I will give you fair warning, right now, I am about to go on a rant!
If you have never had problems breast feeding, fantastic for you. If you breast fed your babies till they were 1, 2, 3, 4 years old, great! I am tremendously happy for you, BUT I would appreciate if you tried to understand the flip side of the coin.
Okay, it’s time to stop with all the coddling, and hovering, and helicoptering. Give your kids some space! Let them be kids.
We are stealing their childhood.
Sure there need to be rules. Don’t talk to strangers, look both ways before you cross the street, don’t hit your sister, don’t hit your brother... I don’t care if he hit you first, don’t throw balls in the house, and don’t play with balls on the playground... what?
I would like to start this by stating that I am in no way an expert on divorce. I do however, speak from experience.
I have been in my fair share of failed relationships. I was married at 25 and divorced at 29. They call it a starter marriage. I find it hard to believe they have a name for it, but they do.
By 34, I was packing up my 2-year old daughter and leaving her dad. As I said, I have had my fair share of failed relationships.
I have written plenty of blogs that never make it to this space because I feel they are too ranty, or too personal, and in some very rare instances because I am afraid of offending people. So, believe me when I say that I thought long and hard before posting this blog.
Balance... it’s the new buzz word. It makes the best of moms cringe.
If you look up the word balance there are several definitions, and I think the reason moms get so crazy about work/life balance is because when we are trying to achieve that kind of balance, we think of this definition: Equal distribution of weight.
In our minds, we see a scale teetering, and we are trying to place an equal amount of family on one side and an equal amount of us on the other.
This morning, I had a little reminder of how our decisions affect our children’s lives.
We were having breakfast, Tom, Rebecca and I, and Rebecca didn’t want to finish her breakfast. Now, don’t think we were forcing her to eat something she didn’t like, not that that would be a first. No, we were having chocolate chip pancakes, as per her request.
So, I was nominated as the parent of choice to have “the talk” with my 10-year old step daughter.
We told her that, one night, when it was just her and I at home (that happens on Tuesdays), I would be talking to her about some changes that her body would soon be going through. She was eager to learn.
We had given her a body book a couple years ago to look through and prepare her, but we had never really talked about it. I wasn’t even sure how far she had gotten in the book.
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Maureen Turner is a social media junkie who has somehow managed to transform some mildly humorous tweets about American Idol into a blog.
What’s her expertise? Keeping the peace, or rather, trying to keep the peace. With one spouse, two ex’s & four children all trying to blend together, it’s not always easy but she somehow makes it work.
Maureen’s here to give you some pointers on how it’s done in her house... and her ex's house... and her husband’s ex's house, and her sister's friend's, and the cousins... oh you get the point! She’ll share the trials and tribulations of being an ex, a step, a women, and a mother – helping to put the F-U in dysfunctional along the way.
In Maureen’s other life, she worked in sports television for almost 15 years and somehow still isn’t a sports fan… unless the kids are playing. She also enjoys writing and has been dreaming of being published since she was a kid. Twitter + Erica Ehm = dream come true!
Follow Maureen on Twitter: @moeturner
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