Picket Fence Post

Item #1: Mad Men Concludes Third Season

Sunday nights are going to seem so dull without those Mad Men characters to entertain and intrigue me. The third season of AMC’s super-cool 1960s drama came to an end last Sunday, capped by one of the best season finales I’ve seen, including a series of intense and poignant scenes among the members of the Draper family. (See my review of the finale here.)

When the season began, Don and Betty had just reunited after she’d kicked him out for his philandering. (Betty only let Don return home because she learned she was pregnant with baby number three.) After one of the most harrowing depictions of childbirth I’ve seen on TV, Betty and Don enjoyed a brief period of emotional connection, topped by a sexy jaunt to Rome as Betty accompanied Don on a business trip. However as soon as they got home, their romantic bubble burst. By the end of the season, Betty learned that her husband had been living under a fake identity, had lied to her about his background and she decided she no longer loved him. After having been pursued by a divorced political aide to the governor who hit on her when he saw a pregnant Betty at a social event, Betty decided to divorce Don in order to marry this other guy who she barely knows.

One of the most heart-wrenching moments of the season came in the finale, when Betty and Don sat their grade school aged children down to tell them that Don was moving out of the house. The little boy clung to his father — literally wrapped his limbs around his dad’s body — while the older, wiser daughter asked her mother if Betty was responsible for driving him away like the last time. Divorce, when children are involved, is messy. When the Drapers are involved, I’ll bet things’ll be extra messy. Next season, we’ll likely see the impact of a divorce on young children, up close and personal. The last TV shows which dramatized this in any real way, without sugarcoating it, were the second season of HBO’s In Treatment and the canceled Sela Ward drama Once and Again.

Item #2: Balloon Boy’s Parents Plead Guilty

The parents of the infamous Balloon Boy, the ones who perpetrated the hoax on the country – telling authorities, while the mother wept into the phone to the 9-1-1 operator, that their young son was on board a runaway helium balloon floating helplessly over Colorado skies — have pleaded guilty to various complaints, according to the Associated Press.

Richard Heene pleaded guilty to the felony charge of “knowingly and falsely influencing the sheriff,” AP reported, while Mayumi Heene pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge of filing a false report to emergency services. A judge will sentence them on Dec. 23.

‘Nuf said.

Item #3: Christmas Card Photos

I’ve been trying to tackle the whole Christmas card photo business — because who, in this day and age, DOESN’T include a photo of the kids in their Christmas cards – in bits and pieces, particularly because we’re hoping to use a photo(s) of the kids AND the Picket Fence Post puppy, Max.

Every year it’s almost as if I wipe from my mind the fact that it’s a nightmare to take a good photo for the family Christmas card. Throw an unpredictable puppy into the mix and I realize that I’ve got my work cut out for me. I already had one photo session with Max, trying to get some good shots of him and realize I’m going to need a lot of “holiday cheer” in order to get a halfway decent snapshot.

Item #4: What the ‘Meep?’

From the everyone’s-gone-nuts files, the principal of a Massachusetts high school has forbidden students from using the word, “meep.” No lie. You say, “meep,” and you could get suspended. School officials said that students had been using the word in a disruptive way and wouldn’t cease and desist.

Seriously, is this really the best way to go? What if students then move on to another word, like, oh, I don’t know, “leap” or “pear” or “deet?” Last time I checked, there were quite a number of single-syllable words out there that students could adopt and utilize in an annoying fashion. My kids can make the word, “mom” sound horrifically irritating. Is the principal going to ban all of the one-syllable words? Instead of banning a silly word like “meep,” why not just discipline students for bad behavior?

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

 Item #1: ‘Screaming is the New Spanking’

A feature story telling readers that parents yell at their kids is akin to a story that says there will be a sunrise tomorrow morning. Unless you know only mellow,uncaffeinated, really Zen-like folk, you, or someone you know, has yelled at a kid. It’s not like this is a new trend, this shouting at irrational small people who like to push their parents’ buttons and nag you until your ears bleed. However the New York Times’ Style section ran a feature story this week which asserted that “screaming is the new spanking.”

As author Hilary Stout outlined how spanking has fallen out of favor (or is only done in super-top-secret for fear of ostracizing), she suggested that today’s parents have simply replaced spanking with shouting. “. . . [W]ith regularity, this is a generation that yells.” [Emphasis was NOT added by me. It was in the paper that way.]

Stout quoted a parenting coach as saying:

“This is so the issue right now. As parents understand that it’s not socially acceptable to spank children, they are at a loss for what they can do. They resort to reminding, nagging, timeout, counting 1-2-3 and quickly realize that those strategies don’t work to change behavior. In the absence of tools that really work, they feel frustrated and angry and raise their voice. They feel guilty afterward, and the whole cycle begins again.”

Do you think that GenXers yell at their kids more than parents did in the past? (I vote, “No.”)

Item #2: Pop Warner Scuffle

Speaking of screaming . . .

Did you get a load of the story this week about a Massachusetts dad who got peeved that his son’s Pop Warner football coach told the man’s 12-year-old son to run laps because the father had brought him to practice 10 minutes late? The dad started allegedly shouting a few things to the coach about his weight from the sidelines, according to news reports, at which point the coach allegedly suggested they meet in a secluded spot, where, police say the coach beat the father up. The dad wound up with a busted eye socket and other injuries and the coach was busted for assault.

What crossed my mind when I read this story? Putting aside the alleged taking of verbal pot shots — which the dad should NOT have done — and the alleged actual assault which, obviously, shouldn’t have happened either, it seems to me that some people take youth sports too seriously. This is sports for kids. Children.

I’ve had a kid who was on a sports team where the coach said he wanted to teach parents a lesson by making their kids run laps if the parents brought the kids late to practices. The kids aren’t in control of getting themselves to practice at this age, therefore I don’t think they should be held responsible for something that’s beyond their control.

When my kid told me about this new behavior modification technique by the coach, I responded by telling my child that I have three kids who all play sports, my own work obligations and a ton of other responsibilities outside of my kids’ recreational activities which The Spouse and I fund. I do the best that I can to get everyone where he or she needs to go on time. If you’re 10 minutes late for practice because I accidentally ran late, so be it. Running’s good for you.

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Item #1: Lessons from the 1960s

Okay, I’ll admit it. I am obsessed with Mad Men. (I think some of my friends secretly cannot WAIT for the short Mad Men season to conclude so I’ll stop dropping Don and Betty Draper’s names into virtually every conversation, blog post and Tweet.)

Annnywaayy . . . this week, over on Mommy Tracked (note the new spelling of the site’s name), I wrote a column about how watching the show, set in the 1960s, has given me a new-found understanding of how women in my family were raised and the expectations which were instilled in them when they were grown women, some expectations which they never jettisoned, even long after the feminist movement went mainstream.

Watching Mad Men’s affluent, Grace Kelly look-alike at-home mom Betty Draper, newly married career gal Joan Holloway (who thinks she wants what Betty has, not realizing that Betty hates her life) and the single, aspiring careerist Peggy Olson interact with the 1960s world has consistently brought to my mind aunts, grandmothers and sometimes my mother and has helped me look at their viewpoints with a whole heck of a lot less judgement than I used to.

Item #2: Family Dinners

Also on Mommy Tracked this week is a piece by Abby Margolis Newman, a mother of five (including two teens and one tween), who challenged the notion advanced in a New York Times article (and elsewhere) that families who are interested in keeping their kids off drugs, unpregnant, engaged in school and not off toting a rifle under a trench coat someplace should strive to have family meals together at least five times a week.

She wrote: “. . . [The] National Center on Addition and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) also shows that ‘teenagers who eat with their families less than three times a week times a week are more likely to turn to alcohol, tobacco and drugs than those who dine with their families five times a week.’”

Given her family’s hyper-busy schedule and that her husband doesn’t get home until after 7:30 p.m., Margolis Newman said that even eating together three times a week is a stretch:

“The boys are at three different schools and are involved in sports and theatrical productions. This situation, needless to say, is not conducive to cozy family dinners during the week. Frankly, we’re lucky if we even get one sit-down dinner per week — and I mean at the table . . .

So, if my teenage and pre-teen boys get only one family dinner per week, does this mean they are five times as likely to turn to alcohol, tobacco and drugs? Holy crap. And do the chances of this bad behavior go up even higher if I, as the stay-at-home parent, do not actually do any home cooking but rather buy the pre-marinated chicken breasts, the frozen (but organic!) oven fries, and never vary our vegetable choices? Does eating In n’ Out burgers in the car on the way to or from baseball practice — as long as the boys are all together — count as a family meal (is there such a thing as partial credit)?”

Does your family eat dinner together at least five times a week?

Item #3: Reality Check Survey (Please Chime in Below in Comments Section!)

Statements directed at me by my children since school began:

“Everyone else on my soccer team has a cell phone but me.”

“My friend Matt can watch as much TV as he wants . . . No, his mother doesn’t stop him . . . No! Really! She doesn’t!”

“I’m the ONLY one in my class whose mom makes him pick up after the dog.”

I’ve been told all manner of tall tales by the kids — specifically my fifth graders — about what other kids’ parents are or are not allowing their children to do. Not that what other parents do or don’t do is going to change my opinion that my rugrats do not need cell phones at this time. And no matter what other parents report, I’m not putting a TV or a computer in their bedrooms any time soon. (To do so would result in my children watching TV until their eyes bleed.) And if they’re going to use the internet, it’s going to be in a public area (our kitchen, family room, etc.) so I can walk by to glance at what they’re doing. (I’ve already been asked, “If you type in ‘naked butts dot com’ into the internet what will you get?”) 

With all the smack that goes on in their school hallways (talk which prompted one of my kids to ask me to define “pole dancer” because this child heard kids joking about the subject in the hall), I wanted to do my own investigating and find out what other folks really are or aren’t doing with regard to cell phones, TVs, computers and family dog care.

Here’s where you, my smart readers come in. I would love to hear your answers to the following five questions:

1. How old is your kid(s)?

2. Does your kid(s) have a cell phone? If so, at what age did the kid(s) get it?

3. Does your kid(s) have unlimited TV watching time?

4. Unlimited computer and video game time?

5. If you have a family dog, is your kid(s) ever expected to clean up after the dog?

Please feel free to post your answers to my Reality Check Survey in the comments section below, or, if you’d prefer, e-mail me at: meredithobrien@hotmail.com.

Looking forward to reading your answers.

Image credit: AMC.

There’s no smoking, drinking or womanizing in Sesame Street’s spoof of the critically acclaimed Mad Men. But there is Don Draper, listening to pitches for a new honey account. And the kiddos get to learn a new word: Sycophant.

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?

If you watched the latest episode of Mad Men entitled, “The Fog” (my recap/review can be found here), you saw a dramatization of what it was like to give birth during the 1960s.

And it wasn’t pretty.

As Betty Draper gave birth to her third child, the medical staff — one nurse in particular – patronized her (mocked her for eating pineapple earlier that day), threatened her (when Betty said she was too tired to push the baby any longer the nurse said she’d better push or they’d go in and take the baby out), ignored her pleas for her husband, pinned her down, provided no comfort or encouragement, and drugged her so that she was in what they called “twilight” sleep where she was in and out of lucidity. During the stressful pushing stage, Betty’s mind wandered off to her own kitchen where she envisioned herself speaking with her deceased parents, including her father who died the week before. All in all, it was a miserable experience.

A Mad Men themed blog entitled Basket of Kisses had a great analysis of the way in which Betty was treated at the hospital. Many of the blog’s readers chimed in in the comments section and shared their experiences of giving birth during that period, when the men went to a solarium to drink and smoke, while the pregnant women were infantilized. It was a horrifying portrayal, to say the least.

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

I’m getting a kick out of watching Betty Draper’s pregnancy playing out on this season’s Mad Men. It’s such a study in contrasts. In that day and age — 1963 — pregnant women drank and smoked and no one said a word to them about it. The women didn’t think twice about it. (They also referred to pregnancy as a “condition.”) In the latest Mad Men episode there were two pregnant women drinking and no one blinked an eye.

Compare that to now when if the pregnancy police see a gestating woman eating unpasteurized cheese or holding a Starbucks cup in her hand, the pregnant woman would potentially subject herself to a public scolding, at the very minimum.

I’m dying to find out how much more Mad Men creator Matt Weiner is going to delve into Betty’s pregnancy and eventual delivery. I’m also wondering if they’ll be any discussion about baby formula (vs breastfeeding) and disposable diapers.

Meanwhile, over on Showtime, circa 2009, the off-beat show Weeds had its main character, Nancy Botwin, give birth to a Mexican drug lord/politician’s baby midway through the season and spent the last few episodes tackling issues such as sleeping through the night, circumcision and breastfeeding/formula.

One of the funniest episodes – actually it was painfully funny — occurred two weeks after Nancy gave birth to her baby and she went out to dinner with her former brother-in-law. While there, she became engorged with breastmilk. She brought her hand-held breast pump into the women’s bathroom in order to relieve the pressure, but it broke. She took rather *cough* unorthodox measures to deal with the situation.

Nancy’s unorthodox life choices in the wake of her first husband’s death — turning to pot dealing and then spiraling down in the abyss of the drug trade — along with the impact of those choices on her two sons were the grist for several of the latest episodes. (One of her sons has gone from a wimpy kid getting trounced on a suburban soccer field to a violent maniac, while the other has tried to make a living by peddling medicinal pot in California.)

The video below is a snippet of conversation with her kids about  breastfeeding their baby brother, the son of the drug lord/politician.

Item #1: The Max Factor

I cannot shake the feeling that I’ve time traveled back to 2002, when my youngest child was still a baby and wouldn’t allow The Spouse and I to sleep through the night. For three years this went on, unless we let him sleep in bed with us. Those sleepless years — with the pint-sized bed hog nestled in between us, randomly flailing about – made an impact on The Spouse and I. That was a dark, sleepless period of time.

So when our 3-month-old puppy Max decided that for all but one night since he’s been in the Picket Fence Post home that he’d be bound and determined to howl and bark after we went to bed, it’s as if we’ve zoomed back to those sleep deprived years when The Spouse and I would crankily argue at 3 in the morning over the best plan of action.

With Max, after five nights of The Spouse or I sleeping on the sofa next to his crate, we finally decided to leave him in his crate in our family room (not in our bedroom as I suggested, with the sole goal of getting some shut-eye) and the canine’s been none too happy about it. Two nights ago, The Spouse and Max had a stand off that went on from 2-3 a.m. The Spouse took him outside twice during that time only to have little, fluffy, extremely cute Max bark the minute The Spouse returned to our bedroom.

Juan Valdez is so psyched that our life is currently being run by a nocturnal six-pound loud mouth. It’s good for business.

Item #2: ‘Outside Ye Maniacs’

I don’t understand. I don’t. I don’t. I don’t.

Why won’t the Picket Fence Post children go outside and play — and do whatever their little minds imagine — without making me threaten them with hours upon hours of brain-deadening housecleaning chores, like scrubbing the kitchen floor? (Kidding. Sort of.)

We’ve had two weeks of fairly good weather and, on the nice days, it’s been a struggle to get the kids to frolic in the out of doors. Much to my chagrin, my oldest children have figured out how to exploit my love of reading to try to get out of going outside by saying, “But I’m reading!” Which, of course, is a good thing, right?

Today I struck a compromise. “Go outside and read under the shade of a tree,” I said.

“Are you gonna MAKE us go outside?” the Youngest Boy asked, after saying he wasn’t interested in reading, inside or outside.

Seeing that he was clutching a Star Wars figure in his hand, I used that to my advantage. “You can get more action figures and bring them OUTSIDE and play with them.”

Item #3: Coveting Your Kid’s Life

Do you covet your kid’s life? A Details Magazine writer, in a piece on Yahoo’s SHINE, thinks that today’s kids have it way easier than their parents did. (Isn’t that what every generation thinks?) An excerpt of the snarky, tongue-in-cheek piece:

“. . . [L]et’s be honest, there’s plenty to begrudge. Not only do your kids have a far sweeter set up than you had growing up — in the days when Atari ruled and easily accessible porn meant your sister’s Judy Blume collection — but they also have it better than you do now . . . Your kids have multi-player online games and time to play them . . . Junior — God bless him — keeps getting smarter and savvier; he’s effortlessly cool and young while you struggle to hang on, wincing from an Achilles tendon strained when playing H-O-R-S-E and fighting the urge to sing along with ‘I Kissed a Girl’ in your Passat wagon.”

Does he have a point or is he just whining (kind of like I am in Item #1)?

Item #4: ‘Mad Men’s’ Award Winning Mommy

Actually, I jest when I use the phrase “award winning mommy,” because there are no mothers of the year on Mad Men.

Betty Draper, surficially the woman who has everything — beautiful home in the suburbs, nice clothing, two kids and a hot husband who makes a good living and buys her jewelry – was last seen at the end of season two, pregnant with her third child. But Betty Draper, my friends, is certainly no role model. She chastises her daughter about the hazards of a girl getting “stout,” urges her husband Don to beat on their youngest son Bobby after he misbehaves, and sometimes gets so loaded that she can’t take care of the kids and leaves it up to the nanny/housekeeper.

The Dyna Moe image above is from the first season when Betty found her daughter Sally playing “spaceman” and wearing the plastic dry cleaning bag over her head. Instead of telling Sally to take it off because she could suffocate, Betty says her dry cleaning better not be found lying all over the floor.

Catch Betty’s latest maternal escapades in the third season Mad Men Sunday nights on AMC.

Image credit: Dyna Moe.

Mad Men Returns

Have I mentioned that Mad Men’s third season premieres on Sunday night on AMC? I think I may have, once or twice.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a tad bit obsessed with the award-winning drama set in the 1960s which follows the (mostly) men who work for a Manhattan ad agency and their families. I’ve been counting down the days until new episodes air, so much so that I think The Spouse is jealous of my crush on Don Draper (Jon Hamm). He jokes that Mad Men is all I’ve been talking about lately. Of course he’s wrong. Kind of.

Speaking of Don Draper . . . when we last saw the character at the end of the sophomore season,  his wife/at-home mother of his children, Betty (January Jones) had just allowed him to move back into their suburban home. Betty had made Don spend several weeks in a hotel after he humiliated her by cheating on her AGAIN, this time with an older business associate whose husband was Don’s client. However after learning she was pregnant with her third child, Betty reluctantly decided to proceed with the pregnancy (after flirting with the idea of obtaining an illegal abortion, it was 1962) and let Don back home. The question remains about whether she’s forgiven him or whether he’s going to stop his rampant cheating.

My Pop Culture column this week at Mommy Track’d is all about not just Betty, but all the women of Mad Men.

Oh, Miley

Miley, Miley, Miley. I don’t know what to make of the recent evolution of this 16-year-old Disney star, the face of the Hannah Montana franchise, of which my 10-year-old daughter is so fond.

 What I’ve been seeing as of late has not been promising.

Take, for example, her performance at this week’s Teen Choice Awards – and the ensuing debate over whether she was actually pole dancing while dressed in sexy, butt-revealing attire backed up by dancers in bras and short-shorts – which made me deeply sad. Sure, a tween/teen star needs to evolve into a more mature image, take on older material in order to continue growing as an artist, but this road that Miley appears to be traversing . . . nothing good seems like it’s gonna come from this. Lest we forget, Britney Spears was once a squeaky clean Mouseketeer. And when Spears, I mean Cyrus, invoked Britney during her Choice Awards performance, I shuddered.

John Hughes, Creator of 1980s Teen Flicks

You might’ve heard that the director/writer of some of Generation X’s best loved teen films — Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Some Kind of Wonderful and Pretty in Pink– passed away last week. Since then, there’s been all manner of tribute and appreciations for Hughes, including a great one in the Boston Globe by Wesley Morris.

An excerpt, referencing the world of Hughes’ films:

“There was no war, no sweeping social movement during this period. Just Ronald Reagan and sad old Grenada. No one talked about race or AIDS. The world revolved around detention, crushes and proms. Sometimes it was just ‘Pretty in Pink.’ But what redeemed these movies was their sideways cool. May all so-called misfits be as hot as Eric Stoltz and Mary Stuart Masterson. And on his uneven playing field, Hughes did come up with achingly human characters. They were always on the sidelines or reluctant to get in the game — even their own. [Molly] Ringwald’s Samantha in ‘Sixteen Candles.’ [Jon] Cryer’s Duckie in ‘Pretty in Pink.’ Masterson’s Watts in ‘Some Kind of Wonderful.’ And, best of all, Jeannie Bueller and Cameron Frye in ‘Ferris Bueller.’ Jennifer Grey was the seething Cassandra of that movie, desperately trying to expose the little brother as the brat [Matthew] Broderick so star-makingly was.”

Do you have a favorite 1980s/Hughes flick? Mine’s a tie between Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club.

Image credit: Chris Pizzello/AP via Star-Ledger.

The only way The Spouse is gonna see me wearing a yellow polka dotted dress and heels while in the kitchen, looking like a happy domestic goddess is in this image, circa the 1960s and AMC’s Mad Men web site. (I couldn’t resist having my Mad Men doppelganger toting a newspaper. And coffee. Not unlike today, or most days when I have my morning java and read the newspaper. Except that I don’t dress like that.)

AMC’s Mad Men web site has a new app where you can Mad Men-yourself, select your body type, hair, eyes, nose, clothing, extras and your scene, anything from a bar with Don Draper and the offices of Sterling Cooper, to the Drapers’ kitchen with Betty. For this blog, I chose the latter. And then laughed at the unlikely image.

For those of you counting down at home, the third season featuring Don Draper & Co. premieres on August 16.