OK, Ditz, enough with the procrastination and enough with the hermitage, I says I do.
I finally got up the nerve last week to go to Bad Moms Coffee. None of the blogging moms were there, but I repeated this week. Squid! (Mali is as cute as a button) Ep! Mary Tsao! Other smart moms. (BadgerMom and BadgerBag, same woman, different blogs) was on her way elsewhere.
Last August, someone dear to me had been mortally offended by some of the posts here. I took down all the posts xe found offensive, and somehow...hid. Quit talking about my life. Quit being public. Enough already.
Maybe I am out of the mommying game, and into the grandmother game. I mean, my oldest [step]child is 28. The other kid I mentored is just now a proud parent.
I was shocked by some of the things the Deadwood City moms reported, like some of their childrens' classmates mothers reporting if your child didn't get into BigNoggin (a grade 3-8 magnet school), your child's academic life was over...at third grade, people? Are you nuts? ...this is going to turn into another post. DWC school district is unusual, in that all of the schools are "magnet schools". Wait, stop, I digress, and besides it is another post.
One of the things we were talking about all through the coffee were over-involved parents. It goes beyond "helicopter parenting" -- it is about a woman, a mother, putting other mothers "in their place" for not being invested enough in their children. Push Parenting (ISBN 0767907523) Toilet Trained for Yale (ISBN 0738205605)
Mary and I hung out for a long time after Squid left, talking talking talking. She introduced me to an article by Ayelet Waldman I hadn't seen, on valuing your spouse over your children.
I don't think the other mothers at Mommy and Me feel this way. I know they would be absolutely devastated if they found themselves widowed. But any one of them would sacrifice anything, including their husbands, for their children.
It reminded me somehow of a post Chris had made. Again fodder for another post.
Perfect Parenting,
But I had fun and plan to make Thursday Bad Moms Coffee part of my week.
Hurrah! I promise to listen more and natter less next time.
Posted by: squid | Friday, May 26, 2006 at 03:18 PM
Liz, I had such a great time talking to you! Wisdom abounds. See you next week...
Posted by: Mary Tsao | Friday, May 26, 2006 at 10:05 PM