Picket Fence Post

Item #1: Stone Soup Book

I love the way cartoonist Jan Eliot’s mind works. In her Stone Soup comics, she’s able to put into pictures what I labor to do with words. So, a few months ago, when Eliot e-mailed me to ask me if I’d write a blurb for her new collection of cartoons, This Might NOT Be Pretty, I felt honored.

“Jan Eliot has been spying on my family,” reads the blurb I wrote that’s on the back cover of Eliot’s newly-released book, the seventh in the Stone Soup series. “There’s no other explanation why Stone Soup so accurately captures the absurdly realistic yet painfully funny antics that go on in my house. Stone Soup is a window into the gloriously flawed American family.”

The book’s great for when you need to know that you’re not the only one who, as you’re raising your children, finds yourself in patently preposterous situations.

Item #2: ‘Desperate Housewives’ Trailer

Season five of Desperate Housewives, a once razor-sharp satire of modern life in the ‘burbs, is on the horizon. (Premieres September 28.) This season the show shifts five years into the future where everything has supposedly changed for the Wisteria Lane residents, most markedly for Eva Longoria’s character Gabby Solis, now a non-glamorous mother of two, while some of Felicity Huffman’s character’s kids are now teens and on a first name basis with the friendly folks at the local juvenile detention center.

Huffman has said that the half-decade time jump has invigorated Desperate Housewives’ writers and that the characters’ slate of stories has been wiped clean. I certainly hope so. The show has lost its mojo in recent years and just hasn’t been as good as it was in season one and early on in season two. I hope it can redeem itself. And soon. I’m rooting for Huffman.

Item #3: Tonight’s Historic Moment

Regardless of your political affiliation or for whom you plan to cast your vote for president in November, there is no question that tonight’s speech by Illinois Senator Barack Obama formally accepting his party’s nomination for president is a historic one for our country, particularly coming on the 45th anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. That’s the iconic speech our children are shown in their classrooms every January, the one they hear when they learn about the condition of race relations in the 1960s when King spoke and why the Civil Rights Act was eventually passed.

Fast-forward four decades later, and you can now explain to your own kiddos with pride how far our country has come from that moment to this one. This is a moment they’ll want to remember.

Image credit: Amazon.com/Stone Soup.

 My editor at Parents & Kids Magazine (Heather Kempskie), along with her twin sister (Lisa Hanson), kindly agreed to field several snarky questions for the August issue of the magazine that I lobbed their way about their new book, The Siblings’ Busy Book, a book comprised of hundreds of easy activities to do with different-aged children in da house. Easy is key. (If the activities they have listed in the book weren’t simple, I wouldn’t be writing about them. In fact, I later told them I wished I’d had this book when my kids were toddlers.)

Here’s a sample from our interview:

Meredith O’Brien, Picket Fence Post: A number of these activities — most of them [in the book] actually — involve simple uses for everyday, household objects. They don’t require that parents shell out hundreds of dollars for twenty minutes of fun, which is a refreshing change. Was cost and accessibility a factor in which activities you included?

Lisa Hanson, co-author of The Siblings’ Busy Book: Absolutely, that was our biggest component. Life is expensive and parents can take their kids to museums and other places that cost money, but while you’re at home you should be able to create moments without a high cost. It’s not about materials; it’s about the time you spend with your kids.

Heather Kempskie, co-author: If you think back to your own childhood, the most pleasurable moments you have are the simple ones, that involved your imagination and a few materials. We wanted to recreate that in the book.

***

O’Brien: Were either of you camp counselors? Work in a circus? I know I certainly wouldn’t have been able to come up with the bulk of the activities you have in here. How did you come up with some of these ideas? Did you get contributions from your friends?

Hanson: I think I’ve had every single job out there available to work with kids. I’ve worked in daycares, elementary schools and got my masters in creative education. So a lot of the ideas came from my experiences of working with children.

Kempskie: Where Lisa is on the frontlines, I’m behind the scenes as the editor of P&K. I work with lots of childcare experts, pediatricians and parents and that’s how I get my sense of what is important to families and how they could benefit from [The Siblings' Busy Book].

Hanson: Other parents would mention something to us in passing, and we’d be like, “Wait a minute, we could use that!”

Kempskie: Inspiration arrived on a daily basis.

Click here to get the full interview.

Image credit: Siblings’ Busy Book site.

If you saw my Q&A with Pamela Paul, author of Parenting Inc., you read all about how almost every aspect of modern parenting has been commoditized. You need to potty train your kid, you can buy special potty training books, clothes, diapers/pull-ups, videos, all manner of potty seats, stickers and, last, but not least, even obtain the services of a “professional” potty training coach. (I kid you not.)

My recent GateHouse Media column tackles the outsourcing of parenthood and focuses on how, when my kids were babies, I used to joke about hiring someone to take care of the madness otherwise known as potty training. Now, the joke’s apparently on me.

If you are the parent of a toddler — or know someone who is — Stefanie Wilder-Taylor is like a fun house mirror, reflecting back the insanity that is raising a toddler today. In her tongue-in-cheek book, Naptime is the New Happy Hour and Other Ways Toddlers Turn Your Life Upside Down, she chronicles through a series of essays, struggles such as setting up playdates, pre-school application mania and transitioning to a big kid bed. Wilder-Taylor recently fielded five of my questions about her new book:

Meredith O’Brien, Picket Fence Post: This book focuses exclusively on how to handle your child’s toddlerhood without losing your marbles. Do you think parenting a toddler is more difficult than parenting a baby, or just different?

Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, Naptime is the New Happy Hour: That’s a good question. I thinking parenting your first baby is harder than handling a toddler. When you have your first child, you are a complete mess of hormones and confusion. When that child is a toddler, you know them better — their moods, idiosyncrasies, etc. so it’s easier to make them happy. On the other hand, when you have a new baby in the house, it’s tougher to deal with your toddler than the new baby because your toddler needs to be entertained while your baby just needs to eat and sleep. It sort of makes you look back and think, “Wow, I had it so good when I just had one baby and I didn’t even appreciate it!”

O’Brien: I got a huge laugh out of the chapter on scheduling playdates for your toddler and dealing with other mothers who aren’t necessarily compatible with you.

You wrote: “Having someone you genuinely get along with and can just ‘hang out’ with, comparing notes on post-baby sexual activity and bikini waxing while the kids play oh-so-happily, only happens in the best circumstances or when Supernanny’s Jo Frost is supervising. But still, to me, it’s more important to take pleasure in other parents’ company and share some similar parenting attitudes, because an afternoon with the wrong mom can feel like spending two hours on the StairMaster with the TV stuck on a George Lopez Show marathon.”

Have any of the moms with whom your daughter has had playdates taken umbrage at your characterization of playdates gone bad or at your parenting style? Do you think that it’s a good idea, before a playdate with a new kid, that you should test the mom’s reactions to certain things, like assessing her response to showing up with a bottle of Pinot Grigio, as you did?

Wilder-Taylor: After reading my book, one mom at my daughter’s pre-school worried that she was the type of mom I wrote about. In fact, she wasn’t at all. She was pretty cool and easy-going. The ones I’m talking about would never know it’s them. It’s sort of like how if you’re insane, you’re the last to know. It’s the sane people that worry they might be insane.

To answer the second part of this question, I do try to suss out the personality of a new mom playdate situation. Life is too short to spend even an afternoon with a boring or insanely uptight mom. I might try dropping the f-bomb when we’re alone and seeing if she makes a gas face or makes like a sailor herself. Unfortunately, now that I’m back on a book deadline, my drinking in the afternoon days are over. The way I can tell a cool mom now is if she lets me drop my kid off at her house for a few hours to give me some time off.

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I previously heaped praise upon two books — The Daring Book for Girls and The Dangerous Book for Boys – which remind me of the good old days when kids played outside without parental interference and didn’t come back home until it was dark out. The publishers of both books recently released new pocket versions of each, focusing on “Things to Do.”

When they arrived at the Picket Fence Post HQ, I decided that instead of having me wax nostalgic about making God’s Eyes out of yarn and sticks during summer camp and playing lively games of SPUD until dusk, I’d turn to my two resident experts to see what they think. I gave my nearly 10-year-old twins — The Girl and The Eldest Boy — copies of the pocket editions and a stack of Post-It notes with instructions to put sticky notes on suggested activities they liked or didn’t like. I then sat down with each child individually. Below are the interviews.

The Daring Book for Girls

Lemonade Stand: When I asked the Hannah Montana/High School Musical/sporty/Manny Ramirez loving girl what she liked from Daring, the first thing that caught her eye was the entry on how to make and run a lemonade stand. “If you ever want to earn money, here’s a fun way to do it,” she said, sounding as though she’d been paid off by the book’s publisher. “If you want to earn money, it’s not a boring way to do it, like chores.”

What ideas did the book give her about setting up lemonade stands? “When I pictured doing a lemonade stand, I just thought of lemonade and cookies, but this had different ways to draw attention,” she said, noting that she was intrigued by suggestions to dress up the stand with decorations and music. (Can you say, “The Best of Both Worlds” crankin’ in our ‘hood?)

Frying An Egg on Sidewalk: “I thought it was fun, but weird. You need to live in a warm place where there’s a lot of sun on the sidewalk to do it,” The Girl said, adding that the book had explanations about why this “odd but fun” activity would or wouldn’t work under certain conditions.

How to Be a Spy: “It says the word ’spy’ comes from ancient words . . . I don’t really get that, but I spy a lot around my house,” she said (*mother tries to camouflage her concern as to exactly what her child has discovered during her covert ops*). “. . . It gives me different ways to make codes that my brothers wouldn’t get, but I could teach my friends and they have siblings who they’d want to fake out.”

How to Run Faster: This was the only item The Girl singled out as something she did not like in the book. Why? “It’s kind of like cheating because it doesn’t really matter how fast you run as a kid . . . until, like, high school,” she said.

Her Overall Assessment: “I think it was pretty good,” she said. “It gives girls a lot of fun stuff to do over the summer. If they’re bored, all they have to do is pick up the book and flip to a random page.”

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Item#1: OK Free Play

The Boston Globe ran a great column this week by Derrick Z. Jackson extolling the benefits of letting kids play on their own without adults chasing them with bottles of Purell and micro-managing everything. Jackson quoted Susan Linn, Harvard psychologist and author of the book The Case for Make Believe, as saying, “In saving make believe, we are saving ourselves.”

Jackson added: “What it means is an America where boys and girls are encouraged to not use the screen as a first resort of socialization. The first resort becomes themselves, scripting fantasies on porches and yards, becoming their own heroes and heroines, or just sending a letter to their teddy bear.”

My childhood summers were marked with great flights of imagination ranging from re-enacting Star Wars scenes in our living room with my brother using his action figures and ships (I always had to be the Evil Empire . . . fill in your wisecrack here), creating myriad secret clubs with convoluted rules, and staging countless shows with my brother and neighbors in our driveway (anything from dancing and singing performances to puppet shows . . . in fact my first boyfriend told me he once paid ten cents to see a puppet show at my house.)

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Apparently American pets are so enamoured of their human “dads” that they’re now buying Father’s Day cards for them. (Just to be clear: I’m talking about pets giving cards TO the humans, NOT about cards that simply have cute pets on the cover.)

How the pets — mostly cats and dogs — are accomplishing this feat is beyond me. I’ve yet to see a pet go to a card store, pick out the perfect Father’s Day card, slap down the cash and then deliver it to its human dad. I simply must not have been paying close attention. They must be choosing cards for their human dads, or why else would major greeting card makers create Father’s Day cards from a cat or from a dog to its human father? (I’m making a huge leap in assuming that the cards are meant for the human fathers, otherwise, how would the animal fathers actually read and laugh at the witty one-liners inside said cards?)

When shopping for Father’s Day cards today, I also saw cards intended to be from a baby to his or her dad. But, like with the cats and dogs, I’ve never before witnessed an infant pick out a card for his or her dad. Frankly, I think it’s dumb to pick out a card “from the baby,” because you’re not fooling anyone. The kid didn’t pick it out. Drooled on it, well that’s a distinct possibility. Picked it out? Maybe if you guided the child’s arm in the general direction of the cards you could argue that the kid picked it out, but that would be stretching the truth. (Better to get one of those, “On your first Father’s Day cards” instead.)

When my kids pick out greeting cards — though I prefer that they make them — there’s no doubt that they made the selections (you should SEE what SpongeBob-ish choices they make). It’s believable to say that anyone from a toddler age on up could conceivably select a card for his or her father. It strains credulity, however, to suggest that a baby picked out a card. Or that Fido just had to get Daddy a card too.

But I could be wrong. Certainly the nice folks at the greeting card stores would never create a line of cards for nonsensical reasons. Pets MUST be doing a lot of card buying these days or they wouldn’t have these cards out on the racks, right?

So if any of you, intrepid blog readers, actually see a dog or a cat selecting a Father’s Day card for its human father, please drop me a line. I’d love to get a detailed report.

For years, I’ve written about and railed against the parental insanity that occurs when people buy strollers that cost more than your first, junky used car, and shell out big bucks for unnecessarily expensive children’s clothing (Cashmere for babies? Seriously? Ever heard of spit-up?) and sign their babies up for specialized classes to give them an edge over their peers.

So when I read a New York Times’ review of Pamela Paul’s book, 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, I knew I had to read it and interview the author.

Paul kindly agreed to field a few questions from me about her book. The edited interview — which was conducted via telephone — is posted below.

Meredith O’Brien, Picket Fence Post: Your book details dozens of really expensive items, services and classes that today’s parents purchase for their very young, sometimes infant or unborn children, regardless of whether they’ve been proven effective. After you researched these items, like the so-called “educational” videos, you say the reason parents buy into these things, even if there’s no evidence saying they work, has to do with guilt. How much pressure are parents under to spend money on things that haven’t been proven beneficial for their children?

Pamela Paul, author, Parenting Inc.: I think there’s enormous pressure. I think that parents, as they have in time immemorial, want to do everything for their children. [This has been] translated into buying everything for their children. I talk about in the book the anxiety of under-spending, this feeling that taps into our vulnerability, our sense of competition . . . Parents are worried they’re not spending enough, that, “My child will not be able to get ahead and may possibly fall behind [if I don't buy these things].”

In an era of economic insecurity, this is very powerful. Nobody wants it not to be possible for their children [to do better than their parents]. If parents have succeeded economically, they’re afraid that whatever they’ve achieved, they’re afraid their kids won’t achieve, at least not easily.

The other thing I think is that there’s been research that’s come out about ages 0 to 3, that a baby’s brain stops forming connections at 3 . . . [Parents] think, “I’ve got to have my children learning Mandarin by age 3.” This is fueled by misinterpretation of things, of the need for early learning . . . that you’ve got to cram in as much as possible before the age of three or the child will be a dummy.

O’Brien: Do you think people are trying to emulate celeb parents, like Angelina Jolie or Gwyneth Paltrow pushing around her baby, Moses, in an $800 stroller? Do you think parents are trying to copy these celebrity parents even when they don’t have the money to buy these things? Is that a bigger factor in prompting spending on babies than guilt?

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Item #1: Book: Over-parenting=Wimpy Kids

Over-parenting. Over-scheduling. Over-bearing. Over-praising. Hmmm, what other hyphenated “over” words could I use to describe the general theme of the new book, A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting by Hara Estroff Marano?

Why don’t I let Wall Street Journal reviewer Tony Woodlief explain the book’s message of urging parents to back off and just let their kids be:

” Ms. Marano’s complaint is that over-involved parents are sapping the will of America’s youth, keeping them from learning how to make decisions and solve problems for themselves . . .

“[Ms. Marano says] we’re focusing on the wrong risks. Let children learn from failure. Let them experience all the childhood freedoms and disappointments that are common in the lives of our nation’s heroes. The college-admissions consultants can wait.”

Sounds like a good read, likely to provide me with more anti-helicopter parent ammo.

Item #2: Going to See ‘Sex’ This Weekend?

 Millions of American women are going to take pleasure in Sex and the City this weekend, including yours truly. And, although the main stars of the uber-hyped film are crazily over-priced fashion, sex, Carrie, Carrie’s friends, sex and fashion, squeezed in between the Jimmy Choos and inevitable Mr. Big disappointments are dramatizations of urban parenting. The new flick promises to depict lawyer Miranda’s life with hubby and child in Brooklyn, as well as Charlotte’s raising of her adopted grade-school-aged daughter and unexpected pregnancy (in the now-canceled TV series, she suffered from infertility).

Hopefully, SATC will be at least a fraction as good as its trailer. Or at least serve as satisfying mind candy.

Item #3: Ankle Woes

The Girl is only 9 years old. Yet, ever since she turned her ankle during a basketball practice this winter, she’s been plagued with ankle aches.

After having had a clean ankle X-ray and giving her injury time to heal, she returned to her normal activities. But ever since the spring soccer season began, The Girl has been complaining, on and off, of ankle pain. Sometimes she has swelling around the area, but not always. She comes home from practice – sometimes in tears – and proceeds to elevate and ice her ankle then wraps it in a bandage.

Another girl from her soccer team is wearing a cast on one of her feet to immobilize her ankle to see if her repeated ankle difficulties will end if she gives her ankle a rest from the tough, cutting movements of soccer. Both girls are in third grade. Aren’t they too young for this kind of thing?

Item #4: Falling Teen Stars

My June Parents & Kids Magazine column revisits the whole Miley Cyrus-Vanity Fair imbroglio and puts it into context with other female, teen idols who have “fallen” and asks the question, “Why?” Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer.

Three for Thursdays (or Four for Fridays if I don’t post on Thursday) will be a regular feature here on the Picket Fence Post. This feature will include newsy/fun/intriguing items that I stumbled upon in the past week. If you happen to see something — an interesting news story, a funny video, an outrage, etc. — that you think would be perfect for Three for Thursdays, please be sure to send it my way.

Item #1: Grey’s Finale

Will Meredith and Derek finally end the on-again/off-again romantic dance and commit already? Certainly the challenges of being a couple can provide drama and comedy, if it didn’t, then Mad About You would’ve been canceled after its pilot episode. Will Miranda figure out a way to repair her relationship with her estranged husband and reunite her family? Will Christina emerge from her “Like a Virgin”-singing funk? We’ll find out tonight in the Grey’s Anatomy finale. But, as with most bonus-sized finales — tonight’s show is two hours long — they tend to disappoint. Hopefully that won’t be the case tonight. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that nothing totally absurd will happen. Like Gizzie, part II.

Item #2: First-Born Rule-Followers and Their Strict ‘Rents

I KNEW IT! As the oldest child in my own family, I’ve always felt as though it’s harder to be the older kid than the younger one, even when you factor the hand-me-downs into the picture. Now a study in the latest issue of the Economic Journal confirms it.

“The study showed that older siblings were much less likely to drop out of school or, in the case of girls, get pregnant, than the youngest in the family, perhaps because of a lifetime of being held to higher standards,” reported MSNBC. “That stricter parenting style [used with the older child] often shapes the first-born kid into a play-by-the-rules perfectionist.”

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