I was chatting on the phone with my oldest this week about purity culture–which deserves a post on its own. (I have feelings. Big feelings.)
I expressed to him how tough it is as parents, when some of the less-healthy methods of purity culture are subtracted from parenting –I’m looking at you, shame-parenting–to find something as powerful to direct our kids toward good and keep them from what’s truly bad.
I was glad/sad to see high click-throughs for my recent post, When Valentine’s Day is hard.
Maybe I’m reading into it. But maybe some of you are army-crawling through hard times. Or know someone who is. (Or are curious to see exactly how I would tackle that beast.)
On Tuesday, my brain–well, my heart–undermined my marriage.
Here’s what happened on the outside.
When my four kids were little and life resembled a 24-hour Bounty commercial, I read a statistic in Parents magazine that something like 78% of new moms, when choosing between sex and sleep, chose sleep.
Um. Duh.
This is one of those posts where I’m not an expert, just a mom. (Um, most of my posts?!)
But maybe these small ideas will help. And if I’m smart, I’ll keep this short, right?
A couple of weeks ago one of my teenagers was super-miffed with my husband and me.
On a car ride home from church, after explaining a biblical position we held on a touchy subject, this unnamed teenager maintained his shock and sudden anger.
My eleven-year-old put into words what likely more than one American has been thinking about the tragic and troubling events of January 6. “2021 was supposed to be better than 2020! We’re only six days in!”
And then there was my 16-year-old’s assessment. “If we were describing the U.S. in terms of health, I’d say we’re spiking a fever.”
My 16-year-old was recently awarded his driver’s permit–okay, yikes–and with it, was pre-registered to vote. We don’t fall down the line politically, which I’m generally okay with. (You may remember we’re a lot different: see When Your Child is Different from What You Expected.)
As my kids grow older…so do their opinions. Sometimes I’m unprepared for the ways my boys and I don’t see eye-to-eye.
Ever marveled over how your child is different from the one you’d pictured?
When I found out I was pregnant 16 years ago, I was over the moon. In fact, there were a few days during a women’s retreat when I suspected I was miscarrying. Fear clutched my heart with thick talons.
I know I wasn’t the only mom whose gut sunk like a stone when I heard of the death (“passing” seems a misnomer) of George Floyd. Just weeks after our family discussion about Ahmaud Arbery, we sat down in lieu of online church to talk again about racial discrimination.
Truth: Sometimes I wish I didn’t tell you I’d help with “uncomfortable conversations…worth having.”
But here’s another truth: Those of you readers of color probably didn’t have an option for this uncomfortable conversation with your kids.
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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