Tales from a Mid-Lifer

Tag: Parenting

  • The Ducks Will Follow

    Walking through my favorite local park, I stopped to watch a Mama duck cross my path with her four offspring. The waddling brood weren’t babies and they weren’t fully grown, so I immediately identified them as “teenage” ducks. Three of them followed the Mama in a perfectly straight line, stopping…

  • Paying for Other’s Bad Behavior Is Making Me a Little Cranky

    Now in my mid 40’s, I’ve officially experienced enough of life where paying (in time or money) for other people’s bad behavior, no-show tendencies, and last-minute procrastination is making me cranky. Over my adult life, when I or my kids have received unfair treatment, I’ve definitely handled it firmly, but…

  • The TV Show The Middle is Funny. Everything Else “Middle”… Not So Much.

    Sure we all like the show The Middle.    But I like little else involving “The Middle”. How about you? Middle Age is surprisingly everything everyone older than me said it was. There really are aches and pains when you wake up in the morning. You really do notice that…

  • 3 Teenagers with 97 Practices and 68 Games – In 60 days.

    My girls each play one fall sport and my son plays two. Since he has a lighter ice hockey schedule this year, he joined Varsity soccer as a second sport. The above title does not include Saturday morning recreational soccer games for my oldest two. And, lest you judge us…

  • Getting Ahead or Enjoying the Moment?

    Recently, my daughter had her very first job interview.  After we decided on her outfit and printed a copy of her resume, I wondered if they’d offer a 401K plan.  Although utterly absurd, the thought really did cross my mind.  While I should have been enjoying the moment, I zeroed…

  • Is College Worth It?

    There are two dominant themes throughout the book Is College Worth It? by William J. Bennett and David Wilezol:  1) overpriced higher education and 2) considering the heights of underemployment and unemployment currently rampant among recent college graduates – a questionable return on students’ investment. Bennett and Wilezol provide an…

  • My Empty-Bucket List

    For many years, I’ve conducted an activity with my college students, asking them to create their own version of the famous “Bucket List”.  I warn them that the list should not include professional goals necessarily, but rather focus upon the “really neat”, “exciting”, “extraordinary”, places, events, activities, etc., that they…

  • My face through my son’s hockey helmet…

    My son’s wide, blue eyes beamed through the cage of his hockey helmet, and I noticed he was really looking at me.  I was standing over him in the Emergency Room, as he lay on a stretcher, still in full uniform from the concussion he suffered an hour earlier.  He…

  • Moms of Teen Boys: Be Encouraged!

    I got longer than most Moms.  More hugs, more “I love you’s”, more devotion from my son than any other Mom I know.  That was, until he turned 14 years and two months old.  In one overnight sleep from Tuesday to Wednesday, an uneventful week by anyone’s standards, my son…

  • Desensitize my Kids?!

    I was participating in a women’s prayer meeting at a church where I was relatively new. Until that day, I regularly offered prayer for others, but rarely requested any for myself.  As my children began Middle School, I realized that it would take the proverbial village to protect my kids…

  • Is It Fair That We Are Judged By How We Look?

    This is a question that I have asked my college students over the years.  Inevitably, they will argue that it is absolutely “not fair!” and without my intervention, end up sharing countless examples of when they, themselves immediately judged by physical appearance.  Therefore, determining that while “unfair”, it is unequivocally,…

  • Post Vacation Reality Check

    I had just survived a 22-hour car ride home with three teenagers in the backseat.  My bottom surely expanded another two inches from the countless hours of idleness.  Despite these truths and the annoying grunting by my family as they finally exited the minivan, I was mentally renewed, well-rested and…