Mean Moms Rule: The Blog
Observations on parenting in the tween and teen years.
This blog was born in 2009 as Confessions of a Mean Mommy, and gave rise to the book you see over on the right. Since I began blogging, my sons morphed from 5- and 7-year olds who looked to me for just about everything, to 11- and 13-year olds who have perfected their eye rolls and have one foot out the door. This parenting thing just got real.
Setting Sail, and Throwing Guilt Overboard
I keep trying to think of a clever start to this post, and all I can come up with is this: Tomorrow, I’m off on a cruise, without my husband or the boys, I will be gone a total of four days, and I don’t feel guilty. At least, I don’t feel guilty any more. […]
The Second-Child Syndrome
Today is my baby James’ fifth birthday. My second son. And even though I’m a second child, and my husband is, too, we still managed to infect our darling baby with Second Child Syndrome. I’m beginning to believe it’s inevitable. All parents are prone, the second time around, to be less awed (and less cowed) […]
Smile, Honey! It’s Picture Day!
The other day, both boys came home with the familiar order form and info sheet in their backpacks: Gear up, mom and dad, it’s almost Picture Day! I hate picture day. To be precise, I don’t hate the day itself, since I’m not, literally or otherwise, in the picture. True to my meanness and aversion […]
Noggin, Noggin, Wherefore Art Thou, Noggin?
The latest I hear about the basic-cable TV channel Noggin (“It’s like preschool on TV!”) is that it’s now called Nick, Jr. Can commercials be far behind? My husband and I (well, my husband, actually) stumbled upon Noggin while flipping through the many upper (as in, above 100) channels we have in our cable system. […]
Kids (and parents?!) in Kindergarten
My mom recently told me a funny (well, not funny-ha-ha, more like funny-hmmmmm) story about the time she got a peek into my younger brother’s kindergarten classroom. Seems that one day, my brother missed the bus, so my mom drove him. After leaving him inside the school to be walked to his class by the […]
My first giveaway! Win a LeapFrog Tag Reader
If you’ve been reading Confessions, you already know I don’t buy a lot of toys for my sons. I like toys, I honestly do, but there are few things I’d spend my money on (and before you think I’m truly awful or that my boys are playing with corncob dolls like Little House on the […]
Baby Lust (And How It Clashes With Mean Mommyhood)
If I were as mean a mommy as I profess, if I were so hooked on schedules and eager to turn my little babies into independent boys-to-men, if I so valued my me-time and my work ethic, then I wouldn’t want a third child quite so badly, would I? But I do. And I’m not […]
Why I Didn’t Childproof
Years and years ago, well before I had kids, I was hanging around in my sister’s newly refinished basement, playing some board games with two of her kids and my dad. My niece and nephew, Tara and Nick, were drinking juice out of those foil pouches, like Capri Sun (which now, by the way, are […]
Babies are smart after all! (Or, why I’m justified not having gone to Mommy & Me class)
Have you read this article in the New York Times yet? It’s by writer and psychologist Alison Gopnik, and it’s gotten a bunch of media play in the last few days, because it’s about something supposedly revolutionary: Babies, Gopnik asserts, are quite a bit smarter than we think. I’m pretty sure I knew that already. […]
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Why I Wash Ziploc Bags
“Mom, what should I do with my applesauce cup?” I sigh. I’ve explained this before–the applesauce and yogurt cups are recyclable, so bring them home. The plastic utensils? They’re dishwasher safe, my son, so tote ’em on home. What I say is, “You know what, Daniel? Just put everything in your lunchbox and bring it […]
My name is Denise, and I’m a Mean Mom.
That’s the very first line of my book, Mean Moms Rule. Let me explain the “mean” for you, in case you were under the impression that I never hug my boys (I possibly do this too much, as evidenced by the fact that they routinely try to wiggle away from my embraces and especially my sloppy kisses, the urchins), or that I advocate for children to work in coal mines (it’s illegal! Plus, no coal mines in my area!). I say “mean” because my approach often bucks the prevailing parenting trend, which you could call helicopter-y or indulgent (I prefer my own technical term, “squishy”). It’s mean because it’s not easy. Because it’s focused on the end game, not the here-and-now (and anyone who has kids’ll tell you, they are all about the here and now).
Grab a copy from your favorite bookseller:
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