Kids Say The Darndest Things... Sing Them Too

They are blissfully unaware, unedited and even painfully honest. Sometimes it’s cute…like when my daughter Lexi at three years old asked my father-in-law, who has a generous midsection, if he had a baby inside his tummy. Sometimes it’s not so cute like when my son Jonah asked me why I looked different when I woke up in the morning compared to after I got dressed. (Answer – bronzer and lipstick) “You look like an old mommy in the morning,” Jonah recently said. My daughter confirmed this as well.

But when my kids came home from camp singing songs they learned on the bus – hand clapping, rhyming songs, I was shocked. “What was that you just sang?” I asked Jonah, suspiciously. When he repeated the lyrics with the hand movements to create “Chinese and Japanese eyes” I was horrified. The tunes actually sounded remotely familiar. Did I sing those at camp too? I don’t remember my mom getting tense about my tunes. But now they seemed radioactive.

The more I told my kids not to sing the songs because they were mean and hurt people’s feelings, the louder they sang them. When I tried to ignore the offensive lyrics singing hoping that the lack of my response would get them to stop, they sang even louder.

For the record, we live in a very progressive and tolerant community. My town in New Jersey is known for its social activism and diverse population of African Americans, Gays, Lesbians, Asians and Jews. It is not uncommon to see a gay couple with adopted African American children from nearby Newark. Our town population would make for a great Benetton ad – and I love that. My children are exposed to and interact with lots of people who do not look like themselves. But they had no sense that their words were in any way hurtful.

Needless to say, I was horrified when my kids broke out one of their offensive tunes in the middle of my local Starbucks. At first I nearly choked on my latte. Then I loudly reprimanded my kids. People stared. I wanted to scream out, “I swear I don’t teach them this!” But no one would believe me -- people always blame the parents. Isn’t racism taught at home?

The further we get away from summer, the less they’ve been singing the songs. But now both of my kids are extremely curious about people with what they call “brown skin.” “Carly’s nanny has brown skin,” Jonah says. He also tells me about other children in his class with brown skin. When we got a new nanny, he wanted to know if she would have brown or peach skin. (We’ve had several nannies from the Caribbean, one from Colombia and now one from Utah).

I like to write it off as simply kids’ curiosity. My daughter tells me about the girl with red hair in her class. She now wants red hair too. My son’s best friend Lilly told her mom that she likes the “brown skinned girl” in class with the “puffy hair.” But in our culturally sensitive society today, alarms go off when our kids point out differences in other people and label them. Jonah just started Hebrew school and now divides the world into Jewish and Christian. He hasn’t learned about Muslim or Hindu yet.

I give my “Everyone in the world looks different, practices different religions, believes in different things, eats different foods and that’s what makes people special” speech all of the time, but frankly it still doesn’t make me feel less embarrassed when my children publicly and very loudly point out different people in the neighborhood. And it’s not just color or weight. “Why is that man sleeping on the street with dirty clothes?” Jonah asked me the other day as we walked through New York City.

While we adults have been taught to not see color or differences and maybe even step around the homeless person on the street without even a glance, children do pay attention to everyone. And as long as they are taught sensitivity and tolerance, maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.

Breaking All The Rules

One thing, among millions of others that nobody warns you about before having kids, is how your children can ruin your friendships. Now I’m not blaming the kids themselves for being particularly offensive to grownups. (Although mine certainly can be.) But it’s the way we parent these little apple-juice-guzzling, tantrum-prone chocoholics that can create enormous tension between even the closest of girlfriends. I know – I’ve personally lost some friends due to my Slacker Mom tendencies.

Make no mistake, motherhood and how we mother is all about judgment. It’s personal. It’s delicate. And come to my house at 6 p.m. and it’s a certifiable train wreck. In my six years of parenting, I’ve realized that there are two types of Moms – those who have lots of rules and those like me and my friends who simply don’t.

I have also discerned in my years as a Mommy that the Rules have a recognizable pattern and really affect three seemingly simple, but radioactive issues: Sugar, Entertainment and Sleep. Dig deeper into these categories and you will find loads of daily conflict that can explode when Rule Moms interact with Chill Moms.

The Rule Moms, also known as The Organic Moms wouldn’t be caught dead feeding their infant cow’s milk or a regular jar of Beech Nut. As their kids get older, these Moms evolve into the snack food snubbing, Sugar Nazis who on principle would never allow juice, fruit punch or anything but purified water at dinner.

These are the moms who don’t let their babies nap in a stroller, won’t walk outside without a floppy hat on their child’s head, sterilize every nipple or binky that drops on the ground, and reject all commercial television until the age of five.

The Chill Moms, in which I proudly claim membership, simply don’t have the energy to sterilize, count sugar grams, split gumballs in thirds (which just happened to a friend who went out to brunch with an Organic Mom. The gumball splitting then boomeranged into a tantrum situation for her three year old.) reapply sunscreen every 30 minutes, and turn off the TV.

We try. We do. We love our kids and pray that we turn out compassionate, healthy, happy human beings. But bribing them with ice cream sandwiches at 5 p.m. so we adults can relax, talk and sip a glass of Sauvignon Blanc seems like smarter parenting to us. Are we not vigilant enough? Are we lazy? Are we doormats? Perhaps we are…but our style is our signature and as we collectively band together we have perspective. So the kids don’t eat their organic broccoli for a week, and scarf down only chicken nuggets and M&Ms – is this the end of the world? If you think that it is, then I highly suggest that you have a glass of wine.

Puke, Snot and Other Reasons Women are Prepared to Save the World

As I was picking my son’s nose tonight, I had an epiphany. I suddenly realized why women are indeed the more capable sex. It’s not simply our patience, our innate nurturing or our ability to multi-task. It’s that we deal with the disgusting. Even the most squeamish among us rise to the occasion when confronted with the truly gross. It’s no wonder why Nancy Pelosi, mother of five and grandmother of a bunch is now Speaker of the House. Yes, apparently she’s sharp as a tack even if she recently took a congressional trip to Syria, which frankly was really dumb. But I bet she knows her way around the really yucky which is probably why she’s fared so well in Congress. She holds her nose to it all, kicks ass and prevails. God Bless America.

So back to my son’s nose. Tonight as Michael was putting my five-year-old son Jonah to bed, Jonah got a terrific nosebleed – the tissue soaking kind. My kid, who is known for his dramatic, blood curdling screams if he even gets a scratch on his pinky finger, was surprisingly brave given the pints of blood spurting from his nostrils. And for the record, as soon as the blood started pouring, Michael ran to find me and then conveniently disappeared.

So after ten minutes of my pinching, Jonah’s nosebleed slowed and he began complaining about something lodged in his right nostril. It was a stubborn piece of snot and he needed help. I don’t regularly help pick my kids’ noses, but feeling sorry for the trauma Jonah just endured, I gingerly tried to extricate the boogie. This, of course, aggravated his tender nose and the bleeding began again. After some starts and stops I convinced Jonah to live with the snot and I promised to get it out if it still presented when he woke up in the morning.

But the nosebleed/snot episode frankly pales in comparison to catching my daughter’s vomit in my bare hands as I stood in the check out line at Costco last spring. After inhaling a Costco size crate of blueberries while she sat in the shopping cart, Lexi, 3, then began to violently barf up blueberries. I am still bewildered by why my instinct was to shoot out my bare hands to literally catch the throw up. The whole scene was so vile that I think I was in a state of shock – but being a mom – I rallied. As New Jersey, bulk, discount shoppers stood aghast, I stripped Lexi down to her panties, opened the 50-pack of paper towels I was about to purchase and cleaned up.

Subconsciously, I was probably equipped to deal with the Costco crisis after years of becoming somewhat numb to all of the poop that I’ve had to handle. It starts at birth with the meconium – that foul, tar colored first dump that a newborn takes. That, of course, is followed by the familiar explosive diarrhea that somehow shoots up the back, behind the ears, into the folds of the neck and into every baby crevice and crease. We as moms, use the term, “poopie” because it’s a cuter euphemism to the reality of cleaning up another person’s shit.

I am famously known for my sensitive nose, distaste for odors, easy nausea and general squeamishness. But I’ve realized that all of the tushes I’ve wiped and unpleasant episodes I’ve experienced must have had a higher purpose. I say, if women can boldly and adeptly clean up all of those really nasty messes, damn it, we can clean up the world.

Wendy Sachs at home in New York

Sleep, Sex and Chardonnay

Do kids kill a marriage? If you’re Ayelet Waldman who wrote the radioactive “New York Times” essay professing more love for her husband than for her own kids and then famously appeared on “Oprah” to defend her unique position; the answer is clearly no. But for the rest of us with young children who cling to our ankles like Koala Bears while whining over spilled Sippy Cups and interrupting our precious sleep, I think the honest answer is a solid, maybe.

This is a topic no one discusses before you have children. Weren’t we told that babies brought couples closer – the DNA link, the biological bond, the changing of the poopy diapers? Babies were supposed to make it official, seal the relationship, right? Wrong.

I realized this nearly six years ago on a gorgeous, spring afternoon when my first born was a few weeks old. We looked like the quintessential, idyllic, New York City family. My husband Michael walked our chocolate lab, I pushed the fancy Maclaren (it was the pre-Bugaboo era) and my beautiful baby Jonah, sporting a fabulous onesie lay peacefully inside his stroller – all for about one minute. When Jonah started crying, he didn’t stop. Thirty blocks later, with my boobs literally bursting with milk spontaneously leaking by the primordial, maternal reaction to a newborn cry, I swear I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Weeks of waking up every two hours with a colicky baby had taken its toll on both me and Michael.

“I have to nurse the baby,” I told Michael. “I’m stopping at the next bench.”

“But I’m hungry, I need to eat now!" Michael, who has an infamous short fuse when his blood sugar is low, shouted at me.

“Then get something to eat,” I said whipping out my boob and struggling to get Jonah successfully secured onto my nipple in between his frantic squeals for milk.

“Fine,” Michael said, marching off.

Small children stress a marriage. The utter exhaustion of getting through the day with little ones could drive you to drink heavily. This was apparently documented on the “Today” show recently with a controversial segment about Chardonnay playdates where moms drink and kids play. (By the way, I see nothing wrong with this, and to be fair, they weren’t getting drunk, just taking the edge off.)

And then there’s the sex. My informal surveys among moms have found unequivocally that most of us would happily trade the possibility of an orgasm for a guaranteed extra 30 minutes of delicious sleep. This, of course, is not what we imagined when we were saying our “I do’s.” Pre-kids, my husband and I vowed not to turn into one of those couples who had to schedule sex once a week just to make sure we had it. We were about romance, spontaneity, and adventure. But six years and two kids later, the truth is, all I want to do is to take a nap.

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I Hate Cinderella

My daughter loves princesses and fairytales and apparently all stories that end in happily ever after. Yeah, I know, don’t we all? But lately, I’ve taken a serious stance against Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and all of Disney’s damsels in distress. I vaguely remember being fascinated by the Cinderella story too. I assume it’s because I envied Cinderella’s long, blonde straight locks as I fought with my own poufy, frizzy brown hair made worse by the relentless humidity of South Florida where I grew up.

Now reading the books, 30 years later as a mommy and a grownup, I’m shocked by just how grim fairytales truly are. Everything begins with the loving daddy dying, evil stepmothers taking over, witches casting curses and jealous women poisoning pretty young girls with apples. This is a post feminist woman’s nightmare. Women are pitted against women. Beauty prevails and handsome men adore young women who make friends with rodents and can harmonize with the birds. Yikes.

Somehow these “classics” (a collection of Golden Books) made it on to my daughter’s book shelf. Neither my husband nor I know who bought them but there they sit – favorites of my three-year-old daughter Lexi. When I’m forced to read the books, I present my own sanitized version that changes each time I read it. But my daughter is catching on. “Sally reads this story differently,” Lexi says to me as I rock and read to her at night. Sally is our babysitter – the fairytale filter clearly isn’t as important to her.

Why is it that little girls are drawn to these stories? Is there something in our DNA that makes fairytales so appealing? As my feisty pre-schooler trots around my house, preening in mirrors and applying layers of lip gloss “to look pretty” my “Free to Be You and Me” instinct takes over. I see my own daughter caught by society’s competing messages of Girl Power. She’s a strong personality who believes she can do anything while slathered in makeup. “I’m so pretty,” Lexi will tell anyone who will listen and “I can do it!” She screams if you get in her way.

Personally, I love the “Olivia” books. Olivia is headstrong and curious and her mom is exasperated and exhausted but loving – a welcome and honest mix of a mom.

The last page of the first Olivia book shows a picture of Olivia dreaming. The dream is of Olivia her sitting on the Supreme Court – she is surrounded by all of the justices including Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg (granted the book is now slightly dated) Each time we read the book, Lexi asks me to go through all of the justices. It’s a fun game we play. Lexi insists that Antonin Scalia is a girl’s name – to her Scalia is definitely a feminine name and that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a man (not a flattering photograph of Ruth – poor thing).

This is exactly the kind of dream we want our daughters to take away with them. It’s not about marrying Prince Charming – because let’s face it – he’s a dangerous myth. This is about sitting front and center on your own, empowered not by a prince but because of your own accomplishments. And let’s face it, true power today is doing all that and wearing lipstick. And in Lexi’s case a tiara and a tutu.

Columbus Day - October 9th

Columbus Day is the kind of pseudo-holiday that many offices for whatever reason refuse to pay tribute to. But when I learn that my office is closed in honor of the great explorer, I am ecstatic. The weekend before my Monday off, I begin idealizing and planning all of the things I can do with my kids (and for myself). My son is off from kindergarten, but my daughter has pre-school. This is perfect, I think to myself, as I strategize how I’m going to maximize the most of every hour. I can actually take my daughter, Lexi, to school, (which I haven’t done since the first day) meet her new friends, check out her classroom and even grab a few minutes of face time with her teacher. These snippets, when I can see first hand what she’s doing when I’m not with her, are priceless to me. I also plot some one-on-one time with my son Jonah and because my husband is home from work today too, I fantasize about getting an hour of exercise in as well – the makings of a glorious day. Or so I think.

The morning begins in typical fashion. When I take Lexi out of her crib she asks, “Mommy are you going to work today?” Usually the answer is yes and Lexi gets spontaneously teary. But this morning when I say “No honey, “Mommy’s not working today,” Lexi smiles brightly and then says matter-of-factly, “Well, then I don’t want to go to school.”

“But this is a special Mommy, Lexi day,” I say in my best chippery, sing-songy voice. “I get to take you to school and I’m soooo excited!” “No, I don’t want to go to school,” she shrieks. “How about we go to the bakery and buy a special treat for your lunch,” I say, hoping to appease her. “Okay” she says, wiping away some tears.

I quickly get Lexi dressed and then hustle to the town bakery to buy her an extra large cookie before heading to school. Driving to school, Lexi munches on her cookie and then suddenly puts it down and says, “But mommy I don’t want to go to school!” Her face dissolves into tears.

Doesn’t she get it? This is my rare chance to take her. It’s part of my plan of engagement today. I want to take her. I need to take her. This is also for me. But then I start feeling guilty and selfish. The truth is – I’m sending Lexi to school because I want to be able to take her for once. Also, I’d like to play tennis for an hour and I’ll feel less conflicted if she’s occupied in school for a few hours. Then we all win, right? Wrong.

I walk Lexi up to her class and she’s clutching my neck like a koala bear. I see the girls in the class who she always talks about: Jamie, Joey, Sarah – it’s good to put faces and names together. I make a mental note that I should really be setting up play dates. I see Lexi’s art projects and the hook where she hangs her backpack. But when I try to peel Lexi off of my body she starts sobbing and I feel terrible.

On my way out of the school I run into one of Lexi’s teachers. She tells me how adorable Lexi is but that “she is clearly missing her mommy.” “She hasn’t quite turned the corner in school yet,” the teacher continues. “She hasn’t really opened up to us or the other girls yet.” I’m stunned and heartbroken. Lexi is an unusually social little girl who always has acclimated easily. At least she used to. So now what’s happening? I start blaming myself. I walk out of the school choking back my own tears.

I come home for a couple of minutes before I’m supposed to play tennis. Jonah is getting ready to go out with my husband but now he only wants me. Jonah crawls into my lap and begs me not to leave him. But I have only two hours before it’s pick up time for Lexi and according to my plan Jonah and Mommy time comes later in the day. But my plan feels useless. No one is getting enough of my time, including myself. My Columbus Day is quickly turning into a disaster.

Fortunately, over the next few hours the day did improve. Lexi was so excited to see me when I picked her up from school – it was as if her entire body was smiling. She ran into my arms giggling with the happiest look on her face. The world at that moment couldn’t have been more perfect for the both of us. We then met my husband and Jonah for lunch at Jonah’s favorite restaurant. We went to a park with paddle boats and played on the playground. After ice cream, I took both kids to their gymnastics classes where I was able to wave to them as they performed on the enormous gym floor. I sat where all the “mommies and Sallies sit,” Jonah informed my husband later. Sally is my babysitter who takes the kids to their classes.

For me, today felt like I was catching up on all the stuff that I’ve been missing these past few months. But when I was putting Lexi to sleep tonight and she asked, “Mommy are you going to work tomorrow?” my heart sank again. “Yes, sweetie I am,” I said softly. “I love you mommy,” Lexi said as I was leaving her room. “I love you too sweetie.” Even with an extra day like today, it just never feels like enough time.

Avoiding The Crackberry

My husband, Michael, is addicted to his BlackBerry and is in denial. Because it's also used as his cell phone, he literally won't even walk our dog unless he's carrying it. For obvious reasons, it's become an issue in our marriage.

My loathing of Michael's black, pudgy PDA reached epic levels when he subconsciously took it out and scrolled through some email a few weeks ago when we were out to dinner with friends.

"That was beyond rude," I scolded him in the car ride home after dinner.
"What are you talking about?" He said.
"It's not acceptable to read your BlackBerry at dinner," I shrieked, in my most shrill wifey/maternal tone.
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't even realize it."
"That's the point," I said.

I actually believe my husband can't help himself. The BlackBerry has become an extension of his being. It's the parasitic creature that he feeds by the endless tapping of his fingertips. He cradles it in his palm moments after he wakes up and checks on it right before he goes to sleep. I'm convinced he spends more time with it than he does our own children.

Being slow to embrace technology and a bit retro in my desire to chat on my cell rather than communicate through email, I swore that I would never succumb to the BlackBerry. But I've just started a new job where a Blackberry is as much a part of the culture as reading The New York Post.

It's not that I don't see its benefits. As a commuter who wants to be able to see my children before they go to sleep at night, a BlackBerry will make it possible for me to work on the train ride home. I'll be more accessible to everyone. But that's also what scares me. It's liberating not to be a slave to your email. The buzzing of an email alert that causes my husband to jump and grab his BlackBerry is an annoying interruption in our lives. As with everyone who I know who owns a BlackBerry, he clearly has a hard time creating boundaries between work and home.

Since I started my job a month ago, my three-year-old daughter, Lexi, now pretends that she is "going to work." She picks up her purse, keys and cell phone and says, "Bye sweetie, I've got to go to work now." For her, my working happens outside of the house in "the city." But when I walk through the door and change into my "play clothes" I'm mommy again and ready to play "Ring Around the Rosy." I know that it's just a matter of days before I sign up for my BlackBerry service. But I dread Lexi or my son Jonah seeing me on the Blackberry, at home but still "at work." It's just not fair to anyone.

Goodbye Starbucks Hello Park Avenue

So as of last week, I have officially joined the gainfully employed putting an end to my romantic status as the struggling writer. Goodbye Starbucks, my office for the past three years, hello Park Avenue South. My friends feared for my own adjustment. I feared for the adjustment of my kids. But so far I can report that everyone has survived.

After a four-year sabbatical from corporate America, I admit it’s really nice to put on a great suit and cute shoes and go to work. Maybe it’s the accessories and the reason to wear mascara again, or maybe it’s the regular paycheck, but it does feel good to be back at work in a real environment again – the kind that has other employees aside from the barista behind the espresso bar.

The most surreal thing about being back is how everyone seems so much younger than when I left. After I left “Dateline NBC” I spent a couple of years working from home for a San Francisco-based Internet company. Back then I was still a fresh faced, childless, not quite 30-year-old. Now, well, I’m solidly on the other side of that number. And wherever I turn, it’s obvious that many more women are much younger than me. Their lack of dark circles makes them easy to spot. Don’t know if that really reflects their age or their not having small children.

I guess I imagined myself cryogenically preserved in the workforce, a pleasantly seasoned but still spry 29-year-old. And yet I’ve returned as a 30-something mommy of two. My first day at work, my assistant instantly made me feel old. Of course she didn’t mean to. But when we met and chatted about her background, I realized that a college friend of mine had coincidentally taught at the same private school she had attended in NYC. And our conversation went something like this:

“What’s your friend’s name? Maybe I know her,” my assistant asked sweetly.
“You wouldn’t know her, I’m sure you were long gone when she taught there,” I said.
“Well what’s her name?” she asked again.
“Abby Katz,” I said.
“Oh my God, she taught me eighth grade science and I think seventh grade science too.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I said in denial.

But then I did the math. And she was right.
A college friend of mine was old enough to have taught my assistant science when she was twelve years old. Wow, now I really felt old.

But aside from my age shock, everything else is moving along nicely. Although, I do find myself missing that comforting buzz of the espresso machine.

Getting Back In

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist and author who studies issues about keeping mothers in the workforce, says that at any given time two-thirds of all stay-at-home moms are trying to re-enter the workforce but having a tough time getting back in.

I know first hand what she's talking about.

For three years I researched, wrote and then promoted my book about working mothers and how to successfully integrate career and family. Then in December, once the book tour died down, I started looking for a real job. I always thought I would go back into television news, because that was my real passion. But after being out of TV news for several years my options seemed increasingly bleak. I started to refocus my search by emphasizing my other skills and background in public relations.

Perhaps I was overconfident. Believing that my resume was diverse and rich, I wrongly assumed getting a job would be a cinch. After all, I had worked as a Capitol Hill press secretary, network TV producer, a PR executive and I was a published author. It didn't make sense to me that getting a job would be difficult.

Ironically, I warn women in my book about the dangers of stepping out of the workforce and here I was living my own grim words. If I'm having a hard time finding a satisfying and well paying job, I can't imagine what the millions of other women out there are facing when they try to re-enter the workforce, I thought to myself.

Yesterday, I spoke to a group of women at Citigroup, several of whom told me about how they took years off from their careers and what they had to do to re-enter. The road getting back in was bumpy, but they had successfully navigated the path. Interestingly, the group who invited me to speak was part of their female "retention" committee. Citigroup, like other big companies, is looking to bring former employees who became at-home moms back into the workforce. They've realized there's a huge pool of talent at home that would like to come back to work, at least in some capacity.

It's become a cliche, but as they say cliches are true. There are lots of off-ramps for women, but very few on-ramps. I did find a fantastic job. But strangely, I feel very grateful to have found one. I just never imagined it would be so difficult to do.

Getting Sick at Costco

For the record, I've never liked Costco. Yes, I know they've got killer prices on bulk diapers, tushy wipes and gallon size bottles of ketchup -- and yes, I've gleefully taken advantage of these benefits But on principle alone, I've never been a Costco fan. To me, it represents the worst of America -- strip malls and suburban sprawl, super sized, gluttonous packages of food that no single family can or should possibly consume.

So why you may ask, did I go to Costco this afternoon if it represents all that is evil about American consumption? I like their Rotisserie Chicken. For $4.99 it happens to be the bargain of the decade and it tastes really good. Also, I had a hankering for blueberries and mango. And somehow in March, Costco miraculously manages to provide crates of blueberries and cut up mango at bargain basement prices. So after taking my four-year-old son Jonah to karate today, my daughter Lexi and I all made a pilgrimage to Costco.

Sitting in the oversized shopping cart side by side, my kids had already consumed an obscene amount of unwashed blueberries before we walked the additional two miles from produce to the checkout line. Once we settled into line with 10,000 other Costco shoppers, Lexi, my two and a half year old, violently vomited half a crate of blueberries. Don't ask what compelled me to reach out with my bare hands to try to catch my daughter's vomit, but I did. Women watched me. I heard some gasp. I saw others turn away.

As I ran for paper towels, leaving my two kids in the cart, not one person said a word to me or even glanced sympathetically in my direction. Was it the sterility of Costco, the massive size and generic feel of the place that makes these shoppers complete strangers and intentionally oblivious to a mom in obvious need of help? I couldn't imagine this happening in a mom and pop shop.

After I stripped my daughter down to her underwear the only person who even acknowledged me and my kids was a security woman who as we were walking out looked my daughter up and down and then sniffed, "your daughter's going to be cold outside."

When Work Isn't Working

Last week, a national news show invited me to participate in a taped panel discussion about some of the issues confronting Stay-at-Work and Stay-at-Home moms. This was another segment in the ongoing "Mommy Wars" debate. But this time, instead of discussing the issues of conflict, we were asked to come up with solutions.

At the end of our half hour taping, one of the women on the panel, who I'll call Susan, was downright angry. Susan was a single, full time working mother of a twelve year old. She supported herself and her daughter on $27,000 a year. Because she didn't have a college education, she didn't have a lot of career options. She was currently working as a bookkeeper in Florida.

"I'm so upset with everything that was said today," Susan announced to us as we began to gather around her. "None of what you all said has anything to do with me. You talk about going to your boss and asking for flexibility. If I did that, I'd be fired. If I take a sick day, I'll be fired. I live in fear of being fired," Susan said.

"My daughter broke her arm two weeks into my current job and my boss let me take care of my daughter for a couple of days, but I got a warning that this could never happen again. I go from job to job because when my daughter gets sick, I get fired. Her father is not in our life. I have no support system. I am so stressed out all of the time. I feel like a terrible mother and I think my daughter hates me because I am never around. You talk about legislation to make the lives of working moms easier. Maybe in twenty years that will make a difference, but what do I do today?" Susan demanded.

We all fell silent. Not one of the dozen or so women circled around Susan had any real solutions for her. Some women in the group tried to empower Susan and reassure her that she was doing the best she could under her undeniably difficult circumstances. But when it came to real, practical steps to relieve her anxiety, there were no concrete answers.

What's most disturbing is that Susan represents millions of women who also feel that they have few options and no reasonable answers. Flexibility and lofty goals of work/life balance legislation don't help a low wage, struggling, working mother who is simply trying to survive.

Nearly 15 million women in the United States earn less than $25,000 a year despite working in full time, year-round jobs. Only 1 in 3 workers has paid sick leave to care for their children. And 77 percent of the lowest paid workers have no paid sick leave at all.

Stories about the mommy wars and the exodus of high powered women leaving the workforce make sexy headlines and bring in ratings. But these women represent a small segment of the population. After meeting Susan last week, I haven't been able to get her out of my mind. She made me realize that we must turn our attention to the millions of working moms who have no legal protection and no safety net. We, who are educated and therefore have access to more power, have an obligation to make the lives of other women with less opportunities better. It is unconscionable that millions of American women are living in dire fear of what will happen to them if their child is sick or if God forbid they get sick.

Something is clearly wrong in this country when work isn't working.

Driving Happily Down The Middle

Last week, I spoke to the happiest working moms I've ever found -- and I found them in a most unlikely place. The women, all mothers, worked for a New York based fashion designer. But they didn't work in the glamorous, high powered, perk filled jobs at the fashion company on 7th avenue. Instead, they worked on the other side of the river, tucked away in a very unglam warehouse-filled town in New Jersey. The women held the company's nuts and bolts positions: human resources, pay roll, distribution etc. Unlike their New York colleagues, not one of these women carried a BlackBerry. A few had cell phones, but that was so they could reach their families, not their bosses or clients. The women started their workdays at 8 am or 9 am and ended them between 4 PM and 5 PM. No one mentioned taking work home with them, staying late or working weekends.

One woman was married to a truck driver. Another was married to a teacher. And still another woman's husband, a former construction worker, currently held the job of Stay-at-Home dad, choosing to stay home after his daughter was born last year. The truck driver dad was also the resident chef, cooking dinner as well as coaching every team sport imaginable (the couple had three kids.) The former construction worker reveled in his parenting and also prepared dinner (he and his wife also alternated teaching spinning classes at the local gym at night). The schoolteacher did the daycare pick-ups at 4 PM and managed to do a couple loads of laundry once a week as well.

These men defied conventional stereotypes. They had traditional blue collar jobs and yet were the most renaissance and evolved of husbands. Of all of the women whom I've spoken to in the past few years, these women were the happiest and most balanced. Because their husbands really split the household and childcare responsibilities, these women were not stressed and exhausted as they tried to negotiate a career and family. And because their careers allowed them the time to have a life, they were fully enjoying their lives.

The topic of career and family is often discussed as an elitist one because the issue simply turns into a lightning rod for choice -- that is, women choosing to be at home or choosing to be at work. Choice is not the reality for most women. But the issue of balancing career and family is a reality, one that's not elitist but entirely middle class.

Create A Life, Open A Void

Yesterday, I was speaking to my friend Cathy who has an enviously successful and accomplished career in film production. Her husband is even more successful. As we discussed our kids, careers, husbands, potential job moves, and the challenges of motherhood, she declared the utter unfairness of it all. "Even early on, you can see the paths of men and women going in different directions at work," she said spreading open her fingers to visually demonstrate the divergent paths of the genders.

"That's why when women take a break from their careers after they become moms, they can really never get back in and catch up," Cathy said. "Or if moms quit entirely they are feeding into old, workplace stereotypes about mothers. I think this is really dangerous for all women."

Yes, I agree it is dangerous. But sadly most mothers really don't feel as if they have many options. Last night, at a dinner with my girlfriends, a similar conversation was taking place. Everyone was in agreement that one parent's career had to slow down after they had children -- after all, someone has to be around for the kids. Of course, this someone is usually the mother.

Many women thrive in this arrangement. (At least for awhile.) They embrace the career of motherhood and are challenged in their role of Woman of the House. Others, by default, get used to this situation -- and make the best of it -- sometimes enjoying it, other times resenting it. And many women who financially need to and want to work after they have kids switch their careers altogether to something more "family friendly" and flexible.

I know women who left Wall Street to become realtors and women who left television production to become teachers and I know women who started small businesses of their own. Sometimes these moves prove to be fantastic and satisfying. But many other times it seems women feel as if they are compromising themselves. They feel forced by motherhood into a job that falls flat. They miss their old lives. They miss the rush, the chase, and the excitement of their former careers. They've become practical but sometimes bitter. They are desperate to find something to satisfy their personal cravings for creativity and stimulation. The irony is that by creating a life, many have also created a void. Why is it that in becoming mothers, we often lose ourselves?

Death & Disney

“Mommy, where is Chicken Little’s mother?” my four-year-old son, Jonah, asked me as we watched the “Chicken Little” movie last week. Jonah noticed the mother’s absence in an early scene as the camera panned to a family photo hanging in Chicken Little’s house. The portrait showed a smiling Mama chicken, Papa chicken, and young Chicken Little. At the heart of this famous “sky is falling” tale lies the strained relationship between Chicken Little and his father. Mom is not mentioned or seen (aside from the photo). So I think it’s safe to assume that she’s in chicken heaven.

“Chicken Little’s mother is at work,” I cheerfully answered, giving Jonah a little squeeze. “I wonder where his mommy works,” he said earnestly before taking a slurp from his apple juice box.

When I read to my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter her favorite "princess" bedtime stories, I deliberately skip over the multiple mentions of death. Have the romantic tales of Cinderella, Snow White and the Princess and the Pea always been so grim? Mommies and daddies die. Evil witches plot death. As a mother now, Disney suddenly feels danergerously dark, so I revise the stories as I read, keeping things relatively upbeat.

Disney aside, children are affected by real-life death. Recently, my husband attended a funeral for a friend’s father. Jonah and his best friend, Lilly, have now incorporated this event into their imaginative play.

“We’re going to a funeral,” the kids happily announce to us when they meet for play dates. They say this as if they’re skipping off to the playground.

Lately, Jonah and his friends seem almost obsessed with death. It started around Halloween this year with their attempt to understand skeletons. Jonah wants to know if he will be hungry when he's a skeleton. He is also afraid that he will be cold since he never sees a skeleton wearing a coat -- and after all it is winter. My friend Allison's son announced the other day that he will think about and love his grandmother even after he's dead. "Let's hope that doesn't happen anytime soon," Allison sweetly told her son.

When and how should we talk to our kids about dying? If movies made for young children discuss the subject, should we? How much do we need to explain to them and when? Do we let our kids play out a funeral in their imaginations or do we gently tell them what a funeral is and insist that they not use it in their play?

These are all questions that my friends and I talk about. I'm looking for the answers, and when I have them I will report back. Until then, Cinderella's mommy is on vacation and will soon be home to kick her ugly stepmother's butt.

Women's Conventions: A Close Shave?

Last week I spoke at the Massachusetts Governor's Conference for Women. It seems sort of retro that even today we still need conferences that are devoted just for women. But considering that we have plenty of unresolved issues, gathering thousands of women together en masse does seem to be a good thing.

I thought it was telling of how far we've come since our sisters a generation ago took the cause public. Those hairy-legged, bra burners demonstrating outside of courthouses have been replaced by women in suits at convention centers collecting goodie bags filled with fancy disposable razors that vibrate. Now that's female empowerment! (And the Venus razor did give me a nice, close shave this morning.)

As I've been on the governor's conference circuit, a tour that has taken me to red, blue, and purple states (this is my own political designation for those states that swing both ways), I realize more and more that all of us women want the same thing.

Women need to feel that whatever they do, whatever "choice" they make in motherhood, career and life, they are doing the right thing. We are all looking for validation. As I've traveled around the country, the stories I hear are powerful, and filled with plenty of "Oprah" moments where audience members often crumble in tears. These universal issues about how to be true to ourselves and 'present' for our families strike a nerve with all women regardless of age, ethnicity or voting record. It cuts to the core of who we are -- as women, mothers and daughters.

Last week, a young mom with a one year old stood up in front of fifty women and announced as she choked back tears, that she felt like a failure. She said she was in a job she adored and had a child whom she adored, but why then was it so hard, she asked. Why did she feel so guilty all of the time? Why did she constantly feel as if she was in conflict?

The truth is that there isn't a lot of support for mothers. For those who work outside of the home, the workforce is not structured to let you have a life. And for those who are at home - which by the way, is often not really by choice but by necessity (many moms can't work because their husbands are never home and someone needs to be there for the kids) - they also don't feel like they have lots of options. Why is it so hard? Lots of us are trying to answer this gazillion dollar question and come up with solutions. But the solutions are more complicated than we'd like to think. So I guess these conferences for women aren't nearly as obsolete as I had first thought. We still have a lot of work to do and as we do it, we might as well get a smooth shave.

Mommy Are You Happy When You’re Not With Me?

About a half a dozen times yesterday my 4-year-old son Jonah asked me the same question: "Mommy are you happy when you're not with me?" This wasn't the first time he posed this question. About a month ago, out of the blue, he asked the same thing. In a knee jerk, sing-songy mommy voice, I cheerfully answered "No honey I'm not happy when I can't be with you, I always want to be with you." I punctuated my answer with a big hug and a quick kiss. But four weeks ago, his question didn't feel as loaded as it does now.

Now I figured Jonah couldn't help but feel my stress over having no childcare and household help over the past two months. I was doing little to hide my tension and clearly it was taking its toll. A highly sensitive and perceptive child, Jonah was feeling my brewing resentment toward the world and in particular to the mounting piles of dirty laundry.

The cliche "a happy mother is a happy child" has never felt more appropriate. As I struggle to do a bare minimum of work, begin looking for a real job, the kind that comes with a 401 K and a dental plan, research a potential new book, make plans for the holidays, and clean my house including a pile of dog vomit I found on my white living room carpet this morning, I realize my sour mood is affecting my kids.

So yesterday when Jonah asked again if I were happy when I wasn't with him, the question stung. This time as I truly considered what he was asking I decided to re-jigger my answer by turning the question around. "Are you happy when you go to school and have playdates," I asked Jonah. "Yes," he answered. "Are you happy when you go to karate?" "Yes," he said. "Well, I'm happy when I play with my friends and I go to work and I get to exercise my brain. That makes me happy. But it doesn't mean I don't love you."

When I repeated this story to a bunch of my girlfriends desperately searching for some mommy soul support and an interpretation of Jonah's emotional state, my friend Kerry, a mother of a one-year-old thought I scored an ace parenting move. "Brilliant!" she declared when I told her how I shifted the question. "It really is easier when your kids aren't old enough to truly talk to you," Kerry laughed and I agreed.

Jessica, also a mother of a four-year-old boy who is well read on positive parenting strategies seemed to think Jonah's question wasn't as heartbreaking as most of my other friends did. She reassured me that four-year-olds can't imagine a world outside of their own and therefore Jonah's question was just a legitimate inquiry into what I do and how I feel when he's not around.

Ultimately, it did seem that Jonah was finally satisfied after I explained that yes, I can be happy when I'm doing things for myself just as he does for himself and my love for him is always there. Today he hasn't asked me that seemingly awful question. But he did tell me that he loved me. So far so good.

I Need a Village

My nanny woes continue. I know it sounds grossly elitist to whine about nanny problems. And that's why I resist publicly drawing attention to my perpetual problem of hiring a decent and reasonably priced nanny. But I've decided to out myself because maybe someone out there in cyberspace can help me. I admit that my bar for childcare has dropped to an embarrassing all time low -- bordering on the irresponsible. But my minimal requirements are rather straight forward -- if you have a valid driver's license, no criminal record and don't mind reading "Dora the Explorer" books 10,000 times a day, you're hired!

For several months as my part-time sitters have called in sick, simply failed to show, or suddenly quit, I've struggled to get to meetings, join conference calls, produce stories and travel to promote my book while also squeezing in carpool, karate and soccer for my kids. Last month when I left for a business trip, I cobbled together a schedule of three babysitters to consecutively piggyback over a 48-hour period. That, of course, was not only expensive but stressful, not just for me but for my kids. (My husband did come home in between sitter #2 and #3.)

So today, after nearly spraining my ankle tripping over my son's Buzz Lightyear amidst the clutter that is his playroom and in between the 200 loads of laundry I swear I did, I channeled Lynette from Desperate Housewives (before she went back to work and wore suits again) and had an epiphany. This is not just my problem, it's the problem of virtually all moms out there. Sisters we need help and we must unite! We know it takes a village to raise our children, Hillary Clinton told us so. But if the village has only one resident (as mine does for the better part of Monday thru Friday) then we need to recruit some more people to work in our village -- at a reasonable cost.

Last weekend I was speaking at a conference for women and on my panel another author of motherhood books confided in me that she was completely losing it because she also had no childcare. She told me that between 9 am and 3 pm when her kids were in school, she frantically tried to get all of her work done. After 3 pm she was a stress case because she still had tons more to do and simply couldn't get it finished because she didn't have an affordable babysitter.

So here we were, two motherhood "experts" who lacked the essential help we needed to be both happy moms and productive career women. Why is it so hard? Because it's so ridiculously expensive. In New Jersey where I live, the going rate for a full time nanny who drives averages $550-$600 per week. So unless you're making a lot of coin it's hard to foot the bill for the cost of a capable sitter. This is why so many women don't work. It's not because they don't want a career but unless they are taking home a huge salary it often makes no financial sense to have a real job. In fact, many families realize it often costs too much for both parents to work.

I'm not an economist and I'm not a politician, I'm just a mother who is trying to nurture a career, raise two children and supply my family with clean underwear. Is that too much to ask?

Isn't Anything Sacred?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a prude. I wear low-rise pants and yes I'm aware that my thong is often on display for the world to examine. (This of course is better than seeing crack.) I like sexy, semi-revealing clothes and I can curse like a truck driver after a few drinks. I also publicly breast fed, whipping out my boob everywhere from Starbucks and Central Park to a neighbor's house in the middle of Rosh Hashanah dinner.

But when a friend told me about her recovery experience after delivering her second daughter last week, I thought we've just gone too far. Apparently, these days giving birth has become a very open spectacle. The New York Times ran an article a few weeks ago describing just how public this once private experience has become. Now when women give birth they're inviting professional videographers, photographers, massage therapists, yoga instructors, the butcher, the dry cleaner and any one else who wants in. Distant relatives and neighbors often have a close-up view of perhaps the most intimate moment in a woman's life.

But my friend Sharon is a relatively private person and had no intention to make her delivery a spectacle. Because she had a planned C-Section in a sterile operating room, not a hotel suite type of birthing room, the delivery was not open to the public.

But soon after her organs were put back into place and she was recovering from what is major abdominal surgery, the visitors began arriving in droves. There was a sister-in-law and her nephews, an elderly aunt and her boyfriend, step-cousins, friends, teenage children of friends. So as Sharon was bleeding on her bed, pulling her engorged, cantaloupe-sized breasts out of her gown and trying to shove her tender nipples into her newborn's mouth, she faced a room full of spectators.

"We were all uncomfortable in there," she told me on the phone from her hospital room. (I decided to meet the baby when they returned home.) "I was sharing a room and we had a tiny space and all of these men were in the room watching me and then looking away as I was trying to breast feed Ava. They seemed fascinated and disgusted. It was awful, but I thought they would feel insulted if I asked them to leave. So there I was trying to entertain and nurse. It was totally out-of-control."

Does everyone have to bear witness to mother and baby minutes after delivery? Shouldn't there be some down time? I think I read that Scientologists have a week-long quiet period where no one talks after the birth of their babies. Well, that sounds a little extreme. (Tom Cruise may be preparing Katie Holmes for this ritual.) But a little quiet, bonding time I think is a good thing. Let the relatives and friends bring their gifts and curiosity to your house not your hospital room.

Motherhood In Vogue

Britney, Madonna, Gwyneth, Sarah Jessica, Reese, Kate Hudson, Brooke Shields... they're all doing it -- having babies and making motherhood look fabulous. Babies are the hottest accessory for the successful woman who has everything. Even though many pregnant ladies are barfing on our way to brush their teeth in the morning, the media has done an extreme makeover on pregnancy -- declaring it one of the sexiest and most chic nine months in a woman's life.

The media embraces pregnant celebrity moms-to-be showing off their bumps and bosoms busting out of sexy evening wear (Britney). And two days after delivering, the celebrity moms emerge from the hospital looking even more fabulous than before. Somehow despite arduous labor and delivering a baby the size of a watermelon (Gwyneth), their bodies miraculously contract back into their pre-pregnancy, Pilates-tight size.

On the cover of the October issue of Vogue, Gwyneth Paltrow - long blonde hair flowing - shines in a gorgeous, backlit, peaceful state, taunting us mere mortal moms about how motherhood and marriage had centered her, "I have something so real," reads her quote on the cover. because she now has something real. Yes, I too have something real -- a real two year old and a real four year old, who when they wake me up in the middle of the night (which they almost always still do) can also be a real pain in the butt. But Gwyneth, of course, says nothing about any of motherhood's woes. No celebrity moms do. In fact, all Gwyneth discloses about her daughter Apple is that she wakes up at 7:30 am, eats lunch at 11:30 am and naps for two hours a day. No wonder why Gwyneth looks so well rested!

It always amazes me how reporters depict these celebrity moms not only as glowing with the sheen of motherhood but also as always putting their children before their careers. The Vogue reporter who interviewed Gwyneth in Paris (of course) spent the day with her having lunch and shopping. He made it clear that Gwyneth doesn't have a real nanny, only a housekeeper who watches Apple when Gwyneth does things like have lunches with reporters and shop. He also explained that Gwyneth has found inner peace with her marriage to rock star Chris Martin and that's given her the happiness that Hollywood alone never could. He reports that Gwyneth, after taking a sabbatical from her career to spend time with Apple, has decided to work again, but only in roles that she finds interesting and that will make her a more fascinating person.

Let me say, I have nothing against Gwyneth. I think she's chic and talented and who wouldn't want her life? But these articles always make me cringe. Gwyneth is fortunate to be able to pick and choose when she works -- most of us can't. And depicting motherhood as the be all and end all where women emerge sexier, more beautiful and happier than ever before perpetuates a warped and dangerous image that's impossible to achieve, and frankly it makes the rest of us feel bad.

Aside from Brooke Shields who had the courage to speak honestly about her ordeal with post-partum depression, no other celebrity moms have come forward to speak candidly about pregnancy and motherhood.

I wish someone would.