Parenting Advice Part II

Here's some more parenting advice that I've received from a colleague-a working mom and community activist.


1. Consider the first 6 years of your child's life as the primary career you will have over and above being an ed of a non-profit, which means, groom someone whom you can trust completely to be your alter ego, it can be one or two, for me I had two men back me up as if my life depended on them.

2. Share all duties and responsibilities of rearing the child with your husband, as he grows to be a nurturing father, his style can be his style, no need to change it, and your style is entirely yours. And I have a guru that I took parenting classes from, Magda Gerber, google her name in Amazon. com, she has two books.

3. Follow what you learned from Magda, even at a few days old, talk to your infant, wait for small cues and learn from those body language cues. You will figure it out as you trust yourself more fully. First when they cry, it is not the bottle necessarily first, it could be poopoo, it could be peepee, or simply they are cold and want to be hugged completely, and then, give the bottle if appropriate, and if they are hungry. You know they are hungry when they are start sucking, but do breast feeding as long as you can, it is the best for your child. I breastfed a year and took off work a year for Corina and it makes a difference as she has become self-assured and fearless. With my son, I took off six months and went crazy pumping my breast milk while working. It was not the best situation but were hard up financially, only one small check to live off.

4. Also, respect and believe in your child's innate wisdom, give them choices. Like simply, would you like to sleep now or five minutes later? Still within the framework of your preference, but giving them early practice at decision making. Keep a room safe for them to play at, and when you leave the room, announce to her or him you are leaving and that you will
be back in so and so minutes, and do come back and announce back yourself. Why, you are building trust and reliability very early on and your child knows that when you separate, you will come back and you will do it again and again.

5. It is not the toys that make a child emotionally safe and secure, it is how you make them feel when they are around you, do you take delight in their presence? Do you meet their emotional needs or do you frustrate them? If you are meeting your emotional needs, then they will always grow to be self responsible, self - motivated, and self-actuated. Anyway, another
good book is Family First by Dr. Phil McGraw and Self matters, by the same author.

6. Remember that how you feel inside is reflected by your baby, so if you are calm, content and feeling emotionally balanced, she or he will feel the same, particularly as you breastfeed!

Good luck, lots of love to your kid, and by the way, it is not too early to find a good preschool for your baby, get on a waiting list now and really check the teachers, the care givers, etc. and put your self on the waiting list after the baby is born. I applied for a preschool three years in advance and I applied for CHOICES: Magnet School, three years in advance,
waiting to be rejected by computer to accumulate points for preference, and when Carlo turned 6, voila, I had a space carefully chosen for him, I did the same for Corina.

You need to be very very proactive and strategic, find out which of your values you want to leave as a legacy with your spouse and grow your child according to those values, if it is community service, then, by all means, take your kids to community events, but one of you will need to always stay home for their sleeptime, the best thing to do is that the child has a
timetable, respect that, and it is independent of community activities, if sleepy time is 8 pm, then, the child must be at home in bed at 8pm, it is not that rigid, it is simply respecting their biological and emotional needs. And if you want to grow them linguistically, spiritually, then expose them also. It is really up to you and what your values are, between you and your husband.

As far as Enrique and myself, we said we wanted to raise socially responsible, emotionally balanced children, and thank God, we have raised them to be such: Carlo is at UC Berkeley, studying film and Asian American Studies, and has an interest to be a filmmaker, and Corina works at SIPA, graduated at UC Irvine in Asian American Studies and wants to have a career in non-profits, she wants to live and lead her life in community service. We did not say it to them, they simply saw us both practice it. One thing to remember with children, it is not the lectures, it is how they are tracking you and observing you, what you show them is your legacy. Our house is also known as Hotel Delacruz, that means, all nationalities are welcome and belong to our community and deserve a seat at the table.