I would just like to welcome everyone back to Parents R Us. We know it has been a while since there has been anything talked about here, but I am going to remedy that right now. The last time we posted here Joy wrote the post, and it was for all of you moms out there. I think she had some great ideas about how to keep from losing your identities while being a full time mom.

Today we are going to talk about all of you dads out there and how important it is to not only take care of your family, but how to make sure that you also don’t disappear from yourself and your family as well. It is as equally important for us dads to not lose our identities as it is for our lovers and the mommies of our children. Fortunately I think it is a little bit easier for dads to maintain their identities than it is for moms.

Now we all know that part of a husband and a dad’s identity is providing for the family. Most of the men out there are the breadwinners. You have to pay the mortgage so that there is a roof over your family’s head. You have to put food on the table so that your family is healthy both physically and mentally. You have to put clothes on their backs so that they are cool in the summer, warm in the winter, and comfortable.

In order to maintain our own mental health, well being, and identity there are some things that us guys have to do for ourselves too. One thing we should all do is try to get a little alone time that has nothing to do with anything other than our own pleasure even if it is just going for a ride. In my case I like to go shooting sometimes because it relaxes me. I also like to skydive and surf when I get the chance.

Another way to maintain our own identities is to engage in a little romance or intimacy with the wife or significant other For the record I am not just talking about sex either, although that is also great…..and fun too. A candlelight dinner is a really fun way to show the one you love who and what kind of man you are. A late night swim or skinny dip with your honey in the pool or just relaxing in the hot tub is excellent too.

One of the best ways to keep your identity intact is by being involved in as many family activities as you can. Going to places like museums, zoos, or libraries with the family is great fun, and you all get to learn something and broaden your horizons. Going to shows or concerts is always good fun for family participation. Even something as simple as setting aside a day for family and seeing a movie or playing a game is good for dissolving an identity crisis.

Now I understand that life today is complicated and with most families having both parents work, it is not always easy to find time for your family let alone yourself, but you have to. I also understand that with today’s economy money is tight, but a lot of these things are not that expensive, and your family is worth the expense and so are us guys. However it is important that you and your family don’t forget who you are.

That’s all I have for you folks today here at Parents R Us. I hope it has been helpful especially to all of you husbands, dads, and boyfriends out there who are in that wonderful club called PARENTS. Until the next time we get together I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and an awesome week to follow, CIAO4NOW!!!!!

After a weekend full of harried back-to-school shopping, looking for notebooks, the perfect pair of shoes, and school clothes to please kids (a feat in itself), the day has finally arrived - the first day of school. *Cough* dollars later, the kids were off to school this morning without a hitch, and I found myself fighting back a few tears…I just can't believe…it's free childcare. Lol.

The first few hours of freedom have been spent working, and I forgot how much I can accomplish when the kids are in school. It's incredible. It takes a 10 hour work day down to about six hours. Amazing what you can get done when you're not running around fixing snacks every 30 minutes, answering questions like "how do you spell dinosaur" (had to throw that one in again) and picking out new Barney shows for the kids.

Here are just a few things that come to mind when I think back-to-school. (Feel free to throw in an "Amen" here and there).

- For a few hours each day the house will be quiet
- I'll finally be able to go to the bathroom by myself
- The house will stay clean more than 5 minutes
- The food bill will decrease by half
- I can actually have "alone" time with my husband
- The ability to go somewhere on my own
- Showering without having to chase the kids out of the room
- I get a break from Barney from 8am-3pm
- Listening to or watching what I want (instead of Barney, Wiggles, or my daughter on the phone…)

Of course, school time does bring about new challenges for kids and their parents, and I'm sure we'll discuss some of them along the way here at Parents R Us. However, just for today, it's time to celebrate…the kids are back in school! Have anything to add? Feel free to share as always!

Hi there, and thanks for taking time to visit Parents R Us. Today my post is especially directed towards the moms, although I know you dads will definitely get some insight from this post too, so don't bail out thinking this is only for women. After all, some of this can apply to men too.

Today I want to talk to moms about losing your identity in motherhood. Perhaps you have heard of this or it may have never crossed your mind. Whatever the case, this is a problem that many moms deal with and I really think it needs to be addressed.

Now admittedly, I'm not a conventional mom. I didn't get nine months to prepare for my kids - I became "insta-mom" lol. However, I know that I have found that it is very easy to become a mom and become totally immersed in motherhood (whether you give birth to children, adopt them, or get them by marriage).

Becoming immersed in motherhood is not a bad thing. It's great that you love your children - you should! The problem arises when you begin to lose your identity. If you have kids, you know what I mean. One day you look in the mirror and wonder who that is, or perhaps you find yourself in the grocery store suddenly forgetting how to communicate with people over the age of 5.

Women who work at home or stay at home with the children are often more likely to experience the loss of their own identity. When you are the "caretaker" for your children, sometimes those maternal instincts can directly conflict with having an identity of your own. The thing is, if you want to be the best mom, you have to maintain a strong sense of self.

You need to remember that you are a person, other than just a mom. You have dreams, hopes, likes, dislikes, wants, and needs - just like anyone else. Start pushing these things into the background all the time, and you are going to suffer from burnout, or "losing yourself." Yes, burnout can happen to moms. Simply look at the depression statistics among women who have children - they are staggering! This depression can occur postpartum or at other stages of motherhood. Many times the reasons moms go through depression (and some even suffer from nervous breakdowns) is because they have lost a sense of self, or a sense of their own identity.

You may be thinking, "this could never happen to me." You're wrong! If you don't take time now to maintain your own identity, you can deal with these problems, and at times they can become quite severe. The key is to recognize the problem before it becomes severe and work to make sure you keep your own identity. How can you do this? Here are some suggestions:

- Avoid being a mom that is too possessive. When you are overly possessive of your children, you give away your personal power to your children.

- Don't try to please your kids all the time. Not only will you wear yourself out, but you'll lose their respect, and you'll stop respecting yourself.

- Remember your own needs. Listen to them. It's not selfish to remember your own needs - it's simply honest and can help you maintain your own identity.

- When your kids make mistakes, remember it doesn't reflect on you. Too many moms feel like failures when kids make mistakes. You are doing fine as long as you are letting your kids learn through experiences of their own so they eventually become self directed.

- Have a life other than the kids. I know, it sounds impossible. However, you need to have a life that includes friends, your family, and activities you enjoy.

- Eliminate words like "guilty" and "selfish" from your dictionary. When you use these words on yourself, they destroy your confidence and diminish your true worth.

- Come to the realization that your kids don't ALWAYS need you for every little thing. There are quite a few things they can do on their own - you just have to let them.

- Get your spouse involved. If you are a single parent, then recruit the help of friends and family. You shouldn't have to do this alone.

- Last of all, stop thinking you have to be a perfect mom. Parenting is like an art that you are always working on. When you think you have to be perfect, this puts an unnecessary burden on you.

If you have forgot who you are, if you look in the mirror and don't recognize the face, or you just no longer even know who lives inside your body, it's time to do something about it. Don't lose your identity. If you do lose your identity, you can't be the mom you need to be. Moms who know who they are, who maintain their identity, and who ensure their emotional needs are met, are able to give even more to their children. So, it's not selfish, it is in your best interest and in the best interest of your family too.

I know this post is a bit long, but I have felt it is an important topic. Many moms have "crashed and burned" because of this problem. Hopefully this will be helpful to other moms out there. If you have any comments or advice to add, feel free to leave a comment. We always love to hear what you have to say!

If you are a parent, more than likely you have heard of Harry Potter, both the books and movies, at some point in time. The books are some of the best selling books out there and the movies have broken many records. However, there seem to be questions in the minds of many parents as to whether or not these books and movies are family friendly, and that's what I want to talk about today here at Parents R Us.

There are many churches out there today that feel that Harry Potter is wicked and evil. Then on the other side, there are many people who look at these books and movies as pure, harmless entertainment. As a parent though, you may be wondering whether or not Harry Potter is really suitable for your children…and it's definitely something important to think about. After all, it is important that you are careful about what your kids are watching.

I know that in our house, we usually don't let our kids read or see things that we haven't seen or at least done some research into. Unfortunately we made a mistake in this area recently, watching a movie we couldn't really remember too well, and when it was all over, my husband and I wished we would have been a bit more careful before showing that particular movie to the kids, although the movie did make a great point.

The reason I even brought up this Harry Potter subject is because we took the family to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which happens to be the sixth movie in the series.

Personally, in the past I had heard a lot of bad about Harry Potter. Many people I know proclaimed this book series as evil. However, after I got married, my step children were already into Harry Potter, so I decided to give the movies a look myself. Honestly, I have never found any evil or corruption in these books and movies.

There are some people who seem to have the idea that since there is magic, wizards, and more in these books, they are evil books. Well let me point you to The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Look at all the magic and strange creatures that appear in these books, yet most parents find them just fine for their kids. I really don't see much of a different between these two series of books.

From my experience, I would say that what the Harry Potter books and movies really portray is the age old struggle between good and evil. In fact, I have found that in many ways they are almost allegorical, portraying Christian events through secular literature, something that C.S. Lewis lauded as very effective. Yes, children do see evil, they see magic, and more in these movies, but they see the triumph of good over evil, and what a struggle this really is.

Of course, showing these movies to your kids or allowing them to read the books is a personal choice. However, I do believe as a parent that Harry Potter can be a great tool for you to teach your child more about good vs. evil, faith, and more. It opens the door in an entertaining way for you to teach your children more about your own belief system, which is important.

So this is my opinion on the Harry Potter controversy. I think that these books and movies can be used to help teach your kids important lessons, but you do need to make sure that you consider your own personal values and ideas and make a decision that you feel comfortable with for you and your children.

What do you think about Harry Potter? Let us know. We'd love to hear what you have to say about this and even some of the other literature out there for kids today here at Parents R Us.

P.S. In my research I've found some interesting articles and papers on Christian values that come up in the Harry Potter books and movies. Here is the link to an article on Harry Potter and the Bible, which I found very interesting. You may want to check it out.

What is a parent? That is a very good question I think, and one that is addressed in both serious and comedic fashion on a regular basis here at Parents R Us. Both Joy and I have covered the topic of parenting from many different angles since we started this blog, but today with Joys blessing I am just going to cover the question what is a parent.

I think a parent is a person who always considers the needs of a child or children first before giving themselves any consideration. This does not mean that all decisions will ultimately be in the best interest of the child/children, just that they are the first consideration. Lets face it there will unfortunately always come a time when as a parent you will have to compromise.

Joy and I both personally know people who have had to make these considerations and serious decisions. Some of these people we know have very inspiring stories and in some cases we even consider these stories heroic. An amazing thing is that most of these people would not even think of themselves as heroes, but at least to their children they are.

Joy has a very good friend who lost her husband and father to her two children in a gun fight in Pennsylvania not to long ago, and he was a law enforcement officer. Yet with this woman and her children’s lives crumbling all around her she kept her wits about her and made the hard decisions for her children that kept them all on the right track. This woman is a parent.

I have a very good friend of mine who has spent a lot of time and money to get custody of all of her sisters children because her sister is addicted to drugs. This friend of mine just recently got custody of the last and youngest of her sister’s kids who also happens to be bi-racial. Her only consideration was these children who are her family. This person is what I call a parent.

A parent is also any person who gets up every day and makes those decisions involving the care, feeding, clothing, health, and education of their kids even when these decisions are not always the easiest. Lets face it people but in these tough and hard economic times these decisions are becoming even more and more harder to make as the budget shrinks and employment opportunities are disappearing at an alarming rate.

These parents may even include unwed teen mothers who know they are not fit to care for a child, but choose adoption over abortion. These parents are also single people as well as married couples who want to adopt for whatever reason but will love them fiercely. In the case of my cousin they may even be a gay couple who have adopted a child and love them unconditionally just as if the child were one of their own.

I guess that at the end of all of this bloviating of mine about what a parent is, I have come to the conclusion that a parent is a person who just loves their children to the extreme. A parent only want what is best for their children, and will never quit or give up the good fight to make their children’s lives and world a better place for them to grow up in.

Well that is about all I have to say for now other that to quote a lady I heard recently. “Some people have the idea that a baby isn’t wanted, but a baby is ALWAYS wanted…maybe not by you but by someone”. So remember that adoption is always a woman’s choice too. To all of you parents out there you are the hero’s. Have a great day my friends and CIAO4NOW!!!!!

When I was a kid, I would have never even dreamed of having a phone of my own, much less a cell phone. I mean, seriously, I'm only 29 and I remember when cell phones were brick size. I didn't even have phone privileges at all when I was a kid. However, it seems that today things are a lot different and just about everyone has a cell phone, including kids.

Our teenage daughter has a cell phone, and it hasn’t come without some ground rules. I don't necessarily have a problem with kids and teens having cell phones, but I do believe that there must be some rules surrounding kids and cell phones for their safety and our sanity.

After all, you only need do a bit of research and you'll find quite a few horror stories surrounding cell phones. Not only are sexual predators on the internet these days, but they are stalking kids on their cell phones as well. There is also the problem of "sexting" going on, where kids use cell phones to text sexual messages and pictures to each other.

Just recently I was talking to someone, who will remain anonymous. She was having problems with her son and took his cell phone away from him. When she took the phone, she was horrified to find all kinds of porn pictures on the phone as well as many sexual text messages. This kid was only 15 years old and was already into all kinds or hardcore porn. This is one danger of cell phones, and parents you must watch out for this if you kids have a cell phone. Kids can send it to each other or if they have internet on their phones, they can easily find porn for cell phones too.

Not only is their the danger of predators and porn and "sexting," but there is also the danger of a humongous bill. Recently I read in the news about a teenager that ran up a bill over $4,000 in a month's time. This is not the norm, but I know a teen myself that ran up a bill over $1000. Once you go over your minutes or text messages, those charges add up quickly, not to mention the costs of downloading games, ringtones, and backgrounds for phones.

Due to the dangers that are out there when it comes to cell phones, in our family we have some basic ground rules regarding the cell phone. Here is a look at some of the rules we use that you may want to consider for you teen as well.

- Rule #1 - The phone is not used after 10pm. Unless there is special permission for an extra 5-10 minutes, which happens very rarely, the phone is not in use after this time. There is no way we are going to let our kids stay up all night texting or playing on their phone.

- Rule #2 - Cell phones are not answered during dinner. In fact, they are not even allowed at the dinner table. Not only is this a rule for our kids, but it is a rule we keep as well. Unless we are expected an important call, we don't answer our phones during dinner. That is family time, we are eating, and whoever is calling can wait. We try to lead by example here.

- Rule #3 - The cell phone is not used in the office while my husband and I are working. My husband and I both work at home. The home office is where we work, and it is difficult to work with a teen jabbering away on the phone the entire time we are trying to work. So when we are working, the cell phone is not used in the office area. Unless it is business related, my husband and I generally don't take calls in the office either. We move to another room to avoid disturbing each other.

- Rule #4 - The privilege of a cell phone is performance based. My husband and I believe that the cell phone is a privilege, not a right in this house. This means that if our kids don't take care of their responsibilities, they may lose their cell phone. (This also applies to computer use) If our kids don’t take care of their chores or their homework, during the school year, then the cell phone goes "bye-bye" until they improve on taking care of their responsibilities.

- Rule #5 - Cell phones don't get used during school, unless there is an emergency. Most schools don't allow cell phones to be out during class anyway. If the teacher takes our kids phones, then we don't feel the need to go get the phone back right away.

- Rule #6 - We, meaning my husband and I, don't take a backseat to the cell phone. This means that when our kids are told to do something, we don't wait for them to get off the phone. We don't wait on dinner because of the cell phone either. In our family we believe that family is the most important thing, and family doesn't fall in second place to a cell phone.

These are just a few of the rules that we use when it comes to our teens and the use of cell phones. I believe cell phones can be a great tool to have. They are very useful for when you have kids involved in after school activities so they can call you. I have also found that they are useful in many other ways. As long as there are rules that guide them, they can be a great tool.

Thanks for checking out Parents R Us again. Do you have kids with cell phones? Share your comments, rules, or stories with us. We'd love to hear what you think about kids and cell phones.

Welcome to Parents R Us. Hope your summer is going well and that you are surviving it.

When you are a parent, there are just some things that you hear that make you cringe or want to go hide. I know that every time I hear certain words come out of my kids' mouths I know we are in trouble. Lol. Here is a list of a few things you never want to hear your kids say. Yes, some of them are truly scary…

- "Mom, would you still love me if my room was on fire?"

- "Happy Mother's Day. I bedazzled your Dolce bag for you Mom."

- "It's okay to put tinfoil in the microwave, right?"

- "Doesn't Spike (the dog) look good in Armani?"

- "You didn't say I couldn't…"

- (When brushing your teeth) "Oops, I forgot to tell you I dropped your toothbrush in the toilet yesterday mom."

- "Uh Oh"

- "Come see what I did Mom"

- "Mom, remember that formerly in mint condition car…"

- "But I made it myself…"

Feel free to add some of your own in the comments. I'd love to hear what your kids say that makes you laugh or scares the life out of you. Lol.