HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

                                                                     Mother in Training


I have a wonderful mom and my daughter has a wonderful mom.  What more could a man ask for? My fondest wishes to all of the mothers out there. If necessary, insist on being treated like the queens that you are, even if only for a day.  But hopefully you won't need to ask.  On the other 364 days of the year you may have to settle for being treated like mere duchesses.


p.s. If you're looking for gift ideas, click on the link directly below.

Great Gift Ideas For All Of The Great Moms (and moms to be) Out There  



Enjoy the floral arrangement courtesy of Erin Rogers Pickering. Also to be found below are a few of my thoughts on parenting.

On occasion (usually reaching a crescendo around Mother’s Day and Father’s Day) I see some harsh exchanges on social media about single parent (usually the mom) households.  Some people act as if it’s inherently wrong. Some act as if it is a flawless scenario.  I find fault in both extreme viewpoints.  Below are my thoughts on the topic.

Parenting is hard. A solid support network must be situated. Whether there are 1, 2 or 10 parents in place, it's easy to screw the job up.

No shame AT ALL in being a single parent, unless you want to place that shame on the parent who voluntarily is rarely if ever around.

But by the logic of math, it’s tougher to get the job of parenting done right when there’s just one of you.

You can literally be the best parent ever, and have the most cooperative kid ever, and things can still easily go wrong due to that math.

Child-raising requires a solid support network. That It Takes A Village cliché could not be more accurate.

Daycare expense eats up a huge chunk of a single salary if it doesn’t happen to be a CEO level salary.

A single parent household means a greater likelihood of latchkey kid scenario. That has blatantly obvious potential to go wrong.

Parent can be saying and doing all the right things, kid can have heart of gold, yet if that kid is on their own too much, trouble won’t need to work hard to find him/her.

That’s why the solid support network is critical. Locally located family members who are willing to pitch in are literal life savers.

Also essential to the single parent is a job that is parenting friendly. If flex hours and telecommuting are options offered by employer, that’s huge.

A strong support network will enable a good single parent to be comparable to two good parents and better than two inept ones.

“Two are better than one” is too simple an equation. Try “a strong support network has more of a fighting chance than a single person who can’t possibly be two places at once”.

Tony and Tanya had grown accustomed to seeing their mother pushed around. Listening to her now, they viewed her as if for the first time. She was indeed a wise woman. She was a teacher. Her lessons would be in how to survive, for she possessed a PhD in the subject. ~ from PATCHES OF GREY