Revisiting Guilt About Motherhood and Princesses

 (I had forgotten that on this day, six years ago, I posted on the subject of guilt, motherhood and Kate Middleton's royal wedding which was the following day.  But my post was really a reprint of the essay daughter Eleni had written on her blog about these topics, plus Disney princesses.  I think it's one of her most brilliant and funny essays.  She wrote it four months before Amalia was born, but now that Amalia is approaching six years old --and Nico is two-- Eleni is still fighting the good fight against her kids wearing Disney characters on their clothes and battling the inevitable guilt felt by all mothers.)

Daughter Eleni, who studied Folk Lore and Mythology  at Harvard, recently launched her blog “The Liminal Stage”. (As she explains: “Liminal stages are psychological thresholds, times of transition when we stand ‘betwixt and between’ one state and another. The biggies are birth, marriage, death.”)


 Yesterday she posted about the Royal Wedding under the title “Will Kate Middleton Eat My Daughter?” (She was riffing on the current best seller “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” by Peggy Orenstein.)  From the topic of the Royal Wedding, she segued into pregnancy and motherhood and how  guilt is an inevitable ingredient in these major liminal stages—especially in the United States, where everyone is so uptight about what a pregnant woman should or should not do.

 Eleni began her post with the story of how I apologized to her for not watching Diana and Charles’ wedding with her 30 years ago, and maybe that's why  I found her essay hilarious while at the same time very wise and insightful about what a guilt-ridden state is motherhood these days.

So I got her permission to reprint her post today on “A Rolling Crone”. 

Now you’ll know why we’re not getting up at five a.m. tomorrow to drink tea and eat scones together, although we both  hope—along with every other woman waiting to see The Dress, that Kate will find her marriage guilt- and worry-free, unburdened by all the expectations and complications that Princess Diana dragged down the aisle along with her 25-foot train three decades ago.

Will Kate Middleton Eat My Daughter?

April 27th, 2011

That Royal Wedding, July 29, 1981, Getty Images / Fox Photos / Hulton Archive (borrowed from an about.com page on Princess Diana's wedding photos).

This morning my mother apologized. It’s a rare occurrence, but what was even more remarkable was the topic about which she felt guilty. “I was reading somewhere a woman remembering her mother waking her up to watch Princess Diana get married 30 years ago, and now the writer is going to wake up her own daughters to watch the Royal Wedding on Friday,” she reported. “And I felt sort of bad I didn’t wake you girls up.”

I told Joanie not to worry, that I actually thought it was a good move not to teach her five-year-old daughter (not to mention my then two-year-old sister) to fetishize a 19-year-old girl marrying a laconic older man who was in love with someone else.  I didn’t watch that royal wedding and I didn’t grow up expecting to marry a prince, ride around in Cinderella carriages and grace the covers of magazines.

In fact, in light of the current culture of princess parties, and Disney domination (its darker sides are discussed in Peggy Orenstein’s bestselling book Cinderella Ate My Daughter) and the fact that I’m due to give birth to a baby girl on August 19^th, I’ve decided to try to keep my daughter in the dark about Disney princesses for as long as possible. I don’t want her wearing clothing or diapers that advertise a film franchise if I can help it, and I’m guessing that I’ll still be in charge of what she wears until she’s about three.

Does that sound naïve? Defensive? Hypocritical, given the fact that the bandaids in our house already have Elmo on them, in anticipation of the baby’s birth?

Portrait of Amalia of Greece, by Joseph Karl Stieler

The truth is, I have no issue with princesses, real or fictional. The name we’ve picked for our daughter, Amalia, was the name of the first queen of Greece. (I’m not a Royalist, I just like the way the name sounds, that you can say it in Greek, English and Spanish—Amalia’s key cultures–and I have very positive associations with the name, as it also belongs to a dear friend of mine.)

Baby aside, and back to Kate Middleton, I’m taking advantage of a local spa’s Royal Wedding special—half price manicure/pedicures all day, plus they’re serving tea and crumpets! And I am excited to see what Kate wears—I hope it will put to rest the 15 year tyranny of the strapless wedding dress, and offer future brides more interesting options.

But the whole Royal Wedding brouhaha, and my mother’s guilt over opting out of the first one, has got me thinking about motherhood, and how a mom starts feeling guilt and fear before the baby is even born. Part of this is biological I think….I can’t read a People magazine without worrying about bringing a child into a world filled with tsunamis and wars and sex traffickers.

But I think part of the motherhood guilt is cultural, given the way American doctors tell us not to let anyone know we’re pregnant for the first trimester (if something were to go wrong, I’d be devastated either way, plus I’d want the support of my family and close friends–so whose feelings was I safeguarding by staying mum?).  In my first trimester I was painfully aware that something could go wrong at any moment—and then I realized that I will never again be free of that fear—at 96 I’ll be worrying about my 60–year–old baby.

Then, there’s the American culture of blame when it comes to every single thing you put in your mouth. In England, Kate Middleton will be glad to know, food safety is so good pregnant women get to eat sushi and smoked salmon and turkey, whereas here undercooked fish and smoked or cured fish or meats are strictly off limits. A Greek friend’s doctor told her she should drink a glass of red wine a day for the antioxidants, whereas here we’re not even supposed to have feta cheese, much less booze. I think all these US rules are overcautious, Puritanical and just plain wrong (for all our rules, the US has a higher infant mortality rate than most industrialized countries), but of course I’m following them—I couldn’t handle the guilt if I didn’t and something went awry.

Pomegranate--a lucky fruit--from www.flowers.vg

But I remember years ago, an Indian friend’s mother told me she ate a certain fruit or spice during each of her pregnancies, to ensure that her first child be handsome, her second joyful, her third brilliant. And I can’t help but think that is such a healthier, more positive attitude for mothers and babies—believing that by carefully choosing what you eat you can give your child blessings before they even greet the world, rather than fearing that if you put the wrong hors d’oeuvres in your mouth you are dooming your child to a lifetime of failure.

Once the baby’s born there’s the culture of competition—the race to the smuggest, to see who can feed (or diaper) their child more organically, shoe their baby’s tiny toes with the smallest carbon footprint. Before that there are so many loaded conversations about birth itself…I’m the only person in my prenatal pilates class giving birth in a hospital, and I have to admit that fact makes me feel wimpy.

The mother of Amalia the elder (not the Greek queen, but my BFF) likes to say that being a mom means being a punching bag—it’s part of the job description. And while right now I feel that quite literally—Amalia II likes to kick my hand off my stomach if I rest it there while watching TV—she means it figuratively; whatever choices you make as a mom, some of them will disappoint or hurt your children, and they’re sure to blame you. Just look at the first two lines of this blog for an example.

In the end, all you can do, I guess, is try to make the sanest, most loving choices possible, and forgive yourself for the times you fall short. And try not to judge other moms for not seeing parenting exactly as you do.

My non-royal, but rather princess-y carriage

So Joanie, thanks for not raising me expecting to become Princess Diana; it turns out she had a pretty hard row to hoe, despite the lovely tiara. And even though at 19 I was busily pursuing my degree in Folklore and Mythology and blaming my mom for making me wait until I was 13 to get my ears pierced, although my younger sister got hers pierced the exact same day—what’s that about?—I’ve had plenty of princess moments in my day.  I did marry a prince among men, eventually.  And I rode to the first of our two wedding ceremonies in a horse-drawn carriage, because we wed on the island of Corfu and that’s how they roll.

As a commoner without a title (until she’s married), Kate Middleton will ride to Westminster Abbey in a Rolls Royce (although she gets to leave in a carriage). Nevertheless, I hope she is surrounded by just as much love and laughter on her wedding day as I was on mine. I hope the little girls who get up early to watch her wed never forget doing so, and that those who sleep right through it have pleasant dreams of futures that don’t depend on the man they will marry, even if those dreams involve them turning into mermaids or having mice and bluebirds or seven little dwarves sew them fabulous couture gowns—and even if those gowns are strapless. Maybe Kate will have a daughter less than a year after her wedding, too. And when our daughters grow up and blog about us—and they will—I hope they will be kind.

Eight Months Pregnant in Miami-- Still Smiling

In the continuing saga of her (first) pregnancy, daughter Eleni still has a firm grip on her sense of humor (and irony) as she  writes occasional updates about the gestational process on her blog "The Liminal Stage."

I had to share this photo that she just posted in her latest: "Swimming Upstream During Miami Swim Week."  Here she is at eight months and three weeks, posed next to a poster of a swimsuit model. Could she get any more pregnant before she pops?  Best  of all was her comment "One of these things is not like the other."

Looking through my own photos of my three pregnancies some 30 years ago, I realized that there is exactly one photo of me being pregnant, and I'm holding a little sweater I knitted in front of my gut.  Back in those days the point was to hide your growing stomach.  Nowadays, thanks perhaps to Demi Moore, pregnant women like to flaunt it.

As I 've written before, modern pregnancy is far different from what it used to be in my day, but I really hope when Eleni's got through it to the other side, after getting her strength back from those first months of motherhood, she will collect all her hilarious and wise pregnancy posts into a book for our generation's amusement and edification.

A Crone Considers Modern Childbirth

 About a month ago I wrote in “Pregnancy – It Ain’t What it Used to Be” about all the new wrinkles there are to the processes of pregnancy and childbirth since I gave birth (by Caesarian) to three children back in the seventies.

Since Christmas Eve, when daughter Eleni and her husband Emilio broke the news that we were to become grandparents (at last!) I’ve been having a lot more fun following her pregnancy than I did with my own and I’ve learned a lot at the same time.

I picked up such new-fangled terms as a babymoon, a push present, a birth plan, a birth mix (of music), a doula, and of course the baby daddy.  (How did we ever give birth in the olden days without all these improvements, not to mention the pregnancy web sites that e-mail you news and advice every week?)

Eleni’s blog is called “The Liminal Stage” and, as she says, pregnancy is the most liminal stage of all.  She has written several posts on the topic which have reduced me to both laughter and tears, because she’s so funny, while being honest and wise about the hurdles of a first pregnancy, that I have to share some of it with you.

In “Have Ipod, Will Give Birth” she discusses the almost universal tendency of moms to tell a pregnant lady their terrifying birth stories (which reminds me of a maternity t-shirt I saw for sale that read:

No advice

No birth stories

No touching the belly

Eleni wrote that she’s much more excited about preparing the playlist of music to listen to during labor than preparing the birth plan to distribute to the doctors.  As she says, “Birth plan? Who am I kidding? …I have a feeling that the list of people who are in charge of this birth is a three-legged stool: God first, Amalia [the baby’s name] second, me third (although without me, the stool cannot stand!)…So yes, I’ll study up and write a birth plan, and I’ll take childbirth prep class and breastfeeding class and infant CPR, but when push comes to shove …I’ll do whatever it takes to end up with one healthy, happy baby and one healthy, happy mommy.”

The classes Eleni and Emilio will be taking teach hypno-birthing, which was originated in the U.S. in 1989 by a four-time mother, Marie Mongan, who was inspired by the teaching of Dr. Grantly Dick-Read, (who wrote “Childbirth Without Fear.”) They believe that by refocusing the mind away from pain, birth can be a painless process.  If you want to know more about it, here’s a video showing calm and happy moms popping out calm and happy babies.

Back when I was birthing babies at New York Hospital in New York, we were required to take Lamaze classes to prepare.  My husband dropped out after the first class, telling the startled nurse/teacher , “If God meant for men to help with childbirth, then men would get pregnant.” No baby-daddy would dare talk like that today!

I had heard from my children’s contemporaries about many unusual (to me) methods of giving birth—in a birthing tub, for example, or squatting and tugging on a bar, so that gravity helps. But last week, I learned about a method that left me speechless.  Eleni mourned that her pre-natal pilates classes in Miami had ended because her pregnant teacher, Kim, had gone off to Hawaii to have her baby in the ocean while attended by dolphins.  Yes dolphins. 

 (This image is from Jonathan Goldman's "Healing Sounds" -- "for birth meditation and deep relaxation")

Apparently dolphins bring calm and good karma and all sorts of help. Birthing with the dolphins is gaining popularity all over the world. If you don’t believe me, or want to know more, check out Eleni’s post: “The Dolphins Ate my Workout.”

Dolphin birthing would not work for me.  I’d spend all the time worrying about sharks attracted by blood in the water, or dolphins kidnapping the baby once it comes out.  But then, I always was a worrier. I was the only woman in my Lamaze classes who always flunked “relaxing.”

I know I’ll have a lot more surprises coming before I’m finally a grandmother.  I plan to go down to Florida shortly before Eleni’s  due date of Aug. 19.  I already know I won’t be allowed in the delivery room, which is fine with me—It will be crowded enough with Eleni, her husband Emilio, her sister Marina (who’s trained as a doula), and assorted doctors and nurses. 

Eleni is the only one in her pre-natal pilates class who plans on giving birth in a hospital—and I’m real glad she does.   She and her friends are much better informed about the whole childbirth process than my generation was.  As she wrote, “Not to get too Zen about it, but I’m not attached to any particular method of birth; my plan is all plans and no plans all at once. I’ll try to give birth without drugs, but if that gets unbearably painful, I’ll have an epidural, and if there’s some sort of issue with the baby that indicates a C-section is recommended, I’ll do that if I have to. Either way, I’ll be a mom in the end.”

Meanwhile, she writes, choosing the playlist of music for Amalia’s birth-day has been “hours of fun for the whole family.  I’ve been listening to it all morning, and Amalia has been dancing away.  I think she loves it too.”

Pregnancy—It Ain’t What it Used to Be

 (These are "Mod Mom" paper goods from Hallmark for a Mocktail/Cocktail party tonight in NYC honoring Eleni and her friend Neela, who both managed to be pregnant at approximately the same time.)

Women have been getting pregnant and birthing babies ever since Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel, and you’d think every woman’s experience of pregnancy was fairly similar, but I’ve recently learned that there are lots of new-fangled aspects to being pregnant that I never heard of back in the 1970’s when I gave birth to three children spaced three years apart.

I’ve been hinting and nagging and moaning about my desire for grandchildren for many years now, so when daughter Eleni announced, on the day before Christmas, that she and her husband Emiliio were expecting our first grandchild next August, it was the best Christmas present ever.

Since then, I have been following her pregnancy week by week – it’s a lot more fun being the future Grandma, because you don’t have to  suffer the morning sickness and the stretch marks and all the other bad stuff.  But as someone who hasn’t even thought about  pregnancy for over thirty years, I was astonished to learn how being pregnant has changed—partly due to all the technology, which  brings us so much more information about what’s going on in the womb. (I frequently call it “Too Much Information” – as when my daughter cheerfully announced “This week the baby lost its tail”).

I’m passing on what I’ve learned for the edification and amusement of fellow crones – those of you under fifty  probably know this stuff already.

Here are some things that I never heard of during my pregnancies:

A babymoon—a romantic trip you’re supposed to take as a couple in the second trimester (when you have more energy than in the first and third)  because this is the last chance you’ll get for a romantic getaway – ever.

A push present—sort of self-explanatory – a lavish gift for producing  a baby. I figure I still have three coming even though my kids are approaching middle age.

A birth plan—something you write out and print in multiples so,  when you go into labor,   you hand it out to your doctor and other health practitioners so they know how you want to go about this.  Nowadays the majority of couples seem to prefer a home delivery with a midwife—maybe under water  in a birthing tub. Eleni says she’s the only person in her prenatal pilates class who plans to go to a hospital. (This subject can lead to very animated arguments, I’ve learned.)

in my day, it was the doctor, not the  pregnant couple, who made out the birth plan—he just did what he wanted.  I had three deliveries by Caesarean—because the first baby was still breech after 14 hours of labor. Each time I got pregnant,  I begged the doctor to let me stay awake to see the baby born.  He would mumble “We’ll see which anesthesiologist is on duty” but in the end, I have never seen a baby born—not mine or anyone else’s. (Of course I could watch a video on You Tube -- illustrating all the new-fangled ways of giving birth.  People keep sending them to me.)

A music mix –this is something the pregnant parents prepare ahead of time so they can have their favorite music playing during labor and delivery.  This is also a refinement on the birthing process that I had never heard of till now.

A doula—that is a person (usually female) who  has been trained to help the midwife or doctor , mainly, I gather, by encouraging the laboring mother-to-be and helping her.  Luckily, our second daughter, Marina, has already trained as a doula, so she will be in the delivery room to help her sister.  The baby daddy (another new term) is also expected to be in the delivery room, helping, producing ice chips and encouragement (and DJing the appropriate music mix)  for the baby mommy. He is also expected to tug on one leg, I have heard, and to cut the umbilical cord at the proper moment.

During the one delivery when I actually was in labor (for 14 hours before the doctor decided I was getting nowhere and it was time for a Caesarian), my husband stayed by my side from about 8 p.m. to midnight, when he and the doctor both decided it was time to go home and get a good sleep.  I must say that my labor pains decreased dramatically when my husband left. (He was making me nervous).  He loves to tell the story of how he got home to discover no supper waiting for him and so he whipped up a five-star meal for himself out of frozen shrimp, heavy cream, and wine that he found in the refrigerator.

A final new-age improvement to pregnancy is all the web sites (the Bump, Fit Pregnancy etc.) that, after you sign up, happily e-mail you every week news of exactly what your baby looks like (they always compare it to a fruit or vegetable – this week it’s an eggplant) , its stage of development, possible problems that you may be  experiencing, and  they put you into chat rooms with other mothers who are exactly at your stage of pregnancy. 

I realize that these web sites exist to sell you things you don’t really need – like a baby monitor system that costs hundreds of dollars, and equally expensive  breast pumps. Breast pumps?  I never saw one back in the day—but now they really are a boon because they  free the breast-feeding mom from the occasional night-time feeding, which can be a real life-saver.)

All the refinements on pregnancy and delivery mentioned above are undoubtedly  improvements on old-fashioned pregnancies, but there are a lot of disadvantages to pregnancy in the 21^st century.  There all sorts of things that you MUST NEVER do—all of which we crones did  and still the babies came out okay.  Nowadays the baby daddies seem to act as the pregnancy police to make sure the baby mommies never indulge in:

Drinking  alcoholic drinks. (Well, I knew that back in the seventies—I also knew, unlike Jackie Kennedy, that smoking during pregnancy was verboten.)

Caffeine—no coffee, not even tea during the first trimester.

Smoked meats, raw fish, unpastureized cheeses

Hair dye , even  manicure chemicals during  the first trimester.  (Eleni wouldn’t even get a pedicure until the second trimester.)

No airline travel during the third trimester.

This is just the first look  from “A  Rolling Crone” at the new-fashioned , modern-day pregnancy my daughter is so conscientiously participating in these days and that I’m watching in awe.  She has all kinds of milestones ahead, as she’s only in week 26, and I clearly have lots to learn.  One thing that I know already is that I’m not permitted anywhere near the delivery room.  That will already be  crowded with the  doula/sister,  baby daddy and  various health practitioners, all working to the background music of the birth mix.

I will keep you posted on what I’ve learned as things progress, but in the  meantime, check out the essay below, which Eleni wrote for a contest asking for articles about life in southern Florida.  I think it’s funny.  It’s called, “I’m Having a Bebé – Maternity in Miami.” 

http://wlrnunderthesun.org/2011/01/maternity-in-miami/

Guilt about the Royal Wedding and Motherhood

Daughter Eleni, who studied Folk Lore and Mythology  at Harvard, recently launched her blog “The Liminal Stage”. (As she explains: “Liminal stages are psychological thresholds, times of transition when we stand ‘betwixt and between’ one state and another. The biggies are birth, marriage, death.”)


 Yesterday she posted about the Royal Wedding under the title “Will Kate Middleton Eat My Daughter?” (She was riffing on the current best seller “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” by Peggy Orenstein.)  From the topic of the Royal Wedding, she segued into pregnancy and motherhood and how  guilt is an inevitable ingredient in these major liminal stages—especially in the United States, where everyone is so uptight about what a pregnant woman should or should not do.

 Eleni began her post with the story of how I apologized to her for not watching Diana and Charles’ wedding with her 30 years ago, and maybe that's why  I found her essay hilarious while at the same time very wise and insightful about what a guilt-ridden state is motherhood these days.

So I got her permission to reprint her post today on “A Rolling Crone”. 

Now you’ll know why we’re not getting up at five a.m. tomorrow to drink tea and eat scones together, although we both  hope—along with every other woman waiting to see The Dress, that Kate will find her marriage guilt- and worry-free, unburdened by all the expectations and complications that Princess Diana dragged down the aisle along with her 25-foot train three decades ago.

Will Kate Middleton Eat My Daughter?

April 27th, 2011

That Royal Wedding, July 29, 1981, Getty Images / Fox Photos / Hulton Archive (borrowed from an about.com page on Princess Diana's wedding photos).

This morning my mother apologized. It’s a rare occurrence, but what was even more remarkable was the topic about which she felt guilty. “I was reading somewhere a woman remembering her mother waking her up to watch Princess Diana get married 30 years ago, and now the writer is going to wake up her own daughters to watch the Royal Wedding on Friday,” she reported. “And I felt sort of bad I didn’t wake you girls up.”

I told Joanie not to worry, that I actually thought it was a good move not to teach her five-year-old daughter (not to mention my then two-year-old sister) to fetishize a 19-year-old girl marrying a laconic older man who was in love with someone else.  I didn’t watch that royal wedding and I didn’t grow up expecting to marry a prince, ride around in Cinderella carriages and grace the covers of magazines.

In fact, in light of the current culture of princess parties, and Disney domination (its darker sides are discussed in Peggy Orenstein’s bestselling book Cinderella Ate My Daughter) and the fact that I’m due to give birth to a baby girl on August 19^th, I’ve decided to try to keep my daughter in the dark about Disney princesses for as long as possible. I don’t want her wearing clothing or diapers that advertise a film franchise if I can help it, and I’m guessing that I’ll still be in charge of what she wears until she’s about three.

Does that sound naïve? Defensive? Hypocritical, given the fact that the bandaids in our house already have Elmo on them, in anticipation of the baby’s birth?

Portrait of Amalia of Greece, by Joseph Karl Stieler

The truth is, I have no issue with princesses, real or fictional. The name we’ve picked for our daughter, Amalia, was the name of the first queen of Greece. (I’m not a Royalist, I just like the way the name sounds, that you can say it in Greek, English and Spanish—Amalia’s key cultures–and I have very positive associations with the name, as it also belongs to a dear friend of mine.)

Baby aside, and back to Kate Middleton, I’m taking advantage of a local spa’s Royal Wedding special—half price manicure/pedicures all day, plus they’re serving tea and crumpets! And I am excited to see what Kate wears—I hope it will put to rest the 15 year tyranny of the strapless wedding dress, and offer future brides more interesting options.

But the whole Royal Wedding brouhaha, and my mother’s guilt over opting out of the first one, has got me thinking about motherhood, and how a mom starts feeling guilt and fear before the baby is even born. Part of this is biological I think….I can’t read a People magazine without worrying about bringing a child into a world filled with tsunamis and wars and sex traffickers.

But I think part of the motherhood guilt is cultural, given the way American doctors tell us not to let anyone know we’re pregnant for the first trimester (if something were to go wrong, I’d be devastated either way, plus I’d want the support of my family and close friends–so whose feelings was I safeguarding by staying mum?).  In my first trimester I was painfully aware that something could go wrong at any moment—and then I realized that I will never again be free of that fear—at 96 I’ll be worrying about my 60–year–old baby.

Then, there’s the American culture of blame when it comes to every single thing you put in your mouth. In England, Kate Middleton will be glad to know, food safety is so good pregnant women get to eat sushi and smoked salmon and turkey, whereas here undercooked fish and smoked or cured fish or meats are strictly off limits. A Greek friend’s doctor told her she should drink a glass of red wine a day for the antioxidants, whereas here we’re not even supposed to have feta cheese, much less booze. I think all these US rules are overcautious, Puritanical and just plain wrong (for all our rules, the US has a higher infant mortality rate than most industrialized countries), but of course I’m following them—I couldn’t handle the guilt if I didn’t and something went awry.

Pomegranate--a lucky fruit--from www.flowers.vg

But I remember years ago, an Indian friend’s mother told me she ate a certain fruit or spice during each of her pregnancies, to ensure that her first child be handsome, her second joyful, her third brilliant. And I can’t help but think that is such a healthier, more positive attitude for mothers and babies—believing that by carefully choosing what you eat you can give your child blessings before they even greet the world, rather than fearing that if you put the wrong hors d’oeuvres in your mouth you are dooming your child to a lifetime of failure.

Once the baby’s born there’s the culture of competition—the race to the smuggest, to see who can feed (or diaper) their child more organically, shoe their baby’s tiny toes with the smallest carbon footprint. Before that there are so many loaded conversations about birth itself…I’m the only person in my prenatal pilates class giving birth in a hospital, and I have to admit that fact makes me feel wimpy.

The mother of Amalia the elder (not the Greek queen, but my BFF) likes to say that being a mom means being a punching bag—it’s part of the job description. And while right now I feel that quite literally—Amalia II likes to kick my hand off my stomach if I rest it there while watching TV—she means it figuratively; whatever choices you make as a mom, some of them will disappoint or hurt your children, and they’re sure to blame you. Just look at the first two lines of this blog for an example.

In the end, all you can do, I guess, is try to make the sanest, most loving choices possible, and forgive yourself for the times you fall short. And try not to judge other moms for not seeing parenting exactly as you do.

My non-royal, but rather princess-y carriage

So Joanie, thanks for not raising me expecting to become Princess Diana; it turns out she had a pretty hard row to hoe, despite the lovely tiara. And even though at 19 I was busily pursuing my degree in Folklore and Mythology and blaming my mom for making me wait until I was 13 to get my ears pierced, although my younger sister got hers pierced the exact same day—what’s that about?—I’ve had plenty of princess moments in my day.  I did marry a prince among men, eventually.  And I rode to the first of our two wedding ceremonies in a horse-drawn carriage, because we wed on the island of Corfu and that’s how they roll.

As a commoner without a title (until she’s married), Kate Middleton will ride to Westminster Abbey in a Rolls Royce (although she gets to leave in a carriage). Nevertheless, I hope she is surrounded by just as much love and laughter on her wedding day as I was on mine. I hope the little girls who get up early to watch her wed never forget doing so, and that those who sleep right through it have pleasant dreams of futures that don’t depend on the man they will marry, even if those dreams involve them turning into mermaids or having mice and bluebirds or seven little dwarves sew them fabulous couture gowns—and even if those gowns are strapless. Maybe Kate will have a daughter less than a year after her wedding, too. And when our daughters grow up and blog about us—and they will—I hope they will be kind.