong. But if I were to care about sports at all, I would care for the underdog most. I would care for the kids who aren't the all-stars but who just enjoy playing. (And yes, this is what my kid is like, and so I know I have that bias, but I would have that bias anyway based on who I've been my entire life.)

How much shrieking and gnashing of teeth would occur if coaches decided to bench their all-stars and only play the other kids? How quickly would those same parents who think everything is great when their kid plays a lot suddenly find themselves angry and frustrated? When we're in a privileged position, we can  quickly call someone else's frustrations sour grapes. "They're just angry because their kid isn't playing much," and they are right. If they put those shoes on their own feet, they would feel the same. 

They just don't have to wear those shoes. 

As a rule, politics doesn't change and religion doesn't change and sports don't change. The power imbalance won't allow it. And if it happens, it takes many, many, many people working together.

Somewhere along the line, I forgot that I cannot change the animal that is sports. It can bend me if I allow it, but I cannot bend it. 

People and their dumb natural consequences

When N was little, maybe 3 or 4-years-old, I told her to put her coat on when she went outside, and she refused. Threw a duck fit. 

I could have fought her, wrestled her into her coat, but I just let her go outside and then enjoyed myself immensely when, with teeth-chattering, she came back into the house a short-time later because she was freezing. 

This is now how I feel about people who have refused to get vaccinated for COVID. 

I am a skeptic by nature, hence the reason I have never fallen head-first into a pit of religious faith or absolute belief in anything. (There is some irony here when those who put belief above all else must experience with their every sense the pain and suffering of COVID infections themselves before they will understand it is a serious fucking problem.)

I have reached a point where I absolutely do not have any compassion for people who have remained unvaccinated and are now sick. The biggest problem I have with them is their utter selfishness that is now keeping health care workers exhausted and delaying hospital care for people who have other non-COVID life-threatening issues. 

I don't pretend to know what Jesus would think, but I hope he would give them a good lecture and maybe flip a table at them. 

Recently a parent explained to me why she is not making her child get a vaccine. I did not ask; she offered this information willingly and unprompted, and I tried to keep my eyes from bulging out of my head. 

She said, "She's old enough to make her own choices."

I think I said, "Oh," because, again, trying to keep my face in check. 

I didn't give my children a choice because if they do get COVID and require care I AM THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO FORK OVER THE MONEY TO PAY FOR IT. 

I AM THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO HAVE TO PUT MY LIFE ON HOLD AND BE AT THE HOSPITAL.

I AM THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF MY CHILD IF SHE IS HOME SICK. 

I AM THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE MY CHILD TO VARIOUS DOCTOR VISITS SHOULD IT COME TO THAT. 

Besides my child who gets sick who will suffer most, I AM THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO SUFFER. 

And why would I choose to suffer in this way and be inconvenienced if I don't have to?

My senior does get to handle lots of her own stuff. She gets to pay her own car insurance. She gets to decide where she goes to school and what she wears to school and how she handles her schoolwork and what she wants to eat as a snack when she gets home. 

But as long as I'm the responsible party for her health care, she doesn't get to avoid a vaccine that has the ability to make COVID a largely preventable disease. 

What makes this statement by this parent even more mind-boggling is that this person's child plays on a sports team. There's no I in TEAM, or that's what sports-minded people say. And yet, not getting a vaccine could put the team and their games in jeopardy. Focusing on the "I don't want a vaccine" means the "TEAM could be harmed."

I am tired of being angry. I am tired of watching people do the dumbest possible things and reap the harshest consequences from their dumb choices. And I am mostly tired of knowing that because of their dumb choices so many other people are suffering. 

The relief (and joy) of ending things

Endings aren't nearly as exciting as beginnings.

But they are immensely freeing. 

I started to think about the "relief of the end" today after taking M to his 6th-grade orientation. His entry into middle school means our family has said "So long" to the elementary school we'd been a part of for something like 12 years. 

It did not make me sad for him to move on. 

Perhaps some of this lack of sadness was because we didn't have the "traditional" promotion ceremony or any of the before-times banquets and things, although I generally dislike that kind of stuff so I don't think I felt anything besides relief that we didn't have to do it (one of the rare positives of COVID). 

Last weekend when I saw local church members doing a service project at schools to spruce them up in anticipation of school starting, I didn't feel sad that I wasn't pulling weeds at the elementary school with these volunteers as I had in years past because I was the school's "Beautification Chair."

This lack of sadness made me think, too, about the freedom of releasing myself from connections with people I didn't really know or like or have any real reason to be connected to. 

Yes, I know this has been something I have mulled over here before. 

It is my blog....so I chew on what I want. 

Let's blame it on the obsessive part of my OCD. 

I think what can and does happen to moms who spend years not working outside the home is that they sometimes confuse their own needs with their children's needs. As my children made friends, I became friendly with many of my children's friends' parents. Some of them I truly became friends with, but the vast majority were never my friends. We didn't socialize outside of our children. We don't really know anything about each other. I would never dream of calling them if I were in a bind. 

But sometimes I have mistaken them for more than acquaintances.

Even though I am well beyond the angst of teenager and young adult life, adult friendships or acquaintanceships or connections can still be a little confusing, especially in our social media world. 

It occurred to me that one of the most wonderful things about my children moving on is that I can give myself permission to move on as well. 

I do not have to stay connected (however loosely) to people I truly don't know or admire or like or care about. 

In many cases I no longer remember why we were connected, to begin with. 

(That doesn't mean I wish them ill, but I want to be connected to people I admire or find funny or who make me think. I want to be connected to people who don't say or do or post stupid things unless they are being sarcastic or ironic in which case I probably like them. I want to be connected to people who I feel are kindred spirits.)

And there is a special category for people whom I don't see often but who make me feel happy when I am around them or when we do speak. I won't pull my mask up and put my sunglasses on and turn the other way down the grocery store aisle if I see them. These are the people who I think would probably come to my parent's funeral or at least send me a card in the mail to let me know they were thinking of me. 

Something remarkable I also consider is how much I have changed from the time N started at the elementary school to the time M left. 

I went from "friending" everyone and wanting to know everyone and be involved to being extremely selective about who I friend (and downright delighting in unfriending people). Maybe it is because when N started elementary school I was a stay-at-home mom of three children under 5 who had absolutely zero time for myself or life beyond my children. Whatever friends I had were going to come through my kids or I simply wasn't going to have friends. 

The ending of things in terms of M's schooling has provided me some happiness I didn't expect to find there. 

Fostering money management in kids

Lord knows, I don't have all the answers to how to raise kids mostly because each kid is different and what works for one doesn't work for the other two children I have. 

What I have learned is that you have to pay attention and find the incentive that your kid needs. 

Some of this "paying attention to incentives" comes from subbing. I had one boy who didn't want to clean up his area. He had papers on the floor and food wrappers. I tried encouraging and reminding until someone said there was a spider in the room and this particular child freaked out. 

DING! DING! INCENTIVE FOUND.

I said, "You know, bugs really love messes. All those papers on the floor give them plenty of places to hide, and they love to eat the food residue that is on wrappers and on the food debris under your desk."

This kid cleaned up his area not because he wanted to please me (he did not care), but to avoid bugs. 

N and M are natural savers, while money in G's pockets burns figurative holes. 

I realized that I had to very deliberately talk about why he needs to save (because it causes me anxiety when he doesn't because it makes me worry he is going to grow up and live in my basement forever). 

I also had to put timelines on him until he can get better at putting timelines on himself and control his spending impulses. I have to incentivize saving because he doesn't have a natural tendency to want to do this. I'm hoping that after years and years and years he won't need me actually saying stuff to him but will have internalized it. 

He likes video games, so after he buys some, I don't let him buy for several months. However, if he is able to save up his money to a certain amount, he can then buy something. No saving=longer wait to buy another game. More saving=shorter wait. 

Since N now works a "real" part-time job, G and M are the primary neighborhood petsitters in their little business. They earn great money doing this. I have never given them an allowance, although this summer I am paying both boys for any chapter books they read ($5 per book).

G wants more money, and G isn't too interested in reading chapter books. I'm hoping payment for reading (which I've never done before) might be the incentive he needs. 

One of the issues D had with G saving up and spending his money was that he bought things that D thought were stupid. D said, "He doesn't even finish these games." 

My response was: "You buy a brand new iPhone every couple years and spend over $1,000 ON A PHONE which I think is stupid. You don't want someone telling you that you can or can't buy with money that is yours. Same applies to G."

The truth is I hate shopping so most everything that anyone buys I personally think is stupid.

But that's not the point.

The point is that the kids learn to save their money so they can buy without debt the stupid things they want. 

It is important that the kids know that mom and dad aren't going to buy them everything they want. If they want to drive, they pay the insurance and gas. If they want something beyond the basic food, shelter, clothing that we provide they can buy that stuff, too. We don't look at Christmas and birthdays as the time to get our children their heart's desires. 

My kids aren't perfect, but they have learned fairly well that no one can have everything they want the exact moment they want it. 

I try to remind them that when they see friends who have more than we have (and FFS, we have a lot), those kids have both moms and dads who work full-time. They are reminded that we don't know what those family's credit reports look like, how much retirement savings they have, how much overall debt they hold. We only see what they have; we don't know how they paid for it or if they paid for it or whether they'll be paying for it for a really long time. We don't know if the kids going to X,Y,Z college are in debt because of it. We don't know if these families pay outright for their cars or have loans they pay each month. My kids are reminded often that what they see is only half of the story (and that's generous). 

The pandemic plus-side (and there are some)

I am a progressive person.
I believe in improvement and making things better and enacting quick change if necessary to make improvements happen.

I do not believe that "things were better" in the past.
If they were so great, why did we strive to get to where we are now?
We only think things were better back when because we aren't living back then.

I sometimes fall into this, especially when I see how much time my kids are spending online since we are not doing much because of COVID. 

When I find myself doing this, however, I try to whisk myself back in time and maybe even do a little Google research.

Sometimes I only need to go back to my own childhood, when my mother thought me watching MTV for hours on end would lead to the atrophying of my brain. 

(Actually, she and my dad wouldn't get cable so I would go to my friends' houses and watch MTV there for hours on end. And she always wondered why I never wanted to invite friends to my house.)

And yet, here I am, with a master's degree and having read 68 books so far in 2020. 

Or I go back to the late 1800s when children my son's ages were working in factories under horrific conditions. 

Or working all day long on a farm doing back-breaking work. 

Or I think to children in other countries who are working in cobalt mines under horrific conditions like right now, in the year 2020. 

Last week I participated in an online lecture about tuberculosis, and I would not want to go back to when TB was epidemic.

Or polio was a thing.

Or smallpox was a thing. 

It is with this in mind, this movement forward and not focusing on what the past was like, that I look at non-traditional instruction for 6 weeks  (the rest of the year cause I know these fools going to pool parties and keggers are not gonna help the virus go away.)

There can be some real positives from online school for my kids such as N being able to work more and earn money to put toward car insurance or car purchase or college expenses. Or G not having to be around other dumb-ass middle schoolers all day (because he doesn't love middle schoolers even though he is one.) Or us being able to do some weekend trips around the state because we have greater flexibility. 

N actually read more books during the spring NTI than she normally does when she is at actual in-person school, and that isn't a bad thing. 

We all aren't running in 15 different directions all the time, which isn't a bad thing. 

NTI means families don't have to buy new uniforms or clothes or shoes or backpacks or lunchboxes or folders and pencils and all that other stuff. 

NTI means some people are finding more time to exercise since they aren't having to drive kids to and from school. 

NTI means kids are maybe having to be adaptable and flexible in ways they haven't had to be. 

And maybe, ultimately, that will be ok and even beneficial for them over the long-term. 

(I have to bite my tongue every time I see a parent comment about their kids potentially not having a prom or a ring ceremony because this historic pandemic event is the time to make things different which will be a f*ck load more memorable than say my own senior prom, in which I desperately wished while.I.was.actually.there that I wasn't there with my longterm boyfriend at the time who I wanted to break up with but didn't until I got into college.)

I mean, at 46 years of age, if my prom or ring ceremony or graduation actually mattered, I WOULD NEED TO BE SEEING A COUNSELOR. 

I think parents are getting way hung up on a lot of the things that I just don't know that they need to be getting so hung up on right now. 

(I also just finished reading The Poisonwood Bible, and if that novel doesn't make you look at American excess and convenience with a more critical eye, then something is the matter with you.)

Of course, I say all of this fully understanding that I am the people who benefit from American excess and convenience, from an upper-middle-class perspective and part-time employment that allows me tremendous flexibility to assist kids with schoolwork while still doing my stuff. 

That doesn't mean NTI in the spring was always fun or seamless, but it got done. 

And I do think school districts need to think very much outside the box to help kids who don't have home support or who are below grade-level. 

NTI could be an opportunity to micro-focus on the kids who aren't at grade level, perhaps. 

I never consider myself an optimist, and I certainly don't now (especially as it concerns how we're dealing with COVID), but I do think in every situation, there can be positives even in the midst of negatives. 

The meanest, cruelest mother in the world, and I don't care

I am making N pay for her own car insurance.

Someone call CPS.

(I have received a little flack for this, and not just from the soon-to-be 16-year-old.)

I am expecting N to get a part-time job this summer (like 20 hours a week) to help make money to cover car insurance and gas, which leaves her 148 other hours during a week to do whatever. Assuming she sleeps 9 hours per night, that leaves her 85 hours per week to do whatever else she wants to do.

(FYI: I do not currently have 85 hours per week to do whatever I want.)

A summer job will do a number of things for her in addition to helping her pay for her insurance:

1--She will see that working in a job can blow, and there is nothing more motivating than working in a job that sucks to help you never want to be in that position again and make sure you keep your grades up and take education seriously.
2--She will see that even though mom and dad make XYZ gross, there are taxes taken out. Every young person needs to experience the magic of taxes for themselves.

For the past year, I have been having her give me money from her neighborhood pet-sitting business and babysitting to put towards it.
And, the truth is that I will help her a little if she is close but not exactly there.

I'm not the parent who gives her children everything their hearts desire.
They are fed, clothed, housed, and their medical needs are taken care of.
They are expected to go to school, do their school work to the best of their abilities, not be assholes to the general public, and gradually take responsibility for themselves because I don't want to be paying for their shit when they are 30.

I do nice things for my children, like buying N Elton John concert tickets for her birthday, which I think is profoundly generous.
But I don't buy tickets for N to go to Elton John, Forecastle, Bourbon & Beyond, and every other concert that comes to town.

Having my kids be financially responsible in little ways gives them some power and freedom with the goal that they will, one day, have total power over themselves and freedom from me and their dad.

As an adult, I would hate to have my parents paying for stuff because that gives them a voice in what I do.
If my parents offered to pay for my kids' education, that means they get to have an opinion about where I send them to school.
I love my parents, but I want to do what I want and make my own choices.
And I want that for my children.

Expecting them to slowly take responsibility isn't hurting them.
In my opinion, the parents who pay for everything for their children are hobbling them in ways they don't fully realize. 

Advice to my daughter: Be careful what you wish for

In July, when N tried out for field hockey, she hoped to make the varsity team.
She got her wish.
Like many wishes, she is realizing that the "dream" of the wish is different from the "reality" of the wish.
This is similar to the "dream" of career, marriage, and babies; what you envision rarely pans out to match reality.

N has not played in the last two games, and last night it brought her to tears, especially since her grandparents came to the game.
Now, N is not alone in not getting as much playing time as she wants; there are at least 5 other girls on the team who haven't been getting much time.

It is hard for me to walk this tightrope with her.

The part of me that abhors sports just for this reason is saying (inside my brain), "Told you so. This is why sports suck. It is win at all costs. Winning is more important than confidence-building or skill development or general enjoyment of the game."

When she complained about playing so many games in a row, I did actually say to her, "Well, N. This is varsity. You wanted to be on varsity, and now you are."

There is another part of me that knows she isn't playing up to how she did last year.
The untrained psychologist in me thinks this is due to 1.) her ankle injury and 2.) being back on a team with girls she played with in middle school who are really good and really aggressive.

Even if her ankle isn't actively hurting, she knows that spot is there, and she is being careful with it. But careful isn't an asset in a game; focusing on an ankle takes your mind off the ball.

And N seems to have reverted to that "let the other girls lead" thing that she had in middle school.
Last year, on JV, she was able to assert herself more.

I think N is letting her own head get in her way.

I have tried (gently) telling her that.
You can't tell a 15-year-old much.

As my children get older, I am, more and more, missing the days when the worst problem they had was that I gave them a green sippy cup instead of a blue one, and that was the sole focus of life's disappointments.
Even though N's problems then were as annoying as N's problems now, I could at least do something about them. 

The lice learning experience

If you think when you're 45 years old, you won't need your mom anymore, you're wrong.
You will probably need her to check your head for lice on a Tuesday when your son has lice on a Monday.

If you think you have learned all there is to know when you're 45 years old, you would be wrong because on a Monday your son has lice.
And you've never experienced that before.
So you jump down a rabbit hole of online information and get very confused.
Should you pack your unwashable items in a sealed bag for 3 days or 30 days? Which is right?
Should you dry your pillows in high heat for 30 minutes or 45 minutes? Which is right?

You send your husband out to get RID, and you start what becomes a seemingly never-ending hair-combing extravaganza.
You put everything you own in garbage bags and seal them with packing tape.
You could build a fort in your dining room with all the bags.
But you don't because you're too busy combing hair and disinfecting the combs afterward.

You end up on the phone with your friend, who you know has experienced lice once, and then she tells you her family has experienced it 7 times.
And she got valuable information from a mutual friend who has a Ph.D. in public health.
And when she suggests you check in at the lice clinic, you do.

So by Friday, your heads are clear.
But you keep combing anyway because when you're 45 years old and you have anxiety, a little extra combing is what you need to avoid drinking all the wine in the city because you've now got a little PTSD from those approximately 96 hours of lice.

"Hey, Kiddo"

I recently read a fantastic graphic novel by Jarret J. Krosoczka called Hey, Kiddo. It is intended for kids in grades 7-9, which is older than both my boys, but I'm encouraging them to read it anyway.
I'm also throwing it at the 15-year-old.

I'm encouraging them to read it even though it has language and mature content because the story it tells is so fantastic.
If I allowed the language and mature content to keep them from the book, they would miss such tremendous depth.

The novel is about Krosoczka, who was more or less "adopted" by his grandparents as a toddler because his mother was a heroin addict who went to jail for acting as an accessory to murder. I listened to an interview of Krosoczka by Terry Gross, and he summed up his grandmother with the story of what she said to him when, as a third grader, he told her a kid was bothering him.

She told him to tell the kid, "Go shit in your hat."

Not everything resolves perfectly at the end, and Krosoczka came from a middle-class background, so he wasn't dealing with other hindrances that affect so many other kids whose parents are addicted.
What I liked about this book is that it offers hope.
One or two or numerous bad things don't have to mean a life is written off as all bad.

I recently saw something floating around on social media about talking to your kids about certain topics, and I think reading is similar.

If I let my kids read a book about heroin addiction, I don't think it is going to make them become heroin addicts. It might, however, make them see how devastating addiction can be. It may make them decide not to experiment with drugs.




I've talked to my kids about sex, and those talks have not been comfortable for me.
They've been skin-crawling uncomfortable for me, which I say as I shake off the willies as I type this.
But my hope is that being open, even if it made me uncomfortable, will help my kids to know that they can come to me about ANYTHING.
I won't yell.
I will listen.
I will guide them.

Someone cuss on the internet?
Let's talk about it.
See porn?
Let's talk about it.
Violence?
Let's talk about it.

If anyone is going to talk to my kids about these things, I think the best person is me.

Me too, raising sons and daughters, and Kavanaugh

I've been on a bit of a Twitter news detox, which has mostly been the result of not having the time.

I decided to play a bit of catch-up and am now reading about a second woman coming forward with information about Brett Kavanaugh.

I wrote nearly a year ago about my own very minor, very tame #metoo story.

Tonight, my parents came over for dinner and somehow we got around to talking about the priest situation in Pittsburg, PA and the Blasey Ford/Kavanaugh story. My mom said something along the lines of, "Why do people wait so long to speak out?"

So I told her about the boy in Florida.

I'm 45 years old, and I told my mother about this situation dating back 30+ years.
To prove a point.

Most people don't talk about unpleasant things.

A couple weekends ago when I was feeling suicidal after G's latest diagnosis, I went to the store and had people ask me, "How are you?," and I answered, "Oh fine," even though I was this close to tears for the first 48 hours post-diagnosis.

When I went through my nervous breakdown in 2004, I didn't tell everyone I knew. I felt ashamed and weak and was too damned depressed to talk about it. I told people on a need.to.know basis.

I didn't start blogging about it until 2006, after two solid years of therapy and medication.
It is 2018, and I'm STILL NOT OVER IT. I'm still blogging about my issue. I'm still working through how to live with the inside of my own head.

And this is a medical condition over which I have zero control.
Imagine how well people "handle" being sexually assaulted and the fear and shame that go along with that. The feelings that maybe, just maybe, they could have avoided it (even if they couldn't have). The feelings that they could have fought harder, screamed louder, taken a different route home, gone to a different party.

So I want to hear Blasey-Ford speak, and I want to hear any other women who come out about Kavanaugh's past behavior.

But here's the kicker, and it makes me mad to even have this thought, but I think it is because I have two sons, and I know how unbelievably stupid things get when more than one are together.

Even though sexual assault is totally wrong and boys should be taught better and the penalties for boys should be harsher, I cannot help but have the wonder, the thought, "What if it was an isolated incident? Should a man be ruined for one incident that happened when he was a stupid teenager?"

Would I want my son to be ruined for one incident?
And as soon as I have that thought, I think,
"What if one stupid teenage incident ruined my daughter's entire life?"

PTSD from lacrosse info session

Prior to N making the field hockey team, I had told her she could only do one sport per year.

Call me a lazy, unsupportive parent, but last year wore me out. She did field hockey from July-October and then began conditioning for lacrosse in November, which continued until lacrosse season actually began in the spring.

At the time, I didn't mind her starting in November because she had never played, and I felt that she had a better shot at making the team if she knew something about the game.

As much as I complain about sports and what it does to my schedule and wear/tear on my car, I'm proud of N for playing field hockey. She enjoys it and is playing better and better. She plays it for the fun of it, and while she doesn't like losing, she isn't terribly competitive.

In the grand scheme of life, a game loss means very little.
For that matter, a game win means very little. 

With her enjoyment and the exercise she gets from sports in mind, I told her she could try out for lacrosse but that we are taking November and December OFF.

So the other evening, I went to the parent info meeting about lacrosse.

It can be summed up like this:

Spend all your money to fundraise for lacrosse between right this second and February, however, we will only have two teams per gender; plan on your kid not making the team. And if your kid expects to make it, they have to LIVE LACROSSE. Family, school, lacrosse---that's it. 

(The family, school, lacrosse thing is verbatim from the coach.)

The coach also talked about how some kids who are now playing fall sports come to the conditioning lacrosse is doing now, after having practiced their fall sport for two hours.

My initial thought was: "Are you fucking kidding me? My kid is not going to another hour-long practice after a two-hour field hockey practice because her body needs to REST." Not to mention her mind needs to rest. Not to mention that her family would like to see her occasionally.

Somehow, by mentioning the dedicated players who come to lacrosse after their fall sports, it felt like the family, school, lacrosse thing was really "ALL WE CARE ABOUT IS LACROSSE AND SO SHOULD YOU!"

I am, personally, a big, BIG fan of MODERATION.

Work, but don't work to the point that you fail to enjoy other things.
Exercise, but don't exercise to the point that you don't do anything else or you develop injuries from it.
Play, but don't play to the point that you don't work.
Read, but throw in some movies and music and art and travel and other things that make you a well-rounded individual.
Eat in moderation. Even too much water all at one time ain't great for your body and can make you puke.

This lacrosse info session did not, to me, seem very moderate.
It felt rather intense, and I'm so intense inside my own head that I try not to add to that intensity outside my head.

I have decided and informed N that
1. these folks are bananas
and
2. she can condition in January and try out in February
and
3. I'm not fundraising until her ass makes the team.

If this makes me unsupportive, selfish, and not a team player, I'm happy to claim that title.

Death by a thousand cuts

Yesterday at the high school, they did a suicide prevention seminar. Students had to complete a sheet of paper in which they marked whether they felt suicidal and felt the need for help, either today or immediately.

I was helping to collect these sheets and sort through them so that students could be seen by counselors.

It made me think about my own suicidal thoughts. 

I am not actively suicidal (by which I mean making plans), but suicidal thoughts are what I would consider "normal for me."

I am, at this moment, and since this afternoon, having suicidal thoughts.
This is normal, even though it is not "normal."

What is not normal, for me, is when people say they don't understand suicidal thoughts or have never had them.
I do not understand how this is even possible.
How strange to live a Pollyanna life.
My go-to when I feel overwhelmed is to think about death, about not being alive.
I don't intend to think about death or want to think about death, but that is where my head goes.

What brought on these thoughts is that G is being put on a new medication, but this is for ADHD and will be in addition to his OCD medication.

On the one hand, this came completely out of the blue.
His doctor said she had noticed symptoms last time but wasn't sure.
However, she felt like it was very obvious and concerning this time during this visit, and she wants to get ahead of it instead of letting it go and worsen.

And yet, this is not out of the blue because when G was 6, and he went through a complete evaluation, I was told he had symptoms that seemed ADHD, but weren't strong or clear. I was told to not be surprised if he was diagnosed with ADHD in the years to come.

Well....color me surprised.
And obviously forgetful.

So this was the cut #1001
that follows the cut Wednesday, finding out that I have to have a crown replaced but my insurance won't pay for it because the craptastic dentist I had before didn't do it right two years ago (and they only pay for a new crown every 5 years).
that follows the cut from needing to pay the 2K tuition for this grad class.
that follows the cut of M needing another ear surgery in November.
that follows the cut of taking the grad class and all the extra stress it involves.
that follows the cut of Dad having a leaky heart valve and maybe needing surgery to repair?
that follows all the other daily little stressful cuts.

I felt weepy and all out of sorts (which I still sorta feel)
so I went up to G and asked him for a hug.
I told him I felt sad and asked what he was watching.
And this is what he was watching in his room.

The kid I worry about all the damn time watches inspirational videos of kids with all sorts of issues that feel far heavier and worrisome than OCD or ADHD.
Kids who have brain surgeries and can't communicate at all verbally and have super short life expectancies.

It got my head screwed on a little straighter than it was.
It reminded me that mental health is unseen but still a huge struggle that is different from physical disabilities but a struggle nonetheless.
It reminded me that he (and I) have value even in the midst of our issues.

Reading Kafka and raising kids/teenagers

I'm reading Franz Kafka's Letter to My Father.
It is heartbreaking if you maintain any connection with your "child" self.
I think every parent should probably read it because it will make them think about how they interact with their own children.

Of course, I am a skeptic, and this is only Franz's letter that was never sent to his father.
We don't get Hermann Kafka's letter to his son.
Franz likely had what all people have in bits: myopia when it comes to their own irrational childhood thinking.
I was guilty of it as it concerned my own parents, and it took some therapy for me to come to some realizations.
Parents have their own baggage and anxieties that impact their children, and children often think they are the cause.
They are not the cause, but they experience the effects.

Still, just because a person has children doesn't mean that person knows anything at all about raising them.

I certainly don't claim to know all there is to know about raising children, but I do think my training as a teacher helps, as does reading lots of books about parenting.
Not forgetting my "child" self also helps.

I'm sorta a "kid" magnet, and I've never entirely understood why.
Kids just seem to gravitate to me.

I could say it is because I talk to them as I talk to anybody; I don't talk "down" to them.
I could say it is because I'm funny.
But I wonder if it is because they see something vulnerable in me that they relate to.

I've never quite lost that vulnerability that has seeped through my pores since childhood.
I've never quite worked through the doubt and the uncertainty and the fragility.
I sometimes wonder if kids sense that in me---a kindred spirit, of sorts.

As a teacher and a parent, I do not pretend or claim to know everything.
I am the first one to say I'm not an expert or the single voice of knowledge or the fountain of all that is holy and right about anything.

I try to be as forgiving of children as I wanted adults to be forgiving of me when I was a kid.
Sometimes I fail miserably, especially with my own children.
But I apologize and I explain myself, including my fears, my anxieties, the reasons why I am throwing a fit about whatever I'm throwing a fit about.

I have never liked nor respected the "I'm the adult, therefore you do what I say" logic.
I want explanation.
I want understanding.
Then, I may not like what you are asking me to do it, but I will do it with less grief because I know where it is coming from.

I'm also a firm believer in picking your battles very, very carefully.
If you insist on making every hill one you're gonna die on, you're going to be dying (and suffering) a lot.