The "FU 40s"

A lot of my blogs tend to lean towards the humorous realm. This is not one of those blogs. If you prefer the lighter side of life, and don't want to hear me vent/bitch, please jump to a different place on the Web NOW....

The title of this is kind of interesting, huh? I was reading a great book yesterday about women reinventing themselves at midlife (which, in this book, is defined as 50- some good news for me, I guess!). The 50s are defined as the "FU 50s" because the author contends that around this point in our lives as women, we feel freer being who we are/saying what we believe (less pressure to please and adapt to the 'status quo'). After the experience that I had yesterday, I've decided to (once again) be the "Queen of Early", and adapt this philosophy towards my newly-entered 40s. Here's the 'backstory' on how this great epiphany came about...

My daughter was sitting at the table eating her afternoon snack, and just seemed to be a bit off. I asked her what was up, and she informed me that a certain sub-set of her peers /parents find me "weird". Having the sense of humor that I do, and my penchant for Austin Powers-type movies, I was like, "Yeah.... DUH!" Well, apparently my "weirdness" goes beyond that; apparently, I am pretty off-the-mark in my parenting skills! Here are my shortcomings, in no particular order: 1) I am hyper about my child being sunscreened (the child has ALBINISM for heaven's sake!), 2) I won't let my child don a bikini (I am trying to teach the kid modesty; would the women who walk around wearing one of those walk around in public wearing their underwear and a bra???? I think NOT..), 3) While I expect my daughter to initiate/create her own plans, I feel it's reasonable to touch base with the other parent(s) about 'housekeeping details' (pick-up times/supervision/etc), and 4) I will not let my daughter have a Facebook Page (heck, even FB won't let kids under the age of 13 sign up, unless, of course, they lie about their ages...). Yep, I'm a pretty crummy/'weird' parent....

When I was in elementary school/middle school/high school and college, I had some great female friends. I also met a lot of really cool friends out in the "working world". It wasn't until I became a parent that the "shit hit the fan" with other women friends; or shall I say more accurately, "Mommy Friends" (the mothers of your daughter's friends). When my daughter was a very young baby, I had a pretty hard adjustment to parenthood; the sleep deprivation just utterly kicked my butt. As soon as the sleep situation improved, my daughter was given a serious (at the time) diagnosis, that would have our family unclear of the outcome for a number of years. This was a time when I really needed my friends. Unfortunately during that lovely period,
a lot of women I believed to be friends criticized me behind my back, and those friendships blew up. Boy was that an unpleasant eye-opener! A couple of years later, when my daughter was in elementary school, she was placed in a classroom with a special needs child, whose mother was a pretty active PTA member. That mother had the expectation that my daughter would be responsible for constantly hanging out with her daughter (who had issues with social behaviors, unaddressed by any of the adults in the picture). Every time my daughter tried to pursue new friendships, and nicely told the other girl that she wanted to play with someone else at the moment, the "mommy recess aides" would require my daughter to be trailed by this other child. Feeling that issues should be dealt with at the source, I spoke about this with the girl's mother (thinking that we were at least "Mommy Friends"). To put it nicely, the other mother did not appreciate me coming to her directly/honestly to try to resolve things. For the next three years at that elementary school, other mothers who had previously spoken to me/had playdates would no longer speak to me, or acknowledge my daughter's phone invitations to their daughters for playdates. Nice...

Yesterday's discussion put my emotions right back to where they were all those years ago. If some adult has an issue with the way that I parent, it seems to me that she should either have the character to come to me directly to discuss it, or just keep it to herself. Telling her daughter her "opinions", while telling her kid not to tell mine (yeah, right!) is pretty hurtful. When my husband came home from work last night, we talked about this for awhile. When we went down to talk with our daughter about it, my husband really earned some bonus points; he told our daughter that if that kid/parent was criticizing me, they were actually criticizing BOTH him and me, because we are a parenting team (LOVE that guy!). It was a pretty amazing dinnertime discussion, as our daughter really listened to what we were saying, and started to think a bit more critically about what her friends/friends' parents were saying about our family. Nice to know that something really great came out of something that started out pretty badly...

So...back to the whole point about the "FU 40s".... The big mental/emotional challenge for me today was to decide how to react to this whole thing. My traditional response would have been to simply 'hermitize' myself, and just go underground for awhile. Instead, however, I have come to the decision that I am comfortable with how I am raising my child. My home/family mean everything to me, and I love to share both with people who enjoy/appreciate them. We are what we are, and who we are, around here; no more apologies! May I raise my glass of Evian to you, the "FU 40s"!!!!!