CurrentMom

Friendship Wars

Therapy Tuesday
Photo by: burgenschenker [ in slow motion ]

It starts off young. The moniker of "best friend." My 4-year-old is not immune to this, and while he has a stable "best friend," it can be hard to keep track of others that temporarily wear the label. At this early age, friendship is relatively simple: it is declared, and then honored by playing together during recess.

Sometime, around fourth or fifth grade, friendships change. There is an awareness of this concept called "popularity" and that begins to shift friend allegiances. Popularity, as we adults know, it something that is not ever real. I'm not speaking from insider information, but from what I've seen, those that are popular never feel comfortable with that status, as by its very nature, it can be fleeting. It is more a state of maintaining popularity rather than "being" popular.

Back to my 4-year-old, as he defines friendships as those that listen to him (and conversely do what he says) and those that don't. I overheard him playing with a friend recently, and he was instructing his friend around the rules of the game that he was making up. (The same rules would inevitably shift when the outcome wasn't what my son had in mind). I pulled him over and suggested that perhaps his friend might want to suggest a game for them to play. Without missing a beat, he said, "Hey, Ben, you should have us play a game that is like this..." And he proceeded to give detailed instructions.

I recently was talking to a parent who has a middle school aged daughter struggling with friendships. At this age, gossip is a powerful tool, as it can change relationships instantly. With the advent of texting and the internet, such news can be spread faster than one can imagine. The parent's struggle was with how involved should she be? Should she let the other parents know that her daughter has been advised to stay away from their girls? Is the onus on her daughter to set those boundaries?

As we age, friendships become more tricky, with more at stake. Friends contribute to our sense of happiness and well-being.

 

Political Lessons

Truth Thursday

(This post was written prior to the recent Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle. I have since made a sizable contribution to Planned Parenthood, grateful for the reminder, by fellow blogger and Stirrup Queen, Melissa Ford, that it is important to support services instead of a quasi-philanthropic effort.)

A couple of weeks ago as my daughter and I were on a mundane errand, we drove past a large group of mostly young people streaming out of the metro and walking together towards the downtown area nearby. I couldn’t tell at first what was uniting them, except that they all seemed to be wearing orange scarves. And then I saw one of their placards.

“I’m pro-life and I’m proud.”

This was one of those car moments you read about in parenting manuals – when you are driving with your eyes on the road and you need to open a provocative yet important and potentially embarrassing topic with your child. Being behind the wheel so they don’t have to look you in the eye is the best possible place to start these conversations, I have now learned.

My 12-year-old daughter asked who these people were and why were they carrying signs?

I generally try very hard, when talking about big issues in the world, to offer a relatively neutral position so that my children can hear what are presumably the facts and try to make up their own minds about the topic at hand.

(The exception being the very basic birds and bees of politics – Democrats v. Republicans. My children know that they are simply never, ever allowed to become Republicans. They can become religious, they can come out, they can basically make any decision they want about how they choose to live their lives. But they cannot become Republican. No amount of funny Michael J. Fox as Alex Keaton will change my mind about this.)

Anyway, my daughter was probably preparing herself for another one of mom’s pablum-like homilies.

Not this time.

Bonjour Bébé: How French Parenting Practices Benefit Working Moms (and their Kids)

Work Wednesday

Globalization is the trend of this millennium so it's not surprising that it's taken over the parenting book industry.

Last winter, the Wall Street Journal sparked an online controversy by publishing an excerpt from Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which extolled a hardcore Chinese-style academically-focused approach to parenting, under the headline, "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior."

Now, the Journal's turned West for inspiration, publishing an excerpt from Pamela Druckerman's Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, under the headline, "Why French Parents are Superior."  Druckerman's book promotes French parenting practices, which, as The New York Times puts it, teach you how to "raise the perfect children produced by [Chua] without the fuss of having to chain them to the piano or throw them out of the house."

Bébé just arrived in America yesterday, so I haven't read it all yet. (There's also a U.K. version, French Children Don’t Throw Food: Parenting Secrets From Paris, published last month.) But based on first impressions, I think I'm going to love Druckerman's memoir as much as I loathed Chua's message.

It's not that I'm enthralled by Druckerman's writing, although so far the book seems funny, balanced, and self-aware. And it's not that her advice is a complete revelation. (You can find a good summary of the top ten tips we're supposed to learn from Bébé here.) Much of it - relax, let your baby cry a little, teach your kids how to wait, act with authority - seems like cross-cultural common sense. (I do have to admit, though, that I can't imagine how I'd ever enforce the one snack (at 4:00 p.m.?) rule with my constantly-grazing five-year-old son.)

The real reason I'm looking forward to reading Bébé is that Druckerman's main point - that the French are better parents because they are less obsessive about parenting - seems positive for working moms.  As Druckerman explains, the "French have managed to be involved with their families without becoming obsessive. They assume that even good parents aren't at the constant service of their children, and that there is no need to feel guilty about this." It's this lack of guilt (or at least lessened guilt) that seems to set French parents apart from American parents. And that, Druckerman contends, is good for moms, kids, and family life as a whole.

On the Road Again

Truth Thursday

I am preparing for a particularly long work trip –15 days away – and will be leaving in less than a week. And before I get any heckling about enjoying what should be a wonderful trip – after all, I will be in Israel and then am taking two days in Paris by myself on the way back (and I don’t have to cook dinner or wash dishes or clothes for that same period of time) – I want reassure you all that I will, indeed, be working while I am away.

And even though I will be working thousands of miles away from home, I still have to be the puppeteer for my family’s active lives while I am gone. Or at least spend the better part of two weeks preparing for my absence.

There is no question that it is easier to be away with older children. There are no real worries about child care – at the ages of 16, 12 and 10, they can be alone in the house by themselves after school for a couple of hours every day. I don’t have to worry about the babysitter not making it, or childcare falling through. And I know that there are many neighbors up and down our block who will be available in the event of an emergency.

And for the most part, my children’s lives revolve around their schools and school friends, all of which are reachable by foot or school bus. Only one carpool to worry about, to Hebrew school ten minutes away, and that one is already covered. Basketball practice will be easily managed, despite having two practices on the same night at the same time … at different gyms. That is the beauty of being on local teams with neighbors and friends.

So why am I feeling such stress?

The Interminable Waiting Game

Therapy Tuesday
Photo by: Dalo_pix2

I'm noticing that winter tends to be a season of waiting. Waiting for the weather to warm up or the days to get longer. Waiting for colleges to let you know if you should start making plans. Waiting for school to end and summer to begin.

I just got to experience waiting by proxy. The kind of waiting that I think is the most difficult of all: waiting for test results. The kind of waiting where you eagerly want the phone to ring, and simultaneously, are afraid of who might be on the other line. Waiting to hear "all clear," and yet being afraid to hope for that too much, less you jinx it (as if things actually work that way). What made this waiting a little more tough was that they weren't even MY results, but my mom's.

I got a call last week from my mom letting me know that at her doctor's appointment, there was a lump in her breast that was detected. Her doctor used a syringe to see if it was a cyst, and if it was, there would be liquid coming out. The syringe was inserted, but there wasn't any liquid. The next step was to get a biopsy. This would determine what kind of mass it was: benign or cancerous. I was able to be calm while on the phone, although I flashed back to my own waiting for results. I tried to mention this in a way to be in concert with her during this waiting. To protect myself from one of life's biggest fears (death), I wrapped some emotional distance from this news and put it "away."

Fast forward to Monday morning. I was getting my kids ready for the day, and the phone rings. It's my mom. I had forgotten that today was "Result Day" and I answered the phone. In an upbeat voice, I heard. "I just got the results back. Everything is fine. They are just going to monitor me." Three sweet phrases! As I was talking to her, I could feel my eyes well up with tears. The distanced emotion was raging full force! In that moment, I could feel what I almost lost. And I am grateful for this extra time found.