NYC Moms

Making it Happen

I rarely know what to ask for for Mother's Day. When it's far off in the future I feel like one of those moms who doesn't really care for all the fuss. Just another Hallmark creation, here to keep the flower companies in business...I'm not going to fall for that...and so on and so forth.

And then the day arrives and we trek off to do something that I said it was just fine to plan way back in March--usually a barbecue at a cousin's house that comes complete with several bickery hours in a car on a highway, and I find myself getting kind of worked up internally that, here it is, MOTHER'S DAY, my ONLY day of the WHOLE year, and I'm cooped up with ungrateful children and a husband who might offer up a few criticisms about my driving. Mother's Day Shmother's Day, I might text a friend from the cousin's driveway. And then I soldier on, smiling, acting like it's a day like any other.

Trying Mushrooms

When my oldest child turned seven I decided to quit my job to stay home with the kids.  It turned out to be the opposite of what most of the other moms were doing.  I'd thought I was joining an amazing network of wonderful stay at home moms, but turns out they, after nurturing their infants into elementary school, were ready to hit the job market again.  I hadn't had much interest in the days in and days out of little babies--so many unreasonable marbles rolling in so many directions--but got really interested in being around to influence homework habits, have the kinds of conversations you can have with fully formed kids, do things with them that they might remember, etc.

So with all this time on my hands and with no other neighborhood moms to do yoga and lunch with, I started to cook real meals for my family.  I like to think I'd have been motivated to do that anyway, but there's no way of knowing. 

Until that point my kids had consisted on chicken nuggets, velveeta shells and cheese, goldfish, ramen noodles, take-out Indian food, and ketchup.  Not necessarily in that order.

Ring Around the City

My daughter is four and her friend Zed is 3.  He was over the other day and they played like they usually do, all over the house.  A little tv in the living room, some upper bunk time in my son's room, some action figure exploration, some water play in one of the bathrooms, sometimes they manage to sneak cookies upstairs and I end up vacuuming her bed with one of the funky hose attachments, to get rid of all the crumbs.

At one point the two of them started walking awkwardly across our oriental rug near the kitchen.  They were kind of measuring out their steps and holding hands.  She announced to all of us (Zed's mom, and several older siblings who were doing homework at the kitchen table) that she and Zed were getting married and we'd all have to yell out 'yip yip yerray,' at the right time. 

A Hundred Things Lighter

We've started a semi-annual tradition. It's semi-annual because I'm not very organized and so we just do it when the timing feels right. It's called the hundred thing challenge, it takes less than an hour, and everyone loves it.

The idea is to gather up a hundred things around the house and just throw them away. It's much easier than it sounds, especially now that I've given myself permission to just let everything be tossed rather than trying to find thoughtful destinations for every item.

This old beanie baby, hmm. maybe it's worth something on eBay? Maybe, maybe not, but I'd rather not let it stay in my house rent-free while I wait to find out.

Baddy Bags

I was searching through my children's yellow bins the other day--big metal catch-alls near the front door that catch *almost* all of the things that hadn't been invented yet when our one hundred and eleven year old brownstone was designed (souvenir visors, Leapster cartridges, hair scrunchies, etc.)--I was probably looking for chapstick or sunglasses.  I didn't find what I was looking for.  What I did find was tons of flimsy filmy bags full of plastic crap.  Army men with useless parachutes, decorative 'erasers' that don't erase anything, 'glow-in-the-dark' key-chains (do YOUR kids have keys? mine don't), colorful hand clapper-thingies (clacka-clacka-clacka) that none of my children would ever use, for any reason, ever.  What I'd found was what remained of several birthday party goody bags.

When was the last time your child came home from a party with a goody bag full of anything good?   

Going Public

Full disclosure:  I teach in a private school.  I have an enormous budget.  I have loads of time off.  It works for my family.  I don't have a masters and I'm not certified to teach in anything but private schools.  But I send my kids to public school.

Here are some of my reasons.

Friends:  All the money in the world doesn't buy you better friends--and I think there are as many issues with friends with too much money as there are friends with none.  My kids have made fabulous pals from all walks of life--and they've learned volumes from their exposure to all of these different families.  In my ten years at one private school on the Upper West Side, there were four different entire grades that made every teacher cringe.  No one could stand the 6th grade one year.  No one could stand them when they were younger, no one could stand them as they got older.  The grade-dynamics never improved.  There's no way the kids in those classes were getting the kind of teaching the kids in other more beloved grades were getting.  And in some cases it's no one's fault.  A teacher flushed with full-body dread is just not going to be teaching at the top of his or her game.  There are adorable bright-eyed well-deserving kids in each of these loathed grades, and my heart aches for them.  I can't imagine spending all that money on a child's education only to watch that child go through the years with such a mean-spirited and despised group of kids.  And that can happen anywhere--whether the kids are in a free school or an expensive one. 

Loving My Tree

My seven year old daughter and I have been taking African Dance classes at our local YMCA.  It's a family class full of mothers and daughters, led by a beautiful and powerful woman, accompanied by an energetic and incredibly focussed drumming teenage boy.

As long as we've lived in Brooklyn I've been tempted by classes like this; friends of mine have raved about African dance, Belly-dance, etc.  Problem is I've never danced at all ('cepting for those occasional moments when the mood strikes--rare rare times indeed, especially if alcohol isn't involved) and have been basically too uptight and self-conscious to try anything with the word 'dance' in it.  But like people who get dogs find that their social lives pick up, so I've discovered how many more things I'm willing to try in the name of my children.  What a fantastic excuse they are to get out in the world, to try new things!

Diversity Dialogues

I have been thinking about this for years, and only started to write about it last week, four or five days before Obama's speech on race. I was tempted to let this sit for awhile longer before posting it, but I'm feeling more and more like this is precisely the kind of parenting problem we should be allowing ourselves to consider.

Many of you are going to hate this. But I think it needs to be said. I'm not even sure how to present it, so I'm just going to describe a few true scenes from the last six years of my parenting life, and then add some updates below. We are white, and we live in Brooklyn.

Me (packing up our stuff at the end of a farm vacation upstate): We're going home now!
My son (age 3): Do we have to go back to that place where all the brown people are yelling?

Bloody Boring

“Parents are supposed to be interested in what their kids are interested in!” my nine year old son declared in a fit of despair when I said I had no interest in dueling him with his Yu-Gi-Oh cards. For the ninth time that week.

Boy, did he know how to get to me.

All my life I’ve been worried about the emotional lives of children, animals, even objects (don’t even get me started on the uneaten banana being conveyed to its death on some heartless classmate’s messy cafeteria tray in college). Whether weeping for a banana that gave its life for nothing, or choosing to buy the ninety-five dollar Benetton sweater with the snag (because if I didn’t do it no one would, poor sweater), my life has been one long Charlie Brown Christmas special; I’m a walking the-girl-who-bought-Corduroy.

Given that history, it’s hard to imagine NOT making it a priority to nourish and stroke every budding interest and every tender thought my children have.

And so, with the possible exception of the Yu-Gi-Oh obsession (the mythology of which makes my eyes glaze over) I have doted on these children. I’ve saved every scribble (literally), answered (or googled the answer to) every question, nodded and purred along to every observation (only some of which deserved this level of awe), and I have felt incredibly dutiful and mostly satisfied.

Until...

Don't Be My Guest

The other day I overheard my daughter arguing with her friend Fifi, who was visiting our house. They were both standing with their hands on their hips, bending forward in rage, noses almost touching. They're four.

"But I'm the guest!" Fifi said.

"No, you're not!" responded my own child.

They were in a squabble about who was going to go first with my nine year old's magnetic dart board. Needless to say this item only held their attention for as long as their fight lasted; they moved on to find other things to fight about moments later.