Mama’s the Boss
The importance of the delicate balance Mamas need to achieve between taking it easy and challenging oppression cannot be overstated. Especially when it comes to parenting, your kids need to know: Mama’s the boss. If you let your toddler or teenager rule your life, you will find yourself in the lowest circles of hell. A toddler just doesn’t have the frontal brain to make reasonable life choices. One time my toddler threw a tantrum because I stopped him from eating his sister’s sock while it was still on her foot. He wailed, “I need eat Audrey’s sock!” This is perfectly predictable behavior for a two year old. A sound reason for not letting him rule your world. Teenagers may have the frontal lobes that toddlers don’t, but they come with peer pressures. Mamas need to claim their power in the lives of their teens.

However, the power you claim is not an iron-clad rigid rule. As a mother, you are given the power to create your own reality, your own family culture. This may mean you enforce strict sleep times because you think it’s fundamental to your child’s well-being and your own. Your laid back attitude might take the form of not worrying about your child smearing oatmeal on the couch. You’re strict about naptimes, but lax about upholding the integrity of your worldly possession as long as the behavior is not outright destructive.

The only way to claim your power while parenting with passion is to create a Mama mission statement that highlights your own priorities. You don’t have to follow anyone else’s model. You have the freedom, dignity and power to honor your own deepest values.

Exercise: Mama’s Mission Statement
In order to limit yourself to the minimum amount of running around with your kids, you need to know how you want to spend your precious time. Once you clarify what’s important to you, you will know which activities to say yes to and which activities to say no to. For example, when I realized that following every parenting fashion would drive me into the ground, I came up with the following mission statement to guide my mothering:
The most important thing is being present. I am committed to quality and quantity of presence. I prioritize being over doing. I want to teach my children social skills, intellectual development, but most of all - love. I want my children to feel comfortable with giving and receiving love, expressing love, feeling love and being love.

Once I gained this clarity and set down in words what I really wanted most for my kids, I was able to say “no” to many activities. Of course, like every mother, I want my kids to be baby Einstein’s, but my mission statement made clear that given limitations in time and energy, I would focus on love. By saying that Being was more important that Doing, I could save myself a lot of huge hassles.

If you find yourself overwhelmed with all the demands and possibilities for stimulating your child’s mind, you might want to try a Being vs. Doing analysis. If your Being is going to get stressed out and exhausted by the event then whatever the Doing payoff is - may not be worth it. Many times, when you look at the Doing payoff, it’s not that great anyway. We want our kids to be exposed to many things, to be active, but children see the world so differently.

One time I took my son to jumpy house emporium where he had his choice of five different jumpy houses to play in for as long as he wanted. He spent most of his time playing with the water fountain.

Most of us know deep down that what our kids need most and want most is just to be with us. When we run around trying to keep up with the latest fad for making the best and brightest kid, we sacrifice Being even when we are spending time with them. What if you could say to your kids, “We just brought you here (as in “Here” here) to show you how much we love you. You don’t have to do anything or be anything. We just want to show you our love.” What would you do or not do if you really lived that?

House Arrest
When Martha Stewart was serving her house arrest I had just given birth to my daughter and already had a two year old boy. I laughed at Martha’s house arrest – forty hours a week to go out of the house? I couldn’t even get out off the house for four minutes.
When I did get out, the humiliation was too punishing for me to do it much. I was the poster child for the mother who couldn’t handle two kids in public. Plus the double stroller weighed a ton or two. I couldn’t even lift it out of my trunk.
I sometimes wondered when I was taking my four month old son to the zoo, what he was really getting out of it. Then I saw the people next to me, with their three month old, pointing at the giraffe, while holding up a book with a photo of a giraffe, and saying “giraffe” in English and some other language. Then I felt like I was a loser for my weak parenting effort. Let this be a lesson for you, there is no end in sight to how much you can do and how much others will tell you that you should do.

Dread Locks: Be A Rasta Mama
Have you ever seen a Rastafarian with the dread locks in their hair? This is not a bad look for Mamas with more than one young child. Who has time for personal hygiene anyways? With a toddler and an infant, I discovered that I had to lower my standards significantly in every area of my life. I declared that any day I didn’t smell bad was a good day for personal hygiene. There were many days I fell short.

You don’t have to think of it as completely giving up. Think of it as “sequencing.” Some people say that the only path to sanity for mothers is to recognize that you can have it all, but not all at the same time. Mamas can sequence their professional lives with parenting. Take time off, then devote yourself to your profession as your kids become more independent.

This is also a good approach to personal hygiene. Put your personal passions first when your kids are young, then attend to grooming and fashion as they become more independent. If you can’t find the time to brush your hair when your children are young and you inadvertently grow dreadlocks, take it as a symbol that you have fully embraced the way of “good enough parenting.”

Good enough parenting means that you love your kids, give it your best try and take care of yourself while meeting their basic needs. Psychologists will tell you that your kids will be fine if they get good enough parenting.

Many times the struggle to be the perfect parent backfires. You are modeling for your kids that it’s not ok to be real. If you don’t let your kid wear her pajamas out in public, she learns that what other people think is more important than what she thinks. Many of the struggles with kids come down to this: What will other people think? Good enough parenting means you don’t worry about controlling what other people think.

Just this one change, challenging yourself to worry less about what others will think, will empower you to be the radiant parent you want to be.


For more tips and tools about parenting visit http://www.visionarysoul.com.

To listen to Dr. Honos-Webb's internet radio interview with IP Editor in Chief, Sandie Sedgbeer, click here...

SPECIAL NOTE: As an expert in ADHD, Lara has created a number of FREE video tips and tools and uploaded them to YouTube. To access these, please click on the links below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyD41IhOqsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvqU3b6Wfno
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O7iAsumBDw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWjAV687EQc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vk-C3FAlgo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLF-3mL0UB4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q53zBvBdfbw

© Lara Honos-Webb, PhD, 2008

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