Why Can’t We Play Nice?
You know what I absolutely, 100% have to avoid to keep my sanity? Internet comments. It never ceases to amaze me that one minute I can be reading a really well-thought out article on something scientific or heartfelt and it completely gets ruined by Internet trolls. What makes it worse is these trolls then start picking fights with each other, then the name calling starts, people start unleashing their fury via caps lock, and before you know it, a perfectly good piece has been ruddied by the Internet haters. Guys, what is up with this? This is not a far cry from bullying. And truth be told, what sort of example are we setting by spending inordinate amounts of time fighting with a person who goes by the screen moniker justinlovr897 because they didn’t agree with the fact that we prefer the color purple over the number 9? I know those two things are completely incongruous, but that is exactly what happens on the Internet. People start fighting over stuff that is completely unrelated. Instead of learning from the Internet, we’ve begun feeding the vicious, angry troll that lies within. And do you know something? The kids are watching. Very much in the same way that our children model our behavior at home, our Internet habits are just as influential. If anything, they are more susceptible out there in the ether because there are no physical walls in which to hide. There isn’t a safe place. We are creating a pretty scary world, and it’s not doing anyone any good. The Internet has been set up as a stage for us to engage in discourse, except that kids have jumped on social media to start picking at each other through the veil that is Facebook or Twitter. We have jumped on news articles to yell at each other because we don’t agree with a political candidate or someone’s sexual orientation. We’re not nice, and we’re passing that onto the next generation. Folks, why can’t we play nice? The same goes for us, oh moms of the Internet, and you’ve read about the topics ad nauseam. Your vaginal birth wasn’t real enough. Your c-section birth was too fake. That bottle you’re feeding your baby is full of poison. Your breast feeding is disgusting. How could you even consider a disposable diaper when the landfills are at maximum capacity? Why did...
Read MoreThe Lost Art of Letter Writing
The Internet is full of letters that never get sent directly to the recipient for whom they were intended. I’ve come across this a lot as someone who spends way too much of my time surfing the bytes and pieces of it all, and the peculiar thing about these letters is that, while the audience is wide and the message is clear, I’m often dumbfounded by the publicly published notes. What has happened to the art of letter writing? And I do mean the ones that are created with a pen and paper. I saw the trend start with mommy bloggers. Many of them would pen (or is that key?) letters to their children and publish missives on their respective pages. These perfectly crafted notes were personal, full of wonderful sentiments and sweet pictures of their little ones. As beautiful as they were to read, these awfully personal notes were published for the entire world wide web to view. My very personal opinion on this matter is these sorts of letters should have been typed or written and put in a box so that they could be read by their children at a later date. Then it got me thinking, whatever happened to the lost art of letter writing? The irony is not lost on me, that here I am, Chief Technology Mom, purveyor of all things positively technological, a self-proclaimed gadget junky who makes a living on the Internet and yes, uses tech with my kids, and yet I am opining on this whole Internet-letter business. I’m a bit technical, but I am also a fan of the classics. It kind of goes back to the idea of over-sharing. We are constantly toeing the line over what we distribute in the ether, be it too personal or just personal enough, and we’re seeing our human interaction dwindle, as it is replaced by one on the computer screen. Do these moms write letters to their children publicly because they truly feel it is something their audiences are meant to read? I am not here to judge. I am infinitely curious. I wrote a letter to my son before he was born, and I published it as a note on Facebook. It had received a lot of comments, all positive, and then I thought to myself, wouldn’t this be better for his baby book? A special note from me just...
Read MoreHow We Share Information
There’s a lot to be said about the information we share on the Internet when it comes to being a mother. I know that for me, the moment I first held my son, my first born, the world became a pretty scary place. All of a sudden the articles, headlines, published studies and blogs were completely unnerving. The overabundance of information hit me so hard that, quite honestly, I wasn’t sure which information was right and which information was wrong. I started to notice trends on social media within my circle of mom friends. We were all quick to hit the “share†button on Facebook of an article. We’d even share one of those urgent posts that dealt with an urban myth, like, if you found a spider in your toilet, be careful because it is a rare spider that will bite you when you use the toilet and you will die! Share! Share! Share! Share! It made me realize how quick we are to share information without first checking the validity of said information, but to what detriment are we doing that? All too often I find posts about various studies, whether it’s about the benefits of breast milk, high protein diets, vegan diets, organic diets for our children, exercise, well visits and so on, and so many times these posts are shared with such alarm that it could frighten anyone who wouldn’t know better than to do her own research. This is probably a good time to talk about correlation and causation. Earlier this week, I read an excellent excerpt from a book that dealt with this very topic, and of course I was very quick to share this information to those in my social feeds because I felt it was an excellent piece that covered what this correlation versus causation is all about. As moms, we tend to take correlation as actual fact, by mistake, of course, and shut our computers down and worry that we might have poisoned our child because we fed them inorganic milk. This is where the over sharing of information bites us all in the collective butt. One person takes a study that breaks down the correlation of inorganic milk and sick kids and the next thing you know, mothers everywhere are freaking out. What the person doing the sharing failed to realize is that there is a correlation between the...
Read MoreHelping Holden Series: Reading, Writing, and Martial Arts
“Your fears are not walls, but hurdles. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the conquering of it.†― Dan Millman You can find this quotation all the way at the bottom of any email sent to you by yours truly. A college friend had posted this on her Facebook account in early 2008 and I immediately took to it. I had not heard of Dan Millman or the Peaceful Warrior at the time. I only knew I liked the quote and adopted it as one of my “mantras†in my own life. It’s amazing to me how words, phrases, songs, and literacy have the power to connect people. Words are what help us to understand the world around us. Spoken word has the power to heal and help, while the written word captures the spoken word and gives it immortality. Reading Earlier this summer, as I was developing an action plan for Holden I turned literature to help guide through. I created a list of books for Holden to read and a list of books for mom and dad to read. I looked for books about raising boys, kids personalities, and managing family life. (You can find the list of books in the article titled The Action Plan.) The summer reading list has helped us both stay on track as life can easily pass quickly with familial activities and obligations. As a busy mom, I realize that while my time is limited, I must read to continue my own development. I enjoy doing things in 3’s. I read to be entertained, to inform myself on a new concept, idea or way of life, and to be inspired. This does not mean that I read three books at once, what it does mean is that I choose a book, and then I supplement. For example, if I’m reading Raising Boys, I’m also reading through the Internet for quotes that inspire and to adopt into my own life, and reading children’s books for entertainment with my children or short stories for myself. In the genre of self-help, Life Matters by Stephen Covey is a book I keep handy and reread sections often to improve family life. For Holden, the first thing we did early this summer was join the summer reading program at our library. With his new library card in hand, Mondays have become our summer library day....
Read MoreTalking to Kids About Body Image
Dear Better Way Moms, My name is Michelle, and I’m so proud to say that I am in my fifth year of recovery from an eating disorder. My story is very different from most. I lost my mom when she was 46, and I was 15. She suffered from an eating disorder her whole life, and that disorder largely contributed to her death. I want to be clear, I had an absolutely wonderful mother, who happened to be extremely sick. The disclaimer here is that I ask you not to judge my mom’s behavior, as her behaviors were the result of her illness. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate when compared with any mental illness, higher than schizophrenia, depression, you name it, and my life has been living proof of this. A thin body is the ideal of our society. Yet the messages we receive through media tell us that we should be eating whatever we want without necessarily having to exercise. These unrealistic and conflicting messages have caused a lot of harm. Parents often ask me how they can approach body image in a positive way with their children. My mom did not do such a great job at modeling proper food and body behavior. Nevertheless, there were actions she could have taken to aid me in developing a more positive body image. Given what I’ve experienced, I would like to share with you some tips to address eating disorders. Along with these tips are the warning signs, and my thoughts on the dos and don’ts of helping kids have a positive body image. I believe that these ideas are relevant for children, adolescents, young adults and adults. Tip #1: Monitor your environment It is often said that genetics load the gun, and the environment pulls the trigger. One helpful thing you can do to avoid pulling the trigger would be to THROW OUT THE SCALE! You don’t need it. If you really cannot let go of the scale, do not, under any circumstances, weigh yourself in front of your children. If you want to keep track of your weight, do so by the clothes you wear and noticing if your clothes are getting too big or too small. In addition, I know people who have had success by only allowing mirrors in the bathroom of their home. This might sound extreme, but it’s one way to...
Read MoreSuffer the Little Children
There are seven days until Christmas, a time of joy, laughter, wonder and delight. Yet we all have very heavy hearts as we celebrate the season of lights, love and good will towards men. There are 20 homes that will be missing a child on Christmas morning. 20 homes where one little face filled with wonder and joy will be brutally, inexplicably and heart-wrenchingly absent. Every molecule of my being wants to scream “NO!” Not children…not our children. Not our sweet, innocent beautiful babies. No, please. Make it be a dream. Please, make it not be real. But it is real. It did happen. On our watch. Our children, yours and mine. Violently ripped away. I think of my own child in the first-grade. So wide-eyed and trusting. So alive and curious about everything. How could anyone do this? How could anyone look a face like that and do harm? How do we move on from this? Where do we go? How do we heal? Surely the world has stopped…. But the world doesn’t stop. Just moments ago I received a recorded message from our school’s superintendent letting me know that our school’s doors are locked and our children practice lock-down drills. I’m grateful for the call, but I can’t believe we live in a world where calls like this need to exist. As my eyes fill with tears and my breath stops short I just can’t help picturing my own sweet one being trained to protect himself from attempted mass murder. All the while just thinking he’s going through a regular school drill, not comprehending the darkness and terror that’s actually possible. How on earth is this our reality? As I listened to our President last night, at first I found myself balking when he said we had failed our children. But I let the thought rattle around a little bit, and I realized that we have. On many levels. They trust us, they love us and they need us. And we have failed. No child should ever fear for their lives because they walked into their school, or went to see a movie, or walked out the front door. I have to believe we’re better than this. As the wise Mr. Rogers says, “Look for the helpers.” I think one of the ways I’m processing all of this is by diving into the stories about the teachers,...
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