The Family First
Newsletter
Promoting family unity one issue at a time
Vol. 10 Issue 19 - Week of May 7, 2007
ISSN: 1527-6201
©2007 - Joyce Pierce --All Rights Reserved
In this issue:
Meanest Mother in the
World
What if Ward & June Aren't Your Parents?
The New Anti-Wrinkle Treatment
Mother's Day - It's an Emotional Time
Good morning!
Every year, I include this "Meanest
Mother in The World" for Mother's Day. My
daughter sent it to me when she was in college and I
treasure it. I hope you'll appreciate it as
well. This week I've been with my son and his
wife and their three daughters. Big sister,
Kaci, who is 3, has brand new twin sisters and I've
enjoyed being able to be with all of them.
I've heard Kaci tell her mother "You mean, mom" a
few times this week and it's made me smile.
The reason she thinks her mom is mean is that she
won't give her things that she knows aren't good for
her.
I am grateful for all of the blessings in my life, and I appreciate you! Please forward this issue to someone who may benefit from it!
Joyce Pierce
Mothers Day Cards
http://www.mothersday-cards.com
Meanest Mother In The World
I had the meanest mother in the world. While other kids ate candy for breakfast, I had to have cereal, eggs and toast. When others had a Coke and candy for lunch, I had to eat a sandwich. As you can guess, my dinner was different from other kids.
My mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You'd think we were on a chain gang. She had to know who our friends were and what we were doing. She insisted that if we said we'd be gone for an hour, that we would be gone one hour or less.
I am ashamed to admit it, but she actually had the nerve to break the child labor law. She made us work!! We had to wash all the dishes, make beds, learn to cook, and all sorts of cruel things. I believe she lay awake nights just thinking up mean things to do to us.
She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. By the time we were teenagers she was much wiser, and our life became even more unbearable.
None of this tooting the horn of a car for us to come running. She embarrassed us to no end by making our dates and friends come to the door to get us. I forgot to mention, while my friends were dating at the mature age of 12 and 13, my old fashioned mother refused to let me date until I was 15 and 16.
My mother was a complete failure as a mother. None of us has ever been arrested, or beaten by a mate. Each of my brothers served his time in the service of his country. And who do we have to blame for the terrible way we turned out? You're right, our mean mother.
Look at all the things we missed. We never got to take part in a riot, burn draft cards and a million and one things that our friends did. She made us grow up into God-fearing, educated, honest adults.
Using this as a background, I am trying to raise my children. I stand a little taller and am filled with pride when my children call me mean. You see, I thank God He gave me the meanest mother in the whole world.
From this, I would say the country doesn't
need a 5-cent cigar, it needs more "Mean
Mothers....and Dads."
MOMS MAKE MORE!
More financial freedom!
More time for your family!
More control over your life!
More flexibility!
http://familyfirst.fourpointmoms.com
What if Ward & June Aren't Your Parents?
by: Joyce Moseley Pierce
When I was growing up, there were usually two parents in the home. The
mother was able to be home with her children while Dad went out to make a
living. We watched Ozzie & Harriet, and Leave it to Beaver, and
thought that all moms vacuumed in high heels and pearls, and all dads worked and
came home to spend the evening with their families.
But the reality of it all is that life was seldom like we saw it through that television screen.
In high school I had a social studies teacher named Mrs. Stevens. She made a statement one day that I've remembered for forty years. She posed this question. "What do you think is the cause of most of the unhappiness of children in the home today"? Students raised their hands and suggested that it might be strict parents, too much homework, or siblings! All of those things surely caused problems, but she believed that television shows like Ozzie & Harriet, or Leave it to Beaver were the cause. How could that be? Didn't they portray the perfect American family? Exactly! The cause for unhappiness in children was believing that ALL American families were like that. So what if theirs wasn't like that television family? Then there must be something wrong with them.
Let's take a look at the childhood of Wally and Beaver Cleaver. Their mother, June, was always there to send them off to school, and she was there when they came home. Their friends were welcome in their home and actually enjoyed being there. June fixed lunches, cleaned house, and prepared dinner. When Ward got home, they all sat down together to eat, and they talked about their day. June and Ward were respectful of one another and were united in their parenting. When Wally or Beaver got into trouble with some childhood prank, Ward would talk to them, help them understand why what they did was wrong, and then give them a hug or a manly pat on the back to let them know everything was okay between them. Even though Beaver was younger than Wally and often got in his way, Wally was always there to be the big brother and protect The Beav. It's no wonder they were happy. Life was good and no one ever felt unloved.
When I was growing up in the 60s, life was nothing like this tv family I adored. I had a mother in my home, but it wasn't my own mother. It was my dad's second wife. She might be asleep when I left for school, but she was always there to open the door when I got home. My father traveled all week so I only saw him on the weekend, and then, he hid out in his study. We did have dinner together and there was conversation but it didn't include my sister or me. Instead of inviting other kids to our home, I always went to theirs. My step mother wasn't any friendlier to my friends than she was to me, and if she was drinking, it could get ugly. When I got into trouble, which seemed often, instead of trying to reason with me, she screamed and was so threatening that I just wanted to get away from her. I found comfort being in my room alone and enjoyed reading novels that told the stories of other young girls. When things got to be just impossible for all of us, I left home at the start of my senior year. I was only 16 years old, and when I left, no one really seemed to care. We decided it was probably best for all of us.
I always thought I had the most horrible childhood, but looking back, it could have been a lot worse. I might have felt emotionally abused, but I was never physically or sexually abused. As much as my father was absent from my life, he provided a nice home and we never went to bed hungry. As difficult as it was to live with my step mother, she was a very good housekeeper, she kept my clothes clean, and actually learned to be a good cook. Things definitely could have been worse, and as I have matured, I have learned to focus more on the things I'm grateful for than the things that caused such pain.
My kids tell me I'm pretty "normal" or perhaps "well adjusted," all things considered. Unfortunately, as unhappy as children are with their environment, they will often grow up to be just like their parents. I made a conscious decision when I left home at sixteen that I would NOT raise my children in that same environment. I may not be the perfect mother, but I've been there to listen to my kids and help them make the right decisions. I worked outside the home most of their lives, but it worked for us. They had responsibilities and they learned to work. We had dinner together at home and we talked. Some of my favorite memories are of sitting around the kitchen table, long after the food had been eaten, just talking, laughing, and listening. Much of my healing came from being able to laugh and give my children the things I had so desperately needed.
If you're bitter about not growing up in a perfect world, then let me ask you this: What are you doing to make life better for your children? Are you perpetuating the unhappiness you felt as a child, or are you willing to turn it around? It's all about making a conscious choice.
So...do you want to remain bitter, or become better?
Joyce is a freelance writer and owner of Emerson Publications. She is the creator of “All They’ll Need to Know,” a book that will be invaluable to your loved ones when you can’t be there to guide them. Visit www.emersonpublications.com for lots of good family-friendly information.
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The New Anti-Wrinkle Treatment We are bombarded on all fronts with new anti-wrinkle treatments and new sophisticated skin regimen that are supposed to take years off the face--microdermabrasion, botox injections, face lifts and laser resurfacing. More than ever, we are harnessing the powers of technology to create a Brave New World of ageless boomers. And while I have no objections to wanting to look young (who doesn't), I do think that being young is more a state of mind than a state of "looks." Looks can be artificially manipulated; a state of mind can only be cultivated.
Even the word "cultivation" tells us that the process of staying young takes time. And time is something our society seems intent on making dispensable. Yet the best things in life take time. Think of your children through the lenses of the family album; it is the changes tabulated in those pictures that make them so rich in character and experience now. Time deepens the experience; time ages the moment by filling it with layers made accessible through memories. Without time, we are like ants--filled only with a pale and surface instant. Living the moment is a call for cultivating the layers of time within the moment.
And so with the face; the layers of time that wrinkle a face are tributes to its resilience. It has weathered the helter-skelter twenties and it has survived the frantic pace of the thirties (when most of us had full time jobs and children). The marks of having lived a life rich in love, struggles, failures and successes are written all over our faces and it is these we need to embrace because they are not signs that we need anti-wrinkle treatments, but signs that we have struggled, we have loved and we have lived. They are the marks of a life that is extraordinary in its ordinariness.
These marks on our faces are not the things we need to fear; they are not the signs of age. The signs of age that we need fear are those that speak of a life unlived--a terrified urgency to keep everything as is, a fear of learning new ways of thinking, new ways of doing things, a fear of going beyond right and wrong, or more specifically, a fear of understanding the world and its events from the heart without the prescriptive lens of right and wrong, a fear of change, of investing heart,mind and soul into someone or something lest it goes "wrong," a fear of making mistakes, of having to start all over again because those mistakes showed you a new and different path, a fear of pitting yourself against the wisdom of the ages because you have a need, a passion to find out for yourself what is right for you.
I have seen age in twenty-something eyes and endless youthfulness in people over 70.
So what are my anti-wrinkle treatments? 1.Find something you love and pursue it to the end. Ignore all nay-sayers; just follow your heart.
2. Begin each morning and end each day with exercising your mind; a half hour or twenty minutes of meditation on all that is right in your world and what you have to be thankful for.
3. Cultivate the long-term vision; see the layers of possibilities within each moment in time; with such long-term vision you will never be unsettled by an individual event because you are open to what it will bring in its wake.
4. Eat healthy foods and exercise; a strong body will empower your sense of self so that you can sustain the courage to do what is right for you.
5. Honor yourself and honor the world and all that lives, breathes, moves in it (including rocks, trees and skies).
6. Honor your desire which is a calling for change. Most people dread change and end up on the sidelines wishing wistfully for something better. They have not learned to honor their desire. Desire as Dr. Lee Pulos states in "The Biology of Empowerment," "is the purest of potential seeking manifestation or change." Be open to change.
Last but not least, know in your heart that you will have no regrets because being young is knowing that you can start all over again.
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Mary Desaulniers may be contacted at http://www.GreatBodyat50.com or md@marydesaulniers.com Don't leave your loved ones guessing...record
your information now. Mother's Day: It's an Emotional Time
I am a mother. I had a mother. I write about emotional intelligence. There is nothing more emotional than "mother." 1. Be prepared to welcome some visceral emotions.
We depend absolutely on our mothers for survival, and this sort of feeling, or instinct resides in the reptilian brain, hundreds of millions of years old and 'set' to keep us alive. Therefore it sends very strong messages. 2. It was never a thought in the first place ...
So our feelings for our mother are visceral, often wordless. There's poetry, of course, and that line is from something by Frost about poetry ... it starts with a feeling he said ... it never was a thought in the first place. Most of us when asked about our mothers fall silent, with strong emotion - great love, great hatred, often mixed. It is not easy to put our mother into words.
3. If you plan something for your mother this Mother's Day, and you have children, please verbalize what you're doing and why.
We teach emotional intelligence to our children whether we want to or not, whether ours is good or not. One way to help children increase their EQ and to internalize it is to describe what we're doing and why.
Some examples:
by Mary Desaulniers
www.emersonpublications.com
by Susan Dunn
"I'm making Nana's favorite cake because I love her and want her to feel special."
"We're celebrating Mother's Day today because I love being your Mom, and Dad and I want to honor this occasion. We do this by being together and talking about the day and our feelings, by having a great meal, and by talking about our own mothers too--Nana and Grammy."
"I love Mimi so I want to do something special for her. I know! I'll get her some perfume. I know she'd like that although I don't. When we give a gift, we think about what the other person would like, not what we would like. What do you think Mimi would like?" (If your son says "a car," your work is cut out for you. :)
4. Use Intentionality.
Maybe things aren’t going great with your mother right now. Maybe you wished your husband would do something in your honor for Mother's Day and he didn't. Maybe your adult children didn't remember you the way you would've liked. Set your Intentionality -- how do you intend this holiday to go? Do you plan to not be pleased, whatever happens? Do you plan to enjoy your day, whatever happens? Do you plan to honor your motherhood yourself and celebrate? It's up to you. Intentionality means being accountable to yourself for your motives.
5. Celebrate with Personal Power.
Don't expect your children, husband and other relatives to read your mind. If something's important to you, speak up. Make requests! Express preferences!
6. Constructive discontent.
This EQ competency refers to anger management, and also, I think, to internal conflict, because we can have constructive discontent within ourselves. If your 'brains' are fighting -- You love your mom in your gut of guts (reptilian brain) but you're angry with her because she failed you last week (limbic), bring it up to the neocortex and think it through before you act or respond. What would bring about the best result this Mother's Day? How can you self-soothe? What's the best response, acknowledging your feelings but not granting them more power than is necessary? Is perfectionism lurking about? Is dwelling in anger worth the stress it subjects your body to physiologically?
7. Be adamantly and relentlessly forgiving.
Why? Because it's good for you, and also the only way you can forgive others, and our mothers -- you know this if you are one -- are only human, but because of our absolute dependence upon them initially, we expect incredible things from them and are mightily distressed when they don't occur, as if our lives depended upon it, because at one time they did. For the times you failed as a mother, forgive yourself; for the times your mother failed you as a mother, forgive her.
8. It's a good time to be flexible.
This may be a family event for you. For many of us, it will be a multicultural event. People from different cultures have deeply ingrained ways of doing things that aren't always comprehensible to others. If your extended family includes several cultures, as some of my clients' do, and people show up hours late or not at all or with 4 houseguests you don't even know and 2 of them need transportation to the airport, and the roast you made isn't going to stretch far enough (and this isn't your way) -- get your knees bent. Or they're far "fussier" than you and worry over details, demand rigid schedules and brook no spontaneity -- remember to laugh. Plan an open house, put a pot of stew on the stove, expect the unexpected, focus on the moment and enjoy the people.
9. On this holiday, if you aren't a mother, or if you aren't a mother and wanted to be and never will be, or if you're a mother whose child has died ...
Resilience means growing through hard times, not just going through them; building up stress tolerance; learning to tolerate misfortune, adversity, heartbreak and loss and bounce back; having the courage to grieve; and retaining faith and hope for the future and in the goodness of life. People may not know what to say, may not be able to reach you in any event. It will be a hard day.
10. Celebrate with optimism!
The essence of optimism, the facilitator of emotional intelligence, is not the up side but rather avoiding the downward spiral. Approach the day with optimism, expecting the best. If things go amiss, avoid the 3 Ps - personalization (it's my fault), permanence (it will always be that way), and pervasiveness (and it applies to everything else). Don't dwell, distract yourself. Focus on the good.
Susan Dunn, MA, The EQ Coach, http://www.susandunn.cc , mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc . Coaching, Internet courses and ebooks around emotional intelligence for your personal and professional success. Coach Certification Program - fast, affordable, no-residency, training coaches worldwide. Email for free ezine.
Susan Dunn may be contacted at http://www.susandunn.cc or sdunn@susandunn.cc
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