Minivan Wars

People who need and, therefore, have procured minivans are the most enlightened people of our parenting generation. Seriously - I desperately need a minivan and have gyrated around the topic so much that I have become a large family car expert, rotating vehicles like a chicken shawarma.  Really, people ask me all the time for car advice.  

For me, the minivan is a metaphor for a kind of life that I don't have.  It is a life of practicality and some kind of elegance - the ability to embrace life where it is right now.  Doors that slide open to let out kids that don't ding other peoples car doors.  Captain’s chairs that avoid unsightly underwear exposure from climbing over a bench seat.  Cupholders and secret compartments to store healthful snacks and wholesome action figures.  It's the civilized way to move a large family about the city.  At least in my mind.  Don't disillusion me with thoughts of Cheerio dust, juice spills and un-made Target returns, let me bask in the ignorance.

Even knowing that I would be a better person if I had a minivan, I still can't garner the will to buy one.  Even seeing that funny commercial with the Honda and the parents and kids and stuff, no go.  I would rather have two kids perilously facing backwards in a station wagon or kicking each other in the face to access a third row that was only created for pets and lilliputians.  And this behavior of mine has, until recently, been a mystery to me.  A mystery that I have spent real time thinking about and trying to unwind.  

Finally I think I have it figured out.  I'm just not, at my very core, a Mom.  I mean of course I'm a mom above all else in the entire world - take a look at my credit card bills or film a night in my house.  It's like kale - as much as I want to buy it and fully recognize how wonderful it would be for me and mine, I walk past it every time.  I'm sure that you expect me to now confess that I'm a slave to fashion, but truth be told, it's not fashion or snobbery, I am simply a closet car lover.   I adore the shapes of cars and trucks.  I subscribe to car magazines and I am genuinely thrilled by naming makes and models of cars that we pass on the highway.  It is an art form that I have always admired.  My Dad even once told me that he thought my ideal job would be car salesperson - and he was right.

So having children has changed everything and yet this adoration for cars that don't look like lunchboxes on wheels holds fast - it is a shred of my pre-mom self that refuses to wither.  And as evolved as minivan owners are and as much as I wish I could join that fold... I guess I should be proud to hold onto something uniquely me as uneconomical and nonsensical as that truly is.  

And so it is that I lose my logical battle for a minivan... as small children turn to larger ones - we squeeze a wasteful SUV with new car smell and and impractical girth into our tiny garage and I smile like I tricked the authorities every single time I hop in.  Guess we can't all make the altruistic choices every single time...  right?  

Raising Creative

Apparently I am a super square person.  Not like unhip, of course (because all awesome people say ‘unhip’…)  But like an in-the-box thinker.  And I’m going to have to get right down to it and blame society for that.  Because society is pretty vague and it’s not like blaming your parents or your spouse or your 4th grade teacher.  It’s not any of them – it’s just, well, society.  I sometimes feel like someone in one of those scifi shows though that is absorbed into a collective and becomes like everyone else.  In a box.  I go to the same vacation spots and see everyone I know.  I have the same kind of stuff as others.  I think that a corporate job is a real good job.  I wish that I could engage a creative pursuit as well as my boxy ones but it's a distant dream.  I join things and volunteer for things and keep things pretty steady.

I always thought I was super creative but I learned this shocking slice of self-revelation because only 25% of my children fit into a quadrangle of any variety – that makes one kid who I could picture in some kind of traditional businessy career going to some standard vacation spot.  And the rest are wildly flailingly creative.  And I have absolutely no idea what they will be when they grow up.  And neither do they.  We have the flamingo ballerina and the rainbow unicorn and the ninja astronaut... But one thing that is for sure is that the term"conventional" doesn't fit a one of em.

In 7th grade my daughter wrote a collection of poems, read a hundred books and wrote 2/3 of a fantasy novel.  In 7th grade I wrote a book report and some notes to friends that I folded into airplanes and threw across the classroom.  In 4th grade my son made an incredible sculpture with his hopes for the world including things like human rights and an end to suffering.  When I was in 4th grade I actually sneezed so hard that I fell out of circle time.

I am constantly astounded by these little people.  A drawing, a poem, an eloquent sentiment.  They are truly amazing in a million ways that seem completely  and wonderfully unproductive to me.  Not that I can see into a crystal ball and predict the future but the ability to create a human-rights- sculpture doesn't feel totally like a career task.  And every once in a while that freaks me out.

And yet, freaked out as it makes me, all of these kids go to schools that I myself sought out to honor and engage their creativity, individuality and unique problem solviness.  And I pay for these happily and willingly so that they don't have to feel squeezed into some shape that doesn't suit them.  Somehow I know that it's the right thing even without a precise vision for its outcome.  The development of these counterproductively creative souls could lead to something - some off center type of innovative productivity that I can't even imagine...  Or it could lead to the need for a huge basement for my adult kids to live in.  I'm not quite sure.

The task of raising and educating kids is giant and no matter what school I choose for a child's unique learning needs, none will be equal to it.  And no matter if I provide the pinnacle of perfect parenting, I am not equal to it.  And so I, like everyone else, hope that what I can do, what I do do, is right and good enough.  I am choosing to raise some creative, out of the box kids who can push boundaries in themselves and in the world around them.  I am choosing to close my eyes and spin around blindfolded and hope that my instincts are good enough.  Because, in all truth, what else is there to do.

Mental Lice

by Anonymous Guest Author Not Me

Lots of times my kids have had other kids (strangers, none of your kids I'm sure) with lice in their classes and they have come home with a raging case of mental lice.  Head itching like nobody's business and nothing to show for it. 

However, sometimes kids complain and complain and some anonymous parents are sure it's a mental ailment and then quit paying attention to that ceaseless whining.  Sometimes something is actually wrong and those certain parents feel really badly.  This may have happened to us just this week.   And perhaps there were a hundred small brown bugs collectively crawling through my four children's lovely locks.  So our case of mental lice, according to the liceologist that we saw, turns out to be, well, not just in our heads, actually on our heads.  Embarrassing.  That's why I'm writing this under a pseudonym.  None of y'all know us so whatever...

I personally have never had lice and being pretty confident that I was immune I was pretty chill about this whole thing.  Until the vermin caught up with me.  And then I quickly became a sOCD mess.  Because I found out that lice is evil and nasty and becoming eviler and nastier.  Like that Frontline stuff that doesn't work in dogs anymore, I learned that your regular CVS stuff is both terrible for your health and non-functional. And when you have three kids with long and very thick hair, the idea of picking bugs and pulling eggs off of individual strands of hair for a month is enough to spur an acute onset of carpal tunnel.  

And I also learned that there are people braver than I in this world - clever people who have capitalized on this nefarious bug, it's extreme resilience, parent's excessive disgust and our society's desire for speed - and they have built business empires on the scalps of schoolchildren and campers.  Empires that I have come to appreciate.  

So we went to these clever and entrepreneurial masterminds.  Piled in the car, scratching like dogs, and sat in their seats for the assessment.  Try to deny all you like but if someone pulls a bunch of bugs off of your kids head and then asks if you want them to fix it, you are blinded by the need for the nightmare to end and you act.  You say yes.  Almost without thinking.  And that's what I did.  I said yes.  In a weird awkward loud voice.  And with each successive diagnosis I squeaked "yes". And "yes please" and "holy crap yes".  I may have even once said "do you even have to ask?!"

And this is how we, in under 10 hours, eliminated lice from our heads and our home.  We spent almost all of those hours on diagnosing, combing, drying stuffed animals on high heat and giving $812.56 to the people who tortured our children to the point of tears and snot for hours on end.  We left there lice free and giving each and every one of you and our friends and family the generous gift that we have so often ourselves enjoyed - the gift of mental lice. 

Mental lice is the feeling that you have lice.  It's a little itch behind the ears.  It's the cautious checking of a bank account to see if there are $812.56 delousing dollars in the emergency fund.  It is perhaps a brushing off of a shoulder or a pillow case.  And for us, mental lice has always been a hilarious laugh.  And now it's not.  Sorry y'all - welcome to the school year - aren't you glad you don't know us?

Allow-ance

At the age of 8 my kids get five dollars a week in allowance.  Largely for discretionary spending to procure items that I probably would have purchased for them eventually anyway using the exact same money.  But it gives them a sense of control and enhances their skills at budgetology.  Or whatever.  They get the five bucks and basically have to do very little in the way of earning that money.  I figure that's why it an allowance and not a wage.

After one child started receiving allowance, he quickly identified a massive remote controlled red T-Rex that cost $129.99 and he simply had to have it.  He saved five dollars every single week until he had enough and as it happened we got the last one of this beast before it went off the market and it was on sale for $89.99. He was over the top proud and had some cash to spare with which he bought his little brother a toy of some kind.  I should have felt a swell of pride as well.  

But let me share this about allowance.  It's something we allow kids to have.  A freedom of sorts.  But it is also a shackle.  To physically posess 15 dollars in 5 dollar increments ready to distribute every seven days is a completely unreasonable request of a grown adult living in an age where ATMs dispense only 20 dollar bills. And no, there is no way in hell that I am giving out $60 a week because the bank people don't understand parenting.  More weeks than not along the journey to T-Rex, I forgot allowance or just didn't have the proper change or any cash at all.  And so it was that an elaborate IOU system was birthed.

This IOU allowance system was as clever and well thought out as its predecessor, "5-bucks-a week-system".  This IOU system was called "the Mommy Bank" and each kid had a passport shaped notebook which was stored on a shelf in their own locker.  In the front of the passport I would write their daily to-do list including things like showers and room cleaning and homework and in the back kept a tally of the weekly allowance that they were storing in the Mommy Bank.  See how the allowance was loosely and cleverly tied with the to-do list?!  See how there were no more stops at the gas station begging for change for a 20 every Friday afternoon?!  The invention of the passport really did hold life together for quite a while, maybe even more than a year.  Checking their passport daily was part of the after school ritual and completing their passport lists was a given before any fun could be had.  

The passport peril began, however, when the Mommy Bank tally that sat at the back of the passport began accepting deposits.  A 20 from a birthday, a buck from the Tooth Fairy.  Just cash that kids didn't want to get lost and I didn't mind spending on coffee. And thus the balances grew and grew.  And you can do the math because after about a year and a half with allowances plus deposits times three eligible children who don't ever spend any money because they already have plenty of crap... Well, suffice it to say that when the first request to buy an iPad came in it was clear that the Mommy Bank was not backed by the FDIC. 

You probably thought that this would be a little tirade against allowance - not asking kids to do enough, creating a generation of small entitled whiners, not imbuing a work ethic... But it's not.  I might write that later.  For now, the point here is that the process of distributing allowance is a chore added to the parental to-do list.  And while I'm not totally sure it's worth it, we will try again, for a third time.  But mark my words - if I strike out again, allowance is dead to me until college.

Tooth Fairying

I am the tooth fairy.  I mean actually, I have 80 teeth to fairy in my house and I have achieved the fairying of about 79% of them so I'm sure you will have no problem if I accept the title of The Tooth Fairy.  

But it's actually a lie.  I am, in truth, four very tired tooth fairies.  Because of a shortsighted practice that I began somewhere around 8 years ago.  I make up a tooth fairy for each kid.  In detail.  Personalities, names, outfits, genders, families, pets, communities, occupations...  Each fairy has a different kind of paper that they write on with a different signature pen.  And this, my friends, this is the hallmark of insanity.  It's four Santa legends that I have to remember at random and wide intervals, whenever a tooth happens to make its exit from a mouth.  Mercifully two kids have lost all of their teeth.  One, even today, still clinging to the belief in the tooth fairy as evidenced by an emotional goodbye letter on the occasion of the final tooth.  

Adorable as this all may seem, let me assure you, it is not at all adorable.  It is chiefly unadorable when the specific pen runs out of ink or there are only pennies in the house so the fairy has to create and describe in detail some kind of fairy spell or machine based solution with which to transport, say, 100 pennies, noiselessly to a sleeping child's room.  While we aren't Christmas people it has made me think about how much harder I have made this than Santa and maybe, just perhaps, if I had a Santa and an Easter bunny to let my kids fantasize about I wouldn't have taken this gig quite so far.  But Hanukkah Harry or the little Jewish Elf on the Menorah Shelf that we made up last year just sort of fall flat.  And so the tooth fairy is all that I have to delight and bring magic to my children's all too realistic lives.

And the thing is that I love it all so hopelessly much.  When our youngest child just recently lost her first tooth she yelped, whooped, carried around her (2 page, 1 point font) tooth fairy letter and told everyone about her fairy named Glitter and all of Glitter's backstory (she's a glitter fairy with silver and gold wings who makes jewels and lives in a sparkling flower in case you hadn't guessed).  The joy and wonderment was tangible.  But my hand was cramped from forming the tiny golden glittery letters only legible through a looking glass.  

I have forgotten tooth fairy names and data more than once.  I have snuck into a room and scoured for an old tooth fairy note to be sure I had the right one.  And it is for this reason that I would like to bring forward this recommendation.  Have a family tooth fairy or just an anonymous tooth fairy.  This individual one is for the birds especially once there are greater than "a couple" of kids to fairy.  This extreme personalized approach is cute and exciting but wow does it get old.  And the kids are still are looking around for Santa and an Easter bunny, this didn't assuage their desire for fantasy folks.  I didn't think it through but it is actually hard to imagine a child saying "I don't care if Santa doesn't visit, I have my own tooth fairy".... but it seemed reasonable at the time, like all things seem at the time.

Alas,  I've started down this adorable road and the cuteness must keep flowing for just 1.25 more mouths.  I'm sure we can keep it going that long - I just re-upped my multicolored supply of glitter pens so it should be all good.  Too late for us to change courses but... Lesson.  Learned.

Coronation Addiction: Birthdays Gone Wild

I had a volcano cake made for a science party for my oldest child's 6th birthday.  To be clear, I actually found a person who could custom make a cake that was three feet tall and erupted condensed milk through the use of dry ice - it really looked like a small volcano and had dinosaurs and forests at the base.  It was better than any science project I have ever made.  It was the beginning of an addiction also - one that I am finding hard to end.  I guess that's addiction for you.

Similarly, I am addicted to finding awesome party spots.  We have had parties at every single venue that our fine city has to offer.  Game trucks, bouncy houses, kid beauty parlors, character magicians, bubble experts, gymnastics places, art barns.  Oh - don't forget about that one where they bring the petting farm to your backyard with brushes for the sheep, ponies for the riding...  Oh!  And the reptiles!  And the exotic animals!  No joke - I can show you the receipts for all of these varied parties.

I remember parties back in the day - the ones with cake and ice cream and running around messing up the house.  Maybe with a clown but for sure with some paper based games.  That was about all we could take without melting down.  But my kids (kids these days), sensory issues galore, can totally enjoy a bouncy house full of chickens and art projects and they have no problem with a cotton candy machine or an ice cream truck wailing its tune...  So when exactly did things change so radically?  I don't want to be that person who longs for the olden days of whittling our own toys but I do have to admit a little nostalgia for the simplicity of it all.  

My parents - even more nostalgic for the simplicity of having reasonable birthday parties - have always joked about my kids' parties as "coronations".  They laugh and wonder at how over the top it all has become, what with seeking a cake to match the theme and party entertainment, often more than one birthday party - a family party, an actual day of birthday celebration, a friend party...  And let's face it, for four kids that is 12 coronations a year... it is a lot.  And to save your calculator, that means that I have lovingly hosting roughly 123 celebrations in 13 years.  

But I can't stop.  Because this coronation addiction has an end and it is nearly upon me.  Two kids have recently outgrown this extreme party fun and I had suddenly realize how fleeting are the days of Superman doing some card tricks on a pony in our backyard.  I realize that an exploding cake and a goody bag of weird yo-yos, slimy hands and pencils just isn't forever.  It's the blink of an eye.  And I love these coronations and the sweaty, smiling, exhausted people who come out of them a year older and a year closer to being blah about their birthdays.

And so I guess that I will allow this particular addiction to rage on for as long as I have.  I won't complain about goody bags being silly (which they are) or about the cake being too expensive (which it is) or even the kids being too wild (which they will be no matter what).  I guess I will just embrace it while I have it and get jazzed up for seeing what crazy coronation tricks the next generation will come up with...  After all, you only turn 6 once... 

Bad Kid Cures Cancer!

The headline of this musing is aspirational, just so you don't think it's an actual news report (yet).

Aspirational but so named because we had an awesome super power in our day as kids – the ability to quickly tell if someone was bad.  Or dumb for that matter.  Teachers, kids, even parents used this decoder ring, you probably did too.  I'm not super proud but I do remember it.  And I bet I’m not the only one who can name a couple of kids who fell into those politically sensitive categories.

Well, as it turns out there aren’t nearly as many bad or dumb kids as we all originally suspected!  See - I have recently learned that 30(ish)% of prisoners have undiagnosed learning disabilities, 45% have undiagnosed ADHD, and 90% of those who can't read are illiterate due to a visual or reading impairment.   This this doesn’t even begin to touch on psychiatric issues.  And this problem is longstanding.  Yes, I have read all of the articles about how learning and other disorders are on the rise, but they didn't just start in some garden where a kid in1998 bit the tangelo of disorders... people have had these differences for a long time -  we just didn't know it.  

Now I feel even more badly about one or two of my adolescent quick judgments and I bet lots of you do as well.  But here's the thing that is awesome.  We now have the diagnostic ability to learn about and better understand our kids.  And we can have a real impact on their lives and, if we are lucky, help them to never think of themselves as bad or dumb.  One of my kids even goes to a truly wonderful school for language based learning differences - resources like this exist and there are speech pathologists, reading tutors, language labs galore.  

Here's the thing that sucks though.  We now have to consider how many people are taxi drivers who could have cured cancer and how many people are in prison who could be solving world hunger.  And we have to look at our school system and wonder how well served the kids are who really are brilliant but don't fit into traditional school boxes.  And we have to turn our heads away from the stark fact that all of this testing and tutoring and counseling isn't free, isn't accessible, isn't even socially acceptable in every community.  And so there are still approximately zillions of kids who think they are bad and dumb and who should be at a Mensa conference or working for NASA right about now.

Once you start to look, you can find socioeconomic disparity in pretty much anything.  And you can find samples of people who find their way through convoluted systems to come out on the other side.  But sitting here with the questionable privilege of four kids needing special education services, sitting here paying for reading tutoring every week and therapy to feel good about that reading tutoring, I can't pretend to know what it would be like to have the knowledge that my child needs help and no power or resources to address that. 

Actually, I have a little small slice, like a teeny lemon wedge of an idea.  Because I tried to get an IEP once in the public school system.  For a kid with Cerebal Palsy.  Six months into the process, I was exhausted and dejected and my fingers were tired from follow-up emails and I had a crick in my neck from making harassing follow-up phone calls.  I took my kid out of the school just short of hiring an advocate, and I moved them to a private school where someone might listen.  I know, it's a total spoiled brat maneuver that I wish no one had to make... or that everyone could make, I'm not sure which.  

Anyway, I'm not an economist or an educator, but I sat in that stuffy public school office with 13 school officials piled in during the middle of a work day and I felt intimidated, overwhelmed, unclear and not sure what I would do if I had an hourly job and couldn't attend these forums.  And I personally without pride gave up and quit on the system instead of trying to figure it out - I know, it's not exactly the making of a real expert.  

But one thing that even in my limited expertise I am sure of is that cancer and NASA can use a few good people, even and especially people who think and act and look and live differently.  And we as a big huge global team need to find those people, and we may just need to look in the most unlikely of locations.  

Special Edition: Pink Hair

That's right we dyed our sons hair pink.  It's a buzz cut which is a very short cut if you are new to styling, but it's still a pink one.  It's funny I didn't even really note it as an unusual thing to do but the interest and commentary that this fresh look has garnered has been pretty notable.  Just shy of his 12th birthday began his 6th grade year and with that new and exciting beginning he decided that he wanted to mark the occasion with something that would bring him confidence and great luck.  So he chose pink hair.  And I wish it would last forever.

A word about this particular child.  Read the previous blog called sOCD to learn more about him and OCD but this guy will almost never talk to a person he doesn't know.  We used to go to dinner at a place that will let you exchange your toy for ice cream.  He would bring his younger sibling up to the counter to request the trade on his behalf.  Not that he's super shy, he's plenty of fun, but he is self conscious and catastrophic and tends to see only the worst in himself.  And if you won't talk to a stranger for ice cream, well then, we all know you simply won't talk to a stranger.

Dying his dark hair pink was a chore and it required many steps including bleach. Bleach on a scalp can kind of hurt and it did but he didn't care.  He wanted pink hair.  When we went to the store after the first pink application he walked around talking to all sorts of people about his hair.  When people would ask him about it he had lots to say.  About how he thinks pink is a great color, how it is underused, how he processed his hair and what his future coiffing plans include.  He seemed to be bursting with pride but it was just the first few hours so surely the novelty would wear off.  

Day four of Operation Pink Wig was this, the first day of 6th grade.  I don't know if you remember sixth grade but I know that I do.  It was beyond awkward.  There were all sorts of obvious signs of puberty and basically a lot of tripping over limbs that didn't used to be quite so long.  I personally had a pair of corduroy flare legs with fruits on them - need I mention that they did not go over well.  This guy though, he decided to celebrate being himself (just shy of fruity cords) - bought a pink lunchbox and school supplies to complete the theme and popped out of bed thrilled for school to start.  He moved proudly and confidently through the day, high on the many compliments of his peers and teachers.

And this is a slice of success to start off a year that is a legendary combination of uncomfortable and awful.  This happy, confident, proud person is best of all a person who is happy to stand out, happy to wrap himself in pink and thrilled with his pink top.  And who, I ask, can argue with that?

Activity Coma

I know why Jon and Kate Plus 8 broke up.  It wasn't glam or awesome so TLC didn't want to tell us.  But I know deep in my heart that it was because of having 8 kids who each did 4 after school activities and that makes 32 activities and grounds for divorce.

I look at all of the Facebook posts flying by of kids doing amazing and creative out of school activities and once I paused, realizing that I had just seen 5 pictures of the same kid in 5 totally different get-ups.  In a row.  There was a karate which seemed to melt into soccer, drama, a music recital, and a dance show.  I don't really know this kid well but I don't think it's someone who is training to be, say, Jackie Chan - kicking and dancing and chopping their way through a recital.  On film and for money.

I probably need not state that I saw this succession of startling photographs before my kids really cared about after school activities and it was a moment in which I was happy and secure in the knowledge that I would never have to find so very many outlets for so very many interests and I would never have to buy so many different costumes.

Then my daughter wanted to dance.  She was small and adorable and this seemed like a reasonable thing to desire.  Plus there was ballet at preschool so it was an easy Target run for the outfitting.  She loved it.  And she, at the same time, managed to grow up past preschool and still wanted to continue with dancing.  I was sure that she would become an official ballerina so I enrolled her in a dance school that required approximately $200 in extra branded attire, bags and real live non-target ballet slippers.  It was serious dance and her 5-year-old self was into it.  In this case "into it" also means "didn't want to admit that she hated it."  And as I removed the ballet school magnet from my car I decided then and there that I would never ever go quite so whole hog on this kind of thing.  Ever again.

I then decided to allow each child to choose two activities - one for their mind and one for their body.  That leaves the maximum sitting comfortably at 8 total activities and with any luck some of those activities are held actually at school.  Doable.  I'm not super sporty nor do I come from sporty stock, however, and it quickly happened that one child decided that they wanted to do two things for their mind and zero for their body.  Like an instrument and chess.  And the body part would really only happen under duress.  So it came down to piano vs. chess: which shall I prohibit?  And thus it was that this tidy plan was chipped away at little by little until, at this point, it became a virtually unrecognizable slightly fond memory of an attempt at organizing the unorganizable.

Never fear, a new philosophy has formed.  This one looks something like "The fewer activities requiring chaperones the better.  Also nothing on Saturday".  Because at this stage in the game Saturdays are more valuable than unlikely tries at baseball scholarships, and letting them figure out where their passions lie is more valuable than my organizational scheme around it.    So far the kids have tried out a bunch of crap that they mostly hated and a few things that have stuck.  Most everyone has a thing they like whether it's an instrument or a sport or a cosplay club that I don't understand - and so that's enough. 

Having all of the kids doing karate would be so tidy and efficient.  Everyone in drama or music would have been great so that these kids could start earning their keep with a foursome type band.  But instead it's a messy assemblage of people doing things that they like.  And my only success is that we still to this day have Saturdays completely free for lazing around and picking on each other.  

Shark Music

Once a school psychologist and I were talking.  I know, most of my stories start this same way.  This time she wove a pretty interesting yarn.  Something enlightening happened at a conference that she had attended.

At this conference they showed a video of a little girl walking on a beautiful path through the dunes toward the ocean, beautiful classical music playing in the background, wind flowing through her hair.  She looked content, the scene magical.  Once the girl arrived at the shoreline to dip her toes in, the scene started to replay.

Again, this same wind-blown girl walking on the same path through the dunes with the same ocean approaching.  But this time it was foreboding.  The music was dark and eerie.  Something terrible obviously awaits this girl in the ocean.  Suddenly, the same expression that seemed so content is terror stricken.  The same scene that seemed magical is filled with dread.

The difference in the scenes was nothing other than the music playing in the background.  The shark music.  The shark music turned the scene from joy to doom.  And this psychologist then said, "It was then that I realized it.  The problem with your child is that they hear shark music.  All we have to do is change the soundtrack in their head.”

This notion, so simple, so elegant and so for sure true, is not quite as simple to solve as you might think.  I wonder secretly if it's even possible.  We have tried medications, therapies, general cheeriness around the house, surrounding ourselves with beauty, international trips.  We have tried work in homeless shelters and trips to pet shelters to subtly demonstrate "how lucky you are" and "how happy you should be".  Still, the change in music hasn't happened.  In all honesty, the CD hasn't even skipped.  What has happened has been some measure of learning to fake it.  A fake smile tossed in here and there.  Some pretend platitudes.  Some practiced joy.  And it is sadder to see than the shark music.  Because it isn't real.

As a person born with Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever march in their head, I sometimes wish I could be sadder for longer.  Or madder.  Or whatever.  But that cursed march busts through and I just have to laugh and move on.  In my mournful teens I tried to change my music to be sullen and dark like all of the cool kids. But to my disappointment, my efforts were in vain and my brief depressed phase lifted - it was inauthentic and flat.  As much as I wanted to hear the shark music and I could imagine what it was like, it just was never me.  It was never real.

So I guess I have to wonder - is my role as a parent to be like Geppetto and build my own child from a wooden pile of virtues?  That didn't work out so well for Pinocchio or his Pops if I remember that story.  Is it better to craft our kids into inauthentic versions of themselves in order to meet our own standards or hopes?  Or might it be better to accept their natural rhythm and help them build a life around that?

Even faced with this big question and watching my shark-music child struggle their way through daily life, my own marching band soundtrack refuses to dim.  Somehow, in its stubborn refusal to keep its happy beat quiet, I think that I may have found my answer.  Now, to be satisfied with it...

Childproofing the News

Last night my oldest daughter told me that I have a terrible way of delivering bad news.  She cited the fact that I created, by hand, a carefully thought through board game to announce my divorce and that I crafted a thorough scavenger hunt to announce a change of schools.  All I could do was say, "Humph I thought I was being clever".  She looked at me with that teenage glare that tells one how very, very, very incorrect they are.

I remember this same child, just a baby when 9/11 happened.  And I recall a feeling of relief and gratitude that her 9-month-old brain didn't require much explanation.  As time has ticked on, however, the world hasn't become a less violent or angry or aggressive place in which to reside.  There have been school shootings, bomb threats and drills, there have been wars and even history classes that show the dark underbelly of human nature.

And those things can't be ignored and they are hard to baby-proof up like a cabinet or toilet. We ditched cable, but somehow that didn't stop the news from happening.  I wish, really wish, that I could skip through life and raise nice Jewish kids who didn't know about the Holocaust or who were unaware of the ongoing violence in the Middle East.  I wish that only because I wish those things weren't true, weren't even things that people were capable of.  But, alas, here I sit, faced with a discussion about terror and violence and hatred.  And it makes me feel a little tiny bit sick.

Last year in an incredible religious school class, my son's 6th grade year was focused around the Holocaust.  Not just the darkness, but also the light - the kind people who helped, the generous people who risked life at their own peril.  Each student was assigned a child who perished in the Holocaust.  They researched this kid and wrote a paper from the child's perspective thereby reliving a part of history that is pretty dark and nasty.  But they learned about the righteous people who hid Jews and who fought back and I found that heartening.  And it made me think about how we balance what we share and how we engage kids in appropriate ways in the news of our day.

I shall intentionally avoid the topic of Israel (even though it is massively relevant to this topic right this very moment) because the politics of it all cloud the otherwise position-neutral point  (which is about selective, thoughtful, fair, information-positive current events discussions with children, by the way).  So in lieu of a war ravaged holy land, consider gay marriage.  I myself am gay-married in the deep South, in a state that expressly prohibits gay marriage.  I am proud to live in a city and have children in schools in which not a single one of my children has ever been teased or had the crap beaten out of them for this fact.  We have installed those baby-proofing bumper corners on the kids - installed them in loving and safe environments.

But the truth is that marriage equality is a hot topic and is so prominent on the political stage that the discussion is unavoidable and my position on the topic is, well, pretty clear.  When the huge Chick-fil-A controversy happened (in which it was revealed that they, our most favorite all time fast food restaurant had funneled a bunch of money to anti-gay things, we decided to share this with the kids.  It involved a whole discussion about the institution of marriage, the meaning, the rights afforded married people...and we collectively decided to forego the tasty chicken bites.  Obviously, having kids who endorse their own mothers' legal right to marriage is important to me, but Jon Stewart tells me a million examples every single day of things that are more distant but equally weighty and important.

I don't know enough creative board games to invent to bring energy and fun into every current event; I can't even pretend at purporting a singularly ideal approach to lightly enlightening our kids.  But I do know that not everything can be baby-proofed.  There will be an outlet that hangs open attracting a fascinated wet finger.  But we have to make a try at installing those annoying clear plugs because exploring and knowing too much can be traumatic.  Ignoring - bad.  Disillusioning - bad.  Discussion - good.  Hope - good.  So how can we bring light into the darkest of situations?  How can we spread optimism while engaging kids in some of the ugly truths of our world?

Oh - sorry, this isn't a top 20 list of things to do or a prescription for a right way to engage kids in a world without stairtop gates.  Because you are actually the experts in this gig. This is a tribute to and a reminder of your own intuitive ability to help your kids believe that good always wins while you struggle in the background with the realities that you feel and confront.  This is just a reminder that you know how to lead them without bullying their thoughts, how to help them see different sides and make their own decisions. There isn't a right answer or a perfect way to childproof the world - there is only this struggle.  And this struggle, this recognition of tension, the balancing of innocence and information that you do every day - that is what is right - that is your own prescription and your own top 20 list.