Comments (20) Don’t worry, though, because this was the Blogher conference which means it wasn’t all about geeky tech and music and political bloggers. It wasn’t even all about female writers telling their personal stories, either. I mean, sure there was some of that, but you could totally ignore it. Because, let’s face the facts: there’s nothing to be gained from hobnobbing with nerds. Continue reading 'How Not To Be A Successful Blogher Attendee'»
I received an email about a month ago urging me, as a busy mom, to join some sort of movement for a 25-hour day. There have been studies, claimed the email, that indicate our bodies intuitively work on a 25-hour clock. A group of woman formed the 25th Hour Coalition to try to get the extra hour a day that their intuition tells them there should be.
I must admit I laughed because, really, why stop at one hour? I could easily do with another three. And aside from our body clocks, isn’t there a little something called the rotation of the earth? Our entire calendar is based on a millennia-in-the-making calibration of the rhythms of our solar system. We’re supposed to do away with all of that and disrupt the daily pattern of life for everybody because our intuition tells us that we should? Whatever.
Then today I receive another email about the same thing and for some reason I clicked through to their website www.25thhour.ca. Except the web site is actually a Facebook page called Trust Your Intuition dedicated to promoting the SCHICK INTUITION 25th Hour Coalition!
There was no mention of Schick in the original email and I suddenly feel like I need a shower. The idea of brands drumming up phoney causes (as ridiculous as this one is) to attract attention and create a buzz makes me sick. Can a company actually support a charity and brag about in it’s promotional material. Sure. Can a company sponsor an event in return for naming rights? I don’t necessarily have a problem with that. Should a company make up a cause out of whole cloth as a marketing strategy. That’s just wrong.
Agree? Disagree? Is it possible I’m mis-reading this whole thing?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/psycho-pics/3557813915/
The Junction Parents blog recently applauded the City of Toronto for banning smoking within 9 metres of all play areas. I’m sure that most parents agree, but I must admit that I’m ambivalent about this one.
Sure, smoking around the playground seems gross and tacky, but I haven’t seen any evidence that exposure to the minute amount of smoke found in open air areas is actually harmful. There are parents who smoke, but do not smoke in their homes. Bringing their kids to the playground and sneaking a smoke on the periphery might offend our sense of proper playground etiquette, but is it harmful? Should it be criminal?
Imagine these with cheese. Image courtesy of http://cavemanfood.blogspot.com/
5. Green eggs and cheese. Crack a few eggs into the bottom of a glass pitcher. (You’ll get the hang of using just one hand to do this after a couple tries.) Grab a few handfuls of pre-washed spinach and fill the rest of the pitcher. Insert immersion blender into pitcher and puree spinach and scramble eggs in no time flat. Pour mixture into a lightly oiled pan and let heat up over medium heat while rinsing blender and pitcher. Grab a spatula and start moving the eggs around until they are cooked through. Spoon a little onto a plate for baby and strap her into highchair with food to distract her. Quickly toss a couple slices of toast in toaster and grate some cheddar on the remaining eggs. Call repeatedly for your older kid to join you for lunch while you pour the milk and butter the toast. Done.
4. Two-box, one-bag alphabet soup. Open a box of soup stock, any flavour, low-sodium preferred and pour it into a pot and bring to a boil. Pour some alphabet-shaped pasta out of their box into the boiling stock and stir. Add a bunch of mixed frozen vegetables. (I like the No Name stuff and I’m not even kidding — nicely diced.) Soup’s ready once pasta is cooked. Ladle into bowls and put them straight into the freezer. Start hollering for the big kid and distract baby with milk in a sippy cup while you strap her in. Serve to kids from freezer, tepid, as they like. Done.
3. Peanut butter and jam. This one is trickier than it sounds because you need to use the hand that’s around the baby to spread the peanut butter and jam onto the bread. Well, I do anyway because my left arm is so useless that I cannot even hold my kid on that side let alone spread stuff. Also, my doctor recommends no nuts until two years to discourage allergies which means I need to keep baby hands away from the peanut butter. The jam is very good for this. In fact, if you can set baby up with a mini jam sandwich in her highchair, then you should be able to quickly slap together the p.b. and j. for your other kid(s). Slice up some fruit to go with the sandwich and to feed the baby. Done.
2. Cheesy polenta with mixed veg. Bring some water to a boil in a pot and then gradually add your cornmeal, whisking as you go. Note that this involves picking up and putting down your fork/whisk/spoon multiple times in an effort to not dump the cornmeal in all at once. The results will be lumpy if you do this with one hand — get over it. Once the mixture starts to thicken, turn down the heat and let it bubble away for about 20 minutes, stirring whenever you think of it. Then pour some frozen mixed vegetables into a pot and add a bit of water. Really, it doesn’t matter how much because you’ll be draining it later. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and let cook for just a couple minutes. Somehow manage to grate or slice enough cheese to distract baby in highchair so you can properly grate as much cheese as you like to add to the polenta. Add, stir and let finish cooking. Spoon steaming polenta into bowls (or mold into fun shapes with a cookie cutter) and toss into freezer. Spoon veggies directly onto plates since they cool down in no time. Give baby the veggies and call for the other kid. Serve polenta alongside veggies, pour yourself a big glass of wine and done.
1. Chinese delivery. Pick up phone and hit the speed dial. Only order one dish that you think the kids will like and go all spicy szechuan with the rest because god knows they’ll only eat some rice and throw the rest around the room. The only way they’ll ever develop sophisticated palates anyway is to have the chance to spit out a variety of flavours on a regular basis. This time pour your wine before dinner hits the table and be ready to vacuum up fried rice for days to come. Done.
We all carry around some shame. Most of us can just sweep it under the carpet or tie a pretty bow on it and make it all better. Some of us like to out our shame and turn it into a joke. Have I mentioned how filthy my home is? Yours too, I bet. But, really, my children don’t even know what colour the inside of a toilet bowl should be. There are items in my fridge older than at least one of my children. And I’m not even sure which year the Christmas tree needles on the front steps are from. Hardy har har. Right?
How about the time some poor mom dressed her toddler in snowsuit, hat, mits, scarf and then let him play in the snow without boots on? And remember when you were so tired you just let the kids eat carrot cake for dinner? Oh my god, don’t forget how little Johnny managed to climb up onto the kitchen table and was eating sugar by the spoonful.
What about the time a mother had a couple glasses of wine too many and her kids asked why she was acting so funny? What if they didn’t ask? What if it wasn’t just the one time, but every time? And then she tried to stop drinking but she couldn’t and there was the fighting and everything was falling apart.
No, you don’t get to turn this kind of shame into a joke. And ignoring it just makes it worse. I know something about the hurt and the despair alcoholism inflicts on a family and it is real and it is dark. It is not my story to tell, though. I don’t have first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to lose control of your drinking, to lose sight of your sobriety. I do know just enough to understand the weight of that shame. There’s the paralyzing fear of being found out and the judgments that will come down against you. There is also the fear of admitting it, letting the world in, and then failing publicly. There’s more, I’m sure, and all of it is so very, very isolating. Shackles of shame.
So when, in the course of one week, I read three separate accounts of women, mothers, breaking out of the prison that shame built and identifying as alcoholics, I am moved beyond belief. The courage it takes to make a public declaration about one’s alcoholism and affix your name to it is immense. There will be judgment and it will be hard. By letting the rest of us in, though, they are a little less alone. They are accountable to the rest of us and we are accountable to them through our support. What’s more, they become beacons of hope and light for other lost souls. Inspirations.
Heros.
Here are their stories: Maggie writes at Okay, Fine, Dammit, Heather blogs at The Extraordinary Ordinary, and there’s Corrine at Trains, Tutus and Twizzlers.
Let me know of any others that I should link to as well.
Addendum: Ubi es Caelum
Image courtesy of jesiehart on Flickr.
There is lots and lots of grumbling from all corners as Dalton McGuinty and his Ontario Liberals get ready to offer full day everyday kindergarten to a very few elementary schools by September. From parents desperate for a solution to the daycare-to-kindergarten-and-back daily shuffle to taxpayers who grumble about providing “free babysitting” to four and five year olds. Even more parents don’t know what to think.
There’s also the question of whether this is too little, too late. McGuinty promised full-day kindergarten for every child in the province by 2010, but instead it will available to only 15% of kindergarteners with a promise to make it the new province-wide standard by 2015. Nobody is quite sure how they will get the resources to follow through.
I generally hate to be a cheerleader, especially of some beaurocratic policy initiative, but this is a cause that can use a few more enthusiastic voices. So here goes.
Most kids are not in their parents care anyway. In Toronto at least, the number of households with stay-at-home parents is pretty small. (I couldn’t find any solid stats, so you’ll have to take my word for it.) There are single-parent and two-parent families with children in full-time daycare, there are families with nannies, there are in-home child care arrangements, and there are work-at-home parents (like me) who try to make a buck or two with or without some sort of child care. Then the kids start kindergarten and the parents, daycare centres, nannies, etc. have to figure out how to get the kids to school and back for their two and a half hour day. It’s a drag at best. A logistical nightmare at worst.
Full-day kindergarten (with the built-in after-school care option) means that parents no longer have to worry about that. It means that the kids are not shuffled around either. They are in one place all day everyday. They actually get an extended kindergarten curriculum, which has got to be better than the average daycare counterpart.
But, c’mon, is there really educational value in full-day kindergarten? There actually is. Some studies (like this American one) suggest that a more relaxed, integrated, play-oriented and full-day program is better for 4 and 5 year olds. The research suggests (though we only have short-term studies right now) that there are academic, social and behavioural advantages. As the Ontario government states on it’s website, the benefits of the full-day program do tend to be more pronounced in low-income communities. (Because, sadly, the child care a working-class single mom gets is not the same as the child care a middle class couple gets.) Obviously there are also parental education levels that tend to cut across class lines and would impact the value of institutional versus home care as well. There are, however, no apparent adverse affects on any children attending full-day programs and, in fact, it appears that the reading and math learned in full-day programs was higher overall than that of half-day programs.
I have also been told by a trusted friend and fellow mom who is working in the French board where full-day kindergarten is already in place that it seems like a good curriculum. The kids do well, they have fun, and they are happy. Isn’t that about all we can ask for?
But why should WE PAY for your babysitting, asks the middle aged woman coming up on retirement. It’s like certain members of society forget that it doesn’t end with them, and I am sick of hearing about it. Somebody needs to have children or we are all screwed. Who do they think will pay out their Canada Pensions or tend to them in their old age or serve them at freaking Tim Hortons in a few years? So, yes, full day kindergarten takes some of the financial burden off the parents. That is probably the number one reason I’m in favour of it, to tell you the truth. When full-time child care costs about $1000 per month per kid the average family can barely afford to keep their jobs. If my husband and I both had full-time jobs we almost certainly would not qualify for a child care subsidy, for example. The cost of child care for our two kids, however, would be almost as much as I could expect to earn. So, I stay home and try to work around their schedules as much as possible. I would say that I’m lucky to be able to find work that allows me to do that, but that is a load of crock. Most people do not want to work non-stop seven days a week into the wee hours of the night for very, very little money. Luck has nothing to do with it. If Colum were attending full-day kindergarten in September, though, part-time care for Irene might be more feasible. I might be able to work a little more and therefore earn enough to cover that cost! Note that we do rely on my feeble part-time income to make ends meet and no amount of sock-darning would be able to change that. When two incomes are the norm to achieve a mean standard of living, then the cost of child care needs to accounted for. That’s a societal obligation.
But I like to spend time with my baby and I don’t want him to be gone all day and he’s not ready and I’ll miss him. Sure, I get that too. I mean, Colum was in full-time daycare for a whopping 4 months while I worked just enough to qualify for my second maternity leave. Now he goes to a nursery school two mornings a week and it does seem like a natural progression for him to move to five mornings a week next year. Full days do sound long. (Although I’m sure he would adjust in no time.) So don’t do it. You can always opt to enroll your child for just the morning or afternoon. (Though I guess they would miss half the programming that way.) In fact, I just learned that children don’t have to go to school at all until Grade One. Of course, that starts to sound like homeschooling and don’t even get me started on homeschooling …
But wasn’t this all supposed to be in place already? Why can only 15% of children attend the full day program? Well, I called out the McGuinty government on this back in May of last year when I had heard from trusted sources in the Ontario Early Years Program that there was no way that the government could make this happen. Even now there are concerns about the cost of implementing this program across the board and the logistics of space and teaching staff. The government’s plan apparently doesn’t account for the union-regulated school boards salaries when hiring Early Childhood Educators, for example. And what will happen to day care centres when they lose half their kids? And how exactly will these schools be able to provide care during the summer, March Break, and other non-school days? I must admit that I’m impressed that in the face of all these doubts, concerns, questions and criticisms, the government is going forward with this anyway. They don’t have all the answers and I will not be surprised if we don’t have full implementation by 2015, but they are trying. Is 15% of kindergarten spots enough? No, but it’s a whole lot better than none.
The holidays are here again, so brace yourself for the inevitable tug of war between charity and commercialism. The Christmas season should be about giving to others, we all know that, but we also want to give to our own family. This Christmas Colum is old enough to really look forward to the loot, to write a letter to Santa and to be wowed by the presents on Christmas morning. And I really want to wow him. So I think, sure I’ll give to others after I have taken care of my own family. I think, I support giving and charity, I do, and it’s really great that other people are so into that kind of thing. They must have more money and time and fewer responsibilities than I do.
But then I think of my mother and my mother-in-law. These are two women who have raised four children each and worked full-time jobs and balanced budgets and somehow managed to put food on the table and shoes on our feet no matter how scarce money was. They also managed to be everywhere at once: the skating rink and ballet classes and school plays and baseball games. From the PTA and Boy Scouts (Donna) to nursing relatives on their death beds and sitting on the floor of a Greyhound bus while eight months pregnant (Mom), there is nothing these women wouldn’t do. Their entire lives have been guided by a sense of giving and self-sacrifice. They volunteer their time and energy and money as a matter of course, never stopping to wonder if they have enough to spare. Whenever and wherever a need arises, these women automatically ask themselves, “How can I help?” (Not “Should I help?” or “I wish I could help.”) And then, swiftly and quietly, they do.
So when I started seeing initiatives that encourage bloggers to use their corporate and social networking connections to pay their good fortune forward I thought, good. I mean, after the recent scourge of name calling and finger pointing that has been dominating mommy-blogging circles in the lead up to and the wake of the new FTC regulations (the assumption that we are all corporate whores, essentially, willing to give it up for free crap), this is a breath of fresh air. Initiatives like Her Bad Mother’s Give Good Blog or Mamanista’s Bloganthropy encourage bloggers to champion a cause and to exploit any corporate contacts in doing so.
Yeah, bloggers should totally do that, I thought. I would too if only I were more widely read and had more companies knocking at my door. But wait. I did use my blog to host an online raffle for breast cancer research at the Princess Margaret Hospital. And I did reach out to family-oriented businesses, many run by moms who are friendly with the blogging community for awesome donations. And they did come through. I actually used my blog to raise over $2000 in personal donations to the Weekend To End Breast Cancer. When my good friend Gillian lost her baby, I blogged about that and made up a button that links to the Sick Kids Foundation’s donation page and stuck it at the bottom of that post and in my sidebar. Huh.
Maybe I can do something after all. So then I emailed Kathryn Easter from Mom Central Canada and said, Hey. You know that giveaway we’re doing for Disney on Ice? What are the chances we can get another set of tickets to give to a family that is spending the holidays at Interval House, a safe haven for abused women and children? And Kathryn said, Let’s do it up. (I’m totally paraphrasing, you know.) And so we are.
I tell you all this not to toot my own horn. (Although I guess that is the biggest effect, isn’t it?) Mostly I tell you all this because if I can actually do some good with this blog and its regular readership of my family and friends and the hundreds of porn-bot followers I have on Twitter, then imagine what you can do. You don’t need a hugely successful blog to make a difference. You don’t even need a blog at all.
My mother and mother-in-law didn’t have blogs, after all. Hell, they didn’t even have Facebook. (I know!) And they still managed to find a way to do good things for people in need. So if we all just try to be a little more like them, then we don’t even need a formal declaration. We just need to act.
On that note, let the holiday season begin.
(Image courtesy of saxon on Flickr.)
By the time I was old enough to start listening to Top 40 radio and to buy records (er, tapes), Michael Jackson was already becoming a punch line. “Black or White” topped the charts when I was in Grade Seven and Jacko was more of a freak show draw than music icon throughout my high school years. Then there were the child molestation charges and it looked like the King of Pop would end up irreparably tarnished. He was acquitted of those charges, though, and people started to give him the benefit of the doubt. I mean, if there is one person who was so completely divorced from the standard norms of behaviour and so completely outside our collective realm of comprehension that he might innocently share a bedroom with a young boy and be surprised at the outrage, it was Michael Jackson.
A few years ago, though, I started to hear it: the odd M.J. song. We played Billie Jean at the bar where I worked when I was pregnant with Young C and some of the first fetal movements I felt were in time with this pop classic. Many of those early songs are good. They hold up. There was a bit of a Michael Jackson resurgence going on and people wondered if he had anything more. People were talking about the music, not the bizzaro personal circumstances surrounding the man. Continue reading 'Growing Up in Public: Michael Jackson and Us'»
I read a lot during my first pregnancy. I was learning about fetal development and the stages of labour and the mechanics of breastfeeding, sure. More than that, though, I was reading arguments about how to be a good mother. The only thing attachment parenting has in common with Ferberization is a conviction that it is the right way to care for a baby and that the other ways are wrong. I chose my camp. Attachment parenting, after all, was a much better accessory to my midwifery care and natural birth plans. I absorbed all the arguments and how-to’s and I believed in them.
I was already on a slippery slope, though. This was an unplanned pregnancy (no pre-conception check up – yikes) and I was a smoker and a bartender. I quit smoking and drinking and got a day job pronto. I couldn’t give up caffeine altogether, though, because hadn’t I done enough? I put on 15 pounds more than the recommended 20 – 35 and gave in and asked for an epidural when my cervix failed to dilate fast enough. My baby got jaundice because I couldn’t get him to latch on his first day which then meant that my milk didn’t come in fast enough, so we had to feed him (gasp) formula for a couple days. Still, I persevered. I breastfed and wore him around and gave him all my attention. I didn’t even listen to my ipod while pushing him in a stroller because that would be hogging the music. Continue reading 'I Used To Be A Good Mother, But Now I’m Bad'»
I really hadn’t been paying much attention to the whole Jon and Kate hullabaloo. I’m not a celebrity gossip rag reader and I’ve been pretty much forced to give up t.v. until the earth just slows the hell down and gives me a couple more hours each day. (And Jon and Kate isn’t even close to making my t.v. short list.) But there I was on Saturday night, standing in line at the drugstore with a box of diapers on my hip, and realizing that they were still all over the weekly covers. (And ZOMG it looks like Brad and Angie might be breaking up.)
It got me thinking, though, about our facination with the reality couple. Sure, it was their sextuplets that originally landed them their own show, but the kids are really peripheral now, aren’t they? This marital scandel has catapulted Jon and Kate into the realm of real celebrity. They are even better than celebrities insofar as we feel entitled to sift through the sordid details of their misery. I mean, sure, we’ll gobble up every iota of rumour and innuendo about regular celebs, too, but there is a sense that we are snooping and that just maybe these stars do have a claim to some amount of privacy. But Jon and Kate are asking for it, aren’t they? They sold out their children’s right to a private life by signing up for this t.v. show and are money-hungry, limelight-loving egomanics. It seems, is the general idea, that they deserve it. Continue reading 'Jon and Kate and Our Show-and-Tell Culture'»
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