I’m no Tiger Mom.  I don’t browbeat our daughter to practice her violin for several hours each day nor do I threaten to make her stand out in the cold until her music lesson is perfect.  I don’t berate her for any grade less than an “A” or call her worthless or disgusting.  For me, the definition of our sixth-grader’s school “success” is about learning how to think her way through a problem rather than aiming for the perfect grade.

But we live in a society of teaching to the test to boost performance, saving our praise for the highest achieving students and where kids learn young that they are valued more if they grades are always good, never giving them a chance to fail or struggle at the exact time in their lives they need to be learning that lesson.

We encourage our daughter to take risks and think big.  Why not try the “extra” math homework and see how it goes?  The worst thing that can happen is that you don’t understand it and you learn it the next day at school; the best thing that could happen is you get it right and become more confident in yourself as a learner and problem solver.  But it isn’t always easy.

I’m learning the hard way that having a twelve-year-old is not for the weak of heart.

One day she’s still my little girl who gets out the LEGOs or watches an episode of Kim Possible (she’s a cheerleader AND a crime fighter!) and the next she’s immersed in angst-ridden pop music about the cute guy and wonders why I won’t let her see the Twilight movies yet.

It’s normal, I know.

I think I’m doing pretty well with my transition from being the mother of an elementary school child to being the mom of a budding teenager.  Helping her to manage her expectations about evolving friendships?  That’s a tougher nut.

She’s a logical kid.  It makes no sense to her that that some people say and do hurtful or dismissive things just for effect.  Why does a person ignore you in one setting but acts like your BFF in another?  On the few occasions when she opens up, she wonders, “But if someone knows something isn’t true, why do they say it?” or “I know [insert name here] is whispering loudly enough so I’ll hear it.  Why do they do that?”

Image via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons license

If asked, most parents say they want their children to attend college if they want to.  Being able to afford to send our kids to college is another question.  But when did the issue of snobbery become part of the calculus of higher education?

Not every family can afford the full freight of a four-year degree.  Today the average cost hovers between $10,000 to $15,000 per year at state universities for tuition, room and board, and books.  Private colleges charge as much as $50K a year.  I know from personal experience that there are ways to pay for college through grants, student loans, work/study programs and other avenues.  I took out loans, got a small scholarship or two, and worked a couple of different jobs to pay for my education, and I was still on what I called the “eight-year plan” to finish my bachelor’s degree.

I worked hard, kept at it, and got that diploma.  Does that make me a snob?  One presidential candidate thinks so.

I might get a pass if I provide snacks

I knew this day was coming, but somehow I hoped against hope that I’d miss the phase of parenting where I officially became the stupidest mother in America. Sadly, I was wrong.

My husband, who has two daughters from his first marriage, said I should buckle up as our daughter entered the ‘tween years. But up until her most recent birthday, we were sailing along smoothly. Not perfect, of course — no one’s relationship with their children is. But things were pretty good until she turned 12.

Now, of course, I still know that I have the most wonderful daughter on the face the earth (followed VERY closely by my two stepdaughters), but the trying moments of parenthood are becoming more frequent and bigger in scale, thanks to hormones, the influence of classmates and yearning teen anthems from Avril Lavigne and Taylor Swift.

All parents go through this phase. So how do I know I’m THE stupidest mom in America?

I like our family's traditions, thank you very much

When I hear about efforts like those of a group called “One Million Moms” trying to take down a business and a celebrity because they want to “protect” their children from “non-traditional” families, the first thing I think is, “Isn’t life hard enough without hating families that don’t look like yours?”

One Million Moms, part of the conservative group The American Family Association, is a group of self-proclaimed “Christian moms” tasked with the mission of purportedly standing up for children and families.  OMM’s latest effort is to ask women across America to call their local JCPenney store manager and ask them “to replace Ellen DeGeneres as their new spokesperson immediately to remain neutral in the culture war.”

The good news is this — that effort has fallen flat on its face.  OMM isn’t neutral and by calling on JCPenney to find a spokesperson more acceptable to OMM (read: straight, not gay) is hardly remaining neutral in any war.  So I was excited to see that a couple of people I know pretty well from Babble Voices, Tracey Gaughran-Perez and Doug French, call for a nationwide Shop In to show support for JCPenney’s decision not to cave in to the anti-gay sentiment of the OMM effort.

Image via Joanne Bamberger/All Rights Reserved

Politicians know they need women to win elections.  We vote more than men.  And since the majority of women become mothers by the time they’re in their forties, that means politicians need moms.

Now, you’d think in light of that, they’d pay a little more attention to us in the political down times.  As our husbands know, wooing is a very important part of any good relationship!  But even with the wooing, I’d like to see them stop with the name calling.  No, it’s never really been anything bad, but candidates often feel the need to put labels on mothers who vote.  As we head into the pre-Super Tuesday part of the 2012 presidential campaign, what kind of mother do you think you are when it comes to the issues?  Do any of these labels fit?

I know I usually write about the crazy world of politics or how our culture tends to dismiss the fact that women do still have working brains after they become mothers.  But my world has become a little overwhelmed lately by something else — a ‘tween daughter.

I knew the day would come when my once sweet child would roll her eyes at everything I said and that at school pick-up she would either pretend she didn’t know me or act like I was just the driver.  I was prepared for that.

But I wasn’t prepared for my slip of a sixth-grader — she is in the 30th percentile for height and 25 percentile for weight as of her 12-year checkup — to be plagued by thoughts of whether parts of her body are fat.

Image via andersoncooper.com

Anderson, Anderson, Anderson.  Why, oh WHY, are you doing this to me?

I’ve always thought you were a top-notch journalist, not afraid to charge into the dangerous war zones or natural disaster areas to bring us the news, a true sign of a seriously committed journalist.  Not to mention that fine, form-fitting black tee-shirt you take with you.

But now I’m thinking that I might have to take back all the good thoughts I’ve had about your way with a news story in light of a topic you’ve chosen for your daytime show.

While the title of the episode on your home page is “Who is Happier: Stay-at-Home Moms or Moms Who Work Outside the Home,” one little click tells me all I need to know about what this hour of daytime TV is really going to be about — “Are Stay-at-Home Moms Lazy?”

Yup, that's my little PunditBaby. Image via Joanne Bamberger/All rights reserved

As someone who’s followed politics and elections as long as I have, pretty much nothing surprises me anymore.  Attack ads, funny commercials, “oops” moments.  They’re all to be expected.  But I thought that using candidates’ children as targets of attack was pretty much off limits, especially after the 2000 presidential campaign when supporters of George W. Bush engaged in “push polling” to suggesting that John McCain’s daughter, Bridget, who was adopted from Bangladesh, was actually an African-American child he had fathered out of wedlock.

I wish I were making that up, but I’m not.  McCain was in the lead at the time, but after those efforts his campaign was pretty much over.  Jon Huntsman doesn’t want that to happen to his run for the White House.

Mother & Child, Sistene Chapel

It’s that time of year when lists are all the rage — who was the best, the worst, the most controversial?

Year-end lists always make for good discussion starters, whether we agree with them or not.  Of course, there are some good lists right here at Babble, but often women in general, and mothers in particular, are overlooked unless women are the ones compiling them. Lists are a way of measuring certain accomplishments and influence.

So this list-mania got me thinking that maybe we needed just one more  — a list about which moms we were talking about most in 2011.  Which mothers gave us the juiciest material for outrage or the meatiest food for thought?  Of course, there are plenty and it was hard to narrow it down to five, but here are my nominations for Most Talked About Moms in 2011!

Who would you add to the list?