Monthly Archives: May 2013

Refills

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Family Man

By Gregory Keer

For my fifth date with Wendy Bass, I invited her to the park to meet my kid. No, not my offspring, but something better – the 10-month-old child I was babysitting. While my friends and family had opinions about more suitable jobs for a 24-year-old dude in graduate school, my goal that day was to impress Wendy, who worked as a child development specialist.

So, when Wendy arrived, I was already flexing my baby-feeding skills, delivering spoonfuls of strained carrots with practiced dexterity.

She was impressed. Not with me, but with the adorable wee one.

“Come here, little guy,” she said brightly. “Let’s go see the trees.”

With that, she lifted him and toured him around the park, pointing out leaves, branches, and squirrels while narrating everything in vivid detail. The baby giggled endlessly and I knew I’d found the future mother of my children.

Flash forward to the present mother of my children.

“If I have to make another lunch my kids don’t eat, I’m going to freakin’ flip out!”

“What do you mean my son has another cavity? Does he even have that many teeth?”

“Get your butts into the car or I swear I’ll drive to the school bus without you!”

Funny how 15 years of parenting pressure from raising your own children goes from a walk in the park to an inner circle of fire filled with exasperation and nonsensical threats.

In the years I’ve known her, my wife has shown the cheerfulness and strength of maternal characters you read about in Southern novels, but the moments of trial and tribulation have certainly tested her mettle. This last year alone, she’s labored exhaustively to find the right middle school for our 11 year old and the best mix of freedom and restriction for our teen while dealing with increasing pressures at work, home refinancing, and health concerns about our parents.

It’s not that she’s had to do any of this alone. We battle together through it all and — because we both have diarrhea of the mouth — share every fear and frustration on the phone, email, and pillow.

Yet, I worry about how much joy gets sucked out of this woman who does so much to ensure our family’s happiness.

Recently, a change in the school district’s start of the academic year combined with a further squeeze on our finances caused us to end an 11-year run at family camp. For more than a decade, the camp gave us playtime with our kids in nature, liberty from the rat race for a designated week each year, and friends that we all grew older with. My wife and I spent days fiddling with the calendar and crunching the budget until we finally had to face reality. For Wendy, who originally got us in to the camp by working as a guest-lecturer, this decision hit her particularly hard.

“I never wanted to end a family tradition,” she said, tears welling up as we tried to fall asleep the night we made the decision.

Although my wife melts into tears on rare occasions, this latest rainfall resulted from the overall toll of the family-work grind. It was the relentlessness of obligation combined with Wendy’s own drive to keep things adventurous and gleeful.

My concern for Wendy reached its peak because I hadn’t seen her so drained. So my sons and I got proactive to fill her back up.

Ari (8) now makes sure he takes a break from his Minecraft obsession and voracious reading habit to allow Wendy to read to him the books she loved as a kid, the Little House stories by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Wendy barely allows me in the kitchen (I do suck at cooking), yet Jacob (11) will not be denied. Along with the food he’s burned, there are the veggies he roasts and the desserts he concocts to make Mom’s life easier.

Our teenager, Benjamin, has even emerged from his responsibility cocoon to take care of the dog, the dirty dishes, (occasionally) his laundry, and transportation arrangements to and from activities.

For my part, I switch days with Wendy to shuttle the kids, make (or bring in) more meals, and take the boys out so she can have alone time. I do this since she refills me when I need help and since she just plain deserves it.

Perhaps the most important thing I do, though, is remind her that she can indeed slow down and draw shade from the trees she’s planted. Her children and I are there for her because she has nourished us so conscientiously.

Happy Mother’s Day, Wendy.

Posted in Columns by Family Man, Marriage, Mother's Day, Work-Family Balance | 1 Comment

What Dads Need to Know: What Does Mommy Do?

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Family Man

By Betsy Brown Braun

The mom’s tears at the end of the session spent counseling this soon-to-be separating couple were not surprising. Divorce is never easy. We had begun to discuss custody schedules, always a prickly topic. That’s when the dam broke. My empathetic comments about how painful these things are bounced right back. “That’s not it!” the mother unequivocally declared.  “What will I do?” she cried, emphasizing the word “do.”

There were so many divorce related changes-to-come that had to be flooding this mom’s mind. But for her the tsunami was the revelation that she was about to be out of a job, at least a few days a week.  She had devoted her entire mom life to her kids—carpools and taxi service, homework and school projects, play dates and extra-curricular activities, house care and meal prep. The kids’ lives and needs were her job 24/7. That was about to change. And Mom didn’t have anything else to do, or so she felt. She could not even imagine being without her children, and she was terrified. Who would she be? Her identity was MOM, period.  At that moment the stark realization was about her, not her kids.

This plaintive comment, “What will I do?” reminded me of a blog by Leslie Irish Evans recently posted on The Huffington Post, “5 Reasons ‘My Kids Are My Whole Life’ is a Stupid Thing to Say”.  The author put forth many sound reasons for a woman not to make her child her whole life. But the last reason, “It sets you up for a big fall,” herein relates. Evans is referring to the time when the children go off to college, and mom no longer needs to be mom 24/7.  But what if it happens sooner, like in divorce?

I would like to add  three more reasons to Evan’s 5  for cultivating a life nowthat includes more than all things mom-related.  These additional reasons deal not only with the messages we give our children through our life choices, but also with how we position ourselves to live.

6.  Children need to know that moms (and dads) wear many different hats. Today’s kids need to see that there are lots of things that mommy does in addition to being a mom, many by choice and some by default.  Just like the child is a son, a brother, a cousin, a student, a karate guy, and a baseball player, Mommy does lots of things too. She is a mommy, a wife, a daughter, a lawyer, an artist, and bike rider, and a gardener. Mommy is just one of the many things you do.

7.  Mommy likes all the things that she does. So often a parent answers the child’s complaint about Mommy going to work by saying, “I have to work” or “I wish I didn’t have to work.” While that may be the case for some, many moms actually like their work. Working in addition to her work as a mom is a choice, and the child needs to know that reality. What a good idea it is to raise children to look forward to their grown-up work, seeing it modeled as aget to and not a have to. The same goes for making the choice to go work-out or take a knitting class and leave the kids at home.  Mom has lots of things that she likes and chooses to do in addition to being a mom.

8. Cultivate the YOU who isn’t a mom. While it is easy to mold your life around your kids and their friends’ families, take pains to have a non-mom social life and do non-mom things. Maintain your BC (before children) and non-mom related friends—from work, from your past, from your own interests. Take that class, cultivate that hobby that always interested you. These people and interests will remind you of your identity separate from mom and will remain long after your 24/7 mommy hat gets put higher on the shelf.

My client could not answer my question, “What do you do for yourself?”  Don’t let that be you.

Betsy Brown Braun, is the bestselling author of the award winning Just Tell Me What to Say (HarperCollins 2008), and You’re Not the Boss of Me (HarperCollins, 2010), also a best seller. A child development and behavior specialist, popular parent educator, and mother of adult triplets, and grandmother, she is a frequent speaker at educational and business conferences, has been a guest expert on Today, the Early Show, Good Morning America, Dr. Phil, Entertainment Tonight, Rachel Ray, Fox and Friends, and NPR, and has been cited in USA Today, the New York Times, Family Circle, Parents, Parenting, Woman’s Day, Real Simple, and Good Housekeeping among countless other publications and websites.  As the founder of Parenting Pathways, Inc., Betsy offers private consulting and parenting seminars as well. She and her husband live in Pacific Palisades, California.

Posted in Featured Moms & Dads, Mother's Day, What Dads Need to Know, Work-Family Balance | Leave a comment

Family Man Recommends: Children’s Music Reviews for May 2013

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Family Man

Reviewed by Gregory Keer

May is proving to be bounty not just for moms, but for music lovers at all levels of a family. We kick off our children’s music reviews with an ensemble that made my list of favorites last Mother’s Day month, Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band. Few bands make me happier than Lucky, Alisha, and the gang, who do so, this time, in Spanish. !Fantastico! marks the group’s first recording todo en español and it’s full of the same style-hopping music they’ve been delivering on their English-language albums. Among the most savory bits here are the surfer rock of “Gato Astronauto,” the Go-Go’s-like “A Bailar,” and the Louis Armstrong-meets-the-Delta-Blues “¿Que Dices?”

Another of my all-time fave family music people is Dean Jones, who’s been busy producing recent albums from Ratboy Jr., his celebrated group, Dog on Fleas, and a new disc (reviewed below). The Grammy-award winning kindie rock impresario fills When the World Was New with wonder and beauty. Standout tracks include the title song, which asks kids to imagine the world before civilizations; “Stand With Me” (with Shamsi Ruhe on vocals), which offers a vision of working together, and “Join a Rock ‘n’ Roll Band,” which suggests ways to explore passions and what’s around us. Jones has once again produced a record that challenges and soothes youthful ears. We are so fortunate to have him making music for us.

The brand-new project produced by Dean Jones comes from Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke, a songwriting and performing duo who have been crafting clever tunes together for more than two decades. On Pleased to Meet You, their second full-length family album, humor and sophisticated arrangements boost such songs as “Raised by Trolls” (given a Ray Davies-style feel by British born Mr. Clarke), “Wander Round the World” (firmly rooted in Americana with Texan Key Wilde leading on vocals), “Eggplant Man” (strangely catchy), and “Falling Star” (a simple gem featuring Wilde on ukelele).

Additional goodies for this month include Whatever I Want to Be, by Ilana Melmed and the Young Avenue Kids. This album has Melmed and remarkable kid voices singing original lyrics to classical music by everyone from Rossini to Grieg. Lastly, Roger Day teaches children about coastal ecology in a DVD of musical performances called Marsh Mud Madness. Filmed at the Savannah Music Festival and at the University of Georgia Marine Institute on Sapelo Island, the production is swimming with fun and thoughtful songs about the indigenous coast-dwelling plants and animals.

Posted in Family Man Recommends, Family Music, Music | Leave a comment

Anti-Bullying Video “To This Day”

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Family Man

It’s Mother’s Day, so one reason I recommend viewing this anti-bullying video by the stunningly brilliant poet Shane Koyczan is for a line: “The definition of ‘beauty’ begins with the word ‘Mom.'” But you have to see the animated version of Koyczan’s poem “To This Day” because you need to hear and see and feel the context of what it’s like to be bullied, yet grow up to be so strong. Please trust me when I say that, even if you totally get that bullying is a problem and are making efforts to protect your kids and those of others, this video offers perspective so exquisitely presented that you will have at least a few minutes of feeling transformed. Shane Koyczan also has a Web site worth visiting to hear/see more of his powerful work.

Posted in Blog, Child Development, Family Man Recommends, Social Action, Video | Leave a comment

Brothers Try to Take a Mother’s Day Photo

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Family Man

My three sons can barely do anything together at home without it involving a headlock. While they have been surprisingly good about creating greeting cards and artwork, this year, I can imagine them creating a Mother’s Day video like this, if they had to collaborate on it.

Posted in Anger Management, Blog, Humor, Mother's Day, Video | Leave a comment