{"id":379659,"date":"2012-08-30T11:57:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-30T11:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/index.php\/2012\/08\/30\/teaching-our-children-to-fish\/"},"modified":"2012-08-30T11:57:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-30T11:57:00","slug":"teaching-our-children-to-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/index.php\/2012\/08\/30\/teaching-our-children-to-fish\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Our Children to Fish"},"content":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve always called a spade a spade.<\/span><\/span>A vagina a vagina.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And a penis a penis.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This morning I stumbled across a mother\u2019s forum where a woman asks for pet names to call her children\u2019s privates. She states that she always felt awkward <\/i>when her mom used the word vagina<\/i>, and she didn\u2019t want to put her daughter through that discomfort.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, my poor, poor children. When one of my teens expressed concerns about drinking after me, I joked that \u201cI pushed you out of my body between my loins, and you\u2019re worried about my germs?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately, it didn\u2019t backfire, and it has become a longstanding bit of family humor, but that wouldn\u2019t have been the case had I been afraid to talk about everything\u2014from body parts to sex\u2014with the fruits of my labor.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As embarrassing as my children might have found this dialogue when they were growing up, at least I know, as they go away to college, that they won\u2019t be confusing the campus nurse by telling her something is wrong with their twinky<\/i> or winky<\/i>\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Heck, forget the school staff\u2014I <\/i>won\u2019t be confused when they come to me to discuss delicate issues.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But will they come to me<\/i>? I have wondered, as the teenage pulling-away years have progressed.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Have I been successful in teaching them to be independent, yet know that I am always here if they need me?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Will they feel comfortable enough, safe enough, to come to me as they mature into the men and women they will be?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I love <\/span>this piece<\/span><\/a>, one where a mother reflects on whether or not she taught her son how to properly boil an egg, if she properly prepared him for the real world.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI can give you the fish, or I can teach you to fish,\u201d someone responds to her son.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I know I taught my children how to keep a house clean.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Our Family Guide to a Happy, Healthy Home<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
<\/div>\n
The HHH Schedule—acronym for Happy, Healthy Home\u2014on my fridge is proof that my children can take care of their animals, run a vacuum, sweep floors, dust furniture, scrub toilets and sinks, and do laundry.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
(The operative word being can<\/i>\u2026)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Why, my daughter begged me when she was four years old to assign her Bathroom Duty.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I worried about the harsh chemicals, so I made her wait until she was six.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
She was elated to finally be able to do something her big brother had been doing.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
For a while. Until she came to understand the meaning of the word chore<\/i>.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
My children also know their way around a kitchen, how to wash dishes, and where all of the gadgets and gizmos go.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
My daughter began making some mean chocolate chip pancakes when she was about eleven.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
My youngest boy made us some pretty tasty scrambled eggs when he was about twelve.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
And my oldest boy? Well, I might have taught him to boil water, but his sister is the one who taught him how to make boxed mac \u2018n cheese.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
As the story goes, her brother enlisted her help one day when his meal wasn\u2019t quite working out.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Evidently he\u2019d just filled a pot with water and dumped all of the ingredients in at once\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Two years ago that boy went away to a college with no dorms and no dining halls, twenty-four hours from home.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
And he took the fishing pole Warren had given him, one of the ones he and his siblings used on their many outings with Daddy.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
When Fave Son <\/i>left<\/span><\/a>, the two of us were experiencing that awful tearing-away-from-Mom, I-don\u2019t-never-will-need-you-again phase.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Sometimes, when his silence and seemingly snobbish ways threatened to bring me to tears, I would recall the conversation with our nurse practitioner: \u201cMy husband used to say to me, \u2018You taught them to be independent. You can\u2019t take it all back now.\u2019 \u201d<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Apparently what we hadn\u2019t taught him in the way of taking care of himself he learned by using all of the other life skills we\u2019d provided him with.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
He not only hasn\u2019t starved to death, he\u2019s quite fit.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
And he\u2019s not only outgrown much of that pulling away phase, he\u2019s recently solicited my advice on topics ranging from\u2026well, personal to private\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
One down.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Two to go.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
We took our daughter to college two weeks ago.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
She, too, took her fishing pole, the travel-sized one her little brother bought for her, just before she moved away.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I felt a twinge of sadness as I stood in front of the grocery cooler and realized I no longer need to purchase skim milk.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I miss my \u201cGood morning, Beauty,\u201d ritual.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I miss her warm smile, the one that melts your heart and lights up a room.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I miss her complaining about people being gossipy and girls being mean.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I miss her closed bedroom door, the one we threatened numerous times to remove from its hinges if she didn\u2019t come out of her cave from time to time.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I<\/span><\/span> miss the lilt in her voice, the one she has when she wants to talk to me about something she knows I might not like.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Was I aware of my own strengths earlier enough in her life to model some modicum of self assurance?<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Have I taught her right?<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Have I taught her enough?<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Will she, too, someday come to me, to discuss everything from the personal to her privates, and to feel confident enough to call a spade a spade\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Soon\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always called a spade a spade.A vagina a vagina. And a penis a penis. This morning I stumbled across a mother\u2019s forum where a woman asks for pet names to call her children\u2019s privates. She states that she always felt awkward when her mom used the word vagina, and she didn\u2019t want to put […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[338,180,339,340,341,323,63,342,343,344,345,346,347,348],"class_list":["post-379659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chores","tag-fishing","tag-going-away-to-college","tag-housework","tag-lifestyle","tag-motherhood","tag-parenting","tag-penis","tag-raising-confident-children","tag-responsibility","tag-teaching-independence","tag-teaching-life-skills","tag-teaching-responsibility","tag-vagina"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Happy-Healthy-Home-Chore-Chart.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.annahelizabeth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}