My Daughter’s Birthday is Making Me Look Bad
Dear Mouthy Housewives,
My daughter is turning 7 in a month. She wants to invite several friends to go to a water park near our home. But she wants it to be “girls only.” This means one of her best friends (a boy) won’t be invited.
I’ve tried to convince her that she should just include him but she won’t budge. I don’t want this boy to feel left out plus we are close friends with his parents.This could get awkward really quickly. Should I just force her to include him?
Signed,
Political Correct Polly
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Dear Polly,
You could force your daughter to include him and then when your birthday rolls around, she can force you to celebrate it at American Girl Place with a tea party for all your friends and their overpriced dolls. Not your idea of fun, right?
It’s her birthday. And it only rolls around once a year. And a year to a 7 year-old is like 10 zillion years (unlike our birthdays which seem to come around every 30 minutes). So your daughter has been waiting a very long time for this big day. If at all possible, let her celebrate it HER way.
Who knows why she wants a girls only party? Just accept that kids are sort of insane and you’ll save yourself a lot of energy. Let her have her girls party but tell her to come up with a special way to celebrate her birthday with her friend that’s a boy. Maybe a playdate with birthday cupcakes? Have her think of an idea she likes and will be excited about. All of a sudden she has two birthday celebrations!
As for your friends, just tell them your daughter wants a girls only birthday party, roll your eyes in that my-daughter-is-crazy kind of way and apologize that you can’t include their son. Then suggest a adults dinner out and pick up the alcohol tab. Nothing awkward about buying your friends a few drinks. Unless a swingers scenario follows. In that case, write back. We Mouthy Housewives will help.
Good luck!
Signed,
Kelcey, TMH
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Turn Your Kid from a Home Wrecker to a Help
Dear Mouthy Housewives,
My daughter is six and does absolutely nothing around the house. What is a reasonable chore for her? And at what age should chores start?
Signed,
I’ve Given Birth to a Freeloader
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Dear I’ve Given Birth to a Freeloader,
I know you submitted this question a few weeks ago and I’m sorry that I’m just answering it now. I was busy supervising my 3 month-old twins as they paint the trim on the deck. I believe in starting chores as early as possible. All the better when they are too young to complain about it.
I think some us have a tendency to become personal assistants to our young children. We scurry around preparing snacks, picking laundry up off the floor and wiping their faces. They sit there on their royal behinds practically shouting out demands with a weak “please” sometimes thrown in.
Well ladies, it’s time to take back our self-respect. In my opinion, 6 year-olds should certainly be bringing their plates to the sink after each meal, putting their laundry in the hamper and cleaning up their toys. When my kids (ages 3 and almost 6) show a serious lack of interest in cleaning up their playroom (even with my help), I tell them that anything left out will be tossed in the trash. Kind of puts a fire under those royal tushes. And honestly, I’d be thrilled to throw away some of the crap, so it certainly is not an empty threat.
There’s also no reason why you can’t have your 6 year-old start some regular chores in exchange for a small allowance. Putting out the napkins and silverware for dinner each night? Maybe cleaning fingerprints off some of the windows? Making his or her bed? That sort of thing.
Just make sure you consistently require them to do it. It’s important to get started when kids are young (age 3 is not too early) because at that age, they actually like to help. You want to establish good habits for when they no longer think “helping mommy” is super cool.
Of course, you’ll always be cool to me.
Good luck,
Kelcey, TMH
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She’s Leaving! For Kindergarten!
Dear Mouthy Housewives,
My daughter is starting kindergarten in two weeks and I’m a nervous wreck. I thought I’d be okay with her being gone all day, but I’m feeling really sad that my little girl is leaving me. Is this weird? Shouldn’t this just happen when they go to college?
Signed,
Kinder Kim
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Dear Kim,
Oh, don’t get me started. Wait—too late. Because the other day when I was watching a sappy commercial about some kid starting 1st grade, suddenly I was sobbing into my gin and tonic. And not just because it was light on the gin. No, I got teary eyed because I realized that my children would never again be in 1st grade, that their babyhood was over forever.
So based on my own experience, as confirmed by the flurry of responses I received from my fellow moms replying to my mass email that asked if “anyone else feels sad that their kids aren’t babies anymore?”, you are perfectly normal. Parents mourn the passing of every stage of their children’s lives (with the possible exception of the Horrific Threes, whose passing they cheer with cocktails and pinatas).
But although it’s normal, it’s also temporary. Because the initial pangs of “My baby!” will soon be replaced with “Why is my baby bringing endless arty crap home from school?” and “ANOTHER lice outbreak in my baby’s class?!” And if you decide that you want to be immersed in your daughter’s school life, there will be plenty of volunteer PTO opportunities. (But tread lightly with those.)
Also, as your daughter makes new friends, you will too. My children’s friends’ mothers are some of my closest friends now. Which is fantastic when school is closed on a snow day and I need to unload my precious angels somewhere.
So go easy on yourself and feel okay about feeling sad. And don’t worry, college will bring its own sadness. You’ll know it when you see it; it’ll have the Bursar’s Office on the return address.
Good luck,
Marinka, TMH
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Help, My Daughter is Freakishly Hairy!
Dear Mouthy Housewives,
My ten-year-old daughter is tall and gorgeous with lovely olive skin and glowing green eyes. She’s also freakishly hairy. There is hair e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. Her armpits, her legs, her fou-fou girly bits. Everywhere. What’s the best way to napalm this hair situation without making her feel self-conscious about it? I also don’t want to have to shave her daily to keep it at bay. But I can’t get an arm wax for my ten year old for goodness sake. Help!
Signed,
The Mother of Sasquatch
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Dear Mother of Sasquatch,
Hello, long lost relative! I’m so excited to find you! I, too, am tall, gorgeous with lovely olive skin and glowing green eyes. Did I also mention that I have black hair? I do, a LOT of it. Lots and lots of extra thick, curly, black hair.
I’ve been this way since the tender age of ten, just like your daughter. Wait, let me take that back. I was actually born hairy and my mother loves to regale people with the story of my hairy baby back. (That’s okay, when she’s old and decrepit, I’ll enjoy regaling everyone with the stories of playing hide-and-seek with her dentures.)
It was around age 10 that I became self-conscious of my Sasquatch heritage. Fourth grade turdhead boys began teasing me over my hairy arms and legs. It was horrible because I was just coming to an age where I began to care what boys thought, and there they were, making fun of something I couldn’t control.
In a torrent of tears, I begged my mother to allow me to shave, but she was torn. Fourth grade seemed awfully young to begin shaving and she said we couldn’t afford a new weed whacker. I persisted! I really wanted Ricky to be my boyfriend and no one, not even a cute boy with white trash parents, was going to ask a Planet of the Apes reject to be their girlfriend.
My mother relented and I am so glad she did. If your daughter is bothered by her hairiness, I suggest you do the same. And none of this “shave her daily” talk, as if you would do it for her. While I know teenage GPS implantations are just around the helicopter parenting corner, some of us parents have to keep the sanity for the rest of society. Instruct your daughter in the womanly art of shaving and, if she’s as motivated as I was at that age, she’ll be shaving independently in no time.
Signed,
Heather, TMH
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Is This My Daughter’s Room or a Pigsty?
Dear Mouthy Housewives,
My 14-year-old daughter’s room is a MESS. It’s seriously disgusting, like old soda bottles, dirty snack plates, and just stuff everywhere. I am very neat and the rest of our house is pretty tidy. I’ve always just let her do what she wants with her room, but it’s starting to gross me out. Should I go in and clean it while she’s at school? Or just shut the door and go to a relaxation/meditation class?
Signed,
Tidy in Tampa
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Dear Tidy in Tampa
First, stop allowing your daughter to take soda bottles and snack plates into her room. Don’t ask me how such obscure solutions like this come to me; I’m pretty sure I channel them straight from Mr. Clean.
If that doesn’t work, refuse to speak to her in English and insist everyone speak to her in pig Latin ONLY. If she’s going to live like a pig, then treat her like a pig, ouyay owknay atwhay Iway eanmay? At dinner time, I highly recommend calling her to the table the way a farmer calls a pig to the slop trough, which is also the Arkansas Razorback football cheer: “WOOOOO, Pig! Sooiee!” Do this especially when she has friends over. (Peer embarrassment is a helpful motivational tool at this age.)
I don’t think you should clean your daughter’s room for her. By fourteen the gravy train is over and we should be preparing our children for the joys of adulthood, such as entry-level job responsibilities and taxes.
In fact, I think you should pass a law called the “Messy Room Tax.” If your daughter doesn’t meet a mutually-agreed upon minimum standard of cleanliness in her room, she will pay a tax for the “government” to do it. And, would you look at that? The tax is the exact same amount as the texting plan on her cell phone! Darn, it looks like she won’t be texting her friends at all this month!
Adulthood is hard with the responsibilities and taxes and death. It’s our job to prepare our children for it. It’s like what we learned in undercover wet nurse school: you must rub your nipples with sandpaper to toughen them up for breastfeeding. So it’s really best to toughen your children up sooner rather than later.
Signed,
Heather, TMH
