• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

So Called Mom

  • Home
  • BLOG
  • About
  • Contact
  • YouTube

raising kids

Feminism Meets the Claw Machine

by SoCalledMom · Jul 18, 2017

With each passing and increasingly busy day, it’s easy to loose track of the little things that make life so smashing. I’m one of those people that gets so fixated on the process of crushing goals, that I loose track of where I’m at. What’s worse is when I get completely hung up over seemingly endless obstacles that I’m sure were put there just for me to struggle with. Everything I could ever want is right in front of me…yet just out of reach.


My favorite thing about having kids is that they live outside of this reality.

They possess the power to look at life so differently, that small wins can translate to larger than life victory laps. I am always re-learing this lesson from them, determined to pause and celebrate more, to recognize jackpot status and bask in that light like there’s no tomorrow.

Look, I realize it might be a stretch to tie this video to my month-long dedication to feminism as a family value, but there’s something about it that just makes sense. Could it be that our local claw machine favors no one and only delivers plushy magical goodness to those who truly believe? Maybe too easy an answer, but check it out:

So much of what we do in life is shaped by our thoughts, dreams, and sure, even claw machines. Sometimes you put a buck in and strike out. Other times, you strike gold. And it’s the gold moments that make it all worth it.

All those moments you lost, all the struggle and strife– is the reason you finally won.

Perseverance. That explanation works, too, but I’ll go a layer deeper.

If you look at your glass barrier and tools like a challenge and not an obstruction, you might just win big.

I like that perspective.

So Called Mom

Filed Under: Feminism, kids Tagged With: celebrate the small stuff, claw machine, feminism, mom life, raising kids, small victories, the little things

Teaching Full Throttle Feminism

by SoCalledMom · Jul 1, 2017

This has been a wonderfully energizing week since I posted about Body Positivity. The response from the greater So-Called Mom community has been overwhelming and helped me appreciate that I have reached a few people. More importantly, you’ve truly motivated me with your support.

It’s tough being a parent, and basically unreachable to be a perfect mom, so I’m glad to keep meeting moms and dads out there who are also just making it up as we go along.

feminism, strong girls, raising feminists

I’ve been inspired by the conversations I’ve had with many of you over the past weeks and by my four incredible girls to do something different.

I’m going to wrap the entire month of July around one theme: raising feminists. And, there will be a thoughtful giveaway to help us connect and celebrate.

feminism, raising strong girls, empowerment

Let me explain my thinking: The world being what it is – and I won’t get into politics here – it’s ever more important that women of all ages find their voices and gain the confidence to discover who they are or want to be.  And while I’ve never been one for labels, I’m ready to call it out now. And more importantly, raise my kids to feel comfortable calling themselves feminists.

Both the girls and the boys.

feminism, strong girls

It’s not enough just to be a strong mom thinking it’s all going to filter down.  It doesn’t happen like that.

I’m going to use my mom-soapbox both inside and outside the home to up my game.  Let’s together spend the next month having the conversation about raising the next generation of feminists. Loud, nasty, confident, powerful young women and men who will run for office, fight for rights, skateboard, invent, design, build, start companies and make general noise without any bias towards gender.

Power to you,

So-Called Mom

Filed Under: Feminism, parenting advice Tagged With: empower, feminism, mom blog, mom vlog, parenting advice, raising kids, strong girls, teaching kids

MEAN Kid or REAL Bully & When to INTERVENE!

by SoCalledMom · Jun 15, 2017

Bullying is one of the hottest parenting topics out there. As one of those overly protective moms, I have often overreacted to hurt feelings. Often times, I’ve used this terminology without really understanding its side effects. Aside from putting a label on kids, it also decreases opportunities for building resilience, acceptance and most importantly: resolution.

My last two posts had me vowing to clear my helicoptering parental habits. And ever since then, I have exorcised the demons! Well, sort of. There’s still a nagging feeling that wants to govern every situation my kids simply must experience on their own. But now I’m doing my best to ignore it. Even when it comes to the neighborhood bully. So I’m working on a different approach.

Feminism, LGBTQ, Teenagers

Which has me putting my new set of rules to the test: Case in point, The other day Pascal’s neighborhood tribe of new pals suddenly turned on her. She spoke of some rude name-calling earlier yesterday and I fought the urge to run out on my lawn, eyes a blazing, asking which kid wanted to experience a real bully. So for a moment, I fantasized about it and then directed my attention to Pascal. How do you imagine the issue resolving itself?

And then I buttoned my lip and listened.

Pascal seemed to have it sorted until the text messages started in as we were sitting there. I suddenly realized this was a bigger problem than just a squirmy boy calling her ugly (apparently name-calling isn’t considered bullying, go figure!). These kids were only engaging in a normal act of thick-skin building meanness until they began pulling other kids into a group text, ganging up on Pascal with the promise of social exclusion as far as the our neighborhood development could see. Then she was blocked, by all of them, in unison, so she couldn’t respond. Now that, my dear mom friends, is bullying.

Learning the ins and outs of this stuff is new to me, especially now that I’m So-Called helicopter aware. And even though none of us want our kids to feel any of the above, it helps to see these problems separated out into categories so that we know when to stay grounded and listen and also when to fly in, rescue and hover like hell.

 

But the information on what to do is still conflicting in my mind, despite obsessively reading a number of articles between my sleeplessness last night and this mornings coffee. Step in or get out-of-the-way? Rescue or relax? What builds resilience and what feeds into self-destruction?

The difference between intervening and not isn’t a chasm dividing the two, it’s splitting hairs between championing parenthood and letting your kids down when you should’ve been there.

And even though I seem to do it plenty, I’m not into the mom-fail thing. Or letting kids get away with bullying mine.

bullying, resilient kids, mean kids, parenting advice

So then, I’d Love to hear it directly from my mom group.

What would you do: Intervene or not?

That is the question,

So-Called Mom

Filed Under: parenting advice Tagged With: blended family, bullying, helicopter mom, helicopter parenting, hovering mom, intervene, intervention, mean kids, mom fail, motherhood, parenthood, parenting advice, parenting fail, raising kids, resilient kids, self care, self destruction, self love

What is the Point of School

by SoCalledMom · May 16, 2017

I can’t decide if I’m falling out of love with homeschooling or if I have spring fever— or if I just despise our education system (including my own teachings) altogether. 
I know I would do wonderfully on a deserted island with my family—with no system to report to with regards to what my kids are learning. I’ve mentioned this before, and I’ll say it again: Our kids are not learning what they need to be studying in school—even when we take them out of it, the material they must learn isn’t cutting it. I believe they are absorbing the monotony of adulthood, and it’s killing—not building, their brain cells. Simply put: School is boring and I’m loosing my footing as a home-based teacher.
so called mom
The reason I feel this way is because kids should be heavily immersed in things like: Money management, insurance policies, emergency preparedness, civic engagement, abusive relationships, fair wages, diet and fitness, finding your passion, inner peace. And at an early age. This is the stuff that determines survival—not Oregon history—which always seems to be mis-told no matter which edition your textbook is. Somebody needs to take a crack at writing an age appropriate account of what really happened so that we can quit brushing it under the carpet or denying it altogether.
Am I teaching Pascal these savvy survival-based things, even with our free-wheeling homeschool curriculum? Nope, Not as a part of anything guided. There aren’t enough hours in the day with all of this other nonsense clouding our time together. And, quite frankly, it pisses me off. Imagine preparing kids for real life! Imagine a system that raised kids to be good people!
Earlier today I was reading material about how Oregon was settled, shaking my head and cutting myself off, saying: Pascal, this is bullshit. Do you have any idea what these So-Called Colonists did to the Native Americans? Our only real lesson in that entire book can be learned in one grim, hopeless statement: People can be terrible, and greedy and what’s worse—things haven’t changed much.
so called mom
So now what? Well, with six weeks left in the school year, I’m not sure I have much choice but to ride it out. And, I’m not sure I can actually do anything but complain about it. If she was my only child, I would take on the system with her on my arm, but the fact of the matter is, I still have 6 other kids that need me—for homework help, projects, extra curriculars, doctors appointments, friend making and dinner. There isn’t enough time in the day to take on the world unfortunately. So we stumble through it.
But it doesn’t remove my disappointment from our American culture and it’s frequent missed opportunities for youth impact. Pascal shouldn’t have to wait for college to kick in for some of these life-shaping lessons. They should be happening now as an intelligent strategy to build better citizens, learners, parents, employees, etc etc. I can’t and shouldn’t have to teach that on my own. For now I’m stumped about what to do. Humanitarianism should be the core of her learning and I’m disappointed that it isn’t. Everything else is just a distraction to what’s really important: human awareness and participation. Not the perpetuation of indifference and selfishness. 
Rethinking it all,
So-Called Mom

Filed Under: homeschool, parenting advice Tagged With: blended family, busy family, extra curricular, family blog, family life, homeschool, mom blog, mom blogger, parenting advice, raising kids, school

Let Them Fail

by SoCalledMom · Mar 9, 2017

pascal so called mom

Let them fail, you say? The experts tell us that failure is good for kids.

Says who? Are any of these researchers actual parents? Could there really ever be such a thing as a parenting expert? And could we get any more counterintuitive than intentionally letting kids fail?

For me, part of the allure in deciding to become a mom is that I would be adored by someone, from day one. I would give birth and transform into this picturesque, prize-winning, nurturing body that instinctively wouldn’t—couldn’t—allow her offspring to fall flat on their darling faces.

Caring for my kids is second nature. Fly from the nest on your own time, kiddo. No rush! Even though sometimes I worry that I’m not teaching them anything, but to have a fear of leaving my side. This is also likely why my kids can’t do certain things like tie their shoes at an early age, or do laundry at 16—because I simply forgot to stop babying them. It didn’t even dawn on me to stop. My reflexes are stuck on a loop of “mother knows best,” and it’s kind of a hot mess now that I think of my oldest four kiddos leaving this over-stuffed nest soon.

13331095_601972256638747_782294986363435310_n

There are so many ways to let them fail, but I’m quickly learning that broken bones is the easy part. It’s what separates an accident from an intentional lesson. And of course there’s the damage you maybe can’t see  – like their development. Here’s a couple of examples.

pascal drops in bowl skate park let them fail so called mom

The first is a simple one with clearcut learning results – failure done right: Last week, Pascal, my new skateboarding aficionado, announced she was ready to drop into the bowl by herself without my assist. In a rare personal moment of “letting go,” I watched her drop in with a rush self-confidence. She sailed through the air, and promptly lost her board. She landed first on her hip, and then on her face. Before I could catch my breath, she was up on her feet instantly—shocked and hopping up and down and limping while holding back tears. She looked around the park, at all the older skater guys to make sure none of them saw her.

Then she looked at me, completely pissed, and said, “Why did you let me do that?”

pascal bails in bowl skate park let them fail so called momAnd somehow I found the right answer, “Because skateboarding can be as shitty as math. You only get better by getting it wrong.”

HA! Wise words, but I’m sure this one hurt me more than it hurt her. I know this is true, because I’m still cringing about it, while she’s dropped back into that same bowl at least 15 times since.

But as hard as this was for me, it was actually one of the easier examples. You’d think I would have learned as much as Pascal.

Example Two: Jake, my 17-year-old. Somehow the idea of “letting him fail” translates in my mind into letting him down. That’s because his upbringing has been different from Pascal’s. He has experienced divorce twice, early childhood abandonment (His birth dad din’t raise him and Pippin is his second step-dad). Feel my guilt yet?

jake bloody nose let them fail so called momSo with Jake, I tend to walk around with a safety net and a huge roll of emotional bubble wrap at the ready.

Whenever he goes through something even slightly difficult, I want to fly to his rescue—and I usually do (in a tutu and heels of course, just so it looks extra impressive).

While I understand this is probably rule #1 in the book of resilience, I have a hard time watching Jake, or any of my kids for that matter, struggle. It’s like throwing your babies in a pool and trusting they won’t drown. As a result, I’ve come to wonder if the real issue is in watching them fail, or the unbearable fear of that failure backfiring on them. What if a So-Called Life Lesson turns into trauma? What if that one time I was really needed, was the one time I wasn’t there, because I wanted them to fail? What if they blame me?

I struggle mightily with this concept of failure. For me and for them. It makes me feel like a screwup, like I skipped over entire chapters in that rule book. I feel unsupportive and cruel. As though most of the time, I have the answer or solution, and they don’t, yet here I am working hard just to refuse help.

I’ve always wanted a better way to help all of my kids, but I have yet to find one.

12068678_527735447395762_8370543289903707318_o

In fact, I’m terrible at it. This is especially hard when you are a parent in a blended family—it means you co-parent; some of your kids don’t stay with you all of the time. It’s not just Jake, it’s Phoenix, Milla and M.J.  Are the other parents teaching failure? I have no way of knowing what any of it looks like, and it can be scary to think I might be the bad guy.

And yet I know that failing is a necessary skill. It is the only way we learn resilience – all of us. How to get back on a skateboard and face that fearful drop that completely owned you, or working harder to understand why you flunked your math test—or working harder to understand why you flunked the mom test. It’s when you really learn what it means to be human, and what imperfection feels like.  Failure is not just for teaching life lessons to the kids, it’s also for the moms—when we don’t say the right things or laugh when we shouldn’t. Or just aren’t there when we should have been.

pascal so called mom beach let them fail so called mom

As hard as it is, I am trying little by little to let my kids fail. Sometimes I just quit doing things for them, cold turkey— like making beds, folding laundry, picking up dirty dishes, or keeping track of their library books. Things they have grown used to my doing. Mom things. I stop with no warning, knowing they’re not going to like it. I see it as basically pulling the plug to their life line, to see if they can breathe on their own. And for awhile, all I can do is watch them gasp for air. And when it doesn’t work out—and it usually doesn’t—I dive in and save them.

So in the end, letting them fail and not letting them fail feels like losing.

12345427_527735497395757_7292090648215900751_n

Like I’m not doing my mom job. It’s hard to stop caring, when you really, really do. So I cheat—which makes the lesson they are supposed to learn really confusing.

In any case, they need to begin to wrap their heads around the experience of “where did I go wrong and what do I do now?” So I keep staying in the game, because it is also a valuable lesson for me, as I learn to do the impossible: let them go.

Predictably Yours,

So Called Mom

Next Post:  Teenage Love & Pheromones 

Filed Under: kids, self care Tagged With: advice, bio mom, blended family, failure, getting hurt, letting kids down, letting kids fail, mom fail, motherhood, parenting advice, raising kids, step dad, step mom

Copyright © 2021 · No Sidebar Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

  • Amazon affiliate links:
  • Twitter
  • FaceBook
  • Contact
  • YouTube
  • Archive
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.