It’s not like I was 17, uneducated and knocked-up.  Those two little pink lines didn’t show up until after my 5th wedding anniversary.  I have so much baggage regarding my mother and the messages she gave me about femininity, girlhood and sexuality that four years after her death I still have nightmares. In my dreams I am still fighting to break free of her earthly opinion of me and my relationship with Nathan.

I’ve come to the conclusion that my mother must have been sexually abused as a child or the witness of sexual abuse.  Whatever her secret, she kept it locked in her heart and took it with her to her grave.  My mother despised her body: Her hair was too thin.  Her skin was too wrinkly.  She was too fat.  Her toes were ugly. Her fingers were crooked. We spent almost every summer weekend of my childhood at the lake, but I never once saw my mom in a bathing suit.

One of the greatest gifts motherhood has given me is the motivation and will to confront my issues so that I don’t pass on to my daughters the same legacy of fear and self-loathing that was passed on to me. Growing up girl seems more complicated than it did when I was a child even without a mother turning everything about one’s body into something shameful. While woman have always been oogled and hyper sexualized, our daughters are being raised in a culture that sells items like these:

http://shine.yahoo.com/fashion/10-fashion-trends-hope-disappear-2012-150300305.html

and magazines with images like these:

http://www.google.com/search?q=vogue+little+girls&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=BRMJT4eEKur20gGm6MG3Cg&sqi=2&ved=0CDUQsAQ&biw=1383&bih=779

and songs with lyrics like these:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/california-gurls-lyrics-katy-perry.html

Peggy Orenstein sums up the challenge when she writes about the legacy of “Girl Power” in her book Cinderella Ate My Daughter:

“The pursuit of physical perfection was recast as a source-often the source-of young women’s “empowerment.” Rather than freedom from traditional constraints,then, girls were now free to “choose” them…Even as new educational and professional opportunities unfurl before my daughter and her peers, so does the path that encourages them to equate identity with image, self-expression with appearance, femininity with performance, pleasure with pleasing, and sexuality with sexualization.  If feels both easier and harder to raise a girl in that new reality-and easier and harder to be one.”

So here I am with two girls aged 5 and 8.  I want them to love their bodies and love being girls.  I want them to be independent thinkers and not buy into the narrow image our culture is teaching them about how a girl should look or behave .  This year I will be using my blog to discuss several good books related to the topic of raising girls.  The first one will be Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein.  I hope you will join me.

http://www.amazon.com/Cinderella-Ate-Daughter-Dispatches-Girlie-Girl/dp/0061711535/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325997352&sr=1-

2011 has quite possibly been the best year of my life. We took our first vacation in which we didn’t have to lug around a stroller and diapers and the stuff that goes along with having wee ones.  The yearning for another child still floods my heart on occasion, yet the freedom and fun that having older children brings stops my mommy ya-yas in their track.

In March we added Frisby to our family.  God I love this dog.  He brings so much joy to the girls and I, and even though Nathan might not admit it, he adores our furry friend almost as much as the rest of us.

Last Christmas I signed Nathan up to take classes at Go! Comedy, and it has been just as much of a gift to me as it has been for him.  One of the reasons I fell in love with Nathan was because he made me laugh till my cheeks hurt and stomach ached.  This was a great gift back in the early 90′s when there wasn’t much laughter happening in my home, and it has been a great gift over the course of our 20 year relationship.

Those of you who know Emerson know that she is my monkey child.  She once spent an afternoon watching a tree trimmer out our window and declared that she wanted that job when she grew up.  She also saw a window washer high on a skyscraper and told us that she’d like to do that too, so when we learned about the Detroit Flyhouse at Ignite Detroit, Nathan and I instantly knew we needed to sign her up for a class. Since I have my own set of circus fantasies, I signed us both up and together we took two 8 week sessions. If I could take classes every day I would. As for Em, it looks like private lessons will be more her thing.  The regular classes are full of adults and too much waiting for her active 8 year old body. We are both excited for her lesson next week, and I continue to dream of transforming my garage into a mini studio complete with brilliant red silks, a lyra and a trapeze.

Averie started Kindergarten in the fall.  Both of my children love school and we are lucky that the transition to all day/everyday school has been so smooth.  All of my reservations about all-day kindergarten faded after the first week of school.  I have spent the first part of the school year keeping busy by helping out in the lunchroom, being the Reflections chair, and working on some projects around the house.  I’m all signed up for subbing and hopefully I’ll be getting calls in January.

Nathan signed on with Detroit Labs in May. I’ve never seen him happier about a job.  Not only has he had the chance to meet some famous people like Kid Rock and Magic Johnson and work on projects that promote Detroit, he also gets to work with Tim Taylor and Terry May, two of his favorite peeps on the planet.

2011 has also been a year of personal growth and I am ever so thankful. I’m looking forward to many new adventures and soaking up the glorious joy of childhood as I watch my kids learn, grow and develop their own unique personalities and talents while Nathan and I continue to develop ours as well.

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Eight years ago I made the decision to be a stay-at-home mom.  I had a job I loved , but I didn’t think I had the will or energy in me to be the kind of teacher I wanted to be AND the kind of mom I wanted to be.  I didn’t want to miss out on anything with my child, and I couldn’t bring myself to care for other people’s children while someone else cared for mine.

I am glad I have been able to be a stay-at-home mom.  I am also extremely lucky to live in a neighborhood where being a SAHM is just as common as being a professional.  I’m glad I did it, and I am proud of myself.  Now I’m entering a new phase of my life.  Both of the girls are in school full time.  For a huge chunk of the day, I don’t have a little buddy home to play with, read to, and go on adventures with.   Morning play dates at the park are over.  It’s time for me to find a new way to fill my days.

Over the last couple years, I’ve noticed my children really moving toward independence. It is thrilling to watch them do things for themselves.  Good Lord, it’s refreshing not to be “needed” all the time all day every day.  Needed to make food.  Needed to clean up messes. Need to change clothes or diapers.  Needed to find a toy.  Needed to supervise.  Needed to turn something on.  Needed to turn something off.  Needed to dial the phone. Needed in the middle of the night once or twice or three times.  Being needed so much can be so exhausting.  It took both of my girls going off to school for me to really appreciate my job as Stay-at-Home Mom. Now it is time to try something new.  I’ve read that the longer a person has been out of work, the harder it is to reenter the workforce.  I must be patient with myself.  I hope you’ll be patient with me too.

As she comes down, her angle is wrong, and she has to flail her arms momentarily to keep her balance.  She coasts to me, and in her eyes I can see her frustration and anger at herself for overbalancing on her landing and for messing up again on this jump she’s been practicing for countless weeks.  But buried deep under the layers of gloom, I can also see her silent laughter at herself, and the little spark that will never let her quit or give up hope or get really mad burns brightly, turning her brown eyes into chocolate; melting and sweet and achingly beautiful.  I love her for it.

She asks me what she did wrong, and I stammer out a few words about what she should change and work on, but they are lies.  To me she was perfect, but I’m supposed to be helping her improve.  She can tell that once again I’ve gotten caught up in watching her skate, and forgotten to watch for her mistakes.  The corners of her mouth turn up slightly, and then she’s gone, flowing around the other skaters, the twin white trails that follow her every move circling and spiraling, spinning and looping.  I feel slow and clumsy, an ignorant lump of clay cursed to a life of plodding down beaten earth trails.  My hands are numb and my nose feels red and swollen from the cold, but her skin glows and tingles from the exhilaration of her skating.  My breath floats lazily on the air, while hers is pushed out of her lungs in steam-engine puffs.  As she again makes her approach, I try to remind myself to watch her posture  and her footwork and her speed.  But my eyes want to drink in her grace, and poise, and precision; her beauty is intoxicating and addictive, and I’m not strong enough to resist its temptation. Just as I’m not strong enough to resist her.

-March 2, 1993

In my elementary school days, suburbia, with it’s busy neighborhoods and shopping centers, ended around 21 Mile Road.  There were a few small towns along the way to Caseville-Romeo, Almont, Imlay City, Marlette, but at the time these were small quiet towns with one or two stoplights and long stretches of undeveloped land in between.  The ride up north was mostly a two lane road that you shared with semis and tractors, other people making their weekend getaways and the occasional Amish family in their horse drawn buggies.

When I was little I’d always ask the fishermen on our street, boats still dripping with water, how many fish they caught.  ”About a hundred,” was the usual answer.  Fishing was an exciting sport but not in the ways of football or tennis or games where you must exert your athletic prowess.  When you fish, it is quiet. There is time to read and think and have conversations while the boat rocks gently.  A tug on the line makes your heart jump, and if you are lucky you might catch a walleye or rainbow trout, or if you fished near the docks, a pretty little rainbow fish.  I wonder what fishing is like these days for kids.   I don’t ever remember being bored out there.

Sometimes, when my dad had been out in the boat without my mother and I, we’d pack up sandwiches, chips, pop and beer and meet him at the beach at the end of the road.  I’d get in the lake and help him walk the boat through the shallow water so he could tie it to a pole in the sand.  We’d eat lunch, and then my father would rest in the sun while I swam, made sandcastles, tried to catch the minnows that swam near the shore, and built up my collection of tiny seashells.

Since those long lazy days of fishing and swimming back in the  80′s, the suburbs have spread even further north of Detroit.  21 Mile Road no longer marks where city life ends and rural life begins. In some places, McMansions have replaced farmlands and open spaces, you can zip past Romeo on a highway, fish populations have diminished geatly, zebra mussles have replaced seashells, and the the water has receded so far that there are easily two or three hundred feet between the pole we used to tie our boat to and the water’s edge.

Between my sun drenched days at the beach as a kid and a magical first grade train trip to Utah to visit my adventuresome park ranger/KOA campground owning uncle, I’ve always had a love for nature and a desire to preserve the environment.  All my science reports had an environmental twist, I won first prize for a science fair project I did on endangered animals, and was given the “Science Student of the Year” award in 9th grade.

When I was younger I dreamed about being a park ranger or an interpreter at a nature center.  I figured I would be involved in outdoor education out west somehow.  But life had other plans, I fell in love, and although Nathan was game for moving out of Michigan, I was quite convinced that if I left my parents would  die and never forgive me for breaking their hearts.  I never had the confidence for the adventure anyway.  At MSU, I earned a degree in Agriculture and Natural Resource Communication and volunteered for Project WILD, a program that helps teachers integrate environmental ed into the classroom.  I went on to get my teaching certificate, spent about 7 years working in the schools, then I had my babies, chose to stay home and made my family my job.

Now I’m looking to the fall when both of my kids will be in school full time.  I have projects around my house that are begging for attention.  Walls that need painting, furniture that needs cleaning and mending, a bedroom with knotty pine walls that belong at my father’s cottage.  Those projects aren’t going to fill my time or my yearning for meaning.  Sure, I’ll help out at school, but I’m looking for more.

I’m  introverted and a loner by nature and nurture.  Being a mom has forced me to be more extroverted while at the same time being home has made it really easily to stay isolated.  That school day stretch is looking long and lonely and I am at this point where I’m craving a purpose in addition to motherhood.  I’m scoping out ideas this year, getting back to some of the things I’ve loved in the past, and seeing an ever increasing need for academic reform that includes getting kids outside and in touch with the only planet we can call home.

So here I am, the mother of two little girls.  Next fall, for about 7 hours a day, my nest will be empty.  Parenting is a passion of mine, and long before I became a mom, education and the environment were passions of mine as well.  Nothing calls to my heart like these issues.  I want to bring environmental and outdoor education to my kids’ school.  I want to bring a garden and a schoolyard habitat to the school and use it as a way to strengthen the community.  I even have a theory that we can teach kids almost everything we want them to know through growing and preparing food. We’ll see where that takes me.

The importance of play

http://www.wholechildeducation.org/

Get ‘em Outside http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRR1feHqZPY&feature=related

Old Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514

Tag, a comedy: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/jeff-lewis-comedy-dad-whats-this-game-called-tag/

Health benefits of getting dirty: http://simplemom.net/let-your-kids-get-dirty/

Where do the children play?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot_BCJQut8c

Want kids to get into college?  Let them play: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/29/christakis.play.children.learning/index.html?hpt=Sbin

http://school.familyeducation.com/outdoor-activities/play/38353.html

http://www.letchildrenplay.com/

Food

Jamie Oliver on School Lunches: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIwrV5e6fMY

8 talks about agriculture and its history, sustainability, food, health, etc.: http://indianapublicmedia.org/eartheats/ted-talks-food/

Farm to school:
http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/slow_food/blog_post/farm_to_school_programs_help_nutrition_without_hurting_the_budget/

Ann Cooper, Renegade Lunch Lady, Reinventing School Lunch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXvDLPu5vh0

A teacher eats school lunch every day to prove a point: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/would-you-volunteer-to-eat-school-lunch-every-day-to-prove-a-point-this-teacher-did-1157394/

Snacks and kids: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/u-s-children-generation-snack/

Creativity

Changing Educations Paradigms & a history of education: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

American Creativity is Declining: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

Creativity: http://blog.ted.com/2009/02/09/elizabeth_gilbe/

Culture of Girls

Too sexy, too soon: http://www.hulu.com/watch/192448/abc-nightline-too-sexy-too-soon

Katie Makkai, Pretty:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0

Challenging the sexualization of young girls:  http://www.sparksummit.com/

Perfection: http://www.danoah.com/2010/09/disease-called-perfection.html?spref=fb

The Single Ladies dance: http://rosalindwiseman.com/2010/05/26/the-single-ladies-dance-outrage-the-crisis-of-girls%E2%80%99-sexualization/

Fat Talk: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/724627-fat-talk-free-week-take-3-changing-body-image-by-changing-behavior

Ending Fat Talk: http:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKPaxD61lwo&feature=player_embedded

First I saw an ad for a workshop in Troy with Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes.  I bought the book to see what she was about before I paid for my ticket.  After I decided she was someone I definitely wanted to hear, a conversation like this took place in my head:

“Man, I shouldn’t ask Nathan to go in to work late. That’s just gonna mess with his day. Plus, Averie is going to have to spend the morning in daycare.  That’s an additional cost on top of the conference fee, and maybe I shouldn’t be spending any of this money anyway. I know she will like it, but she’s never been at school all day before.  Maybe that will be too much for her.  Crap, I’m gonna have to find someone who will be able to pick Averie up from her school and then hustle over to Em’s school and who will be able to watch them both until evening.  No one is going to want to do that for me.  That’s asking way too much. I don’t want it too look like I’m taking advantage of people.  Man, what if one of the kids gets sick or hurt and needs me and I’m an hour away from home?  Em is already sad that I’ll be gone all day. I’m just being selfish.”  Every once in a while a little voice would pop up and say, “Hello!  What about what you want?  Hello?”  But I’d quiet it with the next argument about whose day I’d be making worse by taking some time for myself.  That’s what this good girl does.

My husband, annoyed with my inability to make a decision, encouraged me in his oh-so-Nathan way: “Go and be awesome or stay home and be lame.”  To which I thought, “Oh.  My husband wants me to go.  It must be okay then.  I’ll do it.”  I’m glad I did.

After the workshop I came home and did some research about Rosalind and the organizations I learned about while I was there.  At the bottom of one her webpages, Rosalind had a brief endorsement of a book called “The Curse of the Good Girl” by Rachel Simmons.  Of course I bought it.  Although I hadn’t ever defined The Curse, I knew I had been living and suffocating under it for, I don’t know, my whole life!

So how do you know if you are also living under The Curse?  Rachel gives us some clues.  We are a victim of The Curse when being nice is our primary goal.  We are a victims when we believe that we don’t have the right to complain when people who are supposed to care for us treat us badly. We are under it’s spell when we don’t ask for what we want or stand up for we believe in out of fear of making other people angry, or when we guilt and shame ourselves for experiencing intense anger or hurt.  We are under The Curse when we turn to food or alcohol or any other sort of drug to numb our emotions instead of feeling them and dealing with them head on.  The Curse is operating when we act as if someone else’s opinion is more important than our own and when we silence ourselves as a result. It is operating when we believe conflict will ruin a relationship and when we avoid confrontation to keep peace, even if we are the one being hurt.  We are manifesting The Curse when we make assumptions about why people are doing what they are doing instead of asking them. It has a grip on us any time we think we are responsible for someone else’s happiness (or lack of it.)  The Curse encourages us to minimize our talents in order to be more likable. It says, “Don’t try that.  You might fail,” and it hijacks our personality causing us to act differently then we want act in order to please another person.  The Curse tricks us into thinking that perfection is and attainable goal.

Yep.  I can relate to a lot of these,  and I sure as hell don’t want The Curse to take hold of my daughters.  I want them to be what Rachel calls “Real Girls.”

“A Real Girl stays connected to a strong inner core of her thoughts, feelings, and desires.  She is able not only to listen to who she is but to act on it.  She maintains a critical balance:  she can manage the needs of others without sacrificing the integrity of her own.  A Real Girl can defend her interests in a relationship or advocate on her own behalf.  Where a Good Girl might meet someone and automatically hope she is likable, a Real Girl will reflect on what she thinks and feels about the other person before deciding what to do next.” (10)

Both Rosalind’s and Rachel’s books show us how to cultivate our daughter’s Real Girl identity.  As we help our daughters we can heal ourselves.

Back when Nathan and I used to attend the Church of Today in Warren, I was always captivated by it’s then leader, Marianne Williamson.  Marianne was outspoken and passionate.  She was sexy and spiritual.  She was vulnerable and powerful. She was loved by many and hated by many.  She was injured and she was strong.  Heck, she was Jewish but teaching about Jesus.  Marianne was ying and yang, a whole spectrum of a woman yet centered in who she was. Here is one of my favorite quotes:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Let’s not raise another generation of girls who play it small in order to earn acceptance from others.  Let’s raise a generation of Real Girls raised by Real Moms.  If you choose to read this book and want someone to discuss it with, please, PLEASE let me know.  I’d love discuss the book and work through our stuff together.  Peace to you all!

Alex had learning disabilities and ADD.  By second grade he was being pulled out of class multiple times a week for special services.  His mother was an addict and had recently abandoned him and his father, so he got pulled to see the guidance counselor as well.  Alex also regularly sat out of gym or stayed on the sidelines at recess because he had terrible asthema.  All of this made him “different.” His father and I and the support staff at our school tried our best to make school as welcoming, fun and productive as we possibly could.

What I saw in Alex was a sweet little boy with lots of needs.   Since I was scared about him being different, I figured he was scared too.  I desperately wanted to boost his self-esteem.  I thought, “Poor baby, he has such a tough life.  I am going to show him how valuable he is!”  Yes!  I was going to be the teacher who changed his life for the better.  Yes! I was going to be the teacher he would write a letter to Oprah Winfrey about!  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!

In my quest to be Alex’s superhero, I did what every teacher does.  I pulled out the tools I was most familiar with.  One day as I was monitoring the class while all the kids worked on an assignment, I stopped and stood for a moment at  Alex’s desk (the proximity tool).  Then I squeezed his shoulder (the touch tool).  Then I looked at his messy, barely worked on assignment and told him, “Good work, Alex. Keep it up!” (the praise tool).

Alex looked right at me with hid cherubic face and beautiful blue eyes and replied with authority, “You don’t mean that.  I haven’t even been working hard.”

He was right.  I didn’t mean it. I said what I said out of love and good intentions, but it was meaningless praise.

We all want our kids and our students to know we think they are wonderful.  That’s partly why we praise.  It’s just that sometimes our praise can actually result in less confident kids, and other times it can make us look like fools.

At my  introductory Parent Talk class, the facilitator talked about two types of kids.  The first type of kid is the “praise junkie.”  Praise junkies need constant validation.  They ask over and over, “Do you like it? Am I right? Did I do a good job?  Did I get it right? How am I doing?”  All kids might ask these questions occasionally, but praise junkies seem to need  ”a regular shot of evaluative praise to maintain their sense of self worth.” (Parent Talk Workbook, 43.)

The other kind of kid my facilitator talked about is the type who hears praise phrases like “Good job” so often that these words get mixed right in with every other word in our vocabulary .  As a result, the praise holds no special meaning at all.  These kids eventually tune out to this kind of parent talk.

Then there are kids like Alex who hear praise often and for things that don’t deserve it for.  The see right through it, and as a result  the person expressing the praise looks rather unintelligent.  Again, the praise holds no value.

Parent Talk (and Love and Logic) aren’t programs that advocate getting rid of praise.  Instead they advocate for using the kind of praise that will help children look within and be satisfied with their own self-evaluations.  With a little effort to change our habits, we  can limit our evaluative “good-job” kind of parent talk and yet still give meaningful praise.  Here are a couple Parent Talk ideas:

Descriptive Praise

The Parent Talk workbook encourages Descriptive Praise (37).  This kind of praise is all about noticing:  ”I noticed you cleared the table and put everything back where it belongs.”  ”Every single toy in your room is put away in it’s proper place.”  ”I noticed you taught your sister how to make a slap shot.”  ”I noticed that all your paint strokes are going in the same direction.”  Using descriptive praise allows the child be his or her own source of approval.  It also forces parents to take a few extra moments to really think about and see what the child has been doing.

Appreciative Praise

Appreciative Praise takes descriptive praise another step.  ”Thank you for clearing the table and putting everything back where it belongs.  I really enjoyed having some extra time to finish my coffee and chat with dad.”  ”Thank you for putting all the toys back in their proper places.  When I get home from work today, I will enjoy relaxing in a clean home.”   “I appreciate  you taking time to show your sister how to do a slap shot.  She’s been watching you with interest for a few days.”  With this kind of praise, the child gets to self evaluate and has a concrete example of how he or she can make a difference in someone’s life.

My parent talk class on praise reminded me of an experience my daughter had this summer.  When we went to Missouri to visit Nathan’s family, I brought along her scrapbook.  The scrapbook is full of the usual things like photographs and notes, but it is also full of her art.  All four of my husband’s adult cousins are artists, so I was really excited to share it with them. All four cousins looked at the scrapbook. Three cousins made evaluative praise comments like, “Cool,” That’s really neat,”  ”I like this one,” “Neat-O!” and “Very good ” as they flipped through the pages.  My daughter sat quietly with a smile on her face as they looked at her stuff.  The last cousin went through every single page with my daughter, noticed things and asked questions. “I noticed you made the sun pink.  Tell me why.”  ”I see over here that you taped a small piece of paper over your original work.  Why did you chose to do that?”  ”You used paper twirling.  I’ve never done that.  Now I want to try!  How do you make those squares and triangles?”  With this cousin, my daughter talked and talked.  She smiled and laughed and bounced in her seat as she answered his questions.  She was clearly feeling good about herself, yet I don’t think he ever once looked at a page and said, “Nice job!”

Growing up, I was taught many things about speaking my mind.  I was taught it was disprespectful.  I was taught it could hurt someone’s feelings.  I was taught that it would get me in trouble.  I was taught “Who do you think you are… to disagree? to think you are right?  to think you know anything?”   My mother had a tremendous influence on my life.  I know she loved and cared for me deeply, and I also know that her own mental, emotional, and social handicaps (for which she, for a number of reasons, never got help for) were passed on to me through her words and actions.  She was not the type of woman I could go and pour my heart out to, and if she ever suspected that I might be trying to talk to my dad she would sneak up on us and attack us with her words.  She worried about what I said when I was away from home. I was often reminded that what happened in our home needed to stay in our home.  Eventually I gave up trying to confide in my dad, and he gave up trying to help me.   Stuffing my thoughts and feelings and opinions inside became a survival skill.

I turned to journal writing at a young age because it was a safe way to express myself. I could pour my heart out and no one would know.   Then one day in my senior year my mother found my journal and  read it.  I have to laugh a little because I remember writing, “Private, do not read!” on the cover.  How could she resist??  I had a boyfriend.  His mother had gotten pregnant out of wedlock.  Surely I was siding with the devil.  Needless to say, she didn’t like what it said.   She burned it on the gas grill behind my childhood home.  All the poems and stories I wrote for my brother who had passed away were gone. All my thoughts about falling in love and bonding with Nathan’s family were gone.   And so were all my thoughts and frustrations about life.

So much for having a safe place to express myself.

I’m a thinker, an analyzer, a talker and an observer by nature.  It’s really difficult to stuff away who you really are year after year.

I’ve grown a lot thanks to the help of a great therapist, years of hard work, and a husband who has stuck by me through thick and thin.  Becoming a parent has forced me to deal with a lot of my childhood angst, and I am thankful.  It has forced me to find ways to heal because I desperately do not want to pass along the unhealthy habits I learned growing up.  Through all my recovery work, I’ve rediscovered my love of writing.   I discovered my voice, and it feels wonderful.  I am so thankful to have a place share my passion for conscious parenting through this blog.

As I’ve become healthier, I’ve found that I have many opinions on many things, especially when it comes to parenting and education.  Because I’ve done a lot of therapy and a lot of research, and because I have a background in education and spent 7 years working for the school system, I think I have some pretty valuable ideas on these subjects.   At the same time, I am certainly still learning and I always try to remain open to new ways of looking at things.  Yet I still worry about pissing people off.  And even though I know that I am not responsible for other people’s reactions to my ideas just as they are not responsible for my reaction to theirs, I can’t quite shake the voice in me that says, “Shut up, Janet.  What you have to say doesn’t mean shit you poor pathetic, wounded woman.”

Yet it is these wounds that give me passion.

I’ve decided I’m not going to shut up.  I can’t.  I’m going to keep talking, keep reading, keep learning, keep tweaking my opinions, and keep healing, and in so doing I hope to encourage others to keep talking, keep reading, keep learning, keep tweaking their opinions and keep healing as well. Yes, I can learn to speak with more tact.  I can learn how to more clearly express respect and love.  I can learn when it is valuable to speak up and when it is valuable to keep my mouth closed.   But I can’t learn unless I practice.

Thank you to my friends who let me practice with them.

The average elementary school teacher has 20-30 students in her class, sometimes more.  In middle and high school, teachers have 5-6 classes of 20-30 (or more) students.  Each child has his/her own personality, behavior issues, emotional/health issues, ability level, family, history, and quirks.

Every morning, these children come to school with varying levels of alertness.  Some are rested, some are not.  Some are full and some are hungry.  At the end of the day, some will go home to big families, some will go home to small families, and some will go home to an empty house.

Some of the children have two dedicated parents.  Other don’t.  Some are dealing with difficult issues like an alcoholism, divorce, or abuse.  They carry the weight of the world on their tiny shoulders, and their problems don’t disappear  when they walk through the school doors.

Some of these children have developmental issues.  They might learn fast or they might learn slow.  They might have ADD.  They might be dyslexic.  They might be…anything.  And now the teacher has to take these students and teach them all a highly demanding curriculum (and keep the parents happy too).

Teaching is hard work.

I’ve been on both sides of the classroom door.  I can tell you that just as most parents want to be great parents, most teachers want to be great teachers. And all of us fall short some of the time.

Please take some time to appreciate the teachers in your children’s lives.