On
Parenting
Parenting skills don’t come in a box or a book or a bag. It’s something that comes from within, and through all the trial and tribulations of parenthood, most kids come out okay on the other side. Send us your stories about parenting, the sillier and funnier, the better.
Tentative Chapter Titles:
Ready or Not . . .
(When becoming a parent wasn't in the plan)
You Said What?
(When shocking things come out of their mouths)
Punishment That Fits the Crime . . .
(What you did when the kids misbehaved)
Bringing Up, Then Letting Go . . .
(When it's time to loosen the reins)
Doing The Splitz…
(Sharing time and duties with the other parent)
A Juggling Act . . .
(Learning to raise twins or multiples)
Terrible Twos . . .
(Do they end before five?)
Driving Us Crazy . . .
(Junior behind the wheel)
From Your Lips . . . To Theirs
(Damn, I should be careful what I say)
Messes Kids Make . . .
(From dirty diapers to dirty dishes)
Say It Ain't True . . .
(Dealing with a little liar)
The Birds and the Bees . . .
(When your kids know more than you do)
Surgically Removing the Electronics . . .
("No, you weren't born with that attached to your hand.")
Step On It . . .
(Sharing your child with a stepparent)
Updated: 5/8/2012
Deadline: Open until we get enough workable stories to fill a title.
Thank you and good luck!
SUBMIT YOUR STORY HERE
About this title's co-creator
Pat Nelson’s love of writing led her to her current project of co-creating Not Your Mother’s Book . . . . On Grandparenting. In sixth grade, she wrote a story about a family moving from Virginia to Kentucky. She added a heavy paper cover to the sheets of lined notebook paper and singed the edges with a cigarette lighter to show signs of the long journey. She doesn’t know if it was the excitement of creating a story or the thrill of playing with fire, but that’s when she decided to become a writer.
Nelson wrote and self-published You…the Credit Union Member when she was in her twenties. In 2004, she returned to her hometown in Northern Minnesota for a visit and left there determined to write a book about the tuberculosis sanatorium where her parents met, a book about its progressive lady doctor, its patients, and its employees. She has returned to her childhood home on several research trips, gathering information that will bring memories of the sanatorium era back to life. She continues to work on this project.
Her story "Indian Summer" appears in Chicken Soup for the Soul in Menopause. She has written a weekly column for The Daily News/South County News, Longview, WA, and her stories appear on www.lewisriver.com. Her newspaper columns and other stories appear on her blog at www.storystorm.me. Nelson, who lives in Woodland, WA, is a member of Willamette Writers.
Today, Pat Nelson juggles writing with grandparenting, leasing office space and running a wholesale business. “Grandparenting, writing and editing aren’t work,” she says. “They provide the play time that gives me a break from work, and who doesn’t love to play?”
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