DC Metro Moms

No Child Left Behind? Today It's More Like Two-Thirds

It's no secret that George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind policy was hardly a success.  But when I read this article in the Washington Post, I just about spit my decaf coffee across the keyboard onto my computer screen:

"More Third-Graders Struggling with Reading Skills" 

According to the article, two-thirds of third- and fourth-graders in Virginia and Maryland rank at the "below proficient" level in their reading skills.  And it's not like "proficient" is all that great because to get schools to be in compliance with NCLB over the few last years, many schools lowered the test scores needed for students to achieve a rating of "proficient" on the standardized tests for both reading and math so schools wouldn't lose their funding the keep teaching our kids.

Percolating to the Surface

Things are starting to percolate in our ten-year-old's head since coming back a month ago from our trip to visit her birth country, China.  It was such a whirlwind while we were there -- only a few days in each place we visited -- so most of the discussion we had while we were traveling was about climbing the Great Wall, holding the baby pandas, and seeing the Terra Cotta Warriors.  But we knew that at some point, there would be a lot of emotions to deal with about visiting the country where she was born, spending time at the orphanage where she lived for the first 12 months of her life, and meeting one of the nannies who cared for her.

Things were still pretty much on an even keel when we spent some time talking with her classmates about the trip and showing many of the photos we took.  (Needless to say, the ones with the pandas were the biggest hit!)  PunditGirl was pretty stoic in talking about visiting the place where she was found before being taken to her orphanage.  But we knew it was only a matter of time until other feelings about her story started to percolate to the surface.

Things are now percolating.

If This is Her "Golden Year," Should I Be Rocking the Boat?

After attending a recent "tweens" parenting class at my fourth-grader's school, I came away with some serious doubts about my abilities in that department, as well as questions about how we as a society parent today.

Not that I think I'm the perfect mother -- not by any stretch! But I left with a list from the Parent Encouragement Program of what their "experts" say fourth- and fifth-graders ought to be able to do for themselves.

I have to tell you, I was a little shocked.

The checklist started out this way:

1. Is fairly competent cook (i.e., can make several simple meals)

2. Can clean and organize his/her own room as well as other common areas of the house

3. Can do laundry competently (sort, wash, fold)

4. Can shop independently using comparison pricing and make generally sounds choices

A Second Trip of a Lifetime

It's hard to get my head around the fact that after planning for almost a year, my family and I are just weeks away from our second trip of a lifetime.  The first, of course, was when we traveled to China in 2001 to bring home our daughter.  Now, in just a matter of weeks, we'll be returning for the first time in nine years so we can visit PunditGirl's birth country with her (thank you airline miles!)

It feels like yesterday and it feels like it's been a lifetime since we stepped off the plane at National Airport, our lives changed by a baby who spent the first year of her life in an orphanage with about 100 other children and about eight caregivers. We've talked for many years, as our PunditBaby grew into a PunditGirl, about the amazing things we saw and experienced in January of 2001 when we brought our daughter home from Hunan Province. 

Now we're busy finishing up our final preparations -- getting our visas, buying a snazzy new polka-dot suitcase for her, and thinking about how much rice (her favorite food in the whole world) she'll be able to eat while we're there.

And I've promised myself, I am buying that Mao watch this time! 

What is the "Face" of Your Work/Family Conflict?

Work/life balance.  It's a phrase that gets bandied about by the media and by various experts.  We lament.  We juggle.  We all try to figure out how we can keep things running in our lives -- maybe not always smoothly, but at least without too many bumps.

There are those who like to remind us of the saying -- you can have it all, just not all at the same time.  And maybe that's true to a certain extent, but I hate when people use it to suggest that women shouldn't expect to be able to work full-time and have our employers understand that the realities of families today are a whole lot different than when our parents were raising families.

Except they should.  We all should.  Not because we want a favor, but because the face of working in America is radically different today than when the current workplace structure became the norm back in the 1950s.  I don't know anyone whose family resembles the Cleavers, yet the workplace, for the most part, is still designed to deal only with that model -- where there is only one working parent and the other stays home to deal with after-school activities, sick children, and aging parents.  That just ain't the way things are anymore, yet we're all expected to work that way and are often penalized when real life intrudes.

Tuppence a Bag?

I try very hard to be green and environmentally conscious.  I don't always succeed, but I do what I can when I can. 

Using the cool, reusable grocery bags from places like Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and my personal favorite from our summer pilgrimage to Hershey Park, makes me feel like I'm doing my little part to help -- even though I don't always remember to bring them with me to the store!  Sure, it's nice when you get five cents off your food bill for each bag you use, but let's face it -- a nickle isn't much of an incentive given what groceries cost these days.

As I was whizzing through the grocery store this morning, trying to get a week's worth of supplies in 15 minutes, I noticed a sign -- starting now, if you're picking up dinner in Washington, D.C. and you don't bring your recyclable bags, and instead rely on the store to provide "disposable" bags, you'll get charged five cents each!  Later in the day, as I popped by the local wine store for a bottle of red to go with dinner, I noticed the same sign!

A Holiday Gift for Locks of Love

 As PunditGirl hits her 10th birthday in this holiday-heavy, gift-giving crazy month, we've been talking more about the idea giving rather than getting.  As parents, we struggle to find the balance between letting our children enjoy receiving gifts at the holidays and at the same time making sure that we can teach them about giving to others -- and not just giving things that money can buy.

Our fourth-grader has been obsessed with her hair and growing it as long as possible since she was in kindergarten.  When she got old enough to wash and care for her hair by herself, we told her she could make the decision about how long (or short) she wanted it to be.

Little did we know just how long it would get!

Terra Cotta Warriors Worth the Wait!

I think we were one of the first families to purchase tickets many months ago for the Terra Cotta Warrior exhibit at National Geographic that opened last week.  I know we have a special reason to jump on anything with Chinese culture since our fourth-grader was adopted from China and we do whatever we can to stay connected with her birth culture.

My only hesitance was the fact that she, as most nine-year-olds, is not a fan of the museum outing!  Lucky for us this tied in very nicely with planning our first trip back to China with her next year, which will include a stop in Xi'an -- the home of the Terra Cotta Warriors.

I'm happy to say, she was mesmerized. (Unlike Washington Post art reviewer Blake Gopnik).

Thoughts on Health Care After the Swine Flu

I'm scratching my head over the state of health care, but I'm not talking about insurance exchanges, the Stupak Amendment or the "public option."  I'm wondering why we are in a country where you can't get a flu shot, some doctors are holding back Tamiflu and you're treated like a criminal for a box of decongestant tablets.

I had hoped against hope that the swine flu would bypass our house.  I was still on the fence about whether we would get the H1N1 vaccine, but we were diligent about hand washing and sanitizing. Our pediatrician's office had received only a small supply of the vaccine and it had gone to the high risk patients (Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore hardly received any of the vaccine, but I guess if I worked at Citigroup or Goldman Sachs, I could have scored at least one dose for our daughter).

A Woman's Nation?

Maria Shriver, the Center for American Progress and NBC have been having a party, of sorts, with the launch and roll-out of The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything. The gist of the report is this -- now that women officially make up half of the American work force, that's bound to help things change for us in terms of work/life balance, equal pay and how we as families negotiate family and work obligations.

The report contends that things are getting easier for women because more men are willing to chip in with the housework and husbands are increasingly viewing their wives differently because of their bread-winning obligations.

We should have more power because our numbers in the workforce are rising and we're the ones who make 80% of the big ticket money decisions in our homes.  But does all that translate into real change in the workplace?