As the mother of 2 multiracial daughters the film "Killing us Softly" was really interesting to me. As women we buy into the media s portrayal of who we are and what we are supposed to be almost more than men do.    If we believe it what do we expect from them? As women of color so much of what is represented in magazines and television as culturally beautiful does not apply to me or to my daughters. We do not resemble the tall very thin very blonde women in fashion magazines. So much of raising my daughters has been teaching them to really see themselves, to appreciate how beautiful and unique they are. In some ways I think starting farther from society s ideal makes it easier. When my girls were younger they envied their friends straight hair and light skin but as they get older they seem more comfortable in their own skin. I found it interesting that the text referenced that many minority youth show increased self esteem in adolescence. My girls are beautiful, with midnight eyes and curly hair and light bronze skin, but what makes them truly beautiful is that they are smart and confident and powerful. These are the things that I emphasize with them. I hope that the fact that they are able to see already that beauty is not accurately defined by the media will help them to see the other lies that advertisers tell about women. We are not fragile, we are not helpless or in need of rescuing. We are not passive or indecisive. We are strong and intelligent and capable. We do not need to starve away our curves to be taken seriously. We need to take ourselves seriously. We need to believe that our worth is not determined by the size of our thighs and that our intellect is more important than our cup size. We need to stop accepting other people s definitions and begin to define ourselves. If we stop believing the lie what power does it have over us? As women we need to embrace our beauty in all it s shades, in every shape and size. If we begin to celebrate what each of us contributes instead of judging and criticizing each other, the message that we give to our daughters would be that in accepting ourselves we accept and celebrate them too.

I thought a lot about parenting styles this week. The text talked about the balance between warmth and control in establishing an effective parenting style. So many parents I know seem to struggle with the control aspect of parenting. They worry so much about their kids being mad at them, case in point the girl in the podcast screaming I hate you at her mother. I can't imagine tolerating that kind of behavior but I see it all the time. I firmly believe that it's okay for your kids to be mad at you but they do not have the right to express it any way they want. I believe that in order to respect themselves they have to learn to respect other people. It is not my children's job to make me feel good, in the end it is my job to make sure that they grow up to be responsible, decent human beings. I believe in providing choices within reason that are age and maturity appropriate. It is normal for kids to test limits but incredibly important for them to have limits to test. I don't believe that permissive parenting provides the necessary structure for children to grow any sense of responsibility. I can appreciate that parents of lower socioeconomic status face greater stress when parenting but I do not agree that it necessarily translates into less effective parenting. I think that parents of higher socioeconomic status often provide more permissive parenting giving things instead of time. Children who grow up with less material things are often more connected to family and derive much of their identity from that interaction. Discipline has become a bad word in our society but discipline is essential to achieving any goal. If we are able to teach our children restraint and determination they have a much easier path to success. Children like adults need to feel a sense of responsibility to something bigger than themselves . It is important to me that my children feel accountable to the family and to each other. I want them to ask questions, to make intelligent decisions. I want to make sure that I give them the tools to become what they are intended to be.

Today s topic is the "hurried" child. I do think that children today are hurried toward adulthood. Exposure to mass media with all the access our kids have to sex, violence and world events makes them more aware of adult issues than in the past. Our children spend so much of their free time on the internet or watching television where in the past kids spent more time playing outside. We can t just send our kids to the park or outside to ride their bikes, most of our kids activities take place with adult supervision because we fear what could happen, the world seems a scary place even to us. We put our kids in organized sports to make up for it but the competitive nature and parental involvement changes the dynamic and may actually add pressure. We want our kids to be the best at everything, sports, academics. and recreational activities. Everything is about what comes next leaving little time to experience and enjoy right now. In high school we expect our kids to know what their career path will be. We encourage them to take college courses early and are constantly pushing for the next big thing. In the past I think kids were hurried in a different way. Children were expected to contribute. If your parents were farmers or shop keepers you worked for the family at a young age. If you had younger siblings you were expected to provide child care. But children s lives were more immediate. The impact of world events didn t factor in unless it was right in front of you. Today s children are raised with a knowledge of terrorism, natural disasters, and unstable economics. In addition to the constant pressure to be the best children are exposed to a level of violence and world instability that their young minds are not fully able to process. Exposure to grown up issues along with expectations and schedules that would stress out most adults has left our children with heightened levels of anxiety. They are beginning to show grown up problems at earlier ages, depression, insomnia, even stomach ulcers. Maybe its time for us to slow down and let our children be just that children.

Now that I am a professional blogger (blog # 2) I thought I d talk about Erickson's Basic trust vs. Mistrust concept and about what happens when attachments are not made in early social interactions. My husband and I have 3 of our own children but over the last 10 years have participated in raising a number of boys who for a variety of reasons could no longer be raised by their biological family and somehow or another  ended up in ours. Having been raised myself largely by strangers I thought I was ideally suited to understand the needs of these displaced children. I have never been more challenged or heart broken or hopeful than in my interactions with my children biological and not. One child in particular comes to mind. We cared for him briefly when he was 3. Our own daughter was only 6 months younger and the differences between them were startling. He was a beautiful boy with giant eyes and a slow smile. His language skills were very delayed, He rarely talked and in comparison to our non-stop talker his lack of verbal interaction made him seem much younger. He struggled with toilet training and was prone to temper tantrums, He was wary and defensive but craved attention and was often physically aggressive to get it. He was born addicted to cocaine to a mother who was unable to provide the consistent care his fragile nervous system needed. His early years were marked by move after move often living in homeless shelters. He came to us after being left in a daycare center, turned over to CPS when his mother on a drug binge neglected to pick him up. We only had him for a short time but in that time he became calmer,his verbal skills improved, he began to ask for what he wanted instead of screaming. He began to show affection and respond when affection was shown to him. He was far from unbroken but I thought we were forming a bond. Then a petition from his now jailed mother returned him to his extended family. When he left he did n't even cry. At 3 he had accepted that the world was unpredictable and often painful. I thought about him a lot in the years that followed. We had 2 more children of our own and many that were not, 9 years later at 12 he came back into our lives. Bounced from foster home to foster home he seemed surprisingly intact. The report we had been given of a child chronically truant, physically aggressive and defiant did not fit the charming little boy we saw in front of us. He got along with the other kids (now 6 of them) and seemed determined to please.It did not last. He struggled academically, was easily frustrated and distracted with an extremely poor attention span. He was very social but did not form deep friendships, he often chose friends based on what he could get from them. He was manipulative and prone to angry outbursts. A talented athlete he was unattached to his team and argumentative with his coaches. He was with us 5 years. His is our only child that did not graduate from high school, he has struggled with substance abuse, his aggression and poor decision making have led him places I can not follow. He stays in contact sporadically. I believe that his inability to form an attachment to his drug addicted mother left him without the "hope" he needed to gain the skills to overcome his difficult beginning. His deep mistrust prevents him from forming the meaningful relationships he needs to build a new frame of reference. The chaos and neglect he suffered so early on left him hyper vigilant and unable to truly adapt. His intellectual ability was impacted by his instability leaving him with less ability to evaluate the consequences of his actions.Fundamentally he does not believe he is capable of success and the course of his life so far has been determined by the callousness of his early experience. I continue to hope that he will find  the hope that was taken from him by not being valued the way he should have been, that he will find a way to redefine himself.