The Cool Mom’s Club

As a stay at home mom in New York, I met a lot of different moms, nannies, kids and families.

If you’ve never been there, daily life involves a lot of walking, and everyone goes to their neighborhood spots, which means you end up seeing the same people over, and over, and over again.

You get to know them over the years, watching the kids grow up and change.

You know when someone gets a new haircut, when they’ve switched nannies, or added a new brother or sister to the brood.

And cliqués inevitably form between ‘like’ groups.

I ended up befriending another stay at home mom, who like me, felt she was a strict mom.

You know the ones that aren’t as layed back when their kid makes a mess, or are a little too quick to correct their children’s social faux-pas.

The ones who have organized their kids toys and clothes maybe a little too rigidly.

Ok, I’ll say it… the anal ones.

I actually sometimes felt bad for my kids, and a little embarrassed that I quite possibly wasn’t as fun as some of the other moms.

Was our house a drag because I had the kids limit their mess during playdates?

I thought about it a lot, and after many days of feeling faulty, I came to the conclusion that I was experiencing the effects of peer pressure- a desire to be a part of the popular crowd.

I took a step back and shifted my perspective. If I were looking back on my life, what would I have wanted to teach my children? What qualities would I have wanted to instill? The answers came easily.

Kindness, compassion, responsibility, confidence, persistence, politeness….

Working backward from the answers gave me the focus to see exactly I wanted to give them as a parent, and how to focus my efforts towards those ends.

Here I was with this amazing opportunity to help shape the character my children would bring to the world.

Not an insignificant responsibility.

Really when you get down to it, sometimes its your job to be a strict parent.

To prepare your children for Life.

To teach them to be safe and take care of themselves when you are not around. In both social and physical situations.

Sometimes you can’t have a mistake, like when it comes to street safety, stranger safety, or fire safety.

It would be nice if bad things didn’t happen, but they do.

And its a parents’ job to show their kids how to deal with things when they do.

I tend to be analytical in my problem solving. I’m just that kind of person.

I’m organized and like schedules.

But being this structured doesn’t mean that I can’t nurture their spirits and souls at the same time. 

To me, its just as important to teach their minds to be strong as it is to teach their hearts to be big.

And to do it the way I feel is right, no matter what any other parents are doing.