All Entries in the "Parenting" 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 [...]

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.

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?

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?”

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

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.

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).

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. . .

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.

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.

False Alarms - Amy Spies

False alarms—we’ve all had ‘em, but what do they really mean? Think about it. It can be the security system going off because of the wind. Or a smoke alarm set off by a stove-top bar-b-que. Or a financial scare—or a terrorist alert. Or any kind of scare that freaks [...]

When you raise children . . . Amy Spies

As I watch my 20 year old daughter on the cusp, leaping off into her adulthood—I find myself uncharacteristically tongue-tied when the time comes to respond to her occasional questions about how she should navigate her future

Teach your children well: they’ll be gone before you know it. Sue Smalley

At 53, I play the game of life from an ‘infinite’ perspective, where the only goal is to keep the game going and engage as many players as possible.

To Vaccinate or Not Vaccinate? That’s Not the Question - Susan Kaiser Greenland

It is downright terrifying to acknowledge that we do not know everything there is to know about the interrelationship between toxins, environment, vaccines and autism. . .

Mystic Mom - Sue Smalley

All moms are mystics by virtue of experiencing this moment of self-transcendence, experiencing a moment where “I” doesn’t exist, where “I,” the objective I, and “Am,” the subjective “being,” blur together as one. . .