Bumper Cars
It is truly one of the greatest ironies on earth that the most important job ever, parenting, requires no skills or prior experience. Want to drive a car? That will take you six months of driving lessons, practice hours with a trained driver, two exams (one written one practical) and two years probation. Want to be a parent? No problem! No prior experience or education necessary. Regardless of the number of people who have suffered and learned profound truths about successful parenting before us, the majority of us enter our roles as Life Skills Educators like bumper cars at an amusement park, making it up as we go and hoping our crashes don't kill us or anyone else. Fortunately, mistakes are as vital to improvement of Life Skills as falling down is to walking, and the trials and errors of our learning curves often make for some hilarious stories. (Sample below) Please email us your short story to Parenting2pt0@gmail.com. Not only will we share it in this section, we may also include it in a future magazine article, group presentation, or book. PS. Feel free to include a photo. Hugs Mama Marlaine!
Safety
Our oldest daughter's entry into the adult world (compliments of her Toyota Tacoma) advanced the issue of safety to one of our top concerns. For years she planned on her first car being a truck, and we talked excitedly about all the cute girlish decorations with which she'd adorn it; items such as flowers or bumper stickers that say "Silly boys, trucks are for girls." Once she actually had her own truck, however, I experienced an instantaneous 180 degree change in consciousness. Suddenly such blatantly youthful feminine auto advertisements seemed to translate to something along the lines of "teenage virgin, easy target." How about we put a sticker on your bumper that says Proud Pistol Packing Member of the NRA
I asked her...we settled on nothing.