For some reason, whenever I voice a concern about my kids, there is almost always someone who feels the need to weigh in with the following response:

“Oh, just wait. That’s NOTHING… Just wait until she is (fill in whatever age their kid is), because that’s way worse!”

I can’t stand that.

Currently, my younger kid is still pooping in her diaper. She’s going to be 3 years old soon and she still doesn’t tell me when she needs to go. I would think she’d want to tell me but no, she is quite content walking around with a rump full of dump.

And not only that, but when I approach her about the VERY obvious poop in her pants, she simply replies: “It’s OK, Mommy!”…Really? Is it? Is it OK that you are walking around with a giant POOP IN YOUR PANTS?”

(Kid in the green/yellow is the one who still poops in her pants.)

(Yep, that one.)

As a parent to a little one, I feel like my complaint is valid. I’m over my kid crapping her pants. I’m looking for someone to help me, to give me some advice. I’m not looking for this:

“Just wait…Oh, just wait…I have a 17 year old son who just brought a hooker to my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah and also, he does bong hits at the dinner table.”

I’m sorry, but did I ask to hear about your 17 year old train wreck of a kid? No, I did not. I have a kid who is literally CRAPPING her pants. I’m not interested in your horror and “whore” stories. Thanks for nothing. Go clean your kid’s bong.

I guess it’s normal for the Been There, Done That parents to use the  “Just Wait” scare tactic. They’ve earned it. They paid their dues. They already went through all the stuff we’re dealing with. They’ve moved on. I get that.

But it’s not really helpful.

It’s about perspective, yes, but please understand–everything is relative. If you’re talking to someone who hasn’t been a parent as long as you have, someone who has a valid complaint about what is currently going on with their kid, a kid who’s walking around in denial about a diaper that smells like 4 day old Indian food, I can tell you with a great deal of confidence that perspective is not what they’re looking for.

Most parents (especially new ones) are beat up and worn out. We want someone to listen when we have a concern—a if you’re offering an effective solution, we’ll gladly take it.

We want help. We want support.

Raising kids is like any other part of life. It goes in phases and we have to ride each one out. We suit up and bear down through the rough phases while we wish, in vain, that the fun phases would last forever.

When we complain about parenting issues, we’re either asking for help or looking to vent.

But if you choose to respond to our pleas with “Just Wait…blah blah blah blah blah annoying” well, that’s totally fine. But I think YOU should “Just Wait” too…and I think you should do it over there, with my kid, who just pooped in her diaper. Again.

Thanks for being here!

R

You’re not alone if…

1. You wish the cashier would just add on the extra dollar for charity instead of putting you on the spot and making you feel bad.

2. You could fall asleep right this minute.

3. You tell your kids to run in a zig zag if they are being chased by someone who has a gun because if someone is shooting at you, zig zag running is just good sense.

4. You sometimes forget to shower for a day. Sometimes two days. Three days is gross though. Take a shower, Pigpen.

5. Your daughter loves bows and taffeta and all things fancy.

6. Your son is busting through his clothes, his shoes and everything in your house.

7. Your daughter is into mud and worms and all things dirty.

8. Your son digs show tunes.

9. You see your UPS delivery person more than you see your friends.

10. You asked your kids what they were eating and they chose, instead, to open wide and show you.

11. The car wash gives you anxiety. Getting your car on the track. No likey.

12. The smell of patchouli oil makes you gag.

13. You get depressed when you’re done binge watching a great show like OZ because you miss everyone so much, and then you wonder what that says about you because all the characters you love are convicted felons.

14. You don’t know what side of the car your gas tank is on.

15. You make Siri refer to you as Princess or Lord.

16. You will never get over Prince’s death because he was a legend and he was brilliant and he helped shape major parts of your life. Your kids, however, are over it.

17. You believe references to any of The Godfather movies should be prefaced with “SPOILER ALERT!” because even though they are over 40 years old, not everyone has gotten around to seeing them yet.

18. You can’t parallel park and the people who can are show offs.

19. You don’t like Starbucks coffee.

20. You accidentally hit REPLY ALL on an email and things didn’t go well from there.

21. You get totally grossed out by little, curly hairs on soap.

22.  You hear about a fatal disease and you are convinced you have it because all the symptoms line up, but there’s no time to in a doctor appointment in so you eat a doughnut instead.

Do you have your own YNA line? Feel free to add it here or on our FB page!

Please consider sharing this post if you think someone else might like it. We appreciate it so much!

The term “play date” has always been of interest to me. There aren’t many like it in the English language. It’s really the only term I can think of that is filled with formality, necessity and stupidity all at the same time.

On the formal side, a play date is like an arranged appointment for playtime. Actually, I’m sorry, it’s not like an arranged appointment for playtime, it is an arranged appointment for play time.

I can understand why playtimes need to be arranged: We’re busy. A scheduled play date helps to keep things organized.

It just seems so formal to me. Formal and forced. Like I’m going to receive a confirmation call the day before the event. Like the kids should be wearing little tuxedos, or at least one of those t-shirts with the pre-printed tuxedo on them.

Of course, I know the actual play date isn’t formal. It’s just the term that breathes formality to me. We didn’t have a term for play time when I was a kid. We had this:

Kid: Going across the street!

Mom: Bye! Try not to get hit by a car!

Sadly, those days are over. At least for me they are. We’re fortunate during the summer months because we live at an overnight camp full of kids so my kids are in a very safe, self-contained, utopia-style environment. They can walk anywhere and we don’t have to concern ourselves for one minute about their wellbeing. I may have worried once about the possibility of my two-year-old walking into the water by herself, but they don’t get more than 10 feet without being bombarded by no less than 15 campers yelling: “Hi! What’s my name? You’re so cute! What’s my name? Do you remember my name?”

But during the off-season, we live in a neighborhood where the houses are kind of far apart and the closest kid is a bit of a walk. When I was growing up, my mom would let me jump on my bike and ride to pretty much anyone’s house, but things are different now.

I don’t know if the amount of questionable men lurking around neighborhoods in hoopty green station wagons has actually increased over the years, or if we are just more susceptible to media warnings and scary stories. Isolated playdates seem to have become the standard no matter where you live.

I consider my neighborhood to be extremely safe, but I don’t know if I’ll be so quick to let my kids run the hood, unattended, looking for people to play with.

They’ll probably be restricted to the house across the street and the one next door.

Unfortunately, they’ll be screwed because the lady who lives next door will be none too thrilled if my kids show up looking to play with her kids since a) she doesn’t have any kids and b) it seems she is still not over the time when my dog, Floyd Coden, got into her yard and ate all of her cat‘s food—like it was some huge inconvenience or something. (Trust me, Mrs. Roper, it turned out to be a much bigger inconvenience for me at 4:00 in the morning.)

And the house across the street probably isn’t the most ideal spot for my kids to play either since I’m fairly certain that the lady who currently inhabits that house is dead.

For now, my kids are still happy to play with my friends’ kids because they have no say and they don‘t know any better.

But one day that will change. One day they are going to request a play date and I’m going to have to arrange it.

That is not unreasonable. I had friends outside of my neighborhood when I was a kid. I wasn’t a total loser.

We didn’t refer to those times as play dates though. I don’t think we had a name for them. We just did them. My mom would drop and then she would go.

It was a good system but someone, somewhere must have disagreed because that person decided that we, as busy parents, were no longer able to do the Drop-N-Go. That person (not me, definitely not me) decided that the parent who was dropping the kid off would not go, but instead, STAY.

It’s a Play date. Not a Stay date.

My kid is the one who wants a play date, not me. I’m good. Don’t be hurt. It’s not you. I like you and you‘re really nice, but I don’t have time to see the friends I do have. I need to have you over? I don’t think so.

Oh, your kid won’t stay if you’re not there? Well, I guess that means no play date at the Coden house!!

It’s my house that you’re concerned about? Ok! Come in! Take a look around, go through my stuff, count the smoke detectors, whatever you want—but the play date is for my kid, not me. Hit the bricks, yo. I got it covered on my end. If  little Brooklyn is still wailing after 15 minutes, I’ll call you and you can come pick her ass up.

If she stays, great! I’ll feed her something decent for lunch. I promise not to let her go crazy on the Oreos and I’ll keep her fingers out of the outlets, but you gotta go. I have s**t to do. The reason I asked to have your kid over in the first place is because I need someone to play with my kid so I can actually get some stuff done. I promise my kid is much nicer than I am, and believe me, your kid will have such a blast at my house, you can skip your trip to Disney. Anyway, don’t you have an errand you need to run, a manicure you want to get, or a friend you want to spend some time with?

As you can see, I’m really not such great company anyway.

I love it. I use it. I say “NO” to my kids a lot. (A LOT.) Just for the helluva it:”NO.” Sometimes I don’t even listen to what they’re saying, it’s just “NO.”

I say “Yes” once in awhile too, but they’re not used to it so it’s funny to watch them look around trying to figure out if it’s a trick or not.

Another thing I like to do with my parental power is push certain sports teams, recording artists and causes. I want my kids to be proud and to support great things. …And if you want to support great things, what do you do?

YOU REPRESENT.

The things we represent in our family, they’re all good. At least we think they are. Many will argue with our allegiances, but we are ready. Part of being a loyal supporter is playing defense. And defend we do, no matter what.

Not all of the things I push are controversial though, some are no brainers:

We adopted our older daughter, F, at 11 months old, and she’s been repping adoption with us ever since. She’s not walking around in a shirt that says MY MOM AND DAD ADOPTED ME AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT, but she represents. We all do.

In fact, if you were to go up to either one of my daughters looking to discuss adoption, they would gladly engage. (You might even be sorry you asked!) But they have a lot to say because we have nothing to hide. We couldn’t even if we wanted to. I mean, unless people choose to assume that I had a wild night of sexy time with a Chinese guy, it’s pretty obvious that at least one of my two kids is adopted.

But one is not. And because she’s not, she sometimes feels a little slighted. Her back story isn’t quite as intriguing as her sister’s and try as she may, she can’t figure out a way to spin it. Her go-to is to tell everyone that she had to be “CUT out of Mommy’s stomach and it was an EMERGENCY!”— but sadly, no one (besides me)really cares.

So, over the years I have given her other things to rep:

But now my kids are getting older and they want to make their own decisions. Apparently, they don’t need me in their face telling them what I think they should support. I do it anyway, but now they have final say. I’m allowed to offer up a suggestion, but it can only be a suggestion.

Like Autism Awareness. I recently offered that up as a cause we should boost and they looked at me like “WTF is Autism?”

To be fair, Autism isn’t an easy thing to explain. I tripped over my words quite a bit, but by the end of our conversation they understood that awareness and knowledge of Autism is important. Not just for them, but for all of us, because we are all growing up amongst the wonders of Autism.

So, we decided to do a post on the Dim Sum and Doughnuts Facebook page asking others to tell us what THEY want us to know about Autism.

We then asked for people share that post because Autism, like any other cause worth garnering attention, is everywhere.

The people that have Autism need to be recognized for how special and awesome they are, and so do their parents. I don’t know their road, but I imagine it’s not an easy one. Parenting is hard enough, but parenting a child with special needs requires extra special parenting. The parents of children with Autism are doing the best they can, and a little support only helps, especially on the rough days.

There will be claims that I’m exploiting my kids because I make them step up, but I don’t care. I’m doing what feels right to me, as a parent.

Still, I’m not an idiot. I know there could be a day when one or both of my kids  end up on a therapist’s couch, blah blah blah’ing, when all of the sudden, they yell (hands to the sky): You’re right! It IS my mom!! She did this to us! She said “NO” all the time and “YES” only to mess with us, and also: SHE MADE US REPRESENT!!!!

But that’s OK. I’m fine being the one to bear the brunt of all their neurosis. I can take it. I just hope that they know I meant well—and that one of them is wearing an Eminem shirt.

How about you? Your kids? What sports team, worthy cause or artist do you represent?

1. He’s too young.
2. We can’t afford it.
3. Don’t you have to be Jewish?
4. He won’t even do a sleepover!
5. He’s not good without us for too long.

These are all valid concerns, if they’re valid. In other words, if any of those concerns do apply, it’s only fair to ask yourself:

Is your reasoning purely about your kid, or is it a little bit about you too?

1. He’s Too Young: Sending your kid to overnight camp isn’t about age, it’s about readiness. But if he’s real young, and on the fence, don’t push it. Send him next year. Better to wait so he leaves wanting more, than to have to fight him to go back. The first year my husband went to camp, he was 6 years old. His parents came to get him on visiting day, but they went home without him. Not all kids are ready that young though. If you know that camp is in your child’s future, opening a dialogue about it early is definitely the way to go. Hype that s**t up! That way the kid is part of the excitement surrounding camp, and on board when the time comes.

2. We Can’t Afford It: I don’t usually mess with this one because if my husband wasn’t one of the directors at our camp, we probably couldn’t afford it either! Camp isn’t cheap. But it’s not cheap for a reason. There are a lot of costs that go into operating a quality summer camp program. Thankfully, there are tons of camps, and each one of them offers something different with different price points. There is bound to be a camp that fits the needs of your child with a payment plan that follows suit. Many even offer scholarship opportunities! And believe me, if my kids weren’t already part of a camp and we were flat-broke, I’d still find a way to send them. BUH BYE!

3. Don’t You Have To Be Jewish? To be fair, I may be the only person who gets this question. For some reason, people who aren’t Jewish seem to think our camp is only for Jewish kids (It’s not.) Overnight camp does seem to be associated with Jewish kids though. Not only has it been portrayed like that in books and movies, but a lot of us (Jews) grew up with camp in our lives. For many of us, myself included, overnight camp wasn’t an option, it was an priority: “You’re going to camp. I don’t know where yet, but you’re going.” Our parents figured out a way to get us there—if not just for us, for them too. (When I went, I don’t even know if I was fully packed before my mom was like: “LATER!”) There are all kinds of camps out there. You absolutely don’t have to be Jewish to go to camp. You just have to be a kid.

4. He won’t even do a sleepover: If this is your concern, it’s a good one—and it’s probably a good idea to address it at some point. Getting out of one’s comfort zone is something every kid learns at overnight camp, but even if he never goes, a sleepover at some point is a must unless you want your kid attending college, on-line, at your house. Plus, sleepovers are fun.

5. He’s not good without us for too long: To me, that’s the kid who needs camp the most. He may have a hard time at first, but he will cave. Something will click and he’ll realize that he’s having fun. He’s meeting new friends (many who he will have FOR LIFE), learning new things, and growing up. And he will be home before you know it. …And then, 10 minutes later, when he’s banging on your kitchen table screaming mess hall cheers and telling you to “Freeze!” or you’re “The Hopper” for that meal, you’ll either wish you could send him back, or that you could go too.

That’s parenthood. It’s unstable, unpredictable and, often times, thankless. It doesn’t suck all the time, obviously—or no one would do it, but it’s not an easy job to raise a good kid. And if you’re a good parent, raising a good kid, you can’t ever get too cocky because as soon as you do, your kid will do something to remind you that you still have a lot of work to do.

It doesn’t even have to be something big. With little kids, like what I have, it’s usually something small. The thing is, something small can turn into something big if it’s not acknowledged.

For example, my little one, JJ, lost her tooth the other day and the tooth fairy (Penelope) brought her a dollar, a lipstick pen and a Kit Kat. (I don’t know if Penelope is a high rent tooth fairy or if she is low rent, but that’s what my kid got.) JJ was thrilled.

Her older sister, however, was not.

As soon as the Tooth Fairy treasures were displayed, the older one came into the kitchen whining and complaining that “JJ got a Kit Kat and I didn’t, and now JJ will get to have it after lunch and I don’t get ANYHING!! (Whine, whine, whine…cry a little bit and stomp out.)

How JJ’s Tooth Fairy haul was even ABOUT her, I don’t know.

I was so completely dumbfounded by the pre-pre-pre menstrual situation that just occurred, I called her back to the kitchen so I could calmly explain that she also gets stuff from Penelope when she loses a tooth, and she doesn’t always share those things with her little sister.

That should have been enough, but it wasn’t. There was arguing—unnecessary and exhausting arguing.

I started to get aggravated as she argued with me and I finally defaulted to asking her what, if anything, in her life she was missing…?

I will tell you what she’s missing: Nothing. But she argued that too. She somehow even managed to bring the argument back to her sister and then started complaining about a bunch of other random stuff that had nothing to do with ANYTHING in this world.

At that point, I was done so I explained that NONE of this was my problem and if she wanted some of the Kit Kat, her best move would be to go to her sister and ask HER!

It seems, as of late, that this kind of thing has become a trend in our house: My kids concentrate more on what they DON’T have instead of what they DO have.

It never lasts more than a few seconds, but it annoys me. My kids have a good life—the exact life my huz and I work for them to have and want them to have—but sometimes I wonder if we are giving them too much? They complain and whine about the dumbest stuff. A little perspective would be nice sometimes.

Part of it is their age. They’re still little. They don’t know of all the bad stuff that is going on in the world, and they shouldn’t. Or should they?

Maybe a little.

There’s a part of me that wants to protect them while I still can, but I also don’t want to raise spoiled brats. There are some days when I get scared because I feel like they are going in that direction. Those are the days when I think they need to know a little more of what things could be like for them if they didn’t have parents who are as AWESOME as us.

That’s probably why, last night, when the girls and I were in JJ’s bed, petting and loving on our dog, Bruno, we somehow got into a conversation about how some people aren’t so nice to their dogs. And some people aren’t so nice to their kids. In fact, some mommies and daddies even HIT their kids, OPEN HANDED!

And I didn’t stop there. We talked at length about kids who don’t have it as good as they do. Kids who get the crap beat out of them for saying stupid s**t, and kids who don’t ever get Tooth Fairy visits. I felt bad for a second because, you know, probably not the best bedtime story ever, but it seemed like I was making my point, even if it was only going to last a few seconds.

Sometimes those seconds are what helps our kids become decent adults though.

I believe there are times when we need to indulge youth and innocence, and let our kids only know happy times, but sometimes they need to know that there are worse things than not getting a Kit Kat when your sister does.

Also, telling your kid about horrible parents who beat their kids keeps the bar real low for us so we look good and get a win—even if it’s only for a few seconds.

Pressure To Have Kids

No.

First off, it’s no one else’s business. I get that when someone gets married, the kid thing becomes a question, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be asked out loud. If you are one of those people who automatically default to asking married people: “When are you guys going to have kids?” You need to make that stop.

Why? Because it’s annoying. If you’re asking that question, you’re probably not the only one. It’s bound to get aggravating. If it were me, I’d be like “You know what, Aunt Ruth? I think we are going to have some kids RIGHT NOW! Is now good? Better make some room though, Auntie, cuz things about to get crazy up in here! ”

Also, what if the person you ask isn’t physically able to reproduce, or they’re having problems? You’re screwed. That’s going to either take you into a complicated conversation about reproductive challenges, or you’re going to feel awkward and uncomfortable for asking in the first place because it’s clearly (and understandably) a sensitive subject. Good luck with that!

Or what if they don’t want kids? Not everyone wants kids. It’s not unheard of to get married and NOT have kids. Kids are a pain. They take your time, your sleep, your money and your youth. I’m not even sure how I ended up with them!

Fourth (Is this fourth, I don’t even know), the couple may not be ready. Having kids isn’t like having a party. It’s not over when everyone leaves. It’s just over for the people leaving. You still have a lot of business to take care of. A LOT. And it never ends. Even when the kids aren’t around, you’re still doing stuff for them, and cleaning up after them, and concerned about them.

Because once they come, it ain’t about you NO MO.

And even when it is about you, you’re still on-call, always. Life is different. Having kids can be amazing and awesome, but it’s major. I was on the older side when I had kids (36 for the first one, and then 38) and I still wasn’t prepared for how major it was going to be.

No one is.

My advice: Get some kind of a pet first, like a dog. Love him and take care of him and train the s**t out of him. Take him for walks and vet visits. Brush his teeth, give him his Heartworm pill once a month, and play with him. Get up in the middle of the night and clean up his barf from whatever he ate earlier that he wasn’t supposed to. Take him to obedience school and pay all his bills.

Then, once you are comfortable with your life, enjoy it. Enjoy that time. Kids will come when they are supposed to. It’s not a race. It will happen if and when you want it to happen, or it won’t. There are TONS of options these days.

And until then, everyone else just need to shut it and worry about themselves, and—if they have them—their own kids.

My husband, Cody, is one of the directors of an overnight camp for kids in Northern Michigan. Every year, Cody moves up to camp at the end of April to start setting up. My girls (4 and 7 years old) and I visit when we can, but we can’t move up for good until school is out.

We only live at camp during the summer, but it’s a part of our lives all year round. It’s not just a job, it’s our lifestyle and part of who we are.

And we are very lucky.

But with that lifestyle comes responsibility. We work with kids so we are role models, whether we want to be or not. For me, it was an appointed position. I never filled out an application, there was no interview, I got in by marriage and the position, quite honestly, was one I was not completely prepared for.

Cody never told me what being the wife of a camp director would entail. I don’t think he was intentionally holding it from me, I just don’t think there was ever a good time or a good way to explain it.

Before I got married, I was fairly anonymous. I worked, I hung out with my friends—I did my thing. I wasn’t a wallflower, but I most certainly wasn’t in the public eye. There was no social media and I never ran into my work clients outside of meetings, so whatever I did in my personal life affected me, and only me.

It’s not like that now. I’m a grown-up (sort of) and a mother, and I need to be accountable for my actions—not just for those reasons, but also because of camp. I am responsible to camp.

I know what you’re thinking: Who cares? It’s camp. No one cares what you do. You’re not a teacher, or a Rabbi—you can do whatever you want. But you’re wrong. People do care. And they should. We work with kids, and when you work with kids you should be held to a different standard. Part of working with kids is to set a good example and it’s our job to make the parents feel comfortable that they’re sending their kids to live and grow with people who aren’t total lunatics.

But that’s a lot of responsibility for someone like me, and a lot of pressure. I’m not always good with a lot of pressure.

For example, when I was pregnant, there was pressure. I didn’t like that. I was completely and totally responsible for the well-being of someone else. When you’re pregnant, you have to REALLY take care of yourself and you’re not allowed to party or eat feta cheese. No cigarettes? Fine. No booze? No problem. But no feta cheese? I live in the suburbs of Detroit. There’s a Greek restaurant on every corner and mama wants her Greek salads!

Being pregnant with my first kid was easy because I wasn’t the one who was pregnant. The birth mom in China had all the responsibility, so while she was keeping up with that, I was probably at some Coney Island stuffing my face with 12 pieces of spinach pie.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not for one minute complaining. Yes, I have to roll Rated G because of my camp affiliation, and yes, losing my anonymity and my husband for several months of the year does sometimes suck, but the rewards we get from our lifestyle greatly outweigh the loss so I wouldn’t dare complain. I’m just saying that if I were to be totally honest, I would have to admit that I’m not always up for it.

Like this one time I was driving to my friend “Malk’s” house and some loser cut me off so I, instinctively, threw my hands up in the air like “WTF???” and he SAW me do it! When I pulled up next to him at a light, instead of saying he was sorry he gave me THE FINGER. So I yelled “Real classy, Jack!” and he yelled “My name’s not Jack!” and I yelled “It is when it’s short for Jack A$$!” …and then I was all proud of myself because that was kind of a funny comeback, and then I kind of freaked out, not because I thought he might pull a gun, but because he might be a parent of a camper, and that could make visiting day kind of uncomfortable.

Where I live, people connected with camp are all over the place, and for the most part, that’s fine because my personality is such that I really do have the right disposition for it. I love the kids (except for the annoying ones) and I love the parents (except for the annoying ones) and whatever bad stuff I do when I‘m not around them (a lot), I just make sure I don’t get caught.

And I have been lucky. I just have to be aware of my behavior and the repercussions associated with it. But, honestly, that’s not such a bad thing (especially for me) because really, couldn’t we all use some guidelines and boundaries? As we get older we have less and less people to help monitor our behavior, so, in many ways, it’s nice to have camp to help keep me in check.

It’s ironic that one of the major benefits of camp is that it teaches kids how to make good, responsible choices because I’m probably lacking in that area more than any camper.

One good choice I have made because of camp is that I don’t really swear a lot on my personal Facebook page. There are campers who have “friended” me on Facebook so I try to be careful. Rated G, yo.

I have a friend, “Maddy” who doesn’t have to be like that at all. Maddy has a huge heart and she’s truly a good person but Maddy flat-out could care less what anyone thinks of her. She’s not accountable to anyone. She‘s doesn’t have to be, but even if she was, I still don’t think she’d care! There’s some definite freedom in that.

Maddy decorates her Facebook page with all kinds of things, and the people on her friend list know her well, so we all know what to expect. I love the things Maddy puts on her wall, but I feel like it’s probably better left on her wall and not on mine:

When I was in my 20’s, I didn’t know to care. When I was in my 30’s, I did care. Now I’m in my 40’s and I just don’t have the time to care. It’s exhausting! As I look around my friends who are mostly in their 40’s, I see that we are all in a very similar place. The things that used to bother us, don’t bother us anymore, and no one really has time to care what anyone else thinks. I’m kind of bummed that I still have to, I feel like I’m getting ripped off.

I do my best to set a good example for the kids, not just my kids, but also the kids at camp. For the most part, it comes easily to me because that’s how I’m built. But, at the same time, I am who I am, so there is a chance, a good chance, that I might mess up sometimes.

Fingers and toes crossed that I don’t get caught!

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Thanks for being here!

But I didn’t.

What I did do was step up our walks, and on those walks I have learned some things. Here are 10 of them:

1. Nothing will humble you more than scooping up and carrying around a bag of dog s**t. I don’t care how cool you think you are, it’s hard to be “The s**t” when you’re walking around carrying a bag of it.

2. Don’t rush to judgment. There’s a dog in our hood that is mean. I’m sorry, but he is. I assumed when I approached him that he’d be nice like all the other Golden Retrievers I have known, but NO, he wasn’t. Bruno has the opposite problem. Most people are scared to approach Bruno, and some have admitted that it’s because he’s big and black. Racists!!

3. Slow down. The walk I take with Bruno may be the biggest part of his day, but I’ve got s**t to do. We need to keep moving. Sometimes, though, Bruno likes to slow down and take things in. That’s how he rolls, and I am trying to do the same.

4. Fresh Air is good. (I feel like that one is pretty self explanatory.)

5. Don’t get The Lazies around The Crazies. Keep walking. There’s this one dog who barks NON-STOP when we go by. We call her Felicia. Felicia is nuts. Felicia wants Bruno to stop and hang with her so badly, but Felicia needs to work on her approach. Until then…

6. Let your freak flag fly. Bruno loves the ladies. Izzy is his love but he also has a side piece: Roxy. (We call her Foxy Roxy.) I have no doubt that the ladies know about each other because A) they can smell it on him and B) women know. But Bruno isn’t a one woman kind of guy. Bruno is a ramblin’ man and he doesn’t apologize for it.

7. The apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree. There’s this lady who walks her dogs every morning in her pajamas with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. She never says anything to us, just yells at her dogs—and I swear on everything in this world that is holy to me that if her little yippie ass dogs were people, they would be exactly like her.

8. Just because someone can’t communicate to you they’re in pain, doesn’t mean they aren’t. Yesterday, Bruno kept stopping on our walk. I was all “Come on, Mr. 10 lbs!” until I realized that he had something caught in his paw. I felt bad. Not everyone can articulate the pain they’re in, and sometimes it’s up to us to notice the signs.

9. If some Mind F**k is messing with your head and they can’t decide if they’re in or out, decide for them. There’s this one dog who loves Bruno, but she keeps teasing him. She’ll bark for him to come near her and then when he does, she bails. She did this 3 times the other day and finally Bruno was like, Later, sister. Get back to me when you get your act together. We outtie.

10. Don’t overstay your welcome. When we visit with other dogs, we try not to hang too long or they might not want us back. Bruno likes to leave them wanting more. And so do I.

Happy Walking!

When class was over, I started chatting with one of the teachers about how great it is that the kids in that class are totally tolerant of one another. He said that as kids get older, unfortunately, that usually changes.

I get that. With dance, as kids progress, the choreography becomes less “cute” and more serious—it’s not always going to be as OK to be a step behind. But still, it makes me sad that some kids are hard on other kids (probably the kids who can’t keep up) because I would think that in most any given situation, the “stars” will still shine regardless of how the other kids are doing. In fact, they might even shine more.

But you know how kids are. They don’t know how things work. I see it all the time at camp. (My husband is a director at an overnight camp for kids so we live there during the summer.) I have noticed as kids get older, they become less tolerant. The cool thing about camp though, is that everyone gets a chance to slow down and truly appreciate their surroundings. And that includes the people surrounding them.

At camp, kids get a good dose of time management because there are things they have to be on time for: Meals, Activities, Flag Pole,  Milk and Cookies (especially milk and cookies or I will eat them all). But punctuality and independence are not the only skills kids develop at camp—they also learn to connect in new ways, they learn to work as a unit, and they learn to tolerate others. These are values they learn whether they want to or not. They have no other choice. It’s camp.

Kids who act a little “different” at home might not be accepted at school, but they have a place at camp. And they should. There is no reason for any kid at camp not to be nice to another kid, I don’t care how weird the kid is. Who are you that you can’t hang with that kid? You think you’re so cool? YOUR FLY’S DOWN! And yes, that kid might be a little weird, but you need to accept him for who he is. No one is telling you to make him a BFF lanyard, but if he lands next to you at dinner, just deal.

I love that the kids at camp are forced to tolerate and connect with others in their peer group. That’s a very important skill. Some of the kids are bare bones and they tolerate just enough not to get stuck “having a talk” with me, but some of them actually celebrate the kids who are a little different. They include them and embrace them.

The kids who do that, those are the smart kids. They know that the ones who are a little “different” are also the ones who make a difference. The kids who are “different” are the ones we learn from, and usually the ones we end up working for.

Don’t rule out the weirdos, yo. They’re the ones to watch.

The camp dynamic is such that even when that time in our life is over, we are still (and always) bound by something bigger that holds us together no matter the amount of time, the distance, or the differences in personalities. If you have that history, that intense living experience, it’s binding and it’s forever.

But every kid doesn’t get to go to overnight camp. So what do you do if your kid isn’t able to experience that kind of communal living and an invisible thread that holds everyone together? How else can they learn tolerance?

Well, there are a few ways:

1. You can join a cult. But I’m not recommending that. That never seems to end well.

2. You can teach at home.

Home is a safe place where the atmosphere isn’t competitive, it‘s collaborative, so home seems like a good place to start. A good kid usually comes from a good home. Kids listen to their parents, even if they pretend not to, and as parents, it’s on us to talk to our kids about how to treat others. It’s on us to show them how to be tolerant by being tolerant ourselves.

We come into contact every day with people who aren’t so easy. Most everyone has their moments, and some people are straight-up annoying. It would be nice if we all held on a little bit longer to the mentality we had when we were younger—that mentality of complete acceptance and utter obliviousness—but it gets harder as we get older, we have to make more of an effort.

And sometimes it’s work.

But if our kids see us doing it, maybe they will do it too. Zero tolerance for zero tolerance.

Gotta start somewhere, right?

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