Just like the movie, The Iron Lady, this post isn’t really about Margaret Thatcher at all, at least not in the political or historical sense.  It is just a long question about who is writing the Dictionary of You.

I have a double snap-and-go currently in my front hallway, this behemoth that has been hanging around like an albatross for the last seven years.  I can’t let it go, and I can’t let it stay.  It came out of the storage room with the cleaning with the intent to donate it to Goodwill.  The night before it was set to leave the house, I put out a call on a listserv saying that I had a double snap-and-go if anyone wanted it.  No one wrote back, but I told Josh that he should probably leave it the next morning while he was gathering up items to take with him to donate.  Someone might write that afternoon.

It has been in our hallway since.

Our friend was over this weekend, and we started talking about the snap-and-go — you sort of can’t miss it.  I asked her if she knew someone who was looking for one, and she said no.  I think she only commented on it because it’s not the sort of thing you expect to see when you walk in the front door of a house that only contains elementary-school-aged children.  But it made Josh ask again what we were doing with it, and I snapped, “we’ll donate it.”

Though the thought made me sick.

I think all of us have this vision of what motherhood will be like.  This mental image of ourselves as a mother (at least, this extends to women who want to be mothers).  Mine was this vision of myself pushing a stroller with a baby inside.  In my head, new mothers took their children on walks around the neighbourhood, pointing out the trees and fire hydrants even though the baby is usually unconscious.

And then one day, that vision came true.  It didn’t look quite like my mental image because there were two babies instead of one, and there were two heart monitors in the basket below the stroller instead of a diaper bag.  But I was on a walk with my babies, just pushing them while I talked about the trees and the fire hydrants, and that moment, that patch of sidewalk, will forever be in my head as this time when I realized that my dream of motherhood finally melted into an actuality of motherhood.

In The Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher tells her husband, Denis, when he proposes that she could never be the sort of woman who washes the tea cups.  Her mother was that woman — she didn’t even take Margaret’s acceptance letter to Oxford to read it because she claimed her hands were still wet — and Margaret wanted to fight hard against being limited by how others perceive women.  In other words, Margaret was not an accidental feminist.  According to the movie, her life choices were specifically made to rail against this notion of women’s work vs. men’s work.  Of course, it is impossible to get through life without washing a tea cup.  But every time a tea cup is in her hands, you think about how much that tea cup symbolizes the life Margaret most wants to avoid.

What you don’t want to be is just as powerful as what you want to become.

As we walked out to the parking lot after the film, I told Josh that I needed to put the snap-and-go in our basement.  He didn’t ask me why, he just agreed to move it when we got home.  I don’t think I can part with it, any more than I think Margaret Thatcher would have been able to control her emotions if faced with the expectation that she should wash a tub full of dirty tea cups.

*******

Before I saw the film, I read a few reviews of it which all said that Meryl Streep was brilliant, but that the movie itself was a mess, not knowing what it wanted to be or say.

And I’d like to respond to those reviews and say that I could see quite clearly what story the writer (as well as the actors) wanted to tell and what conversation they hoped people would have leaving the theater.  By the time we were walking to the parking lot, it dawned on me that all the reviews I read must have been written by men, because the ideas explored are ideas that are — for the most part — inaccessible to men.  By which I mean that they may be able to understand womanhood in the intellectual sense, in the same way that my male gynecologist has some inkling that when he slides in the speculum that it’s painful.  But since he has never lay on an examination table with his feet in the stirrups, his knees shaking while someone told him that it hurts more if you don’t relax and had someone slide a metal instrument into his vagina, and then force it open like a flower blooming internally… well, he can’t really fathom why a woman can’t stop her thighs from tensing when she gets in that position, especially once she is told that it will be more uncomfortable if she doesn’t relax.

And I own that I will never know what it is like to be a man.  To talk through the world as a man.  To be treated as a man.  Or the pressures that men face.  I can understand them in the intellectual sense, and I can be empathetic based on my understanding, but I’ve never lived it, so it is difficult for me to sometimes recognize those moments that men probably catch as they sail over my head.

This is a movie written by a woman, directed by a woman, and performed by a woman.  Perhaps it just needs to be reviewed by a woman.

At its heart, the movie is dually about men’s inability to separate women from the adjectives they use to describe women, and the fact that WOMEN can’t separate themselves from the adjectives others use to describe women.  That we allow others to define what it means to be a woman, and we go by a long-established, patriarchal definition for womanhood.  Yes, we are sometimes conscious of that fact and rail against it, but just as often, men still have expectations and assumptions (popular ones: all women want children, women want to get married, women know nothing about sports) that they then tweak when they get to know the actual person, and women question themselves (even if it’s just in passing) if they don’t fit into these preconceived notions about women.

The movie takes that idea and explores it within the confines of an actual woman — Margaret Thatcher — who is both affected by that old definition of womanhood and one of the creators of a new definition of womanhood.  For all of her accomplishments, for all of the groundbreaking work she did for women behind her, for all of her foibles and smallmindness and naive beliefs and stubbornness, the movie kept returning to both how others viewed her through the lens of woman as well as how she saw herself and her relationships with others through that lens.

There were the obvious — men shout, women shriek; the women’s rest room at Parliament had an ironing board in it.  And then there were the subtle, the commentary maybe missed by a man, but which cut to the heart of a female viewer.

“You’re supposed to be a mother,” one man shouted at her.  “You’re a monster!”

The way she hid her children’s clutter and crumbs from the front seat the first day she drove into Parliament, after she had left them crying at home, almost as if she is discreetly packing them away — because of her own guilt?  Because of how she feared the men would view her if they had any reminder of her home life?  Because she wanted a strong separation between her role as a mother and her role as a leader?  Because she honestly hated having things out of place, even in her car?

The letters she wrote the parents of the soldiers who died at the Falkland Islands, reminding them that she was the first prime minister who was also a mother, and how she could empathize with their loss as a mother.

How she played into her male colleagues ideas, asking the American Secretary of State if he wanted her to play mother and pour the tea after a particularly sharp diplomatic decision.

At its heart, this movie is about a leader unable to divorce herself from her other roles of wife and mother, just as no woman can seemingly divorce themselves from being seen as the nurturer, the caregiver, the creator — either by men or by themselves.  We want to accomplish so much, we want to break that glass ceiling, we want to be seen as more than wives/mothers/daughters/sisters.  And at the same time, we are limited by men —

(Let’s play a quick game.  A child gets ill at school, who do you think the principal expects will arrive at the school to take care of the sick child?  Out of the two parents, which one do you think will be expected to step up to the task unless there are extenuating circumstances stopping them from reaching said child?  Which parent do you think feels guilt over whether they can be there or not, and which one trusts that the child is cared for but would love updates about the child’s well-being?  This is obviously a heterocentric game, but I think you came up with the same answers I did.)

and we limit ourselves.  We worry how others perceive us.  Are we cold if we want to stay at work and not pick up a vomiting child?  Do we seem uncaring if we don’t show up to school events?  Offer to host Thanksgiving?  Take care of an ailing parent?  Do we seem like we don’t have our priorities in the right place if we take a job that requires a lot of hours away?  Do we look like a failure if we can’t juggle work and parenting neatly?

And don’t women judge other women?  I’ve certainly heard it — women judging women.  Why can’t she volunteer?  I work just as many hours as she does, but I’m at the school volunteering (and yes, I have uttered that one).  Haven’t you heard people judge women who go back to work “too soon” or judge other women for not having a career at all.  Don’t we put the word “just” in front of “a stay-at-home mum.”  Don’t we judge women who hire cleaners or nannies — especially if they’re not working but sometimes even if they are and obviously need the help.  Who breastfeed or who don’t breastfeed.  Who let their babies cry-it-out or who helicopter parent or who free-range it.  We spend just as much time judging each other as we do judging ourselves.

Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I’ve never read a blog post where a man worries about how he’s being perceived in terms of his nurturing capabilities.  I have seen sensitive, thoughtful, emotional posts from men but never one from a man fretting that if he spends too much time at work, people will think he’s not a committed parent.  Who cries on his way to work because his child mentioned that she’s the only one in the class who didn’t have a parent at the school concert.  Who wonders how they’re going to get the laundry done and go to work and cook dinner and take care of a sick parent.  A woman may end up with the same solution as a man when something has to give — she may leave the laundry undone and phone in dinner — but she will write a blog post about her guilt.

I have never read a blog post by a man wondering if he can “have it all.”  I have never read a post by a man taking a women’s definition of what it means to be a man (perhaps because women didn’t get a chance to set these societal roles in place) and using that external definition to judge themselves.  Harshly.

I read those on women’s blogs all the time.

This is not a Pain Olympics, this is not a women have it harder situation.  I think it is equally difficult to be a man.  This is strictly an explanation, to all those male reviewers who saw the same movie I did, as to why they missed the point.  Why they were so limited by their life experience as a man that they couldn’t understand how much was infused in Margaret asking the ghost of her husband at the end, “tell me the truth.”  Because it mattered to her how she was perceived in her role as a wife.  Did she do it well?  Because it matters to women.  As much as we think we can set it aside, the judgment, the self-doubt, the self-assessment creeps back in where we least expect it.

*******

Actually, that was perhaps the brain of the film.  The heart of this film is a simple relationship between husband and wife, and do we love enough.  Did we give enough of our time to the people we love (and yes, this is also explored in regards to her twins, but the real story is with the love of her life — Denis).  Are we ever really ready to let them go?  And what is more painful — not allowing a ghost to go by holding onto tangible items and memories, or releasing that person and realizing you can’t hold them anymore?  You can’t talk to them anymore?  You can’t hold their hand and steady yourself.  That you need to now steady yourself on your own.

And that however much we think we can be tough and make it on our own, that all of us will be brought to our knees at some point over the enormity of losing someone you love.

The film didn’t take a strong stance on her time in office — you could equally see her as a destroyer or a saviour, or more likely, a bit of both — nor did it really come down hard with answers on whether she loved enough.  I think some will see her and think that she should have given as much energy to her family as she did to public office.  And others will see her and think that it’s amazing that she managed to have a great love with her husband as well as raise twins all while running a country.  See, it’s that judging thing again.

But all will walk out of theater wondering if we are loving enough and if we’ll be able to let go.  If we are living our lives “enough.”  If our lives matter.  If we are allowing the traditional definition of womanhood to guide our decisions, or if we are eschewing the expectations the world has for women and making our own choices.  Are we marrying because we want to or because it’s the next logical step?  Same with family building?  Same with career choices?  Margaret Thatcher is just the receptacle for holding all these enormous ideas.

And moreover, when we write the definition for ourselves and state emphatically in our hearts what we do or don’t want to become, are we staying strong and following our dreams, or are we being sidetracked by self-doubt when others voice their opinions on our choices?  How can we tune out the judgment; which when we boil down judgment to its essence is simply other people trying to define our lives for us, to write the dictionary of our selves.

Be honest: are you consciously writing your own definition for womanhood, or are you using a definition that was written for you?  And what tangible item most defines what you do or don’t want to become?

And now go take that item and place it in clear sight to remind yourself each and every day who you are and who you want to be.  Erase every other person’s definition of womanhood and write it yourself.

Photo Credit: By Williams [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Remember back when it was newsworthy that Ashton Kutcher beat out CNN to first hit one million followers on Twitter? That was exciting in the moment, but once that flag was firmly planted in the ground, it became a race to see who could gain 10 million followers (Lady Gaga). Or a race to see who could go from zero to one million the fastest (Charlie Sheen in two days). And I’m sure we’ll one day be reading a news story about the first person to reach one billion followers.

Billion is the new million.

This idea has been on my mind because Google+ just hit 90 million users, and back in December, Britney Spears was the first person to hit one million followers on the site. Cnet’s bitter grapes assessment of her win is that “it seems likely that Spears only made it to the million-follower mountaintop first because folks like Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber aren’t on Google’s social network yet.” After all, Lady Gaga has over 18 million followers on Twitter. Surely she could snag more than a million on Google+.

Forget discussions on what these numbers mean — we all know that people subscribe to blogs, subscribe to Twitter feeds, like things on Facebook and then tune out any message coming towards them (truly, how many of Lady Gaga’s followers actually read every single one of her tweets and how many catch one here and there?). The numbers are impressive and they’re fairly meaningless because we can’t measure how many people the words reach and influence.

What I am more curious about is the shifting number goal.

When I first started blogging, I thought 100 readers for a post sounded pretty damn good. I certainly didn’t have 100 people in my day-to-day world that I communicated my point-of-view with on a regular basis at the same time. One cousin may know my thoughts about X and a friend may know my thoughts about Y, but we all traded pieces of information in these small, personal amounts.

What writer didn’t dream of being an opinion columnist for a major newspaper and reaching a multitude of people at the same time? And blogs were just opinion columns, with less editing.

So 100 sounded good. And then I wanted 200. Then I heard about people who had 1000 readers and that felt like a goal to hit. Then 3000. I’m aware that 3000 is an odd choice, but it felt like a threshold number to me at one point. When I first started blogging, there weren’t a ton of non-bloggers reading blogs, and getting 3000 people to read a post felt like you had major reach, at least by blogging standards. But would you say that 3000 daily visitors is a lot of people now? It all depends on your point-of-view: some would do anything to get that sort of traffic and others would freak out if their hits dropped that low; but I think we all can agree that 3000 visitors isn’t newsworthy. Not when Perez Hilton gets about 3000 visitors in the time it takes him to sneeze.*

I’m not speaking about personal goals because we all know that we set a new one when we reach the first one. I’m talking about collectively, as a society, what numbers impress us. What numbers mean something. And yes, I think we have a different standard for celebrities or blog sites with major funding vs. everyday people and personal blogs. And in reality, I’m not even all that interested anymore in what celebrities or major sites can achieve because their success is driven by elements outside of the social media world.

I’m talking about what numbers impress you when it comes to a regular person starting a blog and gaining readers, or setting up a Twitter account and gaining their first followers.

What is the threshold where once they step over that numerical line, you start to think of them as a well-known or popular blogger? What is the number of Twitter followers a regular person could have that would make you say holy shit?

* I don’t know Perez Hilton’s traffic stats nor do I know how long it takes him to sneeze — if he’s a one and done, or one of those staccato sneezers — but I think I’m making a semi-safe assumption.

Photo Credit: Wayne Large.

Cross posted on BlogHer.

I recently noticed something on self-hosted WordPress blogs: unlike Blogger where the comment-leaver can delete their comment after posting, on self-hosted WordPress blogs, the only person who can do the deleting is the owner of the blog. This fact to me speaks volumes about the division that exists in the online world about deleting — who can delete (which is really about who owns the words) and should we delete in the case of blog posts or comments that we regret?

So before we even get into a discussion on deleting, consider that first thought: who owns the comment box?  Is it the blog owner?  Is it the comment writer?  Is it a no-man’s land controlled by both parties at the same time?  Or controlled by no one — a Wild West?

And interesting point to consider and plays into this larger idea of deleting posts and comments.

Deleting, of course, does not always mean that the words or images disappear. In the case of the recent Girl Scout cookie boycott video that went viral, the maker of the video made her manifesto private, but people had already downloaded the YouTube video and were now uploading it on their feed in order to keep it accessible.

Similarly, Dave Dorman deleted his post about finding offense with an image of a breastfeeding woman in a comic book titled: “Why Dave Dorman Finds New Image Comic ‘SAGA’ Offensive.” Again, when he decided to delete, it was after the backlash, when people had quoted from his post, therefore most of the words still remain online.

Of course, there is the well-known example of Scott Adams — of Dilbert fame — who deleted a rant last March, but again, it lived on in the blogosphere.  Once he realized it wasn’t going away, he fanned the flames for a bit. He insisted that despite deleting the original post (which he then proceeded to re-publish),

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I was enjoying all of the negative attention on Twitter and wondered how I could keep it going. So I left some comments on several Feminist blogs, mostly questioning the reading comprehension of people who believed I had insulted them. That kept things frothy for about a day. Now things are starting to settle down. It’s time for some DMD.

And those are just a handful of blog posts and YouTube videos. That doesn’t even scratch the surface of the times I click over to read something from my Google Reader and find the blog post is gone, never to return again. Or the times when people are responding to a comment in the comment section of a blog, and suddenly the original comment disappears because the commenter has pulled their words.

Some people — myself included — believe strongly in deleting certain types of negative comments in the same way that if someone took a crap on my living room floor, I would clean it up rather than leaving it there for authenticity.  My blog is like my living room; it is my figurative living space on the Web. While I don’t delete people who disagree with me, I do delete hate speech and hurtful comments that are not meant to further a discussion but instead are meant to harm another person emotionally. An example would be the time when I was writing about my sadness over someone who miscarried, and the comment expressed glee that the person had lost their pregnancy. On the other hand, if I don’t believe the comment will emotionally harm another person beyond pissing them off (or if it doesn’t purport misinformation), I’ll leave it in place.

On the other hand, with the exception of deleting a comment and reposting it again immediately without a type-o, I don’t believe in deleting comments I write. Even when I’m slammed by others in the comment section for my point-of-view. Knowing that I don’t delete makes me think twice before typing, and there have been plenty of times that I’ve walked away from leaving a comment if I don’t think I can write it well or own my words in the future.

Similarly, the only time a post is removed is when I accidentally hit “publish” instead of “save draft” and it goes up before it’s ready.  But in those cases, it goes up again; only I wait until I feel the post is ready to go.  But I feel differently about deleting posts that I regret.  I don’t delete posts because I feel cheated when other people delete their posts once they are asked to own up to their words. Once you set your ideas out there and someone reads it, it becomes part of their story as well. Every reaction to an original blog post or video is just as valid and important as the original piece. And in that case, removing the original words becomes akin to stealing something away from your readers who were emotionally affected by your words.

It’s better to own your words and express regret for posting them. To explain your ideas further or even admit that the reaction of readers got you to change your mind. There is nothing wrong with stating that your viewpoint has changed. In fact, in addition to a new blog post, you can update the original post with a note at the beginning to explain how your viewpoint has changed over time.

Self-editing reflects on a person’s integrity. Just as we can’t take back words we say once they’re out of our mouths, we shouldn’t edit our online words. People make mistakes. People say things they regret upon reflection. But there is a big difference between crossing your fingers and muttering, “I didn’t say that!” with a delete, and owning your words and the damage they caused.

Of course, the simple answer is to also be circumspect with what you post on the Web. If you don’t want it connected to your name, don’t post it at all.

I know not everyone deletes for nefarious reasons.  There are perfectly good reasons for a person to delete their post, such as realizing that you crossed a line in regards to another person’s privacy and want to minimize the damage or assuage hurt feelings (again, leaving up something damaging to another person for authenticity is akin to leaving that crap in your living room).  So just to be clear, I am speaking to the times when we post before we calm down and think, and then regret it later (or times when the thoughts were calmly composed, but the backlash causes the person regret).  Those are the times — especially once people have read and responded to your words — that I believe a follow-up apology post is more appropriate than taking away the original post.  It’s about owning your point-of-view, the way you see the world (or, at least, as you presented it in that moment; again, we’re all allowed to change our minds).  Again, that’s what I believe, and I fully expect others to disagree.

Do you delete blog posts or comments you regret? Do you get upset when other people delete their posts?

And who does own that comment box?

Mostly cross-posted with BlogHer.

This is how we ended up with the Lego Robotics set within 12 hours of swearing that we would not purchase a Lego Robotics set.

1. The twins fell in love with the Lego WeDo Education set at their after school robotics class.
2. I told them I’d look up the cost of the product online.
3. I nearly fell off the bed when I saw the cost and explained that we would not be purchasing the parts and software for use at home.
4. Talked on the phone with my brother-in-law about how it would be insane to lay out the money for a robotics set.  Unless… of course… my niece might use it down the road… but no… it really is insane.
5. Told Josh that we should think about getting them the product a few weeks from now if they’re still this geeked out about it.  Maybe we could find a used set.
6. Lie in bed and think about how my daughter couldn’t really assert herself and get enough hands-on time in the class because there are only 3 girls and she is two years younger than the other girls and it’s hard to interact with older girls when you’re that young.
7. Start imagining two roads, one in which my daughter is the world’s saviour in the Robot Apocalypse all because she got a head start on making robots back when she was in first grade, and another where she is at the mercy of the robots all because we didn’t give her the tools back when she was excited to learn.
8. Dream about the damn robot set.
9. Wake up and spend the entire time in the shower going through various reasons for why the robotic set will help the twins.  Some schools use this set in their gifted and talented math or science classes.  The twins really love doing computer programming, and this is a natural extension of that.  The ChickieNob was so geeked out excited by the Lego program, and she really excelled at understanding how the robot worked even though she was having trouble getting actual hands-on time with the project.  They both fell in love with gears and spent breakfast talking about various things one can do with gears.  If their teacher is game, I can bring it to their school and work with small groups to teach the kids in their grade robotics during recess so every kid gets a fair shot.  I can have their friends come over and geek out together over this — especially the ones who didn’t get in the robotics class.  I can pass along this set to another child when we move onto the next level so it will continue to be loved.
10. Go downstairs and sit Josh down on the sofa.  Outline all the reasons why I think we should get this now.
11. Josh understands that I have now spent 12 hours obsessing over this and agrees that the price is worth it both to educate the children and to stop me from worrying about this.
12. Order Lego robotics set and then obsessively write about it in the Roundup.

Josh says that the tone I use when discussing the wasting of time, money, or resources is akin to the way people discuss murder.  I really don’t like squandering things: tangible or intangible.

This purchase came at the crossroads of wasting opportunity (not educating our kids when they are obviously so geeked out about this — it almost feels like we’re driving out their potential by not embracing it) and wasting money (holy crap, those Lego robot kits are expensive and we only have the elementary school set.  One day, we’ll need to get the middle school set and then the high school set and by the time we’re done, we’ll have spent thousands of dollars.  And at the same time, they’re still taking these robotics classes and we’re paying for the classes, so at some point, it becomes redundant).  Which created a perfect storm of anxiety: is it more wasteful to make the purchase or not make the purchase?

And to make it more insane, while it’s an extraordinary amount of money for a toy, it isn’t an extraordinary amount of money in the grand sense of the word.  It’s the equivalent to one month of guitar lessons.

But the mantra in my brain was: what if we didn’t use this tool enough?  I truly hate to waste anything.

So you should also expect a post or two about Lego robots; a tutorial or something like that.  Because apparently, when you write a blog post about something, it becomes less wasteful.

Am I the only one with waste anxiety?  Please tell me that other people spend this much time worrying about spending money or not spending money.

P.S. I plan to play with it after they go to sleep and make my own robots.  It really is that cool.

*******

I make horrible food choices.  I feel like I need to see that in print so I remember it.  Melissa, you make horrible food choices.  I was thinking about tattooing it on my hand, but then I realized that I hope one day to make good food choices.  And tattoos are permanent.

This is but one example.  On Monday, we went to a Tex-Mex restaurant.  I told myself before we walked in the door not to eat the chips.  I ate the chips.  And then wasn’t really hungry for my meal.  But ate my meal too since I ordered it.  So it was food I didn’t need, but it all goes back to that waste thing: the food wasn’t going to still be good if I took it home (it wasn’t something that traveled well) but I had put myself in a position where I wasn’t really hungry anymore.  Horrible food choices.  I wish they made a tattoo that lasted for a year or so, that you could renew like a library book.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Two Years Gone” (Remembering Funny)
• “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” (Certainly Not Cool Enough to Blog)
• “Cold Peace” (Stirrup Queens) – thank you!
• “Guilt-Free Infertility 2.0” (This is More Personal)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Cablearms has an aching post about ifs.  The refrain at the end gutted me, and this is but a small part of it: “If I cry enough today, tomorrow and the day after, would my tears dry up and make me numb from all the pain? If I open myself up to the pressing reality that I can never bear a child, will it make it easier for me to move on?”  They’re questions without answers, but so much is said in the asking of them.

Hapa Hopes has a post about her “person” — the one you go to when “things are shitty, it’s the person you call to vent to and cry to.  He/she is your emotional stronghold.  Your person gets you.”  Her post is about her person, but she also invites you to write a small ode to your own person.  The post just made me smile, and it was a good reminder to let someone know how much they mean to you.

Feigning Fertility has a letter to a woman she encountered at the gas station; the hidden story behind the exterior the outsider can see.  It is just an amazing, amazing post; filled with humility and empathy and incredibly reserves of strength.

Lori Does Maryland has a post about how bravery comes in all forms.  She doesn’t consider herself brave for living every day without her son, Matthew, because she doesn’t see his loss as a choice.  But choosing to cycle again, choosing to do it while her husband is on a fleet, where if the IVF cycle works she will be parenting two children on her own close in age.  It’s an eye-opening post into the life of a military family.

Lastly, The Hardest Quest gives a gorgeous bit of advice about living without regret.  I don’t just love it because the American in me sighs over the beauty of the French in the post, but because by the end of the post, she had me considering places in my life where I may end up with regrets rather than the more livable remorse.  Just a fantastic post.

The roundup to the Roundup: How I ended up with a Lego robotics set.  I hate to waste things.  I make poor food choices.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 13th and January 20th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

This is my contribution to my own alternative to the SOPA blackout taking place today.  I’m calling it Free Advice Day.  I didn’t make a fancy badge because I literally came up with this idea as a response to why I’m not participating in the blackout.  If you would like to participate in order to celebrate the good of the Internet as a protest to SOPA, please go to your blog and write a post giving your best advice (truly, it will help if you read this post first to understand what sorts of things people can write), and then use the linky feature at the bottom of this post in order to add your advice to Free Advice Day.  Oh, and you can feel free to stick around and read my advice, which may not really be good advice at all.  It may actually be crap advice.  As with so many things, it’s all in the point-of-view.

The advice I’m about to give stems from a friend joking that I should write a parenting book because I convinced the ChickieNob that she likes math (when she did, in fact, find it torturous), and in turn, she became good at math.  I realized in talking with my friend that my parenting advice is the same as my relationship advice, and pretty much all of my life advice that involves other people can be boiled down to a single thought.  That thought then plays out in various ways.  This is it:

Every relationship is just a relationship.

The core of this is a belief that no relationship is a given.  I need to work at being a good daughter, I need to work at being a good wife, and I need to work at being a good parent.  Literally no one in life is “stuck” with you, and beyond love flowing from parent to child, we are owed very little unless we invest ourselves enough to earn that return.  Therefore, I put a lot of effort into all my relationships — friendship and family — that matter to me and never lean back on that idea of “well, you have to care about me.”  Because they don’t.  The flip side is that no relationship is sacred — how I am treated entirely decides for me how I invest myself in that relationship.  Regardless of how the person is related to me, if they’re going to treat me poorly, they won’t be a large part of my life.  So it goes both ways — you can both screw yourself and save yourself by remembering that you need to actually work at all relationships and never think that you can skate by.

Josh and I have a goal: we want the kids to be friends with each other and wanting to spend time with us when they’re older.  We also would like to still be married to each other when we’re in our nineties.  And these are a few ways of how we’re trying to make that happen, knowing full well that every person is in charge of their own destiny and they can be pointed in the right direction, but it’s up to each child to actually get there.  If these resonate with you at all, I can write down more ways that we think through our relationships to one another.  It is such hubris to think that I have it all figured out.  I really haven’t.  Every relationship is a work in progress.

Give Them My Time

You know how there are some friends that you never see, who seemingly blow you off?  They put all their activities and other people first?  You know how you can tell the difference between a friend who is honestly busy and one who isn’t prioritizing you?  Well, I believe that your kids and partner can tell the difference too.

This doesn’t mean that I need to cook from scratch three balanced meals each day, all the while twirling around the kitchen in my apron as if my entire purpose in life is to serve other people.  I work full time — albeit at a non-traditional job with flexible hours — and the twins know that I need to put in about 40 hours a week.  Which means that sometimes I phone in dinner.  Which means sometimes I need to get work done instead of play.

But the time I have to give, I give to the people most important to me.  When I am with them, I am present.  I am not looking at my blackberry the entire time.  I am not walking away from the activity every two minutes just to take care of one little thing.  The twins know that I am going to be in the kitchen with them while they do their homework so they can ask their questions.  They know that I am going to listen when they want to tell me a story.  Josh knows that when we’re eating dinner together, I am focused on him.  I participate in activities that matter to the three of them.  I volunteer in the twins’ school, I lead some of their after school activities, I bake for Josh’s office — and I do these things because I want to send a clear message that their lives matter to me.  What matters to them matters to me.  It’s how I treat my close friends too.  I close email and listen to them talk.  I make sure that if I am giving them my time, I am actually giving them my time.

It needs, of course, to be a balance so that I am not lost in the shuffle of obligations (work) and relationships.  The twins have seen me not answer the phone because I want them to know that they are so important, I would skip phone calls because what they’re saying matters (the same idea that the actual customer in front of you is more important that the potential customer calling from their home).  And at the same time, they see me take phone calls because they need to know that there are more people out there than them.

And all of this extends to a larger idea: there are people I would and have dropped everything and flown to be with (even though I am terrified of planes) because they needed me.  I can’t give everyone that level of care, but the people who are in that inner circle know that they can take my time if they need it.  And I’m always grateful when they do.  People like to be needed.

This ties into that whole idea of convincing the ChickieNob that she’s good at math; I am there when she has math homework.  I try to think through how to make it fun for her.  I think about the attitude I bring to her homework, because she usually picks up on how I feel about something and mirrors it.  I don’t act as if spending time helping her with math is a chore; I let her know that it’s just one more way I can be there for her.  And she in turn embraces it in the same way she embraces her tuck-in at night or how I leave her lunch notes.  It is a way of showing care, and when you care about something, the people who love you tend to care about it too.

Never Talk About One Child with Another (or Your Partner with Either Child)

If you are having a problem with one of your children — and you will one day have a problem with one of your children — never speak about that problem with another child in the family.  This is mostly, obviously, sibling to sibling, but it also applies when you have one parent who has a problem with a child whereas the other parent doesn’t.  And it certainly applies to never discussing your partner negatively with your children.

When we vent about another person, what we are doing is establishing an us-against-them attitude.  It’s totally fine when I bitch to my friend about a person she doesn’t know.  My friend’s job is to have my back and support me.  She doesn’t have anything at stake, therefore, there is no choice to be made — she will pick me, her friend.  But what about when the two people know each other and have their own relationship with each other?  What you are doing is putting the listener in a position where you are silently asking them to make a choice.  And it’s the fastest way to destroy a relationship between two other people.

My parents were fantastic in that I never knew when they were pissed at my siblings.  I may have known that my sibling was grounded and why, but my parents never spoke directly with me in a negative way about any of my siblings nor would they really entertain discussing my fights with my siblings with me.  If I went to complain to them, they would listen neutrally and not get emotionally involved in the discussion.  They simply repeated the same idea over and over again, and let us do with it what we will rather than try to micromanage our relationships: friends will come and go, but your siblings will be the people who could potentially be there for you your entire life.

And it’s true: to this day, friends have come and gone, but my siblings (and a few select sisters-by-choice who are fictive kin) are amongst my best friends.  They’re on my list of people that I would drop everything for and fly across the country to be there for in an instant even though I hate planes.  Which is why I would never complain about the ChickieNob to the Wolvog nor vice versa because I want them to be good friends in the future.  If I need to complain, I call a friend.  If I’m complaining to a family member, I make sure that I am focusing on disliking the behaviour and not complaining about the person as a whole.  But most importantly, I would never share with one child how I’m feeling about the other one nor would I ever tell my children if I was angry with Josh.  Because in doing so, I would send the silent message to that child that they should side with me.  Or inadvertently, they could also decide their loyalty lies with their twin or father and push away from me.

This applies now and it applies in the future, when I’m in my nineties and they’re in their sixties.  No relationship is a given: I can’t treat their relationship with each other poorly and then say, “but they need to stick together!  They’re siblings.”  They actually don’t have to stick together, and they won’t if I don’t take active steps to make sure we all respect our individual relationships to one another.

Give Them Power

If I want my relationship with my children to constantly evolve, I need to let the relationship evolve.  In a parent-child relationship, that means empowering the child more and more as they move towards adulthood.  Which, of course, guts me.  But just as I let every other relationship in my life ebb and flow, I need to let this one too.

Which means that I have to remind myself not to hold on so tenaciously because I don’t want them to feel more tied to me than to their own life.  It means I need to be realistic in how they spend their time: they may not always choose to be with me, and that might not have any reflection on me just as I sometimes prioritize them over everything else and sometimes prioritize another activity that needs to get done before them.  It is hard to watch them form their own friendships and run off with other people.  But it’s also what I want because I know that if I allow this relationship to evolve, I have a better chance of Josh and I reaching that goal of still having them want to include us in their life.

It’s not a given that they will still need me or want to be with me when they’re older.  I need to create a relationship that they want to return to, that bolsters their self-esteem; a place where they feel good about themselves.  I like to treat my relationship with them like the bar at Cheers.  The characters didn’t spend all their time at the bar — they had other things in their life — but they always wanted to end up back there because it was a place where the people knew them.  Where they felt safe to be themselves.  And letting go and empowering your child is the best way to send the message that your heart is a place where they can be themselves, where they won’t be judged, where their life choices will be accepted, and that they never have to pretend to be someone they’re not.

Last Thought

All of this is what I learned from observing my parents.  Which is not only to give them credit for instilling this in me, but also to point out that yes, your children and partners are watching and incorporating what you put out there.  How you act now shapes your relationship as well as how they comport themselves in the world.  I think Josh makes me a better person with how he treats me, and I hope that I make him a better adult by the way I treat him.  But I’m also always mindful that how I behave shapes the adults and parents my children become.  Scary thought, but also a pretty damn exciting one too.  No strong relationships are by accident.

Last Last Thought
Thought this entire post was crap advice? Well how about this: I leave a set of cleaning supplies in every room of the house so I can quickly grab them and clean for a few minutes rather than setting aside a specific time to schlep a set of supplies from room to room, dusting and bleaching.

I just wanted to make sure you were leaving this post with something useful.

Add Your Post to Free Advice Day

Use the linky widget below to add your advice post to Free Advice Day/Protest SOPA. Any links below that do not go directly to a post (in other words, do not use the main url for your blog; use the permalink for the post) or links that do not go to a post that gives advice will be removed.

Now go read some great advice above.