Honestly, some people! Letting their kids splash in the muddy mucky unsanitary mess! Well!
I am the mother of two adorable boys and am pregnant with my first daughter. When I first got pregnant with #1 and found out he was a boy, I was quite disappointed. That has all changed, boys are really great, I highly recommend raising a couple! Expect some messes, though. Mostly it's all fun and sword fights. Overcoming fears, showing off your muscles, running amuck.
However, having figured the boy-mom stuff out, now I'm having great anxiety about raising a daughter. It's hard to be a girl, y'know. The world judges you on your appearance first and intelligence later. Society allows us to indulge our emotions; fits of anger and violence are seen as spunk. Drama and weepiness are just normal. A princess ... little girls aspire to be princesses.
I am vehemently opposed to raising that kind of a girl, on all points. I want her to have control of her emotions, just like I am teaching the boys to, just like I'm struggling to learn myself. I want her to be confident, not because she is pretty, but because she is good. I don't want her to sit and wait for a handsome prince to come and rescue her, take her away and live happily ever after. I want her to know she is the only one who can make her happy and I want her to figure out how to be happy.
In essence, I want her to be perfect, and strong, and vibrant, and happy all on her own. Yet, I am a mess, so how can I help her get there?
Greg and I had a big fight (I cried, then later beat him, bruised my arms and everything - stupid pregnant hormones) but at some point in the fight, he made a comment about emotions and how they are just pieces of information, like a smell, or a sound; if they are not pertinent to the situation at hand, they don't have to be acknowledged. In fact, it's best to disregard them when they are irrelevant. Me, and lots of girls I know, feel random anger or frustration or sadness and hold on to it very tight, even though it is not caused by any thing; it just floated in on some hormone cocktail from the brain. We feel it and think it must mean something, so we build it up a foundation in reality; we make it real. And then there is fighting and yelling and crying and apologizing and finally things are okay again and the emotion is gone.
I am trying so very hard to see these random emotions for what they are and not let myself get worked up over each and every hormonal belch from my crazy, pregnant brain. I was not taught to control my emotions; my dad was pretty much an undiagnosed bi-polar mess. My mom ... I don't know - I think for the most part she was just hanging on the best she could. But I want more for my kids, I want them to see emotions for what they really are, I want them to be stronger, to know they have control, to make it easier on their spouses and kids ... so I have to be better.
Motto for the day: Fake it 'til you make it.
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