Unless you’ve been completely offline today you’ve surely heard and/or seen the controversial cover on Time Magazine. There’s been plenty of talk about how old the child in this picture is – he’s 3 – and whether or not women should be breastfeeding a child this age. It seems all the controversy online today (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has been around the topic of breastfeeding. Of course, this is an important topic and one that will be debated for years to come. I am very much in support of breastfeeding. Having said that, this post is actually going to talk about something much more important. It’s going to cover a topic that I’m not hearing anyone talk about and yet is, in many ways, killing millions of women and men alike.

Shame.

The cover of this photo states, “Are You Mom Enough?” Has our society become so used to being shamed, put down, questioned that we don’t even see shame when it’s staring us in the face? We wonder why so many of us have self-esteem issues and yet we don’t see some of the causes. One of the most common questions I hear women asking is (in one variation or another) “Am I enough?”. Whether it’s in the form of weight, beauty, intelligence, career, financial, caregiving…and the list goes on and on.

The bottom line is that every women who is blessed to have a baby is ENOUGH from the moment she gives birth to that beautiful child. No woman can ever be MORE THAN or LESS THAN enough of a Mom.

There is no judgement in truth.

“More than” and “Less than” statements are judgements and there’s only one truth. All Moms are enough all the time!

Why must our society/media put into question something as basic as this? Why must they keep our Moms doubting themselves? As if there isn’t enough things to call into question about our performance and even our inherent nature. The sad truth is that this is so common. What’s even more sad is that so many Women and Men alike don’t even recognize that this is abuse and it’s called, Shame.

Someone(s) at Time Magazine has a warped sense of what’s “Real”. Don’t let them fool you into thinking you ever have to meet some condition as a women and a mother in order to be enough. This is a complete fallacy and says much more about the owners and content creators at Time Magazine than it ever does about our Mothers.

On this Mother’s Day I want you to remember one thing Moms. You were, are, and will always be enough.

With May already upon us it’s not hard to remember that Mom is on our mind! There are so many resources out there for us to turn to and I wanted to remind you about my friends at eBay. You might not think that eBay would have anything to do with your upcoming Mother’s Day but I’m going to invite you to see what they have in store.

Since we’re all on some form of Social Media on a daily basis I thought I’d share about how they’re contributing. They are hosting a number of Social Media Giveaways including a Twitter Party for Moms on May 1st (from 12 – 2 PST) as well as compiling a gift guide of items that the Mother’s in your life might like.

Check out these different eBay channels to celebrate the Mom in your life and win some great prizes while you’re at it.

• Memorable Moments – Facebook photo Sweepstakes with daily winners. Check out the site!

• Keep an eye for giveaways on Twitter (#ebaymom) and Pinterest.

• Fashion Vault – The Watchery – Mother’s day luxury watches up to 70% off – 4/30 to 5/7. View the sale here!

• eBay Flowers Promotion – Buy ProFlowers through eBay and get $10 to spend on eBay running until 5/12. Check it out here!

I am a member of the eBay Parent Panel which is a paid sponsorship between eBay and DadStreet. The views and opinions expressed on this site are mine and cannot be bought. However, I may want to buy yours if I run out of my own.

I can recall, not too long ago, a time when each and every word out of my daughter’s mouth was met with huge celebration. When she started talking it was such an amazing thing to watch. In the beginning we weren’t too concerned with what she was saying only so much that she was just speaking. Not too long after that she was starting to repeat words. We had to be really careful about what we would say around her or what would be on TV.

Our daughter, O, will be 4 years old in just under two weeks. She’s got a great vocabulary and I know we’ve done a great job ensuring she’s not exposed to words we’d likely use around other adults. However, she’s now in Pre-School and of course have no control over what other children are going to say. Recently she’s been picking up some words and one in particular.

About a week ago, O came home and completely out of nowhere says, “Daddy, we don’t say stupid.”. I was shocked at first as I’d never heard her use that word. Apparently, one of the other girls she plays with picked it up. So I replied, “That’s right honey, no one is stupid and we don’t use that word.”. That was the last I heard of it until the next day.

The conversation went like this:

O: “Daddy, we don’t say Stupid.”
Me: “That’s right honey, we don’t say that word.”
O: “Stupid is a bad word.”
Me: “That’s right honey and we don’t say it, good job!”
O: “Right, we don’t say Stupid.”
Me: “Right…”

This exact same conversation has occurred every day this week. I’m beginning to notice a pattern and am quickly catching on to this little genius 3 year old. She’s found a way to say Stupid all the while confirming that she shouldn’t say it!

Darn her!!!! LOL This is her at 3?? I am in so much trouble!

Before becoming a member of the eBay Parent Panel I hadn’t had much experience buying and/or selling on eBay. Since partnering with eBay I have definitely had some success selling nearly $800 worth of product. Not bad for things that were literally sitting around the house, right?

Selling on eBay can be a great experience and it’s relatively easy. However, there are some things you want to make sure you’re aware of before you start your selling experience. Today I’m going to cover two mistakes I made that would have yielded me more money and I wound up learning the hard way. Looking back what I’m about to talk about might seem like common sense but I got wrapped up in the excitement of selling.

Confirm Your Shipping Fees!

Now this isn’t really such a big deal with smaller items since you’re going to have minimal variance (generally speaking) with lighter/smaller items. However, when you’re shipping larger items things can have quite a bit more variance. I was selling my stroller with accessories. This was a relatively large item and with all the accessories certainly weighed a bit. To be honest I suppose I just felt lazy at the time so I used the tools eBay has to estimate shipping costs. Now you can use the tools they have online to calculate costs but like I said, larger items deserve more research. After I sold my stroller I took it down to my local UPS store to ship it out. I was expecting some slight variance perhaps. When all was said and done I was a good $60 off though! Yikes! It would have taken 30 minutes out of my day to have taken the stroller down to UPS FIRST! Had I done that, I would have saved quite a bit of money and frustration. To make matters worse, I actually left a vital part of the stroller in my car and had to ship that separately! That added another $20 loss to my shipping saga.

So, if you’re shipping a large item on eBay go to your local shipping company FIRST. Also, take the time to make sure you have ALL the parts of the item you’re selling together before shipping. Again, these things seem like common sense and in a way they are. However, sometimes you just want to get rid of whatever you have and/or you’re just wanting to get that extra cash in your pocket. Take a few more minutes to make sure you have solid ship numbers and I guarantee you’ll end the transaction with the most money in your pocket.

Test Before You Sell!

This was another lesson I had to learn the hard way. I was selling an older Wii System I had. I hadn’t used it in over a year and thought I could use the money instead of something else to collect dust. I placed the Wii for sale with all the accessories and someone won the bid. Just before I sent it out I decided to make sure everything worked. Everything worked the last time I used it but that was a year ago. As it turns out my kids (2 and 3) had gotten into some of the game disks and they were scratched beyond operation. I also found out that one of the controllers didn’t work. It turns out that the batteries that were in there leaked after being in there so long and destroyed it. I felt so horrible that I had already sold what was advertised as a perfectly working Wii only to find these problems. I emailed the winner and explained what I found. She was pretty disappointed and I actually wound up giving her back $50.00 as a gesture on my part to make amends.

So, even if you “know” something works make sure you test it out BEFORE you post your item for bid. My other advice has to do with accessories like the games I included. I would offer those for free in your listing. If an accessory doesn’t work great or is not in great condition it’s much easier to deal with it if it’s advertised as free. Had I advertised my games as free it would have been easier to claim that a refund wouldn’t be in the works. Of course, your integrity is the most important thing and going back to my original point as long as you’ve honestly tested everything and advertised the item as it is you’re in a good place. I made the mistake of not testing first and I was honest at the end and then made amends. Unfortunately, my amends cost me $50.00 extra bucks I would have kept had I done my due diligence.

Selling on eBay is fun and can yield you some great extra cash for items that might be just sitting around your house. However, as easy as it is to sell online it’s also easy to make costly mistakes. You may feel anxious to get the show on the road and get that product sold. That’s completely understandable and taking just a few extra minutes before and during the transaction will certainly pay off.

Happy Selling!

I am a member of the eBay Parent Panel which is a paid sponsorship between eBay and DadStreet. The views and opinions expressed on this site are mine and cannot be bought. However, I may want to buy yours if I run out of my own.

As you’ve probably been aware from some of my more recent posts I’ve been doing quite a bit of “self discovery” work. In fact, I’ve been working through a very formal program over the last 8+ months in which I’ve logged well in excess of 200 hours. My time has been spent in both group and individual settings in which I’ve worked through so many old hurts.

In fact, I would say before I started my work I was an extreme co-dependent. I couldn’t identify very well with “who I was”, I had no boundaries, plenty of false beliefs about who I was and who I wasn’t and for the most part was just not “aware”.

Since then I’m very confident in who I am. I have great use, understanding, and awareness of my boundaries. I affirm myself daily and no longer hold false beliefs of not being good enough as well as others. I’ve rid myself (not all but a good majority) of old hurts, fears, and bad feelings. I now know how to identify with feelings and welcome all of them. I’m a much better husband, father, friend, and employee. In many ways I’m a completely different person. The last 8 months were certainly the hardest (in terms of self work) I’ve ever done. It would be akin to extreme dieting with mega workouts. I went places I never wanted to go (emotionally) and saw things I only wished prior would’ve stayed buried. I’ve learned that to get to the other side you have to go through hell first.

I would describe my journey as having been driven down the wrong road most of my life. Now, I’m on the right road. It’s a long road and one that will only end when I pass on. I will continue to learn and grow as I travel down this new road. The gift I have now though is the unlimited ability to not only love myself but everyone else around me. I’m so much more free now than I’ve ever been and plan to give more than I ever knew I was capable of.

With all this said, I’ve started another site called, www.TinyChunks.com. Don’t ask where I got the name. Have you tried searching the web for an available name that doesn’t sound completely horrible? Yeah, well that’s where I was left. The tag line as it reads today is “of Love” so I suppose “Tiny Chunks of Love” is a little more palatable and hopefully relatable to the content. So what is the content? Well I gave myself a challenge a week ago. I have a list of all the qualities of our inherent nature. All the qualities that you and I (everyone) are born with. I decided to take on the challenge of putting these single words into short sayings that could easily and quickly be read. It allows me to remind myself that I have these qualities and as important it’s a great reminder for all of you as well. It’s something that will ring true for you, your parents, your children, and everyone else around you. I’m hoping to put a little bit of a creative spin on them so they’re as interesting to read as they are to be aware of. Right now I’m planning to post one a day during the week. Of course, at some point I’ll run out and I’m not sure what will happen then. I’m also thinking of other things I might be able to do with the site as well. By all means if you have any recommendations I would love to hear them! 

Lastly, I want to mention that although I’ve been away a bit from DadStreet it’s still a site I have every intention on maintaining and posting on. I found myself talking more about “well being” as it relates to adults and DadStreet has always been about parenting. So in the future when I speak about “well being” I’ll do so in the context of parenting and our children.

I hope you check out www.TinyChunks.com and share whatever resonates with you. Of course, I also hope you continue to come back to DadStreet as I ramp up postings in the near future.

Much love to you all and thank you so much for your support!

As a parent of 2 and 3 year old children I often find myself in situations where I just want to scream! Ever have that happen to you? How about wanting to pull your hair out? What about those times when you just want to throw something across the room, preferably not your child?

 If you can identify with any of these scenarios, as I do, it’s likely that you’re feeling helpless and/or powerless. For me, most of the times I feel this way involves some sort of situation where I’m trying to get one of the kids to do something and CAN’T! Allow me to list some times and you can let me know if any of these ring a bell:

• Getting them to take a bath
• Getting them to get dressed
• Getting them to get undressed
• Getting them to brush their teeth
• Getting them to eat
• Getting them go to sleep
• Getting them to wake up
• Getting them to respond to you
• Getting them to stop hitting
• Getting them to stop running away

And the list goes on…

There’s two things that are in common every single time any of these situations occur for me. First, I can easily get a charge in which I am PISSED! The second, is that if I really sit down and think about what’s going on the following thought occurs. I cannot get my children to do what I want them to do.

Hello Helpless and Powerless!

Many of us don’t want to think of ourselves as “being” helpless and powerless because that’s what you would identify someone as weak possessing or perhaps very old or even very young, like our children. Well here’s the good news! Helpless and Powerless are not states of being (they are not who we are) they are just feelings!

When we identify with helpless and powerless as feelings we can treat them as such and not become victims of them. When we find ourselves in the situations I mentioned above and turn to anger, isolation, etc. it means the feelings of “helpless and powerless” are now bigger than us and we’ve just become our own victim.

Just this morning my wife was running late for work. Jake (who is 2) just finished “going potty” and wanted to dress himself. Of course, he had all the time in the world and at the rate he was going it would’ve been Friday by the time he was done. I went to assist him in getting dressed. I sensed my wife’s distress around being late for work and wanted to help. Jake told me he didn’t want my help and the feelings came on! I started to feel really frustrated and pissed! I knew I couldn’t let these feelings mess up my whole day including my families so I removed myself from the situation.

I later thought about what happened and realized a couple of things took place. First of all, to some degree I did take on my wife’s distress. She was late (not me) and she was feeling stressed (not me) yet to some extent I took on her feelings. Obviously, I didn’t make good use of my boundaries as I could have respected her feelings and appreciated where she was but not let myself get worked up. In turn, when Jake wouldn’t let me help him I had feelings of helpless and powerless. Here my wife needed help and I couldn’t do anything (short of physically forcing him to get dressed, etc.).

So here’s the good news! All Parents FEEL Helpless and Powerless at some point. All parents respond (at some point) in a way that they’re not happy about.

AND…

Because we’re not actually helpless and powerless we can choose to accept this as a feeling and deal with it as such. So the next time your little one isn’t getting dressed when you’re running late consider the following:

1. BREATHE!
2. Acknowledge your feeling! Hello Helpless and Powerless!
3. Acknowledge that you’re an adult and you’re not helpless and powerless, you just feel that way.
4. Choose to respond in your adult reality which is in a calm, loving, respectful way not as a victim to your feelings in anger.

Remember, life is about progress not perfection. The very fact that you even consider this next time, EVEN IF you still get pissed off, is a great step in the right direction. Spending time loving ourselves is the ONLY way we’re going to be able to have a place to love our children.

I can remember the first thing I said outloud as the Dr. pulled Jake from my wife the day he was born.

BALLS!

I was so excited to have a son! I would have bet anything we were going to have a second girl. From that moment on it’s been such an amazing experience watching him throughout the last two and a half years of his precious life. Watching him grow and seeing the differences between his personality and his big sister (who’s only 16 months older) has been amazing.

But now?

Now, he’s found his penis. As in, “I’m going to touch this thing until it stands as tall as a toy soldier and tell you I have an itch”.

So now what?

Penis’ have a horrible rap in our society. Here’s what I mean:

Someone cuts you off in traffic and they’ve transformed into a Penis because they’re now a “Prick”. Maybe that guy took your parking space at the mall and he’s now transformed into a “Dick head”. Things like oral sex which are pleasurable have now turned into outright insults like calling someone a “C0#&sucker”!

Not only have we confused the penis with what we call our worst enemies but now it’s used to determine our manhood. I mean afterall when we’re not “Man Enough” we must have a small penis too! It’s a never ending horrible cycle of hate for the penis and it starts when we’re just boys.

Jake is starting to touch himself now, in a very innocent way mind you, and he has no idea the penis is this horrible thing. So I have a choice at this very impressionable point in his life. I can tell him to stop touching his penis because that’s gross, and we shouldn’t touch ourselves and everything else that goes along with reminding a 2 year old that there’s something wrong with him OR I can help nurture, love, and accept him for who he is. He is a boy with a penis and he’s finding out that touching it probably tickles or feels good in some capacity. His penis isn’t this horrible thing that we’ve convinced ourselves it is. It’s a part of the male body and is a body part not too dissimilar from many others. Do I want Jake growing up learning that it’s okay to sit in school at 13 years old “playing with himself”? Of course I don’t but that’s not my point here. Of course there is a time and place to “explore” your body. At this point, now that he’s out of diapers, he’s only touching himself when his pants are off or when he’s butt naked which isn’t the majority of the day. I also don’t encourage him to touch himself. In fact, I don’t make much of a deal about it. My wife and I will ask him if he has to go “pee pee” and that’s about it. When the time is right and if it came to the point where we needed to say something we would certainly encourage him to touch himself when he’s alone or at home. However, we’re far from that point in his young life.

For my 2 year old son the last thing I want to pass along is that there is some part of his body that’s not good or that there’s something “wrong with him”. It’s easy for parents to feel some shame when their children touch themselves, especially in a public setting. Unfortunately, we wind up passing that shame on to our own children. We do everything in our power to get them “to stop”! Normally, it’s in a hurried, loud fashion because “others are looking” and we want them to stop now! The problem is now we’ve given our own shame over to our impressionable children and they’re now left to carry on with that.

It’s about time we stop passing on all that shame around little boys and their penis’. Children have no boundaries and just want to be loved. Loving starts with us parents and the best thing we can do is affirm, accept, and appreciate our little boys even if they happen to discover there’s something between their legs.

Yesterday afternoon, men all across the country (I’m sure the world) were engulfed with the very thing so many of us have trouble explaining…feelings.

I know I speak from experience when I say that I was so anxious, scared, happy, pissed off, shocked, and disappointed as I watched “My Baltimore Ravens” GIVE the game away. In fairness, even if we made that very routine field goal in the end it wasn’t a guaranteed win but damn, did we play an amazing game!

Something occurred to me this morning though. I thought about all those emotions that go along with supporting our favorite sports teams. There are some guys that can watch a game, come out feeling happy or slightly disappointed (depending on the outcome of the game), and then an hour later act as though nothing happened. Of course, the reality and what’s much more common is mass emotions. If their team wins they are elated, the world around them is the most amazingly beautiful place and everyone is treated with love and kindness.

What happens if his team loses?

Watch out! Weeding out those guys that will actually get physical with someone you’re still left with your average dude. The average dude is going to be pissed if his team loses. Not just pissed for a few minutes either but for a while, maybe even days. He may take it out on his wife, his kids, his co-workers but he’s going to be pissed.

This morning I wondered why many men, myself included (in the past), take these things so personally and just get so upset! Many men are performance driven. We’re praised on the things we accomplish and criticized for the things we underperform in. What’s worse, many of us live under a false belief that we’re not good enough.

In the beginning of this post I intentionally referred to “My Ravens” and “we” when talking about the Ravens. I was born and raised in Baltimore so of course I support the Ravens. However, it’s more than that. The Ravens have somehow now become me. “We lost”, “We won”, “If only we…”, “How could we…”, and a myriad of other things we tell ourselves about “our” team. Some how the success or failure of the teams we support become personalized and we define ourselves by their actions. What happens is that the false belief of “I’m not good enough” gets reinforced. It’s not just that the Ravens lost. It becomes, “we lost”, “we suck”, “we’re not good enough”….

Of course, we don’t go around actually saying, “we’re not good enough” but that’s exactly what we tell ourselves inside. Afterall, what would explain acting out like a small child, screaming, pissed off, and overall sour over game?

We’re not going to be able to resolve these not good enough feelings in this post but the next time the guy in your life ruins the rest of his day, your day, and everyone else’s day around him remember the following:

He’s not this mad that the (Insert favorite sports team here) lost the game. He’s this mad because he’s been lying to himself about who he is and he was just reminded about that lie. Validate his feelings and let him know it’s perfectly okay to be pissed. More importantly let him know how much he’s loved and how important he is. Any opportunity you have to remind him that he is good enough will go a long way to ensuring that he doesn’t have to wait for his team to win to feel like a winner. He’s already a winner, he just doesn’t know it yet.

Although the word “Street” is in the title of my blog I don’t often have the opportunity to talk about one of my passions…cars.

About a month ago I was approached by Chevrolet to take some pictures. The pictures were to be used for a new online campaign called, “Road We’re On”.

I was excited for a couple of reasons. First, I love taking pictures and it’s a big hobby of mine. If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook,  Pinterest, or Instagram you’ll quickly discover I’m not afraid to post a shot or two. The second reason I was stoked was that I was able to combine my passion of photography with cars. It also doesn’t hurt that I happen to live along some of the most beautiful coastline in the Country.

I was all stoked for the photo shoot! I decided I’d use my iPhone 4s for all the shots. I love shooting with my DSLR but over the last several months have exclusively been using the iPhone and been very happy with the shots. So, I thought it’d be an interesting challenge to combine iPhone + car + scenery. I had everything in place except for the car!

Oops!!

While Chevrolet did reach out to me, I didn’t have immediate access to one. I had recalled a close friend of mine telling me he had a red Corvette that he rarely drives. After a quick call to my friend I found myself behind the wheel of his beautiful 2000 Corvette. I took it out for a couple of hours driving around the Monterey Peninsula. I caught shots from a local winery, a farm, and then down the coast along Highway 1.

Please check out the 3 links below which will take you to the 3 sets of shots I have. Feel free to leave any comments on their site and let me know what you think!

Corvette Road We’re On Set 1

Corvette Road We’re On Set 2

Corvette Road We’re On Set 3

Disclosure: I was compensated for the work associated with producing these pictures in addition to this post and any outreach associated. The views and opinions in this post and all posts are mine and are in no way influenced by said compensation.

My last post was about how we as adults have paradigm shifts early on in life. I spoke about how we begin to give ourselves false beliefs, essentially lying to ourselves about who we are. Those paradigm shifts started taking place at a very young age.

It’s become clear to me that the reason we made that paradigm shift was out of self defense and preservation. As children we were abused on one level or another to the point of having to protect ourselves. This abuse could have come in many different forms. Again, it’s not about what form the actual abuse was in but rather how it impacted us personally. That abuse/trauma could have taken many different forms including but not limited to:

1. Physical abuse

2. Sexual abuse

3. Emotional abuse

4. Abandonment

One form of childhood trauma that I think doesn’t get talked about enough and would probably fall under emotional abuse is shame. Shame is one of those things that has become so common in today’s society that I don’t even think most of us notice when it’s happening.  I know because I was shaming my children without even knowing or being aware of it.

 One common thing I’ve said before and I’m sure you’ve heard is when a parent gets mad at their child and says, “What were you thinking?” or “What is wrong with you?” On the surface it may not seem like much. However, to a small child or toddler this can go very deep. To a child, their parents are the God and Godesses in their life. Hearing this kind of abusive language makes them feel “less than”, “stupid”, “embarrassed”, “confused”, among other things. This shame that they feel as a result of hearing this can last for a lifetime and certainly well into adulthood. It’s language like this that sets the stage for how children begin to see themselves and think about themselves. When children feel these “less than” feelings early on awareness of their inherent nature gets obscured with lies. The child that was born loveable, good enough, worthy, and intelligent now sees him or herself through new lenses. A paradigm shift has taken place and now every meaning that child assigns to the thoughts they have is blurred by these new lenses.

 So, as parents we have an incredible gift and responsibility. While our children are young and still living life aware of their inherent nature we can foster that. We can take steps to remind our children of their inherent nature. Every time we shame or abuse our children in any way we put holes in their inherent nature and help them form false beliefs about who they are. Children aren’t old enough to have boundaries and they are extremely impressionable. The shame, pain, and unresolved hurt that we carry from our own childhoods can’t be given to our children. Once we understand that much of who we are today is a result of what we were “given” as children we can begin to take the steps necessary to stop that cycle.

 Loving our children isn’t just a feeling we have. To love our children is an act and an intentional one. Love has to be intentional, thoughtful, and with purpose. Loving our children starts with loving ourselves. Take a look at yourself and think about how you feel about yourself. Do you think you’re good enough? Do you think you’re attractive? Tender? Thoughtful? Intelligent? Worthy? Precious? Loveable? If you have difficulty in thinking  any of these things could be true about you (and most of us do) then that is the first step. Just being aware that you feel this way about yourself will help to identify whenever you may be passing that on to your precious, loveable, worthy, and tender child.