parenting

I didn’t trumpet these views to my mommy groups, of course. I wasn’t crass. But when a girl let her daughter cry it out, I decided the tot seemed a tad withdrawn. When a mom told me all her sons were cut, I nodded politely while thinking, she is so deluded. She made up a medical excuse for a pass on child mutilation. When I saw mothers in the grocery store, carseats in tow, I paraded by, baby in wrap, nose in the air. At least those moms could see another option.

Is it just me, or is our society’s youth today really struggling with respect? I’ve worked with kids for years and I’ve got three children of my own. Things that didn’t fly when I was a kid (and that wasn’t so long ago!) are either ignored or let go. An example: I’d never even dream of calling my teachers or parents by their first name.

If you're a parent, then you've likely lied to your kids; maybe you even tell them little lies every single day. Sometimes it's just easier to lie to children than to explain the truth to them, and sometimes these little lies make our lives, as their parents, a little more bearable.

My oldest daughter Sophie is not even 3, and she is awesome. She’s unapologetic about the space she takes up, any inconvenience she may cause, or if she passes gas in public. No. Big. Deal.

We take weekend turns. He does vacations and summers. Literally. He takes them away. It is great.

Before I was a foster parent, I did not understand the heartbreak that children in foster care truly suffer from. Nor did I understand the heartbreak that foster parents go through, as well.

I’m never going to say, “Because I said so.” And all of the other parenting things I said I would never do and then totally did!

When I was honest with myself, it was clear that it wasn’t parenthood that I wanted. I just had a desire to be involved in the lives of young people in some meaningful way.