Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Dreaming Big Library Dreams

“Mom, can we go to the Mitchell Park library?” Excuse me? What sweet music to my ears? After years of dragging him to check out books, my eight-year-old son discovered, this summer, that libraries are cool. Ironically this is not because my son has become a serious bookworm, hiding behind a new read every time he gets a chance. In fact, my kid remains decidedly fickle about reading for pleasure, which is why his love for Mitchell Park library means that much more to me.   

 

So what draws him to the place? Firstly, the high speed computers, where he can play lego.com in the kids’ area while mom reads to his little sister. But after a while, and this is the part I love, he starts to look at books. He may wander. He may browse. But eventually he tends to find something he wants to check out.

Someone Open A Window!

I’m HOT.  I’m hot at night, I’m hot in the morning, I’m hot when no one else in the room understands what’s wrong with me.  Warning: this is not the start of a sex or fashion blog.   And I’m not about to begin a diatribe about global warming or a Bay Area weather report.  When I say I’m hot, I’m getting way personal here.  And if you dare discount my discomfort with the change-of-life “M” word, I can guarantee a meeting with my left hook.

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Okay, so I took out my one book by Christiane Northrup, author of “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom,” trying to get some inspiration.  Naturally I got perspiration.  Then I thought about my mother’s female journey towards age 84. Let’s see, there was the summer I found out she still took the pill, followed by the observation that the Clairol number 10 she poured on the gray made her look like a shiny wet otter. Then there was her “operation” years later, the one my father was too mortified to speak of.  I was in college by this point, obsessed with my waxing womanhood.  The fact that hers was waning, in the form of a hysterectomy, made little impact.

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Chuck E Sleeze

We do things as parents, things we would never consider doing as single or married people who don’t lug small people around. With this in mind, I set out with my 8 year old son for Chuck E’ Cheese in Redwood City today. It was a Monday, a fine day as any to go to the “Vegas for Kids”. I figured we could beat the crowds and lose ourselves for a few hours, away from the afternoon heat. Plus, it was time to come through on a promise made to my son months earlier that I would treat him to the outing of his choice after I finished teaching. When he chose Chuck E Cheese, I braced myself but figured it was quality time on his terms.

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Blinking lights, buzzing, beeping, whiz bang noises, plenty of mucous kids running around and ridiculous prices…I expected all this. What I didn’t expect were the guns. Since when did Sega shoot ‘em up guns get entry to Chuck E’ Cheese? It took my son about half a second to get his hands on a simulated M-30 and blast his bobbing head at the Aliens invading the screen. I should mention the Aliens were quite life like, possibly a neighbor, friend or other “out of this world” person that needed to be shot once and for all. Why not give my son some proper training?

How We Beat the Nintendo DS

There’s a shift in our house this first week of summer. A level of anxiety is down, with more reading, playing, and interacting. The calm is not because school is out, though everyone loves not rushing in the morning. We took my son’s Nintendo DS gaming system away. That’s the reason. He no longer lies around with a white box of flashing lights and moving objects dancing in the front of his face.

After much deliberation and whining last year, my husband purchased the DS for my son at Christmas. It was addiction at first sight. “Where is he?” I would ask, only to find my then 7 year old under the covers gaming. Getting him to stop playing was even harder than finding him. I used a timer, bribes, warnings, pats on the shoulder and ultimately threats and screaming. No use. We figured, prayed actually, that the novelty of the device would eventually wear off. But just like nicotine, the desire just grew stronger.

The Bright Side of Denial

Kids call it make believe. I call it denial. Either way, it has its advantages. It helps me pretend I did not see my son spit on the sidewalk this morning. It allows me to gun the car out the driveway one more time, to hell with gas prices and to pluck gray hairs as though they’re misplaced ashes from a fire. Denial pretends that Sex in the City has anything to do with me or that the guy who screams “Too much!” at me in the Trader’s Joe’s check out line is really just jealous of my family’s lavish appetite.

Denial is ever-available, always replaceable and a great way to pass the buck. You worry, I’m busying denying! Besides, I grew up in a family of deniers, with large pink elephants everywhere we turned. I refer to it as selective attention disorder. My mother was especially afflicted. Let’s just say my broken ankle healed on its own, twice. And it was my father who finally realized my sister’s aching neck was more than menstrual cramps (she ended up in ICU with an infectious disease).

Graduate Student Again?

In my mid-forties, mid-life, mid-way, not full or empty, not young or old, just mid, middle, half there, I find myself a student again. I drive to a big university and nose my whale of a mini-van into parking spots wide enough for a generous sized motorcycle. I wait in line to pay tuition fees, mug myself for an ID card and stake out the black market for used books. I squeeze my mother friendly hips into tiny desks with fold-down tops that force anyone with a BMI over 20 to become play dough flattened by a hammer. I contemplate posters hung on campus that invite young coed females to donate their eggs to needy couples. This last one catches my breath.

How did a minor mid-life crisis following the birth of my second child land me back in graduate school? I ask that question after everyone in our house is in bed and I’m still studying. I ask that question when I watch moms sip lattes and push swings or saunter into Google headquarters.  Did everyone make the right choice but me?  And is this choice the right one, finally?  I put a lot of thought into going back to school for my teaching credential, but what I didn’t anticipate was how much I would feel, gut level, about being on a college campus again.

Who among us doesn’t have rousing memories of college? So maybe I was a late bloomer, but some major things happened for me in college, not the least of which involved resources from Planned Parenthood, a first true love relationship and minor rants against Ronald Reagan. Then there were the friends, cram sessions, midnight runs, dorms, freak professors and every other lofty memory that comes with being twenty years old and full of yourself. College, to my self-absorbed mind, was made for people just like me, young people on the brink. The brink of what I had no idea. But college was a place to get your start, find your niche, become your own person. Brink into something.

Going Green from a Sicko Healthcare System

I am green today.  Not green with envy, ecological awareness or holiday greetings. I am green with sickness, the nauseating disease that is now called our health care system.  Note the "care" in the compound word health care.  Note the hypocrisy of this word in the United States of Sick America.  How many are not cared for where we live?  Millions?  How many are denied care because they actually need it?  Millions more.  You've heard the speeches.  You know the political health care babble.  So let me cut to the sick thick of my family drama.

I was laid off from my job two months ago.  Our company then filed for bankruptcy, so Cobra was not an option.

The Price of Disadvantage

Privilege is called Chapin. Disadvantage is called Jackson. You know Chapin well. He’s a ninth grader at one of our local high schools. His lacrosse team travels around the state; he’s enrolled in all honors classes and lately feels pressure to decide whether he’ll go to the Sorbonne summer program or the gifted camp at Amherst. Chapin feels he must decide about his future. He could be a lawyer, like his dad, but he enjoys the idea of running a business, too. Either way, his imprinting points him toward a position of leadership, since he has been deeply schooled in synthesizing and manipulating symbols, systems and people to his advantage.

You probably don’t know Jackson. He’s also a ninth grader and goes to the same school as Chapin, but the two never talk, don’t even share the same spaces or classes on the campus. But that’s the least of Jackson’s concerns. Right now, he doesn’t know where he’ll sleep tonight. Maybe at his grandma’s, maybe his girlfriend’s, maybe there’s a plan C he hasn’t thought of yet. His mom kicked him out last month and life has been a constant sleepover ever since. Jackson lives in East Menlo Park. He enjoys listening to rap music and hanging with friends. He also yawns constantly and falls asleep in most of his classes. He reads below grade level and stands a strong chance of dropping out of high school. His dad is dead and his mom dropped out of high school, too.

These two students are fictional, amalgams of my mind as I observe high school students as part of my teaching credential program. They are composites of a school, a society that increasingly endows it’s cultural capital on those born to inherit it.

Privilege is called Chapin. Disadvantage is called Jackson. And Chapin gets all of our attention. He’s the reason Madeline Levine, author of The Price of Privilege will fill up the auditorium at Palo Alto’s Gunn High School next month. He’s the focal point of our obsession with privilege: getting it, holding on to it, and then analyzing how to best parent in spite of it. By it’s very definition privilege is a reserved club…available only to the few hovering near the top of the socio-economic class pyramid. Yet we’re a society and parenting culture of climbers, so the notion of privilege not only appeals to those who already have it, but to those desperately trying to join them.

Pint Size Lessons in Forgiveness

“She tends to sulk when she’s angry.” That sentence about my almost five-year-old daughter pierced like a sharp toy in a foot’s arch. Was our preschool teacher describing me or my child? . I figured my future involved two females in hormonal upheaval who would find co-habitation a tad challenging.  I expected years of puberty sulking torment... but did we have to start the process so early?

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As I listened to our caring, wise preschool teacher describe how my daughter child holds on to her anger, I almost had to laugh. Was silent scorn a well-known component of our gene pool? Couldn’t they have warned me during our genetic counseling sessions? And how come my well endowed Y chromosome son (and husband) could throw a terrorizing fit and be over it five minutes later?

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I remember attending “Forgiveness Guru” Fred Luskin’s seminar a few years ago. in Silicon Valley. When it came down to gender differences, he said, women had the anger-holding game down.  The guys play hard and move on.  Us women?  Let's just say we wear resentment like an old brown cashmere sweater, so comfortable, so familiar, trashing it feels terrifying on some level.

Duck and Cover!

The house starting the shaking, the windows rattling, buzzing, my husband hunkered down in his chair to continue watching the Democratic debate and I went to the doorway in the hall.  And the kids?  Both were wound up like little balls in "duck and cover" mode.  No direction from me.  No "get down, it's an earthquake!"  No "Everyone out of the house!"  Our little hump backs knew just what to do.

And I all I could think was they have been practicing their entire California life for this moment!  Thanks to our wonderful preschool, my kids have been duck and covering long before they could handle drop-off play dates, full sentences or snacks with olives.  The sight of them both in our hallway, heads tucked under, a few toes peeking out, would make the department of Disaster Preparedness run for the microphone. 

Why I Love School Uniforms

The first time someone accused me of "voting like a Democrat but parenting like a Republican," I wanted to slug 'em.  Such a label, such a line of bul_.   But then I had to look at how I dressed my daughter for preschool.  Cute as a tart in her navy blue dress with matching navy blue sweater, she was the picture of preppy.  As a law abiding, tax doling citizen of Palo Alto, we have no intention of paying for private schools for our kids.  But I'll take the liberty of dressing them in private school-type uniforms as much as I can.  The uniform section of Target's has cuter clothes than anything else in the store.  Land's End is worth getting just so I can look at the jackets, sweaters and adorable skirts.

Cow Eyes

They say before we humans became automatons of technology and modern-day efficiency, we conducted our lives by the seasons. The two-legged animals that we are, we followed the sun, moon, and seasonal rotations like the rest of the beasts around us. We sowed in Fall, nestled in Winter, blossomed in Spring and reaped in Summer. If you want a zen experience, just look into the eyes of a cow. Patient, centered, milk-producing, they follow the patterns of nature.

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And why am I thinking about this right now? It’s getting cold outside, I actually heated up soup for lunch and am watching the leaves start flutter. Fragile, seasonal gifts, those leaves are about finished. But they’ll go out with their lights shining, giving us reds, crimsons, every color I love to wear. And they’ll come back again next Spring.

Changing Places

Those parents smiling glibly on Tuesday morning as they drive, bike or latte their way down the road?  It's called Free At Last; or why the first day of school feels like a National Holiday.  Not very sympathetic of us, is it?  Our kids must adapt to a new class, teacher, curriculum, desk, path to the bathroom every year.  We expect them to accept change.  It's part of growing up.

Then we become adults and change feels like a root canal and giving birth at the same time.  Except that sometimes, many times, life forces us to change and, despite ourselves, we join our kids and have to grow up.  I am experiencing this reality just now.

So Long Status

Today I read about an old guy with a new idea...or rather an idea we all know but may not want to accept.  There is life beyond brand-name, Ivy slick colleges.  Loren Pope's my kind of guy.  Lauded today in the NY Times for his unconventional approach to recommending colleges, I am ready to ask him over for coffee. Not that I even need to worry about college right now.  But his support for small, unknown colleges that could be like extended families for kids is so appealing.  I got absolutely lost at my college, a huge university that is now virtually impossible to get into.  I remember lectures with 300+ kids, sitting on damp, gum-mucked floors.  I really only got to know two professors the entire time I went there.  And I don't miss it one bit.

Last week I wrote a column on Mary Pipher who will be the keynote speaker at the Palo Alto Mother's Symposium in a few weeks. She had similar things to say about how we chase brand name colleges, lifestyles, etc. in a quest to prove our worth.  It made me sad.  And it made me mad.

So what am I doing to change?  For starters, I'll try tune-out the media onslaught out there that is telling me how to parent, achieve status for myself and my kids and continue to live in this insanely expensive place called Palo Alto.  It's too much.  I need shelter!  And I will follow the advice of Loren Pope, my new guru, and think small.  He says small colleges, but I'll take it a step farther and say small number of activities, small, but meaningful accomplishments, small, but important contributions to this world.  Small but real expectations.  Small house (we already have that one!) I'm opting out of the status game.

New Year's Resolutions for Women on the Verge

10. Resolve to put swollen feet up on couch, and read Oprah; pishes to dirty dishes
9.  Resolve to close door on child’s tsunami room; you don’t have to sleep there
8.  Resolve to accept wrinkles both in cloth and skin; you’ll suddenly notice you’re more approachable
7.  Resolve to embrace padded hips and padded bras; changing bodies house evolving souls
6.  Resolve to laugh louder than you yell; your blood pressure will decrease while your lovability skyrockets
5.  Resolve to let husband talk for 5 minutes daily and not say one word; we have two ears and one mouth for a reason
4.  Resolve to say no; this may be harder than you think!
3.  Resolve to stop envying that one friend; she needs a comrade, not another sycophant
2.  Resolve to do something, anything, for your planet; doesn’t our collective house deserve as much attention as your own?
1.  And finally…..resolve to be the tree, not the ornaments; you are not the child, job, husband, net worth. These are merely ornaments, some fall, some fade away.  Be the tree planted solidly in the ground that holds up what is dear and beloved…

Happy 2007!

Our Family of Runaways

I belong to a family of runaways; a modern day version of the broken family.  Yesterday was my 6 year old son’s turn.  The suitcase he packed could rival anything found on a college kid with a EurRail pass: 6 pairs of underwear, a stuffed lion for a pillow, a blanket, a jacket, a bottle of water, 3 dollars, and a drum stick from his music kit to fight off “bad guys.”

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He pulled his suitcase on wheels out the front door as he announced his departure.  My husband, who merits his own title, “King of escape artists,” stood there and let his kid walk out the door.  What my child did during his runaway is not entirely clear.  He may have scanned the horizon contemplating which house in the neighborhood offers the best play equipment.  He may have picked his cuticle or nose, twisted some hair, thought about the rain.  It’s a mysterious place, the mind of a runaway.  All we can be sure is that they are compelled to leave us.

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Until they return to us.  Which is exactly what happened five minutes later.  “Must have been cold out there,” my nonplussed husband queried as my son slammed the front door.  At first he played mum, but silence can only last so long when you’re six and dying to show off your wares.  He spent the next hour showing off his suitcase contents to his father.  In this runaway case, it was all about the preparations.

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My 3 year old daughter’s runaway schemes are a tad more literal.  You may have seen her running away from her raging mother in a parking lot, for instance.  She is particularly found of abandoning her family during dinnertime, should she decide to ever join them at all.  The ol’ “dine and dash” routine that has left so many restaurants penniless is her stock in trade.  She’s also known to take off undressed, half dressed, or dressed in so many princess outfits that her arms stand straight out from her sides when she runs. We call this the straightjacket sprint.

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And for every runaway 3 year old, there’s a haggard, pissed mom some 3 to 4 decades older huffing to catch the traitor.  I believe this is why London invented the child harness.

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The “King of escape artists” mentioned earlier, would be my spouse.  His uncanny ability to slip out, tune into a football game on TV or have something pending on email is without competition. This, of course, does not take into consideration his chief in-house, outhouse exit.  We will sometimes lose him for hours to the John.  The back of his toilet resembles the reading room at the New York Public Library and I see no signs of improvement.  If anything, the kids are starting to wonder if he lives with full-time irritable bowel syndrome. 

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I like to think a good friend has it even worse.  In the name of employment, her husband runs away to foreign countries every 2 or 3 weeks.  His abandonment techniques include nice hotels, meals out and museum tours.  She even caught him reading the Pilot’s Wife. 

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But alas, our family doesn’t have the luxury of high-class runaway plots.  Which brings me to my own abandonment by choice tactics.  Since the onset of motherhood, loading dishes is not exactly genuflection at the feet of St. Jude (?), but it provide a monotonous reprieve from the shrieks of “I hate your guts,” that rake from sibling to sibling across the narrow halls.  The same could be said for cooking.  I have found the simple announcement “I have something burning on the stove,” quiets the spouse begging for relief and at least gets the kids to acknowledge a house in charcoal may be imminent if mom doesn’t get on it.  I have also tried, “don’t come near, I stink.”  Or “I haven’t showered in 5 days, so better give me some space.”

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Finally, and unfortunately, for the woman who really can’t run or hide anywhere, which is most of us, there is just one line I know can guarantee a few seconds of perceived alone time: “I’m about to poop in my pants.”

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Generally, because their dad is the one to make these pronouncements, the idea of Mom having an “accident” usually forces my kids to step back.  That’s when I, prime runaway suspect, tweeze my brows, pluck a gray hair, floss or cry in the mirror.  That’s also about the time my 3 year old shows up to see if I wiped. 

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I said you could run.  I didn’t say you could hide.

The Best Thanksgivings I Never Had

There was a time in my life when turkey, gravy, family dysfunction and forced feedings of pumpkin pie were for the birds.  Turkey and human included.  Free to be me, or rather free to be free of YOU was high on list of life's priorities not because I was particularly selfish, isolated or had no friends. I just wanted to do something different for the holidays. 

Living alone in New York City and across the country from family, it was easy in my 20's to reinvent the holidays.  I remember one Thanksgiving when my artist cousin drew a mural on my bathroom wall while I finished a paper for graduate school.  Then it was off to the local Greek diner for burgers and philosophy.  One year I found myself on top of the Empire State building watching the bouncing balloons of the Macy's Parade.  No huge meal could have substituted for the thrill of watching a helium "Arthur" smash into Times Square.

Now that my world is 5 miles big on a BIG day, it's nice to remember life BK (Before kids) and frankly, BH (before hubby).  I guess it was the era of experimentation and holidays were included.  Sure, I'm nostalgic.  But mostly I just hope my kids do something similar, or at least a little.  I hope they say NO and mean it.  I hope they break tradition and find their own.  I hope they dare to "uncelebrate" a holiday that doesn't feel authentic to them.  After all if I do my parenting job right, they'll fly away one day.  And that big Turkey bird may not be part of their flight plan.

I guess the holidays force us to ask ourselves on a deeper level why "We do the things we do."  I'm all for tradition and family, but now that I'm a parent I also have to question the spiritual significance, and I'm not talking religion.  I'm talking awe and joy and inspiration.  Do the holidays bring these things or do they take them away?  I'm hoping for the former, but sometimes the later is the reality.

So I think back on my Thanksgiving burgers in New York, on rebelling and rethinking what it means to be thankful.  And I think about now and how much I love serving my mean buttery, cheesy, fat frothing scalloped potatoes at Thanksgiving.  The duality of life, of holidays then and now.

The Characters We Become

It's here! Tonight we'll spend the requisite 45 minutes galloping through the neighborhood, colliding with all the other costumes and rushing to sugar highs. Then we’ll collapse back at home as my kids start coveting their loot.

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If families were really honest, they’d admit that their house isn't haunted just at Halloween, but all year long. Most days of the year, our kids change costumes, preferences and personalities faster than we can say boo. And we change, too. In fact, the characters we become during the holidays are scariest of all.

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Ask my kids what I should dress as for Halloween and the answer is always the same: a witch. “Yep, she’s the witch in the house,” agrees my husband. So I cackle a little while stirring a cauldron of macaroni and cheese and simultaneously cleaning curdled milk out of sippy cups. Who wouldn’t? I admit I shriek like a witch after a typical round of back-talk with my six year old. Here’s how it goes:

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Witch to son: Wow. I see your breakfast dishes are still on the table.

Son: Wow yourself.

Witch: How will those dishes get to the sink?
Son: They’ll fly (starting to throw a small ball in the house)

Witch: They’ll fly? How will they fly? (grabbing the ball from mid-air)

Son: I was using that ball!

Witch: We don’t throw balls in the house.

Son: You’re ruin everything

Witch: You know what else I’m going to ruin?

Son: Everything

Witch: I’m going to ruin your bed by pouring those leftover waffles on your pillow

Son: That’s disgusting

Witch: How else do you expect me to keep this house clean?

Son: You don’t even like my bed. It hurts your back.

Witch: You better believe my back hurts. All I do is bend all day picking up your stuff. Cleaning up your messes.

Son: (grabbing plate from table and dumping in the sink)

Witch: Finally!

Son: Stay out of my bed! (slamming door to room)

Witch: Don’t slam doors!

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Shriek all I want, my kids can’t seem to hear me. No wonder, like many witches, I’m graying fast, wear black for its slimming effects and, given the chance, would ride my broomstick off into the sunset.

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The Ghosts Keep Coming

The ghosts are haunting me this Halloween. They are mostly fathers, in their 20’s or 30’s, hovering over my peaceful days, staring into the eyes of my children. The ghosts were once boys with dreams, wide-eyed rascals who waved to fire trucks, put their hands over their hearts at baseball games and grew up to go to Iraq.

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Once upon a horrifying Halloween the ghosts were ambushed in their humvees, blown to shreds in front of enemies and compatriots, life turned apparition in a war time mili-second.

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The ghosts mostly haunt me when I look at my son’s wide smile, how his very being fills me with eternal hope. Combat comes naturally to him, good guys, bad guys, camouflage pajamas on special at Costco. I accept his natural love of benign fight scenes, until he turns into the ghost of my future and I collapse in despair.

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We are parenting in a world of ghosts, a disgusting reality that horrifies me. For almost every ghost this war creates, a child or two is screaming at home in abandon. These ghosts were fathers, husbands, sons, workers, lives once coursing with possibility. 

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I want to be complacent, pretending that most ghosts are under four feet tall and will only ring our bell once this year. It can be easy, and so deceiving. Lost in self-absorbed peaceful days, we do birthday parties, Friday folders and AYSO like we’re in boot camp for moms. 

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But the ghosts keep coming! They whirl like tornadoes through our lives, crying ‘why?’ reaching out to kiss their grieving child’s cheek, slithering back into their black holes of death.

Maybe it’s time we borrowed from MADD (Mother’s Against Drunk Drivers), and adopted the acronym to MADD: Mother’s Against Destroying Dads. The vast majority of American causalities in Iraq have been men, and many are fathers. They leave in their wake babies, children, heart sick wives and a country in torment.

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We live this horror-show reality in my house. My nephew is stationed near Baghdad right now. This Spring, one week before Michael was sent abroad, his wife gave birth to their second child, brother to his darling 3 year old daugther. Last week we got news that two men in Michael’s unit were killed….more ghosts swooping down to shame us.

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It’s always easier to say it’s over there, I need to focus here, on my family, my worries, my must-do list. But I can no longer be an unconscious parent. Life in America right now feels like a crash course in Elizabeth Kubler Ross and I’m moving fast through the anger stage toward full-bore fury.

Almost 80 ghosts created in just this Halloween month, going on 3,000 Americans dead since the war began. Tens of thousands of children abandoned, and that doesn’t begin to count the lost lives of the Iraqis, which are counted near 600,000. Children here, and over there, crying in their dreams for the ghosts to stop coming, crying to wake up from this nightmare of a war.

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Halloween has never felt so scary.

A Cure Called Love

I am thinking about cancer, about death and terror, about how the very word cancer, yelled or whispered or avoided or shamed makes all of us shake in our boots. We live every day with the risk that we will die. Cancer is the multi-syllabic word that holds so much of our angst.

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The Latin word for cancer is crab. Clawing, stubborn reptile grabbing hold of healthy cells, turning them into malignant, malfunctioning demons. The word has metaphorical meanings far beyond the literal definition….”his presence is a growing cancer” (Pardon the political reference), her gossip is “like cancer,” or maybe that corporation is afflicted with cancerous suck-ups. Whatever the case, fear and cancer go hand in hand.

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I am not a cancer survivor….yet. I have not found a lump…yet. Maybe I will one day, maybe I won’t. But somehow the conversation must also extend beyond who has or has not been affected by cancer. It needs to include the bigger cancers that affect all of us…those deadly viruses in our minds, hearts, cultures and systems.

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My mind is like cancer when I can’t shut off the judgments and comparisons. They take over my good cells of openness and centered joy and bring me to a level of despair. My heart is afflicted with cancer when it’s closed to your suffering or even my own, when it festers with fears and prejudices and closed-down thinking. It spreads and gets worse and soon my kids are walking mini-me’s of cancerous attitudes and snobbism.

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Our culture can become cancerous with just one newspaper article. All of a sudden a healthy system is sick and suffering, the end is near. Just look at the press surrounding the Palo Alto Superintendent, poor woman has been struck with a cancer of doubt whether she deserves it or not. And it keeps spreading.

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How do we protect our children from the cancer of competition and pressure that seems to spread farther and faster each year? How do we help their “good cells” of confidence and inner resilience grow even as they are barraged with messages that they must excel, surpass, be the “star.”

I don’t have answers to these questions and I don’t mean to denigrate a meaningful discussion on breast cancer. I just want to move my heart and mind to a place where the possibility of cancer on every level is tackled head on.

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A few weeks ago I smashed my breasts into the mammogram machine for a kind nurse with reassuring hands. The following week I received my “congratulations” letter, no cancer this time.

But I’m not convinced. My heart – and your heart - can become cancerous and deadly quicker than a cell can divide. And the only cure for that, I think, is love.

Lessons in Dignity

My beloved grandmother died at the age of 92 with $40,000 in the bank and peace in her heart.  A widow with dignity, she sold World Book Encyclopedias to get by after her husband died and never complained for a minute.  We received homemade scarves and other simple gifts for the holidays and cherished every moment in her presence.   What she gave in time and heart would break the bank.

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Our housekeeper died at the age of 89 with probably $100 in the bank, but also peace in her heart.  A loving, tender African American woman, she practically raised me and my sisters while my parents worked.  We were far from rich, but in the 1960’s and early 70’s two working middle class parents could actually afford good help, so that’s what my parents did.  I remember spending the night in our housekeeper’s house, not the best part of town, but I was thrilled to be there.  It was the wonder of the experience, and being close to someone I loved.

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When I look back on people I admire, strange how they were often far from the richest.  In some cases they were flat out struggling to get by.  But they took their chunks as they came, no whining, no “poor mes.”  They worked hard for what they had and always found a way to help others. It’s called dignity and no amount of money can buy that for a person.

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What kind of dignity do I see around me now?  Living here?  Mmmmm.  There’s certainly a lot of complaining and comparing, but that seems to be the “it” disease of plenty.  In other words, MOREism.  I suffer from the same affliction at times, believe me, but feel nothing but shame and self loathing when I catch myself in this state.

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We have it so good! Just look around you:

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That kid on the Tinsley transfer program from East Palo Alto in your son’s class?  Chances are his family doesn’t have the more disease.  They’re probably covering the windows with metal and thanking their lucky stars to be attending school across town with the rich folk.

What about the people who clean your houses, cut your lawn, take care of your kids?  What kind of lives do they have?  Do you ever ask?  Because if you’re not asking, if you don’t even think about it, than how rich are you really?  In character?

Sorry if I’m getting preachy here, but the whole money topic with Silicon Valley moms is a bit much for me.  Face it, most of you have more than enough compared to the majority of people in the world, yes the world, so get over yourselves and think about someone else.   And if you are struggling financially, I hope you can stop comparing yourself to others and find true friends to share your reality with. 

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In the end, you can’t take it with you (the money or the Ivy League degree or the Olympic swimmer child or the Nordstrom’s outfit or the Mensa membership, blah blah blah).  But I happen to think you can take your dignity to the grave.  And that’s something you have to earn all on your own. 

Memo: To All 20-Something-Male Slackers

Memo: To All 20-Something-Male Slackers

From: 40ish Mom Redefining Sexy

Hi guys. You don’t see me, but I see you. Hanging jeans, cell phone growing from your excellent jaw line, messy hair and dreamy eyes, you are forming companies, checking out Facebook, applying to Google and enjoying massive amounts of regular sex. Your girlfriends have no belly, jeans that also hang and the look of free love and birth control in their eyes. I see you in Starbucks, at restaurants and biking around Stanford. I also see you on the Lacrosse fields that border El Camino, where I almost crash my minivan looking at your legs.

I'll Take My Tankini With A Twist

It's almost the end of summer and most fashion conscious ladies are thinking autumn tones, yummy turtle necks and polishing up those high heeled boots.  The kids are in school, the weather isn't exactly turning Fall, but still we pretend it's so.  Except for me.  What I needed last week wasn't a tricolored wool sweater.  I needed a swimsuit!  God help me.  I was meeting a gaggle of childhood friends in So. California for a mini-reunion of sorts around my mother's pool.

I parked my 3 year old at a friend's house and landed in Nordstrom's on a mission.  There were hundreds of swimsuits waiting there for me, each taunting me with their Jennifer Lopez call to clevage.  The first suit I tried on made my breasts look like two smashed eggs on my chest.  And since when does a v-neck go to my navel?  I finally figured out the geometry...the slits up the legs were almost supposed to meet the skin just below my armpits.  Don't try to picture that one too long.  Then there was the issue of hoisting my sagging behind up into the little folds of swimsuit material that are supposed to barely cover what rightfully needs to be hidden.  And these tiny pieces of material have no respect for gravity either, by the way.  Did I mention that after two kids, years of sitting on my behind and basically surrendering to the downward pull of skin meets gravity, I have a few things that, well, hang? 

The only thing I knew for sure, channeling Oprah for a moment, was that I would never, over my jiggly body, consider a two-piece of any kind.  Please tell me what kind of woman, beyond Demi Moore or Madonna, needs to be showing her stomach to the world after she's hit 40 and had a few kids?  It's sort of like the Harlequinn romances I could never put down as a teenager....what you don't see your mind can imagine.  And you can just imagine the fist grabbing folds that hang from my tummy.  Yep, I needed a suit to cover that, big time.

Finally, after trying on way too many inappropriate choices, I was about to give up.  That's when Kerrie arrived to my dressing room.  Remember when CInderella gets saved by the Fairy Godmother?  It's a ridiculous fairytale, but still.  Had my fairy arrived?  With flowing auburn hair, a bode to die for and the fresh face of someone half my age, Kerrie was my IT fashion girl. 

"Help me," I begged.  "These aren't working."  I shoved all the swimsuits into her arms.

"No, these aren't for you," she said reassuringly.  "You need a tankini."

"No," I retorted.  "I need to hide.  I need something to cover my boobs, my hips, my ass, my thighs and the hair I refuse to wax."

"Exactly," she confirmed.  "A tankini."

It was at that point I decided to surrender.  My best fashion sense had landed me hiding in a dressing room, ready to accept anything this style-child might offer. 

Kerrie returned promptly with enough tankinis to cover Rinconada mother madness during a heat wave.  I tried them almost all on.  And you know what?  I started to perk up.  These two piece little numbers were not only cute, but actually made me look that way, too.  I finally decided on a tankini/mini-skirt combo that hide the hips and thighs, but actually made me feel like a youthful cheerleader.  Call it all illusion, but Kerrie's good fashion sense had made me feel...pretty.

The friends did come to my mom's pool in their own various swimsuits this past weekend.  And yes, I think I caught them eyeing my slimming swimsuit.  Or was that the fog in my goggles? 

Beatles Mania Feels So Good

It happens every summer and never more so than last night.  With the Sun Kings Beatle’s cover band blasting “Can’t Buy Me Love” and every other favorite hit from our beloved Beatles, I danced the night away.  My 6 year old son wanted to die of embarrassment, my 3 year old daughter needed to be held. But that didn’t stop me, my husband or about 800 other people from letting loose.

If life is full of schedules, commitments and basically things that make a person uptight, then the Palo Alto summer concerts are my elixir.  Nothing frees my soul more than great music, good clean fun and an excuse to dance.  Sure I look around at all the other graying boomers and think we look a bit ridiculous.  But shouldn’t we have more chances to seem silly and carefree?  Why do our kids get to be that way all the time, while we keep the serious front?

So we danced, shook our groove thangs and celebrated the band that taught us about peace and revolution.  Not untimely topics considering the state of world affairs right now. But I don’t want to come off this high by discussing politics. I want to continue remembering that when we dance, something small and certain inside ourselves comes to life.  It’s the big kid, or the goofy high schooler, or whatever part of ourselves we associate with partying, dancing and having fun.

Did I mention that the party is G-rated?  And I love it that way.  The kids can dance if they want to, or make faces at you while you dance, or beg to go home or stay and play with their friends.  Much like a real party, but no one’s getting into a car drunk or with the wrong person. 

And I feel proud to live in a city like Palo Alto that promotes summer concerts like last night.  I don’t know who caught my eye more…the 80 something grandma rocking to “Today is your birthday” or the wiggling special needs man right up in front with a grin from ear to ear.  At the end of the day, having fun and dancing is an equal opportunity employer. Or at least it should be.  And last night was an example of “Fun for all” at its best.

So today our feet hurt, my back is aching, but I can’t stop humming my favorite Beatles songs.  It’s a nice way to feel before the truth comes crashing down: SCHOOL STARTS ON MONDAY!

Where's My Goody Bag?

To bemoan the materialistic culture in which we live, especially in a place like Silicon Valley, is sort of like eating your chocolate cheesecake and hating yourself for the calories at the same time.  There’s no way we’ll give up that cake, even if no one else can afford it.

A lot of folks in this area know they have it good, really good, but they don’t want you to hate them for it.  So they quietly move to the big house, visit the island for the summer, or cash the stock options.   Their friends try to be happy for them, even as their faces turn monster green.

Then some of us have kids and are introduced to raw materialism on a whole new level.  Enter the phenomena of the birthday party goody bag. 

The most simplistic way this quid pro quo system works is this:  A child enters a birthday party, expecting and most often demanding that a goody bag will be presented to them as they exit the party. In other words, “Here’s your flying airplane kit, now where’s my goody bag?”

Most parents I know have quietly or not-so-quiety given up fighting the good goody bag fight.  We just accept that our kid will have a love affair with his goody bag that far surpasses anything he might feel for the friend who invited him to the party. 

It’s a startling realization about materialism and our children. Sometimes you can see the kids eyeing the bags well before the party ends, or even running a caressing finger across the bag, longing to dump out the contents and dive in.  “Get me out of here” their rolling eyes say.  “I don’t want these people, I want my stuff!”

Last weekend, following another birthday party (we attend at least 12 a year I’ve calculated), I peeked at the guts of my son’s goody bag sprawled on his bedroom floor…a plastic whistle, several bags of candy, washaway tattooes,  a finger puppet, lip gloss, a tiny coloring book with pen, a bright blue ball and several other plastic “thingys,” whose function remains a mystery. 

The bag bought me some time.  Except for fights with his younger sibling, who demanded her own goody bag, we lost our kid for at least an hour as he counted, sort, categorized and hid his loot. From my vast experience at birthday parties, I’ve concluded that goody bags need not be fancy, bright colored or Martha Stewart-made-to-order to do the job.  But sizes does matter.  A large, even brown bag, socked with candy, preferably enough for a diabetic coma after the birthday party, will usually do the job as long as a few other plastic throwaways are included.   A child should be able to sort, categorize and covet her goody bag after the party, long enough to let you collapse with exhaustion and bemoan the fact that the younger sibling in the house is now screaming for a goody bag, too.

I understand that Hollywood is big on goody bags. Those actresses in need a big meal are far more likely to receive a big goody bag, possibly several a day, bulging with Tiffany-like treasures.  It’s a game of mass marketing and consumption, starting with our starlets and trickling down to our tots.

And what of other grown-ups we know and their obsession with goody bags?  Maybe the “bag” is, in fact, your garage and the goody is the raging red convertible your spouse just had to buy. 

Occasionally I will indulge in a certain skin product to fight those laugh lines and the lovely salesperson will give me a “gift bag” with my purchase.  I squeal all the way home, far more delighted with my gift bag than the ointment that is supposed to lift and separate the crevices around my mouth.

The fast food chains have caught onto to our kids quest for the goody bag.  Consider the happy meal phenomena.  After I talk them into the apple slices instead of the French fries, I can thankfully remind my kids that the boy toy or girl toy will also be in the bag.   Give up the transfats, but keep the toy.  Life without goody bags and junk food will surely be unbearable.

Then there are the goodies that we adults know all too well.  Big houses, summer houses, swimming clubs, cars, stock options, private schools, the basic gamut of social economic status in this area.  Without our goodies, one might ask, what would we be? 

That base, shameful feeling of jealousy is something most of us don’t like to feel, let alone show.  To be jealous of someone’s goodies is beneath us, we tell ourselves.   Our kids, on the other hand, are raw with emotion, pride and entitlement around their goodies.  If they’re jealous, we see it.  If they’re boastful, we hear it, all the while telling them not to feel that way.

A good friend once defied code and did not give out goody bags at her son’s birthday party.  My son still hasn’t gotten over the slight.  I, on the other hand, am praying it’s the start of a revolution!

Dad Makes News

New to the SV Mom's Blog, but intrigued and happy to be here.  Still can't figure out how or why I live in SV, not the techie type really, relocated from the New York publishing world and married - surprise - a writer, too.  No blackberries or palm pilots in this house, just a couple of dreamers who try to make a living putting words together.  With some success of late for my chubby hubby.  His "MY TURN" essay was just published in Newsweek. This funny, poignant take on being an older dad is, in my biased opinion, really worth a read. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14171936/

Ironic how my spouse is thriving as an older dad, while I feel grayer, more tired and "old ladyish" by the minute.  Not that I was meant to have a kids a moment sooner.  But let's face it, women are biologically pegged for kids far earlier than most of us are ready to take the plunge.  So we wait and end up having kids on the brink of 40 or later.  This was ideal timing for my husband who became a first-time parent at age 49.  For me that would have been 1) biologically impossible and 2) certifiably insane.   My two precious offspring have given me more wrinkles than the So. California sun I overworshipped as a child.  And I forgive them.

Anyway, it's fun to see your spouse in the press, get recognized for his hard work and remember that he couldn't have done it without me;)  Besides, he's got an important message for men about aging, parenting and love.  Even if it is my own husband, I'm touched every time men open up in their writing about fears, feelings and the real core issues of parenting, of which there are so many.  Men need each other, too, I try to remember. 

Great to be part of the SV moms' blog group.  My goal, if I can possibly pull it off, is to focus more on moms than on my kids in these postings.  As much as I adore my prodigies, they get enough airtime, thank you very much.  I'm more interested in spreading my wings now, reconnecting to my own voice and questions and not feeling guilty for doing so.