Must Reads for Today’s Successful Blended Families

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Carol Shwanda chronicles her blended family's lives and experiences offering hope, guidance, wisdom, inspiration and humor to anyone who is in or about to enter into a blended family.

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I would like my blog to be a forum for my readers to share their stories and experiences and express their views and opinions about being a part of a blended family. I am working on a book tentatively titled:Blended Family Stories. It will be an in depth look at the real life challenges and joys of successful blended families. If you would like to be part of my research I'd love to hear from you.Take my Blended Family survey
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For advice or information, email carol@shwanda.com

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  • FROM POWER MOM TO SLACKER MOM

    There was a spring fair at Eva’s school today and I had no idea. She called me at lunch to ask me if she could go.  I vaguely remember getting some emails about donating cookies to a bake sale or buying raffle tickets, but I didn’t pay much attention. Why? Because I don’t care. I’m burnt out. I’ve become one of those moms, the kind I used to deride for “not doing their part.”

    I have no guilt about this what- so- ever.

    This is a very timely topic for all those 30- ish moms with young kids out there who are still killing themselves to be power moms. I recently had a conversation on this very topic with my newly found cyber mom friend,  Carley Knobloch of Mother Craft Coaching, who specializes in helping moms simplify their lives. She teaches busy moms how to apply her “ADD” formula to prioritize their daily tasks. The “A” stands for act, as in act on things you should do right away, like opening and sorting mail before it piles up. The first “D” represents those things you should delegate, like buying the cookies for the spring fair instead of baking them yourself. The final “D” stands for delete and these are all the things you really don’t need to do, like volunteering for everything. I’m in the delete parenting phase of my life right now.

    As I told Carley, your lives get much simpler as you and your kids get older. First your kids start to feed themselves, then they go to the bathroom alone, followed by bathing themselves, putting themselves to bed and finally driving, getting jobs and supporting themselves. Along the way you stop obsessing over every activity. You come to terms with the fact that your child is not going to be an Olympic gymnast or professional soccer player after all,  and you eventually lose that drive to have it all, do it all and be it all. This usually happens around  middle school when your kids don’t want you hanging out at their school anyway. So all you young moms out there, chillax. Take a breather. Savor your babies now because it goes by so fast.

    Published on May 21, 2010 · Filed under: BLENDED FAMILIES, LIFE WITH TEENAGERS, MIDDLE AGE; Tagged as: , ,
    1 Comment

One Response to “FROM POWER MOM TO SLACKER MOM”

  1. Just this week I mentioned to someone that as their kids get older things will get easier.

    Several years ago I drove 170 miles on Sunday and never left the metropolitan area I live in. We had a football game, two soccer tournaments, and a school dance. I saw half a football game and half a soccer game… most of the time was spent driving from one field to the other.

    As my kids got older, the things they wanted to do changed, and riding bikes with friends replaced running up and down soccer and football fields. After I mow the yard, in about 20 minutes, I’ll drive a child to a skatepark… but another child has walked to a friends house and the oldest is off at a concert with his girlfriend’s parents.

    Everybody is happy, and I’m not going through tires like I used to.

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