Done and Done

I spent the good part of the day trying to convince a male, 50-something, childless colleague that his assumptions on Life As Mom were incorrect. When a boardroom marketing-to-moms conversation diverted into mom guilt territory, he was almost dismissive, even as the moms in the room leaned into our well-honed patience skills and took time to explain. 

“Why in the world would peer moms have any influence on whether you'd give your son medication?” he said. (I paraphrase.) 

You see, as an illustrative focus-group-of-one example for our conversation and assignment at hand, a fellow mom colleague had shared the hand-wringing experience deciding to medicate her son with ADHD. (While I naturally fist-bumped her across the table. Been there. Done that.) But our older co-worker couldn’t fathom why peer mom judgment would have had any part in the hand-wringing. We patiently explained to our non-parent-yet-self-identified-mom-expert that judgments are heaped upon moms from the moment of conception. (Are you going to find out the gender in advance of birth and if so, what does that say about you? Breast or bottle? Do you have a birth plan? Are you tough enough to go au naturel? To circumcise or not? What is your childcare plan? Oh really? Do you even love your child?) I digress.

So even before my colleague’s son received his diagnosis, she was already aware of the debate around whether parents should medicate their children and the points of view from each side of the aisle. (I wondered silently if male-colleague-who-shall-remain-nameless had ever heard the term vac-cin-A-tions.) Yeah, obviously she researched the options and consulted her doctor. But the inputs for moms aren’t so simple. Every decision we make on behalf of our kids is debatable in the Courtroom of Fellow Moms’ Opinions. Every decision we make is somehow big enough to potentially damage them for life. And whose fault will that be? Dad’s? Ha. How in the world do we survive?

One would think it would be enough to make moms turn away from social media – the major source for the constant barrage of unwarranted opinion and unsolicited advice on the minutia of Everyday Momming. Advice we moms didn’t even know we needed, but our anxiety-ridden brains convince us that we may at some point down the line and so we’ll absorb and file it all away somewhere in the frontal lobe for future reference. How to raise your toddler son so he’ll be a woman-respecting adult. How to avoid pesticides in your kids’ food so you don’t accidentally predispose them to cancer.  Reasons bilingual children are more likely to make more money in their eventual careers. (Aren’t you taking them to regular Mandarin lessons?) I don’t even know if any of this is true, but it’s slewed at me daily and who reads more than a headline anymore? Who pays attention to the validity of every source? What it all adds up to is one aggregate headline: None of us is doing enough.  What a downer. A hand wringer, actually.

Last week, eMarketer reported the findings of a new study (and I do know the source on this one: Edison) showing moms are checking Facebook more often today than ever before – at 10 times per day and mostly via mobile phone. This space that frankly serves as the virtual court of opinion and unsolicited advice is sucking us in more and more. Why?

At the same time, we laugh it off in IRL conversation. We admit to being sucked into a photo gallery of bento boxes that will expand kids’ palettes in more adventurous ways over lunchtime. Is the creative bento box really taking the school cafeteria by storm? Please. We confess that we nailed that GMO-free, certified organic side dish of peas last night, but Johnny only ate the main course – blue box mac ‘n cheese. Meh, best effort. We toast our Type-B mom friends over a glass of wine when we steal a few minutes of happy hour to remind ourselves we’re well-adjusted capable women who, by the way, grew human beings in our bodies. Sometimes we laugh in the face of Mom Anxiety. But the undercurrent is strong, friends.

My colleague, bless his heart, couldn’t fathom that we would get side-trackedly sucked into bento boxes we’ll never construct without proactively having Google searched for ‘creative bento box lunch ideas for kids.’ The hell?

So yeah, dear childless male colleague who shall remain nameless, the next time you are tempted to scoff at the perils of motherhood’s mindset, please remember this: you’ve already been judged in the Courtroom of Fellow Moms’ Opinions and you’re sentenced to time out. And a gag order. 

My Broken Boy

Watching him struggle with a pencil in one hand and a piece of paper in front of him, I am a mess of emotions. I want to shake him. I want to scream at him. I want to rip up the paper and tell him it’s okay and I know he’ll figure it out in his own way eventually so who cares about these stupid spelling words. I want to cry.

It takes him over an hour to write four sentences. There are seven more.

I look at the faint blue and pink lines on the thin paper. I hate those lines. The sky, clothesline and ground.  The letters are supposed to fit nicely between them. Letters that you can’t form when ADHD wins. So often, it wins.

My son struggles with barriers in his brain that I can’t comprehend because they don’t exist in mine. And they make me angry at him. And then reminding myself it’s not his fault they are there, I get angry at myself for my misguided frustrations. I love my son. I hate his ADHD.

It’s bedtime. I tell him he must stop now and turn in unfinished work. And he cries, anticipating his teacher’s disappointment, whom he adores in spite of the fact that he is not the prized student. The boy cries because he didn’t finish his sentences, but yet, he can’t (?) won’t (?) finish.

Will he ever? He is smart, so smart. He asks the right questions and comprehends, inquires, analyzes, problem solves. But follow a simple direction? Write some words on a piece of paper? He stares at it. He asks about noises, and erasers and why is this pencil so sharp and Mrs. Bundy has paper like this, and my Stompeez are slippery and what is Reid doing and, and, and…

I email his teacher with the heads up. I search for solutions beyond medication. New strategies. Tweaks. Options. Diet changes. The medication is on only during the day. It’s off at homework time. Our time with him is off time. And oh how it throws everything off. But still I have a love/hate relationship with the little blue pill he takes each morning. It helps and even he knows it. But he is so little. What about the long-term? Is enough really known? What if?

I try to keep my focus on ways I can help my son. I try to separate ADHD from my relationship with him. I try to silence the white noise of society’s judgment. His parents should be stricter disciplinarians. My child would never. Such behavior problems. Too much TV. Or, those who think ADHD is a cop-out label. Every other kid “has” it, right? The squirrely kid? The kid who doesn’t want to follow directions? The kid in her own world? Oh, of course, it’s ADHD! Someone once asked how we had Graham “diagnosed.” In quotation marks like it was made up. A mask. Are that many pediatricians throwing meds at first graders these days that this real misery has become synonymous with some imaginary state?

ADHD is very real here. And it is horrible. And it will never leave my son alone. Just like him, dancing around that lined piece of paper, it will never finish.

Ah, to Have It All! (blech)

I was in a client meeting last week when the topic of moms “having it all” came up.

Gah. I want to stop typing right there. “Having it all” makes me want to throw up a bit in my mouth. It’s SO OVERDONE. Overused. Abused.

I’m going to forge on now as I did in that meeting; bear with me.

The topic actually came up authentically in the course of this client’s business discussion. It wasn’t a side conversation during a break in the meeting among the working moms in the room who were lamenting over which one couldn’t get her 5-mile run in this morning because she had an early board meeting to zip off to after dropping her three perfectly coifed and ironed children off at Montessori to continue on their path towards presidency.

Nope, the topic came up in the course of ideating a new strategic platform for the client, whose primary focus is on the mom consumer. (You do know what I do for a living, right?)

I personally have been accused of “having it all” in the past and while outwardly rolling my eyes, internally secretly loved the accusation because, well, that competition thing. It’s real, it exists, and don’t think I have gotten to this stage in my career because I’m not competitive. Why do you think the “mommy wars” exist? (Oops, throwing up in my mouth again.) Because moms are competitive. News flash!

For Pete’s sake, at my son’s soccer game last weekend, I showed up (un-showered, mind you) wearing a t-shirt, skinny jeans and a long necklace and another mom in workout gear pointedly asked me why I was so dressed up. She wasn’t joking. “Have you been to church or something this morning? Seriously, why so dressed up?” Uhhh…

Do I really have it all? Psshh, child please.

I yell at my kids. I have no patience for helping with homework. I’m late. They’re late. Sometimes I’d rather escape to Starbucks with my laptop than be at home. I’m stressed and anxious and have decided I’m probably thin only because my heart is constantly racing. I’m sure I project my stress onto my wee ones (one of whom has been diagnosed with generalized anxiety, okay?) and my workaholic tendencies are probably giving them self-esteem issues. Does that make you feel better?

Sounds like a dream, right? Just another day in Having It All! Whee!

Do you think we can just decide we should not be so competitive? That we can just decide to stop the drive towards trying to have it all? I’m telling you, it was mentioned in the meeting that day. People who are very smart and strategic, at the top of their games, and who work with moms every day allow this idea to spill out of their mouths too easily, in my opinion. I’ve heard it. Like, “let’s just help American moms off this path of destruction called perfectionism! Easy peasy, done and done!”

God, if only that whole sentiment came in a pill.

Instead of talking the tired talk about how “we don’t have to have it all! (wink!),” because God knows we love to beat a dead horse, let’s have a REAL, blunt, head-on conversation about the fact that yep, we do all want it all and we do want it all to be just like we imagined and we do want it to be better than the mom next door to boot.

If we (and the brands we love) really want to help moms, how about feeding into this innate drive, this wired-in competition, and flip it so that the drive is towards who is the BEST about shutting off (or attempting to?) the laptop at 5:00 most often? Who does the BEST job of encouraging her child to learn through play the instead of doing anxiety-ridden worksheets? Who is the BEST about asking for and leaning on help from her personal village? Who is the BEST about talking most openly and honestly about her fears and insecurities when it comes to motherhood? Who is the BEST at making others around her feel like their no. 1 goal should be to achieve perfectly imperfect? Who is the BEST at not gossiping about other moms and the way they manage, acknowledging the fact that none of us knows what’s really going on at home, in families and personal lives, and God bless us every one. Whew.

Own up to it and then figure out what works for you. What is your “all.” And then work it, mama. Not just for you but also for your need to show Suzy next door that yes, you indeed are going to rock those hot pink skinny jeans and let them mask your anxiety about the fact that your demanding job and the needs of your offspring are in a constant state of war that you will never admit to Suzy.

Because God help you, you will persevere with ALL the drive you have. All.You.Have.

You're Doing a Good Job

There was something I needed to hear. I didn’t realize it until an average weekday afternoon, when I heard it and my eyes surprised me by getting wet. Like unbeknownst to me the tears had been gathering behind them for a few strong weeks but those words put a big crack in the dam.

“You’re doing a good job.”

When is the last time you heard it? That you are doing a good job as a mother?

For me, it came not as an obligatory Mother’s Day golf clap, but on a random Friday afternoon in the midst of specialist appointments for both boys. The school principal and I had A Conversation. And it was mostly about how I have no more capacity for negative. Even if you never told me one time how difficult my child is, I would still know. I know my child. I know he bounces off the walls and marches to his own drummer and gets stuck on things inside his mind that other kids would never even notice. I know his energy can zap that of adults around him. Tell me something you like about him.

Since I was pregnant with my first hawklet, the downright-scary-at-times labels have come: “Spina bifida.” “Non-stress tests.” “Speech delay.” “Generalized Anxiety Disorder.” “Perfectionist.” “ADHD.” And with the other one: “MRI.” “Albinism.” “Nystagmus.” “Esotropia.” “IEP.”  Welcome to parenthood.

The negative is not exclusive to labels and to Different. The negative is all over the news. The Mommy Wars have perpetuated competition and finger pointing and judgment for decades. If you work, you must not love your kids as much as I do. If you don’t work, you must be over-involved in the PTA with an inability to understand guilt and trade-offs.

The self-doubt.

The wondering if what I’m doing (or not doing) today is going to drive him to drug addiction later.

The anger that the time I have to put into this takes away from that, and vice versa. Falling short. Chronically late.

Those are all scary labels, too.

A lot of what we have to do every day just to get through the motions is So. Exhausting. Sometimes I can’t help but be mad at my own child for making everything harder than it has to be. This is a huge admission, one that I am not proud of, but I’m putting it into words here because in spite of this, in spite of everything related to this, I am still doing a good job. And one reason I know that is because I can still step outside of this and remember that it is not his fault. Sometimes, stepping outside of the moment in motherhood is a herculean feat.

And I also know this is true because someone else said it.

Maybe it was the fatigue that Friday afternoon. But when this person on the periphery looked me in the eyes and told me she’d noticed that we’ve been dealt a lot with both kids that most families don’t have/know/understand and that she sees that we’re on it, that we make it a priority to keep on top of what our kids need and look for the tools available to figure it out… I exhaled. I hadn’t noticed that I had been holding my breath. I think I’ve been holding my breath for six years.

“Thank you,” I responded. I meant it. I needed to hear that. I needed to exhale.

What I want you to know is that you, too, are doing a good job. We are all given a hand of cards that doesn’t match each other’s. We only show each other the backs. All the backs match. But that only makes us eyeball each other to attempt to figure out what we’re hiding on the other side. I don’t know your cards. But I don’t have to to know that you are managing your own dealt hand in your own way with its own unique intricacies I can’t understand. You are doing a good job.

And so am I.

We drank the kool-aid (a.k.a. the week I became a Disney ambassador)

We recently spent the happiest week of our lives at the happiest place on Earth.

What a big statement. It surprises even me. But it's true.

Mickey knows how to pull the same strings Santa does, apparently. He left these bags in the boys' rooms. When they woke up it was time to go.

Disney kept commanding that we let the memories begin and so we obliged. Then they rushed in. And they started flooding.

Brothers loved on each other. Why not? There was just this abundance of love to go around. Seriously, Disney!

How do you do this, Disney? This voo doo that you do, so well?

My spirited boy was spirited in all the right ways.

My reserved baby made new friends.

No detail was overlooked.

We will be back. Again and again.

And again.

Hindsight

In hindsight, I should not have left the kitchen TV on the “E!” channel and walked out of the room.

In hindsight, that is really a waste of electricity.

And in my even sharper hindsight, coming back to the room quite a bit later only to find my kindergartener on top of the countertop, eyes glued to the pivotal climax in the movie Titanic in which Jack’s frozen stiff hand is pried from Rose’s, whereupon she watches his cold, dead body -- eyes garishly open of course -- drift downward to the black depths of the Atlantic? Um, yeah not cool.

And even less cool was the slow-motion pivot in which my boy turned to face me with his huge eyes, clearly questioning all of humanity. This was of course followed by the face scrunch, and then the alligator tears and deep-seeded wail. Like a one-two-three punch you could see coming right toward your gut.

“Why are you so sad?” I tried to play it cool. Like maybe he would forget about the melodramatic death he had just witnessed.

“Her friend Jack just died!” his finger jabbed at Kate Winslet on the small screen. He was beside himself. “And he sank into the ocean!” my 5-year-old wailed.

“Well, we need to get ready for your class picnic!” I exclaimed, as if tap dancing in front of a crime scene. Nothing to see here, folks, did you notice there is an ice cream truck over there! Hey kids, ice cream! Carnival! Santa! Fun!

“I think a shark bit his leg off!”

Well now you’re just making things up. Isn’t James Cameron dramatic enough all by himself?

In hindsight, when the tap dancing did nothing to help and I feebly attempted to provide my boy some text book logic (long time ago, wouldn’t happen today, yadda yadda), mixed with a definition of “movie magic” (actors aren’t real, Leo’s not dead, clothes are costumes, yadda yadda) I basically dug my own grave. My answers led to new questions as his little mind started weaving an intricate web, attempting to make sense of it all and bandage his broken heart, such as:

Why did the captain not know there was an iceberg under the water?

How does the captain see under water?

Did someone not tell him?

What is technology?

Do the boats we have today have technology?

So boats have computers?

Where are the computers?

Our car has a computer?

I probably should have stopped at “movies are not real,” even though the way the questions progressed made me think I was totally working at that distraction thing. But then he totally called me out on saying that this happened “a long time ago” and thus DID IT REALLY HAPPEN OR NOT???

Note to self! Turn the TV off! Particularly before loading up the car to drive to the kindergarten class mixer/picnic at the park where your still-weepy kindergartener will tell the other kids about Jack who died in the ocean!

In my future hindsight? I’m sure this will be pretty funny.

Mean Mommy

I have a confession to make.

I am a mean mommy.

My children didn’t tell me this (yet). I just feel it sometimes. I know it. The guilt tells me so.

This is not guilt that has compelled me to admit it to you (or maybe it is).

It’s just that while you wouldn’t believe the number of people who have told me over the past five years that they don’t know how I “do it,” I have my days that all the reasons people tell me this (working at a demanding career and having two kids 15 months apart while simultaneously going to grad school at night, yadda yadda) seem to all sneak up on each other and culminate in me blurting out to my little guys to “Hurry up!” and “Move faster!” and “We’re late, we’re late, we’re late!” and “I forgot my phone!” and “No we cannot go back for your hippo or fire truck or anything else!” and “What forms have I filled out and what forms have I forgotten?!” and “Do you have your backpack, did you take your vitamins, do you have a lunchbox? Can you eat that breakfast any faster?!” and “Is this a t-ball day and do you have your t-ball stuff? GET IT NOW BECAUSE WE’RE LATE!” etc. etc. etc.

I hate that mommy.

And truth be told, those “how do you do it?” wide-eyed questions of amazement at my perfectionist, supermom, master of juggling tendencies have, um… dropped off since I finished grad school and the Hawklets stopped wearing diapers. Damn it! I really miss those unwarranted compliments – the ones that make me think the ruse I’m pulling on everyone else is totally working.

I love my job. I love being a mom. I have even found a way to blend those two statements into one. I love that I have created a job in which I can focus on moms.

But that? Also sometimes turns me into mean mommy. The schedule, the constant iPhone, the late-night laptop sessions, the stress that I seem to too easily project onto the wee ones. It’s enough to turn me to MommyJuice. I mean, why do you think there is a wine brand called MommyJuice? IT’S FOR MEAN, GUILT-RIDDEN MOMMIES LIKE ME, OBVIOUSLY!

I don’t want my guys to be stressed out, especially unnecessarily. (Though candidly it does seem like sometimes they are operating at a snail’s pace and unless it’s Sunday I just.can’t.stand.it.) I don’t want them to feel the need to start saving up for therapy due to the obsession with constant lateness their workaholic mean mommy projected onto them as young children.

I want them to know that if they need extra hug time at drop-off, or if they need to go back and get Hippo, this mom will turn the SUV right around because my time belongs to them and my stress belongs at a safe, legally enforced distance of at least 10-feet away from us at all times.

Do you ever feel like Mean Mommy is creeping up on you? What do you do to make her go away?

How the drive-in reignited my love for Disney

When is the last time you saw a movie outside, from the back of your car, or bed of your truck, under a starry summer sky, the sound resonating from car speakers and maybe just a tad bit crackly?

It was Hubby’s idea. I was going to take Graham on a date to Toy Story 3. He’s been so, SO into Toy Story lately and didn’t even realize there was a third installment in movie theaters taking the country by storm. I felt like I was holding out on him, like holding a bouncy red ball over my head, too high for him to reach. But also? He didn’t even know there was a red bouncy ball out of his reach. To be fair, I just HAD to share it with him. And then Hubby discovered it was playing at the drive-in and suggested we make it a family affair.

“Yeah,” I said to Hubby, the light bulb slowly starting to glow in my mind as I tried to picture us at a d-r-i-v-e i-n . “Yeah, let’s go to the drive-in.”

Hubby and I reminisced about the old drive-in in our hometown. I remember being there in my pajamas, in the car, blankie in tow. I don’t remember the movie we saw from the comforts of the car, but rather just being there because it was different. It’s the “different” that we remember.

I think my kids will remember the “different,” too.

We popped popcorn at home first and put it in paper sacks. We filled up lidded cups. We packed peanut butter and crackers in baggies. The boys took baths and pulled on their pajamas. We loaded up the car and didn’t forget Buzz Lightyear and Jessie – so they could see themselves on the big screen under the stars. I grabbed their blankies. They didn’t care as much as I did about the blankie part. It just felt right.

The movie started “at dusk.” We weren’t sure exactly what time that was. There was some mystery to it all… who else a drive-in attracts these days, how exactly it all works once you get there (you park backwards, by the way, and open up the SUV hatch, sit on the back, pull out camping chairs and coolers – much more of a community experience than I remembered), how hot it might be and whether our car battery would die if we sat for two hours with the AC on (which we did not do).

They looked at the speaker-on-a-stick and asked if Woody was inside.

“Daddy, do you want a cold beer?” Reid asked in his loud voice during a quiet part.

“But that’s not HER cowboy, it’s HIS!!” Graham shrieked right at that heart-tugging part when Andy bestowed his beloved Cowboy Woody to the next generation of playmate.

Graham hopped down off the bumper and climbed up in my camping-chair lap to give me a big hug right at the point that Andy was playing with his pals for one. last. time. He’s not old enough to get emotional, but I think he knew there was something special about that part. Something… different. That boy has quite the intuition.

Did the drive-in reignite my love for Disney? Or did Disney re-ignite my love for the drive-in?

Maybe a little of both. It was different. It was awesome.

The Fantastic Mr. Hawks

I brag about him to my friends. About how I come home almost every day to dinner waiting. About how he tackles bath time. They tell me he needs to teach their husbands classes. They remind me how good I've got it.

He is the one who still gets up in the middle of the night. He picks up a snoring 3-year old, who crawled his way into our bed sometime around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m., and deposits him back in his own bed.

He is the one for whom they call most often when they are sick or upset. Sure, they've been through their Daddy phases, but he gives them reasons to prolong the phases, and they blend into each other so much that I can't ever tell when the so-called phases are over.

He is the better playmate. He wrestles. He pitches. He's funny. He leaves the monotony of teeth brushing, doctor appointments and babysitters to me. Instead of monotony, he deals in fun.

Today the Hawklets and I ran errands and discussed Father's Day. I explained the significance - that this is a day for us to thank Daddy for being such a great father.

"But he really hasn't been such a great father," Graham said. (Excuse me? Are we talking about the same saint described above?) "He puts us in time out sometimes."

Oh, did I mention he is an efficient disciplinarian?

Happy Father's Day, Hubby Hawks. Thanks for being so brag-worthy.

Today is Not Valentine's Day

Today is Feb. 10. It’s not Valentine’s Day. It’s Wednesday. And thus, it’s the Valentine’s Day party in the toddler room at St. John’s Parents Day Out. Of course it is!

And so this morning, this working mom’s “oh sh*t!” stream of consciousness kicked in. There I was anxiously trying to remember what ‘party day’ was supposed to mean to us. The whole process went something like this…

Find the Sesame Street Valentines Mimi picked up at a fellow retired teacher’s garage sale for 25 cents. Check. Sign child’s name to the Valentines but do not put any names on the outside envelopes to make it easier on the teachers. Okay. Do not include any candy because we never know who might be allergic to what, and besides teachers hate sugar in the classroom. Of course. Is this the one where we’re supposed to include little pencils, stickers, cutesy tokens? Maybe that’s the Friday school. Maybe Mimi knows. (Late for work. Late for work. Late for work.)

Okay, sign for Reid. Find a red marker? Pink crayon? Try to make the script a little more festive?

What would Reid want me to do? (Late for work. Late for work.)

Reid can’t write. Or read. And neither can his little friends at school. But dagnabit those other moms can so here we go.

Black ball point it is.

Flip them all over.

“From Reid”
“From Reid”
Use print instead of cursive, of course. I mean what toddler knows cursive?
“From Reid”
“From Reid”
15 times.

Is that enough? How many kids are there?

Settle on 15 with the logic that those rooms are pretty small and he doesn’t ever come home with bruises from kids climbing over him. Fifteen is probably more than I need. Oh crap, will I need some of those 15 for the Friday school? Wonder if I will I be doing this same tap dance on Friday morning.

Snap drifting mind back to the project at hand.

Feel guilty that Reid’s Valentines are likely going to be sub-par compared to the rest of the class. Remember that I still have to get shoes and coats on the boys and get them into the car. (Late for work. Late for work.)

Insert some granola bar bribery.

Stuff Valentines into his backpack’s front pocket. Make mental note to remember to tell Mimi they’re in there so she can take them out when he gets to school. Say a brief prayer thanking God that Mimi signed up to bring paper cups to the party, bypassing my incompetency.

Make mental note to never go out for PTA president.


Happy Valentine’s Day, dear reader. I mean, uh, Happy Wednedsay.


P.S. Yes, I realize I haven’t yet answered my cliffhanger from two posts ago. Clearly I have other crises to manage and haven’t had a chance, but rest assured (as I know you’ve bitten your nails down to stubs at this point) it’s coming.

What Made Their Buildings Fall Down?

The dining room table at Mimi’s house was covered with plastic bags, towels, soap, toothbrushes.

“Tell Mommy what we’re doing, Graham,” Mimi prompted.

“Mommy, there are people in Haiti and their houses and buildings fell down. They lost their toothbrushes and their towels,” he explained, the thought clearly processing in his head while the words fell out of his mouth.

“What made their buildings fall down?” he tried to remember out loud, interrupting himself.

“An earthquake,” Mimi reminded.

He asked if there were little boys in Haiti and my heart skipped a beat. Mimi answered simply, yes. His little mind continued to ponder. What exactly? We can only guess. But the pondering - a glimpse for me that my little man has altruism inside there, empathy.

Then, while putting his shoes on: “But mommy, who’s going to help them build their buildings and their houses?”

Who, indeed. I imagined my boy as a man, hand outstretched, hammer ready. He is young, but he is able. He speaks in ‘wants’ but inherently knows ‘needs.’ We all do – survival instincts.

For now, and with Mimi’s gentle guidance, he’s filling plastic bags with basics.

But he’s filling me with pride.

Attempting to Stop the Shiny Penny from Jumping to Conclusions

Hubby Hawks is a research subject. Or, he should be. Watching him father, I feel as though I am watching a major generational shift taking place in my own home. I’m watching a trend gathering in front of my face. You know that term “The Greatest Generation?” Well, I believe he is part of the greatest generation of fatherhood to date.

Let me explain…

My husband is helpful. Yesterday, I bragged to my colleague in the office that the night before I had come home to enchiladas in the oven. Yes, my husband cooks. He changes diapers. He bathes our children. He plays and reads stories. He packs lunches and backpacks.

I know. I’m livin’ the dream. But let me clarify. When I say he’s helpful, it’s not that he’s helping me per se. He’s helping his children. Because he is their father. He is parenting.

I do all of those things too. (Although for some reason I find giving baths so tiring.) But I am no Betty Draper, thank God. (Okay, and I am a horrible cook. Are you happy now?)

That colleague I mentioned above has a different parenting experience. In her household, some of the antiquated and stereotypical gender roles are still evident. Some. At least, enough for her to be in awe of my enchiladas in the oven.

The Cassandra New Family Report of 2009 underscored the shift to this new involved dad. It showed that Gen X and Y dads don’t see staying at home with the kids as demeaning. In fact, 40% of Gen Y dads believe themselves to be the primary caretaker of the children. When asked how they would choose to spend a free afternoon, they said they would want to be with their children. Moms said they would choose to have alone time.

This is all very exciting. But the research is also giving people permission to draw assumptions… jump to conclusions. Some think the daddy blogger will become the new marketing influencer, the “new mommy blogger.” I’m not convinced. Research shows dads just don’t communicate in the same ways we do. I’ve talked about this before, but maybe you weren’t reading here then. Dads who are changing diapers aren’t dictating what diapers to buy. They aren’t telling each other why they choose said diaper brand, or what that diaper brand is currently doing to green its business practices. They aren’t forging blogging communities and networks to find each other and have these conversations about where parenting and products intersect like moms are. Okay, okay, some dads are. SOME. Not enough to make a statistically significant difference. And that is the point.

And yes, I am fully aware that we have recently entered for the first time ever that point in which there are as many men as women in the workforce. And that the economic downturn forced more men to stay at home with the kids. But getting laid off doesn’t mean those dads were rushing home to start blogging about whether their kids’ chocolate milk should be organic. If I was a dad who was laid off in 2009 and I knew that some marketers equate my loss of a job to my being now part of a rising trend of “daddy bloggers” oh I would be pissed.

How could marketers be so tied to gender stereotypes that they think just because dads today are more involved, more hands on, more helpful in the household (or God forbid because they have lost a job) that they must also now be the same kind of consumer as moms are, having the same conversations in the same places?

Some marketers are too quick to jump on the daddy blogger bandwagon. I consider it part of the shiny penny syndrome that is rampant in this business. With every calendar rotation, the talk naturally shifts to what’s going to be the new trend? What’s going to be the new in thing for our business, to keep the trade media and our competitors talking about us, guessing our next move?

The more things change, the more they stay the same. My husband is not living his father’s fatherhood. But he is also not living my motherhood. And I can assure you he will never blog, tweet, or status-post. And if he does, it’s not going to involve any mention of diapers or organic chocolate milk.

That said, I do believe there is another type of blogger who will start to add volume to the mommy blogger’s voice this year and over the next few years, and I’ll share more on that in my next post.

(Ooooh, my first blog cliffhanger! Are you excited?)

Elmo Says Don't Pick Your Nose

The morning drive from our house to Mimi’s, where I drop off the Hawklets in the morning is rife with conversation. Yesterday, the conversation was mostly between Graham and me. I was doing the talking, he was doing the wailing. I was explaining to Graham that when one sits at the table in front of his breakfast not eating it, and then is forced to get in the car and leave with an empty stomach because he wouldn’t eat his breakfast, then perhaps the next day he can try eating the breakfast instead of staring it down, and we would all be much happier. These are really philosophical conversations we have on the platform of ‘how the world works.’

Last week, the conversation was between the Hawklets and I was a mere eavesdropper. “Reid, DON’T PICK YOUR NOSE! No, Reid! We don’t pick our noses! Put that boogie back in there RIGHT NOW!”

We’ve been working on poor Reid. He’s just at that stage that the finger and nose seem to have some magnetic qualities. We are often batting his little hands down from his face. Oh, right, and it’s flu season.

But now we have an advocate. Elmo has partnered with the U.S. government to back us up. So now when we tell Reid that his fingers and nose can’t come into contact, we reinforce it with “Elmo says!” He is catching on. Sometimes, we see a little finger start to make its way up and then his eyes meet ours and his little voice says “Elmo says” as the little finger retreats, back down to whatever object from which the sudden urge to nose-pick distracted him.

Thanks to all of this, Elmo is actually becoming quite an authoritative figure in our household.

I ask Reid to stop standing on his chair. He asks me: “Elmo says?” I say: “Yes, Elmo says get down.” He gets down. Voila!

Sort of like the new Simon Says game. Elmo says take a bath. Elmo says brush your teeth. Elmo says don’t hit your brother. Elmo says no wrestling in the bathtub.

Hey, Elmo is powerful. Even the government thinks so.

Could a down economy save parents from themselves?

I recently came across this review in the Brooklyn Rail about a book called Parenting, Inc.: How We Are Sold on $800 Strollers, Fetal Education, Baby Sign Language, Sleeping Coaches, Toddler Couture, and Diaper Wipe Warmers—and What It Means for Our Children. Hmm. It’s quite a title. A mouthful, really. And obviously meant for “those” parents who over-indulge their kids with excess that is so readily available in the baby products market. But, wait a minute…I have a diaper wipe warmer. Have I thrown my own wallet into the hyper-consumerism bonfire?

The book points out the ways in which marketers are essentially fear-mongers, snatching up parents-to-be and convincing them they need these (expensive) things to be a better parent. Because if you don’t use a sleep positioner with your infant who can’t even roll over yet, you are subjecting him to possible death. Huh? And you must purchase the motion detector to ensure constant breathing. What? Well, you do want your kid to be safe…DON’T YOU? What kind of parent are you?

This is of course also fueled by an alpha syndrome – the need to keep up with Mommy and Daddy Jones. A friend of mine recently announced that he and his wife decided to register for the Cadillac of strollers because “a $10 stroller is for a $10 baby.” I actually don’t know any babies that cost $10, but boy that would jibe so much more nicely with the current economic state. Actually, from what I’ve read, babies cost their parents about $20,000 in their first year of life. (How’s that for birth control?)

And why do babies cost so much? Exorbitant daycare costs aside, could we actually be doing this to ourselves? Am I a better mother if I spend $600 more on my stroller? Somebody is convincing us that, yes, the more money we spend, the better we parent, and the more likely our kids are to get into Harvard. Oh, so that’s how it happens!

The whole phenomenon is shocking and fascinating to me simultaneously as both a mom and a marketer. The marketer in me exclaims, “Genius!” The mom in me asks, “What kind of consumerism example am I setting for my kids? What kind of consumers will they be as parents one day?”

As our economy continues in a downward spiral, could our (albeit forced) shift towards conservative consumerism actually help us set better examples for our kids?

Perhaps I should buy the book and learn about the ways I’m doing it all wrong, buying too much, and … oh, right, I’ll buy something so that I’ll understand how to not buy things. Problem solved.