Confessions of a Slacker Mom

just finished reading Confessions of a Slacker Mom, by Muffy Mead-Ferro. It's definitely the best anti-parenting book parenting book I've ever read.

The author grew up on a ranch in Wyoming where her mother's idea of entertaining the children was to stick them in a mud puddle while she worked with the horses. Mead-Ferro says that this was one of the many ways her mother taught her about "making do."

I grew up not on a ranch, but in an apartment in NYC and three different houses in the suburbs of Connecticut, Dallas, and Houston. But I was raised by parents who knew a thing or two about making do. My mother made all her own clothes and ours growing up and my father paid his way through college working at a gas station.

I am part of a lucky generation of people who grew up with pretty much anything I wanted. Still, I was blessed with parents who hadn't had the same advantages and who taught me both the importance of hard work and that material things don't really amount to much when you get right down to it, certainly not when you compare them to the love of your family.

Confessions of a Slacker Mom reminds us that a paper towel roll beats any toy that requires batteries and that following our own instincts is the best method of parenting there is. In my case the author was preaching to the choir. I learned only a few months into this baby adventure that my instincts were worth a whole lot more than any parenting book. And this goes for this book just as much as any other. Mead-Ferro spends the better part of a chapter mocking the scrapbooking craze and wondering how a child might feel when they learned that their parents made such a fuss about the first time they ate peas. I'm not very good with the pinking shears and the glue stick, but I wouldn't be surprised if some people thought this site was created by a crazy person who might be a little too absorbed with the small accomplishments of her only child. Writing about Annabella is something that makes me happy and fulfilled and my instincts say that's OK.

If you're looking for a quick, fun, non-fiction book this summer, I recommend this one.

Baby's Night Out

I have a confession to make. I judge parents whom I don't know. I realize that being judgmental is a bad thing and I don't judge the parenting decisions that my friends or my family makes. But I think it's perfectly OK to judge a stranger. And I'm not afraid to say that judging sometimes makes me feel good. That's wrong, I know. If you don't really know me, go ahead and judge me. It doesn't hurt anyone. When I see a child sitting in a shopping cart passed out over the handle, I judge that child's parents. I do a silent "tsk, tsk" to myself and think that this child is sleep deprived. Never mind that this child is two or three and I know nothing at all about the behaviors of two or three-year-olds. I just know that if Annabella did that, she'd be sleep deprived. Similarly, if I see a child Annabella's age who is out after 7pm, I judge. The child should be home asleep, or at least heading that way. And yet, here I am with Annabella, out on a Saturday night (way after 7pm) with my friend MJ and her 3-month-old, Finn. Why are we out so late? So we could see fireworks in downtown San Francisco. Last year around this time I surmised that becoming a mother had somehow turned me into a responsible adult. Thankfully, it turns out that this is not entirely true. That night Annabella didn't get to bed until after 11pm and she hasn't quite gotten over that fact three days later. But, you know what? The spontaneous sound of awe she made when she saw the first firework explode over the Bay Bridge was more than worth it. You be the judge.