What I would Change in My Parenting Life... if I could

Don't we all go through this?

If I could do it ALL over again I would...

I would have had children sooner. I think if I were ten years younger, then I'd be a bit more of a  "lively mom" ... I would be more of a "hip mom".

I would have had more children. I have one son and one daughter. They are so different in their needs and social lives. Yet I sometimes wish that they didn't have only each other.  I would have liked them to have one "of their own" to talk to, to be a confidant. One boy for his brother and one girl for her sister. Then again, they might have ganged up on us or created massive-scale family wars.

I would have had smaller, more intimate birthday parties. I got a little caught up in the whole birthday party gamut for several years. I was able to pull back early on with my son, and go from gang buster get-togethers with renting bouncy houses to smaller, museum trips and now to video-game overnighters. My daughter was a little tougher, but we were able to do an overhaul on the idea of a birthday party by offering up a special lunch for her and a friend or a mini-shopping spree at a favorite store: both of these much less expensive in the long run. However, this year,

There can be only ONE.... Ninja Mom?

Working on a cookbook/diary/survival guide, and was tentatively calling it "Tales from a Ninja Mom's Kitchen". Catchy huh? But wait! There's DOZENS of Ninja Mom products out there - blogs, a cool t-shirt, a website - wow. Just when you think you have an original idea, that  internet thing just sets you straight! Sigh. So, I think I'll stick with C-Parent for now. Or not include it. But something will happen soon.

Classrooms Create Memories for the Heart

We had two wonderful parents come to our faculty meeting today with loving ideas on how to increase the 'specialness' of the Christmas season. As a Catholic school, this idea is not new, but the proposals set forth by these incredible women met with an overall --- fluffy but intermittent silence.




It was awkward but let me be specific, based on my observations and my own feelings: holidays in our classrooms are automatically used by most seasoned teachers as a rare opportunity to be "human with our students" and gather them in, like so many souls, and experience some treasure of humanity: discussion on the birth of Christ, the unique holiday traditions of other cultures, or simply a joyous craft or project which explores our faith.  The classroom is the world, and we are creating citizens of the global environment and I know that for myself and so many others, we painstakingly create "moments of life" or "teachable moments" and build them around significant holidays, like Christmas. I'm certain public school teachers do the same thing. It was a difficult thing to accept: we were being given, no,prescribed, approaches on "what to do" with our students.




One teacher shares her experiences of being a child of immigrants with her students and the traditions from another country infuse her holiday spirit. Another teacher carefully crafts a holiday experience based on Santa, Gold Coins and a Christmas story. Yet another teacher uses the holiday for older students to reflect on the meaning of Christ and Christmas in a deliberate, planned way. SO much is shared within classroom walls that students do not share with their parents. As a Catholic school teacher, I am proud to say that our teachers invest not in money, but in souls, and our approach toward education proves that, everyday, every holiday.




Again, let me emphasize, these parents are incredibly supportive of the school and do so many things for us. We are very grateful. But their offer of providing an "idea" of "what to do" about the holiday season underscores the public ignorance of how complex the classroom is, and how many teachers put their heart, soul, blood and who knows what else, into creating successful, tiny, internal communities of tradition, story, love and memories with their students.




There is no solution for this, at the moment. I am only sharing.

Tradition Rears Its Ugly Head

Children create traditions out of anything. If you serve them ice cream on Friday once, it becomes Ice Cream Friday. If you hug them before you send them to bed, they moan “Where’s the hug?”  the next night. What if you go to the beach on the Fourth of July?

Or if you buy them a candy bar while grocery shopping? These events or items quickly become the special treat or memory they are entitled to, until you can argue successfully that it’s only on certain days or times or paydays. Relatives can drop by and the movie plans are scrapped, a tire blows and the money for Pizza Night gets sucked into car repairs, etc. Children do not like inconsistency, so it’s a tough battle sometimes to get them understand that “things happen”. 

Occasionally, though, it’s also true that adults fall into a rut of maturity that begs “things happen… so give in, just ‘go with the flow’”. This resolution is an adult rite because we tacitly agree that we have no control anyway. It makes us adults a little pathetic and useless in the imagination department. Yet, recently, my son reminded me recently that there’s a yin to that yang.

My son woke up late on a Saturday when I was organizing a speech tournament for our school.  He felt bad about that, so he guiltily helped me at the tournament.  This emotion, I think, was the seed of despair which exploded later in the day.