Other parents? What?!

Talk about heartbreak. I am hoping it was just a phase that all children go through...the "I want other parents" phase.

I haven't seen Coraline, nor have I read the book. Mimi, our oldest, saw it though and loved the story. Coraline apparently has very busy parents, trying to make their very meager ends meet. Sounds like many real life parents nowadays.

Coraline feels unsettled about her parents. She goes exploring and finds the "other mother" who from what I can gather from my 9 year old ends up being way worse than her real life mother. The "other mother" takes children's eyes and replaces them with buttons. Yikes.

Moral of the story (I think): be happy with the mother you have (or parents) so long as they really are not bad parents.

The other day our little boy (who has not seen or read Coraline) said he wanted to go find his other parents. You can read below about how he and I worked through this.

I thought I had safely locked away that conversation with my son for good but today I cannot get it out of my head. I have Soleil Moon Frye (aka Punky Brewster) to thank for it. As a little girl I was often compared to her. Now as a fellow mom, I love it that she has grown up with a love for all things organic (like I and other girls from our generation have) and as a thoughtful parent.

I digress. What's my point? Today Soleil Moon Frye posted a blog on her website Little Seed about how sometimes we mommies/parents get stressed out....we snap at our kids, and really regret it. She posed some thoughts around this and asked for feedback. You can find her blog entry HeRe with her original statement and question.

Here's what I wrote in response:

~I have 3 little ones…and a not so perfect life and we are struggling especially hard right now like many people. Last week my middle child, my 6 year old son, said he “wanted to go find his other parents”. It broke my heart. I asked him to explain. He said he wanted to find his other parents, the ones that are nice ALL the time. We in no way mistreat our babies of course, but they do see me cry once in a while due to one thing or another and they do see dad complain about a hard day. I had to sit him down and explain that all people, little and big, have hard days and sometimes even grown ups don’t handle them as well as we should. I reminded him that on his bad days, when he whines or cries or throws a temper tantrum that I still love him and that I’d never say, “I want to go find my other son…the one that never misbehaves.” He understood the point right away. Sometimes being real with our children is one of the best things we can do for them even though we are inclined to put on a happy face and pretend issues are not there. Teaching kids how to deal/cope sooner rather than later in my opinion is a gift.~

I'm sure others will disagree with me- saying that we should keep our children sheltered for as long as we can is the way to go. I definitely agree that anything we can protect them from, we should. But life is full of ups and downs- loved ones pass away, jobs are lost, wars are fought, children go hungry. I try to keep my children shielded from these unpleasantries but at a certain point I feel that keeping them in the dark is a disservice.

My two youngest are still safe in their world of childhood but Mimi, our 9 year old is quickly becoming aware of troubles that exist in the world. I am using it as a teaching tool- showing her that there is a good side to everything.

When a loved one passes away, I remind her that we will be reunited with them someday and we can be a family forever.

When someone loses a job, we see what we can do to help and let people know they have support.

When she hears about the war on the news, we talk about history lessons and diplomacy and our leaders making wise (or unwise) choices.

When she sees kids in our neighborhood who look hungry, we talk about to offering extra produce from our garden to other who could use it.

So, the point of this long, drawn out blog entry is to get some feedback. I think it's OK to let our kids know adults are human and sometimes have hard days just like they do. And I think it's OK to let them know the world is full of trials when they are old enough to think about it....but it has to be coupled with teaching them that they have the power to make the world a happier place for themselves and everyone else.

What do you think? I'm starting to wonder if I have it right, or if I should just keep my kids in a bubble?