Leading Mama

Speak Up!

The weight of motherhood isn’t measured in pounds and pants sizes. It’s measured in responsibility. And it hit me almost immediately with both of my children.

 

As a Leading Mama, I speak up for my children when they cannot speak up for themselves. Since my kids are small, that is much of the time.

 

  Here’s how I speak up for them:

 

1)      I ask the doctor about speech delays, hip dysplasia, and the 3^rd percentile for weight. I share my kids’ stories. I advocate for treatment or against treatment. I wait and watch and re-evaluate. I ask more questions. I speak up to protect their health.

 

2)      I recognize their traits, talents, and preferences. Little Man loves to move. He’s a sociable guy. He’s inquisitive and talkative. I look for opportunities to develop those talents. I sign him up when I think a program “fits” and say “no, thanks” to those that don’t. I ask the teacher to work on weaknesses or to expand their learning in new directions. I speak up to nurture their potential.

 

3)      I understand that more isn’t always better, even if it tastes or feels good at the moment. I make or break the rules. I say “no” to sugary snacks and staying up too late to watch another TV show. I say “yes” to thirteen colors of play doh – even if they’re mixed together – and “yes” to playing at the playground as the sun sets, even though we need to cook dinner. I speak up to teach values.

 

4)      I read the hurt or happiness on my kids' faces. I hear joy in Little Mama’s squeaks and squeals. I hear the hurt or hunger in her cry. I see frustration in Little Man’s pout. I read anger in his stomps and scowls. I give their feelings a voice, translating into words what they know with their hearts but can’t yet describe. I speak up to capture their feelings.

 

5)      I live in the world with an eye toward tomorrow. I see failures in our education system. I worry about our American obsession with reality-show role models. I seek out role models who set an example by acting with kindness, compassion and persistence. I support causes that will make the world better for my kids today and, more importantly, for their kids tomorrow. I sign petitions. I vote. I speak up for their future.

 

That’s what leading parents do.

 

How do you speak up for your kids?

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This post inspired by a prompt from Mama Kat who asked me to "Describe a time you spoke up for someone who couldn't speak up for themselves."

Image © Ken Hurst | Dreamstime.com

My Military Child and his Dad

My son is a mama’s boy. I am a boy's mama.

 

Our attachment was not instantaneous. There was no magic. Our attachment grew in the small, shared moments of life.

 

It took root when I held my tiny, hungry baby and I fed him. It grew as I soothed his anxious cries, singing whatever song I could pull from my weary brain. It bloomed when we snuggled in for naps together, breathing in and out simultaneously. Our lives are so richly intertwined that it is hard to tell where I stop and he begins.

 

My son is a military child. I am military mama.

 

No matter what comes, Little Man knows he can count on me. I am his constant.

 

My husband is a military dad. He loves our children completely. But he doesn’t have the luxury of constancy. He misses out on everyday opportunities for fatherhood. It’s been that way since the beginning.

 

Four months from my due date, Leading Man was selected for command of a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan.  In an instant, our “military family planning” went out the window.

 

He would miss the first 15 months of our son’s life. He’d miss his birth. He’d miss his first smile, first steps, first word. He’d miss his first Christmas and his first birthday.

 

“If it had to happen, it is best that it happened now,” he rationalized. “He’s too young to know I am not there. He won’t remember it.”

 

In some ways, Leading Man was right. Intellectually, Little Man doesn’t remember that his Dad missed those things.  But emotionally, he knows.

 

He knows his dad is gone way more than he is home. His dad has been traveling for work or deployed more than half of Little Man’s four-years-long life.

 

He knows he wants his mom to buckle his seatbelt, to hold his hand, to sit next to him in restaurants. He knows he wants his mom to read him stories, to wipe his tears and his bottom, to make his dinner. He knows his mom will make everything all right. He knows he can count on me.

 

A while back, I asked Leading Man what he wants our kids to remember about him when they are adults. He said “I want them to remember that I served in the war….I was awarded three Bronze Stars….I helped the people of Afghanistan reclaim and rebuild their country.”

 

His answer seemed so sterile, so historical, and so sad. His answer seems so different from my own.

 

I want my kids to remember that I loved them. I want them to remember how I kissed their hurts, how I read their favorite stories, how I played catch in the living room. I want them to remember that I carried them when they were tired, that I called them “Booty” and “Punk.” I want them to remember ice skating and train trips and Christmas cookies.

 

It took me a while to make sense of my husband’s response and to accept its wisdom.

 

Leading Man knows he missed out on important, irreplaceable moments in our kids' lives. He misses them every day. Even when he’s not deployed, his responsibilities keep him away from home in mind if not in body.

 

Those missed moments are painful for Leading Man and for the kids. “Daddy has to work” is a lackluster reason for missing the spring preschool concert. “Daddy has to work” doesn’t make Little Man feel better when the phone rings during dinner. “Daddy has to work” cannot begin to express the importance of Daddy’s job. Sure, Little Man understands about “bad guys” and “good guys,” but he can’t grasp how bad the bad guys are. And he doesn’t yet know how good his Daddy is.  

 

My husband hopes his children – when they are all grown up – will understand why he wasn’t there. He hopes they will be proud of him. I hope so, too.

 

My son is a military child.

 

He runs outside every afternoon when retreat sounds on base. He puts his hand on his heart and stands still until the National Anthem ends. He is proud to be an American.

 

Then he waits in the yard. Sometimes he waits for hours. He waits for his Dad to come home, playing and puttering until he sees his Dad’s car round the bend. Then he runs all-out toward the end of the driveway and holds his arms up high so his Dad can pull him into the car through the open window. They maneuver into the garage together, four hands on the wheel. 

 

As they interact, their attachment grows. They talk over dinner about daycare drama and last night’s episode of Wipe Out. Then they adjourn to the dining room to race slot cars until I say it is bath time. Little Man bumps Dad's car off the track with amazing skill. He declares himself the winner. His Dad is the happiest loser I’ve seen.

 

In those small moments, my son and his dad are not subject to military priorities or the deployment schedule. My son feels his Dad’s love as surely as he feels my own. He is a military child.   

 

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If you're visiting from Pour Your Heart Out at Things I Can't Say, thanks for reading. I wrote this post in honor of Month of the Military Child. Your can learn more about how you can support military families at BlueStarFamilies.org. This post originally appeared as a guest post on Wife of a Sailor. Thanks to Wifey for letting me re-post it here on my own site as well.  

 

Something Students These Days Should Know

As a long-time educator and an assessment expert, I'm risking my reputation by saying this, but I think students need to hear it. We teachers need to grapple with it, too.

 

The most important skills students build in school are not what's measured by tests, grades, or graduation.

 

And you can't learn them from a textbook. Or 10.

 

Maybe students already know this. Or think they do.

 

I'm sure many of my failing students wanted this to be true. Maybe they muttered it behind my back, or on the way out of my office after reviewing their errors on the midterm exam.

 

It's rare to hear an educator say it. Out loud. I know that. Let me say it again.

 

The most important skills students build in school are not what's measured by tests, grades, or graduation.

 

Straight-A students may suspect it's true, but I'm not sure they want to hear it. When you are working hard to earn high marks; when college entry and job interview offers hang in the balance; and when you think you've cracked the code on how to "succeed," the last thing you want to know is that the teacher doesn't believe tests, grades or graduation are what matters.

 

In Leading Mama's opinion, the top 5 skills students need to succeed are:

1) The courage to ask difficult questions, and to pursue the answers to those questions, even if they aren't obvious, easy or comfortable

2) A willingness to embrace uncertainty and to sit with it long enough to learn from it

3) Keen self-awareness, including understanding your personality traits, talents, and preferences. What do you have to contribute? How do you recognize or (even better) create opportunities for your contribution?

4) The self-confidence to express your ideas to others -- including teammates, colleagues and authority figures -- and the social finesse to do so without alienating them

5) A deep commitment to a set of personal values that clarifies choices, guides decision making and makes life meaningful despite inevitable ups and downs

 

In school, students with these skills may be dismissed or even penalized. Standardized testing isn't set up to recognize or reward them. It is challenging to design assessments of these skills, especially "objective" ones. And busy instructors don't always look kindly on students who ask too many difficult questions. Questions that lead the class off on tangents. Questions the instructor can't answer.

 

But business and civic leaders know these skills make for success. And they are handsomly rewarded in real life. Students should know that.

 

This post inspired by a post from Mama Kat, by 20 years in higher education, and by the scholarship applicants whose essays I read last night.

Image credit: BOOKS
© Stanko Mravljak | Dreamstime.com

 

 

 

Guest Post: Month of the Military Child

April is the month of the Military Child, and my first-ever opportunity to guest post on another blog. Read my post about the ups and downs of military family life on Wife of a Sailor's blog today. And thanks to Wifey for the opportunity to share our family's story with her readers.

 

I'm proud of Leading Man, Little Man, and Little Mama every day. But I'm especially proud to share their story today.

 

 

Time Lapsed: 1 Year

 

April 20, 2010:

 

 

April 20ish, 2011:

Happy Birthday, Baby Avery!

Post-It Note Tuesday: 6 Questions I Love

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

- Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903, in "Letters to a Young Poet"

 

Usually, I love a book that offers wise answers.

 

Today, I'm loving a book that asks wise questions instead.

 

Here are 6 Questions I Love from Robin Fisher Roffer's book Make a Name for Yourself: Eight Steps Every Woman Needs to Create a Personal Brand Strategy for Success I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in their own brand identity for business or blogging. Robin rocks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sit with these questions. Let them soak in. Then, if you dare, share your answer to one of these questions in the comments. Or -- better yet -- share one of your own favorite questions.

 

Love the questions. The answers will come.

 

Sunday Soapbox: I Don't Have a Dog in this Fight

It's Sunday again and time for the Soapbox. Just in time. My head is swimming with words.

 

As I was reading through opinion pieces on the web last night, I ran across an article in the Washington Post entitled "5 Myths About Planned Parenthood." It was well-written and thought provoking, in Leading Mama's opinion.

 

Let me go on the record and say I support Planned Parenthood. And not because they provide abortion services. I'm against abortion. But my thinking on that issue is complicated, so I'm setting it aside for another post.

 

I support Planned Parenthood because I believe they improve access to basic contraceptive and STD screening services for young, poor women and men who might not otherwise access services. I understand that these services are available through other agencies, but I believe (in this case) more is better.

 

What struck me about the Washington Post piece wasn't just the content, it was the comments. Commenters ranted and raved about the source of the data presented (which as a scientist and skeptic, I appreciate). They looked for misrepresentations (and thought they found them, even when they didn't). They questioned whether we should support an organization that "only provides services to women." In fact, Planned Parenthood provides services to men, too. 

 

One comment that pushed me over the edge used the phrase "I don't have a dog in this fight." I understand people use this phrase to make themselves appear to be "objective" when, in fact, they are anything but. I'm supposed to think their opinion is somehow more truthful, less tainted, because they say they're not personally invested. Leading Mama isn't buying that.

And now I'm on the soapbox to say whether you think so or not, you do have a dog in this fight. Access to contraceptive, cancer screening, and STD prevention and treatment services affects everyone. It affects the teen pregnancy rate. It affects broader public health issues, and those issues (like AIDS prevention) affect us all. Financially if not personally.

 

In this edition of Sunday Soapbox, I'm here to say "I do have a dog in this fight." It doesn't matter to me that the average Planned Parenthood client is young and poor while I am old(er) and wealthy. It doesn't matter to me that I've never received services from Planned Parenthood.

 

What matters to me is that people of every status and stripe have access to information and services they need. And I'm willing to say so. Disengagement is deadly to democracy.

 

Whatever you think about Planned Parenthood -- or legalizing marijuana or immigration or the war in Afghanistan or standardized testing in schools -- you do have a dog in the fight. Because it's a small, small world (after all). And we're all in it together.

 

Photo Credit © Adam Jastrzębowski | Dreamstime.com

 

What's got you up on the soapbox this week? Post an opinionated piece on your own blog and link up here. Links are live all week. As always, comment love begets comment love.

 

Military Wife Life: Milspouse Friday Fill-In #37

Sharing with fellow MilSpouse bloggers today. If you want to join in, answer the questions and link up with Wife of a Sailor.

 

Happy Friday, everyone!

1. With PCS moves happening every few years, do you take the time to paint and decorate your home? submitted by Life as Mrs. JPT

We have moved 5 times in 6 years. No, that is NOT a typo. 5 times. I decorated the first house a bit (but no painting...it was already painted). The next three we lived in without decorating. I did purchase new furniture, though. The one we're in now, we painted. Leading Man painted, actually. When he asked why we were doing so much painting I told him "I'm sick and tired of white. If $30 worth of paint brings me two years of pleasure, I say 'Let's do it.'" He agreed.

 

2. If you could live in any home on a television series, what would it be? submitted by Standing By Him

I love this question...so creative! I would live in the Zeek and Camille Braverman's house from the show Parenthood. I love how warm, cozy and lived-in it feels. Our homes always feel only barely lived in. Maybe that's the 5 moves in 6 years! Camille's kitchen is the center of the home, and their outdoor environment is soothing, lush and inviting. Those outdoor lights over the long family dinner table in the yard make me swoon. That house is a HOME.

 

3. What inspired you to start your blog?  submitted by Pink Combat Boots

Writing coach and platform guru Christina Katz inspired me to start a blog. Her book Get Known Before The Book Dealis awesome. I also highly recommend Make a Name for Yourself by Robin Fisher Roffer. She's a branding and marketing expert.

 

4. What is the weirdest thing you've ever seen on base? submitted by Adventures in Life

Hmm. One of our neighbors down the street planted flower bulbs underneath all the grass in the front yard park strip. Hundreds of bulbs. Now there are tulips blooming all over in their grass. I try to look the other way, but it's kind of like a train wreck. You can't look away. It's bad.

 

5. Which historical figure (politician, writer, artist, scientist, actor, etc...) would you like to have dinner with?  submitted by Army of Two

Maxine Kumin, Pulitzer Prize winning poet. She's the author of many, many verses that speak to me on a wide range of subjects from relationships to the natural world. Love her poems on swimming and diving. The rhythm and movement of her work is breathtaking, and it grabs me by the throat when I read it.  My fave book is collected poems 1960-1990. I've nearly worn out a few library cards on that book.

 

When They Grow Up

It’s hard to imagine my kids all grown up. Right now, they need constant intervention (read: food, laundry, and diaper changes). But before I know it, they’ll be adults. And gainfully employed. I hope.

 

Based on their personalities, here’s how they might turn out.

  Little Man might be a lawyer. Or a politician.

 

His cardinal trait is defensive argumentativeness.

 

Little Man loves to argue, even when he knows he is wrong.

 

He defends his opinions like an attorney defends a client who is sits in court – covered in blood spatter and gun-shot residue – holding a smoking gun.

 

He defends his playroom turf and toys like a southern senator protects pork-barrel project funding for a bridge to nowhere.

 

If he has to lie to protect his position, he will. If Little Man gets caught, he covers up the first lie with another lie. Or he blames someone else. Usually his dad.

 

When he gets caught hoarding candy in his play room drawers or eating sweets after I've already called "no more sugar" for the day, he turns in his supplier without batting an eyelash. "Daddy give it to me," he says, pointing not just his finger but his whole arm at the guilty party. "It was Daddy."

 

Little Man knows the rules. He just doesn’t like following them. He “climbs up the slides” in Chutes and Ladders. He looks for loopholes. If he can’t find one, he makes up new rules and announces them as if he’s the king of the world. “It’s the rule,” he says in a sing-song voice. And he expects me to follow it.

 

Bottom line: I’d vote for him. He’s my kid.

 

Little Mama might be a stock trader.

 

Her cardinal trait is optimistic risk-taking.

 

She is attracted to risk like a bear is attracted to honey. She ignores signs of danger. Where others see risk, Little Mama sees opportunity.

 

Take the toilet for instance. I see risk (bacteria, drowning, general oogieness). Little Mama sees a pool of possibilities. She throws in little slips of paper like traders throw buy/sell slips on the floor of the stock exchange.  She sees her reflection. She wants to splash in.

 

As she fills the bowl with more and more paper, she bounces up and down on her knees, gesturing wildly with delight. She squeals with excitement. She can hardly contain herself. She’s a pint-sized adrenaline junkie. Her stocks are up and so is her mood.

 

When things don’t go her way (read: the bathroom door is locked or she’s whisked away by a risk-averse adult), she’s happy-go-lucky. She’s already crawling toward the next big risk. Like the bookcases in the living room. There’s gold in those hills, Little Mama says. Before I know it, she’s climbing without a belay line. That’s how she rolls.

 

Bottom Line: I’d invest with her. She’s got to earn better returns than .00001% we’re earning on our savings accounts, right?

 

And if she ends up on trial for orchestrating some very-clever but highly immoral Ponzi scheme, her brother can defend her in court. Maybe then they'll appreciate each other. Maybe.

 

This post inspired by a prompt from Mama Kat and my two favorite personalities, Little Man and Little Mama.

 

Credits:

TOY GAVEL
© Hauntedtoys | Dreamstime.com

RISKY BUSINESS
© Meg380 | Dreamstime.com

Post-It Note Tuesday: Worms and Weddings

(Makes me feel all warm inside. Or maybe that's the coffee! See other weekly workshop favorites here)

(And thanks to the brave pioneers who linked up this week. Your posts prove this Soapbox is going to be fun. And controversial. Still time to link up if you've got opinions and you aren't afraid to share 'em!)

 

(Need I say more? Grubs. And. Worms. Not jalapenos or marinara.)

(No joke, we had this conversation on Saturday. I had to show him pictures.)

(8 days to her 1st birthday. Sniffle. Sniffle.)

 

That's all for Post-It Note Tuesday.