{"id":408,"date":"2006-08-30T08:39:59","date_gmt":"2006-08-30T14:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/?p=408"},"modified":"2006-08-31T08:28:07","modified_gmt":"2006-08-31T14:28:07","slug":"miraculous-encounters-of-the-mommy-kind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/30\/miraculous-encounters-of-the-mommy-kind\/","title":{"rendered":"Miraculous Encounters of The Mommy Kind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Something that I never thought would happen HAS!\u00a0 I have met a group of mothers that I don’t feel completely frightened by.\u00a0 They don’t wear “workout clothes” (pajamas) everywhere they go.\u00a0 Even though they adore their children, they don’t find it necessary to brief those around them on the inner workings of their kids’\u00a0digestives sytems or mental\/behavioral advancement.\u00a0 They don’t have cars that could house twenty when they only have one\u00a0child.\u00a0 They don’t talk about their husbands as if they were talking about their fathers.\u00a0 They don’t sing retarded “clean up” songs\u00a0with a crazy, jack nicholson look on their face.\u00a0\u00a0They don’t look you up and down, with menacing judgement,\u00a0when you hand your kid a quarter at\u00a08am to get m&m’s from the gumball\u00a0machine just so you can have a two minute conversation with the person selling coffee.\u00a0\u00a0They don’t resent their families because they “gave up the career” or they can’t be themselves anymore……. Au\u00a0contraire…\u00a0They are women who have kids – not just moms.\u00a0 Before you lash out – let me say, I think that being a mom is super incredible in itself.\u00a0\u00a0It is the best job in the world blah blah blah.. Of course I think that, silly – I am one, <\/strong>afterall.\u00a0 Just let me vent.\u00a0 If you don’t think most parents are crazy weird, then stop reading.<\/p>\n

Until now, it has been a steady flow of coridial acquaintance-ships – I can only think of two mothers, up to now, that have made me feel like I could be upfront and honest.\u00a0 One is my age and has three kids and we pull together when we can.\u00a0 The other is a little older with two kids and lives far, far away in boston.\u00a0 So, I know it’s not an age issue – just a personality thing, I guess.\u00a0\u00a0I have met young mothers my age who, well, have sort of cashed it in.\u00a0 And the other mothers – they are great but they are usually in their forties or fifties and while I appreciate them, I just usually\u00a0don’t have a lot in common with them other than the child factor.\u00a0And even that is barely “in common” – they are usually the ones that have very weird rituals that you know<\/strong> they got from a parenting book or from Barney the Purple Dinosaur.\u00a0\u00a0Maybe one of my faults is that I treat my kids a little too much like grown ups but, COME ON, every instruction you give them doesn’t have to be sugar coated with a song and a reward and a creepy grin of superior parenting skills, does it???\u00a0And, as someone who has\u00a0a majority of other<\/em> things, besides my beloved kids,\u00a0that make me me<\/em>, well – it’s nice to find others who like to talk about something besides poop and cradle cap.\u00a0 And, just as I was starting to think it didn’t exist, I stumbled upon it and found that it is everything I ever thought it would be.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, yes, we will talk about our children – because that is, afterall, what mommies do – but on a very frequent occassion we will let the conversation wander away from them into other things.\u00a0 We will talk about the books we are writing, the paintings we have sold, the sculptures we are having a hard time finishing because we don’t want to tear ourselves away from our babies, the concerts we will be giving, the research grants we are applying for, the graduate program that is kicking our ass.\u00a0 We will make martini dates and go out dressed just as cutely as the other non-child, twenty eight year old- thirty\u00a0year olds\u00a0in the room – even if we are<\/em> secretly thinking that the 19year old\u00a0girls across the room should be at home, in bed, at this hour and, quite frankly, dressed a little more modestly.\u00a0 We will make lunch dates at the indian buffet with our munchkins and make fun of the frat guys who are just there to watch the racey indian music videos they play all day.\u00a0 We’ll talk on the phone.\u00a0 We’ll go on day trips.\u00a0 We’ll go on walks.\u00a0 It will be heaven.\u00a0 I feel like I have just walked into a fictitious, fairytale land where jogging suits or prada diaper bags or scary sing-song discipline\u00a0are forbidden.\u00a0 Sigh…. Let the good times roll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Something that I never thought would happen HAS!\u00a0 I have met a group of mothers that I don’t feel completely frightened by.\u00a0 They don’t wear “workout clothes” (pajamas) everywhere they go.\u00a0 Even though they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,82,4,64,86,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-living","category-healthy-living","category-lifestyles","category-mental-environment","category-mental-health","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}