Happy Go Texan Day, y'all

I should be blogging

But I'm choosing bedding.

I am even more tired than usual today, and my usual score on the tired scale is about a 7.25. Also, today at Costco my mom bought me this as an early birthday present and I have to go see if it works. I will be a happy, happy, happy woman if it does.

I love my babies. But they destroyed - d e s t r o y e d - my back. Therefore a goodly portion of my life (and my money) (and today, my momma's money) is spent seeking relief from pain.

Wah.

I'll finish my post tomorrow.

Till then, please go read LoraLynn's story about bringing home Mira Jane from Uganda.

As if God hadn't show us how wonderful He is enough - He went and invented adoption. He sets the lonely in families, indeed!

Good night invisibles.

How do you prepare for parenthood?

Sunday at church, Walker and I were talking to a very sweet young couple who are serving with Campus Crusade for Christ at a university here in Houston. When Jackie found out how many kids we had, she asked me, "What do you think we could do to prepare for parenthood?"

Huh. I'd never been asked that one before.

My initial answer was, "Not much. Nothing can really prepare you. It's mostly on the job training."

Parenthood is one gigantic test for which none of us have studied enough. You know that dream where you have to take a final exam in a class that you'd forgotten to drop?  I feel that way several times a day. Throw into the mix that every child you have is ridiculously different from the others and it's a constant feeling of What the hello kitty am I supposed to do now?

I had that experience just last week when one of my children was throwing an extreme temper tantrum right before school. A "google exorcist" tantrum. All I could do was sit down, stare at the fireplace, try not to burst into tears myself, and text a mommy friend to please pray. Two minutes later, that mommy friend who texted back that she needed prayer as well as her daughter was pulling the exact same behavior.

"But I haven't studied for this!"

Jackie had a little look of fear on her face. Then I looked at her added, "But if I had to say do one thing, learn as much about child development as you can."

I was blessed to have a little bit of a leg up on most moms. I had a degree in early childhood, I had taught grades PK-3, and I was raised by my momma, an expert in kids. Before I was born she had taught school for years. When she couldn't find a neighborhood preschool she liked, she just started one herself, called Do and Learn. Frequently when my kids were babies I would just think WWFD - What Would Frieda Do - and it would often come out okay.

And yet, despite all my education and experience and good raising, it still was/is stinking hard to constantly try and figure out how to raise these loud, emotional, destructive, spazzy little weirdos.

When I was a Child Advocate, we'd always get the psychological profile of the accused abusive parent. And every single time it would read, "Mom does not have any comprehension of differences in development of children and adults. She expects her child to act the same as someone much older than his chronological age and is frustrated and confused when he does not."

I admit, I thought to myself, this is a socio-economic thing. A bad parent thing. A high school dropout thing. A generations-of-poverty thing.

So I was very shocked to discover that more than one of my upper middle class, college educated, suburban mom friends "does not have any comprehension of differences in development of children and adults. She expects her child to act the same as someone much older than his chronological age and is frustrated and confused when he does not."

Have kids, will talk, and the current theme I have noticed among some of my mommy friends is that their expectations are way too high.

I've seen moms complain about the way that their preschooler is acting, when their preschooler would be a total freak to act in any other way. When moms have said, "I can't believe she's doing this!!" I've often answered, "She's doing it because it's her job. She's TWO."

This is not to say I am the perfect mom. My expectations of my older kids are often too high and my younger two are often too low. But hey, I can't claim ignorance.

(I blame hormones instead. Because I blame everything on hormones. Theirs and mine. Heck, I'll blame yours too while I'm at it.)

So there's my advice, to prepare for parenthood - whether you already have kids or not - learn all you can about child development.


Tomorrow I'll suggest some ways to do that.

Blogging for spiders

So, there's this conference called PURE in Austin and if you should treat yourself and go to it because Lysa TerKeurst is gonna speak and because it is at the Hyatt Lost Pines which my friends Kara and Nicole were just telling me today when I surprisingly ran into them after BSF because they weren't even there for BSF they were just there at the church which is odd because they don't even go there they go to the Bible church and oh, did I tell you Beth and Scott have been visiting the Bible church? yeah I think they might join there but the Bible church is looking for a pastor now, their guy left to do mercy ministries or something butanyway do you remember Kara adopted the twins? that was so scary? because it looked like they might lose them? and oh, you remember Nicole, she adopted 3 kids from CPS I talked to her a lot when we were going to do that but gosh, seems like everyone I know these days has adopted butanyway Kara - oh, remember Kara was the one that lived with Carolyn and her baby was premature and I prayed for her before I ever met her when I was in that little bible study with Barbara when I was pregnant with Shep! that was so funny - they did Young Life - Scott knew her husband - Scott K, not Scott S, you know what there was this chick I used to teach with who did Young Life but I cannot remember her name now she was kinda weird soANYway Kara said the Hyatt Lost Pines is absolutely dreamy and you would not believe how great Kara looked! She was so stinkin skinny which made me {sigh} because I have just had no energy to go to the Y plus it's so dang cold but HEY? Honey? ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?? What'd I just say?

(Walker is out of town tonight so y'all are his standin. Thank you for indulging me. And thanks for not making the little twirly finger "WRAP IT UP" gestures that he does.)

(That's called "spidering" by the way. I learned that at a Love & Respect conference and got a bruised rib from Walker's elbow. It's not his favorite feminine trait.)

(But I would like to say that I finally got to get together with Linsey last week for wine by the fireplace and we spidered until TWO THIRTY IN THE MORNING Y'ALL and it was divine.)

I have a point.

Oh yeah - I am speaking at a breakout at this Pure Conference and the topic they asked me to speak about is BLOGGING. So since I realized yesterday that thing is in like, ten days, I should think about what I am gonna say, huh?

Which is where y'all come in. Because many of y'all are bloggers and all of y'all are professional blog readers.

If you were to go to a little breakout session on blogging, what would you like the ditzy rambling chick up there to cover? I have a few ideas - blog etiquette, writing style, etc - but I don't want to miss something.

Can y'all leave me some questions or comments to get me thinking?

Grazie mille!!

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What's a college degree worth?

 For years now, my Aggie husband Walker has said, "College education is a complete waste of money." And like any good Longhorn, I would answer, "Well, maybe yours was." Lately, however, more and more evidence has been popping up that supports his theory. 

This afternoon I was listening to Dave Ramsey, and a couple called in who had $84,000 of student loan debt from their private Christian college experience. Dave asked how much their takehome pay was. It was $36,000. Just recently The New York Times published an article supporting the same theory regarding law school.

I have a degree in English. I've yet to 'use' it. But that degree only cost about $8,000. Back in the good old days.

Maybe Walker does actually know what he's talking about. Judge for yourself.

Walker here.  Hope you all are doing well.  It's time for my yearly guest blog.

One of the things that's bugged me for years is the nagging fear that in large part a 4 year college education is a big waste of time.

Full disclosure:  I spent 6 years at Texas A&M, four as an undergraduate, and two years getting my MBA.  While I had a fantastic time there, made lifelong friends, and consider myself one who bleeds maroon, I can't with any confidence state that what I learned there academically really and truly prepared me for "real life".

In all, my parents and I probably spent $40,000 to $50,000 on my total higher education, and even back in the 90's this was a steal.  Nowadays, for some elite, private schools its not uncommon for tuition to run you $40,000+ annually.  Spread this over 4+ years and some kids are graduating with largely irrelevant degrees (when judged by the marketplace) in disciplines like Philosophy and Sociology, then are facing a bleak job market where many are forced to get part-time jobs or employment in fields where their college degree has absolutely no bearing for little pay - basically a job that they could have easily got if they had never went to college to begin with.  Nevertheless, six months after they graduate, they are expected to start paying off those $100K + student loans.

To me, this smells like a rip off.

No some folks may say, "Hold it!  What about the atmosphere of learning?  Of students sharing knowledge and insights together on the ol' quad?  You can't put a price tag on that!"  Well, phooey, I say. 

During my years in the esteemed halls of knowledge, an estimated 99.6% of my time was spent talking about chicks, playing Frisbee golf, watching TV, playing computer games like Tecmo Bowl, trying to talk to chicks, drinking beer, and finally, taking huge, endless naps...dreaming about chicks.  It wasn't like I was livin' the Socratic Method over there or anything.  The intellectual stimulation I received on any given day could have been garnered, for the price of a cup of joe, at our favorite coffee house, Sweet Eugene's. 

You don't have to go to college for that "college experience".

I studied business.  Now I sell computers.  Not once I have ever had to bust out the old HP Business Calculator.  I have never had to calculate the time value of money or make a debit entry for cost accounting.

So why did I go to college?

Now studies are sort of bearing me out.   I have also worried about a so-called "education bubble", a phenomena largely fueled by easy, federal grants and loans, that essentially allow any American to go to college.  More and more Americans are going to college, not necessarily graduating, but are also incurring mountains of debt.  How angry would you be if you borrowed tens of thousands of dollars on the vague promise to getting a good job eventually only to be working as a barrista, as your worthless diploma collects dust on your mom's living room wall? 

I would be pretty ticked off.

And with the massively disruptive nature of the Internet, and how technological advances have completely turned entire industries on their head like publishing and media, you have to wonder if the truly old-school, brick and mortar, 4 year college experience is in serious need of an overhaul.

Couldn't a lot of this be done - just as well and far cheaper - online?  Why is it that we place to an premium on having kids go to college?  Couldn't many youngsters be better served with robust, vocational alternatives where they actually learn vital skills and crafts, things that are actually in demand in the marketplace?

Why do we (and the government) spend so much money propping up thousands of universities, colleges, and community colleges?  Is it just because education is "important" and we always have? 

I want my own kids to go to college.  Sure. My nostalgic reflections cause me to want my kids to enjoy the "college experience." But I also want them to learn something important and be prepared to work in an in-demand field. 

I am not convinced that the college experience as currently defined is necessarily the best choice, especially if they (or I) am saddled with $100K in debt from said experience.  Instead of spending this $100K (and growing) on college, what about using it for them to take some vocational training, backpack through Europe, and put a down-payment on a house or use it for start-up monies for a business?

Would that be a better return on investment, Dr. Business Professor??

Thoughts?