Topic: parenting styles

Tiger Mom Is A Myth: Turns Out Kids In China Are Just As Lazy And Spoiled As Our Kids

Tiger Mom Is A Myth: Turns Out Kids In China Are Just As Lazy And Spoiled As Our Kids

Chua outlawed peer socializing, television and video games with her two children. She reprimanded parents in the US for indulging our kids like the whole country was a child of her own. She made us all feel bad about letting bedtimes slide, allowing video games or defending hours of PBS. She gave American parents a one-size-fits-all mandate to be stricter with our children, no matter who they are, no matter what the circumstances. And now it turns out she doesn’t represent an entire culture. More »

Babies & Wild Animals: The Latest In Sanctimonious ‘Irresponsible Parenting’ Outrage

Babies & Wild Animals: The Latest In Sanctimonious 'Irresponsible Parenting' Outrage

So there’s a 20-year-old YouTube video that’s suddenly causing controversy because it shows an 18-month-old little girl playing with a gorilla. They’re just hanging out, throwing straw at each other. The video was made by Damian Aspinall, who owns a wild animal park in England, and shows his daughter Tansy playing and even being carried by an enormous gorilla. The video is sweet and it was made to demonstrate how gentle and caring these primates really are.

Instead, it’s drawing plenty of finger-wagging and over-hyped media reports about “irresponsible parenting.” More »

Modern Parenting Is Defined By Fear

Modern Parenting Is Defined By Fear

There are times after I put my daughter to bed, when I’m sitting around for an hour of quiet time and a good book, that I am honestly terrified about my parenting decisions. I sit there, thinking about discipline, schooling or religion and am legitimately scared that I’m making the wrong choices.

Suddenly I realized, this fear is a pretty modern parenting development. Are we the first generation of mothers who simply don’t trust their own maternal instinct at all? More »

I Teach My Daughter To Use Her Lies Sparingly

I Teach My Daughter To Use Her Lies Sparingly

The other week, just before school, my daughter asked me kind of sheepishly if I ever had to finish a book in one hour. I knew something was up. “No,” I said. “I’ve never had to finish one of my books in one hour,” I responded.

“But if you had to finish a book in one hour, what would you do?” she asked.

“Well,” I told her, “I’d ask for more time. Why are you asking me this?”

It turns out she was behind in her Design Technology class at school – yes, she has such a thing – where she uses glue guns and saws to make a structure.

“I only have an hour left to finish,” she told me, “And I’m not nearly done my ‘zoo.’” More »

If My Daughter Vomits, She’s On Her Own

If My Daughter Vomits, She's On Her Own

My daughter is all ready for college! Thanks to the 24-hour flu, she’s now well versed in having a garbage pail by the bed so that she can just lean over and let it all out. I feel like an awful mother when my child is throwing up. That’s because I have a total aversion to the smell of vomit. I’m one of those people who, when someone else is throwing up, I immediately want to throw up, too. This, strangely, even holds true for my daughter, who I would take a bullet for. The second she pukes, I immediately want to do the same.

So it’s very difficult to be a loving mother when she has the flu. More »

Making Kids Perform In Christmas Concerts Is Just Plain Cruel

Making Kids Perform In Christmas Concerts Is Just Plain Cruel

This time last year my daughter was licking her wounds. And I was feeling like a protective (and guilty) lioness. At a time of year when we should have been grateful for our good fortune, we were trying to forget about the season altogether. All because of a Christmas concert.

The show was like a Sondheim revue gone bad. Between a lengthy group overture and finale, each of the eight classes performed two “numbers” apiece, with costume changes in between. There were hula costumes, animal masks leotards, top hats, rapper caps and jeans… And through it all our children were, respectively, miserable and numb. And so was I. More »

If I Had A Daughter, I’d Totally Take Her For Manicures

If I Had A Daughter, I'd Totally Take Her For Manicures

Long before I had kids, back when I worked full time at a fashion magazine, I’d get a bit irritated by the mothers getting manicures with their mini-mes in tow. “Honey, do you want to pick out a color?” they’d ask. Their excited little 4-year-olds would run off to the polish display, proudly choosing a hot pink, florescent yellow, electric blue – whatever the toddler color du jour.

Now that I have children of my own, I’m wondering what the hell my problem was. More »

Chronic Asthma Will Not Define My Daughters’ Lives

Chronic Asthma Will Not Define My Daughters' Lives

I have asthma and both of my children have asthma. No, we are not “cursed” with bad luck, as my Asian in-laws believe. I swear our genes are AWESOME, and we are blessed in other ways!

I’ve had asthma since I was 11 months old, which means that asthma is something I’ve lived with my entire life. They used to promise that I’d grow out of it, but I never did. Now they tell sufferers that you manage it. For me it’s really not a “big deal” in the sense that I don’t know of any other lifestyle. More »

I Had High Hopes For My New Mom Friend – ‘Til My Daughter Ruined It All

I Had High Hopes For My New Mom Friend â 'Til My Daughter Ruined It All

I thought we’d make perfect foursome. We’d go to movies together, eat out together, they’d come over to my place for leisurely afternoons and we’d go over to their place for evenings of mindless fun. In fact, I even went ahead and planned the perfect date night, which I’ll tell you about in a minute. As a part of an adult couple, we know how hard it is to find that other adult couple who we always look forward to seeing and having drinks or dinner with. The men like the men and the gals like the gals. But I’m not talking about that kind of foursome. I’m talking about a foursome with my daughter, another girl her age, me and this other girl’s mother. More »

Sorry Santa! I Want My Daughter To Know That The Good Gifts Are From Me

Sorry Santa! I Want My Daughter To Know That The Good Gifts Are From Me

For the past six months, my daughter has been asking for a Barbie Mansion. It’s been at the top of her mind on almost every weekly trip to the grocery store. Any time she catches a commercial with that bright pink, plastic abode, I’m resigned to hearing her pleas for the next three hours. She wants that house, guys! She wants a house that’s big enough for her bastion of Barbies to play in comfortably. For whatever reason, our little Polly Pocket house, that’s not big enough for the Barbies to stand in, simply isn’t cutting it. Screw teeth, all this girl wants for Christmas is a Barbie Dreamhouse! And I hate to offend the Big Man, but I want to be the one to give it to her. More »

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