Not A Hipster Mom

* Disclaimer: I use the term “working mom” to mean a woman who works a second full-time job in addition to the 24-7 job that is being a mother. My intention is not to say that stay-at-home-moms are not working moms; quite the opposite, in fact. I don’t know if I would have the patience or strength to stay home full time with my daughter, and I give huge props to the women who do it every day. You don’t have to be a working mom to struggle with work-life balance. Anyone with a demanding job and a busy schedule knows how difficult it can be to detach from work and make time for everything else in life. The thing about being a working mom, of course, is that when you leave work for the day, you head home to your second job--the more difficult job. Sometimes it can be challenging for me to give my daughter the interaction she needs after I’ve had a long day at work, and making the mental switch from work to home is a constant exercise in willpower. I don’t have an opportunity for “m...

Today was my first day out of the house after spending the last three days at home with my daughter, who was sick with what turned out to be a sinus infection. And, well, let’s just say that it was nice to converse with other adults again. I’ve had many challenges since I became a single mom, but by far the greatest challenge has been my daughter’s health. Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely fortunate to have a healthy child (my Jewish upbringing dictates that I ward off the evil eye here, pupu), and I can’t even imagine what it must be like for the parents of chronically ill children. But out of necessity, my daughter started going to daycare full-time when she was fourteen months old, and since then I have been playing a game called, “How long can we go before she gets sick again?” No parent likes to see their child feeling ill, and it is even worse when the child is still very young, and can’t really tell you what hurts. But as much as this experience is universal to all par...

If you want to see a real cross section of parents, look no further than your local park. Since moving up to the Bay Area (the land of beautiful weather and impressive playgrounds), I have taken my daughter to the park almost every weekend, and I have seen a wide array of parenting styles. I always say that there is more than one way to be a good parent, and that you have to find a parenting style that works for you, yada yada yada. That said, at almost every park, I have encountered three types of parents  whom I actively seek to avoid, whenever possible, because they affect my ability to safely play with my daughter (plus they’re annoying). They are: The Neglectful Parent The neglectful parent is probably the worst of all the parents that you’ll see at the park. Why? Because they aren’t even there. Forget about different parenting styles--their style is to not parent at all. That means that their children play freely in the park, without supervision, and without conseq...

Continued from the previous post, "How Doing Yoga is Making Me a Better Mother" 2. It is Making My Body Look and Feel Better I started doing yoga more for the mental/spiritual benefits, but it has been amazing for my body, too. When I was 22, I backpacked through Eastern Europe with a very heavy backpack, and I pulled the muscle that stretches from the neck down to the right shoulder. Then when I was 27, I was rear-ended, which made the injury even worse. I still deal with nearly constant neck and shoulder pain years later, and carrying my daughter around for the last couple years has definitely added to the strain. Sometimes it’s hard for me to pick her up, or get down on the floor and play with her, because my neck and back are throbbing, and I’ve had to explain to her a few times that Mommy has an “owie in her neck.” But what I didn’t know when I started attending yoga classes again, is that yoga is amazing for injuries like mine, as long as the poses are ...

I started doing yoga again about a month ago.   A coworker of mine told me that she took lunchtime classes three times a week at the gym down the block from our office, and she asked me if I wanted to join. For me, the idea of consistently doing anything three times a week is daunting, so I knew that while I might be diligent for the first week, I would soon slack off to once, maybe twice a week. But the fees were so low--$29/month for a gym membership that included unlimited classes--that I figured even if I only went once a week, it would still be well worth the money. I tried yoga about a year and a half ago, when I was married and living in Las Vegas. I enjoyed it, but I only went once a week for a couple of months, so I never really got into the groove or progressed with my poses. The class was also at 6:30pm, and the after-work time slot meant I lost out on valuable time with my daughter, which left me feeling guilty. I remember a coworker at the time told me that in o...

It was 4:45 on a Friday afternoon, and I was on a mission. My challenge: to find a suitable Halloween costume for my two-year-old daughter. And when I say suitable, I mean pretty much any costume that would fit her, that was still available for purchase in the Bay Area. The next day (yesterday) was the big Halloween parade in our amazing Oakland neighborhood, and I had run out of time to find her a costume. I hadn’t intentionally left it for the last minute--I never do it intentionally --but there I was, feeling more and more like a lousy mom as each store I called told me that they were out of children’s Halloween costumes.  I had promised myself that this year I was going to start early. And I did. A good month before Halloween, I started discussing it with my daughter. She dressed up last year (in a bee costume that I bought at the last second) and went to a party at her daycare, but she was only one, and she didn’t really understand. This year I explained the concept ...

A few days ago, I read something about Michelle Williams and her seven-year-old daughter Matilda, and it really struck a chord. First, let me say that I adore Michelle Williams, not even as an actress so much as a person. She is my single-mom role model. She always seemed like a good mom to me, staying strong after her daughter's father (the late, great, Heath Ledger) overdosed on prescription pills, staying grounded, opting for Brooklyn over Hollywood, always looking pretty and young and edgy but never trashy, balancing her career with being a mother, being very choosy about who she dates, that kind of thing. But you never really understand something until you're going through it yourself, so I could not truly appreciate Michelle's single-mom awesomeness until about a year ago, when I became one.  Anyway, apparently Matilda is so proud of the fact that her mother played the character Glinda the Good Witch in the movie  Oz, the Great and Powerful , that she has a Glin...

Post by Epic Parenting .

Confession: for the last week or so, I have been using M&M's to help manage my daughter's behavior. I became a single mom a few months after she turned one, and it didn't take me very long to realize what I believe is one of the great truths about single parenting: you have to pick your battles. While this is true for two-parent households, too, at least when there's two of you, you can tag team. When your toddler is having a tantrum, you can team up to calm her down. Or you can take turns. Or, if you're desperate, you can always go with the old, "Just wait until your father gets home!" When it's just you and your two-your-old child, who is more stubborn and strong-willed than any adult you've ever met, failing to pick your battles is the fastest way to go bat shit crazy. And that's not good for anyone. For the record, my daughter is actually pretty well behaved. I'm sure every mother says that about their child, but in this case ...

I cut my daughter's hair for the first time tonight. She's two, already--two and a quarter, to be exact--but her hair has grown in so slowly, that this was the first time it needed a trim. For a little while now I'd noticed that her hair was in her eyes, and for some reason I held back on cutting it. Upon reflection, I think maybe on some subconscious level, I knew that it was one more right of passage on the road from baby to child, just like transitioning from a crib to a bed (done!), and giving up the pacifier (not done, but that's another post). And maybe I wanted to hold on to her baby self for just a little bit longer. But tonight, as I watched her brush her hair out of her eyes for the millionth time, it was like something clicked in my head, and I knew that it was time. "Little bean," I said, "is your hair in your eyes?" "Yes, Mommy, " she said, nodding solemnly. "Do you want Mommy to cut your hair?" I asked, almos...