Over at the Credenda website, Peter Leithart has written a cheery little piece called Joyful Parenting. Thought you’d want to know!
Archive for the 'Mothering' Category
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Back when the idea of kids growing up in day-care was still fairly fresh, one of the mantras of the movement was that kids really just need quality time with their moms, not quantity time. As long as they were given a super deluxe Saturday each week with some incredible vacations at theme parks sprinkled in, then you were allowed to vote yourself a fine parent.
But the truth is, that’s a big fib. Kids need quality time all right, but they need tons and tons and tons of it. They are actually little bottomless pits, hungry for time with Mom all day long. And if they don’t have access to their parents, they will look for attention elsewhere, of course. They’re not dumb.
So while you are gazing at that laundry pile that Bekah so artfully displayed for us (I’m keeping her out of my closets and cupboards), take heart. Your kids need you. There is no substitute; not even Nana. That doesn’t mean that they need you to be gazing into their eyes all day long. But they need to know you are in shouting distance, that you are listening to them while you are slapping the pb on with the j. Having you on the premises to cheer for their tricky somersault or to speak to them about how they are talking to their sister is exactly what they need. They eat it up with a spoon. That is quality time. And they need it spread on thick.
My friend Eileen Lawyer has written a nice little piece on homeschooling that is here if you would like to check it out. And the blog hosting her article belongs to one of our party-goers (from Mexico City), so it’s possible you have found it in your blog party going. Though Doug and I did not homeschool our own kids (he started Logos School instead), we are certainly friends of homeschooling. In fact we are attending a homeschooling convention next month in Cincinnati where Doug will be speaking. Anyway, Eileen has homeschooled their one child, and she is a great encouragement to many other homeschooling moms. And I’ve noticed from reading your blogs, a whole bunch of y’all are homeschooling moms too. I think I spot a trend in my readers!
Here is an excellent essay that moms in particular will appreciate. This should give you some reinforcement for all the effort you put in to sitting down at the table with your family every day. But everyone can benefit from this perspective on table manners and how they equip us and our children for life out in the big wide world.
One of the things I like to do for my girls is save a lot of little things that could be (or once were) craft supplies and let them periodically dive into it with glue and scissors and big ideas. I try to think of it when I have ends of yarn that I don’t need, egg cartons, oatmeal cartons, little sparkly bits, fake flowers, etc. If you have a box available, you will end up saving things that you otherwise wouldn’t have, and which come in very handy on rainy days! Today was the day we chose to tap into our little stockpile of junk with some tacky glue and soaring spirits. A bit of a mess maybe, but still fun!
One of the common ways that mothers fail their daughters is to load them down with criticism. Here are a few samples:
“You really should lose some weight and you would look a whole lot better.
“Why can’t you keep your room clean like your sister? You are a slob.”
“Your brother got the brains in this family.”
“Your legs are too fat at the ankles to wear a skirt like that.”
“That color brings out your bad complexion. You should go change.”
I know these sound like awful examples, but believe it or not, mothers say rude things to their daughters. And these impolite, ungracious remarks do not bounce off. They are like the arrows that wound, and the cut goes deep. Mothers may feel like “she never listens to Continue reading ‘Approval Ratings’
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