Thursday, March 16, 2006

The lighter side of death



After the trauma J suffered when she first "got" the concept of death when she just turned 4, I was understandably apprehensive when her first goldfish, a cute white thing with an orange spotted head, got an incurable case of "ick" and shuffled off its mortal coil a mere week after we bought her at the fish store.

Herewith, our exchange following this news:

Me: "J, I'm sorry honey, but Spot didn't make it."

J: "Oh, I'm sad."

Me: "It's OK to be sad, sweetie..."

J (cutting in and brightening up): "Hey, God has a new fish!"

Me: "You're right - I guess he does."

J: "Can I get a new fish on Saturday?"

Me: "Sure."

L (whose fish is still very much alive): "J is so lucky."

Me: "Why do you say that? Her fish just died."

L: "Because she gets to get a new fish on Saturday and I don't."

Glad a crisis was averted, but think we need to work on the whole "gratitude for what we have" concept with L.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Talking turkey

OK, let's talk food. Nutritious food. The kind you want your children to eat.

The problem, I'm realizing, is that your children won't eat it if you don't seem to eat a whole heck of a lot of it yourself.

A little background.

I grew up in a food-obsessed household. My mother was always on some diet or another. In fact there was a time in my childhood when I was certain that the way you lost weight was by eating a lot of dietetic food because my mother always seemed to be overdosing on grapefruits or carrots or Weight Watchers meals. Also, my eldest sister was overweight as a teenager and never had a date. I quickly linked the two in my mind and I remember thinking that the absolute worst fate in the universe was to be fat.

So I began dieting, probably at the age of about 13. When I weighed maybe 105 pounds soaking wet.

The flip side of my food-obsessed household was that when my mother wasn't on a diet and had a craving for her ultimate treat - a vanilla Carvel ice cream sundae with hot fudge and chopped nuts (I can barely type the description without trembling with desire ), my father and my siblings and I piled into the stationwagon to soothe the craving and, naturally, take part in the sugar orgy, too.

Suffice to say, I grew up with a fairly unhealthy relationship with food that lingers into the present day.

When my twins were born, I swore I'd change my bad food habits for them. I even bought a book on making my own, healthy baby food (yeah, I was pregnant and starry-eyed at the time). I started out like gangbusters, too - nursing J (with some formula supplementation) and pumping for Lily for just about six months before I nearly sank into the floor from exhaustion - not to mention extreme hunger.

I remember weakly asking F's blessing to stop breastfeeding after L came through with flying colors from her open heart surgery. I was still at the "I'm going to be a perfect mom" stage.

Once the girls started eating solid food, the baby cookbook got relegated to the dust bin (like a working mother of twins has time to strain her own peas and then pour them into ice-cube trays), although I did stock up on the organic baby foods and introduced them to baby veggies and fruits like the books recommend.

But somewhere between J refusing to drink milk after we graduated to sippy cups and our pediatrician's office offering lollipops to any child whos could spy them at the reception desk, the battle was lost.

Here is a list of the foods that J will not eat, and may never eat, if her inborn stubborn streak

Pasta, couscous, beans - of any variety, shape, flavor or color
Anything green (unless it's clearly a lollipop and even then she'll hold out for a red one if she suspects it's lurking in the back of the cabinet)
Soup
Most fruits
Seafood
Nuts

Basically she lives on pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, strawberries, chicken fingers, cereal, breakfast bars, ice cream sandwiches and candy.

L, thankfully, would eat broccoli for breakfast, craves raw mushrooms and milk and lights up when she sees dried tofu in her chicken soup ("Tofu cheese!" she squeals delightedly, warming her mother's heart).

The good news, I guess, is that it can't just be nurture, because nature gave me these two children at the same time and we really did feed them the exact same food.

And in an effort to not perpetuate the unhealthy relationship with food that I grew up with, I don't force J to sit at the table and eat or to try new foods (although I do encourage her and reward her when she even takes a bite of something new). I don't diet myself, either. But my girls don't see me eat a whole heck of a lot of veggies or fruits, either.

And that gnaws at me.

Like the carrots and celery they rarely see me eat.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

The working mom backlash continues

It's been a while since I've even touched on the subject of living and (usually) loving my life as a working mom, but a New York Times article I read on Friday touched off a rage inside of me that I'm finding it difficult to quell.

The article starts out by profiling a former business development executive who gave it all up to be a stay-at-home mom to her three daughters. To drive home the point that she's no longer in the fast lane, she's pictured in dowdy jeans, sneakers, and a shapeless maroon t-shirt with a toddler on her hip.

The article describes her as "pining to go back to work, but (she) has not figured out how to mesh work with caring for her three daughters."

"Most of us thought we would work and have kids, at least that was what we were brought up thinking we would do — no problem," she told the paper. "But really we were kind of duped. None of us realized how hard it is."

Oh yeah - and who do you blame for duping you? This kind of victim mentality sets my teeth on edge.

Yeah, after I gave birth to my twins in 2000, I had to hustle to figure out daycare arrangements, didn't count on how many days I'd need to leave work due to a sick baby, and could never have imagined how difficult it would be to disentangle myself from a crying child at 7:30 a.m. Monday morning or how impossible it would be to stay vertical at 3 p.m. when I had been awake since 4 a.m. that morning with one or more sleep-resistant toddlers.

But I stuck it out, and I found a new job that launched a great career, and I don't feel I'm cheating my children - or cheating myself - by staying in the game.

I wonder how many of these women who opt out of the workforce will wake up one day thinking her world is just fine, only to find her spouse has run off with another woman? How many of them will lose the skills and brain-sharpening instincts that only a career can offer? How many will put all of their energy into child-rearing and then wonder when the last one goes off to college, what she is supposed to do next?

Is the next generation of young girls doomed to become 1950s housewives? Not if I have any say about it. I want my daughters to rule the world - not the roost.

Yes, it's important to raise happy, secure children. Yes, if I had but world enough and time (and a trust fund or two), I probably would have stayed home for at least the first two years of their lives.

But - and this is crucial -- I truly believe that we need more, not less mothers in the workforce. For the good of our economy, and our children.

My mother worked as a teacher for most of her life, and I was so proud that she had students who obviously adored and admired her. Even when I was an authority-defying teenager who showed her no mercy, I understood on a gut level that she was more than just my mother, and had intrinsic worth outside of that role.

Most women I know have too much to offer the world to confine it to just their children. There are cancer cures to be found, great novels to be written, and great companies to be created and run that may never exist if more and more women take the path of least resistance and just stay home.

Which isn't to say that all women need to work outside the home to fulfill themselves and their destinies. Of course there will be, and always should be, many stay-at-home mothers and fathers. I'm not advocating that every woman march out into the workforce.

But the insidious message behind this article - that unless and until the government or companies themselves help women solve the problem of raising children and having a career, they should stay home to raise their kids - frightens me.

Men destined for greatness don't let obstacles stand in their path. Or wait for someone to make their path easier. And women shouldn't, either. Even if sometimes that means putting themselves and their needs before their children.

Yes, balancing motherhood and work is hard, sometimes heartbreakingly hard. But the rewards can be immense.

For all of us.
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