{"id":293,"date":"2010-03-05T13:25:06","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T21:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/?p=293"},"modified":"2010-03-09T14:17:58","modified_gmt":"2010-03-09T22:17:58","slug":"must-we-be-creepy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/05\/must-we-be-creepy\/","title":{"rendered":"Must We Be Creepy?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We're ALWAYS Happy<\/p><\/div>\n

While on vacation, we manage to meet up with some friends for a birthday party. My friends\u2019 kids, two boys, are three and almost five and nice, sedate, sorts. Totally foreign.<\/p>\n

The party is at my friend\u2019s in-laws\u2019 house, which is filled with white couches and tall free-standing vases\u2026 balanced on pedestals\u2026 and filled with decorative sticks… Josie loves a good party and runs from one terrifyingly crushable object to another with me trailing behind her whispering in my most compulsive, creepy, mommy voice \u2013 these are not our things. These things belong to our hosts. We must respect our hosts and their things.<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, sure Mom, I should respect their things, why didn\u2019t you just say so? I\u2019m totally old enough to grasp that concept.<\/p>\n

Just as soon as I\u2019m done explaining why bubbles don\u2019t have feelings, I\u2019m going to explain the concept of respect. I\u2019m sure she\u2019s ready. Then we\u2019ll teach her to tend bar. (Yes, sweetie, that\u2019s right, the green jigger. Good work! Now run along and fetch Mommy a slice of lime.)<\/p>\n

The next day, still on vacation, while sitting in the sun reading my magazine, I come across a cartoon that has a picture of mother and child on a playground and says Mommy needs to get mad at you in a weird calm voice now.<\/a><\/em> (I wish I could embed it here but I would have to pay the New Yorker $450 for that right.) This was exactly how I felt the night before, and really, how I feel most of the time.<\/p>\n

Why is yelling forbidden? Not that I yell often, but isn\u2019t there a time and a place? Dangers, for example? Or instances of extreme frustration? Sometimes it\u2019s the only way to get the point across. Sometimes the kid needs to know how much trouble she is in. Sometimes nothing else works.<\/p>\n

Shouldn\u2019t we be free to show the whole range of emotions to our children? Can\u2019t we be loving and happy and nurturing but also sometimes frustrated and angry and just pissed off? Can I write a whole blog post consisting only of questions? Perhaps.<\/p>\n

My point is this (I think): why do we have to act all weird? This is how life is. It\u2019s tough, and if we argue and get frustrated and then reconnect and work things out, aren\u2019t we better off for it?<\/p>\n

Can I get a hell yes<\/em> and a fist pump from all the angry mommies in the house?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While on vacation, we manage to meet up with some friends for a birthday party. My friends\u2019 kids, two boys, are three and almost five and nice, sedate, sorts. Totally foreign. The party is at my friend\u2019s in-laws\u2019 house, which is filled with white couches and tall free-standing vases\u2026 balanced on pedestals\u2026 and filled with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mom","category-pablo","category-parenting","category-popular"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}