Picket Fence Post

Item #1: Forgetful Mamas

It’s not even the insanely busy spring yet — the time when we’re overloaded with school projects, school events, national holidays, Little League & spring soccer games/practices — and I’ve still been forgetting stuff like sending my kid to school with lunch money, birthday parties, etc. So, when I was trying to get the Picket Fence Post family’s schedule into some semblance of order last week, I felt a bit better about my slacker-ness when I witnessed moms on TV shows being overwhelmed and forgetful too.

I dedicated my Mommy Tracked column this week to this topic, saying that:, “. . . [T]he depiction of two fictional moms on TV this past week screwing up in big ways when it came to their family’s schedules made me realize that, if moms feeling overwhelmed by the weird administrative complexity of contemporary child-rearing is now a punch line on TV shows, I can’t be the only one who’s feeling burned out.”

At least I haven’t forgotten my kids’ birthdays. Yet.

Do you find yourself forgetting stuff, repeatedly, despite your best efforts to get organized?

Item #2: Dysfunctional TV Families

I’ve been going on and on about how much I adore the ABC comedy Modern Family and how much hope I have for NBC’s brand, spankin’ new dramedy Parenthood. Well, the Boston Globe’s Don Aucoin mentioned those two shows when he wrote about a trend in family-centric TV shows as of late: A lack of parental authority.

In his piece, “Dysfunction Junction: Who’s the boss? TV parents these days are often as adolescent as their children,” he asserted that today’s TV parents aren’t as stable and authoritative as TV parents of years past, like on The Cosby Show. He quoted a woman who writes about media and parenting issues as saying: “Bill Cosby was hysterically funny, and yet when push came to shove on The Cosby Show, there was no question that he and his wife were the authority figures, no question that ‘We’re the parents here, we’re here to take care of you, we’re not your friends.’ We lost something there and it’s time to get it back. A better sense of parents not so much as dominant authorities but as parents.”

While I agree that we’ve lost an overall sense of authority over today’s kids, I think the TV shows are simply reflecting today’s reality.  (Ever try to lightly reprimand/correct the behavior of  a kid who’s not yours? Be prepared for pediatric snark and smirks.) If you’re going to complain that TV parents are acting too much like kids, we need to start with the actual parents they’re depicting.

Item #3: Boston Baby & Family Expo

Mark your calendars New Englanders: Next Saturday — that’s March 20 — I’ll be appearing at the Baby & Family Expo at the Bayside Expo Center to tell parents that, while they’ll see lots of products and get lots of parenting advice at the Expo, the most important thing they need to keep in mind is this: If you don’t keep your sense of humor about this child-rearing adventure, you’ll go nuts.

At 10:30 a.m., I’m slated to give a talk/book reading called, “How to Keep Your Sense of Humor (Believe us, you’ll need it!)” where I’ll give expectant and current parents a humorous pep talk and read some of the more embarrassing columns from my parenting/humor book Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum. People who attend the talk will not only get a signed copy of the book, but they’ll get the added bonus of meeting “The Girl,” (otherwise known as my daughter) who’ll be helping me out at the Expo.

In addition, my Parents & Kids Magazine editor Heather Kempskie and her twin sister Lisa Hanson, authors of The Siblings Busy Book, will be giving pointers at 1:30 p.m. about activities you can do when you have children of different ages.

If you’re heading to the Expo on Sunday, March 21, you’ll get a chance to meet my buddies, the podcasting divas that are the Manic Mommies,  Erin and Kristin who’ll be taping their show at 1 p.m.

Here’s the link for more info. Hope to see you there.

Image credit: Baby & Family Expo.

Item #1: The Chew Monster (Otherwise Known as the Puppy)

Max, our mini-Wheat puppy, is smack dab in the middle of a rather nasty chewing phase and has been grabbing at anything within his reach and shredding it. Anything. Lego pieces. Pencils. Trash. Tissue boxes. Magazines. Soda cans. Shoes. You get the picture. Combine Max’s propensity for gnawing with the Picket Fence Post kids’ tendency to leave items lying haphazardly around the house and you’ve got the ingredients for my latest GateHouse News Service column.

Item #2: Co-Ed Sleepovers . . . Are They Nuts?

When I saw a Tweet this week from a Boston-based Fox TV journalist promoting her segment about teen co-ed slumber parties, she asked people thought about the notion. My immediate response was decidedly thumbs down. Putting hormonal kids together, with soft bedding, in the dark where parents will be absent for long stretches of time including in the middle of the night and a developmental lack of impulse control (plus teens’ brains aren’t fully developed) is patently crazy. Then I watched Sara Underwood’s piece on local TV and it only confirmed my initial thoughts. Please, tell me what you think about this trend.

Item #3: Pajama Diaries

So. Very. True.

Item #4: Modern ‘Like’ Family

Freshman ABC comedy Modern Family was unbelievably fabulous this week. It provided me with ample laughs just when I needed them. (You can watch the latest episode “Fears” for free at the ABC web site.) But the part that really had me rolling — aside from seeing the adorable Manny in his classic fisherman’s cap (I just want to hug that little guy) – was the scene where Claire Dunphy was driving her teenaged Haley and her friend around and could not, not for one more second, tolerate listening to her daughter continually and nonsensically invoke the word “like.”

Here’s what Haley said to her friend: “And then I’m like, ‘There’s no way I’m wearing that.’ And she was like, ‘Well if you don’t wear it then you can’t play.’ And then I was like, ‘Well, that’s fine by me.’ And then she was like . . .”

By this time, Claire, who’d been rolling her eyes as she listened to this, snarkily said the word “like” over her daughter’s conversation four times until her daughter objected. “Stop saying, ‘like!’” Claire shouted.

“Don’t embarass me!” the daughter shouted back.

“Ahhhhhh!” Claire shrieked as she gripped the steering wheel and violently shook her head.

This exact scenario – with slightly different wording and sans the guttural yell – occurred between my mother and me while she was driving me and a friend around when I was but a teenaged gal. I have a vivid memory of having what I saw as a perfectly pleasant conversation with my friend only to have my mother, seemingly out of nowhere, shout, “Meredith! Stop saying, ‘like!’”

I’m busily trying to stomp that tendency out of my own children before they become teens. I’m tryin’.

Image credit: Pajama Diaries via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

In between enjoying fun and inspiring Olympic moments with the Picket Fence Post family during the past two weeks, I’ve felt emotionally beseiged (or manipulated I should say) by the commercials. What was there an armada of Don Drapers working overtime on ads for the Olympics?

You know the ads of which I speak. Those three-hankie ones. The ones that made you tear up in the first frame because you knew what was coming next.

Procter & Gamble is largely responsible for all of this, with its line of “Thank You Mom” ads made just for the Olympics. Nearly every one of them got to me, mostly the one below, because it uses footage from real mothers whose adult children competed in the 2010 winter Olympics. Loved the last mom mouthing the words, “That’s my baby!”

Then there was this ad, where women watched their children compete in the Olympics, only the athletes aren’t adults, they’re little children:

The only P&G-mom ad that I saw which leavened the tears with humor was this “Never Walk Alone” ad where moms were depicted in various points of motherhood: Holding a newborn in the delivery room, vacuuming the living room with a baby on a hip, changing a flat tire with the kids on the side of the road, dragging a kid’s hockey stuff out of the house in the dead of winter, picking a kid up from the principal’s office. However whenever I think about the Canadian figure skater whose biggest fan, her mother, died a few days before she was set to take the ice and then watched this ad . . .

Finally, here’s the last of the insidiously moving TV advertisements that I saw during the Olympics, the retooled ad for Coke with that haunting Sia song playing in the background:

Did you find yourself riveted to these ads too?

Item #1: Obama’s Sweet Parental Leave Policy

While most parents I know who try to simultaneously work and raise kids — or juggle the needs of multiple kids at the same time — struggle to make an appearance at every kid-centric event their children have, I found myself feeling envious of President Obama’s ability to put everything aside, including budget talks and national security, in order to attend one of his kids’ events.

In a recent New York Times piece entitled, “He Breaks for Band Recitals,” a senior advisor to the president told the paper: “There are certain things that are sacrosanct on his schedule — the kids’ recitals, soccer games, basketball games, school meetings. These are circled in red on his calendar, and regardless of what’s going on he’s going to make those. I think that’s part of how he sustains himself through all this.”

I think I need a presidential advisor handling my schedule.

Item#2: Seinfeld on the Poison ‘P’s’

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld, the father of three kids (ages 4, 6 and 9) told Parade Magazine recently that he’s figured out what’s wrong with today’s kids, something he calls, “The Poison P’s.”

Praise: “We tell our kids, ‘Great job!’ too much.”

Problem-solving: “We refuse to let our children have problems. Problem-solving is the most important skill to develop for success in life, and we for some reason can’t stand it if our kids have a situation that they need to ‘fix.’ Let them struggle. It’s a gift.”

Pleasure: As in, “giving your child too much pleasure.” Seinfeld said that because parents believe that today’s children aren’t as innocent as we used to be when we were young, “We feel so guilty for destroying that innocence — which is what we did — so we’re now trying to repair that by creating perfect childhoods for our children.”

Betcha his kids would reply with a nice, “Yadda, yadda, yadda.”

Item #3: Bullies in the Bull’s-Eye

Remember that horrific story a few weeks ago about the bullies in the Massachusetts town of South Hadley, who, according to news reports, drove a 15-year-old girl to commit suicide? Well the school superintendent has announced that the students involved in harassing the girl have faced disciplinary action and may also face criminal charges, according to Fox and the Boston Herald.  

In the meantime, the issue of students harassing other students in school to the point where the victims are fearful and can’t focus on their lessons, has become a hot button issue. Even Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick who, while relating his own personal experience with being the victim of harassment from fellow students when he was a child, said that harassers should be held accountable.

“Whatever we can do to create a safe environment for kids, that’s what we should do,” Patrick said, according to the Boston Herald. “If we can give teachers and administrators some extra tools, we should do that, and do it swiftly . . . Parents have to take responsibility, especially ones who are themselves parents of bullies. There is nothing in the [pending anti-bullying legislation] that absolves adults from their responsibility to teach kids how to behave respectfully.”

He said he was contacted by a 9-year-old boy from a Massachusetts school who needed help in dealing with kids harassing him and when Patrick met with the boy, the child appeared frightened. The governor said he went on the school’s intercom and told the students that there was to be no bullying at the school and that if there was, he’d have to return and deal with it personally.

Item #4: Trending Toward More Chores? I’m Skeptical.

On Valentine’s Day, the Boston Globe ran a story which claimed that a “modern trend” has been evolving where today’s parents are making their kids do more chores, like we all used to do back in the day, otherwise known as the Stone Age. Citing research from a Wellesley College sociology professor, the article said that parents have been “reasserting” the importance of chores in the past 15 years.

I don’t buy it. Not that we here in the Picket Fence Post household don’t make our children do chores — we do — it’s just that I find it hard to believe that many other parents are doing the same thing. I’d be shocked if even half of today’s kids have to do regular chores.

What do you think? How prevalent do you think chores are today?

Image credit: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters via the NYT.

And I laughed. And laughed. And laughed. “My head would explode if I gave up shouting for 40 days,” I told them today as I was driving the Picket Fence Post kids to the grocery store with me.

“You couldn’t do it,” The Youngest Boy said as he too chortled at the notion.

“I think I’d melt by day 20,” I agreed.

Instead, we agreed that I’d try to refrain from using bad words during the duration of the Lenten season, the 40 days leading up to Easter. When I’m in front of the kids I try, really hard, not to swear. But I’m not perfect. The ”s” word slips out of my mouth from time to time when I drop stuff or make a mistake. When I substitute “damn” or “crap,” they raise their eyebrows as well because I’ve told them those are bad words not to be used by kids. (For the record, I apologize when I slip up.) 

I think I’ll do what I did last year to incentivize myself to curtail my invocation of naughty words by putting a quarter in a jar each time I mess up, even outside of my kids’ presence. However it doesn’t always work. On one particularly bad work day last spring when the kids were at school, I put a $5 in the jar.

I’ve asked the kids to think about what they’d give up or what positive things they’d do during Lent. They’ve got until dinner tonight to come up with some good ideas, but having Mom cease with the shouting, ain’t happenin’ my pretties. No. Way.

I felt a bit like the faux-cool dad, Phil Dunphy from Modern Family yesterday when I attempted to invoke the slang term “beast” when talking with my 11-year-old son and describing something as being cool. (”Beast” is — or was – the kids’ hip way of saying, “cool.” That’s why my eldest two kids told me last year anyway.)

“Mooom!” The Eldest Boy said, “It’s not ‘beast’ anymore!”

“When did that happen?” I asked, chagrined. “What do you mean?”

“It’s ‘tank.’”

“‘Tank?’”

“Yeah, that’s the new word,” he said.

It’s so new, this using “tank” as a synonym for “cool,” that when I looked in the Urban Dictionary of slang words, I couldn’t find a definition of “tank” that matched my son’s.

Combine my verbal miscue with the fact that last week when The Girl and I started dancing in the kitchen after dinner and The Youngest Boy (8) told me I danced “like an old lady,” you can understand why I’m not feeling too hip these days.

Hence my earlier statement that I’m worried that my kids are going to start to think I’ve become a Phil Dunphy. Who the heck is Phil Dunphy? He’s a fictional character from an ABC comedy. Watch the video below and you’ll understand my concern:

Do your kids make you feel woefully out of touch?

Okay, so I write about ABC’s Modern Family so much that people might wonder if I’m getting some kind of payment for mentioning it this often. And I do, with laughs.

The promo for next week’s Valentine’s Day themed episode features Claire and Phil, married parents of three,  doing a little risque role playing to spice things up . . . with unexpected consequences. Enjoy.

 Item #1:  Call it ‘Harassment’ Not ‘Bullying’

What if, just for kicks, we stopped referring to the on-going harassment and humiliation of children — which interferes with their ability to function in school — as “bullying,” and, instead, started calling it what it really is, which is “harassment?”

After I read several pieces in today’s Boston Herald about children being subjected to physical and emotional harassment in school which left them feeling unsafe and unable to concentrate – along with school officials, by and large, not doing much to stop the behavior – I kept  wondering why it’s not simply called “harassment.” The word “bullying” seems insufficient. As does the word “teasing,” which I’ve also heard invoked to refer to this subject.

One Herald article, entitled “Bullied kids ‘helpless’ against attacks” started thusly:

“Hundreds of angry parents, worried teachers and even terrorized kids are reporting ugly episodes of brutal bullying at schools across Massachusetts as the heartwrenching case of Phoebe Prince continues to expose a painful nerve.

The abuse — detailed in e-mails and phone calls to the Herald – is emotionally jarring, often physical and spreading like a merciless virus in cyberspace.

Kids tell of being forced to drink toilet water, getting pummeled on the bus and seeing themselves ridiculed for all to see on Facebook.

. . . A Boston Latin High School parent said the bullying was so bad her son had to leave the elite school. A teacher on the South Shore said she’s sick over special-needs girls being photographed in the bathroom — only to learn it was all posted on Facebook.”

An accompanying Herald column, “Parents’ pleas fall on deaf ears,” painted a picture of parents feeling likewise helpless when it comes to putting an end to the harassment of their kids at the hands of their classmates:

“‘We told the school and the school did nothing.’

That’s the common refrain I’ve heard over and over since news broke of the apparent suicide of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince of South Hadley, who was relentlessly hounded by high school bullies.

Incredibly, her tormentors remain in class, protected by the school. Yet in conversations with parents and in more than 100 voice mails and e-mails, I learned that protecting bullies, not the bullied, is hardly unique to South Hadley. It’s now the rule in our schools.”

If the student victims were instead adult employees at a company being harassed by a peer, their supervisor would have to step in and stop the harasser from creating a hostile work environment or face a possible lawsuit. If one adult wouldn’t leave another one alone, a criminal restraining order could filed against the harasser. So why can’t the schools do more, like workplaces have done?

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Things have been a bit chaotic over the past few days, what with some family drama (don’t ask), the never-ending slog of kids’ activities slowly sucking the life out of me, and trying to shoehorn actual work into the mix, never mind attending to volunteer efforts both The Spouse and I for some reason foolishly offered to do. Plus there was this fifth grade bread baking project we were supposed to complete over the weekend. The Girl actually completed the project on her own — with no help from her parents – but The Eldest Boy did not because, honestly, there was too much crap going on.

In the meantime, to make up for the lack of bloggy stuff, here are a few newsy items I’ve missed in the past few days:

– I had the pleasure of co-hosting the Manic Mommies podcast with Erin Kane last week. We talked about mid-season TV (Big Love, Lost, a bit of ranting about the current state of Grey’s Anatomy) and about our crazy kids’ activities (this was before family drama hit the Picket Fence Post household). You can download the podcast for free on iTunes, including where I called Erin by her co-host’s name, Kristin. Smooth move.

– It was with a heavy heart that I read the recent news stories about a teenage girl living in Massachusetts who committed suicide reportedly in the wake of cyberbullying. Adding to that was the fact that a local school district had an anti-bullying forum led by a Vermont father whose own 13-year-old son (two years younger than my twins) killed himself several years ago after he’d been bullied, and I’ve been wondering when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is going to legally define bullying behavior with an anti-bullying law and when schools are going to start taking harassment seriously and not as a form of “conflict.” If sexual harassment in the workplace and acts which create a hostile workplace can be outlawed, certainly bullying/intimidating/humiliating harassment and acts which create a hostile learning environment should be as well.

– In a similar vein, the web site Parent Dish had a provocative post about parents who bully and name-call other parents online. Blogger Amy Hatch asked, “How can we teach our children be kind to one another when we can’t model that behavior in our own lives?”

– Completely changing subjects here . . . If you were among those who were once fond of watching Hope and Michael Steadman, Nancy and Elliot Weston, Ellyn Warren, Gary, Melissa and the crew from thirtysomething, you’ll be pleased to learn that season two of the 1980s/90s drama is now out on DVD. My Pop Culture column this week is about why, even though decades have passed since these episodes first aired, “. . . I can find no current TV dramas which capture the gloriously messy and stressful, day-to-day slog of child-rearing, work and marriage as deftly and incisively as this 21-year-old series did.” (As you can tell, “slog” was my preferred word of the week. . .)

Image credit: Dyna Moe/Nobody’s Sweetheart.

As I mentioned yesterday, I decided to take the lead of some New England media folk and chronicle a day in the life of a Massachusetts suburban work-from-home mom of three by snapping photos throughout the day. That mom, of course, was me.

And wouldn’t you know that today happened to be the day when The Youngest Boy stayed home from school complaining of a constellation of vague symptoms. However because The Spouse was working from home, it wasn’t solely my duty to serve at the kid’s beck and call, fetching him beverages, snacks, lunch, blankets, etc.

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