Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Slowing Down - Is It Too Late?

I was told recently by a transplant from New York City to Silicon Valley that our pace here is actually faster in many ways than the big apple.  It wasn't that they don't work hard in New York, he said, it's that they know when to stop working, go out and play.  Work hard, play hard, I guess.  Here, he explained, we just go home and get back online and go back to work.  I kept thinking about that for a while and realized he might be onto something.

I moved from San Francisco to Silicon Valley (the Peninsula) in 2002 and although I didn't get down to having kids for another four years, my life definitely turned more to work and online socializing since then.  Sure, having a kid changes everything - we definitely have stayed home more since our daughter was born - but where I live, there are two restaurants open after 9p.m. and nobody goes out to eat after 7.  Finding babysitters is like a competition, and the price for a date night is nearly as much as a plane ticket.  Most peoples' kids are in bed by 8.  Their parents go online after that, and social media gives us this illusion that we have a social life when we're really just working more. In this economy though, who can afford to kick back, take time off?  A lot of people are taking summer vacations, but one spouse will be working and catch up with the vacation later, or they'll both be online while gone.  (I'm traveling soon and I'm already having a panic attack at the thought of going without my laptop for a week.)  I keep thinking I should cut down on my activities, work less, rest more, take more walks...

Is Celebrity Culture Permeating Too Far For Our Kids?

When in Macy's a few months ago, I nearly became ill when I came upon a  Hannah Montana tee for five year-olds.  Fast forward to my daughter's third birthday and suddenly our house is filled with Disney Princess everything - shoes, art, clothes, pillows, toothbrush, toothpaste, coloring books, puzzles... nearly all of these were gifts for her and she adores them all, but when I look around, I see as many images of Sleeping Beauty as I do of family members.  It got me thinking - is this how it all begins, the celebrity culture for the toddler set?

Recently, I read an interview with Jane Fonda where she was saying that when she started out as an actress, the celebrity and tabloid culture we have wasn't what it is today.  She thought many of the actresses of the sixties and seventies never could have made it through the scrutiny that stars like Lindsay Lohan and Angelina Jolie have endured of late.  But we're contributing to the problem when we participate in the celebrity watching as adults and when we allow it to overwhelm our lives at home.

Talking Education with Jill Biden

I found out yesterday I would be talking today with Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Senator Joe Biden, who may in two weeks be the wife of the Vice President-Elect. Knowing I would have time for perhaps one question only, it was a tough challenge to know what to ask, how to ask it, and how long it should be. The conference call with other women bloggers - mostly moms - was invitation-only through Women for Obama and it also included Danielle Gray, National Deputy Policy Director for the campaign. I was a little nervous in preparing - mostly because it's difficult to know what to ask with so much at stake in this election and so much going on in the world.

Earlier this week, in another capacity as a representative of the Junior Leagues of California State Public Affairs Committee (SPAC), I met with the Bring Me a Book Foundation about how SPAC could help out their program participants and related families on the statewide and national level, and the discussion turned toward universal preschool and literacy. I learned some dramatic statistics like that 85% of juvenile delinquents are functionally illiterate. If parents read to their children, they increase their chances of success in reading and literacy, but somehow half of American parents don't read to their children - something so simple that costs so little. By the end of that meeting, I was convinced something needs to be done to get more parents aware of how important it is to read every day to their children, so I decided to ask Dr. Biden about that.

The call began with an introduction by Dana Singiser of the Obama campaign and then Dr. Biden spoke briefly about how she's worked as an educator for many years, teaching them to read and write. She was kind and humble in what she said, reading off a prepared statement, and she said that when she's in the classroom, they don't talk about politics, but "this election is about them."

A Letter to My Two Year-Old Daughter

Dear J,

The next month will be a difficult one for us, and although you won't remember it in the coming years, I wanted to write you a letter to explain why I'm not going to be there as much as I'd like, and why it's such a tough choice - one I feel is necessary to make.  I'm going to be mentally distant, constantly wired, in constant meetings, and working like a crazy person and I know you don't understand it all.  In my mind, the justification is that one month of crunch time before one of the biggest national elections in our time could shape your future, the future of the nation and the future of the planet.  I hope the days you miss your mommy will pass quickly and that we can still relish the time we do have together.

News Media in a Toddler's Eyes: Old White Guys

At BlogHer recently, I attended a session on op-ed writing and media training.  Most of it was review, but the piece of the training that really shocked me were stats provided by Catherine Orenstein of the Op-Ed Project.  She said that 85% of op-ed pages are written by men - mostly older white men, 85% of Hollywood producers are men, 84% of books on the New York Times bestseller list were written by men, and only 1/20 of the top politcal blogs are by women.  She also cited stats about the number of women in Congress, which I already knew.  Looking at these numbers, it's tough to argue that women are getting our fair share of exposure in the media.  We have a much longer way to go than I realized.

This lesson didn't really hit home for me until this week, however, when I was sitting literally at home with my daughter.  At age 2 1/2, she's just learning about television and she's like a sponge, learning and repeating everything people say.  As I rarely get the opportunity to read the news, I took a few moments to see what was on one of the news channels one day and so I tried to get her excited about it: "Wanna watch the old guy with mommy?"  This was my non-PC way of describing whoever was anchoring the program.  She said yes at first, but we watched for about ten seconds before she realized it wasn't anything she was interested in viewing.  "I don't wanna watch old guy."

Virtual Hugs to Elizabeth Edwards Who Still Rocks Our World

Elizabeth Edwards took the stage at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York today virtually - via Skype. As her flight was cancelled at the last minute, she was unable to make her in-person slot for us or "Good Morning America" so she did them both from home. As I watched the program - questions from PDF cofounder Andrew Rasiej directed to Elizabeth, who was projected on a huge screen in the theatre at Lincoln Center's Rose Hall - I wanted to go up and give her a big virtual hug from all of us at the MOMocrats and the Silicon Valley Moms Blog & sister sites, but since it was no easier to do from that venue than this one, I decided it was better done from here. (It was the request everyone made when I said I was "going to see Elizabeth Edwards at PDF". They said "give her a hug for me!")

So here, Elizabeth, is a big virtual [**HUG**] from all of us, along with an official invitation to blog here any time you like. One of the apropos questions Rasiej asked of Elizabeth during the program (sorry, I just can't use her last name in this forum - seems too formal) was about what she was going to do next with "her constituency" and she, of course, replied that she would like to liveblog more and cross post more about policy issues important to her. So since I couldn't just stand up and yell to her that she could blog for us any time since she would have caught every third word, we're asking here. Please, pretty please!

PANDAmonium

Yeah, that's my daughter.  The one flirting with the giant panda.  She's two.

Thanks to HP, the Silicon Valley Moms and families were treated to another fun party to celebrate the opening of Kung Fu Panda, the Dreamworks film.  Where does HP fit in?  Well, their servers power the Dreamworks development software and they participate in other ways promoting one film a year with things like make-your-own toy kits out of paper, cool puffy stickers, and printed images of the kids at play with the pandas.

We prepped for the party a few days before, telling our daughter she'd get to go without a nap, go to a party, and meet a big panda.  She didn't know what a panda was, so we showed her pictures.  Turned out she had a panda on one of her many fashionable pairs of sunglasses, so she wore those and everything was OK.

Welcome to the Mom 'Do

Last week, I chopped 7 inches off my hair.  For most people, that would be difficult, but for me, not so much.  At the time, it was 100 degrees and my matted mop of oft complimented auburn locks was just getting to be a) too much to bear and b) sallow from lack of updating the color.  So after showering the evening of the hottest day, I pulled out my trimming shears, bought for $80 several years ago (one of my best investments ever) and began snipping away.

My daughter came in and I became slightly distracted, and although I was attempting to only cut maybe 3-4 inches, it became more.  But that was OK - it was still below my shoulders.  Then she asked me to trim her hair, so I cut her bangs and after a few minutes, we were done.  It took me a few minutes to realize how short mine was.  Then I realized: I'd given myself a mom hairdo.  For the first few days, it was weird to get used to the weight of it.  My hair hasn't been this short since high school.  The real transformation: I went from hippie to housewife.

Wildfires, Technology & Feeling Helpless

My sister's house is 3 miles from the line of the wildfires today and I'm 3000 miles away in the midwest with our parents, safe away from the flames, the smoke, the danger.  But all I can feel is helplessness and concern for her, her husband, their home and the animals they have there.

Late last night, I finally spoke with my sister, who had no power and had spent the day gathering resources in the event of an evacuation.  Then she asked a favor that was as much for me as for her - to track what was going on online, so feeling like perhaps I could still help in some small way, I spent until late researching what was going on and trying to get an accurate picture of the situation.  What I learned is that even with incredible technology, we're still in the dark in these emergencies.

Last fall, we suffered one of the worst quakes we've had in the Bay Area in a long time, and as a result, from my fanatic list making, girl scout history and security experience, I pieced together 3 articles for SVMoms about why we need to be prepared, how to prepare, and what should be in our kits.  That became a part of a Red Cross Ready blogging effort and I think people really benefited from thinking about what we need to do to prepare for emergencies.

How Did My House Get Like This?

Do you ever have those moments where you get home after just being away a few hours and you look around and it's like you're entering someone else's home, a tornado hit, or twelve people were staying as guests on your floor?  Yeah, OK, I know I'm not the only person this happens with but somehow even though my daughter's two, every time I come home and see my house looking like a disaster area, I'm shocked.

Where is this shock coming from?  It's not like I didn't create half the mess.  Really, at least half is from me putting things in a pile that needs to be sorted or leaving something on the table that needs to be put away or not yet getting to the stuff on the floor that was there yesterday but I was just too tired to pick up.  Granted, the rules of the house change significantly when a toddler becomes part of that world, but still I don't understand why I should be so shocked.