Minivan Diaries

An Endorsement for the All the Right Reasons

2008-03-21T07:32:00.005-04:00

I have been a parent for twenty years. Every day for those 20 years I feel that my actions, my words, and my choices have important implications for myself and my family. How I conduct myself in the community, how I communicate with my spouse and my children, my decisions to take positions that may or may not be popular (but that I believe are right), how I deal with conflict - are opportunities to teach. For twenty years, my children have watched and learned from me, and as a result I have an awesome responsibility to try to do it right.

I can't help but compare this Democratic primary election to a family. The family is the American people, the parents - our candidates and their surrogates. So when public figures act in ways that are antithetical to basic human values - behaviors that we as parents would never demonstrate and certainly wouldn't accept in our children - it only makes me stand in disbelief. On the other hand, when these individuals stand up and act the way parents should, it make me proud, it warms me and offers hope.

This morning, Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico, stood up and did the right thing. Despite his long standing friendship with the Clintons, he endorsed Barack Obama. In his own words,

''I believe he is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime leader that can bring our nation together and restore America's moral leadership in the world,'' Richardson said in a statement obtained by the AP. ''As a presidential candidate, I know full well Sen. Obama's unique moral ability to inspire the American people to confront our urgent challenges at home and abroad in a spirit of bipartisanship and reconciliation.'

Govenor Richardson has not let the game of politics blur what he believes in his heart is the right thing to do. He could have easily endorsed Hillary - it was the safe decision. But he did what was right and not necessarily what was easy. This is the standard that Barack Obama is setting for our country. The Governor knows that Senator Obama will lead us with a moral compass. The value and importance of this quality is the beginning of a new kind of Presidency.

Governor Richardson understands his responsibility to the American people and I hope that other Democratic leaders will break their silence. I respect leaders who are thoughtful in their decision-making, however, a leader is not a leader if he or she cannot take a position. This family needs its leaders to act like strong, confident parents who the children depend on to make decisions that will be best for the family. Al Gore, John Edwards, and Howard Dean - stand up, be brave and help put an end to this calamity. This family needs to stop fighting.

Yes!

2008-03-18T14:46:00.003-04:00

These ARE the words I have been waiting for….Today, Barack Obama seized an opportunity to talk to America honestly about race. His words, yes his words, will touch the souls of every race and creed in this country who choose to listen to them. He did not compromise his beliefs by merely explaining away an old friend with whom it would have been politically expedient to cast aside but used that friendship as a springboard for a discourse on race in America. He epitomizes the qualities that we as a nation must have in our President: integrity in his beliefs, sincerity in his thoughts, and hopefulness in his actions. He has the ability to challenge us to be better than who we are and to help us realize that it is the existence of our precious melting pot that implores us to rise above our differences - if we are to make any progress at all.

This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected.

I have never been more proud to be an Obama supporter today.

I Have Been Waiting for these Words

2008-03-18T07:57:00.005-04:00

I have been struggling with my feelings regarding the relationship between Barack Obama and his pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. Oddly, my struggle is not that I am having trouble reconciling this relationship; rather it is that I am not.

I have had to ask myself why the absolutely offensive words that the Reverend Wright spewed has not lead me to the same question that many seem to be asking: How come Senator Obama has remained in that Congregation, allowing this minister to officiate at his wedding and to baptize his children, knowing that these views are so discordant and antithetical to his own beliefs?

I have been a member of the same congregation for 10 years. There have been sermons that various Rabbis have given over the years that I have not agreed with. I know that others have found some sermons extremely offensive. Do we leave our congregation because we disagree with the words of our Rabbi? No. We are a community, which is our extended family. What do my friends, who are pro-choice and in favor of gay marriage do when their priest espouses the beliefs of the Catholic Church during a Sunday mass? Do they leave their congregation? No, it is their community, their family. We all gain strength from belonging to a spiritual home and take pride in the good work it does in our communities. We value the relationships we share with our spiritual leaders. I am sure that the congregants of the Trinity United Church of Christ feel exactly the same way. I am sorry that this congregation, that these people, this family, has had to bear the brunt of our own fears – our scrutiny.

First, I do believe that I, as a white, Jewish American, have a lot to learn about the African American experience. I have no clue about what it’s like growing up with black skin in this country. In a few weeks I will be seated at my dinner table, retelling the Passover story as if I were a slave in Egypt – but I can’t begin to relate to the notion of having a great grandparent who was actually enslaved in America. I was young during the Civil Rights movement – I grew up in a white suburb in New England, attended an all white elementary school and sang freedom songs with my family on car trips. I can be empathetic and sympathetic but I refuse to be a hypocrite. I have no right to place judgment on this congregation or this minister.

To have asked Barack Obama to denounce Reverend Wright, which in a way meant turning his back on his congregation makes me cringe. How dare we ask this of him because his pastor spoke words that made us uncomfortable. How dare we judge his congregation without judging ourselves. How dare we disparage Senator Obama’s relationship with his pastor. It’s none of our business. Senator Obama’s actions - his record, has certainly proven that he does not espouse or agree with these particular sound bytes. Reverend Wright is not running for President and he has a 1st Amendment right to speak, even if his words are offensive. Even if what he says makes us angry. Even if we vehemently disagree. We don’t have to listen if we don’t want to. But perhaps we should.

Reverend Wright’s words are a wakeup call to white America – and they are harsh words to hear. There are serious racial tensions in this country. And there is anger. Barack Obama may be the single most important person who has the ability to transcend this racial divide and for the first time in a long history be an effective instrument for positive change. He can begin the dialogue and give voice to both sides of the divide. He is the best hope that can I possibly imagine to finally begin to bring this country together and to move us forward. I don’t mean the Democratic and Republican, Independents and Green parties, I mean the people who make up these parties – the rainbow of colors that is this country.

Senator Obama is speaking this morning at 10:30. That he has chosen Philadelphia as his venue cannot be an accident. This is a speech that I was hoping he would make, that he must make to the people of this country – black and white, women and men, rich and poor, young and old. I know he has the courage to seize this opportunity - to confront and not shrink away from this challenge. This is a time when words do matter. They mattered when our forefathers gathered in Philadelphia to draft the Declaration of Independence and they mattered when Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. These words are words that must be spoken and we should all find it within ourselves to listen.

Obama Denounces Controversial Remarks

2008-03-15T15:15:00.001-04:00

For supporters and doubters alike....

"That Way Madness Lies"

2008-03-13T15:30:00.003-04:00

If you have ten minutes to spare, spend it listening to Keith Olbermann's commentary last night. Finally, somebody from the media has the guts to stand up and speak honestly and thoughtfully. Mr. Olbermann expresses my frustration more clearly and articulately than I ever could. Give yourself a treat and watch this. I assure you, you will see things more clearly when it is finished.

Hillary's Response to a "Crisis"

2008-03-10T15:04:00.006-04:00

Hillary Clinton’s campaign was pretty desperate 4 weeks ago. You might even venture to characterize it as being in crisis mode. She had lost 11 State Primaries in a row, her top staffers were resigning, super delegates were jumping ship for Obama, and her campaign infighting was becoming notorious. How has she responded to this crisis?

It is common knowledge now that Senator Clinton’s top advisors do not get along. Her intent to form an unorthodox team should be applauded and her vision commended. However, from an ordinary voter’s perspective, the result might be compared to a dysfunctional family. According to a recent Washington Post article:

She assembled her own team of advisers knowing their mutual enmity in the belief that good ideas come from vigorous discussion.

And further on in the article: But while many campaigns are beset by backbiting and power struggles, dozens of interviews indicate that the internal problem endured by the Clinton team have been especially corrosive.

Hillary Clinton is at the helm of her campaign. She is the commander and she alone is responsible for the manner and tone with which her staffers conduct themselves. Although her intent is impressive, her failure to pull it off is more resounding. She has shown an inability to manage all this power and garner the energy into a positive, collaborative team. Instead, nastiness permeates her upper echelon and this is endemic of the true picture. Her campaign serves as an honest lens into which it behooves voters to peer into because it is very likely a microcosm of the future management of her Administration. We are fortunate to be experiencing, first hand, her leadership style in the midst of a crisis, so why not judge it?

Consider her message to voters at the height of her campaign crisis. Although first claiming that voters shouldn’t vote for her just because she is a woman, she pulled the gender card as a last resort. At the conclusion to the Ohio primary, in a desperate attempt to woo women voters on February 26, she said:

I am thrilled to be running, to be the first woman president, which I think would be a sea change in our country and around the world…

Later on in the week, CNN’s Judy Woodruff followed up on these remarks with Senator Clinton. She asked her, "What would be different about having a female president?"Her response:

I don’t think we can adequately imagine the difference it would make. It would be the shattering of the highest and hardest glass ceiling and it would send such a message of hope and opportunity to every little girl, to every young woman. That’s probably the most common thing that people say to me out on the campaign trail. There’s two things, actually, one people say I’m here because of my daughter, or my little girl just learned that we never had a woman president and I want her the know that she can do anything. It would be a very deep change in how people see themselves and who is able to fulfill this position…

So what exactly are these characteristics that demonstrate that “sea change” she would bring to the presidency? Examine her message of hope that she is promising to the mothers of these “little girls and to young women”. Her responses so far to the crisis in her campaign: Negative attack ads and fear mongering (the red phone ad), innuendo (as far as I know he (Obama) is not a Muslim), punitive finger-shaking (Shame on you, Barack Obama), caddiness towards her opponent (do you need a pillow, Barack ? or her famous Xerox flub). There is nothing new in her actions that could be characterized as a “sea change”. This is just the same old game of dirty politics yet she has had perfect opportunities to demonstrate something different - to show those mothers (and fathers) that she will do it differently. And this isn’t hope, this is desperation and if this is how she responds in a crisis, no thank-you.

This is Hillary Clinton. This is how she handles crisis. This is how she leads people. This is who she is and there is no denying it no matter how it is spun.

It Does Us No Good

2008-02-20T10:51:00.005-05:00

Dear Hillary,
I understand and respect your desire to be President of the United States…. and particularly to be the first woman President of the United States. I know you sincerely want change in this country. The Democrats must win in November. About this we both agree. But please don’t let your personal ambition cloud the opportunity that we as Democrats have to make this a better, a much better America. We need a united Democratic party in order to win. Please don’t divide us.

First of all, you are not being very nice. This is not becoming of anyone, especially a candidate for President of the United States. To me, character is the most important quality in a Presidential candidate. Your negative campaigning and sniveling swipes shows weakness and bad sportsmanship, and quite frankly it makes me question the respect for you that I do have. This is exactly the old politics that we are all fed up with. Please give it a rest. If this is the only way you know how to fight when you are down, then perhaps you should rethink your run for the Presidency. It does us no good.

Why do you have to pretend that you are doing fine when we all know that are disappointed about the direction your campaign is heading. We know that you are human and not immune from feelings of disappointment. You may think that such an admission shows weakness, but I view it as a strength of soul, a genuineness that I would want, no I would need my President to have.

Instead you seem to brush off your losses as if they mean nothing. Why can’t you be gracious and congratulate your opponent, and why for heaven’s sake can’t you, at the very least acknowledge the efforts of your volunteers who work so hard for you, despite your losses? And how about your voters? They believe in you. If I were giving a speech after a primary, it would be the first words out of my mouth. It is common decency to thank people who have helped you whether it got you closer to your goal or not. A mother teaches her children this basic value, a teacher to her students and friends expect it of friends. A mention of thanks anywhere else but at the very beginning of your speech degrades their efforts. If ignoring those who proved useless to you and not finding it within your heart to acknowledge other’s successes even when you are down is the best you can muster, then perhaps you should rethink your run for the Presidency. It does us no good.

And, if I may, can to ask you to take a serious look at the momentum of the voters? It’s been a slow drumbeat since Iowa, but if you are a good listener then you can’t deny the steady march toward your opponent’s camp. A successful president listens to the people. I guess it’s an awful lot to ask you to hand him the baton but for the sake of our country might you at least consider it? You can’t deny the numbers: Barack Obama is slowly and very successfully chipping away at your voter base. You can’t deny it and you haven’t been able to stop it.

You are struggling up a hill that is morphing into a mountain. Catching up is becoming a greater challenge. Rather than putting all of your relentless energy into the battle for the nomination, for the sake or our country, please consider putting your ego aside and jumping on the bandwagon. And bring your voters with you. Just think of the power we can have together. So, you would not be remembered in history as being the first woman President, but you would surely be remembered as a hero. You would be my hero. Perhaps you should rethink your run for the Presidency.

We Are Women for Obama

2008-02-17T21:31:00.001-05:00

I hesitate putting too many You Tube videos on my blog, but this one is very dear to my heart. This is my project.

As I have said in other posts, women are not abandoning their feminist beliefs when opting to not to support a woman's run for the presidency. We must vote for the PERSON who best will lead this country.

A Grassroots Worker's Work is Never Done

2008-02-16T08:15:00.007-05:00

I apologize for my absence - has it really been 10 days since my last post? It is not for lack of subject matter - I am constantly parking ideas in the back of my head - I have a laundry list of comments I want to make about topics in the news or ideas that require some research. And I apologize to my regular visitors whose blogs I have not been visiting either.

Everyday I wish I could sit at my desk and synthesize my thoughts. But over the past weeks, I playcatch-up with myself every day. I think my family is beginning to get frustrated with my less than enthusiastic attitude toward the household chores - I admit the light bulbs need to be changed in more than a few darkened rooms, I only wonder, why has nobody else bothered to changed them?

I continue to be swept up in the excitement of this election. When Connecticut won the primary on February 4, I thought I would return to the regularity and the rhythm of life before Obama. However, I have never been involved in a political grassroots effort, so I don’t know if this campaign is unique in its magnetism that beckons volunteers to feel compelled to continue working even after victory. Maybe not, maybe the reason why grassroots efforts are so successful is the very reason why they exist in the first place. It’s the passion and commitment that volunteers share that keep their adrenalin pumping and their purpose so focused. I have become a grassroots Obama junkie.

My intention was never for this blog to be so focused on one topic. And perhaps I owe an apology to my regular readers, however, there is nothing that seems more important to me than the future of our country. And so, I will continue to write about politics for a while longer… and as I park those other ideas in the back of my brain, hopefully they will wait patiently for a time when I can tap them out on my key board.

As I get more entrenched in this effort, I understand better the risk that making a commitment to something and working hard for its success can bring. Perhaps this is what drives me the most -- I want to feel satisfied with a victory at the end. The fear of losing and the feelings that engender it would be way too much to bare. Our country has an opportunity to fix itself, to fix ourselves, which we may not have again in our lifetime.

Heading off to a State-Wide Obama Day of Action II this morning. Yes, there are still other states to win….

We are who we have been waiting for....

2008-02-06T16:01:00.000-05:00

Indulge me in another posting about the Democratic race for President and let me revel for a few moments in Connecticut’s successful turnout for Barack Obama. I was one of those on the ground Connecticut volunteers. Never having participated in political grassroots organizing I was overwhelmed by my district group’s sense of purpose and quick camaraderie. I also learned that this campaign thrives on neophytes like myself. We were handed a mighty task and I was dumbfounded by the amount of trust staffers had in our own meager skills to see that a job was done. Knowing that every small contribution we made was a crucial part of a much greater whole gave us a sense of belonging and inspired us to want to do more.

It isn’t until now, after the fact, with our primary over, as each of us returns to neglected work responsibilities, overflowing laundry baskets, orphaned kids and lonely spouses that we can begin to really reflect on our success.

Barack Obama said something last night that struck deeply. He said:

“We are who we have been waiting for. We are the change we seek.”

Although I have been chanting his mantra, “Yes We Can” and “I’ve been Fired Up and Ready to Go” for quite a while now, it wasn’t until I heard those words last night that my soul was touched. His speeches inspire me, his oracle is incredible. But those words encapsulate this experience for me. Living in my homogeneous upper middle class suburb, my life secludes me, on a personal level from people of different races and socio-economic backgrounds. But for the past month we have stood together - working side by side for a common goal. Never have I felt so compelled to do so. My life is richer thanks to this experience and now I understand the power that we have if we join together and believe that we can change our country’s course.

We are being asked to act at a time in history that may never come again. Barack Obama is teaching us that first and foremost we must believe in ourselves. From that faith we must take responsibility for our neighbors, acknowledge the inequities in this country, trust in dialogue, even with adversaries, and work side by side to fix all that is broken - no matter how many obstacles we encounter or roadblocks that get in the way. As Americans we can do this - I saw it happen in our tiny district in our very small state against the greatest of odds...... “We are the change we seek".

Yes We Can Song

2008-02-02T20:16:00.001-05:00

Thanks to a friend for this latest Obama video... this symbolizes yet another morsel of hope that we all have as we get closer to the Democratic Primary on Tuesday. VOTE!!!

Passing of the Flame

2008-02-01T14:57:00.001-05:00

Thanks to Karoli at Bang the Drum for this heartening video. On this very rainy GOTV day in Connecticut - this is in honor of all the volunteers knocking on doors in the rain.

Let's Hear Your Voice....

2008-01-31T11:22:00.001-05:00

Since I know that I'm getting an unusual number of visitors from Sam Graham-Felsen's blog at the Barack Obama site (thank-you Karoli!), I thought it would be great to engage in a dialogue here - whether about women and Obama or other issues about the campaign . Both my daughter and I have posted our thoughts and it would be great to hear from all of you -- new visitors and old friends!

I realize I've focused here alot lately (okay mostly) on the Presidential election, and there are many other important issues affecting kids going on in the news that must be written about - but pardon my focus -- the Feb 5 Primary is on Tuesday - and aside from other personal responsibilities I have, this has been very important to me. There is an awful lot at stake - for our kids and the youth of this country - and if we don't find time now to help move us in the right direction, it will be too late later. I am working in my community this weekend to GOTV (Get Out the Vote) for our Feb 5 primary -- and I promise after the 5th to return to a more diverse dialogue with a sundry of issues.

So, in the spirit of youth (and you are only as old as you feel!) I've invited some other young adults from other blogs to weigh in with their thoughts on the election and hopefully they'll take me up on my offer. I also know there are other young visitors (you know who you are!) who read this blog -- speak up, even if you don't agree and Let's Hear Your Voice! If you are not young in years, you're not exempt .... chime in ... this is about a dialogue between the ages! Let's have some fun.

A New Driver in the Seat

2008-01-30T22:55:00.000-05:00

Posted by one of my daughters who will be contributing to Minivan Diaries:

Dear Grandma,

I sit here at the pinnacle of my youth, or at least that is how it feels to me. I know you would beg to differ. You would tell me that even you, who just celebrated your 74th birthday, are still youthful and that vigor and vitality are just a state of mind, one that is well worth preserving. Every time I see you a new sense of energy emanates from your enthusiastic words and optimism on issues that once seemed impossible. You are a product of success. You were at the forefront of feminism; you were in the vanguard of civil rights and a vigorous supporter of a woman’s right to choose. You know what it is like to work for something, but you also know what its like to win. This is not to belittle the tremendous fight that you prudently fought while balancing raising a wonderful and socially conscious family. How did you do it?

There is something else that you have instilled in me; the importance of retaining a sense of history from all angles of myself. I must remember as a woman, the fight that still rages today regarding equality. I must remember as a Jew the malicious anti-Semitic remarks that lead to the denigration and attempted extermination of our race, I must remember as an American the ideals that lay the foundation of our nation, and most importantly I must remember as a youth that I have a responsibility to prepare for the future.

Just the other day, you told me that you and your friend, Barbra, had had a conversation regarding the upcoming presidential primaries in our states. You were trying to convince your friend to vote for Obama (way to go Grandma!) and in the process the youth of America came up. You told Barbara quite simply that the youth are rallying for Obama and because the future is ours, not yours or Barbra’s, that she needed to follow suit. I had never thought of that. Now, don’t get me wrong, everyone has the right to vote for their own reasons and I am not suggesting that the 65 and older age group should rally behind the 25 and younger constituent and I know you weren’t either. You were stepping back and looking at the bigger picture. You were projecting the future and anticipating based on the past. You, as the older generations have the experience, we have the motivation. So this brings me to Hillary.

I didn’t originally want to write about this. The topic frustrates me as caller after caller suffocate public radio with sob stories on how the media is trivializing Hillary, simply by calling her by her first name. People connect to that. One woman called in saying that she too is called by her first name when her co-workers go by their last. I always thought it was straightforward as to why Hillary chose to be addressed this way. I thought she wanted to disassociate herself from her husband, a move I most nearly admired, but the admiration ended there (and so did the disassociation). Her campaign chose to go by Hillary, she chose to go by Hillary, so please do not tell me that it is degrading to her, to be called Hillary.

Grandma, you fought to put women on a level playing field with men. You stood at rallies, you lobbied legislators, you even opened a home for disheartened and downtrodden women, so you of all people are sympathetic to her plea. So I ask you one more question, do you see it as I do? Do you see this platform of attracting votes by simply being a woman as insulting as I do? To me, we have taken a step backwards. It is not the youth of America that are finding Hillary’s femininity attractive, it is the old feminists, those who themselves stood on the steps of the capital fighting for title IX, that are voting simply on gender. This to me is contradictory to their single most important goal; to be gender blind in situations like this. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe, having grown up with a generation, whether real or not, with the mentality that gender is not a means of distinguishing ability or character has given me and my peers a unique perspective. A recent Facebook and ABC News poll asked the question of what candidate Facebook members would least like to see in the white house. Hillary won with 70%, with nearly 32,000 votes (Edwards was a distant second with 16%). We are generally gender blind with no previous biases of the past directly impacting us, and we are supporting Obama in throngs.

In the end, it comes down to you and me. It comes down to us, cherishing this momentous opportunity to change our country for the better. I remember where I am from and what has formed and then reformed my ideas of what would be best for my generation and me. You have taught me to see through a kaleidoscope lens. You have left a legacy I hope to live up to because you, Grandma, are a true American hero.

For you...

2008-01-27T23:00:00.000-05:00

A Letter to My Mother,

I am honored to be sharing this historical moment in history with you. We have witnessed a lot of historical events together - I remember watching the first walk on the moon with you on a small black and white TV set in your bedroom. I vividly recall the memory of wishing for my Saturday morning cartoons to return instead of the constant image of JFK’s funeral procession and endless media coverage. I remember turning on the car radio and hearing the body counts being reported of fallen victims of the Vietnam War. I remember my confusion of seeing you weeping at the news of Martin Luther King’s and Robert F. Kennedy’s assassinations. There is the blur of the Kent State shootings and the riots of the 1960’s. We watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and sang freedom songs on our car trips. I sat by your side as we watched Richard Nixon resign as President of the United States. We watched with awe as the Berlin wall came down and sat together after the Twin Towers fell. We walked together to celebrate Israel’s 25th Anniversary and rallied for Darfur.

We shared all of this, as mother and daughter. We often talk about the progress of the woman’s movement and the quandary women of my generation face about choosing to stay home to raise our children or to enter the workforce. We come from different generations, yet as we evolved from mother and child to mother and daughter to mother and friend we have learned much from each other. We look back at history with different lenses, our perspectives and memories shaped by our experiences and our years. But we look forward with the same hope.

We have reached a critical moment in history again. Mother and daughter, mother and friend.... we are two women from different generations who stand upon this precipice of history with a voracious appetite to devour every moment. My memories of those pivotal events in history are clouded by my youth. I want to soak up every minute of this incredible story. And I am glad you are here to share it with me.

Woman to woman, I am proud that you are not shackled by feminist guilt to dutifully vote for a candidate solely because she is a woman. You have told me that you are listening to the voices of our youth because it is their future, not yours. Our feminist forbears made it possible for us to be at this crossroads. But I think you would agree that it was never their intention to burden us with such a ridiculous responsibility to blindly support any woman for the sole reason of gender. I believe that their legacy entreats us to think critically and act responsibly when exercising our precious right to vote.

I know about your hopes for the future and I know that as much as you wish to see the day when a woman is President, this woman is not the one you would choose. But the simple possibility that this nation would consider a woman and an African American as serious contenders for President of the United States is momentous in itself.

We share the excitement of Barack Obama’s candidacy because he symbolizes all of those historical moments that we shared together. He represents hope and a desire to change what isn’t good and to make even better things that are. He has dreams for us to believe again. In all our years as mother and daughter, you’ve taught me to dream and to believe that things can always be better if we put our minds to it. Well, my dear mother and beloved friend, we are doing just that.

Nate Fisher is NOT in the News Again....

2008-01-22T15:40:00.000-05:00

....But he should be.

Back in September, Nate Fisher, a young English teacher from Guilford High School, mistakenly handed a graphic novel to a student in his freshman English class without getting permission from his Dept. Chair. The girl’s parents discovered the book and believed strongly that it was inappropriate reading material for their daughter. Their response triggered the involvement of a whole litany of officials: the High School principal, the School Superintendent and even the police. Mr. Fisher was placed on administrative leave and soon after he resigned his position.

There was a huge backlash from students and parents who strongly supported Mr. Fisher. The young student was apparently harassed at school. A Face book group was created by students in support of Mr. Fisher, which was eventually shut down due to inappropriate postings. The blogosphere voraciously took on many of the issues surrounding Mr. Fisher’s resignation, myself included. The local news media reported quite a bit as well.

And then….nothing. Once Mr. Fisher was cleared of all charges (there ended up being a police investigation), there was nothing left to say. At least nothing left to blog about or to report on. However, for his former students at Guilford High School, for the readers of the blogs and for those who followed the news, everyone was left wondering how he would pick up the pieces of his life. This is one of the reasons why the media can be wearisome. How many times do they report on stories and then leave us hanging indefinitely?

Well, in the case of Nate Fisher, I personally followed up. Okay, I give all the credit to a friend who had heard that he is teaching again in Durham, CT (just north of Guilford). Through her persistence, she found an article about him, written by a student, in the high school newspaper. I feel obliged to send the good word out. Here is a snippet of the article:

“He’s interesting and brings a new perspective to the classroom.” Having experience as the editor in chief of the literary magazine at UConn Mr. Fisher intends to, with the help of his senior creataive writing class, start a literary magazine for the school. This will be the first literary magazine at Coginchaug in four years. He feels that this will be good for the students of the school. Since students spend most of their time writing for classes and teachers, he feels it will be a “good opportunity for students to write for themselves and show Coginchaug’s creative expression.”

Mr. Fisher deserves to be congratulated. He was not driven out of the State of Connecticut or even out of the region, nor was he forced to reinvent himself as something else in order to find a job. He is doing just what he loves, right next door to the town that potentially could have ruined his career. He had the stamina and fortitude to move on with clearly the same passion for teaching that he exuded as a teacher at Guilford High School. Although I am told that Mr. Fisher’s replacement is an excellent teacher; she is not Nate Fisher.

It would be an unforgettable gesture if Mr. Fisher were invited back to speak to his former students to tell them personally that he is doing just fine. A while back, I wrote about how this event was a lost teaching moment. Here is a second chance for the Guilford High School administration to turn this debacle into a significant learning opportunity for its students. It may not be an academic learning moment, but it sure could serve as a character building moment - an equally important skill set that demands attention during adolescence.

Nate Fisher faced a huge consequence for a mistake that he made, but it appears that it only made him stronger and more determined to pursue his passion to teach. If I were the principal of Guilford High School, I might just consider going out on a limb and doing something radical. I might hold out my hand to Mr. Fisher in a gesture of good will and invite him back to talk to his former students. This might at least put a dressing on the wounds of the kids he left behind and serve as the final lesson he never had the opportunity to teach them.

I guess it has the potential to cause some controversy. But hey, isn’t it better to get our kids thinking about the hard stuff that they may confront in their own lives and show them by example that people can move on and maybe even forgive and be forgiven for their mistakes?

Martin Luther King, Jr.: I Have a Dream

2008-01-21T17:03:00.001-05:00

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr .... take 10 minutes to watch his "I have a Dream" speech....

Canvassing 101

2008-01-19T22:35:00.000-05:00

I feel invigorated after this morning’s workout. No, I did not go to the gym or go on a long run... nor did I liberate my lab from behind the fence for a jaunt in the woods - I drove my car to a large urban high school and canvassed (my first time ever!) for Barack Obama. I call it a workout, because after I was done, I felt as good as I do after one of my long, hard hikes on a winter morning.

The "Walk for Obama" gathering was an event to get people like me out to learn how to canvass. This is grassroots at it’s best. I sat in the cafeteria of this large city high school, getting pumped by the mayor’s encouraging words. What we soon discovered was that our Canvassing 101 class consisted only of watching 2 volunteers demonstrating 3 typical scenarios and an overview of the rules and etiquette of canvassing… and then we were deemed A+ students ready to head out on our own - more like Boot Camp 101!

I walked with my daughter and her 3 friends through a neighborhood in the city, which quite honestly, we would have previously only driven through with our doors locked. We had been handed a 3-page list of doors to knock on, mapquest directions to the area and a script to follow in case we got stuck. As the adult in the group, I felt I had to appear confident and show some leadership but honestly, I felt as incompetent and intimidated as the kids.

At first glance, we stood out so badly in that neighborhood. We had walked out of the suburbs and into this broken down neighborhood - and it showed. Hardly anyone answered the door when we knocked. But we knocked on every one that we were assigned. We were a little frustrated -- but soon we started talking to people on the street. We had conversations, asked directions, encouraged people to vote. We even met a woman who knew practically every person on our list. She was so enthusiastic that I thought she was going to take us each by the hand and personally bang on those doors until we got an answer! Instead we got away with some very copious notes on our voter list.

Here was the best outcome of all - these kids would never have walked those streets had it not been for their commitment to help with this campaign. I witnessed their pride after we turned in our completed forms and I commended them for following through. They had accomplished a lot of firsts in a very short time: campaigned for a candidate they hope will be our next President and overcame the trepidation of knocking on doors and talking to strangers. But more important than all that is the other stuff - my mother refers to these things as “the goodies” the extras that you never expect to get. In this case, we bridged a gap between 2 worlds, if even for only a couple of hours, and we realized that as fearful as we were, the people we met were just people like us whose presence in their neighborhood made them feel like they counted - that their vote really was important. For some fleeting moments we all shared something in common.

Consequence or Punishment?

2008-01-17T15:08:00.000-05:00

I did something last week that is so uncharacteristic. I grounded a member of my family. For anyone who knows me, they know that I despise punishment. But I do believe in consequences. Some argue that it’s just semantics and I am masking a punishment by calling it a consequence. By definition, this can’t be so:

Consequence: Something that logically or naturally follows from an action or condition
Punishment: A Penalty imposed for wrongdoing

I have told my kids that, just because I don’t believe in punishment does not mean that I wouldn’t use it. I just don’t believe in its efficacy. As a parent, it is my job to teach my kids to become responsible, civilized and caring adults. “Punishable behaviors” are opportunities to teach important personal skills such as honesty, humility, problem-solving and mediation.

Foremost is the notion of respect. Since the first day I became a parent, almost 21 years ago, I have always tried to respect my children. During infancy, for example it meant respecting that they coveted the sensory feel of touch and the soothing sound of my voice. As toddlers, I respected their developmental need to show some control. I gave them gave them choices and I very consciously picked my battles. Being a parent is about being reasonable and teaching tolerance, it’s not about power and a misuse of authority. After all, mutual respect yields trust, faith, honesty and forgiveness. If a parent and child can have all of that in a relationship, then really, isn’t this the goal?

Enter punishment. Kids are going to break rules and they are going to do dumb stuff. We all know that as adolescents, their undeveloped brains account for a big percentage of the reason why they often find themselves doing risky behaviors. Just like us, they are going to make mistakes. They are human beings. So as their parent, I adhere to the belief that they deserve my support and not my reproach when they mess up - a timeout, no TV, no dessert, imprisonment in their room, groundings - where’s the right incentive to try to do it better next time? Is it the threat of more punishment? Or is it an understanding of personal accountability and their desire to act proactively to do it right?

When my kids were younger this was easier. Lots of times they didn’t know the difference between right and wrong, so it was my job to teach them - consequences were straightforward and sometimes not so obvious. For example, when they were fighting with their siblings, they needed to learn how to work it out. Sending them to their rooms made no sense to me (even if it would have been quieter). If they were generally misbehaving, a time-out might have been a short term solution, but what 4 year old is going to sit in a corner and truly think about why he’s there? A validation of feelings and how to deal with them the next time his “pot got stirred” seemed like a much better resolution and built interpersonal skills that could only help later on.

As they grew older I expected them to know the difference between right and wrong. Consequences. A consequence requires a dialogue, an understanding of the action and once again mutual respect. Punishment simply requires the recipient to be the powerless receptacle of the penalty. The former approach acknowledges that a behavior or action may have been wrong, but promotes a higher level of thinking and problem solving. The latter approach is an unproductive attempt to reach the real parenting goal: to prevent the behavior from happening again.

So, who acted so egregiously to warrant a “grounding” in our household? Our yellow lab, the neighborhood ambassador, and friend to all he meets. He had wandered too far afield and was picked up by a friend outside of our neighborhood a distance from our home. I guess the nature of our relationship of “owner and master” precludes any possibility of a mutually respectful relationship but I believe that he and I have some fundamental understanding - a trust that he will protect me and I will protect him. So, upholding my end of the contract, he faced one single consequence and true punishment. He is now locked up behind his electric fence indefinitely. I know it was for his own good and he left me no choice (isn’t that what punishers always say?). I guess you could argue that this was a consequence. But in my mind, as much as it breaks my heart, I can only say punishment was my only recourse.

The Children of Darfur

2008-01-12T19:44:00.001-05:00

It’s been a year and half since my kids, their friends, my mom and I drove down to Washington, DC for a rally on the Mall to raise awareness about the genocide in Darfur. The rally was co-sponsored by the Save Darfur coalition and the American Jewish World Service - two organizations that have worked tirelessly to educate the citizens of our world about the atrocities that continue to afflict the people of Sudan, to help advocate for solutions and to seek financial support for their efforts. There are many groups who are working on the ground in Darfur and neighboring Chad as well, helping the hundreds of thousands of refugees caught in this conflict. And still more who are doing both.

I returned from the rally, feeling empowered and inspired by the speakers. I got involved in our state-wide coalition. My daughter and her friends received a grant to host a screening of the documentary, “God Grew Tired of Us” about the Lost Boys of Sudan and sponsored a “DarfurFast” through STAND to raise money for Darfur. They organized their high school class to sponsor a road race for “Right to Play”, an organization that brings sports and health education to kids in war-torn countries.

And then time got in the way, as always. Or life. Or just stuff. But my involvement has been diminished to reading email alerts from the Save Darfur Coalition and following events in the news. My concern is still as great, my compassion for these souls no less.

I put this slide show together from pictures I found on the WE news archive. It’s not much but maybe it might just nudge us all a little to keep ourselves aware of what is happening across the ocean. As we read news reports of the latest outbreak of civil war in Kenya and the ongoing kidnapping of children by militias for more soldiers in Uganda, the story only continues. As someone once told me, “we’re all made from the same blood” - pain and despair whether down our street, in our country or elsewhere in the world is the same no matter what - we are all human beings inhabiting this earth.

Student Voices

2008-01-11T09:24:00.000-05:00

"I admire young people who are concerned with the affairs of their community and nation perhaps because I also became involved in struggle whilst I was still in school." ~ Nelson Mandela

Over the last week or two, I have become unusually intrigued so early in an upcoming Presidential election. I have written about youth voters and the need for our children to become active citizens. I cherish our Constitutional right to express our opinions and furthermore, if we wish, to turn our voices into action. I believe, however, that children, from the very young to those on the cusp of adulthood, all too often have their voices stifled and their ideas quashed, simply because they are kids. As adults, (whether we are parents, grandparents, friends, teachers, principals and sometimes even caring strangers) we can act as both their conduits and their cheerleaders. We can help them get their voices heard and their ideas turned into action by doing something as simple as listening.

I have found some very well intentioned organizations that are encouraging young people to speak, act and deliver. There are so many people involved in this important work. As I am compiling my own list, I have also stumbled upon the voices of some pretty articulate youth through their own comments and blogs. I will be adding a separate blogroll to emphasize the importance of their words. And on occasion I hope they chime in with their own thoughts.

My teenage daughter will be joining me occasionally me on this blog beginning in February to share her thoughts, opinions and ideas. As adult and teen, as parent and child, or as person to person, we will be engaging in dialogue, trying to understand each other's perspectives and stretching our minds to think hard about important issues - whether they be political, personal and everything in between. I am not sure what to expect but I look forward to sharing these pages with her.

..and since we can't have two drivers, at times, I'll give up my seat. She'll be the driver and I'll be the passenger in these Minivan Diaries.

25 Days to do Something

2008-01-09T23:16:00.000-05:00

It was just fortuitous that I came across this blog, this evening, in light of my post earlier today. Laura is a stunning example of the point I was trying to make. She is 10 years old, and I assume with the help of her parents, she is honoring her grandfather's memory by doing good deeds and then blogging about them. The project started out as a 25 day challenge for the month of December, but because of the overwhelming response, she has decided to continue. What a legacy her grandfather left for her and kudos to her parents for providing her support. Reading her posts and the comments, it is evident that her charitable spirit has become infectious and other kids have joined her cause.

Growing Active Citizens

2008-01-09T09:00:00.001-05:00

The youth of our nation can have a powerful voice, if they choose to use it. Not long ago I posted about the film 18 in ’08 - which is meant to inspire our 29 million young voters between the ages of 18 and 24 to exercise their democratic voice through the ballot box. It was all the news after the Iowa Caucuses and if Iowa and New Hampshire are any indication, it appears that this is just what they are doing.

I am thrilled that we have reached this point. I am wondering, however, if it’s the timing, the candidates or the issues that has finally moved these kids to action. And are Republican youth driven by the same issues and concerns as their Democratic peers?

There are issues that our kids relate to: certainly a greater awareness of Global Warming brought to us by Al Gore, more knowledge of the health care crisis thanks to Michael Moore and his documentary, Sicko, the Iraq war and Afghanistan, thanks to well, you know, along with a “threat” of nuclear threats in North Korea and Iran. Then there is the genocide in Darfur - also a newsmaker that our youth are actively engaged in. Bigger topics, that are less issue specific such as the economy, unemployment, national security, education, crime and welfare and many other are less glamorous and more difficult to wrap their arms around but still undoubtedly on their minds. Whatever has lit their fires indicates that they are on a mission to help put them out.

Just read the voice of one youth, from a blog called, “It’s Getting Hot in Here” to hear the passion in their voices. It’s electrifying. Here’s just a piece of it:

What does this all mean? Is it all rhetoric? Of course it is. But what it means is that Obama is rallying this state and in turn the country around the idea of a movement. The high-school kids in Concord, NH who rallied for Obama: they’ve never yelled for the civil rights movement before, they’ve never been told they’re part of a movement before - and now, there they are, cheering to be part of something bigger than themselves.

During the 2004 Presidential election, I home schooled one of my daughters who was then in the eighth grade. The election stood as the backdrop to our year of study. We examined the Constitution, voting, citizenship and politics. As a result of that year, she took on leadership positions in high school and is a very active citizen, engaging her classmates in community awareness and service projects. During that home schooling year I discovered that there are many organizations devoted to educating our youth about voting and citizenship. There are curriculums for elementary and middle schools. For example, the mission of Kids’ Voting is:

to get students involved and ready to be educated, engaged citizens. Students learn about democracy through a combination of classroom activities, an authentic voting experience and family dialogue.

PBS sponsors the Democracy Project for Kids that includes an interactive website. Service Vote, a program of Youth Service America,

challenges young people to think critically about how they can affect the issues that they work to address through service by participating in the political process and provides opportunities for them to participate in the presidential election.

Beyond voting, is the notion of civic engagement -- engaging kids in the community through service projects and teaching philanthropy. Making current events a regular part of family discussions and talking about solutions will contribute not only to a more educated electorate but to one that believes that community service is essential to the wellbeing of our country. As kids we had the Boys and Girls Scouts, now such, on-line organizations as Idealist.org, Freethechildren.com, Kiva.org and Youth Services America have made our world so small that kids can help affect change in their local community or across the ocean.

Rather than receiving gifts from classmates for their Bar or Bat Mitzvah, my daughter’s class opted to open a Tzedakah in Action (Charity) fund, where each family contributed the equivalent of the gift each child would have received. Under the supervision of our Rabbi, the class acts as a Board of Directors of a Philanthropic Fund and they decide how the money will be disbursed. They are not only learning about philanthropy, but also about decision-making, compromise and leadership. And it’s never too early to start. During the holidays, the popular on-line game, Club Penguin offered members (elementary aged kids) an opportunity to trade in their virtual "hard-earned" money for real donations to one of 3 chosen organizations:

..."Coins for Change" campaign ending on Christmas Eve in which 2.5 million users donated in some cases as many as 1,500 coins -- enough to furnish an igloo -- to charities. In turn, the site, owned by Walt Disney Co., divided 1 million real dollars among the charities: the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund and Free the Children.

This was money that kids had earned on the site that they spend to buy items for their penguin. It was an opportunity for each child to understand first-hand how good it feels to give.

As parents, we must use these early years as a training ground for teaching civic responsibility by seeking out meaningful opportunities. Taking interest in what is going on in our world, participating in activities to help better our own or other communities, practicing philanthropy at an early age and bringing our kids to the polls when we vote will create informed and compassionate adults who will not squander their precious right to vote but instead use it as it should be - to make their voices heard loud and clear.

Let's Restore Hope: Obama in '08

2008-01-05T09:07:00.000-05:00

What an awesome responsibility politicians owe to their constituents. As public figures we expect them to act judiciously, courageously, unselfishly and honestly. Yet, time and again, their humanness seems to get in the way, and the simple qualities we expect them to engender slowly erode away. And then we lose trust, hope and inspiration. But, we constantly seek intelligent leaders who will inspire us with vision and honesty - and every election we anticipate that somebody will step out from behind the curtain - who will be decent and humble despite being a politician who must wield influence and power to get their job done. Maybe it’s an oxymoron to expect both. Or maybe not, I still want to believe it is possible.

The first time I ever heard of Barack Obama was at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Like many Americans, I was stirred by his speech. Like many Americans, I remember thinking what a great candidate he would have made for president… and then like many Americans I thought, no way - he’s young, he’s black and nobody knows him. So, when he announced his candidacy last February, I was thrilled, but wary.

And then I watched his Victory speech in Iowa Tuesday night and I was sold. Until that moment, I wasn’t exactly sure who I would be supporting - although Obama was cautiously my answer when somebody would ask me. I realized that the Democrats can nitpick and debate over the issues all they want, because at the end of the day, I can live with the positions of any of them. So, who moves me? Who inspires me? Who do I want to trust the future of our country and this world to? Who represents the person I would want my children to respect and maybe even think of as a hero? Hands down, it would be Barack Obama, and so I have registered to volunteer for his campaign despite his youth, his color, his relative inexperience. I believe he is that person who has stepped out from behind the curtain to lead us with intelligence, integrity, pride and humility.

So I signed up to volunteer to work on his campaign, because to win, he needs everyone to help. Back in February when he announced his run for the Presidency he said,

That's why this campaign can't only be about me. It must be about us — it must be about what we can do together. This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes, and your dreams. It will take your time, your energy, and your advice — to push us forward when we're doing right, and to let us know when we're not. This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.  

I have always taken my role in the Democratic process seriously and I have been one to believe that my vote, my voice counts. Despite our soiled reputation in the world and despite the lying and pomposity that has regaled this administration and despite the message of fear and the eroding of our civil rights that we have become accustomed to, I want to believe there is hope. I want to feel proud to be an American and I want my children to believe that this process can work and that we can each play a vital role in making it happen.

Obama’s word’s Tuesday night touched me. Hope.

Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

WMDS:

To join the Obama Campaign, click here.
To view Obama's Iowa Victory speech click here.
For the written text of Obama’s Iowa Victory Speech, click here.
To view a great documentary about Obama’s past year and hear some of his entire speeches instead of the sound bytes we hear on the news, click here.

Our Sons

2008-01-04T14:06:00.000-05:00

The most emailed article from the New York Times on Tuesday was titled, “Giving Boys the Tools for Success and Multitasking”. As I read the article, it took me back to 1999 when my son was in middle school. The teachers nicknamed him “pigpen” because he forever had a stream of papers falling out of his backpack and hanging out of his locker. As much as we tried to help organize him we couldn’t. By eighth grade we gave up. He went through middle school having “nickel and dimed” himself as we were told by his teachers because he would lose homework assignments and get points taken off for failing notebook spot checks. He eventually worked the kinks out of some self-designed system because he completed Honors and AP classes, graduated from high school and attends a top University. But, there was no support - we were told he was just “wired” that way. Not that he would have agreed to see one of the “organizational tutors” in this article anyway - but I am sure no such option even existed.

Back in the early ‘90’s there was an explosion of literature about how boys are failing. Books titled, The Wonder of Boys, by Michael Gurian, Real Boys by William Pollack, and the War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers, essentially reported that boys were on the brink of crashing in every aspect of society - families, schools and the community. Boys were doing poorly in school, abusing more drugs, dropping out of school at higher rates, earning fewer college degrees, crowding special education programs and generally becoming misfits in our society. And today’s statistics support this prediction: girls outpace boys in academics (particularly in reading), in high school graduation rates, and in college acceptances. There continues to be a higher rate of male violent offenders, more boys in special education programs and in the principals’ offices. Take a look at these statistics; they are shocking.

Could it be that when I was worrying about the future for my daughters when they were born in the early 90’s, I should have been equally concerned for my son, being born in the late 80’s? I wasn’t aware then, that boys were becoming more and more disengaged. But it is so clear to me now, that somehow they were left behind.

Ten years after this proliferation of literature the story continues to unfold. A government report called, America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2007, examined statistics related to our kids’ health, safety, behavior, economics, education and family and social environment over the past 2 decades. The conclusion is hopeful. Although girls continue to lead by a large margin, the gap is closing. The downward trend for boys has begun a slow turn upward.

During the 1980’s, girls had a lot of catching up to do and progress was made through legislation and programs that equalized access to everything from education to athletics. I am not saying that the playing fields have equaled out yet, but I believe that the close attention that girls were getting in the 80’s directly contributed to who they are today. Perhaps the “boy” literature of the early 90’s was the catalyst to do the same for their brothers.

The mere fact that both sexes are genetically different naturally translates into a divergence of approaches to learning, problem solving and to social interactions. Educators and other professionals are acknowledging that it’s not that boys won’t fit the mold, but the mold doesn’t fit the boys. New teaching styles and methodologies are being investigated, curriculums are being adapted and classrooms are being redesigned. There are all kinds of non-profit organizations that address “boy power issues”, to:

increase academic skills, to increase college success, and to develop the confidence, drive, and determination to contribute to American society.

Sound familiar? Not much different than the organizations that were created to support young girls a few decades back.

With books topping this year’s best seller list like, “The Dangerous Book for Boys” that according to the authors acknowledge:

“In this age of video games and cell phones, there must still be a place for knots, tree houses, and stories of incredible courage"

It is evident that the tide is changing. The book does not promote aggressive behavior, nor does it praise boys over girls, it “exudes the confidence of ages past that boys are to be treasured not cured”. And perhaps this is the direction we need to follow. Boys need to be supported and given the freedom to be who they are. To be believed in. They are the next fathers, husbands and contributors to our society and if they are nurtured as children the results can only be better when they become adults.

Socrates may have had it right, when many thousands of years ago he asked,

“How shall we find a gentle nature which also has a great spirit?”

Perhaps we are moving closer and within time, both boys and girls will grow up being more comfortable in their own skins, content with their decisions, and finding ways to break through some of the issues that our generation has not yet achieved.

Killer at Large

2008-01-01T09:35:00.000-05:00

I never thought the word "Killer" would be in a title of one of my posts, but it is befitting the content. There is a new film directed by Steven Greenstreet. In 2005, Greenstreet directed the award-winning documentary "This Divided State" which chronicled the furor over Utah Valley State College's decision to bring Michael Moore to speak on campus in the days before the divisive 2004 presidential election.

This film, exposes the details of the American obesity epidemic. And it looks specifically at childhood obesity.

It serves as a call to arms for concerned parents, school districts, and entire communities who have empowered themselves to take a stand and reverse this deadly trend which is set to cripple our entire nation's health care system and bankrupt our economy within the next twenty years.

An interesting thing about this film is that 3 twenty somethings produced this film out their 6x8 studio apartment. This interview, tells alot about the filmmakers and the project. Kudos to these young guys.

Hopefully, Killer at Large, will serve as a catalyst to bring the issue of childhood obesity into the forefront so there can be more dialogue and positive steps to attack this problem.

It is being submitted to 30 Film festivals and is supposed to be released in early 2008. I'll be keeping an eye out for it.

Our Daughters

2007-12-30T12:48:00.000-05:00

I remember, being in eighth grade, and wanting to grow up to be a teacher in the inner city. I devoured a constant stream of books about teacher success stories that could have easily been made into Disney movies. I was inspired and I believed that I too could change a piece of the world. My girlfriends also had dreams of growing up and pursuing careers. Nobody discouraged us from being whatever we wanted; we went on to college and graduate schools. Some of us pursued careers, some of us became full-time mothers and some tried to balance the two. This was before Title IX opened up playing fields to equalize access to athletics, before sexual harassment was outlawed and bias for college scholarships and financial aid was banned based on sex.

According to Dan Kindlon, a psychologist and adjunct professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, my daughters are profoundly different from who I was at their age. He studied 900 girls and boys in grades 6 -12, from the US and Canada and concluded in his book, Alpha Girls: Understanding the new American Girl and How She is Changing the World:

This generation of girls can be labeled, “alpha girls” because data shows they outperform boys in grades, honors, high school graduation rates and college entrance. That this new girl power is characterized by ‘emancipated confidence’ that is raising self esteem, reducing depression and altering gender roles among girls and women.

Last night I was at my 12 year old daughter’s basketball tournament. Before the game, the opponents were sitting together in a group, waiting to go into the gym. As I watched them, I stubbornly realized that they really are different from who I was at that age and they are growing up with very different expectations. There were basketball teams for girls my age, heck, my mom played basketball in high school - but girls’ athletics was not given the legitimacy that it has today. We didn’t have Recreation leagues, Little League, summer sports camps and sports clinics. Of the four teams that were out on those two courts, last night, 3 of them had woman coaches. Today, girls believe they can be as good or even better than boys, their playtime counts and their competition is just as important. And it is. Those girls played hard, aggressive basketball. And this confidence carries over to their school performance as well.

Annually, I attend the Awards nights at our high school. I have been tracking this phenomenon since before my son graduated in 2005: By my rough estimate, at least 2/3 of the academic awards always go to girls. The National Honor Societies, whether for foreign languages or general academics, consist of a strong majority of girls and my kids tell me that the presence of testosterone in the Honors and AP classes is almost non-existent. I can’t remember the last time our high school valedictorian was male.

And it’s cool now for girls to be jocks or to be smart or even better to be both. When I was growing up, it was acceptable to excel in tennis or track, but enter the culture of male dominated sports and watch out. My best friend was captain of the girls’ basketball team. She was smart and an incredible athlete, but boys shied away from her - way too intimidating. We were class presidents, team captains and honors recipients. In fact, according to Lawrence Katz, a professor of economics, “girls have been ahead of boys in precollege education for well over 100 years: in high school graduation rates and in constituting 2/3 of honor students”. Here’s the difference: we weren’t taken seriously until the women’s movement accelerated change through Title IX, and other political and legal advancements.

In an article about this study in Harvard Magazine, the author acknowledges:

Today, there is a “paradigm shift in the way parents think about their girls’ options in the world. There’s a whole generation of girls whose creativity and intellect are being supported by their families. Their mothers and fathers are cheering them on, coaching them and setting the bar high, so that their ambition can soar and take them high”.

The playing field is leveling off and for the first time, girls and young women have an opportunity to realize their potential. They do have more self-confidence and great self esteem. They are definitely more empowered.

But, if Dan Kindlon is going to label these girls, “Alpha Girls”, then I take offense. The term “alpha girl” was coined to describe those horrible middle school bullies who rule the school, set the trends, decide who will be popular and who will be relegated to the lowest rung of the social ladder. We all knew them and even though they now have a title, they existed way before any of us were even born. The fact that Kindlon chooses this term to describe this present generation of young women is insulting and perpetrates the exact stereotype that women of my generation are trying to erradicate - that successful, professional women are backstabbing, power-hungry, disingenuous bullies.

And what about girls who do not have educational or economic advantages? Although Kindlon points out that there are “alphas” in the inner city, they are less widespread among low-income and minority girls. I believe there is still a lot of work needed in these communities before this entire generation of girls is on equal footing with the boys. The girls that Dan Kindlon characterizes still represent a fraction of the entire female population.

Putting the disparity among socioeconomic groups aside for a moment, I want to believe that my daughters are on the cusp of economic and social equality and they no longer have to “confront the psychological demons that used to affect girls and women in this country”, like I guess I did. Or at least I am told I did by the psychologists who wrote about my generation. But at the end of the day, the big issues remain unresolved. With 72% of American mothers working outside the home, the work/family challenge is widespread. “From a women’s rights point of view, that’s still the hardest hurdle to overcome.”

This is not just about women. I accept that our girls are different than we were. So this creates issues for both sexes. Now it’s about choices and the ability to choose the kinds of family couples will have, how child-rearing responsibilities will be shared and the division of labor. Unless this generation opts not to procreate, then all the strides that have been made to get girls on equal footing with their male counterparts will be for nothing. Once women enter the workforce and want to have a family, what choices are they left with?

I opted out of the workforce. I didn’t make it into the inner city to teach. If I was a young mother today, I wonder if my choice would be different. Would I be caught in this wave of equality and expectations that women can “have it all”? Would I believe that I could pursue my professional dreams and have a large family and raise my own kids? I really don’t know. Maybe my decision was easier back then because I didn’t believe I could “do it all”. Maybe the choices are becoming different now.

My wish for my daughters is that when the time comes for them to choose, their options will abound with flexible work hours, telecommuting, reasonable maternity and paternity leaves and other creative solutions that we don’t even know about yet. I sincerely hope they can have it all. But I am afraid, that I may be expecting too much, still too soon, and this may only, possibly, be a reality for my granddaughters.

Really, now.

2007-12-22T12:48:00.000-05:00

Dear Random Woman in the grocery store parking lot,

I know it was only a parking space.

Let me refresh your memory. The parking lot was so packed, that shoppers were being stalked by drivers who were waiting to park. You had one of those golden spaces right out front. In parking lot culture - you were the Queen. Remember, you were there with your husband and two daughters who must have been about 9 and 11? You only had a few bags left to unload from your cart. I stopped and waited for your space. I am sure you saw me put my directional on because our eyes met.

You had two choices: to hurry your family along and gracefully participate in this parking lot economics, or drag your feet and intentionally and methodically slow down progress. Predictably, and unfortunately for me, you opted for the latter. I saw it coming- it was as if my car blinker signaled your brain to move in slow motion. And then, what timing. Someone appeared out of nowhere from across the way, whom you hadn’t seen in a while (or at least you made it appear that way). You flagged her down to introduce to your whole family. You could really drag this out for a while now. You held me hostage, sort of. I know I was free to leave but the daunting line of hapless drivers was your ransom. Do you remember I rolled down my window and asked you nicely if you were leaving, reminding you that the traffic was like, excuse the pun, a parking lot??

Do you remember you acted surprised by the sound of my voice, but then assured me you were leaving? So I waited. Patiently. And then there was absolutely no correlation between your words and your actions. I noticed my fingers had started tapping the steering wheel, and I promise it wasn’t to the happy beat of my music from the car radio. I would have moved on if you told me that you wouldn’t be leaving - but you chose instead to play your version of a game of chicken. You knew as well as I did, that you couldn’t wait to get out of there - you probably couldn’t even stand this woman. You probably had a whole checklist of other errands to do before the holiday - oh yeah, the holiday, Christmas.

It’s also comforting to know that you found a mate with whom you share such common values. The game seemed so familiar to him and he played along so willingly. But your young daughters looked embarrassed. At one point, I thought I saw one of them even shrug helplessly at me.

Two young shoppers caught the gist of the scene when they saw my flashing blinker and the coffee klatch that had unfolded in front of me. They walked right up to my car and offered their space to me. With determination and kindness they quickly unloaded their cart and backed out and let me maneuver my car into the space. One of them even returned the cart while the other one moved the car. I hope your daughters were watching. Actually, YOU should hope they were watching so they could see that there actually are decent people in this world. They obviously aren’t going to be learning about decency from you.

I am writing now because I refrained from confronting you when I got out of my car. I didn’t even look at you. I was too embarrassed for your behavior and I was above the notion of becoming another story of crazy holiday parking lot incidents. Trust me, I had more than a few words to say to you.

I am perplexed by your blatantly selfish behavior. I am embarrassed for your children. I am infuriated by your rudeness. I am dumbfounded that any human being could feel so self-important. I am not sure who won our little game of chicken, and honestly, I could care. But I do know that I walked out of my car feeling like a winner because in the end I was touched by kindness. I would rather live in my world that embraces people like those two young girls than in your ridiculously selfish one. You, on the other hand, have to live with yourself everyday and to me, that seems pretty painful.

Can't Get it all done...

2007-12-19T13:53:00.000-05:00

"Why did you do all this for me?" (Wilbur) asked. "I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you." "You have been my friend," replied Charlotte. "By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift my life a trifle. Heaven knows, anyone's life can use a little of that."

~from Charlotte’s Web by EB White

Today I came the realization that writing everyday -- especially about the troubles in our world, is way too large and (depressing task). The solutions are overwhelming and who wants to feel overwhelmed every time they read a posting? Besides, on many days I can barely find the time to do, although I would love to make writing one of my "must -dos". I commend any blogger who can post daily - and post with meaning -- my “friends” who visit me often seem to achieve this with great skill… perhaps I am not organized enough, in my mind or in my life, to do this….yet.

But I will work towards that goal. In the meantime, I am not abandoning my idea of WMD’s, just tempering it a bit. On Monday it seemed like a great idea. Today, life got in the way, bit it's all good and that’s fine with me...

High School Dropout A Silent Epidemic - We Must Do Something (WMD'S #1)

2007-12-18T12:27:00.000-05:00

Every 29 seconds, another student gives up on school. This translates into more than 1 million American high school students every year. Nearly 33% of all public high school student and 50% of all black, Hispanic and Native American students fail to graduate from public high school with their class.

Take a moment to forget about the question I have posted earlier, about whether our high school graduates will be able to compete in the global market in the 21st century. What about the one million students per year, who barely have a chance to compete here in the United States?

What surprises me most about high school dropouts, is the major reason why they drop out. I naively believed that it was due mostly to personal reasons, such as helping support a family, pregnancy, or care for a family member. From a study sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, I learned that nearly 50% of all dropouts do so because their classes are not interesting. Furthermore 70% have said they were not motivated to work hard and 66% said they would have worked harder if more had been demanded of them. Only 1/3 of all students dropout because of family or personal situations.

Our schools are failing our kids. As I read this study further it is unquestionably clear that dropping out is an act of last resort. A fair percentage of these students enter high school unprepared and are destined to fail. We all know “those” kids -- the one’s who struggled early on either academically, emotionally or socially. Teacher and peer expectations are lowered, kids become underachievers and before long it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As unhappy as some of these kids may be in school, none of them look forward to the day when they are old enough to drop out. The study pointed out that dropping out is not a “sudden act, but a gradual process of disengagement”. In other words, there is time to intervene before that last act is committed.

I realize the seemingly insurmountable challenges that teachers and other school officials contend with on a daily basis and I applaud their efforts to confront these challenges. I have only researched the tip of the iceberg when looking for nonprofit, for-profit and government agencies putting forth enormous efforts to help fight this problem. But here is my position.

If you look in the eyes of any child, no matter the age or socioeconomic background, and believe that each one individually wants to succeed, find happines and be a positive and contributing member to our society, then there’s the first step. Kids need someone who can believe in them. Every child wants to grow up to be something - ask any preschooler - they all have an answer. So much can go wrong during this process of growing up and graduating from high school and we come out the losers. There is so much potential that goes untapped because kids get lost along the way.

So, what can we do? Here are a few suggestions:

1) Think about becoming a mentor. I have had the privilege of being a mentor for the last years and I promise anyone who volunteers to give one on one time to a child will reap benefits that are far beyond anything you can imagine. Here is the website of mentoring.org which is the national clearinghouse for mentoring advocacy and programs. Check to see if your town has a program already in place. January is National Mentoring Month.

2) Check out your school district to see what its high school graduation rate is and how it compares to other towns in your state and the United States. Then decide if there is something you want to do about it if you are unhappy with the statistic.

3) Find out the presidential candidates stand on this issue.

4) Further educate yourself on the issue. This will get you started, or this

5) Think about education reform. Take a look at these stories and websites: NPR did a story today about Boulder's school system and an innovative approach to education, Edin08is a fairly new initiative, have a look.

And finally, here’s something to remember:

“Make a habit of two things: to help or at least to do no harm" ~ Hippocrates

Band Aid - Do they Know It's Christmas

2007-12-17T15:30:00.001-05:00

This YouTube Video of Bob Geldoff and Band Aid, in 1984, singing about famine in Ethiopia at Christmas time is a fitting way for me to introduce something new to Minivan Diaries. I have been enjoying writing and thinking about issues that are important to me, educating myself and anyone else who wishes to read my blog. However, at times I feel frustrated at not going beyond the issues to offering some solutions.

So I am beginning a daily post on important causes and issues of interest in my community, my state, the country or the world that affect kids. I propose turning the negative and hopeless implication of the awful acronym, “WMD’S” into positive action. Instead of “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” let’s think, “We Must Do Something”. And hopefully we can all think positively about making this world a better place for our kids. Along with my posts, I will try to include ways to help or get involved and at the very least always offer resources to learn more about it.

I enjoy thinking and writing about general observations and rambling thoughts that may pass through my brain - so there will be other posts too -- but I am excited about this new addition and I hope you will be too. So keep a daily (I hope!) lookout for WMD’S. We need not fear them, we just need to become educated, have some dialogue and find ways to help!

..and just think, this was produced 23 years ago - how much progress has been made?

18 in '08

2007-12-14T18:36:00.001-05:00

Whenever I listen to John Mayer’s song, “Waiting on the World to Change”, it makes me sad for this generation of young adults who believe they are disenfranchised. His lyrics resonate with young people. Yet to me, his words sound hopeless: rather than believing they can play an active role in addressing the world’s problems, they’ll just “wait on the world to change”. I have to believe that the current administration has been partly to blame for their cynicism and feelings of hopelessness. But we are less than a year away from the next Presidential election and now is the time for them to realize that their voices are important and must be heard. The first step is to vote. There will be over 29 million people between the ages of 18 and 24 eligible to vote in 2008.

There is a new documentary, directed by a Haverford College freshman, entitled “18 in ’08”. Young people should get hold of this film and watch it - then they should pass it on to somebody else they know and so on, and so on until it has reached this entire cohort of people - waking them from their passivity and stirring them to action. If the candidates only realized the potential influence this demographic has in deciding our next president, they would be campaigning hard for their votes. Instead, because they are “waiting on the world to change” we are not hearing the voices of this generation nor are they asking the tough questions and demanding answers.

I recently wrote a post about the documentary, 2 Million Minutes. I feel a similar sense of uneasiness after viewing this film. What is the future for the young people of this country? What roles will they play academically, economically, politically and socially? John Mayer sings:

Me and all my friends
We're all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There's no way we ever could
Now we see everything that's going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don't have the means
To rise above and beat it

My hope, is at the very least, they will realize that their vote counts and it will be the first step to discovering that they can’t “wait on the world to change” or it will be too late.

Childhood Obesity Revisited

2007-12-11T14:47:00.000-05:00

The other day, my kids reminded me of the dessert policy I instituted when they were young. They could choose to either have: 2 small items, like two cookies, or 8 M&M’s. Don’t ask me how I came up with this crazy formula. But I do remember firmly adhering to it and except on special occasions they knew never to even ask for special dispensation.

When they were too young to know any differently, there were no sweets or junk food in our house, at least not for them. As they got old enough to know better, I declared that complete abstinence would create cookie monsters, so “that food” became permissible but only in a natural, controlled rhythm. I do admit to sometimes finding empty candy wrappers and chip bags under couch cushions and under beds, but I allowed these digressions to pass without confrontation. I attributed it to youthful spunkiness and small acts of rebellion - allowing the guilty parties to believe that they had gotten away with something. Instead, maybe it should have been my wake up call.

By the time my kids became adolescents, they could easily have been labeled “chunky”, or “full”, or dare I say, overweight? Although I knew they weren’t skinny, they were very active, avidly playing all kinds of sports and most importantly, they had great self esteem, lots of friends and definitely no body image issues. Today, when I look back at their pictures they were definitely “overweight”. Back then I grappled with how to deal with the problem. Or was it a problem? They were far from obese, lead busy, active lives and quite honestly were very happy. The last thing that I wanted for my kids to believe was that their size mattered. Who's problem was it really?

So we framed it with discussions about eating healthy and the importance of being fit. We always had healthy meals and rarely ate fast food. Removing the sweets and chips from our cupboards was not the answer. I believed that teaching my kids how to eat in moderation and to enjoy food - every type - was a life skill they needed to learn. Removing temptations, instead of learning how to manage them, is no way to enjoy life. Perhaps this approach was a leap of faith, and either it worked or they just grew out of it. As they passed through adolescence, they eventually shed their extra weight.

But how would have I felt if their pediatrician actually labeled them “fat” to their faces at their annual physicals? I am positive I would not have welcomed this harsh reality check. Not only would I have been insulted, I never would have condoned such callous and insensitive behavior from our pediatrician. The American Medical Association has recently proposed such a recommendation:

"We need to describe this in medical terms, which is 'obesity.' When we talk to an individual family, we can be a little more cognizant of their feelings and more gentle, but that doesn't mean we can't discuss it," Washington said. "The evidence is clear that we need to bring it up."

In our ambitious attempt to confront these important issues, physicians still need to be mindful of the power in which they are vested. All adults, for that matter, cannot underestimate the potential damage their words can cause. Stigmatization can do as much harm to children as their overweight bodies. All my kids are average weights now. But they each have gone through different weight phases in their short lives. Had there been intervention by a teacher, a physician or even the government it may very well have had a detrimental affect on them. Who is to say what the best practice is?

It is crucial that we act on the obesity epidemic in our country. However, this call for action needs to be balanced ever so carefully with our responsibility to protect our young people from living a lifetime of never feeling good enough unless they are a size 2 or flaunt a sculptured body of muscle and fine lines. It’s a balancing act on a tightrope that requires master skills to gently make the way unfailingly across that wire or we risk raising an entire population of unhealthy as well as unhappy adults.

Children deserve time to be kids and to not feel like failures because they are overweight - especially when it’s not their fault. Parents, media, schools, economics and social factors are what is responsible for who they are and who they will become. They deserve to be healthy and to have a chance at living happy, normal, productive and fulfilling lives. Fixing the obesity problem in America is far more challenging than we may even begin to imagine.

Childhood Obesity - A Threat to our Public Health

2007-12-10T12:05:00.000-05:00

About 33% of US children and adolescents between the age of 2 and 19 years old are overweight and 17.1% of those are obese

“If we don’t take steps to reverse course, the children of each successive generation seem destined to be fatter and sicker than their parents.” Dr. David Ludwig made this statement in an editorial he wrote in a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, in response to the findings of two published studies of childhood obesity. Both studies looked at the effects that childhood obesity will have on the future health of overweight children. One study followed 277,000 Danish students for decades by evaluating detailed health records. The study found,

…the more overweight a child was between ages 7 and 13, the greater the risk of heart disease in adulthood. The older the children are, the higher the chance for later heart risk. So, for example, a boy who was heavier than his peers at age 7 had a 5 percent increased risk for later heart disease, but a boy who was heavier than his peers at age 13 had a 17 percent greater risk.

If these findings aren’t startling enough, there’s more. The most obese child in the Danish study was at a 33% greater risk for heart disease in adulthood. Yet, the fattest boys in the entire Danish sample are barely considered overweight by US standards. Barely considered overweight by US standards! Think about the implications of that finding. This means that the risk for adult heart disease for Americans is most definitely even greater than 33%.

Now combine this information with the findings out of UCSF which state that:

if the number of overweight children continues to increase at current rates, then by the year 2035, the rate of heart disease will rise to 16 percent or as many as 100,000 extra cases of heart disease attributable to childhood obesity.

Although it may not seem like it now, it won’t be long before we are standing on the threshold of a Public Health crisis. The economic costs of this strain on our health care system will be enormous. A surge in serious illness (and obesity also increases the risk for Type 2 diabetes, kidney failure, limb amputation and premature death) translates into lower worker productivity, job loss and in the end a dying economy.

Pretty bleak forecast and in the meantime, not a lot is being done to turn this crisis around. Our kids continue to lead more sedentary lives, snack on junk food, eat fast food for meals, be inundated with ad campaigns for these dangerous foods and then be served them in their school cafeterias.

I don’t mean to say that nothing is being done to attack this epidemic. The State of Arkansas began a health report card for all students in grades K -12. At the end of every year students are sent home with a report their weight, BMI etc. Apparently there have been some positive results. When the fact that their child is overweight is staring them in the face some parents and kids take action; however, the program is purely elective, so it is unclear which families are opting in and which families are not being counted.

School systems have instituted nutrition and exercise programs with some success. For example, a research group, The Healthier Options for Public Schools, followed 3700 students in a Florida county over 2 years. School districts instituted an intervention program in 4 schools and the results were measured against two schools that did not have a program. The intervention program included dietary changes, increased exercise and nutrition awareness. There were dramatic changes in the kids who had intervention, however, when those students returned from summer vacation, most had reverted back to their old habits.

The good news is, that with education, changes in lifestyle and healthful diets, this trend can be reversed. The broader and more daunting question, is how? When the cost of healthy eating is often too high for low-income families and fast food has become the norm because families are too busy to sit down for a meal, and our entire population has become sedentary, it appears that we are doomed to fail our children. The issues are economic, cultural and political. But if we do not create a comprehensive national strategy to attack this problem, it will soon be too late.

We have in our communities a perfect storm that will continue to feed the childhood obesity epidemic until we adopt policies that improve the health of our communities and our kids," Frank Chaloupka, an economics professor the University of Illinois at Chicago.

So what do we do? There are countless competing issues. On the one hand, we have a culture that is unhealthy and overweight and on the other hand we have a “body image” obsessed society. There are issues of self esteem, bullying, and stigmatization attached to obese kids yet we also want to teach our kids to like themselves for who they are and not for what they look like. The one thing is clear, however, we cannot stay on this trajectory and if we do we will be doing a terrible disservice to this future generation.

2 Million Minutes to Face the Competition

2007-12-05T23:33:00.000-05:00

I have finally had an opportunity to view the documentary, 2 Million Minutes.

Briefly, the film focuses on 6 high school students, two each from the United States, China and India. Each pair attends the same high school, which by the way, are all top performing schools in their respective countries. The students represent the stereotypical profile one would expect to see: the American students are high achieving and successful but are not particularly academically motivated, the Chinese students are high achieving, intense and focused and the Indian students are high achieving and hard-working but seem internally conflicted by the external pressure of their parents and Indian society. The film explores cultural attitudes about education and whether or not American students will be able to compete in the global economy in the 21st century.

I immediately wondered how the students were chosen for the film. All six of them were very bright and ranked in the upper end of their classes. At first, I thought they purposely profiled “typical” high achieving American students but picked “extraordinary” Chinese and Indian students to make a more drastic point. But as I continued viewing, I realized that all the students seemed pretty typical whithin their own cultures. As extraordinary as the Chinese and Indian students appeared to me it was evident that I was judging them through my American eyes. Although I was impressed by their commitment and fortitude, I realized they were clearly not the most distinguished students in their countries. However, those typical high achieving students in China or India are more similar to our most extraordinary students in America.

I was prepared to watch yet another documentary that mocked our broken system and hailed the Asians as superior in their methodology and resolute in their academic rigor. It is not what I found. Instead, I watched a thought provoking dialogue about the potential crisis that America may face if we don’t,

wake up and realize the new threat, the fact that we are competing with anyone anywhere in the world and we’re going to lose. We are not going to be the leaders in the next 30 years or so unless we wake up and realize that. And it takes decades to create a high performing scientist or engineer. Because these things unfold over time, people tend to overlook them. It is a crisis because by the time one recognizes what has happened it takes time to remedy the situation.

Despite the warning, I couldn’t help cheer a bit for the American students. I found comfort in their individual spirit and wholesome attitude about finding balance in their lives. The openness of our society breeds opportunities that don’t exist in other countries. As a result our high school students face different challenges and expectations. The opportunity for economic mobility, the freedom to decide what’s going to help them lead happy and fulfilling lives also adds a certain pressure that students in these other countries cannot relate to.

And then I thought about yesterday’s announcement of the winners of the 2007 Siemens competition in Math, Science and Technology. All three winners for the individual and team competitions were girls (which is fodder for another time). I went to the Siemens website to read the bios of the National finalists. I expected to find science “geeks” whose lives were absorbed only by academics. To my surprise, I found public school kids who not only excelled in the sciences but were captains of sports teams, newspaper editors, community activists, literary geniuses and accomplished musicians. Even those extraordinary American science students find time to balance their lives with other interests and commitments.

What motivates these kids? Is it their schools, their families or some internal drive that has been nurtured by a combination of both? Why are they the extreme examples of our educational system rather than the norm? Do they represent the models for our future? It would be interesting to interview these students to hear about their experience and interaction with the American educational system as well what expectations they have for themselves. I would venture to guess, that their core values may not differ much from the two students interviewed for this film. Chances are they are also seeking balance and happiness in their lives but is there a place for these values in the global market?

Although I believe that our educational system is in terrible need of repair, I don’t believe that the Chinese or Indian systems are models we should necessarily aspire to. There is no question that our students face greater challenges than earlier generations and they will certainly confront the competition of an ever increasing, highly motivated and incredibly sophisticated international workforce. But I am not sure what we, as a nation, are willing to compromise to stay ahead or even remain in the race. By who’s rules will this generation play by?

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton sums it all up in the film:

It’s not to be #1 necessarily in everything. It’s not to knock the Chinese or the Indians down, it’s to be part of an increasingly, hopefully more valuable set of human minds doing more and more complicated and more productive things.

I don’t think we need a crystal ball to look 30 years into the future, but the bigger question is, what are we going to do about it and when will it become too late? 2 Million Minutes is the springboard from which we must begin to dive into these issues.

25th Day of Kislev

2007-11-30T08:20:00.001-05:00

A few years ago, my daughter and I were watching the local news. Thanksgiving had just passed and the station had taken a viewer’s poll to ask how people felt about Christmas decorations going up before Thanksgiving. I will never forget one viewer’s response because it brought us a good chuckle. The viewer had suggested that Thanksgiving be changed to September to allow everyone more time to shop. It seemed like forgive me, such a stupid comment. What stopped this woman from beginning her Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving? Was there something about this Christmas ritual that we didn’t understand? Or had she lost the true meaning of Christmas… and Thanksgiving for that matter?

Hanukkah begins next Tuesday, December 4. Some may wonder why it bounces around the calendar from one year to the next. Actually, it doesn’t. It begins on the same date every year on the Hebrew calendar - the 25th night in the month of Kislev. The Hebrew calendar is based on the moon, unlike the Gregorian calendar, which is based on the sun. Therefore, new moons dictate the beginning of new months and those days are always different when matched to our Gregorian calendar.

So, I need to finish my holiday shopping by Tuesday - hence the reason for a lack of postings this week. Family duty calls. Family traditions and the promise of 8 nice days of celebration, including a holiday party on Sunday, have sent my typing fingers into a frenzied state way beyond the keyboard and froze my blogging brain. Instead, I have been shopping, cleaning my house, sending gifts off to relatives, wrapping presents and thinking about ways to make this Hanukkah memorable and special for my family.

When my kids were young, their questions were relentless about why we don’t have a Christmas tree, and why Santa doesn’t visit our home, and why we don’t decorate our house with lights or put candles in the windows --- like “everybody else”. Our quaint New England town is so beautiful this time of year. As you drive down our street every house really does have candles in the windows and white lights wrapped painstakingly around trees and bushes. Our house is the only one that doesn’t and I needed to help them understand that we’re “not like everyone else”, at least during the month of December.

December is my annual reminder that I am a minority in this country. Synagogues have even coined a phrase for this phenomenon: the “December dilemma”. Rabbis run workshops to help parents deal with kids’ questions and their desire to celebrate Christmas. No matter where I go in search of Hanukkah wrapping paper, candles for the menorah or dare I ask some decorations, I am always relegated to a small corner of the store with a few token decorations, some wrapping paper (if I am lucky) and paper goods that usually are leftover rejects from the year before. Sometimes I feel like people are staring at me, even feeling sorry for such uninspiring selections when the whole rest of the store boasts aisles of festive Christmas goodies. If they do, they shouldn’t. I like it this way. But it’s taken me a while to get here.

While growing up, my family never made a huge deal about Hanukkah. We usually lit the menorah and we got some presents. But the big stuff, the good stuff was saved for Christmas. Yes, my Jewish parents celebrated Christmas. And as a kid, I loved it. But after I grew up I started thinking more about my own identity and what Judaism meant to me, and Christmas just didn’t fit into the picture.

I realize that Hanukkah is a very minor holiday and some Jews will argue that it should remain that way. All the hype about Christmas, catapults Hanukkah to the head of the pack of other more important Jewish holidays. Be that as it may, the reality is that Christmas is a really fun holiday for kids, and when you are on the outside, peering through the snow covered glass and seeing those chestnuts roasting on an open fire and Santa Claus coming to town, it’s tough being a Jewish kid this time of year. I believe that creating traditions around Hanukkah is fine. Making the holiday fun and festive and special helps kids realize that although they may be different, it is an opportunity to use this distinction to create something special.

Therein has been my challenge over the past 20 years - to help my kids feel proud of being Jewish in December. From the issue of Santa - I never told my kids he is just pretend, out of respect for their friends (believe me, it would have been so much easier if I did), which meant endless explanations as to why Santa doesn’t come to our house -- “no, it’s not because you have been bad”! Christmas trees as religious symbols -- they are called “Christmas trees, for a reason!” Christmas concerts in schools, classroom Christmas parties, stores decked out with Christmas decorations etc. My kids were bombarded.

So, it became my project. I educated teachers and went into my kids’ classrooms and cooked potato latkes and taught everyone how to play dreidel. We listened to Hanukkah music. As a family we read lots of Hanukkah stories (I have a huge collection of picture books that I collected over the years). I pull boxes down from the attic too! We’ve collected decorations over the years, have our own traditions around the eight nights and even paint and decorate a “Hanukkah box” every year to hold all our gifts. I realized that the envy doesn’t come from wanting to celebrate Christmas; it comes from wanting to celebrate something.

Families need traditions and rather than wallowing in the Christmas hype, I would much rather enjoy the season for what it is because it is part of the fabric of our community. After all, we are a nation of many cultures and it’s exactly that diversity that enriches all of our lives. I am confident that my kids don’t have any Christmas angst. I have taught them to take it all in and enjoy the Christmas splendor with Jewish eyes and then freely share their holiday with other’s. We celebrate Hanukkah with all it’s brilliance, the beauty of lighting the menorah (there is nothing more magnificent than our family standing together before all of our 6 glowing menorahs on the 8th night), celebrating with family and friends, exchanging gifts, preparing favorite holiday foods, reflecting on the meaning of the holiday and listening to beautiful traditional music.

So when most of you are running frantic in a couple of weeks, I will be recovering from my eight days of celebration with my feet up, enjoying the craziness around me, and probably posting a lot more in my blog.

7 words or less...

2007-11-26T14:56:00.000-05:00

Legend has it, that at one time there was a World Championship of the Beauty of Languages. The Republic of Estonia took second place after the Italians with the phrase: “'sхida tasa ьle silla' (Go slowly over the bridge). In celebration of the country’s 90th birthday, the Estonian Ministry of Education and Science is sponsoring a competition to choose the most beautiful language of the world. Students from every corner of the globe have been invited to participate. The entries must contain an audio presentation of a sentence made up of one to seven words.

A Beauty Pageant of Language… for students. What a unique opportunity for a global competition where beauty takes on an entirely different meaning. A student would have to ask: What does beauty mean to me? Is it outright physical attractiveness that is most important, and how can that be conveyed in words? Would it mean that the words’ sounds are the most important criteria? Or perhaps a child might conclude that beauty is a combination of special qualities and therefore might choose words that are pleasing in both sound and meaning?

A child, at any age, is bombarded with images of beauty through the media, in school, with toys and video games, books, even within their own families. To take the object out of one’s interpretation of beauty is an interesting challenge. Unlike viewing beautiful artwork or beautiful scenery or beautiful people, this challenge is different. It reaches deeper into a person’s soul to discover beauty that can’t be seen. It would be fascinating to hear the 7 or fewer words our kids would choose. I am not sure what I would choose.

Instead of judging beauty by its appearance, it is judging beauty the way it should be judged. It would be quite a lesson to be taught and what a gift if a child is able to learn it.

A Gardener Plants Seeds for the Future

2007-11-20T21:45:00.000-05:00

There is a man by the name of Catalino Tapia of Redwood City, California, who came to the United States, from Mexico, at age 20 with $6 in his pocket. Over the past 43 years, he has worked as a baker and a machine operator. His education never went beyond 6th grade. However, through hard work he eventually built a successful gardening business. He married and raised two children. One son graduated from Boalt School of Law at UC Berkeley and is now an attorney in Los Angeles.

This story is not about this young immigrant’s rise to success, although it easily could have been. It is about a man who sees the inimitable value of education and his philanthropic vision. Mr. Tapia, with his son’s legal help, founded The Bay Area Gardener’s Foundation. It’s purpose: to give college scholarships to low-income students from the Bay area. He is a man of modest means, and from what I gleaned from an interview I recently listened to, of modest personality, as well. He believes “it is his duty to pass along the prosperity he has earned, to draw community members together for a shared goal and to be accountable for the well-being of the next generation.” Hmmm.

His Board consists of a dozen other immigrant gardeners and other community members who see the value in helping struggling students take the edge off some of their financial responsibilities by offering funds for books, transportation and other incidental expenses -- costs that may not amount to a lot for some, but for others it is the difference of working an extra job to raise these funds. Any student who has at least 2.5 GPA is eligible, even if he/she is an undocumented alien. Everyone on the Board agrees that, “"no matter what, they're going to have their education. So even though they don't have their papers and even though they might not be able to get a job with their Social Security number, no one will be able to take away their education."

The main group that the Foundation has reached so far has been Latino High School students. Only 13 percent of U.S.-born Latino adults in California have a bachelor's degree, according to the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. For immigrant Latinos, it is 5 percent. This is a startling figure. The US Congress has failed to pass the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors), on numerous occasions. This Act, if passed, would allow undocumented students who grew up in the US to qualify for a permanent Green card. What better incentive to encourage students to continue their studies?

Education is the vehicle by which millions of individuals can better their lives. In one little corner of our country, one man has made this his mission and I applaud him for his sincerity and commitment to his cause.

As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, we might all take a second glance at how we can reach out to other communities by volunteering our time or resources. One of the Bay Area Gardener Foundation donors said it perfectly:

“It's extraordinary to see a body of people who are struggling to make it in America also struggling for other people's children. ... Is that not grasping the American dream?"

Hello, Nice to Meet You

2007-11-18T20:30:00.000-05:00

I have been writing this blog anonymously because, especially as a novice, I am most comfortable writing this way. It feels safe. If my writing is terrible, nobody knows that I am the author. If I offend people, I don’t have to take their fury too personally. If I stir up controversy, it is a quiet risk. And, I never really need to take true responsibility for what I write because nobody knows where it comes from. Ah, the beauty, and the curse, of the World Wide Web.

Then, somebody whose writing and ideas I respect immensely convinced me that I had to put my actual name to my writing. If I want to have any credibility, it has to start with an honest relationship between reader and writer. Hiding behind my words means camouflaging some real truth - particularly the truth about me. It seems pretty hypocritical that a lot of what I end up writing about involves expectations of truth and honesty and I can’t even reveal who I am. Not that anybody really cares anyway -- this is more about me than any reader.

It is significant for me, because from this point on my words are truly my own, they do not belong to some anonymous person typing away on a random keyboard. I am ready to take ownership of my writing because what I write means a lot to me and I deserve to take the credit and the fall for whatever comes my way.

College Tours: Does your Guide Own a Mac or a PC?

2007-11-15T12:51:00.000-05:00

In response to a parent’s question regarding the necessity of owning a laptop in college, the two leaders of our tour responded:

“I have a Mac”, the other, “I have a PC”.

I laughed the way my youngest daughter describes a laugh that you can’t let anyone see: “I was laughing inside my head”. Other than my daughter and her friend, I don’t think anyone else saw the humor, but it was as if we were watching a Mac commercial unfold in front of us. As the tour progressed, I kept seeing it over and over again -the stark differences between these two students: in their appearance, their response to questions, their knowledge about the school, their perceptions, their outlooks.

College tours are supposed to give you and your child a good sense of a school - to help you decide if it would be a “good fit”, as we are forever reminded by guidance counselors and admissions directors. This is my third go around on the college circuit and still I am baffled. If either my PC or Mac friend had been the sole leader on this tour, our impressions of the school would have been entirely different. In fact, we may not have even stuck around for the whole thing. So many times we have literally crossed a school off the list because of a disconnect with the tour guide - and in some excruciating cases we’ve even “ditched” early by hanging back and making a run for it.

It was only pure luck that we got this dueling duo -- nobody could decide how to fairly divide our relatively small group, so we agreed to all venture out together. You have to figure that every school attracts a spectrum of students, but there also had to be some common thread that bound these two, something that attracted both of them to the same school and something that the admissions office believed would make them both good “fits”. They both were very friendly and outgoing, qualities that make great tour guides - but it was so evident that their interactions, viewpoints and experiences at this school were profoundly different.

By the end, as frustrated as the two guides may actually have been with each other, at their expense, unquestionably this was my best college tour. How else would we have seen such a rich portrayal of the life of a student on this campus? And as colleges and universities have certain reputations for attracting certain “types” of students, there is no doubt that all types exist on every campus. If these two could co-exist on this small campus, and even be enthusiastic about it, just like the Mac and PC are finally on speaking terms, then it is encouraging to think that the admissions offices use some broad criteria to find that “best fit”.

I have learned over the years that the college search process is entirely subjective. Sure, Admissions offices offer objective measures like test scores, grades, admission rates and student/faculty ratios to help us evaluate whether a school might be a good choice, but in reality it’s the tour and the information session that packs the greatest punch. It affects our decision every time. It’s the same with acceptance decisions. Applicants submit their objective criteria but in reality it’s the subjective materials, the essay, the application and the recommendations that have the greatest influence. In the end, the choice to apply and the choice to admit is equally based on the gut feelings of the decision makers themselves.

I imagine when College Admissions Offices hires their guides, they have a set of “guide criteria”: good public speaking, friendliness, attitude, and enthusiasm about their college experience. For the future, it may be worth it for them to also ask whether they own a Mac or PC and then, they should pair up the two students to give joint tours. It may be the only way to get a true picture of a potential college. Either that or we should go back for multiple tours and visits - and who has the time for that?

2007-11-14T11:58:00.000-05:00

Just an update on two posts: The ten-year old who started one of the California fires and the fate of the students involved in the anti-war protest in suburban Chicago.

Regarding the California incident, there will be no charges filed against him. From the Associated Press today:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A 10-year-old boy who admitted starting a 38,000-acre fire last month that destroyed 21 homes in northern Los Angeles County will not be charged, prosecutors said.
There was no evidence of intent by the boy who accidentally ignited brush outside his home by playing with matches, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said in a statement Tuesday.
Authorities are referring the case to the Department of Children and Family Services to determine if further steps are necessary. No other information about the investigation was released because the case involves a minor.
The blaze was among more than a dozen major wildfires that blackened over 800 square miles from Los Angeles to the Mexican border. In all, 10 people were killed directly by the wildfires.
About a week after the fires were ignited, sheriff's department officials announced that they had interviewed the boy, who lived with his family in a trailer home on a ranch in Santa Clarita, and that he acknowledged starting the blaze.
Officials presented the case to the district attorney's office, but law experts had said prosecutors would have trouble getting a conviction against the boy because it would be difficult to prove intent to cause harm.

And in the West Morton High School case, the following from the Chicago Sun Times:

No students will be kicked out of a Berwyn public high school over an anti-war protest, the school superintendent said late Tuesday.

Of the 18 students suspended after a Nov. 1 sit-in at Morton West High School, 14 are due back today, Supt. Ben Nowakowski said in a statement. The remaining four, who Nowakowski said "bore more culpability for the disruption," can return Friday.

Many of the students had been threatened with expulsion.

"I don't regret the protest because I brought a lot of people to this question -- about Iraq and what it's doing to our country," senior Joshua Rodriguez said.

He and other suspended students and parents protested the possible expulsions, along with the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and other activists, garnering national attention.

Rodriguez and others insisted their protest -- both against the Iraq war and military recruiters at their school -- was peaceful.

"They did deserve some punishment but not eight days nor the threat of expulsion," said Adam Szwarek, whose son was suspended.

"I don't think [my son] made a mistake. There is still an issue here: the military recruiters that are allowed to run rampant throughout the school."

But Nowakowski said the students severely disrupted the school day, forcing him to lock down classes.

He insisted the punishment had nothing to do with clamping down on free speech.

My final comment:

I want to believe that at the end of the day, those whose fate lies in the hands of others can expect fairness; that those in charge will act responsibly and without prejudice - so that everyone: judge, jury and the accused are all satisfied that any ruling has been handed out deliberately and with merit.

Both these cases seem resolved as such - although one could argue in the West Morton case that even though the students' exoneration was the sought after result if I were those West Morton High School parents, I would still want an explanation as to the uneven intervention on the part of the students - I am still one to always emphasize process before product.

Two Million Minutes - A Global Examination

2007-11-11T14:12:00.001-05:00

NOTE: I viewed the film on December 5 and I have written a review

I found this You Tube video while reading an excellent blog called, "Education for the Aughts". This film documents the educational experience of 6 high school students, 2 each from the United States, China and India. The trailer alludes to the fact that the United States needs to finally have a serious dialogue about the standards of American education. Is our system adequately preparing our students to be able to compete in the 21st century? It is an interesting discussion because along with academic rigor does there also need to be a shift in our own societal expectations of the value of intense academic preparation and competition contrasted with our own perceptions of leisure time and relaxation. The bigger question is not only WILL our students be able to compete, but will they WANT TO?

The film has been accepted into the Sundance Film Festival and hopefully it will make it onto the big screen. For more information, go to the film's blog: What Should America Do?

The Case of the Morton West High School: Who Really Should be Punished?

2007-11-08T13:26:00.000-05:00

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
~1st Amendment to the US Constitution

The 1st Amendment represents the most fundamental right that every US citizen believes is inalienable. Regardless of whether they have studied their civics: kids know about freedom of speech and freedom of assembly - it is what being American is all about.

According to the New York Times, on November 1, 2007, the students at Morton West High School in suburban Chicago, staged a peaceful anti-war protest in their cafeteria. By the time it was over, more than a dozen students were suspended and they now face expulsion. There are two versions of the story. In a statement by the superintendent, the 1st version is as follows:

…the students were informed by school administration and Berwyn Police that their actions constituted a disruption to the school day. They were afforded the opportunity to take their protest outside where they would not be impeding the educational process and, if they did so, they would face no disciplinary action. Several members of the group elected to return to their classes. Other members of the group locked arms and refused to move from their location.

After some time and negotiation, the students ultimately moved from the cafeteria to an area of the hallway adjacent to the principal's office.

The Student version continues:

Students report that they were promised that there would be no charges besides cutting classes if they took their protest outside so as not to disturb the school day. The students complied, and were led to a corner outside the cafeteria where they sang songs and held signs while classes resumed.

In either version, the students eventually complied and continued their protest in their designated space. What followed is most disturbing. Apparently school deans, counselors and even the Superintendent himself tried to change the minds of a few of the students, particularly those with high GPA’s. The school called the parents of many of the protesters, but not all of them, and offered them the opportunity to pick their students up before the close of school guaranteeing a 3-5 day suspension, the rest, 37 students were given 10 day suspensions and expulsion papers. And even worse, students, whose parents complained, were offered reduced punishments only if they signed a confession that singled out the student as the organizer of the protest.

This scenario, although much more serious in its implications, is not all that different than one that occurred in our local high school. The students, acting on reliable information, staged a sit-in in protest to a change in policy at the school. With a video camera running, the principal immediately asked the assembly to disburse. Outraged, he gathered student leaders, who had no involvement in the sit-in and threatened their leadership positions if they did not identify the protesters. The students refused to comply. Nobody was expelled but four students were suspended. Although this story was rather insignificant compared to the Morton West High School incident, there are some striking similarities.

Students should be prepared that a sit-in or protest, unless certified or organized with the administration’s support, could result in some consequences. Certainly in the case of the Morton West high school students, expulsion is definitely extreme. However at least they were given an alternative place to gather, our local students were flatly told to disburse. However, the real disturbing facts are what occurred after both of the incidences.

In both cases, students were being pressured, almost bullied to “finger” the perpetrators. The administration dangled a reward of a reduced punishment
in the case of the Morton West students, and a threat in the case of our local high school students. Where is it written in any administrator’s job description that he/she may brandish their positions of authority in such an irresponsible and a repressive manner?

Furthermore, in the case of the Morton West students, how narcissistic are those administrators who felt compelled to play “God” by protecting the reputations and records of those higher achieving students by warning them that it would be in their best interest to disburse? Whose idea was it to call some parents and give them a head’s up to their sons’ and daughters’ potential punishments if they didn’t collect them by a certain time? What kind of system is at play?

It is impossible to take an administration seriously when the leader can wantonly create rules to fit his/her needs? Are these the lessons we want our children to learn? The basics like 1st Amendment rights to Free Speech and Freedom of Assembly are no-brainers, we expect our kids to learn about this in school, and if they experience it first hand, all the better. These lessons fall under an academic heading such as social studies or civics.

But how do you categorize the finer nuances of a learning environment that are equally important, such as fairness, truthfulness and integrity - qualities that as parents we expect our teachers and administrators to not only model for our kids through their own actions but to expect in every student that walks the halls of our schools? There is no purer laboratory than a classroom or school environment in which to teach these concepts. Yet, it seems that in both cases, the schools failed miserably and our students walked away with learning an entirely different lesson and not a lesson any reasonable person would be proud of.

Issues like Free Speech and Freedom of Assembly are protected by our Constitution and there are legal avenues when these rights appear to be violated. Classrooms have historically been venues where these issues are often raised. However, there is obviously no Constitutional right to expect fairness, truthfulness and integrity from our teachers and school leaders, only a moral compact and a code of ethics that parents have entrusted in them and an expectation that they will act responsibly, fairly and in the best interest of each and every student.

A Short Reflection

2007-11-03T09:31:00.000-04:00

I felt privileged to attend the installation of our new Rabbi last night. The service was joyful and warmth permeated throughout the entire congregation and guests. The benediction was given by our new rabbi's father-in-law who is a minister. Yes. A minister. Thank goodness for open-mindedness - The benediction is a Franciscan Benediction that every person should hear at least once and live by for a lifetime:

May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.

Child's Accident and the California Fires

2007-11-01T21:40:00.000-04:00

It is now known that a ten-year old boy accidentally started the Buckweed Fire in Los Angeles County last week, one of 15 fires that in total forced 640,000 people from their homes. The Buckweed fire charred more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes and dozens of other buildings in northern Los Angeles County. Five people were injured. The emotional impact of the losses, has surely also had a devastating impact on the Agua Dulce residents as well as those in the surrounding area.

The boy was living in a trailer home on The Carousel Ranch where one of his parents is a ranch caretaker and helps care for the horses. They have lived there for about a year. The Carousel Ranch is a non-profit organization, which is dedicated to, according to its website, “providing developmental therapeutic and recreational programs for disabled and disadvantaged children through horses”. This is a supportive environment to say the least; it is evident from the website. Ironically, and somewhat eerily, at the bottom of the website is a news feed, with the #3 story headlined as: SCV Fire Started By Boy Playing With Matches.

Here’s a description of Agua Dulce, where this boy lived and went to school.

Agua Dulce has the best of everything that California has to offer. Great climate, peacefulness, beauty, opportunity, low to no crime, great school, Air park, and, we're only 30 miles from "the city". … relax, kick your shoes off and loosen that tie; when you come to Agua Dulce you've come home.  

If you go to the school district website, and browse the two elementary school pages it is evident that a lot of effort goes into creating a supportive and enriching environment with high academic and behavioral expectations. It sounds like an idyllic community. This boy probably attended one of these schools. He had friends and teachers. It seems like until that fateful day on October 21, he lived a pretty normal life. The director of the ranch has described the family as peaceful and those who know the boy say he has no history of behavioral problems. Even his fireplay was not terribly abnormal. According to Dr. Jeff Victoroff, associate professor of clinical neurology and psychiatry at the University of Southern California,

“At least one study suggests that if you take a population of boys between kindergarten and fourth grade, 60% of them have committeed unsupervised fireplay, which is to say that fireplay is a common and absolutely normal part of human development.”

The director of the ranch asked that the boy be removed. He is living with relatives somewhere in California. How do these parents begin to sort out all these issues? Even though he had no malicious intent, his actions had grave consequences. How do they help this child understand the devastation he caused to his neighbors’ and to strangers lives while protecting him from the psychological burden of living with his actions for the rest of his life? “He acknowledged that he was playing with matches, and accidentally, in his words, ‘set the fire’”.

How many times, as adults, have we done something really stupid and wished we could take back that one-second mistake? I remember so clearly wishing I could, while in the emergency room with my then 3 year old daughter who had fallen out of a shopping cart, onto a cement floor, flat on her back. I knew better than to allow her to stand up in that cart and if I could have only taken that second back -- but it was too late. Fortunately she was fine, but it could have changed all of our lives forever.

This boy could not take that second back either and his and his family’s life is changed forever. Although doubtful there will be criminal charges against the child, the parents may be facing civil suits for millions of dollars that they are clearly in no position to handle. Since they have lived in the area for only a year, you have to wonder if they have any close relationships with the people in this community… and it’s that very community that their son set fire to. As much as Agua Dulce is in need of support, and their devastation is not in the least bit minimized, this family also needs assistance.

Sorting this out is not an easy task. How the authorities and citizens of this community handle the upcoming weeks and months will require a lot of soul searching. The losses have already been great.

Maya Angelou - A Brave and Startling Truth

2007-10-31T08:00:00.001-04:00

You Tube of the Week

View this video - Maya Angelou speaks volumes about the world in which our children are growing up through her poetry put to pictures.

A Year in a Life

2007-10-30T15:10:00.000-04:00

According to one of my favorite songs, Seasons of Love, from the Broadway Production, Rent, there are 525,600 minutes in one year. I now have less than 525, 600 minutes to capture my Kodak moments for a whole slew of milestones in the lifecycle of my family.

Yesterday we celebrated my daughter’s 16th birthday. There are 113,760 minutes until my mom’s 75th birthday. Exactly 89,280 minutes later my husband will turn 50, and 53,280 minutes after that my daughter becomes a legal adult, turning 18. She will have been 18 years old for exactly 76, 320 minutes when she graduates from high school. 63,600 minutes later my youngest turns 13 and 28,800 minutes after that, my son turns 21. Another 28,800 minutes later, our entire family will gather for the final event of the year - my youngest daughter will be standing at the bima in the sanctuary of our synagogue, reciting the Torah as she becomes a Bat Mitzvah and our last child to step into the world of Jewish adulthood.

It feels like a race. Fortunately it’s not because if it were, I would be the last one to cross the finish line. My hope is for the minutes to pass slowly so I can savor every precious morsel of joy and celebration that we will have the opportunity to share with family and friends. I realize how fortunate our family is to stand on the hands of the clock as it ticks away the minutes approaching these family milestones. I know how to measure this year in the life and I will use our 525, 600 minutes wisely.

A Young Life Lost is a Loss to Us All

2007-10-23T13:47:00.000-04:00

I have a big yellow labrador retriever that accompanies me on my morning walk. Usually we hike the endless trails that surround our town with a friend and her dog. Some days however, when we can’t make it to the woods, I walk him alone along the streets near our home. I enjoy these walks as much as the hikes. It is sequestered time for thinking.

The route that I choose to take most frequently on these solo walks, takes me past a cemetery that has headstones dating back to the 1700’s. The cemetery is nestled into the woods along a picturesque country road. This time of year, the backdrop of the autumn leaves makes it especially remarkable. This is not an historical cemetery. There are simply family plots held by local families for generations.

About a year and a half ago, one of those teen tragedies struck our town. Two boys were involved in a car accident, leaving the passenger dead. The boys had been best friends since childhood. The passenger was a local kid who was a graduate of our local high school. It was never proven whether the driver was drunk or just hit a slippery patch of road. The cause is not the point of my story.

This young man is buried in the cemetery that I walk by. I didn’t actually realize this until the headstone was placed at the grave, a number of months after the funeral. For eighteen months I have watched this family grieve. Although I never knew the young man, I find him profoundly in my thoughts.

Through the seasons, I have watched offerings come and go. The gravesite is adorned with colorful flowers and plants, trinkets of all sorts- momentos that have such personal importance to the visitor who left it, and a beautifully hand-carved birdfeeder that welcomes life to this unfortunate final resting place. He must have been brimming with life because he continues to be celebrated in death.

On rare occasions, however, I will walk by and notice the flowers wilting, weeds sprouting and the area around the gravesite looking unkempt. It makes me wonder why the family, who is fastidious in its expression of love has let the grave site fall into such disrepair. Could it be that they are becoming more used to life without their son, or is it simply that they just got too busy with life that they can’t deal with death? I wonder how often they visit him. Always, within days, the wilted flowers are gone and replaced with more spectacular flowers than before. Just as some days we are more involved in our kids' lives than others, I suppose it is the same with this family. We spend our entire lives caring for our kids, this is all the caretaking they will ever be able to do for him.

The other day I noticed a Happy Birthday balloon tied to the headstone. An even deeper sorrow touched me. For the first time, in all the months I have passed by, I walked over to the grave and paid my respects. The day before would have been his 23rd birthday. I was struck by objects I never saw from the street: beautiful shells, small ceramic pieces with his name beautifully crafted onto the piece, engraved sayings on rocks. At the bottom of his headstone was an engraved quote by him: “This is life, live it to its fullest. I’m gone”. I discovered that this was his Senior quote in his high school yearbook.

My kids get annoyed with me when I tell them I refuse to go to sleep until I know they are safe for the night. They may think it’s because I don’t trust them but it couldn’t be farther from the truth. I just love them so much that I could never imagine my life without them. I could never survive the nightmare that this family endures. Teens and cars and accidents- it’s the one variable we can’t control - an accident.

I stood for a moment, thinking about this young life that is gone. I started to leave, and then picked up a pebble and walked back to place it on his grave. In my tradition, placing a pebble on a gravesite suggests the continuing presence of love and memory, which are as strong and enduring as a rock. Some days after I pass by the cemetery I want to call the family to let them know that I think about their son often; even though I never knew him, he is constantly in my thoughts.

The Victimization of Nate Fisher

2007-10-06T16:55:00.000-04:00

The Nate Fisher case is obviously emblematic of a much broader problem in our country. It was almost as if Jeffrrey Zaslow could forsee Mr. Fisher's future when he wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago, “Avoiding Kids: How Men Cope with Being Cast as Predators”. He writes how our kids are being taught to fear men and men are opting out of engaging with kids for fear of being cast as predators.

Because he is a male teacher, because he suggested “questionable material” and because he asked a female student “how she felt about it”, the student's parents essentially were given carte blanche to make an accusation against Nate Fisher. And these accusations were immediately deemed justifiable. It didn’t matter that his accusers had never met this teacher and that their child had only been in his class for two days. It also didn’t seem to matter to any official that this teacher's very own students who had spent an entire year in his classroom immediately and boldly came to his defense.

Is there such blind enforcement of Reporting Laws that no matter what claim is presented by a parent or a student, school officials are required to report immediately, with no questions asked? The potential destruction of somebody's life is at stake here. Laws are only as effective their enforcement. And perhaps therein lies some of the problem. In our vigorous quest to mete out sexual predators, we are harming a few innocent people along the way. Those few individuals are still people who have lives to live, reputations to uphold and passions to pursue. Are there going to be fewer men who choose teaching as a career? Fewer male coaches? Fewer male mentors and camp counselors and doctors and club leaders and religious leaders? A frightening prospect but not an unlikely one. If laws are written to protect citizens, Nate Fisher was deserving of protection as well and the system failed him.

Nate Fisher has become another story in Mr. Zaslow’s report. Never mind that his promising career may be finished. Perhaps even more depressing is that he will forever feel personally scrutinized. I can’t help but wonder if the parents of all those student supporters, who never once during the previous year ever questioned Mr. Fisher’s intentions, suddenly started second guessing themselves and their children. Nate Fisher will always have a cloud of doubt over him.

And what about those students who came to his defense? Were their words, testimonies and observations worth nothing? What happened to their voices? One of those teaching moments - again. How disempowered they must feel or is there maybe an uneasiness among them now that perhaps they misjudged this guy, since after all, he did resign and the administration willingly accepted it. It was like, “poof” he never existed.

Think about this, from the same Wall Street Journal article:

"Good parenting and good education demand that we let children take risks," says Mr. Frederick, a career coach. "We install playground equipment, putting them at risk of falls and broken bones. Why? We want them to challenge themselves and develop muscles and confidence."

"Likewise, while we don't want sexual predators to harm our kids, we do want our kids to develop healthy relationships with adults, both men and women. Instilling a fear of men is a profound disservice to everyone."

Thanks to Karoli for getting me thinking some more about this. Her posting should be read by everyone.

Family Dinners - Am I a Failure?

2007-10-02T13:33:00.000-04:00

I remember the day, 15 years ago, when we attended the bank signing for the purchase of our home. The realtors and the lawyers said they wished they could have videotaped the transaction to use as a teaching tool. It was the smoothest and most cordial signing they had witnessed in all of their combined memories.

The family we bought the house from was building a new home in town. During the months leading up to the sale, we had become friends. They had five kids, with their two youngest corresponding in age to our two oldest. At the time, my son was five and my daughter was two. Over the years, our families spent many hours together. We shared their trials of homebuilding, and they crossed their fingers that nothing serious would break down in the house they just sold to us. I felt guilty changing wallpaper and repainting and their kids loved being able to come back to the neighborhood and swing on their old swing set and play with old friends. We shared birthdays and holidays, illness and joy.

Being about eight years behind them in parenting years, I often used them as a meter stick of what was to come. They had kids in all grade ranges, from high school down to preschool. My oldest was first embarking on kindergarten, and they weren’t that far from sending their first child off to college. Upon reflection, I realized that we were in such different places in our lives, and to her credit, my friend embraced me, despite my having an infant added to the mix. Maybe she loved the chaos, maybe she just missed that “new baby” smell, or maybe she just saw a kinship in me.

Whatever the reason, we found ourselves at each other’s houses a lot. I remember being in her kitchen, frequently in late afternoons. She was a great mom, devoted to her kids, their schools and their activities. But something always bothered me. It seemed they never all sat down for dinner together. She was always preparing dinner for somebody to eat early or giving them cold cereal or pulling out leftovers. I had always believed that dinnertime was such an important family bonding time, yet this family that seemed so bonded, never ate a meal together. I have to admit, I was perplexed and a bit judgmental - how could she not see the importance of the family dinner? I never asked her about it but I admit feeling a bit disappointed in my mentor.

Had I asked her about it, I probably would have heard this: “We all used to sit down together, but now it’s impossible, the kids have sports practices, job obligations and evening meetings at the high school. I have meetings as well. We do the best we can.” Oh, I guess having three young children whose lives I was in complete control of allowed me the luxury of deciding when we would all eat. I say this because I am now in the same position my friend was in, twelve years ago. Although I don’t have very young children, like she did at the time, I still have a 12 year old, a child who deserves to have those family dinners we had when my son, my oldest, was 12.

I raise this point because a couple of weeks ago a Columbia University study recently found that “teenagers who eat with their families at least five times a week are more likely to get better grades in school and much less likely to have substance abuse problems”. That’s a powerful message being sent to the millions of families who can’t or don’t embrace this family ritual.

I refuse to accept that my family is guilty of the same. However every Sunday night, as I peruse the calendar for the week, is another Sunday night when I realize it is an impossible dream. Practically every weeknight, somebody has to eat early because of practice, a club or a job, or somebody is eating late, for the same reason. Most nights, I will sit down early with the kids for dinner, but then my husband misses out, and honestly it doesn’t feel like a family dinner without him. Although he still gets home at a reasonable dinner hour, it’s often too late because at least one of the kids, or myself, needs to leave for a meeting or the kids are starving and want to eat before they begin their night of homework. Sometimes we will sit with him while he eats, but not very often.

So far, 3 out of my 4 kids who are teenagers or beyond (in the case of my son) are excellent students and nobody has any substance abuse problems. Should I fear for my youngest, since she hasn’t shared the foundation of family dinners that we had when her siblings were her age?

Here’s my rationale: I believe that the benefit of the “family dinner,” is more about having the opportunity for families to communicate and share a continuous dialogue. By sharing nightly meals together, kids can count on the fact that you, the parent, are checking in and talking about their day, sharing views on events in the world and asking questions. It creates a regular venue for all of this to occur. But that’s not to say that it is the only place that it can occur. Often, we will find ourselves sitting around later in the evening and having the same kinds of conversations that might have occurred earlier around the dinner table. It doesn’t happen every evening, but it happens frequently enough, that perhaps it serves the same purpose. I’ve always enjoyed the spontaneity of these discussions and they often last much longer than a quick dinner where everyone is rushing off to do whatever has to get done.

So, I admit that I feel guilty that we don’t all sit down together around the dinner table every night. We won’t give up trying and some weeks we are more successful than others. But maybe my rationale isn’t so bad, because the quality of the interactions that my family does have may be just as beneficial as sharing a meal around the table. Or maybe I am just rationalizing.

And my friend, with the 5 kids - I probably owe her an apology. My mother has always told me, you never truly know what it feels like until you are living it yourself.

Nate Fisher case is still in the news

2007-09-25T14:09:00.000-04:00

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, I found this posting on a blog called, The Beat. It is a posting of the facts from the mother in the Nate Fisher case. After reading it, I now have some of my questions answered:

Here is what she wrote:

"I am the mother of this student. I can tell you the facts on our side of this, and you can make your judgment from there, but at least your facts will be right.

My daughter arrived in her English class on the second day of school, (the first day was used for books and roll taking ect)

Since she was not in the school system the year before she was not assigned a summer reading assignment before arriving in her new high school.

Her brand new English teacher asked her to stay after class so he could give her an assignment to read over the labor day long weekend and give him an oral report on the next school day. He gave her a choice of 5 books, 4 of the books were about civil war, the lone ranger and Tonto and military fighting. One book was about shooting pool, or so she thought - This would be Eightball (issue #22). The teacher pointed out eightball and told her this is the one he thought she would like the most. He also told her it might have a little bit of mature content in it.

She said okay and put the comic in her bag and off she went. - The comic stayed in her bag until Saturday when we were all driving in the car heading to a family picnic - My younger children and a friends child are in the backseat with my daughter and I hear a strange giggling coming from the back. Any parent knows the kind of giggling I’m talking about (the kind where you should immediately ask what’s going on). So I said to the group of children - “what’s so funny you guys!” So the kids reply - We are laughing at the reading assignment from her teacher - “The two kids are doing it” - So I said - Give me that!

I took the comic from the kids, and I started reading it.

Now let me tell you, I am not shocked by much, but the first page I turned to was the fluffy blue bunny page - and I was shocked. Why would this teacher think my 13 year old would want to read this! I could not imagine what this teacher had in mind with my daughter by giving her this comic. I was fearful that I knew what might be on his mind!

Also let me tell you that when I went to the police and the school, we were not on a witch-hunt - we weren’t out to get anyone fired and we were really hoping this was all a big mistake. We thought possibly that maybe some kid stuck this in his classroom as a joke and that happened to be the one she picked up thinking it was about playing pool.

I showed the school and the resource officer what was given to my daughter and they were very surprised, this is not part of the allowed reading material for teachers to give. They said thank you and we will be in touch later and let you know what we find out.

So the afternoon goes by and my Daughter gets off the bus, I ask her what happened in his class that day and she tells me that - He pulled her aside after class and asked her how reading that comic made her feel.

She told him that she really thought it was disgusting and inappropriate and he said yes, I told you it might be a little bit mature.

Well when I heard this, I was really disgusted. What can I assume in this day and age was this teachers motives?? I put her back in the car and I went back down to the school. I asked to see the principal again and I told him what was said to her after class.

Now I want to say - this next piece of information was just what I was told by the school - I didn’t hear the teacher say this personally.

I was told that the teacher gave it to my daughter because he thought she would like the material. But - He said he had it as a college graphic Adult reading assignment in a college class several years before.

That was a college class he signed up for and he knew the course material. Not something handed to him by a teacher in high school and told to read.

`Again, I would like to STRONGLY attest to the fact that I am not against mature reading material being discussed in a classroom setting. I have no problems with nudity, violence, or any other topic discussed in a setting that promotes learning. Had this piece of material been given to the class as a whole as an assignment on modern day graphic novels and the literary benefits of them, there would be no problem.

There would be no problem because it would be part of a curriculum, clearly meant for learning.

Had the teacher suggested this graphic novel to my daughter, advising her that it is of mature content, and asking her to obtain it on her own with her parents consent, then I would have no problem with it.

This is where I have a problem. This teacher gave my daughter, and ONLY my daughter, a graphic novel of mature nature, without the knowledge of the administration, as an extra curricular assignment. This was done after class to my 13-year-old daughter. Yes she was 13 at the time of the incident. She has since turned 14. That may help to alleviate any confusion about her age. In dealing with these situations, parents these days can’t take chances. I will never know this teachers true intent, but I do know that he is at least guilty of extremely bad judgment.

I do not have the blind faith to assume that everything is OK. My duty is to protect my children. I will not compromise that."

Now, I still walk away with the same conclusion:

One of our jobs as parents is to make sure our kids are safe. I certainly understand this mother's reaction to do everything possible to protect her daughter. I am sure she was fuming and shocked - especially being new to to town - wondering how this could have happened.

However, at what cost and to what extremes do we go to protect our children? Isn't it also our job to be good role models for our kids, especially when they are teenagers and they judge our behavior so scrupulously? By rushing to the police, and notifying school officials, she denied the teacher any opportunity to explain himself. He was guilty way before he even had a chance to prove his innocence, or at least his poor judgement. This was a perfect opportunity for a Parental Teaching moment -- to demonstrate how adults work out differences by gathering facts, communicating, trying to understand both sides of an issue, and in this case, realizing that people, even teachers are human and they make mistakes.

Forgiveness would have been much better lesson to learn.

Controversy in the Classroom - Everyone Loses

2007-09-24T14:28:00.000-04:00

If there is one thing I’ve learned from being a parent, it’s that there are always two sides to a story and the truth usually lies somewhere in between. Whenever an argument erupts between by kids, I am captivated time and again by one's ability to win my support of their version of the story, only to hear an equally compelling saga from their sibling . I believe that such is the case of Nate Fisher, a popular English teacher and an unnamed student from a local high school. Fisher resigned last week and the student, from what I have read has been suffering at the hands of her peers.

In the same manner that I try (often unsuccessfully) to understand the true facts of a disagreement between my kids, I have tried to understand the facts of this story. Here are the simple facts that I believe are indisputable.

Fact #1: A teacher gives a freshman student (female) a suggested book for a project. The book is a graphic novel.
Fact #2: The parents of the student find the material inappropriate
Fact #3: The book is written by, Daniel Clowes, an award-winning graphic comic book writer
Fact #4: The Teacher is placed on Administrative leave
Fact #5: Word gets out that the teacher is facing trouble and a Facebook group is created in support of the teacher. Communications get nasty, with the student being targeted and the site is closed down.
Fact #6: The teacher resigns and the student becomes the target of harassment
Fact #7: Everyone loses

We don’t know much more than this, but here’s where it doesn’t matter what we know or what we assume: The grey area of disagreement over perception can inflict such unfortunate pain on its victims. I don’t know the student, her parents or the teacher. However, there is no doubt that both sides of the controversy present compelling arguments..

First, the teacher. I will draw my own conclusion and refuse to believe that Nate Fisher’s intentions were impure or that his goal was to make the girl uncomfortable by giving her “pornographic material”. He’s a young teacher who, I imagine, if he’s a good English teacher, follows literary trends and reads works by up and coming authors. Graphic novels can be edgy, but the author he chose isn’t scum, he’s an award-winning, graphic novelist who has been acclaimed by Time Magazine and the New York Times. Did he demonstrate bad judgment by offering the book? Perhaps. We don’t know the conversation that transpired between him and his student before giving her the book. Did he warn her that the material may be too mature for her? Did he suggest she get permission from her parents first? Should he have first gotten administrative permission to hand the book out to a student? Isn't it really is our own personal perceptions about whether this material is inappropriate? Is this book, or books like it, to become the Catcher in the Rye of our time?

As a parent, I understand our desire to protect our children. We trust the schools to keep our kids safe, both physically and psychologically. At a minimum, we expect zero-tolerance bullying policies, environmentally safe buildings and teachers who will be respectful and supportive of our children’s needs and learning styles. I can accept that these parents believed that this teacher crossed the line by handing their child this book to read. They may even believe that she was violated in some way. Nobody should be judging them or their child for this belief. They have every right to their feelings. What we don’t know is how they pursued their claim. Did they go directly to the teacher? The principal? The Superintendent? Or the Police? Did they want Nate Fisher fired regardless of an explanation? Did they really want him to lose his job over this?

In the same way that my kids believe their version of the events that lead up to an argument is the only acceptable view, for every reader that is offended by this material, there will be another who finds it perfectly acceptable for their kids. Had Mr. Fisher given this book to a different student, whose parents perceived the content differently or approached there concerns by a taking a different course, there quite possibly could have been an entirely different outcome. He may still have his job, and a student may have been introduced to a new genre of literature that she may never have known about if not for this teacher.

So what are we left with? A young teacher, who’s career may well be over before it even began, a student, who will have to navigate the jeers of fellow students, and parents who in hindsight may always wonder if they did the right thing.

I wonder what Nate Fisher has learned from this experience and if he finds something positive to take away from it. Maybe he’s matured a bit, but I hope that he doesn’t become cynical and will give up teaching altogether. My wish for him would be to find a school where he is appreciated and he continues to be a positive influence on his students. I am sorry that he had to resign as a result of this controversy. His untapped potential will never be realized by these students.

As difficult as life has become for this student, I hope she realizes that her parents were acting in her best interests. Whether she even believed, in the first place, that what they were doing was right, she should be proud of them for speaking up if they believed something was wrong. Kids are resilient, and hopefully, she will discover things like the value of true friendship from those who have stuck with her through this ordeal, self-confidence when she finally walks back through those school doors, and pride in herself that she survived such unwelcome criticism. It’s hard enough being an adolescent, dealing with all of this as a freshman has got to be horrific.

And the parents, while I may disagree with the outcome of their actions, I applaud their strength to stand up for what they believe in. Being a strong role model, especially when it is an unpopular choice takes a lot of courage.

I guess we really don’t know the end of this story. I wish the end could have been this: all the parties sat around a table and they discussed what they perceived to be wrong and to be right about the events. And then, they all agreed that some mistakes were made, no maliciousness was intended, and that they are all working for the best interests of our kids. Apologies were made and second chances were given. And then, they would all walk away from the table feeling like winners, that they had beaten the stereotypical “he said, she said” scenario, and had come together to work towards a positive resolution for all. That would have been the best role modeling for our kids after all.... and there would have been no losers.

Teens, Tweens and "Gossip Girls"

2007-09-19T20:01:00.000-04:00

The "Gossip Girls" is premiering tonight at 9:00 pm on the CW Network. My teenage daughters put it on their list of new shows to watch and they are making sure to TIVO it in the event that it comes through with the success that all the hype has been promising. I also have a tween, who I am positive will not be watching it.

Although I have never read any of the books from The Gossip Girls Series by Cecily Von Ziegesar, they are undeniably a sure bet for a TV hit - just read the reviews of the books on Amazon! The books are addictive. They feed every fascination that teenagers have towards sex, money, fashion and power. They follow the lives of high school students from a prestigious private girls’ school on the upper-east side of New York City.

For teenagers reading these books, I want to assume, that they are old enough to separate fact from fiction - or at least I want to believe that they are mature enough to have already established their own values when it comes to many of the issues these books raise. Hopefully they read them, or now watch them, with a bit of humor, and not an “oh my gosh, I wish that were my life and these girls are so cool” reaction. After all, the books are aimed at an audience of 18 - 34 years olds who have moved beyond high school and can reflect back on that period in their lives.

In an article in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times this past weekend, entitled, “My So-Called Gossipy Life”, the reporter, Ruth LaFerla shares a private screening with four tweens, 12 and 13 year olds, who live and attend private school on the Upper East-Side. The frightening point of the article is that these girls were completely suited to view the pilot. They identified and could relate to the characters - the sex, the drugs, the cattiness and the overindulgence that permeated the show. They are 12 and 13 years old!!!

How is this okay for 12 and 13 year old girls? As much as my 12-year old daughter would love to watch the show tonight, and I am sure many of her friends will be talking about it in school tomorrow - it won’t be happening. At her age, she is nowhere near ready to take on the issues that this show presents. It’s not that I need to shield her from it, well actually I do --- she’s 12! It’s my responsibility as her parent to give her the time she needs to mature and develop at an appropriate pace. It is unfair to expect her to be comfortable being exposed to things such as “tempestuous encounters, Viagra, and downing martinis like they’re snapples”. Talk about pressure, she gets enough of that from her peers, she doesn’t need it from me as well.

How sad for these tweens from the Upper East Side and what a challenge for their parents who are raising them in an environment that is so saucy, that it makes for great TV viewing.

Will that Stuff ever go Away? ...on being a girl today

2007-09-17T23:08:00.000-04:00

I remember the exact moment I discovered that I was going to give birth to a daughter. For a split second, while staring at the cloudy image of my little girl on the sonogram monitor, my heart sank. I instinctively turned to my husband and said, “Oh, she is going to have to deal with all that stuff”. He looked at me like I was crazy. “What stuff?” He was thrilled. Our three-year-old son would have a little sister to play with and we would get to experience the joys of parenting both a son and a daughter.

Seventeen years and two more daughters later, he now knows what I meant – he understands the “stuff”. As much as things have changed since I was a teenage girl growing up in the 1970’s so much has stayed the same: there still exists the emotional growing pains of female adolescence and the drama that so insidiously undermines all of our parental instincts, the enticement of the media to wear just the right clothes that adorn a perfectly shaped unattainable body and the peer pressure to be the most popular kid in school no matter how hurtful it can be to yourself or to anyone else who gets in your way, even your best friend.

And my daughters are yet to confront some of the biggest stuff, which I faced as a young woman growing up in the 1980’s: to stay home and raise a family, to enter the work force or to try to find to some perfect, impossible balance between the two? If they choose to work, will they find the best care for their children, and how about their salary, will they still be making less than their male counterparts? If they decide to step out of the work force will they find personal satisfaction without the societal benchmarks of job promotions and salary increases? Will they be able to come to terms with the fact that they are dependent on somebody else for their food, clothing and shelter?

I opted to stay home to raise my children and I love my life. I wouldn’t change a thing if I were to start over again. However, despite the voracity by which I have embraced my role as a stay at home mom, I sometimes wonder if I have done an injustice to my daughters. When they were younger they would tell me they want to be doctors and teachers and librarians - even a fast food operator at the McDonald’s window. I would wonder, why wouldn’t they want to stay home and raise their kids, don’t they think that what I am doing is important too? Now, as teenagers, as they think more seriously about their futures, they tell me how I have the best life - I have no boss, no schedule, and the autonomy to pursue causes and do work I enjoy on my own time.

This is all very true. I am lucky and very fortunate. And I love that I have been home all these years with my kids - to experience every part of each of their lives. There is not a moment that I look back with a touch of regret. Just sometimes I wonder. What if I had pursued a career in Child Advocacy? What if I had put in the number of hours my husband has put into his career? What would I be doing now?

So my daughters, all three of them, will face similar decisions sometime in their lives. Just like all of us, they will survive the absurdity of female adolescence and they will grow up to be contributors, in some form, to this world. The way I see it, that “stuff” will never go away and as women we will probably be forever trying to figure it out.

The New Wonder Pill of the 21st Century

2007-09-14T20:59:00.001-04:00

I was getting my hair cut today, browsing through an issue of US weekly when I came across an advertisement for a birth control pill called Yaz. What struck me was the ad itself. It showed a teenager who looked to be about 16 years old in workout clothes in a boxing stance, punching the words "Fatigue", "Bloating", "Moodiness", and "Acne". On the next page, the headline asks: "Ready for Birth Control that Goes Beyond?". Reading further it states that Yaz goes beyond the rest by treating the emotional and physical premenstrual symptoms - irritability, moodiness, feeling anxious, bloating, increased appetite, fatigue, headaches and muscle aches. Now tell me, what adolescent teenage girls doesn't have all these symptoms, (premenstrual or not) who wouldn't want to find a way to abolish them?

My dilemma is this: I am completely in favor of teenagers practicing safe sex - and I am a proponent of the the Pill as an important and necessary means of birth control (along with condoms, of course), but I am beginning to question the ease by which doctors are prescribing the Pill for non-contraceptive purposes. It seems to me that it is being billed as the Wonder Drug for young women.

I speak from experience. At my 17 year old daughter's annual physical this summer, the pediatrician was quick to suggest that she go on the Pill, to "possibly reduce bloating, treat the little bit of acne that crops up once in a while, reduce her cramping, regulate her cycle, perhaps reduce her blood flow". I was shocked! We are talking hormone therapy just because she has some discomfort and a few pimples? I understand if there were real medical indications for prescribing this type of therapy and I know there are many people who truly suffer from heavy menstrual cycles and cramping and even really bad acne - and being on the Pill is a necessary option.

However, I wonder what % of our teens are on the Pill, not for contraceptive reasons, and not because they suffer really debilitating symptoms - but because they are just a little uncomfortable or even now, with the introduction of Lybre l, just don't want to be bothered with a period at all. Just because a medication has been approved by the FDA does not make it safe. Think of the number of drugs that have been pulled after FDA approval, does VIOX ring a bell?

I started doing a little research. Do you know that there are now chewable birth control pills? The manufacturers claim that it's for women who can't swallow pills, but come on, who are we kidding, who are these really marketed to? The ad for Yaz (consider the name itself), is marketed to a teen audience not even looking for birth control. Take a look at these really cool pill cases. Trust me, these are not for you and me.

I realize that today's pill has a much lower dose of estrogen than the pill 10 years ago. I understand that there is a laundry list of benefits that the Pill has to offer from reduced premenstrual and menstrual symptoms to lowering the risks of certain cancers and increasing bone density. However, we cannot forget that it is still has risk factors, such as potential increase in breast cancer, blood clots, strokes and heart attacks, especially with women who smoke. We also don't know the effect of long term use of these oral contraceptives.

Despite the fact that she told me "1/2 of her high school is on the Pill, and it's no big deal", my daughter decided not to go on the Pill - not because the doctor went over the risks and benefits of taking it so that she could make an informed decision. It was because I explained to her that it really was a big deal - and she needed to make an intelligent and informed decision. I know the day will come when she chooses to go on the Pill, but at least, I hope, it will because she has weighed the risks and benefits and decides that she will take it to avoid pregnancy or because for some reason it is strongly recommended for a medical condition. To ease some crampiness, reduce or abolish her period all together, give her clearer skin? Is it really worth the risk?

teen parenting

Best Laid Plans

2007-09-06T13:23:00.000-04:00

Today. Today is the kind of day that typifies the life of any stay-at-home mom. For the last 2 days, I had organized myself with meal planning, house cleaning, chores and meetings so that I could spend today writing - something I am trying very hard to carve out time to do.

I woke up this morning, knowing that by 9:00 am, I could sit down for 4 hours (luxurious to many, especially with young kids, I know), before I had to do some quick chores, prepare dinner and get one of my kids to a doctor's appt and deal with after school activities. At 8:00 am, I get a call from the high school nurse, my 17 year old needs to come home, she is having eye trouble. Our eye doctor, who's office has moved 30 minutes away, can see her - we arrive by 8:45. Home by 10:00. She goes to bed and since I am already out, I decide I will do my errands so that MAYBE I can still carve out some writing time when I return. Just as I enter the grocery store, I get a call from my middle schooler who forgot a notebook (her school is right down the street from the grocery store). I go home, unload groceries, go back to her school to drop off her notebook. When I get home, I decide to prepare some of the dinner ahead of time because again, better now, then I can extend my writing time further into the afternoon. In the middle of the preparations, I receive another call - from our optical shop, my daughter's eyeglasses are ready (which we needed to have rushed because she had lost her other pair and clearly the extended wearing of the contacts contributed to the abrasion of her cornea). So, again I get back in the car to the optical shop (which is located equidistant between the grocery store and the Middle School) before they close for lunch.

It is now 1:00 and I am finally sitting down - I have exactly 60 minutes, before I need to leave again to get my daughter to that doctor's appointment, which originally was the only commitment on my calendar today.

Here is my question: How do families where both parents work do it? and what about single parents? I was available to do all that I did, and yes, my writing will now have to wait until next week (tomorrow is filled with commitments and forget the weekend), and yes, I am frustrated and annoyed - and I better hear a thank-you from both kids - but I didn't lose work hours and I wasn't docked any pay. I know if I was at a job, my daughter probably wouldn't have gotten her notebook and she would have lived with the consequences and wouldn't forget it a again - or would she? Would my daughter have not gotten to the eye doctor today? And how would have I felt if I just couldn't have helped her? Relieved that I didn't have to be hassled? Guilty because I couldn't do that one single thing? And am I doing my kids any justice by being available all the time? Enabling them to forget notebooks or even having their needs taken care of immediately and so easily? I guess my point is that as parents we all face the same dilemmas and it's our circumstances that dictate how we deal with them.

I have always believed that we make our choices, or sometimes life's circumstances make our choices for us, and we do the best we can do. After all we are only human, and if we are lucky, we get to be parents, and in that journey we have no way of predicting where each day will take us. As mothers, we are no better off if we stay home or if we work - we are only winners if we are happy with our choices, even if somedays, we may wish we had taken a different path.

Parental Growing Pains

2007-09-04T17:25:00.000-04:00

Since some of us are sending our kids off to college around this time of year, I thought it would be a nice idea to have my first blog entry (EVER!) be about what I've learned since my son went off to school.

He left for college a week after his eighteenth birthday. That was almost 2 years ago. I marveled at the ease with which he seamlessly glided through the transition from being a stereotypically clumsy adolescent dependent on us for his meals, clean clothes, money and once in a while for emotional support, to a legal adult directing his own course. I was thrilled for him and couldn’t wait to share his enthusiasm and hear about his classes, his new friends, and his observations and experiences of his new life as a college student. Only it didn’t happen.

We barely heard from him. When I sheepishly gathered the nerve to call him I would hang-up, disappointed by our one-sided conversations and his one word responses to my questions. What had I done wrong? It felt so forced, so unnatural, so awful. Had he been waiting all his life to leave? I was dying for information. My daughters would communicate with him on Facebook or AIM - and I would breathe a sigh of relief, knowing at least that he was safely at his computer somewhere on campus. He would occasionally email my husband, asking for some advice or a quick read of one of his papers. But I got nothing.

I have no memories of how my parents felt after I left home. By the time I left for college, my mother and I were great friends- best friends. I have to believe that she missed me terribly but it never even dawned on me to ask. After all, I was the one leaving, growing up, moving on – it was all about me and my new found independence…my new life. It’s a strange notion, that our first act as a newly knighted adult could be to show concern or compassion for our parents, but instead we choose, subconsciously to behave as a child. Developmentally, I guess it makes sense. It’s like reversion back to the egocentric world of a toddler. Everything revolved around our own wants and immediate needs. But just as a toddler is trying so hard to assert some independence, so is our adult child.

What is it about turning eighteen that suddenly transforms you into an adult? Kids turn eighteen every day – I turned eighteen 30 years ago and I am sure that I must have been waiting with youthful anticipation for my 18th birthday to arrive. But quite honestly, I don’t remember. I became an adult overnight. I could vote, I was legally responsible for myself and back then I could even buy alcohol. It wasn’t all that life-changing. I registered to vote, I opened my own bank account, acted as a responsible citizen, had a glass of wine or beer once in a while and soon graduated from college. The years passed quietly. I got a job after college, got married, went to law school, and had kids. Turning 18 was not a major turning point in my life. In fact, from this vantage point, it was pretty unremarkable. I have to believe that it was no different for my son.

But being a parent of child who has turned eighteen, is very significant. I am astounded that 20 years have passed so swiftly and my son is an adult. Turning eighteen is a really big deal and it was a major turning point - in my life.

So, two years later, this is what I have learned. Patience. I am a different parent to my son than I am to my three daughters. I want to believe that it is not because he is a boy but because he is my first. I have learned by now that patience is the best virtue any parent can have. It serves you best when your kids are young and you are attending mostly to their physical needs and it serves you best when they are older and you are attending mostly to their emotional needs. I learned throughout these times that if I wait long enough, “this too shall pass”. And this too, has passed.

There were times over the past two years, when I would become impatient and believed that I needed to approach this milestone differently - that I had to be proactive about building the foundation for a new kind of relationship with my adult child or I would lose him. But, I decided instead to trust my instincts, and trust my son. He needed his space. We had him for eighteen years and we taught him all we could about growing up to have an inquisitive mind, an open heart and a generous spirit. And lately, I see him coming back in bits and pieces - a gift for my birthday this year, an invitation to come watch him run in a track meet, a trip to our house with his friends for dinner, and an entire car ride home from school last Spring with non-stop conversation, just him and me. It seems like baby steps but that’s okay because he can take all the time he needs.

I remember when he was turning four, my husband said to him, “You’re growing up too fast, you can’t be turning four already!” and his response was so clear: “You have to change numbers, Dad, that’s the deal”… He was pretty wise, even back then.

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