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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