Kate and me are going to see The Avett Brothers in a few weeks. I won't let the fact that Seth Avett divorced his wife and is now dating an actress ( who is not as pretty as his ex wife) ruin this concert for me. I'm quite pissed off though. I mean can't people just stay married? Seth Avett wrote a lovely song for his now ex wife back when they were engaged. It was called January Wedding and now he says he won't be singing it anymore and every time I hear it on my ipod all I will be reminded of is that Seth Avett was just full of shit when he wrote the lyrics.
Now this one will get me into trouble. A few weeks ago a particular post was circling the internets and it was written by a man and it was all about how we should worship moms, specifically full time moms. He didn't call them full time moms, he called them stay at home moms, or something like that. By the way, just to assure any mom who may be reading this about whether or not she qualifies as full time mom...if you have a child, you're a full time mom, regardless of how many hours of the day you are with them. Anyway, the post was all about how we should put moms on pedestals, but what he really meant was, moms who stay home with their kids should be put on pedestals. Now you would think that being a legitimate full time, stay at home, homeschooling mom, this post would have been right up my alley, but no, all I could think was, gee this guy really wants to get laid. I don't need a man telling me how awesome I am and I certainly don't appreciate a man trying to garner attention and create drama by writing about moms and which moms are better and how we should kiss the ground stay at home moms walk on. If you read the post and enjoyed it, good for you, but I found it gross. Respect people because they are fellow human beings, not because they stay home with their kids. I ended up reading a few more of this guy's blog posts and realized he thought he knew everything about everything and then I felt sorry for his wife.
Speaking of humility, Greg and I were in a conversation recently with some people and the topic of children came up. People were saying all these things about raising kids and how to get them to be good and proper and well behaved and successful and Greg and I just glanced at one another. We've run the gamut of issues with our kids and if I thought I knew nothing about raising children before, the past year has confirmed for me that while Greg and I love our children as much as any other parent, we usually don't have all the answers. We usually have none of the answers. Anyway, after the conversation went on a bit my husband sensed my unease and he titled his head to the side a little and looked up and said, well, they are their own people and they're going to make mistakes no matter how much we want them not to. And everyone agreed and we went on to talking about something else, much to my relief. Later on I was reminded of something Greg told me last year when we were in the midst of a crisis with one of the kids and I was feeling distraught and hopeless - "They aren't done being people! They won't be done till they are dead, Ann Marie." So really, that's all I have to say about parenting. If you are in the midst of a crisis with your kids and you start to sink just remember, they aren't done being people. And either are you. I know, you had no idea this post filled with rage and venom and hate would turn into a pep talk. I'm always surprising people!
