This Dance

I'd like to think that I'd be the perfect mother to a daughter. I would teach her to climb trees and appreciate fine literature. I would play Lego (not the pink kind) with her and I would read comic books with her while sitting under a tree at the park. I would teach her to love herself and her body as they were and help her understand that the opinions of others rarely matter. My daughter wouldn't suffer from bouts of depression, cutting, or suicidal thoughts - because I would teach her that she mattered more than any of that.

But I'm not the mother of a daughter and I won't ever be.

So I'm coming to you, dear internet, because we all know that the internet will never, ever steer us wrong.

Every day at the gym I see mothers doing the most awkward dance with their young daughters as they come from swimming lessons. The moms, they hold up a towel around their girls while they also help them peel off wet bathing suits, dry off and put on new clothes, all while still holding up that towel, in a secluded corner of the women's change room. The dance is floundering, both mother and daughter get frustrated as they try to learn the steps to something that clearly requires about 16 arms to pull off. At the end, the mother is usually using her "mom voice" to tell her girl to hurry up because they're late for dinner (dance class, music lessons, etc).

Earlier during the day I've most likely watched yet another video, read a blog or perused an infographic about how we need to teach our girls to love themselves.

Credit

And yet, at night, in the confines of a room exclusively for women, mothers and daughters dance this impossible dance.









I have sons. I have boys who love to parade around naked, inside and out. I have a son who looks forward to the weekends because I've told him he can go without underwear on the weekend if that's really what he prefers. Gross, I know, but it's what he likes. But I'm completely ignorant when it comes to girls. My mom didn't do a bad job raising us, not at all, but I also know that my sisters, nor I, have much in the way of self confidence. We're all self-conscious, even my gorgeous sisters who are both smart, successful, and incredibly beautiful, who both fit into negative number jeans and have the kind of giant tatas that women pay thousands of dollars for. They're both absolutely perfect, and they both have self-esteem issues.

ItalyStuck

So where does it start? By not letting your daughter spend 10 seconds naked in the women's change room, are you setting her up for a lifetime of being so insecure she can't look at her naked body in a mirror? Or does it start later than that? By showing girls that it's not okay to be naked for a minute in a room with other women are you placing your own body image issues onto her? Is insecurity something we can avoid with the right upbringing or are we all destined to feel poorly about our physical bodies at some point?





Years of going to the gym, it wasn't until after 30 that I felt comfortable dressing in the open of the change room instead of a bathroom stall. It's not my mother's fault, this I know, but I also wonder - if she had let me go free when I was 3, would it have taken me until I was 30 to take the chance of having another woman see my breasts?

PS, I love You

Last year I scaled back big time on my volunteering, in part so I could take a bigger part in being a part of our school community. I joined the school council, took over the greening efforts at the school, started working for the Nutrition For Learning snack bin program within the school and amped up the hours I worked at our Nutrition For Learning Breakfast Club at the church across the street from the school.

Working with the kids in our school has by far, been the most rewarding volunteer job of my life.

I love walking through the halls and hearing "Hi Nicolas' Mom!" I love getting a chance to peek at my children during school time when they don't know I'm watching. I love being on a first name basis with so many staff. I really love when I work in the staff room because I get to overhear teachers talking about techniques they use to help kids "get it".

But most especially, I love walking through the hallways after all the kids have gone home, before the custodians (bless their souls), have swept up and finding stuff like this:

Because Moms, you are awesome. 

Please tell me

that not all the parents have already prepared perfect little bento boxes of smiley foods

or labelled all the water bottles, containers, shoes and jackets.

Please tell me that somewhere out there some other Mom is searching frantically for the leftover labels from last year

and wondering why there is one shoe missing when she could have sworn it was still attached to the other brand new shoe.

Please tell me that somewhere there's a Dad who still hasn't got his kids back on the school year bedtime routine

and hasn't even started school shopping.

Please tell me I'm not the only one.

Boys and their Toys

Once, a friend broke away from our conversation to holler, "Caleb! Stop touching your penis, that's private!"

I laughed that nervous I don't have children laugh and sighed, "Boys. Once they find their penis they never stop touching it."

Fast forward 12 years and 2 boys later I finally have a revelation....

I. WAS. RIGHT.

Ohmygoodness some days I'd swear that every other word in my house is penis. Penis jokes, penis playtime, it's a 'let's be naked and grope ourselves all the time' funhouse around here.

I realized it the other night, lamenting with my sister who is also lucky enough to be the Mom of a boy, that ALL the stories we share about our kids involve penis stories. It's not because we want to talk about our kids penises all day but because WE HAVE NO OTHER STORIES TO SHARE.

"Mom, why are they called beans and wieners?"
"Because sometimes people call them wieners instead of hot dogs."
Boy stands. "Wiener! Just like my wiener!" Gyrates his hips at the lunch table. *classy, my boy, so classy*

"MOM! Look how big my penis grew overnight!" *how do I explain morning wood?*

"Mom if I pull this back it's a surprise!" *SURPRISE!*

Boy, running away from my desk with a ruler. "I'll be right back Mom, we just have to check something!" *Comparing... already?*

"Hey N, let's use our penises like swords and be knights!" *Is THAT what they used on the battlefield?*

"Knock Knock"
"Who's there?"
"The letter P"
"P who?"
"P-E-N-I-S and you don't have one!" Hysterical laughter.

So, you know, just in case you wondered what I do all day, this is it. I listen to penis talk and penis jokes and since my kids want to be nudists forever, I get to look at them flopping around while they do the most graceful things like somersaults and wrestling.

Ain't life grand?

Do You Put People First?

I don't often call people on political correctness stuff because I know we all make mistakes and often, we spend our days trying to retrain our brain not to say phrases we've been saying since childhood.

BUT

When it comes to intellectual or physical challenges, it's an entirely different ballgame. I'm tired of reading articles, studies and blogs classifying people as their affliction rather than as a person.

Say I want to write a story about a brave young man who has AIDS. I want to tell you about some of the incredible fundraising he does, how he's changed perceptions of AIDS patients and how he's left a mark on the world. Do I call him an AIDS kid? Heck no. He's a boy, a boy who happens to have AIDS.

Or maybe, I want to tell you about the 20-something young man with Down Syndrome I talk to on the bus everyday. Do I call him a Down's kid? Again, heck no. He's a wonderfully entertaining and bright young man who is affected by (or with, depending on your view) Down Syndrome.

Yet everyday, I read stories about this autistic boy or autistic girl. So I ask, why are we labeling him or her as a problem first, then a person?

He or she is a person first, no ifs, ands or buts about it.

My son has autism. My son is affected by autism. He is not autism itself and I will never allow it to come before him.

On Abortion

I am against abortion. Completely and totally. But this video below really struck me as the type of woman who should be able to get an abortion if she wants. She is smart*, logical and she admits that there are after-effects of the abortion that she hadn't expected. She thought it through, made her decision and lived with the consequences.

*NOTE: The only thing that would make me question her is the fact that she mentions she's used the morning after pill a few times. If she really doesn't want to get pregnant that badly, contraception should be more of a prominent priority in her life.

The Parent Rap

This is funny stuff. A must-watch for any parent. Force your kids to watch just to annoy them.

THE PARENT RAP

Don't try to tell me you didn't do a pathetic mom/dad dance in your chair.