All Entries in the "Family" Category
PushMe PullYou - Susan Sawyers
The round freckled-faced schoolboy and I managed to uphold our promise to wander from west side to east at least once a week; every week school was in session. Hot or cold, rain or snow, we did it. Today concludes those 5th grade meanderings because by end of day tomorrow, he will move up to [...]
More reflections on the passage of time - Anushka Fernandopulle
Another new year …..Is it 2009 already?!? How did that happen?!? What happened to 2008?!?
Wait, isn’t there some deja vu with this whole new year experience (what happened to ‘07, ‘97, ‘87 ‘77, insert year here)?
Reflecting on the passage of time (including aging and death) is considered a positive tonic for your spiritual life in [...]
Ring in the new. Seth Greenland and Susan Kaiser Greenland
10:02am Susan
It’s New Year’s Day, what are you throwing into the fireplace this year?
10:05amSeth
All of my bad qualities are going in there. It’s going to be a very big fire.
Obama and progressive parenting
Andie Coller posted an interesting piece on Politico this morning where she points out that progressive parenting principles are reflected both in Obama’s rhetoric and leadership style.
It would be easy to bash Obama’s enlightened-father philosophy as an insulting new extension of the nanny state, but the truth is that the exercise of power in any form shares a lot in common with the parent-child relationship.
Holiday cheer - Seth Greenland & Susan Kaiser Greenland
Seth
So, the holidays…
Susan
Do you ever feel sad around the holidays?
Seth
I don’t need the holidays for an excuse, baby. Sadness around the holidays is for amateurs. I can be morose any time. Although the holidays provide a good excuse. Expectations are so high, and people are…well…so low.
Life and art at MOCA - Heather Dundas
Heather Dundas from the LA Times op-ed page today:
I wanted my children to experience that connection between art and life, so I continued to take them to exhibitions. We saw the enormous photographs of Thomas Struth in 2002. (Teo’s reaction: “So what?” Adena’s: “Scary families.”) In 2004, we went to see Doug Wheeler’s unearthly bright neon wall, which we all loved, and in 2005, we saw the monumental paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat, which gave me a chance to tell the kids what it was like to live in New York City in 1980. Going to the museum had become a habit with us, and Teo had begun to forget that he hated art.
The Passage of Time…. Anushka
If you have little kids in your life you know how fast they grow and change every day, week, and month. But actually so do all of us! Perhaps it is less obvious to us, but it is true! The fact is, what we usually call ourselves– body, mind, emotions– is always in constant flux, changing, swirling, moving. And there is no pause button.
I’m such a baby sometimes - Lori Mozilo
I try to think back to when my son was first born. Was I this way? Did my husband and I overwhelm friends and family with our love for our new son? Granted, it was before the Internet and we couldn’t have afforded the postage. But, was I quite so oblivious to the fact people had other things to do besides fawn over pictures of my baby napping with Eeyore?
Death is sad - Kelley McCabe
My husband’s father, Clifford Senior, is dying… the nurse says in the next day or two. Just two weeks ago Cliff and I began a new life when he married me; this week we are saying good-bye to his dad… and I’m struck by the ongoing circle of life: “When one door closes another door opens…” Now we are sitting with Dad in his final days. He has simply a bed, a nightshirt, a blanket… and he is surrounded by pictures of the people who were meaningful in his life and, luckily, by his very loving wife, children, family members and friends.
Should our kids hate McCain? - Soren Gordhamer
The other day while having dinner with my six-year-old son, he announced, “I hate John Mccain.” Just about everyone he knows is voting for Obama, and he knows it, but to say that he hates someone that he has never met and does not know much about, struck me. I certainly have never said such a thing, nor likely his mother, who he lives with the other half of his life when he is not with me. I wondered, “How is it that kids are hating at such a young age? What is a mindful parent to do?”
How To Turn Back After A Bad Decision
In her column on HuffPo today Sue Smalley writes about turning back:
Sometimes the choices we make are wrong and the outcomes - despite all our good intentions - do not match the image of their creation. Recognition of such mistakes in judgment are not to be a source of guilt and criticism of oneself but rather a kind acknowledgement that the path chosen might just be a cul-de-sac or a dead-end or a road to nowhere and turning back is the only option.
Fly Away — Susan Sawyers
Emotion is one of the things I neglected to schedule the week the 14 year-old headed north to sleep away camp. After a series of attempts to manipulate the family schedule in order to accompany her to the camp bus meeting sight, we opted to send her to Toronto as an unaccompanied minor, or UM [...]
What I did on my summer vacation — Lori Mozilo
Zach will be home in a week. Of course I miss him. I’m so curious to see how much he’s grown and changed. But I’m also a bit nervous. I want to make sure I honor his newfound independence. And mine. I have to remind myself that my job as his parent has built-in obsolescence and if I’m doing it well, I’ll be, for the most part, out of business in a few years.
Hard Questions — Liz Dubelman
Liz Dubelman answers her 4 year old daughter’s tough questions about sex in this hilarious Well-Told Tale podcast from VidLit.
Mindful mom is mortified that there was a techno-glitch with this podcast earlier today. If you tried to listen before and heard an exceedingly boring public radio interview, I urge you to listen again to this very funny podcast by VidLit
Dog bites man again. — Susan Kaiser Greenland
July 28th Note: For those who follow the progressive blogs, the online reaction to the John Edwards story is fascinating. Check out how Lee Stranahan is getting slammed in the comments for his post on Huffington why the progressive blogs need to get out in front of this story and also slammed in the comments on his crosspost on Daily Kos.
And now the Momocrats weigh-in On What’s News and What’s Not.
Read more on this story in the post John Edwards, Father of the Year?
True Mom Confession: I’m saying NO to YES. Romy Lassally
I confess, I started off the summer with a commitment to myself (and unbeknownst to them…my family) that I would loosen up and try to say YES more often than I did during the school year. It worked for a few weeks . . .
Mom to my mom, ever mom to me. — Trudy Goodman
So before I left, I held her. She rested against me, almost in my lap. Her body felt kind of shaky, and small, and she kept murmuring motherly things to me, her voice clear and sure, repeating them to me . . .
like a chant . . .
Why change is just a breath away — Sue Smalley
Perhaps death can be seen as another ’sort’ of experience. Religions provide a shared belief that can help each of us find a comfort zone for this inevitable experience, yet for many the experience itself (its naturalness in every moment of life arising and falling throughout all of existence) can be enough.
Bela & The Benz — Tom Teicholz
To imagine where their lives played out across centuries, to walk down those streets, to see buildings and synagogues and to be able to say my family walked these streets, my family members lived here, they were married in this place and buried here, it gives one a feeling that is larger than one’s self — a connection between present and past, a feeling of history.
God, country and the fourth of July - Susan Kaiser Greenland
With all of these other parades going on why was the lack of one on the Fourth of July so important to him? Because it was the largest and most public way he could honor a country that had given him and his family so much.
SisterFriendSister — Amy Spies
As I’ve grown up and evolved myself, girlfriends have become increasingly important to me, and like sisters. They really do feel like a growing extended family, a net for me in case I stumble, a warm embracing hug for when I need that. I kind of mentally picture the women in my life as a circle around me, holding hands and full of life. Hmmm—kind of like those circles we made with our children in preschool holding a parachute.
A Mindful Instant Message — Amy Spies and her daughter Paris
Here’s an IM between me and my daughter.
Amy(8:05:54 PM): Hi there.
Amy (8:07:39 PM): I though t we could chat a bit about what it means to be a mindful mom. I know you’ve been exposed to this world through myself and Susan Kaiser Greenland and helping her and Trudy Goodman teach meditative arts to kids when [...]
There’s a lot less honesty going around than people are willing to admit to. — Kelley McCabe
And, in that one moment, I thought I understood the meaning of the word “freedom”. I didn’t have to let my previous upset impact my interaction with my son. It was a new moment, all its own, and I was completely free to experience it independently of any other moment (or set of moments).
Why can’t all children have what we do? Trudy Goodman
I had seen raggedy five year olds taking care of skinny babies and blind babies and begging children crippled from polio and moms with TB and, and, and…
The Meaning of Moments — Kelley McCabe
What I’ve thought about lately are the big moments I do remember. The moments that were unbelievably exciting and noteworthy at the time and now seem impossible… or worse: a waste of time.
Mother of Thousands - Trudy Goodman
Mindfulness is about balance: being aware of one’s own experience while being sensitive and attuned to our impact on others. In our lives, we are continually falling out of balance. . .
Not so fit - Lisa Dinsmore
What keeps me going back for more? I can’t stand “losing” to a machine. I realize this is a competition only in my mind, but since it’s keeping track of my fitness “progress” I’m compelled to make it change its’ tune and am scared every time I step on the board. I guess anything that gets the heart rate up is a good thing, right?
Alice and Rebecca Walker Clash: Do Feminist Mothers Have to Choose Between Dreams and Diapers?
What I take issue with, and I am not alone, is Rebecca’s black and white take on mothering — there is her mother, the selfish careerist, and then there is her, the new mom who argues that all that should matter to a young woman with children is “a happy family.” What happened to the self-preserving and child-loving in between?
Do the best you can - Susan Sawyers
With just days to go before the school year comes to an end and all of the celebrations, birthdays, ceremonies, not to mention day-to-day routines, I need to remind myself of the quality time we have together. It’s not quantity. The right thing is to love my boy all up. It’s the best I can do.
Who knew the Pope and Chubby Checker had so much in common? Seth Greenland
Not long ago a group of Vatican theological advisors recommended eliminating the concept of limbo and Pope Benedict XVI signed off on it. This troubles me deeply. Although I am not a Catholic, I have great admiration for that religion. Their art collection is unsurpassed, their clergy know how to put on an excellent show, [...]
The Ritual Tribal Abandonment of Mothers - Jeanne Denney
Yes, it is about tribal fear of touching into this need and sometimes this pain. Yes, it is about feeling alone with a task that feels impossible to do well alone. Yes, the tribe has resigned from its role in the life of my children and from its needed and necessary role in supporting me.
There is absolutely nothing interesting about me. Seth Greenland
I have been stymied in my efforts to craft a memoir. Here is my problem: there is absolutely nothing interesting about me.
Duttons Bookstore is closing in LA - Where is a book-loving soul to go now? Tom Teicholz
In a world where the bookstore is less and less viable . . . where will we find knowledgeable guides to help us find what we are looking for or make suggestions? Where can we go to see our literary idols?
Role Models - Seth Greenland
The word role model gets thrown around a lot these days. Athletes are supposed to fulfill that role, or religious leaders, or, god forbid, movie stars. The man whose primary role model is his father, and who can still say that in middle age, is lucky for a lot of reasons.