Thursday, April 28, 2011

Ten things I want to teach my daughter

For many years now I’ve been compiling a sort of mental list of the things I want to teach my children, things I feel are important, and I imagine that many, maybe most of you do something similar.  We all have our reasons for engaging in this possibly futile exercise, and today I decided to share mine, just in case you needed another example of my neuroses.
As you may already know, I’m a tiny bit into apocalyptic scenarios (one of my favorite movies is The Day After Tomorrow – no, not joking) and one of my biggest fears is dying, disappearing, getting stranded on a desert island… and not being there to see my kids grow up. So I started keeping journals for them; proper, hand-written journals. But, who am I kidding, they may not manage to glean the really salient information from all of my long-winded ramblings, or possibly by the time they’re grown the hand-written word will be so unfamiliar they won’t be able to make out what I wrote, so I decided to start a list of important things they need to know. This one is for The Girl:
  1. Cherish your brother – so you’ll always have family, even after we’re gone.
  2. Be nice, respectful and caring – it costs nothing and is worth millions.
  3. If your bum is cold, your skirt is too short.
  4. You never, ever need to do anything that makes you uncomfortable to prove your love.
  5. When you’re old enough you may drink, you may even get tipsy but don’t ever get all out drunk, it’s un-lady-like and you’ll regret it.
  6. If you’re unsure whether something you want to say is mean, don’t say it.
  7. If your underwear is uncomfortable you’ll have a miserable day.
  8. Do whatever you want with your life as long as it makes you genuinely happy.
  9. Sing and dance as much as you can, it’ll make you happy on the gloomiest of days.
  10. Childbirth is not as bad as everyone says, no matter how badly it hurts it’ll end soon enough and you get a baby out of it.
There you go, I’d like to do one once a month and I’ve decided to put up a linky, both to hold myself accountable and to make it more fun. So if anyone wants to participate write up your list of ten important things you want to teach your child or children and link up! I’ll be doing it the first day of every month, so it’s not too much of a hassle and we’ll see how it goes.
The previous list is just a test run and an example of what I mean, but feel free to write whatever you want whichever way you want (funny, heartfelt, ironic…) after all it’s for your children. I’ll be putting up the linky on Sunday, May 1st (need to figure out how to do it!). If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments or email me moomser at gmail dot com. Hope to see you Sunday!

21 comments:

  1. Molto divertente e intelligente. Prenderò sicuramente spunto.
    buona notte
    Ale sfondrini

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  2. How fun! I love the underwear and skirt ones. Sage advice.

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  3. I love it! I'll link up-I don't know how to do it either though:) I love the one about the bum, totally true!

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  4. You are beyond right on the underwear. My thong phase lasted about an hour. :-)

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  5. # 3 made me giggle. If your bum is cold AND you have the wrong underwear, you have a serious problem on your hands!

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  6. I LOVE this idea and enjoyed even more the blog! You are right on and these are definetly essential lessons. Thanks for the smile this morning and I will start thinking for Sunday! Hugs and smiles. Amy

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  7. your blog is great! waiting for other post :)

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  8. I much preferred labor to pregnancy!

    I was in labor for 43 1/2 hours, but being sick for 35 of 39 weeks was no fun! After labor it's all over (well, minus the sleep deprivation, the all night feedings, the diapers.... you get the idea. lol)

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  9. @Jessica Anne Thanks Jessica Anne, personal experience has to count for something with our girls, right?

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  10. @twinismsUnfortunately, experience teaches! Can't wait to read your post!

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  11. @Cloud Thanks Cloud, glad you enjoyed it!

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  12. @Hello! I'm Kate. That sounds terrible! Thank God we get babies out of it!

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  13. I wish I'd known you when I was 18. I may have given up with the thong and saved myself many a college lesson trying to discreetly pull it out of my bum cheeks. Seriously, that underwear lesson is invaluable.

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  14. @twinismsUnfortunately, experience teaches! Can't wait to read your post!

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  15. your blog is great! waiting for other post :)

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  16. I love it! I'll link up-I don't know how to do it either though:) I love the one about the bum, totally true!

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