Relationships Are NOTHING Like Love Songs

God, I wish someone had told me this growing up. It would've saved me so much trouble.

Every little girl around the age of 9 or so starts to find her musical identity, in that she finally starts to pay close attention to what music is playing around her, form her own opinion and find her likes and dislikes in musical taste. And not too many girls out there have bypassed falling victim to a lovely ballad or two by whatever chart topping pop diva is belting out at the moment. We all at some point discover that music has a purpose other than lightening up the mood at the mall during the Christmas rush..

But no one ever tells their little girls that yes, that is a beautiful song, yes she's singing about the joy of being in love but no, no honey, real love is not like that, not all the time. NOT...EVEN...CLOSE....

Falling in love is probably the number one priority of all little girls when they finally discover boys and the music they listen to gives them false hopes that all men are like the men their favorite artist sings about. Granted, at one point in the beginning of any new relationship, when one finally falls in love with their new partner, life can seem like any number of love ballads you hear. Life seems like its all roses and sunshine when you are in love, but ballads give us a false idea that once you fall in love your relationship is always going to be like it is in the beginning. As an adult, I now know better.

Even in the best of relationships couples fight, they argue, sometimes they split up and reconcile. But rarely is it ever a skip through the meadow for years on end. I don't think I've ever met an older couple that admitted they NEVER fought. All couples fight and sometimes you get a bad apple who likes to hit and degrade you and treat you like garbage, hardly a love song romance at all.

In all reality relationships are a job. They require constant upkeep and continuous maintenance to stay healthy, strong and happy. They are never a breeze. We should be giving our daughters a realistic sense of what a proper relationship is like. The compromise, the sacrifice, the joy and the pain. There will many frogs in your life before you find your prince. Love does not just fall in your lap. It does sometimes sneak up on you and surprise you, and then its beautiful, but it is never handed to you on a silver platter, nor is it ever easy...

You Have To Look Like A Super Model (to snag a husband)

That's just bunk. Total rubbish..

Back in the early 90's when the waif thin, 'Super Model' look was all the rage women were starving themselves to look like 12 year old boys all for the sake of fashion. And many women, the world over, were needlessly miserable.

In all honesty not everyone can achieve the super skinny, starving for days on end look. And women nowadays are celebrated for having sexy curves more than being all skin and bones. But growing up I was too fell victim to the skinny girl madness and was none too happy in doing so.

Being a solid, healthy size 14 throughout my High School years I tortured myself day in and day out trying to get down to a size 4 and beating myself up year after year when my attempts failed. If someone had told me that when I left High School and became an active member of 'the real world' it wouldn't matter if I was a size 4 I wouldn't have tried so hard.

When I reached my late teen's I realized that there are in fact men in this world who do NOT like super thin women. They love curves, they love larger breasts, they love a lil booty on a woman and I was celebrated for having a body.

When I reached my mid twenties, two children and divorce later, I had reached size 16/18 and found myself once again on the playing field. Even then I didn't kill myself over being a size 4. I again found many men who found my body very appealing and I learned that if I wanted to lose weight it was going to be for me, for my health and for my own peace of mind, not to attract a mate.

As a mother of a preteen it is often brought to my attention that my child is already concerned about her body image. UGH...I really wish she could just be 7 years old forever sometimes. She just started cheer leading and is super self-conscious of how she looks in her uniform in comparison to the other girls. I wonder if I annoyed my mother this much? I tell her all the time that she is a perfect size for her and that she shouldn't be concerned about a number rather than whether or not she feels healthy. She's a size 4 now..and she's 5'3 and she worries about 'getting fat'...my goodness.

I tell her that her weight will fluctuate up and down throughout her life and that no one should ever make her feel like she isn't perfect, that she has to fit some cookie cutter mold to look good in the eyes of others and that any boy (and eventually man) who truly loves her will love her no matter what her body looks like. She is perfect the way she is.

All little girls should be told that when they grow into women there are men in love with every shape and size around and that they have no reason to kill themselves to snag a man who doesn't love them for them. Someone so superficial to judge you in your entirety based solely on the shape and size of your body is not worthy of your company or your time. The proper man for you will love you no matter what you look like when you first meet him and he should embrace your body and love it the same way you do, or hit the curb..

People Will Judge You Unfairly

Growing up this was a hard lesson to learn, especially going through school. I remember being teased and picked on for not being perfect by people who barely knew the first thing about me or who I really was. It hurt more times than not and it caused me to be a bit guarded as a result.

I was a very private person in High School and I didn't openly date. As a result I was labeled a 'lesbian' and it wasn't until my 10 year High School Reunion that I was made aware of this rumor. How shocked was I when my classmates were like 'Omg, you have two children? And you're divorced? I thought you were gay in High School.'

Looking back it certainly made allot of sense all of a sudden why people seemed to shun themselves away from me in social situations, why it seemed impossible for me to date anyone at my school and why people were always whispering around me. I figured it was just because it was something I was doing wrong. Nope, its because someone had at some point assumed something wrong about me and spread it around school as a truth. And everyone believed them instead of asking me firsthand, but hey, its High School, what ya gonna do?

Even now as an adult and as a mother I find that occasionally I am dealing with situations and judgments I perceive as a harsh both personally and second hand with my children but the thing I tell my oldest, because her little sister still isn't attending school yet, is that sometimes people talk about you, for no reason other than to have something to say. Its sucks and you just have to let it roll off your back.

Learning NOT to care what other people thought of me and to just live my life the best way I saw fit was something I didn't learn to do until my mid to late twenties and I think I could've saved myself a many sleepless nights if I'd learned it earlier.

In Middle School and High School girls label each others almost immediately and often with no basis for the comforts of being in a group and not having to go through the years as 'the loner'. Girls especially are very social creatures and they learn how to do this in their last 7 years of school. Any small infraction of your personality, apperance, social status etc. will be put on display and left out in the open for all to judge you and form opinions about and sometimes what we're perceived as isn't even close to who we really are. That's life.

If you have sex, you're labeled a whore. If you go to church you're labeled a Jesus freak. If you like to play in the band, you're a band geek. Kids like to categorize each other and separate themselves in an us vs. some imaginary war for social acceptance. Some kids are able to adapt and be the floaters, going from one group to the other, back and forth on a daily basis without making waves but most are stuck in their group until graduation, but the one thing my mother didn't teach me was that once you got into the real world that group you were placed in during High School will be worth less than a hand full of beans.

When you start a career, no one will care if you were 'weirdo loner kid' in High School. No one will care if you were 'the slut' in Middle School. No one will care if you were part of 'the stoner' group in the 10th grade. All those things that you let define you in school, no longer matter. And the one thing I tell my kids is this: "if its not going to matter 10 years from now, why does it matter now?"

That was a hard lesson to put into practice going through my early twenties. If I broke up with a lover, I had to teach myself that crying myself to sleep for days on end, killing myself over the what if's was pointless and a waste of energy. Not to make light of heart break, its normal to vent, rant, cry and spend sometime being unhappy, its how we heal but I learned that when it first happened I wasn't going to die overnight because some man left me or vice versa.

I learned that what people in High School thought about me had absolutely no merit on who I became when I grew up so I stopped caring. Living in a somewhat small town with a somewhat tightly knit community, other people's judgments of me have come back to bite me in the butt a few times during arguments and the things I've heard, things being said about me, lies or harsh judgments of truths hurt, but at the end of the day I don't really care who thinks what about me. Who cares if so and so knows I slept with so and so 3 years ago, or if I used to have financial struggles, it's old news and I don't have to explain myself to anyone.

It won't matter in 10 years, so why does it matter now?

People are going to judge you unfairly based on often half truths or flat out exaggerations of 5th hand information. The only people's opinions that matter are mine and that of the people who truly know me and they know the lies from the truth anyway...

Sex Does NOT Equal Love!

I wish my mother had told me this when I was contemplating doing the deed for the very first time.

But she didn't.

And as a mother of two girls now, I found myself dreading 'the talk' but when it came down to it when I had to have it with my oldest and will someday have to have it with my youngest I almost went the way my mother and my mother's mother and mothers for generations before me and told my daughter to wait until she was 'in love', but I caught myself.

Are we really still telling our daughters this lie?

Yes its a lie. Its a misleading non truth that will only make that very important step into womanhood a nightmare that will scar them for life the same way it did most of us.

I'll ask this of other parents out there, have you bothered to look at how kids interact nowadays? Are you in tune with the children of this generation? In dealing with kids all day and driving pregnant teens to and from home on a daily basis I think telling our children to 'wait until they are in love' is not only a waste of breathe, its bad advice.

Kids, especially teenage girls, think they are in love every five seconds. Kids today are dating in Middle School. They have a boyfriend for 3 days and are dropping the 'l bomb'. So 'wait until you're in love' is like giving your 12 year old the green light to start making babies. She thinks she's in love all the time. If she's popular, she'll be in love at least 6 or 7 times a school year. Middle School relationships that last longer than a month or two are very rare.

When I started the talks with my child about when it was appropriate for her to start having sex (and let me first note that she is still young and will be starting Middle School next year) I told her what I believe is a better answer than "wait until you are in love". I told her the following things:

'I can't tell you when you are ready, but I will tell you that when you get a little older, boys will try all the time to convince you to have sex, they will lie to you, they will tell you they love you and they try and convince you that its the right thing to do against your better judgement and as mean and sad as it is 99% of the time they will NEVER call you again if you give in, especially in Middle and High school'.

'That's what boys do.'

'I would hope that you realize that your body is a gift, that it should not be given to anyone and everyone simply for the sake of doing it, it should be with someone who respects you, who treats you like a queen and someone you know you can trust.'

'Any boy you tell no to who really cares for you will wait until you are ready, no matter how long the wait is, if he never really cared trust me, he'll move on to the next girl down the list he can try to get in bed with.'

'Your reputation is like your virginity, once you lose it, you can never get it back, so choose who and when you do it very very carefully.'

and

'If and when you decide to do this, you can come to me before you do it, so we can discuss birth control options without any judgement from me, I just want you to be honest with me.'

I feel that telling her to 'wait until you are in love' is a crock. Some may disagree. I'm not going to tell my daughters to wait until they are married because I would be setting myself up for disappointment if I honestly convinced myself that was going to happen.

Some may argue that I'm trying to be my children's friend rather than their mother but I disagree. I'd rather the topic of sex be an open discussion amongst me and my girls. I don't want them to be ashamed to tell me about it. Because if they are too ashamed to talk about it, then they really shouldn't be doing it. I want them to understand that doing the deed comes with a level of maturity that until they reach it they shouldn't be doing it. And I don't plan to judge them if I think its too early, who am I really to decide that? Now if my oldest comes to me when she's 12 and tells me she wants to start engaging in sexual activities then I think we'd have to discuss it at great length her reasoning behind her decision while I attempt to change her mind for a few more years, but I want her to be comfortable enough to at least tell me how she feels.

I tell my daughter that sex isn't always about love, because as adults we don't always sleep with people we love. And in school, sex is rarely about love. Its about sex. So to mislead my girls with the whole 'you should only have sex with someone you love' is setting them up to having their hearts broken a few times more than expected before they discover true love. I tell my daughter that sex doesn't equal love, but when you do it with someone you love its a whole other experience that compares to no other, it should be what she strives for, it should be what she seeks in a partner (mutual, real love) but she may be with a few frogs before she finds her prince charming and if she makes bad choices she will get her feelings hurt allot more than necessary.

Now, I wish my mother had told me all that. I probably wouldn't have wasted so much time on all the frogs...

Under Wire Bras Were Invented By The Devil

Yes, I said it. Under wire bras were invented by the DeViL! Oh the humanity!!!

While they do an amazing job of pushing and poking your ladies up into unnatural positions of perky wonderfulness for the sole effect of attracting the attention of the opposite sex (or the same sex, if that's your cup of tea) they are in fact very very uncomfortable.

I'm almost completely convinced that all bras in general were created by the Devil because as much as the sales girl at Victoria's Secret has tried to convince me that they are a necessity for any woman with a pair because "we need support" and "they will sag faster otherwise", I have to honestly think that if I'm 80 years old and they are sagging, who am I really going to be showing them to? If I'm lucky enough to still be married when I'm 80 then my husband will be the only one looking at my knockers and he won't expect to see anything new from the previous 50 years so really why the need for an under wire bra?

Why do I find them uncomfortable you might ask?

Well for starters, have you ever noticed that shortly after the first few washes those darn little wires start to lose their shape or heaven forbid, they get tangled up in your laundry during the drying phase and the wire misshapes to all heck? Eventually they start to poke out through the fabric and next thing you know you are sitting at your desk or shopping at the grocery store, go to turn and BAM you're being stabbed in the rib cage by a dainty, not so comforting, evil, pointy, sharp as Dracula's teeth wire...(ha, wire my bum, its more like a mini dagger).

So now you have three options at this point. You can:

1.) you throw the entire bra away (and for most women in this economy, throwing away a bra that cost anywhere from $10 to $90 is not an option)

2.) remove the one wire and walk around with loopsided girls for the remainder of your bra's lifetime or

3.) remove the wire and butcher the other the side of the bra to remove the other wire and be stuck with a bra with both substandard "support" and one side that looks like its been hacked to death by a blind woodsman.

No good has ever, nor can ever come from owning an under wire bra, NONE..just say no! They look cute, they come in pretty colors, some of them have sparkles and fancy do dads all over them enticing you to buy, buy, BUY but they are NEVER worth the torture...

And honestly a man does not care what your girls look like in a bra, they're just gonna throw it on the floor the second you show it to them like a kid tearing open a Christmas present and go in for the goods anyway...why kill yourself over the wrapping when the package is all that really matters?