by advicefrommarta | Jul 28, 2013 | Family Life, Marketing/Social Media
Our former childcare provider had three kids, two girls and a boy. By the time my kids were at her in-home daycare the youngest of her kids was in high school. When my son went through a car-obsessed phase her husband told me that it was such a relief for him when they adopted their son. “The girls always wanted to tell me stories about their cars and how the cars were feeling. Jack just wanted to play cars.”
At the time my kids were each other’s favorite playmates and one of their favorite games was Trucktown Tornado. Trucktown was largely invented by my daughter. Many of the cars had names and personalities, they lived in a fictional place called Trucktown. During Trucktown Tornado the cars all had to drive to safe places where the kids would cover them with blankets. During Trucktown Restaurant my daughter took lunch orders, which she and my son filled with play-doh food. My son wanted to play with cars, my daughter wanted to play with my son and so she created a story around the cars.
Whether its nature or nurture, most of the little girls I know prefer a narrative structure to their play. It makes sense for toy companies to market to girls by creating toys that have a narrative structure. Why then does the above picture disturb me (and judging by my Facebook feed a large portion of other people I know) so much?
When I posted the picture to Facebook I mocked it, but here’s a dark truth. When I was a little girl I had Lincoln Logs. I liked to play with them. But I didn’t build houses with them, I played house with them. There were three distinct sizes of the logs perfect to create a mommy log, a daddy log and a baby log (you know the little ones for the corners).
With the stacks and stacks of Legos we owned, I built nothing but houses, complete with white picket fences and flowers. Also, the Lego people got married and lived in the houses. I had a toy tool kit, you guessed it the screwdriver was the daddy (I know). I even remember anthropomorphizing my rock collection.
Now, I was a special case, not allowed to have a Barbie Doll lest it give me an unrealistic body image, I was desperate. But, that’s sort of the point. Growing up in a typical 1970s second wave feminist household, before the ubiquitous pink marketing we now see, I still just wanted to play house.
So why am I so bothered by the pink Lincoln Logs? It can’t just be that they’re tacky looking. It can’t just be that they’re unnecessary, the large majority of toys in my house are unnecessary. They just seem so regressive. Over all there’s a feeling that gender roles are becoming more, not less fluid. The girls I know flow easily between “types” being sporty and tomboyish one day and girly and dressy the next. I know young boys with hair longer than my daughter’s, and girls not with cute pixies but just short chopped hair. In preschool my son was not the only one to show up occasionally with painted nails.
This idea that toys should be clearly marked with pink or blue for girl or boy just doesn’t seem to fit in with the world in which my children live. Lincoln Logs is an old fashioned company, but it does it have to be quite so old fashioned?
by advicefrommarta | Feb 10, 2013 | Family Life
Lately, I really want my children to stop talking. I am running out of patience for being quizzed on the rules of baseball or hearing any more about the Patriots and their record, or why Lovie Smith of the Bears should not have been fired. I do not care what color Valentines they are making or the significance of which friend gets which sticker. I do not want to hear the same story about the funny, or unfair, thing that happened at school three years ago.
I am tired of trying to explain news stories in a way that makes sense to people who have zero world experience, so please, quit asking questions. Also, for the 1,000th time I really do not care whether the cracker you are holding is actually a whole cracker or a broken cracker that you are carefully holding together so that it looks like one cracker. Just please put it in your mouth so that I can have two seconds of quiet while you chew.
I know that when my children are reticent adolescents I will mourn the days when I knew everything that happened at school. One day I will beg them to take the headphones out of their ears and talk to me. I know there is a mother out there who really cannot wait to chastise me and tell me how much she would love it if her child spoke at all, let alone too much. Before you do lady, I get it, I’m grateful. I know that if (god forbid) something terrible happened to my children these words, this plea for quiet, would come back to haunt me and probably drive me insane with guilt.
Perhaps it is this guilt that makes this so difficult for me. Because it is not that my children are being particularly loud or obnoxious, or even that the conversation is about poop. Those are times when I can say “That is not appropriate” or “We do not talk about that at the table” or “You need to leave the room.” Those are times that I have an excuse to ask for quiet. But using the word “mommy” five times in the space of one sentence, a sentence that contained zero new or useful information is not a punishable offense.
I recently started reading “The Flame Alphabet” about a world where children’s speech becomes toxic and although the book isn’t my cup of tea, I totally get it. The every day constant chatter of my children is slowly driving me insane. But there is no way to say to your beloved child, “Could I please just have five minutes where you are not you, where you are a quiet person” without causing psychic harm. It is why I am very careful to never tell my children to “shut up,” no matter how angry I am. I do not want them to “shut up” to shut themselves off or up, to stop being themselves, I simply want quiet.
If that’s too much to ask, if I am alone in this secret desire, please don’t tell me. I really don’t want to hear it.
by advicefrommarta | Oct 20, 2012 | Family Life
Things have been going pretty well on the home front lately. Both kids are doing well in school. My daughter has finally started reading for fun and my son has stopped head butting people for fun. There’s been an increase in vegetable eating and we haven’t had an outbreak of lice in our family in almost a year.
Like any 21st century mom, I’ve shared a lot of this great news (and accompanying photos) on Facebook. Then yesterday, I shared something different. I shared a photo of a failure. My daughter and I attempted to make a challah for Friday night dinner. As you can see from the photo above, it didn’t really work out that well. No seriously, that’s what it looked like AFTER it baked.
I was annoyed. For half a second I wanted to throw the bread across the room. It didn’t help when my daughter suggested that we should have called Grandma for advice.
Then I thought about it and I started to laugh. Friday was what our school district euphemistically calls a “half day” of school. Why I should trust anyone who thinks 8-11 is a “half day of school” with my children’s math education is a mystery for another time. The “half day” meant that I started work at my paying job early to try and cram as much in as I could before picking the kids up. While working feverishly to get a project that’s launching on Monday done I got a call from a friend. She’s sick, can I grab her kid from school and keep him for a while too. Of course, I can.
At 11, I rushed to get my kids and the friend. I wanted to go home and finish my work project, but I also didn’t want to be responsible for three kids spending their “half day” in front of the TV. So, we went to lunch and the local Conservatory. When we did finally go home, my daughter and I started the bread making process. We don’t usually make our own challah, but it was a “half day” and my daughter wanted to do something special, especially since her brother had a friend over, so I said sure. I also started the laundry and dinner.
When the bread was “done” I did not throw it, in all its pathetic glory, across the room. I placed it on the challah board and covered it with it’s special cover. I swore my daughter to secrecy about it’s unique state. When my husband came home my daughter and I raved about our homemade challah.
In our family the kids say the blessing over the bread in Hebrew first, then in English. The translation we use says, “Blessed are you, lord our god, king of the Universe, who causes grain to spring from the Earth.” At “spring” the kids “spring” the challah cover off the bread. Given the lack of springiness of this particular bread, my daughter and I were in hysterics by the time she and her brother got to those words.
On Friday I worked, I did laundry, I made dinner, I kept my kids and someone else’s fed, alive, active, and engaged for 5 hours. If something had to turn out badly yesterday I’m glad it was the bread.
I’ve written before about the danger of the “perfect” images everyone presents on blogs and Facebook. I wonder how great it would be if we all started also posting those less than perfect images instead. Yes, we all have the right to be proud of our accomplishments and our kids’ accomplishments. But I wonder what would happen if we took equal pride in letting each other know that sometimes, it doesn’t all work out.
My daughter will eat thousands of challahs in her childhood. Most of those challahs will be perfect. They will be bought at the local bread store, or made by her grandmother. But if I had to wager a guess I’d say that none of them will be as memorable as this one.
by advicefrommarta | Jul 20, 2012 | Family Life
About a year ago my son declared that if he decided to marry another boy they could just have his sister help them have a baby. Today, he proclaimed that he was excited to start Cub Scouts this year and that he would definitely go all the way to being an Eagle Scout.
If you’ve been following the news lately you know that these two positions aren’t really compatible. I’ve never been a big fan of the Boy Scouts (or really any other group, but that’s a different story). I’m not sure how Post-Nazi era any psuedo-para-military group for boys could choose brown shirts without you know, blushing a little.
Yet my daughter LOVES Girl Scouts and my son has looked forward to being able to join his own group. There’s a part of me that knows I shouldn’t let him join. Earlier this year I stopped him (at least temporarily) from taking up tackle football because I don’t know if it would be good for him or not.
Joining a group that discriminates against people cannot be good for my son. Except that their discriminatory policies are not the totality of Boy Scouts. I’ve seen what Girl Scouts has done for my daughter and I have no doubt that being a part of Boy Scouts would be equally good for my son.
When I was growing up we were not allowed to eat Nestlé products because they promoted formula instead of breast feeding in African countries without clean water. We did not eat grapes or lettuce because of, um, I’m not sure, it had to do with Cesar Chavez though. I was raised to believe in the power of a boycott, that your money should always follow your values. Certainly, your parenting should follow your values as well?
Yet, I live in Oak Park, a suburb so liberal even the expressway exits left. A man I like leads a local boy scout troop. I’ve been told that local troops are not tightly tied to the national organization and that very little dues money goes to the organization as a whole. I’m pretty sure that the local troops do not discriminate.
I have seen multiple Facebook posts over the past few days from people musing about starting their own “boy scout like group.” That’s great and I respect and admire them for it. I do not have the patience or time to start a new scouting group. I barely have the patience and time to be the mother of someone in a scouting group. What’s more, my son doesn’t want to be part of an alternative group.
He doesn’t want to sit around with a bunch of other well meaning liberal moms and kids. He wants a uniform and badges and camping trips. He wants a father/son overnight at the planetarium and to feel like he’s part of something bigger than Oak Park. I know there are a lot of gay kids and sons of gay parents out there who want that, too and it makes me furious that they are denied that opportunity.
But does that mean that I also have to deny the opportunity to my son? My son does not know the word “gay.” He knows that some of his uncles are married to each other. He knows that one of his uncles is married to another man and is the father of three boys. He does not know yet that this is a problem for some people.
How do I tell him that he can’t be a part of something fun and positive because some people are hateful? How would I possibly explain this discrimination?
But let’s say he is in fact gay. How will I explain to him when he’s 16 and kicked out of Eagle Scouts that, “Yes, I did know this could happen, but you know, I decided to give your time and my money to a group that hates you”?
My husband and I have not yet decided what to do. What would you do?
by advicefrommarta | May 24, 2012 | Family Life
My daughter’s best friend is moving tomorrow. I’ve been sad since I heard the news back in January but for the past week I’ve been walking around with a familiar pit in my stomach. The kind of broken-hearted, pit of dread that makes it hard to eat and sleep.
The reaction, the pit, seems a little over-the-top to me. Yes, I love this little girl and yes she’s become a part of our family. I love her family and will miss her mother, a dear friend, horribly. But, I feel worse about this move than I did when my own lifelong best friend moved to Israel a few years ago. To me, that’s weird.
Some of it is that you always feel worse about things happening to your children than you do about things happening to you. I’d much rather have a pneumonia than have my children have a cold. Not just because I’m a selfless mom, but also because my kids are really whiny and annoying when they’re sick.
Some of it is that I don’t know how my daughter will respond. This could be an emotional dividing line in her life, or it could be a blip that blows over within a month (ha!). She does not deal well with emotion and I’m worried about how she’ll handle this.
I think some of it is also about my own friendships. Around the same time that these girls were becoming close, my best friend since the age of 5 moved across the world. My husband’s best friend since the age of 3, died. At the same time that this family decided to move we were contemplating a move of our own to New York. As much as we love Oak Park, my husband and I both realized that we’re lonely here. We do not have the type of sustaining friendships that we have in other places.
I know it’s projecting, but I worry about my daughter feeling the same way. Being alone is wonderful. Being lonely sucks.
Mainly though, what the pit in my stomach reminds me of is being broken up with. For me, the hardest part of breaking up was never the loss of the person himself, but the loss of the potential. The break up I took the worst was not even a break up. After a fantastic date, a guy never called me back. The relationship ended before it started, it ended when it and he were still perfect.
That potential is hard to get over losing.
It’s possible that these girls would not have grown up to be life long best friends. By this time next year they might have had a huge falling out, or started to drift in different directions. One of the things we moms of daughters so often forget is that grade school friendships are not a lifelong contract. It’s ok for girls to be good friends one year and barely acknowledge each other the next. It’s normal.
My daughter has plenty of friends she’s known since kindergarten or earlier and when she constructs the own story of her life one of these girls may be “my best friend since kindergarten.” This amazing blonde whirlwind may be a footnote in her life story.
Who knows, maybe there was some other girl I knew in grade school that at the time I liked more than Hillary (ok, that’s totally unlikely, Hill does and always has rocked!).
But in my mind, this girl was the one. This girl would grow up with my daughter and they would sustain each other through those difficult adolescent years. Sure, they would have fights and sometimes not get along. They might not always talk to each other or agree with each other.
But, they would know the joy that I’ve known of having a lifelong best friend, someone who knows you as well as you know yourself and loves you anyway. Someone you feel close to, even when they live a world away.
It’s the loss of that for my daughter that makes my stomach ache.
