Celtxbeauty's blog

I'm back again with a new topic:  Mommy and Parenting Myths. I've been reading a lot about Mommy Bloggers ever since I saw a newspaper article from the Washington Post that was published in our local newspaper. What I saw was horrifying...women basically beating up on each other verbally, emotionally, spiritually,  and in writing.

Have you seen any Daddy bloggers and I wonder why.

There are so many Mommy myths out there that it doesn't surprise me that women are fighting about it. However, we're supposed to be sisters, not combatants. It's interesting how cruel women can be to each other.

Being a Mom is hard even in the best of circumstances which tend to be happily married with a supportive husband and perfect children. Unfortunately, that is rare if impossible to get. We need support from our sisters to help us get through Mommy-hood.

I remember starting my single-Mom-hood life with my 2-yo daughter who is not the couch-potato typel She was active, bright, and asked more questions than Google receives in a month. One day on the bus after reading her a book called, "So That's How I was Born." She loudly asked about a woman who just walked onto the bus.  "Are those her "breasts?" she asked loudly.  I said, "yes, but we don't talk about that loudly in public because it's considered rude." At the next stop, a man got on, and guess what? She asked loudly, "Mommy, does that man have a penis?" We went through it all over again. But she said, "But Mommy, you said it was rude to talk about breasts in public because it was rude." As you can see, she was no easy child, but that didn't mean I didn't love her to the nth degree.  She did stop asking those embarrassing questions though...  The people on the bus all chuckled, but I know they were all wondering where a two-year old heard those things

My pet theory received more than one massive overload. I told one woman that children were like pets except they kept learning and had a choice in how they lived. That woman about took my head off telling me how bad a Mother I was.  I still don't see how: you have to potty train both, correct them when they do something wrong, feed them, pay attention to them, as well as teaching them how to be around other pets and people. And like I said, children continue learning so you have to continue to give them more education and teach them manners, courtesy and etiquette. Despite me being the "bad mother" this woman believed I was, my daughters have turned out just fine.

Mothers need to support each other because raising children IS very hard and many of us don't have as much support as we need from our husbands/boyfriends/partners. So that means we ALL have different styles of parenting, not to mention the parenting books change as well. There are no real manuals to raise children. Even if you don't believe that raising children and pets are similar, it doesn't make my beliefs wrong....they're just different. I'd never treat my daughter like a pet...that wasn't the point I was making. I also don't believe in spanking a child, but I've seen people beat their pets and their children.  (My Mother for one and she never should have had any kids.  Besides me, she had three more girls and a step-son and step-daughter.)  I do have to admit, my daughter did get a spanking the day she ran into the street without looking for cars and did almost got hit. I was so scared and I wanted her to never forget to look both ways before she ran into the street...   I'm not even sure how it happened, it just happened, but she never rain into the street like that again.  People raise their kids like their folks raised them at their best and worst.   Even if a mom decides she wants to raise her kids' differently than her mother did (as I decided to do), occasionally they still revert to their past modeling, hence the spanking my daughter received. Fear, anger, frustration, or any number of emotions can cause this to happen.

But to accuse one woman's husband of being a homosexual because he likes to cook and bake, is way out of line. Some of the greatest chefs have been men and they were not Gay. And if a Mom has one drink when she is at a play date with her kids doesn't make her an alcoholic or even a drunk. And if a Mom spends money to buy a new dress or takes some time out for herself, that doesn't mean that she doesn't care about her children. Those are the accusations the Mommy bloggers throw at each another, all because one woman decided she wasn't going to go along with the Mommy Myths and to tell the truth about how hard it is to raise children.  It's hard being a parent.

We, Moms/Mommies/Grandmothers and our male counterparts, need to take a break from kids so we can be the best Moms/Dads we can be. If we spend All our time with our kids, we become dull, bored, and more apt to do something to our children that is not healthy emotionally or physically.

Our children also need breaks from us. When my daughter was potty trained, she spent one morning a week in day care for two reasons: so she could develop relationships with kids her age and so I could have a break (and I didn't have a husband who was supportive of me). I saved $5/week out of our budget so I could go to lunch with my women friends (sometimes even bringing my daughter along) and have some healthy adult chats, instead of children chats. It's important to keep your "sisters" around you for support and the only way to maintain them is to spend time with them. The same is true of children...they need to be around other children so they can learn how to play with them, talk to them, and develop friendships. That's what play dates are supposed to be about.

The OLD myth that we need to spend every waking moment with our kids is just that...a myth. IF we do that, our children learn that they are "God" when parents are supposed to be their children's God." I'm not talking about religion here, but power. If we cater to our children's every need and whim, they become so dependent on us, greedy and selfish, and they never learn how to be independent and learn about things for themselves. Or become tied so tightly to our apron strings that they never become independent or come into their own.

We need to encourage our children's independence, to spread their wings and fly to other horizons, not do what we want them to do so they emulate our lives and our glory days.  I put myself through school so that I could do better than my folks because they wanted me to be like them...a Mother/housewife or a mill worker like my Father.  I've seen basketball Dad's, Soccer Dad's, Football Dad's, and other sports Dad's forcing their kids to go into the sports they excelled at even when they Boys/Girls had no interest in that sport or sports at all.  Or on the Mother's end into Figure Skating, Softball, etc.   Children need to make their own choices so their thrive, not suffocate.  Children need to be successful in their own right doing their own thing.

There's nothing wrong with being a housewife if you want to get married and have kids, and there's certainly nothing wrong with working in a mill--IF that's what you want to do. But they didn't want me to do better than they did because it made THEM feel bad about themselves. I wanted to go to college and excel in Textile Arts.  They tried to keep me in the same town I grew up in and work for the same mill my father did.  They knew and didn't care.   I knew there had to be something better out there for me, so I spread my wings despite what they wanted and became the Black Sheep in my family because I didn't go with their program. Not because I hated them, but because I wanted to do better than they did. I want my daughters to do better than I did as well. I made sure they understood about college and working. About how advertising on television, newspapers, magazines and billboards affect how we spend our money needlessly. I talked to them about volunteering, politics, and religion so they could make their own choices about what they wanted to do. I also taught them how to do a budget which they should learn in high school, but they don't.

Some of the Mommy Myths make women feel bad about themselves and that's certainly not what we want to pass on to our children. We're supposed to be modeling healthy behaviors for them so they raise their own children healthier. We're not supposed to be going backwards so our children have poor self esteem. We have to model good esteem for our children, build them up, not tear them down, so they CAN do better than we did.

We have to support all mothers, unless they really are abusive. I wish someone had taken me away from my mother when I was a kid. I started trying to run away from home when I was 5 yo. Fortunately, my paternal Grandmother loved me dearly so when I arrived on her doorstep less than 4 blocks away, she took me in. LOL She was more a Mom to me than my Mother was. She did call my folks and she brought me home the next day, but I was beaten so badly when she left that I couldn't sit for 3 days. My Dad being neglectful "never" saw any abuse at all, and my Mom was pathologically abusive (physically, emotionally, verbally, psychologically, spiritually, and sexually) to the point where I didn't know left from right or north from south, much less yes and no. It probably would have been better for me if my Aunt and Uncle (High School Counselor and Psychiatrist, respectively) had talked to someone about the abuse....my whole family knew what was going on, but not a one of them did anything to help me. To be brutally honest, I didn't know if I was going to live until adulthood, but I did.

So, what I'm saying is that we need to support women who are raising their children in a healthy manner. We need to stop the Mommy Myths and tell the truth about how hard it is to raise kids and to take steps to make sure we take breaks for ourselves. When we get into our play groups or a group of friends taking a break, we need to be honest with each other if we're having problems. Secrets are the reason we don't talk to each other...we want to continue to believe that each of us is a perfect parent. I hate to tell this to you all, but there are no perfect parents or perfect moms or perfect dads. We need to all do the best we can do, but we also need to stay healthy emotionally so we do not become victims of the Mommy Myths.

Lastly, my Mother died 4 years ago at 69-yo. She apologized to me about a year before she died. It happens rarely, but it does happen. I never thought it would happen, so was very surprised when she did. The last year of her life and the week she died were the best times we ever had. We talked more and got so many secrets out in that short time, it was like I had the Mom I always prayed to God to have for so many years. Don't let that happen to your children. Apologize for what you did wrong (even if you don't believe you did anything wrong) before it's too late. Your children will appreciate it.

So, good things do happen, and you can help your children realize their dreams...

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Hi Everyone; Here I am again. I don't know how many of you know what sustainability is. I'll try to explain at least my definition of it. When I was growing up in the Midwest, i heard comments from a lot of my grandparents and their friends. This is what they said: "Use it and reuse it until it's gone." What it meant was talking about clothes, appliances, etc. You sewed, handed down to younger siblings or neighbors, patched clothes, and when they were unwearable, you used them for rags. Many people during the depression were what they called "rag pickers." They were the people who went through everyone's trash looking for clothes they could wear or make into rags and sell them if they didn't need them. Appliances were fixed until they couldn't be fixed any more. The same with transportation and everything else. You didn't waste anything if you could help it. I believe that's pretty much what we need to do now...

I raise sheep and alpacas and shear them myself. Whatever I cannot spin into yarn or is too rough to use for anything else, I either felt or use for compost in the garden. The yarn I spin from the usable wool or alpaca fiber, I knit, crochet, or weave into clothing, or with weaving I make cloth, rugs, placemats, etc. I use the manure of the animals for compost and then it goes into my garden to keep it fertile. I grow many of my own vegetables because they taste so much better than the stuff I was buying in the store.

I grew over 50 lbs of carrots over the summer as well as lettuce, mesclun (lettuce-like greens and herbs for salads both spicy and mild), heirloom tomatoes (5 varieties), and let some go to seed so I wouldn't have to buy seeds the next year. I always try to grow heirloom varieties so that I'm able to keep producing the plants the way nature intended--so they'd reproduce without problems. I also have 2 apricot trees, 2 peach trees, cherries, apples, hardy kiwi, red and yellow raspberries (some everbearing and some spring bearing), 2 walnut trees, 2 asian pear trees and a hazelnut tree, as well as over 150 of 3 types of everbearing strawberries. What we can't eat before it spoils, we freeze or dry.

The vegetables and herbs, we plant in rotation to keep the pests at bay and if we do get pests (aphids and other insect critters), we spray with a homemade solution of habanero peppers and mild soap and spray the the plants and roses so they go away. For the larger insects, we have chickens to eat them...they also keep the garden and grass fertile. We also harvest the grass for the sheep and alpaca to give them in the winter after we dry it...just like hay. We don't use regular grass seed, we use nutritious pasture seed, which is better for the animals. The chickens eat it too when it's small and easy to get out.

Chickens are omnivorous, which means they eat everything. I have several roosters and a bunch of hens and we raise our own chicks and eat the eggs...the eggs are the best I've ever eaten in my whole life. The yolks so tasty and red orange that you know the beta-carotene is really high. If you ever seen fresh eggs for sale in the country, buy them...you won't regret it.

Everything we do on our little 2.3-acre farm is geared to sustainablity. But we aren't the only people who benefit, so do our friends and neighbors, as well as the rest of the world. If everyone would live sustainably, we wouldn't have the pollution problems we have now, or at least not to the degree we have now.

We also use the any plastic containers for storing things like emergency water, or small things like beads or mosaic tiles or seeds. I use cut off milk cartons for mini-green houses for my seedlings to keep the chickens away from the little plants until they can fend for themselves as well as to protect them from the sun. I also use reused fencing to help protect the plants and seeds while they're growing.

Maybe I'm just anal...who knows, but I do know I've never been happier than I have been since we bought out little farm. The chickens are so tame they let us pet them and they love it...they're very friendly though visitors don't know what to make of them and are a trifle afraid. Most people never even saw real live chickens before or had farm fresh eggs. Once they do, they buy a dozen or so from us (if we have them) and cart them off for home. I'm not sure what they do after they're gone, but I can only hope they find another farmer with chickens to have more eggs. Those eggs make the best French toast you've ever had.

So, I hope that this will give you a chance to think about living a little or a lot more sustainably...If not, that's fine, too. We can't all be the same, right? So, good luck with however you want to live your life as long as you feel good about it.

My Introduction

I've been involved with Art, Arts & Crafts, Politics, and Social Change (not necessarily in that order) since I was quite young. Now that I'm 55-ish (aka Middle-Aged), I've found that none of that has changed. I still love all the same things: music, reading, writing, people, great coffee, good conversations, and life; I also still like being creatively, socially and politically active. In recently years, I've also added a few things like living sustainably, volunteering via the Internet and Blogs to help people, and urging people to respect one another instead of coming down on each other (aka flaming).

Instead of flaming someone we do not agree with, why not try talking to that person to find out where they're coming from.  We're all individuals and we all have different points from whence we've come--what that means is this: we need to respect each other so we can keep growing within ourselves.  When we were young adults, we all wanted to be individuals.  As we get older, we tend towards becoming like everyone else.  We need to be flexible in how we think so we can stay young in our minds instead of becoming stodgy and identical.  It's definitely easier to be and think like everyone else, but it keeps us from growing.

When I was 20 years old, I made a vow that I would continue learning about life and about people so I could stay fascinating and be someone that everyone wanted to be around.  It was a good goal, but a bit unrealistic (or so I thought).  What I didn't realize when I made that goal is that I would start becoming like everyone else.  That's the last thing I wanted to do and am taking steps to reinforce my 20-year old goal.  I like discussing ideas and things more interesting than other people...but people are also interesting, too, if they're doing interesting things.

When I lived near Sacramento, I taught homeless kids how to knit and crochet charging them $1,00 to learn to keep them vested in the class and included knitting needles and a crochet hook.  After they finished learning to knit and crochet, they got free yarn after each project they finished with one boy making hats and scarves for his entire family of five and a girl who made clothes for her and her sisters dolls for Christmas.  Maybe it doesn't seem like much for many of you, but it gave both the children and their parents hope.  The children learned something to help them stay off the streets and helping their families and the parents didn't have to worry that they're kids were on the streets getting into trouble.  It was a win/win situation.

Then we moved North and bought a small farm and I realized how different it was than living in or near a large metropolitan areas.  Small Town is a nice city in a "banana belt" area.  It's starting to get swallowed up by a growing population and retirees, but is still pretty nice.  I learned about SUSTAINABILITY here.  Sustainable Farming and Sustainable Living to help ensure that our lives would continue in the pastoral manner.  But I'll talk more about that later. You may not agree with me, but that's fine, I don't expect you to, but hope we can find some common ground.  For now, I'm just introducing myself and what I believe in and hope you will follow me and enjoy...