Tips from the Trenches: A Guide to Practical Parenting

Depressing, but true. Turns out I was WAY off on the sock poll. Substantially more participants surveyed (a shocking 83%)  thought that it was more important for socks to be clean on the outside than on the inside.

Since I was the only person who voted for "clean on the inside", it appears I'm in the need of a major paradigm shift in my "beauty's only skin deep" philosophy. Crap...I guess it's time to start showering at the beginning of the day. (Or just make a bunch of new friends...that might be easier, actually.)

I was rushing to get ready the other day when Emma came up to me and said, "When I grow-up, I'm going to be a fairy."

In a very atypical response, I said, "That would be fun, but you have to be born a fairy to be a fairy."

Emma burst into tears. I wanted to kick myself. Why would I disagree when I usually play along? Who knows?

Nice work, Mommy.

Then, as I always do when I devastate my children's dreams, I started thinking (read: "justifying") about my actions and I realized that it is important to know that everyone is different. Some people can fly around with disproportionately small wings, others can, well, not.

We can't all be fairies. Like it or not, there is a glass ceiling and it is never too soon to learn about how it works. At least half of the population will not break through this ceiling to become a real live fairy. And, if they do manage to break through, they will probably lose a lot of blood, get shoddy medical care, and die before their time. So really, I'm just saving my daughter from a fate worse than death and giving her a lesson in what it means to be a woman in this day and age. Go, me!