Make your life easy. Make the teacher happy. If you want to buy your kids’ teacher a gift for the holidays (and this is optional), by all means go ahead and do so, but avoid the “Best Teacher Ever!” mug or any mug for that matter. In fact, it’s best to avoid anything made of ceramics, anything personalized, and anything that the hundreds of Yahoo Stores that sell personalized gifts tell you you should buy.
Yes, this includes soaps and candles, whether personalized or not.
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A real-life friend recently asked for my advice – she wanted to know how come Israeli kids are so much more open to eating veggies than American kids seem to be.
I actually don’t know if this is still the case in Israel of today, since the junk food disease is spreading around the world and has arrived in Israel too unfortunately. But certainly, back when I was a kid, I ate whatever was served to me, which was identical to what the grownups were eating, and that included plenty of veggies.
So it got me thinking, that by assuming our kids would hate vegetables, we are actually conditioning them to do so. Is it possible to raise kids without making a fuss about healthy foods, serving them the food we eat ourselves, avoiding “kid friendly” stuff, and raising vegetable lovers?
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1. I love you.
2. You are beautiful.
3. As you grow up, you will hear many times that you are not beautiful. Teenage boys, or mean girls, might laugh at you or say mean things about your appearance. If you let them, these casual comments can cut deep and leave permanent scars. In addition, many companies will work very hard to convince you that you’re not beautiful enough, or that you need to look a certain way to be beautiful. Don’t believe them. They are wrong, and their messages are self-serving. The mean girls want to put you down in order to feel better about themselves. The companies do it to make you buy their products.
4. Be prepared to work hard. It’s the only way you will succeed. It’s great that you’re smart and beautiful, but that’s by the luck of the draw. The reason I’m proud of you is not your beauty or your talent – it’s your willingness to work hard and improve yourself.
5. Be very choosy about the people whom you hang out with. Whether friends, partners or spouses, choose people who make you feel good about yourself. If they put you down, drain your energy or if you feel worse after being with them than before, stay away from them.
6. Find yourself a good man. A “bad boy” is called bad for a reason. He is bad for you. Find someone who will treat you with love and respect. In other words, to borrow from your own preteen world, everything that Lady Gaga sings about when it comes to love (“I want your ugly, I want your disease”) – do the opposite.
7. Respect yourself and your values. If you stick with what you believe in, and don’t allow others to influence you and pressure you to do things you don’t want to do, they might moan and whine, they might threaten to leave you, fire you, not be your friends anymore – but ultimately they will respect and admire you. More importantly, you will respect yourself.
8. Respect money. Money is not a goal in itself, but it is your ticket to freedom – freedom from financial worries, from the need to work for a living. Being financially independent gives you more control over your life and more choices, including the choice to do work that you love and to give to causes you care about. Be ready to work hard, save aggressively, invest wisely, and build your own wealth. Never depend on anyone else to “take care of you” financially.
9. Be careful. Most people are good, but there’s enough evil out there, that you should guard and protect yourself against it. From identity theft to date rape, bad things happen to good people. Being aware will not always prevent bad things from happening, but it’s the least you can do.
10. Talk to me. I’m always here to listen. I can probably help, too, if you want me to. Never think that you’re alone, or that no one can help you. Even if things are really bad, even if you think you’re alone in this, know that your parents, while not the heroes you thought we were when you were little, can be very helpful in offering perspective and in helping you out of situations that seem too complex to handle. It’s called age and life experience, and it does have value. Make the most of it.
11. If something feels wrong, if you have a gut feeling that tells you something is wrong, it probably is wrong, and you have the right to stop it. If you can’t stop it by yourself, tell me about it and I’ll help you.
12. Sometimes things can feel pretty hopeless, especially to a teenager. But even when things get really bad, there’s always a way out and there’s always a better future down the road. Never, ever give up and decide that “this is as good as it gets.” It WILL get better, I promise.
13. Forgive yourself. You will make mistakes. We all do. Learn to have a short session where you learn from your mistakes, but then forgive yourself and move on.
14. Have fun. Yes, I want you to work hard and stay true to your values, but life is so incredibly short and you only get one chance. So don’t forget to laugh and sing and dance and notice the beauty around you, and if you feel like splurging once in a while, that’s OK too. Don’t allow life to become a huge “to-do list” that you have to go through as quickly as possible. Slow down and enjoy the moment. And while you’re doing that, I’ll try to slow down too. 
In the photo: My daughters navigating a rocky path, August 2005.
Twice in the last few weeks, I’ve been thrown into parenting wars. Not necessarily Mommy Wars – just parenting wars, where parents of both genders become engaged in a subtle, or not-so-subtle, “I’m a better parent than you are” argument. One such argument was about cell phone use in middle school. The other was about our kids’ education, and more specifically, private vs. public school.
I don’t get it. Assuming none of us is abusive, we are all doing our best. And looking around me, at the parents I know in real life, we ARE all doing our best. It’s no secret that parenting isn’t easy – that it’s one of the most difficult jobs we’ve ever had. We are terrified of making mistakes, because we love our children so much, and we are heavily invested in their well being. And yet, despite the importance of this role, no one really teaches us how to do it. We just learn as we go, trying to do the right thing, trying not to mess up too much.
Parenting these days is especially challenging, since we have to deal with unprecedented advances in technology. Our children’s childhoods are so different than our own, that it’s very difficult to rely on past experiences to navigate the dos and don’ts of modern child rearing. (Do I let them use social media? At what age? And is Mark Zuckerberg correct when he claims that there’s no such thing as privacy anymore?)
Under these difficult circumstances, how can it possibly be helpful to attack another parent and make them feel bad about their own choices?
“It’s all about the attacker’s own insecurities,” says my friend, and I agree to some extent. If you’re unsure about your own choices as a parent, one way to feel better about yourself is to put another parent down. If they are worse than you are, or are made to feel worse, then you’re automatically elevated to a “better parent than others” status, right?
What a sad way to feel better about one’s own parenting!
When my kids started growing older, and questions of cloth diapering, breastfeeding and co-sleeping were no longer an issue, I was glad to be finally done with Mommy Wars. Little did I know, that Parenting Wars were not quite over yet, and as our kids get older, the topics actually get hotter – and parents’ behavior, just as hurtful.
1. You discover that the box of baby wipes that used to always be on the kitchen counter and was used multiple times each day, is all dried up. Apparently, you haven’t used it in over a year.
2. Getting out of the house is as easy as “OK, put your shoes on and let’s go.” No need to take a diaper bag filled with diapers, said wipes, snacks and toys.
3. You wake up in the morning before they do.
4. They have lost their baby fat and have become tall and lanky – in fact, almost as tall as you are.
5. They still need your approval, but friends’ approval is slowly becoming just as important.
6. They are more interesting. They ask thought-provoking questions that you no longer always have the answers for.
7. They don’t want to go to the playground anymore. That surefire way you had to make them happy, suggesting “Let’s go to the playground, then for ice cream” doesn’t work anymore. They’re only interested in the “ice cream” part.
8. Looks are very important to them.
9. Being “cool,” or at least not being “lame” or “uncool” is a top priority, even though the exact way of achieving a “cool” status is fairly vague.
10. Their love is no longer unconditional. They sometimes scrutinize you closely, and you can see fleeting disapproval in their eyes. Yes, it hurts. They might even do the teenage eye roll from time to time.
I wake up and go downstairs, head a little foggy. I didn’t get quite enough sleep last night. Entering the kitchen, I see that my husband had left me small “gifts” in the sink – the dishes he had used for his own breakfast but didn’t bother washing. “Darn,” I think to myself. “Do I REALLY need to clean up after him?”
I don’t have to, of course, but I often do. I also don’t have to clean after children who, at ages 10 and 12, are more and more capable of taking care of themselves – and of their mess. But I often do clean up after everyone, mostly because my standards of cleanliness and orderliness are higher than everyone else’s in this household, so I notice – and mind – messes that they don’t even see.
But after a long month without the kids (they stayed with their grandparents part of the summer), and then a week alone as my husband flew to bring them back, I suddenly don’t care about any of it. I love them so much, I am so happy to have everyone back under the same roof again, that I gladly accept the mess it brings and much prefer it to a pristine, empty house.
I still think it’s important that children learn to contribute to the household as soon as they can. This state of things: “I can’t recall even the mere notion of actually doing a chore ever even crossing my mind. Household tasks seemed to magically get done, and I never cared to ponder how my food-coated plate moved from the table to the dishwasher and back into the cupboard, or how the dirty clothes that I threw down the laundry chute reappeared in my dresser drawers, clean and stain-free” – this is NOT how I want my kids to grow up, although I suspect they do, for now.
I also have to admit that even if I often clean up after my husband, he does take on tasks that I much rather delegate, such as house and car maintenance.
But my main point is, that I’m happy. So happy, that I don’t mind cleaning after my family as long as they stay here, with me, forever! I’m not sure how long this blissful state of things is going to last. I suspect I’ll be back to complaining fairly soon. But for now, I SO relate to a friend’s recent posting on Facebook, where she said, “The baby birds are back, each in its own nest with its own jet lag. Mama bird couldn’t be happier.”
To my daughters,
You left a couple of days ago to spend a month with your grandparents. I’m happy for you that you get to have this experience, and I’m excited about spending the month with your dad, doing things that we’ve been doing less of since becoming parents, such as traveling, going to the movies and going out to eat.
But I am so sad!
It’s like in the song by Sinead O’Connor, “Nothing Compares To You.”
Since you’ve gone I can do whatever I want,
I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant
but nothing can take away these blues,
’cause nothing compares to you.
It’s strange, you know, because now that you’re not here, I can see how much of my life revolves around you, even when you’re not around. And I can also see how much guilt I’ve been carrying ever since I started this blogging business, which I am so very proud of, but we’ve paid a price over the past three years, haven’t we? I’ve been consumed with building this business, and even though I worked from home and was always here for you, emotionally I’ve been invested in the business in a way that made me less available to you than before.
I’ve been cutting back lately, focusing on my existing clients and being very careful about accepting new clients. I realize that I have so little time left to spend with you, now that you’re almost 10 and almost 12. Soon you’ll be drifting away, detaching yourselves from me emotionally and attaching yourselves to your friends, and that’s OK – it’s a normal process, even if a painful one.
But for now you’re still mine, and you had such a hard time saying goodbye on Sunday morning, coming back for another hug and then another, that I had tears in my eyes, tears of sadness and tears of gratefulness and tears of relief. You love me. And I love you, so much.
Sitting at my computer this morning, typing away, I realize that I am typing without guilt, without that familiar sense of urgency – how do I arrange my morning efficiently, so that when you’re back from school, I can spend some time with you? Over the past year or so I have learned to work around your schedules, waking up early to accomplish some writing while you’re still asleep, working feverishly so that afternoons can be spent together, making an effort to log off at 5pm, go make dinner and forget about work until the next day.
But it didn’t always work out this way, and as I was building my business, there were countless days when I spent 12 hours each day at my computer, writing blog posts, tweeting, posting on Facebook, and responding to clients’ emails.
“Silly mommy guilt,” says my husband, and adds that a dad – even the most devoted dad – would never feel this way unless he was truly never home and always traveling, which is obviously not the case here. But I’m a mom, and I do feel guilt. Actually, it’s not so much the guilt as being afraid of missing precious moments with you.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I love my work. I think it’s amazing that I was able to build my own business, completely on my own, and get to a place where I make a good living from it. I also believe it’s incredibly important for women (just as it is for men) to be financially self-sufficient and to realize their talents and abilities outside of home keeping and motherhood. I’m setting a great example for you. Plus, honestly? I couldn’t be a stay at home mom for longer than the five years I did it. It was great while you were very young, but by the time you had entered kindergarten, I’d had enough. I was getting bored!
So I am mostly at peace with my choices. But whatever choices we make in life, there’s always a price to pay. Sometimes I feel torn – almost physically torn, pulled in several different directions – between your needs, and your dad’s needs, and my own needs, and my work.
So here’s the plan. I will keep working, building this wonderful business that I am so proud of, doing work that I love. But I will continue to be *very* particular when it comes to accepting new clients, focusing on my existing clients, and keeping my workload at a level that enables me to work fewer hours each day, so that I can not only spend more time with you, but also be more available to you emotionally.
After all, money is nice, but you are the most important thing in my life.
My smart, funny, beautiful daughters. I love you.
See you in August.
I'm Vered DeLeeuw, a blogger for hire and a social media consultant. My social media campaigns increase brand awareness and loyalty, improve search engine rankings and drive targeted traffic to my clients' websites. Momgrind is my personal blog.
