Lexiconic Bugbears and Parenting

Lexiconic love is new to me; I use to hate and resent vocabulary. Since marrying John words have become yummy. I’m remembering a few words and I’m trying to catch up for lost time and I even run into a few John doesn’t know. For instance, my brother Don was not pusillanimous. He was totally alive, awake, unique and intense. Non pusillanimous is a current word which describes him well.
A very old word describing an imagined severe problem that might just exist in reality is bugbear. In the four ‘Leafman Attacks’ books Anna’s grandmother faces a bugbear of a problem. It comprises of 101 boxes of bugs. Anna, herself, has a worse bugbear in the form of Leafman.

I write humorous children’s books and I focus on family, where everyone holds a valued place. I play with words, introducing some and making up others, hoping young people wouldn’t wait as long as I did to love them.
I’m fascinated with the new vocabulary created regularly by young people to separate themselves from their elders. My Mother taught me about this spacing concept and separation from the previous generation, before I was even close to beginning the process myself. She said, “I give you permission to be different than me” and latter, “I give you permission to be better than me, in fact I expect it; each generation should be better than the last.” Later when I pushed boundaries she said, “If I were fifteen I’d want to go the party too, but I’m your Mother so I have to say no”. I couldn’t argue with that and I write to celebrate great parenting as well as love of words.nancymauerman.com

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