Tag Archives: parenting

Mourning the Father I Never Met

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I was adopted as an infant.

Two wonderful people chose me to be part of their family. I had a beautiful life with loving parents, and I couldn’t have had better role models, felt more loved, or loved anyone as much as I loved them. I always viewed them as my “true” parents. When I was very young, and they had told me I had been adopted, they said they had chosen me, out of all the other babies, at the baby store. I felt so special then, and still do today.

They both are gone now and I miss them dearly.

I had never given much thought to who my biological parents were. I always felt it didn’t matter, that their pairing—and my conception—was only a biological accident involving sperm and an unprotected egg.

But then, about 6 years ago I wanted to find some information on my family heritage. This was driven more by my young adult sons, frankly. I wanted them to have some info on their ancestry, as well as to not have to wonder about what health-related concerns they may have inherited from unknown genetics. All my life I had always had to draw a huge X across the “family medical history” sections when filling out the paperwork at doctors’ offices.

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An Empty Nest? Or Not?

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I haven’t written for a while as my professional (aka: PAID) writing has taken off…yeh…so I’ve been too busy to do personal blogs…But, after a particularly long week of writing about others’ lives, I thought I should sit down with a glass of wine and tap into my inner self a bit…it has been too long…

I just went and watched my older son graduate from college. Truly a proud moment.

…took a lot of photos, hugged and kissed him, and then flew back home with the family. The younger son joined us, flew back with us and is staying with us for the summer. He’ll then return to college. When he moves out at the end of this summer, my husband and I will once again be in empty nest mode.

Thank God.nest

Now don’t get me wrong. I love my sons. But after the initial gut-wrenching sadness of having them both gone…and it truly was gut-wrenching, I have the therapy bill and prescriptions to prove it…well, after all of that, something happened.

The empty nest became a lovely respite.

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When the World Was Only as Large as My Golden Book Set

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Remember When We Didn’t Have The World at our Finger Tips?

As I often do these days, I catch myself reflecting on “life when I was young” compared to that of my sons and young relatives. And as we sat at dinner one night, with my niece and nephew busily on their iPhones…researching basically any and every topic that was brought up during dinner (“Who was that British guy in that spy movie?”…”What was the name of that song in that commercial…?”), I couldn’t help think of my family’s prized Golden Book Encyclopedia set. Remember those?

Imagine, everything from A to B in a single encyclopedia.

Was the world that simple then? Or were we?

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The Perfect Daughter-in-Law

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What happens when your child grows up – but is still in college – and brings home the perfect spouse? And you wonder…is this type of serious commitment good or bad at such a young age? Today’s technology-centric world even complicates this question further, as I recently found out…when I met the perfect daughter-in-law…    Continue reading →

Pot or Not?

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                                                                             Legalize Pot or Not?

marijuana

At the risk of being classified by my kids as totally uncool and not with the times…yet again…

I decided to come out of the closet and admit…that I did not vote to legalize pot in California in the last election. Surprised? Me TOO, actually! I’m pretty liberal and I also am a firm believer that people should take responsibility for their own actions and health. 

But with my kids still under 21, my little “momism warning antennae” went up, I guess…the idea of sending the message that “pot is ok” to young teens just seemed wrong…what do you think?

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Parenting of Teens is Tough Work

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Years ago, in my continuing quest to figure out parenting, I actually took a 6 week-long parenting course from an organization called, the “Parent Project”. It was a great program, and if you are having issues with pre-teens or teens, especially related to behavior and attitude, I promise you that you will get at least one extremely helpful thing out of it. After taking the course, I wrote the following poem, which uses some of the terminology specific to the class…but you’ll get the idea…(and no, I still haven’t figured parenting out and probably never will…)

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Living a Re-use Life in a Disposable World

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Why are today’s young adults so focused on, “new and improved”?  My youngest son just returned home from college for the summer, and I couldn’t believe how many things came home dirty and seemingly broken…a fan, a toaster oven, umbrella, flashlight and more. Even more disturbing was that his attitude seemed to be, just throw it out and start new in the Fall! Hey bud…I grew up with parents who lived through the Depression…and come on, don’t my kids know me by now? I don’t replace something that I can easily repair. I am a re-use kind of gal…but more and more I find I am living in a disposable world…

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Life Before the Internet and Starbucks…Really

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Technology has evolved dramatically since I was in school. My sons have both gone off to college in the past few years…such a mind-trip for me to realize how different their college experience is from a technology and societal perspective. The Internet didn’t exist back then, nor were there Starbucks. No smart phones, either. Back then, the “smarts” were seemingly in the people, not the phones. I actually remember having to memorize all of my friends’ telephone numbers or having to write them down in a telephone directory. Really. And no, the dinosaurs weren’t still roaming…it just may seem like it to today’s kids. 

Obsoleted Soccer Moms lived back in tough times, where the “Smarts” were built into people, not devices!
(acknowledgement to wronghands1.worpress.com for graphic)

I was reflecting on what a different experience kids have nowadays in college. Keep in mind I was in college in the late 70’s, graduating in 1980.

We didn’t have personal computers back then. I know, hard to believe. If you were nerdy enough to have anything to do with a computer, you were creating punch-cards for the mainframe on campus. And a laptop was simply that…the top of someone’s lap.

We didn’t have cell phones back then. Nor did anyone ever offer anything called wireless access. So if you had told me you had a “hot spot”, I would have kept my distance and suggested you go to the doctor…We didn’t have anything wireless.  And besides, there weren’t any Starbucks back then, so there really wasn’t a place to hang out to use the wireless access (that we didn’t have) for the laptops (that didn’t exist) anyway.

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