Parents on the Path

Quote of the Day

2009-08-26T16:37:00.002-04:00

"I wonder if I can burp and play the pennywhistle at the same time."
~K. Diehl

I hate it when John Rosemond is right

2009-07-03T11:26:00.002-04:00

Conservative parenting columnist John Rosemond, who openly longs for the days when all moms stayed home to better welcome dads home from work with a martini and home-cooked meal, is right about one thing. Parents today over-parent, subsuming their own identity to that of their kids and parent-hood, giving their kids too much power in the family and too much responsibility that should rest with the parents.

This AlterNet story explores the emerging trend and how the workplace effects it:

Now, more people wait to have kids because they don't feel ready in light of it being so important and difficult. And being a parent is harder than ever due to "structural problems," says Lepore. "Most jobs are made for people who aren't taking care of children. The sharper the division between parenthood and adulthood, the worse those jobs fit, and the less well people who aren't rearing children understand the hardships of people who are. Employers are seldom asked to accommodate family life in any meaningful way; employees do all the accommodating, which mainly involves, especially for women, pretending that we don't actually have families."
And all of that also means parenthood has become a kind of magical ideal, a role impossible to actually fulfill due to time, personality or financial constraints -- think June Cleaver, or her modern equivalent, Angelina Jolie. Parenthood is not only supposed to take over our schedules and bank accounts, but transform our identities. When you have a kid, you're no longer an adult or an individual, you're a parent.

Add the Disney marketing juggernaut and you've got a recipe for the crazies.

Driving my kid and her two friends to a weeklong overnight camp last week, winding my way through the remote and badly marked back roads of northeastern Connecticut, I could not help but think that most of us in the car have been programmed to view the situation as a Disney show - a situation comedy. The parent would be predictably inept and hapless, the kids would figure out the way there. I almost complied, getting quite seriously lost by thinking I could outsmart google directions with my own old map that SEEMED to show such a shortcut. The kids, however, seemed uninterested in double checking any map, content to trade gum and camp stories.

What pisses me off about Rosemond is that he's sexist and disingenuous. I too would advocate for a society and economy where one parent has the option to remain home and parent - and, say, get that MBA or law degree, or volunteer to improve the community. But let's recognize the bad things about the good old days, when women's careers ended with childbirth and their career options were limited to teacher and nurse in the first place.

But even while we need time to parent, we need to lighten up about it. I cringe when I hear parents ask their tetchy toddlers, Do you want to take a nap? Do you want to eat your vegetables? Wrong question, I want to scream. THAT is too much power for a kid, and the wrong kind. These kids are like a dog who's stared at all the time. They'd much benefit from being left to their own devices, with firm rules and a good understanding of their own abilities and the consequences of their actions.

40 - 40 - 6: Too bad it's not a locker combination

2009-04-27T21:21:00.002-04:00

This is the % of black, Latino, and white students in the US - respectively - attending schools with poverty rates of 70 to 100%.

Too bad it's not a locker combination.

The full report is here at the Sheff Movement web site: Why Sheff Matters

MPAA Bans Teens from Twilight, Harry Potter

2009-04-01T17:37:00.005-04:00

AP - Movie fans around the country were stunned today by the announcement of a new movie ratings system that will ban thousands of young fans from seeing their favorite films in theaters.

Under the new guidelines, released today by the Motion Picture Association Picture of America, ratings of PG-13 and above will be strictly enforced by requiring not only parental consent but photo IDs. As a result, many fans will not be admitted to the latest Twilight and Harry Potter films, expected out this year, and many others.

"It's high time our young people got some wholesome entertainment, not this mystical, sleazy warlock and vampire junk," said Sen. Joseph I . Lieberman, D-CT, a leading advocate of the changes.

Young fans reacted with dismay. Protests were planned in most major cities and studios were said to be laying plans to combat pirated films and screenings.

"I just can't believe it," said 12-year-old Julia Montgomery, of Hartford, CT, who has read every Twilight novel and seen the first film five times. "This is so unfair and I can't believe we are seeing this kind of censorship right here in the US."

###

Quote of the Day

2009-03-30T16:51:00.002-04:00

"The best one was the free one."

~V. Diehl, after visiting the Newseum and Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

"Go, Mommy!"

~K. Diehl, to me, after watching a Newseum video about reporters covering 9/11.

The piece was a stirring testimonial to the role of the press in being there to cover disasters, emergencies, etc. She was referring to the fact that I used to be a reporter. I quickly explained that the East Hartford school board and police logs involved little such risk.

She and her sister also had to listen to my rant that corporate layoffs have so decimated the press corps that such reporting capacity is sadly much diminished.

Space Bores Me

2009-03-21T08:35:00.001-04:00

Quote of the Day:

Space bores me. It's up there, all right? Let's just keep it up there.

~K. Diehl

Fake news trumps "real" news

2009-03-12T21:50:00.002-04:00

A very good summary by AlterNet asks the disturbing question:

"All hilarity aside ... what does it mean that Jon Stewart is doing a better job holding CNBC accountable than anybody else?"

It's worth watching all the Daily Show clips here.

Interconnectedness....and, spend less than you earn

2009-03-11T19:16:00.003-04:00

The other day I fixed dinner while listening to a story on NPR about the interconnectedness of one small town's economy and how it's being slammed in these hard times. One laid-off worker stops spending and impacts another business, which closes down and hurts others, and so on.

I had to turn it off halfway through. It was sounding this endless same single note of alarm - it's bad! it's getting worse! you're screwed and there's nothing you can do about it! - without any glimmer of hope of action people can take or intimation that someday it will get better.

This is all elementary economics that I feel I learned as a reporter in my 20s, never mind later Econ classes. You walk down your town's main street (if you still have one) and look and think and there it is. It's the Wal-Mart effect writ small.

It's also Thich Nhat Hanh's apple meditation, or thoughts on Interbeing or interconnectedness.

The apple meditation is, put simply, an exercise where you take an apple and, as you eat it, realize it could not exist without the water that fed the tree, the air that helped the plant, the soil that nourished the tree's roots - and that this air, soil, and water are all interconnected also with the air we breathe, the soil we garden in or walk on, the water we drink and swim in and pass. The whole world, including you, is in this apple, when you think about it.

It's not such a leap, I thought, as I clicked the radio pre-set to one of my daughter's pop stations, to see that the coffee shop on the corner is connected to the airplane manufacturer down the street...even connected to the Wal-Mart off the interstate.

It is a scary, scary time. Official unemployment in our cities now is 12%. Others have written that those of us who still have jobs have awful levels of stress that we will lose them. My own personal mantra now is: spend less than you earn. On a good month I do and can pay down my debts and squirrel a little a way. It's the only way I can feel a little safe and even then it's pretty tenuous.

People are also finally saying, though, that a real shift is occurring in the way we think, and I see that. People are conserving resources because they can't afford to waste. Good for the planet and ultimately good for us. An economist on Talk of the Nation today was saying that once again hard work is going to be valued and rewarded.

For years I have been angry at George W Bush for telling us to go shopping after 9/11 to show our patriotism. We would have saved string and planted victory gardens then had he asked us. We've lost time but now we are starting.

A Two Quote Day

2009-02-25T18:56:00.001-05:00

"North is my favorite direction."
~K. Diehl

"Hey, did you know peanuts explode in the microwave?"
~K. Diehl

New Feature: Quote of the Day

2009-02-23T18:02:00.003-05:00

My daughter, Katie, has suggested a new feature for the blog: Quote of the Day.

While making dinner - tuna noodle! - she recounts this observation by her favorite teacher, Mr C, aka Mr. Coonce-Ewing:

"The fact that we are so happy that Obama is our first Black president just shows how caught up on race we still are."

She is in agreement.

(She did ask me how many people read my blog. I told her, none, I think.)

Get well soon, Mr. C!

Whaddya know, I'm a Protestant

2009-02-23T17:13:00.000-05:00

Honestly, sometimes you just go through life doing the best you can and things just come your way.

Little Red Hen Syndrome

2009-01-26T19:04:00.004-05:00

Being the sole working adult in a household of two middle-schoolers, I have identified, over the years, what I call the Little Red Hen Syndrome.

You may know the story: Little Red Hen asks all the other animals if they want to help plant the wheat. Not I, the horse, goat, cat, dog, etc. all reply in turn. Will you help me water the wheat?.... Cut it, mill it, make it into bread? No, no, no. But of course when it's time to EAT the bread they're all right there. Too bad, says the little red hen.

It plays out a little differently for me. As I stoop to pick up a sock, bring a dirty dish to the sink, return something to a shelf, the though will rise, unbidden: Am I the only one that knows how to do this? It's a bad thought to have; unchecked, it only inspires carping (why don't you ever...!) and self pity. I've finally developed a much healthier attitude about it, one that looks as much at my own reaction as the event that promoted it...and one that's a lot more strategic about, say, incorporating desired behavior into allowance payment plans.

Lately as I watch our economy implode and Obama's stimulus package wind its way through Congress I find another version of the Little Red Hen syndrome playing out in my head.

I've worked since I was 14 years old. I thankfully have a pretty good credit rating and live in a house I own. I've worked in human services for many years because I believe structural inequalities in our society need to be fixed. I know many of those now losing their homes were lied to about their mortgage terms, work at jobs with wages depressed by unfettered global capitalism and years of institutionalized crippling of labor's power.

And yet...there's a tiny, tiny Little Red Hen in my head when I see my puny 401K swirling in the middle stage of the toilet flush, when I watch my home value plummet and hear about mortgage assistance programs and government bailouts. My relative lack of debt and good credit rating come from not taking nice vacations, from living in a house filled with mismatched hand-me-downs, and until very recently driving a car with rust holes you could lob a golf ball through. Where's my reward? this voice asks. I've been working so hard. What do I get?

I'm not proud of this voice when it talks about mortgage assistance programs. I give it free reign and add extra outrage when it comes up around the financial services bailout.

Other parents nod their heads and smile knowingly when I tell them my Little Red Hen theory. Problem is, she lived and worked in a system that was ultimately fair, that rewarded work and had ample resources.

Don't think we do anymore.

We're measuring the wrong things: Or, was ANYTHING good about the Depression?

2009-01-10T19:51:00.005-05:00

Listening to the news coverage of the economy around Christmas, I was struck at how the very fundamentals of what we measure are a perfect example of we're in such a mess.

Consumer spending is down, reporters intoned, meaning retailers suffer, tax revenues drop, and the downward spiral continues.

But past holiday buying seasons, which bolstered the economy we were used to, were based on credit card debt, and on that peculiar American brand of entitlement that's the envy and the downfall of our financial system and the world's: We DESERVE that new plasma screen TV. Our lives are deficient if we don't have the right new car! No matter what we make or how these expenses bring our spending out of kilter with our income. The right to borrow and spend more than we make is our right too.

We are measuring the wrong things.

Lurching into this recession, watching my home value plummet and my 401K waste away like everyone else, I've been trying to change my habits, to be more in line values embodied by my parents, trained by grandparents who lived through the Depression. Sensible saving, good for the long term economy and our individual and collective financial health, means Christmas retail sales drop, resulting in this hysterical (and perhaps misdirected) news coverage of how the economy continues to tank.

If I were a news editor I'd have my reporters also find out how much we are saving as a nation, whether we are paying down some debt and putting money in the bank. Include savings as a benchmark, an automatic news peg. Spending is good and needed - but so is saving, and living within your means. Where is the sweet spot where these trajectories connect for the greatest good?

Sometimes I think the Depression taught us some good things: recycle, be careful with and grateful for what we have. It's sad and touching, in a way, the implication that if only we saved enough string we'd be all right. In fact, the most maddening thing about W's response to 9/11 was that he asked nothing of us. Look at how Americans have rallied together and sacrificed in the past. If only he'd asked us to pull together then, the whole painful reversal in attitude and fortune, now beginning in the midst of a yawning crisis, could be well underway.

Listening to the news the other morning, my older daughter asked if we were going to lose our house. It's unlikely, now, I was able to tell her. And even if we did, the worst thing that would happen to us is we'd double up, maybe living in Pepere and Gradma's basement.

No problem! both girls replied.

I think the entire country is going to have to undergo this large shift in thinking. It's going to be painful and not quick.

Teaching your kids to be dinosaurs

2008-11-14T23:24:00.003-05:00

Waiting for the bus my daughters and I read the papers. When we can afford it we revel in the New York Times. (A friendly delivery man knows we like the Globe too and drops us one when he has a spare.) Lately, though, it's just the incredible shrinking Hartford Courant - our state's capitol city paper, emerging from rounds and rounds of buyouts and sales and layoffs.

Reading the entire paper in 10 minutes has its advantages, I guess...fewer to take to the curb. Less put into landfills. But half the front section seems like police report transcripts. Be afraid, it seems to intone - be very afraid. We talk about that: what's reported, how it's easier to copy a police report than to analyze complex records and events, how the paper we hold in our hand represents something that is not proportional to reality.

So you see my kids have a steady diet of news. And commentary about news.

Maybe I am teaching my kids to be dinosaurs.

Cooking dinner recently, one of my daughters stated a nearby town is poorer than ours. Really? I queried. Yes, I've been there, came the confident reply. So I explained different ways to measure community wealth and resources. They quickly grasped the notion of a Grand List, adding up all the taxable property and dividing by the number of people. We have a house, we have a car; they could relate.

Later, I thought ruefully that of course my clever middle school children could grasp the basic elements of a municipal budget, drilled into me as a 21-year-old reporter covering a town. But there are fewer and fewer people know how to report on these things, or opportunities to read about them.

Recently I was in a panel discussion reflecting on whether our current state of media - massive corporate ownership, diminishing reporting and investigative resources - is a chicken or an egg problem. Or has a chicken or egg solution. Do we as a society expect and seem to like such shallow reporting because that's all we get? Is that what we get because that is what over time we have shown we want? Is that what we want because it's all we know? Or all we have time for?

I remember feeling from my own reporting days that I was often just writing into a well. You work your ass off, break a fabulous story, and no one cares or acts on it and nothing changes. That's a good part of why I left journalism, and now, after a lot of years of trying in other ways to change the world, I can see how even the best reporting got to be part of a much larger and more concerted campaign. You need the analysis, and the content in that 30+ inches of unbroken copy, but you've also got to call out the important parts and hit people over the head with it. Again and again and again.

There are actually some good things about the incredible shrinking Courant. I do see they are calling out information in new and visually appealing ways. Good! What's still lacking, though, is analysis, and any context. How about a police blotter that also tells us whether crime - by any measure! - was up or down or the same as in recent weeks and years.

Maybe this is one of those things that will work itself out with time. Perhaps the upsurge in blogs and online news will fill the gap - although I am afraid I agree with those who point out that online communities too often consist of people who agree with each other or are interested in narrow and specific topics (left-handed dentists, Buddhist parents.) They're not learning about things in their own community and they are not talking to anyone with a different opinion.

I cling to the notion that as an informed citizens we should have a grasp of certain facts and processes and benchmarks. What's our tax rate, how do we compare to other places, how are we educating our kids and taking care of our seniors, and so many more. And I haven't found a better place we should be able to look to for that than our media.

Hundreds of words for snow

2008-11-09T09:00:00.002-05:00

I don't know it it's true, the ubiquitous urban myth that Eskimos, tied to and living off their land, have 100 different words for snow.

Lately I have been feeling that way about leaves.

I am still raking, and now, on the weekend where I have time off from work and my daughters are at their dad's, I am determined to finish up.

Today and yesterday the leaves are very damp and even wet. Tarps weigh many times their usual weight as I drag them to he riverbank. I have to switch hands, feel myself develop Popeye forearms.

Raking them is different too. My yard is not completely level and in some places leaves have gathered in small depressions; here they are packed and wet. In other places, under the eaves of the house, there are pockets of leaves that are entirely dry, fluffy, still colorful and easy to rake.

Most of the yard now has been cleared at least once, so when I go back over and sweep three or four inches worth of these damp leaves, it feels good.

Home Depot Illimunati

2008-11-01T11:24:00.003-04:00

I used to joke that if the Illuminati does indeed exist, their greatest accomplishment is Home Depot.

I thought of that again this morning as I was taking leaves. My home office window looks out into my lovely yard, graced with numerous enormous maple and beech trees. Unchecked, leaf accumulation gets to a foot or more of wet, packed, smelly mouldy matter by spring. This year I am resolved to keep up with it, and get out there to clear small patches, even though the trees above are still half filled with trembling, turning leaves.

Weeks ago I was rather stressed, eying my finances (which do NOT include leaf removal) along with the ticking by of the season and what I know to be the massive job ahead. I've had some success in moderating the stress by simply acknowledging making note of it and letting it go; also, though, by not leaving it all till the end, and taking advantage of every free half hour on a nice day to enjoy the air and revel in the exercise.

And so I was out there this morning, and I remembered my old joke about the Home Depot Illuminati.

It goes something like this:

If indeed there is a giant powerful international cabal, intent on seizing and holding control of our political and economic systems, what better success could they hope to have than Home Depot?

Think about what Home Depot successfully promotes.

If you are a homeowner, it is your single largest and greatest investment. If you are not, you are supposed to aspire and work toward it. After all, the greatest form of middle class welfare given the mortgage interest tax deduction.

Well, this, your home, is in constant and unending need of improvement. Even if it isn't actually falling down around you, you are continually told - through trillions of dollars of very well developed glossy commercials; entire sections of the newspaper - that is needs to be brighter, prettier, glossier, larger. Marble. Stainless steel appliances. Skylights! Renovated kitchens!

If you even halfway listen to this constant drumbeat you can spend every spare cent (hell, go into debt if there's none to spare) and every spare minute improving your home. Otherwise you are worthless! Inadequate!

As Betty Friedan said about housework, home improvement now expands to fill all available time.

So, back to the Illuminati part. If the goal is a populace that doesn't care about politics, or public policy, or how society invests its resources, what better way to achieve it than this? (Or doesn't have time to care; maybe the same thing.)

Cause or effect? Kinda doesn't matter.

I've seen Michael Moore's Sicko since developing this theory and think he's got it even more right. Americans are overworked, overextended, and feeling fundamentally really vulnerable about the increasing disconnect between the lifestyle we are told to want, the actual cost of living (even without plasma tvs), juxtaposed against real earnings; and the fact that for many years we have experienced no political hope or sense of our own power and effectiveness. In France, the government is afraid of the people, Moore concludes; here, the people are afraid of the government.

I do have to say, I almost can't bear to watch any more news. The unavoidable economic black hole combined with the possibility (however remote) of a McCain/Palin administration is almost too much to bear. (Although I do feel increasingly free to prepare to celebrate Tuesday.)

However: I have decided to enjoy raking the leaves this year. I do not have to bag them, instead throwing tarps full off a steep hill that leads to a riverbank. That's a kind of wild, joyous feeling in itself. It makes a wonderful, massive compost pile, and the kids love to jump in them. And I can use the mental time to muse, reflect on work and other things, dream up barely read blog posts.

Prescription Religion

2008-10-26T16:14:00.004-04:00

An old boyfriend once had a T-shirt with a marvelous and pithy list that summarized the major world religions with a quick irreverent quote for each.

After being raised Catholic, I became a more generic Christian, moving eventually to Buddhism in my thirties.

How do these two things relate?

I sometimes think that Buddhism - for all it has kept me grounded, given me great insights, and meditation - might be the worst thing for me. Truth be told, I've always been a very compassionate person. (Look at my choice of career and political views.) Being able to put myself in another's shoes has never been something I've had to work particularly hard at. In fact, what I often think I need is assertiveness training - to get better at standing up for myself, recognizing when I am being taken advantage of, being firm and clear about what I want and need and will and won't accept.

Which has led me to the belief that what we may need, in place of this modern western ability to shop with impunity for pretty much any faith or spirituality that speaks to us, is someone ELSE to tell us what we need.

Prescription religion.

I look at myself lately - 40 years old and staring hard at my second divorce; glaring questions there about my judgement, at least in one major area! The last thing I need is to sit around thinking and talking about the need for compassion and emptiness! I need some stronger stuff....Wrath of God, chosen people. Maybe I need to ingest some a couple of shots of fundamentalism and start getting ready for the Rapture. Maybe I need to go back to confession, list sins and be absolved.

Sigh.

I am kidding, of course. Mostly. I am reading commentaries on the Diamond sutra lately. I was lucky enough to go to a daylong seminar on it, years ago, and have always loved the realization that only transcending emotions lets you see them; that "all form is emptiness, all emptiness is form," meaning that for all that they consume us at the moment, emotions are really only in us and don't exist otherwise or on their own. From there it's a short leap to being able to hold yourself above or apart from them to really see them.

(Except when you are consumed with primal tears at odd times. On hearing a song that hits you the wrong way. Driving home.)

I have asked the old boyfriend for the T-shirt and he doesn't have it anymore. Couldn't find it on line, either. I think I will spend some time on a comparative religious study, taking snippets as needed.

Later: Stepping in dogshit.

Garden Darwinism

2008-07-28T21:04:00.002-04:00

It's that time of year when I long for the desert - when the lush, overwhelming greenness of New England threatens to overwhelm the senses, choke off paths and driveways when untended for a week. When I'm reminded how any bare patch of dirt in these parts, left untended, will be covered in a month with scrappy Queen Anne's lace, sumac trees, bright weedy wildflowers.

When my local walking trails seems sultry and overgrown, with a steamy, closed in feeling, that would render me unsurprised should a brontosaurus poke its head around the corner.

My vegetable garden goes through the same wild process every year around this time, and I am too weary to intervene. I go away or get busy for a week or so and return to find that the tomatoes are overtaking the squash, the oregano is totally out of control, and the sweet peas are staging an invasion again the neighboring asparagus with apparent success.

Garden Darwinism, I call it.

This year's vegetables have been haphazard. I planted all my tomatoes at once and am sure they will all come ripe at EXACTLY the same moment, when my car crosses the state line on my way out to vacation.

In the back row I whimsically planted come climbing moonflowers right in front of some lovely tall sunflower seeds. Unfortunately I did not also then install string for the moonflowers to climb, so as they came of age they lurched inexorably forward and established a mutually lethal stranglehold on the sunflowers. I finally ran some string and coaxed the resultant moonflower-sunflower conglomeration up the ropes, feeling vaguely like I was violating the Prime Directive.

If they survive, I thought, it'll be lovely, if odd. The moonflowers so far seem okay.

Who would think that the fragile, tapering leaves of the moonflower - blossoming only at night, slender trumpet blooms - would overpower the thicker and sturdy trunk of the sunflower? Yet that seems to be the case.

Sometimes at this time of year I feel sympathy for the Pilgrims, who, starving, must have looked around at all of this lush, fantastic growth - not much of which, occurring on its own, seems to have the nutrients to sustain human life...yet how accommodating the land, with just a little knowledge.

I am descended from some actual Pilgrims. Growing more and more allergic every year to poison ivy, I now think of it as nature's way of saving to my ancestors: get back on the boat and keep looking.

Like a Mole

2008-01-27T13:38:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, standing the in the parking lot of the elementary school where my daughter and some other kids were sledding, I started to examine the growing rust spot above the wheel well of my car with a sense of detached fascination and dread. It was something like looking at a little noticed mole on your body. You only have to worry when it changes, right? I thought, peering at the growing dark center , the widening area of raised metal, what appeared to be layering near the center edge. I became afraid to poke it for fear of going right through.

My car is a 1994 Accord, making it older than my children. It was bought by me about three years ago in a period of financial distress, for $4,000 in cash, from a repair shop small enough and marginal enough that my car's true history and origins have always seemed vaguely murky to me. The title said one previous owner, but a series of random systems malfunctions (too expensive to correct, only intermittently inconvenient to live with) suggest otherwise: antenna doesn't work, gas gauge broken, odd leak into back seat area. On my frequent trips to the repair shop, I think I have a Katrina car. Otherwise I try to revel in not having a car payment.

I was standing next to my friend and neighbor, having just been admiring his new Toyota truck that seats six and had spaces for DVD players. We were chatting, leaving just enough free brain space for my eyes to return again and again to my small Rorschach test of rust. It looked definitely bigger than the last time.

I was a little on edge anyway. I was there with my older daughter, and my neighbor and his three kids. My younger daughter had been all set to go with us, but was home now, due to her soaking herself to the waist minutes before we were due to leave. I'd given her a hot bath, and some tea, and was anxious to get back to her.

How big can a rust spot get before your bumper will fall off driving over a bump, I wondered.

What are your views on television?

2008-01-01T19:35:00.001-05:00

Here is a request for input from other parents.

What are your views on television?

The topic is becoming a battleground lately in our home. For a long time we had a no-TV-during-the-week rule, which has grown relaxed of late around others who like TV during the week. (And I must confess, the girls and I would often watch the Daily Show together even before then.) My 12-year-old has a seemingly insatiable apatite for all Disney Channel programming. Even as she is saying she realizes how inane it is, she is drawn to it like a moth to flame.

Some advocate letting her regulate her own TV as long as her chores and homework have been done. I resist this, not wanting her brain filled with the crap I know she will watch.

Disney and other shows seem to me to promote a wise- assed tween world where all adults are idiots, kids walk through life leaving a trail of soda cans that the maid picks up, and the prevailing attitude among kids is cliquey, know-it-all, preternaturally adult, snooty and condescending. When my kids spend hours sitting and consuming that carefully branded and marketed lifestyle, yeah, it rubs off. Don't tell me Disney and Diet Coke don't spend millions on the country's top child psychologists t figure out exactly how to motivate and sell to these kids, I told my husband. There are only 24 hours in every day, and I don't want to spend my time and my kids' s childhood fighting this.

I've always advocated watching TV with my kids. Early on we started talking about commercials, asking, What are they trying to sell us? I've always kept an eye on what they see (although lately they are trying to watch South Park with their cousins...not sure I am ready for that.) But now it just seems like trying to find the right balance of freedom and rules is like grasping a slippery pig.

I know every generation says this, but here it is for us: I remember going out and roaming the neighborhood for hours or days without adult supervision or knowledge. Now we live on a busy state road, and even if we didn't I'd hesitate to let my kids out entirely untended for that much time. More time outside would certainly be good for everyone. But it's not the panacea.

I also know I can't control their every wish or action. What I want is to teach them the habits and controls that will give them persistence and creativity. I am pretty sure that four hours a day of the Disney channel are not the way to go.

Has anyone else struggled with this?

Identifying the moment

2008-01-01T19:18:00.000-05:00

They happen every day, these little moments where a spark of insight goes off in your head and you realize that this was a turning point: a marker has been passed, a shift has occurred.

Yesterday I was sitting at my desk working while my younger daughter puttered around, fulfilling the maternal mandate that she spend a half hour playing the violin and piano (to balance the hours of television she'd ingested over the holiday weekend.) She's had a great spurt of enthusiasm this year for violin this year, fueled I think by an energetic young teacher at school who's found the right way to motivate her. She also takes piano, and seems to delight in trying to stump her teacher with detailed questions about music theory: what happens if this or that occurs? Why is this like this, what would happen if that...? I secretly love it.

She was going back and forth between her instruments when she suddenly fixated on the violin and how to play different scales. She wanted to show me the fingering and how you had to turn the neck to play various notes. I turned to give her my full attention. (I am so happy at these moments to be home.)

As I was listening and watching, it occurred suddenly to me, with the force and clarity of absolute truth: She is so far ahead of me now in all her musical knowledge and abilities! She is 11 years old and she is miles and miles ahead of me and I will never catch up. There was an undertone of feeling just a little old within this realization - but also there was the certainty that she had diverted from me in this area, in this one fork of the many many roads of life. I could study music full time for years and likely never achieve the mastery she is beginning to show. And to think, I'll now spend consistent or even increasing energy to make sure that she continues to practice and learn.

I took piano lesson myself as a kid, but don't even remember how old I was or how far I got when my parents decided I didn't practice enough and the lessons were summarily discontinued. Not that I was a prodigy suddenly deprived of my passion; probably I was happy to have more time to watch television uninterrupted.

But I was very happy for my daughter yesterday. Even the distance I sensed opening up between us was a good thing, a natural thing, and the right thing. Hopefully she will continue to grow and surpass me in many ways. And I guess I'll also be grateful when she keeps coming back and wanting to show me what she's up to!

Sometimes anger is the only right response

2007-12-23T18:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's front page story in my local paper was about Nataline Sarkesian, a 17-year-old girl who died last week after a long bout with cancer and her insurance company's refusal to cover a liver transplant. I read on line that the hospital had found a donor in mid-December but needed $75,000 in cash from the family to proceed. The insurance company reversed itself only after bloggers prompted hundreds of outraged calls and the family staged a rally late last week outside the company headquarters. Hours after the insurance company's decision she was dead.

Here is one of those times where I struggle with the Buddhist admonition to feel compassion even for those you don't like. Here is one of those times I feel that anger is the only appropriate response. I get limited satisfaction from saying to the Democratic presidential candidates, when they call asking for money: Talk to me when you support single-payer universal health care. I get limited satisfaction from talking to people individually as much as I can about the structural defects of our health care system.

Are these slow and small actions enough?

The bottom line is that our health care is driven by the profit motive. Individual and even collective care will always suffer in comparison, and it will be justified by corporate statements such as "people just don't want to pay for experimental care," as if they were to be faulted for that -- as if the could of course afford it if they wanted to and instead were off at the blackjack tables.

When I mentally plot the lines of each of these factors - the profit motive and entrenched corporate power on one axis, the growing outrage and ill health of the voting public on the other- it seems the intersection that will prompt change is just impossibly far away.

I'm not advocating pipe bombs or personal violence against anyone. But I'm afraid simply showing compassion and waiting for people to come around to your example simply doesn't work in the face of systemic greed and power. Of course mindfulness is always needed, to determine compassionate and effective action. But action is also needed.

Working Parent's Dilemma

2007-11-02T21:20:00.000-04:00

Mornings for working parents are a tightrope walk at best. I have to say that this year is about the best it's ever been: both kids are in middle school, I am no longer scrambling to assemble healthy lunches and snacks before 8 am, and am even in the nice habit of making a hot breakfast and sitting down for a minute before the bus comes. On the perfect morning, we all sit together and look at the paper to see what's happening in the world.

But I was reminded this week how quickly family life can slide, any time, into stress that wants to break out of the nice little walls we try to build. Waking my oldest at 6:30 or so, she looked up at me sleepily, and with real and not manufactured pain, uttered the dreaded words: Mommy, I'm sick.

I am always vaguely ashamed of the first thought in my mind at this moment. Even as my hand reaches to feel the forehead, and one part of my mind inventories the kitchen to see what I have on hand for comfort foods, the rest of me is immediately thinking, What meetings do I have today? And when? And who with? Can they be cancelled? Postponed? Can she come with me? In the space of a minute my mental space goes from calm to

Within 5 minutes or so the parameters of the day had been established. Little response to the declaration that anyone staying home sick gets no tv or internet for the day. Slight fever. No meetings. A day of rest.

Fortunately, I was able to work from home the whole day. Actually I got to enjoy making her Ramen noodles and spending time together.

And I realize how lucky I am. I've got a good job that lets me be a mom. Parents who drive a bus or punch a clock face the same demands as parents and lose a day's pay or even their jobs. The way the US economy is going, more and more jobs are service jobs, and don't offer vacation or sick time.

A Modest Proposal

2007-10-18T15:34:00.000-04:00

I've always has a love-hate relationship with work and parenting. I can put a knot in my stomach any time by just thinking about the inherent conflicts -- the expanding hours Americans are expected to put in, the need to balance professional and personal creativity and productivity with the time and work involved in the feeding and care and enjoyment of offspring.

First there's the anti-parent faction at work - you know, the ones who look at you sideways or make snide remarks when you leave at 4:30 or 5 on a regular basis, to beat, as I used to call them, the Day Care Police.

On one hand, I believe that all workers should have, simply, a life - something other than the job that drives them and gives them joy. To that end, everyone ought to have a reason, and the ability, to spend reasonable amounts of time at home and at pursuits other than work.

On the other, I have personally suffered financially through the babyhood and elementary-school-hood of two American citizens-in-training, who will someday (God willing) be productive and engaged workers and taxpayers. Although their father and I cobbled together weekend and off-hour work that required no more than part-time day care, the resulting bill still approached and sometimes topped our mortgage payment. After-school and summer care continued to drain thousands of dollars each year from our family budget - money not spent on home repair, savings, new car, vacations - all the way through middle school.

The tax credit for day care seems like an afterthought and an insult when you consider the enormity of the expense - an expense the state does not see fit to help with at all.

Given the complete lack of interest and support my government has shown in helping with the care and well-being of my children in these extremely formative years, I've sometimes wanted to run for office on the Modest Proposal that MY two little future wage earners should therefore have their future Social Security taxes earmarked entirely to ..... ME. (Much the same way that Al Franken talked about running for office on the platform of eliminating ATM fees.)

Sure, there would be a little bookkeeping and earmarking involved at the IRS. But surely it'd be possible to track my little wage earners' income and make sure I got my slice! Imagine some of the eventual consequences... Childless people would have to put aside extra money in their early-earning years to compensate for the later lack of income! Exactly the inverse of now, where the child-bearing are sucked dry.

I'm just kidding, of course....Mostly. After all, I'd think the goal should be a society where the young and old are cared for by a community of people with ample resources. We've stripped so many supports from families now that parent's weekly schedules and bank accounts are both worn down to the nub. I think I know why there is no universal child care in the US: the parents of very young children, the ones who would have to lobby and advocate to make it happen, are simply too freaking tired.

Sangha...or, Another Wonderful Google

2007-10-03T19:45:00.001-04:00

One more wonderful use for Google - you can use it to find like-minded people and groups in your own back yard. Driving, trying to tell a friend on the phone about my meditation group, I couldn't recall the exact address and instead told him to just Google it

Been going to my sangha more regularly for the past couple of months. Last night I was pleasantly surprised to see an old professional acquaintance, and to learn during the dharma talk that another person there was also a new mom. I loved this, as I often worked for years in non-profits, have struggled with how to reconcile my desire for social change with the buddhist admonition to look deeply and not judge. And I've written a bit here about the natural tension between the daily demands of parenting conflicting with the ideal practice.

I have a wonderful sangha, in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hahn, in which we meditate for a half hour and then have a structured dharma discussion. I have been going for about five years, off and on, and always enjoy the dharma talks. (Since I've been back lately I've remembered what I think of as the "performance anxiety" of meditating with other people. I never have to swallow this much at home...) It is very structured, with each person taking a turn to speak about their practice or their life, in turn. It is not a conversation - one person talks; everyone else listens. Everyone has their different pace, and style, and content. Sometimes I feel I am off stride, sometimes it is easy and fluid. I've often been deeply impressed by the things other people are going through, things you would never guess.

In a way it's like dating was, for me, after my divorce: something you had to go through in order to experience it; to experience yourself in relation to other people. You gain an insight from being there that's not possible by simply reading or studying, however deeply.

Sometimes I circle back to thinking about how important the sangha is in many traditions - the need for the support of community of like-minded people. It makes sense, completely, to recognize the need for eyes and minds other than your own.

What Counts for Progress

2007-09-16T11:18:00.000-04:00

I've got a closer relationship with my credit card companies than I'd like. While trying for years to impose fiscal discipline and live within my means, I somehow manage to periodically amass a scary and impressive credit card balance. Usually it metastasizes onto more than one card.

Recently I sat down to take stock of the big picture, and it was like stepping on a rake. A balance of $11,000 lurked on a Chase card with an interest rate of some 7% and monthly finance charges of $67. A second card with a rate of 13% stood at $4,000. I'd run it up recently in anticipation of redeeming some points for airline tickets - neglecting to check closely the labyrinthine card rules that allowed me to trade some 20,000 "points" for ...nothing. Finance charges there are $61 per month.

But I considered myself prepared! I'd saved all the offers for balance transfers that came in the mail and was ready make the transfer to a lower interest rate and buckle down. My first call was to Chase, which had sent a very nice letter, referencing my exact card number and saying I could transfer my balance for a 1.99 percent interest rate. Trying to feel some brand loyalty, trying to be mindful of my credit rating and not jump wildly from card to card, I called them first. And they balked at transferring their own balance. I could make the transfer but would wind up in the exact same spot when they applied any payment to the highest interest rate first.

Now, of course this is all my own doing. It's hard to defend five-digit credit card balances when you own the stuff (presumably) they bought. But I experienced an hour or so of real bitterness towards this company for their misleading rates and generally outrageous rates that are squeezing little people like me into bankruptcy.

A few days later, I got another offer in the mail, and within 45 minutes had made the transfer to a 0% loan and was mentally wiping my hands of that damn Chase card.

What a sad thing to feel at all victorious about! As my husband points out, any late payment send this 0% to 17%. I am still buckling under the weight of this huge balance. The card has been cut up for months and I'm still struggling to get by. Something always comes up: the furnace needs big repairs. A dental or medical procedure isn't covered by insurance and leaves me with a huge bill. My monthly payments for things like these is approaching $500.

So we soldier on. My husband and I make a game of trying to stay within budget at the grocery store.

I think all of this rises from a structural disconnect between most American's earning power and what it takes to live. Several factors illustrate: Income inequality becomes ever more yawning, with the top 1% showing double-digit increases in wealth while the bottom 40% stagnates. Working families have maintained income over the past several decades only by having wives enter the workforce. What trick will we use now that women are already out there? Greg Palast (www.gregpalast.com) uses an alarming chart in his books that looks like the jaws of an alligator: the bottom line, heading to the right and dropping sharply, represents worker wages, and the top, rising line represents worker productivity.

We are producing more and earning less. The cost of necessities like housing and health care is increasing, leaving less for other necessities and leisure. (Not that vacation-impoverished Americans have much anyway.) We're still bombarded with messages telling us we need flat-screened TVs, constant Home Depot Upgrades, and a big enough grill.

Not sure how to end this post. We do not have a flat screen TV. We do not have a car made after 2000. I vote, volunteer, try to be as active as I can in changing the structural disconnect described, while holding down hearth and home. But often it seems that this soldiering on, being good to the other people in my life and not falling further into the pit, is all we can hope for - and far from being enough.

Postscript:
The above-mentioned husband and I have only been married for a couple of months. Look for other posting on reflections back on Buddhist parent dating....Buddhist thoughts on forming stepfamilies...Merging finances: smart? crazy? ...Helping your children build a home with their new stepfather...Asking your ex to pay for part of extracurriculars...Oh, so much to do! Thoughts, anyone?

Making Time to Blog...?!

2007-09-03T08:35:00.000-04:00

Two-thirds into so many wonderful texts, the parent voice will pop up in my head.

Great spiritual leaders discuss concentration and mindfulness. Pay attention to the here and now. Focus solely on what you are doing; you will do it better and be rested and happy. When you are drinking your tea, do not be thinking ahead to the next day, or back to the past; be right there, drinking your tea.

Now, I am enormously grateful for the strength and wisdom I have gained from these leaders. But it is at point that I can't help but think: If I were entirely present in the here and now, all the time, my children would have no place to go after school. Their teeth would be rotten, they would have no lunch, etc.

Let's face it. It's just different for parents.

The other day I got up early and was meditating. Five minutes in, my daughter bounded down the stairs, ready for school. She saw me sitting quiet, and, knowing what I was doing, she crept into the kitchen and poured herself some cereal.

But even in this very best of situations, my meditating was done for the day. So imagine practicing when they have gotten up late, the bus is coming, they need to get to bed, we need to leave for a concert....any of the minutae that make up life. The thought just made me smile.

Recently my daughters and I went to a retreat with Thich Nhat Hahn. We returned home rested and restored, after a week of listening to dharma talks with Thay and enjoying the company of like-minded people and parents. Yet I felt there, yet again, the chasm between the main points of the teachings and the daily demands of life as a parent.

But I was also reminded of the power of others to support and sustain you.

I returned home to start going again to my own sangha, a small group that meets here in Connecticut every few weeks. But as I perused my local political blogs this morning, I was finally prompted to start one. If nothing else, we can share thoughts and strategies on work, family, and self.

The answer, it seems to me when I think about it, always begins with: look deeply. Think about it, don't let the strong emotion overwhelm you, be there for your kids when they need to express their anger and pain, and don't get caught into the cycle of argument and blame and right and wrong.

It's all there, really, in the teachings - it's just more challenging to apply as a parent.

(And at THIS point, my monkey mind interjects, usually with a smile, Maybe this is why the Buddha was a single, childless prince.)

Metta!