Wow. Who knew how much blogging fodder a little white mouse could generate? Our editor sent me this link to an article she wrote about Stuart Little a while back. If you followed my two posts on the movie then you know my saga and how this all relates. If not, I don't want to give it away so I'll encourage you to skip on over to my blog and read all about it. It's entertaining if nothing else, at least I think it is.

We are so funny as parents, aren't we? I don't think of myself as an overprotective mother. I believe in the value of graduating from the school of hard knocks with a degree in real life. By the time my children were five years old they all knew that life wasn't fair, (stuff) happens, and things don't always go as planned.

I also know that along with nurturing and loving my children, one of my primary responsibilities as a parent is to protect and defend them on every front, with my very life if need be. I would throw myself parallel to the floor (see Watching Stuart Little: Part 1) in front of any danger approaching my children without a second thought. It's that last part-without a second thought-that gets to be kinda tricky.

Sometimes doing what is best for our children requires precisely that, a second thought, before we respond in a given situation. Giving a parenting decision a second thought is not the same as second guessing ourselves as parents. The former is a deliberate process set in motion by our effort to achieve some degree of certainty about our actions and our decisions. The latter is born of uncertainty.

As adoptive parents I wonder if we are more prone than any other parents to second guessing ourselves? Are we any more prone to giving things a second thought? I know that as an African-American mother raising a black male child there's plenty that I give a second thought. I pay close attention to the images and messages about African American people that my children are exposed to. Even when there is stark truth to the some of the negative images persistently before them, I see to it that they have a balanced reality (by the way everyone go and see Akeela the Bee and rent Roll Bounce)of the African American experience.

Now, I have this additional layer of a balancing act involving the adoption experience that I try to pull off with my daughters. Sometimes, I throw myself parallel to the floor to protect them, and I fall flat on my face. Who knew how much blogging fodder a little white mouse could generate?