Parenting

Holiday Mom Magic

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L
Photo credit: A Bad Moms Christmas (2017)

Moms don’t en-joy, they give joy. That’s how being a mom works. – A Bad Moms Christmas

Thanksgiving starts a mad rush all the way through December. While we can’t speak for other religions and their traditions, Christmas has a chokehold on an entire month; bringing festivities, expectations, and Mariah Carey.

This onslaught includes: hours making and checking shopping lists, wrapping the gifts, sending out cards, decking the halls, baking the cookies, making the travel plans, and keeping the spirit of Christmas alive. And year after year, the person behind all of this isn’t Santa. It’s mom.

Why do we do this? Is it a rite of passage to level up as a mom? Is the expectation the same for dads? With a few weeks left before December 25th, let’s get to the bottom of this quandary and how we can alleviate this self-inflicted stress.

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Coffee Chat: Patti’s Thanksgiving Story

| Patti Webb

When Mary and I started talking about the holidays, I shared with her one of my particularly meh Thanksgivings. My parents divorced earlier than I can remember and I’ve been in a number of blended families growing up, making for some very awkward holidays to the say the least.

I had a Thanksgiving with my dad and grandmother where I was completely silent. I once spent the holiday with my mom and her friend who ended up being a hoarder. In 2008, I said I was thankful that Barack Obama was going to be president and an entire table of Boomer adults became unhinged. But in the story I’m sharing today, I am 20 and a junior at UF.

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Fear Street: Irrational Fears in Kids

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Everyone gets scared. Fear is a primary emotion signaling that we are in danger, essentially ensuring our survival from a hostile situation. Although it can be overridden by our executive functions, some fears can’t be shaken, no matter how irrational they are. This is especially true for kids. Despite how trigger-happy their fear response is to the most random things, it’s all part of their growth and development.

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Nightmare on Elm Street

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

“Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep.” – Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Remember when you were a kid, you watched a horror film you probably shouldn’t have and from then on, your dreams were nothing but nightmares? Yeah, that happened to me, and that movie was Child’s Play.

The truth is kids will experience their version of a Freddy Krueger dreamscape regardless of whether they see a scary movie or not. In fact, nightmares are part of typical child development as they process what they have observed and experienced in their world thus far. But does it have to be in the form of bad dreams?

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Mommie Dearest

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

NO WIRE HANGERS, EVER! (Mommie Dearest, 1981)

The classic story of a mother off the rails, Mommie Dearest recounts the parenting years of Golden Age Hollywood actress Joan Crawford and her demanding, irrational behavior towards her two adopted children. Sure, it’s campy, but it doesn’t feel that far off when we have our own bouts with mom rage.

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