J and her best friend S – both age 14 – got to spend the last few days together, which has been wonderful. S’s family travels most months out of the year on the highest-level hunter jumper circuit. Her brother is one of the top young riders in the country, so they spend most of their time as a family at shows all up and down the East Coast. This means that J and S don’t see each other in person as often as they would like, although they talk on the phone and online almost every day.

The girls have been bestest friends since they first met at about age 5, taking riding lessons together. I realized yesterday that over the years, I’ve collected a photographic history of their growing up years, and I pulled it all together in this slideshow. They are such awesome girls, and I can’t wait to see what great things they accomplish in the decade ahead!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

My latest Babble blog post is about how different each of my three eldest offspring are with regard to being willing to talk about their potential romantic interests with me:

If I hadn’t already mothered my way through the teenage years with one kid who would clearly endure waterboarding before telling me whether he has any romantic interest in anyone in particular, I would be patting myself on the back about now, confidently smug in the “fact” that my obviously superlative parenting skills were the sole reason that J is so open with me about this stuff. But honestly, I haven’t done anything any differently with Kid #2 than I did with Kid #1 when it comes to encouraging these sorts of conversations. So I know that this is one instance where Judith Rich may be onto something, because in this developmental area, nature clearly kicks nurture to the curb; some teenagers are obviously born with a willingness to tolerate, and even indulge their mothers’ annoying curiosity about their love lives, while others are not.

And now along comes E, who just started 6th grade last month. E has always had a certain way with the ladies, as well as a natural confidence that I feel pretty certain will assure him no small measure of success in the teenage Dating Game. He’s also much more chatty in general than his older brother, H, who is naturally quite reserved and private. So I erroniously assumed that E would be more like his sister J (and Greg Brady) when it comes to openly telling mom exactly what’s up with his love life. But only 6 weeks into middle school, he has already let me know that he’s still trying to decide where he will fall on the continuum of openness.

Read the rest over at Babble.

In my latest blog post over at Babble. I’m talking about how I’ve gotten way more comfortable over time in laying down the law when it comes to what my tween and teen children can and cannot wear in public.

Teenagers are trying to find and express their identities through their clothing. I get that, and they need some freedom to do play around with who they are through their sartorial excesses. That shape-shifting through fashion experimentation can be an important part of the growing up process, and completely harmless. On the other hand, when the identity teenegers are expressing through what they are wearing is one that truly contradicts your values as a parent, or celebrates things that are dangerous or illegal, or that compromises their reputation among other kids and adults because it says something about them that people find negative, well, then, I think parental discretion and judgment trumps their need or right to have complete freedom of choice in what they wear. That’s where I am with this these days, but that’s been an evolution over time.

For some teenagers, dressing a certain way is nothing more than play acting, but for other kids, adopting, for example, a Goth fashion sensibility actually supports and encourages their descent into depression or drug use or other kinds of self-harm. Dressing like the guys in gangsta rap videos might be a big nothing for some kids, who just like to play around with costuming themselves, while for others, it’s part of a very meaningful and dangerous interest in a criminal lifestyle. And even if the kids themselves aren’t actually doing any of the things commonly associated with whatever specific clothing styles they are sporting, they can be creating an impression in their schools, neighborhoods and communities that is unhealthy and self-defeating. As parents, we have to protect our kids’ from their own lack of experience and underdeveloped judgment unti l they “get” this stuff themselves.

Go read the whole thing and tell me what you think in the comments there.

…and now I have four children…

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