The Emergency Money Diet

Hello!  Thank you to everyone who has passed this blog along to your friends and family! We had 10,500 hits as of this week! I am amazed and appreciative of the requests, and as I have shared with some of you, I am hard at work putting together a collection to publish before Mother's Day. That said, a very good friend of mine lost her job last week. It is with a heavy heart that I present for her and for anyone else dealing with this crisis:

The Emergency Money Diet

On Friday afternoon you are let go from your job with two weeks’ pay and a heavy urge to find the nearest bar and drink yourself into oblivion. Hangovers actually feel worse now that you are over thirty, so buy a decent bottle of wine and steaks to grill and keep yourself busy until you are ready to tell your spouse.

Are you crazy? I can’t afford wine and steak. You just drove past a bar that serves a 14.00 glass of Pinot Noir. You are not doomed to eat cereal every night for the rest of your life. Everyone should be allowed a bit of time to adjust their thinking to a shock like that. Feel free to crawl into your hole for the evening, even if you spend it playing Candy Crush until 2am.

Tomorrow begins a temporary adjustment to your life. Yes, I said temporary. Most crises such as these do not last forever. It isn't cancer. But. It could last a while, and though you cannot "fix" the situation right away, this is a good way to take hold of it and give yourself some control.

Saturday

Hey, Honey. I have to tell you something hard...

Big breakfast day—make pancakes from scratch, fried eggs, and fruit. Heat the syrup, so it pours easily and the kids don't waste as much. Tell your kids what is going on--only enough that they can handle--you can present it in a way that makes it seem like an adventure. This is going to be rough, but not if everyone understands and is actively part of the team. They, and you, will be stronger as a family on the other end of this.

Do not wallow in the hole and say, "Screw it, I don't want to cook," and figure that you will go out to eat four days this week. Get out your recipe cards for inspiration, make a meal plan for the week, and put together the grocery list right after breakfast. Put one large roasting chicken on your list. I am about to show you how to stretch it into three meals - a "Rubber Chicken."

Shopping Tips
Buy only the necessities: lean hamburger, chicken, pork chops; fresh fruit you know your kids will eat for snacks; sweet and roasting potatoes are a great way to fill up teenage boys--make them mashed and then load the skins with cheese and bacon for their appetizer; largest size bags of frozen veggies (they actually have more nutrients because they are frozen so quickly; cold cuts for breakfast and lunch sandwiches; thin sliced bagels and whole grain bread; avoid the cost of things that are pre-made to save--blueberry muffin mix is less than a dollar--if you throw in two handfuls of real blueberries, they are better than Starbucks. Buy a giant can of diced tomatoes at Costco (2.50) and add it to sautéed onions, mushrooms, a tablespoon of garlic, and oregano for a light but delicious spaghetti sauce--freeze the other three portions and add it to ground hamburger or meatballs.  

Buy family-size boxes of crackers and cookies, not individual packages, and frozen concentrate juice instead of juice boxes - I add twice as much water as is called for to keep them from getting used to such a high level of sweetness - for fourteen 6 oz servings –that's half the price and no individual trash. If you have school-aged kids, get reusable containers to pack individual servings—it is still cheaper than the pre-packaged stuff. 

Skip the movie and shopping or whatever expensive activities you normally do. After your kid's soccer game, skip the fast food and head to the grocery store together - stick to the list, no impulse buys. Teach your kids about price per ounce and making smart choices with money. Spend the rest of the day on improvements - you and your kiddos can fix something in the house, such as changing batteries in the smoke detectors or burned-out light bulbs. Do some easy task in the yard together that you've been avoiding for weeks. I'm not kidding; kids think cleaning the garage is fun. 

Big Saturday night event--Make homemade pizza for dinner with a tossed salad and play a board game instead of streaming a movie for 3.99 -- I highly recommend Wits and Wagers.

 

Sunday—Don't skip Sunday School for the kids—great place for them to socialize and for you to learn a little something, and the coffee is free.

Come home and make lunch together. Early afternoon money-saving task - Go through your phone and see what apps you can cancel. Go through your credit card and see what subscriptions you can cancel. If you have parents or grandparents who clip coupons, send them an email and tell them what is going on and that you could really use their help to be thriftier—they will absolutely LOVE you for this and will send every coupon you request. 
 

It is Rubber Chicken Day One. Big dinner day—roast your large chicken, cook brown rice with 2 bouillon cubes, make gravy from the drippings, and steam a green vegetable. Cut the meat and put it on plates in the kitchen - you can save about two-thirds of the meat for the next two meals. Serve your family meal around 3pm. You still have time to take a walk afterward - exercise will help your mental health. Keep in mind that an adult serving of chicken is about the size of your fist or about 3 oz. We are so used to giant portions in this country that we have lost sight of the idea that we are not trying to fatten 'em up but just keep 'em alive. 

Save every bit of meat from the bones and divide what is left into two containers - one for Tuesday and one for Thursday. Put the bones into some water to simmer with 1/3 onion and some celery. Cool and refrigerate - you now have bone broth, one of the healthiest appetizers ever, but you will be using this for meal #3. 

Monday—Substantial breakfast, middle–size lunch, small dinner (good energy and weight management) is always the plan. If you have put on a few pounds, with this uncertainty in your life, you are likely to lose some of it, but with careful eating and exercise, you can look great for interviews when it is time.

Clean Out and Clean Up
What can you sell on Ebay or the Neighborhood FaceBook page? Go through toys and clothes that your kiddos may have outgrown. If you bundle them into a group and offer them for a reasonable amount, they will probably sell and you don't have to deal with a consignment store. What purses or jackets have you barely used? Collectibles that someone gave you that you don't really want that could bring in cash on eBay?

Little Kids--Take your kiddos for a walk to the park, hike around the neighborhood, and walk to get the mail every day. They love the outing, and it gets you out of the house and moving your body.

Cancel your cleaning service—did you know that vinegar and hot water cut grease? The smell fades when it is dry. Vinegar is also a miracle cure for animal urine.

How much did it cost you to work? Review your expenses—this can be really painful, but if you think of it as temporary, like camping, it can make a huge difference. Check over all of those debit charges that you do for and while working. 

    How much do you really spend on gas, Starbucks, dry cleaning (because you don't have the time to iron), lunches, clothes, hair products and makeup (it is totally freeing to put on sunscreen and chapstick and throw your hair in a ponytail four days a week), eating out because you just don't have the energy to cook, childcare, doctor's office visits for ear infections, individually packaged food and drinks for your kiddo's lunches, manicures, pedicures, massages? It all adds up, and a lot of the time, just cutting this stuff out can get you very close to where you need to be.

Not enough?  Do you have two car payments? If you traded in one of the fabulous cars, could you get one that is "just fine" for half the payment or none at all? What if you sold your teenager's hotrod and shared your Accord? How much is the difference in your insurance? Call the insurance company for a breakdown of what you pay.

Your Budget --yes, you must assign a job to every dollar you have.
My list of necessities (and of Dave Ramsey) is 1. food 2.  lights/gas  3. mortgage--after that, I think 4. gas for the car 5. car insurance 6. 1 phone--everything else is negotiable. Try to keep your credit rating good--a bad credit rating affects your car insurance rates.

If your teenagers constantly buy music or movies, kill the debit card link. Your teenagers need to get babysitting gigs, part-time jobs, or offer to do yard work/wash cars/clean decks for anyone who will pay them. Demand that they save no less than half the money they make.
 

Dinner—hamburgers, homemade fries (thinly sliced potatoes), and steamed mixed veggies

Tuesday--Look at your bills. What electric vampires are you using? Anything not regularly in use needs to be unplugged. What services are you paying for because you did not have the time? Cancel the gym membership - running is free.

What can you sell on Craigslist?
Get into your garage and look at all of the toys and tools gathering dust. Check eBay and FaceBook Marketplace to set prices, but you can get quite a bit of money from bikes, strollers, backyard toys, trampolines, unopened paint, loose wrenches, boxes of nuts, bolts, and screws. If you need to move for a new job, you won't have to be in a panic trying to pack up all of the stuff or pay someone to haul it away for you.
 

Little Kid Project--Have your kiddos "sort" all of your Tupperware stuff by putting the lids on all of the containers. No lid or no container—put it in the Goodwill bag. Emptying your house of clutter will help your brain function more effectively.

Little Kid Job—make the juice. One of your plastic pitchers becomes the official juice container. Put a can of frozen juice concentrate in the pitcher, add twice as much water to the pitcher as is called for (gets them used to things with less sweetness), and mark the level with a permanent marker. Now when it is your child's turn to make the juice, they don't have to measure and spill. They will just put the pitcher in the sink, add the concentrate, add the water to the line, and stir. Voila! They can do something helpful without a sticky mess.

Put a serving of snacks in a little cup or bowl instead of eating out of the box—keeps everyone from ruining their dinner and wasting food.

It's the 2^nd night of the Rubber Chicken—take the second 1/3 of chicken meat and make sour cream chicken green sauce enchiladas (usually the best enchilada sauce is the cheapest one on the shelf), a casserole, or Cream of Chicken spaghetti with a green salad.

Wednesday—Make a job chart and post it—you don't have to buy stickers, just use a pen or colored pencil to keep track of your kiddo's progress. Kid job—gather the trash from all of the trash cans in the house. If you give them a dry cleaners bag with one end tied, kiddos can usually manage emptying little wastepaper cans into it. 

We like to start our job week on Wednesdays so that we get a treat in the middle of the week. Good job approval gets to pick out a new book or puzzle at Half Price Books or Goodwill. 

Find your library and join it. They always have a story time during the week. You can borrow books, audio books, and movies - all paid for by your tax dollars. Your kiddos may even make some new friends who like to read.

Little Kid Project—take pieces of tin foil and make costumes out of it and then read any book on knights or princesses.

Dinner - Pork chops and rice casserole is always a hit. Spray the bottom of your largest casserole dish and pour a cup and a half of rice in the bottom. Lay thin-cut pork chops on top of the rice. Layer onion and tomato on top of the pork chops and pour three cups of chicken broth over the whole thing. Cover and bake for one hour. Steam half a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. Serve with apple sauce. 

Thursday—Start a journal on your computer about your progress for weight, eBay, and household handyman jobs you finish—it does help to see that you are accomplishing things at home over time.

Where can you and your kiddo volunteer? Is there a retirement home nearby that encourages kids to come and bring their artwork?

You are being a homemaker, right?  So, make it what you feel is a home. Throw out/send to Goodwill parts of things that will never be fixed, clothes you never wear, and all the little bits of clutter that remind you that you have not finished them. They do not really matter if they have not been missed for a year.  Clean and organize one drawer in your bedroom in 30 minutes—set your timer and finish that one small job. Again, if you have to move for a new job, it will cost less to haul all of this stuff away or move it.

Make pudding for dessert. Make your own bread instead of buying loaves made with sixteen ingredients you don't recognize. See the recipe in Grandma's Recipes Blog.

Final night of the rubber chicken—Chicken and Dumplings. Heat the broth, then strain out all of the bones, celery, etc...  Add the last 1/3 of chicken to it and dissolve chicken bullion cubes (1 cube/12 oz).  Taste it and add salt if needed. Add some frozen green beans if you want. 

Dumplings: 1 cup flour, 1 tsp salt, just under 1 tsp baking powder, enough milk to make it dough.  Roll out flat on a floured surface and cut into strips. Place the strips on top of the simmering chicken and broth. Cover and cook about 10 min and serve. 

Friday—You made it!  Look at your debit spending this week compared to last week. Tomorrow you plan for the following week, but now you have the momentum. 

Plan to exercise. Most cable companies offer a workout channel that has everything from cardio dance to yoga. You are already paying for this, so use it. 

Special Dinner night—No going out for $175.00. Don't order that 10.00 glass of wine. Get a large rib eye for you and your husband to split (again, no one needs more than 3 oz of red meat at a serving) and a little sirloin for the kiddos. Bake potatoes and steam some veggies. Find a bottle of wine for around 10.99—I'm not kidding, there are a lot of good ones that are fabulous if you let them breathe for an hour.

 

Be Honest with someone you trust.  This stuff is hard and without support, it will be harder. You don't know if you don't ask, but you may have friends who want to join you on your money diet! 

If you haven't already, one of you should join Costco. Buy stuff in bulk and split it (giant pork chops) or store the additional ones for later. If you pay $120.00 (55.00 each) for the executive level, you get a check at the end of the year for 2% of everything you buy—except gas. If two families are using it pretty regularly, then the check usually covers the membership fee, and you can both go to lunch on the balance to celebrate.

Do errands together with the kids. It sounds like hell, but it is actually one of the best tricks. The kids talk to each other while you moms visit and get your errands all done. Make a map for the day to maximize time and save gas. Take turns driving every other week.

So, now the hard part begins. If you are like my friend, her job has evaporated, and there are no positions within 500 miles of her home. It may be time to rethink your career. If you were in marketing, can that be restyled to apply for a sales job? If you were a business person and have your MBA, can you teach business courses at a university? Do consulting for businesses in your area? You don't know if you don't look. Cry really hard, go for a walk or run when you feel like crap, and when you can, embrace this opportunity that has been set before you. It is always darkest before the dawn, but know this, if you look for it, there is light.

Food as a Need

     To celebrate the beginning of the school year tomorrow, now would be a good time to check on the Mama’s Needs.  After your kiddos head off to school and you are in the house with only the little ones or Alleluia yourself, where are you in your Needs?

     Quick review. According to the Mother Board Handbook our Needs are air, water, food, shelter, sleep, medical treatment, physical activity, an honest, loving relationship with our spouses, and one real friend. Necessary clothing is important, but nothing dies if you don’t have it. Everything else comes after.

     Let’s go back to the Needs Quiz (June 30) and talk about food.  Since you took that quiz, how has the one thing you wrote down to change improved your life?  If you forgot all about it, that’s okay. Tomorrow is a great day to put the pop tart down.

     Food is necessary, but the kind of food we need to  fuel our ability to think clearly and fuel our bodies for movement is probably not  what we think of when ch0osing what to eat. Just because you are not in school, does not mean that you do not need your brain to function at a higher level.

     Where we were told that grain-based foods should be the foundation of all of our meals, I am finding that using that guideline only makes me fat. If I switch the if I'm being honest huge bowl of cereal for Greek yogurt with blueberries and strawberries (huge antioxidant foods) and a piece of grainy toast, I have the energy for a three-mile run and two loads of laundry.  Eating half an apple with peanut butter at 10:30am keeps me from wanting a 600-calorie cheeseburger for lunch, so that I can enjoy a small plate of re-heated chicken and brown rice with broccoli.  Getting ahead of my hunger keeps me out of the junk food I crave when I allow myself to get depleted.

               Everyone has been in a grocery store with this one:  While standing in line to pay for groceries, a toddler wants candy.  The mama absently says, "no."  Having had only a pop tart and juice box three hours ago, the child cries.  The child screams that she is starving and begins to wail.  The grandmas in the line raise their eyebrows. The mama, her mind straddling the thought that people are seeing evidence that she has a terrible child (ergo she is a terrible mother) and knowing she had better hold her ground or all will be lost, repeats a quivering “no” to her little beast.  The child, hearing the uncertainty in her mama’s voice and realizing her own power in front of all of these people, lashes out physically and hits her mama.  Mentally exhausted because she did not feed brain-supporting food to herself, the mama picks up the candy and takes half before giving the child the rest.  All the grandmas shake their heads. 

     Let's back up. 

     One must always feed the mama and the kiddo a proper meal before going to the grocery store.  Even a snack will avoid the meltdown that may occur.  Mamas must keep in mind that toddlers are especially irrational when they are hungry.  Rationality is the mama's job.  The mama knows that candy tastes way better than chicken and brown rice with broccoli, so it is up to the mama to feed the kiddo before taking her into the wonderful land of stimulating, colorful, tasty treats. 

     Now that both the mama and the toddler are not cross-eyed crazy hungry, the Mama Bubble can be drawn. 

     The child wants candy—they always want candy.  The mama says, "No."  The child cries. 

     The mama gives child "the look."  "The look" is a flat stare, narrowing of the eyes, looking dead-on into the child's eyes without breaking the gaze.  Eventually, the child will look away--this how the mama knows she has won. Works with dogs, too.

     I did realize at one point that I have said “no” out of habit.  Occasionally, I allow one appeal.  It has to be a well-thought out appeal with good reasoning.  “If you buy me this, I will clean my room” bribes are instantly thrown out.  This exercise encourages them to understand how to make a logical argument.  “I ate all of my lunch and rode my bike 3 miles today, so could I please have this small bag of Skittles?” is a reasonable request.

     I'm feeling a little like a slug.  My kids have eaten pizza or fast food every night this week.  Yep, mine, too.  Celebrate the fact that it was fun and easy and move on.  Since the need for brain-food begins in earnest this week, eat lunch and make your list of what health-supporting meals you can make for you and your family BEFORE you go to the grocery store today. Otherwise, you will buy random items that look like they taste good, including that huge bag of chips you will open and eat in the car on the way home. As a side note, your kids’ lunches will be healthier if you do not take them to the grocery store with you. Mamas know that kids will eat the apple slices for a snack if the lunchboxes contain only apple slices and not chewy fruit snacks, but it is hard not to give in when we are having our own anxiety over how our kids will do in their new class.

     The lazy days of summer are over for now. It is a new start for everyone tomorrow. Fish and nuts help you to have better recall. If you have cancer in your family or a lot of allergies, antioxidants can help both of those issues.  Digestion problems? Make sure you grab the apples. I just heard on our local news channel that the healthiest population drinks two glasses of red wine per night!  Wahoo! To begin to have a balanced life, we must feed ourselves and our brains before tackling the challenges that are to come.

 

Nobody Listens to Me and the Consequences

          My kids and I have discussed their role in this endeavor and we have come to the agreement that I will not use their actual names, but words which describe one characteristic of each of them.  This grants them the option, when questioned, to deny that they were the offending child in any of the blogs.  You have already been introduced to “Ferret” and “Techie.” I am now allowed to present “Quick” and “Duchess.”

This may sound familiar to you…

     While at my family’s mountain cabin packing for our rafting trip, I tell my nine-year-old playing with his lacrosse stick to bring down the day bag sitting on the sofa upstairs. 

     (Acts like he doesn’t hear me).

     “Darling boy, child of mine, please get the day bag. Upstairs. Sofa by the window.”

     He picks up his lacrosse stick and disappears up the stairs. I continue gathering items, chatting with J/Mother Board member, throw two mugs into the dishwasher, etc, then I realize that the boy is still missing.

     “Quick!” I holler in irritation and irony.

     “Yes?”

     “Bring it to me!”

     Quick appears two minutes later… with my purse. 

     “No one listens to me,” I tell my friend, J.

     J, mother of two boys who has watched me and my kids for years, smirks and raises her eyebrows.

     “It’s because they don’t have to,” she tells me. “You are asked to repeat yourself, and you do, constantly. There’s no consequence.”

    Crap.  She’s right.  Get their attention, say the direction once. If they ignore you, nail with the consequence.  It should have gone like this:

    Quick wants to go outside and play lacrosse, but I need help packing for the rafting trip.

    “Quick, put down the lacrosse stick and come here.”  (Walks over, looks up) “I need you to get the day bag.  It is upstairs on the sofa. If you are back here in two minutes, I will let you go outside. If not, no lacrosse, got it? Repeat to me what you are getting and where it is.”

     He does. Bag retrieved, happy mama, happy boy.

     Clear. Concise. Especially with boys. Repeating yourself drains the energy out of you and teaches your children not to listen. Yes, we are all overwhelmed, but everyone can improve their attentiveness.

      But not following a parent’s directive in order to explore their own way of doing things is also part of a child’s normal break from being a child to becoming a young adult. Applying eyeliner above the lashes rather than below, positioning the head of the bed by the door rather than the foot, and using honey instead of syrup on their pancakes are small inconsequential choices that are not harmful and are a perfect way for children to explore their options and find out what works well for them and what does not. It is the dangerous choices that need to be discussed out loud, with consequences explained where parents must have their child’s attention. Unsafe driving, alcohol and drug experimentation, and sex with multiple partners all must be addressed well in advance of the behavior.

      My kids are still young. I don’t want to bring that up now. Actually, you do. In my upper-middle-class neighborhood, we have had our share of horror stories. A freshman boy and his friends were playing a drinking game with their own version of shots –a solo cup half-full of vodka instead of a true shot of 1.5 ounces—and he got on a losing streak. The freshman’s heart stopped twice during transport to the hospital. Two seventh-graders were caught in the middle school bathroom having anal sex, "because," the girl said, “it was not real sex and I'm still a virgin.” A local pediatrician, Dr. Jill Grimes, was appalled to find that one out of five of her patients tested positive for not one but multiple sexually transmitted diseases and wrote a book, Seductive Delusions, to help us prepare our kids. Things are not the same as they were when we were growing up, my friends. Now is not the time for our kids to be ignoring us.

            Most psychologists will agree that parents have until their child is fourteen to make the biggest impression on them.  At that point, the child begins to break away from the role of child to find his way into adulthood. Friends become more important than parents. It is normal but very sad for the mamas and can be fraught with danger for their children. The corollary of buying and using methamphetamines, loss of appetite (the draw for girls) and staying awake (the draw for high school and college students), must be counteracted with the knowledge of extreme tooth decay and severe depression (Morrison). The key to keeping your child safe is to face these conversations without embarrassment or hesitancy. 

            There are safeguards to be put into place before your child is in middle school. Setting requirements and boundaries establishes these ideas in a child’s brain and gives her a caution light when she is on her own.

            Duchess never wanted to be corrected on how she drove the car. It was clear that she was trying to assert her independence in this new venue. Therefore, before being allowed to get her driver’s license, in addition to the State’s requirements, we required that she save and submit to us a deposit of $500.00 and find a way to pay $150.00 per month to pay for her car insurance. The $500.00 was to cover the expenses of a traffic ticket (fees and defensive driving—happened once) or pay the deductible in case she had an accident. Since it took her over three months to scrape together the $500.00 in the first place, Duchess was extremely careful to leave enough space between her car and the other vehicles on the road.  After a year of driving without an accident, her insurance went down to $121.00 per month, then the following year, it dropped to 96.00. This is a real-world consequence of good behavior for teenage drivers. We did get a phone call from a friend who witnessed one lane-change transgression and called us to let us know. When Duchess got home a few minutes later, we nailed her with the information, fined her $30.00, and grounded her for the night. Astonished, she actually laughed out loud and bowed to the ground in submission to our abilities to see and know all. God will provide the power of knowledge for parents who seek and appreciate it.

            Before dating, I highly recommend that each child read a book written by Dr. Grimes. Seductive Delusions, John Hopkins University Press, is a shocking, well-written book that every teen should be required to read before becoming sexually active.  I paid each of my kids a dollar per case to read it when they turned thirteen.  No, I do not expect my kids to be sexually active in high school; I expect them to be informed. Knowledge takes time to sink into a brain, and better they know before heading into a situation than after. You can order the book from her website:

http://www.jillgrimesmd.com/seductivedelusions.html

            What is coming down the road for our kids? We cannot foresee everything, but as their only parents, it is our obligation to provide as much fact-based information to them as we are capable of giving. These are only two examples of thinking ahead for our kids. The first step, getting them to listen early, makes the more difficult conversations infinitely easier and may be the road to them saving their own lives day after day.

Grimes, Jill. Seductive Delusions.  Baltimore. John Hopkins University Press, 2008. book. http://www.jillgrimesmd.com/seductivedelusions.html

Morrison, William. “Meth Addiction.” Web. myaddiction.com. 19 Aug 2012. http://www.myaddiction.com/methamphetamine.html

The Expectation of Happiness

          Instead of WELCOME, my best friend gave me a doormat that says, “GO AWAY.”  I laughed hysterically when I first saw it and placed it at my front door immediately.  Any time we get a solicitor, I smile, point down at the message, then yell through the glass, “Sorry, can't open the door. My dog will eat you!”  He is over 75 pounds and has a ferocious bark, so it works every time. I think the angel statue wearing the bicycle helmet balances the sentiment, but I do move the doormat into the garage at Christmastime as a show of good cheer.

             Another friend asked to borrow the doormat from me the other day. Her youngest daughter just moved home after graduating from college to “save money.” 

            “You know whose money ISN’T being saved? Mine!” she said. Brianna had two job offers and turned them both down because she does not want to leave the great state of Texas. Last week, since she was so bummed out that she does not have a job, she bought a $300.00 Chihuahua puppy with the last of her graduation money because it would …ready?...give her something to be happy about. I listened to her rant for almost forty minutes, vowing to myself that I would not take notes and use this story in any writing at any time, but she said, “I wish someone had told me to teach my kids that the best happiness is the happiness you get after overcoming a difficult experience. Her happiness was a huge part of our parent-child conversation. I thought having a secure childhood would make her more capable, not less." The happiness requirement our kids have is overcoming the urgency of necessity.

            Almost twenty years into this mothering program, I realize that all of the theories I had about having children and rearing children have given way to the realities of doing it. My early thoughts on parenting were formed by my negative and positive childhood experiences, but if I am honest with myself, my childhood had happy moments. My childhood was not all happy, and as a parent, I want happy kids, but to what level? Happy for eighty percent of the time? Forty?  When did we become so focused on happiness? What percent of the time are mamas or daddies happy? In fact, a good percentage of the time, we are bored and frustrated, but even that serves a purpose. Frustration is the first response to a challenge.  Overcoming challenges is what makes new connections in a brain.  Perhaps it is time to re-think our goals for our kids.  Is the most important aspect of a career to provide happiness or to provide shelter, food, and clothing? Brianna's mom would like a do-over, this time she would like to request her own Mother Board.

            Brianna (age 3) is at the playground. She wants a turn on the slide but is afraid of the stairs. The playground is designed for ages 2-4, so physically, she can handle it. She cries in frustration. Brianna’s mama, wanting her child to be happy, reacts to her crying by 

Choice # 1

             lifting her over the stairs to the top of the slide every time

This does not allow the desire to have fun overrule the fear of falling, it confirms that Brianna is not capable, and it also makes Brianna’s mama her playmate, not giving Brianna the opportunity to learn to play with her peers

or

Choice #2
                sitting down on a bench and calling to Brianna “Go for it, Baby!” then looking away as if she expects Brianna to be able to do it.  Guess which one the Mother Board would encourage?  If Brianna overcomes her fear and does it herself, she realizes true value in her accomplishment.  She will access this memory of achievement every time she faces a fear until the next one reestablishes that knowledge and so on.  She builds her own basis of success.

            Sadness and happiness are reactions. When our little kids are disappointed or sad, mamas have the tendency to try to divert the sadness by introducing a positive stimulus to the child (favorite ice cream/candy/watch a favorite movie) or stepping in and doing the task for them.  The obesity rate in children in the United States has gone from 6.5% in the 1990’s to 20% in June of 2012 (Pandita). That is over 25 million children who are at least ten percent over the recommended weight for their age and height. Why is it that in the last twenty years our obesity rate has blown up? Could it be that the latch-key kids have grown up to be over-indulging parents to make up for our own unhappy childhoods? We think this will help, but what it really does is keep the child from learning that sadness is not debilitating and that picking herself up and trying another way is the key to success. If little ones are not given this chance, it only gets worse.  

            Brianna is now a junior varsity cheerleader at her high school with her friends.  Despite the fact that she is the least strong member of the team and has a slight sprain of her ankle which happened on the stairs at school, she tries out for the varsity squad.   The results are that she is the only one of her friends who is placed back on the JV squad.  Brianna is devastated.  Her mama, still the well-meaning, attentive parent wanting her daughter to be happy, goes to the school to re-explain that her daughter had an injury that happened at school and question why her daughter was not placed on the varsity squad.  The school says that they were aware of the medical situation, but that during the previous year Brianna had not shown that she has the ability to be on the varsity squad yet.  The next step her mama takes will determine Brianna’s emotional growth for this situation.  Her mama can:

Choice #1

                   threaten a lawsuit, forcing the school to give her a spot

                  Requires no growth on Brianna’s part and places her in an awkward position   
                   with the rest of the squad who legitimately earned the honor
                                                   or

Choice #2

                    help Brianna lay out a plan to deal with Brianna’s feelings of embarrassment and                     encourage her to practice to improve her performance level enough to make the                     varsity squad for her senior year.

Take a wild guess which one the Mother Board would encourage? 

Children who never have to deal with disappointment or embarrassment do not have the capability to deal with disappointment or embarrassment when they are adults.  They also have a hard time feeling empathy for other people who are experiencing these emotions. Almost always, it is those who have experienced great hardship who are the most compassionate.  Diamonds are not found lying in a bed of clover, they are formed deep within the earth under great heat and pressure.  These moments must be embraced. Encouraging a child to know they can and will overcome a difficult situation can be all the fuel the child needs to triumph over themselves. If the mama approaches a challenging situation with a positive attitude, she teaches her kiddo to do the same. 

The generation of parents before us did not respond to their children as ours does.  With two working parents, we were left home alone and were expected to do our homework, fold the laundry, and start dinner.  We thought this was tantamount to child slave labor, but to what end has this “helicopter parenting” brought our kids? 

Because of her mother's strategic blocking, Brianna has not experienced a major disappointment in her life, so as an adult, how will she respond when she does?  How many puppies will she buy?  How many bowls of ice cream will she eat to answer the lack of happiness? 

 Where children twenty or thirty years ago were made to do chores, have jobs, walk to school, and go play outside, learning to handle ourselves among our peers and overcome our fears without holding the hands of our parents, the concerns of today's parents have kept our kids closer to us.  We might have hated the frustration and uncertainty at the time, but looking at what we have been able to accomplish, some of that forced independent activity is the reason for our success as adults.  Our kids, under our watchful eyes, spend a great deal of time snacking in front of video games and the computer.   Yes, the safety factor was not as much of an issue for us as it is now, but we have gone guardrail to guardrail, overcompensating for the small percentage of monsters by not only protecting our children from them, but from failure.  Apparently, the outcome of our over-involved parenting is a generation of kids with expectations of "being happy" who will hit the colleges and job markets without having suffered and overcome the small challenges of childhood. 

  

Pandita, Rahul. "Child Obesity Statistics in America." Buzzle.com. Web. 15 June 2012

The Christian Grey Phenomenon

Warning: this piece is not appropriate for a Sunday morning, anyone under the age of 21...or my dad

          A very good friend asked if I had read the Fifty Shades of Grey series. Honestly, because I was now seeing it in the middle of the grocery store aisle, I had purchased the first one, but had not made it very far into the story. 

            “You HAVE to read it.  It made me absolutely crazy,” she confessed. “I had extremely vivid dreams all night long. I couldn’t sleep!” she gushed. She was one of about ten friends who were raving about it.

            “Why would you lie wriggling in your bed when you have a perfectly good husband lying right there beside you?” I asked her.

            “I can’t do that! He’d think I was nuts! Plus, he can’t do what Christian Grey can do. I'd rather just dream about a kitchen pass for him.”

            The one relationship where love is supposed to encourage and allow all truth and you are not going to share with him? The fantasy is always better than reality, however, we too often let the fantasy hinder movement forward.

                        I apologize, but I must to do this first. In my mind, there are two kinds of fiction, authentic and manipulative. Authentic fiction builds a moving story around a moral and illustrates a clear theme—I would highly recommend the fabulous examples of The Elegance of the Hedgehog or The Poisionwood Bible. Manipulative fiction has little depth, but manipulatively plays on the psychology of the reader—examples are any “chick lit” or romance novel.

The story of Christian Grey and Ana Steel is the exploitation of any teenage girl’s daydream that she is so special and so beautiful and so desirable that she inspires the unattainable bad boy to become husband material. Do not get me wrong, the book is being marketed to thirty-somethings, but the author is writing to the sixteen-year-old in all of us. The idea of being dominated releases the societal binding of “appropriate good girl behavior” to awaken the subdued carnality in us all. The manipulative brilliance of the author in using the name Christian  and making Ana a virgin invites the normally pious to read on. This series is Beauty and the Beast, Twilight, The Thorn Birds, and Gone With the Wind, only with unnecessary graphic sex. The fact that the author made the main female character an English major and used a thesaurus sporadically does not make it well-written.

However…women, especially tired mamas after a long day, can have the tendency toward being slow to warm up to their husbands. For generations, society dictated its Victorian era view of sex onto the impressionable minds of its teenage girls, suppressing their innate desires by making them think that sexual desire is “bad”. What? They are all having sex! The STD rate is skyrocketing! True, but that has everything to do with the way we were raised and the way we are raising our girls to think about sexual desire. The discomfort of the subject for the mamas casts it into the shadows, allowing us and our girls to remain silent with each other about the topic. Without understanding or knowledge, young girls in search of understanding to the awakenings in their bodies, respond to the boys’ lead, in hopes that they know what they are doing. Perhaps our girls would wait to experience sex in a healthier environment if they were encouraged to be the one to lead their partner in what is enjoyable for them. Clearly, males are not as complex as females. Most likely, they would appreciate the direction.

Perhaps the first step in changing the taboo of discussing female desire is for mamas to embrace their own. As noted, I cannot recommend the Grey books on their literary merit, but if a mama desires certain aspects of the sexual relationship Christian Grey provides, she should not wonder who will be cast as the character for the movie and keep her daydreams to herself. A good place to start would be reading enticing sections of the book aloud to her husband. After his jaw hits the floor, it may be just the key he has been searching for all along.

         

Keeping Up With The Joneses

     Why is it that just before my birthday, the one person who makes me feel the most insecure gets a new car? I do not need a new car or desire to spend my emergency fund money on something other than an emergency, but right before my birthday, if that person gets a new car, I want a new car. That little green monster starts whispering in my ear that I am falling behind and I must keep up with those Joneses, and I, like the insecure idiot I can be, panic, adding unnecessary, unhelpful pressure to my bubble. 

     In every neighborhood, there are Bad  Joneses.  They have thick lawns edged with begonias, a sparkling pool, a new Escalade, bags of new clothes, and every other item that you desire, and they tell you about it. They judge every single item of clothing and piece of jewelry and decorative piece of fluff you own by comparing yours to theirs and giving backward compliments that translate into bragging that theirs is better. That is how they let you know they are the Bad Joneses. The Bad Joneses invite you to come sit on their picture-perfect Southern Living porches and drink iced tea with fresh mint. This lure makes them seem so nice, but their sole purpose in life is to seem impressive to others because of the big secret they are desperately trying to keep: they do not think they are valuable people themselves.  Having this kind of presence in your life is a huge energy suck.

     The pressure of meeting the Needs of our husbands and children is a lot. We do not need to add pressure by surrounding ourselves with the Bad Joneses who help create a load of Wants in our heads. Keeping up with the Bad Joneses is the main reason that families have unnecessary credit card debt.  

     The truth about people who want everyone to think they “have it all” is that they don’t feel that they do. They have what they have, but the feeling of contentment is usurped by a list of troubles and emotional baggage and insecurities. Rather than focusing on trying to be part of a solution to a community problem (loving thy neighbor),  they react to their list by negatively criticizing others to elevate how they feel about themselves. It never works, but that is the only way they know how to handle their insecurity. Their insecurity blinds them to good things that happen to anyone “below them” because they are so focused on impressing the Joneses above them.

     For others who are insecure, it is easy to become swept up in this mess. For instance, when your kids start going to school, joining a carpool does not require a new Cadillac Escalade to impress the Joneses. To keep your Mama Bubble intact, qualify the point of a carpool to yourself.  A carpool gives each mother the opportunity to skip sitting in traffic, save gas, and invest that time toward achieving a goal. As a bonus, it gives the kids a chance to socialize. However, the Joneses use a carpool as an opportunity to brag when they stop to chat when dropping off your kiddo (“I have just GOT to make our airline reservations for Belize or we will all get stuck in economy”). This type of conversation is a RED FLAG telling you that it is time for you to create another carpool.  Honestly, it would better serve you to drive your kids yourself than to be exposed to people with so little self-assurance. 

     If you happen to live around nice people who have nice stuff but do not brag about it, and you are feeling insecure and jealous, you have several healthy Mama Bubble options:

a.      Embrace the fact that your vehicle is paid for and give it a good cleaning to reward it for its faithful service

b.      Turn up the volume on Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and sing along with your passengers—it makes your car the “fun” car--they will love you for it and love riding with you

c.       As always, repeat the following: I will not add pressure to my bubble

    

     Kind, thoughtful friends who belong on your Mother Board do not put pressure on each other to impress one another. True friends name your eight-year-old vehicle Penelope and cheer when she only needs brake pads instead of a total overhaul of the brake system. True friends encourage solid behavior (saving up and paying cash for a new car) rather than damaging behavior (telling you to just go get a new car because you deserve it).

       A good question to ask ourselves is “What is the value in my friendships?” If you notice that every time you come home from someone's house and feel badly about yourself, you need to recognize that that is not a healthy relationship, and it is really unhealthy to spend a lot of time pouting about a list of Wants. However, if you come home from someone's house and you feel smart and funny and want to invite her over without worrying that the front hall needs repainting, that is a good indication that you have spent valuable time with a friend.

     If we, as mamas, are influenced by the insecurity of others and allow that negativity to affect our decisions, how can we teach our kids to make healthy choices? What does this behavior look like to them? It models that Wants are more important than Needs and people who focus  on Wants are more valuable than those who do not. Perhaps it is time to do some cleaning of the Mama’s soul and stop allowing the Bad Joneses to use her as a tool to temporarily prop up themselves. Letting go of relationships is never easy, but making the goal of creating a healthy environment for ourselves and our families makes these difficult decisions necessary.

     Everyone wants. Especially me. However, more times than not, God gets ahold of my soul through a true friend, stops my damaging impulsively, and sets me straight. but surrounding myself with healthy friendships is a requirement for this healthy behavior.