NYC Moms

Exhibit A: Breasts

Several years ago, a taxi cab driver and I got into a conversation.  He was from Africa and just before he dropped me at my destination he said that he didn't understand Americans' obsession with breasts.  He said that where he comes from women go topless as part of traditional dances.  Hey, been to the Empire State Building yet?  I didn't know what to say.  However, the comment stuck with me.

I do feel I can't help being assaulted by breasts everyday and in a way that overrides all other human sexual traits.  Can you imagine a trend of testicular cleavage?   But breasts come at me  from every news stand, billboard and television.  I don't know anything about Heidi Montag except that for some reason she got ginormous breast implants and cannot run or hug people with comfort.  I find myself hysterically tapping the Taxi TV 'off' button when Kim Kardashian's commercial comes on where she is sitting on a swing, showing off two melon sized breasts.  Or distracting the kids when a bus goes by with an advertisement for a TV show called Jersey Couture showing two raven-haired, large breasted women.  The Equinox Gym ad campaign My Biography is all over the public telephone stands and has a brunette woman with big sunglasses and cleavage.  My daughter asked me what Hooters was from seeing an ad on top of a taxi and I said, "A group of owls." We are not prudish people at all.  I would just like my daughter to be as unaware of body "issues" as long as possible. And to be proud of her body whatever it turns into.  I hope it isn't a completely ridiculous dream.  I don't know how to explain certain images to her.  Sometimes she puts my bra on and runs around the apartment singing, so she isn't oblivious to what's in store for her.   We've talked about puberty and even why her brother has nipples.  (That's vestigial. From when all embryos follow a female template. Now, go play, kids.) 

SAHM walks in working Moms' moccasins

I haven't worked since my son was born six years ago.  I had planned to return to work but my department went through some negative changes during my maternity leave and I had two children under 18 months old, so I chose to not to go back.  I was very fortunate to have that choice.  Unwittingly, I found myself in the middle of many heated conversations between strident working mothers and strident stay-at-home mothers. The overarching theme from working mothers seemed to be that stay-at-home mothers were dilettantes who spent their time working out and shopping.  The stay-at-home mothers  dropped comments about the working mother's neglect of their children--not being home for dinner, missing school events--that sort of thing.

American Idol - Family Style

My husband and I don't watch much television.  We haven't got the time.  There are so many shows to choose from, I started wondering why we religiously watch American Idol?  We started watching it in Season 2, following contestants from awkward, ill-styled try-outs to glamorous finales.  We watched Clay Aiken sing Solitaire and lose out to Ruben Studdard. The next season we watched Jennifer Hudson get voted off prematurely, and Fantasia Barrino sing a killer version of Summertime. Carrie Underwood almost seemed like a planted contestant, she was so polished for Season 4. Season 5 was a travesty as Taylor Hicks, a bad singer with Joe Cocker affectations, won. I can't really remember Season 6. Season 7 David Cook won and he was solid. Season 8 was interesting with Allison Iraheta and Adam Lambert, both really big and colorful characters. And now Season 9. As packaged and promoted as it is, we enjoy the whole construct with comments from the judges and America voting.  Ironically, the music from the show is not the kind of music we even listen to.  So, why this show?

G'Night, John Boy

As a child from a broken home during the post- Leave it to Beaver ('57-'63) pre-  One Day At A Time ('75-'84) years, I watched a lot of television.  It was the '70s and the sitcom riff on family life seemed to be shows sans-Mommy Andy Griffith Show  (1960-68 widowed father raising son),  Courtship Of Eddie's Father ('69-'72 widowed father raising son),  My Three Sons ('60-'72 widowed father raising three sons),  Family Affair ('66-71 bachelor raising brother's orphaned children) to shows with nearly perfect families Little House on the Prairie ('74-'84), The Waltons ('71-'82),  All in the Family ('71-'79) and Happy Days ('74-'84).  There were laugh tracks and I imagined being a member of these families with a strong father who does everything for his family.  I imagined playing in the yard with Mary Ellen Walton and going to the General Store with Laura Ingalls Wilder, fending off the mean-spirited, Nellie Oleson.

My parents divorced before Self Help was a large section in every book store and there were no maps or groundwork for split families so things were rocky and those dads from television eventually seemed like cruel parodic mockeries to me.   They were all loving and competent fathers--even in their anguished imperfections-- (add Mr. Brady The Brady Bunch '69-'74) who had weekly, introspective moments and heart-to-hearts with their children. I realized, I would never really be friends with Laura Ingalls Wilder or John Boy, and I would never lie in bed at night fighting back tears while an ever-understanding TV dad consoled me.   In fact, the one dimensional nature of television shows started to afflict me.  (Mid-70s to 80s brought more African American families and shows with complex families Good Times ('74-'79 the single mother in the ghetto!), One Day At A Time (single mom/2 daughter), Punky Brewster ('84-'88 foster girl/complex story)  and Diff'rent Strokes ('78-'86 two African American boys adopted by deceased mother's employer-- to name a few.) 

Tips From A New Power Mom

As 2010 approached, I made two resolutions.  I usually don't even make one.  The first, exercise more (I know a cliche).  The second, eat well (egad, another awful cliche).  The most horrible part is I capped off all these cliches, with a final cliche cherry on the top--I have accomplished neither resolution #1 nor #2.  So, that makes for a demoralizing beginning to 2010.  Now I sit with my non-exercised rump at my desk eating a Reese's cupcake (a mini one. Could I be on the road to resolution #2?).  Digging my resolution hole a bit deeper, I resolved (not an official resolution, more of a thought with purpose) to write my New York City Moms Blog entry the first week of 2010!  Yeah!  Get a head start.  Well, that didn't happen either. My explanation:  it isn't nice to depress others.   So, I saved my dear readers (hi, Mom!) from the potential contagion of my lack of resolution. 

I remember being in my 20's and flying back to New York City in an airplane listening to my Tony Robbins tapes.  Here I am years later, without my resolutions and he is now Anthony Robbins with Robbins Research International.  I don't think he'll be asking me for any product testimony.  After TR (extra big letters because he's tall),  I moved onto the kinder/gentler Chicken Soup for  the Soul. Now they have Chicken Soup for the Soul - Power Moms.   Back then, I knew that by the time I was married and had children I'd have it together.  I'd be a power mom (sounds invigorating!)  I would get up and smile in the mirror and have neat hair (counterintuitive).   "Good Morning, Power Mom!" I would be seizing the day with my children and maybe balancing a career (note to self: buy new edition of The Artist's Way). There would be no piles in my life:  laundry, stuff,  junk, to be handled, bills, cute stuff, pants, wires of various kinds etc.,.   I guess I thought I would be a very resolved person at this point.  I would have clear and definite purpose.    How could this not be?  How does Tony Robbins have the Robbins Research International and I haven't put a bra on yet and it's 12:30PM.  Where is my publicist?  Oh, yes.  Well, I won't sit by the wayside any longer.  I will be resolved. I will offer advice and tips (need to finish cupcake first) because according to Nielsen's description, I am already a Power Mom and I haven't done a blessed thing today.  The PM does it all--the house, the kids, the shopping (yummy!), the job, the bills but what does she do to them? Isn't neglect an act even if it is the absence of an act?  If your child was neglected to be called on today, didn't something happen?? So, here is my first list of Tips as a New Power Mom.  Maybe someday, there will be a little girl on an airplane somewhere listening to my tips on tape!

Howdy, Neighbor?

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I couldn't help noticing that there was someone sitting in an idling car across the street from my parent's house.  Hours later, when I went to go on an errand and the car was still there, I found my mother.  "Do you know there is someone sitting out there in a car?" I asked.  It turns out that my parent's live next door to the CFO of Goldman Sachs who feels he needs 24-hour security and so a person sits in a car across from my parent's house (out of view of the CFO's, of course) and idles--day and night.  Of course this made for lots of jokes and sarcastic remarks.  Still, on Thanksgiving my father ran out to give the security person a piece of pie and a cup of hot coffee.   The sentiment being that it wasn't his fault he worked for an...for a jerk.  

I have come to really resent Goldman Sachs myself.   They were the biggest packager and seller of collateralized debt obligations, packaging thousands of bad mortgages together yet passing them off as AAA paper.  They were the largest  purchaser of credit default swaps, many from AIG.   Then they pressured the Secretary of Treasury,  Goldman's former CEO, for government bailout funds for AIG.  And billions of those bailout funds went to pay off Goldman.  Last fall, they got 10 billion from the government   from the TARP program and paid it back mostly so it wouldn't infringe on their bonus and compensation plans.  They have not paid any money back to AIG.  Now, they have no obligation to technically, but it seems a fair business model to do so.  You know one thing they did give back?  After lots of media pressure, they did return the units of the H1N1 flu vaccine they got from the CDC for their workforce. If you are ever at a cocktail party, and ask a Goldman employee about any of this stuff, they really don't know much at all.  It's peculiar.  Believe me, I've tried it.   I've learned it's best to banter about golf, home renovations and St. Barts.  Anyhow, maybe I should just walk over to mom's neighbor and knock on the door and ask him myself. Or would I get shot first?

So, we ate our Thanksgiving dinner with lots of family and great food and out the window, the view of the security guy idling across the street.  We shared all sorts of news about babies, birthdays, weddings and this year a hot new topic --job searches! Since more family members and friends have lost their jobs, received pay cuts and/or had their bonuses eliminated since last Thanksgiving, it was big news.  This got me to thinking, what will Goldman do when there are no more tax payers to fund their paper tigers because they're all out of work...? 

This is an Original NYC Moms Blog post

Smart Kids?

My kids eat Smartfood and learn from teachers writing on Smart Boards.  They read Smart Books and see people driving Smart Cars and talking on Smart Phones.  I'm just wondering if everything is so smart why do we seem so dumb?  It's like the "war on terror"  and "death tax" just because it has the name doesn't make it so.  Between the load of really insipid celebrities and politicians, it seems like we are actually frighteningly dumb.  The U.S. is 18 out of 36 in secondary education.  The US ranked 16 out of 30 for teens in math and science on an international test.  Our friend who was a math teacher left the profession because he couldn't compete with sports anymore for the students' time and energy.  90% of 200 students tested at CUNY couldn't solve a simple algebra problem, Only one in four 8th graders reads proficiently. By 2010, Asia will have 90 percent of the world’s Ph.D. scientists and engineers.

When I try  to think about what I can do, it is enormous.  Where does one start?  Inner city?  Suburbs?  How does it become at the center of our thoughts and concerns?  And how did we fall so horribly behind?  It seems funny that a kid who likes to study might be considered uncool when he might actually be employable one day.  Television is almost entirely anti-intellectual.   I think it is great for nations to achieve and accomplish but I am very concerned about America and where we are going and what opportunities our children will have. Additionally, much of the best young foreign talent that is attracted to our top universities returns home to their country of origin once they've landed their degrees.

In Homage To My Former Tush...

 Soul Cycle just opened up on the Upper East Side.  That might not seem like a major event to everyone but to many it seems to be as big as the Second Coming.  Soul Cycle is a spinning class -- center?  Store?  Gym? Up until recently it was only located in the Hamptons and on the Upper West Side.  There was such a furor over Soul Cycle that I shlepped over to the UWS twice last year to try it.  The place was so dark, I had to feel along the walls to get to the dressing room, and of course I tripped going into the bathroom.  After renting special cycling shoes and a cushy bike seat (not sure either is sanitary but tried not to think about it), I grabbed my bike and adjusted it.  The class was fun. The music boomed.  Let me put it this way, when Soul Cycle sends an email it's ALL IN UPPER CASE LETTERS.  Unfortunately, my bike was right under the speaker and fearing permanent hearing loss, I left the room.  The desk attendant offered me ear plugs and free gum!  I have to say, I really loved the free gum. There were four flavors.  So, I finished the class and toweled off.

The madness of "consenual incest"

A few really weird things in the news lately.  One was the Mackenzie Phillips' incest confession.  At first I made a sarcastic comment to a friend.  "Hey, all those years looking for a good man when right under my nose was my dad."  The phrase "consensual incest" seems very skewed to me like "death tax" or  "pro-life".   As a child, I used to watch One Day At A Time  with Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli.  There was the preposterous sitcom element of a building super who just barged in any time he liked and a caricature harried mother (played by Bonnie Franklin) keeping all her 1970s balls in the air from her bowl haircut to her two daughters.  My mother was also a single woman in the 1970s but we seemed to be having a whole lot less fun.  Still, little kids, have pretty low standards so it worked for me.  I also liked Tatum O'Neal in Bad News Bears and Tatum and Kristy McNichol in Little Darlings --both who have crashed and burned.  Part of me thinks, what chance did Mackenzie Phillips really have?  Her own father shot her up with drugs? That's a sure disaster. 

I had a best friend as a child whose parents were divorced and when I was 9, I went with her to visit her father.  He was a perfectly nice man but he smoked pot all day long and I was terrified being there.  My friend turned out fine, but not without collateral damage.  It was a long haul for her too.

Whose Life Is It Anyway?

I am not a "native" to technology but an "immigrant".  That's what my sister told me is the vernacular for people born after the common usage of computers, email, cell phones etc.,. and those born prior.  I swear, I'm really not that old but when I grew up and my parents went out, they left the babysitter the number of the restaurant they were heading to, or the home number of the family they were visiting.  All letters were handwritten or typed on a typewriter and no moms or dads had cell phones stuck to their ears.  Somehow we survived childhood without texting friends.  I did spend hours and hours on the phone with the line pulled into the bathroom and doodling on the mirror in eye pencil--not sure it's that much different from incessant texting.  Anyway, I'm no Luddite and don't think life was rosier before technology except in certain areas and one of those areas is privacy.  I had it.

It is really odd for me to think about having someone post pics of me from a party or having someone Twitter my whereabouts as a teen.  I have had many experiences that thankfully, only me and one other person witnessed.  Some of them are magical memories, others not so much, but they are mine.  All mine!  I read the NY Times article called Party On, But No Tweets where there is special party where people are forbidden to text, Tweet or blog.  Hey kids, in the olden days, they called that a...party!  And you could do crazy stuff and forget about it the next day, rather than see photos of it or have it chronicled.  One guy quoted in the article says, "When it's off the record you actually listen to the conversation...".  SO COOL!  It strikes me that privacy isn't that important to many people.  There was some outcry during the Bush years about the tapping of private phone calls.  Not a huge outcry.  Everything is out there.  I have envy when I Google someone and nothing comes up.  It seems so intriguing and ultimately extinct.