Not A Hipster Mom

I’m trying not to be a yelling mom, and lately I’ve had to try a lot harder. I grew up with a lot of yelling, and I always promised myself that if I ever had a child I would not be like that. I’ve always held a deep belief that good parents don’t yell. Sure, maybe they yell every once in awhile--no one is perfect--but they don’t yell all the time, and they don’t hit. They control themselves, exerting patience, and triumphing over their basic human instincts which tell them to get angry and lash out when their children will not behave.  For the most part, I still believe this. I believe that every parent gets angry, but the “best” parents learn to remain calm when angry, and dole out punishments in a logical, non temper-fueled fashion. I never wanted to be yelling-mom Debra Barone on “Everybody Loves Raymond.” I wanted to be Clair Huxtable on “The Cosby Show;” the calm, clever mom. And incidentally, the lawyer mom, which is funny as I work at a law firm. But I didn’t realiz...

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...