Suburban (in)Sanity

Back-to-School: An Introvert's Lament

The kids head back to school tomorrow, and I'm feeling solidly meh about it. A bit down, even. The eldest is 12 (almost 13) and entering 8th grade. The youngest is 10 and entering 6th. Where, exactly, has the time gone? Seriously. Have you seen the time? All of it?

But back to feeling blah about school.

It's not even that we've had a lot of fun lazy days this summer, though we have. I made it a goal to make sure we did a lot of traditional "summer" things, so the kids and I made a list at the beginning of the summer and then happily checked off items like "go for ice cream" and "go for ice cream to the other ice cream place" and "skip stones" and "fill the entire driveway with chalk drawings." I feel like the kids are getting older and older and these silly fun things get forgotten in the constant hum and beep of technology - be it texts or Instagram or video games or you tube.

 

We've had plenty of activities, and plenty of downtime, an introvert's most treasured activity, amiright?

 

And when I hurt my back mid-summer, I was supremely grateful my kids were home so I had help just managing the basics of everyday - taking out the dogs, laundry, dishwasher. Things I do a hundred times every day and didn't notice until excruciating pain hit. They helped out a lot.

 

But I'm not just melancholy because I'm losing my two minions (though they are very good minions, exceptionally well-trained if I do say so myself.)

 

And, this will surprise my spouse tremendously, it's not just that I will miss my "wake up whenever I wake up"ness of the summer, at least the unscheduled part of it. Although I will miss that quite a lot, too. ;) For the record, I consider it payback (still) for all the nighttime nursings and up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-with-a-child-who-won't-stop-screaming. The first nursed round the clock every 2 hrs his whole first year (and some beyond). The second went a full year stretch where she'd wake for 2 hrs in the middle of the night for no reason and just wail. Piteously. Even when I held her. Which I did, clutching her with a desperate grip, going slightly insane in the process. Let's tally that...carry the one, mumblemumble, add ten, yeah. I still haven't earned out. 

 

The real thing, though, is this. As an introvert (remember, classic introvert definition: I need alone time to recharge my mental/emotional batteries. Extroverts recharge by being with people. Introverts do not.) I find time w/my immediate family to be similar to alone time (though not quite exactly like, which presents challenges sometimes like now when I had to say "um, child, I'm writing something. Can you please stop interrupting me?" Though an extrovert writer would likely have had the same issue being interrupted every 47 seconds...) I feel most energized when I've had adequate (read as: LOTS OF) time to just do my own quiet thing.

 

But once the kids go off to school, I'm stuck interacting with the world again. The big, exhausting, gigantic world. No more talking to the kids in the checkout line so I can avoid conversation with the clerk. No more making vague attempts to get the kids together with their friends, only to be relieved when their friends are unavailable and we can just hang out at home. Again.

(for more on this "cancelled plans phenomenon" you MUST see Gemma Correll's awesome Map of the Introvert's Heart, which popped up all over the place, but in particular on this Fast Company article.)

 

Because I'm a writer, and the primary at-home parent to boot, I semi-force myself to get out of the house regularly while the kids are in school because otherwise I have a tendency to start surfing petfinder and fantasizing about how many cats one can obtain before one is considered "crazy cat lady." Or going entire days without having used my voice at all between 8 AM and 3:30 PM, which is nice and all, but at some point gets a wee bit unhealthy.

 

So I send off to school tomorrow my buddies, my introverts-in-crime[1] (oh how helpful it was to have married an introvert! We had all the genetic fixin's to get us two lovely introverted children!) My armor against the big gigantic world. My excuse?[2] My quiet (usually, except when I'm writing, groan) companions. Oh, and my minions. I suppose the dishes can wait until they get home...

 

 

[1] A corrollary to this is the fact that there is quite an adaptation curve for the kids w/school, since they are both introverted. Luckily they attend a small school, but it still takes a few weeks for them to come home less than exhausted, which can be exhausting to survive as a parent.

[2] Yeah, do I use them as an excuse sometimes? Maybe. Is that healthy? Probably not.

Your parenting tip for the day: Bookmarks for the kids

Parenting Tip: Create a folder of Bookmarks for each child

My kids love playing on the computer. I'm on the computer a lot during the day while they're in school and I often come across a site or activity that I think they would enjoy.

After a few too many "browsers of doom" where I had 12, 15 open tabs just waiting to show the kids, I started a bookmark folder for each kid. This way I can put bookmarks in for pages I think they might be interested in and then *close the webpage.* This has done wonders for my digital sanity, though I still have a digital hygeine problem as explained below.

My own bookmarks are ridiculous, I don't keep anything in there, at least not anymore in the tangle of sites I originally bookmarked in 2003. It's the curse of a visual-spatial person, I can't ever find the things I want no matter how carefully I try to create folder structures and organizational schemes. I swear my digital organization is worse than my physical organization, and that's saying something!

However, for my kids I can manage a reasonable number of bookmarks. Right? (Right??!)

Some of the tidbits in there right now:

Liam's folder:

• Crowdsourcing space exploration tool called Zooniverse that I want to be a part of, too!
• Legends of Druidawn interactive creative writing game (click the link at the very bottom of the page to see the genesis of this site - creative writing solutions it says.)
• A site to convert text to multimedia, like the bunny/mouse characters speaking in tinny computerized voices reading scripts that people wrote....whatever that one is called. Note to self, this would be great to use in Media and Design classes...
• The requisite Lego recreation of something totally AWESOME, this one is Middle Earth.

Anastasia's folder:

• Tree of Life web project - collection of information about biodiversity compiled by amatuers and experts alike.
• How to make friendship bracelets (I'm totally in the clear on the website name since she thinks WTF stands for Why the Face?)
• A music video of an 8 year old girl singing a hardcore (punk rock) song. She's always making videos herself and I think needs a little inspiration, since the script is often the limiting factor.
• A make your own snowflake picture (online) site. Love this.

So I challenge you to go forth and make a folder for each of your children and drop in fun tidbits and cool sites that they might like. Also a good place to put book recommendations, particularly if you're parenting a tween who might not want to actually ASK you for ideas. (P.S., if you don't know this about me already, know that I can talk your ear off with recommendations for books for kids ages 8-18. Please ask! Give me an excuse to talk your ear off!)

Come back and report on the great sites you found! Perhaps one day we'll do this all in pinterest... ;)

Family Holiday Movie Rental Roundup

So another holiday weekend has come and almost gone. We've hardly left the house in four days. I, being a wise and intelligent mom (this ain't my first rodeo...) visited the handy dandy redbox nearest our home on Wednesday morning to procure us some Holiday Rental Delights.To save you some trouble, here's my extremely opinionated view of the movies we saw this weekend:

Green Lantern

Green Lantern - Okay, first, what's the big deal with the lead actor? He's cute, but do people really think he was more deserving than Bradley Cooper for People's ahemist man alive this year? Have you *seen* The A-Team? Oy. Speaking of which, saw it again on cable a few weeks ago and still highly recommend. It's clever, a little violent, but mostly funny. Okay for ages 10+.

But back to Green Lantern. No. On second thought. Don't go back to Green Lantern. ("Over Macho Grande?")

It just wasn't that good. The plot, ugh. But fine. It's a superhero movie, I can adjust my plot standards. But the acting didn't make up for it. There was this feeble attempt to make a strong female character by having her be a fighter pilot, but then the rest of the movie they kept putting her in 4" teeter-tottery heels and having her swoon on balconies waiting for her beau. Barf. She was cute, though, I'd see her in other movies. The special effects were just uber cheesy to me. And it was definitely entirely too long. The kids found it scary in many parts (and these are kids who are not easily scared...they've watched all Star Wars movies, all Harry Potters, all Lord of the Rings, and were more scared by Green Lantern. Sigh.)

Karen Recommendation: Skip it (I'm glad we only spent $1 at Red Box on this one...)

Kid Recommendation: Too scary (ages 8 & 10)

Spy Kids 4

Next Up, Spy Kids 4, a true made-for-kids movie.

This is a cute run in the Spy Kids universe, actually called Spy Kids All the Time in the World in 4D. The first movie was always the best, but this is a cute side tale with Jessica Alba playing a stepmother (who is actually the spy) to two kids who become Spy Kids. There's an awesome part for both Carmen and Juni from earlier SK movies (dang they grew up!) While I fiddled on my ipad most of the movie, it was certainly tolerable adult fare. Kids really enjoyed it. Funny automoton dog who poops out blasting ball bearings, perhaps the kids' favorite part.

Karen Recommendation: Go for it

Kid Recommendation: Two thumbs up

Ocean's Eleven

Thanksgiving night proper, we rented Ocean's Eleven via On Demand for $4. Yes, we watched it with our children, we're quite horrible parents. ;) Actually, other than some swear words and cigar smoking and drinking, it's actually quite a tame movie. The kids really like whodunnit style movies with puzzles that you have to work to figure out (they've watched the movie Clue a dozen times, trying to anticiapte all the various possible outcomes or explain the puzzle. Which, fair warning, has quite a bit of raunchy stuff in it, though it's mostly veiled/referred to obliquely.) This is one of my all-time favorite movies and the kids thought it was pretty interesting, though the youngest was less enthralled. 

Karen Recommendation: Always love this movie

Kid Recommendation: Probably best for ages 10 & up, the 8 year old was a little less engaged

Super 8

The last movie we watched this weekend was Super 8, and it was by far the best movie we've seen in a long time, Harry Potter 7 parts 1 and 2 notwithstanding. It was definitely pretty scary, though. There were many cling-to-mommy/daddy moments, however both kids were totally engaged the whole time and the scary parts were tempered well. There were several surprising "snatchings" in the movie that were the primary cause of mommy-clinging. The main characters are really relatable for kids and it's really the kids' story, which is different from a lot of movies where kids have starring roles. Even Spy Kids 4, to a degree, isn't really the kids' story the way Super 8 is.

The violence/scary parts aren't particularly gory, and in several cases someone is "snatched" that later turns up alive (though some seem to meet untimely ends, too.) The story revolves around a boy creating a movie, using his Super 8 camera, but mostly it's about his friend who helps and the relationships this boy (the friend) creates in the course of a few days in early summer in the late 70s in an Ohio steel town.

I don't want to give too much of it away, but it's a fantastic movie, very interesting, and worth every penny of the $3.60 we ended up spending since we returned it late to redbox. ;)

Karen Recommendation: Highly recommend, even if you don't have kids

Kid Recommendation: Highly recommend, but keep a parent close for hiding eyes and/or clinging when needed.

Speaking of redbox, a few reasons I absolutely adore redbox:

1) Movies for around a buck.

2) Many machines are outside, making it almost a drive-thru experience (can certainly leave kids/pets in the car.)

3) It *doesn't matter* which redbox you return the movies to. Anywhere, anytime. Let me say that again. You can return your redbox movie to ANY redbox anywhere!

4) There are redbox machines north, south, east and west of me. Anywhere I might be going I will likely be passing a machine, further easing the rent/return paradigm.

5) There aren't any "late fees" - just an additional rental fee for any missed nights. No harm, no foul. If you fail to return your movie for 25 or more days they just assume it's yours and charge you a flat rate (25-35 depending on whether you rented DVD or Blu-ray.)

6) You can reserve online, so the title you want is there for certain. Or you can scope out your machines in your area and figure out which ones have the larger box (therefore greater inventory) and rent THERE, since odds are greater that your title will be in stock. Then you can return it anywhere that is convenient.

While they don't have every movie ever made and there's sometimes delays on which movies are avaialble via redbox when, it's still a fantastic rental solution for the busy family. I'm a little tired of getting ripped for $6+ On Demand HD rentals that have poor playback quality. At least with a DVD I know what I'm getting.

So - what movies did you watch over the holiday weekend and would you recommend them?

 

 

Just what do you *DO* all day?

I read this great q/a post by Carolyn Hax in the Washington Post today and almost got whiplash from nodding so vehemently. Even the most sensitive husband (again I remind you that I write from the point of view of the sometimes stay-at-home wife/mom, who also works sometimes, writes, volunteers, and does a thousand other things. This list is likely true/similar for at-home parents of both genders) has come home once in a while and asked - audibly or not - what did you do all day?

A small list of the kinds of things we at-home parents do (yes, yes, some working parents do these tasks too. Trust me, when I'm working I do all this PLUS work. But again, in the interests of the argument I'm making, just go with me on this):

• All food prep, including all food planning (this includes not just what to serve for dinner, but shopping in advance to be sure the materials are on hand)
• Junk mail handling/sorting
• Any sort of coupon clipping in the house (including finding the random useful coupons amidst the junkmail storm)
• Anticipating kids' needs/desires for food for packed lunches and meals
• Tidying up. Ad nauseum.
• Family photo management - including thoughtful christmas card selection, photos into frames, selecting and arranging payment for photos from school and sporting events)
• Family taxi - to and from sporting events, clubs, classes, school/bus stop)
• Family video management
• Some of pet care, generally along the planning and anticipating lines - planning for boarding for vacations, purchasing food, litter, beds, leashes, etc.
• Anticipating children's growth patterns and purchasing (on sale!) the right clothing in the right sizes for the right seasons.
• Buying new shoes every three months.
• Paying enough attention to notice the kids are outgrowing their shoes/socks/underwear/knowing that shoes/socks/underwear are on sale at XYZ store and pre-buying to not have to buy full-price at some point in the not-too-distant future. Damn kids keep growing.
• Family healthcare - dentist, orthodontist, annual physicals, sick visits, ob/gyn and personal health care including mamograms, colonoscopies, other "it sucks getting old" care
• Extended family healthcare - staying informed about aging parents or single siblings' health challenges, attending some doctors visits or coordinating care for some situations
• Pet healthcare - vet visits, maintaining vaccination schedules, administering medicines, exercise
• Reading material monitoring - staying in tune with what kids are reading, purchasing books needed, shuttling to library, approving selections
• Homework assistance, including the creation of whatever structure necessary to ensure homework actually can be completed - quiet zones, clean desks, writing implements available
• Monitoring of digital media consumption by the short folks, knowing what they're watching/playing, approving, limiting, dealing with the whining that comes from setting those limits
• School management - school library book remindings, school field trip forms, class parties, birthday celebrations (your own and others)
• Volunteering for one of the thousand things school/sports teams request - bringing juice boxes to practice or helping lead a small reading group, and many variations in between.
• Household maintenance and management - furnace and a/c care, lawn and garden scheduling, cable and phone, plumbing, exterminators, water services, waste haulers, handling any of the emergency services needed and keeping track of paperwork
• Household chores - dishes, laundry (including handwash items, knowing which things must air dry, separating colors), putting away laundry
• Child clothing management - migrating between cold weather wardrobe and warm weather wardrobe, and all accompanying accessories - boots, snowpants, coats (see aforementioned point on making sure to purchase, on sale!, these items for the next size for the next season) swim goggles.
• Seasonal management - making sure the household has non-toxic and non-expired sunscreen, bug spray, beach toys, towels, bags, snow shovels, gas for the snowblower.
• Holiday management - decorations, gift selection and purchase, wrapping, creating family plans that leave the fewest family members miffed
• Answering eleventy billion questions about life, the universe, and everything. Today I had to whip out BOTH f=m*a and the explanation for how many bits are in a byte, bytes in a kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terrabyte, etc. Thank god I paid attention in high school physics and college CS classes. Previous sessions include the branches of government and spirituality. I had a great role model, for the record. When I was about 12 my mom sat with me and taught me both binary and hexadecimal. Go geek moms!

So, what would you add to my list? And has your head exploded yet at the fact that not an item on there is focused on delivering to the at-home parent some level of intellectual stimulation? We have to source that into our activities - making a game out of knowing which store has which items on sale each week, meeting like-minded folks through the various volunteer and child activities, and finding flexible hobbies that can be set aside for months or years at a time (scrapbooking, writing, reading, photography, knitting for ex.)

Book Review - Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

This book surprised me. It came up on a bunch of "people who read X read Ship Breaker" lists and I started tracking it around. When I read the acknowledgements and learned that Paolo Bacigalupi is friendly with other MG and YA writers I adore (Sarah Prineas, Greg van Eekhout), it started to click. But beyond the fact that this writer knows others I like, this book is just flat out excellent.

This is the story of Nailer, a light crew member, teen boy living on the gulf coast in a post-apocalyptic world of brutality, riding from one storm to the next. His father is unbelievably cruel, his life full of work breaking down big old ships on the coast, hoping to find a "Lucky Strike." When he and his friend discover a small yacht wrecked after a storm, they've hit the bigtime, until they find a girl hurt inside. The process of figuring out what to do about the girl, avoiding his brutal father, and eventually leaving his gulf community is the meat of this fast-paced story.

For parents, the story includes quite a lot of violence, adults against each other, adults against children. The characters pull through for the most part. There is also some youth drinking, which helps illustrate how foreign a world these kids live in, even while we can envision it from trips to Florida. I would suggest it's best suited for kids old enough to handle these mature themes, which to me is 13ish and up, 7th gradeish and up. Depends on the reader. The violence and drinking are not any worse than that portrayed in Hunger Games (though the kids partake of the firewater in this book.)

The way this book surprised me is that I'm generally a little sick of YA dystopias. I'm a super-fan of science fiction and a writer of YA/MG sci-fi myself, and get tired of the bleak and dark future portrayed in so many. While this book does paint a pretty desperate picture of the future, the spirit of the characters carried me up and out of that bleakness. I really enjoyed this book.

I enjoyed the pacing, I enjoyed the way Nailer had a plucky spirit that made me root for him from the very first moment. I enjoyed the richly painted future world that was similar but oh-so different from our current world. I found the book immensely compelling, very hard to put down. I hope you will, too.

To all my mother friends: Let it go

Look, we've been friends a while. I love you all dearly. And I'm here to tell you tonight, late on the eve of Mother's Day, to just let it go. Whatever your personal "it" is - just let it...go. Yoga teachers talk a lot about the "acknowledge the thought and release it" business. If you want to get metaphysical, go with that. But otherwise, just let it go.

Because, here's the thing. There's this cultural norm, cultural expectation, that Mother's Day is - what? A bed of white linens (snort. Be serious. Who has the time for white linens after children?) Uninterrupted sleep (double snort - what did you HONESTLY think was going to happen after the stick turned pink? Come on. You can sleep when you're dead. In the interim, these small people SAY and DO the most INTERESTING things! Put them off with a bit of Scooby Doo for an hour or two, but then wake up. By the way, 99% of the last four sentences was directed at me.)

If not the white linens and uninterrupted sleep, at the very least we expect a day without the drudgery, right? I see you all nodding your heads.

But be honest, ladies! First, if you really do leave everyone else to do the laundry, you must accept a certain pink or beige hue to your white linens. Are you able to accept that? If not, maybe you should just save the laundry for Monday, no? Dishes? Well, that can be delegated, I agree, but if you're doing the majority of the cooking in the house, you should damn well train the sprites to do the dishes *every* day, not just on Mother's Day. Kids love responsibility. And as I tell my kids all the time, "I don't *like* folding clothes. It's just one of the things we have to do because we are a FAMILY."

I am using a LOT OF CAPITALS in this post. A LOT! And exclamations! And *asterisks* - loads and loads of *asterisks.*

But here's the thing - if you could design a day to celebrate your becoming a mother, what would it really entail? Maybe a little extra sleep? A little less drudgery? A cake and/or pie? (I vote for "and")

This is *TOTALLY* within the realm of possibility for you. But the tv-commercial vision with the white sheets, sweet song playing in the background, and the sunshine just so? It's time to give up on that one.

Kids are messy. Families are needy. Everyone else had the same idea and is waiting in line at YOUR favorite restaurant. Send the husband and the whiniest child(ren) to the grocery for a few favorite ingredients, make a mess making dinner and ask him/them to clean up. And don't stress about being a martyr. Becoming a mother *is* a form of self-sacrifice. An extreme form, true. But I honestly think we make ourselves sick and upset over not getting the perfect day, when we forget that there just AREN'T perfect days in motherhood. There are perfect moments, and many of them. Perfect pictures drawn by chubby three-year-old hands. Perfectly burned toast, lovingly delivered in bed. Perfect smiles and perfect hugs, perfect dog kisses. Perfect dirt waiting for seeds and plants. Perfectly dirty pants as a result of gardening expeditions. Perfect baby teeth, lost and waiting for tooth fairies. Perfect notes written in imperfect handwriting. Perfect love.

So join me in letting go of the imperfect expectations for a perfect day. Because, in the final analysis, there is no tally over who got the fresh-squeezed orange juice and a rose at her bedside in the morning (truth be told there's probably a mountain of orange pulp and an inch of sticky residue on her countertop!) or who got to sleep the latest (though I am trying out for that honor this year. I hope to make it til at least 10 AM...) and did the least work on Mother's Day. And on your deathbed, you won't be cursing your youngest for tracking in dirt and seeds and making a fuss over her newly potted herbs. You'll remember the moments, the big smiles when you wake up (at long last), the memories of gardening with the kids, the family dinners you made such a regular part of the fabric of your family that they all blend together into one big mush at the dinner table.

And you can rest easy. Because you've let it go. Just not the cake/pie. I think that's a requirement.

Broken

I'm working too much, and my daughter, the emotional antenna, knows. And it's not like at age seven she can say, "Mom, you're working so much and your head is elsewhere and that scares me and I wish you would focus on me more and I don't like having to go to school early some days or having you pick me up late other days and I just want our normal life back."

As if that were even possible.

But it's little things. She doesn't want to do the after school class anymore. Easily frustrated at home. Feels like everyone's "always" against her or making her do things or pulling her this way or that. She's emotionally peaking and valleying at varying times during the day, often one immediately after the next. Need I even say that it's never at a convenient time for me?

And on the inside, I'm so conflicted. For the first time since *before my oldest was born* (clock it - that was more than 9 years ago) I'm immersed in a work project that occupies my brain before, during, and after "work" (having a flexible schedule is both a blessing and an extremely bad curse.) My brain wants to solve my work issues 24/7 - yes even in the middle of the night. And my body is ready to give up on me. Woke up with a migraine this morning, which is my body's last salvo, last fire across the bow. "Yo, bitch. More rest. Less crazy."

And my little girl, how do I fix this? How do I help her know that changes are okay? That everything is temporary anyway (while simultaneously not freaking out about the fact that summer is 5 short weeks away and my project is due June 1. If it slips even a few days, I'm toast with no childcare.)? That mom working isn't stealing me away from her. Because in a way, that's a lie. It's true, my brain is tied up elsewhere much of the time. But is that really wrong? She's seven! She can cope. Can't she? Should she?

Why are all issues of working and balancing mothering such Solomon's choices? Why can't I figure out how to compartmentalize? Or the right things to say to my baby, who isn't actually saying, "I don't like it when you work"? (most of the time. She has actually said that. Rip my beating heart out and serve it on a platter, shall we?)

And am I upset because she's shining her white-hot light on the exact heart of the issue? The place where a big part of me *wants* this. Wants the full immersion. Misses the way solving work-related problems feeds a very malnourished part of my soul.

I never realized that having babies would cause this kind of existential discomfort. I don't want to have to face up to the reality that is cut back - do less - pull back. I want the damn cake, I want to eat it, too. But it turns out, I have to share.

 

Things that make my head burst into flames

I've been working in my chosen career since I was nineteen years old. I started as a part-time college intern. Three, four, five days a week I would drop my books and notebooks off in my dorm room, change into something that vaguely resembled business attire (back in the days when women did *not* wear pantsuits. And I'm not even making that up. I remember when the first woman in the area started wearing pantsuits to work - not pants/tops as separates, but like a men's business suit but cut for a woman. No, it wasn't the 1980s. It was the 1990s for chrissake! Oh, right, I'm old. Erp.) and hop the train into the city to go to work. There were days when I had to make sure to work at least two hours, because if I only worked one, I didn't quite make the train fare to/from work (at my starting rate of about $6.37/hr.)

I've worked more years than I haven't. And I took time off to raise my kids. Because it's something that was important to me, but it was also something that was the right timing for us - my career had reached a lull, I had lost one job and a new job wasn't quite the right fit for me, so we reconsidered priorities, wrote a budget, and...I've blogged about this before.

But the thing that has always made my head burst into flames is the fact that I work hard, damn hard, and just as hard as anybody else (harder than some, too.) And I'm quick. And productive. And my time is worth it. This is even more important in the post-baby-working-years because I have these heart-stoppingly painful conversations with my 7 year old, who tonight at bedtime when I was reviewing the week's schedule and mentioning when I would be in the office, told me "we're not going to have to have a babysitter again?" Because last week once I had to have a sitter take care of the kids after school for a few hours so I could do a video shoot at work. And she noticed. And while the sitter does a nice job, and the daughter benefits from other people in the world caring about her and interacting with her, she just doesn't like it. So rip my heart out and serve it on a platter, shall we? Ugh. This part about working is not the best part, but I console myself with the idea that I'm working and contributing and setting a good example, and I've got a pretty great part-time gig that flexes around my family's commitments and lets me be the mom most of the time and...then I read this sort of shit and it makes my head burst into flames. (that article references this one which is where the actual combustion occurs)

Because HOW CAN IT BE 2011 and this is still happening?!?!?

And how can a writer write this passage and not have her own head explode into flames?

Simply put, many women—not all, but enough to have a big impact on the statistics—are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics.

Because I just don't get it.

Meanwhile, the original poster (the one who I agree with) says the following:

I would also love to know why, if pay is so equal, women with kids are paid less than men with kids. I'm sure that some will explain it by saying that women decided to take time off to raise up the young'ins, and therefore lose market share. I can see how that would affect lifetime earnings. However, I am confused as to why, then, a woman who is employed at a job with the same experience as a man still earns less than he does.

Exactly!

I heard this from a company I worked with when first returning to the my field after a 5 year gap to raise my babies. "Oh, the industry has changed, technology is different, therefore we'll pay you this lower rate because honestly you're 5 years behind but aren't you lucky to get to work with us?"

I went on to do development on a project when I was only assigned to do design (tech friends will know these pay at VERY different pay scales - and my background is tracked more toward design, though I'm learning now how to spin things so that this isn't as much of a factor) and discovered that while I was off for 5 years, what the industry did was build authoring tools to automate much of what we used to have to code by hand. The industry just basically caught up with me, and gave me additional tools to work with. I wasn't behind in the slightest. I still get mad thinking about this experience. Bah!

As my friend Veronica (a nuclear engineer from Argentina, and someone else who has chosen to do the kind of sequencing I've done, taking time off to raise children, planning to come back again to the workforce in the future) says, "Infuriating. It is a double discrimination: one that considers that the work of raising a child (a human being!!!) is useless and another one that sentences a woman to a lower wage because she was "wasting her time" while everybody else was doing more productive things. It makes me furious. I think that before this pay discrimination disappears, society must recognize - and include in the economy - child rearing work. Until these activities are not seen for what they are (an indispensable contribution to the development of the human race) we will be punished for raising our kids."

Is that what it is? A punishment? Why aren't we all marching on our various government offices *now*? Oh, that's right, because there are school lunches to make, diapers to change, babies to nurse, field trips to chaperone, teenagers to equip with the skills to survive their adolescence. And work to be done.

That Leprechaun

Never stood a chance.

 

This is the first grader's Leprechaun trap, an annual tradition at school. Apparently, some Leprechauns visited the classroom and got temporarily stuck in a variety of torture devices, pits, and cages. They left behind large coins and golden glitter, the little rascals.

Quantities of Quality Time

Hmm, I wrote this on Wednesday but then didn't post it. My sloth extended to my online time, too, apparently.

I find myself reminded again about this maxim (Quantities of Quality Time), which I first heard at a La Leche League meeting ages and ages ago. It's often one of the underpinnings of one's decision to stay home with the kids for some period of time, or at least I found that it helped me feel comfortable with my own decision to do so. Even on the days when I swore my brain was melting from lack of use. (I'm sure you're as relieved as me to find out that it didn't, even though there were some touchy moments back then.)

But beyond just that decision, which - by the way - I've noticed more of my mom friends making over and over again - viewing the workforce as something they can dip into and out of over their children's younger years. I am thrilled about this development. I have done this, too, doing project work at times that suits my family's schedule, and either turning down or not pursuing work during times when it's difficult (e.g.., summer holidays or busy times of year.)

I can count many friends right now who are either working again or have recently stopped working, again (having been home with the kids at some point since having them.) Isn't that interesting? One just decided to refrain from taking any more project work until the fall when the youngest is in school full-time, another just picked up some freelance work after pre-school started, a third was back in the workforce for a bit but quit when job pressures began to outweigh family ones and she (and her husband) felt the balance wasn't right for them. 

I recognize I'm lucky to live in an era and socio-economic environment where any of us have these choices, but at the same time I also embrace the fact that this is the feminist legacy - that has given my generation of mothers and the one directly behind me some freedom to choose. While I know some of my peers really don't have a choice and must work, I think we are in an era where there are more options for us, more choices, and for that I am grateful.  

But back to my original point - the quantities of quality time...today is nothing special. I was in the office today, which makes for a long day for me, but I was able to get the kids by the time school let out rather than using after-school care. And we came home and have done some hanging out. The eldest is currently in the comfiest chair in the house (in another room), reading. The youngest is up in my bedroom watching TV. I am snuggled into the couch with the dog, who misses me on my office days. ;) And my kids are here, and we're home, and the world is in balance.

Even though the house is a bit...untidy (I'm being over-generous with that statement, but let it slide, folks, let it slide...) I have some of that awesome 5 mins a day bread resting on the counter and the oven on. We're going to eat soon, and then snuggle in further with the dog to watch American Idol. And maybe some video-game time. And I realize that there are a thousand educational things I could do with my kids, and a thousand ways I could make this time more memorable - we could do a project together, play a game, or have them help me cook. But I am satisfied in my sloth, because they have a LOT of me. And we're together. And that's what's important to me, and to them, right now at this stage in our lives.

The fact that I have quantities of quality time with them means that I don t have to put pressure on myself or them to always bring my "A" game - and it means they're pretty darn accepting of me and my limitations. When I do have a hissy fit about something minor and later apologize, they are so gracious to me. We show each other that we're human in those small ways. And today, we can just snuggle on the couch and be together, and that is enough. That is plenty. And we are lucky.