Moxie Mom On Life and Kids

Distracted Driving

We keep hearing about texting while driving, talking on the cell while driving, but I’ve always had this uncomfortable feeling that there are other menaces out there on the road. Like sleep-deprived parents who are so tired they can’t remember driving from A to B.

Or parents who are looking at their toddler in the backseat when, oops, the car in front of them stops and the parent driver taps its bumper (oh, wait, that was me).

Or parents who are trying to load a story CD or DVD in crazy traffic because their kids are fighting.

But no one talks about us parent drivers being dangerous.

Until now. The March issue of  Parents contains an article titled “The Most Dangerous Drivers” (yikes)  that takes a close look at parent drivers.  According to the article, 80 percent of accidents are caused by distracted driving, and minivan drivers, moms specifically, are a deadly epidemic.

Here’s what they  do in the car:

• Eat breakfast
• Feed their kids breakfast
• Play music loudly for kids who don’t like the car
• Open boxes of crackers
• Pick up sippy cups off the floor
• Load DVDs
• Take wrappers from kids
• Referee arguments
• Deflect vomit

The article didn’t mention sleep deprivation, which in my mind is a biggie, but maybe there’s no way to measure that. Remember those days? Or maybe you’re in them right now. Truly, I never felt so off as those first three years of parenting — as if  I was half-sunk in quicksand all the time.

Here’s a stat worth thinking about: 27 percent of adults text, while 26 percent of teens do. Huh. And we blame the teens. And here’s something else: moms in school zones have some of the worst behavior, with those in the biggest cars the most distracted — apparently because they feel better protected. Now how’s that for irony? Stats show that involved parents help kids be successful in school — but only if kids live through their mom zipping through the school zone in her SUV, it seems. Okay, yeah, I exaggerate. Or maybe not.

At any rate, here’s what Parents tells us to do:

• Feed the kids (and yourself) before leaving the house
• Turn off your cell and put it in the backseat
• Lay down the rule you can’t touch any devices (GPS or DVD) while driving.

Now that my kids are older, driving feels a lot easier. In fact, I enlist their help all the time: they answer my cell for me, they open food packets, they pick up their own debris, and we don’t have a DVD player in the car. But, wow, how did I make it through those early years? I guess by the skin of my teeth.

Tagged as: parenting

Pink Boys

I don’t have a pink boy, and until this morning, I didn’t even know the term. But I came across this article, “My Son, the Pink Boy,” on Salon.com and felt like passing it along in case anyone else out there has a pink boy (why do blue girls not get the same flack, I ask?). Sarah Hoffman (a pseudonym), also blogs here about parenting a boy who is different.

What struck me about the article, however, was not so much that Hoffman is raising a pink boy, but that she has so much societal judgment to deal with. Because I don’t have a pink boy, I can’t claim to know what it is to parent in her shoes, but I did relate to her Random Mom descriptions. Haven’t we all felt those judgments out there?  Random Mom, Random Stranger, Random Cranky Person, Random Customer With Pursed Lips Behind Us in the Grocery Line Watching Our Child Have a Meltdown?

I sound like I’m changing the subject from pink boys, but go with me.

I am in this easy place right now because my kids are 11 and 13, and they don’t throw tantrums in public anymore. They don’t bite kids in the sandbox, or paint their faces with markers, or throw their food in restaurants, or shriek in the shoe department, or lock their backs into boards as they’re taking their seats in the car.  We can go to the grocery store and I know well in advance we’ll get through it without a single scene. There was a time when I couldn’t predict such an outcome, any outcome,  and I lived in perpetual embarrassment because people out in public watched me all the time. I had  one child who was easy and one who wasn’t (who wouldn’t do anything on command, persuasion, gentle reminder, whatever, and it didn’t help to have strangers thinking I was a lame-ass parent who had no standards). I didn’t make my kids this way.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to deal with those people every day who look at your son’s long hair or pink dress and can’t resist commenting. Worse, feel like it’s their prerogative to comment.

Why is it the public feels they have the freedom to weigh in on our kids and turn it into our parenting techniques — our discipline tactics, our yes’s, our no’s, our telling our kids to say thank you (or not telling them), our letting them wear their shoes on the wrong feet or put together a clashing outfit? Those people think they’re being nice when they say, “I bet you dressed yourself today.” (But what if was you who dressed your kid, and you don’t give a crap about matching. And, hey, why are we having this conversation, anyway? What does it matter who dressed in what?)

Because I’m in this easy place right now, I can go out into the world and know I won’t be judged for my parenting choices. No one comments on my kids’ clothes, or their hairstyle, or their good behavior. We are invisible. Because we dress and act “normal” by societal standards.

But I feel it coming. Again. I hear comments from others who murmur about those kids who are known to take drugs, or that girl who wears her clothes too tight, or the other girl who looks like a raccoon with her eyeliner. I’ve heard things like, “But they’re such great parents.”

Even great parents have kids who make bad choices. Or just plain old choices that aren’t yours. But isn’t that the point, to grow kids into independent beings who go out into the world to make their own decisions? Along the way, kids get good grades, bad, have bad dates, good boyfriends, car accidents, cyber issues, and fights with their friends. They grow up to be gay, straight, athletic, academic, not, musical, outdoorsy, adventurous, inhibited. They grow up to be adults.

It’s not about the parents. But check out Sarah Hoffman. She says it so much more eloquently than I do.

Tagged as: parenting

Tiger Parent — Not

Amy Chua is hot. Sizzling. I had never even heard her name until I read a teaser here at Neighborhood Kids and commented to my husband about it, to which he replied, “I heard an interview on NPR. Remember I mentioned it?” Apparently I wasn’t listening. But now I’m intrigued. Her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, has only been available online since mid-January, but already the press has gone nuts.

Here’s a sampling if you care to read:

“Tiger Moms: Is Tough Parenting Really the Answer?”

“But Will it All Make ‘Tiger Mom’ Happy?”

“Amy Chua is a Wimp”

“Retreat of the ‘Tiger Mother’”

Clearly, Chua has hit a national nerve, but I have to wonder if it has anything to do with parenting style. I think Chua has unwittingly tapped into a “Western” insecurity about our lack of academic prowess on a global scale (which, in turn, can’t help but lead to being less competitive on the global market). Time Magazine talks this up, too; the idea is not originally mine, but it resonates. I had my own experience with it — with feeling ignorant, that is — during my years abroad, when I realized how little I knew about the rest of the world. And saw I was not alone. How little all Americans knew about the rest of the world. It’s humbling and kind of embarrassing to realize… but I digress.

The numbers surrounding our children’s academic performance compared to the rest of the world have been dismal for a long time. And now that the workforce has gone global, and we’ve outsourced ourselves into unemployment, we’re starting to feel a little jittery and we wonder, secretly, if we have what it takes to measure up on a global scale  (we have the mightiest military, though, doesn’t that count for something?). These are the jitters I believe Chua’s book has ignited.

And, on a more personal level, maybe a few insecurities, too, about our praise-conscious tendencies and our soft approach. Well, except not my praise. I’ve never been one to include sweet little notes in my kids’ lunches or compliment them on chores well done (done at last). Not my style. And now Amy Chua is making me look good. Yay. She says it’s good to be tough.

Except I’m not. Sure, I wish my kids would practice their instruments for more than 10 minutes, but do I make them? Uh, no. Do I load on extra math problems to get them beyond their classmates? Nope. Nor do we ban all screen time in favor of reading, because, well, they read just fine, and how do you fight current cultural norms without inciting rebellion? (Amy Chua’s younger daughter makes me think of my own.)

I’m no Amy Chua. Nor do I want to be. Nor do I have the temperament for it. In fact, the whole idea of pushing my kids to extremes for excellence exhausts me. A little, sure, but I figure they’ll do the work to get there if they want to badly enough (right? Isn’t that the path to independence — using your own judgment?). Honestly, I think we “Western” parents are doing just fine, even if our kids can’t play the violin like angels. But who cares?

As long as you don’t expect your kid to play like an angel (and win a competition) without hours and hours of practice. Now, that would be dumb.

Tagged as: parenting

Welcome 2011

I used to be one for New Year’s resolutions, but somewhere along the way, I gave them up. Too easy to fall off the wagon. Now I just go for little goals without big consequences if I don’t follow through. But I do have some parenting goals I hope to remember all year.

1. Listen. Really.
2. Talk less (you lose them after two sentences anyway).
3. Smile more often.
4. Catch my kids doing good things.
5. Stop nagging my son. Okay, maybe just do less of it.
6. Be consistent.
7. Be in the moment.
8. Be grateful. Remember life can change on a dime.

Tagged as: parenting