Tag: kids

Big Birthday #21: You Asked for It (Notes for a New Mom)

JOSH AND CINDY IN MUIR WOODS 50pNOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I’ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today – from April 29, 2007.

That’s me with my older son, Josh, in Muir Woods outside San Francisco  — pretty many years ago.  I don’t know if you can tell but I’m pregnant with his brother.  Happy to join the virtual shower although despite my adoration of and respect for both Liz and Catherine, I’m from the generation that put their babies to sleep on their stomachs and so may sound a little old-fashioned*.

1. Don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right no matter whose advice it is.

2. Trust yourself.

3. Remember that everybody makes mistakes and anyway a child is not a product, she is a person. You’ve heard that kids are resilient. They are. Do your best with love and if you don’t dwell on your mistakes neither will they.

4. You can’t turn a child into someone. You can only help them become the best somebody they already are.

5. Don’t be afraid to say no. Parents who don’t set limits and help their kids learn self-discipline are selfish. It’s easier but it’s not right.

6. No experience is wasted on a child. Maybe they’re too young to remember, but if it happened, it had an impact. So share as much of what you love as you can – music, museums, trips to Timbuktu or Target — poetry, cooking, washing the car.

7. No child ever went to college in diapers.

8. Listen to experienced people you respect, preschool teachers, friends, even, God forbid, your mother.  Experience really is a great teacher.  Then, though, think it through and then do what you think is right.

9. Everything is not equally important. Pick your fights and win them. 10. Leave time to just be. Lessons are great but quiet time is where imagination and a sense of self emerges.

10. LISTEN to your kids. They are smart and interesting and wise and if you respect them you have a far better chance of having them respect you.

11. Did I say trust yourself?

With love, admiration and the joy that comes from knowing all you wonderful, poetic and caring, committed and in one case, very new mothers on the occasion of this lovely virtual baby shower.

*This post was part of a “baby shower” if pieces by friends of this about-to-be new BlogHer mom.

Big Birthday Memory #15: John Kennedy, Barack Obama, 2 Inaugurations and 2 Generations of Dreamers

jfk inauguration1NOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I’ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today – from May 8, 2014

I seem to be living in the Way Back Machine this year.  Lots of memories of 1968 and even 1963.  Now as January 20, 2009 approaches, yet another looms.  January 20, certainly, but in 1961.

See that crowd?  Somewhere, way in the back, probably at least a block beyond, stand an almost-fifteen-year-old girl and her mother.  Fresh off an overnight train from Pittsburgh, having arrived at Union Station in time to watch the Army flame-throwers melt a blizzard’s worth of snow on the streets of the inaugural route, they make their way to their parade seats: in the bleachers, way down near the Treasure Building.

I spent most of 1960 besotted with John Kennedy.  And Jackie.  And Caroline.  And all the other Kennedys who came with them.  Most of my lunch money went to bus fare as, after school, I shuttled  back and forth “to town” to volunteer in the local JFK headquarters.  I even had a scrapbook of clippings about Kennedy and his family.

JFK Inaugural tickets So.  My parents surprised me with these two parade tickets.  My mom and I took the overnight train and arrived
around dawn Inauguration morning.  We couldn’t get into the swearing-in itself, of course, so we went to a bar that served breakfast (at least that’s how I remember it) and watched the speech on their TV, then made our way along the snowy sidewalks to our seats, arriving in time to watch the new president and his wife roll by, to see his Honor Guard, the last time it would be comprised solely of white men (since Kennedy ordered their integration soon after,) in time to see the floats and the Cabinet members and the bands and the batons.

It was very cold.  We had no thermos, no blankets, nothing extra, and my mom, God bless her, never insisted that we go in for a break, never complained or made me feel anything but thrilled.  Which I was.   As the parade drew to a close, and the light faded, we stumbled down the bleachers, half-frozen, and walked the few blocks to the White House fence. I stood there, as close to the fence as I am now to my keyboard, and watched our new president enter the White House for the first time as Commander-in-Chief.

That was half a century ago.  I can’t say it feels like yesterday, but it remains a formidable and cherished memory.  It was also a defining lesson on how to be a parent; it took enormous love and respect to decide to do this for me.  I was such a kid – they could have treated my devotion like a rock star crush; so young, they could have decided I would “appreciate it more” next time.  (Of course there was no next time.)   Instead, they gave me what really was the lifetime gift of being a part of history.  And showed me that my political commitment had value – enough value to merit such an adventure.

Who’s to say if I would have ended up an activist (I did)- and then a journalist (I did) – without those memories.  If I would have continued to act within the system rather than try to destroy it. (I did)  If I would have been the mom who took kids to Europe, brought them along on news assignments to Inaugurations and royal weddings and green room visits with the Mets (Yup, I did.)  I had learned to honor the interests and dreams of my children the way my parents had honored my own.  So it’s hard for me to tell parents now to stay home.

My good friend, the wise and gifted PunditMom, advises “those with little children” to skip it, and since strollers and backpacks are banned for security reasons, I’m sure she’s right.  But if you’ve got a dreamer in your house, a young adult who has become a true citizen because of this election, I’d try to come.  After all, he’s their guy.  What he does will touch their lives far more than it will ours.  Being part of this beginning may determine their willingness to accept the tough sacrifices he asks of them – at least that – and probably, also help to build their roles as citizens – as Americans – for the rest of their lives.  Oh — and will tell them that, despite curfews and learner’s permits, parental limit-setting and screaming battles, their parents see them as thinking, wise and effective people who will, as our new President promised them, help to change

 

John Kennedy, Barack Obama, 2 Inaugurations and 2 Generations of Dreamers

JFK Inaugural crowd
I seem to be living in the WayBack Machine this year.  Lots of memories of 1968 and even 1963.  Now as January 20, 2009 approaches, yet another looms.  January 20, certainly, but in 1961.

See that crowd?  Somewhere, way in the back, probably at least a block beyond, stand an almost-fifteen-year-old girl and her mother.  Fresh off an overnight train from Pittsburgh, having arrived at Union Station in time to watch the Army flame-throwers melt a blizzard’s worth of snow on the streets of the inaugural route, they make their way to their parade seats: in the bleachers, way down near the Treasure Building.  

I spent most of 1960 besotted with John Kennedy.  And Jackie.  And Caroline.  And all the other Kennedys who came with them.  Most of my lunch money went to bus fare as, after school, I shuttled  back and forth “to town” to volunteer in the local JFK headquarters.  I even had a scrapbook of clippings about Kennedy and his family. 

JFK Inaugural tickets

So.  My parents surprised me with these two parade tickets.  My mom and I took the overnight train and arrived
around dawn Inauguration morning.  We couldn’t get into the swearing-in itself, of course, so we went to a bar that served breakfast (at least that’s how I remember it) and watched the speech on their TV, then made our way along the snowy sidewalks to our seats, arriving in time to watch the new president and his wife roll by, to see his Honor Guard, the last time it would be comprised solely of white men (since Kennedy ordered their integration soon after,) in time to see the floats and the Cabinet members and the bands and the batons.

It was very cold.  We had no thermos, no blankets, nothing extra, and my mom, God bless her, never insisted that we go in for a break, never complained or made me feel anything but thrilled.  Which I was.   As the parade drew to a close, and the light faded, we stumbled down the bleachers, half-frozen, and walked the few blocks to the White House fence. I stood there, as close to the fence as I am now to my keyboard, and watched our new president enter the White House for the first time as Commander in Chief.

That was half a century ago.  I can’t say it feels like yesterday, but it remains a formidable and cherished memory.  It was also a defining lesson on how to be a parent; it took enormous love and respect to decide to do this for me.  I was such a kid – they could have treated my devotion like a rock star crush; so young, they could have decided I would “appreciate it more” next time.  (Of course there was no next time.)   Instead, they gave me what really was the lifetime gift of being a part of history.  And showed me that my political commitment had value – enough value to merit such an adventure.

Who’s to say if I would have ended up an activist (I did)- and then a journalist (I did) – without those memories.  If I would have continued to act within the system rather than try to destroy it. (I did)  If I would have been the mom who took kids to Europe, brought them along on news assignments to Inaugurations and royal weddings and green room visits with the Mets (Yup, I did.)  I had learned to honor the interests and dreams of my children the way my parents had honored my own.  So it’s hard for me to tell parents now to stay home. 

My good friend, the wise and gifted PunditMom, advises “those with little children” to skip it, and since strollers and backpacks are banned for security reasons, I’m sure she’s right.  But if you’ve got a dreamer in your house, a young adult who has become a true citizen because of this election, I’d try to come.  After all, he’s their guy.  What he does will touch their lives far more than it will ours.  Being part of this beginning may determine their willingness to accept the tough sacrifices he asks of them – at least that – and probably, also help to build their roles as citizens – as Americans – for the rest of their lives.  Oh — and will tell them that, despite curfews and learner’s permits, parental limit-setting and screaming battles, their parents see them as thinking, wise and effective people who will, as our new President promised them, help to change the world. 

TO THE LIGHTHOUSE – LOVING THE JERSEY SHORE — AND A BIRTHDAY

Barnegat_light_2
We went to Long Beach Island, off the Jersey shore, a few weeks ago.  I’ve been there  often but never before May — it was still winterish there, hardly anything open and just lovely.  We came with friends for my husband’s birthday — four adults and four little kids.  It’s so much fun to be there with little people searching the beach for shells in their parkas and climbing all over the furniture.  We took them to Barnegat Light  — a 150 year old lighthouse I’ve loved since I was a kid. 

It was a 20 minute walk in very cold weather, everyone excited about seeing a real live lighthouse.  Somehow anything, no matter how many times you’ve seen it, looks brand new when you see it with small children.  When it’s new to them, it becomes new to you too.

It was, according to my husband, a perfect birthday.  Much of the credit for that goes to the friends who came with us, who wrote and performed a song for him as a gift because "you have too much stuff already" and, in so many ways have taken us into their lives with love.  I just posted a meditation on being a ‘fake grandmother" on the SV Moms "over 50" blog, where I’m a new contributor.  It’s such a peculiar privilege – hanging out with preschoolers in that easy way that can only happen with frequent contact.

Continue reading TO THE LIGHTHOUSE – LOVING THE JERSEY SHORE — AND A BIRTHDAY

LEAVING WAY TOO MANY BEHIND

Foster_2_2 This is the kind of thing my friend Cooper usually writes about, but foster care has been an obsession of mine for as long as I can remember.  Kids who, because of the incapacity of anyone in their families to care for them, get placed "in the system" and shuttled among foster homes – some group homes, some loving families and some just plain horrifying.  It’s a disgrace.

Now, there’s some particularly disturbing news.  When foster kids turn 18, they "age out" of the system.  Often they have nowhere to turn and end up on the streets, in jail or both.  They don’t know how to get a job, open a bank account, balance a check book, fill out a resume or be a family.  As of this year, reports the Pew Charitable Trusts Kids Are Waiting campaign , the number of kids aging out of the system is up 41%.  Here’s some of what they say:

The report, Time for Reform: Aging Out and On Their Own, found that although the total number of children in foster care has decreased, the number who "age out" of the system has grown by 41% since 1998. In total, more than 165,000 young people aged out of foster care between 1998 and 2005 – nearly 25,000 in 2005 alone.

"When children are removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect, we, through our government agencies, assume responsibility for their protection and care. We have failed these children if they ‘age out’ of foster care without a safe, permanent family they can count on," said Jim O’Hara, managing director, health and human services, The Pew Charitable Trusts.

"Every day we do not reform foster care, we fail 67 more young people who exit foster care completely on their own."

Think about that – 67 kids a day set loose with no moorings, nowhere to go for Thanksgiving, no apartment, job, phone, home address. 

I have no answers for this; I know there has been work to try to reform a foster care system which has been burdened by budget cuts and a surge of (truly) broken families.  But I don’t see how we can continue to allow our supposedly "child centered" society to allow these kids to tumble into adulthood with no safety net at all.  Not much help to rant without suggestions — I know that in LA for a while there was a group that held formal "graduations" and "proms" for kids aging out and that in some places there is some effort to help the kids learn how to live on their own before they have to — it just seems we should have it on our radar.

YOU ASKED FOR IT

Josh_and_cindy_in_muir_woodsThat’s me with my older son, Josh, in Muir Woods outside San Francisco  — pretty many years ago.  I don’t know if you can tell but I’m pregnant with his brother.  Happy to join the virtual shower although despite my adoration of and respect for both Liz and Catherine, I’m from the generation that put their babies to sleep on their stomachs and so may sound a little old-fashioned.

1. Don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right no matter whose advice it is. 2. Trust yourself. 3. Remember that everybody makes mistakes and anyway a child is not a product, she is a person. You’ve heard that kids are resilient. They are. Do your best with love and if you don’t dwell on your mistakes neither will they. 4. You can’t turn a child into someone. You can only help them become the best somebody they already are. 5. Don’t be afraid to say no. Parents who don’t set limits and help their kids learn self-discipline are selfish. It’s easier but it’s not right. 6. No experience is wasted on a child. Maybe they’re too young to remember, but if it happened, it had an impact. So share as much of what you love as you can – music, museums, trips to Timbuktu or Target — poetry, cooking, washing the car. 7. No child ever went to college in diapers. 8. Listen to experienced people you respect, preschool teachers, friends, even, God forbid, your mother.  Experience really is a great teacher.  Then, though, think it through and then do what you think is right. 9. Everything is not equally important. Pick your fights and win them. 10. Leave time to just be. Lessons are great but quiet time is where imagination and a sense of self emerges. 10. LISTEN to your kids. They are smart and interesting and wise and if you respect them you have a far better chance of having them respect you. 11. Did I say trust yourself?

With love, admiration and the joy that comes from knowing all you wonderful, poetic and caring, committed and in one case, very new mothers on the occasion of this lovely virtual baby shower.

TV GRIPES – HAVEN’T YOU HEARD?

Kids_watch_tvThis morning, as I’ve been writing, I’ve been watching a re-airing of a conference on children’s media called Beyond Prime Time, airing on C-SPAN.  Leaders of the FCC, broadcasting and mega-consolidated companies as well as kids’ advocates meeting yet again to talk about all the dangers, risks and difficulties of rearing children in the media-saturated world.  It is horrifying to think about some of the things kids see in the afternoon and early evening, from Jerry Springer to ads for horror movies to news promos "fire kills four children in the Bronx."  And that doesn’t even count the just plain trashy programming designed with kids in mind.  Or the sexism, violence, overt sexuality and generally demented stuff that passes for entertainment. 

I worked most of my life in TV news and loved what we were able to offer.  Today most news cares more about Anna Nicole Smith than riots in the streets of Jerusalem; more about missing coeds than cuts in the loans that get kids to college in the first place.  And that doesn’t count what airs in the entertainment venue. 

The thing is, I don’t think Americans require the ridiculous material polluting early TV hours.  Polls too consistently demonstrate a parental desperation about media; in my experience the lowering of standards emerges from taking the line of least Resistance – the safest, ickiest material.  The Jordan McDeere character on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip turned down garbage and almost lost her job; now she’s in a fight to the death with a new, reality programming exec.  Unlike The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin isn’t going to let us pretend things are better in the TV version in this show.

None of this is new, I guess, but it just kills me that we are still having these conferences and there is still garbage all over the air.  And the cavalier attitude regulators have shown toward the media consolidation that makes these things so tough to resist hasn’t been any help either. They spend hours trashing the media but won’t take the hard positions to make things better.

There is probably not ONE original thought in this whole post but I feel better.

PUMPKINS, HAYRIDES AND MICKEY MOUSE

Mickey I’ve wanted to go on a hayride since Annette Funicello did – in maybe "Spin and Marty" or maybe "Annette" — not sure which (these were Mickey Mouse Club stories, for those who are too young to recall.)  Today I got my hayride – but it wasn’t the romantic kind with the guitars and the moonlight.

Hay_ride

Instead, we went with two amazing children and their equally amazing parents to a pumpkin festival.  There was a hayride (pulled by a tractor, not horses.)  There was a petting zoo with goats and lambs and pigs.  There was a simple wooden climbing thing in the shape of a train, with a tunnel and a caboose and a dining car (picnic table in a kind of box.)  It was just wonderful and, nostalgic as we are for the early years of our own kids, we were ridiculously grateful to be included in this family adventure. 

We also were amazed that there were no souvenirs.  No muzak.  No fancy, produced play apparatus.  The same stuff at this orchard/pumpkin patch/pre-school heaven must have been there for 25 years.  And the kids were having a blast.  They didn’t need fancy stuff or animated stuff or even stuff with fresh paint — just a gorgeous fall day, parents (and their friends) who loved them and their imaginations.  I know this sounds really corny but after years at Disneyland and Disneyworld and Universal City (and we had fun — we did) I was just so struck by the simplicity of this place and its impact on these very very happy kids running around in a big field, putting pumpkins into wheelbarrows to take home, eating popcorn and racing their parents up and down the paths.

No moral to this except if you have friends you like who love your kids, bring them along.