While I’m writing this, my 5-year-old son is practicing his writing skills. So far, I’ve only been asked to assist by showing him how to write a lowercase n and u. His holiday wish list is as colorful as it is long and I think there are a lot of requests with the letters n & u in them. Maybe he’s asking to “end world hunger” or it could be a plea for the “Incredible Hulk Smash Hands”? I’ll review it later. But I wonder, could there be some middle ground between the two? Somewhere between helping the greater good and getting a really cool toy. I’m glad to report – yes, there is. (I wouldn’t have asked the question otherwise!)

When I was a kid, my Christmas list usually included one outrageous request like a car or a house, but the difference was I knew I wasn’t going to get them, kind of like how in Miracle on 34th Street Kris Kringle told Susan Walker that children frequently ask him for things they couldn’t possibly need for Christmas, like an airplane or a rocketship. (She’d just asked him for a house for her to live in with her mother.)

I can’t help but wonder why, when Thanksgiving rolls around, no one ever asks us dads advice on the holiday meal. You’d think all we were capable of on Thanksgiving was stuffing our faces and lying on the couch with our distended bellies hanging over our loosened belts, which is patently untrue. We also watch football. But some of us fathers just happen to know our way around a kitchen. For instance, I am recognized throughout my household for my expert preparation of the following meals:

 

My mother has a theory—that we only remember things that we deem important; we only remember things that we want to. I think this is true—but I also think I have a weakness, or rather, I don’t have the strength I see present in my husband—a semi-photographic memory. He can read something once and the knowledge is his. This only happens to me on rare occasions, when I’m extremely interested, when the topic has completely captured my attention, when my mind is fully engaged.

Recently, my kids and I went shopping—back to school shopping. We always postpone this venture until a few months into the school year, after the kids have shed their summer clothing. The three of us piled into the Volvo, my thirteen-year-old son and my ten-year-old daughter, and drove to a store known for it’s LOWEST PRICES OF THE SEASON! After accumulating a handful of acceptable T-shirts (shopping for my son is relatively easy) we were off to the real challenge—the girl’s department, in search of clothing for my daughter.

My son and daughter are the exact same age difference as my brother and I; it is like history repeating itself. I find myself watching their interactions and wondering if my brother and I acted the same way. I get the sense that my kids are closer than we were, primarily because my kids haven’t grown up in a neighborhood—for the most part, they’ve had to rely on each other for play.

Too bad my kids got stuck with me as their mother. Not because I’m not a loving mom. Not because I don’t joke or snuggle on the rare weekend mornings when we don’t have to dash off someplace. Not because I don’t read to them, discuss current events, help them with their homework or watch movies with them while piled under a cozy blanket in the family room. It’s because I’m a lousy sports mom with a bad attitude.

Letter from the editor
On the surface, the Bennett family story is a difficult one. At age 3, son Patrick was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Now 12, he wears an electronic pump on his belt to monitor his insulin levels. Several times a day, he must leave his classroom to prick his finger and test his blood. His parents, Mary-Regina and David, must continue this routine throughout the night.

So Palin was a bad, evil mother because she went back to work after having a baby and for acting as though she CAN have it all. And Obama was a bad, evil mother for setting a bad example because she took a hiatus from her work so she could care for her kids and help her husband campaign for the presidency, acting as though she CAN’T have it all.

What were you doing 10 years ago? I know, I have a hard time remembering what I did 10 minutes ago. I think I was helping my son paste together a Halloween costume collage cut up from a local flyer. It’s his way of viewing all the options before making a final decision. n this corner of the world, right here in greater Boston, in a desk not far from my own, a publication was born into our newspaper family. Its birth name was MetroWest Parent and is known to you today at P&K magazine. Time to celebrate our milestone – P&K is turning 10.

 

When I was a kid, some under-funded organization I was involved with assigned me the task of selling tremendous chocolate bars for $1 apiece. My strategy was to leave them on the kitchen counter at our house, whereupon they would eventually disappear (not a small number of them into me while I sat on the couch watching Scooby-Doo cartoons), requiring my parents to write a check to cover their cost. This plan never fails — I think there’s a class on it at Wharton now.

Today I am a parent, and I have discovered that there’s been a very important change in fundraising since then: The candy bars have gotten smaller. Other than that, it’s pretty much the same.

I know it, too. I know that it still exists—this sad subservient thing that happens to women simply because we are women. Even in this day and age, lets be honest, it still exists. Despite all the power and vigor we feel, it hangs over us like a dark cloud—no, not a dark cloud, but a foreboding cloud—with the ability to squelch our potential, if we let it

Three kids.
Ages 10, 10 and 7.
Throw in a new state law requiring that kids under the age of 8 must ride in a booster seat.

Now, considering all of those factors, try to locate a safe, fuel efficient, environmentally sound vehicle which will accommodate an active family of five that is NOT a large minivan. That’s what we’ve been trying to do, find a replacement for our minivan, purchased when I was pregnant with the now-7-year-old after my beloved teal Honda Accord was totaled by a seasoned citizen who plowed into the passenger side.

My mother says I used to be funny, used to write entertaining little musings that she enjoyed reading about her grandkids. But, according to her, I don’t do “funny” anymore. I thought about what she said and read through my recent columns and blog entries. While there is a grain of truth in her comments -- I don’t write as much about the nitty-gritty of my family life as I used to when my twins were toddlers and I also had a newborn -- I’d argue the point that I’ve lost “the funny.”

Thoughs and feedbacks from our readers.

Our son will be dressed in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. I’m pretty sure the shirt will be sans any Superhero images. He’ll have a backpack, which will also contain his lunch box. I will have packed his favorite lunch and added some snacks so he won’t get hungry and I’ll include a hand-written note that reads “Have a fun first day of kindergarten. Can’t wait to hear all about it. Love, Mom.”

I was trying to channel one of the greatest humor columnists on the planet, Dave Barry. When my 9-year-old twins were mere tots, I wrote a column mocking pediatric safety mania that had managed to cloud the minds of well meaning parents, making them fearful that around every corner of their home, danger lurked for small children if the adults didn’t implement each single safety recommendation to ward against any possible mishap, no matter how remote.

 As a columnist who’s both male and a father, I get a lot of e-mails early in the summer from people trying to publicize their fatherly items and services, which, unlike the e-mails I get around Mother’s Day, almost never involve spas. (Why doesn’t anybody think Dad might like a good seaweed wrap?) They tend to feature things like mowing and grilling, which American men are required to master before they’re allowed to procreate. That’s in the Constitution somewhere.

 
Here I am at mid-forty, feeling more comfortable about myself at a time when I should be uncomfortable. A daily trip to the mirror is proof of that. But for some reason, I don’t care. Okay, I care. But not in that obsessive way I used to—in that self-conscious, self-doubting, I am still a thirteen-year-old, kind of way.

My earliest dance recital memories involve the time I was in elementary school and went to see one that featured my sister and about a dozen other 4-year-olds in royal blue tutus, standing in a line and … well, I’m not sure you could call it dancing, but they were certainly moving. This lasted for about three minutes, after which we watched as the rest of the show dragged on until sometime in the next decade; I may be wrong, but I think I might have hit puberty before it ended.