Picket Fence Post

I was sitting in traffic this morning – courtesy of roadway construction – wasting precious gasoline and hating myself. Why the self-loathing? Because I was headed to a party store to buy a plastic bowler hat and a cheap mustache for my third grade son’s Biography Day presentation Thursday morning.

The Eldest Boy is supposed to dress up as Orville Wright and read a speech that he researched and wrote about the inventor in front of his class and his classmates’ families. (The Girl will have her Biography Day presentation Thursday afternoon and will be dressed as Harriet Tubman.)

When the Biography Day assignment came home a few weeks ago, I rolled my eyes, not because of the biography part — that I like and heartily endorse — but because of the costume part. I live in a community where very little involving our children is done without some sort of flourish (for example, there are multiple end-of-the-year parties in the Eldest Boy’s class), therefore I knew that as Biography Day neared, I’d inevitably clash with my offspring over my refusal to buy expensive looking costumes for this event and my announcement that this domestically-disabled woman would not spend hours making costumes for THEIR homework assignments. (We are, as a family, still recovering from the Science Fair.)

After the kids and I downloaded images of Wright and Tubman from the Internet, I agreed to help them figure out what they’d need in order to dress like their assigned historical figures. We went through my closet, The Spouse’s closet and all of our dress-up clothes for ideas. The result of my “help?” Both children were angry with me and called me, literally, a Scrooge (for not buying a suit – the Eldest Boy doesn’t own one – and an authentic bowler), and insane (for suggesting that The Girl wear a skirt because women wore dresses during Tubman’s time).

So I was hating myself this morning because I violated my own belief that such assignments shouldn’t be dependent on parental economic resources or sewing skills so our children can avoid having their peers make fun of them. And here I was on the road and opening my wallet because my son is deathly afraid of having kids mock him if he wears a costume cobbled together with whatever we have in the house. (He and some of his classmates saw another child this week from a different class who was also assigned to be Orville Wright, and the kid reportedly wore a suit and nice hat.)

Thus I felt trapped in an untenable situation: Stick to my guns and have the Eldest Boy be made fun OR buy a few small items (the hat, the mustache) and borrow a few (borrowed a suit and tie that fit the Eldest Boy from a friend), and (hopefully) spare him from being embarrassed. So when the Eldest Boy wrapped his arms around my waist after seeing that I’d purchased the hat and mustache, I smiled, but felt as though I’d caved.

Do you ever have situations where your child has school assignments like this, where you’re faced with buying stuff/doing it for the student, or letting the child do it himself and have his work be compared to that of an adult or to something store-bought?

Image credit: NASA.

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.

As I drove my boys to church Sunday morning, we passed some baseball fields. There, on those fields, were Little League players, coaches and parents gathering for the annual (re-scheduled) Opening Day festivities. A parade of this year’s players and coaches was to be followed by a ceremony and then an all-day mini-carnival.

And my kids were not going to be a part of the parade and ceremony.

We were going to church, despite the fact that my two sons play Little League and The Spouse coaches them both. When they started squawking about why there were kids gathered in uniform and they weren’t among them, I informed my kiddos that we were going to miss Opening Day this year because their father and I had Sunday school teaching obligations in their classrooms and, in fact, their dad and sister were already at church.

Had Opening Day gone on as originally scheduled, I explained, everything would’ve worked out fine. Both The Spouse and I made special arrangements to have our teaching slots covered and were prepared to chose baseball over church on that particular morning. But then it rained. And Opening Day was re-scheduled for another Sunday morning, during which we were slated to teach. After a long talk, The Spouse and I decided that we didn’t feel right about trying to worm out of teaching at church again - we had rescheduled another previous Sunday slot to accommodate a beloved family member’s 90th birthday party - so we decided that, after attending Opening Day ceremonies for three years in a row, it wouldn’t kill us to skip it this time.

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The cover story of this past weekend’s New York Times Magazine was dedicated to the issue of the serious, negative health implications for girls who specialize in a sport at a young age. (Think: Bum knees by the time the girl’s 30.)

I’ve long been an opponent of over-the-top youth sports leagues and coaches pressuring kids to specialize and having families’ lives overtaken by sports.

My kids play sports — one sport a season, with the exception of my daughter’s 9-month-long, once-a-week gymnastics class —  but I feel as though I’m fighting a losing battle against what writer Jen Singer dubbed the “Youth Sports Cartel” which places crazy demands on young players and their parents. (A sassy mom with whom I was recently complaining on the sidelines of a Little League game joked that we should start our own “Slow Sports” movement, in the same vein as the slow cooking movement.)

Now, after reading this article, I have more ammo for my argument that the youth sports world has gone batty. To read my take on this New York Times article, visit my book blog, Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum.

Do you think we’ve gone over the top when it comes to youth sports? Is youth sports specialization prominent in your community?

Image credit: New York Times Magazine.

You might have heard of Jen Singer from her web site/blog MommaSaid. But it’s likely you’ll be hearing more about her as her new book, You’re a Good Mom (And Your Kids Aren’t So Bad Either) starts getting more buzz. (See the book trailer — yes now there are book trailers — above.)

I sent Singer five questions about the book – which promises to provide readers with “14 Secrets to Finding Happiness Between Super Mom and Slacker Mom.” She kindly answered them below:

Meredith O’Brien, Picket Fence Post: You’ve been blogging and writing about motherhood for some time. Why did you decide to write this book and how did you come up with the idea of 14 tips for moms?

Jen Singer, author, You’re A Good Mom (And Your Kids Aren’t So Bad Either): I’m a recovering Mom-aholic. Though I spent upwards of 100 hours a week with my two toddlers as a full-time stay-at-home mom, I felt guilty folding laundry because I wasn’t giving my children “teachable moments” all 100 of those hours. But when I started to ease up on my impossibly high standards of motherhood — the standards that 21st century mothers created — I realized I was happier, and so were my kids.

Still, I saw other moms slide down the slippery slope into giving up on parenting almost entirely. They stopped being their kids’ filter, letting their fifth graders have cell phones and allow them to show The Sopranos on the back of the school bus while thinking it’s cute to let their daughters wear “Future Trophy Wife” T-shirts to middle school.

I felt that there’s a sweet spot in between where you can be happy and turn out perfectly good kids. So I boiled it down to 14 steps for finding that spot and staying there, and put it into a book.

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While we and our daughters attempt to digest the Miley/Vanity Fair photo controversy, I came across this amazing story about female college athletes that demonstrates everything that’s right in the world and embodies the values we should be sharing with our daughters.

During a recent collegiate softball championship playoff game – the results of which could determine which team would snag its first-ever berth to the NCAA tournament — a senior hit her first-ever homerun. But when tagging first base, her knee gave out and she crumpled to the ground, unable to move on her own. The ump said if anyone from her team helped her round the bases, her homerun wouldn’t count.

What happened next?

Well if you were to peruse contemporary pop culture, using it as an indication of how young women behave these days, you’d have thought that the gals on the field would’ve shrugged their shoulders and said, “Thems the breaks. Rules are rules. You lose. . . We’re off to add naughty pics to our MySpace pages.”

Instead, two members of the opposing team — in the midst of a playoff game where — picked up the fallen player and carried her around the bases, having her gently touch each bag with her foot.

Forget the Miley scandal for a moment and let the beauty of this selfless gesture sink in. This is what we should be showing to our daughters.

To see an NBC video about this amazing act of sportsmanship and honor, click here.

Image credit: Blake Wolf via the Oregon Live web site.

I’m on a hamster wheel. And I can’t seem to get off of it.

I usually block out — probably for self-preservational purposes — how absolutely loony the springtime can get when you have three kids who play sports. I was deluded into thinking that I actually had a handle on things, at least between January and early March, when the only real holidays are Valentine’s Day and the start of the spring training. You don’t have to send cards to anyone, make special meals or buy gifts to celebrate the fact that baseball’s back.

Then spring officially arrived. And all hell broke loose.

On Sunday, the Spouse and I had to sit down with spreadsheets, calendars, four bottles of Advil and a bottle of Merlot in order to figure out the next few weeks, schedule-wise. (We’re still scraping the ceiling following my head explosion.) Take this week’s nuttiness:

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