The Power of Symbols: The Hoodie and the Short Skirt

Like bloggers everywhere, I cannot help but weigh in on the Geraldo Rivera comment that Trayvon Martin's hoodie was "as to blame" as his assailant, George Zimmerman, for his murder.


I hope it's not really necessary for me to say I disagree.


But Rivera does bring up a point -- albeit ham-handedly -- about the power of symbols in our culture.  In sociological terms, everything is a symbol.  Words are symbols.  They stand for things.  What *do* hoodies (and pants worn below the butt, and baseball caps worn backwards, and...) symbolize to many people?  


In a word, danger.


It's not fair.  As Glenn Fleishman (@GlennF on Twitter) tweeted today: "Hoodies kill kids just like halter tops cause rape." 


Indeed.  Saying the hoodie is to blame for Trayvon's senseless killing makes about as much sense as saying a girl wearing a short skirt who gets raped was "asking for it."


It's precisely that obvious parallel that gives me pause, because -- as a white mother to a teen white girl -- I am deeply conflicted about what I allow my daughter to wear.


On the point that Rivera made -- that he tells his sons not to wear hoodies, not to wear pants "down to their ankles" -- I find myself nodding my head.


Not my academic, sociological, analytical mind.  But my parental, over-anxious self.  The part of me that wants to do everything possible to keep my girl safe.


For while I want to say that my child should dress however the hell she pleases (and, she pretty much does), I cannot help but worry that some outfits give different messages.


Different outfits are different symbols.  


Jeans, long-sleeved shirt, flats?  Nicely dressed teen girl.


Short skirt, bare legs, flats, top that shows a little form?  *I* still think "nicely dressed teen girl" but I'm afraid others may see something along the lines of "loose" or "asking for attention."


It's surely a sign of societal sickness that parents everywhere have to worry --- with good reason -- about what their children wear.  That parents of minority boys may, in particular, be wary of whether or not their sons are perceived (wrongly!) as "thugs."  That parents of girls (of any race) may be rightly worried whether or not their daughters are perceived (again, wrongly!) as "asking for attention."


But make no mistake:  a 130 pound kid with a bag of Skittles and an iced tea -- hoodie or no hoodie -- did not deserve to be killed (or even bothered by) by a 250 lb neighborhood "watch" man who carried a *gun*.  


And if anything ever happens to my daughter, I'll personally strangle the first person who says that her attire was "as to blame" as her assailant.


But we ignore *at our peril* the kernel of truth to Rivera's worries.


Sometimes, we do need to be aware of how we are perceived.


Even if the person doing the perceiving is -- clearly -- the one who is wrong.

Baby Slut Wear

(Title courtesy of friend Jonathan Bradlow.)

Before I get on a roll here, let me preface this with:  I'm not conservative or even particularly religious.  So, when somebody like *me* starts to criticize what parents let their kids wear, you know there's a chance that the proverbial line really HAS been crossed.

All three of my kids had graduations yesterday -- younger son from kindergarten, older son from fifth grade, daughter from eighth.  Yes, I now have a kid in HIGH SCHOOL.

I'm still looking for my bifocals and my cane.  I'm not sure how it's possible that my baby is that old.  But she is.  And she's looking forward to getting her learner's permit in six months too.  God help me.  I'm so not ready for that.

Back to the topic:  kids' clothing.

I can't complain about what the kindergarten crowd was wearing; I wasn't there because both boys' ceremonies were at the exact same time (and in different schools), so my husband went to the Kindergartner's one and I went to the fifth grader's.  From the pics I saw, the kindergarten girls wore appropriate little-girl dresses.  No complaints.  The parents apparently understand that their girls are barely out of toddler hood.

By fifth grade, however, a lot of parents appear to think their girls are a whole lot older than they really are.

When the fifth grade kids came into the auditorium, I was struck by the number of the girls wearing strapless dresses AND high heels.  Some even had professionally styled hair (either that, or their moms or dads are way better at hair styling than I am).  Even more common were spaghetti-strap dresses, baby doll style dresses (think lingerie style) and very short skirts.

They are TEN YEARS OLD, eleven at most.

The boys, in contrast, were either dressed in nothing particularly special at all, or wore button-down or polo-style shirts with dress slacks.  I saw a few ties as well as one kid dressed completely in white with a matching hat.  In any case, the boys looked like boys.  A little awkward.  A little immature.  A whole lot bored.

The girls looked like somebody had decided to make them grow up real fast.

It is true that many fifth grade girls are well into puberty and so already look older than their male peers.  I get that.  But that is not a sufficient excuse for much of the clothing I saw, which was simply too mature and far too "sexy" to be appropriate for 10- and 11-year-old girls, particularly at a school event.

If I thought that I'd feel better at the eighth grade graduation, I was wrong.

Kids (and parents) REALLY went all out for this one.  (What is left to do in high school?)  Several girls were wearing strapless black mini dresses with (fake, I hope) diamond jewelry, fancy up-dos for their hair, and high-heeled glittery sandals with what looked like professional pedicures.  One girl had on the strappy, four-inch heeled silver sandals with a skin-tight, floor-length, beaded, spaghetti-strap gown with a back that stopped just above her butt.  No exaggeration.

I looked around.  Was I really in line for the Emmys?  Nope, just standing in line with parents waiting to get into a hot gym to watch 180 eighth graders make the ceremonial transition to high school.

What's appropriate?   My definition of "appropriate" differs on the age of the kid.  What is appropriate for a fifth grade girl (knee-length skirt, blouse or tank top, lightweight sweater as necessary) is different from what is right for an eighth grade one (I, for instance, would -- and did -- allow a sleeveless dress, but with only minimal heels and no professional hairstyle and only light makeup).  By the time they are eighteen, they can wear whatever inappropriate and low-class thing they want.  It's their body, their life.  Etc.  But until then...

I'm sympathetic to the argument that "it's so hard to find appropriate clothing for girls these days". It IS hard to find appropriate clothing for girls.  While boys' clothing is boring (and, for instance, their shorts keep getting LONGER and BAGGIER), girls' clothing changes, it seems, monthly, and their shorts and skirts keep getting shorter and tighter.

We'll leave out the entire discussion of what percentage of the American population (at any age) can even wear such clothing and look good in it.  Another disturbing trend was the percentage of muffin tops and flab on display.

Go into a store and try to look for cute -- but not "slutty" -- clothes for girls say, over size 10 (which for a lot of kids, is age EIGHT).  You'll find rack after rack of skin-tight, cheaply-made, low-cut, sleeveless, short clothes for girls.  Or clothes that just blatantly advertise sex:  "I'm sexy"  "I'm cute"  "Hot" etc.  There was recently an article about padded bras for little girls.  Try to find something that you and your kid can agree on and that doesn't make your kid look too mature or like a tramp.

Go home and take an Excedrin; you'll need it.

It's not an easy job. My daughter has gone to school on more days than I like to admit wearing clothes that I'm not 100% comfortable with (a lightweight sweater over her tops is our usual compromise; the shortness of her skirts gives me a heart attack, but fortunately, she only owns two of them).  Having arguments over clothing is somewhat of a rite of passage (for both boys and girls -- I heard two fathers complaining yesterday that they couldn't convince their sons to "clean up a little more" for the ceremony).  Remembering you're the parent and that certain compromises will not be made is part of a parent's job; in other words my sons had to wear their polo shirts and my daughter could not wear a spaghetti strap dress to eighth grade graduation.  She could wear a sleeveless dress and she could wear light makeup.

It's tough to fight the trend of slut wear, but it's not impossible.  And it doesn't have to break the budget, either.  I bought my daughter's 8th grade dress for $49 from Delias.com (a site that, in general, I actually highly criticize for its slutty clothing).  She wore flats she already had (we'd bought them before Thanksgiving).  The flats were not only cute, but practical (she didn't have to take off her shoes at the dance, like nearly all the other girls did).  Her necklace, which I have worn on occasion to my lectures, came from Target.

As the fifth (and eighth) grade girls tripped across the stages in their heels, tugging at their strapless gowns to make sure they didn't fall off, I heard a few parents whispering, "I'm so glad I have boys".  That comment made me sad.  I LOVE having a girl.  The problem isn't the girls; it's a market that tells girls from the earliest of ages that their value is their (sexy) appearance.

And the way we could change that market would be not to buy baby slut wear and to give our girls the message that they can be beautiful and confident -- and even look like American kids -- without showing quite so much of their skin.    They don't need to dress in burkas, but a little more left to the imagination, particularly for those under the age of 18, would be a refreshing change.

After all, if the trend continues, all they'll have left to model for high school graduation is lingerie itself.

It. Is. NOT. A. Mouse.

My husband and I recently gave a talk on our respective immigration research in Bend, OR as part of the Deschutes Public Library's program, A Novel Idea.  We had planned this months in advance, and our friend Kendall was going to watch the kids while we were away.  Since Kendall (who I've written about before) has been out of work, this was going to help her, too (earning money to stay with ourkids).

Well, she GOT A JOB!  And her first day coincided *exactly* (and, for our perspective, amazingly inconveniently) with our days away.  She still said she'd watch the kids, and between her schedule, our older child's AMAZING help, and the local community center, we made it work.

But, as all plans must, things went a little awry.

On her second day of work, Kendall told me she was in the bathroom, getting ready,  when our youngest son comes in and starts pulling on her shirt.

As all working mothers know, this encourages the following responses:  "Stop pulling on my clothes!" and "I'll talk to you in a minute!"

My son says, "Kendall, there's a problem."  (Houston, we have a problem.)

Kendall says, "I'm sure it's OK."

Son:  "No, it's not."

Kendall (trying to be creative and funny):  "Oh, it's probably a mouse!"

Son:  "IT. IS. NOT. A. MOUSE!"

Son:  "It is BAD.  You need to come."

Kendall, thinking that she has *almost* gotten through her first two days of work without any kind of catastrophe from my kids (she's had the barf and blood night with them, the exploding-things-in-microwave experience, and the GOD-help-me-my-stress-ball-just-exploded-all-over-Mom's-computer-keyboard), walks into the kitchen like a soldier being led into battle.

The kitchen floor (which we recently refinished, to the tune of $1500) is COVERED in soap bubbles.

Seems our oldest, in another attempt to be very helpful, thought she'd run the dishwasher.

But she used Palmolive soap.  The hand kind.

Kendall now has 20 minutes to a) finish getting ready, b) get the kids to the community center, c) save the kitchen floor and d) get to work on time.

She and our daughter started mopping up the floor with towels and stopped the dishwasher and pulled everything out, in order to scoop bubbles out of the bottom and put them in the sink.  Then Kendall instructed our daughter to keep running the rinse cycle until all bubbles were gone. She monitored this from her new job.  Thank God for cell phones.

When we came home, the sink was full of dirty dishes but the dishwasher was SPARKLING clean! :)

And the floor was saved.

And everybody survived.

The talk went well, the experience marred slightly by a speeding ticket, which, when you add the cost of that to the cost of babysitting (Kendall) conveniently equals the amount of our honorarium.

I still think it was worth it to get away.

But it was NOT a mouse.

Baseball

It's spring.  Baseball season has started.  I mean this both in terms of how often my home TV is tuned to a baseball game and in regards to how our family schedule now revolves around the **&&!! Little League practice and game schedule.

It's grueling.  Two or three games a week plus practices.  And the other kids have sports commitments, too.

Parents of small children:  Unless you want MONTHS of your life dominated by sitting around watching the slowest game in the world, do NOT sign your kids up for baseball.  It's torture.  Soccer games are over in 60 minutes or so.  Ditto basketball (and you don't have to sit in the rain!).  Ditto hockey.  And all of those sports involve some serious physical activity.  In other words, the kids get in shape.

But baseball?  Try three hours of monotony and kids spending far too much time standing or sitting.  It's boring for spectators and it is incredibly unathletic. It's an art -- an impressive one when done well -- but it is less than athletic for most players. 

Our son loves the game, so, being the considerate parents we are, we've been tolerating this baseball stuff for several years now.  When he was littler, it was *kinda* fun.  I loved T-ball, in fact.  So darn cute.  And his first team after that was wonderful -- the coach was easy-going and very fair about letting all kids have a turn to play. 

I can tolerate just about anything if my kid is having a good time and I perceive the coaching as fair and age-appropriate.

But now he's in Little League MAJORS.  Coaches act as if any "infraction" (shirt not tucked in) is justification for benching your kid.  Our kid has had to sit out for two games in a row, watching several less talented kids play because of a mistake *we* (the parents) made, not him.

We forgot about the opening day ceremony (and he forgot to tuck in his shirt).

We told the coaches that we had messed up with the schedule; it wasn't our son's fault.

But our son has paid the price for it. (This despite the fact that the coach emailed me and said that he understood our error and that he wouldn't penalize our son for it.)

It's BULLSHIT.

As if that wasn't enough, our kid has been yelled at by one of the coaches ("Get out there and warm up the catcher!"  NOW!") and has had things thrown at him by a coach (my husband took care of that problem, and the coach admitted he had "lost it").  (Apparently, our son wasn't putting on his gloves fast enough.)

Is it worth it to pay all this money for a fancy uniform, for bats, for gloves, for balls, for shoes, for batting gloves and to attend tryouts and practices *and play at least as well as most of the kids on the team* and still be benched for two games in a row because of a mistake the *parents* made?

We're having our son stick out the rest of the season.  Dependability and responsibility and discipline and commitment to the team and all that.

And we're encouraging a 100% commitment to soccer and track next year. 

Bye bye baseball.  You want a kid who can play?  (Ours can.)  Play fair.  And treat your players with respect.

Battle Hymn of the Conflicted Parent

If you've been reading the Wall Street Journal, or even just little ol' Twitter or your Facebook feed, chances are you've run across this article, an excerpt from the author's upcoming book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

I'm not going to reiterate what the author says, except to say that she holds "Chinese" parenting up as superior to "Western" parenting.  Predictably, many responses have appeared, including this one by a Chinese mother who realized that her adopted child was not able to live up to "Chinese" parenting expectations, causing her (the mother) to adjust accordingly.  Similarly, another article has praised what it labels "laissez faire parenting", which is what Chua would call "Western" parenting.  There was also a very sad article from a woman who felt that, in hindsight, her parents' "Chinese parenting" contributed to the sister's suicide.  While I personally doubt you can draw such a straight connection between suicide risk and parenting style (if you could, strict parenting would undoubtedly be touted as a public health risk), I ache for this woman's loss and for her pain at remembering how harshly she and her siblings were raised.

There is also a response of sorts to these responses from Chua herself.

Despite what I didn't like in Chua's article -- her arrogance over the "superiority" of "Chinese" parenting, her not allowing her children sleepovers or play dates, her description of making her daughter practice HOURS a day, and denying her daughter bathroom breaks until she learned a difficult piece of music -- there are a few points she made that strike me as undeniably true.

1.  Children are not as fragile as we often think they are.  Crying over having to work hard on something is not going to "ruin" them.  "Western" parents are often too concerned with "self-esteem" and not empowered enough in their relationships with their kids to INSIST that the children follow through (with respect!), despite the difficulty of the math, the music, the reading, the writing, etc.

2.  Nothing is "fun" until you are competent at it.  And to get competent at ANYTHING you have to put in the time.  Children need to understand this.

For me, the discussion of "Chinese" and "Western" parenting reminds me both of the dangers of essentializing (certainly, not all Asian -- or even all Chinese -- parent the same way) as well as the political nature of parenting, which I've written about before.  There is nothing we do as  parents, really, that is not judged -- if not by others, than by ourselves.  I shudder to think about what Chua would think about my parenting, but then again, I'm not asking for her opinion.

Both my husband and I were raised in houses that fell somewhere between the "laissez faire" style and the one Chua upholds.  Our kids are probably raised in a slightly more laissez faire household than either of us were, but then again, they are also being raised -- let's be honest -- by schools, aftercare programs and babysitters too.  They have, IMHO, *plenty* of structure in their lives and I think of their home life as being the place where (hopefully) they can relax a little.  Often, they are in school and aftercare for  a total of 10 hours a day.  The last thing they want -- or need -- when we pick them up at five is for their parents to tell them they have hours of practice to finish or extra math homework that we think they need because the schools aren't hard enough.  (A topic, obviously, for another post.)

Reading about Chua's incredibly strict methods with her children, as well as the responses of the other authors, I ponder how *I* parent and whether I've been strict enough.  While I keep a fairly tight watch on my kids' homework -- and come down fairly hard on them if they don't get the grades I think they are capable of -- I leave their free time choices pretty much alone.  One kid reads voraciously, listens to lots of music and writes stories, draws and plays soccer.  Another watches more TV than I think is preferable, but also devours books and loves sports and is particularly talented at baseball.  The little one still spends lots of time in his imaginary world, but is well-liked by his peers, plays well with all children (something I am immensely proud of), and enjoys drawing, being read to, and playing soccer. He also sings in a kids' choir.

The older two used to take music lessons but, after three years of hating it, I let them quit.  I certainly know Chua would not have allowed THAT.

When they were taking lessons, the expectation was to practice an hour A WEEK.  (Chua discusses multiple hours a DAY.)  Often, the kids did far more than that.  But an hour a week -- 20 minutes three times a week -- was my minimum requirement.  My goal was to get them to WANT to play, not to associate practice with fighting with their mother (which happened anyway, a fact that perhaps underscores Chua's point that you might as well harangue them with even higher expectations).    In the end, they both took to sports and not to music.

You can tell me I failed at parenting them in music.  I would respond that part of that "failure" was the result of a tension between me and my husband.  Music is important TO ME, but he really doesn't give a rat's ass (though if they had wanted to be musicians and worked at it without our having to prod them, he would have enthusiastically supported their interest).  He didn't want to be involved at all in making them practice (or in taking them to lessons), but then he wouldn't back me up when I tried to make them do it.  While a friend of mine has told me privately that she thinks it's NOT important for parents to have a united front, I disagree.  Particularly in issues of education, if the parents aren't on the same page, the children will have a hard time knowing which parent to follow.  I ended up giving into a reality that saddens me:  the kids didn't want to practice and I had no "back up" from their other parent, so turning them into musicians failed in part because it was so exhausting for me.  

That smarts a little, in large part because, in this instance, I was the "Asian" parent and my husband was the "Western" one and, in the end, his view won out (though more by default than by vigorous debate).

However, that was a story of parenting them when they were younger.  Curiously, my oldest (just 14) is now asking to return to piano lessons.  We've had several heart-to-heart discussions about this; I am more than willing to spend the money IF I don't have to harass her to practice.  If I do, then the music education is not worth it to me.  I don't want to spend my time  having to convince her to practice, particularly when I know there will be no Amen chorus coming from her Dad.  But I suspect, since this time it is HER asking to take the lessons, rather than MY introducing them, we may have a more successful experience this time around.

So, she'll re-start at 14, obviously "behind" her peers who have slogged through 8 or 9 or 10 years already on the piano.  But here's the beauty:  the ability to learn does not "expire" as quickly as people think it does.  She still CAN learn the piano if she wants to, and she can do it without a parent having to spend time sitting next to her while she cries over the keyboard, or without one parent telling the other she's being "too harsh".

Sounds like a win-win to me.

Thank God, because even if I have a *slight* tendency toward an "Asian" parenting style, I'm married to somebody who is firmly in the "Western" one.

I suppose I can thank Chua for helping me realize the diversity in my marriage. :)

Soccer Snacks

My youngest is now playing soccer, along with his older siblings.  It's adorable; the kids swarm around the field during their six five-minute three-on-three games like bumblebees.  They get very sweaty.  They have a lot of fun.  Some of them even seem to understand the basic rules.

But then comes the after-soccer "treat".  I'm used to this by now, since my oldest has been playing for nearly 10 years.  Most parents, even those who profess to be very concerned about health and particularly concerned that their kids stay fit, think that the after-soccer snack should be a "treat".

It's very ironic that such parents drag their kids from pill to post to make sure they get plenty of exercise and then hand them something like this:

Sorry the picture is small; that's a 10 oz. Nestle Juicy Juice Apple Juice and a Kraft Handisnacks Oreo Cookies 'n' Cream thing.

The juice has 140 calories and 33 grams of sugar.

The Kraft Handi-Snacks Cookies and Cream also has 140 calories and 13 grams of sugar (and 6 grams of fat).

According to this website, forty-six grams of sugar is equivalent to 3.8 tablespoons.  I measured that out; it looks something like this:

Anybody who reads this blog knows that I do not hold perfection up as the ultimate goal. But gosh darn it, we can do better than handing our kids 46 grams of sugar with next to NO nutritional value after a soccer game.

Irony?  I was debating folks yesterday at Consume This First about the benefits of bringing ice pops to soccer games.  (They were against; I was arguing they are hardly the worst choice.)  In fact, compared to what my kid got today, a popsicle looks positively healthy at 40 calories a pop and only 6.9 grams of sugar.  I agree that sliced oranges and water would be even better, but given the range of "bad" options, popsicles aren't so bad!

The Mom who is organizing the treats asked me if I wanted to participate.  She asked me this before I had even seen the treats for today.  Had I already known what was going to be offered, I might have phrased this differently, but I said:

"Sure!  I'd love to, but I have a bias in favor of healthy snacks and unprocessed food with no high fructose corn syrup."

She said, "Well...you can bring whatever you want to."

I said, "Well, I mean -- could we as parents kinda come to an agreement that we're ALL going to bring healthy snacks?  I mean, it's kind of ironic that we bring out kids out to play a sport and then sometimes feed them junk."

Her reply:  "If people already agree that they're going to put themselves out to bring a snack, we cannot tell them what then to bring."

There was a time in my life when I would have agreed with that. 

But now I no longer do.  Do you want your kid to be healthy?  Want to lower their risk of obesity and diabetes -- the former condition affecting up to 60% of US adults and the latter affecting up to 1 in 3 children born after 2000?  Step one might just be to stop feeding them so much sugar.

Whatever happened to after-dinner dessert being the only time during the day that people ate sugar?

Time to go back to the basics:  snacks are FOOD not processed junk.  And dessert is also FOOD and only once a day.

I'll be bringing the oranges and water.  We'll see what happens.

Bribery, A Mother's Best Friend

Some parents claim they never bribe.

I do.  I admit it, too.  I figure we all need to get paid and well, for kids, sometimes that is in a little cash (emphasis on "little") and sometimes it's a small treat (emphasis on "small").

My friends in sales might point out that parenting involves being a salesperson.  I argued the other day (in a private email to a friend who sells for a living) that I'm no good at it and that I'm more of a dictator than a salesperson as a parent.

Ew.  That sounds bad. 

But kinda true too.  I *hate* playing all those parenting games of incentives and sticker charts and "if you do this, I'll do that".  Just take a shower because I've explained 1000 times why it's important and frankly it's just socially normative -- it's what dirty people *do*.  Just take out the trash because you're a member of the family.  Just do your homework because it's expected and I want you to do well.  Reality.  That's the kind of Mother I am. 

Let's call me the Nike Mom.  Just. Do. It.

Turns out, however, I *do* occasionally try the sell tactic.

My sons have always hated haircuts and I have *hideous* stories of *atrocious* temper tantrums (one includes the kid vomiting) as evidence of their opinion of sitting still and being shorn.

The older one (now 10) outgrew that lovely phase quite some time ago and now *likes* getting his hair cut.  I think it has a lot to do with his impending pre-teen status and the fact that the girls who cut his hair (it's *always* a cute blond) chat with him and tell him he's so handsome.

The younger one, however (5) still acts as if getting a haircut is equivalent to undergoing chemo.  Honestly, he really acts up.  I've tried different places, different times of day, bribing with candy.  No go.  And it doesn't matter WHO says he's handsome.  He could not care less.

And the resulting professional haircuts have left quite a bit to be desired. (Nobody can cut well when the person is a constant target.)

Figuring that my own attempt could not POSSIBLY be worse that what we've seen before, I decided to bribe.  Big time.

I went out and bought a $24.99 hair cutting kit at CVS.  Seriously, in two haircuts the thing pays for itself.

I then sat the lad down for a talk.

"You like Star Wars Legos, right?"

"YES!"  Good, client is hooked.

"Well, if you sit real still and let Mommy cut your hair, I will let you buy a $5 Lego toy."

"OK!"

And he did it.  Holy moly, now I wonder if this would have worked say, two years ago.  (I doubt it; three-year-old boy self-control  or ability to postpone gratification aren't well-known phenomena.)

So we went to Target to purchase the bribe.

Oh, those Lego people.  They *know* how to get parents over a barrel.  Anything under $5 is so ridiculously small that it's really, well, ridiculous.  And the selection was horrible -- nothing Star Wars-related at all.

So we ended up purchasing a $10 Star Wars Lego toy.  Still less than the price of a professional haircut.

And we're both happy.  Here is the haircut.

 Here is the toy.

Successful sale. Satisfied client; satisfied salesperson.

But seriously, just go brush your damn teeth, OK?

Professional Mothers

I find it ironic that mothers who work outside the home (like me!) are sometimes referred to as "professional mothers" while mothers who work exclusively at home (not earning income  -- "just" being at home with their kids) earn the title, "stay-at-home-Mom".

Seems, actually that the latter category often presents themselves in such a way that THEY should be labeled "professional mothers".  Some of them not only do a *wonderful* job with their kids -- they do --  but they also have spotless yards, perfectly decorated homes, 2.5 pets, AND find time to volunteer, teach Sunday school, exercise AND get regular mani-pedis.  Some of them, in fact, have made staying home into such an elaborate job that they truly present themselves as professionals, with standards so high and schedules so tight that in fact they make the rest of us look a little.  bit.  bad. 

Or at least lazy.

Not that I resent them.  Oh, gosh, I wouldn't actually say that.

Who am I kidding?  Yes, sometimes I would.

Yesterday, at my son's kindergarten soccer practice, a few Moms -- who clearly are close friends -- show up, put up a tent, a portable table, chairs for the kids (aren't they playing a game?) and chairs for themselves and then proceed to lay out a spread of fresh fruit, water or juice, and home-baked cupcakes, complete with a fancy tiered cupcake tray.

Professional mothers, I tell you.  Very smart presentation.  Highly organized.  High client appeal.

Good lord.  OVER. THE. TOP.  If this is what they do for the second practice, what are they going to do at the end of the season?!

But then, sometimes I just "phone it in", or at least that's what I'm sure they would think of my just bringing a bottle of water for my kid and expecting him to wait until we get home to actually eat. 

The practice is 45 minutes, folks, and we all live within fifteen minutes of the field.

I do think, however, that THEY, not women like me, deserve the title, "professional mothers".

Perhaps I should take notes from their blackberries...

Thin-Skinned

I am.

I admit it.

Yesterday, at my daughter's soccer game, I was visiting with some of the Moms (while trying to watch my daughter in front of me and my son in back of me; forgive me if I didn't take in *all* of the game).

I thanked one of the Moms -- I had just met her the day before -- for bringing my daughter home the previous day.  (Long story short:  my husband was out of town, the city-wide soccer jamboree was in full swing, and I was driving my daughter all weekend to her *six* games and driving my son to his *four*; this Mom was gracious enough to give my daughter a ride so that I didn't have to criss-cross the city *again* that day.  It goes without saying that OF COURSE the kids' games were nowhere near each other and overlapped in terms of time.)

She replied, "Oh, no problem!"  Then one of the other Moms asked where I live.

Mom #1's reply:  "She lives in that RICH neighborhood with the BIG houses."

Mom #2:  "Nice!"

Me:  "I still feel embarrassed admitting I live there."

Immediately I'm thinking (but not saying out loud):  Why should I apologize for where I live or for what kind of house I live in?  Isn't their discomfort *their* problem? Why am *I* uncomfortable?

Apparently, these women are uncomfortable with where I live, which makes me uncomfortable, too, because golly gee whiz, I don't want somebody to assume stuff about me or my personality based on the size or location of my house.  I feel compelled to tell them that my last house was WAY smaller (it was), and that the cost of living here compared to where I used to live made it possible for us to buy a house that we wouldn't have been able to afford back East (true). 

But should I feel that I *have* to offer them any justification at all?

I think not.

But I did (see above) because their discomfort went directly through my thin skin.

They hurt my feelings, essentially.

THEN today I take my son to Kindergarten.

My lovely, playful, charming son who was described by his preschool teacher as being in the "bottom third" of his class.  Well, another mother is there, talking about how her daughter (also in K) is swimming across the pool, riding her bike without training wheels, reading and "writing all the time".

Needless to say, my son is doing NONE of that.

Yes, I am thin-skinned and feeling very inadequate.

But I do have a great house. :)

WTF?

My son has a new friend.  NICE kid.  Goofy sense of humor.  Polite and responsible.  Puts his dishes in the sink without being asked and takes off his shoes at the front door too.  Gets along well with all my kids.  I enjoy having him over. 

So, I was kinda taken aback when, out of the blue, he says "I shot a goose this morning for fun." 

The boys were playing a game on the computer in the kitchen while I was making PB&J sandwiches.  I spun around.  WHAT?!!!

"Well, not with a *real* gun," he tells me.  "Just an air gun."

Mind you I have *NO* guns in the house, other than two small squirt guns.  In my opinion, *any* gun more powerful than a supersoaker should not be in a house, and definitely not where a child could get their hands on it.

(I don't even know what the hell an air gun is.)

"Did you kill it?" I asked.

"No," he said, "but I did kinda hurt it."  He motioned with his arms, indicating that perhaps one wing was injured.

I didn't bother pointing out that if he hurt it, he might as well have killed it because it probably won't be able to defend itself or fly or might suffer a slow painful death.

I just asked, "Why, honey?  WHY?"

He suddenly looked sad.  As if that had never occurred to him.  "My parents told me I shouldn't do that again.  They were mad at me.  It just seemed fun."

"FUN"?  "Barbaric" is a better word.  But I'm also very sure that he's not the first boy (or girl) to think that shooting an animal is "fun".

I said, "Well, the goose probably didn't think it was 'fun'.  Next time, think of how the animal might feel."

"Yeah," he said.  He looked tearful, so I didn't say anything more.

This is not a deranged kid.  He's not being raised by crazy parents, either (Mom's a doctor; Dad's a nurse and they've both done medical stints in Africa).  These are GOOD, caring people. 

But for some reason, the parents have a gun in their house and their kids (at least the oldest) have access to it.

My kids will not be playing over there until I have assurances that a) all guns are LOCKED away, b) kids have no access to the keys to said locks, and c) ammunition is stored somewhere else.

Which means, of course, that my kid may never get to go over to their house.

I pray the goose died quickly.  :(

Discounted Mother's Day!!

I woke up Sunday morning to find a hand-written card from my 10-year-old, in his best cursive.  It began with the typical overstated Mother's Day wishes:  "I appreciate your work SO much.  You are the idol of my life.  I would have no life without you..."

He went on to put in some more creative ways to show his appreciation:  "I couldn't have strong muscles without you".  (Is that a reference to my being vegan???)

He then lapsed into appreciation for my wallet:  "I love how you buy stuff for me."  Well, at least I know he has paid attention...

Then, just in case I didn't understand how appreciative he is, he wrote in capital letters:  READ UNDERLINED.  Then  he wrote.

1.  You are AWESOME.

2.  I LOVE you.

3.  You are my CARER. (Did he mean caretaker? Caregiver?  Career?)

Finally, he gave me "coupons" for Mother's Day.  He explained that his teacher had told the class they had to make their mothers some coupons.

Mine were:

Breakfast, .50
Dinner .20
3 massages .10 each for first three; .30 thereafter
LOVE:  Priceless

I wanted to laugh, because clearly what his teacher meant was that the coupons should be for things the kid will do for the Mom FOR FREE.  But my son, with his literal mind, thought coupons = discounts.  Of course, he's not wrong about that.

He may be the only person in the family with a head for business.

After all, how many kids do you know who have set up their Mother's Day gifts in such a way that they make money from them?!

He explained to me that he figured most of the coupons were "equal to about 60% off".  Generous, indeed.

My daughter attempted to make me vegan pancakes, a very thoughtful act!  (The, uh, execution was a little off and I ended up remaking them for her only to show her that VEGAN pancakes can, indeed, be tasty.  She was convinced it was the recipe.  I think the recipe would have been fine without the 1/4 cup of salt.)

My little guy gave me a Popsicle stick-and-shell picture frame with his picture in it.

My husband gave me my much wished-for bread maker and a very nice pair of earrings.

I suggest that next year, the teacher use the word "gift certificate".

To Be Loved

I woke up early this morning -- before 6.  Usually, I am awakened by a boy -- either the 10-year-old one jumping in between us, wrapped in his favorite blue blanket, or the five-year-old one jumping on us, holding his nearly-worn-out pale blue blankey.  The 13-year-old (girl) now sleeps in and keeps all bedding in her room.  Thank the lord for teenage hormones.

I haven't used an alarm clock in 13 years.  No joke.

I nearly jumped out of bed.  I had a *chance* of having a cup of coffee before the kids came downstairs.

I made the bed (anal Virgo -- remember?) and walked to the coffee pot.

That's as far as I made it before I heard little feet behind me.

I turned to find my five-year-old, in his Spiderman pajamas, holding his little blue blankey.  God, he's cute in the morning.  "Hi Mommy!  Why aren't you in bed?  I wanted to cuddo wif you."  Geez.  I *almost* went back to bed.

Instead I made coffee, poured him a bowl of "bee cereal" (Honeynut Cheerios) and a glass of juice, and then said hi to my other son, who had appeared, true to form, in his underwear and his big blue blanket.

I proceeded to have another morning with everyone up with me.

Sigh.  One day -- or so I'm told by people whose kids are now out of the house -- I will miss this. 

Your Mother Doesn't Live Here (Oh, Wait, She Does)

I posted this picture of the bathroom chore chart on my  Facebook page today.  I am *so* sick of cleaning up after other people!  (This system, by the way, is only partially successful -- the kids don't actually have enough money to pay up every time they leave the bathroom a mess, but the reminder of the threat that I *will* collect generally works.  A copy of it is in each bathroom.) 

So, vegans or near vegans or whatevers -- what tricks do you have up your sleeves to  get your people to pick up?  Or have you miraculously raised paragons of virtue?  Or are you just really tight with mess and just live with it?  (I'm a Virgo, I can't go there.)

:)

Whatcha sayin'?

My life has been oddly calm lately, except for the usual kid-related stuff ("NO! I am NOT sitting next to her!" "NO! I am NOT ready for school yet!" "I JUST got on the computer! You can't make me get off yet!"). About the only notable thing right now is our decision to have our youngest evaluated for possible speech therapy.

His speech is a little odd. His sentence construction is unusual, almost as if English were his second language (currently, it's his ONLY language). For instance, he leaves out certain words, as if they are superfluous ("I not want to do that" instead of "I DO not want to do that"). He sometimes puts adjectives after nouns, the way you do in Spanish ("Remember our house white?"). I'd love to think that he does this because I read to him every night in Spanish, but I REALLY doubt it, since he doesn't actually TALK in Spanish. Hmmm...

When he's excited and trying to talk fast, he is especially prone to these kinds of mistakes and his teacher claims that it's affecting his social life (are little kids really that picky? I guess so.). He consistently misuses pronouns (she for he, his for her, etc.). That, I suspect, isn't that unusual. Some of his pronunciation is difficult to understand as well. He often uses "f" for the "th" sound, which I also think is pretty darn normal for his age. He will tell you he's "hayving," when he means to say he's "behaving." He apparently hears the word as two words -- be hayv -- which, if you think of it, makes some sense, since we often use the word "be" before other words, such as "be good". He insists that we live in "gene," because he hears "Eugene" as "YOU Gene," and I think he (logically) figures that the "you" part is somehow part of the sentence "You live in You Gene". Still, these kinds of mistakes, collectively, mean that his speech is odd and he sounds like a younger-than-he-is child (almost five).

He also uses the word "'cause" instead of "because" ("I want you to play with me 'cause I not have a friend to play with!"). In addition, he has some charming ways of saying things that we've never bothered to correct because they ARE so cute: "Icky Donald's" for instance is "McDonald's". Who would want to correct that?! Perhaps we should, however, if such mistakes are affecting him socially.

I say all this because I just finished completing the at-home assessment, where he performed almost perfectly (although abysmally on the fine motor portion and letter and number recognition -- gotta work on that!). I can pretty much guarantee that if he does this well when being assessed, the evaluator will think, 'Why the hell do these parents and teachers think he has a speech problem?' Apparently, he is CAPABLE of near-perfect speech, but chooses not to use it consistently. The little bugger.

Getting My Goat; Having a Cow

A lot has been on my mind this week, much of it related to comments on my last blog, or to a conversation with a friend (in person) about the blog prior to that. I'm going to address each here. As such, this is a meandering thought piece. It's a blog, people, not an editorial. :)

My last blog ("Points of View") prompted a few responses -- most of them positive, but one of them from somebody who took some offense at what she interpreted was my doing nothing more than complaining about the predicament of parents needing childcare for those noisome half-days, no school days, furlough days, etc. In her response, she said two things (in particular) that really got my goat:

1) "Your friend may not be a parent, but as a teacher, has more experience with children than you do."
2) "When I became a parent, I accepted the reality that I was giving up any and all free time." This commentator then went on to say that she's sick of parents expecting the schools to raise their kids...

OK, so you probably do not have to have read my blog, or even know me in the least, to guess why those two statements might get under my skin. Let's examine each, shall we?

First, my blog was never about whether parents or teachers have more experience with children. Honestly, I don't have to say more than that. I could go into details about my background, however. For instance, I could tell her that I was RAISED in a house where a parent did in-home daycare; I've babysat more than any human being I know; I've taught Sunday School, Children's Choirs, and Church Youth Groups; I've been a godparent since I was 19; I studied Human Development in college and worked in a rehab center for disabled kids; I stayed home with my kids (using only part-time daycare) for over a decade; I even considered elementary school teaching as a career and was in an M.Ed. program for awhile before deciding it wasn't the career for me; I've struggled with a kid who has a mild disability and have worked with IEP committees, therapists, psychologists, occupational therapists, vision therapists, and tutors, among other specialists. I've even chosen a career that IS part-time (I said as much in the blog). But, saying all that makes me appear just a wee bit defensive, and in no way says anything about the considerable experience with kids that my friend also has as a teacher.

The POINT IS that comment was nothing more than a gratuitous low blow, completely irrelevant to the issue I had written about and it assumed a whole lot about me that she had no way of knowing was accurate. Bugged the hell out of me.

The second comment: does parenting really mean that parents give up all free time? Hmmm...boy, that is NOT the paradigm of parenthood that I've EVER worked with. In fact, I think it's terribly important that kids know that their parents' lives do NOT always revolve around them. I think it's important for kids to see that their parents enjoy their jobs (or at least feel very committed to them). I think it's important that parents have hobbies, friends, and interests that don't involve the kids. I'm all for saying, "I'm busy now, please go find something to do." My mother used to refer to proper parenting as involving (her words) "some benign neglect". We could debate the proper amounts of such neglect -- the point is, parents have lives separate from their children's, or at least that's the paradigm of parenthood I'm working with. After reading the comment on the blog, however, it makes me wonder if there's a dramatically different paradigm of parenthood that is assumed by the schools and/or some or most teachers. Is there? It would help if I knew that up front.

But, how does benign neglect -- or the opposite, no free time for parents whatsoever -- relate to the need for parents to have affordable and easy-to-access care for kids (particularly older kids) on no school days? I think, in my commentator's mind, parents aren't SUPPOSED to have free time -- or, apparently, a job that conflicts with kids' school schedules. Such parents would not "complain" about the no school days, because if they did, it must indicate that they expect the schools to "raise their kids." For the record, I've never heard a parent say that they expect that -- or even WANT that. But I've heard many parents express frustration over what schools appear to expect from parents in terms of job flexibility.

Enough on that blog. The previous blog (about the dairy industry, rumors and the internet) has also been on my mind. I had dinner the other night with a friend who was raised on a dairy farm. I asked him about his knowledge about cows. I learned a few things about cows, and these facts raise some interesting issues concerning our responsibility toward cows, regardless of whether or not we choose to consume dairy or beef.

1. Holsteins have been bred for the QUANTITY of their milk. By their nature, they are big milk producers, and since farmers keep careful records, they keep breeding the "good producers" such that now, the average Holstein produces enough milk a day to feed something like eight calves. All of Jon and Kate's kids, fed exclusively from Kate.

Now that you have that image in your mind...

2. Jerseys have been bred for the QUALITY of their milk. By their nature, they produce very rich milk. Over time, they have been bred in such a way that their milk is actually TOO RICH FOR THEIR OWN CALVES. How sick is this: a Jersey calf will die if it nurses from its own mother; the milk is literally too rich for it. So, to keep a Jersey calf alive, a farmer has to milk the mother, mix the milk with water, and then feed it to the calf.

I find that fact sickening, but no more than the well-publicized fact that most turkeys no longer know how to reproduce because farmers have been doing it for them for so long. Yes, you read that right. Turkeys no longer know how to have turkey sex. Don't you feel sorry for them? I do.

Seriously, these two facts about Holsteins and Jerseys make me consider the issue that's been nagging me for several months: EVEN IF PEOPLE STOP EATING MEAT AND DAIRY, most farm animals still depend on people for survival. It's part of the reality of being a domesticated animal. The cows NEED TO BE MILKED. Or, in the case of the Jerseys, the calves need to be hand-fed. So, what is the logical thing that vegans -- who care so much about animals, the environment and health -- should advocate be done with cows? If we don't milk them, they'll suffer (ever had mastitis?) and could die from infection. If we don't feed their calves, the calves will die. It's naive and terribly uninformed to think that the cows could all just be put out to pasture. What stand, logically, should vegans take on taking care of cows (or turkeys or goats or hens or other domesticated animals)?

I don't know the answer; I just know that human greed for milk has created animals that now depend on us for survival. Cows need us for their survival, even if, in reality, we need neither their milk, their meat, nor their hides for ours. Poor cows.

Points of View

This past week, I lectured on social science paradigms. (Don't worry, I'm not gonna do that here.) Paradigms are basically points of view -- and the point of telling you the obvious is that we are, as a college English teacher was fond of saying, "constrained by our biography."

That is, it isn't always easy to be aware of what we assume, or what other people assume about us, until we (often mistakenly) say or do something that really pisses somebody off. THEN we're REALLY aware of how we are coming from different places, or, in social science speak, operating from different paradigms.

What I did this week was (unintentionally) run my paradigm smack-dab into a friend's paradigm, unwittingly making her really furious. See, I'm a parent (of three kids, two school-age) and she's a teacher (of fourth graders). She isn't a parent, though if she were, she might still have a different opinion of what I was so incensed about, due to her professional point of view. That's normal.

Here's the deal: many of us parents (particularly parents who work outside the home) are increasingly irritated (the polite word) at the number of half-days, no-school days, and in-service days in our kids' school schedules. We already rely on a carefully-planned arrangement of aftercare and coordinated "it's-your-turn-to-get-the-kids-today" schedules as it is. The family schedule is in a precarious balance, but most days it works pretty well, as long as the schedule isn't changed.

But, when schools throw us these odd days (no matter how much in advance), it leaves us scrambling to arrange care that is often hard to find. Few people want to commit to taking care of your kids when the number of days is so few and so random that it isn't financially fruitful -- or logistically possible -- for them to do so. And, for reasons I absolutely do not understand, a frighteningly large number of parents are comfortable leaving their middle school-age kids alone at home all day. I'm not in that camp.

To be perfectly honest, not only do I wish schools had a more consistent schedule (like kids in school 8:30-3, M-F, most weeks except for a week in Dec and a week in the spring), I'm all for shorter summer breaks and fewer holidays too. Schools still run as if there is an available family member in the home, able to care for the kiddos when school is not in session. They also seem to assume we're all farmers, too. Why else do our kids have these ridiculously long summer breaks?!

There are an awful lot of us without nearby relatives(or nearby relatives who also do not work). We have no family within 100 miles, for example. And the two family members we have (the ones who live 100 miles away) are a) ill and b) work full time and have their own three kids. It's hard enough (and expensive enough) to pay for all that summer camp and regular aftercare, let alone these additional days. And I can't rely on family for help.

So, I mentioned on Facebook how irritated I was at this predicament. This month, for instance, I have a kid home EVERY Friday (the middle schools here have different no-school days than the elementary schools). To top it off, my district has early release Wednesdays EVERY Wednesday -- something I find annoying as hell and wish so they would get rid of. It means EVERY Wednesday I interrupt my class to make sure that my middle schooler got in the house, locked the door behind her, and is OK. If she were actually in school like a "regular" day, I'd be able to get home before her and wouldn't have to interrupt my class. Aggravation!

In addition to those October changes to the regular schedule, my other child's aftercare program has an inservice day on a Monday this month -- so no aftercare that day (his Dad will have to take the afternoon off, because I teach Monday afternoons). All in all, SIX of my work days this month involve trying to find alternative care and/or not work (theoretically, I work M, W, F). I think I have more than enough justification for being irritated at the public schools. It's doubly ironic, since schools (and aftercare programs) are largely staffed by working women.

But my venting my frustration made my friend mad. True, in hindsight, I wish I had been a bit more diplomatic in my wording. In my defense, we are talking about a Facebook status line here...a place well-known for inflammatory wording intended to get people to respond (and that it did).

Anywho...she felt that I was venting at her expense, that I was not supporting public schools. She said I should either send my kids to private schools or not complain. She went on to mention several things that, indeed, many parents are not sufficiently aware of: her lunch break is all of 30 minutes; she deals constantly with kids with pretty terrible problems; she spends her "free time" calling DYFS or helping kids with homework; she annually spends more than $1000 of her personal income for school supplies that are not provided by the district; she works 10-12 hour days. She DESERVES these (often unpaid) days without the kids, so that she can get caught up on the latest changes to the curriculum. Indeed, if we parents think the constant changing of curriculum and testing is nuts, think of trying to change your teaching style or lesson plans every year or so. Indeed, teachers are "on" more than most of us are, and they are confronted with a bucketful of problems (everything from social work to curriculum changes to credentialing) all while having to maintain a professional demeanor in front of our unruly children. Yep, it's job I wouldn't want. But I'm so glad other people love the work (as my friend does) and that they do it well.

But my concerns (needing the schools to be in session for more days, and longer days at that) are not hers (needing more breaks, more support from parents, fewer additions to her teaching expectations, fewer hoops to jump through, fewer kids with problems). Her assumption about my problem ("your child care problems are not the school's concern") and the proposed solution ("go find out what is available in the community, or get together with other parents and establish it yourself, either be part of the problem or part of the solution") belie her simplistic interpretation of what is involved (and an assumption that I haven't already been looking for options). Sure, I'd love to part of the solution, but, frankly, this is a large-scale STRUCTURAL problem with our public schools, and it's gonna take a lot more than an occasional backyard camp or jumbo craft session with my kids and their friends to solve it. Similarly, my "Parents work! for God's sake! Why not teachers!" was just stupid, but also indicative of how deeply in my own world (my "paradigm") I was at the moment I wrote that.

But the interaction gave me a great opportunity to think of how ironic it is that the interests of parents and teachers are often NOT in sync. How unfortunate, because the ultimate goal -- raising the competent, confident leaders of tomorrow -- is. Time to get us all at the same table and find a paradigm and a structural solution that can benefit us all. Wanna come to the meeting? I make great coffee. But you gotta find the childcare. :)

Helpfulness

My youngest son was SO helpful today. He had, well, a "witto accident," and I only discovered it when I walked into his room, where he was playing, and was practically knocked out by the smell of poop.

"WHERE IS THE POOP?!" I was in full-blown interrogation mode. I. HATE. POOP.

He looked up at me and angelically said, "Oh, don't worry Mommy! I cleaned it with a towel!"

"WHERE IS THE TOWEL?!" Still in interrogation mode. The evidence was overwhelming and I needed to get rid of it. STAT.

"Oh, Mommy, it's in the bathroom, hanging up! I hung it up! Come Mommy! I show you!"

Off he trots, on his chubby short legs, to show me where he has hung up the soiled towel.

I grab it quickly, and throw it, along with other towels and washcloths that, honestly, probably never touched the poop, into the laundry basket.

Then I notice his clothes. Not the same ones he had on earlier.

"YOU CHANGED YOUR CLOTHES! WHERE ARE YOUR CLOTHES?!" This is far too important a crisis for me to lower the interrogation level. We're at the red level here. No mellow yellow or anxious orange for me. Crisis. National threat alert.

"Oh, I washed them and put them away! Come Mommy! I show you!"

Off we go back to his room, where he cheerfully shows me a pair of soaking wet underwear that he has "cleaned" and put back in his drawer "to dry." I grab that, and any clothing that has touched that, and toss those also into the laundry basket. Then, for good measure, I grab the towel hanging on his doorknob and the clothes lying on the floor. Again, probably never touched the poop. But one can never be too sure.

"WE HAVE TO CLEAN YOUR ROOM! I'M THROWING ALL THIS IN THE LAUNDRY AND THEN I'LL BE BACK UP HERE TO CLEAN AND VACUUM YOUR ROOM AND THE BATHROOM! AND WE'RE GIVING YOU A BATH! AND WE'RE CLEANING THE BATHROOM TOO!"

Army sergeants have nothing on me, that's for sure.

He cried a bit during the bath, insulted as he was that I did not think he'd cleaned well enough. But miraculously, he helped pick up and vacuum his room and clean the bathroom.

The whole scenario brought back memories of my other son, at about the same age, telling me that "he'd had an accident earlier," but not to worry, he'd "picked up the poop off the floor with a spoon!"

"WHERE IS THE SPOON?"

Blank stare?

"Did you put it in the garbage?"

Negative.

"Did you put it in the sink?"

No.

"Did you" -- long shot here -- "put it in the dishwasher?"

"NO! I put it in the drawer where the spoons go!"

That time, I sterilized every spoon, fork and knife in the drawer and the drawer too.

I hate poop. And kids are only "helpful" when you're not asking them to be.

The Political Nature of Parenting

I knew, or thought I knew, before I became a parent, that parenthood would be a challenge. A scary but wonderful adventure. But I think that I also kinda thought that people were exaggerating; I don't think I really believed, until I became a parent, that's it's the hardest job there is. Or that it is often thankless and unacknowledged, with many, many stumbles along with way. But here's the truth: It really is the hardest job I've ever done, and it comes with few accolades and no money. Your kids do NOT always appreciate you or what you do, and they don't always abide by your rules. And it's damn competitive, and you don't even get to control all the variables to ensure that you come across as the "best" parent. There's a DARN lot of things you don't control that end up affecting the outcome of all your hard work. Shit. That just doesn't seem fair.

This all begins with pregnancy, something that has, in modern western culture, become a political act in and of itself. The "battle" between au naturale and the medical world is fierce, with the vast majority of women ending up somewhere in between (and being criticized by both sides). Midwife? Doctor? Home birth? Hospital? Free-standing birth center? Water birth? Medication? Episiotomy? Birth position? Am I a bad Mom because I WANT meds? Am I a bad mother because I did NOT find pregnancy and birth to be the pinnacle event of my life? Holy crap, no wonder many women find birth stressful. Planning the event is worse than planning a wedding. (Truth: you can only plan so much, so if you're pregnant now and reading this and starting to get worried, just try to relax and know that you'll have the baby no matter what and that he or she will probably be fine regardless of what choices you make about the labor and the delivery. The babe controls more already than you'll want to acknowledge. Perhaps that's the first lesson of parenthood: you're really not in control.) I learned that the secret to getting through labor lies in one word: surrender.

After you get through the birth you gotta make another series of hotly-debated choices. Which parenting style is the best? There is a startling array of advisors out there, and many of them disagree with each other. There are no clear answers, though the advocates of each approach present "evidence" that their approach is the only sensible one (and developmentally appropriate and bound to launch the kid to greatness). The reality is that a parent has to make choices, often against friends' or relatives' better judgement, based on her family's needs and beliefs, and her kid's personality and her own. I'll add, though any parent already knows this: The personality of your kid is not necessarily the one you would have hoped for, and parents' and kids' personalities do NOT necessarily gel well. I think the Goddess has a lot of fun up there, dealing out challenges to us all.

Should I sleep with my child? Or should he learn to fall asleep on his own, by himself, in a crib, in another room? Should I exclusively breastfeed? Or is it OK for somebody else to give him a bottle of pumped breastmilk? Or, can I even -- GASP -- allow the kid to have a little formula? Or -- bigger gasp -- can I get away with not breastfeeding at all? Should I let the baby use a swing? Or a Johnny-Jump-Up? Or an exersaucer? Or a pacifier? Should I only use cloth diapers? Should I toilet train at six months? Or two years? Or let him decide on his own, no matter how old that is? Do I use time-outs? If so, when and how? Can I use Desitin? Tylenol? What about vaccinations? TV -- never or a little? When do I introduce solid food? And should it only be organic? Or only organic and homemade? Is Gerber really the antichrist?

I could blog here on what my choices were -- but that doesn't really matter. The point is that parenting is, hands-down, the most political act most people commit. I say "political" because decisions are hotly debated among parents, pediatricians, health advocates, nutritionists, teachers, and parenting advocates. And parents often wonder (often to the point of obsession) about whether their particular choice was the right one. And if something DOES turn out to be wrong with junior, parents often point to themselves first to question if it's their fault. It doesn't even matter that, often, it's not; they will still wonder if it was. Parents are very hard on themselves. Perhaps if I hadn't let him cry himself to sleep. Perhaps if I hadn't tried to toilet train him that early. Perhaps if I were more patient. Perhaps if I'd used a different toothpaste. Perhaps if I hadn't taken that medication during pregnancy. Perhaps perhaps perhaps.

The bummer, in my humble opinion, is that the choices become more, not less, daunting as the kids grow older. After all, when they are tiny, you can keep yourself and your babe in something of a cocoon. You breast feed or bottle feed; you sleep with them or you don't; you use cloth diapers or you don't; you toilet train early or you don't; you vaccinate or you don't; you use daycare or a nanny or you don't. But as they enter school, the number of influences on them grows exponentially, and with those, the number of things that challenge your personal choices and your memory.

My kids brush their teeth every morning and every evening; but do they EVERY night use the flouride rinse, floss AND take their flouride pill as their dentist wishes? Uh, no. Honesty here. I make sure they eat fruit and vegetables every day, but do they ALWAYS eat as many servings as they should? Doubtful. I pack their lunches every day, and they hear (daily) about good nutrition and can tell you what that is. But do they eat junk every day? Yes. They buy it at school. (Even though schools have gotten MUCH better at serving healthy food, most of it is still animal-based foods, and crap like onion rings and popsicles are still available for purchase.) Kids will buy it if it's available. Mine do. And, every day without fail, the healthy stuff that I packed in their lunches returns home with them. The healthy stuff that they do eat is served at breakfast and dinner; lunch has become a meal I cannot control.

Lunch is perhaps simply a symbol of the fact that my kids are growing up, away from their childhood family and, little by little, into their own worlds. They're not there yet -- not by a long shot -- but their dietary choices and their choices of friends are increasingly their own. They're at that point in their lives where as their parent I have to hope that the messages they've received at home are somewhere in their heads, available to them for their own use when neither parent is nearby. And I hope that they know what they've been taught and that by their choices, they show us to have been "good" parents. If I didn't know fear before, I know it now. And it makes the choice of epidural-or-not seems enviable and far too simple.

Using Time

How many times have we told ourselves, or told our children, "You're wasting time"? Far too many times to count. And I suspect the more educated we are, or the more ambitious we are (for ourselves or our children), the more often we utter the phrase.

Lately, I've thought a lot about time wasting. After all, I've been on vacation, a time where we are supposed to "waste time," but be able to enjoy it without those nagging thoughts of things left to do when we get back home. I am never quite able to forget about what awaits me when I get back home.

I'm not the most productive person in the world, yet if I were to list what I have accomplished, I think I'd sit back and say to myself that I actually haven't done so badly with my time so far. Yet, as I sit and blog, or read fanfiction, or watch my kids make virtual monkeys jump on virtual trampolines, I think of time usage and feel guilty for our collective waste of it.

At the same time, I sometimes wonder if there's a hidden virtue to the time spent doing seemingly mindless things. The kid who spends HOURS a day shooting a basketball might just end up being good enough to play professionally; if nothing else, he's probably not obese. The kid who reads "too much" likely does pretty well in school. The kid who is so good at getting other kids to play a game together might do well in theater or organizing. Heck, even the kid who can talk endlessly on the phone or type 100s of texts on her cell phone per month might be learning skills that would serve her well in the business world. So, I try to take a proverbial chill pill (at least once a week, I'm still working up to daily) on what I perceive to be my kids' (and my) stupid uses of time.

I remember reading, some years ago, an article written by a TV writer about how she ended up working in television. The part I remember was actually about TV watching -- something parents everywhere nag their kids about and blather on endlessly to each other on their respective attempts to limit or eliminate altogether. Turns out, this VERY successful TV writer remembers completing some school assignment on TV watching and learning that she spent 35 hours PER WEEK watching TV as a kid. Wow. I've. Never. Even. Come. Close. Perhaps that's why I don't write for television now.

Just kidding. But the point here is that sometimes what strikes us as a waste of time ends up being later viewed as a good USE of time. At least, that's what I'm telling myself when I take time to write these blogs. I love writing them. But I don't know if it's "doing" anything more for me yet. I hope so. :)

Family Communication

I hate hearing the following: "It wasn't me;" "I didn't do it!" "It's not my turn to do that!" "HE did it, not me!" "Why are you asking me and not him?!" Or, "I think you love her more than me." Etc.

The refrain goes on and on. Despite chore charts and incentive plans, allowances and penalties, my kids persist in finding ways to point out how life is SO unfair and how they are so innocent. I actually think this is totally normal, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I want phantom kids: ones who make no noise, pick up after themselves without reminders or complaints, don't break things, and who get along wonderfully. Turns out I have real children.

We recently reinstated the venerable family meeting, and gave everyone a chance to air their grievances against each other. Whew! Not a pleasant meeting at all, though it was probably good to have it. Together, we came up with a new and revised (notice I didn't add "improved") chore chart, complete with a list of monetary penalties which occur for certain offenses (such as swearing, a habit the middle one has recently acquired and, were there are world class title to win there, he'd get it). Now, off to implement said plan. Easier created than implemented, as ususal.

According to my children's logic, we must have a band of miscreant, destructive aliens living in the house, for the toys and clothes left on the floor, the globs of toothpaste on the bathroom counters, and the mysteriously broken items in the house are NEVER the result of my children' actions, at least never the result of the most-likely guilty party. Similarly, it is never "their" turn to take out the trash, put dishes in the sink, or feed the cat. Sigh. I wonder sometimes if I am a total failure in the parenting department. Alas, I think I'm a real parent, too. Turns out, genetics really is true: real parents have real kids. Bummer.

To be fair, my kids would probably start a similar essay with the following sentence. "I hate hearing the following: 'Please pick up your clothes off the floor,' 'Please put the milk back in the refridgerator,' 'Please go take a shower,' 'Please pick up the toys in the backyard.'"

If it feels like parenting is nothing more than an endless list of poorly-received requests, it must seem like childhood is an endlessly annoying to-do list, one that is never conceived by the child. My kids correctly point out that I am a champion nag. Ug. What an awful personality quality, but if I'm honest, it is so true. I can point out to them that I'd be less of a nag if they were more self-starters, but it seems that immaturity prevents them from seeing my logic.

From my perspective, one of the most annoying things about the nagging-and-complaining communication pattern is how it perpetuates the very things it aims to prevent (the nagging and the complaining). I've moved to a silent chart -- I point to it and raise my eyebrows, in the silent, motherly sign of "did you do those things you're supposed to have done?" *Kinda* works. Some days. At least with the two who can read.

I've come to the conclusion that family communication probably improves when kids are no longer kids and kids and parents no longer live under the same roof. Shocking!