As an advocate for girls let me make the following plea on behalf of your daughter:

Please, please, please speak respectfully of the one and only female candidate the Repubican Party has ever put on their ticket for Vice President of the United States - Sarah Palin.

What you say about Sarah Palin has the potential to translate to your daughters as your opinion of all women (including your daughter) seeking power.

Disrespectful criticism has the potential to translate, "I only respect other women if they agree with me." Your daughter may one day disagree with you. This moment, and your reaction, won't be forgotten by her.

Your example will also teach her how she should expect to be treated by those who disagree with her and how she should treat those who disagree with her.

In other words -

Mothers - don't be a mean mommy and you won't create a mean girl.

Fathers - don't reduce her to whether you'd have sex with her and you won't create a daughter who gets her self-worth from her sexuality or appearance.

I vividly remember asking my parents what the Equal Rights Amendment was as a child. I remember them telling me that it was a bill to make women equal to men. And they were voting against it.

Here's how that translated to a six-year-old girl: "My parents are voting against ME! Why would they do that?"

I also remember criticism of Geraldine Ferraro that went something like, "We'll never elect a woman president. God wants it that way."

What you might say instead of "I Hate Sarah Palin" (or worse) might be, "I think a woman would make a wonderful Vice President, I just don't agree with this particular woman's political views on ________."

It would be helpful, for your daughter, to avoid vague negative statements about Sarah's suitability as a role model for girls. Instead you could say, "I think it's wonderful that a female has gotten this far in American politics. It's wonderful that women are becoming more powerful and ambitious in both parties. I just don't agree with her views on ________."

If you minimize and criticize the significance of Sarah Palin's presence in this race, then you minimize and criticize your daughter's potential.

It is my hope, as an advocate for girls, that they will never see another election in their lifetime where there is not a woman on either ticket.

Thanks to women's adamant support of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin both Republicans and Democrats have included women this year. Our top politicians have finally realized they can't win without addressing women and women's issues.

For our daughters' sakes, let's pray the inclusion of women - on all political levels and in all political parties - becomes the norm.

To be absolutely fair I made the same plea on behalf of Hillary and your daughter right before Super Tuesday. You can revisit that story in I Hate Hillary! I also advocated voting for Hillary for the sheer reason that she would be an example to my daughter of women in power for 4 years in Shut Up John Mayer, Stop Waiting For the World To Change.

For more on my personal opinion of Sarah Palin visit Blog Fabulous, I've written plenty about her politics and the emotional conflict she's causing in me personally.

Image Source: http://gov.state.ak.us/official_portraits.php

My much adored cousin told me I just HAD to read Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1), by Stephenie Meyer, which is flying off the shelves as women indulge our addiction to the love story.

In the meantime, I've been contemplating a few things like why girls and women can be so self-defeating.

Why does the battered wife stay or go back?

Why are girls willing to put up with blatant disrespect for boyfriends?

Why do women and girls tend to glamorize "giving up everything" for their husbands and children?

What is wrong with us?

Women make up 50% of the population, yet we have so little of the world's power. Why?

Read Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1).

Edward, the beautiful vampire tells Bella, the teenage human girl, over and over that his biggest desire is to kill her. That he can barely contain himself whenever he's around her. Her own demise only turns her on. She has zero sense of self-preservation. She "Loves" him. Within the first week of meeting Edward, who immediately treats her like crap, because he wants to harm her so badly he finds it difficult to resist, she gives up her friends, her studies, her father and her mother and all of her interests. Giving up everything is "worth it." (Where have I heard that line before mothers?)

The answer to all those questions is - we think it's romantic. It makes us hot. It makes us linger in the bathtub or passes the time quickly on the treadmill.

The self-defeat, the sacrifice, the giving up of self, is in our feminine collective dialogue and it's like crack cocaine to us.

Women are addicted to this emotional drug we call "Love", but which is really a lot more like unhealthy emotional psychosis.

It starts with the Disney Princess drama as toddlers and children.

But, then we grow up and it has no effect on us our "real life?" Right?

Then why is the Twilight Series flying off the shelves?

There's no sex in the book (because he would crush her vulnerable and breakable body). But, really, is sex the most self-distructive thing girls participate in? I think not. I would hold up "Love," and our distortions of it, as the most dangerous thing to girls' confidence, their self esteem, their sense of self, their psychological and emotional health. How many girls have sex too soon for this distortion of "Love?"

Here's the other thing that gets me about this type literary dialogue, it's so prevalent in the collective female culture. Yet, the "give up everything" theme doesn't exist in men's literature.

How many relationships have actually self-destructed with these words, "But I gave up everything for you!" women/girlfriends/wives declare.

"Who asked you to? Why would you do that?" men want to know. Love is not described in the same terms, nor defined by the need for women to give up so much of themselves that they no longer actually exist, in the literary consciousness of men.

Women keep acting out the same self-distructive communication patterns and the same self-sacrificing behaviors found in books like Twilight and men are completely bewildered by it.

The only literature or culture in which this exchange - women giving up everything - shows up is in their pornography, where women aren't featured for "LOVE" as we write it, they are featured as inanimate objects for a mere moment's pleasure.

Stop this little cultural miscommunication and you most likely increase not only the duration, but the quality, of marriage in this country.

Stop buying into this ridiculously absurd self-defeating definition of "LOVE" and we might actually give our daughters a shot at healthy love, positive and fulfilling relationships, and enduring marriages. One where they get to keep their selves, their identities, their interests, their talents, their careers, their hobbies, their sense of self-respect and their physical safety.

The question is - can we have both?

Can we have our trashy teenage romance vampire romance novel where we "pretend" to give up our choices and our well-being, our life even, our families, for the "love of our life" who wants to kill us and flat out tells us that and then live empowering strong lives?

Or, do we hardwire our brains to believe that doing self-defeating things for a man is "romantic?" If our brains are hard wired this way, are we passing that down to our daughters? Especially if we allow them to indulge in this type of culture and media?

Laurie Toby Edison of Body Impolitic asked me to guest blog. I submitted Body Image: No Name Calling about how I try to teach Ainsley that the habit of self-deprecation is wrong and carries a real cost to the self-esteem.

Thanks to Laurie for the opportunity. Laurie will be sitting on the BlogHer panel about body image with me in San Francisco in July.

Please stop by and read it while I decompress from my political trip and spend extra time with my kids - they missed me.

There's another reason to leave the kids every once in a while - you can't beat the experience of seeing them run towards you with pure joy to see you. Who else is that happy when they see me?

I am in downtown Austin at the Texas Democratic Convention. Sitting in a hotel lobby waiting for my ride.

I rode the Hillary Bus.

I left my suitcase on the bus, or it pulled away while I was looking at the other Democrats and spacing off. It's coming back.

I would post a picture of my bus-mates but I forgot my card reader. I need that to download photos.

I shot off an email yesterday to the other delegates and asked for a room cancellation or a roommate or a free room.

All the nice Democrats were super-helpful.

I will be staying in a 4 story house in the college area. I have a Hillary training meeting today (I don't know why, I watch the same news as you, but I love her so I have to wear the "Hillary 08" t-shirt and ride the Hillary bus to the end). I have a backup plan if it turns out too sketchy.

Then I'll go to the opening reception, though I have heard that I've wasted my money on it. A flat coke and a bag of chips will be served.

Then, and I'm most excited about this, is the Bloggers Caucus. I've got to pick up my blogger credentials (Does this get me into secret back rooms? Maybe, I don't know yet.) I will get to meet all my other contemporaries. Cool.

More on Blog Fabulous.

by Tracee Sioux

Guess where I am going to be tomorrow?

I'm going to the Texas Democratic Convention!

How many of you still feel disconnected to the political process?

Perhaps this is because you've never attempted to get involved? Never attended a school board or city council meeting? Never gone to a caucus or a Party meeting?

Here's the thing. We live in a Democracy. You have a right to get involved. The doors are wide open for you.

Those politicians - they work for you!

You don't like paying that tax? You think your public school sucks? You want healthcare for everyone?

Hello! It's election season! There's a 1,000 ways to be the change you want to see in the world!

Vote, Blog, Contribute Money, Write Letters to the Editor, Signage, Talk to Friends and Family, Go Door to Door, Write Representatives, Read & Research Bills - that's EMPOWERING.

Lucky you, I'll be blogging about how easy it is to get involved.

I couldn't believe how simple it was for me to be elected a delegate at my local party meeting. Do you know they said they have faced such voter apathy in the last 8 years that they haven't been able to send enough people to the convention as delegates? No one volunteered to go. What a shame.

I can't wait to sift through the process of the Texas Democratic Convention.

Perhaps, like me, you've been watching the Democratic Party's convoluted complicated system and thought, Who came up with that stupid idea?

No idea is set in stone in a democracy and I'm going to find out who has the power to make this motion:

One nation-wide primary election on the same day - winner of the popular vote becomes the party's candidate.

If a delegate has that power I'm going to make that motion. If an elected party leader has that power I'm going to petition them to make it.

We are not powerless in a Democracy. We can have as much power as we use.

My daughter will grow up around this empowering political attitude and she will know she has access to political power too.

I do not want Ainsley growing up feeling like she can't do anything around a vehicle. Women and girls drive. They buy cars. Their cars need maintenance.

Ainsley's Daddy takes her out to work on the car if he has to change a tire or replace break pads.

Sometimes I realize it's easier for me to do something than to get it to the top of my husband's list. Like recharging our air conditioner in the van. He doesn't have time. So, I did it myself - read the 10 steps to recharging an air conditioner on Blog Fabulous.

It occurred to me that it would benefit Ainsley to see Mommy participating in the fixing and maintaining a car. And really it was easy enough that she could do it too. It looked so fun her friend joined in.

For information about how women can fix and maintain their own cars visit AskPatty.com.

Senator Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, isn't waiting for Election '08 to get the Healthy Americans Act passed.

* Every American will have it

* Comprehensive - comparable to Congress.

* Portable - take it when you leave your job.

* Non-discriminatory - ban on "pre-existing conditions" and everyone gets a fair price.

Affordable - under $40,000 income? Pay less than now. Under $150,000 pay $1 a day more for guaranteed coverage.

The Act, his site says also saves s1.48 trillion through wellness and prevention.

And he says he can make it reality in only one year.

Here's the real cost:

Families between $40,000 and $50,000 would pay about $81/year more - about $7 a month. Families between $50,000 and $150,000 would average between $327 and $341 per year more - about $28 a month.

In return for this modest increase these families would have guaranteed coverage that they could never lose, not if they get sick, not if they lose their jobs, not for any reason.

We'd be crazy not to take that deal. Why wait for elections? I want to see Senator Wyden deliver on this right now. Read the details by clicking this link.

Email your own representatives by visiting Congress.org and entering your zip code.

Do you think I should get you a Valentine?

I'm going to be seriously upset if you spend money on roses that die and please remember I hate the creams. In fact we don't need chocolate, there's still some from Christmas.

I was talking to her not you, my sweet husband pointed to our six-year-old daughter, Ainsley.

What?

You got a laptop and we're going to dinner. You're not getting me anything are you?

Do you want me to?

No.

Actually, I like to get roses and I would love more chocolate, Daddy. I'll make you a card. How come I can't go to dinner?

You get all those cards from your friends at school. Valentine's is for Mommy and Daddy to go to dinner. You get to go to Nana's

But, I want to be your valentine.

Okay, Daddy can be your valentine. Zack will you be my Valentine?

Mama!

Isn't it romantic?

Check out this worthy article, Marry Him, in The Atlantic by Lori Gottlieb. She makes the case for settling for Mr. Good Enough.

From Ms. Good Enough to Mr. Good Enough - Happy Valentine's Day!

Forgive me for taking a day or two from blogging.

I'll resume when my parents go home and my children stop clinging to me (tomorrow or Monday).

They did wonderful while I was away.

But evidently, they missed me.

Please don't unsubscribe or delete me from your bookmarks though. I've still got oodles and oodles more to say.

by Tracee Sioux

I always thought I'd have four children growing up. But, then I had one and realized how incredibly hard it was and changed my ideal to two.

When I had Ainsley I thought I'd save my sir name Sioux for the second girl. For some reason I can't recall now I thought it would be odd to give both girls my name. I gave her my mother and great-grandmother's name Sarah as a middle name.

Now, with one boy and one girl and no other girls coming - well, I regret that Ainsley doesn't have my name.

Lately I've been wondering if the naming traditions should shift to passing down names from mother to daughter and father to son. Would that work?

I've been considering changing it, but she's six-years-old so it's not a thing I would do without her wanting it too.

Ainsley, I've been thinking about changing your name.

Okay I want to be Caroline.

What?

Caroline and you can call me Cara.

I meant adding my last name, Sioux, to your name.

Okay, I want to be Caroline Sioux.

What about daddy's name? His feelings will be hurt if you don't keep that. Don't you like the name Ainsley?

I like Caroline better.

What about Sarah?

Just call me Caroline from now on.

Okay, that's not exactly where I intended for this conversation to go.

Sundays are for bonding and resting. Oh, and a spa manicure-pedicure in front of the tube.

Learn to groom, but be frugal about it. That's the lesson here.

Ainsley bites her nails and lets her cuticles grow out to the point where a manicure is a big painful task. Turning it into a fun spa girlie time avoids the holding her down while she's screaming as I push back the cuticles episode.

After the red nail polish, we add some Bite It. It's supposed to stop her from biting the nails down to bleeding by making them taste like dirt. It's probably more effective if you put it on more than once a month. I noticed this morning that she's already bitten most of the polish off her nails.

Perhaps your daughter shares this problem. You might try Control-It! 3 Jar ~ 21 Day Fingernail Biting Treatment OMEGA3 Extra Strength. I would not care that she bites her nails if she were not complaining that they hurt from hang nails and infection quite often.

Do you allow your daughter to participate in grooming activities? (To be fair, we very democratically did Zack's nails too.)

While listening to the radio the other day I heard a female DJ pick apart Lourdes, the daughter of Madonna.

Oh My God, that Lourdes needs to be introduced to the tweezers. She not only had a massive uni-brow, but she's got a full on mustache too, said mommy DJ.

The DJ happens to be the mother of a baby girl.

Hello! Lourdes is a little girl. At what age are we mothers expected to sit our daughters down and tweeze, pluck, wax and shave them?

Is 6 too young? Maybe girls should start shaving their legs at 8? The Burning Times has a report on Nair Pretty, a chemical acid hair removal cream, being marketed directly to 10-year-old girls for their clean bikini line. It's profoundly disturbing that I'm no longer shocked.

Maybe it's not even about when the girls might be ready for such milestones into womanhood, maybe it's all about prevention of mean girl attention. Perhaps a mother's best bet is to attempt to prevent scathing criticism of a girl's appearance by prematurely eradicating any hair that might attempt to grow anywhere on her body.

You should be ashamed of yourself Sister DJ. You've just opened the door for bad daughter Karma.

You will find, as your daughter matures, that it is extraordinarily difficult to teach a young girl that appearance isn't everything when all evidence is to the contrary.

Have you been over to the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood? It's a non-profit activist organization on the side of NOT selling our kids out.

Which, until recently I thought was a given, but apparently that was naive. Now, I pretty much think that unless people get LOUD in the face of advertisers they'll sell every girl or boy child as long as they can pay their amortized mortgage and their fancy limited-edition, financed Tahoe.

I would love to attend the upcoming conference in Boston, Consuming Kids, The Sexualization of Children and other Commercial Calamities.

I'll invite any attendee of the conference to guest-post what they learned on So Sioux Me.

I love a site that lets me take real action in less than 5 minutes. While I was over there I got to write a letter to Scholastic to tell them to stop marketing The Bratz in my daughter's school.

You can also send a letter to McDonalds demanding they stop selling sex with a side of fries with their sexualized My Scene Barbies as a Happy Meal prize. More on these toys at Queen of Violets.

I understand that, as a parent, one of my jobs is to teach my children to decipher advertising and teach them to resist it.

Really, I don't think it would be reasonable to stop marketing to kids completely. But, do they have to be so deranged and disgusting about it? Could they perhaps apply an ethical boundary here and there? At a marketing meeting deciding to market toys that look more like hookers than business women is it insane to think the marketing professionals, presumably also parents, might ask "What kind of long-term effect might this have on kids?"

Is that really too much to ask?

Keeping Up With the Kardashians is another E! television series which makes me want to . . . what? It's so depraved, I'm at a loss.

Lets start with worst mother on the planet (at least on television) - Kris Kardashian. This woman has phone conversations with the Girls Gone Wild President, who happens to be in jail for violating and exploiting little girls, both to get off and to sell a lot of child porn. "I can't believe you're in jail, we really should drive up there and get you out somehow," she whimpers at him.

This guy is pretty much the superhero for pedophiles, but whatever. Kris feels it would be a good career move to sell her model/actress teenage daughters to him. She doesn't understand why anyone would let a little "stigma" of sexual exploitation of children bother them when this is obviously a "classy" swim wear collection.

So she takes the girls, lying to her husband, and poses for Girls Gone Wild. Brilliant motherhood/management move.

Father finds out and goes off to find Kris. He leaves their pre-pubescent daughters with adult brother Brody. This is where the show takes a Nambla tone - and I'm sure all members of Nambla recorded the episode and will watch it over and over with their pants down.

Kendal, 11, and Kylie, 9, start taunting their brother Brody about Girls Gone Wild and lifting up their shirts. He invites his adult male friend over to join in the fun. Even joking that he's invited "girls" over to play with. The tween girls dance around a stripper pole - why do these people have a stripper pole in their home? Lifting their tops singing Girls Gone Wild! Girls Gone Wild! Girls Gone Wild! These Elementary School students grab a belt and play a game of whipping and chasing these men who are babysitting them screaming their sexual taunt.

A video camera is gotten out and the babysitting adult male friend tapes the girls dancing around the stripper pole singing Girls Gone Wild and flashing their bare stomachs joking about putting it on You Tube. Finally, brother Brody walks in the room and puts a stop to it. But instead of punching his friend in the face, he thinks it's all really funny.

At the end of the episode the 3 older girls joke about being Charlies Angels with the imprisoned pornographer who jokes about wanting to screw them and which of them is hottest.

Their father "accidentally" finds the video of his youngest daughters flashing and screaming Girls Gone Wild around a stripper pole and it's obvious who's in trouble - the pre-teen girls. How dare they act like that?

We see Mother, feigning shock that this kind of porno-fun is going on.

What, Mrs. Kardashian? Did you think maybe they should wait until they are 12 or 13 before selling them to the highest-bidding child pornographer? (Which, in this case, happens to be E!)

Previews for next week involve Hugh Hefner and Mrs. Kardashian trying to convince her daughter to take her bra off. E!'s website is featuring Kardashian parental advice about how to raise responsible children and get girls to dress age-appropriately.

This is the new normal.

Guess whose name is not on Zack's birth certificate?

Mine.

In New York, after Ainsley's birth, when I filled out the form I noticed there was only one blank for Mother's Maiden Name, so I had the presence of mind to put my current legal name in the blank. (If you'll recall I legally changed my name to Sioux after a brief early marriage ended.)

However, in Texas, after Zack's birth there was a blank that said Mother's Legal Name. There was also a blank that said Mother's Maiden Name. I asked the records lady to clarify and she was unable. I assumed the birth certificate in Texas would include a space for my legal name and my maiden name.

Wrong.

I was sent a form inviting me to correct any mistakes and only my birth name appeared. No where on the document was my current legal name. I corrected the mistake, writing my current name in the maiden name field, and sent it back.

The hospital refused to make the correction. When I spoke to a records lady, I mentioned that perhaps the form was misleading and outdated, she became so angry that she slammed down the phone.

Now I have a birth certificate where my son's name is listed. My husband's is listed. But, mine is no where on it. If you look at my daughter's birth certificate and my sons, it appears they have two different mothers.

I have to appeal to our state capitol to have the name changed on my son's birth certificate now. Which involves filing court documents and getting forms witnessed and paying a fee.

I'm still not to the point where I can deal with it without anger. So, it doesn't seem unlikely that he will turn 2 without having an accurate mother's name on his birth certificate.

Surely, in this day and age, I am not the only mother who's upset about the way her identity on her children's birth certificate is documented?

The assumption of anyone looking at it is that my current name is that of my husband's and children's. I'm not judging anyone whose legal name is one shared with a husband, but that's just not my name.


Name = Identity

Flash from scared innocent kids asking these questions:

Mom, Dad, how long should I wait for you?

What if something happens, will you come get me?

What if I'm at soccer practice, will you come get me?

Mom, If you're not home, should we go to the neighbor's house?

Calm female Narrator: There is no reason not to have a plan in case of a terrorist attack, and some extremely good reasons why you should. Talk to your family about what you would do in case of an emergency. Go to www.ready.gov .

I just saw this commercial on TLC sponsored by Homeland Security.

For some reason I feel manipulated by it. For one, as a parent it makes me feel completely powerless. My first question is exactly what would that plan look like?

When I saw the second plane hit the second tower of the World Trade Center it was clear to me that terrorists are evil geniuses. They waited until all cameras were on them to make their real statement. The other thing that was clear to me is that we can't imagine what they are capable of. So, what strategy can I possibly come up with, as a parent, if their evilness knows no moral bounds? We couldn't conceive of the terribleness of 9/11, so there simply couldn't be a back-up plan. All back-up plans were useless on that day, during that week. Should I have multiple plans that include biomedical terrorism or germ warfare or plain old bombs? Should I assume that I'll have access to transportation or should I assume that I won't?

When I think about that commercial a little more I feel exploited. Why now? It's been 6 whole years and I've never seen a commercial like that before. Now it's election time, and I'm getting public service announcements from Homeland Security all the sudden?

The nature of the commercial felt manipulative to me as well. It seemed to be directed to make children afraid. To coerce them into asking me questions I can't possibly answer. It seemed dead set on destroying my sense of denial that allows me to put one foot in front of the other every day. It seemed poised to force my children to realize that I can't possibly protect them from so much in this world.

Are commercials like this helpful? Necessary? Is this a clue that we're at a higher risk than the last 6 years? Is it appropriate to scare children to force action on the part of parents? Sort of like the "make your parents quit smoking" public service announcements? Is manipulation of children for the greater good? Did it take 6 years to decide we need commercials on being prepared?

What is there to say? This is what we do to girls in this country and it has devastating effects on them, on us. They are born beautiful and then . . .

The onslaught of terrible images of their worth related to a beauty ideal, weight management, and self-loathing. In short, we make them things and not people. We care more about how women look more than who they are.

The thing about women is that we begin to participate, all of us, to some degree. I'm no exception.

This isn't harmless. It manifests in us, females, as depression, anxiety, body image issues like anorexia or obesity, sexual acting out, objectification and self-sexualization.

We allow them to turn our bodies into objects and then to do it to our daughters. Our daughters deserve better than this. I know mine does. Mine deserves to feel valued for who she is not what she is.

I appreciate this as another tool to empower my daughter and yours. Read more about how this effects women on Blogfabulous Also lots of wisdom over at Queen of Violets.

This is the company photo for WordPress.com. See that one woman among all the men? This is 2007 and we talk a lot about all the opportunities available to women, but this is a current photo not a flashback to the 1970s.

What do we say to our daughters about that one girl? Do we encourage our daughters to emulate her, join her, be like her? Or do we criticize her fashion sense and hair?

Do we tell our daughters that math and science pay a lot more than traditionally female occupations like teaching and social work?

When we're encouraging a hobby it might be better to forgo the tap class and encourage chess club. Parents of girls should get extra-excited about math ability and foster a curiosity about computers.

The first week of Kindergarten didn't go as smoothly as I had planned. Perhaps that's the problem with having a plan, you get too attached to the outcome and then become disappointed.

Practical problems included the bus taking 2 whole hours to bring my kid home. Two hours is a heck of a lot of time to spend on a bus. We live within walking distance of the school. Literally about 5 blocks. Of course I called the school twice to find out if my daughter was still there, had been brought back, etc. When she finally got off she said all the kids had fallen asleep and had to be carried out by parents. Day 2 same problem. Day 3 I send a note saying I'd be picking her up until further notice. I had talked to several parents who don't allow their kids to ride the bus for fear of bullies. Apparently, the bullies needed their afternoon nap.

Adding two extra hours on to her school day resulted in emotional meltdowns. Big exasperated shouting and screaming and crying fits. Meltdowns.

I had to go coach soccer without her because she just couldn't handle an extra-curricular activity. Then we went ahead with a church meeting after school on Day 2 and maybe that was just too much for everyone. She also rejected school lunch and asked me to pack her one. Cheaper and healthier anyway.

Day 3 I picked her up and she was missing her preschool best-friend pretty badly. Not a single one of her friends ended up in her class. I guess they don't even have recess or lunch as a group. So, I invited her friend over to play. One conflict after another (between us, not between she and her friend) resulted in two pretty major meltdowns. She's grounded for a week.

She's was not allowed to play soccer on Saturday. The worst part is that I still had to coach it. Once it was out of my mouth I had to do it.

I sent her to Day 4, Friday, with a massive guilt trip and major shaming lecture. Really sometimes I wish I hadn't taken an anti-spanking discipline position. Sometimes I think what she needs is to be swiftly smacked in the mouth. That's probably not what she needs, but it's what my impulse is. My parents would have gotten out the belt and been done with it. Yes, her behavior was serious enough for a really big consequence. But, she's 5, what exactly is a really big consequence?

Does external stress excuse really terrible behavior? Does that fact that she's only doing what we, her parents, taught her to do give her a free pass? Both my husband and I have had really big meltdowns under stress. Does that mean we shouldn't punish her when she only acts out what we taught her to do?