On good looks, ugliness, image, and what we teach our kids…
“We talk about body shape, size and weight, but rarely about distorted features. And we talk about plainness, but not faces that would make a surgeon’s fingers itch.
“The Ugly Duckling” is widely assumed to be the story of his own life. But the moral of that story was that a swan would emerge from the body of an outcast, and that you could not repress the nobility of a swan in a crowd of common ducks.
What if you just stay a duck?”
How and when do you tell your kids your dirty little secrets?
Like many of us my husband and I have pasts… and not everything is lily white. While we aren’t proud of these things in our past, we also aren’t ashamed of them — they are part of who we are, and helped define our characters. How do we talk to our kids about our pasts while making sure it’s not OK that they repeat our mistakes?
How do you balance honesty with the harsh realities of the world?
Before becoming a mom, I always told myself that I would be honest and straightforward with my children. I want them to be intelligent and mature, so I would speak to them in the same manner. In other words, no sugar-coating or censoring the crap out of their lives.
Honesty and kids: just because you told the truth doesn’t mean they will
Honesty is the best policy. I truly believe that. I am like Honest Abe Lincoln who, when confronted about chopping down the cherry tree, shouted “Give me liberty or give me death and I’m really sorry about the tree but Babe the Blue Ox told me to do it!” Growing up, I may have kept things from my mother but I only really lied to her once.