DotMoms

It's not about me

By Suzanne

I hate soccer. I hate soccer for many reasons, including, but not limited to, the cold spring winds, coaches who don't treat kids equally in field-time, and the snacks I never remember to bring when it's my turn. But my daughter loves soccer so I have wind-chapped cheeks and a burgeoning ulcer from resisting my urges to smack the coach upside the head, and I make last-minute stops at convenience stores to grab over-priced snacks when I realize it's my turn to be Snack Mom. (Can't they all just go home and eat?)

When I was a little girl, I wanted nothing more than to take dance. I was completely uncoordinated and couldn't do the splits to save my life, but I really wanted to wear a pink tutu, do pretty ballet spins, and use cool French words like plie and cou-de-pied.  My sister, two years older, actually got to take dance one year. She cried constantly and threw fits about how much she hated it, and when I claimed I wanted to take dance, the answer was no. Not only were my pink tutu dreams dashed, my parents then decided that we should both take piano lessons. My childhood is filled with memories of playing scales to the tick tick tick of the music metre and watching the clock eagerly for the daily practice hour to end. 

We had a slew of bizarre piano teachers, all of whom we despised almost as much as we despised the piano. Our first piano teacher had the interior of her house painted in psychedelic designs. She always wore long, flowing robe-like dresses to go with her long, flowing hair. She was very late 1960s. Her son had long, flowing hair, too, and he smoked pot in the house. I don't think our mom knew that, but at least that teacher liked children. 

Our next piano teacher hated children so much that as soon as our lesson hour was up, she would lock us out of the house. I have many memories of standing outside her house in the rain waiting for our mom to pick us up. She didn't even have a porch we could seek shelter under.

Little wonder that by the time we had a piano teacher who came to our house for lessons, we had developed a slightly wicked attitude toward piano teachers. I used to hide up in the plum tree and watch her ring the doorbell over and over and over. I never ditched school much, but I had a bad habit of ditching piano lessons. I'm pretty sure this is why our parents finally gave up, after all those years, and released us from our piano bondage.

I swore up and down that I would never, and I mean never, make my children take piano. My daughter would take dance!!!! My pink tutu dreams were fulfilled when my daughter was two and I enrolled her in her first ballet class. There is nothing more adorable than a 2-year-old in a tutu. She loves to be the center of attention, so she especially loved the end-of-year shows where she got to be on stage in front of an audience. Several years passed and she continued to enjoy dance, but trouble started creeping in. She didn't want to practice. She didn't want to go to lessons.

My athletic, energetic daughter wanted to play sports. She wanted to "perform" on the "stage" every week in a game, not once a year in a dance production. As she got old enough to express her wishes, she became more and more outspoken about her interests. Horseback riding, volleyball, soccer, basketball...

When we moved and made a fresh start in activities, I asked her, What do you want to sign up for this year?" "Dance?" I asked hopefully. "Soccer?" I asked, cringing. "Horseback riding?" The horses are pretty, I'm okay with this one. "Do you want me to take dance, Mommy?" Oh, the pain of that question! Yes! I wanted to tell her. But then I remembered all those years of piano bondage. "What do you want?" is what I managed to painfully eke out of my mouth. And so, once again, my pink tutu dreams were dashed.

Sometimes, the hardest thing to remember about raising my daughter is that it's not all about me. It's about her. And believe it or not, she wants to take piano.

Boys will be boys (or not)

By Suzanne

"This is the assistant principal at the middle school. Did your son tell you about the incident today?"

First, the answer is usually NO!

Second, I never know whether to start apologizing profusely or go into protective mama bear mode. That's because I never know right away which son they're talking about.  My 8th grader is big for his age. He's strong; he lifts weights. He's not a bully and he doesn't seek out confrontation, but if someone confronts him (or threatens his little brother), he returns fire. 

My 6th grader is small for his age. He's not athletic and his idea of an after-school activity is the chess club. If someone confronts him, he walks away. Or runs.

A couple of examples: A kid on the bus kept shooting spitwads at Little Brother. Big Brother ordered the spitwad shooter to cease and desist for several days running.  When the spitwad shooting (and verbal taunting) continued unabated, my 8th grader got up to walk off the bus one day and stopped long enough to land a punch on the way out. His intentions were noble -- he was protecting his little brother. But obviously the way he carried out his intentions was all wrong. 

As parents, it was really difficult for us to make him understand that while we applaud his desire to defend his little brother, violence isn't the answer. On the other hand, left to his own devices, his little brother won't protect himself at all.

The other day he accidentally bumped into another boy at the lockers. He apologized and continued on his way down the hall. Apology notwithstanding, the other boy was outraged and ran after him down the hall, slammed him to the ground and starting punching him. He, of course, did nothing in his own defense. The Other Boy was just lucky Big Brother wasn't there. 

While we don't want to encourage our younger son to violence, if teachers hadn't been nearby, he could have been severely beaten, which leaves us to worry that he needs to learn that it's okay to defend himself.

Of course, seeking help from an adult is always the first course of action we've tried to instill in our children in dealing with confrontation. But there isn't always -- and won't always be -- an adult standing by. 

What do you do to help your children understand how to defend themselves without crossing the line?

Pink, pretty and sparkly -- inside

By Suzanne

When do we become so jaded, so fearful, so complicated that we begin to think beauty is about our weight, our clothes, our facial features, our hair, our things, instead of the simple truth of how we feel in our hearts?

I had two sons before I had my daughter. I longed for a girl, desperately. I love my sons, of course, but there was just something inside me that was filled with a special joy when I learned my third child was a girl. I love girly things, and I wanted someone to share them with.

Immediately, before I even went home after the ultrasound that revealed her sex, I went shopping. I bought several tiny pink outfits. For me, girl shopping isn't like boy shopping. Girl shopping is pink and pretty and sparkly! After I got home, the next thing I did was buy pink paint. I made over the nursery in record time -- all pink! I sewed new pink bumpers and bedding. I bought dolls and pink stuffed bears. If it was pink, I had to have it.

After she was born, she had all the girl trappings -- a slew of ridiculous, frilly bonnets, lace diaper covers, and bows on her head even if I had to tape them on. She had her first Barbie before she could say the word Barbie, and she slept with a doll in her crib before she knew what a doll was. She wore pink at all times. Okay, sometimes purple, maybe some pastel greens and blues. But mostly pink.

I figured she was either going to grow up to despise all things pink, pretty and sparkly, or she was going to love them, and I knew someday I'd have to let it be her choice.

She's nine now, and old enough to make her own choices (with guidance, only if she's choosing something inappropriate for her age) when we go clothes shopping. We went shopping last week and everything she picked out was pink and pretty and sparkly. We were there for clothes only, but when she spied a set of glimmering bracelets, she begged for them, and yes, she got them. I have just as much trouble passing up something sparkly as she does. She loves scented lip gloss and nail polish and when we go out somewhere special, I let her put on a little bit of makeup. Her tastes still may change, but for now, she still loves all things pink, pretty, and sparkly.

I've tried to focus on telling her how smart she is, how courageous, funny, strong and talented she is at the activities she enjoys, and not focus on outward beauty despite our shared love of sparkly things. But I've also always wanted her to feel good about her appearance, so I don't stint on reminding her that she is beautiful.

The other day, I asked her out of the blue on the way to horseback riding lessons whether she felt beautiful. I wasn't surprised by her answer. She'd brushed her hair and put on a pretty ribbon and she had her cool pink riding boots on. She smiled big and said, "Yes!" I said, "What makes you feel beautiful?" I thought she might mention the cool pink riding boots or the pretty ribbon.

We were pulling into the parking lot at the stables. She said, "Loving horses makes me feel beautiful." The love in her heart for an animal makes her feel beautiful! (So much for pink, pretty and sparkly!)

And I wondered: how long will she feel this pure, natural confidence? Studies and our own experience as women tell us that in our teens many of us lose it. How do we teach our children to retain that innocent self-esteem of knowing they're beautiful just because their hearts are full of love as they hit puberty and all the pink, pretty, sparkly things in the world don't make them "look" as beautiful as the models and actresses and singers they see on TV and in magazines?

What do you do to build self-esteem in your daughters?

My baby is growing up, thank goodness

By Suzanne

My eldest son needs to shave.

How did that happen? He's supposed to be two. Maybe three, max. He was the cutest baby ever. Seriously. You just thought yours was the cutest. You were wrong. He was the cutest. He screamed all the time unless you walked and jiggled him just right, and he could have participated in competition spitting up, but he had the most beautiful baby dimples you ever saw.

When he was three, I started taking him to preschool. In the beginning, he would cry something terrible and I always wanted to just take him back home, keep him my baby.  I couldn't believe it when the day came that he started kindergarten. He learned to read and write and he developed this whole life with his own friends, his own world, and I just wanted him to stay my baby.

It was even worse when he went to middle school. Surely this couldn't be happening, and really, I didn't want it to. Where was my spitty baby with the beautiful dimples who once wore his Batman costume for three weeks straight?

A few months ago we started noticing he had this whole fuzzy thing going on over his lip. No, no, NO. Didn't I endure enough already when his voice changed and I had to buy him deodorant? Will it ever stop? Surely he can't need to SHAVE?! Grown men shave. It was just too much. We discussed buying him a razor and shaving cream and teaching him to shave for months. My husband kept forgetting to do it, and I didn't remind him (er, nag). The truth is, I just didn't want to face that my dimpled baby was growing up.  This wasn't kindergarten or middle school. This was shaving. This was almost-adult stuff. I wasn't ready.

Then a friend's three-year-old nephew was killed in a car accident. I knew that children died. I see the news on TV. Sadly, terrible things happen to children sometimes, but they are usually TV Children. They don't seem quite real. Seeing the grief of a close friend over a child's death brought it home. That was real.

That little boy will BE a little boy forever to his parents. He'll never go to kindergarten or middle school or be old enough to shave. I realized in a new and starker way than ever before how lucky I am that my son is growing up. Instead of being sad at every new stage of his development that takes him further and further away from being my dimpled baby, it hit me that I should be celebrating it.

So we got him his own razor and his own shaving cream, and instead of putting it off any further, we had a party. My husband showed him how to shave while our younger son and daughter looked on. They chanted "Go! Go! Go!" And when our son finished his first shave, we clapped. He rolled his eyes at us because he's in middle school and that's what middle schoolers do.

He's not my baby anymore, and I'm glad.

Dreamin' a little dream with her

By Suzanne

My daughter has the worst singing voice in the world. No, really. She does. Like the hopeless hopefuls on the early episodes of "American Idol," she believes she has talent. 

She sings all the time. She writes her own songs. They're bad. She performs at every family gathering and holiday. Her brothers have to be tied down to their seats. For her birthday, she picked out the American Idol Barbie and the American Idol Barbie Stage.  She's waiting for there to be another "American Idol Junior" so she can try out.

The other night, she came to my bedroom and told me she wanted to sing the latest song she'd written. After she finished, she asked me if I thought she could win "American Idol Junior."

What a loaded question! First of all, I hope and pray and dream that there will never be another "American Idol Junior." And even if there was, and if they came to our town for auditions, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't let her be involved in something like that at her age. 

But as I thought about it, I realized that wasn't really the question she was asking me. She was asking me if I thought she was a good singer, if I thought she was good enough that she could be a singer when she grows up. She was asking me if I believed in her.

Being nine, singing isn't the only thing she thinks she wants to be when she grows up.  She wants to be a veterinarian, a teacher, a "love writer" (romance writer -- for some reason, she calls them "love" books -- I'm guessing she came up with that from the covers since she's never read one), a horse trainer, and the wife of teen pop star Aaron Carter.

When I was nine, I wanted to be a writer, too. I wrote an awful story in third grade called "Judy's Monster" about a furry monster who ate his human girlfriend. I wonder what my mother would have said then if I'd asked her, based on that story, whether I could grow up to make my living as a writer. I think she would have thought that was a longshot! My mother never told me I couldn't be a writer, though, and I wonder how my life might be different if she had.

So I told my daughter I thought she was the best singer in the world and that she could be anything she wanted to be.

Who am I to stomp on her dreams? And who I am to say they won't come true? It's not my job to tell her what she can't do when she grows up. It's my job to make sure she dreams.

Besides, she's pretty tough. If she ever meets Simon Cowell, I think she could take him.

Got guilt?

By Suzanne

We moved a thousand miles away from my parents this year. A thousand miles! How could I do that to my children? (Guilt!) Forget that we had to move. Forget that my husband had been out of work for some time. We moved away from my children's grandparents!
 
For the holidays this year, my parents came for a three-week visit. We planned all sorts of special outings and dinners -- wanting those three weeks to be perfect and make up for the distance our move had put between us. But it was the simple things that meant the most. From coffee in the morning and talking about the news to doing homework and cooking dinner, this was time with my parents like we -- and my children -- had never had before.
 
My mother slept in my daughter's room, sharing a bed and late-night whispers across the pillows. One day, the school called. The nurse had found lice in my daughter's hair.  (Horrors! This had to be my fault! I was lazy when she lost her helmet and I let her borrow a helmet three weeks in a row when she went for riding lessons.) After I finished a haz-mat routine on the entire house, my daughter sat on her bed and cried. She just knew Grandmommy wouldn't sleep with her anymore. She might give her lice! (I was ready to cry, too. I had been too lazy to rush to Wal-Mart for a new helmet and I'd ruined my parents' perfect visit.)
 
But my mother slept with her that night and every night until she left. And that's when I realized something that should have been so obvious but had been forgotten in the busy blur of being a mom: I'm not done being a daughter. 

I still have so much to learn from my own mother, like this: Love is what happens when things aren't perfect.

And as for the number one guilt trip on my list -- my children are closer to their grandparents now than when we lived 30 minutes away.
 
I'm sure I'll find something else to feel guilty about, of course...

What's topping your mommy guilt list right now?

Editor's Note: Suzanne is a new DotMom. You can read her bio here.