The Barbie Hype

I've heard some things in the past from those who oppose Barbie dolls. They don't like them because they think that Barbie is an impossible ideal of beauty that is ruining the self-esteem of girls around the world. Now there is a new doll, the Lammily. It is similar to a Barbie doll, but it's supposed to represent the looks and proportions of the "average" woman.

I know many disagree, but I think people have gotten carried away with this Barbie hype. I played with Barbie dolls a lot growing up. I loved Barbie. I owned many dolls and Barbie accessories. However, I never felt insecure about myself or my looks because of the way my Barbie dolls looked. I always knew that Barbie was a toy. I knew that no one had the looks or proportions of Barbie because she is a fake character. She isn't totally realistic, and she didn't have to be. When I played, and when most kids play, we're in a fantasy world. It's nice to play with characters you can relate to, but they don't have to be lifelike.

I don't think the creation of these new dolls are going to solve all the problems some people think they are. If someone wants to create a new doll, that's fine. But, as I've heard before, there is a problem with the premises of this particular doll. The creator claims to have formed the new dolls based on scientific studies of what the "average" woman looks like. Yes, the doll is more realistic-looking than Barbie, but if people really think Barbie caused bad feelings and insecurities, this new doll will cause problems, too. To my knowledge, the creators of Barbie never claimed Barbie was supposed to have realistic proportions. Now we have the Lammily, which is supposed to represent the average woman. What if the girls who play with them don't think they look as good as this doll? Wouldn't they feel bad if they think they can't measure up to "average"? If self-image is really based on a doll, the Lammily isn't going to do much better than Barbie. 

If people want to help girls' self-image, perhaps they can put their energy towards changing the way women are portrayed in magazines and television. Those women are altered and air-brushed and tucked and pinned and then presented as if that's the way they normally look with minimal effort. They are actual human beings, whose images are altered and then presented as realistic bodies. That bothers me a lot more than how Barbie dolls look.

A better way to help girls' self-esteem is to focus on the accomplishments and amazing things women do. Talk about the amazing works of all women-women of all shapes, sizes, proportions, and colors. Talk about people in terms of the good things they can accomplish, instead of focusing on what they look like. So go ahead- make dolls and toys of all proportions and designs. Buy the ones you like. Let children know that most toys aren't totally realistic. Then let them play and use their imaginations.

The Problem with "You think it's hard now? Just wait...."

I recently heard a woman talk about her struggles as a mother of several teenagers. She said that having teenagers is so hard for her. She said that having several kids ages five and under-that was easy.

As a mother of two children ages five and under, there are few things more discouraging than being told that this very hard time I'm going through is "easy". I mean, really? Was it really easy? At that time, when she was going through it, was it easy? Surely she's forgotten the hard parts, right? And if not, if having teenagers is really so much harder than having small children to the point that being a mother of small children is "easy" in comparison, well, that just makes me want to sob in a corner and give up. Don't get me wrong. I chose this life. I love my children, and I love being their mother. I wouldn't have it any other way. I am sure the woman I mentioned feels the same about her children. But raising children of any age is hard, and all parents need support and encouragement, not fear and hopelessness. 

This is an example of something I've noticed a lot in the past few years. People like to point out how much worse or harder life is going to get. I remember it happening from a young age. In elementary school, I was told how middle school is so much harder. In high school, I was told that those were the best days of my life and that someday I would be begging to go back. In college, I remember being told, "You think you're stressed and busy now? Just wait. It gets worse." When I was pregnant and not sleeping well because of discomfort and waking frequently to use the bathroom? Just wait 'til the baby's born, then you'll know sleep deprivation. When I had my first baby? Oh, how nice that you can sleep when the baby sleeps because there's no other child to keep you up. And now, with two small children? Just wait 'til they're moody teenagers. Having a hard day wresting my tantrum-throwing toddler and taking care of a sick baby? Enjoy it now, because they'll be grown up and moved out before you know it. 

Really, the list is endless. I've heard so many things along those lines. I've even caught myself doing this from time to time. I remember when my sister was telling me how nice it will be when she's out of college and will have the steady income of a full-time job. I snapped back with something like, "Oh, it doesn't get any better! You'll get a steady income, but then you'll get so many more bills!" I think I was reacting to my own personal experiences at the moment. I realized my mistake immediately, apologized, and said that yes, it is nice to have a steady, full-time income, even if I do have more bills to pay now.

Maybe people are reacting with their emotions and personal experiences (like I did) when they say or imply, "Just wait...It gets worse." Maybe they think they're being helpful, preparing others for the future. Maybe they think it helps people put their current situations into perspective and be grateful it isn't worse (yet). But in reality, it isn't helpful at all. It is very discouraging. Some forewarning may be helpful in some cases. But in general, telling someone, "Just wait [for something harder]," is disheartening. It makes the recipient of such "advice" feel stupid, weak, and childish. I've found that this "advice" is often inaccurate, as well. People tend to have a selective memory. When we have a hard time, we like to remember back in the good ol' days when certain things were better or easier. In reality, just about all phases of life are filled with both good and bad.

People also don't take into account the growth and wisdom that comes from time and experience. I know having teenagers is hard; I have no delusions about that. But that doesn't mean having small children is easy, and it doesn't mean you have to rub it in someone's face even if you believe it is. It's not really fair to do that to people. We don't approach 2nd-graders struggling with math and tell them, "Just wait. This is nothing. College is so much harder. The classes are insane. You'll always be tired and stressed and you never really finish homework because there's so much of it to do." Of course we don't tell them that because, even though college is hard, we don't want to overwhelm them when they still have a lot of learning and growth to go through before they get to that level. Having teenagers is hard, yes, but first let me figure out how to take care of a newborn, then a toddler, then a preschooler, and so on. Don't burden me with "life just gets harder" when I'm already at my wits' end.

People need to feel validated. We need to know there are others who understand our struggles. We need people who can point out the good things but also sympathize and encourage and strengthen when life is hard. Let's have less discouragement and more compassion!

Motherhood and Fulfillment

Today I read this article. It made me think about how I feel about the subject. It's something I've actually been struggling with for quite some time.   

I have wanted to be a mom for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I couldn't wait to get married, have a home of my own, and have littles of my own. It was a dream of mine, and I felt that was what I was made for. Now I have a home of my own, a husband I love, and two daughters I adore. There are a lot of pressures in our society and our cultures surrounding motherhood. There is a "supermom" expectation, a mom who can "do it all" with a smile on her face.

I discovered some things about myself when I became a mother, that goes against the "supermom" ideal. I dislike reading about 95% of children's books. I do not like to plan, prepare, and cook meals. If I home-schooled my children, I think we would all pull our hair out. I have a surprisingly low tolerance for participating in children's songs, games, movies, and TV shows. I love my family, so I still do all those things, albeit less often than others. I just wish I enjoyed those activities more. But my girls and I like to listen to music on the radio and have dance parties. I like to make bows and little-girl dresses, and we all like crafts. I may not like cooking, but we like to eat yummy things together. We like going to the zoo. I'm content with all the "supermom" qualities I do or don't have. I know moms don't have to meet some impossible societal ideal to be a good mom.

I have always heard so many people say that motherhood is the best and most fulfilling thing you can ever do. I've heard it from religious leaders, and I've heard many friends talk about how absolutely fulfilled they feel as a mother. Well, here's my confession: I don't feel fulfilled. I have agonized over this. I feel like a terrible mom and a terrible person that I don't feel fulfilled in what is said to be the greatest, most noble thing I can possibly do in my life. I know being a mom is very important. I know raising my children to be good, righteous, productive, happy people is the most important thing I can be doing right now. (I'm not saying this is what everyone should be doing right now; just speaking for myself, in my own life situation.) I love my children so much and worry about them so much, my heart aches. I love being their mom. I am able to stay home with my children, and I feel that it is best for my family right now for me to do so. My feelings have nothing to do with how other people feel about mothers, or how they feel about mothers staying at home with their children. I have not really been able to figure out why I feel like this.

When I read the article mentioned above, it occurred to me that maybe it's not motherhood I am feeling unfulfilled with, maybe it's my life right now as a whole. Maybe there is something in addition to mothering that I can, or should, be doing right now. Maybe it's ok to develop myself in other ways. There are more things I want to learn. I like to write. I love art, and I'd like to learn to paint. I'd like to learn to cut hair and maybe develop some woodworking skills. I think I'd like Zumba. I'd love to learn to dance more. I'd like to learn some of these things with my husband. There are many other things I'd like to learn and do in my life. I know some people may say that now is not the time or season for me to do anything except be a wife and mom. But I disagree. True, I will not be able to completely focus on other things (outside of my family) at this time in my life. I can, but I just wouldn't. Wifehood and Motherhood is top priority right now, and it takes up the vast majority of my time. Some people have large families and/or truly love cooking meals, reading stories, teaching math and reading, keeping a clean house, and singing Disney songs every day at the top of their lungs with their children. So literally all their time and thoughts and energy go into those things. I applaud those people. Your service is admirable and tremendous. I used to think I'd be one of you. A lot of times, I wish I was. But I am who I am, and I'm learning to evolve and become a better version of myself. And maybe that means developing myself in ways that have nothing to do with my children. But I suspect that when I do, it will make me a better person, a better and happier mom, and I may share some of the things I learn with my children. I may even be able to use some of those things in the service of my children.

My Hard-of-Hearing Life

I am hard-of-hearing. I have a moderate-to-severe hearing loss in both ears. In one ear, certain pitches have to be as loud as a freight train for me to hear it as well as most people do. I wear hearing aids and I generally get along well. I am blessed with parents who handled my disability quite well. They did everything they could to ensure I lived a happy life and had the opportunities that I needed. As a child, I felt normal. I would see someone with serious physical difficulties and think something like, "I'm so grateful I don't have any physical challenges," and then would realize, "Wait...I do...I'm short." Yes, it's pathetic that I would consider a mild height abnormality to be a true physical challenge. But that just goes to show how I thought of my disability. I felt normal enough to forget I had it at times. But it affected my life a lot. It still does. My parents taught me to stand up for myself and to be able to function with this disability in the real world. Because as much as we'd like to think that society, the government, and technology can fix everything and make everything fair, they can't.

Some people are surprised when they find out I'm hard-of-hearing. And I admit I take a little pride in that surprise. I like to think that I've overcome this trial, at least in reference to how I function and live my life. But in truth, it's hard.

There are a lot of consequences of hearing impairment. The most obvious is that I can't hear as well as other people. I have to ask people to repeat what they say. Sometimes I have to ask so much, it gets embarrassing, and everyone gets frustrated, so I just smile and nod.

Hearing impairment is a mostly invisible disability. Even with hearing aids in your ears, people can't always tell that you're hard-of-hearing. When I was in college, I walked to my classes. Every so often, someone on a bike would whiz past me, missing me by inches, then look back and glare at me. I never understood that until one day, my roommate was walking with me and told me that those cyclists (illegally riding on the sidewalks, by the way) would shout out a warning and expect the people in front of them to move out of their way. I never heard those warnings. I am afraid there are other times when people might think I am being rude by "ignoring" them, when I actually can't hear them.

Hearing aids help, but they don't make hearing perfect. Hearing aids don't filter out unwanted noise as well as natural hearing can. When I am in a noisy room, it's like there are microphones placed throughout the room, and all of those microphones are fed into my hearing aids. I can't hear what people are saying across the room; everything just comes in as noise. So even though proximity makes the people right by me slightly easier to hear than others in the room, there is so much noise coming in, it makes it very difficult to hear and figure out what they are saying. The microphone metaphor isn't perfect, but it's the best thing I can come up with to explain how I can't block out, or ignore, background noise very well. For more about what hearing aids are like, read a previous post: http://ashbelle.blogspot.com/2010/01/ears.html

Many people with hearing loss learn to lipread. I taught myself to lipread at a young age, and I still partially rely on it. A lot of people cover their mouth or turn away when they're speaking to you. A fellow hard-of-hearing (former) classmate of mine once told me her own story with lipreading: She was walking beside someone who was talking to her. She had her head turned, lipreading as she was walking. Because of this, she didn't see where she was going and walked right into a pole. She wanted to explain that she wasn't ditzy; she walked into a pole because she was hard-of-hearing. But that doesn't make sense to people. And here's another issue with lipreading: you're watching someone's mouth. That looks weird. When I was a teenager, I loved going to church dances. Most guys I danced with wanted to talk, and because the music was loud, I heavily depended on lipreading. I was always self-conscious of what this looked like. I'm dancing with a guy and watching his mouth. He might think he had something stuck in his teeth. I was more nervous that he thought I wanted to kiss him or something. Fortunately, if anyone ever thought that, they never tried anything.

Hearing loss makes for some other awkward social experiences. When I was younger, a guy came up to me and asked me, "How are you?" Well, it was loud in the room, and I thought he asked, 'How old are you?', and so I answered, "Fifteen." It was only after he gave me a strange look and walked away that I realized what he really said, and being fifteen, I was embarrassed.

While I was growing up, I was quiet and shy, at least at school. My hearing loss didn't help. I desperately wanted to comment in conversations, but I missed so much of it. I was afraid I would say something someone already said, and afraid I misheard something. I couldn't exactly say, "Ok, all ten of you at this lunch table: can everyone talk louder? Because I can't hear." I didn't want so many people to bend over backwards for me, and even if they did, they'd be yelling their personal conversations. Sometimes I would just tune out a conversation altogether because I had to strain to hear what people said, and that gets exhausting after a while.

On a lighter side, my ears hear some pretty funny things. For example, when my husband and I were new to an area, we didn't know people's names yet, so we used descriptions instead. In one instance, my husband referred to a man as "the one with the slicked-back hair." I heard "the one with the slick back-hair." Yikes.

Many of these kinds of things happen to everyone from time to time. But for the hard-of-hearing, it happens all the time. However, I realize I am very blessed. It could be worse, and it is worse for many people. Hearing aids help me tremendously. I live in a time when, although things aren't perfect, people are much more accepting and accommodating of this disability. (It really wasn't that long ago when terrible things were done in an attempt to "make" the hard-of-hearing hear better.) I was able to learn to play the flute in school, and I still enjoy doing so. I got a good education. I have used my experiences with this disability in ways I never imagined I would.

Let's be more aware and understanding! I hope that we can all try to be more compassionate with each other, disability or no disability. We're all struggling with something, and it is often something invisible. I hope that I, and everyone, can be kinder and less quick to judge.

Nutrition: A Complete Guide to Eating Healthy

Here is a list of nutritional information and tips I have learned over the last few years. The information is collected from online and televised news, studies, and different people of varying degrees of knowledge on this subject. (Note: This information is regarding the general population, not individuals with health conditions that require a special diet.)

1. Take vitamins and other supplements, such as iron, vitamin D, and calcium.

2. Don't take vitamins. They will harm you if they do anything at all.

3. Don't eat meat.

4. Not eating any meat is dangerous.

5. Only eat whole grain.

6. Don't eat any grain.

7. Human beings aren't meant to eat meat or grain.

8. It doesn't really matter what you eat. As long as you live long enough to reproduce, you've fulfilled evolutionary requirements.

9. Don't drink juice.

10. Give up milk. 

11. Give up all dairy.

12. Don't eat gluten.

13. Some sugar is ok.

14. Only sugar occurring naturally (i.e., in fruits) is ok. 

15. Don't eat/drink sugar. Use artificial sweeteners.

16. Don't eat/drink sugar. Don't use artificial sweeteners.

17. Use honey as a sweetener. But it has to be a special kind of honey. Or you can use molasses.

18. You should eat fruits and vegetables raw. If you must cook the vegetables, only cook about 10% of your daily vegetables, and only warm them up a little.

19. Only use organic.

20. The things they have to do to the food to make them organic doesn't make them any healthier than the chemicals they use for non-organic.

21. Almost everything you previously thought was healthy actually isn't. In about 4 months, there will be a ground-breaking study denouncing all other food you currently think is healthy.

22. Don't eat processed food.

23. Don't eat anything with ingredients you can't pronounce or don't recognize. 

24. Stay away from corn syrup.

25. Chocolate is good for you.

26. Chocolate is bad for you.

27. Preservatives are good because it keeps food fresh enough to eat. 

28. Preservatives are bad.

29. The only way to truly be safe is to plant and produce your own food. 

30. The government won't let farmers use their own seeds. They make them buy seeds which have who-knows-what growth hormones and alterations in them. Any seeds we have access to possibly have the same contaminants in them.

31. You can eat chicken and eggs, as long as they're from free-range chickens who have had a happy life.

32. Meticulously count calories and fat in everything you eat.

33. Follow the new food-guide pyramid.

34. Don't drink soda. Especially diet, because of the artificial sweeteners.

35. Nuts are good for you.

36. Nuts are bad for you.

37. Pasta gives you energy. 

38. Rice and pasta aren't good for you.

39. Most breakfast cereals aren't good for you.

40. We are fortunate to live in a country with clean water widely available.

41. You need to filter all water. Even bottled water contains impurities. 

So, have fun with these nutritional facts while you plan your next meal. And remember, don't stress! Stress weakens your immune system and you'll get sick!

Please Do Not Touch the Babies

I few months ago, I was sitting in a crowded waiting room of a doctor's office. My baby was fussing, so I took her out of her car seat and held her on my lap. There was a lady in the room who kept smiling and talking to my baby. She was a grandmother who was there with her husband, daughter, and grandson. After a few minutes, she stood up, walked over to me, held her arms out to my baby and said, "Mind if I hold her?" She seemed surprised when I said "I'd rather not, sorry". There have been others I've come across in stores and waiting rooms who have not tried to hold her, but they have no problem sticking their hand in her car seat and touching her feet, her hands, and her cheeks.

You know those signs you see at zoos everywhere that say something like, "Please Don't Feed the Animals"? Because what you feed them, and the amount you feed them, could make them sick, along with the possibility that the animal could try to attack you or bite your hand off if you've got food you're offering them. Well, I think there should be a public service announcement, and signs everywhere that say, "Please Do Not Touch the Babies." (And while we're there, we'll go ahead and add "Please Do Not Feed the Babies and Children" as well, but that's a topic for another time.) And by 'babies', I mean babies that do not belong to you, or at least babies that you do not know. I've found that this act of touching other people's babies is especially prevalent in older generations, ages 60+. Just so you know, I am also generally uncomfortable if strangers touch/pick up my 4-year-old, but this is not a very common occurrence, so I'm focusing on babies for now.

Why do people feel the need to touch strangers' babies?! I mean, I get the appeal. Babies are precious and adorable. I think mine is especially irresistible. But why do people think it's ok? Babies are not public property. This starts before a baby is even born. People cannot keep their hands off of a pregnant woman's belly. Fortunately, I have not personally experienced this, but I know lots of women whose bellies have been touched by mere acquaintances, or even strangers, without permission. Babies are not public property, and neither are women's bodies. 

I am simply uncomfortable with strangers touching my baby. If you really want to, ask. Some people may be ok with it if you ask first. But please don't be surprised or offended if I say I'd rather you didn't. I'm not saying that you look sick or that I think you look like a psychopath. But you are a stranger, and I do not know you. If you're a family member or friend, it's ok to touch my baby. I only expect that you have the common sense to only touch my baby if your hands are clean and you haven't been sick or caring for someone who is sick. It's still a nice touch if you ask first. And please, there is never a reason to ever put your fingers in my baby's mouth, unless she is choking or on the verge of choking. Likewise, if there's an emergency, and you need to touch the baby to save her, by all means, go for it. But as a general rule:

Please Do Not Touch the Babies! 

My Recent Frustrations

-I am soooo emotional with this pregnancy. The smallest things make my facial muscles tense up and my eyes sting, like I'm going to cry. But any time I get emotional, I feel so sick, and crying almost guarantees that I will throw up, or have to work very hard to force myself to stop crying so I don't throw up. I've been on anti-nausea medicine for a week or so, which has been working well, except for when I get emotional. I've gotten emotional with: Christmas songs, sad scenes in movies or on TV, watching the news, hearing people's tough stories...I cannot handle it right now. I've started avoiding these things like crazy.

-I am so irritable. I'm having a hard time with a lot of things....so tired of chores, the endless cycle of cleaning dirty stuff, only to have it get dirty again almost immediately. Washing dishes, putting them away, washing clothes, folding them, putting them away (more like cramming them away, I feel like there's never enough room in our closet/drawers), the constant nagging of ironing clothes and mending clothes (which I know I need to but rarely do), getting stains out. And DIAPERS!!! I'm so exasperated with diapers! I've got a baby on the way, and I'm fine with the fact that I've only got more diapers coming (with this new baby), but my 3-year-old's diapers! Arghhh!!! We've been working on potty-training for a long time, my daughter has done fairly well for a week or so at a time, one time, for like, 3 weeks, she stayed pretty much dry all day long (still wetting night diapers and still taking care of #2 in her diaper/pullup), but I thought we were past that. But NO! She went back to wetting more often during the day. Then, she stopped wiping (without someone telling her to); she'd pee in the toilet and slip off as soon as she was done, which was frustrating.  And now, she has like, completely given up all together. She NEVER uses the potty. I know she knows how to. I've offered incentives that she acts all excited about. She acts like she totally gets it and understands it. But she WON'T use the TOILET!! She will go in her diaper, in her pull-up, in her panties (she'll go all day long in different pairs of panties...she'll go through 5 or more panties a day...she doesn't like being wet, but she's changed right away...I can't let her get pee all over the carpet, furniture, etc), and she'll go au naturel. Lots of people swear by letting their kid run around with nothing on. It worked one time. My daughter said, "I have to go potty! No diaper on!" But other than that, it didn't work. She'd just stand in a puddle going, "uh-oh" and do it again. She's even gone #2 while standing up, with nothing on, standing on the carpet. That was not a good day. I've tried keeping her on the potty for a long time. She won't go, but then she'll mess up her diaper/pull-up/panty as soon as she gets it on again. I've tried sitting her on the toilet frequently. She has a princess potty seat that we put on top of a regular toilet (although she's used a toilet successfully without one on, both at home, and in public), but I have REFUSED to get her a mini, portable potty that sits on the floor. If they're potty-trained just with the mini-one, that's NOT potty-trained. I don't want her to take that thing all over the house. That's no different that just wearing a diaper, and that is DISGUSTING to clean up. I could just limit it where the thing HAS to be in the bathroom at all times, but I still don't see how that's any better than just going in a diaper. At least you can just trash an icky diaper. To me, the mini potty just adds an unnecessary and disgusting step to being potty-trained. Anything I've read, and the only thing I can come up with now, is we just need to wait. Wait until she decides she's done with diapers. I remember being really hesitant to do new things when I was little. Apparently, I was a nightmare to potty-train too, although I don't think I was this bad. But what I don't get is that she's done this before (she's never really done poo in the potty, but she has with pee). I know she can do it because she's gone through periods of staying dry before. Soo frustrating.

-I got married 2 weeks after I turned 20. Had my first child 2 years later. Can't say I'd do it any differently if I could do it all over again, but lately I've been having a lot of "what-if" thoughts. My whole life, I thought that being a wife and mom (furthermore, a housewife, and a stay-at-home mom) would be my thing. I felt like I was MADE for those roles, and that I'd fit in so comfortably, and would so enjoy life when that time came. Sigh. Let's just say that's not how I'm feeling now that that IS my life. I mean, I love my family, and I'm glad I can stay home and take care of my child during the day, but when I see pictures of someone's wonderful European vacation, and I'm at home with the theme song of "Busytown" (a cartoon) stuck in my head...it's hard.

-I hate school. I HATE school. I hated school, and I still hate school. Technically, I don't have to deal with school right now. My husband and I both graduated college, him with a master's degree. And my daughter is only 3 and I haven't bothered with preschool. But my husband has all these tests and extra stuff to do as part of his career, so he's got to spend so much time studying outside of his work hours. And I just found out that if my daughter starts Kindergarten here, she can start fall of 2013. In a year and a half. I thought I had 2 1/2 years left til that happened. So, between all that, I feel like I am never going to get a break from being involved with school. Oh, I hate school. I hate how much time it takes out of each day, even for very young kids, not to mention that transportation to and from school (here, they bus kids all over the city so that each school is "diversified" or something), and the homework. I did well in school. I was well-behaved, though very quiet and shy. I got into, and graduated from, a good university. I like the having done it. But I did not like the doing it. I could have made much better grades in college, I think. If I had felt compelled to study and work at it more than I did. But I HATED it. Few people actually ENJOY studying, but I seriously hated it and was repulsed by it. College was better than high school. It was more of the college life and the freedom I enjoyed. It's not like I did crazy things with the freedom. I just liked being on my own, arranging my own life, more or less. Not being under the constant eye of authority. Had I had a different high school experience, I might not be so hateful toward school, I suppose. But I lived in an area where they had to be really strict to keep the school from falling into a truly scary place, from being a really "bad" school, like most of the schools in the next county were. But I remember not liking school when I was younger (ok, not many little kids like school, but still). In Kindergarten, my mom and I had this routine every single day on the way to school. I would say/whine/cry, "I don't want to go to school, I don't want to go to school!" And my mom would reply each time in a sing-song voice, "But you have to go to school, because that is the rule" And I only went to Kindergarten a couple hours a day, just a few days a week. I did have some good teachers throughout the years. Teachers who were inspiring, and who kept me going, kept me from insanity. And I am very grateful for them. I don't know what my perfect solution would be. Education is important. And I think kids should go to school, as opposed to like, homeschooling, in most situations, for the social and real-life experience. But I hate the politics. I hate the way it can take over your life, even when you're not necessarily trying to be the best at everything. I don't like the useless and busy work. I don't like how some teaching procedures work, how, especially in math, kids have to do things a certain way. Sometimes we'd have to show our work, show how we figured it out, but we had to do it a certain way. Husband says I need to stop saying that I hate school, and I know I do. My daughter doesn't need to hear that. She's already genetically predisposed to dislike school; hearing it from mom all the time isn't going to help. I've got to figure out some way to cope. All I can say is, I really hope she likes it more than I did. Because, if ever she comes up to me and says she really doesn't want to go to school that day, especially if that statement involves tears, I'm gonna have a realllly hard time encouraging her to go, and not saying every time, "Oh, it's ok, sweetheart, you can stay home with Mommy today!"