I Don't Stand Alone

For those with money to throw away, the newest trend: Parenting Coaches.

What’s that? Check it out.

A Parenting Coach will observe how you interact with your children, explain the problem, and then tell you how to solve it.

In other words, a Parenting Coach is my Aunt Nora.

For the record, I don’t find anything wrong with clueless parents actually purchasing a clue and trying to better themselves for their children’s sake. Parents should take responsibility for what is the most important job in the world.

However, I find it interesting that a person who coaches for a living had this to say:

Why pay a stranger to meddle in your family affairs? Most simply want support and validation. Some are lured by the miracle cures on “Nanny 911.” Many live far from close family and friends and feel unsure of where to turn for reliable advice.

That’s the ticket.

They don’t have my mom, my dad, my siblings, my Uncle Joe, my Aunt Mimi, my cousins or years of wisdom stored and remembered from my Nana. In our society of fractured extended families, a professional is the next best thing.

Is it okay that I find that sorta sad? But wait a minute... It’s hard to face reality sometimes and the reality of it is – I’m one of those people who lives in a fractured extended family.

There are certain times when I feel it more than others. For example, my next door neighbor watches my children for about an hour after school each day. She’s moving in a few weeks. If I were near family, this wouldn’t be an issue. Luckily, Husband and I are able to work it out for the last few weeks of school. But when I think about how easy it *could* be...

Whenever Husband and I are faced with what seems like an insurmountable problem, we look to our family for help and advice. But I can’t help feeling a bit isolated from the lot of them who are back on the East Coast. Even when we lived in Florida, northern relatives visited quite often.

None of them come out here.

Without hesitation, friends are wonderful. We’ve got a few buddies here in Colorado Springs who understand what it’s like to be away from family. Andrea makes sure her kids and our kids hook up for not just the big things like holidays and birthdays, but for practice running a football and she always includes me for mid-week girls’ nights out.

Take Aaron and Melissa for example. Aaron signed on to be Husband’s assistant coach for our children’s flag football team. He’s out there every Saturday morning, running around and dealing with mouthbreathers - for *our* kids. Melissa attends the games. When our boys had their skating lesson recital, both Aaron and Melissa were there to cheer them on.

Hopefully, we all have made living far away from family a bit easier on each other.

But that doesn't mean we all don’t realize what we’re missing. We know. We just don’t know quite what to do about it yet.

My large and loving family is behind me one hundred and ten percent. And I wouldn’t be able to make it work so far away from them without their love and support.

But just because we can, does that mean we should? And what are we teaching our children?

Friends are terrific, but family is forever.

I'm afraid that lesson is getting lost somewhere over the Continental Divide.