For some parents, the holiday season is a long awaited time of blissful nostalgia with some additional social engagements and a touch of extra stress.

For others, there’s deep grief to process, twisted family dynamics and stressful obligations to navigate, mixed with a longing to serve others well and pressure to conjure up magical memories for our kids.

I wonder if this story will seem familiar to you.

“Dad, you’re making a face like you’re so disappointed in me right now.”

My client’s husband was perplexed. Had he made a face? Was he feeling upset?

His nine-year-old Spicy One™ quickly spiraled into a full blown meltdown.

“You’re mad at me! You don’t love me!”

Did you know that my freshman year of college, I got rejected from every single sorority I wanted? It was rough.

I called my mother in tears, and she told me something I’ll never forget. I’ve found it helpful navigating the world as my wild, creative self.

“Mary, you’re a very big personality. People throughout the rest of your life will either love you or hate you – there will be no in between.”

Now, to be clear – I don’t recommend this exact speech – however, in my dynamic with my mom, this was a watershed moment. She was compassionately attempting to help me understand myself in relation to the world.

You may be wondering exactly what I mean when I refer to Spicy Ones™.

​The short answer is – I made it up!​

But since October is ADHD Awareness Month, I wanted to clear up some possible confusion – Spicy One is NOT correlated with neurodivergence. But also, it’s not NOT correlated.

Getting into Northwestern‘s Kellogg MBA program was a cakewalk for me — the application was writing and interview-based, two areas I naturally excelled in.

But once classes began, the sheer volume of information and deadlines almost knocked me out of the program. I relied heavily on my charisma and the mercy of my study groups to make it through my studies.

Overwhelmed and teary about my inability to “buckle down” and “get it done” like my classmates, I found myself in a therapist's office at the age of 29.

I walked out with an ADHD diagnosis.

Some big transitions are foreseeable — like dropping off your child at college like I did last week.

Some are a series of tiny endings we don’t even notice until something we took for granted is long gone.

How do we prepare for the parenting milestones that come careening toward us?!

If you’ve ever found yourself at a loss for words when trying to say something uplifting to your Spicy One™ I want you to know something.

​You're not alone.

​Affirmations have been on my mind as I filled out letters for my college freshman to open when she’s feeling lonely or sad.

And it’s a familiar theme in my DMs.

For the spiritually-minded among us, I wrote a nondenominational blessing for Moms of Spicy Ones like you to celebrate Kayla Craig’s (@LiturgiesforParents) new book, Every Season Sacred. See the prayer below!

I was in a book club with some other young moms. One day, as I arrived and enthusiastically greeted each person around the table, one of the women snidely remarked, “You can’t just come in and sit down, can you, Mary? You have to make your GRAND entrance.”

Ouch. Perhaps she was naturally a more reserved person, slow to warm up, and my greeting felt too intense for her. Or maybe her natural tendencies were similar to mine, but she’d felt stifled in the past. My openness might have reminded her of shame she’d experienced previously when expressing joy.

​Either way, when people cast a moral judgment on our natural temperament, it can feel crushing to hear.

​

Here’s a form I created to help you warn…er, equip your child’s teacher to best support them.

This week, as we hike with our kids in Park City, Utah, my husband and I are also semi-recovering from some real zingers pitched from the back seat by our cranky and claustrophobic teens on the long drive here.

There will be meltdowns before school and tears when you walk away. At the end of their day when your child is returned to you, their little bodies will be wrung out like used pool towels. They have been working non-stop to keep it together all day while being faced with all the strange customs, smells, sensations, novel instructions, and social fears.

Two weeks later, dressed in sequins and holding my teenager's hands while scream-singing with 70,000 other fans, I found myself immersed in what the main character of Taylor Swift feels.

It’s the ordinary, un-fancy moments that comprise the bulk of who our family has been. The unscheduled, unhurried down times were actually enjoyable while in progress. (Like when my Spicy One dragged the kid’s table to the foot of my bed because I was enjoying a slow summer morning.)

If we expect our tweens and teens to be active in "real life", we need to have things for them to do (and we need to stay strong in the face of their boredom).

July 7, 2023. Parenting wisdom is still on hold as I galavant across Italy. In the meantime, may I share Part Two of my "Meet Cute" story?

June 30, 2023. As you read this, we are gallivanting around Florence, Italy, where I originally met Mr. Van Geffen and then went back to get married years later

June 23, 2023. I learned a new word last week: phub.

When you phub someone, you choose to pay attention to your phone/device rather than the person in front of you. Oof. I feel personally attacked.

June 16, 2023. I would welcome the nothingness..... or would I? For kids, boredom is still a familiar sensation that they try to avoid at all costs.

Yet boredom is so valuable in the slow unfurling of self.

It’s a container for human development. A space that you, the parent, do not need to fill.

June 9, 2023. As half of the United States kicks off their summer and the other half winds down the school year, there is a temptation to carry on like it’s "business as usual". It is important to mark the end and acknowledge a new beginning to allow for closure, learning, and any grief that exists beneath the surface (even if it feels a little inconvenient to do so).

June 2, 2023. I remember the first time my child got ensnared in a group texting situation. The gaggle of 8th graders in this thread were ecstatic to finally have the ability to communicate outside of school. Their immature enthusiasm led them to “bomb the chat” with multiple links to questionable memes and long, confusing and irreverent opinions of their teachers.

My introverted mild child began to feel the burden of checking his texts many times an afternoon. (He wasn't allowed to take the iPad to school.)