CurrentMom

Yahoo Goes Retro

Truth Thursday

I couldn’t possibly write about being a working mom this week without honing in on Marissa Mayers and her decision to disallow all Yahoo employees from working at home, whether they have a full or part-time telecommuting schedule, or just need a day to be at home to wait for the refrigerator repair guy and could get some work accomplished in the quiet of their kitchen.

I have a lot to say on this matter.

First and foremost, of course, the story didn’t start with this pronouncement. The story started over the summer when Mayers accepted the CEO position at Yahoo and about five minutes later announced she was pregnant with her first child. 

I have no problem with this, in theory. I don’t think women should have to hide their pregnancies in order to job search (or be recruited.) An employee who is good enough to hire is good enough to hire even if she needs a three-month parental leave soon after being hired. Employers who want to recruit and retain top talent should not be eliminating a large portion of their potential employee pool based on gender and age.

And having a top Internet company hire a woman for its top position was exciting. There was much buzz about what Mayers might bring to the table for Yahoo, a flailing operation.

The Power of the Pause - Unplugging in a Plugged-In World

Truth Thursday

Today on my train ride to New York, I sat across the aisle from a man who had out his laptop, his iPad and his iPhone, and he was using all three at once. I wasn’t clear on what he was really doing (it actually sounded like he was on the phone with a tech expert, trying to fix some password on his iPad) but he clearly thought he was being incredibly productive with all his technology at his fingertips on the go.

I, on the other hand, read two paper newspapers cover to cover and the first essay in a (paperback) book of literary essays I’ve been meaning to get to for a while. It was a gorgeous piece, about scent, memory and longing.

I didn’t look at my agendas for my meetings, and I didn’t answer any emails (as I did have my phone with me.) I spent three and a half hours sitting and thinking, reading for pleasure, and preparing myself mentally for a long day of meetings, but without electronics.

It felt both a little slothful and absolutely delightful.

There is a part of me that salivates over having a new gadget. I want an iPad so that I don’t have to schlep my laptop when I travel overseas.  I want a new iPhone since my 3GS is moving pretty slowly after almost two years. I love my iMac – it makes typing on my computer a pleasurable, tactile experience.

But I also fall on the other side of the technology trap. I have tried using an e-reader, but really prefer reading books – I like looking at their covers, feeling their pages, turning down a corner on something I want to remember. I like closing the book after reading the final page and the sense of satisfaction that comes with putting it on the shelf.

Seneca, Selma, Stonewall

Truth Thursday

Seneca, Selma, Stonewall.

Could there be a better alliteration to capture the purest moment of American democracy on display this week?

I’m incredibly moved by the linkage of these three civil rights movements. And incredibly grateful to live in a time and a place where the President – MY president – can invoke them in his inauguration speech.

I have spent most of my life caring about and fighting for reproductive rights and a woman’s right to choose. The images of the Seneca Falls convention, and the suffragettes, have always guided my view of the world. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a feminist. Like my mother before me, I have marched, and rallied, and given money, and worked for the rights of women to live lives free of patriarchal derision, injustice and oppression. 

As for Selma, I was born the year Dr. King gave his iconic speech on the Mall, and only two when he led the march to Selma, Alabama, during which the Jewish spiritual leader, Abraham Joshua Heschel, described his feet as “praying.” Whenever I pray, Heschel’s image, linking spirituality with activism, resonates.

The civil rights movement was an integral part of my lessons growing up. I was raised in a Brooklyn neighborhood where I was one of only a few white kids – most of my friends and neighbors were African American. I understood -- in reverse -- what it meant to be the minority in the classroom. I memorized Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son" (Life Ain’t No Crystal Stair) poem for a choral speaking contest, and sang the black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” for Black History Month. When my parents shipped me out of my neighborhood to a white enclave for the rest of junior high school, it came as a culture shock.

Teach Our Children Well

Truth Thursday

I did something this week I haven’t done in years – I gave a homeless person $1 as I walked by. I was in a tony part of town, hyper-conscious of having just repaired my Mac computer at the local Apple store, toting a fancy $10 salad home for lunch, wearing a cute coat I had picked up in Paris on my last trip, and looking at my iPhone. 

And there he was, sitting on a box, smoking a cigarette, his hand out. And without really thinking about it, I reached into my wallet, handed him a dollar bill, and smiled, and he smiled back and thanked me.

And now I can’t stop thinking about it.

Decades ago, living in New York during what was the height of the homelessness/crack crisis, I told myself that I would not give money to people on the street. Instead, I would do what many people tell themselves they do – I would give it to organizations that help the homeless.

Except I never have. I give money away, but I always wind up giving to organizations that lead the fight around social issues that I care most deeply about, and frankly, homelessness has never quite made it to the top of that long list. I once participated in a rally and march on Washington for housing, but that was more because my boss at the time was involved and asked me to be too.

But I was so conscious of who I was, walking in Bethesda that morning, with all my fancy accouterments, compared with this poor man sitting on the sidewalk, that I caved. And it made me feel a little better about myself … momentarily.

My kids and I have had some conversations about homelessness and extreme poverty. My oldest is very self righteous about how privileged we are, and although he doesn’t do anything in a volunteer capacity about it, he understands. My two younger kids have come to Manna, a local food distribution warehouse for our county, to help pack boxes; we’ve volunteered at the local JCC on Thanksgiving and at local shelters on Christmas. Homelessness doesn’t generally stare them in the face as it did for me when I was there age, living in New York City, but they are vaguely aware and indeed, aware that it is our responsibility to help when we can.

But is any of it enough?

Empathy and Newtown

Truth Thursday 

Last Friday morning, at approximately 7:30 am, I drove my youngest son to school. On the way, he told me about his role as a School Ambassador, and how, the day before, a new kid from Cameroon arrived at school, knowing very little English. He was put in my son’s charge, and is to shadow my son's in his classes for a few days. My son is to show him the ropes and hopefully acclimate him just a little as he makes his way, probably feeling quite frightened, in a new school and a new country.

By the end of the first day, my son had already introduced the new boy to another boy he knew in school from Cameroon, who had entered my son’s 5^th grade class mid-last year. I was so proud of him to think of making this introduction, and the empathy that created the impulse to do so.

On Friday morning at approximately 9:00 am, Adam Lanza stormed his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and, after having already killed his mother at home, mowed down 20 kindergarteners and several teachers, including the principal and the school psychologist, before killing himself.

This is the exact opposite of empathy. It was a psychotic, horrific act, one that has destroyed not only the lives of those who were killed, but with reverberations throughout their families and community. The impulses that must have been at work in the killer’s brain are frightening to contemplate.

I didn’t know where to begin to write about this story, only that I had to write about it. There are so many aspects of it to parse:

-       The parents. When you become a parent, you realize that your heart is tottering dangerously on your sleeve, and will never again be tucked neatly away in your chest. No parent can imagine getting the phone call that the Newtown parents received on Friday. Every parent thinks about what he or she might do in the same situation, but for many of us, even the neural pathways leading to a coherent thought about it are blocked. Losing a child is the most painful thing one can experience, bar none. Regardless of the passing of time and hopefully their ability to resume living, the lives of these parents will be forever scarred.

-       The children who lived.  I read that the police officers who escorted the surviving children out of the school told them to hold hands with a partner and avert their eyes. I’m not sure that simply by not looking would they find themselves in less of a stressful and sad place, but I appreciate that the adults in charge realized that the less of the carnage the children saw of their classmates, the better. At least that was one tiny thing they could be spared.

-       The children who died. Adorable, innocent, five and six year olds. Enough said.