<p>jami,</p>
<p>I certainly hope that thongs are not the criteria…neither my girls nor I like them at all! :)</p>
<p>chocoholic,</p>
<p>You are welcome to come over anytime. All others must call first! <em>LOL</em> </p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>All of the are 
! You are the est parents I know!!!</p>
<p>Berurah, I wish I could duplicte your household attitude. I am too persnickety and I get too concerned about mud on the darn rug. It is stupid, I know. But I am a person who needs lots of calm & space & serenity. (Probably because I grew up in a totally chaotic home.) That’s why though my kids ages are the same span as yours (7-18), I only have 3 of them! More space!</p>
<p>I once jokingly threatened my D to wear a bare midriff to her school, because she was determined to wear one to one of my grown up sedate events. She looked horrified-- and went immediately upstairs to change! </p>
<p>I doubt I am cool in most ways but I am cool in one way. I am usually really steady in a crisis situation or on a “hot” topic like sex, drugs, etc. So I am definitely overly strict about the baloney issues, but if my kid really screws up or has a pending hot issue, I just stay calm somehow and listen. (My H is the reverse, so we make a good tag team.) </p>
<p>Also my kids can tell me unsavory things about their friends… I remain calm & I also stay open to these friends. Some parents excommunicate friends for teenaged offenses like getting blotto drunk or the like. I do discuss it with them and express my disapproval or POV but I do not say-- ‘that kid can’t come here’ or ‘don’t see her,’ or anything like that. Twice so far info has come home that required action. Both times I got my D’s permission to act. </p>
<p>I figure that if I am mostly neutral & helpful about their friends, they will (a) keep talking to me, and (b) realize that dorky teen mistakes are normal and rarely unforgiveable. Also, this puts the onus for “judging the situaltion” on my kid, who clearly would not bring it up to me if they weren’t perturbed to begin with. </p>
<p>Luckily like berurah, my kids pick basically nice & decent friends and don’t do anything too horrific themselves. I really like my kids & their friends. In fact my D told me I wads cool for having 30 (!) of her friends over for dinner to celebrate her 18th birthday. (Yeah, I <em>was</em> freaked about the new rug, & it was pouring, so they all took their shoes off!) What was so nice was how genuinely appreciative they all were for a night of food, shooting free throws, and singing along with a guitar.</p>
<p>Cool = don’t freak out, stay calm, listen; forgive; be fair and give your kids a chance to change your mind if they feel strongly about something; and, LOL, Feed them. And finally a favorite from toddler years, “Catch them being good.” Just being nice & appreciative of a kid who is doing the right thing can be the spoonful of sugar that kids need to take all the “helpful advice.” ;)</p>
<p>Great last paragraph, SBmom! I like your definition and might even measure up. I wouldn’t dare ask my kids what being a “cool” parent entails, as I can already hear the chortling, and the short-version answer would be “the opposite of you, Mom!” My younger kids are still in hs, and their friends consider me really “nice,” if not cool. I’ve known many of them since kindergarten days - several were in Girl Scout troops I led, and it’s fun to watch them growing up. </p>
<p>(Very glad Girl Scouting is over for us, however. Does anyone know if some environmental factor might be responsible for the high percentage of toxically difficult girls born in 1990? I don’t mean my own, and I don’t mean girls who are difficult as adolescents - I mean a horde of 5-going-on-15-year-olds who make the Plastics in “Mean Girls” look like the Lennon Sisters.)</p>
<p>My oldest d’s college friends actually do seem to think that h and I are cool, to our amazement. We take a bunch out to dinner whenever we visit her at school, thereby passing the food test. Perhaps they’re mature enough to see the coolness in parents who have always acted like parents?</p>
<p>I did lose major points with the oldest the last time I dined out with her friends, however. The young woman next to me was very quiet all night, and I couldn’t seem to get a conversation going with her despite my best efforts. When we dropped her off, my daughter immediately said, “I’m so sorry about the way she acted, Mom!” and the other kids also apologized for her. I had no idea what they were talking about - turns out that she had ingested something illegal that made her rather zombie-like. My d was humiliated that I am so uncool that I can’t even tell when someone sitting next to me is stoned.</p>
<p>Here are a few more suggestions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Take an interest in your kids’ friends–ask questions (not necessarily personal ones but those you need for clarification–“who sings that?”), tease them lovingly, and remember details, e.g., one of D’s friends loves pecan tarts that I make so I made him some for the holidays.</p></li>
<li><p>As for food–how about either bringing ingredients so the kids can make the cookies themselves or even those slice and bake cookies. There’s nothing more kid-friendly than a sweet-smelling kitchen! Maybe even asking them what their favorite foods are so you can bring those along? If you’ve got a fireplace, how about the fixings for s’mores? And popcorn!</p></li>
<li><p>Now for libations–perhaps stuff for virgin cocktails if the kids aren’t into drinking: sparkling apple cider. Definitely, hot chocolate and marshmallows (that can do double duty with the s’mores).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>PS D sometimes complains that her friends enjoy talking with me on the phone before I turn them over to her. But deep down, I think she likes having a cool mom.</p>
<p>SBmom,</p>
<p>You sound like a <em>very</em> cool mom to me! I’m sure my kids would think that you are too! </p>
<p>While it’s true that I don’t get worked up about the “baloney issues”, I sometimes feel like I am at too much of the opposite extreme on those. I think there is a happy medium that I have not been able to strike. While my kids are basically kind, loving, and essentially responsible, I think I have failed them in some ways in that I haven’t properly instilled the value of caring for their property (things). Of course I think that there is no comparison between the value of people and the value of things; nevertheless, I think it is basically a GOOD thing to teach kids to properly care for their home and their belongings. I have been a bit TOO lax in this area.</p>
<p>It’s funny though…my kids totally know how to be careful and do the proper things at anyone else’s house…it’s just that they are never as comfortable in those homes precisely because they have to always be cognizant of where they set a drink or if they are tracking mud.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>I am lucky also to be considered a “cool mom” by my kids and their friends. I think it started when they were little and I shopped at Sams in bulk! Now that they are older, I think that they appreciate that we always welcome their friends. My kids span from 13 to 18, all boys, and on any given weekend night, I might have up to 15 kids spending the night. The kids call our house “Kappa Kappa Grahama”. We stay out of their hair, let them stay up playing video games, and have food available in the morning. I am also lucky that my kids are just really good kids. They are major “home bodies” preferring to invite people over rather than going out. I don’t mind the chaos and mess because I feel great knowing that the kids are safe and sound at home. Their friends’ parents are always appreciative because they know that there are no Bachanalean feasts occuring, and their kids are safe too. I thank God that it has turned out this way. I’m not really sure how it happened. Maybe that we all share the same sense of humor and we laugh a lot! I’m really going to miss my oldest son (and his friends) when he goes to college next year! It just seems like the whole dynamic of the house is going to change. I hope not!</p>
<p>berurah:</p>
<p>You say</p>
<p>“Of course I think that there is no comparison between the value of people and the value of things”</p>
<p>That is so true. Just wondering, do the letters LLL mean anything to you? Thought maybe they might. ;)</p>
<p>Oh SURE, SBmom…I’m quite familiar! Will send you a pm on this later. ~berurah</p>
<p>No, we’re not cool parents. We’re dorks…</p>
<p>We listen to music that our kids don’t appreciate.<br>
We rave about movies that our kids wouldn’t be caught dead watching.<br>
I talk to my son’s friends when they’re in the house standing around in the kitchen, instead of feeding them.<br>
I dress up the dog.<br>
My H and I have homemade Star Trek Next Generation uniforms hanging in our closet.<br>
We have a pink flamingo AND a lawn gnome in our yard.<br>
We do crosswords and wear half-glasses.<br>
We make boyfriend/girlfriend go home at a reasonable time.
We pick up parenting tips from Ward Cleaver.
We acknowledge and embrace our dorkness by walking around the house in whatever we feel like.<br>
We sometimes eat cassaroles (a supremely dorky thing to do).
I exclaim in public places, “Ooo, look at those cute thongs she’s wearing!” </p>
<p>This list goes on forever. We’re not even close to being cool. We’re basically uncool. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LOLAROTF!!!</p>
<p>lol, sluggbugg you sound like an awesome parent to me! hahaha except that loudly expressed appreciation for other’s underwear… that could get things interesting… :D</p>
<p>Sluggbugg–in some circles, homemade Star Trek uniforms are considered the ultimate in coolness. Sorry.</p>
<p>Well, now my bubble has been burst! :(</p>
<p>We do the majority of things of sluggbugg’s list (with the exception of yard ornamentation and Star Trek uniforms) and I <em>thought</em> I was cool! Dang!</p>
<p>I guess <em>cool</em> is in the eye of the beholder…<em>lol</em></p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>Note to cangel, if you are thinking about posting… don’t. Dad is cooler than you, sorry. :D</p>
<p>oh, Greensleeves, </p>
<p>I gotta stand up for my cyber friend, she’s cool -if for no other reason, because she knows me 
Every now and then she also has jokes, and a warped sense of humor Can you at least compromise and give her * Chill*?</p>
<p>Yeah, she’s chill b/c she doesn’t really get invovled personally. She can be “chill” around people other than my friends (if that makes sense). My dad is a hit with all of my guy/ boy scouts friends. They think he’s awesome. My mom works enough that she’s never around to meet my friends.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>WHAT??? You must be pretty . You know more internet slang than a high school student!</p>
<p>Oh wait, that just makes me look like a loser! :o</p>
<p>“Sluggbugg–in some circles, homemade Star Trek uniforms are considered the ultimate in coolness. Sorry.” ~dmd77</p>
<p>Yes, but how cool is it to wear your homemade Star Trek uniforms to the Star Trek exhibit at the Morrison Planetarium in Golden Gate Park on the WRONG DAY of the exhibit? We did that. I told you, we’re dorks. :D</p>
<p>That is SO , sluggbugg!</p>
<p>Btw, there is nothing wrong with being a dork! :D</p>