Chicago Moms Blog

Sunscreen Causes Cancer? Moms Can't Win

The first thing I felt when I heard the news was a strange sense of relief from guilt: All those times I had failed to put sunscreen on my kids didn't seem so bad now that I know that many sunscreens on the market may be accelerating the development of skin cancer.

But as I read through the Environmental Working Group's detailed and user-friendly report -- which warns not only that vitamin-A-containing sunscreens may accelerate cancer but also that many "for baby" brands contain a potential hormone disrupter that one researcher said should not be spread on a child's skin -- the relief was replaced by those more familiar mom feelings: confusion and worry.

Mom of Leisure Didn't Know How Good She Had It

Let me tell you something I'm not supposed to write about on the Internet: I recently applied for two full-time jobs, after four years staying home with the kids.

Let's put aside all the practical considerations of whether I should abandon my babies to a sitter, or my husband should quit his job to be with them, or whether we should just get the kids their own full-time jobs to keep them busy while I'm gone all day. After all, I don't know if I'll even be offered a job, so I don't want to think about the how right now.

No, what I want to talk about today is how suddenly I've realized how good I have it.

Lead Rule Comes None Too Soon -- Now Let's Enforce It

It hasn't exactly been the talk of the town, but maybe it should be, considering that the town where I live is full of old houses that shed lead dust like cats.

I'm talking about a new federal regulation, the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Program, which requires workers who disturb lead paint in pre-1978 houses to get certified in lead abatement. It went into effect last week, just about a week after a contractor sanded down an old painted door just outside my children's bedroom without warning us first.

Clearly our contractor -- who we were otherwise happy with -- is among the vast majority in the industry who haven't yet taken the now-required certification course. In fact, an article on Angie's List, where I heard about this new regulation, says that hardly any contractors are in compliance:

The EPA projects that 212,000 firms and 236,000 people need certification in order to comply with the law. But as of press time, only 817 firms and 13,669 contractors have done so, according to the agency. The EPA had only 133 accredited trainers, though Doa pointed out that some trainers travel out of state to host classes.

I can vouch for that. When we first bought our house, which was built in the first decade of the 20th century, I called at least a dozen window companies to see if any of them were certified to deal with the lead paint that would be disturbed when removing our old windows. None of them were. I finally ended up finding a contractor who usually worked on Section 8 housing, which required him to be certified.

Dads Get No Respect From Us Sexist Moms

I recently flipped through Michael Chabon's new memoir, Manhood for Amateurs, in the library playroom. (What? Isn't that how you "read," now, too?)

Right off the bat, he writes about how insulting it is to be complimented for being a "really good dad" for doing something insignificant like grocery shopping with a kid. Something that no mother would ever get complimented for. And how what sounds like a compliment suddenly turns into the pat on the head that a particularly dumb dog gets when he finally manages to learn one lame trick. Atta boy.

Chabon is right: At the grocery store, the playground and the school drop-off line, Dads get no respect.

It made me realize not only that my own husband has been a victim of discrimination by moms, but that I have committed anti-dad discrimination myself.

How Young Is Too Young to Learn About 911?

Today I read about a 7-year-old who saved his family's lives by dialing 911 during an armed home invasion, and I thought, here's a good opportunity to discuss emergency phone calls with my 5-year-old.

She recently memorized both our home number and my cell number and had fun calling one phone from the other until I protested that she was going to use up an entire month's worth of minutes if she didn't cut it out.

But as I looked over the article, I struggled with how to begin. I didn't want to tell about people with guns breaking into a family's home. Too scary!

Then, I remembered her overzealous practice with the phone numbers and wondered if a kindergartener has the self-restraint to call 911 only in an emergency.

In the end we had a brief chat about it before school, and I think I will reinforce the lesson later today and maybe post the number by the phone. We recently got a new phone with a cord on it, by the way, to make sure we could always find the damn thing in an emergency.

Maybe I've already waited too long to teach about 911. Is this something my 3-year-old should know how to do? The what-if scenarios started swirling in my head.

Is Being a Coupon Mom Worthwhile?

We "coupon moms" have gotten a lot of attention in the past 18 months as the financial crisis put saving money to the fore of nearly every American's minds. The Coupon Mom, Stephanie Nelson, recently published a book, and her media tour has resulted in more attention to the whole trend of aggressive bargain hunting at the grocery store. 

Seeing the crazy coupon ladies go through a store on TV and pay only a few bucks for a full cart of groceries, the average shopper can't help but wonder if maybe they should get into this bargain-hunting thing too. But is it worth the time invested?

A friend and reader of my Frugalista blog recently asked me how much money I save for each hour clipping coupons, looking up deals and hitting stores. I was ashamed to say that after two years of aggressive bargain shopping on a weekly budget of $80 (for two adults and three littles), I didn't know how much time I was spending or how much I was saving. So last week I finally started keeping track.

So far, it looks like I save $20 for every extra hour I spend couponing and shopping beyond the national average. The average mother spends 1 hour per week grocery shopping; I spent six hours preparing and shopping last week. That counts the time it takes to get two or three little ones into snowsuits and to the store, often on foot with one walking and one in the stroller.

My 5-Year-Old Had 'Roid Rage

When I was expecting my first baby, I thought I had all the big decisions made already. One thing I "decided" was that I would never give my children Ritalin or other drugs should they have behavior problems at school. I was skeptical of the growth of such prescriptions in children, and I included questions about this far-off issue when interviewing my first pediatrician.

Little did I know that when the issue of drugs and behavior really raised its head, it would be the other way around: We just stopped giving Nutmeg, now 5, a medication that I believe was causing her sudden behavior problems at school.

(As far as ADHD meds go, I hope any of you parents whose kids do need those drugs forgive my earlier hubris. I have since had enough parenting stumbles to learn that I have no idea what other people's kids need or what my kids may need in the future. The word "never" is no longer part of my parenting vocabulary.)

Looking back, I can't believe we didn't make the connection between the problems and the drug sooner, and although I am not prone to mother's guilt, I don't like the feeling that I fed my daughter a chemical that caused so much unpleasantness for her and for several teachers over the past three years.

Bad Christmas Presents Bought by Parents: I Did It to Myself

A few years back, I complained to a more experienced mom that my 2-year-old had smeared a stamp pad from her Christmas stocking all over a white bench/table and it wouldn't come off.

My friend couldn't stop laughing. "I'm sorry!" she gasped, "It's just that ... you did it to yourself."

Then I laughed too. For all we complain about the annoying toys foisted on us by grandparents and other jerks -- flashing lights, repetitive sounds, tiny pieces -- every year as I clean up the Christmas morning mess I realize that I have unwittingly purchased some of the very toys that will torment me for the next year or so.

Dreaming of a Calm Christmas, But Not Expecting to Get It

I wanted to spend yesterday evening living out one of my mythical images of holiday bliss: On the couch, carols playing, tree twinkling, eggnog at my side, writing my Christmas cards.

Instead, I spent it like I usually do: Nursing the baby whenever he awoke, looking for something (in this case searching my basement and crawl space for a pair of girls' boots to give to a friend in need), straightening up the house and writing a quick blog post.

My failure to attain holiday nirvana pretty much sums up the schism between the Christmases I want and the Christmases I usually have.

When I think about my Christmas fantasy and Christmas reality, two books come to mind. The first, predictably for me, is Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods: A joyful but calm gathering of loved ones, esthetically pleasing treats prepared with deliberate anticipation, and children who are ecstatically grateful for small handmade gifts.

I know. It's insane to expect a 21st-century child to be thrilled by a pair of mittens and a peppermint stick. Still, I always wish I could replicate some of the simple beauty of that Christmas ideal.

Christmas as I actually experience it has more in common with a scene from Mona Simpson's Anywhere But Here: The mother and daughter in the book are invited to a Christmas party, but they end up staying home scrubbing the insides of closets all Christmas Day because the mother just wants everything to be perfectly clean and pure for the holiday. She says she just can't relax and decorate until the house is clean.

Life Lessons From a $100 Halloween

Just as early civilizations first began writing in order to keep business accounts, Nutmeg's kindergarten class learned to count coins in the early weeks of school. This paved the way for an awareness of her great wealth in piggy bank quarters, and a consumer was born.

I decided it was time to try something I'd been meaning to do for awhile, ever since reading this Family Fun article: I gave her a budget and let her plan her own party.

Actually, I allocated $100 for our entire family Halloween celebration, including the little party she held for a few of her classmates. I thought it would eliminate any begging or wrangling over what we would get, and prevent me from overspending. It succeeded on those counts, but it also ended up challenging Nutmeg to use her budding writing and math skills, as well as teaching advanced economic concepts like opportunity cost.

Best of all, Nutmeg didn't know she was learning all that. When I asked her what she'd learned, she told me, simply, "Coupons really are awesome!"