Life’s Prizes

It seems to be the season for life’s big prizes, from the Winter Olympics to the Oscars. Tonight on The Sanity Hour I will talk to moms of aspiring kids. We’ll look at how moms support their children in pursuit of big dreams, and what it takes to balance their own and their children’s lives. On the line-up are moms of aspiring/accomplished actors, athletes, singers, and authors.

One of my favorite topics, perspective, is sure to come up as key in keeping our lives sane and balanced. Too often, parents get stressed when they lose track of long-term goals versus the quality of daily life. As parents, we need to remember that parenting is not a competition, and our success as parents does not hinge on external rewards for our kids, even when those prizes are mind-boggling.

That’s why I love this United Technologies Corporation ad from years ago, and try to count these kinds of successes in my own life.

Most of us miss out on life’s big prizes.
The Pulitzer.
The Nobel.
Oscars.
Tonys.
Emmys.
But we’re all eligible for life’s small pleasures.
A pat on the back.
A kiss behind the ear.
A four-pound bass.
A full moon.
An empty parking space.
A crackling fire.
A great meal.
A glorious sunset.
Hot soup.
Cold beer.
Don’t fret about copping life’s grand awards. Enjoy it’s tiny delights.
There are plenty for all of us.

If you want to hear this group of dynamite women between 7-8 pm CDT on Monday March 15, 2010, just click on my link under RESOURCES in the right-hand column of this page. Then click on the box on the top right hand of the page that has blue lettering and says Toginet Radio Live. If you miss it live, you can still listen to the podcast by following this link.

“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.

I don’t want to brag, but . . .

“I shouldn’t brag, but . . .” Fill in the blank: “I just paid off my car/student loan/house.” Or maybe “My child made it into the gifted program/the select soccer team/Harvard.” Hardly a day goes by without this example of how women are conditioned to minimize their successes, to hide their skills, to quash their good news. This is so deeply ingrained in us. Who says? Why shouldn’t we take pride in our accomplishments?

Examination of this question is personal of late, as I think about the need to announce blog launched, books published, radio show to debut — at least if I want followers. Humility was drummed into me at an early age, growing up as a preacher’s kid. Even as I sit in solid mid-life (if you’re counting years, nearly two thirds into my life, statistically) it is hard for me, as for the women I listen to throughout my life, to even announce my achievements, let alone with pride. Women I know have written admirable books, started social movements, reigned as national experts in their fields, created art that inspires, raised remarkable young adults. And the norm is to hem and haw and softly mutter about what we’ve done, lacing the speech with apologies and detractions. The equivalent of “oh, this old thing?” when someone compliments your brand-new dress. Those admonishments in our heads to be nice and not brag never seem to quiet entirely.

And why is this? We want to be nice girls. Nice girls don’t brag. Good girls don’t toot their own horns. This modesty is not for modesty’s sake, however. Nice girls are programmed to be cautious and concerned about the feelings of others. Isn’t that what it’s about? We don’t brag (or even proclaim deserved pride) in our accomplishments because we don’t want others to feel badly. We don’t want others to feel that they come up short. So we downplay our triumphs and miss an opportunity to boost ourselves up.

I’m not saying we should model ourselves after those who constantly broadcast their own victories, however shallow or magnificent, and are seemingly incapable of any topic beyond their own gold stars. As I often remind clients when talking about this life-changing switch to self-affirmation, I’m not that powerful a therapist that I can turn a self-effacing person into a narcissist. Nor is that the goal. Just calling for a little balance, swing the pendulum ever so slightly towards positive feelings about self and away from minimization of life’s prizes. Good friends and loving families want to celebrate with us. They realize that we’re not proclaiming ourselves “better than.” We’re trying on some well-earned self-praise and want to share the joy, not shouting nyah, nyah.

Let’s trust that others will share our pride. Let’s affirm that we deserve to feel good about our hard work. Let’s remember that there’s plenty of happiness to go around and our wins don’t jinx our sister’s chances. Let’s inspire with our strengths, moving other women toward their own dreams, rather than viewing life as a competition. Let’s embrace each other’s bragging, rejoicing not just in the lauded event but in the boost to esteem that healthy bragging brings.

Oh, and by the way, please spread the word about my blog. If you like my message, pass it on to your friends. And look forward with me to the launch of my radio show, “The Sanity Hour,” beginning February 22 at 7 p.m. CT on HerInsight radio network. I’ll need guests, if you want to share my fifteen minutes of fame. Link coming soon!

New Year’s resolutions make me a better person, right? Says who?

Just about everyone, I’m afraid. Seventy-five million plus hits on Google for “new year’s resolutions” suggest the annual lure to magical self-improvement thrives. Nearly half of all Americans make resolutions. The magic of a new decade adds hype. Certainly this will be The Time, finally, to achieve that goal–drop that weight for the final time, tone that flab, toss out that pack of cigarettes, or perhaps evolve into a more patient person, censoring those intermittent cranky verbal explosions. The collective “how to” wisdom gets more specific each year: set manageable goals, change just one habit, own your intentions to others.

Perhaps you are serious about this advice and wish to set a goal you can actually reach this year. I’m at your service–even if I’m launching this on January 4th , not 1st. I could beat myself up about my tardiness, imagining what an experienced blogger would offer (post mapped out weeks in advance, launched at 12:01 a.m. on 01/01/10.) However, a survey reported by proactive change.com says that after the first week, one in four resolutions have already been trashed, just like so much holiday wrapping paper. Perhaps it’s fortuitous that I was distracted by the end of year household mess (execute post-holiday clean-up, donate to charity, submit health savings account receipts, pay property taxes.) Maybe this post will reach you just when you’re sick of yogurt, sore from yoga–and aching to abandon those noble resolutions.

If my procrastination and distraction mean my timing is great, here’s a resolution for you: embrace your humanity. Forget being better at anything. No eating less, exercising more, Zen breathing when some maddening underling (child or employee) eggs you toward one more scream. Affirm that you are a lowly Homo sapiens, not Superwoman/supermodel/supermom. You will make mistakes, lose your temper, oversleep, overindulge in occasional fudge or champagne, miss appointments, and/or swear too much. And you will work to end the judgment about the inescapable fact that you are an imperfect–and still valuable– person. Trust that, most days, you are doing the best you can–and that’s perfectly good.

Shift the focus away from your inevitable screw-ups to your successes. You are a human being with feelings–sometimes powerful ones, which are proof that you are very much ALIVE. Embrace your humanity! You can give your children a valuable lesson: that people, even moms, get mad–and then apologize and say “I love you.” Embrace your humanity! You can leave your favorite coffee cup on top of the van as you back out of the driveway, crush it as you drive off, swerve to the curb as the tire blows, and be late for work or school. S*#! happens, and you survive it. This is a chance to pronounce that even when  life bulldozes right over you, you can embrace your sense of humor –and your humanity.

Resolve to affirm that you are who you are, with strengths that outnumber your weaknesses. Feel good about all that is right with your life, rather than aiming for improvements that are merely icing on the You Cake.  This is, after all, a resolution we all can achieve. And if you work on embracing your humanity all year, one screw up at a time, those other goals have a way of taking care of themselves–or ceasing to matter before 2011 even rolls around.

Time magazine says: over-parenting has run its course. Hallelujah.

There’s tyranny in 21st century parenthood. It begins with a mandate to sing, talk, rattle and roll with your new baby in every waking moment –at least if you want your baby to achieve her full potential. Read one article in any glossy magazine for moms, and you’re fully tuned into how your shoulders bear the responsibility (and imbedded anxiety) for that product, your child.

For two decades, I’ve watched earnest new moms agonize about missing even one teensy teachable moment, one drop of quality time. We fear we’re dropping the brain development ball if we go to the bathroom alone. I see the relief on tired faces when I explain that babies are little scientists. Everything in an infant’s world is stimulating. Babies need to learn to amuse themselves–by exploring a rattle in hand or staring at dark fan blades against white ceiling. To be constantly in a child’s face talking, playing, teaching deprives the child of exploring the world at his own pace. With mommy, nanny, or grandma always there to amuse, what happens when the child gets to school? The kindergarten teacher despises her.

Extend this push for over-the-top parenting –designed to enhance development, ensure safety, engineer kids’ happiness –to childhood overall? Birthday party limousines for six year olds, tag banned in schoolyards, mothers who drive two hours to campus for laundry duty have been the result. Extreme parenting has become the cultural standard and morphed into a lava flow of expectations on moms (and dads).

Finally, enough really seems to be enough.

 

When Time says it’s so, it must be so. (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1940395,00.html) Back-up for what I’ve been preaching for years. This is a call for sanity. This is recognition that, while this nation was founded upon the concept of a continually better life, the endless quest for “more, better, all” is not sustainable. The current recession may have been the unfortunate impetus — dollars for Russian lessons and bounce house birthday parties evaporate in the face of record unemployment rates. A silver lining for families is the permission to drop the parental overdoing.

Time’s article offered this concrete remedy: “let it go.” Over-parenting is driven by anxiety: Will my child turn out okay? Can my child compete? Will my child grow up safely? Until women learn to tackle the underlying absolute thinking that fuels this anxiety, it’s hard, as Gibbs’ article says, to shut off our inner helicopter parent and simply let go. We need new thinking habits. Forget the all-or-nothing thinking, e.g. that our kids will be stellar performers — or flop as quickly as Jay Leno in prime time. Hardly any single advantage or activity will make or break your child’s success in life.

The goal of this blog is to call attention to the unrealistic expectations –in our heads, in society — for mothers, and beyond that for women, And offer tools that make letting go possible. We can critically evaluate the news stories, scary reports, and competitive pull of “everyone is doing it.” We can stop the madness, practice straight thinking, compare notes and know we’re not alone. We can ask “who says” when expectations ignite the stress in us like so much gasoline on the fire.

Let’s start a conversation. I want your questions, comments, news about the pressures on women. We can design our lives in ways that work for us, rather than getting caught in a tangle of societal shoulds.