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.
A Couple of Updates, and A New Feature: Ask the Mean Mom!
It’s been a busy month. In case you have not noticed, my book was released last month (no! what’s that you say!?), and since then I’ve been consumed, for at least part of each day physically, and all of each day mentally and emotionally, investing in its (hopeful) success. It kicked off with the first-annual […]
Other Parents’ Money: It’s Hard to Not Be Judge-y
So, I read this article on Yahoo’s homepage yesterday, about how Nadya Suleman, aka Octomom, spent more than $500 on her hair, while her kids walk around half-dressed and her plumbing doesn’t work (the very fact that I got sucked into the story is why I stopped using my Yahoo email address for anything other […]
Madonna Needs Me: The Material Girl Wants to be a “Tougher” Mom
So, I heard that Madonna, single mother of four, was on the Today Show the other morning, explaining to Harry Smith that while she believes she’s a pretty strict mother, she obviously can be tougher, given that paparazzi photographs surfaced recently of her 15-year-old daughter, Lourdes, smoking. Madge is not a fan of smoking (good […]
We Are All Mothers: Can Hilary Rosen, Ann Romney, and Everyone Else Stop Stoking the Mommy Wars?
Did you hear the one about the stay-at-home mother who was outraged that a working-outside-the-home mother denigrated her choice? Or the one where the working-outside-the-home mother felt put down by the stay-at-home mother, who implied, again, that she wasn’t “raising her children”? Surely you have. They’ve been sniping at one another for decades. Or […]
Do You Know Who’s Breaking Up With Your Kids? (Please Tell Me You Don’t. Please.)
I keep reading this stuff, and I keep wondering if (a) it’s all a parody, a great, online reach for irony that either falls short or I just don’t get (but usually I’m pretty good at irony); or (b) if people are making up this stuff so that I have something to write about here. […]
It’s Book-Launch Day! Mean Moms *Do* Rule!
Me and my book, at a pre-launch sale and signing at my local library So, today is the day I’ve been anticipating since the time, back in January of 2011, when an email from my agent, Neil Salkind, landed in my box with the subject line “Good news.” A month later, contract in hand and […]
What Would the Easter Bunny Say? Helicopter Parents Ruin Colorado Easter Egg Hunt
I’m laughing over this story, which I read yesterday in the Toronto Star online, about the cancellation of the annual Easter Egg Hunt, sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and held in Colorado Springs, thanks to past instances of overzealous parents hopping (ha!) the rope lines to “help” their children get the most eggs. […]
Uncomfortable? That’s Life, Kiddo. (Or, Why I’m Not Raising Professional Victims)
I don’t mind if my kids are uncomfortable. No, seriously. Of course, when they were babies and had dirty diapers and empty bellies, I dispatched those discomforts (those are the easy ones). But these days? If my sons find themselves in situations where they have to suck it up, wait, make do, play second fiddle, […]
Bringing Up Bebe Part II: French Moms Don’t Play in the Guilt Olympics. (Me, Either)
If the Olympic Games had been founded by modern American moms (rather than ancient Greeks with chariots and time to kill), the prize for Most Abject Guilt would be a coveted gold. I refuse to compete. I like to say I was born without the guilt gene, but after reading Pamela Druckerman’s Bringing Up Bebe, […]
French Parents are Not Superior. But They Do Have an Awful Lot Right. (“Bringing Up Bebe” Book Review, Part I)
I remember being told that making assumptions got you into trouble. (Remember that old saw: When you ASSUME you make an ASS out of YOU and ME, which is one of those plays on words that never felt terribly clever to me.) When I became a parent, though, I made a whole mess of assumptions. […]
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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