LA Moms Blog

It is not my job to make you happy

News alert to my children: it is not my job to make you happy.

Yes, I understand that you will only be happy if you have ice cream for breakfast. Every day.

But it is not my job to make you happy. It is my obligation to make sure you have food. It is my job to teach you how to make healthy choices. To choose to have some sliced fruit, whole grain bread, and perhaps an egg instead of ice cream for breakfast. Except on your birthday. Or maybe Christmas. Or backwards day. But other than that, no ice cream for breakfast.

Yes, I understand that you will only be happy if I let you skip school. I'm flattered that you want to come to work with me.

But it is not my job to make you happy. It is my job to inspire in you a love of learning. It is my job to teach you that sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do to achieve long term goals, like a college degree. It is my job to teach you the value of hard work.

It's That Time of Year...Again

 You know the time of year -- when everyone starts hearing about where their kids are going to go to school, whether Susie will be accepted into the $30,000 private girls' school or Charlie into the charter that got 1000 applications. Whether the school Hiram is in is attending to his reading deficits or whether Sally needs two or three days worth of math tutoring. I guess if it weren't for the fact that one of my children is severely disabled and I've had to make some pretty enormous compromises regarding her education, I might have the paranoid perspective that many of my friends have. I'm also sort of grateful, actually, that I don't have near enough money to even afford these private schools such is the anxiety I see and hear spilling out.

I probably have at least one conversation every single day with someone who is worried, kvetching, complaining, bragging or something or other about their son or daughter's school. Frankly, I'm tired of it. I want to SCREAM:

It's FOURTH GRADE PEOPLE!

Betrayed: A Sparkling Love Affair with Macy's Is Over

I've been betrayed. And, no, not by my husband, which would probably be more understandable.

I've been betrayed by my favorite store.

I've had a lifetime love affair with Macy's. It started when I was 16 and started working for the union Macy's in San Rafael. I was a flyer (worked in all departments) at $8.35 an hour. The pay was astronomically good for a teenager in 1984 because the store was union, but I didn't really have union dues because I was less than even part time. I was seasonal. When I went to college, I worked the Thanksgiving holiday, the Christmas holiday, Easter/Spring Break and summer. Basically, whenever I came home from college I would work.

That started my lifetime love affair. Floating from department to department let me see all the different merchandise and deals - marked down super soft towels in domestics, funky jewelry on clearance, gorgeous fina china at a steal in tabletop. I lusted after fine crystal goblets I didn't need. Longed for dresses I would never wear. And I learned to wrap absolutely fabulously in gift wrap. To this day, that is the best skill I learned from Macy's.

All of this was well before I realized how little stuff I really want in my life. How our consumerism hurts our enviornment. I was quite a shopaholic back then, and Macy's fueled it.

Let's end the mommy wars and focus on something grander

I am fed up with the mommy wars. Social media has made it so easy to attack one another because we aren't face to face. It is hard to attack someone in person, but easy to do in a blog, through Twitter, on Facebook or in a discussion board. We endlessly criticize one another. Every choice is wrong: breastfeeding v. formula feeding; working at home v. working outside the home; daycare v. nanny; homeschooling v. public v. private; organic v. conventional; etc.

Motherhood is fraught with uncertainty - who doesn't think she could have done something better? Who hasn't questioned her decisions and choices? But no reason exists to attack some other mother's choice or decision.  Each is a choice we make for our children, and each choice has its benefits and its costs.

I belong to several "mommy" discussion groups, and last week one of them had a huge debate over whether it was okay to put "no gifts" on a child's invitation. This mild inquiry as to whether it was okay to do this resulted in venom. Let me tell you. Moms who thought that it was completely improper since various etiquette mavens say that gifts should not be mentioned at all on invitations. Moms who thought that doing so would deprive the child. Moms who thought it was a good idea, especially when the excess is embarrassing. Moms who thought asking for donations for various charitable organizations (such as Haiti relief) in lieu of gifts was a great "teachable moment."

Will I hate my mom?

Will I hate my mom?

I've been pondering this question a lot lately. Which is ironic since Mother's Day is fast approaching.

I can't help but wonder if I will hate my mom someday because my mom keeps bringing it up.  At the beginning of virtually every phone call lately, my mom says:

I hope I have enough money set aside so you can put me in a home. If I don't, you will hate me. I'm afraid I will be just like my mom. I'll ask you what your doing all the time. I'll put stuff away wrong. You'll hate me. You will.

And she'll keep going until I interrupt her.

It has become exhausting to talk to her because she is afraid I will hate her. But I have to talk to her to keep her sane right now because of my grandmother. My grandmother, my mom's mom, is 91 years old. Up until last December, she walked 2 miles a day. She was interesting. She was involved. And boy was she stylish. Actually, she was more stylish than I am. More stylish than most of us. She would wear 3 inch heels every day. She looked great.

Mommy Road Rage: Madlyn Primoff & Child Endangerment - Have We Gone To Far?

Do we really live in such a culture of fear that making your child walk is a crime?

If you haven’t already heard, Madlyn Primoff, a 45 year old partner at the law firm Kaye Scholer,was charged with misdemeanor child endangerment after kicking her squabbling 12 and 10 year old daughters out of the family car and driving off. It appears she acted in a fit of rage after the two girls would not stop bickering. Her 12-year-old ran after the car, caught up and rode the three miles home alone with her mother. Primoff's 10-year-old was left alone, crying until a stranger bought her ice cream and contacted the police.

The story was covered internationally. It has sparked outrage. Primoff has been vilified in the news. Some have used this as evidence that moms cannot work outside the home and juggle being moms. You might not think she is a good parent. I don’t know what transpired in the car. From the outside, it would seem she needs to learn to better manage her frustration and anger. But I think most of us can at least understand the feelings that drove Madlyn Primoff to stop her car and make that usually empty threat of "get out of the car" very real. Fed up with bickering, children crossing the imaginary line and poking one another, or any of the other amazingly annoying things that children can do while you are driving, most of us may well have wanted to stop and force our children out.

But do you really thin she criminally endangered her children under the law?

Baby Land

I am an artist by profession. I remember being in graduate school, hearing my favorite professor say that to make great art is part rigor, part surrender. Are you sure he wasn’t talking about raising twins?  It’s true, you know--the rigor and surrender part.  I had to learn to love baby land.

Baby land is a special place but you have to surrender yourself completely in order to get there. There is no time in baby land. The time is languid and lovely. Water filtering though your hands. It is like going down stream in a slow moving river. You can’t go fast. Most days I love the river. I float gently with my babies avoiding the desire to paddle up stream. Motherhood is just like art. It takes all of your rigor and surrender. Perhaps, mothers with one baby can paddle a bit faster with their other hand. But I have both hands full. So I have to float, wait, and enjoy. For a while I fought it. I wanted to cling to my old life, the one before my kids. The life where most things go as planned and your productivity shows. Where things are documented by output and completed tasks. You can’t measure breast milk. You can’t measure memories.

Reclaiming myself after mommyhood & dancing in the rain

I think I have finally reclaimed me. Or at least I am on my way.

I lost me some time ago. I didn’t notice that I’d actually lost me when it happened – somewhere in the effort to get and stay pregnant and suffering two miscarriages, in the highs and lows of pregnancy, in the joy of birthing healthy children, in the sleep deprived state of being a new mother and nursing, and in the business and busy-ness of life, of going back to work and raising two kids and keeping a home and pleasing a husband – I lost me. 

The happy, fun, flirty, outspoken, wild, interested and (I hope) interesting me.

Something happened in that shift as went from being a single to being married to becoming a mom and shouldering the responsibilities of not only a husband, but two children, mostly unable to care for themselves. There's no way around it, those children demand and need you. A lot of you. So I lost me, and my whole perspective on life. 

Don't get me wrong.  I love my children fiercely, desperately.  But . . .

I was kicked out of book club so I'm going to blog about it

Apparently, I just repeat the same mistakes.  I never learned how to be part of the “in” crowd in high school.  Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t unpopular in high school.  But I wasn’t “in” either.  Well, I was for a little bit.  But then I got kicked out of the group – being bluntly told by the ringleader that I couldn’t be in the group because those girls didn’t do that (and that's a different post).

And now I’ve been kicked out of my book club, despite the fact that I was a founding member of the club 8 years ago or so.  Although these women were not as blunt as the high school it girls, having just dropped me from the email list.  But I figured it out after not being included for the last two meetings. Not an email invitation.  Nothin.

My sin?  Apparently, because I can formally commit to attend a minimum of 6 of the 11 meetings per year, I can’t be included in the book club.

So I’ve been kicked out.

A wannabe Super Mom hangs it up

I had an epiphany this morning.  I am not Supermom and have given up on trying.   Some point in the last couple of months I just gave up on trying to be Supermom.

At no point did I make a conscious decision.  But I have hung up the never earned neon cape and matching unworn rhinestone adorned (yes, lead free) Spandex outfit (just waiting for me to lose the “baby weight”).  It just sort of happened.  I’ve been sliding towards mediocrity for quite awhile, and realized that the bottom isn’t so bad.  It just means I don’t have to try so hard.

So, I’m no longer a wannabe Supermom.  Instead, I’m . . . . wait for it . . . . I'm newly minted Mediocre Mom.   Ta da!

And I’m much happier than I used to be.

For the longest time, I didn’t readily admit I was trying to be Supermom.  I mean, I’m not the competitive mom type.   I desperately tried not to participate in one upmanship discussions about how great my children are, coming up with off kilter one liners to get out of such discussions.  You know – those discussions about how little Johnny was potty trained at 9 months (that’s great – I’m just hoping my son doesn’t need diapers packed for college since they will take up so much room) or little Ella spoke full sentences at 1 year (wonderful – I’m just glad my daughter’s first word wasn’t @$%!).  I didn’t throw elaborate 1st or 2nd birthday parties.  My children did not attend the “in” daycare or school or wear the latest fashions.