Shara from Mommy Perks shares: "Here's a special birthday cake that my father made long ago!"

Constructive Parenting…

All parenting focuses on having life with children run as smoothly as possible. Accidents will happen, yes, but you will definitely be able to avoid many when you are prepared. Let schedules, rules, systems, order, and expectations form the basis of your preparation process.

Early Experiences and their Effect on Later Life

Another story…

Barbara had her best New Year’s Eve ever! She made a wonderful party, and all her friends could not stop raving about it!

The next day, as she was reflecting on all the fun everyone had the night before, she decided to call her parents to wish them a Happy New Year. While on the phone with her mother, she started telling her about what had happened at her party and how excited everyone had been about the New Year’s cake with each of their names on it.

Then her mother responded by saying, “Oh! What fun! That reminds me of the birthday cake I had for you when you were a little girl.” Then there was a long silent pause.

“Cake you had for me when I was a little girl?” responded Barbara. “What do you mean”?

“What do I mean? You don’t remember?” replied her mother.

“Remember? What are you talking about?”

Barbara finished the conversation with her mother and hung up the phone. She did not remember that at all. She was amazed! She could not believe what she had just heard. First of all, she did not consider her mother to be a particularly creative person; and second of all, Barbara could not remember any such cake being part of her past.

Having had this experience, she kept searching and searching in her memory for some kind of recognition of this cake that her mother had mentioned. It took days, actually weeks, until she actually began to get a vague vision of the possibility of some kind of cake. Reviewing this vision over and over in her mind, she began to see a clearer and clearer picture of this cake. In time a round cake with light brown chocolate frosting and pink trim began to emerge. The more she focused thoughts on this cake the more details she began to see. Soon she could clearly read all the names of her kindergarten friends written on the cake.

To Barbara this experience was like having some of her brain cells dusted off and made ready to work in a more effective fashion. The more she thought about the cake, the clearer its picture became. In time she was able to envision the walnut wood dining room table on which the cake was sitting, the whole dining room with the breakfront that matched the table, and then all of the children at her birthday party standing near the cake. Yes, in time, after many weeks of thoughts about this event, the cake and its surroundings actually became quite clear.

Indeed, her mother was right. Barbara really did have this same kind of personalized cake for her six-year-old birthday party, and now twenty-eight years later she really did still benefit from this experience.