things I have learned from being a mother

[sisyphusshrugged]

~ or, as Cokie Roberts would say,
As A Mother, I Feel That... ~

1. The whole Do as I say, not as I do thing is a recipe for frustration. It's easier to give up whatever it is you're trying to get them not to do than to explain why it's different when you do it, unless the answer to that is "because I'm forty and you're eight," in which case you have to think long and hard about what it's going to be like hanging out with them when they're forty and (by your logic) get to do whatever it is.

1a. Forgetting rule 1 is the royal road to weeks of explaining why the eight year old doesn't get to say "Are you on crack?" in response to what she perceives as extralogical behavior even if mommy did say it to the radio when Jonathan Alter from Newsweek was on.

Later on, if the butter churn doesn't run off with the cuisinart and set off a firestorm of conservative commentary on intrautility relationships and how they are leading to the death of marriage, I'll tell you about Mommy and the raggedy fingernails of maternal personal grooming hypocrisy.

Comments

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

generally, mostly. It's not very polite, and I wouldn't particularly want to be the one to have to explain to her teacher why she's making drug references.

My childhood neighborhood and public school were kinda different than the one I'm in now.