The Shopping Mama

Partum Me?! A rough week to be a mama

by Laura on March 22nd, 2013 | 5 Comments | Life, Partum Me

I don’t know about the rest of you, but now that I’m a parent I think I read the news differently. Stories about children, family dynamics, and the state of motherhood just seem to strike me in a different way now. I empathize more, which probably comes with being a mom, but I also tend to think of how I would react if it was my child, my family, or my career that was in question. Four stories really stood out to me this week and I thought I’d share my reactions in the hopes of starting a conversation with you, dear readers, about how you read them. But first, a gratuitous shot of Charlie, at the offline request of a few readers who reminded me that I haven’t posted one in a while…

Mastering the slide…

Carrying on…

1. The New York Mag article on SAHMs – First, I hate the title of this piece, “The Retro Wife.” What does that even mean? A woman making the very commendable choice to work in the home as a mother and caretaker does not make her some Mad Men-esque kitschy throwback. And this article seems to ignore two big realities that impact many women’s decisions to either work or stay home – 1) Most American families out there, today, are simply not in a financial situation to even think about losing one income. You can talk to me all you want about how you made the financial sacrifices and it was worth it, but it’s just plain impossible for some people and that’s that. 2) In certain industries, leaving for even just a couple years can doom your career forever, especially if you are a woman.

This article seems to make it sound like it’s just so easy to take yourself out of the game and then just go back to work if you feel like doing it later. Um no, so sorry. It doesn’t really work that way. Is it cool that women are damned if they do and damned if they don’t? No! But it’s the state of things right now and I think it was really irresponsible journalism to just sort of ignore it here.

I do agree that there is nothing un-feminist about staying home, having a piping hot dinner on the table for your husband when he gets in from work, and even giving him a nightly massage to calm his frayed nerves after a hard day at the office. But there is nothing serene and perfect about tending to a household all day, either, and the author seems to make it seem like being an at-home mom is just some dreamy wonderland.

Most of my friends couldn’t manage to get beyond the first couple pages of this article, but I read it all the way to the end for the purposes of writing this post and was impressed that they finally imparted a bit of realism in the final two pages of the piece. Some of us working moms sort of thrive on the stress of balancing everything, while also learning what’s important and what we can let go. I say that while also being jealous of the time my SAHM friends get with their kids. I guess this piece just touched off my usual issue with these sorts of things – that we can’t support one decision without taking little digs at the other. Is it so hard to say that there are choices out there for moms, these days, and that both of them have pros and cons?

2. The Steubenville Verdict – Yeah, you knew I was gonna talk about this one. I feel as if I read hundreds of pieces about this case, but the ones that really resonated with me were the one that encouraged us to explore the idea that these boys should be punished but that it’s okay that we also feel sad for them and the one that asks us to think about all women as people, none of whom “ask for it” when they are violated.

So yeah, I think the mainstream media coverage of this case was despicable because of all the sympathy that was given to these two young men, but I also think it’s sad that they were raised in a culture that made this sort of behavior seem even remotely acceptable. At the same time, I’ve found myself wondering about their parents and how they are coping through all of this. I’ve wondered about the victim’s parents, too. We all know that even the best parents can end up having kids who drink to the point of passing out at a party, or who end up violating someone, or who do nothing to stop such an attack. One of my greatest fears as a parent is that I will do everything I can to raise a thoughtful, good person, but all those efforts will go to the dogs because of outside pressures that I can’t control. I’m not excusing these guys for what they did…ever. But I wonder about their families and how they will move forward after this.

And in a sea of articles that seemed determined to make me eternally depressed about the state of parenthood in this country…

3. …there’s this guy. Now this, right here, is the type of person I hope my son grows up to be. Peaceful but activist. And with a sense of humor! Exhibiting his First Amendment rights, while never questioning the same rights held by the guys across the street. This guy is awesome. I bet his parents are like, “That’s our boy!”

Lessons learned this week – I still want all mothers to just support each others’ choices instead of finding reasons to condemn them in order to feel better about their own. Parents of children who do bad things are not always bad people themselves; we need to start looking at society as a whole and not just the two people paying rent, bills, and tuition. But it’s that same society that is turning out some really amazing people, too. Even though our media would sometimes like us to think otherwise, there are kids out there who grow up to do good, kind, and important things in this world.

What did these articles say to you? Share your stories here!

Partum Me?! Soccer to me

by Laura on March 14th, 2013 | 5 Comments | Life, Partum Me

My brother is the athlete in our family. He’s also far less high-strung than I am. I spent a good portion of my youth on the sidelines of his traveling soccer and baseball games, usually with my face in a book, while my mother cheered him on, and my dad stood on the sidelines doing what many dads do at their kids sporting events – yelling. I can remember thinking to myself, even at that young age, that I was so happy to be the nerdy one because at least I could read a book in peace instead of being told to “concentrate, keep your eye on the ball, and hustle, hustle, HUSSSSTLLLLLE.” I could never understand how my brother dealt with it all so calmly.

But then there was the time when he didn’t.

We were on some suburban New Jersey soccer field on a Saturday afternoon. I was sitting in my chair reading. Mom was sitting next to me, while Dad was pacing up and down the sideline. He’d been especially “verbal” that day, and I could see my brother glaring in our direction every time he barked some comment. As my brother ran by one more time, our dad said something that I can’t remember but that I know was harsh. Probably 10 years old at the time, my easy going little sib stopped dead in his tracks and screamed, “Do YOU want to get in and play the @#$%ing game, Dad? Then shut it!”

The proverbial record player came to a screeching halt and everyone turned to stare, not at my brother, but at our dad! I never asked him, but now that I’m a parent I think I can assume that he was mortified, not just because his kid had just cursed him out on the soccer field, but because he’d pushed my brother far enough that he did it.

I thought of this moment during Charlie’s first day of soccer, this past weekend. He did a great job in the first few minutes, following directions, showing interest in what the coach was showing them. But at some point, he decided he was more interested in picking up the ball in his arms and running as far away from the group as possible. I could feel my cheeks getting red and I had to stifle a desire to grab him by the arm and march him back to his spot with the group. Admittedly, my husband did a really great job of chasing him down and redirecting him, while I just sort of stood there and fumed. Yes, I was fuming over a 2 year old. At a toddler soccer clinic. Charlie running in circles was basically his way of telling me to “get into the game or shut it” and I deserved that.

On the plus side, Charlie made it through the whole session and did not break down into a tantrum, so he was in the middle of the pack as far as the group was concerned. As cliche as this sounds, what chilled me out was seeing the total look of glee on Charlie’s face throughout the entire session. He was having fun. And as long as that remains the case, I’m going to do my best to keep my “super soccer parent” in check.

Becoming a Parent After Losing a Parent

by Amy H on March 6th, 2013 | 5 Comments | Life, She's Prego

There were many heartbreaking aspects of losing my dad to leukemia in 2011. Too many to count and that’s not what this is about. One of the hardest realities that I had to accept was that he would never get to see me become a mother. He loved being Grandpa Dan. He was happy and laughing any time there was a baby in his lap. He thought talking to a toddler was one of the funniest parts of life. He knew how much I yearned to have a baby of my own and that I would be really good at it.

The night we transferred him from the cancer hospital to hospice, he and I had a few rare hours alone. We talked a lot. I promised him that I would have all the things I wanted in my life even though he wouldn’t be there to witness it. We agreed that it was totally shitty and unfair to each of us that he wouldn’t be alive to meet my children, be their Grandpa and experience me as a mother. That is a conversation I won’t ever forget. It is also the conversation when I promised to name my first son after him. And when he told me not to take “any more jewelry from any other boys” while holding onto the necklace I was wearing from my then-ex boyfriend, the man who is now my husband.

Less than two years after that night, I have already achieved a few of those things I told him I knew I’d have. I am married to my Joseph, the obvious perfect match for me, and we are about to become parents to my father’s ninth grandchild. As I get closer each day to the arrival of this baby, the reality and emotions involved are getting closer too. I see that welcoming a child, becoming a parent, growing my family’s next generation is going to bring forth a new love I’ve never known, as well as a new wave of sadness for life without my dad.

The happiest event in my life is not the time to focus on my sadness though, and I know that. I’ve chosen to incorporate my dad, his memory and the things he loved into my baby’s life in as many creative and uplifting ways as I can. From the mobile above the crib made of all of my dad’s favorite things in nature, to the baby boy “Coming Home” outfit that includes a baseball hat because baby is due at the beginning of baseball season, dad’s favorite time of year. And the totally amazing song lyric artwork framed on the wall from one of the songs he chose to play at his funeral, Here Comes the Sun, by the Beatles. Although they will never know each other, I’ll never have a photograph of my dad holding my baby and we’ll never get to see their similar faces side by side, I will be sure that my baby knows how awesome Grandpa Dan was, how happy I am to be his daughter and how much everybody loved him.

***

Kate also wrote about Having a Baby After Losing a Parent when she was pregnant with Max.

Partum Me?! Amy’s Village

by Laura on February 28th, 2013 | 5 Comments | Life, Partum Me

I know, I know… two videos in a row makes me look very lazy. But I swear this is a good one!

I’ve debated in the past with parents who believed that daycare and nannies were just parents’ way of allowing someone else to raise their children. I have been flabbergasted by the belief that sending my son to daycare could be considered anything but a way of parenting my child myself – my parenting decision was just to give him a place to socialize, learn, and negotiate the world outside his front door. (And of course, all those goals can be accomplished by SAHMs, too.)

But my mistake was that I sometimes failed to admit that I wasn’t alone in raising Charlie. Sure, I have his amazing dad. But I also have Miss Angie, Miss Brittany, Miss Jackie, Miss Kate, and the rest of the staff at his daycare who spend every weekday with him. They are our partners – we work together to reenforce rules and lessons at home and at school. They’ve met a lot of kids, so their sound advice is based on years of experience and has often been a source of comfort to a first-time mom like me. My son talks and counts and jumps and hugs and throws his head back to laugh and laugh and laugh. He does all of these things because he’s happy, whether he’s with his parents or at daycare.

It might sound cliche, but the whole “taking a village” thing is pretty accurate. And as our society evolves into something where the definition of family is being expanded to include all of the different ways in which we love and care for each other as people, so should the definition of who is in the village. Charlie knows that I’m his one and only mommy, but that I’m not his exclusive source of comfort, information, and fun.

I can’t thank his teachers enough for letting him know that he’s always supported by people who care. So I’ll just let Amy Poehler do it for me:

Partum Me?! No more bullies

by Laura on February 21st, 2013 | 5 Comments | Life, Partum Me

I had a few ideas for this week’s post when I sat down to write, today. But they all seemed unimportant when I saw the video below during my regular procrastination of going through my Google Reader before getting down to business.

I’m sure the emotional words and beautiful animation tugged at my heartstrings a bit, but I still really connected with the stories that were told. I was bullied from the time I was eight years old through the first year after high school by an individual who is now a father and a teacher. My understanding is that he has absolutely no remorse for how he treated me. It pains me that he is responsible for protecting the self-esteem of children when he worked so hard to destroy mine long after the point at which “kids can be cruel” is a viable excuse. What this video illustrates so well is how long the pain can stick with us. I don’t think I felt that I was someone who had very much to offer the world until I was well into my college education. And as for deserving love? Well that didn’t happen until I met my husband in my late 20s. There are still times when I can see the long-standing effects of what this person did to me, even though the torture ended almost twenty years ago.

This morning, during daycare drop-off, I watched Charlie walk up to one of his little friends and then quickly shove him… hard. I reacted quickly, taking him by the arm and getting down to his level to make him look me in the eye while I told him that pushing was not acceptable behavior. All was well in the next minute as he walked back up to his friend to give him a hug. I understand that toddlers who are only semi-verbal are more apt to express themselves physically, but even in Charlie’s isolated moments of aggressive behavior I’m reminded of just how hard it would be to have a son who grew into someone who enjoyed destroying another person. And surprisingly, as I reflected on that incident in the context of this post, I felt sorry for my bully because he grew up in an environment where his bully behavior was valued when it obviously should have been condemned. If I do one thing as a parent, I hope it’s that I help Charlie become a young man with enough self esteem to understand the importance of nurturing it in others instead of tearing it down.

The responsibility for eliminating bully behavior lies with each and every person that interacts with a child. Bullies grow into adults, but so do the people they bullied. We owe it to both the victims and the aggressors to make this right.

***

Want more information about talking to your kids about bullying? Check out our list of books about bullying for young kids.

Partum Me?! Soccer moms are people too

by Laura on February 15th, 2013 | 5 Comments | Life, Partum Me

Last week, I registered Charlie for soccer. Yes, I know he’s only two. There is a great soccer program with a bunch of locations in Philly that has a two year old program. As another parent friend said to me the other day, “It’s more a ‘follow these directions’ type thing than an actual soccer clinic.” Still, Charlie is already showing great interest in kicking a soccer ball and his control of the ball seems more skilled than I’d expect from a kid his age, so we decided to go for it. My family has a long history of soccer love – my father was a coach at the college level and still coaches youth soccer now – so who knows? It could be in his blood (even if it clearly skipped a generation). Regardless, this gets him running around and tired out at the end of a weekend when it’s usually me and the husband who feel run around and tired out.

So as of March we’ll have swimming on Saturday mornings and soccer on Sunday afternoons. Please pass the mini-van, the color-coded calendar, and the mom jeans. When we talked about having kids, I railed against the idea of being a scheduled family. I was certainly committed to encouraging the activities in which Charlie seemed to be interested – whether they were sports, art, music, or anything in between. Now that I see just how fast, and often, this kid can move, I get it. Sure, it’s about socialization, learning to take direction from responsible adults, and healthy exercise. But it’s also a little about letting us sit in one of those folding lawn chair thingies for a half an hour, maybe peacefully drinking a cup of coffee, while he runs around like the adorable little maniac he is and we cheer him on. As is the case in most little tyke sports programs – everyone wins!

We are not particularly religious. We don’t belong to any houses of worship. Yet relatives who are observant have bemoaned the “new tradition” of families who spend their weekends trucking around to various activities instead of going to church and spending every Sunday with their entire extended family. Having grown up with some of those relatives, I remember what Sundays used to be. Part of it was great – mainly the delicious roast that my grandmother would make every Sunday. A leg of lamb, however, was often eclipsed by the fact that I had to wear an uncomfortable dress all day long and the only thing that we could watch on TV was golf. As one relative recently said to us, “Well we all had to do it and it wasn’t that bad. Today’s younger generation should have to do it too.”

You know who else says crap like that? Partners at law firms. That’s why I’m not a lawyer anymore.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a woman who appreciates tradition in all its forms. A family who chooses to worship together on Sundays is a great thing. On the other hand, a family who chooses other activities on a Sunday is just as great. Whether I am splashing in the pool with Charlie at swimming with his dad watches on, or holding hands with my husband as we watch our son dash around a toddler-sized soccer field, I am spending quality time with my family. And while we don’t have the community of a church to enjoy each weekend, we do have the community of parents and kids that know us through daycare, swimming and soccer. To me, belonging to a house of worship has always been about community and family – my “house” is just the local park or the awesome little brunch spot where the bad acoustics drown out Charlie’s loud indoor voice.

(I do miss that leg of lamb though. With the mint jelly and the pan roasted potatoes??? That right there was the meal that ended my little stint of vegetarianism in high school.)

So while I’m definitely not on-board with mini-vans and over-organized calendars, and might never be, I’ve surprised myself with how easily I accepted the scheduled weekend before my son even reached the age of two. What’s not to like about exposing Charlie to new things and spending time together as a family? I thank a higher power for this life every day. I think he/she would be cool with how I live it – but I really hope my god agrees that mom jeans are a total no-go.

How do you spend your weekends with your family? What do you think about scheduled afternoons and weekends for kids? Share your stories and opinions here!

Partum Me?! As you do

by Laura on February 8th, 2013 | 5 Comments | Life, Partum Me

Let me say before I jump into this week’s post that I completely understand that we see only a sliver of the whole pie of interactions between strangers and their children. We might witness the worst moment of a mom or dad’s week, day, month, or life. Also, I’m far from perfect. For example, I talk about plenty of stuff in front of my kid that I probably shouldn’t.

But can someone please tell me why the parenting concept of “do as I say, not as I do” is even part of today’s lexicon?

In the last couple weeks I have seen 1) a parent yelling at her child and saying, “Don’t every #$%&ing say that word in front of me again!”, 2) a father insisting that his daughter eat her green beans while he eats from a plate that is void of vegetables, and 3) a mother lecturing her son about being polite just before shoving her way past me without saying, “Excuse me.” All of these things happened in my neighborhood of Philadelphia – a tough, working class area of the city. I wouldn’t make assumptions about any of these parents if I didn’t know that the “do as I say” method of parenting is big here. This is a good family-oriented neighborhood, full of a diverse and hard-working bunch of people. And that is why I find myself scratching my head when I witness these things on an almost-daily basis. Just to be fair, I also see the same situations in fancy suburbs and a variety of cities. It’s not specific to income, race, or religion.

Here’s the thing about it, though. It does work, for the most part. My parents were huge fans of “do as I say” and I was a pretty well-behaved kid who grew into a reasonably nice adult. (Okay, so I curse like a sailor, watch way too much TV, and once ripped a tag off a mattress, but let’s look at the big picture here, shall we?) The bad side is that I also grew up to be a teenager and adult who saw the hypocrisy in what I was told as a child and started to see it in a lot of the other aspects of their lives. While I love and admire my parents in many ways, I think it was this aspect of their parenting that sometimes makes me want to do it differently with Charlie.

To a certain extent, children do have to learn that they should listen to the involved adults around them, no matter what. I’m fully aware that no matter how I parent, my little Charlie might someday understand that he can’t say the f-word in front of mommy, but it will become part of his regular vocabulary when he is out of my range of hearing. And yes, I do worry that my motivation leans too heavily on a fear that my kid will grow up and think I’m a joke as a parent. But really, it’s mainly because I want him to know that I’m encouraging him to be a better person because it’s the right thing to do, not because I want us to have the perfect image that seemed to be of such big concern to the generations before mine.

I know that many, if not all, parents are just trying to get through every day with their kids still in tact. Sometimes we yell. Sometimes we look back at how we handled a situation and cringe. I’m just trying to keep the cringing to a minimum while coming close to living up to the same expectations I place upon my son. When I put it that way, it sounds so much harder than it did when I started writing this post.

What do you think? Is “do as I say, not as I do” a viable parenting style? Share your stories here!

Partum Me?! Don’t shoot!

by Laura on January 30th, 2013 | 5 Comments | Life, Partum Me

When I was 8 years old, my mother was newly married to the man who would raise me as his own, and my newly minted brother (his from a prior marriage) was 5. I can remember a Saturday when we hopped in my dad’s beat up blue Jeep and drove around his family’s lakefront property as we did on most weekends, but this time we ended up at the old farm field. He drove out into a clearing in the middle of the field, pulled some soda bottles filled with water out of the back and walked far away to set them on a log that was atop a small mound of dirt and hay. Walking back to the Jeep, he pulled out two rifles that, to a kid like me, looked like the most gigantic weapons I’d ever seen. He then proceeded to teach the two of us how to load, hold and shoot them, with a real emphasis on the proper handling and etiquette.

“Don’t EVER point a gun at another person, loaded or not.”

“Take your time to aim and fire.”

“Deep breath, finger on the trigger, and squeeeeeeze.”

“I mean it. Don’t point that gun anywhere but at the target. You have to respect it or you won’t get to use it ever again.”

We listened. And we shot those soda bottles. Well… I shot the soda bottles after switching to the “Lady’s .22″ when the recoil nearly separated my shoulder from the socket, and after we got me set up to lean against the hood of the Jeep to steady myself. We shot guns as a family bunches of times after that day. Guns were omnipresent in our household, but always stored properly in locked safes with ammunition locked away in a different room. My brother and I knew how to access everything, but never did. It wasn’t a mystery to us so it didn’t matter.

I don’t really shoot guns much anymore, not because I’m against them, but just because they aren’t of great interest to me. I do, however, trek down to that field every year with almost every single one of my family members, to act as spectator for our yearly family trap shoot. Where else am I going to go at 10 am for a strong Bloody Mary made by one of my little cousins? (Drinks are only for the watchers, and not for the shooters, of course.)

Hemingway-esque family stories aside, as a parent my heart was torn out of my chest when I heard about the Newtown tragedy. As an adopted-Philadelphian, I am continually saddened by the stories of gun violence that plague the streets of this city, even in the neighborhoods where it is unexpected. On the other hand, as someone who loves the academics of the law, I also love our Constitution. I am someone who has lived around guns for most of my life and never saw them as a way to kill other people. I accept, however, that there are many out there who do.

My Facebook feed is filled every day with statuses, photos, and articles that argue both sides of the gun debate. And here I am, right smack dab in the middle – knowing something has to change, knowing we have to make some rules that make it harder for bad people to get their hands on guns, but also knowing that gun control might not be the only thing we need to do to prevent a Newtown… or a drive-by in North Philly. I want to uphold our Constitution, which gives us the right to bear arms, while also protecting our youngest from those who choose to abuse it.

Isn’t there a middle ground in here somewhere? Are gun fanatics so fanatical that they just can’t wait a few days to buy a gun, or endure a background check, or give up their most destructive weapons and just keep the ones the fire one shot at a time? There’s been a lot of talk about how mental illness factors into this, and honestly, I think it’s an even bigger factor for the people who really feel the need to have a stockpile or refuse to leave their homes without a magnum strapped to the chest. At the same time, we can’t wipe guns off the face of the earth. We can’t make all guns illegal all the time. It goes against the very tenets of how our country was founded. Argue against it all you want, anti-gun folks, but it’s true.

In about six years, I know that my dad will ask if he can take Charlie on a little ride in his (newer and not blue) Jeep. I will say yes, knowing exactly where they are going and what they are going to do. And I will be happy to see Charlie spending some quality time with his “Grandy.” More importantly, I will be grateful to see him learning the same lessons about guns that I learned. It’s a naive hope, but maybe by then everyone else will have learned them too.