Kind Mothers Raise Kind Daughters
I’ve lived a lot of places, enough places to know that as women, we are more alike, no matter what our culture, than we are different. And there is one thing about women – sometimes we are our own worst enemies.
Learning to be kind was a life-long journey for me. I can spot the unkind now; they are the ones who hiss in the corners, saying mean things – usually about other women. They are the ones who will point the finger and you know that they are pointing at someone else because they are so afraid someone will look too closely at them.
I choose kind friends; they are pearls without price. (LOL, I actually wrote “pears” without price 😉 ) I look with awe on my sweet daughter-in-law who is both kind, and raising kind children. As the singer Jewell says – “in the end, only kindness matters.”
I did not write this. This is a reprint from a Huffpost News article, reprinting from the original blog, which you can see at the bottom of the article. It is a cold wintery day in Pensacola, and this story warmed my heart.
When my daughter Ella was in fourth grade, she got in the car one day after school and announced her plan to run for student council.
At her school each class has a representative, and I was thrilled she planned to put her name in the hat. Even if she didn’t win, it would be a good experience.
She told me almost every girl in her class was running, as well as one or two boys. As kindly as possible, I mentioned the boys might have an advantage since the girl votes could be split, as that can happen in elections. I told Ella I was proud of her for putting herself out there, and that she’d make a great representative if elected.
The next day after school, Ella mentioned a dilemma she and her friend Annie had “figured out.” On Friday all candidates had to give a speech. Since our family was going to the beach Friday, Ella wouldn’t be there to give hers.
“But Annie had a great idea,” Ella said, referencing one of her best friends, who was in Ella’s class that year. “She suggested that I do a video speech, and she’ll play it for everyone.”
I was very touched by this suggestion from Annie. Why? Because Annie was running against Ella for student council. Yet instead of treating Ella like a competitor, she treated her like a friend.
Ella’s teacher agreed to the video speech, so we made it and sent it on. I didn’t think much more about the election until Friday afternoon around 3 p.m., when I was soaking up an ocean view of the Gulf Coast and received an email from Ella’s teacher. She had great news: Ella had won the election! Her classmates had voted her onto student council.
Our family hugged and congratulated Ella. I could tell by the shy smile on her face what her peers’ vote of confidence meant to her. About ten minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was Annie’s mom (one of my close friends) calling us from her cell.
“We are so thrilled about Ella!” she said, her voice joyful and triumphant. “It was the first thing Annie told me when she got in the car! She’s sooooo excited! We couldn’t be happier if it happened to her!”
The phone call didn’t surprise me, because that was typical for this family. What caught me off-guard was the timing of the call. These were 10-year-olds, after all, and 10-year-old emotions can be fragile. Their automatic instinct isn’t always happiness for a friend who got something they wanted, too. Had the tables been turned, I’m not sure the call would have happened so fast. We may have had to work through a little disappointment — if even for a minute — before focusing on our friend.
But to Annie and her mom, a victory for Annie’s best friend was a victory for Annie. A win for one was a win for both. If you ask me, that’s the perfect illustration of true friendship. It’s how it should work at every level.
All four of my girls have found friends similar to Annie. While no friendship is perfect, I’ve been surprised by some of the kindness I’ve seen at young ages. They know how to look out for a friend. They get it. And can I tell you what their kind friends all have in common? Kind mothers. Time and time again, I’ve become friends with the moms I meet through my children’s beloved friends because they’re good souls. I don’t think it’s a coincidence their children are, too.
We all want to raise kind daughters. We want them to be good friends and have good friends. While I give Annie full credit for supporting Ella — she suggested the video, after all, and was quick to celebrate her win — I know she didn’t pull that mindset out of thin air. She picked it up from her family because that’s how they think.
A win for a friend is a win for both.
Kindness among young girls doesn’t start on the playground or in the locker room — it starts at home. Most notably, it starts with kind mothers raising kind daughters. Our girls see how we treat our friends. They also notice how we treat their friends.
If we treat their friends as competitors, our daughters will, too. If we love their friends like we love our own children, they’re more likely to see them as sisters and part of the family.
Keep in mind it wasn’t just Annie cheering when Ella won student council. It was Annie’s mom, too. She was just as enthusiastic. Can I tell you what that meant to me? Can you imagine the trust that added to our relationship?
Quite honestly, I think it’s rare for both a mother and daughter to instinctively rejoice as these two did. Then again, maybe it just proves the point.
We moms rub off on our girls. Over time our way of thinking becomes their way of thinking. If we want to raise kind daughters, we need to start by being kind mothers.
This post originally appeared on KariKampakis.com.
A Snowflake Might Fall in Pensacola! (0)(0)
I can’t help it, it’s just funny to me. There is a chance it might snow in Pensacola. A very cold front MIGHT come south of I-10 and blast Pensacola for two days.
Our son texted us that our grandchildrens’ school has issued a closure for tomorrow and Wednesday, could we help. I said sure. Then he texted that he and his wife are also off. Woooo HOOOOO! It’s kind of like a hurricane warning, none of this may really even happen.
Driving While Incapacitated
Today we had one of those adrenalin experiences I haven’t had since leaving Kuwait. As we turned left onto a major thoroughfare, we were almost side-swiped on the left by a car turning left and driving the wrong way down the lane into which we were turning.
Fortunately, AdventureMan saw him in plenty of time, and made room. So we were behind this guy. Normally we just assume people are inattentive, or arrogant. For us, it’s not that important; just let ’em go their way.
Today, our eyes were as wide as saucers. This same driver kept driving over into the left hand lane. At first, I thought he was going to turn, but he made no turn. AdventureMan honked, to alert him to the fact that he was in the lane where cars were coming his way, headed right into him, we thought maybe he was texting.
Then he shifted all the way over headed into the parking lane, then wove back into the oncoming traffic. Fortunately, all the traffic – and this driver – were all going relatively slowly and the oncoming traffic pulled over. Everyone could see something was not normal.
AdventureMan spotted a police car, just behind us, and pulled over so that the police car would be directly behind this driver. The police car put on the flashers and this driver was oblivious, just continued weaving from the oncoming traffic to the parking lane, until after a very long 30 – 45 seconds, the siren sounded. It was as if the driver woke up – and maybe he did. He pulled over.
AdventureMan and I had one of those conversations where we look for the right word. This driver was more than impaired. Truly, this driver was totally incapacitated in some way. Maybe he had just come from the hospital where he had been up for several nights with his terminally ill wife, in which case he was driving-while-sleep-deprived, a condition that happens more than you would like to think. Maybe he had the flu, and his medication had knocked him for a loop? Maybe he was falling down drunk? Maybe he was on some kind of drug? Maybe he was just driving-while-oblivious, texting?
We will never know. A couple hours later, we passed along the same stretch of road and watched a tow truck haul the car away as the police watched. We hope that whoever the driver was has been hospitalized, or taken somewhere he cannot harm himself. We are also very thankful that we were behind this driver, not in front of him or coming from the other direction. It was one of life’s little adventures.
Chilly Pensacola Sunrise
Today is the annual homeless services day, and homeless count day when hundreds of Pensacolians leave their beds at o-dark-thirty to serve our brothers and sisters who don’t have beds to sleep in, don’t have a roof over their head, don’t always have something to eat.
The homeless love Pensacola because it in so temperate, but even the temperate climate of Pensacola can be occasionally brutal, as it is right now. The Waterfront Mission has said it will take in anyone who comes, to shelter them from the harsh mid-freezing temperatures.
It’s not like Pensacola loves the homeless. The city has passed ordinances preventing them from begging, and from soliciting at the traffic stops. On the other hand, it’s not like they are going away, so charitable organizations in Pensacola do their best to care for the homeless population, providing cold weather shelter, meals, toiletries, places to collect mail and to bathe. There is a free health clinic. There is occasional dental screening. There are veteran services, who try to house and take care of our walking wounded. There is even a service for the pets of the homeless, in case of hurricane or similar emergency.These things make me very proud of Pensacola.
This morning dawned very cold:
AdventureMan crawled out of bed into the cold and chill, donned several layers of clothing and headed out to help with the count, and with serving around 500 people a hot meal. He does it because he loves doing it and I smile thinking how “The Lord loves a cheerful giver.”
Alabama
Today the church prays for the Episcopal diocese of Alabama. When my far-away friends ask me where Pensacola is, I tell them we are so far west in Florida that we are next door to Alabama. It’s the truth. I can drive ten minutes and be in Alabama.
A Record Low for Pensacola
The previous record was 19°F set in 1924, according to Weather Underground:
There have been entire winters when I haven’t turned on the heat. Last year, I turned it on twice, when I was having meetings with people who are more sensitive to cold than I am. AdventureMan says we tackle it Continental-style – we put on another layer 🙂 I have a drawer full of lovely Austrian sweaters that I am happy to wear 🙂
The High In Pensacola is 38° F.
Pensacola is Florida. Yes, it is Northern Florida, but it is not the North Pole. The temperatures today and tomorrow would have us believe otherwise:
Pensacola Named ‘Toughest City in America’
This is from the Pensacola News Journal, I think. I realized I hadn’t attributed it.
Just because our mayor is a pretty boy doesn’t mean Pensacola ain’t got grit.
And if you say otherwise, we’ve got a knuckle sandwich for you.
Pensacola has received this dubious honor via PolicyMic.com says the Pensacola News Journal:
Yes, little ol’ Pensacola has been named the Toughest City in America by the online news site PolicyMic (www.policymic.com).
Writer Akil Holmes used a variety of statistics to determine the “toughness” ranking, including the number of first round NFL draft picks, boxing champions, Medal of Honor and other military service citations, violent crime rates, and the percentage of workers employed in protective service, farming, fishing, construction and other tough-guy occupations.
Pensacola ranked No. 1 on the list, followed by Miami, Memphis, Detroit and Washington D.C.
Find story and see the other cities, visit policymic
.com. Look for the headline, “If You Can’t Stand Hipsters, These 11 Cities Are For You.’’ Pensacola might be tough, but it’s far from hipster-free. (Hello, Sluggo’s!)
Bundle Up, Pensacola!
It’s a wild ride, Pensacola catching the bottom end of the cold waves rolling across the USA, and oh, my poor bougainvilleas! People told me they didn’t think bougainvilleas would do well in Pensacola, and I was determined to prove them wrong. For three years, they have been beautiful, but I haven never had to get them through temperatures this low:
Today we were out having lunch and there were people wearing shorts! The highest the thermometer got today was 44°F. So COOOLLLDDD!
Ghost of Christmas Past
I remember Thanksgiving. It was yesterday. The season has never gone so fast, with Thanksgiving being so close to Christmas. Taking care of my sweet little granddaughter in the afternoons was a wonderful, quiet interlude in an otherwise swirling-with-events December, complicated by AdventureMan and I both catching terrible colds and lacking energy during the middle part leading up to Christmas.
I wouldn’t pass up the babysitting part for anything. My little granddaughter is the sweetest little baby ever. If she fusses, she doesn’t fuss much, and it is easily covered by “change my diaper” or “feed me” or “I really need to sleep” or I’m bored, walk me around a little until I fall asleep” or “Now I really really need to go to sleep!” Every now and then she fools you with an “I’m too hot! Take some clothes off!” but that makes me laugh, because once you do she is so grateful she just gurgles and coos. She is also beautiful 🙂
We had a wonderful Christmas, colds gone, great houseguests, fun family times, including taking our grandson to his first Nutcracker. Just after Christmas we rushed off to a family wedding in south Florida – a horrid 13 hour drive down – so I grabbed a few Christmas photos before it all gets taken down:
Here’s what I love. We have so many decorations loaded with Christmas baggage – you know the kind. “Oh! We got those candlesticks the year we moved to Wiesbaden!” “Oh! Remember that palm tree from our CENTCOM years?” “Look! Our creche!” “Oh! Our Damascus ornaments!” It is wonderful, and it is time consuming, and with a short Christmas this year, and a lot going on, I did something I have never done before. I saw some ornaments in WalMart, I call them “bang-for-your-buck” ornaments, sparkling snowflakes and stars, 20 for $2.98.
I bought a lot. Maybe about $25 worth. A lot of twinkling little stars and snowflakes.
The tree was all silver balls and silver stars this year, with an ivory cross on top.
The stairwell was all silver snowflakes. It was magical. It was also quick and easy and inexpensive – I grinned every time I saw it.
I did pull the Nurnburg angel out; I don’t think I can do Christmas without her and she provided a pop of red against all the greenery and silver and white.
The little silver reindeer are easy; stored all together in a box that says “Early Christmas” right along with the suction cups that hold them up – if it takes me five minutes, it’s a slow year, LOL.
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