Crime and Punishment?

So I'm enjoying my childless breakfast after having a physical and I read that a fellow mama is upping the severity of her daughter's punishments because the child says the old punishments are no longer working.

Um, excuse me?  Your child says that your punishments are no longer working so you change them?!

I admit I am no child psychologist, but something about this makes my mommy brain hurt.  I understand changing a punishment if you see it's not having the desired impact on your child's behavior, but this makes no sense.

Maybe it's because I see children as humans that are capable of saying something doesn't work in an effort to get it to go away is why I think this behavior is a tad insane.

I see it at work all the time...

"We have this new program we are going to use for this process" ~ Boss

"I don't want to use a new program" ~ Employee

"Just try it and we will see how it goes, it's supposed to work great and really make things better" ~ Boss

A few days later....

"This doesn't work, I think it's broken, maybe we should go back to the old way" ~ Employee


Hmmm.... anyone else seeing my point here?  The employee has no intention of using the new thing so they claim it doesn't work.  Most bosses will honestly tell you to keep trying and will even help you learn to use the new thing.  If a boss just said "okay we will change this because you say it doesn't work", that would be a crappy boss.

Not that I'm saying this is a crappy mom, in fact, I think she's a great mom.  I just think she's a bit misguided and isn't aware of the impact of changing things because her child says so.  Granted, I will bet this child had no idea things would happen this way, but still, she now knows that if she says something isn't working, it will change (though maybe not always in the way she wants it to).

I could be way off base and I certainly haven't read all the books on child raising that are out there.  Hell, I live by the best rule of child raising in the world: If you can get the kids out there in the world without them getting returned defective, then you've done your job (thank you Roseanne).

Oh well, live and learn and hopefully raise a genius humanitarian billionaire :)  

Until next time

Well Hello Mama!

So, how to begin?  Do you just jump right in assuming anyone that chooses to read your blog already knows you well enough to know your back story?  Do you have a first post that's like a Dickens novel (I was born, I grew up) thereby boring everyone to tears?

Well, here's a compromise.  A fairly short back story and then on to fun.

I'm a 34 year old mother of 2 lovely daughters (8) (11 months).  I work 40 hours a week and sometimes more if the need arises (which it does more often than not).  I'm also a big nerd who loves video games, movies, computers, books, and the like.  I live in the western part of Texas (can't say West Texas after the big explosion in the actual city of West, Texas because people don't always realize there's a comma and get confused).  I'm not married yet, but that will happen this summer in Vegas because I don't feel the need to spend a small fortune on a wedding and then another small fortune on a honeymoon when you can just do both in the same place.  I'm pretty sarcastic and I tend to speak my mind without cause to listen to what I'm saying.

Why am I here:

I'm a mom who has taken care of other people's children for years so I'm not exactly new to the game.  I have tons of opinions and stories that will hopefully help others (even if it's just to laugh and realize you aren't completely nuts).

I try my best not to judge other mamas out there because I know there's not an owner's manual for life and if there was, kids don't read it anyway.  I may throw something out there about how I think something a fellow mama does is insane, but I'm not saying they are wrong, just maybe not performing the smartest of actions.

At any rate, wherever you are, please feel free to read and comment and share ideas.  It should be quite fun.