Barbie Will Destroy The World

The other day as Layla was playing with her Barbies, she paused mid-game and considered the Barbie in her hand at arms length for a minute. When I asked her what she was doing, her response simultaneously shocked me and snapped my heart in two:

"I was just thinking that I wish I looked like Barbie".

Immediately, my stomach sunk and I broke into a cold sweat. She wishes she looked like Barbie?! Why would my beautiful girl with her big eyes, rosy skin, and radiating sweetness want to be anything like that generic piece of plastic? My mind whirled, desperately searching for the right thing to say, feeling like this was one of those critical parent moments where what I said could set a definitive course for how my daughter felt about her looks, her body, and herself in general. No pressure, right? Treading carefully, I asked Layla what she meant by her comment. In what ways did she wish she looked like Barbie? Layla responded:

"Because I want all of my clothes to be pink!"

Immediately, my pulse slowed down to normal and the blood pounding violently in my ears subsided. I can handle a five-year old wanting to wear all pink clothes. I briefly considered pointing out how Barbie was too perfect and nothing to aspire towards, but I realized that I would probably be creating a problem when there really wasn't one there to begin with. Instead, I took refuge in Layla's lingering innocence and in the fact that I avoided the metaphorical firing squad.

My relief didn't last long.

Yesterday was one of my days to volunteer in Layla's class. I'm there twice a month to help the kids with their workbook and reading skills. I love to do it, not only because it's given me a whole new respect for the work that teachers do, but also because I get to put faces with the kids that Layla is always talking about at home. We're a little more than half-way through the school year and because the kids all know me pretty well now, they love to tell me stories about their siblings, pets, and things they see on TV. Despite struggling to listen to ten little voices talk to me at once, it's pretty awesome and their stories have always stayed pretty neutral. Until yesterday.

Warning: Though I'm going to try really hard not to, there is a chance that I might sound like I'm up on my parental high horse in a minute. I don't mean to be. God knows I'm nowhere near being a perfect parent, but there are lines that are crossed sometimes and it upsets me. Despite my own faults of struggling to be more patient mixed with my own insecurities and frustrations, I would never, ever put my child down or make them doubt the fact that they are smart, sweet, funny, beautiful and above all, important for even a second of their lives. It sounds like a tall order, but I plan on delivering. My kids deserve it.

Anyway, enough disclaimers. Back to the story.

There's a little girl in Layla's reading group who is sweet and smart, but always slightly off in a way that I've never been able to pinpoint exactly. At first I thought she was just always a little tired or just one of the quieter kids, but she sighs a lot, avoids most eye contact, and always seems a just a little bit sad. Anyway, my volunteer day happened to fall on Layla's snack day (where the kids are responsible for bringing a snack for the whole class), so I brought the snack with me when I came in. Since the kids only get a snack day about every other month, I usually let Layla pick out something fun and this time she chose mini-Valentine's Day cupcakes and milk. I noticed that Ruby (not her real name) kept looking over at the counter a few feet away where the cupcakes were sitting. I noticed her looking so much that I finally asked her if she liked cupcakes. She looked me in the eye and, in a very Matter-Of-Fact, I've-Heard-This-A-Million-Times voice, told me "I love cupcakes, but I'm not allowed to eat sweets at home. My mom says I'm fat enough as it is".

Here's the thing. I believe in a healthy lifestyle. We make sure our kids eat their fruit and vegetables and drink plenty of water, but we also believe that kids are kids and that there is nothing wrong with a treat every once in awhile. If Ruby had told me "I'm not allowed to eat sweets at home because my mom says they're not healthy for my body" I can honestly say that I probably wouldn't have thought twice about it. I don't believe that healthy lifestyles and eating/body issues are mutually exclusive at all. Many people are healthy just for the sake of living a better life. Healthy is a good thing and a great example to set for your kids. "Fat" is a different story.

Honestly, what kind of person calls a five-year-old fat? Moreover, how could any parent knowingly bestow the kind of damage that comes from that kind of a statement onto their child? I can't wrap my head around it.

I posted Ruby's words on Facebook yesterday looking for some kind of insight. An overwhelming number of people confirmed my own suspicions: Ruby's mom has body issues of her own and is projecting them onto her daughter. Awesome.

Believe me, I understand body issues, I really do. I could go on and on about body issues of my own, but what good would that do? Am I going to forbid occasional cupcakes in my house because I have a saggy butt but I'm too lazy to actually do anything about it? No. Am I going to call my daughter fat or make her worry about food because I don't have the body I did when I was sixteen? Absolutely not. And shame on anyone who would.

Life is more than fat or skinny, pretty or ugly, perfect or not so much. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and what's inside matters just as much (if not more) than what's on the outside. I feel like the more our society progresses in some ways, the more it seems to go backwards in others. Women can vote, work, choose to have children, choose not to have children, choose to get married, choose not to get married, speak their minds, and pretty much do anything we set our minds to. We're just expected to look physically perfect while we do it. Want to hear something depressing? I did a little digging and found that the beauty industry (which is everything from fad diet programs to Botox) generates 160 BILLION dollars annually, and that's just in the United States. That's a lot of skinny women whose smile muscles don't work anymore walking around this country. 160 Billion dollars is more than treating yourself to a manicure every once in awhile because you're a hard working Mama! And since Botox isn't exactly something you do for your health, that's who knows how many moms setting the example for their daughters (inadvertently or not) that the way God made them isn't good enough. Or in Ruby's case, it's equating how you look with how much kindness and love you get from the one person whose job is to love you and be kind to you no matter what. And if that doesn't make your heart immediately snap into two, then I don't know what will.

I ended up telling Ruby that she reminds me of my own daughter: She is sweet, smart, and beautiful and that her mom just wants her to be happy. What sucks is that she's not my daughter and has to go home and continue to be called fat and God only knows what else and be hurt by it all, because the things we say to our kids matter. What really sucks is that I'm sure that she's far from being the only one in this situation, and that many moms out there wish their daughters were perfect little human Barbies.

No one should aspire to be Barbie (all-pink wardrobe and all). Barbie is too perfect, too unblemished, too boring. Flawless is highly overrated.

Confessions Of An Imperfect Mom

Hello, my name is Abbey and I am a perfectionist.

Being a perfectionist was never a problem before I had kids. Even though I could really drive myself crazy with it, I always regarded perfectionism as a good thing. It meant that I was striving to be the best and there's nothing wrong with that.

Until, of course, I had kids and realized that perfect is impossible. "Perfect" is a lie created by celebrity Mommy Bloggers and 30-minute sitcoms. In my life as a parent, there are moments of blissful perfection, but they come and go and I have no way to control them. What happens more often than not are spontaneous acts of two hilarious kids and their permanently exhausted parents, who are just trying to do the best they can do.

As an effort to let go of my pursuit of parental perfectionism and to show that no parent is perfect no matter how hard they try, the following are a small sample of anecdotes which accentuate my varying degrees of parenting imperfection. Why am I sharing? Because no one is perfect, no parent is perfect, and if we can all laugh together instead of putting on the perfection front, life would probably be a lot more fun. So here we go.

Confession #1: About a year ago I made the somewhat catastrophic mistake (the catastrophe only realized in hindsight, as they often are) of taking my then four-year-old and one-year-old into the pet store at the mall while trying to kill some time waiting for something else. When it came time to leave, Layla was perfectly fine and willing to leave without making a scene. Ben...not so much. Fast-forward to me, speed-walking a stroller containing a screaming, beet-faced baby with preschooler flung over my shoulder (all the better to get the hell out of there faster). Oh, but it gets better. Ben has the unfortunate habit of pronouncing "K" words like "T" words. So as I practically ran through a mall, dodging kiosks and other strollers, Ben was screaming "I want a kitty" at the top of his lungs, but it sounded a lot more like "I want a tittie!", causing several Hollister-clad teenaged boys to yell back "Don't we all?" as we raced past them. By that point I was simultaneously laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my face and swearing to myself that I would show my son's naked baby pictures to every single girl who ever came to our house, for as long as I lived. That's right, my child was barely old enough to speak and I was plotting revenge. I can't imagine why Beyonce won Mother-of-the-year and not me.

Confession #2: One of my favorite kid-friendly ways of expressing anger or frustration (i.e. swearing without actually swearing) is to shake my head and go "Oh for the love of donuts!". Sounds innocent enough, but if my kids had any idea the words that my seemingly innocuous phase was replacing, their ears would probably bleed. And fall off. I suspect Layla is beginning to catch on because now she'll respond, "Wow Mom, you must love donuts. You talk about them all the time." My bad.

Confession #3: Because I stay home with the kids all day and essentially have to be the bad guy 95% of the time, I feel somewhat entitled to pawn off things like telling the kids bad news ("It's raining, so we can't go to the State Fair today" and the like) on Josh. Yes, I play my "Uh...I don't know, ask your dad when he gets home" card from time-to-time. And I feel really bad about it...Sometimes.

Confession #4: When the kids are playing together in their room, I occasionally yell "Hey! I heard that!" from somewhere else in the house when in actuality, I heard nothing at all. I'm hoping if they think I have super-human hearing powers they'll behave better. Or they just think I'm crazy.

Confession #5: Yogurt-covered raisins are not candy, but don't tell my kids that. Broccoli also doesn't make you fly if you eat it for the first twenty years of your life, but don't tell me kids that either. It's not lying, it's genuine concern for their health and well-being. At least, that's what I tell myself as I quietly save up for their future therapy.

Confession #6: Layla is a talker. She talks, talks, talks, talks all day and occasionally in her sleep at night. Six out of seven days, I find her hilarious and entertaining and am proud of her vocabulary and ability to articulate herself as well as she does. On the seventh day I give her a dollar to stop talking for ten minutes. Because really, even God got a break on the seventh day.

Confession #7: The other day Ben walked into the kitchen and asked me what I was eating. I said carrots. They were actually Cheetos. I maintain that I just care about their health and the event in question had nothing to do with the fact that I'm almost thirty years old and I still don't share well with others.

Confession #8: Speaking of Cheetos, when I was pregnant with Ben I had such vicious Cheetos cravings that I was in a constant state of orange-stained fingers and had a terrifying, reoccurring dream about giving birth to a giant diaper-clad Cheeto. Oh, and I always told Layla they were carrots too.

Confession #9: Layla has always been my good sleeper. Ben, not so much. He's getting better, but I still have to sit with him in his room at night until he falls asleep. I used to sit on his bed and hold his hand, but now I just sit on the ground in the middle of the room (progress!). I don't talk, or sing, or touch, I just sit there. And now I live in constant fear of how this will play out later in his life. I'm pretty sure that telling his future wife "I'm sorry, honey, but my mom has to come in here and stare at us for twenty minutes or I just can't manage to fall asleep" will not go over well.

Confession #10: Last week, a little boy at Layla's school smiled at her and I was amazed at my level of rage and quantity of  "I want to kill that kid" thoughts that rose up within me. Ben, on the other hand, flirts with everyone from little babies to the eighty-seven year old receptionist at his Preschool. I don't think twice about it. Why? Do I already have double standards when it comes to my kids? I think I need to buy more Tums.

Confession #11: I have actually uttered the phrase "Don't make me turn this car around". Worse, I meant it.

Confession #12: I have a frequent and insistent daydream. I'm lying on the couch reading a book. That's it. I'm not daydreaming about winning the lottery or the drummer from Vampire Weekend. Just lying on a couch, in a quiet room, reading a book because honestly, that scenario is less likely to happen than winning the lottery and having the drummer from Vampire Weekend present me with the check. And I will confess that some days, I'm not entirely okay with that fact.

Confession #13: As infants, both of my children spit-up in my mouth. Yes, both. You would think that I learned the whole "don't hold a baby up in the air right over your face mere moments after they ate pureed beets " thing with Layla, but I didn't.

Confession #14: Layla acts exactly like me. She talks like me, she stands like me, she has a snarky attitude like me. 90% of the time she spends in time-out is for doing something that I probably would have done too. Ben is sweet and jolly and gets away with murder because he reminds me so much of Josh. This is gonna get interesting...

What can I say? Every day I try to laugh off my imperfections as a parent and to remind myself that perfection doesn't really exist. I try to save my crazy OCD level of  perfectionism for things I can control, like what I write, how well I do in school, and the frequency and volume I employ when yelling at the TV. I can't control, and don't want to control, people, especially my kids. As long as they don't suffer from the fact that Josh and I are really just making this up as we go, then I think everyone wins in the end.

And if nothing else, imperfect stories are much more entertaining.