Blame Mommy! (Phew! Existential Crisis Averted)

Bummer alert: There’s a new study out on sedentary preschoolers. From the American Academy of Pediatrics: Societal Values and Policies May Curtail Preschool Children’s Physical Activity in Child Care Centers [pdf]
The study authors interviewed a group of childcare professionals in Cincinnati to understand why kids who go to child care centers are so sedentary, with an eye toward ways to get more activity into their day. They identified three key barriers to kids’ physical activity in child care centers: “(1) injury concerns, (2) financial, and (3) a focus on ‘academics.’ “
To my mind, a study looking only at a handful of child care centers in one city opens up questions of how widely you can apply the results (even a study designed to reflect a wide range of demographics and philosophical approaches). In this opinion, I’m in good company: the study’s authors. From the report: “Our findings should be interpreted as exploratory, because this was a qualitative study of child care providers within a single county in Ohio”. Also, they only talked to childcare providers – who reported on the pressure they feel (which can be perceived more than real, shaped as it is by the “squeaky wheels”).

Those limitations have not, however, stopped the press from drawing a much larger – and all-too-typically parent-negative – conclusion: Parents, benighted and with messed-up priorities, don’t value play. And are, therefore, ruining our future.

Of course, that’s not what the study found. Not even close. The study identified three legs to the sedentary kids stool, only one of which was perceived pressure toward academics from parents and state early-learning standards.

The problem isn’t the study. It’s the coverage of the study.

On Inhabitots, where I first caught wind of it, the post included subheads like, “Overprotective and Overachieving Parents Stop Play Cold.”  The Washington Post blog about the study, headline of which was, Parents are the biggest obstacle to letting kids play, says study in Pediatrics was a little closer to even-handed – at least reporter, D’Arcy talked to an expert – though not per se even-handed either. (Other coverage was closer to the real spirit of the study, imho… including the coverage in Time and to a lesser degree the coverage in, USA Today)

As a parent, I’m certainly concerned about how sedentary our kids’ lives are… but I’m annoyed that we blame kids’ sedentary lives primarily (solely?) on parents … that we frame this up as people not owning their individual responsibility, or, in this case, having values that are whacked (Overprotective! Overachieving!). Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying parents aren’t part of the equation… but I am saying that they are part of the equation.

But more importantly, I see in the way we gravitate toward these anti-parent narratives a deep longing to have a problem we can name and a solution – however unrealistic or unfair or unsuccessful it may be – we can point at.

It’s like believing there’s an Illuminati. At least with a  New World Order someone’s driving the bus… if you could only take out the bus driver, problem solved. The idea that we’re not – that no one is – driving the bus is deeply scary.

We are can-do, rugged individuals. What’s scary for us: the idea that our problems might grow out of large and complex issues, or might even be new problems arising from solutions to other, older problems; that our problems might, at core, be the result of a nexus of issues and on such a scale that effective solutions could only come through complex collective effort… something, judging by Congress, we’re totally unable to do.

Putting primary or sole blame on parents supports a comfortable illusion that we all are, or could be, in control. Even if we can’t get the individuals to do what they’re supposed to do, at least it feels like the problem is tractable … and if we, as parents just do the right thing within our individual households, we can at least inoculate our own families from whatever the problems are.

But of course there is no such inoculation. Whether we do it through the market or through taxes, or just by moving through the world, we all eventually bear at least some part of the cost… even if it is only the annoyance of having to sit next to an obese person on a plane or pay a higher premium for healthcare. And let’s face it – the costs of public health crises like childhood obesity are actually a lot higher for all of us.

 

“Trend” Alert: It would appear that BFFs are SO over.

I believe that it’s important for us to think about The Children. They are the future, after all.

Also, I believe it is our collective duty to call out bullshit in the major media when we see it.

Yesterday’s New York Times yielded an opportunity to do both:

A Best Friend? You Must Be Kidding

It seems educators, administrators — and, gasp, summer camp directors– are doing their best to bust up bestfriendships in the name of greater school (and camp) harmony.

The reporter, Hilary Stout – and her editor – are implying causal connection between two separate, I would argue unrelated, stories: anti-bullying efforts in schools today and (possibly) new paradigms of social connection manifesting in kids (the cohort I refer to as “Gen We” in my day job, “my children” the rest of the time).

There’s no doubt that Millennials and Gen We have been/are being socialized toward group relationships and engagement. Consider the incredible growth in the numbers of kids in group care settings at the earliest ages (7% of kids 3 to 6 were in group care arrangements during the day in 1975, versus something like 72% in 2005) for one bit of support on that idea. It would be surprising if that pack tendency — or, depending on your POV, ability to work and play in groups — didn’t play out in schools.

But that’s not what this article is arguing. What this article implies — but does not support with evidence — is that kids were more likely to have a single closest friendship (ie, a best friend) in the past than today. And that having that single bestie is really critical to emotional development.

Sure the experts quoted in the article emphasize the importance of close friendships – but that’s different from the kind of exclusive 1:1 best friend relationship Stout sets up as the ideal that’s under attack.

As a relatively well-adjusted adult (no comments from the peanut gallery, please) who did not have a classic, exclusive counterpart from toddlerhood-type “best friend,” I can attest: It is possible to lead a life of meaning and connection after having grown up without.

Thinking (way) back to when I was a kid, there were a couple long-term best friend pairs in my classes in elementary school and junior high. But mostly, friendships were fluid. I don’t buy that it’s so radically different today – at least not from what I’ve seen in the lives of my own children and the other kids I know and observe.

To then go on to connect the (in my view, non-existent) decline of the best friend to anti-bullying efforts is just silly – and maybe even damaging.

For starters, social forces much larger than anti-bullying programs are driving what might be understood as a change in the make-up of the kid friend experience.

For continuers, I’ve seen the inside of a couple of these anti-bullying programs, and the ones I’m familiar with put an emphasis on inclusion, yes, but also acceptance of difference and generosity of spirit. Could we really be worried about THAT?

And now for the meta-moment. For the sake of study, here’s the point in the article where the attentive reader will be tipped off to the fact that this is not a trend, but a NY Times “trend”:

That attitude is a blunt manifestation of a mind-set that has led adults to become ever more involved in children’s social lives in recent years. The days when children roamed the neighborhood and played with whomever they wanted to until the streetlights came on disappeared long ago, replaced by the scheduled play date.

Here’s a helpful tip about reading coverage of families, kids or parents in the New York Times: If you can hear in the background faint strains of music from Bye Bye Birdie (“Why can’t they be like we were, Perfect in every way? What’s the matter with kids today?”), read with caution. It is likely you’re consuming trumped up content that exists solely to back up a sexy headline.

Watching Thirtysomething, while I still am.

So I’ve been watching thirtysomething on DVD, because, I don’t know… like Mt. Everest, it was there.

Okay, that’s not precisely true. I’m watching season one of thirtysomething on DVD because I went out and bought it the day it landed on the shelf at Target.

I’m only a little ashamed to admit I avidly watched this show when it first aired and I was in high school. And again, in syndication on Lifetime in and just after college.  And later on Bravo, when I was in my early thirties.

At each phase it seemed to have something new to tell me about what life was like – or what it was going to be like.

Sitting down to watch recently, I’ve been surprised.

What I expected: To be horrified by the fashion and to identify with the young family stuff.

What happened: I was horrified by the production values, strangely interested in the fashion (uh-oh!)  and totally alienated from the emotional life of these characters.

Seriously, I had NO IDEA how much the experience of people in their 30s has changed. The career vs family shit, the self-actualization crap, the gender roles, the intergenerational conflict. Yes. I know. Ironic. Since everyone I know has recently or is currently working on the career vs family shit, the self-actualization crap, the gender roles, the intergenerational conflict.

And yet – the 1987 version? Alien. It’s almost a blessing they constantly punctuate the characters’ heavy emotions with Synth Piano. Without it, I might have no idea what’s going on at all.

Actually – that’s not fair. The score is terribly intrusive. But if they cleared it out, for real, this show might sing: The dialogue is surprisingly crisp. The acting is genuine. I believe these characters and their relationships. I just don’t really understand them. Or their concerns. The storylines make little sense to me.

To wit: In the pilot, Hope has a confrontation with her best friend Ellyn. Why? Because Ellyn called Hope and told her that she needed to save herself and not lose touch with who she is and that that could be accomplished by going back to work. Because that would be doing something for herself. And then Hope freaked because Ellyn couldn’t possibly understand how totally Hope has changed now that she’s a mom. And then Hope accused Ellyn of not knowing her anymore because she doesn’t truly see… wait for it… Janey. That’s the baby. Janey. (Synth Piano Watch!)

This best friend — local, no less — waited 2 days after the baby was born to call… and a week to visit? Today, a friend operating at Ellyn’s level of codependence would have lobbied for a spot in the delivery room.

Anyway, 1987 Upshot: Someone’s best friend is 100% mystified at the changes she’s going through once she’s had a baby. What did they talk about through the 10 months of trying (presumed) and the 9 months of pregnancy? And who tosses out the totality of who they are when they have a baby anyway? And since when did working fix that problem?

Another example: In episode 3, Michael has a crisis because he has a new account for which he will be shooting a commercial. And that means that at last he and Elliott can rent a very large and cool soundstage. Awesome! And then the nightmares begin. And the cast of Hair, apparently, throws together a drumhead trial because Michael is… wait for it… a SELL OUT.

Obvi, Zwick and Herskovitz are poking fun at Michael’s hang-ups. They’re sort of dumb hang-ups. My point — 2010 Michael’s comic nightmares would be far less hung up about how he’s earning money than in how he’s (perceived to be) spending it… which is to say, today we judge each other less by how we bring home the bacon and more by what kind of bacon we buy with our take-home — Oscar Meyer? Niman Ranch? Locally sourced, applewood smoked artisanal? Bacon = The New Phrenology.

Anyway, the 1987 Upshot: An entrepreneur lands a cool account that allows him to do an interesting project, keep his house and continue to pay his employees and that brings on existential fever dreams of a hippie tribunal.

Boomers – I do not understand you.

But I’m inexplicably drawn to the high-waisted jeans of your early middle years.

Mommyblogging assessed.

Though I don’t really see this effort as a “mommyblog” per se, I am a mommy. And this is a blog. So I feel a certain pressure to comment on this piece from yesterday’s Times.

And by “comment,” I mean scribble something out hastily. Because that’s about what the article deserves.

Here goes… (oh — click the thumbnail there and it’ll open a bigger, more legible version… probably… still working out the kinks on the files I pop up here. Someone will help me with this, I’m sure)

Coincidence is not causation

Thanks, New York Times for once again lining up a couple of co-incident happenings and implying a causal connection, especially a causal connection that has, as its core driver, a supposed shift in parental philosophy.

Looks like The Sling is the New Status Stroller.

Okay – totally not saying that carriers aren’t a big deal or that the range of sling options aren’t growing or that the penetration of sling use isn’t growing. But the idea that slings are replacing strollers and, especially that they’re replacing strollers because of some philosophical issue parents have with strollers is asinine.

It’s the Great Recession, people. Which means cost, convenience and practicality combine to make slings the perfect option… and strollers a little less of one. The Status Stroller had its day. But anyone who moves a kid around in a stroller, status or otherwise, knows they’re a pain in the arse. A sling is just WAY easier (for the first year or so anyway), especially in an urban environment. The emotional/attachment benefits aren’t nothing, but they really aren’t everything.

Maybe I’m just reacting to the set-up of the article. Spouse and I watched Away We Go not long ago. (He really liked it. Me? Less so.) Whatever you thought of it, you must agree: The scenes with Maggie Gyllenhaal are too funny (and horrifying) to miss!

Birthday Party Economy

Hosted a birthday party last weekend. (Did not serve soup).

My younger daughter H— turned 4. She requested a princess party. Though, mercifully, not a Princess Party (ie Disney’s royal sorority). And so we hosted a dozen or so little girls dressed as the princesses (or Princesses) of their choosing. Chaos + cupcakes = excellent time for all. I hope.

In general, we do birthday parties at home. Strictly lo-fi affairs. As homemade as possible. Licensed character-lite. No hired help.

Why? Certainly, there’s our commitment to thrift (cheapness?). Hundreds of dollars for a birthday bash, I don’t have. And in this regard, it turns out, we’re on trend. Parents magazine ran a little survey earlier this year, asking people what they were thinking they might spend on their kid’s next birthday party. 75 percent of respondents were planning to spend less than $200. Even up at the concierge level, parties are shrinking. Said one party planner, “I think they are not getting the $5,000 birthday cake for their 5-year-old. They are still going to have the fun theme party. … It’s not going to be so opulent.” Another bespoke birthday planner reported a 70-percent decline in her business from 2008 to 2009.

So Lo-fi is the new hi-fi. And things are downscaled all over. Even Suri Cruise went from a $100K blow-out in 2008 to a smaller-scale affair in 2009.

Well, people — we were throwing lo-fi parties before lo-fi parties were cool. Or, at least, we were throwing them before Mr. Economy pulled the plug on over-the-top super-sweet-style events.

From the start, I’ve been troubled by the idea that contemporary kid birthday parties are setting kids up for an adulthood that cannot possibly compete with the golden-hued memories of an opulent youth.

A couple years ago, I went to a birthday at one of the many facilities that have cropped up in the last two decades to provide turnkey birthday solutions. The 4 year-old guest of honor was chauffeured into the pizza-n-cake area of the facility in a decorated golf cart as we all sang and clapped.

That “All Hail” entry looked downright reasonable compared to the bonanza thrown for my mother’s friend’s grandson, a first birthday fete notable for, among other things, the ponies – yes, plural – providing trips around the backyard for the 30-odd kid guests. Not clear whether the birthday boy had anything to say about the vintages mommy and daddy were pouring for the grownups.

Seriously: When your first birthday features pony rides, what do you do for 2? 16? 40? What does your wedding look like? Short of a Vanity Fair Oscars after-party, what could compete?

Best to aim for something less mythic in proportion. And yet—

And yet— For all the high-minded motivations behind our lo-fi birthday parties, I’m not too vain to admit, that I’m at work on some mythmaking, too. Just of a different order.

It’s a certain kind of wabi sabi aesthetic I’m after with the home birthday party (with most things, truth be told). An etsy-esque simplicity that says, substance over style.

Well, people: To paraphrase Dolly Parton, it takes a lot of effort to make a party look this thrown-together.

To wit: For Saturday’s princess bash I baked two batches of cupcakes – vanilla and chocolate – from scratch. (Eff you, box mixes). With vanilla buttercream tinted pink then spiral-piped (but not too carefully — don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard) onto each little cake. Plus fresh strawberries and bananas (sorry, locavores). Lunch was kid-friendly crudite that I chopped in my kitchen and take-out pizza for the kids from locally owned and loved Bruno’s (tomato pie for the adults). Organic apple juice in clear plastic cups (PET is recyclable curbside!) (San Pellegrino for the GUs). Décor? Pink Gerbera daisies. Pearlized pink and ivory balloons. (sorry, global helium supply) Bolts of tulle draped cutely in the entryways to the rooms on the first floor. Licensed character-free princess dresses and gloves for the guest of honor and her lady in waiting (ie big sister).

When it comes to birthday parties, I avoid pre-packed, pre-selected, prepared. I cotton no convenience. Come on – no marketer could POSSIBLY predict what would be fun or memorable or meaningful for my children. Only I can do that. Or, only I will do that. That’s my turf. And I defend my turf with teeth bared.

The pisser is, my teeth are too often bared at the birthday girl. Or the birthday girl’s sister. Or the birthday girl’s father. And, most often, at the mom in the mirror. Because it’s fucking stressful to do all the stuff to make the perfectly simple home birthday party. I’m never ready in time (kids arriving? then for sure, I’m still slicing strawberries). I’m never satisfied with the final results. Mostly because the results I’m looking for are material (great cake, cute decorations without breaking the bank) but also transcendent (memories! happiness! love!)

Working toward the material goals risks the transcendent ones. But some of the transcendent goals can’t be reached without nailing the material ones. It’s the “fast/cheap/good? Pick two” conundrum come to family life.

And so it goes: Simplicity is complex.

The economics of soup

I feel bad when I make soup.

Which doesn’t make much sense.

I’m a fairly accomplished home cook and food-loving mother of two who has bought nearly wholesale the philosophies of Kimball, Pollan and Waters. So: I have skills. I am motivated.

Soup – homemade chicken noodle, specifically – is one of the few things I make from scratch that my children not only submit to eating, but actually ask for. So, my kids will actually eat this food.

The main recipe I use is an adaption of a super-straightforward Cook’s Illustrated recipe that purports to be “fast” – at least compared to a multi-hour slow-food stock-making event. It’s tasty, especially for a guilt-free 7 Weightwatchers points per serving. This soup is not difficult or, relatively speaking, time-consuming to make. It’s delicious and nutritious.

This soup should be a slam dunk.

And yet each time I make it – inevitably, I start too late, or get interrupted too often and the clock creeps toward 8 p.m. and there’s still no soup on the table, and the children are agitated from the hunger and the waiting, and the spouse is aggrieved from trying to keep a lid on the children; and I am aggravated at having failed again to get a bowl of elemental love to the table in a reasonable way – it’s sort of hard to see how soup could possibly be good food.

And  that’s just looking at the emotional economy of soup. The emotional cost per serving, if you will.

Ambivalence grows when I consider the pocketbook cost-per-serving, and the time cost-per-serving. Hard not to question – when everyone’s famished and crabby– if it’s worth the 5ish bucks per person (when I make the organic version). Or worth the 3 or so hours I could be spending working for my employer or myself, or just hanging out with my children.

If this was just about soup, I could get it done with the turn of a can opener and a couple of minutes of microwaving. The cost-per-serving would be pennies on the dollar. My family would be getting decent nutritional value. And they might be happier, since they’d be eating sooner without having to witness mommy cursing herself under her breath through the pained final minutes of prep.

But that soup wouldn’t be a bowl of elemental love (no matter what the ads say). And my children wouldn’t actually eat it. (They’re very picky about their processed foods… their whole foods, too, come to think of it)

I make soup. And struggle with making soup. Because making soup is making meaning. It has narrative power. And it’s in the narrative that I locate the fulcrum point of my ambivalence: Which story will the soup represent for my children when, inevitably, they’re writing their memoirs? “My mom made chicken soup from scratch, and it made me feel secure and loved.” OR “My mom made chicken soup from scratch. She told herself it was for us – when really, it was for her. We’d rather have had her time and attention than a bowl of soup. All that drama for a f-ing bowl of soup.”

Clearly, I have made soup without tears. Clearly, there are larger issues in life. In my life. But I’ve come to see the myriad complications of making this particular batch of soup as a metaphor for the challenges of modern middle class family life.

It represents the nexus of the various economies of family life: money, time, patience, meaning. In my experience, you can optimize around one of these areas, maybe two, but never, it seems, can you master them all.

I want to understand why that’s true. I want to understand how we got to this point. I want to understand if it was ever any different. And that’s what this blog will be about: the economics of soup, and how it got that way.