Tag: Expectations

“But I should know . . .”

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“Relax” ”just follow your gut and you’ll know what to do.” Ninety per cent of parenting is instinct, right? Research (and common sense) show that, contrary to this long-lived myth, fully two thirds of new parents doubt their ability to take care of that baby. The “Listening to Mothers” Survey by Childbirth Connection found that more than half of second time moms continue to doubt their innate parenting abilities. Most parents report that the deluge of available advice (roughly 15 million hits on a Google search for “parenting advice”) simply overwhelms them, confusing rather than comforting.

It’s not only droves of new parents who lack confidence. Even seasoned parents question themselves as new stages and challenges loom: picking schools, from preschool to college; trusting other parents for play dates or sleepovers, responding to tantrums, whether in two-year-olds or twenty-year-olds. The decision-making is endless, just like the accompanying anxiety. Of course we all want to do right by our children. And we live in a mother-blaming culture, where every news story of a serial killer has a requisite sidebar about his relationship with dear old mom.

My “perfectly good mom” remedy is the family mission statement. When your child is 25, what qualities will you most wish you had instilled? What skills and experiences are most linked to your values? Pick your top five, attach the list to the fridge, and let that guide your decision-making.

And just as key — acknowledge that you have a learning curve. No one steps into a paid job they’ve never done and sails through without consultation. Give yourself permission to seek input from others. And once you find a source — an expert, a friend, a parenting philosophy — that works for you, quit searching. Step away from Google! Develop your skills within your chosen framework and allow yourself to screen out everything else. INCLUDING this blog, if necessary!

If you like my focus, though, and want help to achieve that delicate, shifting balance in parenting, please tune in — and call in — to “The Sanity Hour.” Launching this Monday, Feb. 22, 7 pm CT on the HerInsight Radio Network, broadcast on Toginet. I welcome guests who want help with the craziness of parenting. Email me in advance with your questions: ann[at]anndunnewold[com] (please translate when you email me–this is to thwart spammers) or call 877-864-4869 during the show.

The panty conversation is growing. (creeping?)

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Looks like I’m not the only one talking about panties as a women’s issue. Check out Linda Lowen’s About.com entry this week, with her link to SkunkPost.com. Love it, Linda!

Celebrate Wednesday and go buy yourself a new pair of panties–comfortable and sexy if that appeals to you. I’m preferring SteinMart for good deals these days. The amount spent is anotherdie-hard, drummed-into-me-at- an-early-age standards. Paying $15 for something that weighs less than an ounce and will be enjoyed by few stretches my envelope a bit. I feel even more empowered by discovering a sexy, lacy, COTTON thong for $3! As Dirty Harry would say, “go ahead, make my day.”

V-Day to Empower Women

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It’s the dreaded Valentine’s Day week, with the perennial torment: “will he be my Valentine?” Anxiety revs up in kindergarten: “am I good enough/pretty enough/popular enough?” And never abates completely, even as grade school fades into sepia. As we’re pounded by Valentine’s Day marketing, the brain chatter goes on: Who will be my valentine? What will he do? What should I do? Chocolates? Flowers that die by Weds.? Sexy lingerie? Am I loved? Is our relationship all it can be?
Expectations waft over us like the heady scent of roses inundating the grocery store. Holidays as a rule ramp up our expectations–leading to dashed hopes. Especially Valentine’s Day, with promises of perfect romantic love. This holiday is a hot trigger for “all or nothing” thinking. Either the holiday is celebrated in The Right Way —or all is lost and you’re left heartbroken and empty.
A perfect time for straight thinking, to stop the irrational brain chatter about relationship status or restaurant choices. I love the mantra my younger sister adopted in high school: “a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” Or, if you’re in a relationship: “I’ll look for the intention behind the gift” rather than putting a Hallmark card, Lifetime TV template on it. It’s a good time to challenge the myth that “if he loved me, he’d know.” Who says? If some aspect of celebrating the holiday, roses for example, is essential, speaking up beats harboring resentment that he missed the class on “Reading Women’s Minds.”
Or skip it entirely–rise above the overly-perfumed and caloric aspects of the day–and celebrate V-Day instead. V-Day was started in 1998 by Eve Ensler, playwright of the award-winning Vagina Monologues, as an international campaign to raise awareness about and funds for battling violence against women and girls. V-Day is synonymous with empowering women.
I honored Valentine’s Day by empowering a few future women yesterday. Five young girls, 8 to 13 years old, were playing in Dallas’ record setting snowfall. I was walking to the post office, just to enjoy the fairyland created by the surprising snow. One older girl, pencil thin legs in tight jeans, was chasing her friend, clumps of snow in bare hands. She was squealing about her red, frozen fingers as much as the novelty of the snow. I stopped and handed her my mittens. She politely refused at first, but succumbed as I insisted. Slipping on the gloves, she ran off gleefully toward her friend, laughing “I’ll really get you now!” The three younger girls were patting small handfuls of snow into a slightly forlorn pile. I asked if they were building a snowman, and they nodded gravely. “Do you want me to show you how to make it easier?” I asked, knowing this is not a skill possessed by most Texas children. More grave nods. I demonstrated how to roll the awkward lump across the deep snow, quickly picking up layers to make a respectable base for their snow person. Smiles lit up their faces. They thanked me in their sweet little girl falsettos. They were lifting a second huge ball of snow onto the snow person, making it taller then they were, by the time I rounded the corner.
Make a choice to empower yourself–or another woman in your life this week. Or check out five ways to empower women by celebrating V-Day.

Big girl panties?

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Maybe it’s strictly generational, but granny panties have always outnumbered thongs in my lingerie drawer. Trying to loosen up my midlife world view and eliminate unsightly panty lines, I’ve been underwear shopping lately. And was delighted to find sexy, lacy thongs with a hint of practicality (i.e. cool, comfortable, breathable cotton). With the brand name Jezebel?

Does wearing lacy lingerie make you an evil woman? Why do all the sexy panties have names like Jezebel, Temptress, Flirt, Invisible Bliss? May as well call them Tart, Harlot, Scarlett, or “O.” Definitely another automatic association leftover from my growing up years. “Good girls” wear sturdy, serviceable cotton Lollipop panties — in white or pastels (how exciting!) “Bad girls” wear the pretty, lacey panties. And have all the fun. When I was a teen, I had one shockingly bright green low-rise bikini pair with a black zipper (gasp). This is the exact purchase that my younger sisters recently admitted had marked me as a glamorous older sister. And firmly fixed a frown on my mom’s face when I came home from the mall, panties in hand.

It’s not just names. Another assumption is lurks within: wearing lacy lingerie is for him, not for you. Certainly all that lace and trim and thong between the cheeks is less comfortable than soft cotton, right? So why suffer the indignities and itching, except to entice or excite him? As an empowered woman, I wasn’t about to buy into that.

Reminds me of a T-shirt my older daughter had when she was 13, distributed by Candie’s, maker of sexy shoes and clothing. In large, legible letters it said “Be sexy.” And in the fine print: “it doesn’t mean you have to have sex.” Some mothers scorned me for allowing her to wear it, as if it were an advertisement. Women can claim their sexuality, even enjoy it. Without turning into bad girls. Objecting to that slogan seemed like buying into the sexist view that if you are dressed to kill, you deserve to be raped.

Black and white thinking is the culprit again: chaste lingerie equals pure of heart/mind/body. Black, lacy, and low cut is the stamp of a bad girl. Is this really a fact? Do clothes really define the woman, so that I can’t enjoy a fun bustier under a power suit? Time to challenge those expectations. Even the little girls get fun princess panties, Barbie panties, Dora panties — or as my younger daughter had, Pink Power Ranger panties.

One of my friends likes to say, “put on your big girl panties and deal with it.” In this case, the grown-up panties of choice are lacy, cheekiest (in the parlance of Victoria’s Secret, referring to amount of cheek exposure), and surprisingly more comfortable than constant adjustments of creeping leg elastic. My new power panties can allow me to please no one but myself, a rare opportunity in my good girl life. That’s dealing with it.

As on everything else: NO absolute thinking. I did find one exception to the naughty names: Victoria’s Secret has one thong called “Angel.” Or maybe go commando, following the decree of Jill Connor Browne, author of The Sweet Potato Queens book series: “Never wear panties to a party.” Do what works for you.

Mother knows best.

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No matter our age or time since we left home, mother knows best rings in our heads. One 20-something woman I know hates her job. She’s slaved away for two years, but neither the job nor her feelings have budged. She endures miserable hours of overwork at tearfully boring tasks. She’d like to explore other options. Dare she mention the idea? Her mom launches into a broken record lament: “life is hard–jobs can suck.” This mantra causes instant shut down of her dreams. Her brain chatter says “Mom is right. This is the world of work.” This translates into “I don’t deserve the best” or “I don’t have power to change my life.”

Certainly this mother means well–mothers do. She doesn’t want her daughter to take risks or lose career ground. In this mother’s generation, workers signed on with some behemoth company at 22 and retired with a gold watch at 65. This is what she thinks is best.

When I married, my mother told me “never go to bed angry.” I vigorously pursued this marital advice, until we embodied a favorite Phyllis Diller joke: “Never go to bed angry. Stay up and fight!” Too many wee hours were lost hurling vicious barbs in the pursuit of marital harmony.

Attending an anger management training seminar ended this mother knows best tyranny. The facilitator explained: when we’re angry, blood flow in the reasoning part of our brains decreases, to foster survival mode in the brain sections that control the fight or flight response. She asserted “there’s no blood in your fore-brain — close your mouth!” Saved piles of sleep and hurt feelings.

This clash of generations is one problem with mother knows best. Advice fails the test of time because knowledge of human behavior advances, as I learned in the anger management workshop. And standards and expectations evolve. When my 20 year old daughter walked in, flaunting a very short skirt and too revealing blouse, I sucked in a deep breath — me, who grew up in the dawn of miniskirts! “When I was your age,” I cautiously queried, “clothes like that would’ve labeled me a slut. What’s different now?” Jokingly jockeying her garments around, she illustrated how much more skin she could reveal. Her response satisfied my 1960s sensibilities.

The second hitch with mother knows best dictums is that they’re riddled with absolute thinking. Judgments issued by maternal mouths seem to translate into Absolute Truth, just because it’s dear old mom talking. One size fits all, do or die, laced with always and never. Nothing is that cast in stone.

Mothers are fallible beings, just like daughters. We have no magic answers or absolute truths. A mother’s wealth of experience cannot be dismissed lightly. But remember that what issues from a mother’s mouth is colored by life circumstances, cultural standards, and personalities. The next time you stall because your mother’s voice ramps up in your head, inhale deeply and ask “who says?” Think. Trust that you can try on advice, select and reject, and ultimately become the best expert on you.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

You know the lilting song — or at least this line. The refrain echoes endlessly in the mall, at the office party, and from the car radio–until it turns into an earworm, embodying the pressure on women: to make the holiday season the most wonderful time of the year.

The song is a lie, at least for women I’ve talked to this week. The most wonderful time of the year? Too many: hours in traffic, cookies to bake, lists to check off, gifts to hunt down, parties to smile at, decisions to make (Pecan pie or Yule log? Silk or cashmere? Wii or iPhone?) At the holiday party for my writing group, we challenged ourselves to write six word Christmas stories (six word stories were first composed by Ernest Hemingway on a dare.) Mine? “Exhausted women engulfed in excessive expectations.” How is this wonderful?

Certainly, 365 days a year women are expected to be everything to everybody, holding the fabric of life together by making events happen. Women succeed gloriously every December: from tinsel to eggnog, every event cheerily attended, each perfect gift beautifully wrapped, every cookie artfully iced. Sometimes at 2 AM, like Kate in I Don’t Know How She Does It,you might find yourself smashing store-bought mince pies to mimic homemade — but it all gets done. Grumbling and exhausted on January 2nd, we collpase in a collective heap. (We need a nap, after all–our new gym memberships activate on January 3rd!)

Given the ramped-up holiday demands, the default mood is not holiday bliss, but rather the latest incarnation of Scrooge. Not only are most women not immersed in holiday wonder, they’re plagued with guilt because they’re not feeling positive at all. Here’s a another line of that song: and everyone telling you “be of good cheer.”

We swamp ourselves by adding even more items to brimming “to do” lists, to create a magazine-perfect, joy-filled holiday. Then, we outlaw some healthy kvetching about it. The result: guilt every moment that “loving it” is outshouted by your inner Grinch.

Here’s one small gift you can give yourself this season: honesty about how hard it is to pull off the Holiday Wonder. It’s a difficult time of year, with excessive expectations, crowded schedules, and the ever-lurking possibility of tearful disappointment. Let’s cut ourselves some slack. No one can execute good cheer 110% of the time, humming along and living every Xmas carol. There’s a lot on your list for one mere mortal. No more guilt about your mood. Expect to have cranky moments and not love every minute — and one level of stress will evaporate.

How can this help? When you know you’re facing increased demands, you can adjust your expectations and 1) drop the overlay of impossible seamless cheeriness, which lessens the guilt and 2) remember, because you’re working hard, you need to take five minutes with feet up, nursing your favorite festive beverage. Do one (or ideally both) of these items, and you will feel less stressed.

Here’s the mantra for this week: “It’s a hard time of year — and it’s okay toacknowledge my inner Grinch.” And here’s the action plan: take a deep breath, reflect upon what pieces of the holiday really matter, and make sure those get done. Forget the rest. After all, If Andy Williams’ wife had written the lyrics, they might go something like this:

It’s the most frustrating time of the year
With the kids raising hell
And everyone telling you “Be of good cheer”
It’s the most maddening time of the year
It’s the most, most stressful season of all
With nonstop obligations and high expectations
When friends come to call
It’s the most, most stressful season of all

There’ll be parties for hosting

With all the moms boasting
And waiting in line -til you cry
There’ll be scary sale stories
And tales of the glories of
collapsing each night with a sigh.

It’s the most traumatic time of the year
There’ll be much overdoing
And you’ll still be stewing
When loved ones are near
It’s the most nerve-racking time of the year

Now, to untangle that blasted string of pepper lights for the banister . . .