Narrowing my parenting focus...

Nothing like spending extensive time with your children to make you realize what is really important in this parenting gig. I've decided to set the bar lower for myself and focus on 3 things that I want for my kids. I chose three because they seem do-able and when it all boiled down to how much energy I have for these wonderful, wild creatures, three seemed about it!

1. I want them to Love God:

I want my girls to have a vibrant, fierce faith and love for God. I don't care how that looks like, whether it is in tattoos of the creation story on their body, living in a convent or just living day to day in the world. I want them to have a faith that is their own, rich and beautiful and meaningful. (of course, if I had a preference, it would be that they do not become ultra conservative right wing fundamentalists...but that's just me!)

2. I want them to be loving and kind people:

I want them to be the sort of women that are kind and loving to all sorts of people regardless of race, gender, socio-economic status and sexuality. But right now I'd settle for them to be loving and kind to each other!

3. I want them to chew food and gum with their mouths closed.

Literally my biggest pet peeve is hearing other people chew food. Seems dumb, I know....I've been told, but my six year old still struggles with this. My life would be 100% better if she would do this one thing.

On the upside, once she does, my parenting focus slims down to 2 items!

There you go. My new 3-fold parenting strategy:
Teach my girls to love God, to love others and to chew with their mouths closed.

International Women's Day

There is so much going on in the world and media right now about the rights or lack thereof of women. From being called a slut for wanting birth control pills to hateful comments about the 5 women to watch in religion to the ongoing fact that it is just harder to be a women in this world...

Here are a couple great reads on this:

Top things I want my daughter (kids) to know

Thank God I am a man and not a woman..(trust me on this, don't let the title stop you)

I'm not a radical feminist, though I feel strongly about women's issues. What I do tend to rant about is the equal giftedness of humankind regardless of gender, race or sexuality. It was quite disheartening to read the media this week, especially with International Women's Day falling right in midst of this firestorm...

I am reminded again what a daunting task it is to raise daughters. I think raising kids in general is a monumental task, but it is really weeks like these that drive it home for me.

What do I want my daughters to know and how do I instill this in them when I feel like I'm just learning myself?

A Lenten Prayer by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Disturb us, O Lord when we are too well-pleased with ourselves when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, O Lord when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the water of life when, having fallen in love with time, we have ceased to dream of eternity and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim. Stir us, O Lord to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas where storms show Thy mastery, where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes and invited the brave to follow.

Amen