The Marble Jar Channel

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today’s video, I’ll show you how we use Amazon Household in our family. For a long time, my family operated with just one Amazon prime account.  That was all we really needed. After all, I’m the chief procurement office for our house, so I do the vast majority of the shopping. And for whatever reason, no one really watched Amazon Prime videos but me.  Fast forward to now, my kids are teenagers — one is in high school, one in college.  For a whole host of reasons, having multiple accounts now seems much more attractive.  The biggest things was that my son is Not Trustworthy - with my credit card.   If he has access to my account he can not only order stuff to be sent to himself without approval, but he figured out how to just create cash by sending himself gift cards.  I had to shut this down.  And because he can’t be trusted with the login credentials on my account, it be...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, I’ll show you how I “take away” my kid’s phone without actually taking it away.  Sometimes parenting can feel a bit like an operant conditioning experiment. You reinforce good behaviors with rewards and discourage bad behavior with punishments. The trick is figuring out what rewards and punishments work for your kid. My son does not have a ton of “levers” that work for conditioning his behavior. He doesn’t seem to be motivated by money, purchases, or curtailing activities. BUT there are 2 things that motivate him: his phone and socializing. I really try not to take away socializing since I feel like it is integral to being a teen and important for their identity development. So that leaves his phone as pretty much my only lever for molding behavior.  This is problematic. First of all, if I take away his phone altogether, it also serves to cut his sole means of communicating with ...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video I'll give you my one big recommendation after being a mom for 16 years -- take notes! If there is a running theme throughout my YouTube channel, it's that I have a world-class terrible memory and most of my systems are built to help me remember things or prevent my life from dissolving into entropic chaos.  Because I know this about myself, I take notes.  I take notes about processes I've figured out, events I've hosted, and articles I've read.  Chances are, I'm not going to remember these things later, so I am constantly reaching back to my notes to prevent myself from making the same mistakes over again or to remember things that might be important.  This note taking process falls into the latter category -- remembering things that might be important. As moms, we are all really good at taking notes about our first born babies.  We all were gifted a baby boo...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll give you my main take-aways from the horror of middle school.   Both of my kids will be in high school next year, which means that I can safely say that we survived middle school.  It was honestly touch and go there for a while.  My son's experience was easy and uncomplicated.  He had a good group of friends going into middle school, he wasn't too high up in the status hierarchy, nor was he too far down, and he was a boy.  He had some friends who floated up in status, but the majority of his elementary school friends actually stayed together and there wasn't much drama.  My daughter was a totally different story.  I'm not authorized to give too much info -- and it's not my story to tell, but it was a tough two years.  Like something you'd see on an after-school special.  She came out the other end with more solid friendships and with he...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video we’ll go through the conversation you should have with your older teenager about consent.  Okay — with the #Metoo movement raging on right now, consent is definitely a hot topic.  The story that recently broke about Aziz Ansari is particularly relevant.  First a quick definition of sexual consent in this context.  All it is — is the agreement by two parties to participate in a sexual activity. This activity does NOT have to be sex — this also covers touching or kissing.  And yes, I will acknowledge that this is an embarrassing conversation to have with your kids, but I think it’s important that we do.  And here is why — consent requires direct and open communication about an awkward topic.  If we are too wrapped around the axle to talk with our kids about this, how can we expect them to communicate well with each other? And the other thing?  It is ...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, let’s talk about the conversation you should have with your teen girl about clothing choices and the male gaze.  Every generation of parents tries to prevent their girls from making risky clothing choices.  When I was growing up, my parents preferred this look to this one — the late 80s were horrendous.  Unfortunately, girls get positive feedback for wearing skimpy outfits and they get shunned for looking too prudish and basic.  But, as we all know, it’s a very narrow and precarious tightrope to walk — too skimpy and they get hate for being extra and slutty.   Girls of every generation have learned to nibble in from the edges on our rules.  I honestly NEVER thought I’d let I child of mine wear Daisy Dukes OR that I would ever be persuaded by the argument that everyone is wearing them. But I’ll be darned if they aren’t all wearing them!  Now we are quibbl...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today’s video, I’ll share my thoughts on how to apologize properly.  First, let me just confess that apologies don’t come easily to me —particularly in the heat of the moment.  I have a bit of a defensive streak and I like nothing more than BEING RIGHT.  It’s not exactly my best characteristic. But my temper flares out as quickly as it ignites and it doesn’t take me too long to start to consider how MY actions might have contributed to a conflict — sometimes just a couple of minutes. And in those cases, I muster up my courage and I apologize. I’ve apologized to my husband a thousand times. I’ve apologized to my kids, my parents, my in-laws, my coworkers, my friends.  The thing is — and this is what I tell my kids — we are going to do crappy things to each other.  It’s inevitable and happens all the time.  Not because we terrible people, but because we aren’t paying attentio...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video I'll talk about what you might want to say to your teen or preteen about cussing and code switching. Truth be told -- I don't swear much. I'm definitely a little looser if I have a beer or two in me, but it's not really baked into my style of speech.  Growing up, my parents were at opposite ends of the cussing spectrum.  My dad swore like a sailor -- still does.  And three year old me could recite his favorite string of pretty colorful 7 curse words like a pro. My mom was never comfortable with it and it showed. At one point, in a fit of pique, she called one of us a piece of shit -- and if sounded so weird coming out of her mouth -- AND she seemed so uncomfortable saying it -- that we all just stopped and laughed for 5 minutes. Probably not exactly the affect she was intending.  Just Words At any rate, I tell my kids -- curse words are just words like any other. They...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video I'll share my rationale for giving my kids Snapchat rather than Instagram.  My kids both got phones when they were in 7th grade. I would say soical media was a way bigger deal when my daughter got her phone last year than even 3 years ago when my son got his, so her experience is probably more relevant than his.  At the time, both of these platforms were more straightforward. Instagram was and is a highly visual social media platform where you post artsy photos and selfies for your friends and followers to view, like, and comment on. Snapchat was a silly point to point communication tool where you sent photos to friends that disappeared after a few seconds.  Since that time, Snapchat has added lots of features that make it more like other "feed" centric platforms, but I was basing my decisions off of the Snapchat of "then".  I really think these decisions differ f...

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll share some of my random thoughts on the minefield topic of PC Culture or political correctness.  Full disclosure -- I'm super liberal and not ashamed of it.  But please hear me out -- I know that there are always two sides to every issue.  Opinions around political correctness are complicated and problematic.  I know this because even some of my most liberal friends and family feel like it's gone way too far.   Definitions First, let's establish some definitions.  Here is the first definition that comes up in a Google search and it's a pretty good one. So, this is anything from terms perceived as derogatory like calling Italians Wops, to stereotypes about groups of people (even positive ones) like All Asians are good at math, to celebrations of events or people that are not important to OR actively offend folks, like Columbus Day or s...