Picket Fence Post

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.

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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Item #1: Teacher Gifts

I thought we were in a recession, marked by high unemployment and people cutting back as they try to ride out these days of TARP and discussions of another possible federal stimulus package as industries wither away (auto, newspaper, etc.). So why did I read in the Boston Globe that Massachusetts school districts feel the need to warn parents against giving their children’s teachers “pricey” gifts? The story began as follows:

“School superintendents across the region are penning letters this holiday season to parents, cautioning them against going overboard with gift-giving to teachers, principals, and other staff members.

. . . While acknowledging that parents’ gift-giving gestures may be well intentioned the superintendents say that the state’s new ethics laws forbids public servants, including teachers on public payrolls, from receiving gifts with value in excess of $50. Violations are subject to civil penalties, the superintendents warn.”

Some of the examples of previous parental gift-giving excess, according to the Globe, were: $200 gift cards, fine wines, sports tickets, Rolex watches and HD TVs.

Hold on a sec, I thought. Who in the heck is giving teachers gifts that go for $50, never mind the ones the Globe was calling “pricey?”

Are people at your kids’ schools dishing out major cash for gifts?

Item #2: Decade of Overparenting

As part of its ode to the decade of the 2000s that’s about to come to a close, New York Magazine has a piece by writer Sandra Tsing Loh describing this past 10 years as a period of time when “Everybody Else Knows Best,” at least when it came to parenting, as parents have felt under siege by the volume of child-rearing advice. Tsing Loh focused on an anecdote involving her friend, the mother of a 9-month-old who won’t sleep. The friend didn’t know what to do about her son’s sleeping issues and fretted that she would make a mistake. Tsing Loh put a stake into the notion of relying on so-called parenting “experts” to tell us what we should do at every moment of our children’s young lives. Worth the read.

Item #3: Pregnancy Discrimination on ‘Housewives’

Desperate Housewives has had an irritating Lynette Scavo-centric storyline this season, one in which the fortysomething mom of four — who’s pregnant with twins, whose husband has gone back to college and she’s the only breadwinner — is being discriminated against by Carlos Solis, her boss/neighbor/friend, so much so, that after she was unjustly fired, she felt compelled to sue him.

She didn’t tell Carlos — who openly told her that he’d discriminated against another woman and not given her a promotion because she was pregnant and instead gave the promotion to Lynette —  immediately after she found out she was pregnant, but made arrangements, trained an underling and landed a big account so that she wouldn’t leave Carlos in the lurch. But when he found out (not from her) he acted as though, by getting pregnant, she’d let him down and hurt him, and that he was justified in forcing her out of a job.

This fictionalized version of pregnancy discrimination is the focus of my Mommy Tracked column this week, where Lynette’s situation is being played for laughs. I also asked readers what a woman in Lynette’s situation could/should do. (See video from the latest episode below for an example of Lynette being treated shabbily by Carlos’ wife Gabby.)

By the way, after this past week’s plane crash on Wisteria Lane, I began to wonder if this particular (fictional) street in Fairview is the most dangerous street in America. The results of my curiosity can be found here, where I documented every violent/criminal act that I could find that has occurred on Wisteria Lane over Desperate Housewives’ half dozen seasons. If I’ve missed any, please feel free to let me know.

The idea for my Mommy Tracked column this week started blossoming in my brain the moment that my kids’ pediatrician diagnosed one of my children with the swine flu and would be out of school for a week. This followed closely on the heels of my three children having had a ton of sick days last month, on different days, more than I can ever remember them having in any previous year.

Entitled, “In the Time of Swine Flu, What’s a Parent to Do,” the column includes quotes from a teacher who thinks that in order to contain epidemics like swine flu, there should be paid parental sick days, and examines Congressional attempts (that have thus far failed) to allow parents to take paid time off to care for ill children so they don’t send their sick children to school to contaminate more children and school employees.

UPDATE: Today’s Pajama Diaries comic strip makes the perfect illustration for this blog entry.

What do you do in your family when your kids are sick?

Our house has been plagued — plagued I tell you — by colds.

My kids have missed so much school thus far this year that if I worked in an office or someplace far away from my home (instead of out of my home where I can work all hours of the night to make up for missing daytime hours due to caring for ill children) I’d probably be in big trouble. And I consider my kids healthy.

In September, The Girl missed nearly a week of school with a low-grade fever that wouldn’t go away for days. That was accompanied intermittently by a hacking cough, major congestion, lack of appetite and fatigue. The Eldest Boy had the same cold/sickness/bug for four days — missed the Rosh Hashana dinner we hosted at our house — plus two days of school. The Youngest Boy missed one day of school. When I consulted the pediatrician’s office, the nurse said it sounded like the kids had a cold and said that if their fevers got high and stayed high, to call back.

So far during the month of October, The Girl came home sick from school on Tuesday and was finally well enough to return to school today. (She didn’t have a fever, just fatigue, head ache and hacking cough. We brought her in to the doctor’s office yesterday and were told it was a cold that could last five to seven days.) Hours after she went back to school, the school nurse called the house. The Girl’s twin brother was now sick and I had to pick him up from school. I’m just waiting for The Youngest Boy to come down with whatever this is. (In the meantime, I’ve had some sickness business of my own goin’ on for weeks, and was really sick for two days last month. The Spouse has been on and off sick.)

Is this just our family or have other people’s families been swamped with sick kids and colds that just won’t die?

Item #1: Anxious Kids

Do you have a child who seems tentative, bothered or frightened by new things? Are you worried that the child will grow up to be an anxious adult?

The recent New York Times Magazine cover story about anxiety said that some people are born worriers. While many nervous children are able to successfully channel their nervous energy productively as they grow older, others deftly cover up the anxiety roiling beneath the surface. “. . . [W]hile temperament persists, the behavior associated with it doesn’t always,” the Times reported. It’s a long piece, but if you have a child who you think might be considered “anxious,” it’s worth the read.

Item #2: Mommy Penalty

If you’re a woman and you have a kid, there’s a good chance that in the workplace you may suffer from what researchers have dubbed, “the mommy penalty.” The Boston CBS affiliate, WBZ ran a segment this week based on a Cornell University study which found that “mothers suffer a substantial wage penalty” while “. . . [m]en were not penalized for, and sometimes benefited from, being a parent,” the study reported.

What kind of penalty? Five percent less pay per child than a childless woman receives, WBZ reported:

“A recent ruling handed down by the First Circuit of Appeals in Boston, could have an impact on the way working mothers are treated. The case involves a mother from Maine who says she was denied a promotion and told ‘You have the kids, and you just have enough on your plate right now.’

The ruling stated, ‘. . . the assumption that a woman will do her job less well due to her personal family obligations is a form of sex stereotyping . . . and that adverse job actions on that basis constitute sex discrimination.”

Here’s the link to the video segment.

Item #3: The Puppy Cut

I finally relented and agreed to bring the puppy to get his hair trimmed. I’d been fretting that the groomers would make him look like a rat if his hair were trimmed too closely, that he’d lose his fluffy cuteness. But he doesn’t look like a rat. Other than the fact that you can now see that his legs aren’t as stocky as they appeared when his hair was longer, he looks pretty much the same. Look at the “before” photo followed by the “after” photo:

I’ve always had a soft spot for Felicity Huffman’s character Lynette Scavo on Desperate Housewives. In the first season when she was an at-home mom of four, Lynette spoke the sometimes ugly truths about her struggles with parenting small children, her loneliness and how she frequently felt as though she was screwing up at every turn. In season two, she returned to the workforce and was the comedic embodiment of the modern woman’s no-win attempts to balance her career and her home life.

However as the show got older, I found I liked my once favorite character less and less. The writers, I believed, fell down on the job and gave her some pretty cruddy story lines, especially last season’s when one of her kids was arrested. God last season was a bad one for Lynette. She’d become a shell of her former, real mom character.

When the new season began, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Lynette I admired from seasons one and two had returned. Now, she’s back working as an advertising executive who’s found herself pregnant again with twins, and she’s feeling distinctly ambivalent about the pregnancy, something not many folks would admit in public. And Lynette  seems to have regained some of the spark she’d lost.

Below is a scene from the season premiere where she was in an ob/gyn’s waiting room and brought a first-time pregnant mom to tears. The old Lynette is back, baby.

I blog weekly about the latest Desperate Housewives’ episodes at Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum. My review of the most recent episode, “Being Alive,” can be found here.

Item #1: Slutty Halloween Costumes

From the moment the first catalogue for Halloween costumes arrived in my mailbox, I noticed that something seemed off, more so than in previous years. As The Youngest Boy leafed through it and circled a half-dozen costumes he was considering for Halloween, I couldn’t help but notice that a large proportion of the costumes for the girls beyond their toddler years, were sexed up, with the girls wearing obvious make-up and striking mature poses to make them look older, much more so than the boyish looking boys. I opined about this phenomenon in my October GateHouse News Service column.

Item #2: Fall TV Premieres

In the midst of the TV networks unveiling their slate of season premieres, I visited with the Manic Mommies and did a podcast with them where we dished about fall TV.  Shows we discussed included: Mad Men, Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Wife, Cougar Town, Glee and Parks & Recreation. You can download their podcast for free at iTunes or through other means. Go here for info on how to listen to the Manic Mommies online.

Item #3: Law-Breaker Moms

Three instances of states/municipalities trying to enforce over-the-top rules and regulations when it comes to the care of children:

How many of us have relied upon our fellow parents to help us watch our kids from time to time? How many have watched other people’s kids as a favor? Well if you lived in Michigan and you didn’t have a daycare license, you’d be a lawbreaker, according to media reports. Here’s the scoop from the local TV station, WZZM:

“Lisa Snyder, of Middleville says her neighborhood school bus stop is right in front of her home. It arrives after her neighbors need to be at work, so she watches three of their children for 15-40 minutes until the bus comes.

The Department of Human Services received a complaint that Snyder was operating an illegal child care home. DHS contacted Snyder and told her to get licensed, stop watching her neighbors’ kids or face consequences.”

In addition to Michigan criminalizing unlicensed ”it takes a village to raise a child” parents helping parents, folks who actually do run licensed daycare centers out of their Massachusetts homes were met with a host of new regulations by the state’s Board of Early Education and Care which will now consider daycare providers ”educators.” According to the Boston Herald, new regulations will mandate that daycare providers to do regular progress reports on children in their care which track “the cognitive, social, emotional, language, motor and life skills developments of infants and preschoolers,” brush the teeth of any kids there longer than fours hours and creative a an educational curriculum which demonstrates that daycare providers are offering “planned learning experiences.”

Meanwhile, a New York mother is being threatened by officials in Saratoga Springs because she and her 12-year-old son have been riding their bikes to his middle school. Riding or walking to school, according to the Times-Union, is banned — yes BANNED — by the school, at the same time we’re reading non-stop about the epidemic of fat kids who get little to no exercise:  “The Jackson street residents pedal more than four miles together each way to the middle school on nice days, despite being told not to by school officials and police.”

So, let me get this straight: You can’t watch your neighbor’s kids without getting a daycare license. If you get a daycare license, you have to become an “educator” and create curricula and conduct progress reports on babies. And if you’re trying to teach your kid about the joys of riding a bike to school, you’re told by the school and an awaiting state trooper that you’re breaking the school’s regulations and that you’ve got to plop your behind into a parent’s car or a bus seat.

Is it any wonder that parents feel under siege from governmental buddinskis?

Item #1: Triumphant Working Mom Tale

I’m a huge fan of the talk show Morning Joe on MSNBC (6-9 a.m. weekdays), chiefly because I like the easy rapport and smart, witty banter between the co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. (My three kids now know the hosts by name and have been known to pause while eating their breakfast cereal to ask, “What is Joe TALKING about?”)

Despite having been a regular viewer of this show for a little more than a year, I didn’t know that Brzezinski had been let go by CBS in 2005 when she was 39 (when she learned “coincidentally” that one of the network higher ups didn’t think she was attractive enough, though she says that she doesn’t think that’s why she was fired). The mom of two went into a deep funk, wound up taking a job which paid a fraction of her original salary at CBS and . . . now she’s a successful TV host. Her interview with More Magazine in the October issue – which has the awesome Sela Ward on the cover — is worth reading if only to learn her philosophy about trying to succeed at your job and raise a family at the same time. “I’d rather spend one good hour with my kids a day than eight bad ones,” she said.

Item #2: Hollywood Babies After 40

 In that same issue of More Magazine, there was a feature about 10 celebs who have given birth to their first child after the age of 40, a trend which seems to be gaining traction in Hollywood. “The birthrate for women ages 40 to 44 has more than doubled in the past 25 years, and Hollywood is no exception to the trend,” More reported. Among those on the list: Holly Hunter who had twins at age 47, Mariska Hargitay who had her first son at age 42 and Marcia Cross who also had twins at 45.

Item #3: Welcome Home Daddy

One of the things about which members of the media were excited when a president with young children moved into the White House were photos like the ones taken recently of 8-year-old Sasha Obama, who was so excited that her dad, the president, had arrived home from a business trip that she ran to him and leapt into his arms. The same thing happens in my household when The Spouse gets home and our 8-year-old son launches himself into The Spouse’s arms, thrilled . . . only there’s no White House press corps to document it. Just me.

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