PARENTING April 23, 2001 Issue

Do it with love or don't do it ... with love

By Madora Mckenzie Kibbe

A Very Wise Person I used to know had a habit of saying, "The trouble with life is, it's soooo daily!" I have to agree it most certainly is, and it's double daily when you're a parent with school-age children. (There are plenty of "daily" problems for parents of preschoolers and parents of grown-up kids, but that's another article or two.)

Every day it's the same old stuff—getting the kids to school on time, making sure they do their homework, making sure they don't lose their homework, asking them to pick up their rooms, to feed the dogs or bird or cat, to please not fight with each other, to please practice the piano (or violin, flute, saxophone, you fill in the instrument). As they used to say on Seinfeld, it's a whole lot of yada yada yada. Factor in the ever-present element of rushing around that underscores this modern life, and what you end up with is a perfect recipe for stress and mess.

Or do you? Not necessarily. I may not always act like I know, but I do know that what really matters is not the circumstance. It's my attitude. How I respond to a situation can change things—for better or worse. So when things get out of whack in my house (and they do on a fairly regular basis), I remember something another wise person, who happens to be my mother, used to say when I was growing up, and still says today.

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life, Soul side
April 23, 2001
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