Words of advice from Grandma

As anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows, my audience is my children.  They don't read it, but someday, they might.  I am posting today the words of wisdom that my mom passed down to me.

On dating

Date many people.  You won't know what you want in someone you will marry unless you have dated several people before you meet the right one.  

This advice came back to me many months ago when reading about someone who grew up in a home that promoted courtship.  She was fully invested in this idea until she saw others who pursued it divorcing.  This lady remembered that her grandmother had questioned her about courting, saying how could she possibly know the right guy if she hadn't dated anyone else?  Her grandmother's dating days were in a community where all the parents refused to let their children go out on a date with the same person twice in a row.  So, it worked like this - if Sam wanted to take Amelia to the dance, but they just went out last weekend, then Jeff would take Amelia out for ice cream during the week.  This reminded me of my mom's advice.

Her other dating advice was that you don't date someone you would not marry.  Her advice was that you should know what characteristics were important for someone you would marry.  The list does not have to be long.  My list consisted of three criteria: I wanted someone who loved God, loved his family, and had a college degree.  That last one may sound shallow, but I felt that I would struggle with someone who did not have a degree when I did, or maybe I was afraid he would struggle with that.

While I agree with the dating advice, I realized just recently that I have not really passed it on to my children.  Dating is so different now.  I know, among their peers, they spend quite a bit of time getting to know each other before they move into dating, so maybe that works too.  I guess we will see.

On naming children

My mom is practically famous for her rules regarding children's names.

• no nicknames -name them what you intend to call them
• no naming them after anyone - don't force a child to live up or live down the reputation of someone else, and avoid the confusion of juniors, II's, III's etc.
• no initials that spell anything
• no double consonants at the end and beginning of a name (ie. no Brett Todd)
• no fancy/crazy spellings - spell the names as tradition dictates
• no gender neutral names

For the most part, I followed my mom's naming advice.  Savannah does share a middle name with my great-grandma, but I never knew her very well and just liked the name.  Zach's middle name is a family name rather than an individual name.  I actually like Mom's naming advice.  She had personal experience and good reason for almost all of it.  Her initials spelled "eat", and she hated that.  She always went by her middle name - constant frustration that she actually spent some money to change.  Her brother was named after her dad, and his son is named after him, and his grandson is the fourth in that name lineage.  Mom also had the double consonant thing in her name too which she felt made speaking her name difficult as one name doesn't truly stop before the other begins.

Of course it can be a gamble for girls who take their husband's name when they marry - could totally mess up the system which is why both my girls have middle names that start with consonants so they can't spell anything -- okay I did not choose Julia's middle name, but it still starts with a consonant :)

My mom had no problem with sibling patterns. All the girls in my family have names that start with T, and the boys names start with J.  I had no problem with breaking that tradition with my own kids.  I never wanted to be bound by a single letter when choosing a name.  I wanted to name the kids the names I liked best, period.