Looking back with Lot's Wife

‘I Swear…. The other day I told my eight year old that Saddam meant “shut up” in Arabic and that he was going to grow up to be just like Saddam Hussein if he didn’t stop telling his brother to shut up. OK. So I’m not Dr. Spock. The reason I started worrying about it in the first place was because of this little mother I met who told me that she never allowed her children to say shut up to each other ever. Gosh, I remember a hundred years ago when I had my first kids and I never used to let them say, “Shut up!” and we never bought Captain Crunch or watched TV before homework or ate junk food for snacks or said, “Gosh, Bishop, I’m just too busy to do that!” Those were the good old days. Or course, those kids are also in graduate school now and good responsible grown men and women. What’s going to happen to these little guys now that their mom has grown old and corrupt? So I decided we should maybe start first with language. What are the swear word in your house? I’ve noticed that everybo...

When You’re Not Cinderella Anymore If statistics are correct, slightly over half of the married people reading this article either will be or presently are step-parents, the heads of blended families. The biggest part of carrying this burden often falls on the stepmother—partly because everybody know you blame everything that happens at home on mom and partly because she’s most often there and available. Women are usually more than willing to accept the blame and kids instinctively know this. It’s as natural as playing in the mud in your Sunday clothes. So what are some of the most common complaints about being a stepmother besides having to spend extra time in the evening poisoning tomorrow’s apples and trying to pick up kids at school while at the same time staying on your broom? Virginia, step-mother of five and blended mom of eight, unequivocally states that “rudeness is the number one problem of being a stepparent.” Claudia, blended mom of ten, agrees with her wholeheartedly. Davi...

My Heroes Have Not Always Been Cowboys One of the most humiliating experiences of my last few years has been that I’ve started to like county music. This is snobbish, but when I was growing up, the only person in our house who listened to The Grand Old Opry was the maid. I never DREAMED that I would marry someone who listened to county music—let alone consider having children with him. And then on our honeymoon, my husband said, “Oh, look, honey, it’s five! Let’s listen to Hee Haw!” I assumed at first that he was joking and then when I realized that he wasn’t, I went in the bathroom and tried to figure out what I’d do. Was it too late for an annulment? Yes, it was. There was nothing that could be done. People marry people all the time and are surprised by what they don’t know. Those women on Donahue who marry guys who have eight other wives in other states and you can’t imagine how they got that way. That’s exactly how I felt. Completely stunned. No-it-could-never-happen-to-me stunned....

Winners and Losers Once upon a time, I wanted to be Relief Society President. If you’re not a Mormon, the Relief Society President is the head of a ward’s ladies’ aid group, so to speak. This was during my stage when I felt that getting “awards” was the main purpose of life and one of the “awards” I wanted was to be Relief Society President. Well, I didn’t get it. In fact, at one point when I really wanted it, someone I didn’t like got to be “it”. Well, I just bawled my head of. No Kidding, I couldn’t stop crying. I had to leave church and go home I was so upset. I look back on this stage of my life and wonder what possessed me. I would totally embarrassed except that I know that other people have gone through the same thing with their own goals and prizes. Now I see my own kids going through some of this same frustration. This time of year is award time. Kids come home with glowing report cards that tell tales of straight A’s and B’s and they get awards at assemblies for being the fas...