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Why Moms Don't Always Want to Know Best
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Friday, July 17, 2009
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Each Friday my syndicated column appears in several newspapers. Here's this week's!
I’ve been giving advice to men about relationships lately, and I thought I’d continue the trend today, since I like telling men what to do. Let’s start with a misconception men often have. Many men think that if they have mastered the sentence, “Whatever you want is fine with me, Honey,” they have hit the relationship bullseye. Unfortunately, if that’s you, you’re likely in for a rude awakening. Imagine this: your wife asks you whether little Johnny should take soccer this year. You smile and utter those magic words, and then incomprehensibly she storms off! Something got lost in translation. I’m going to let you in on a little secret which many women may not admit to, and would rather I not share. But for the sake of healthy families, I’m going to do it anyway. Generally, women don’t want to always have their way. What they do want is for men to actually care. If men say, “whatever is fine”, they’re saying that the things women care about don’t matter enough to even render an opinion about. We women, though, care so much about family decisions because our brains are perpetually stuck on the guilt setting. At any given time, we are feeling guilty about something. There’s ironing I haven’t done in six months. I let the children play to many video games yesterday. I didn’t serve any vegetables today. So men, let me give you some advice. When your wife asks, “Do you think we should put Johnny in soccer this year?”, realize that she’s asking from a position of guilt. You see, if Johnny signs up for soccer, someone is going to have to drive him. Someone is going to have to cart around those infernal canvas chairs with the pop holder cups. Someone will have to pack the cooler and then deal with all the dripping popsicle mess. This is decision must not be taken lightly. And if you agree that Johnny should play soccer, are you going to be the one to wipe up the popsicle stains? And if she doesn’t want to, is she going to feel guilty the rest of her life because she’s deprived Johnny of the Soccer Experience? Women carry this guilt around constantly. And guilt can be magnified when women feel as if all parenting decisions are in our hands, because then we’re the ones who will bear the blame if Johnny turns into an axe murderer. That’s why we overcompensate. We take on more and more of the parenting duties, because we desperately want our children to thrive. And in the process we may crowd you out. We don’t really want all that responsibility, though. It’s too big a load to bear. We’d much rather share it. Of course, we’re not looking for an authoritarian dad. We want a dad who recognizes our expertise, who relies on our opinion, but who also has one of his own. And if, after discussing it, we decide to go with her idea, that’s okay. As long as we’ve decided together, we women won’t bear all the blame if things turn sour. Don’t let us get away with being the main parent. Believe it or not, deep inside most women don’t actually want that entire responsibility. But we’re unlikely to give up control unless you show you’re serious. So stick with it. When you rock the boat, it’s going to take us a while to adjust. Please keep trying, because we would rather be in a boat heading in the same direction together, than to be the only one navigating while everyone else sleeps below deck. Let’s build a family together. That’s what we really want.
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 Labels: columns, marriage, parenting |
posted @ 10:15 AM  
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When Waffles and Spaghetti Sound Good Together
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Thursday, July 16, 2009
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Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a variety of papers. For some strange reason, I forgot to post last week's, so here it is! Tomorrow I'll post this week's. Hope you like it! It ties in well with yesterday's Wifey Wednesday post.
It is a commonly known fact in our family that Grandpa cries at everything. He cries at piano recitals. He cries at baptisms. He cries whenever the kids get an award, give a speech, or get super dressed up. Other times he’s gruff and he barks and he complains, but we know he’s a softie, and tears can flow, especially when the Detroit Red Wings lose the Stanley Cup. His boys inherited his tear ducts, too. And we women just love it when our men cry.
We’re just really crabby when they stop. The men have now proven they have a sensitive side, so we figure they’ll go read to the kids or run us a bubble bath. But instead they’re back riding the lawn mower, or figuring out the bills, and the moment has passed.
Now my husband has actually taken sensitivity to such an extent that his brothers worry about his testosterone level, but he knows that it bears great dividends in our marriage that they don’t see. Many men, though, struggle with taking that sensitivity into all areas of their lives.
It’s like Bill and Pam Farrell’s book, Men and Like Waffles, Women are Like Spaghetti. Men, like waffles, are compartmentalized. They live their lives in separate boxes. They see something touching, they cry, and then they switch to something new. To women, everything is intertwined, just like a big plate of pasta.
My husband and I speak at marriage conferences, and sometimes we’re teamed up with hockey legend Paul Henderson and his wife Eleanor. Paul often relates the story of a rip-roaring fight he and Eleanor once had. They were arguing in the living room, when Eleanor made the mistake of retreating into the bedroom. He followed her, and his hands began to wander. She swatted them away. "What are you doing?! We're fighting!" And he retorted, "We were in the fighting room. Now we're in the bedroom. I thought we had moved on!"
This compartmentalization makes women really nervous, especially when it comes to navigating the work/family balance. We’re afraid you’ll start to believe that when you’re at work, you work, and when you’re at home, you don’t. After all, we work wherever we are. We write grocery lists on sticky notes while we’re on the phone with clients, and we play chauffeur while we plan our next meeting. We want you to work in the family, too, and not just at cutting grass, but at relationships.
It’s easy to believe that the workplace, which involves measurable goals and specific tasks, is more akin to these male waffle people than home is, since home involves things like communicating and feeling and is all messy and tangled up. It’s a spaghetti heaven.
Perhaps, though, home does not have to be only for spaghetti types. Think about it this way. At work you likely plan. You need to know where the firm is going, and when your next salary increase will be. You compile charts and lists.
Why not do the same thing on the home front? What do you want your family to look like in five years? What values do you want your children or grandchildren to exhibit? What about your marriage? Are you on the right road to meet those goals?
If not, what are you going to change?
If you want to make your mate smile this summer, here’s my advice. Take her out to dinner, notebook in hand, and do some strategic planning with her about the upcoming year. Show her that you have goals for the family, too. Then go home and watch your wedding video. And bring a hanky.
Labels: columns, marriage |
posted @ 7:53 AM
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Turning on the Taps
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009
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I just got dinner ready. Rinsed off the potatoes, peeled them, rinsed them off again. I washed the broccoli and carrots and filled the steamer to cook them. Added water to the potatoes and put them on the stove.
Before dinner we played tennis. Came home, and four of us had showers. While we were there we were drinking bottled water.
Just like any other day. We don't even think about water, do we? But what would we do if we couldn't turn on the taps?
I live in Ontario, Canada. We're surrounded by huge rivers, amazing lakes for cottages, and water everywhere. We often bike down to the waterfront to eat our lunch. In the spring, we run the risk of flooding. I can't imagine a place in the world with more clean, fresh drinking water.
In Kenya, at the orphanage where we often travel (and where we're leading a medical team next March) they're currently in water crisis. The orphanage is home to almost 1000 kids, and the river has run dry. The kids bathe in the river, but they have a well for drinking water. The well is almost out.
You can't ship water. It's really expensive, and it evaporates, and all kinds of problems. At the orphanage they have all kinds of methods of collecting and saving water. If the rain ever came, even a few milimeters, they'd be okay. But there's been no rain.
They'll probably do a big fundraising drive soon for $100,000 to drill four more bore holes for deeper wells that can supply them and the village, and I'll kick in a bunch, and I'm sure they'll raise the money.
But I just can't imagine living worrying about water. We are so, so blessed. We're blessed with so many things, but water is the basis for everything, isn't it? Can you imagine relying on a river for your drinking water and your washing water, and then watching that river run dry? I guess our ancestors dealt with that frequently, at least in the midwestern states, but it's so beyond my consciousness, and yet that's what so much of the world deals with.
Tonight I'll probably take a bubble bath. I love bubble baths. We might install a hot tub later in the summer. But before that, I think I'll give a bunch of money to drill them some bore holes. I wish I could ship them our Moira River, but I can't. Life sometimes just isn't fair, and it makes me sad.
Labels: Africa |
posted @ 6:54 PM
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Really Cute Joke
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Just got sent this in an email, and I had to share it. I hope I'm not infringing on someone's copyright!
Two young boys walked into a pharmacy one day, picked out a box of tampons and proceeded to the checkout counter.
The man at the counter asked the older boy, "Son, how old are you?"
"Eight," the boy replied.
The man continued, "do you know what these are used for?"
The boy replied, "not exactly, but they aren't for me. They're for him. He's my brother. He's four. We saw on TV that if you use these you would be able to swim and ride a bike. Right now, he can't do either."
Labels: humor, humour |
posted @ 1:43 PM
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Wifey Wednesday: How He Brings Peace
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Remember the book Men are Like Waffles, Women are Like Spaghetti? I wrote about that in my syndicated column last week, which I forgot to post (just realized that now, I'll put it up for tomorrow); but basically here's the issue: we women are multi-taskers. When we're doing the laundry, we're thinking about what we're making for dinner, we're talking on the phone, and we're trying to plan the route we'll take to drop kids off at various houses, pick them up for soccer, and get grocery shopping done, all without running out of gas. And that's just when we're trying to hold the household things in our head. We're also worried about our work, our church, and all kinds of other things that weigh on us. And through it all, our relationships remain at the forefront. If we're worried about a child, we're thinking about that when we're teaching Sunday School, when we're taking a bath, and even when we go to bed at night. Men, on the other hand, tend to be quite compartmentalized, which can be very annoying to us multitaskers. If you ask them what they're thinking about, chances are they're not thinking about anything at all. They're not trying to keep four balls in the air at any one time. When they're thinking about work, they're thinking about work. When they're thinking about family, they're thinking about family. So when we get upset when they're in a different sphere and we're not foremost on their minds, they don't get it. But they don't have ten things they're thinking about at any one time like we do. This obviously has the potential to be hurtful in a marriage, if we interpret it to mean that they don't love as much as we do. That's not true; it's just that they express things differently. But it can also be helpful to us as women, and that's the question I was posing yesterday on this blog: can he bring you peace? I don't mean perfect peace; that's a role that only Jesus can play. But I do think that when we stay plugged in to our husbands, they can take some of the weight off of our shoulders, or at least tell us what we can stop worrying about. So often when I feel myself overbooked or overworked, I just sit down with Keith and he tells me what to get rid of in my schedule. He's not ordering me around; he's just providing that second set of eyes that often isn't as emotionally invested in my life. And quite often I'll resist it. I remember him telling me at one point that I had to give up teaching Sunday School for a while. Boy was I mad. Didn't he understand what a ministry this was? I had to serve God, after all. But eventually I realized he was right. He told me something even bigger this year, which I can't go into in a public blog, but I resisted that one for months before realizing, again, that Keith was right. Too often I take on responsibilities that are too big for me to handle, and eventually I just have to say no. Often, though, it's not that Keith tells me I need to stop something. It's that he's learned how to listen without always solving problems, which is a wonderful gift for a man to have. I think because we women think so hard about all the people in our lives, we have a tendency to overanalyze. We did it when we were dating, analyzing everything he said or did. We did it when we were pregnant, analyzing every feeling. And now we do it with the kids, and with friends, and relatives, and teachers. We analyze and take offense and worry. Sometimes, when you just speak these things out loud to someone who is not as prone to analyzing, you realize that you're overreacting. Talking to a girlfriend doesn't always do it, because she can make it worse if she's an analyzer, too. But talking to a man helps you see that perhaps it isn't the big deal that you were making it out to be. It's not even anything Keith says, either; it's just in speaking it out loud to him, I start to see it through his point of view. And then it loses the ability to consume me. These are some ways that Keith brings me peace, and why I'm glad I'm married. But I know in the comments below, when I first raised the question, some women were talking about how their husbands are too preoccupied to do this. Good point. That is the case in many marriages, and in mine, when Keith was going through his medical training and was really busy, I did carry much more myself. But can I suggest something? No matter how busy your husband is, and how busy you are, you need to make time to connect and talk about life at least once a week. He may resist, but it is vital for the marriage. It comes before kids. It comes before work. It comes before church, school, or other family. If your marriage falls apart, you lose everything. And your marriage is the best tool you have for encouragement in the human realm. So once a week, eat dinner, just the two of you, even if you have to do it after the kids go to bed. Go for a walk after dinner. Retreat to your room and tell the kids not to bug you because you're talking. Hire a baby-sitter and go out for coffee (much cheaper than dinner) and talk. But do it, once a week, no ifs, ands or buts. Some of you may not have to schedule it because you have lots of time together. But if you don't, you need to make it a priority. Start talking again, and build that companionship, so that he can start bringing you peace. Now, would you like to participate in Wifey Wednesday? We'd love to hear from you! Does your husband help you feel more peaceful? Does it bother you when he seems not to care the same way you do? Do you have creative ways to connect during the week? Tell us!
Simply copy the picture at the top of this post and put it up on your own blog. Link to me, and then write your marriage post, and come back here and leave it in the Mr. Linky. We'd love to hear from you!
Labels: loving, marriage, wifey wednesdays |
posted @ 8:36 AM
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Random Summer Thoughts
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I'm B-a-a-a-ck!
You may not have realized I was away, because I had posts scheduled to appear at different times, but I've been away for a week and a half down in the Bay of Fundy, home of the world's largest tides, in New Brunswick camping.
I don't like to announce too much before I leave that I'm gone, because it's like saying, "Hi everybody! My house is empty! Come and rob it!". But now that I'm home I'll let you know I was away.
I'll post pictures later. We got some amazing ones.
Basically we didn't do a whole lot. We hiked, watched the scenes, and just sat there. I knit most of a new sweater, several pairs of socks, and some washcloths. The girls read, and made some jewellery, and played. It was wonderfully relaxing. Sometimes you need time just to do nothing!
And now I'm back. I'm getting ready for a course I'm teaching online this week on how to launch a speaking ministry. If any of you are interested, there's more information here.
I also plan on learning tennis with my kids. I really need to get more active!
But in the meantime, while I was away, a friend of mine died. We weren't close, but she was in our homeschool group, and she had a 10-year-old daughter. She had mad cow disease, of all things. It was just very tragic, and I'm rather down about it today.
I also found out a good friend of mine has a son who was just diagnosed with leukemia. Leukemia's one of those things these days that has almost an 80% cure rate among kids. In all likelihood, he'll be just fine. But the problem is you don't know anything for 2-5 years. That's a lot of time to live in limbo, isn't it? I guess that's when you learn what it is to trust God day by day. So I find myself praying that the boy's parents will know the peace that passes all understanding, that you can't even explain.
One more comment: in my post about the school system a few days ago, one commenter insinuated that I shouldn't really generalize since I don't know about public schools since my kids aren't in them. I find that idea a little strange. If you haven't been sick this year, can you still comment on the health care system? Of course you can, because it's everywhere. We all have close friends or family members that have had run ins with health care, even if we personally haven't.
And it's the same for schools. My daughter was in public school until we pulled her out. My nieces and nephews, with whom I am very close, are in school. In fact, for the last year and half we've homeschooled my nephew because he was having such issues in public school. He wasn't being challenged. We moved him up a grade and now he's entering high school advanced. My friends have kids in public schools and we chat all the time about how to handle difficult teachers, or impossible principals, or reading programs that don't teach reading. My husband is a pediatrician and is constantly getting referrals for kids who aren't doing well in school. I'm heavily involved with the youth in our church, most of whom are in public schools, and I end up helping them with essays or tutoring them or just chatting about what they're learning and the problems they're having. You'd have to live in a hole to not be exposed to the public school system. Whether or not my kids are in it, I do know it. And I think we all need to understand what's happening there, whether we have children or not, because public schools are educating the vast majority of our populace, and thus our future depends on them.
Anyway, enough about that. What are my final thoughts after vacation? Sometimes we all need to get away, especially from the computer, and just enjoy nature and play games. I am blessed with my family, as the trials of my friends show. And I am so glad I get this time to be with them and cherish them. And now I think I'll go play tennis!
Labels: grief, public schools, travel |
posted @ 7:51 AM
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Really, Really Crappy Parenting Advice
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Friday, July 10, 2009
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There is a lot of garbage out there masquerading as parenting advice that sounds really profound but if you actually do it you will end up with Dennis the Menace. Here's one:
"Kids naturally WANT to behave. Nurturing their goodness and guiding their behavior is the best way to help empower kids to make the right choices on their own."
I got it from here. It's a parenting site delivering all kinds of "wisdom" on positive parenting techniques. But most of it looks pretty stupid to me.
Interestingly, just after that I went on a blog of a mom who gets it. She says we need to "overthrow the kindergarchy", because kids are taking control.
When did the children take over? Did they sneak into my purse while I was watching "All My Children" and lift the car keys? Did I unknowingly sign over my power of attorney thinking I was ordering a school t-shirt?
I don't think I'm the only one who's troubled by the mounting evidence that there's been a power shift in our society from the grown-ups to the children. In fact, enough people have registered this shift that it now has its own pop-culture handle, as defined by WordSpy:
Kindergarchy n. Rule or domination by children; the belief that children's needs and preferences take precedence over those of their parents or other adults.
She goes on to list how Kindergarchy is taking on a role of its own, growing in our vocabulary because people are starting to notice that kids are taking their parents hostage.
These two things are related.
Kids take us hostage because too many parents and "experts" believe that top quote: kids naturally want to be good. So instead of disciplining them, we negotiate, cajole, and let things go. We don't set limits, because we no longer believe in our own authority.
And then we wonder where these monsters came from.
The truth is that children need those limits. If kids don't have them, they're going to feel very insecure in life. They'll push and push and push because they're trying to come up against a limit. It's like they're a ping pong game, and they'll keep bouncing until they hit a wall. But if there are no walls, they'll just run and run.
Walls are what define our children's lives for them. When they know where those boundaries are, the world is easier to figure out. It's easier to navigate. And when it's easier, then they're free to explore, to learn, to be creative, to love. If they don't know where those walls are, then they spend their lives trying to find them rather than trying to grow.
And that's why they become monsters. They don't have the emotional stability to let them mature and learn to treat others properly.
Boundaries are a natural part of life. The very first thing God did when He made people was He gave them boundaries. He created a garden for them to live in, and He made rules of what they were to do there. When they crossed that line, He expelled them from the garden, and created more boundaries about where they were to live and how they were to live.
Boundaries are important, and we're not stunting children's spirits or creativity if we give them boundaries. On the contrary, if those boundaries are loving, we're actually helping them be creative, because we're putting one of their big worries to rest. We define the world for them, so they don't have to worry about it.
Kids don't naturally want to obey. They naturally want to test the limits, just like Adam and Eve did. We need to show them that the limit is the limit. It's only then that they learn what the world is about, and that they develop the maturity to live well in it.
So don't be afraid to say no to your child. Don't be afraid to set up a schedule. Don't believe the child-centred parenting experts. Kids have no maturity. They have no wisdom. Why would we let them run their lives? We do know what's best for them, so let's enforce that rule, rather than letting children decide. They're kids, after all. That's the whole point. I wonder when experts starting forgetting that?
Labels: discipline, parenting |
posted @ 8:00 AM
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Wifey Wednesday: Go 3 for 3
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Wednesday, July 08, 2009
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I was browsing around the internet lately and found the best synopsis of marriage advice I've seen in a long time. Readers to this blog won't find any of it surprising. I talk on these themes all the time. But it's so pithy and wise, I have to reproduce it just as she said it over at Garden of Holiness: 3 Things to Keep in Mind
1. You picked him.
2. You can't change him.
3. You didn't marry a girl.
Aren't those brilliant? You can't change him. So stop trying. In fact, it's better to pray that God will bless him and make him into the man God wants him to be--not the man you want him to be! As you start praying for him this way, God often changes our hearts. And then we can focus on changing ourselves.
And remember, he's a guy! And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm scheduling this post ahead of time because I'm away this Wifey Wednesday, so I'm going to send you over to Garden of Holiness for the rest of her post. And you can click through on the links I've highlighted there to other Wifey Wednesday posts I've loved! Now it's your turn! Go to your own blog and write a marriage post, and then come back here and leave your link in the Mr. Linky! (I'm assuming Mr. Linky will work, but I'm scheduling this ahead of time. If he doesn't, leave your link in the comments!). And copy my picture from the top of this post and use it in your post, too! Thanks so much, and I look forward to seeing what you all have to say!
Labels: marriage, wifey wednesdays |
posted @ 7:00 AM
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