It’s frustrating that no matter how often or how loudly we tell our daughters: You are valuable because you are smart, you are kind, you are strong, you are YOU, they are being told by the outside world that they would really be valuable if they were skinnier, prettier, talked less and posed more.  We also try to teach our boys to respect themselves, respect their female counterparts, and to do what’s right.  And yet the message they get from many companies is that girls are to be valued by their appearance and are here for our visual enjoyment.  It’s a constant battle, working to instill a sense of self-worth and respect into our children, in the face of relentless imagery that perpetuates the opposite.

So what can we do to stop this?  We as parents can directly express our opinions to the companies marketing to our children (I’m looking at you, Abercombie), and we can support companies who help to enforce positive messages.  But we can also involve our children in the discussion.  What would happen if we gave them the power to take a red marker to today’s ads to express their opinions about what they’re seeing and how it makes them feel?

A magazine and on-line resource called New Moon Girls, founded in 1992 by a mom in Minnesota with the goal of empowering girls to create their own media messages based on respect for self and others, has done just that.  In a new campaign called “Girl-Caught” they ask kids to literally put their stamp of approval or disapproval on the ads and images they see every day.  Kids can download a digital stamp or print out stickers that say “Stop it! This disrespects girls and women” or “Thank you! This respects girls and women”.  This allows kids to actively voice their opinion about harmful ads and messages as well as applaud the ads that actually get it right.  Kids all over the country have picked up the gauntlet and are uploading their Girl-Caught images to NewMoonGirls.com to show the marketing industry and the world examples of acceptable and unacceptable ways to use girls in the media.

Author Katie Mardigian

Giving kids a voice in the debate is a powerful tool in this fight against harmful advertising.  It opens up discussions between kids and adults about the consequences of objectifying girls and women, placing value on unhealthy and unrealistic body types, and downplaying girls’ strength and intelligence.  It also shows our kids that they can be a part of the solution and make a difference in this world.  Go to Newmoongirls.com to check out the Girl-Caught campaign.  It’s encouraging to see the ads that girls view as negative, stamped with the big red “Girl-Caught” logo, and lets in a flicker of hope that maybe the kids of today are going to be the ones to finally hold companies to a higher standard.

author Katie Mardigian and one of her toddlers-turned-big kid

The Refusal to Eat a Cookie/Cracker if it’s Not Completely Whole.  This leaves a handful of perfectly fine baby cracker pieces at the bottom of the bag that are deemed unacceptable to the toddler, but not worthy of the trash.  And it is here that I admit to the world that I eat toddler crackers.

The Poop Face.  Toddlers are completely incapable of hiding the fact that they are going #2.  In fact, they tend to stare straight into your eyes for moral support while doing so, and may even lean on you if you’re lucky enough to be within reach.  This is just insane and would qualify any adult for a mental institution but is a daily occurrence for toddlers.

Toddler Gibberish.  Once toddlers realize all those tall people around them use sounds to understand each other, they want in on the action and start making up their own language.  And when the adults start saying things like, “Oh, really?” and “Ya don’t say?” of course they think they’re on to something.  My toddlers have delivered the baby equivalent of commencement speeches with the hand gesturing of a trained actor while I just stand there and nod, and as long as I say “OK!” at the end, they seem satisfied.  I often leave these “conversations” with my toddler with the vague feeling I just agreed to let her give up her naps.

The Constant Physical Need to Climb Stairs.  If you have a toddler in your house you may find yourself helping your tiny OCD friend climb up and down stairs for hours at a time.  Or climbing into and out of the high chair.  Or into and out of the laundry basket.  Whatever it is, you’re doing
it A LOT.  Sure, these are necessary developmental exercises that improve their gross motor skills and independence, but dear God it gets old fast.  But your toddler will likely be smiling the WHOLE time, or sticking their tongue out in concentration, and that’s just plain cute.

Backing the Truck Up.  Toddlers have the unique luxury of assuming your lap is there for their benefit at all times.  You could be tying your shoes, but your little one sees it as an invitation.  And they usually approach your lap backwards, from across the room, while carrying a toy in each hand.  What would it look like if an adult did that?  Honey, I’ve got the remote and my glass of wine, and I’m coming toward the couch, slowly and backwards.  Get ready for me.

The Self-Designated Bathroom Buddy.  Anyone who’s had a toddler knows that they believe your bathroom time is their time as well.  I’ll stealthily run to the bathroom hoping to not get caught, but within seconds my toddler is bursting in the room, pulling the door behind her with a look like, “Phew! I almost didn’t make it in time!  I’m here, though, so go ahead.  What should we talk about?”  God forbid she miss this important meeting time of ours.

Copying Grown Up Habits.  Toddlers are little mimics, which can be cute, until they start throwing around F-bombs, and then you realize your little mirror image is shining a spotlight on all your bad behaviors.  I discovered that I have the annoying habit of yelling “GIRLS!!” when I need my older kids’ attention and they’re not nearby.  I know this because my toddler has started yelling “GUHLS!? GUHLS!?” at the bottom of the stairs at various times during the day, because in her eyes, that is just what grownups do.

The Bag Lady.  Toddlers LOVE to wear hats.  Or carry a purse.  Or wear your shoes.  Jewelry of any kind is gladly accepted.  Wearing all at once?  While pushing around a toy grocery cart full of stuffed animals?  Toddler heaven.  If anyone over 12 does this, they are presumed to be crazy, and rightfully so.

As bewildering and frustrating as these crazy toddler habits can be, it’s a sad moment when you realize you’re raising your last toddler and there won’t be anyone to back their truck up to you anymore.  Time is flying by, and before I know it, I’ll be the one talking gibberish and carrying 7 handbags.  And I can’t help but smile at the fact that it will likely be my kids who will need to take care of me during those ‘circle of life’ years.  Enjoy, girls!

It’s unfortunate that September is only 30 days long because by October 1^st I will have gone back to my old ways, neglecting paperwork and hitting the snooze button for as long as possible.  But for those blissful 30 days, I am at my best.

But this year, I find myself vacillating between unbridled excitement and bittersweet sadness.  This year I am sending another child off to Kindergarten.  My middle child, my sweet, huggable, gullible, teddy-bear-with-its-heart-on-its sleeve middle child, is leaving the nest.  And I’m not really ready for it.  Part of me wants to do cartwheels all the way to the bus stop and part of me wants to keep her tucked safely at home with me.  In my mind she’s still that little girl who would ask me to paint her “thingers” and “tonynails”.  In my mind she’s still that sweet little girl who would grab my face, look me earnestly in the eyes and say, “Mom, you’re the first mom I ever saw.”

But something happened this summer and all of a sudden she’s memorizing Taylor Swift lyrics and obsessing about clothes and watching Harry Potter movies.  How did this happen?

And so, on this rainy first day of school, I watched with pride and excitement and reluctance as my newly minted Kindergartner shed her snoopy pajamas, put on her carefully selected first day of school outfit, donned her rain coat and spanking new backpack, and stepped out onto the porch… where she promptly fell down the front steps.  She immediately began to cry, and for a split second I was convinced we had made the wrong decision.  She obviously needed to be shielded from the big bad world!  (And seriously, why does this kid constantly fall down? It’s a common theme in our house.)  But I knew what had to be done.  We gathered around her, pulled her up, wiped her tears, and tickled her until she laughed.  Then we walked to the bus stop to put our two big elementary school kids on the bus.

As is so often the case with parenting, I feel torn in two directions.  I want to help her grow up, but I also want to keep her little forever.   And so, while I’m as psyched as the next mom that we can close the door on another successful (but exhausting) summer, I’m also reluctant to let it go.

Just 8 years in, we’ve already seen the inside of the pediatric ER a few times.  I have found my girls wrestling like a couple of frat boys, and I pretty regularly find my oldest has monkey-climbed to the top of the 9-foot column in our living room.  In a particularly embarrassing parental moment I had to apologize to a very nice couple for my daughter kissing their son at school.  A surprisingly large amount of time is spent building bug habitats during our summer vacation.  My middle one burps like a drunken sailor while the oldest takes pride in her ability to burp on demand, and there is an ongoing debate in my house about which is the more important burp virtue.  And oh, the potty talk!  Who knew little girls would find the words “fart” and “poop” so funny?  I regularly hear things like, “Hey Mom, smell my breath and tell me what I ate!”  Did that just come from that sweet looking curly-haired, doe-eyed angel?  Such a weird dichotomy, these 3 girls of mine.

I don’t recall getting stitches and digging up worms as a young girl and I certainly didn’t kiss any boys in elementary school.  They were gross.  I’m discovering that my girls can be at once lovely and delicate and also find joy in being rough and crass.  My preconceived notions about parenting girls have been proven wrong, which means (1) my girls are way cooler than I was as a kid, and (2) we’re in for an interesting ride.

During the summer one might say I slack off a bit on the home organization.  I mean, what’s the point when there are 3 little people here all day who think it’s their job to sabotage any such organization?  And anyone who has 3 kids will tell you: the laws of math are bent when adding that third child.  The workload (and laundry) grows exponentially instead of congruently, which in turn causes my organizational skills to decline .*  So as an example, while I would never have been caught without diapers for kid #1 and kid #2, it can be a somewhat regular occurrence with kid #3.  (And seriously, there must be an invisible black hole that eats up the last few diapers in the drawer, because I swear we will end one day with 4 diapers left and wake up the next with zero.  Someone needs to investigate that.)

So on this particular day, I realize we’re out of diapers just as I’m putting the baby down for her nap.  I briefly panic because this may require me to drag all 3 kids to the store which goes in the category of Things I Try to Avoid At All Costs.  And to have to go for exactly one item is pretty aggravating.  It seems simple enough, this ‘dragging kids to the store’, but it’s not as benign as it sounds.  (See this article for proof.  Shudder.)  So I need to find a diaper ANYWHERE in this house, or I’ll be hitching up the wagons for Kroger.  Seriously, I’d consider taping a dish rag to my baby before I’ll resort to the grocery store.  I’d use a soft, clean rag, of course, I mean I’m not a barbarian.

To add to my dilemma, through some magical aligning of the stars, the big kids are playing quietly and nicely upstairs.  Did you hear that?  Quietly and nicely!  I would be a fool to disrupt that.  Think, Katie, think.  Where can I find a diaper?  I scour my purses, overnight bags, the drawer beneath the diaper drawer because, you know, one may have fallen overboard, right?  (Don’t think I’m crazy, this has saved me in the past.)  No good.  Got to think creatively.  Under the ottoman.  In the toy basket.  Surely there’s one I can use in the baby doll bin in the playroom.  Please don’t judge me.  And then, it hits me: the gym bag!  And that is where I find not one, but 3 diapers which means I can get through the afternoon and make the hubby hit the store on his way home!  Or better yet, go out BY MYSELF to get them after he gets home!  Saved by the Patron Saint of Tired Mothers once again!!  (I do pray to this Saint often, along with the Patron Saint of Parking and Patron Saint of Weather.  I learned this from my dear Grandma, and she was a ten-children-having kind of Catholic so I do not question.)

After celebrating my victory I stop for a moment and I’m struck with how silly this whole exercise has been.  I’m complaining about a simple errand with my 3 kids whom I love deeply, and this from a girl who has worked in the past with many wonderful couples who themselves couldn’t get pregnant.  I feel a bit ashamed, for both trying to avoid an errand with my kids and for briefly considering taping a dishrag to one of them.  I need a moment of perspective.  And then I realize that it’s ok to be completely grateful for your beautiful children while also being grateful you don’t have to take them to the store on this particular day.  Because that right there is motherhood in a nutshell.