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“Safety is what we want for those we love. Autonomy is what we want for ourselves.” Hearing this quote on NPR, Pain Specialist and Yoga Instructor Ginny Hamilton recalls leaf piles and solitary play. The possibilities and perils of the darkened yard, in this month’s Off the Mat: Reflections on the Practice of Parenting.
Hypochondriac Dictionary.com defines the word hypochondriac as someone who is excessively preoccupied with and worried about their health. But really I didn’t have to look up the definition. I could have told you what that meant without even turning on the computer. You see I grew up hearing that word over and over again. One of my grandmothers was afflicted with this disorder. I distinctly remember the phone ringing at all hours… Read More
The World Can Be Tough The world can be tough. If you are soft or Pollyanna-ish, it can really do a number on you. I am beginning to believe that in our current days one of the most important things we can do as parents is to prepare, not shield, our children from the unfair and sometimes downright cruel things that take place whether worldly or locally, whether in families or with… Read More
An Awkward Dance Yesterday I saw my youngest son for the first time in five weeks. He wasn’t away at camp or on vacation, and he still lived just a mere 7 miles away with his dad. But for reasons I won’t go into here, he didn’t want to see me or any of us who lived in the little house in which he used to reside. So it came as a… Read More
What Makes a Good Mom? Do you have a running reel in your mom brain? You know what I mean. Words that you say to yourself, questions you are constantly posing, reprimands with which you punish yourself? Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I should be called Sybil. Who knows? My running reel is lengthy and complicated and persistent, and includes a pesky question that really has become my mantra for motherhood. “What… Read More
My Back and Help Please Instead of the Birds and the Bees Our teens are bombarded with images…constant pictures, messages, videos, television shows that promote promiscuity and sexual exploration. I recently ran across a particular show that glorified teen moms, and while the show didn’t sugar coat the trial and tribulations that come with parenting, the mere fact that these teen couples are on a very popular television station makes it tempting… Read More
Crazy About Being A Mom So I have been struggling with what to write this week because, well honestly, I don’t want to sound schizophrenic, psychotic, crazy, loony tony…you get what I mean. You see looking over that last few columns it sounds like life has just been peachy here in teenage boy land. But well that just not true. It truly is a see saw here, or a roller coaster, or… Read More
Guilty Mom I can’t watch the new Rice Krispies commercials. They make me sick with guilt. Do you know the ones I am talking about? They usually portray a very attentive mom and a toddler/preschooler on her lap. She is helping the child stir marshmallow into the bowl of Rice Krispies. She’s talking quietly, face beaming. The child is enraptured by his or her mama…and after watching this mommy bliss the tag… Read More
Together for Better or for Worse I used to be afraid to leave them alone—together. It seemed that every time I went grocery shopping, to the dentist, over to a friend’s house, I’d come back to what was equivalent to Armageddon. Chairs would be tipped. Food on the counter, on the table, down the stairs, all over the basement couch. Wrappers littered the living room floor, the front steps, the driveway, front… Read More
Who Am I Punishing? When I was young it was the telephone, time inside, or the dreaded television punishment that had us shaking in our boots. Three measly things our parents had to choose from to use as fear tactics to get us to behave. I can still hear my mom’s voice saying things like “That room is a mess! No telephone for a week!” This punishment never affected me too much…. Read More
It’s Memé Clean! One summer, when the boys were little… say around 10 and 7… we had quite a fly problem in the house. It seemed no matter what I did — spray, fly paper, clean, clean, clean every day — there seemed to be more and more flies bouncing off the windows and zoom-buzzing by my head, seemingly taunting me with their existence. I became obsessed with ridding the house of them and… Read More
And Then They Grow Up…. Something happened this week in my home. Something so rare I am afraid I may make other parents of teen boys jealous. But then again, telling you about this rarity make give some of those same parents some hope for the future. What I have to tell you might shake the teenage world as we know it. It is so earth shattering, earth shaking, earth quaking that… Read More
Okay, Okay… Ease Was the Wrong Word! Two weeks ago I wrote about the ease of boys friendships, but many parents privately called me out on it. They disagreed that it wasn’t as cut and dry as I claimed it to be. This of course caused me to think deeper about the topic, and I have come to several conclusions: Boys are more inclusive but they can become exclusive, just not in… Read More
Boys and Their Friends: A Drama Free Zone When I was a “tween” and adolescent girl, it was difficult to maneuver and understand the nature of my friendships with other girls. The cattiness and moodiness, the cliques and the clashes, the fakeness of friends who pretend camaraderie just to gossip behind your back made being friends with girls a maze of confusion. Most times it felt like a lead jacket of the… Read More
On Their Terms I know this is a column about teenage boys, but indulge me a minute while I talk to you about my 11 month old girl. I promise it will be a nice segue into a “boy tale.” My daughter Ila has been slow to develop physically. She was a preemie and so we kind of expected that she’d be delayed somehow. Cognitively she has impressed us with her massive… Read More
It’s ALL Mom’s Fault My thirteen year old, Gannan, is a blame contortionist. Lately when something isn’t right, no matter his actions, no matter his mistakes, he very adeptly twists, turns and wrings it into something that I did wrong. Take last night for instance, he was hungry. (Not an unusual occurrence. Teenage boys’ stomachs are colossal chasms.) Gannan: What can I eat mom? Me: Well there’s goulash left over. There’s potato… Read More
When in Rome … At 9:00 in the morning in the middle of teaching my fifth graders a spelling lesson, I had a revelation that would change the way I parented forever. As with many discoveries that are eye-opening and cataclysmic, this one started from a seemingly banal conversation about the frustrations of parenting. It was on this very morning that my colleague burst into my classroom and announced, “Great news! Timmy… Read More
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