It's Just My Life!

Stranger Danger

2011-03-14T11:56:00.000-04:00

We have all heard the term "stranger danger". Our children are taught about stranger danger pretty much from the time they can walk. It starts with us as parents saying "don't walk away from mommy or a stranger might take you" and continues throughout their years in school. In elementary school they are taught what to do if they are approached by a stranger and throughout their years growing up they are surrounded by it in their environment. Amber alerts, posters at the store, news stories, books, articles...it's everywhere.

Don't get me wrong here, this is a very serious problem and we do need to equip our children with the tools they would need to try to avoid this situation should it ever arise. What do you do when your child develops and unhealthy fear of being taken? Is there a level of fear that could be considered unhealthy when it comes to this topic? My daughter for instance will not stay in the car for me to even run into a gas station to get a bottle of water. Doors locked, me in her line of vision able to see the vehicle the whole time, keys with me, she will not do it! She gets panicked, cries, gets belligerent, out-of-her mind upset. So, I either have to take her and the babies in or skip it altogether.

Obviously I am not trying to send my child into a full-blown panic attack so I plan my outings around it. To be honest, as a parent, it's something I fear as well. I think her fear of it makes me fear it even more if that's possible!

This topic came up last week. My daughter and I were picking up Chinese food when a man came in and started talking to her. I was immediately uncomfortable and did not like the questions he asked her, and she answered. Because I have taught her to be polite. I have taught her to respect her elders. I never excluded strangers in teaching her these things. The second we were back in the car I asked her how that "gentleman" made her feel when he was asking her those questions. She said "fine". So my child who gets completely panicked at the thought of being in the car, doors locked, keys with me, and what I would consider ok for a couple of minutes totally answers a complete stranger's questions. Questions that made me uncomfortable were ok by her.

In the matter of maybe a minute and a half, this man found out where she went to school, the general area where she lived and what type of sports she played at school. All with me standing right there. Not stopping it. Letting her answer these questions. Later I asked myself why I let this happen. The bottom line is, I didn't want to be rude to someone that could be innocently making conversation. What I learned from that situation is, I SHOULD HAVE BEEN RUDE! Not outwardly "get away from my kid" rude, but more like, "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to stop you, I don't like the questions you are asking". It's not worth the risk to my child just to be polite. It would have also shown her that in an uncomfortable situation, it's ok to speak up. Was she only fine with it because I was right there? I hope so. I don't think she would have felt comfortable with these questions had I not been there but how do you know?

I need to teach her more about uncomfortable situations and how to handle them. After all, it's not always a stranger doing the harm. I need to teach her that it's ok to say she isn't comfortable answering these questions and walk away. I need to teach her that those aren't questions this man should have been asking her. He made me uncomfortable and there is a reason for that. I have learned to always trust my gut. The fact that it is still bothering me, is bothering me!

Are we teaching stranger danger the right way? Do kids need a refresher class as they get older and maybe forget the types of questions they shouldn't answer? How can they be totally surrounded by it for so long and not see a situation that could be dangerous when it's presented to them? And the biggest question of all; HOW DID I AS THE PARENT TOTALLY LET THIS HAPPEN RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME?!

Am I over-reacting here? What are your thoughts?

Any advice or opinions I give are simply advice from life experience and not that of a professional!

Tumultuous Friday - PMS: Fact or Fiction?

2011-03-11T11:38:00.000-05:00

Alright ladies, I'm doing it, I'm putting it out there! Hopefully we can hear something from both sides on this one. Maybe I should have waited until I have more readers for this topic so there would be more responses? Oh well, too late! Guys, you might want to comment anonymously!!

PMS - I don't know how many houses it comes up in but let me just say, it has come up in mine! I'm sure a lady shouldn't speak of such things in public but I am kind of on the fence with that whole "lady" thing. My close friends know better of me. How many of you "ladies" out there have ever been a little grumpy only to have your significant other have some sort of comment regarding PMS?

According to my research, PMS is real. Ok, I will you give you that, we all knew this. Approximately 75% of women are affected by PMS (to read more about PMS, see this article). Does this mean that we are only sane and able to make good decisions about two weeks out of every month? I think not. Here's what really bothers me about this whole, "you're pms'ing", thing. It's an instant dismissal of whatever I have just said. It says to me that you think I am incapable of clear thought during whatever are deemed to be my pms days. If that's the case, I'm not sure how I've made it this far!

I am usually pretty laid back, I will admit that I might get a little grumpy; I don't even realize it until it's pointed out to me. It's only noticeable because I am just so nice the rest of the time! Maybe there's a better, more respectful way to point it out. There has to be a middle ground on this debate right? After all, if 75% of women experience PMS, it could get pretty dangerous for you guys if we started our own army.

I am sure we have all heard the comments about electing a female President. Women are just too emotional to lead a country. I can see the headlines now: "PMS'ing President seen crying over sappy commercial", or "President so-and-so ordered the bombing of Alaska today over argument with Sarah Palin...both were PMS'ing", or maybe "President yadda yadda seen eating Lindt Truffles today, must be that time"!

Seriously? I don't mean to stereotype here, not everyone is the same. Women are powerful. I don't consider myself a feminist but want to point out a few things. We carry, birth and raise our children, work full time jobs, run a house, start businesses, write books and go until we can't go any more. So if PMS is a real thing, we do all of these things while bloating, cramping, wanting to eat a box of chocolates and bite everyone's head off. We still somehow manage to maintain control, for the most part anyway, and get it done!

Yes, there are plenty of men who do most of this as well, I am not discounting you here. It's that emotional part that really drives us. It's what makes us mysterious and special. It's what keeps you CRAZY MEN coming back for more! The good news is, there is no more PMS after menopause so hang in there guys! You only have to wait until we hit our late 40's or 50's. Sad but interesting fact, there are more male babies born than female every year yet after age 35, there are more women than men in the world. From what I read the decline in the male population is due to things like war (thank you to the amazing men and women who fight for us every day), occupational hazards, and disease. Hopefully it's not PMS related.

As a side and more serious note to you girls out there, if you experience severe PMS symptoms, you may have PMDD (Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder). See the link to the article above for more information.

Let me know your thoughts, I'm tough, I can take it!

Any advice or opinions I give are simply advice from life experience and not that of a professional!

Inspiring Your Children - Charlie "Tremendous" Jones

2011-03-10T10:54:00.000-05:00

Today's entry ties into yesterday's entry a little. It's sometimes difficult to find a way to inspire our children, even when we think we know what makes them tick. Something that works one day may not work the next. My daughter does not like to read. I don't think it's because she doesn't enjoy it as much as she is not good at turning what she read into what teachers want to see on paper.

Check out this article on Charlie "Tremendous" Jones to see how one father was able to inspire his son to greatness. He started out with an average teenager trying to save to buy a car and turned it in to so much more. Wouldn't it be great if this could actually work for our children? In my case, I may have to start out reading the books with her but hey, that's a good thing right?

The article lists a few books but I can think of many others! This would be a great place to post a list of some of your suggested reading materials that could inspire our children to greatness! Read the article when you have a moment and, as always, let me know your thoughts!

Any advice or opinions I give are simply advice from life experience and not that of a professional!

Inspire Your Kids - Readers Digest Article

2011-03-09T09:53:00.000-05:00

I keep a reading file of articles that I want to read again later or refer back to at another time. One such article is dated February, 2008 from Readers Digest, "Inspire Your Kids" by Cynthia Dermody. Here is a link to the article. It's about watching what you say to your children and better ways to say it. I sure am feeling like a bad mom now!

After reading this, I am starting to understand why my daughter sometimes has trouble talking to me. It's not that we don't talk, we do. I think she is afraid of me being too hard on her instead of just listening and being there for her. Part of that comes from my need as a mother to help her solve her problems. This has come up a few times recently with the middle school drama! I thought fifth grade was the worst, I was so wrong. I try to help her see how something she has done or said may have triggered a response she wasn't prepared for.

The most recent incident was last week. She was discussing another friend with one of her friends and said that the friend they were discussing was mean sometimes. Well the friend she was discussing this with told the other friend and boy did she prove the truth in what was said (hopefully you were able to follow that)! She blind-sided my daughter in the cafeteria, lots of yelling, in front of everyone of course, so my daughter had her feelings hurt and was embarrassed. The girl also threatened to beat her up. My daughter went to the principal and explained what had happened and wanted to make sure the principal knew that if this person hit her, she was going to defend herself.

This went on all week, my daughter sat by herself at lunch as the girl rallied all of the friends and turned them against her. It broke my heart to hear this so I tried to really break it down with her from the beginning. How what she said made the other girl feel and if her friend is "mean", then she reacted the way she knows how to react, by being mean. I discussed trust with her again and how you have to be careful what you tell people because you don't know what they will do with the information. I told her that you shouldn't talk about people, even if you think what you are saying is justified. Basically, after reading this article again, my daughter probably heard "you screwed up and it's your fault this happened", and "don't trust anyone".

My daughter went back to school the next day and tried to talk to the girl and apologize for what she said. Her apology was not accepted so now it's just a matter of waiting for things to blow over.

My point here is, how is it that we think we are teaching our children and helping them through a situation and end up making them feel like they can't do anything right? It's like you need a psychology course before you have children and have to take continuing education classes until they are 25 to keep up with the current trends. Following your instincts doesn't seem good enough anymore. Maybe I should start a parent's support group. We can meet once a week to discuss how difficult it is to raise our children right and how bad we are messing it up!

Ok, maybe I'm not doing that bad! I have a wonderful, caring daughter that is blossoming into an intuitive, street-savvy, smart teenager. She learns not only from her mistakes but the mistakes of others as well. She does still talk to me, at least for now. I think I am going to work on asking her more leading questions so she can get to the answer on her own instead of taking her down the road of "here's where you went wrong". After all, isn't the point of going through the drama and growing up to learn from your mistakes and hopefully come out a stronger person in the end?

I think it's time for mama bear to stop trying to rescue her cub and let her fight her way through it a little more. That's not to say I won't be here, I will. If she comes to things on her own she can be proud of herself for solving the problem and have more faith in her ability to do so in the future. Any thoughts on this topic? I would love to hear them, especially from parents who made it through the teenage years! Your experience can help the rest of us!

Any advice or opinions I give are simply advice from life experience and not that of a professional!

Facebook and Relationships

2011-03-08T08:57:00.002-05:00

We've heard a lot about this topic! Facebook is ruining relationships across the world...it's a fact right? Before Facebook came along, people who were otherwise apparently happily married turned into cheaters almost overnight! What's the reason for this?

Is it that they weren't so happy in their marriage after all, could it be they were comfortable and maybe the warm fuzzies weren't what they expected after the courting stage was over, or is the nostalgia of what could have been with an old flame? Obviously every situation is different, I think it's more the latter.

According to Wikipedia "The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compounds, consisting of νόστος, nóstos, "returning home", a Homeric word, and ἄλγος, álgos, "pain" or "ache". It was described as a medical condition, a form of melancholy, in the Early Modern period, and came to be an important topic in Romanticism."

Can you believe it was once considered a medical condition? It's probably because so many people have suffered from it's effects! Have you ever known someone that is stuck in the past, like 20+ years ago, and just can't let it go? Always talking about an old girlfriend or boyfriend or "the way things used to be".

It gets old fast...I know, I have seen it plenty. It's been good, everything is going along fine, it's been six months without a thought or word about an old flame and then WHAM! You get that "Hey stranger..." email or friend request and Love comes walking in. I have heard the success stories from a few of these relationships but how many of them don't work? I can't seem to find any statistics on this but I am willing to bet most don't work. I just hope these people are getting to know that lost love from 20, 30 or even 40 years ago before they destroy their families. I am not the person I was back then, not that I was a bad person. I don' t think you will find too many people to be what you remember from that long ago. Is a "yearning from the past, often in idealized form" worth throwing what you have away? People have it better than they think they do, how do we get them to realize it?

If I am ever in this situation, and I pray to God I never am, I don't know that I would have the strength to try to make my husband see how good things really are. I would be so hurt, I don't know that my ego would let me. Share your thoughts, I am curious if anyone out there in my e-universe circle has been through this and would be comfortable sharing your experience. It just might help someone else one day.

I am not a doctor. Any advice or opinions I give are simply advice from life experience and not that of a professional!

Customer Service Complaints

2011-03-07T10:55:00.000-05:00

To complain or not to complain, that is the question! This is something I struggle with a bit when it comes to customer service. To any friends that heard the story 15 times already, I apologize!

I had an appointment set up for new installation of cable, telephone and internet service Friday with the technician arriving between 8 am and 12 pm. He arrived some time around 10:30 am. There was some trouble with the cable installation so they had to restart it a couple of times but after that all appeared to be well. As the installer is leaving the box reboots again all on its own...then a couple minutes later, it does it again. I go out to try to catch the guy as he is pulling out of the driveway, to no avail! I call the cable company and explain the situation, they call the installer back and he calls me. He has me try a couple of things but the box is still rebooting.

He told me he could be back to replace the box in a "couple of hours". At this point it is 11:20 so I am thinking he will be here around 1:20. At 3:00, still no service man! I call him again to find out his timeframe but his phone keeps dropping the call. I finally get him on the phone at 3:30. He tells me he can be here by 4:15, I told him that was fine as long as he would be finished by 4:35 as I had to leave at that time. He said it wouldn't take long. At 4:45, still no service man. I tried to call several times and finally just left a message stating that I had to leave. I was livid! I had waited all day to get this resolved, didn't run out and grab lunch as I was afraid I would miss him, didn't get to pick my daughter up from school as previously planned and was late getting home so my nanny could leave.

As I was getting ready to go out on a much needed date with the hubby, this service man calls me, at this point it is 6:40, to see if we are still at the house! I couldn't believe it. When I asked him what happened he said he had a couple of installations in Lusby he had to do before he could get to me and he "stuck his foot in his mouth". I told him that was not a good enough reason and if he knew at 3:30 that he was 30 miles away from me and had more installations to do before he could get here then he knew before he even gave me that time that he wasn't going to make it. All he could say was that I was right and his mistake was trying to make everyone happy. I'm sorry but I don't see how he could possibly think he was making me happy in any way!

So the struggle is this; do I complain to the cable company about the extremely poor service and disruption to my life (not to mention the mental distress!) and risk getting this guy in trouble or do I take the higher road and let the universe handle it? Let me know your thoughts!

I am not a doctor. Any advice or opinions I give are simply advice from life experience and not that of a professional!

Tumultuous Friday - Disowning Your Children

2011-03-04T14:29:00.000-05:00

So it's time for Tumultuous Friday! This is a segment I will do every Friday on a "touchy" subject that could lead to a little upheaval in my life. Is it worth the risk? Guess I will find out!

My topic today is disowning your children. Is there ever really a mistake that is big enough to actually disown your children? Maybe committing some heinous, unforgivable crime? This topic has actually come up twice in our family this week, two separate incidents, but similar in some ways. The first, an adult 30 something child (from this point forward referred to as "AC") makes a purchase parents don't agree with. The parents feel because they occasionally help out financially the AC should return what they consider a poor purchase decision or they will no longer have anything to do with AC. In this situation the AC has apparently made some pretty sound financial choices as AC has excellent credit, owns his/her own home, has great job and is able to take care of his/her family. Is making a purchase they don't agree with a good reason to decide you no longer want to have anything to do with your children or does this really boil down to plain old manipulation? Is there something the parents fear in this situation that is the motivation for this behavior and if so, what?

Situation number two: Different adult 30 something child (from this point forward referred to as AC2) falls on hard times and decides to move out of state with little money and no long term job prospects. Parent doesn't agree with this choice and thought AC2 should have pursued another option locally, tells AC2 they are on their own, you made your bed now lie in it. In this situation parent has helped out significantly through the years and is concerned for AC2's well-being. Again, is this just a manipulation tactic or does the parent mean it?

When our children are young, we as parents do the best we can to raise them the best we know how to grow into responsible adults. Children make mistakes, hopefully they learn from those mistakes and don't make them again. This doesn't change when they grow up! As adults we still make mistakes, I know I do, pretty much on a daily basis! At what point do you exercise tough love with an adult child and what does tough love mean?

Here's my opinion. Helping an adult child financially over and over again means they keep making the same mistakes over and over again. If the parents keep bailing them out they don't learn to pick up the pieces on their own and do what needs to be done to survive. Is it possible the parents are part of the problem here? I know, blame the parents right! I have to add that I can see and understand where their frustration comes from. Most people, if given access to an endless supply of money however, will continue to spend and spend and spend because there are no consequences. Let's face it, I don't know anyone that has an endless coffer but we aren't really going to disown our children over either of these situations, at least I wouldn't. History will just repeat itself.

Maybe the better approach is to lovingly cut the purse strings! In situation number one, AC would probably at least partially understand being told by parents they won't be able to help out financially any longer if AC is going to continue to make what they consider extravagant purchases. Does that mean if a parent has helped out once or twice they can judge all future purchases or choices? I'm thinking not! AC would probably prefer not to receive further assistance if it's going to cause grey hair!

Similar advice in situation number 2. Unless parent is able to afford it and happy to provide support for AC2 and family, let them make their own way. Will you miss them, absolutely! Will it be difficult, you bet! In the long run it's the best thing for everyone involved if they learn to stand on their own two feet. It may get worse before it gets better.

Is it tough love? Yup, according to the definition of tough love "The use of strict disciplinary measures and limitations on freedoms or privileges, as by a parent or guardian, as a means of fostering responsibility and expressing care or concern." As tough as it might be, at least it's coming from a loving place. Whether it's an adult child or a younger child, when the lesson or discipline comes from a loving place you get much better results than when it comes from anger or manipulation. Especially if you are just putting yuckiness out there you won't actually follow through with.

Bottom line is it doesn't matter how old we are, our parents are still our parents! There may be boundaries and they might sometimes cross them but it's because they just love us so stinkin' much! Love them back and tell them how much you appreciate them, I bet it will go a long way!

I've rambled long enough, I'm curious to hear others thoughts on this so weigh in! Be gentle, I'm a lover not a fighter!

I am not a doctor. Any advice or opinions I give are simply advice from life experience and not that of a professional!

It Takes a Village!

2011-03-03T09:24:00.001-05:00

One of the babies has a cold so he woke up last night at 1 am for a bottle. As I am sitting there feeding him my mind goes to an incident that happened a few months ago with my 12 year old. Things at her dad's house are a little difficult for her at times with her stepmother. My daughter was at a friend's house, a friend she has had for years, and she spoke to her friend's mother about some of the things she has been through. Instead of this mother keeping my daughter's venting to herself, she told the stepmother what had been said and asked "what in the world is going on in that house?".

I ask you, if a child comes to you in confidence and actually confides these things in you, why in the world would you break that confidence and tell these things to the object of aforementioned conversation? Don't you think there is going to be further backlash for this child because of what you have said? It's difficult enough to get a 12 year old to talk sometimes, I am not thinking an incident like this is going to help that situation! Life is tough for kids these days, I encourage you to be there not only for your own children, but your children's friends as well. You never know what they might be going through and you could be the one they confide in. You can make a difference in a child's life...it really does take a village!

Let me know what you think.

I am not a doctor. Any advice or opinions I give are simply advice from life experience and not that of a professional!

So I'm Finally Doing It!

2011-03-02T12:57:00.000-05:00

I am finally starting a blog! I've considered it for a long time but there's always something else to do. Will anyone even be interested in my crazy life or what I have to offer? I guess we shall see!