Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Jon & Kate's Divorce: Not Just Another Tabloid Story

The Jon & Kate implosion has been a lovefest to tabloid writers, ever since rumors of Jon's extramarital trists hit the newsstands.  I've never watched the show, but I got the cliff notes by catching the headlines at the checkout line and posts across the blogsphere.   Pretty soon, with a gazillion voices reporting the same worn out drama, my soap-opera curiosity fizzled out on Jon & Kate.  Puh-leeze.  Can everybody just get a real life?  Hello.  It's reality TV.

My snub on all the drama came to a jarring halt last Monday, when Jon & Kate announced they were separating.  Divorced. 

The media focused their headlines on the breakup of Jon & Kate's marriage.  But, a different headline flashed across my mind:  Their family is broken up. The children are going to suffer.

Having never seen an episode, I was crying telling my husband about it later that night.  It's not because I was bonded to any of the characters.  My sobs came from a dark and terrifying place I thought I had long left behind.

Simple Pleasures Are Simply The Best

This weekend, I got up especially early to hit our local farmer's market before the crowd of normal people got there.  What I mean by normal are the lucky ones who wake up after the rooster crows, after sleep deprived parents like me awaken to the cockle-doodle-doo of their little TJs around the world. 

With Hubby watching the kids back at home, I make my way through the quiet corridor of fresh fruits and veges. The "farmers" were still busy unpacking and setting up their booths.  I smiled.  Ahh, how good it is to get first pick without having to fight for that perfectly ripened apricot!

If I go there with TJ, he usually gets busy taste testing the goods, while I hurry up to pick and pay.  Then, I strategically zig zag to make only the necessary stops.  Lounging around to browse?  Forget that.

Not this time.  Leisurely, almost giddy, I taste test every cherry from different vendors before I make my way back to patronize the lucky winner.  I stop to chat with Robbie, the Corn Guy, who reminds me to not to husk the corn unless I'm eating it that night.  Gotta keep it fresh!  I even got a tip from him this time since I lingered longer than usual. 

Being a Single Parent For a Week

For one week, I became a single parent. It wasn't even a full week. For five days, I was left at home to fend for a six week newborn, a three year toddler, and myself.  Hubby had to fly out of town for a business trip, and I had been dreading it for months.  I was still postpartum, not even hardly healed up yet, and still new at this mom-of-two-kids thing.  I did my best to prepare by lining up friends and family to bring me meals and by getting a babysitter during the witching hours at dinner and bedtime.  Still, I had a very uneasy feeling about it all. 

I tried to get my "game face" on to press into the challenge.  First, I told myself, Look, your mom was a single parent when your little sister was a newborn.  She did it.  If she can do it, you can, too!   But, that comparison didn't really help because my mom was a young twenty-two when that happened.  At an age closer to forty-two, I shuddered at the thought of doing feedings around the clock, wrestling with the older one during night-wakings, and wrangling two kids during the day.

Recession Proofing My Children

I wasn't an econ major back in college, so I can't quote the textbook definition of what is a recession.  I can, however, tell you how having very little money affected me as a child, and continues to affect me today as a parent.  My story doesn't begin with, "Although we didn't have very much, we were rich in laughter and our days were carefree." 

As a single parent carrying the burden of being the bread winner, my mother was a hard worker.  She did her best to love us the way she knew how:  by doing what she could to make ends meet.  But, along with the stresses and pressures of making ends meet, my mother who was constantly worrying and never at rest in her heart.

I was the oldest child in the family and my mother was so transparent with me, that I knew everything about our financial situation and saw up close how it negatively affected her.  And as children often do, I took on the role of compensating for her worry by taking it on my shoulders.  I would be my mom's hero.  I would solve our families' problems.  As soon as I was old enough to work, I was determined to do what I could do lift the burden of worry off my mom.

Getting Sleep is Hard To Do

Sleeping is one of the most underrated luxuries that singles have.  The other day, I drove through downtown late one afternoon, having picked TJ up from preschool.  With a screaming newborn unhappy in his carseat and TJ whining about who-knows-what (it was hard to hear), I couldn't help but stare longingly at the care-free twenty-somethings sitting outside the cafes with their lattes and cappuccinos, laptops opened for leisurely googling (or blogging, in my case!).  I felt like a prisoner trapped on Alcatraz, able to see the city lights through the window bars, but shut out of everyday life.  Oh, the humanity!

You don't know how good you've got it until it's gone.  And boy, with the arrival our second born, sleep has really gone out the window.

The De-perfecting of Motherhood

Before I became a mom, I considered myself to be a flexible, happy-go-lucky type of spirit.  If there was ever a group outing at night to grab bite to eat, I'd always be the one with the "whatever's good" vote.  I'd often find myself waiting around while the others debated where we'd end up.

I discovered, however, because of a recent landscaping incident, that I may have always been a perfectionist.  I think the perfectionistic streak might have been latent or hidden, but motherhood has been the trigger to set it off. 

My landscaper suggested that we create a "natural" border for the lawn we were putting in our backyard.  I had wanted a very straight, clean line between the grass and the flagstone that would line the perimeter of the yard.  But, my experienced landscaper advised otherwise.  "We can certainly do that, but I think it would look a lot more attractive having a more natural line.  It would look too fake if it was perfectly straight."

The Bachelor's Lame Excuse

I had never watched the ABC reality show, The Bachelor, but I heard that for the first time this season, a single dad was picked to be the bachelor.  I wasn't going to sit through a season of watching 25 women fawn and fall over this guy every week, but I was curious to see what it was all about.  Harmless indulgence, I thought.   Like watching a made-for-tv movie from the Lifetime Movie Network.  I know you can't find true love on TV, but it's fun to watch dreams come true in an hour or two... even if it's fake.

I Tivo'd the finale last Monday and made sure I beat Hubby to the living room couch and remote control that night. 

"Why are you watching that junk?"  Hubby called across the room as I clicked through the opening commercials.

"Oh, I just wanna see what crazy stuff people are watching these days.  It's just for fun,"  I hollered back, crunching a mouth full of Snyder's Mustard & Onion Pretzels.

My craving for some entertainment, however, quickly turned into a sick stomach, as I sat shocked and angry, by the time the finale and the "life-six-weeks-after show" After the Final Rose aired.

Tax Breaks for Moms in the Stimulus Bill

Ever since the economy has taken a nose dive, us good ol' capitalist Americans have been totally obsessed with figuring out what the silver bullet is: the perfect stimulus bill.  And yet, if I look at who the stimulus bill targets, I find a very important interest group missing.  Where are the moms?

When you talk about who holds the spending power, mothers are at the top of the heap.  According to BSM Media, moms today spend up to "$2.1 trillion with projections of $3 trillion by 2012."

I wonder what the ROI would be on the new $787 billion fiscal stimulus bill, if it were to benefit moms, who have the buying power to pump trillions of dollars into the economy?  What would happen if a portion of the $300 billion in tax breaks were focused on what moms specifically care about? 

Our Child Only Speaks English and It's Okay

As a first generation Asian American growing up in the Silicon Valley during the seventies, I was always encouraged to speak and learn English well.  And when I became an adult, working here in high tech, it was rare to be asked whether I spoke a second language.  Even during the few times I've tried to speak Chinese to some of my overseas born co-workers, they would let me know, in subtle ways, that they preferred that I speak English with them at the office. 

So, it feels strange and quite ironic that I now feel pressured to raise my children to be bilingual.  It doesn't seem okay to raise them to speak English first and then encourage them to learn Chinese later in life, which is what I prefer.  To my surprise, I often find myself receiving unsolicited advice from people who feel very strongly that the best thing I could do for my children is to start out speaking Chinese with them from the very beginning.

Someone can launch into this spiel at any moment, friend or stranger, young or old.  I get the uneasy feeling that speaking a second language during preschool years is ranked right up there on the list of best parenting practices in today's culture, alongside breastfeeding, positive discipline, and keeping our children free from corn syrup and too much tv.

Don't Call It Fear Based Parenting

It's never occurred to me that I could be parenting by fear until a recent run in with a squirrel.  Yes, you know those cute little bushy tailed animals that are adorable between the water color pages of children story books.  Once I encounter them at my friendly neighborhood park, however, they become merely rodents with ugly paws that could potentially attack my child.  Even thinking about them sends chills up and down my spine.  Yuck.

TJ and I were having lunch with some friends at a picnic table at a nearby park, when one beady eyed black haired critter zig zagged closer and closer to us.  While chewing on a bite of ham and cheese sandwich, I kept a steady eye on the squirrel's whereabouts.  Suddenly, it sprang forward, landing less than a foot away from where we sat.

"AAAHHHH!"  I let out a yelp.  I stomped and clapped to chase the squirrel away, but he stared right back at me.  Not even flinching, although it's menacing whiskers were twitching. "Oooh, I hate that squirrel!  It's not even scared of us!  Let's move to another table."

"Why, Mommy?" TJ wondered, oblivious to the danger of squirrel attacks.

"Because that squirrel's scary.  I'm scared of that squirrel,"  I responded.

In contrast, my mom friend calmly turned to her child and said, "Now, Ethan, I want you to know that squirrels are not scary.  We don't need to be afraid of the squirrels. The problem is that the squirrel isn't acting normal... So, that is why we are concerned."

I instantly felt a flush of embarrassment, having my response reframed.  This good friend of mine is very passionate about the importance of avoiding fear based parenting in raising children, which I agree with.

Did I somehow introduce a negative, fear based attitude towards animals in TJ's innocent and perfect world?  It didn't even cross my mind.