Can I Get a Yay Mommy?

Sometimes when I’m feeling under-appreciated I shout out to my children “Can I get a ‘Yay mommy’?” like a southern Baptist preacher asking his congregation for an “Amen”. Ben and Lucy, being well-trained in this ritual, never hesitate with their reply. I love our silly, little game and the shock value of doing it in public where unsuspecting strangers witness my self-serving bit of child brainwash.

But no matter how easily I can shout out my request for adulation in jest, I have a very hard time accepting genuine praise when it comes my way. For me, and so many other women I know, it’s much easier to receive the negative.  Maybe this is caused by the burden of unattainable standards we impose on ourselves with the help of societal influences and images in the media, or maybe it's just an unfortunate quirk of my personality.  More likely it's both.  But no matter what influences this mind set, it's something I would like to change about my myself.  Like everyone else, I'm a work in progress and this is definitely an area where I continue to work.

There’s a lyric in the Kelly Willis song, "What I Deserve," which has always struck a chord with me: “My skin lets it in. It’s always been too thin, since I can’t remember when.” It has, for as long as I can remember, been easy for me to believe anything bad I hear about myself from the world and nearly impossible to believe the good.  I’m far too quick to accept negative comments, rejection and criticism and reluctant to accept praise, admiration or approval. Tell me I’m an idiot, selfish, or not as nice as I think I am and I take it all in. Every word. But tell me I’m smart or pretty or a good mom and I’m likely to trivialize it with a, “Pfft,” and a dismissive hand-wave.

Of course, I recognize this is not a healthy thought process and I strive to re-route those brain synapses that work against me so quickly and automatically, but it’s a struggle. Some days it’s a nearly constant battle.  But it’s a battle I’ll continue to fight because it’s important to me that Ben and Lucy not see this destructive tendency in me. I want them to see in me a powerful, strong, confident mom because our kids learn and emulate what we show them. If I show them poor self-esteem, low self-worth and a lack of self-love, I’m condemning them to those same feelings about themselves. I know that teaching my kids to be strong, confident and self-assured is one of the greatest gifts I could give them and I firmly believe the only way to do that is by example. So I’ll fake it until I make it. Who knows? Maybe the process of faking it is its own therapy – a means to an end. If I fake it long enough and convincingly enough, may I'll start to believe it.

Lucy fell asleep in my bed one night recently and woke up briefly when I carried her to her room. When I put her in her bed, she smiled up at me for a moment then very purposefully closed her eyes and told me she was going to un-pause her dream. When I asked her what she meant she said she still had a dream in her head and wanted to get back to it.

One of my greatest dreams for my children is that they will be strong, confident and sure of themselves. That they will have a deep-rooted, healthy love of self. This particular dream for my children is a dream I’ve had for myself for as long as I can remember.

Maybe it’s time I un-paused that dream.

Bad Mommy Olympics

Last week I sent out the invitations to Ben’s birthday party with no date on them. When I was confessing my blunder to a young co-worker the next day, I told him it didn’t even merit a mention in the Bad Mommy Olympics. That got a laugh.  And a raised eyebrow.  Rob is 25-years-old and engaged to be married this summer. He’s not yet a parent, but is perhaps beginning to think about what that would be like. I’m sure Rob can’t conceive of a time when he’ll laugh at his parenting mishaps with friends or be so brazen as to catalogue those mishaps in a competition aptly named “Bad Mommy Olympics”. He’s young and idealistic. Exactly as he should be.


Most of us step into our role as parent wide-eyed and naive with expectations and standards that are probably unattainable. I think nearly every parent remembers a time before they were parents when they uttered the words, “I’ll never (insert “bad-parenting” example here). I certainly did. But most of us know that when you actually become a parent, you might:

• Feed your child McDonald's
• Use the television as a babysitter from time to time
• Let a child sleep in your bed
• Cook a completely separate dinner for your kids and that dinner might be full of things processed and preserved
• Tolerate some back-talk
• Pause in a bedtime story for a sip of your wine
• Let your child run willy-nilly in a restaurant
• Fail to follow through with threatened consequences 
• Send a child to school in mismatched or dirty clothes. With uncombed hair or unbrushed teeth
• Let them jump on the furniture

You might even yell, or say things you’ll regret.

As parents, we uphold some of our “I’ll nevers” and let others fall in the name of keeping the peace, maintaining our sanity or achieving that elusive harmonious household. We choose our battles. And maybe that is where the true art of parenting lies.  In knowing when to stand firm and when to bend.

I believe that when the “I’ll nevers” start to fall - as they inevitably do - we become the real parents we were meant to be. Letting go of our “I’ll nevers” doesn’t make us bad parents. Letting go of some of those unrealistic expectations and standards leaves room for things that matter more and allows us to become the best parents we can be. Wonderful, amazing, incredible parents (and I’m lucky to know so many). Wonderful in our own ways that have absolutely nothing to do with processed chicken nuggets, a little too much Dora the Explorer or kids who still crawl into bed with us in the middle of the night. Amazing in ways that have everything to do with our heart and soul and with our hopes and dreams for our children.

Incredible in all the ways that matter most.

Random Acts of Ben

During a game of tag at the bus stop yesterday, Ben shouted, "I see paradise by the dashboard light," and pumped his fist in the air. Play was suspended briefly while the other seven boys scratched their heads, but it quickly resumed without comment. And I breathed a sigh of relief.

Random Acts of Ben are nothing new. There was a time when easily 80% of his conversation consisted of random lines from movies or TV shows. The line rarely had anything to do with what was being discussed. While we’ve made much progress, we still have our moments. “The 80th Academy Awards had the lowest viewership of any in the history of the Academy Awards,” being blurted out during a recent conversation about soccer, for example.

When Ben was in Kindergarten I visited his class to observe Monday Morning Sharing Time. The teacher asked me to check it out to see if I had ideas on how to help Ben get more out of it. They were to share something they did over the weekend with the person sitting to their left. Every Monday morning without fail, Ben told the person sitting to his left he had watched Curious George over the weekend. Truth be told, he had watched Curious George immediately before leaving for school that morning. So even though the statement was technically correct, Ben wasn’t grasping the spirit of the exercise.

Ben has always had a hard time relating an event – telling you what happened. We’ve made progress over the years, but it’s certainly not perfect. When he was in Kindergarten, we often used Polaroids showing different activities as a way to prompt him to tell us about something he had done. But we were trying to do Monday Morning Sharing Time without prompts.

So, I observed Sharing Time. And while Ben was not grasping the spirit of the exercise, I was very impressed with his social correctness. He looked that kid in the eye, waited for his turn to talk and delivered, “I watched Curious George this weekend,” with completely appropriate tonality and inflection. To get the spirit of the exercise was going take some work, but I was generally pleased with what I saw… until it was his turn to listen to the kid on his right tell him what he had done over the weekend.

The kid on his right tapped him on the shoulder and Ben turned around to look at him. But before that kid could say a word, Ben raised his eyebrows dramatically. He leaned back slightly and raised his hands in front of him with his fingers apart and palms turned upward in a gesture that looked a bit, “What did I do?” Then he said, “Oh my gosh! You’re kidding me!” The delivery was flawless. The timing left something to be desired. The kid looked at Ben, furrowed his brow slightly and cocked his head to one side, but made no mention of the odd timing of Ben’s statement. Then he shrugged and said, “So anyway…” and went on to tell what he had done over the weekend.

I sat in my tiny chair in the back of that classroom stifling my laughter and making silent notes to myself.

When Ben got home from school that day, we talked about what I had seen at Sharing Time. We discussed ways to help him share an actual event from the weekend and get passed the "I watched Curious George" stage. I told him how impressed I was with the way he handled it overall and that I especially loved the way he delivered, “Oh my gosh! You’re kidding me!” But I went on to tell Ben that he must remember to wait until the person actually tells him whatever it is he’s so surprised to hear. Ben shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh - okay,” and walked away with a look that very clearly said, “Whatever.” I put my hand over my mouth to conceal my grin.

My goal has always been to stay ahead of the curve where that same kid, in the face of Ben’s oddly placed comment or random Meatloaf reference, might respond with, “Whatever, you weirdo,” or something similarly hurtful. Because we all know, the older they get, the more likely that is to happen. I’m not convinced I’ve always remained ahead of that curve, but what I see more and more is that Ben is surrounded, for the most part, with people who quite simply like him too much to say something that would hurt his feelings, no matter how strange his comment.

And I think Ben’s surrounding himself with people such as these (with a little help from his team of family members, trusted friends and teachers) is an impressive feat indeed. Way to go, Ben.