Backtalk

Do you let your children drink coffee? What about caffeinated soda? What about those energy drinks, like Red Bull? On this weeks show we explore this topic.

Without a doubt, this parenting gig is hard. One of the better quotes I've ever heard uttered about parenting is in the movie "Terms of Endearment" (1983) when Emma (played by Debra Winger) explains to her husband just how difficult parenting alone will be for him. She says, "As hard as you think it is, you end up wishing it were that easy" and it's the most poignant and honest assessment of parenting as I think I've ever heard.

So this month we talked about breastfeeding, vacationing with your children, and blogging about teenagers. As long as you aren't blogging about breastfeeding your teenager while on vacation you probably have good company in the momosphere.

"How was your vacation?" a friend asked shortly after I returned home from our latest family trip. "I think one day I will look back on it and remember it as fun." That was the best answer I could give. Next week on Backtalk we are talking about the family vacation. Is it calm and serene or is it more like a Chevy Case movie? I happen to believe that a vacation with young children is an oxymoron. When I said this out loud my oldest son piped up, "Vacation with children is for morons?" Uh sure, that will work too.

Not all that long ago, I wrote what I thought was a poignant, sensitively-written blog post about my teenage stepdaughters. They had gotten in trouble, but not much trouble. They had acted up, but in a way that would make nearly every mom out there chuckle, shake her head, and remember her own days of teen mischief. I wrote about the incident because I thought my girls wouldn't mind. I thought they'd see it the same way I did, as a learning experience with which everyone could identify. They didn't.