Tag Archives: kids

There’s nothing funny about actual “Mean Girls”

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Mean girls suck. Actually, mean people suck, but I’m going to focus on the concept of the “mean girl”, since that’s what most relevant to the situation at hand. To get into it I need to set the stage, so I’m going to roll the clock back to my time in second grade (around 1980).

I was transferred to a new school so I could be part of a “Gifted & Talented” program, one of those accelerated learning programs that public schools in my area offered for kids who tested out of the standard curriculum. I didn’t know anyone there, but the rest of the kids had been together for several years. It’s not like I was some kind of novelty; the other kids mostly just ignored me those first few days. Only one girl took any interest in me, and we became fast friends–a deep friendship that continued for many years.

Some of the other girls, however, were assholes. It’s not like it was everybody, but a select group of A-groupers who were thinner and prettier than everyone else decided that I would be an easy target for their bullying. They’d be nice to me when they wanted to see how I solved a math problem, but otherwise they’d tease me for being fat, for being ugly, for being different from them. It was classic herd rejection.

It took years for me to be comfortable enough in my own skin that I was willing to look past what those early interactions did to my self-esteem. And there was no small part of me that sighed with relief when I saw that my daughter was an improvement on the model by leaps and bounds; she’s just this gorgeous, athletic, smart, funny, kind, and effortlessly cool kid. I figured things would be easier for her.

And yet, I spent a good bit of time up past her bedtime chatting with her last night about the mean girls that she’s encountering. Some are budding juvenile delinquents–not so much for lack of intelligence but for complete lack of discipline and manners. Some are from the classic “mean girl mold”, like telling anyone who’ll listen “I hate {dd}” and stage whispering about dd with her mean girl clique. Some are veritable human tofu: they take on the personality and aspect of those around them, regardless of whether they’re good or bad influences.

It’s sad and frustrating on so many levels. I want to protect dd from the pain that I went through, to have her rise above it and not feel rejected by those who choose to pick on her. I’m incredibly sad that some girls that I’ve known for years, that I’ve taken into my home at times or that I’ve spent time around, are treating her so horribly now. And I know that I can’t go to the parents and ask them why their kids are being such assholes to my kid, because it’s not my place to tell them so. (And they may be aware of the behavior and just don’t care, although I’d like to hope that’s not true.)

When I talked with dd about all of this mess, I asked her to see these kids for who they really are. The tofu girl may still be the nice girl that I’d like to think she is. But when her personality and actions change depending upon who’s she’s around, who’s the real her? The *mean* girl and the juvie-hall candidate-in-training are the ones I’ve told dd just to avoid. I’ve encouraged her to play with the kids that are nice, to find and make those safe spaces away from the kids that treat her like crap. That pushes her outside of her comfort zone which requires risking further rejection by attempting to go and play with someone new.

And I know that everyone thinks their kids are the cutest in the land, but seriously my girl is gorgeous. As in: when I look at her, I’m amazed that she’s my kid. That’s why it was a painful conversation, listening to her to tell me how ugly her face is, how much she hates the color of her skin, how few kids she feels comfortable playing with because of all the cliques and divisions that exist even at the 4th grade level. It hurts because she has natural advantages I didn’t (like her stunning beauty and her athleticism) and she’s still being subjected to this bullshit.

Maybe this is part of growing up, helping you develop a thicker skin and build your self-confidence…or maybe it’s just a shitty part of society that we really need to get past. Maybe one of these days we finally will. It just can’t come soon enough.

The mythical mom

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mother and son silhouette

image credit: pixabay.com

I was deep in conversation with my boss about our current parental challenges when she tossed something at me I didn’t expect: she called me a “better than average mom”. Me? Really?

Not really being sure what constitutes “average”, but being wholly surprised that I could be considered above that waterline, I pointed out what I tend to see on Facebook that often induces my own sense of being behind that particular curve.

There are the moms who seem to be able to handle it all…

…their hair and makeup always look spectacular.

…they always rock these sweet outfits that make them look so ridiculously cute.

…their kids are on multiple sports teams each and the schedule seems to manage itself.

…they’re so lovey-dovey with their spouse or significant other that you wonder if they’re secretly still newlyweds.

…they always seem to be cooking the most amazingly complex, attractive food that takes a ton of time and that their kids just LOVE.

…they’re typically on their way to or coming back from a workout where they just crushed a personal record or finished off the latest Beachbody DVD.

In other words: they’re fricking fantastic at being moms AND getting it all done.

Or are they?

My boss (probably) rightly pointed out that we typically only take pictures at our best. True enough, I don’t see a ton of people taking selfies in meetings when they’re being told that the thing they’ve been working on is getting sidelined or defunded in favor of something else. And rarely do they stop to take video of little Timmy having THE MOST EPIC MELTDOWN EVAR AND ISN’T IT SOOOOOO FUNNY. In general, you don’t see these same moms showing snaps of their ultimate bedhead or how they look trying on the pants that don’t really fit super-well because women’s sizing is complete bullshit and any size in one designer may be a complete other size in another designer.

In other words, while we show all of these pictures of us at our best, it’s easy to assume that when we don’t have those ourselves we must be at our worst. We’re psyching ourselves out, seeing pictured perfection that’s lit just so and snapped with costly digital SLR’s–not looking at the reality when the accent lights are put away and the best you’ve got is the camera on your old iPhone 5.

I don’t know that there’s a perfect mom out there, although I think that every mom who tries to be perfect is striving for something that looks like success to them. And it’s really easy to fall back on the assumption that if little Timmy isn’t an A student who plays three sports and two instruments, who volunteers in his spare time and cleans the house, that somehow you’re a failure as a parent.

The thing is, it’s not our responsibility as parents to outshine each other; our responsibility is to raise civilized humans that can grow up to be improvements on the original models. We shouldn’t be setting ourselves up to assume that every mom who rocks some fab blow-out is looking like that all the time–nor should we ignore those times when we look in the mirror before heading out and our own hair looks REALLY FRICKING CUTE. Call it out. Note it. You don’t have to take a picture of it to remind yourself that it happened.

My idea of the actual average mom is someone like me:

…she has a pretty full day, whether that day is spent at home, at a business, or somewhere in-between.

…she has those days where she looks really adorable or hot, and she has other days where you wonder if she needs to do laundry and learn about that thing called “a comb”.

…she cooks as healthy as she can based on what she can afford–both in time and money–and she makes choices all the time about whether she can “afford” to cook more than one meal or if the kids will just have to deal with whatever’s put on the table. (This also assumes that she’s the one doing the cooking, which may not be the case.)

…she wants to be healthy, for whatever definition that is in her mind, and she could always do more–but she’s trying. And some days, she just deserves credit for even thinking about trying, because even that can be hard.

…she maps out her schedule in her head on a daily basis, trying to figure out how to keep all the moving parts of her life from colliding in spectacular fashion.

…she sometimes yells at the kids because they’re not always behaving like those smiling, happy-faced kids that you see in those random posed pictures.

…and–most importantly–she deserves a freaking break every now and again, because perfect doesn’t and shouldn’t exist.

Our kids won’t always be perfect, either, and misbehaving isn’t always a sign of bad parenting. Sometimes it’s just fatigue or hormones or hunger or stress or any one of 1,000 other things that we can’t tell because the Psychic Hotlines just don’t work.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that we all should cut each other some slack–and we need to save a bit of that for ourselves, too. It’s hard to unlearn years of self-suppression, but maybe we each deserve the opportunity to consider ourselves “above average” from time to time.

Can we survive the terrible tweens?

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facepalm

photo credit: pixabay.com

Let me start this off by saying something that should go without having to be said: I love my children very much. Even so, the tween years may just put me in the ground. Or, more likely, they’ll make me desperately wish that my body didn’t hate alcohol so much. Sure, the “tween” years are typically defined as ages 10-12, but it’s clear that dd is advanced for her age, since we’re seeing signs of tweenage at the tender age of 9 years old. *cough*

I remember pretty vividly what I was like as a teenager. Let’s say it wasn’t pretty for my parents. I feel like I spent most of my teen years grounded or in some kind of pre-grounded status, hovering between “I slammed that door” and “I’m about to slam that door”. It was the standard issue, run-of-the-mill thing where you want to have freedom and independence (to a point) and constantly feel like you are bumping up against boundaries or requirements that seem restrictive.

“Do the dishes”

I think I pretty much constantly avoided doing the dishes, leaving them for my already overburdened mother, because I just found them to be a chore. I pretty much always considered doing the dishes an awful task until I had dd and suddenly found my sink overrun with dishes and my “works” for my breast pump. My life felt completely out of control: I wasn’t able to produce enough milk for my newborn daughter, I had absolutely no idea how to communicate with this tiny individual who seemed to expect that I’d know EVERYTHING about taking care of her, and there was the rest of my life to balance with all these new responsibilities. Doing the dishes suddenly became hypercritically important. To this day, it’s understood that I’ll disappear into the kitchen for as long as it takes to get the dishes done following any dinner party or get-together, to the point where people have to track me down. It’s not that I’ve become anti-social; I’ve become anti-dishes-in-my-sink-and-on-my-counter-overnight. Call it irony, if you will. I prefer to think of it as cosmic payback for all the crap I put my mother through.

“Clean your room”

OK, so this is one where I’m still pretty much a mess. My “filing system” at home and work is typically chaotic piles that look like posed pictures for a manual on how to be a hoarder. Occasionally, I’ll just lose what’s left of my cool and ritually toss things en masse into a trash bag, and haul it all out without much in the way of sorting or dividing. I’ve learned to let go of my attachment to things I’ve collected over the years. And so it is that when I look at the kids’ rooms and see stuff all over the floor or their dressers, I just nod and consider it genetics. My mother used to threaten to go through my room with a steam shovel. It’s more likely dh will take that hard-line with the kiddos, while I’ll just roll my eyes and move along. As long as the clothes are clean and there are no mammals in the house other than those I’m related to by marriage or blood, I’ll generally shrug it off. I’ve been to friends’ houses where the clutter was so thick that you couldn’t walk without having to step ON things or sit ON things. We’re nowhere near there–and there would be either an intervention first or we’ll get invited to be on a reality TV show (which would trigger an intervention).

“Watch your mouth”

Ah, this is my downfall. My ass continues to be smart to this day (as my father will surely attest–though I’d like to point out that this is MOST DEFINITELY a dominant gene that he passed down to me). After all, better to be a smart-ass than a dumb-ass. And so, it’s completely unsurprising to me that my children have inherited this trait as well. “Backtalk” is actually something that’s both annoying and completely necessary, in my mind. Sure, the kiddos will tend to lose nine out of ten arguments on things where they just want something for the sake of winning the argument, but if they give me a real justification for why they think I’m so wrong (and they’re wrong), they may win. Lately, the tween hormones have gotten dd more on the shrill shrieking tip than just the standard backtalk; it’s like she’s found some really awful frequency that would make most dogs run for cover. I’d actually rather that she just fussed at me or pushed back on me verbally rather than tried to rupture my eardrums.

And yes–I fully expect that there’ll come a time when the kids start swearing at me/us. What they don’t hear from us, they hear from their friends at school (which is how it worked for me). Self-censorship only goes so far. I could avoid using every profane word and they’d still learn them–plus more. THANKS, URBAN DICTIONARY.

*      *      *      *      *

We’re lucky that dd still thinks boys have cooties. It’s 6-year-old ds who has a close girl friend (he’s too young for those last two words to be together). Frankly, I’m not sure how ready I am for the talk beyond what I’ve already had–and we have already done a variant of the talk. Well, I’ve had one with dd. I assume I’ll need to do much the same for ds at some point soon, but it’s hard for me to forecast when.

“I have to help every day. It’s so boring!” – ds

I get it, kid, I really do. I feel ya. Been there, done that. Reliving this and watching them start down the path of *all the hormones at once*, I feel badly that it’s yet another thing I can’t shield them from. And yet, it’s a rite of passage, so here we are.

Time to buckle up; it’s gonna be a long few years.