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Entering the World of Beauty Pageants

Last year my daughter came to me and said she decided she wanted to get more involved in school and do more than just dance team. She wanted to participate in the school’s beauty pageant.

This caught me totally by surprise. A beauty pageant?!!!???

I’ve long held the idea that my daughter could have modeled throughout her childhood. She’s beautiful and I’ve had plenty of people confirm that. But while I have flirted with the idea, I’ve also shied away from it and the larger beauty industry.

Beauty pageants to me, demonstrate some of the worst ideas of our society: Let’s judge people on their beauty or lack thereof and even rank them so that they know they don’t measure up. Even more, let’s show them that beauty only exists with this one style or look. This is something I have fought against my entire life. Why would I want my daughter to go up on a stage and be exposed to that kind of judgment?

I agreed to let her do the beauty pageant with misgivings. And when I found out more about the beauty pageant, my misgivings increased. They would be judged on their looks only, as they walked across the stage and posed for the judges, their accomplishments were read off. There was no talent competition where a girl could at least show off what she was good at. There were no questions where a girl could show off her intellect. Looks and their ability to walk across the stage in a fancy dress and heels was what it came down to.

I went to the pageant night with trepidation. I worried about what my daughter’s feelings would be when it was all over. She’s VERY competitive.

Was it all bad? No.

I was proud of the courage she had to even do this in the first place. I was stunned at the beautiful self-confidence and self-possession my daughter had as she walked across the stage. But even better than that? She was proud of herself and had fun. I was proud of her for not being afraid to try something new and being willing to stand up in front of people and be judged.

Did it change my ideas of the world beauty pageants? Not really.

But it was an experience I don’t regret for either of us. And it’s a good thing, as she’s going to do it again this year.

Making Peace With Not Getting A Hallmark Ending

We all want a Hallmark movie ending. Sometimes though, it’s not in the cards.

Days before Christmas Day 2021 my last grandparent died. It was my maternal grandmother. The weekend before, I had tried to go and see her as we knew she wasn’t going to last much longer. I bought the plane tickets and reserved a car.

But I was given the message she was refusing to see me and if I showed up at the nursing home I would be turned away.

To my knowledge, I’d never done anything that would warrant this. I felt hurt and conflicted. I wanted the chance to say goodbye and this would be my only chance. Grandma was leaving instructions that there was to be no funeral, no graveside service. No gathering of any kind.

The truth is, my grandma was difficult in many ways. Many of my siblings have had no relationship at all with her because she couldn’t be bothered to have a relationship with them and show up. Some only saw her once, at our brother’s funeral. As the oldest grandchild, I had more of a relationship with her than most. But even for me, she couldn’t be bothered to show up for my wedding.

There are good memories too.

When I was a little girl, it was my grandma who showed me the world of books. She and her husband had previously owned a used book store that closed, and many of the books found a home in their home. Every wall in their house was lined with books. Every time Grandma came to visit she brought boxes of books. I was a struggling reader. She shared Nancy Drew books with me and I was hooked for life. Nancy Drew was eventually followed by Agatha Christie and then I moved on to biographies.

To this day, one of my greatest joys is a good book. It brings me so much happiness. Reading has opened new avenues and ways of thinking, helped me dream and move forward in life, and escape for a few hours when life becomes too much. It’s one of the greatest gifts she gave me.

I didn’t get a Hallmark movie ending with my grandmother.

A lot of times with family we don’t.

So what do we do when that happens?

We take the time to mourn the relationship that never was and then recognize the good things that the relationship brought us. Even in the worst ones, there’s something. My grandmother’s refusal to see me? It reemphasized how I did not want to be a grandmother like her should I ever become one. It made me hold my kids closer.

I’m grateful for that reminder even if …

I didn’t get the closure I wanted.

Our relationship was strained.

I was left fumbling around with grief I didn’t know what to do with.

My Greatest Hope and My Greatest Fear

“Two and one half years.

That’s the amount of time I have left until my son turns 18. Every time I think about it, terror grips my heart.”

Am I Allowed to Fail As A Mother?

As a mother,

As a person,

Am I allowed to fail?

Just once?

Only in one area?

Only on Tuesdays?

What are the rules?

Can someone please tell me?

I thought when we made it successfully through a school year last year, we were okay, despite the masks. This year, we made it 2 weeks into the school year before the High School shut down to quarantine all students.

Meanwhile, I’m back at work for the first time in 12 years and I’m getting emails from teachers complaining because my child isn’t logging on to the Zoom classes. He hasn’t had access to the internet except for school all week, but he doesn’t seem to care.

This week I have failed as a mother.

My child hasn’t gotten dressed and showered on time. Some days, I’m not sure he showered. His version of an essay is one sentence with zero punctuation this week. I’ve only looked at his work a couple times to check that he has done it. I work all day and have been working overtime to deal with our company’s response to COVID, and that is taxing. I’m single parenting because my husband’s away for a few months with this job undergoing training that is extremely stressful for him.

And so, I failed as a mother this week.

My kids have raided the fridge, wandered around in clothes that I’m not sure when they were last washed, with my son skipping school assignments he will have to make up later. Meanwhile, I’m getting upset texts from teachers and I might have bought all the Snickers bars from the vending machine at work.

This week, I failed as a mother.

But there’s always next week.

Why We Say No To Slumber Parties

I had a unique slumber party when I was probably 10 or 11, compared to a lot of other slumber parties. My family owned a small motel. I was able to invite about 10 girls over for a slumber party in one of our motel rooms, sans chaperones. We spent the night binging on tv and snacks and at one point after midnight, snuck out down the street for a bit. If my parents only knew. . .

But not all slumber parties are fun.

Not all slumber parties end well.

I overheard girls talking about me and others when they thought I was asleep. It wasn’t kind.

Generally, it has been our practice not to allow our kids to have, or participate in sleepovers.

My number one reason?

I was going to say-

Because kids are a complete mess the next morning from not sleeping the night before. I’m all for my kids having fun and spending time with friends. Dealing with the aftermath of not enough sleep.

But the real reason is safety.

Graffiti on a wall with a picture of a girl and the words rescue me — Image by Eduardo Davad from Pixabay

Did you know that most children who are trafficked in the U.S. are trafficked not by a stranger but by a family member or someone they know?

At slumber parties things get tried for the first time- pills, alcohol, smoking, touching, and experimenting.

My kids will make choices.

But I want to make sure that they are old enough to understand the choices and the consequences they are making. I don’t think it’s fair to make them deal with circumstances they aren’t ready to deal with.

Am I sheltering my children?

Maybe.

But I also know that the longer they go without smoking, the less likely it is they will ever smoke.

The longer they go without drinking, doing drugs, the less likely this is going to be a problem for them. Not that they won’t ever try them, because they might. But the longer it is that they don’t, the better.

My children are totally capable of making mistakes and do frequently. So do I for that matter.

Giving them the time to figure out how they feel about things, to learn the information for themselves, and give them a chance to see others making mistakes is priceless. So I’m going to keep sheltering my children for a little while longer while giving them freedoms to choose that I feel are appropriate.

What if This is the Best He Can Do

“What if this is the best he can do?”

This question haunts me. Read more. . .

A Special Needs Parent’s IEP

“. . .what I had essentially done was to write my own IEP for school. These were all things I was working on that will help me succeed.”
Read more. . .

Anxiety Tries To Take Command!

“We just bought a house!
We had no sooner signed the papers on our very first home of our own when it started. Persistent thoughts of- “We can’t afford this.” “Someone is going to come take it away.” “You can’t do this!”
All lies. Big huge lies my brain was telling me.” Read more. . .

The Root Cause of Anger is Fear

“Recently, I heard someone say that “The root cause of anger is fear”. That made me sit up and ponder. I needed to think about this. That’s an interesting concept. Do I agree with that statement?… was there research to back it up?” Read more…