Stand by for tomorrow’s post…I will be reviewing Christelyn Karazin’s new book Swirling and she ain’t talking ice cream kids! Till then, keep passing them open windows!

Yesterday was a rough day, a really rough day. It didn’t start off that way at all, but in my 15+ years of human services work most of which have been spent working with financially insecure adults, struggling with basic survival, I occasionally come across situations that hit me at my core. Yesterday was one of those days, except that because I deal with youth now, I find that when I am faced with bad professional days, they are truly bad. Privacy laws and what shred of human decency I possess prevent me from sharing the details but I will just say that my evening involved a lot of tears, holding my daughter tighter than usual and needing to connect at a deep level.

Unfortunately I didn’t realize early enough that instead of posting a random post to my personal Facebook page that created a lively discussion that while pleasant, deep online debate and discussion was not what I needed. I really needed to just be in the company of friends and am thankful that I have some folks in my life who know me well enough to pick up the phone and call me even when I am being too stubborn or whatever to take that step myself.

I often spend a great deal of time online in part because so much of my day is spent alone due to my job so being online often serves the same function as wandering the office and stopping at a coworkers desk to gab used to serve. As our offline lives integrate so seamlessly with our online lives, at times it’s easy for me to ignore the times when I really need to unplug and regroup with friends. For many there are no distinctions between online & offline connections, but lately I am finding that is not the case at all for me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the connections I have made online and certainly there is a growing number of folks that I have connected with online that are and have become offline buddies.

Yet there are subtle nuances that can’t be transmitted online, a few weeks ago the Spousal Unit and I met up with some friends we met originally online who are definitely friends and a discussion ensued that to be frank, had it happened online, would not have gone well. In fact I know if my friend had said what he said online, I would have pretty much thought what an ass. Yet a face to face connection and lack of word limits meant we could dive much deeper and in the end I left with better understanding on an issue that had been driving me mad.

So many small exchanges lately that have gone frankly a little wrong online are serving yet again as reminders for me of my limits to this online life. A little is great, a little more is even better but at a certain point, I need to step back. After a few well spent hours last night on the phone that brought me back to my happy, I realized that frankly I need more offline connections and that’s perfectly fine because part of this grown up life is knowing what we need and being intentional about it.

Spring is here, and it’s clear that I need to get my physical self in order and I had been toying with the idea of doing some type of cleanse and just as I had that thought an offer for one came in my email. Hey, I work in the non-profit sector so I figured why the hell not, a no cost cleanse? What could be better?

I suppose I should have read up a little more before I agreed to offer up my digestive system as a guinea pig, but sometimes reading all the details isn’t my thing especially when I am multitasking. It seems that Skinnygirl is a line of lifestyle & nutrition products developed by Bethenny Frankel of Real Housewives of New York fame. I suppose if I had ever watched an episode of Real Housewives of New York her name may have stood out when I scanned the press release, but hey….

According to the Skinnygirl website, Skinnygirl Daily is “A Daily on the Go solution to promote healthy digestion, detoxification, energy, and overall wellness”. I admit that sounded pretty good, hell I am a working mom, I need all the energy I can get! So I received 5 sample packets, in the Green Lemonade flavor. I followed the directions of adding one packet to 6-8 ounces of water and since I didn’t have a fancy shaker, I stirred and stirred. Ummmm, it was green and frankly not too appetizing to look at, no problem, I figured with a lemonade flavor it would taste better than it looked. Bottoms up! I took a hearty sip and nearly vomited, not sure why this is described as green lemonade, I tasted not a hint of lemonade; frankly it tasted vile, very vile. I suspect that taste should have been the tip off of things to come. I eventually drank my whole serving and went about my day. No extra energy, all seems well.

Fast forward to the early evening hours when my stomach started cramping, let me just cut to the chase without getting to graphic and say that it cleaned me out all right. I spent a good chunk of the evening being intimate with my porcelain throne. I wasn’t quite expecting that and maybe it’s because I tend to have a lot of fiber in my diet naturally but all I will say is I spent the next 24 hours frankly feeling bad. I decided to repeat this experiment with a second packet and had the same results, no added energy, but a lot of time emptying myself out. In some ways in reminded me of over the counter products used to deal with constipation, harsh and uncomfortable.

I wanted to like this product especially after I finally did get around to looking at the Skinny Girls website and later on discovered there is even a Skinny Girl line of cocktails; I had thought maybe I could become a skinny girl once again using Skinny Girl products. Sad to say I was a slightly fluffy girl with a jumpy stomach for several days after using Skinnygirl Daily Cleanse & Restore, so it looks like my relationship with Skinnygirl is over.

Disclosure: In keeping with FTC rules, while I was not paid for this post, I did receive free samples to review.

Frankly as someone who for a while was an ardent believer in attachment parent, the cover and parts of the piece I could read for free were annoying as hell. Attachment parenting as currently practiced in many ways has strayed from its roots which are really about fostering attachment and connection with our children. Children that we are raising who will one day grow up to become adults. Instead today’s attachment parenting in many ways is a caricature of itself that plays on the insecurities we as women and mothers hold in a society that frankly does not value mothers or children. We pay lip service to the idea that we cherish moms and kids but if we did I assure you we would have things in the US like mandatory paid maternity leave. State budgets would not cut needed services for kids if we actually liked kids.

Mothering in this day and age is intense because it seems we are never allowed to find our place as mothers, to develop our own instincts that have kept the human race alive without benefit of any gurus or godfathers.  For most of us from the moment we discover we are expecting we immerse ourselves in learning as much about babies as possible, thanks to technology unlike when I gave birth for the first time in 1992 we can tap into online communities and find support which in many cases is needed and welcomed since many of us lack the neighborhood village that once existed or at least we that we think existed.

The problem is the in the months when we are gestating and in the early days after giving birth, we can also find ourselves less and less likely to develop our own instincts as mothers. Instead we parent with our training wheels on. Understandably when faced with a real live small human, so precious and gentle we need some help and the resources available now can assist us in the early days. The problem though is they also can trap us.

I speak from a place of having been there, I nearly wrecked my body co-sleeping for years, sure co-sleeping can be great but the truth is it doesn’t work for everyone. If only I had realized that years earlier, everyone in my family would have been whole lot happier.

I was attached to an ideal way of parenting and listening to a chorus that supported me when in fact I needed to trust my instincts that told me long in advance that I needed to change things up. In the end when I made changes and broke out of the mold, it made a difference, in many ways that was my first attempt at parenting my youngest without my training wheels. In the past 3 years more and more I have found my style as a parent that works best with my youngest.

Now that I am parenting without my training wheels, I find I am more confident in myself as a parent and less concerned with criticism because I stand in my truth as a parent. Yet for too many of us when we aren’t in that place of standing in our parenting truth it opens us to following the latest style or feeling that we must always explain or justify our parenting choices. It’s one of many reasons I feel the media continues to stir up the mommy storm, Time knew that putting that mom & child on the cover and titling it “Are You Mom Enough” would indeed get a reaction and sure I am writing about it, but frankly it’s less about the mom, the kid, Dr. Sears and attachment parenting as it is to say enough.

Fellow moms, we need to stand tall in quiet strength about the choices we make and not let the media pit us against one another. A friend recently told me about two associates who are now enemies…why? Apparently their parenting styles clashed; when I heard this I was temporarily dumbfounded. Frankly if you are my friend provided you are taking care of your kids, your parenting “style” is no concern of mine. Yet we live in a world where parenting styles end friendships, that’s ridiculous.

To Time Magazine, I say hell yeah I am mother enough because I trust my instincts and know my kids. You are too, so take off your training wheels and trust yourself and tell Dr. Sears to step off!

Today’s teens though are living in a different world, a world where so much of their lives is lived online. I was just at a meeting a few days ago with area youth providers and we discussed how so many of the local teens are living online. I have witnessed with my own eyes two or more teens sitting side by side, not talking to each other yet both on Facebook chatting on Facebook with each other…I gotta be honest the first time I saw that at work, I was speechless. Now it is a norm.

Kids are connected digitally, they text, Facebook, IM, you get the picture. Rather than getting together in real time, they share their lives virtually and that means both the good and the bad. For parents, it’s a brave new world. I am fortunate that with my 20 year old I never worried much about his online use but with one more kid to raise I do wonder what the digital future holds.

It’s starting to become common that we hear of kids misbehaving when it comes to their online privileges and increasingly we have parents doling out their punishments online as well. Just a few months ago, we had the dad, Tommy Jordan who decided to film himself shooting his daughter’s laptop after repeat rule violations with regards to her online usage. Many were in an uproar decrying that dad was an abuser; I wrote my thoughts at the time. Today we have ReShonda Tate Billingsley, an author who decided to post a picture of her underage daughter holding a sign stating that she basically lost her online privileges since she had been caught holding up bottles of alcohol online.

This situation was brought to my attention on twitter by a tweep (h/t to Snarky who tweeted this photo) who deemed the mother a cyber-bully and troll. I actually asked real life pals who happened to be parents their thoughts and none saw the mother as a bully; some admitted that they might not have posted the punishment picture but that maybe digital crimes requite digital punishments. I asked the Spousal Unit his thoughts and he posed the question, is a public shaming online in this manner any different than in the old days when you were grounded and your parents told everyone who called or stopped by that you are grounded?

As a parent we want to keep our kids safe, and the thing with online fooling around is that we leave a digital footprint, one that can last and be accessible far longer than my drunken escapades at 16. We know that in 2012 people lose or are denied employment based off what they do online. In many ways as the world becomes smaller with technology we don’t have nearly the freedom those of us who grew up before the digital years had. Is a parent a bully for fighting online offenses with their online strategy even if it involves shaming? Is this merely a new form of tough love? I admit I am torn, I am not a fan of shaming but frankly there are times as a parent you will do anything to reach your child. Is a momentary shaming that reaches the kid worth it?

In this brave new world, I suspect more and more of us will be parenting by Facebook.

Self shot

I look at my own years of schooling, in the early years it was Mrs. Miller in second grade, my first Black teacher that allowed me to see that teachers could indeed be people who looked like me. It was a trio of teachers, Mr. Shanahan, Ms. Steinberg and Ms. Gross in grades 4-7 who showed me a world outside of a classroom and introduced me to the arts. A world where the arts were as valuable as reading and writing and maybe even more which is why my heart breaks when I see how little the arts are valued in this current climate.

I had some bad years, and after deciding to drop out of high school yet returning to school at 25 to get my bachelor’s degree, the truth was I had no confidence in myself. Yet it was Cynthia Milsap, a professor at my alma mater who in my 1^st year in college when I publicly announced I doubt I would finish school, since I didn’t seem good at it, told me yes you will. Cynthia over the years has seen me through my undergraduate and graduate years, laughing along the way and reminding me of my words.

Good teachers make a difference; they can and do indeed inspire and help change the world. Having tried my hand at teaching a few times now, I can say that it’s not for everyone which is why good teachers are all the more special and deserve appreciation instead of the suspicion and scorn they now face.

So for National Teachers Day, I leave you with this piece by Taylor Mali.

I pretty much tried to erase what I read of 50 Shades out of my memory but since this book has so many jazzed up; it’s been hard to do. In fact I watched this clip from 20/20 a few weeks ago that talks about so called changes in marriages and relationships and it featured this book along with other tasty tidbits of happenings or shall we say trends in marriage (BDSM, polyamory) but it was a chat with a tweep this morning about 50 Shades that made me reconsider my initial thoughts about 50 Shades.

Books like 50 Shades allow women at least in their minds to step out of the socially prescribed sex box. Let’s face it for all our sexy attire and whatnot, at the end of the day at least here in the US, we are fucking puritans when it comes to sex. Seriously we are, ever try having a conversation even with a close friend about sex outside of the ooey gooey making love baby making sex? In most cases no matter how tight you are, your friends will give you the pinch faced oh dear look. Ever try admitting you own a flogger or two and like playing with hot wax and getting flogged? In many circles you might get met with a less hostile expression if you confessed to chopping your partner up and stuffing him/her in the freezer because the bastard wouldn’t change a diaper and snores too loudly.

When it comes to sex and sexual matters, most of have a hard time admitting even to our partners that we want to break out of the tried and true stuff. However thanks to 50 Shades you have women willing to admit that hey I have desires and want to take a walk on the wild side. I have to say if people are willing to explore their sexuality and step out of the sex box, that’s a pretty good thing. Though I admit it saddens me that so many women are not comfortable owning their sexuality and willing to experiment within their relationships without a book that makes it acceptable.

For too many of us, anything that is not “normal sex” is seen as deviant, so when a nice middle aged, middle class mom writes a book that features some kink, it becomes safe. But the truth is all consensual sex should be seen as normal, as long as you feel safe with your partner/s and are fully consenting, nothing should be seen as bad or deviant. Frankly I am of the mind there are few things sexually that are deviant, frankly I strive to be sex positive no matter how that is seen by others.

So if 50 Shades gets your motor running, go with it, hell the sky’s the limit, after all we have imaginations. So get ya freak on, but can we do away with calling it mommy porn? Seriously, women reading a book that gets them hot and bothered does not need to be called mommy porn.

Case in point, in today’s New York Times, they have a piece about “Why Black Women are Fat” that frankly is so insulting and so one sided that one wonders did they publish it so they could hear from angry Black women like yours truly?

The author of the piece, Alice Randall states that despite the many well-known risks of obesity that Black women are fat in part because Black culture wants us fat, that our worth as Black women is tied to not being below 200 lbs. and that we have to have big hips. Really? I actually won’t completely argue with that, but and I say but, Randall missed the mark in that it’s primarily at lower socio-economic levels within the Black community that one might see these attitudes. Frankly they are a throwback to another time and hardly as common as Randall may have us to believe. Yes, she gives us examples of successful college educated professional Black women, whose Black mates beg them not to lose too much weight, I suggest she look a little further than her own social circle especially when writing a piece for a paper such as the New York Times. In my circle of women offline and on-line, most of my Black peers are striving to get ourselves in shape if we are out of shape and if we are in shape, we are trying to stay there and it’s not about pleasing any damn man. It’s about the fact we have lost too many loved one’s too soon to diabetes, hypertension, etc. and we want to break the cycle.

Sure, I like looking cute and petite, but as one of the few women in my family to reach 39 and not be in need of medications for hypertension or be pre-diabetic, I know losing my few pounds is more about retaining that status as I enter my 40’s next year. My own mother never had a shred of extra weight but by my age she was already on a plethora of drugs for hypertension.

I think that too many times Black women, who are overweight, have a hard time making time for themselves. We juggle too much and we are stressed out in a world that isn’t all that friendly to us, granted all women juggle but let’s face it Black women have a few extra struggles that our white counterparts don’t have. Sometimes our love of deep baked mac & cheese, candied yams and fried chicken is about having a little pleasure and a moment of denial in the easiest way we know how. Yet as a member of Gen X, I think quite a few of us are breaking with the traditions of our mothers, grandmothers and others. Sistas are re-thinking how we eat, we still like our collards but many of us are no longer cooking em in a vat of fatback. We are learning coping techniques like yoga to better deal with our stress, we are seeking therapy to break the bonds and learning to let go of what needs to go.

The problem with Randall’s piece in the New York Times is that the primary demographic of a Times reader ain’t Black women, instead it’s people who will once again read it and make assumptions and buy into the well worn stereotypes about Black women.

PS: By the end of Randall’s piece she does give some good food for thought but again was the Times really the best space for this in the first place?

While I started a number of years ago working on my issues, it was my son’s anxiety that started to manifest between his junior and senior years of high school that made me realize, I needed to get serious about unlearning my learned behavior. For years I had thought no one knew just how anxious I was but the fact is my son was starting to model the behavior I had modeled and thought I had done such a bang up job of hiding. (Note, I rarely write about my son since at 20 his story is his to share but in his music he openly shares this knowledge so I feel okay sharing here)

The reason I am writing this is because yesterday while killing time online, I came across a post on Babble that broke my heart. We strive so hard to raise our kids’ right, to protect them from hazards, to give them the best but for some reason as moms too many times the one thing we don’t give our kids is our real self. In this quest to be super mom, we seem to lose sight of the fact that it’s more than okay to be human. Humans are messy, complex and occasionally emotional. Moms are not robots and frankly we get mad, sad and straight pissed off. Kids are resilient, trust me on this, I have 20 years of parenting under my belt and to see mom occasionally freak out is not going to scar them.

The legacy of stuffing myself down has led me to strive for authenticity across the board in all areas of my life. In the past year I have become so honest that at times there have been repercussions for that honesty and its okay. I admit, I almost killed a business deal with my honest face… that was a tough moment.

I think the scariest thing about the state of parenting at the moment is how we focus so much on our kids that we seem to forget that we are humans too, worthy of everything we give our kids. I know for me that has meant giving my kids the leeway to say what they need to say and feel how they need to feel. I admit that is a work in progress to allow my daughter especially to have a bad moment without that overwhelming need to stifle her anger or tears but to simply be present with whatever she feels until she is ready to let it go naturally.

To raise our kids and to truly give them the best means a willingness to raise ourselves and realize this is all a journey and we can learn together.