"Mommy"! Who said that?

By Crystal Laramore

Edited by Deborah K. Martin

This whole "Bam! you’re the proud new mother of a 6 year old at the age of 45" is taking it’s toll on me and my friends and the school system and last but not least the poor, poor 6 year-old. My husband seems to be taking it well; which should give us all reason to pause…

Does it mean you’re a bad parent if you drop your child off at school on a teacher In-Service day? What about if you get really mad at the “system” cuz the school called you last-minute to tell you that you have 70 lbs of cookie dough to pick up by 7 pm-“That’s it? No notice? No reminder?” and you’re in a business meeting in Houston; then you find the notice/reminder a few days later under your car seat with peanut butter on it? "Honey, can you cancel that appt. we had with LaTonya Goffney on Tuesday?"

How about if you send your child off to school with crooked pig tails? Socks that don’t match? Scratches under her eyes from the puppies-no, I swear!

Isn’t it great that children are resilient and bounce back from most things we do to screw them up as a child??? Maybe that’s why God makes our memory so crappy before the age of about 10. God knows.

Seriously, it’s a good thing that I KNOW the teachers and the administration at my stepdaughter's school. At least they know I don’t MEAN to be a horrible parent. At least they are willing to teach me that I have to help her with her homework when she first comes in from school while it’s still fresh in her mind and she has energy & an attention span farther than 22 seconds or until she hears the puppies barking; not at 6:55 in the morning right before we rush her to get ready and rush her out the door with crooked pig tails to have breakfast at school cuz we’re too crazed to make her breakfast soooo early in the morning and oh! Great Scott! Thank the good Lord they make it at school!

We do allow her to have coffee with us though. What?

Oh good gosh not really, we give her chocolate milk. I swear! Everyone knows sugar is totally better for a child than caffeine"??!!

And about the whole helping her with her homework thing Mrs. Rouswald, we didn't even know she HAD homework for several weeks. We thought kindergartners finger-painted. We didn't realize they were beginning to READ at that age! It's been such a long time since we were in grade K we forgot how to spell it. So, if our child is ever failing, please inform us because it's probably OUR fault! She’s probably told us to do something and we’ve ignored the silly 6 year old.

Like the first 3 times she brought home the copy of the lunch menu for the month I threw it away b/c it wasn’t pretty enough to go on the fridge - like the 6 year old said it should. Well, the 6 year old should have told the 45 year old it had the in-service days on it and the ice cream and slushy days on it and when the cookie dough will be in day marked, and when award day is-we missed award day! But nooooo, we’ve taught her to not argue with our authority. Tsk. We were soooo surprised when she came home with an award. I thought the “Food” calendar just had who was eating what & when on it. New parents don’t realize the global importance of the monthly food menu! To NOT look at one is to NOT want your child to succeed!

Look people, before I met/married my wonderful husband I was a night owl. I stayed up till 2 or 3 am and woke up around 10 or 11 am. I read period pieces, not "I said I see Sam". I may or may not get dressed for work during the week cuz no one can see me doing computer work. I lived on-site and only had to walk 10 paces to work. Now, I’m up between 5:30 & 6:00 and have made and drank 2 cups of coffee by 6:30. By 7:15 I have a lot of chores finished including getting a 6 year old ready for school (did she brush her teeth this morning?) and a 45 year-old (me) ready for work. Each takes the same amount of energy. The 52 year old can, by the grace of God, get himself ready. By the time I get to work, which is 7 miles away now and I do indeed drive, I need a nap. I'm exhausted!

And is it so bad that we get Spirit day and the other day (see, I don’t even know the names of all the days) mixed up? Wednesdays we know its green t-shirt day and Friday is red-t-shirt day and most of the time we get THAT right; isn’t that enough? And I think the school system has dealt with parents like us before and that is why they pick our child’s clothes 2 days out of the week FOR US!

Speaking of colors, why didn't someone tell me a blue smiley face was worse than a green one? I thought a smiley face was universally good and all the different colors were pretty.

Here's another thing - why does a 6 year old get “projects” WE have to do??? Don’t WE pay THEM to teach our child? Our child’s parents are old. WE don’t have energy or an attention span after 4:30 pm either. It takes all the energy my husband has to turn off the football game every Monday night.

And if bed-time is 8:30 and the Wizard of Oz doesn't come on until 7:00 and Dorothy hasn’t clicked her freaking heels yet-what then???? Shouldn’t Disney have a policy about what time kids’ shows start? We could barely get her out of bed this morning and she was mad at US! Like we own Disney or something…wait, are they publicly traded?

Sophie’s story: It's not a "good parent" story; it's a "good child" story. Sometimes these things DO happen. It'll give you hope. When her baby boy was about 10 (btw, he teaches pre-calculus and statistics in high school now so that should give you some clue as to how many cheery brain cells HE has), she and her husband were at a gathering of parents in the home of one of his classmates. The classmate in question wandered through the living room and his dad said something like, "Johnny, don't take too long. You know you've got to finish that big project. It's due tomorrow!"

Sophia and her then husband looked at each other & said “What project”? Their over-achieving child looked quizzically at them and said, "Oh yeah. I turned that in days ago." And so went HIS school years. We should all be so lucky as to get a kid like that. Miracles DO happen in the parenting world.

In the mean-time, this parent will try to remember (after 3 mos of school) to give her child a dollar on Wednesdays and Fridays for a slushy and/or ice cream and be grateful that she has better manners than Kanye and doesn't interrupt when someone is getting an award, even if her parents aren’t there!

p.s. I just found out that slushy day is Tuesday...NOT Wednesday…



www.thedamgoodtimes.blogspot.com

www.sexinthewoods.blogspot.com

Become a follower!

Generation WTF?

by Crystal Laramore & Deborah Martin

This story is graphic.

As usual, I watched a taped show of one of my favorite investigative shows this weekend. What was unusual was my response to the show. I watched it Sunday night and I’m still reeling from the story. As the story goes there was a young female college freshman at the age of 17 boozing and carrying on at a big party. So far, so what? Then the young girl takes a pill called ecstasy or X for short. Here’s where the fun begins! The pill makes you feel extra special sexy/sexual. Hmmm. Does a 17 year old female REALLY need a pill for that? Anyway, the pill apparently taught her how to give lap dances. She was drunk and on pills and giving a boy she liked a lap dance.

She told him she wanted to have sex with him. He was probably drinking too, whatcha think? Sometime during all the sexually charged moments they decided, or someone decided for them, they should go to a bedroom. So far I’m not pissed off…but then as the story goes, TEN of his friends go with them into the bedroom. The boy who was the object of the girl’s affection is trying to have sex but gets sick and vomits on her face. She doesn’t really care because she is passed out. Her pants are off but she is dressed other than that. Her underwear is wrapped around her ankle and the boys are lined up to take their turn since their buddy has passed out and cannot finish the job. NOW I’m pissed off!

You tell me where any of this is acceptable starting at TEN of his friends followed them into the bedroom? I don’t care if the young girl was dancing NAKED (which she was not) in front of the boy she liked and I don’t care if he didn’t even like her back-it is UNACCEPTABLE for young men, old men or boys to have sex with a girl who does NOT want to, cannot defend herself, is passed out, under-age, asleep, drugged or whatever adjective you put here. The only time it is acceptable for a male to have sex with a female is when she WANTS him to; when she CONSENTS. Just b/c she is UNABLE to say no does NOT mean she said YES.

Not only were they taking turns having sex with her they were taking turns doing other things at the same time as well. It sickens me. It makes me sad. It pisses me off.

How have we sunk so low as a society that young men think this is acceptable behavior? Where are these boys parents? I've said this before: in all our liberation and tolerance we've lost some very important character traits like honesty and integrity. We've not only lost the ability to refrain from doing what's wrong but also the courage to stand UP for what's right!

I long for the days when a man considered it his job and privilege to protect others. I long for the days when a man actually thought it was MANly to protect a WOman; rib of his ribs. Now, don't get me wrong here. We women can and DO protect ourselves most of the time. But the young woman in this situation was passed OUT and therefore helpless. Where were the boys who would defend this young woman drugged without her knowledge, rendering her incapable of saying NO, not only to her young man but to 10 of his buddies? Are you telling me that not ONE of those young men recognized this situation for what it was? A gang rape.

Why was it left to 3 young women to stop these guys and rescue the girl? These women weren't even friends of hers but they had the courage to break down a door and confront almost a dozen horny, drunken young men!!! Where were the MEN in this situation. I wouldn't call the nearly dozen toads in the room men. REAL men don't stand for the mistreatment of women. Or children. Or old people. Or the mentally or physically impaired. REAL men respect others. In ALL situations.

And someone please, please, please tell me the logic or justice in not charging the three worms who actually ended up raping this helpless girl? Because the young girl couldn't remember the incident? If they'd murdered her she wouldn't remember that either. Call me silly, but I don't see a whole lot of difference here. There were WITNESSES!!!! They could testify to the act, couldn't they? Are we saying now that because she's passed out she's given her consent to whatever happens to her while she's passed out? Not only is that not logical or reasonable - it is inSANE!!!

The Sheriff in this town is a female and she took her evidence to the DA who is also a female. The DA said b/c the young 17 year-old girl could not remember the incident (mabye b/c her blood alcohol level was almost .3) there was not enough evidence to bring it to a grand jury. Really? Wow! If we cannot even get WOMEN to grasp the horror of such acts why should we expect men to? If we cannot as women and sisters of women NOT condone this behaviour, punish this behavior and scream to the top of our lungs that this is unacceptable, then who?

What kind of parents did these kids have anyway? I find it hard to believe that good old mom and dad told little Johnnie that this kind of behavior was A-OK. I'm so angry and disheartened about what this says about our society that I can hardly see straight. I'm certain my blood pressure is up there!

Fathers: Listen to us, hear our hearts; you should be teaching your sons to be our protectors not our predators! My father would call the police and have my brothers arrested himself if they were ever involved in anything like this!

The next part that really angers me is that the mothers of the boys defended them. ARE YOU SERIOUS???? Those boys should have kept it from happening instead of encouraging it and then participating in it.

Parents: Booze, drugs, women, groups = gang mentality

Testosterone is a powerful chemical and when you mix it with booze and drugs it is often dangerous, as dangerous as the booze and the pills...

Parents: YOUR children WILL do these things unless YOU teach them not to.