Mean Girls and Mama Bears: How To Know When To Step In

It's been a few days since my Kindergartner came home from school in a huff. She had a horrible day. Everyone was mean to her and everything was terrible and nothing was good and the world was probably going to end. As a longtime sufferer of anxiety, I saw myself in those little eyes, and I struggled to find a way to make her feel better. 

As parents, our first job is to keep our kids alive. That's hard enough. Then, it's to help them grow up and be good people. For me, this is truly the hardest thing. How do you make a good person? Teach them to be kind, to be empathetic, to care for those around them. And teach them to handle the people in their lives that aren't good people.

In this case, one girl specifically has been saying unkind things to my daughter. No she's not threatening to kill her. But what she is doing is hurtful. Can a mean little Kindergartener be bad? Innately cruel? I don't know, I don't think so really. But in this case, this little girl certainly knows how to hurt feelings. She knows how to say things that cause pain, and she knows if she does it repeatedly it will stick.

So what do I do? My first instinct is to run over to that school and drop-kick that little kid. But of course I'm not going to do that. I talked to my daughter about it. I told her to stand up for herself, and to walk away if she needs to, and to tell a grown up if it keeps happening. I told her that I love her, and her whole family loves her and she is awesome and wonderful and that what this little girl is saying isn't true. 

But then I did something else. I emailed the teacher too. I just wanted to see if she had observed this situation and whether or not there were additional circumstances I wasn't aware of. What if my daughter was also participating int his behavior, and not telling me? What if there is more to the situation? I trust my girls - trust them to be good people and trust them to handle their own problems. But it's hard to get a full story from a 5 year-old, so I thought it was worth asking about. Turns out I was right to ask, and hopefully I handled it in a way that was not pushy or annoying to her teacher. No, the problem isn't solved. But I'd say it's on its way to resolving itself. 

Almost every day, your child will encounter some challenge or another. How do you know when to step in? My parenting philosophy is "Trust your kids, and then trust your gut." The rest is a crapshoot. 

What Makes You Think You're a Writer?

There are writers, and then there are writers.

You know, the real kind. The kind that write incredible novels, or screenplays, or tomes on the future of technology. 

I write a mommy blog. I write website copy for my clients. I write press releases, and white papers and bylines and sometimes I even write thought pieces on expectations of women in motherhood.

But rarely, very rarely, do I refer to myself as a writer. 

Instead, I say I'm a communications consultant. Or that I do PR. Sometimes I say I'm a mommy blogger, but only in the right company, because you know, people are assholes about mommy bloggers. 

But if I look at everything I do, and everything I love and care about, it comes back to my love of the written word. I am a WRITER. Why am I so afraid to say it then?

Is it because I don't, like Ernest Hemingway did, sit down every day with a pencil and write one true sentence? 

Is it because I don't, like Stephen King does, sit down every day and bust out 10 pages? 

Is it because I don't, like Virginia Woolf did, spend two hours every morning writing? 

Is it because some days, lots of days, I don't even write? 

No. I write every single day. It's just that lots of days, what I write is, well, it's boring. You might say dry. I enjoy what I do as much as the next technology geek, but sometimes you have to admit, the average Joe isn't exactly yearning to read about mobile phone app usage. Or my grocery list. Or the cover letter I helped my sister write.

So is it what you write about then that makes you a writer? Am I comparing myself to lots of dead white men (some alive, ok) who are granted, wonderful writers, but don't occupy the same space in the world that I do? Or fiction greats to whom I couldn't ever possibly compare?

Is it because I don't have the confidence to say I'm a writer?

I am a woman. I am a professional, and a mom, and I watch The Good Wife on TV. I spend my days obsessing over work, whether my kids are happy, and trying to squeeze in time to walk the dog. I sit on conference calls and shop online all while eating lunch and thinking about what I should cook for dinner. 

I do all of these things, and all the while I write.

I may not be Virginia Woolf, or even Jennifer Weiner. But here I am writing, today at least. 

That's what makes me think I'm a writer.