Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Fresh Mint Sparkle Whitener with Tartar Control and Dry Mouth

I'm getting killed by brand extensions.

I went to buy toothpaste for my kids the other day.  Toothpaste has been a big problem in our house, because of its propensity to get smeared all over the bathroom countertop, or dried up inside the fancy new standing-upright bottles.  We finally switched back to plain-old toothpaste in the squeeze tube (with threats to put the top back on properly EVERY TIME), because there's nothing small enough yet sturdy enough to poke down inside the fancy standing-upright bottles to dislodge the dried-up clot that forms when the top gets left off YET AGAIN - except for a nail, and that's below even my low standards for mothering hygiene.

But now I have the problem of 27 different types of Crest squeeze tubes - and I bought the wrong one.

Zero Female CEOs - Well, DUUH

There has been a big buzz lately over Google's decision to raise rates at its child care facility.  "Elitist cretins," say outraged detractors.  "Free market - why subsidize one small group (parents)?" say supporters.  "It's worth it to me for top-quality child care," say price-insensitive Google-aires. 

Now there's more buzz over the departure of Diane Greene, the founder/CEO of VMware and the last of the Valley female big company CEOs.  "The pipeline [of female CEO candidates] is light.  It's not a pretty picture," the San Jose Mercury News quotes Wendy Beecham, head of our local Forum for Women Entrepreneurs.

Well, to put it bluntly, DUUH.  No child care (or at least no affordable child care) = few mommies in high powered positions.  Few mommies in high powered positions = few women candidates for CEO jobs.

1,634 Hours to go...

"MOM!  I'm bored!  There's nothing to do..."  Despite the days and weeks of longing, when summer finally did arrive, by 9:20 AM my kids were back to the same old refrain. 

While it seems longer to a working mom, summer vacation is actually only 69 days long.  That's only 1,656 hours in which you have to keep your children reasonably safe, somewhat entertained, fed, and/or under the covers.  Unfortunately for me, the bored problem cropped up only 22 hours after the final bell rang.

"Well, out the door, go play outside."  Didn't I read somewhere that free play outdoors is the best thing you can do for your kids?  "But don't forget to brush your teeth and put on sunscreen!" Oh, wait, we're not supposed to put on sunscreen,  it prevents adequate Vitamin D absorption.  "OK, don't put on sunscreen."  At least not the $10-a-bottle kind, put on this $22-a-bottle kind because the cheap one has terrible chemicals in it.

Think Global, Eat Local?

I was thrilled when my friend suggested we split a "share" in our local community supported agriculture program.  I've been trying to buy local and add more vegetables into my family's diet.  This seemed like a great way to do both - and with the added bonus that I get to go with my kids to the farm to pick up our organic produce each week, engaging them in their food and providing all sorts of enriching experiences to make them life-long environmentalists and healthy eaters. 

"Hey, guys," I said, on our way home from swim team practice, "we're going to stop off at Hidden Villa and pick up our vegetables."

"Wow, we're getting vegetables from Hidden Villa?  COOL!" the kids said - they love the summer camp, and our regular visits to the goats and pigs and chickens.  Excellent, I thought, my plan is working...The pickup went great, too.  They helped me load our veggies into the reusable cloth bags I brought just for that purpose.  But then we got home, and reality hit.  "We're having arugula and radish pasta for dinner???"

The Discipline Disappearance

I was just finishing my 50th email of the morning when I heard the sounds no mom working from home to cope with Spring Break wants to hear.

Crash
Thud
"Waaaa...Mommmmmm...."
"It's not my fault.  He pushed ME first."
"Waaaaa..." (louder now, 'cause he's mad)

I hit the Send key and dash upstairs.  Daughter has pushed son across the room, where he crashed into a toy box and hit the floor.  No blood, so that's at least a positive.  "Missy, you're in a lot of trouble!  I'm going to..."  I'm going to what?  There are no punishments left.  Now what do I do?

Maria, I'll Be Waiting for You

I recently got a review copy of a charming little book by California First Lady Maria Shriver, "Just Who Will You Be?" (subtitle: Big Question*Little Book*Answer Within).  It's a quick, light read, and even has a cool point, that fame and fortune are not as important as having a passionate vision for your life.  But the book overall left me wanting...

I've admired Maria Shriver for about 35 years, since I tagged along with my mom handing out McGovern/Shriver bumper stickers (I still have a pin somewhere - my first campaign pin!).  She was  enough older than me to be cool, without being so grown-up as to be inaccessible.  I actually voted for Schwarzenegger, my first Republican vote ever, because if Maria Shriver was married to him, he couldn't be all bad. And I'm glad to meet her more in this book, she seems as genuinely nice and humble and intelligent as I've always imagined she'd be.  But Maria - and I say this with respect and admiration - you can do better than this.

Prop 13 and Silicon Valley

I'm still in shock from a presentation I heard on the state of the finances of our local public school district.  Horrible fact #1: Our schools stand to lose $4 million in funding next year due to revaluation of local property, and the consequent reduction in taxes.  Horrible fact #2: 25% of the property in our school district is on the tax rolls at a value of less than $200,000 - in a community where the median property price is $1.87 million. 

Go stand outside your house.  You probably pay $20,000 a year in property tax if your house is worth the median property price and you bought in the last five years.  Now count four houses to the left.  Those people pay $2,000.  That one might be a little old granny living on a fixed income.  Hard to begrudge her.  But then count four houses to the right.  That one's probably owned by a semi-retired senior partner at Dewey, Cheetem, and Howe law firm.  He works 10 hours a week, serves on a couple of boards, and probably pulls in low six figures a year.  And he pays $2,000 as well, thanks to Proposition 13.  So your children's education suffers.

Mommy Guilt

So I'm thinking that I've got this Mommy Guilt thing pretty much under control.  Miss a basketball game to go to my favorite yoga class?  No problemo.  Skip the birthday party for the kid my son hardly knows so that I can sit around the house on Saturday, instead of driving to some neon kiddie paradise?  No worries. Feed the kids microwave chicken nuggets and orange chemical mac-and-cheese?  They're happier anyway.

Then comes March, and Private School Acceptance season.  And all that well-adjusted Mommy confidence flies through the window.  Confession time: I send my kids to public school.  Not even a charter school or a magnet program - just the neighborhood school that's 5 minutes down the street.

The Long-Term Legacy of Illness

I have a lot to say on the topic of illness.  I thought about writing a heartwarming post, about how my community of friends, family, and mothers' club members were so kind and generous when I was seriously ill with pneumonia.  Then I thought of writing an informative post, about my friend's web site for people who are taking care of elderly parents.  Then I thought of writing a funny post, about the flu cycling around and around my family.

But I'm not going to.  Instead, I will remind people that although our high-tech medical system can cure so many things, once you have been seriously ill, YOU CANNOT GET HEALTH INSURANCE.  Ever. 

We're All the Same Under the Non-Recyclable Plastic Dome

A bunch of moms from my son's class met for lunch the other day.  A couple of us knew each other, but many of us didn't.  We loaded up our plates at the Indian buffet, and sat down to polite chit-chat.  Texas Mom and Chinese Mom compared notes on the local housing market ("My husband refuses to buy anything yet, because he thinks prices are going to come down").  Two California Moms exchanged notes on web site advertising options ("We're selling direct, because Google didn't really get us enough.").  Everybody agreed that our first grade teacher was fabulous. 

But what really got the party going was when the discussion turned to feeding our families.  "My husband wants me to cook home food every night!" groaned Indian Mom.

2008 Election Through the Eyes of a 4th Grader

My 9-Year-Old Daughter: "Mom? I'm, like, the ONLY one in my class who wants Hillary for President."
Me: "Who do the other children want?"
Her: "They want Obama."
Me: "Why do they want him?"
Her: "Because their moms do." (and they say Union endorsements are powerful) "But I still want Hillary, because she would be our first woman president." (hey, at least she's almost voting on issues, rather than party line)

The QUESTION

No, not the birds and the bees question (we've already had that one).  The Santa question.  It finally happened - sort of.

The kids awoke on Christmas morning to a stuffed animal and enormous candy cane in their stockings, plus some Playmobil toys and videos on the floor underneath (Santa has never yet figured out how to get those rectangle boxes into the stocking itself).  Squeals of delight, ripping of packaging, swapping of licks - the usual.  Then the fun of Christmas itself, and then the recovery of the days after, and then house guests, and here we are, a week later.  My daughter snuggles up to me.  "Mom? Those toys and videos under the Christmas stockings?  Did you put them there?"

The California Storm - View from 7,000 feet

OK, I'm one of the stupid ones.  We stayed at our place in the mountains for the Storm of the Century.  The kids are out of school, we have high-speed Internet, and I wasn't going to get anything more done "down the hill" than up here.  And, if they do get the ski lifts open on the weekend, I'm going to be up to my waist in fluffy powder.

We're all actually kind of excited. We've had days to prepare - we made the 45-minute drive to the grocery store on Wednesday and stocked up on milk and batteries. We waved goodbye to friends and neighbors, who wimped out and drove home.   And now the wind is howling and the snow is falling - and so far we still have electricity and phone connections (the only thing gone is cell phone coverage).

Pumping and Driving

It's tough being a working mom, and it's even tougher being a breastfeeding working mom.  Now try being a breastfeeding working sales mom, where you spend a lot of time offsite, away from your office with the power outlet and the curtains that can be drawn.  For the desperate saleswoman, Medela makes a car adapter for the Pump - n - Style, a Godsend, as anyone working and nursing knows.  But only the truly desperate know that it is possible to pump and drive. 

Not that I ever did this myself, mind you.  It is far too dangerous.

Step 1: Dress properly.  A nursing blouse, with those slits down the sides, is a requirement - for decency, for comfort, and to help hold the flanges on. 

The Ultimate Family Car

"I could never get by without my minivan/SUV" - that's the constant refrain I hear from Silicon Valley mommies.  I was there, too, but I recently got to drive around for a week in my husband's new Prius, and I'm smitten.  With a nod to David Letterman, here's my list of.

The Top 10 Reasons Why the Prius is the Ultimate Family Car

10. The Kid-Size Outside: we all know children love kid-size things - chairs, bikes, tables, etc.  Well, park the Prius next to my 4Runner, and you'll see just how kid-size the car is.  My children treat the Prius almost like a pet.

Halloween Costumes - There Is No Try

Regular readers of this Blog will not be surprised at the choice of Halloween costumes in my house this year.  My son wants to be Luke Skywalker.  My daughter? Princess Leia, of course, and *not* the one in the bikini.  That will come, but hopefully not until she's in college.  I was thrilled, though, because both of these costumes required use of my beloved sewing machine.

I love my sewing machine, but unfortunately my skill doesn't come close to matching my enthusiasm.  This makes Halloween costumes perfect, because mostly you wear them in the dark so no one can see that the seams don't quite line up, or the neck hole is kind of off-center.  And for that flash photo for Grandma, you can always strategically position the goody bag to cover up major mistakes.

And Star Wars is especially great because of the awe-inspiring web sites that chronicle other costumers' amazing productions.  To make my son a Jedi cloak, I visited Obi-Wan's Jedi Academy so often I didn't have to type more in my browser than www.j ...  (I skipped the section about how to build an almost-functioning light saber from a $450 old camera part available on Ebay - he can't bring weapons to school, anyway).   And Leia's white dress from the first Star Wars film has its own lingo in the costuming  world - "ANH Senatorial Robe", to distinguish from

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

A friend of mine sent me a sales training link to a YouTube video of Fred Rogers testifying before the US Senate.  He got the Senate to give PBS $20 million - and in the 1960s, that was real money, not just the cost of five minutes in Iraq.  That was the sales piece.  But what really hit me was his discussion of the pedagogical reasons behind what he did, how important it was to give kids things like the Neighborhood of Make Believe (remember!?!) to work out their issues.  Wow, you don't get that on SpongeBob, do you?

So, as a Good Mom of the 21st Century, I went straight to Netflix and added Mr. Rogers to my queue.  Hey, I did even more - I bumped it to the *top*.

Health Insurance Rant

Once upon a time there was a little girl who got her health insurance through her company, and everything was grand.  Then one day she left the company so that she could be self-employed, work part-time, and spend more time raising her kids.  But she still got health insurance through her husband's company, so everything was still grand.  Then one day her husband's company went out of business.  That's when she discovered the pathetic state of the health care in this country.

When a company closes down, you can't get COBRA.  Your only choice is an individual health plan.  But this little girl had an abnormal PAP smear 14 years ago, and benign fibroids showing up in her mammogram, so Blue Shield said she couldn't get health insurance with them.  She was now High Risk, and would have to pay $1,400 per month for health insurance for her family.  That was when she tried to get health insurance just for her children, because while she was willing to play fast and loose with her own health, she was not willing to make that choice for her kids.

Work/Family Math

A family unit can support 80 hours a week of work outside the home before the wheels start to come off.

In the years since my daughter was born, my husband and I have punched the family time clock in multiple ways - both of us working 40 hours a week, him working 60 hours and me working 20 hours, him working 80 hours and me working zero (we won't mention that awful time post-Dot-com-Bubble when neither of us was working more than about 15 hours...).  The conclusion is always the same - cross the line for any extended length of time and watch all hell break loose.

We've tested it with our friends, too.  There's S, who logs excruciating hours to keep up with the New York markets as well as her West Coast clients, while her husband stays home (or rather drives around) with the

Star Wars Math

I always expected to have communication trouble with my daughter at some point - over dates, cell phone usage, the Internet, clothes, or whatever.  But I never thought it would be about Star Wars.

Yes, my daughter has discovered Star Wars.  While I think this is cute, and I'm learning things I never knew (or wanted to - for instance, did you know all TIE fighters are identical, which reinforces the Empire's ideas of conformity), we're having a problem communicating.  For me, Star Wars One will always be the movie I saw at the Mamaroneck Playhouse in 1977, that set a new high standard for sci-fi films.  For her, it's the movie with the pod race, that set a new low for George Lucas (never thought it would get worse than Princess Leia in a metal bikini, little did I know worse was to come...).

"Mom, I want to watch Star Wars Two," she says.  I agree, thinking of

Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise

Most middle-class families could afford to send their children to private school if they really wanted to.  So why should we provide welfare handouts for those kids by allowing them to attend public school?  End taxpayer subsidies for undeserving children, kick them out of public school, and let the market do its work.  (I'm paraphrasing from Paul Krugman's column in The New York Times)

Gasp...pause...splutter...But wait!  Education is important.  Middle-class kids in public school raise the quality of education for poorer children!  Education is a fundamental right! OMG, how am I going to afford two private tuition bills?

Well, yes - but as Mr. Krugman points out, it's an "accident of history" that Americans expect to pay for public education for children regardless of income, but feel it is an outrage to pay for health insurance

Open Letter to Camp Directors

There’s a disturbing trend among the week-long camps that represent the working mother’s daycare option for summer around here. It’s not the weekly tuition that starts at $400 and goes up from there, although one could say it’s disturbing that my income barely covers my daycare costs during these summer weeks. It’s not the fact that you have to sign up for them by February at the latest, although I’ve never yet managed to have my summer fully planned early enough to get my kids in camp as much as I need to work (good thing no one’s counting the video-watching hours over the summer…).

No, the trend I’m talking about is closing ceremonies, usually around noon on Friday. Closing ceremony? For a five-day camp? My son barely remembers the name of his counselor by Friday (he’s convinced the young man who coached his soccer camp was named Bend). He certainly had a good time at camp, but it hardly merits a half-hour commemorative ceremony. Plus, when camp starts at 9 and ends at 2 (unless it is closing ceremony day), and is located 25 minutes away, you don’t exactly get a lot of work hours in for your $450.

Take Your Kids to the Woods

The best thing we did this summer with my kids was one of the cheapest and least fancy.  We went backpacking overnight at Carson Pass in the Sierra Nevada. 

It didn't start real well.  My husband couldn't join us, so it was just the kids and me, loading gear into my "official" backpack, and into their day packs.  "But, Mom, what are we going to DO for all that time," asks my son, six, trying to figure out what toys he can stuff into his backpack.  "Remember," I say, "if you bring it, you have to carry it."  He settles on a portable chess set and a pack of cards.

Family Vacation: What Makes it Work

Having just returned from two weeks with 24 members of my husband's extended family, then a week with 13 members of my family, I find the family vacation thread really hits home.  We've had some pretty good family vacations and some horrible ones, but the good ones have a few things in common:

Adequate privacy: best is a separate condo for each nuclear family unit with separate sleeping accommodations for parents and children.  If that's not possible, then at least a private room for each parental unit plus a bunk room for the kids to pile in.  Nothing worse than spending every single night of your precious two week vacation in a beautiful place...sleeping with your pajamas on, cause Junior's in the cot next to that delicious king-size bed!

A destination: hanging out at someone's house may fill your quota of family face time, but don't expect it to be a vacation.  It's too easy for host to swing by the office, to just bring the kids to gymnastics, to stop off at Home Depot because we're in the neighborhood -- leaving the vacationing family members flipping through old copies of Time, wondering where the h**l are the coffee filters, and swearing NEVER AGAIN.

Ability to be autonomous: it's worth it to get the ski-in, ski-out condos so that Uncle can hit the lifts at 7:59:59 and stay until ski patrol kicks him off in the evening, while Aunties can sleep until 10, ski from 11-1:30 and then hang out in the bar, and you can put the kids down for that afternoon nap and pull out your laptop for some quick blogging. 

Subsidized cost: Someone's gotta foot the bill, and it's too fraught with tension to have Investment Banker sibling consider a $5K vacation to be an inexpensive family getaway, while for Academia sibling that means another year with that awful orange carpet in the family room.  Hate to tell you this, Mom and Dad, but family harmony on break means a visit to Father Federal.

Someone else cooking: Mealtime is the worst.  Cousin Johnny won't eat anything green, Aunt Millie is on Atkins, the baby is constantly at risk of falling out of the sub-standard high chair that came with the condo, and everyone knows we can't have alcohol around Grandpa.  Just suck it up and go out to a restaurant.  OK, you'll still have problems with Atkins and alcohol, but at least Johnny can order grilled cheese with french fries and they have placemats for the kids to color on.

Now our sister-in-blogdom who started this thread is on a family vacation that fits a lot of these, and she's still going stir-crazy (my heart goes out to you, ______!).  So you see, there's no guarantee.  But if you can stand it, there are two really great things about spending the summer with your family:

1. Your mom gets a great picture for her Christmas Card, which brings her immense joy; and
2. When you get home, your regular life feels like a vacation!

My life on hold

I haven't posted for a while, 'cause I've had to put my life on hold.  I've been reading Harry Potter. 

The bad news is that my daughter has been at sleepaway camp and missed the chance to go down to our wonderful local indie kids bookstore Linden Tree in downtown Los Altos and get the first copies at midnight last Friday.  The good news is that I haven't had any competition for our copy - hubby is generously letting me read it first.

I don't know if Harry has changed kids' reading habits forever.  I don't care, either.  I'm just delighted to see the sort of worldwide hype usually reserved for action movie three-quels being applied to a book.  And I'm thrilled that children's literature FINALLY has some good girl characters in it - apologies to Susan and Lucy Pevensie, but they didn't actually get to fight Dementors, now, did they?  They had to sit on the sidelines while Peter and Edmund did the honors.

But the biggest thing for me about Harry Potter is that it represented a sort of epiphany for me.  I realized, about half-way through the series, that I didn't identify as much with Hermione, or even Tonks, as I did with ... Mrs. Weasley.  Her greatest fear was that in the epic struggle between Good and Evil, one of her family members might die. 

While it is a bit of a shock to realize I'm definitely middle aged, I'm not really upset that this is what it is all about at this point in my life.  I'm past expecting I'll have global impact in any epic struggle - never say never, but come on, let's get real.  But to equip my kids to face the world, wands in hand, convinced that someday they will confront our Muggle Voldemorts and ready to step up to the challenge - what greater joy could a person ask for? 

And what greater terror than to realize that the decisions they make might someday put them in harm's way, and there's nothing you can do about it, because it is the right thing to do and they're living out the values you instilled in them?

So Molly Weasley, JK Rowling, and parents of US servicemen and -women, I raise a glass of pumpkin juice to you!  Thank you for everything.

The Family Vacation

Here's the list of things to do before leaving for two weeks for Family Vacation:

1. Pack for kids: Mom
2. Pack for Mom: Mom
3. Line up cat-sitter: Mom
4. Line up plant-waterer: Mom
5. Purchase Father's Day present for father-in-law (who we will be with): Mom
6. Return all library books, including the ones under son's pillow: Mom
7. Buy books for kids to read on the plane (we left a library book in the seat back pocket last year, and it cost $20 to replace): Mom
8. Do all laundry: Mom
9. Get cash: Mom
10. Stop the mail: Dad

What is wrong with this picture?

Clearly, I need a vacation...

Grill Marks on my Butt

The post for this link was taken down. Please see our public apology post and our discussion "The All-White PTA? Your Turn".

The Problem of the White PTA

The post for this link was taken down. Please see our public apology post and our discussion "The All-White PTA? Your Turn...".

True North

I recently attended a presentation by Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic and current Harvard Business School professor.  His book True North is an investigation into what makes a leader.  He and his team interviewed over 100 leaders of business, politics, non-profits, etc., to understand how they got to where they are.  And what commonalities did they find?  Not many.  Turns out you can rise to leadership via any number of routes, and leadership manifests itself in many different ways.

But there was one thing many of these leaders had in common: in their childhoods, they had to overcome a significant obstacle.  They grew up in impoverished West Virginia.  They lost their fathers at an early age.  They worked in the corner drugstore to save money for college.  Their families immigrated to this country with only the clothes on their backs.  They had dyslexia.   According to Bill George, this early triumph over adversity set the stage for every challenge they would later face (and they faced a lot, as we all do).

Now I wouldn't wish any of these sorts of things on my kids. But I have to say, my kids don't face many obstacles in their little lives.  They get driven to school and back, or if we ride bikes, I go with them.  They take piano and violin lessons, they do swim team and AYSO.  They get intervention from experts if they show the slightest sign of lagging on any dimension.

Are we raising a generation of pushovers? 

I worry sometimes that I intervene too much.  While they score high on all the standardized tests (our society's current measure of success), my kids won't run down by themselves to the other end of our very safe cul-de-sac to see if the neighbor kids want to play.  Is this a sign of (bad) things to come?  Am I really raising middle managers, rather than executives?

Or quick, there's probably a specialist in childhood self-defense who will coach my kids in what to do if one of the neighbors waves out the car window, and a therapist who will help my kids conquer their fears of open streets, and a kaffee klatsch of moms who will trot out the most recent statistics on child abductions to prove that the kids should never be out on their own, at least until they go off to their Ivy League colleges.  There's probably also a childhood leadership development expert, who for only $150 per hour will coach my kids in how to be leaders.

Or we just pack it in and move to Appalachia.  We could probably buy a mansion there for what we pay here for a one-bedroom condo.  Plus, I hear it is much easier to get into Stanford from West Virginia than from Palo Alto.

Worth It?

Costs More, But Worth It...?

We hosted a reception this week for the Los Altos Educational Foundation "Leadership Circle", honoring families who give over $5,000 annually to the public schools.  When I told my sister about it, she said, "$5,000 to a PUBLIC SCHOOL???"  She lives in New Jersey, you see, where tax dollars pay for things like art and music and physical education. Where the PTA holds a bake sale twice a year to raise $500 to pay for prizes at the Spring Carnival.  But that's for a different post...

So why bother with all these extras?  Surely cutting art and music doesn't hurt kids much, not when they continue to perform well on standardized tests.  Well, that's what was so surprising at this reception.  The speaker was Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen, who sent his two children through the Los Altos public school system. 

It costs Adobe four times as much to hire an employee in San Jose, versus one in India, Romania, China, etc., etc., said Mr. Chizen.  Why should he bother?  Why hire an American, if you can get just as good work from an overseas worker - and one who, coming from a home without running water in a village where people live on only a dollar a day, is a whole lot more motivated to work hard and get ahead, versus our kids, who know that even if they work only sort of hard and get only to mid-level jobs they can always count on Mom and Dad to bail them out?

This is the Flat World reality that our children are facing.   Sure we complain about driving to all those after school activities, dealing with 45 minutes of homework in 1st grade, and the pressure hitting kids younger and younger to focus on grades.  Guess what?  If they're going to get the jobs we have now, they are going to have to be more than four times better than their peers now coming up through the schools in Mumbai or Shenzhen.

Mr. Chizen listed four things that he says still (for now...) make enough of a difference to justify hiring an American:

• Creativity (although India is fast catching up here)
• Inspiration/motivation
• Social gregariousness
• Cultural sensitivity

Guess what...not one of those things shows up on the California STAR test results on which we measure our school districts' performance.  Those are the things they learn from the "extras" - music lessons, art lessons, language classes, dramatics - all the things that have been stripped from California's education budget.

What are we doing to our children?  Sure, districts like Los Altos have parents who can donate $5,000 at a pop to make sure our kids have these things and can compete in a flat world.  But what about East San Jose?  Will companies like Adobe still put their headquarters here if 90% of the kids coming out of our schools are not worth that 400% premium?  The few hundred kids Los Altos graduates each year represent a drop in the bucket.

We happily dump billions of dollars into weapons systems.  Yet we're building a wall to defend a crumbling society if we fail to equip the next generation to add value in the world of today.  Yeah, it isn't fair.  But as my daughter's third grade teacher says, "Life isn't fair.  Get over it."  We need to make sure all our children can justify the premium we need to live here.  That means public schools.  Good ones.  With extras.  Hello, Sacramento, are you listening?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Redux

A while ago, I posted my New Year's Resolution to reduce my "footprint" - consuming less, driving less, and generally reducing my impact on the environment.  So how am I doing?  Well...

1. Car - GRADE F:  I'm ashamed to say, I still drive an SUV.  My kids are on the ski team at Kirkwood, so we drive through snow a lot (well, not this year...), and much as I love the planet, I'm just not up to lying in the slush at the side of the highway putting on tire chains.  But it does seem pretty silly to drive such a gas guzzler around town, so we went to test-drive the Prius.  I LOVED it.  I was ready to sign the paperwork then and there, except for one thing: my 6' 4" husband doesn't fit in the front seat.   

Next stop, Honda.  The Civic Hybrid was very basic, but my husband fit, and it gets good gas mileage.  So did I buy it? ... Well, no.  First off, there's the little problem of $25,000 (that's what they made 0% financing for, right?).  Second, I just didn't like it very much.  Shallow?  Wasteful?  Hypocritical?  Yes.  But there you have it.  Guess I'm a Toyota gal (better than being a "shallow hypocrite").

2. Drive Less - GRADE C:  Since I'm still driving the SUV, I'm doing everything I can to use it less.  Living only 15 minutes from school by bike, I decided to ride the kids to school 2-3 times a week.  This had significant family ramifications.

The Trouble with Reading

Boy, am I ready for Imus to get canned, so we can get this story off the front page of the newspaper!

My 8-year-old daughter: "Mom, who are those girls in the paper?  What does Imus mean?"
Me: "Imus is the name of a guy on the radio, and he said some very mean and hurtful things about those girls, who play basketball." (E. plays basketball, and is very excited to see others doing so)
E: "What did he say?"
Me (stalling): "Some very mean words."
E: (Reading the front page as I'm reading Mr. Roadshow inside) "Nappy-headed hos.  Mommy, why is that mean? It doesn't sound mean to me."
Me: "Well, the first part is a mean thing to say about black people, and the last part is a mean thing to say about women."
E: "But I still don't understand."
Me: "You will when you're older" (Damn!  I hate that...)
G (younger brother, in Kindergarten, just learning to read): "Where does it say that?"
E: "Right here!" (points)
G (sounding it out): "Nnnn...aaah...p...eee..."

Aaargh!  My kids never had any comment on their friends' tight curls before, and we don't even want to get started on the ho part.  Let's get Imus off the air, and get back to nice clean, G-rated headlines about suicide bombers in Iraq. ("Mom, why are those people bleeding from the head...?")

A Birthday Haiku for SV Moms Blog

Ephemeral Blog
Today: Snarky, Compelling
Tomorrow: All Gone

As a former print journalist, I ought to be used to today's above-the-fold story being tomorrow's garbage wrap.  But somehow, it still hurts.  The brilliant wit, the sparking insight, the labor of love - surely it's worth something substantial, something lasting...

Of course, thanks to Google, it is guaranteed that the pedantic and foot-in-the-mouth posts will come back to bite you sooner or later.  Ah, progress.

Childhood Obesity: Get On the Bus

I got stuck behind a VTA bus the other day, and spent several traffic light cycles staring at the enormous face of an obese child on a public service advertisement: "Childhood obesity hurts everyone," or some such message.  Now I'm as opposed to childhood obesity as anyone, but this ad campaign is not just ineffective, but downright harmful. 

The causes of childhood obesity are deep rooted in society, including

• poor urban planning - my town of Los Altos proudly touts its lack of sidewalks as contributing to the "rural atmosphere".  RURAL atmosphere?  Get real.  With no sidewalks, how can you let your children walk to school, to the library, or to the playground?
• two-income families - if you have two parents working, it is very challenging to cook healthy meals every night.  Reality is, parents rely on frozen entrees, takeout, etc., all with significant calories and fat.
• screwed-up state priorities - Prop 13 cut education funding to such an extent that there is now no physical education for most children in California public schools.
• screwed-up national priorities - we heavily subsidize corn farmers, which creates inexpensive and plentiful high-fructose corn syrup, but do nothing for growers of spinach or apples.  This means high-calorie, low-nutrition processed foods are cheap, while healthy produce is expensive.  If you're spending 45% of your family income on housing to live around here, how are you going to afford fresh vegetables?
• the realities of the food industry - when was the last time you saw an advertisement on Nikelodeon for frozen peas? It's always sugary cereal packed with artificial flavor ("...and fortified with 10 essential vitamins and minerals!").  Is it any wonder kids clamor for Capt'n Crunch instead of carrots?

By focusing on how bad it is to be fat, but not alleviating the barriers to healthy living, we're contributing to our children's unrealistic body images without fixing the problem. 

Let's take that public service ad money and create images with parents and children with realistic body types sitting down together for a dinner that includes vegetables.  Heck, let's dispense with public service advertising altogether and use the money to pay gym teachers.  And as Silicon Valley moms (and dads), let's get on the bus - metaphorically, that is.  Let's take the extra 10 minutes to make vegetables for dinner or scrambled eggs for breakfast, instead of relying on calorie-laden takeout meals or sugary breakfast cereals.  Let's walk or bike the kids to school, even one day each week.  And let's vote for politicans who will really solve the problems, instead of plastering a few ads on our under-utilized public transportation system and passing the buck to overworked parents who are doing their best to raise healthy, responsible children.

Just Shoot Me

My kids' homework is killing me.

It started with my third-grader's Famous Americans project.  At 5:30 PM on Christmas Eve, as I was frantically packing the car to go away for two weeks, she burst into tears.  "Mommy, you didn't get me any library books on Famous Americans!"

WHAT?  Famous Americans?  It turns out that they are supposed to be reading biographies of Famous Americans over the vacation, so that they can pick one to feature in the report due in February.  And there's a contest - the kid who reads the most pages of Famous American biographies gets to pick first, ensuring they get to do Jackie Robinson or Daniel Boone, and won't get stuck with a dud like Thomas Jefferson.  Second-most pages goes second, third-most, third, and so on.

So we dash around the house, looking for books that could "stretch" (Laura Ingalls Wilder?  Junior Science Encyclopaedia might have Thomas Edison?).  E. is crying, the cats are meowing to go out (can't let them out, they have to get in the carrier), D.H. is looking at his watch and getting grumpier and grumpier, traffic is getting worse and worse. 

Fast-forward to January.  E. gets Annie Oakley as her report topic.  Notice of this comes home Thursday - we're at the library by Saturday morning...and E. is in tears.  "There aren't any good books!  They're all gone!  I'm going to FAIL!  Mrs. C___ is going to KILL ME!  I HATE Annie Oakley, all she does is SHOOT THINGS."  As library patrons shoot us dirty looks, I do my best to calm her down.  Turns out all the third grades are doing Famous American reports, and the other Annie Oakleys beat us to the punch.

Now what?  Drive to Sunnyvale in search of a school district where they're doing reports on Animals?  Switch to some obscure Famous American who none of the other third graders will know (Julia Morgan, anybody?)?  I try for a teachable moment on inter-library lending ("Look, sweetie, we can use the Internet to request this book from the Los Gatos library, and they'll have it here in a week or so...") with predictable results.  So home we go, for hot chocolate and hugs, and finally google a great PBS site on Annie as a feminist pioneer.  This will hold us over until the inter-library loan comes through.

So now it is just the report.  The third grade is expected to speak for 5 minutes - from memory - on their Famous Americans.  They'll be penalized for using note cards.  The report needs to be done on a word processor.  Anyone who thinks an eight-year-old can do this without significant parental involvement hasn't had an eight-year-old child in way too long.  Oh, and worst of all - they must be dressed up as their Famous American.  Since Annie is famous for her shooting, this requires a gun.

Go on - I dare you to walk into a Mid-Peninsula toy store and ask for a gun.  A light sabre, a pirate cutlass, or one of those high-tech Bionicles things, no problem.  But A GUN?  What kind of parent are you?  After striking out at three local toy stores, I try for a teachable moment on early intervention to prevent violence ("Look, sweetie, there are some crazy people in the world, and they take toy guns and...") with predictable results.  "MOMMY!  I have to have a gun!  Annie Oakley CAN'T shoot with a squirt gun!  I'm going to FAIL!  I HATE Annie Oakley..." 

With 16 hours to go before A-Day, I frantically post to my Parents Club list.  It turns out that you can buy realistic Western-looking plastic guns at Palo Alto Toy and Sport, but they keep them behind the desk and you have to ask the manager.  And no, there's no waiting period and they don't even require a background check.  But before we can get over there, I find out that one of my daughter's friends is one of the other Annies, and her older brothers have an acceptable gun.  So we will borrow Annie #2's gun for Annie #1's report, then I will take the gun when Annie #1 finishes her report and hand-deliver it to Annie #2's mom (because you can't have guns at school or you get suspended), who will then bring it back when she returns for Annie #2's presentation that afternoon.

We MADE IT.  The Annie report goes fine, the gun is acceptable as a prop (costume is worth 10 points on the final grade), and my daughter is all smiles.  I drop off the gun with Annie #2's mom, and head over to pick up my son at Kindergarten.  He climbs in the car with an ominous, large, rolled-up paper sticking out of his backpack.

"Dear Parents - we are very excited about the Valentines Day Post Office we have planned for your children.  All you need to do is take a shoebox and decorate it using this piece of paper and your child's imagination..."

Go ahead.  Just shoot me.

Why is it always the fault of a woman?

There’s a new article slamming Bay Area Moms – this time, because we have given up our high powered jobs and are staying at home with our children. http://www.sanfran.com/home/view_story/1241/

WHY is it always the fault of a woman? Five years ago, there was a whole series of articles on how awful it was to put kids in daycare, how they all developed ADHD and had long-term behavioral problems, and slamming women for even thinking of working when their children were young. (I remember, because it was just when I was looking for daycare for my son so I could go back to work.) Now we’re getting slammed for not going back to work when our children are young.

When I was working full time and expecting my daughter, I left work early one night to stop by the day care center near my house, to see if they might have availability after my maternity leave ran out eight weeks after my due date. They looked at me like I was from the moon. “We have a one-year wait list,” they said. “We’ll put your name on, but we won’t have anything in the infant room for months.”

Where are the articles slamming the government for not making daycare tax-deductible? Where are the articles slamming politicians for not subsidizing affordable day care?

When I was pregnant and working full time, my boss used to leave at 5:30 one day a week to go work out with her personal trainer. ONE day a week. It was a big deal. “Oh, we can’t schedule then, because she has to LEAVE EARLY.” How could I have a responsible job when I would have to leave at 5:30 every single day, to make it to the day care center by 6:00?

Where are the articles slamming American business for creating a family-unfriendly culture? I’ve never read one good thing about the French 35-hour-a-week work requirement – which would give a mom lots of time to pick up the kids from day care.

Now I work part-time, for myself. I started my own business because I couldn’t find a Silicon Valley company willing to give me a responsible job that I could balance with raising my kids. Now I can scale back my hours to accommodate summer vacation, when schools shut down, and my boss always lets me take time off to volunteer in my kids’ classrooms or drive to piano lessons.

Where are the articles slamming our antiquated school calendar? Where are the articles slamming Proposition 13 and the anti-tax league for axeing school budgets, cutting aides, cafeterias, school music programs, etc., and requiring parents (= moms) to step in and fill the gap?

And where are the articles slamming the men? The men who, after 40 years of Women’s Lib, still don’t come close to shouldering 50% of the household burden. The men who miss their children’s soccer games and school plays because of business trips. The men who don’t lie awake at night feeling guilty that they’re not good fathers because they don’t pick up their kids after school every day. The men who, by the way, are 50% responsible for the presence on the earth of those children…

Most of all, where are we, my sisters? Why do we say yes to all this? Why do we shoulder the guilt? Why do we let our husbands, our bosses, and our politicians off the hook? Why do we buy the publications that print these articles? Why do we watch the condescending pundits on the talk shows?

The welfare of our children can’t be a Mommy problem. It can’t even be a parent problem. It must be a society problem. These are the people who will be paying for our Social Security in 40 years. These are the people who will keep the American economy vibrant and competitive – so we have tax dollars to pay for police, firefighters, road repair, and hospitals to care for our increasingly decrepit bodies. These are the people who will invent the new technology to deal with the horrible problems we’re causing right now with global warming.

We neglect all our children at all of our peril.

A Martin Luther King Day Gift

I've always gotten annoyed at MLK Day.  It's too soon after Christmas; we don't really need another break, and it disrupts the regular school schedule, which I've always only just finished reestablishing after late nights and too many videos and sugar-laden treats over the holiday vacation.

But this year it's different - the fact of racism finally sank in for my son.  His kindergarten teacher was explaining that it used to be that people couldn't do things, couldn't go places, and couldn't sit where they wanted, all because of their skin color.  The horror he felt when he understood what she was saying was evident, even by the time I picked him up several hours later.

I feel fortunate that we live in a place where my son has made it this far with no clue that skin color was any more important than hair color, eye color, or allergy to peanuts; and while you are free to discriminate based on whether they like to play with Legos, the way they look has no bearing on who they are.  He truly could not understand why anyone would treat someone differently who had darker (or lighter) skin.  And even a week later (a long time for a kindergartener), he drew a picture of Martin Luther King and remembered that he had made it so people with dark skin could go anywhere they wanted to.  What a gift!

Hooray for Martin Luther King Day!  And hooray for the Bay Area - maybe now those monstrous mortgage payments are starting to look worthwhile. 

I know we are not immune here.  Asian friends of mine struggle against racial stereotypes, and I make assumptions when I see an older woman speaking Spanish in the park and pushing a baby stroller.  But I really don't see race impacting friendships or deeper interactions in the Bay Area, and while it may influence our casual contact, I don't believe it does so any more than a number of other factors, like the car you drive, the t-shirt you wear, or how loud you play what kind of music.  Maybe it's just me, maybe it is the fact that I'm blonde and blue-eyed and have never experienced it directly - I'm open to hearing from others. 

But I'm not going to change my opinion of people who drive Expeditions, that's justified...