parenting

Compassion by TASI_B.C.---http://www.flickr.com/photos/7931549@N05/4516790003/in/photolist-7T8JiH-6nvuyq-eRLkzD-eRLuPv-eRXwLW-eRL8XX-eRXGTm-eRL7e8-eRLkjx-eRLsVF-eRYeGC-eRXAy5-eRY4eN-eRLK2M-eRL58e-eRXGZE-eRLE4g-eRLLcv-eRLfKn-eRfX99-eR6vTa-eR4zTn-eR4BCr-eRg1Rs-eR6vva-eRg2rE-eR6Aa8-eRfShC-eRfRad-eR4tYz-eRhM2G-eR6p5T-eRhTKh-eRfR4Q-eR4u6R-eRhT37-eR6vqH-eRhMgA-eRhWBy-eR6sft-eRhXnA-eR6BrR-eRfVQ7-eRg29b-eR6paF-eRfULj-eRfWDG-eRg1jm-eR6usc-eR6vk8-eR6yD2#

Of The Inner Child, Mothers and Compassion …

Knowing more about my mother and understanding her are two different things.

I wish to have known more about my mother. But that will not happen.

She died of gall bladder cancer nearly two decades ago.

Yet as a mother of three daughters I feel that I have come to understand her.

It is difficult

Of The Inner Child, Mothers and Compassion … Read More »

Lotus Flower by Bahman Farzad /

Of Mothers, Understanding, and BeComing Present …

How might your life be different if you knew more about your mother?

Knew her fears and worries, not just about you, her daughter, or your siblings, and your father or other family members.

What would it mean to you to know and understand your mother as an individual with her own hopes, dreams and wishes, regrets, ambitions, etc?

How might you be different, your life changed if you could see the entire person that comprises your mother, the little girl who lives inside her?

A pang of fear grips me as I write this for

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Of Riding Ellipticals, Counting Minutes, and The Challenge of Parenting …

Like the teacher in my psychology program who said that the hardest thing about parenting was the time required, I find that I never have enough.

Mothering three daughters, seeing to my husband, or rather attending our marriage, along with my work as a psychotherapist, and writing novels proves daunting.

I count minutes in much the same way that I count calories.

Frustration continually arises as I reprimand myself for lack of efficiency.

“I’m working as hard as I can,” I say to myself.


But am I working smarter?

I do not know.

Personal experience has

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Of Fissures and Cracks, Parenting, and The Laboratory of Home …

A mother of three ages, 24, 20 and 13, all daughters, I find myself, a wife of thirty years, psychotherapist, oftentimes growing cynical, not so much with the children of our culture and society, but having lost patience with the parents, or should I say, adults, who suppose themselves experts at everything and therefore question nothing of themselves, life or their children.

This is not The Mommy Psychologist.

We would all do well to heed her byline regarding our own lives and concerning most matters in life– “ … the child psychologist who thought she had all the answers to parenting until she became one herself. “

She, along with her posts inspire me–

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Of Love, Nurturing and Outliers…

In a culture where citizens and institutions emphasize work and accumulation of wealth, and where ascertaining the basic necessities of life cost a small fortune, all of us can easily descend into believing, and rather unconsciously, that lacking a trust fund in which to dip our fingers and secure these necessities, along with the various accoutrements society demands we provide our children–iphones, their own personal computer, ipads, ipods, televisions, designer shoes, etc–we lack what it takes to parent well.

And yet parents who possess tons of

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Of Actions, Integrity and Trusting Our Choices…

In stating, “…mothers and daughters cannot serve as best friends to the other…,” Linda Perlman Gordon and Susan Morris Shaffer add in an excerpt from Too Close for Comfort: Questioning the Intimacy of Today’s New Mother-Daughter Relationship , that the …basic question… a mother must answer is: “…Do you trust your daughter to be an independent and self-sufficient woman? Can you support her in making choices and doing things differently from how you would do them?”

The answer a mother offers lies within her ability or inability to trust

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