Twin Tuesdays: How not to raise the next CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch

Lately I get this awful pit in my stomach whenever I read or watch bad news, especially when it's about kids. Whether it's Newtown, Boston, or now those poor people in Oklahoma, if a child is hurt, I feel it from the pit in my stomach to an almost tingling sensation in my fingers and toes. My mind automatically goes to this place: what if that happened to Nellie or Jack? I can see their faces in every picture of every child who's been harmed. I have to quickly think of something else because the feeling is just too difficult.

But I'm sorry to say that, I get that unnerving sensation reading other, significantly less tragic news; most recently, over the comments the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch made about wanting only "cool kids" to wear his clothes - even going as far to stop selling women's clothes in sizes larger than 10. After rolling my eyes and thinking, so glad I haven't worn Abercrombie since high school, I got the familiar pit in my stomach. Yes, I'm not in high school anymore, my feelings about myself are no longer defined by how I look on a given day, but now I have a son and a daughter. And what if they're not the cool kids and they someday feel discriminated against or made fun of? What if they feel alone and ugly, embarrassed or unworthy - like I'm sure many kids felt hearing these statements.  Or...what if they're the ones doing the discriminating? What if somehow they grow up thinking it's ok to put people in categories - cool or weird, better or worse? What if they think it's ok to trample on people who might be different from them, because they think different is bad?

Evan and I always talk about what kind of people we want Nellie and Jack to be. Kind but confident enough to stand up for themselves. Independent but humble enough to ask for help. Happy, loving, curious. I never think, oh and I hope they're good looking or I hope they're popular; as a mother (and, I guess, a decent person in general?) it's more like, I hope they take care of themselves and I hope that they have at least one good friend to be with them through both the stormy and summer days of childhood and adolescence.

I think about Abercrombie's CEO...he was once a kid. What did (or didn't) his parents teach him that made him feel the need to publicly belittle other people? And how do I avoid doing that to my own kids? How do you instill in children the confidence to be the best they can be, while also teaching them them that it doesn't mean that they are intrinsically better than anyone else? How do I bottle their current state of blissed-out, you're-cool-as-long-as-you-don't-take-my-ball-away toddlerhood?

Today we're just going to keep on keeping on. Leading by lighthearted example. It's easy now, Jack and Nellie are 14 months old. I hope when they're 14 years, they're just as happy, whether they feel the need to wear overpriced khaki cargo pants or not. Here's hoping we can do as well as Ellen Degeneres's parents; she wins the good person award, yet again:



P.S. Looking for ways to help Oklahoma victims? Here are some suggestions.