Pre-Summer Mothering Angst, or How Can I Enjoy the Spring Flowers When Summer is Looming Over Me Like a Big Horrible Scary Looming Thing

Dear Mrs. Ditter: Summer is coming. And school will be out. And I am IN TOTAL DREAD of it. I feel terribly guilty, but I feel DOOMED DOOMED DOOMED by the thought of summer and kid(s) at home and everything else that goes with it . . . carpools, constantly changing schedules of camps and lessons, making endless breakfasts, lunches and dinners (for which I have no new ideas), taking the kids to the pool (and having to appear in my swimsuit), "fun" family trips and all the stress those entail. What's wrong with me? I must be a terrible mother. I used to love summer. I should be looking forward to spending all that time with my offspring. . . . in cranky and awful early adolescence, by the way. Should I be fired from this mothering job? Thanks, Ms. Pickle.

Dear Ms. Pickle, HAH! Are you sure you didn't mean "Could I be fired from this mothering job? Please? PLEASE?" and the answer is, "Sorry, honey. You will be a mom until your dying breath, and then probably for quite a while longer. Like, all eternity. So suck it up. Plus, you'd miss them if they weren't around."

Continuing to take your points in backward order, there is nothing wrong with you. At least I don't think there is. But then I could have written this letter myself (note to all loyal readers: No, I don't make up the letters that I answer here. But this one? Totally could have come from me). I do know a few women who love having the long summer; love the unstructured days; love the freedom to do just about anything, any time; love the family trips. I also know that these women have 1) more money than I do, and they 2) travel more than I do, and also that 3) their kids tend to get along with each other really well. I think that last point is more important than the first two. Also, I've noticed that parents who have extended family nearby, or who live in neighborhoods where the kids all run around together, seem to be happier about the long summer vacation. But most of the stay-at-home parents I know struggle with the same feelings you have. So cut yourself some slack.

Next: Of course you used to love summer! You used to be a goofy kid; a teen with no responsibilities; a college student with summers off from school and a no-brainer job; a 20-something with a hot body and lots of energy. Summer was FUN! Summer was the beach and the sun and the smell of Coppertone and hooting at cute young men. Boy, those were great times. *sigh* Is summer still so uncomplicated? No, I didn't think so.

Next, "I should be looking forward to spending all that time with my offspring." No, you shouldn't. You either are, or you aren't (most likely, you're feeling some combination). Telling yourself you SHOULD be feeling something is ridiculous, unproductive, untrue and hurtful. You're feeling what you're feeling. End of story. 

Also next. Just because you take the kids to the pool does not mean you have to appear in a swimsuit. And, reality check: Most of those moms at the pool probably look a little lumpy, a little softer than they used to be, a little...saggy. Stop looking at yourself and just get in the water and have fun. Or hang on a chair and read. Don't worry about anyone looking at you, because they most likely aren't. Remember that old quote: You wouldn't spend so much time worrying about what people thought about you if you realized how seldom they did? That applies here. Take it to heart. It's your path to freedom, poolside.

I'm not going to give you recipes, or camp ideas, or carpool suggestions, other than to point out that if your children are in "early and awful adolescence" they are old enough to prepare at least one of their meals every day (bowl of cereal, sandwich), and perhaps each one of them could make dinner one night a week. Also: teach them how to do laundry this summer. You won't regret it. 

So what are you going to do? You are going to enjoy what's left of the school year (translation: do things for yourself while the kids are in school), realize that you're probably going to have some rough spots this summer, and make sure you have at least one good friend to whom you can moan and complain.

Finally, on June 15th, write the following wise words on the back of your hand in Sharpie: This Too Shall Pass.

As always, thanks for reading. Comments, questions: leave them in the Comments section below, or you can leave me a question at mrsditter@gmail.com.

In Which Mrs. Ditter Feels Totally Confused

Dear Mrs. Ditter, To start, that is the question. How do you keep yourself from not beginning? And then how do you keep yourself from not following through? And what about the middle...the boring stuff it seems, with no gratification at all. I have been putting off posting this for months as I searched and searched and I have not been able to find the answer. I sit, therefore, I am. Is that who I am destined to be?


Okay, Obliquely Questioning One, hang on a moment while I grab some caffeine and ponder your conundrum.
Let's start with the last bit: "I sit, therefore I am. Is that who I am destined to be?"
I would suggest you try out this statement instead: "I am, therefore I am." Because--you are. We all just plain are. Sitting, standing, meditating, eating, walking the dog, hollering at our loved ones, laughing, sweeping the floor --we ARE.
As far as being destined for anything, my own personal jury is out on that one. I'm not entirely certain that we come into this world "destined" to be anyone in particular, other than who we are. And I think who we are is, in large part, up to us to find out. And to create. And to change, if we see the need for change (and sometimes the need for change is a subtle whisper in our ears, and sometimes it's a big guy on a tractor crashing down our front door).
Okay, that was the easy stuff. As far as the first part of your inquiry, hmm. You've got me stumped. As a writer, my problem is NOT with "not following through." The beginnings are easy but the following through presents more challenge.
For what are you searching? The meaning of life? Does life have to have a meaning, or are we free to just live it as best we can, given our circumstances (health, environment, education level, income, genetic predisposition to mood swings, etc.)?
I feel as if I'm totally missing the point here, but I offer the following links for those inclined to explore:


The Work with Byron Katie
The Tapping Solution

Gratefulness.org, a Network for Grateful Living



Let me know how it goes.


Questions? Conundrums? Comments? Leave them in the comments box, below, or email me at mrsditter@gmail.com.


And as always, thanks for reading.

School Friends...Or Not

Dear Mrs. Ditter,
There's this girl who's really nice and we're friends, but this incident keeps happening: I'll ask her, "Hey, do you want to sit together on the bus?" every once in a while, and she'll say "Sure!" and then we'll get on the bus and she'll go and sit with someone else. It's not entirely her fault, because there are these two girls who stick to her like velcro and if she tries to sit with someone else they'll go, "Aw, come on! Sit with us!" and she'll say she'll sit with me next time and then goes and sits with them. I don't want to appear clingy and say "You never sit with me!" but honestly, I'm starting to get pretty pissed with those other two girls. They seriously won't let her sit anywhere but with them!
Signed, Pissed :(


Dear Pissed, Oh, boy. I can see why you're ticked off. I also wonder if you aren't feeling hurt, as well? Even as adults, it hurts when people you think are your friends treat you in a way that you wouldn't treat them (yes, Mrs. Ditter is speaking from experience. Ouch!). 
So just take a deep breath and admit to yourself that while this makes you angry, it also hurts. That's normal and human and totally understandable.
Got that deep breath? Okay, let's tackle this thing.
When I read your letter, three things stuck out: 1) you say this girl is really nice and you're friends with her; 2) you're angry with the other girls; 3) you don't want to look clingy. 
1) I don't know her, so I don't know if she's nice or not. But I have to say that her behavior, at least about the bus-riding, doesn't sound very friendly. She certainly isn't being friendly to you when she says one thing and then does another. Would you treat a friend that way? Probably not. 
I understand that she must have some really good qualities, otherwise you wouldn't like her so much. But it sounds as if she's not very reliable, at least as far as keeping her word about bus-riding goes.
2) Now, moving on to the anger bit: If you're going to be angry with someone, be angry with the person who broke a commitment to you. Take a look at your last sentence: "They seriously won't let her sit anywhere but with them!" Really? Are they in charge of where she sits? Isn't her decision where she sits HER decision, not theirs? If you don't like those other two girls, it's understandable that you'd want to blame them. But it's not their fault (even if they're really obnoxious and you'd like to throw moldy cheese at them).
I wonder why you're not angry with her? Are you scared of being angry with her? Is she one of those really popular kids who everybody likes? 
Sometimes we're scared of being angry with really popular people because we think it says something bad about us. IT DOESN'T. 
3) Finally, you're absolutely right that you don't want to look clingy. Of course you don't want to say something like, "You never sit with me!" No one wants to be a whiner! And you really don't want her to sit with you because she feels guilty. That's not a good basis for a friendship.
So what to do? 
I see several options. Use any or all or none--it's your choice!
A) Stop asking her to sit with you on the bus. Easy. Situation over.
B) Be honest with her. Tell her you feel upset when she says she'll sit with you, and then doesn't. ONLY do this if you can do it calmly. ONLY do this if you can do it without saying mean things about the other two girls. 
C) Take a little bit of time and think about something: If a friend of yours came to you with this exact situation, what would you tell her?
D) Finally, I think it's really important that you remember this: You don't have to stop liking her as a friend, or tell yourself that she's bad, or mean, or anything like that. But you might want to have a bus-riding friend who's a little more dependable and reliable. That might be a girl who isn't the most popular kid in the class...and you may be surprised how much you can grow to like someone whom you're overlooking right now!
Thanks for writing, and please let me know how it goes. I'll be thinking about you.
Questions? Conundrums? Comments? Leave them in the comment box, below, or email me at mrsditter@gmail.com.
And as always, thanks for reading.

Honoring a Deceased Parent's Birthday

Today's topic clearly falls into the "Not That You Asked" category, but I'll bet I'm not the only one who celebrates her parents' birthdays...even though they're no longer living.

My mom would be 90 today if she were still alive, and yes, if you're doing the math, that means she had me late in life. Those seven kids she had before producing me? Clearly, just warm-ups for the main attraction. 

Anyway, where was I? Mom. Right. And her birthday. And what, if anything, I do to commemorate it.

Over the last three years, I've done a variety of things on Mom's birthday. As best I can remember, they include the following:

1. Talk to her. Yeah, I talk to my dead mom. On her birthday, it's usually along the lines of "Thanks for having one last kid, and thanks for all the hard work you put in." Other days, I might be hollering at her for some leftover childhood piece of unfinished business. But I talk to her.

2. Write to her. Same as #1, only in letter form.

3. Email my siblings, who were the backbone of my childhood and are still part of the rock I stand on. Okay, that's an awkward mental image, given that backbones don't usually turn into rocks, but you get the idea.

4. Visit the cemetery and pour a little Starbucks on her grave. Really. She and Dad loved the luxury of going to Starbucks and getting a mocha.

5. Bring flowers from my yard and leave them on the grave.

6. Call her best friend.

7. Light a candle, either in real life or at Gratefulness.org, a terrific online community based on the teachings of Brother David Steindl-Rast and his colleagues. It's a network for grateful living (ANGeL, get it?). Check out this link of Br. David reading a short Billy Collins poem. Which has nothing to do with my mother's birthday, except she LOVED Br. David and loved poetry.

8. Sing "Happy Birthday" to her.

How about you? Any dead parents out there? What, if anything, do you do to remember them on their birthdays? 

Comments, questions, conundrums...leave them in the comments box, below.

You can also contact me at mrsditter@gmail.com.

And as always, thanks for reading.

Not That You Asked: Toxic Friends

Unless you've been hiding under a rock (as I tend to do on rainy days), you've missed some recent media buzz about toxic friends. Check out this video blog by Therese Borchard, who writes the Beyond Blue blog for Belief.net. Or take a look at this article by life coach Cheryl Richardson in the current Oprah Magazine. Or do a quick Google search on "toxic friends" and then choose from the 6.35 MILLION HITS that come up.

What's up with that?

It might just be our cultural propensity to label everything: If you're distractable, you have ADD. If your kids misbehave in public, you're an ineffective parent. And if a person persistently rubs you the wrong way, or if you feel exhausted after spending time with them, or you find yourself avoiding their emails and phone calls, you may be tempted to label them a toxic friend.

Fine. Do it. Slap the label on them.

But then step back and look at yourself from their point of view.

Hmm. Not so pretty, huh? There must be one or two things you've done that would legitimately piss someone off, right? There must be a pattern of annoying behavior that you've engaged in with at least one friend, right? Do you need to label yourself?

Well, do you? 

Does labeling a pattern of interaction change the basics of what happened, or does it just make it easier to get a handle on what happened and then make a decision about how to proceed? Are we more comfortable when we can gather up a basket of sharp-edged incidents and say, "She did this, she did this, OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE SAID THAT, SHE KNOWS WE DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY RIGHT NOW, THAT WAS SO FUCKING INSENSITIVE, she did this, she said this..." and then take those incidents and label them "toxic"? Is that what we need to do before we can disengage ourselves from a relationship that we just don't want to be in? Do we need to justify leaving a friendship by giving it (and by extension, the other person) a poisonous label?

Why can't we just disengage? No drama, no fussing. No throwing shoes, as the funny and terrific Havi Brooks says. Just...stop.

While I don't disagree with the basic info in either the video blog (Borchard is an unusually honest and talented writer) or the Richardson article, I'm concerned that we're going to see a huge run on people labeling other people TOXIC.

And just what will that accomplish?

I've had friendships (short ones, thank the heavens) that I found emotionally exhausting for a variety of reasons, and I was grateful when those friendships ended. 

On the flip side, I know I was the emotionally exhausting person in other short-lived friendships.

That's human nature. That's just how we are. Sometimes we fit together, sometimes we don't. In the cases I'm thinking of, if I'd paid attention to my inner self screaming "Red light! Red light! Not a good friendship fit!" I would have saved myself time, frustration and hurt feelings. 

But out of those hurt feelings comes growth, and I'm grateful for that.

I just don't see the need to label it.

Questions? Comments? Leave them below, or email me at mrsditter@gmail.com. 

And as always, thanks for reading.

Excessive Worrying and How to Stop

Dear Mrs. D., These days I'm feeling bad about everything. The Republicans, global warming, food additives, cholesterol, eating meat, not composting, not recycling (enough), not giving to Amnesty International, or Emily's List, or The Farmworkers or Morris Dees or the Democratic Party, etc., etc. (can't afford it and who wants to employ charity triage?), going off my diet, my greying hair, my addiction to Hugh Laurie and mindless television, the disgusting state of American culture, pervasive violence against women in this country and all over the world, people who don't know the difference between "its" and "it's", Sarah Palin; I worry about the president, the economy, the terrible psychological toll of the job losses in this country, the greed on Wall Street, the upcoming elections, Sarah Palin, the religious right, Haiti, New Orleans...and much, much more. There doesn't seem to be any place to put my mind where things are good and decent. How many Jimmy Stewart/Henry Fonda/ Gregory Peck movies can a girl watch? Can you help? And please don't tell me about sunsets and rainbows, new babies and chocolate - well, chocolate maybe. Signed, Disconsolate
Oh, dear darling Disconsolate, I usually edit and shorten reader questions. However, yours was so heartfelt and, in its own way, funny, that it's one of the few I've used nearly verbatim (and did you notice the correct use of "its" and "it's" in that sentence? Yes, you're welcome.). 
First off, by all means employ chocolate if that helps. I will NOT tell you to think about sunsets and rainbows, unless those make you happy. Don't think about new babies, because that brings on thoughts of sleep deprivation, massive amounts of laundry, post-partum depression, and years and years of responsibility and heartache and possibly visits to Chuck E. Cheese, none of which will improve your mood.
Seriously, though, there are a ton of things you can do to lift your mood. I'm just going to throw out the list of stuff that I've found helpful.
1. Easy, easy, easy, and profoundly life-changing: Keep a gratitude journal. Mine is an old spiral bound notebook that one of the kids discarded. If you prefer to go shopping for a finely bound, beautiful journal, go for it. But get something to write in, and here's what you do: Every night before you go to bed, write down five things you're grateful for. Anything is game: I'm grateful for the air I breathe. I'm grateful for my bed. For my internet connection. For today's sunshine. For today's birdsong. For Hugh Laurie and mindless television. For the water I just used to brush my teeth. For my toothbrush. For my teeth. You get the idea. I challenge you to do this for three weeks and not feel a lifting of your mood.
I try to do the same thing in the morning, but usually I just roll out of bed, think "Thank you," and get moving. Doing it at night is my current version of saying my nightly prayers, and it's lovely.
2. Walk. Preferably in the fresh air. Even if the fresh air is full of flying water droplets. Every day. Really.
3. If you absolutely MUST feel bad about things, set your timer for five minutes and spend that five minutes listing, out loud, everything you feel  bad about. You could start with the wonderful letter you wrote me and go on from there. Sometimes just naming things takes the sting away.
4. Do NOT try to talk yourself out of your worries. You feel bad about certain stuff. You feel worried. That's reality.
However, don't believe everything you think. 
5. Do NOT try to convince yourself that things will never change. Unless you are Psychic Queen of the Universe, you don't know that six months from now things will still look as bleak as they do today. 
6. If you are feeling really down or anxious, see a psychiatrist and talk about mood-altering meds. Really. No shame in it. The study of brain chemistry is fascinating; the bad news is that the more you think a thought, the more deeply that way of thinking gets grooved into your brain (yup, just like a vinyl record). The excellent, exciting, terrific news is that YOUR BRAIN IS PLASTIC or malleable or whatever term you'd like to use. You can change those grooves with: medication, exercise, meditation, gratitude journals, piano playing, painting, deep breathing, praying, and on and on and on.
7. Increase your intake of water...not tea, not coffee, not Diet Coke. Water. Lots of it.
8. RIGHT NOW, go get a scrap of paper and write down five things you're grateful for. Email them to me, using the comments section below or go to mrsditter@gmail.com.
Questions? Comments? Love to hear what you're all thinking. And as usual, thanks for reading.

Gossip, Innuendo, Junior High Behavior...We Love Work!

Dear Mrs. Ditter, How do you deal with gossip at work? Recently, I had to tell someone that I didn't like her behavior--she was actually polling people about what someone else had said! She responded that the other person had lied to her repeatedly and she was just trying to get the facts. 
I have a little influence here, but not the power to hire and fire. I don't want to get involved, but I can't stand this sort of junior high behavior.--Disgusted
Okay, first of all, you already ARE involved. You got involved by calling this person on her behavior. Also, check your language: "I had to tell someone that I didn't like her behavior--" No, you didn't have to. You chose to. Ugh, sorry if that sounds kind of harsh. 
Also again: Do you know if the person being gossiped about actually HAD lied to the person doing the gossiping? 
Is it possible that "junior high behavior" is being engaged in by both parties?
And now we get to the real crux of the matter: What can you do about it? Which means you first need to answer another question: SHOULD you do anything about it? If you choose to get involved in this situation, be really clear about your reasons why. Does it touch something in your past that you need to take care of? Do you have a knee-jerk reaction when people act like jerks? Do you dream of ridding the world of obnoxious people, one office at a time? 
When you're clear about your reason for getting more involved, and if it still seems appropriate to move forward, you need to figure out how. If this person reports to you, then by all means bring up your concerns with her if a similar situation takes place. 
If she doesn't report to you, I'm not sure what you can do. You say you have "a little influence" in the work setting--what does that mean? Does it mean you can talk to the gossiping person's supervisor? Does it mean that you can call a staff meeting and gently introduce concerns about workplace gossip and the harm it can do?
Or does it just mean that you can lead by example?
I wish I had a full-blown answer here, but I've puzzled over this situation for several days and nothing seems clear.
Then again, I've quit more jobs than any five people combined, so my workplace skills are obviously not razor-sharp.
Gut feeling? I'd keep my mouth shut for now but start looking for a program on workplace gossip. Or do a half-day program introducing The Work to your staff. Or maybe hire a facilitator of Non-Violent Communication to do a short training for your office. Let me know how it goes.
PS--Just found this book recommended in a book I'm reading (The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin): The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't. Haven't read the book, so I can't recommend it, but it might be worth a look.
Questions? Comments? Leave them in the Comments box, below. And as always, thanks for reading.