Batter Up

I am taking a solemn pledge here today. Never, ever, EVER again will my children play team sports. Or at least not through city teams and leagues--and I mean it.  Go ahead and call me the Scrooge of little league but after what I've been through the past month even a beating with a baseball bat would be welcome relief.

Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit but I can't count how many times Andrew and I have shaken our heads this past month and said, "How do parents do it? Are they all completely insane? And why was it we joined their ranks?"

Oh yes, it was because we wanted to be good parents, wanted to bring joy into the life of our little Little Leaguer but all it's done is beleaguer the whole family. I think it started when David, years ago, decided he liked baseball and since we're all about physical fitness, fun times and the enjoyment of a good game I signed David up with the local team. I remember how he had a lot of games and a lot of practices, and I vaguely remember thinking, "Wow, it's really, really cold sitting here on these fanny-freezing aluminum bleachers in the Alaskan rain" but somehow I figured it was all worth it. Starting with childbirth itself we're conditioned to make sacrifices for our kids and if sacrificing means sitting at the park every night for six weeks during our few precious days of summer, maybe missing a date or two or seven with my husband, and forking out enough money to purchase a small tropical island then dogone it I was going to do it because I loved my kid and I was going to be a great mom.

Now, two years later, we signed him up again. Partly because he wanted to play again but mostly because I haven't got a full-sized brain, having forgot how it was before, and I have been regretting it ever since. He's old enough now to be on the major league team which means even more practices and more games and a louder, more aggressive coach who sends me exactly 275 emails each day, listing times and events and fundraisers and carnivals and cleanups and practices and then--oops--new times because the previous email was accidentally, completely wrong and you need to be at the field half an hour earlier than what has been drilled into your skull in the last 274 emails.

It's all got me rethinking why we do it. Why do we even put up with the system of kids sports? Not to eulogize the golden age of the pick-up game at the neighborhood sandlot but, seriously, what kind of a monster have we created??

Kids have so few ways to express their independence and getting together to play a game of ball was one of the few ways they could get out from the world of adult rules and set their own boundaries.  They decided what to play, they decided who was on which team, they decided on the equipment (if they had any at all), and on the team name and play schedule.

But now? It's completely taken over by adults who sign them up, coach them, drive them, and then attend each game more religiously than anything connected with church.  We've taken every bit of the decision-making process away from them and I'm not seeing any significant improvements except maybe some very snappy (and very expensive) uniforms. A while ago I watched a group of boys get together to play a game--they stood around, looking rather lost, not knowing what to play or how to start. Each suggested playing whatever sport it was they played at night but because there was no adult to be umpire/ref they couldn't really come to a decision and eventually they kind of wandered away and gave up--they had forgotten how to play by themselves. It was truly pathetic.

Instead of kids getting together to run the show and enjoy the game on their own we let them know how and when they're going to play, what the rules are, how they'll dress and there has to be a trophy at the end. Sometimes we'll even yell and scream from the sidelines, showing shocking displays of unsportsmanlike conduct in case the crucial point of having them play brilliantly, bringing honor to our names, is somehow overlooked.

And then there's the other lesson it teaches children: that they're the most important thing in the world. David's baseball schedule has completely and irrevocably controlled our family's life this past month. Family dinners? Gone--David has to be at practice early. Family nights together? Postponed until after baseball season ends. Date nights with my husband? Let's just say the highest form of romance we've experienced lately is a space blanket and pocketful of Skittles while praying that the inning goes quickly. It's a constant measuring of priorities: which is more important? Baseball or scouts? Baseball or his sister's birthday? Baseball or the church service project? And it's too easy to let baseball always win.

It's just not good for one person in a family to absorb that much of the time and resources of the rest of the group.  Not good for the individual who becomes the sole consumer and not good for the others who spend all their energy on the one, often neglecting the needs of the group.  All it does is reinforce the idea of winning at any cost--which may be part of the reason doping and game-rage parenting are popping up all over.

And the sad reality is, that the whole thing has become a zero-sum game. You have to act like some Soviet-era official, entering your child in a sport as soon as they can walk, if you're going to do sports at all. Gone are the days when a child can, in high school, decide to try a new sport and go out for the team. If they haven't been doing the clinics and seasons all along, chances are they won't be able to make it against those who have--you know, the kids living with the odd phenomenon of juvenile sports injuries and end up needing hip replacements by the time they're forty.

So what's the answer? Well we've taken the approach of discouraging our kids' participation in team sports, period. Starting right now. Individual sports such as cross-country running or skiing, swimming, etc. are much easier to deal with as a family, don't require years and years of childhood training for participation and are usually more helpful in promoting a lifetime of good physical fitness.

But still . . . it bothers me that instead of giving our children good experiences and opportunities from sports, we've succeeded in producing a system that puts the individual before the group, teaches kids to leave life up to the adults, and gives a whole generation of kids the idea that success in life is found on the court or field. If we took all the money we flood into the kiddy-sports league industry and instead got together to bring back the neighborhood sandlots--then had the guts to walk away and say, "There's your field--now go outside and play" I wonder what the consequences would be? I don't know for sure but I have the sneaky suspicion that it would be a lot easier for me to teach responsibility, independence and teamwork if we adults weren't constantly standing at the sidelines, calling every shot.

It's Your Fault, You Know

Why I haven't posted this week (I mean). It's your fault because in my last post I asked for recommendations on good podcasts and got some wonderful tips. Which means, of course, that I have walked around plugged into my iPod all week long until my ears are starting to get a little sore. No, I'm serious.

I think I might need to take a break from it all, because last night I found myself simultaneously cooking dinner, listening to the piano practicing going on downstairs with one ear and then listening to a podcast with the other ear. The phone rang and when I went to answer it I'd forgot I had a podcast going and as I hurriedly answered I kind of jammed the ear bud into my brain with the phone receiver like some pneumatic drill on a rivet. It wasn't pretty.  They should put a warning label on it or something.

So thank you--and curse you--for your great recommendations. At least I have two ears, right?

But I thought I'd at least share something that I found quite moving from one of the most recent listens. Thanks to Chocolate on My Cranium's recommendation that I listen to Conversations on the Mormon Channel, in between my history and science and NPR podcasts I heard an interview with Julie Beck who heads the women's organization for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It happens to be the largest women's organization in the world (and one of the oldest) and she's an amazing person. They interviewed her and her two adult daughters, Gerilyn Merrell and Heidi Shin, and they all spoke of their thoughts on motherhood and raising kids today and some of their own family experiences from years past. Here are a couple of the highlights as I've been able to transcribe them:

About her daughters and the role of a mother:

Julie: They came as they were . . . unique and wonderful and my blessing was to just unwrap the package, to see who they were and to help guide them to who they could be. I didn’t have to mold them or make them into someone different from who they were because they were so great when they came. It was a fun discovery to learn who they were.

On helping her children develop of a love of reading:

Julie: One of our favorite family activities when these children were growing up was Breakfast with Books. I just loved reading myself so I figured out a way to get my children to read and that was to get my children to bring a book to the breakfast table. I didn’t care if they dripped syrup on their books but we’d read. That was the usual Saturday morning breakfast, breakfast with books.

Gerilyn: I think I’ve been ruined, I don’t think I can eat without a book anymore. [Laughing] My father asked me once, “Why do you drink out from the side of your mouth?” I figured out it was because I could look at my book while I was doing it. So, it has created a few little problems but it’s a life long habit now. In fact, my husband calls it a Reading Dinner and occasionally he’ll ask us to bring our books to the table. I usually know it means he wants some peace and quiet at the table but everyone will run and get their books and bring them to the table and we will have a very quiet, peaceful meal.

On helping her children develop a love of music:

Julie: I needed a way to teach them to work. We didn’t have a big family, we didn’t have a big home to keep up, I knew they were bright people, they needed to learn a discipline—taking responsibility for something that was theirs to do every day. They needed to learn winning and losing, thinking, problem solving, relationship building and the bonus was that they also got a little music and got some talent and ability.

The motivator for me to keep me going through the hard days—and there were hard days, the children called it “combat piano”—was my grandmother, Duella Hamblin, who had a real love and aptitude for music. She didn’t have the opportunities my children had. I felt like they were the generation where the opportunity and the talent met and that I would be accountable to her if I let it go.

I just thought, some day Grandma would say, “Why did you give up so easy when I would have given anything for this chance?” So I’d think, “Well, I won’t give up easy. We’ll just keep at it.” And if you have a hard day, tomorrow’s a better day.

On how the family views children:

Gerilyn: Grandma Bangerter always said, “Children are people,” and that to me is a profound statement because it’s so easy to see children as their own subgroup that have no relation to people but she had a love for people and individuals . . . and we’ve learned that these people can be appreciated from when they’re born to when they die. . . . Grandma Bangerter knew every single grandchild and great-grandchild by name, by middle name, by birthday, by likes and dislikes because she doesn’t see them as a group, she sees them as people.

Heidi: Your relationship with your children changes when you look at them as people. They have feelings, they have emotions, they have needs and they have bad days and when you think about that and not just say, “Well, you’re acting up” and think of them as individuals who may be having a hard time it gives you perspective during a temper tantrum.

On her Grandmother's life:

Heidi: When I was in high school there was a project where I had to learn about my oldest living relative. My cousin picked my grandpa so I said, “Oh, I guess I’m stuck with Grandma” but I did this interview with her and the more I got to know her I was fascinated with her life. . . .

For instance, her story of heading down to Brazil [to work as a missionary] when she was nine months pregnant with my Aunt Peggy. They got there right as she was ready to have this baby and another family was still living in the mission home, so she was trying to settle her family, she didn’t speak the language. She was homesick—homesick—and she recounts this experience of looking out the window and the rain coming down on all the cloth diapers that she’d just hung on the line to dry and she said, “All I could see out there in the jungle was the mountains. All I could think about were the flea bites on the children, the rats in the yard that I couldn’t get rid of and the fact that I couldn’t speak the language, I couldn’t even go grocery shopping.”

“It looked bleak," she said, "I didn’t know how I was going to do it."

Then Grandpa came skipping into the room, totally excited that he was back in Brazil, and he said, "Isn’t this beautiful? Aren’t you excited to be here?"

She said, “Honey, I don’t see it. I don’t see what you’re seeing,”

And he said, pausing, “Well . . . we can either enjoy it now or we can come back to the United States in five years from now and laugh about these experiences and enjoy it then. So which way shall we do it? Shall we enjoy it now or enjoy it then?”

A lightbulb went off in her head and she said, “You’re right, I’m going to enjoy it now, today and laugh about my soggy diapers hanging out on the line and the fact that we have fleas.”

“You’re a smart woman," he said, "You can figure out all these things. You can find a way to fix the vacuum that’s broken. You’re a nurse, you’re can heal the flea bits on our children. You can find a way to get rid of these rats. I have every confidence in you.”

And that’s the kind of person she is. She takes difficult tasks and says, “Well, let’s just enjoy it now instead of laughing about it later.”

And on raising her own three children:

Julie: I wanted to raise people who would be my friends when I was old. That means we had to do some things when they were young that would build them into the people I would enjoy being with when I was older.

We had to teach manners--you have to be clean, you can’t be stupid, you have to have something in your head we can talk about. I wanted to be around thinkers when they were older and people who could laugh and enjoy life and do some fun things. That meant I had to be a parent when they were young so I could be their friend when they were older.

It is difficult to parent on a day-to-day basis with precision. You’re never perfect at it, it takes a lot of revelation and help to know how to get through a situation day by day and know the needs of a person--a unique person--who is developing and you don’t know who they really are inside and how to get that out but you’re working toward building somebody you want to know when they’re older.

If you can’t build those characteristics in them when they’re young then you won’t like them when they’re older.

 Anyway . . . I enjoyed the interview and if you're interested in hearing the whole monstrously long 1 1/2 hours of it you can download the mp3 file here. They also have an interview with Stephanie and Christian Nielsen who you might remember were severely burned in a plane crash a couple years ago. Stephanie's blog has famously recounted their story and continuing recovery and though I haven't got to that interview yet I'm sure it's good too.

Crossroads

Okay, so you've heard me gripe from time to time about schools. In the back of mind there has always been the nagging thought, "So why don't you stop complaining and actually do something about it??" So I'm here to report (go ahead and laugh at me if you wish) that I'm getting ready to make a big jump.

I'm considering home schooling.

Of course I should be more specific--I don't typically "approve" (my, doesn't that sound so condescending?) of homeschooling.  It's a fine idea in principle but my completely unscientific anecdotal studies have shown me that most people who attempt this amazing feat tend to produce inferior results.  Don't get me wrong--I'm not condemning it outright, it's just that among all the billions of people I know who have tried to homeschool their kids I've only seen three--count them three--cases where I thought the experience a success.

More often I seen children who have a hard time socializing (though that's a horribly worn-out argument against homeschooling and I don't know that I buy it) who have a hard time with the basic educational requirements. In other words, they can't read. I have the occasional family that takes the money and runs, leaving junior to be the unpaid help in the family business rather than actually making the huge commitment that proper homeschooling takes.

Sigh.  So I've been terribly suspicious of the whole idea.  Then, on top of that I'm actually quite happy with the school system (speaking in broad generalities). The teachers my kids have had in elementary and middle school have been great--hats off to them.  But ever since Grace hit high school there have been issues.  She watches more tv at school than she does at home, she's had teachers openly flirting with female students, teachers who consistently show up 10-30 minutes late for class (and by "consistently" I mean pretty much every day), not to mention those that just don't bother to teach.

Then there's the curriculum.  When I was in high school we read Shakespeare, Chaucer, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Dickens, you name it.  And then we wrote about it. Today she reads things like Jodi Picoult's 19 Minutes (about a Columbine-style school shooting).  Her junior year she finally, actually and for the first time picked up anything close to a "classic" (Macbeth) and then instead of reading it they watched a graphic movie version. Don't get me wrong, Shakespeare it meant to be seen rather than read so I don't have a gripe with that per se, it's just the lack of discussion and analysis, the falling back on television as an entertainment rather than using it to actually teach.

There's nothing wrong with modern literature as long as you can prove to me that it can teach as well as that which was produced by the masters. And I'm just not thinking that Picoult can rival the greats at any level. Not in characterization, theme, literary tools or depth. Dumb English department.

So what does this mean folks? Well I've come to a parting of the ways, a crossroad if you will.  Forget Grace, there's no hope for salvaging her senior year in the liberal arts, she's only taking a half-day next year anyway and she reads and studies enough on the side that she's doing fine with her own interest in education but Spencer? He'll be hitting ninth grade this fall and he's not someone who will pick up a book on his own to see what he's been missing in English class. I could supplement it all with my own reading requirements but his schedule doesn't permit extra work, we need to find ways to replace what isn't working with stuff that will meet his needs.

The plan is to sign him up with a homeschool program here in town then go back and sign up for the maximum number of three high school classes he's allowed to take.  That will be his biology, geometry and Spanish and I should mention that I've had no gripes with the math and science teachers there; on the contrary, I've been impressed with their quality and strength of teaching, plus I don't feel I'm competent to teach those subjects anyway.

For his PE credits he can take extra curricular sports (which he'd do anyway) and then as he's interested in studying graphic design we'll get him local art lessons and from what I've been able to deduce, they're superior in every way to the classes at the school, especially in the areas he needs (drawing).  That leaves history and English for me and between my own abilities and the online resources such as Williamsburg Academy I think we can get the job done.  He could even take classes at the University here or BYU homestudy online.  He's already proved to us that he can handle the discipline of online courses because he's just finished a series of online classes in Adobe Illustrator and has plans to next tackle Photoshop.

So what do you think? Am I crazy?  My biggest concern is making sure he's getting what he needs to be able to test at the needed levels. I don't want him to get a year or two into things and then realize he's way behind and has no chance on the SAT or ACT.  Boy that would be bad, wouldn't it?

Do you see any holes in this plan? Give it your best shot before we do something I'll later regret and irrevocably ruin my son's chances at an education.

 ***

And in related news--our friend Treg Taylor is running for the school board which I find gives me a great deal of hope.  It's not that the whole system needs to be thrown out and remade but I think he's someone who can make some crucial changes to get things back on track. Good luck Treg!

Retirement Should Be Retired

I love technology. I love science and engineering and all the beautiful things they've created from maps of our genes to particle accelerators to indoor plumbing and cable tv.  When I think of the 76 billion people who have made their way through this world then consider how amazing it is to live in such a time it kind of scares me but what really scares me is how our technology and our abilities tend to outstrip our wisdom.  We haven't quite figured out how we fit into this society we've created.

I've written about the new phenomenon of adolescence but as I've watched the fury of the political standoff between unions and bankrupt state governments it's occurred to me that my logic didn't go far enough--that while the 20th century created the extended childhood of the teen years it simultaneously created the other complimentary freak of nature: retirement.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there is very little difference between adolescence and retirement.  Both are sociological oddities driven by a longer life expectancy, creating special classifications for the population complete with expectations and privileges (and backed by legislation to enforce those same privileges). Both are characterized by a general grumpiness and both serve very little purpose other than to expose the occupants to risk of laziness and deterioration if not properly navigated.

Yes, go ahead and tell me I'm the Wicked Witch of the West, I'm really okay with that but I look around at the problems that adolescence and retirement create and I shake my head.

Walk with me for a bit. . . .

I won't go back and re-explore the problems of adolescence, Mr. Gingrich has already done that admirably, but take a look at the modern retirement craze.

Where did it come from?  
The only reason we have programs such as social security and medicare is because FDR took a gamble that people wouldn't live long enough to collect on the government's bounty.  The average life expectancy was around 62 so to set a shelf at 65 seemed a safe bet.  Your odds of living that long weren't so good but it planted the seed that there was something magical about 65 (which you can't argue with, if you'd got that far you'd beat the odds and deserved a fat party). It didn't take long for the idea to grow and suddenly corporations too looked at 65 as the time for people to be slipping out quietly and the concept of retirement was born.  You had two options: you either died at your desk (a popular choice) or you left quietly to make room for someone else who wasn't as likely to suddenly drop dead on the way to the water cooler.

But as I said, technology is leaping and bounding ahead of us and people are living 20 and 30 years beyond what they were when retirement was born.  We aren't playing the odds any more, we're being strangled by them and the ponzi scheme FDR created is coming back to haunt us the longer the population survives. Add to that the psychological issues of this archaic, man-made threshold: now we have this strange idea that come 65 everything is going to change and suddenly we'll be back to how it was when we were young (catch that allusion to adolescence? I'm hitting you over the head with it), without any problems or responsibilities. It will be better, actually, because now we'll have money from our pensions/social security/savings and lots of senior discounts at the movie theaters. And don't get me started on that whole "fixed" income preoccupation. Talk about redundancy. No one I know has unlimited resources--we ALL have fixed incomes--what we really get with retirement is a fat old sense of entitlement.

Entitlement Is a Form of Heart Disease
What on earth gives us the right, after millions of years of living and working and struggling for survival, to think that we suddenly deserve a rest? What makes us special from the generations before us that had to continue to earn their living and make themselves valuable to their fellow citizens right up until the day they died?

I think we've forgotten that first and foremost, work is not a punishment. It's a gift that allows us to find purpose and meaning for our lives and once we take that out of the equation we're not only worth less we're less happy.  If you believe in God then you'll agree that work is also a commandment. "By the sweat of thy brow" and all that--I don't recall the Bible saying anything about "By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou labor . . . unless of course thou canst collect a sweet pension and finally get to all that fishing and traveling thou hast been dying to do, because really now--you deserve it." Or "thou hast deserved it." Whatever.

Purposeful Work, Not Vacations, Are the Cure
If nothing else, the idea of retirement is selfish to the core. No one beyond childhood who is mentally and physically capable should have a period of life where they expect to live off of someone else's efforts, be it through pensions, medicare or rich relations--I wouldn't allow my children to expect to live off of me once they were capable of providing for themselves and it's just as wrong for me to expect it of them (or of my government) when I'm still alive and kicking. Where is our self-reliance when we need it most? 

If you can save up enough to be able to stop working then fine, go that route. Live long and prosper.  But I don't know that even then you'll be happy. Most people I know who have been able to earn enough money to quit working have learned the psychological and physical benefits of work which is probably why we still see Bill Gates at the helm of Microsoft.  The people I admire the most aren't the ones who are hanging out at the old fishing hole, they're the ones who have worked hard, collected wisdom and then find meaningful ways of helping others who are following behind.  Just look at how many people did their best work after the age of 65 . . . Picasso . . . Winston Churchill . . . Moses . . . Sean Connery.  Seems to me that I'd rather be the flame burning brightest at the end rather than the one that splutters out then sits around complaining about the weather and kids these days.

I'm blessed to live in a time when I can--assuming I take good care of myself--expect to live another 40 or 50 years. Not only can I expect I'll live long but, thanks to modern medicine, I can generally be free of pain and disease if my genetics are good to me.  For me to assume that the last 20 or 30 years of my life are a freebie is not only selfish and wrong but a waste--the fewer years I have left, the more precious they are.  What I do with them is more important than ever.

If I've Learned Anything . . .

I have loved reading all the comments, advice, questions and emails you've sent with your own thoughts about reaching middle-age and while I don't know that I've got a book's worth of information on the subject (give me another 20 years and a lot more wisdom) I'll give you a few tender tidbits of things I have I've learned.

Be Content
I remember the nights of getting up with the babies or the torture of potty training (I'd go through childbirth again twice over if I could avoid potty training) but I didn't appreciate what it was teaching me.  Patience, organization, humility, perseverance . . . all things more valuable to my life than a degree or certificate but I tended to constantly think about how great things would be once I was onto something new.

But all that wiping and cleaning and teaching gives life a great deal of purpose--in fact, when people ask that question, "Why do so many bad things happen in the world?" I tend to think it's simply to give us all something to clean up.  If everything was smooth-sailing we'd all be very bored. Trust me on this one.

Be Brave
When I was expecting my second child and felt as attractive and mobile as an air-craft carrier Andrew was going through law school (as in completely absent) and I was managing two 30-unit apartment buildings.  I cleaned the empties and rented them out, managed the tenants, collected rent and generally did whatever it took to keep us afloat (again there's that boat metaphor).   As my due date approached I decided to quit the job "because I couldn't possibly handle two children and a job."

And now I just laugh at that.  Seriously . . . two kids and a job would seem like a vacation compared to what I was able to handle later on but parenthood is like any muscle: the more you exercise it the better and stronger it becomes until you're amazed at what you're able to handle.

What I'm trying to say is that it's perhaps unwise to base your decision on the size of your family on how you might feel at a particular given moment. I mean, if I based my decision on how many kids to have in those 15 minutes after delivering a child I'd have got my tubes tied right then and there.  Think in the big picture, taking in the whole scene of what you want your complete life to be rather than during a particularly trying and hard day where you say, "I'm never having another because I can't handle any more." You may feel differently as your abilities (and your children) grow and you might find that you'd wished you'd prolonged your motherhood experience when it's too late.

Of course this is a very personal decision between you and your spouse and unique to every situation but human beings are pretty amazing creatures and most likely you're pretty amazing too and can handle more than you think you can.

Be Fair
There were lots of times when I dealt with household or children's issues and got a little resentful of my husband. After all, why wasn't he getting up with the babies at 2 am or having to deal with the messes I did? I was easy to look at whatever it was he was doing and expect him to do more of what I was doing but that wasn't at all fair.

Because we'd chosen the divide-and-conquer technique for family management where he supplied the income and I kept the house running I was wrong to expect him to pick up the slack on my job simply because he was home.  Now don't get me wrong, he's a great guy whose philosophy is "let's all work until the job is done" but there were plenty of times when he'd come home exhausted from a long day at work and I'd inwardly resent him for not jumping up to take care of something I didn't want to do myself as if I were the only one working.

The honest reality is that our work was different and therefore our work hours were different.  I might have had to get up with the babies in the middle of the night but then I also got long "lunch breaks" in the afternoons when kids were napping or at school.  I might have had to be on the job until all the kids were asleep but then I could often grab quiet minutes here and there when he was still grinding away at the wheel in his office, desperate for a break. The older the kids got the more luxuries I had that he didn't get so to try and compare our jobs and demand that things be equal was completely unrealistic.

So here I am, 40 years old and facing retirement. My career as a mother (and again, I say "intensive mothering" because you're never absolved from your job as a mom) only has a few more years before I need to decide on a second career while he's got another 20 years of providing for the family and doing whatever it takes to keep the money coming while I can look at doing whatever it is my heart desires most. Of course this is all different if you're both responsible for income and the house but according to the way our family divided the labor it was impossible to try to make things completely equal and I wish I'd been less selfish here and there.

And this all just goes to make me wonder what lessons I'll have picked up by the time I'm 70?

My Own Little Mid-Life Crisis

I was talking to a good friend of mine the other day and she said to me, "You know, you hear a lot about being a mom in those toddler years when you have kids.  People give you plenty of advice about how to get through having little kids around but no one ever talks about what to do when your kids are leaving home."

And I completely agree.  I have one more year with our family being all together--where we're all around the dinner table laughing and quoting movies and I have to tell someone to eat their peppers and someone else to use their napkin and someone else to chew with their mouth closed.  I remember thinking that the years where they were in high chairs and I was constantly cutting up their meat or cleaning up spilled milk would last for eternity but in reality I've got more years of life without children than with children.

Do I sound nostalgic?  Maybe even a bit overly sentimental?

I appreciate all the emails and questions and concerns about where I have been lately and I guess the easiest explanation is that I'm going through an enormous midlife crisis.  Not really a crisis where I'm looking for a sports car and a trophy spouse--wouldn't that just shake things up?--just a point where I've been sitting and thinking and wondering what in the world I'm going to do with my life for the next 20 years.

Maybe I'll back up . . . Andrew and I are of a similar temperament where we are driven, focused, goal-oriented, organized, get-things-done-right-now kind of people.  We married at 22, had kids within 2 years, got through law school, paid off the loans, got into a house, pumped out a few more kids and never took our eyes off the goal because that was what responsible people did and it served us well, more or less.  I'm glad we got through school without lingering and I'm glad we had our children young.

But now I've been a mom for over 17 years and I'm facing the hard fact that my intensive mothering days are drawing to a close.  I have one more year of Grace at home and in seven years all the kids will have left.  Even now I drop the kids off at school at eight o'clock then have six more hours of staring at my already clean and organized house wondering, "Okay . . . now what??"

I spent so much time looking ahead and thinking about getting things done and done quickly that I've suddenly been pulled to a stop and feel a bit lost.  All those years when I looked ahead and thought, "Wow, won't it be nice when the kids are older and Andrew and I have lots of time together? Won't that be nice? Won't I be sooooo happy?" Well here I am, my kids in school most of the day and my husband is charging ahead with still another 20 years of productivity and career goals ahead of him and I need to decide how I'm going to fill my time.

I suppose I could go back to school and that has a certain appeal but seriously--I've been to enough school to know that sitting in a classroom and watching a teacher is both expensive and dependent on how good the teacher is. And do I really need another degree so I can prove to everyone else that I'm smart? I could get the same information from our library and the internet if more education is what I really wanted. So what do I want? I haven't a clue.

I could get a job--that's what other women do--but it seems so pointless. It certainly isn't as important as my job as a wife and mother.  There is no job I could find that I would love as much as the job I've had and if I've learned anything after 14 months of unemployment I've learned how little stuff I need to be content so the money isn't a temptation.

I could focus on hobbies: painting, writing, blogging, knitting, whatever.  Okay, sure. But again, I don't need success in a hobby to prove to myself that I'm good at something or that my life has meaning though at least having a job or a hobby would be productive.  I want to be a producer, not merely a consumer.

I could do volunteer work and that has an appeal but it would depend on what kind of volunteering it was.  Hanging out at the kids' school seems pretty pointless--there are already many capable, paid professionals in charge and plenty of extraneous parents hanging around as it is.  If I volunteered somewhere it would have to be something that really helped those who were in need.  The Peace Corps?

So here I sit, wondering what to do and laughing at myself for all those years of hurrying and looking ahead in naivete, thinking that life would just be perfect once I had time to myself.  I have all the time to myself that I could want and now I want something else: goals.  Where are all the books and manuals on how to get through your 40's and 50's?  I've seen millions of books with advice on how to get you through those take-off years of work and school and early parenting but everyone is strangely silent on what to do once you've reached cruising altitude.  I just can't sit back for the next 20 years on auto-pilot. 

Someone Sent Me This Link . . .

After reading my post yesterday on the frustrations of flaky teachers my sister sent me this link along with an explanation: Williamsburg Academy is an online, accredited high school that offers video classes and mentoring for a fee.

Now as I said yesterday, I'm not ready to throw the towl in on our neighborhood high school (yet).  If you are careful as to which teachers you request you can have a good experience--but there are times, such as this semester, when getting a dud is unavoidable.  Grace loves the humanities but instead of learning about arts and letters she's cutting numbers and walking like a sloth.  According to my sister, Carinne, Williamsburg is great for those who are homeschooling and want the benefits of a classroom setting but what I'm thinking is that it would also be a great tool for supplementing in situations such as Grace is facing.

At this point Grace is close enough to her entrance exams and final semester that it wouldn't make a lot of sense for us but for Spencer or David I may very well use it.  It's not cheap--live classes where you can interact with other students and with the teacher are $200 and recorded classes $100 but they study real things and don't get mired in touchy-feely, off-beat activities. If you have a child that is self-motivated and you've got the computer/internet capabilities then it might be a good option.

Anyway, Carinne says her friends who have used the site have all had good things to say about it so right there it's got a better track record than many of our local schools and bears looking into.

No Sloth Left Behind

The kids have been in school for a week and already Grace is grumbling about her new humanities class.

Apparently "humanities" means something completely different from when I was in school.  No, it doesn't mean studying the fine arts and culture around us--just in case there was any confusion on that point.

They've been assigned to read The Life of Pi.  I'm not sure why they're reading a novel in a humanities class (when I took humanities it was a lot of music and sculpture and painting and whatnot) and I have no idea why they're reading that particular novel, which seems to have about as much to do with humanities as my big toe but as if that weren't enough of a puzzler their first class activity was to cut out and design numbers. Big numbers. As in "pi." Each person took a different digit and they made their number big and pretty and then put them together to make pi. Probably because that activity is too stupid and irrelevant to be part of any math curriculum past . . . oh, I don't know . . . 1st grade????

Makes sense to me.

And then as a follow up to that humanities-related activity they decided to study sloths.  Help me out with this as I've not read the book but apparently in the book there is a sloth so the teacher told them to get their sloth moves on and to  . . . walk. . . very . . . slowly . . . like . . . a . . . sloth . . . and  . . .  get . . . down . . . the . . . school . . . stairs . . . in . . . no . . . less . . . than . . . twenty . . . minutes.

For heaven's sake she's got the SAT in two months! And they're playing sloth [here's me smacking my hand to my forehead].

Why did I decide not to homeschool you ask? Probably because things were going so well up until she hit high school and even then it's hit and miss as to whether you get a gem of a teacher [standing up and applauding Mr. Wright, Mrs. DePalatis and Mr. Kemper with every ounce of my strength] or a dud like Captain Sloth Lover here.  Grace knew what she was getting into though, this class was the only one she could fit into her schedule and the teacher is the sister of one of her past English teachers. The one who allowed a student to make a throne out of hockey sticks as his project on the Renaissance.

Sigh.  Where is the Spanish Inquisition when you need it?

Planting Flowers

When I was a young-ish teen I read a story that's stuck with me.  It's an allegory about a young man named Malcolm who, on his way to work one day, comes across a random stranger who irritates him.  Maybe the stranger cuts him off in traffic, maybe he unknowingly insults Malcolm--I don't exactly remember--but in memory of the offense Malcolm picks up a small rock and puts it in his pocket so that he won't forget what was done to him.

Throughout the day Malcolm rubs his rock, reliving the rudeness.  So begins a habit and from time to time in the coming week Malcolm repeats his odd ritual, picking up rocks any time someone does something he doesn't like.  Sometimes the offense is a little thing, sometimes it's a bigger insult, but soon Malcolm's rock collection is thriving so well that he begins carrying a backpack for all his rocks.  Each day there are more rocks and, as stories often go, things progress until finally we find Malcolm stuck in his home with all his precious rocks, living as a virtual prisoner with all that sedimentary baggage.

Rumor of the collection grows so that eventually a local school plans a field trip to Malcolm's house to see the famous rocks but when the teacher and students show up they quickly realize that Malcolm's rocks--far from being valuable minerals and beautiful crystals--are just a bunch of dirty stones and pebbles.  In confusion they ask about the rocks' histories and once Malcolm explains his collecting habits the teacher looks around and says: 

"Well can we see your other collection?"

Now Malcolm is confused.  "What other collection?" He says.

"You know . . . the collection you have that represents the good things that people have done for you. If you've picked up these rocks for every insult you've had surely you've got another collection for the good things people did for you?"

Of course Malcolm has no such collection and the conversation brings on an epiphany.  It changes him in true Ebenezer Scrooge fashion so that he cleans up his house, gets rid of his rocks and decides to live his life differently. It isn't long after that that people begin to notice how beautiful Malcolm's garden is and, one day, while a neighbor stops to reflect on the beautiful flowers she sees Malcolm nearby.

"Your garden is so beautiful," she says, "Every time I see your home and your flowers it makes me happy."

Shortly after that that she notices Malcolm once again out in his garden, planting yet another flower in token of the kind words she'd given him.

Now I know that the story isn't as famous as Aesop's fables or as deep as the Biblical parables but it made an impression on me that has re-emerged during this season of gratitude and giving.  We talk about Thanksgiving and being thankful but I've found there is a huge difference between being grateful and giving thanks. How often do we have good things happen in our lives--whether great or small--and we think about how we are grateful but that is as far as it goes?  We may even toss off a casual "thanks" but that's not the same thing as actually giving thanks.

Gratitude is possibly the most important character trait we can cultivate because it's bound to so many other positive attributes.  If we are grateful then we are humble because we acknowledge what others have done for us and how we benefit from others' generosity.  We recognize how we don't have it all and are dependent on other people, on the world we live in and on God. If we are grateful we are content with what we have and are not greedy for more, especially at the expense of others.  Gratitude keeps us from coveting what others have which keeps us more honest, frugal and kind.  It gives us the inclination to take care of what we have and share it with others to spread the goodness we've received.

But if all we ever do is feel grateful then we're only half there because, frankly, none of us say "thank you" enough.  We're so quick to call a company that's given bad service but how often do we take the same effort to report a job well done? How quick am I to point out when one of my children slips up versus when they demonstrate making an extra effort? Misfortune tends to bring out the "why me?" but good fortune tends to make us pat ourselves on the back as if we've earned it.

Why is it that when bad things happen it seems that the cameras are always rolling but often when the good things come around it's when no one is looking but those are the times when it's especially important to pause and give back a thank you. Maybe we stop and say a sincere "thank you" to the person responsible, maybe we write it down in a journal to remember, maybe we say a quick prayer or put on a smile--giving thanks comes in many forms--but the point is to do something. The world could use as many flowers as it can get.

If You Only See One Movie. . . .

I've shared these RSAnimation videos before and while they're long (10 minutes) they are worth the time.This one discusses education and asks many of the questions I asked in my series "Preparing Our Kids for Life" last month--only Sir Ken Robinson answers them much better than I could.

Robinson outlines ways the current educational system is failing, why children are being treated for ADHD, how humanity is born with the capacity for creativity, and what the current system does to eradicate it. All to the genius of RSAnimation studios fascinating animated presentation.

I present . . . "Changing Educational Paradigms." My husband forwarded this gem to me. He's the only person I know who forwards things to me in my email box that are consistently gems.

Something I Had Vowed Never to Do

Andrew and I did something we swore we'd never, ever do. We have allowed our kids to have a computer in their bedroom.

For years I've sworn that my kids would never be allowed to have a computer, let alone one in their bedroom, I've said that parents who give in and let their children have such a dangerous piece of equipment are completely crazy and then here am I, breaking my own first commandment like a loony.

I've told my kids that letting them access to the internet is rather like letting them play in the street--sooner or later they're likely to get hit--so as a responsible mother I'm duty-bound to regulate things for their protection which has meant that the only computers in the house were our two Mom-and-Dad laptops which Andrew and I could move to the kitchen counter when the kids needed to do research online. They didn't like this approach but then they're not much of a voting block around here when it comes to formulating policy. Take it or leave it.

But then Spencer (age 14) got into web design. He began reading books on HTML and working on practice web pages (usually dedicated to the "Complete Awesomeness of the San Diego Chargers") and after eight or ten months he began to set some goals for himself which included saving up for a computer.

Now he didn't exactly get our approval on this project, he just started saving up his mowing money, and after a rather productive summer he had enough saved to purchase a Mac Mini--at least the CPU part--and Andrew and I found ourselves staring a very big issue in the face: Should we let him buy a computer?

My natural inclination was to say "Absolutely not!" but then we began to deeply discuss the ramifications.  Should we discourage our son from achieving this financial and educational goal by laying down the law? Should we stick by our original rules and maintain consistency? Should we take it on a trial basis? Oh the questions this thing raised, none of which I had an answer for in any degree of certainty.

Finally, we decided that he could buy his computer. Andrew hooked it up and got it souped up with Illustrator and Photoshop and a few other programs Spencer could benefit from then gave him the virtual keys to the car. And I've sat back and bit my knuckles till they've bled. 

I tell myself that if we can teach him to properly use technology then it's a much better solution than merely banishing the internet from his life completely (as if that's even possible) and I tell myself that if his enthusiasm and goals are any indication of the future then this could be a big step towards helping to prepare him with a marketable skill and a career but then I also tell myself about all the dangerous stuff available to kids online and how many people I know who are struggling with husbands or loved ones addicted to pornography and I wonder if I have joined the ranks of the parentally insane.

At any rate, what's done is done and here are a few of the guidelines we've gone over in this debate.


1. Agree to regulations together then stick by them no matter what.
Andrew and I sat down with Spencer before the money was ever spent and seriously talked about our concerns--why the internet was dangerous and why we were nervous (underlying this all with our love for him of course) to help him understand our point of view. The three of us talked about what some appropriate restrictions would be and then Spencer agreed to abide by them. I've heard of families where parents actually write up contracts for situations such as this and I don't think that's a bad idea at all.  Having a written contract on such an important subject might be especially helpful down the road when the restrictions you all agreed upon suddenly seem to be less convenient when the novelty has worn off and the rules begin to chafe.

2. Use those parental controls.
Macs are wonderful this way and not only can you set the amount of time for any user but you can set it to one of three levels of freedom--you can allow total access to the internet, you can filter out sites the computer deems to have adult content or you can set it to only allow access to websites you specifically approve.   You can even set the hours of use.

Discussing these parameters we decided that at this point we'd go with option #3 and only allow him access to sites we approve. Now this makes it difficult for him to do research online but then I figure it might be better anyway for him to school work with my laptop where I can supervise him anyway and save his computer for offline work and online tutorials (which really are wonderful, by the way). You know, sites that specifically help him to learn web design and programming.


3. Set specific time limits.
From anectodal evidence I've heard that the majority of problems that arise from going into dangerous sites occur in those late night hours.  Setting strong rules about the hours of use goes a long way to keeping kids from venturing into dangerous waters.  Apparently "early to bed and early to rise" doesn't just keep you healthy, wealthy and wise but also protects you from internet pornography and online predators too (at least, quite a bit). Think of it as a seat belt--it doesn't guarantee complete safety but it goes a long way toward the goal.

Also, set and control the amount of time spent using the computer.  We decided that two hours a day was plenty of time for Spencer to learn the things he's interested in. After that he needs to get out and shoot some hoops or ride his bike or call his friends. I don't want him obsessing his day away.

4. Keep the computer in a well-trafficked place.
Computers tucked away in corners or in dark, private bedrooms invite trouble.  The monitors should be easily visible to anyone wandering by and parents should be well acquainted with how to check internet history. If you see that the history has been erased that's a very bad sign.

Spencer's computer, while in his bedroom he shares with his brother, is on his desk and easily seen as I walk by in the hallway. And I walk by a lot, let me tell you.  In fact, he doesn't notice this, but when he's up there on the computer I usually keep his bedroom door wide open so I can see things easily, looking over his shoulder.


5. Watch out for games.
Besides the internet games can be an additional danger.  I'm not sure why but to some they seem to be as addicting as drugs or gambling and boys seem to be especially at risk.  Keep the games to a minimum and keep tabs on them--don't feel weird about saying no if a certain game makes you uncomfortable.  After all, you are the parent. You get paid to make those kinds of tough choices.

At any rate, we'll let you know if this proves to be a huge mistake or a wise choice. Check back in a year or so and we'll be able to figure out if we're crazy or not.

Preparing Our Kids for Life: Conclusion

Continued from Preparing Our Kids for Life: Part Two from September 28, 2010.

***

Too many people show up at college trying to find themselves and too many people leave without any experience beyond the classroom. Andrew and I have given a great deal of thought lately to the way the world is changing. Technology is speeding along so fast that it's difficult to predict--actually, impossible to predict--how the job market as a whole or how individual professions will be affected. If you'd told somebody 50 years ago that real estate agents, travel agents, insurance agents and stock brokers would be obsolete they'd have laughed but now it's not a matter of if it will happen, it's a matter of when it will happen.

It used to be that being a professional (i.e. doctor, lawyer, accountant, etc.) was as solid and reliable as anything you could choose but would doctors twenty years ago have been able to predict the massive changes hitting the country in the health care industry? And even now we haven't a clue as to how this party will end. Even in the legal industry, which is the most ancient of dinosaurs, Andrew has seen changes that make the future of lawyers everywhere less certain than they've been for hundreds of years.

If change is the only constant how do you prepare your children to face life? It used to be that you could save up your pennies, tell them to keep up their grades and send them off to college with a pat on the head and you'd done your part but the harsh reality is, that just isn't enough.

Work It out, Baby
Never has it been more important that we teach our kids how to work. Not just how to do chores but how to have a job interview, how to put together a resume, how to talk with adults and superiors, how to work with others on projects, how to finish nasty or tedious tasks and how to stick with something. They need to know how to work and they need to know how to work hard--but don't let that scare you. Hard work with successful results usually makes for a great deal of satisfaction in life, so while you're teaching them to work you're simultaneously teaching them how to be happy.

My suggestions? Encourage them with chores when they're young and give them more as they go along. Teach them how to deal with difficult teachers and coaches without jumping into fight their battles, teach them how to take on and complete difficult projects, how to market themselves for odd jobs around the neighborhood (we've had great success with passing out flyers for snow removal and mowing services or babysitting). Teach them that it's good to get honest work and encourage them as soon as possible to get that first "real" job.

Make it easier for them to work during the summer by placing jobs as a priority whenever possible. Yes, it's important to have family time together for vacations and things like this but if you're so scheduled every summer that your children don't have the time to work consider what they're losing out on.

Help them with contacting places and other adults as they network and look for jobs. It's easy to forget how hard it is to speak to an adult if you're only 13 or 15 so mentor them along in the process. Help them along and help them build their confidence so that when they're 18 or 21 they can look their interviewer in the eye and give them a firm handshake without going to pieces.

Put That Parental Influence to Good Use
As a parent it's easy to worry that you put too much pressure on your kids. What if you pressure them to follow in your footsteps professionally and they feel they can't compete or they end up hating their job or--worse--they end up hating you?

Relax. Yes, it's possible to overdo it in the pressure (or as I like to call it, "encouragement") department but remember that as parents we're here for gentle guidance. It's what we do. Your children's first exposure to your profession will come through you and if you show them around in it it might help them to make those critical decisions--either for or against--early on.

Tell them about your work--about what you like and what you don't like, what your own goals are (do you have them?) and what the future of your profession could be. Give them opportunities to grow and learn and while they may never be just like you (thank goodness!) it will help to steer them in the right direction.

Andrew and I have done so much with the internet and computers that it wasn't that odd when Spencer informed us that he wants to go into computer animation. Now it just so happens that our alma mater, BYU, has a great program, one that is recruited heavily by Pixar, and he's had a bit of experience in drawing and art and seems to like it. It doesn't take much for us to help him learn about the possibilities of the profession and what his opportunities would be but now is a great time (he's 14) to begin discussing this and helping him to think this out for himself. He may not end up at Pixar but I'm cheering the fact that at 14 he actually has a goal and a plan of attack.  How many adults have that much?

Goals Are the Key
Teach them how to set goals for themselves--what a goal is, how there are abstract and concrete goals, how you must plan and prepare and how to go about accomplishing things. Spencer, going on the plan for computer animation, decided that he would save up for a computer. He decided that if he wanted to work for Pixar some day that he needed to know the computer programs like Illustrator, Photoshop, etc (not to mention specialized and fancy software) so he began saving. He just got enough money and while I'm not about to let him have internet access in his bedroom I do think it's a great idea for him to get his feet wet this way. He's beginning drawing classes and has plans to enter any art contest he can (he came in second place in the statewide Duck Stamp competition this spring with his duck drawings).

This summer Andrew showed him books on web design and Spencer began reading and teaching himself HTML. For Father's Day he made a special web page as a tribute to his Dad (and the Chargers--he couldn't leave them out). Even if he never goes into web design or computer animation, at least he is learning at a young age how to accomplish things and set goals and work toward a difficult thing. Who knows? At the very least he's learning a marketable skill.

It's not so important that our kids are National Merit finalists or Rhoades scholars--I know plenty of those who haven't a clue where their lives are going--but goals and work and planning are what will ultimatley determine our children's success. Brains will only take you so far but goals will take you all the way.

8 Ways to Be the World's Greatest In-Law

If you ever get with a group of women and want to start the conversation off with a bang there are two topics guaranteed to get things going: pregnancy and mothers-in-law. Every woman's got a story about her labor and an even worse account of her mother-in-law.

But the funny thing is, I have a great mother-in-law. In fact, both sides of the family could write a book on how to be a good in-law so I'm sharing a few things I've noticed that my mother-in-law and my parents do that get them big points in the "Greatest In-Law" category. Some may seem pretty obvious but I'm continually surprised by how many families have problems incorporating these "obvious" suggestions.

1. You're not a parent any more.
You're a friend, a confidant, a helper, a support system, a cheerleader, whatever you want to call it but once your child has become an adult your days of parenting are over. At least they should be. Once your kids reach adulthood they don't stop needing you but the way they need you should be very different from when they were children. You have to starting thinking of yourself as a resource, not as a parent.

You can expect that whatever person you have produced after 20 years of parenting is a finished product--so far as you are concerned. You've done your part and the rest of the burden for improvement, correction or adjustment is with them. Besides, if your child hasn't learned a principle after you've tried to teach it to them for 20 years it’s pretty sure that your nagging isn't going to fix the problem. Once adults, children need to live their own lives regardless of how you feel about things--after all, isn't that the whole point of parenting?

2. Don't give advice.
Even when you're asked for it--or at least very reluctantly. Many times when someone asks another person for advice they already know what they want to do, they're just looking for validation in which case advice is pointless. Other times they don't know what to do and want you to tell them the answer in which case advice keeps them from learning to find their own answers to life's problems.

Occasionally you might have a time when advice is sought and when it would be appropriate, as a friend, to offer it. But advice is like salt--it's fine in very small amounts but too much and it makes things unpalatable and too much could kill you. Of course here am I, giving out all sorts of advice in this post. How ironic is that?

3. Give your kids and their spouses your approval when it's earned.
Even as adults we still want to think that our parents are proud of us so don't stop telling your grown children when they're doing something well. In fact, I'd say that as an adult I care more than I did as a child about what my parents think. I want them to approve of the way I'm a mother or a person because I understand life and the importance of one's character more than I did as a child.

Tell them that you love them, tell them that you're proud of them. All those years when you told them that you want them to grow up to be better than you were? Well now is the time to tell them that they've succeeded. And that goes double for your children's spouses--be sure to compliment them. And not those back-handed compliments that really mean something completely different (i.e. "Wow, you've actually learned to cook and it's not half-bad!")

4. Don't interfere with child rearing.
Of course if there are extreme issues where grandchildren are in physical danger intervention might be appropriate but otherwise you should be completely invisible as a disciplinarian. Your job was to raise the parents NOT the grandchildren. To undermine parental authority, however well-intentioned, is a serious, serious infraction--one that de-stabilizes a family and turns members against each other so don't ever be guilty of getting between your children and their own children. It will just harm things in the end and push them away from you.
You may think that your grandkids don’t get enough discipline and that you’re the only one standing between them and prison and that as such you have an obligation, nay, a moral imperative to get involved but I’m still going to go with my “stay out of it completely” policy and tell you to leave it alone. Believe it or not your children really pick up on criticism well (to say nothing of their spouses) and that is what this will be interpreted as: criticism of their parenting. Which, coincidentally, it is.

Besides? Who wants to be parents forever? Being a grandparent is much more fun anyway. My Dad says that the whole reason you have kids is so that you can some day be a grandparent.

5. Do nothing to harm the unity of your children's marriages.
It is not a contest to see who your grown children love more: their parents or their spouse. Don't make them choose because if they must they darn well ought to choose their spouse, no exceptions.

I can see that for some people--particularly mothers whose lives revolve around their children--it might be painful to allow kids to grow up, move away and build a life with someone else but that's the way it's supposed to be. It's what's healthy for everyone concerned and what will build stronger, happier marriage and families.

A good parent would never want to jeopardize their child's marriage or relationship with their spouse so don't do it.

6. Accept their spouse unconditionally.
There is a tendency, as a parent, to see your child in a rosy light. Love has a way (as it should) of dimming our vision of imperfections. Because of this, it's easy once our children get married to think that everything they do is right and that their spouse is the outsider who doesn't deserve the same benefits of affection as your own blood relation.

However, once children marry and make a choice to join their lives to another person legally and morally it's time to get on board. It doesn't matter how you feel about this new person, it doesn't matter if you like them or hate them or are ambivalent. You owe it to your child to welcome the new spouse into the family in full fellowship, with all the love you'd give to your own children.

So many of the problems you see between in-laws and married spouses are because parents take the part of their child and treat the spouse as an outsider and it's just wrong.

7. Don't make demands.
Not in time, money or emotion. Yes, your children should honor, respect and help you but you have no right to demand a certain kind of treatment you think you deserve. And this includes the not-so-subtle guilt tactic.

Remember for a moment what it was like to be a parent with young children. Did you feel pressure? Were there lots of demands on your time? From work, church, children, and spouse? We all lead busy lives and have lots of pressures but loving parents don't increase the pressure on their children by making demands and insinuating that their children don't love them unless they play the game their way. Parents are supposed to be the mature ones, right? This tactic doesn't usually have the effect you want anyway, it just pushes your children away.

8. Be involved in your grandchildren's lives.
With the caveat: let their parents decide how much. Yes, retirement is nice. Yes, you've deserved a break (perhaps), but don't check out on life completely. It's hard raising kids today and parents need all the support they can get--having extended family as a support network is a great blessing today and being there to lend a hand or take a minute for one-on-one time with a grandchild is wonderful.

One of the reasons we decided to move to Alaska was for the benefits of having a strong extended family around--so that when we told our kids that living a certain way would make them happy we could point to examples in our family circle and say, "See? It's not just your parents who believe this stuff--it works for them too."

While being a parent may be behind you, being a good example and role model is not.

Preparing Our Kids for Life: Part Two

Continued from Preparing Our Kids for Life: Part One from September 21, 2010.

***

So if college isn't the way to guarantee a job, riches and success that it might once have been and if the cost-benefit ratio has faded I'm very open to the idea of learning good trades and skills that are more concrete and (sometimes) more in demand.  But college or tech school, whatever path one chooses, getting that certificate of completion isn't enough anymore--there needs to be something else, something much more important than a slip of paper and most people nowadays are missing it because it's so elusive. We need goals.

Set Those Goals
Too many people use college as a way to "find themselves" while lost in wasted semesters, sabbaticals and aimless travel. The funny thing is, of all the people that have told me that they're taking time off to find themselves I've never heard anyone who later claimed to have been successful at the endeavor. They're often as lost after as they were before because all they were doing was putting off the difficult and painful requirement of making a decision and moving forward.

The fact is, college is too darn expensive to waste it by wandering--people plan road trips with greater assiduity than they plan their college years.  The hunt-and-peck method of education has never been efficient and while it might have be adequate fifty years ago such casual and accidental attempts at the target are risky endeavors.

No one should go to college undeclared.  Surely, after 12 years of education and studying one has at least a smidgen of an idea of what area would suit (and there are ways to promote this which I'll describe next week) and if, after high school, you still have too many interests, all the better.  That just means that you have a better-than-average chance of enjoying one of those many, many interests in an actual career. So pick one.

Get some goals and stick to them, for goodness sake.  Spend a lot of time thinking about what you want to accomplish and aim high (people often underestimate their abilities) because ultimately that's what will most influence success or failure. But what your goals are isn't so important as the fact that you have them.

But the problem is: people usually don't set goals. They don't set them, they don't write them down, they don't think about them or keep them in mind and consequently they drift wherever life takes them. Drifting isn't immoral, it's isn't unethical, it's just dangerous because when you drift you run aground or get blown out to sea or get swamped and sunk. Pardon my extended metaphor but life is full of problems and disappointments and setbacks that have the potential to sink your boat but making it through life's storms is 150% easier with goals to guide you.

And most people don't have them.

Close Some Doors
Decisions are funny things because once you've said yes to one thing you automatically say no to an infinite number of other possibilities and, as human beings, that's incredibly difficult to accept. We will do practically anything to keep all our options open, thinking I suppose that options are the way to happiness when, in fact, options merely keep us from anchoring, directing and succeeding. One only needs one option--ONE--to be successful but vacillating between two ensures failure. How many times have I heard someone say, "I can't decide what to do! I have so many interests! I just can't settle on one thing." It makes me want to shake them and say, "You HAVE settled on one thing--you've settled on doing nothing which is the only thing that guarantees failure." The worst decision is making no decision. That's what my dad always says and he's right.

People are able to decide what to eat for breakfast, what to wear to school, whether or not to do their homework, what car to buy, what book to read, what class to take and while I'm not insinuating that the decision of a career should be taken as lightly as Fruit Loops v. Cocoa Puffs, it bears many similarities, making it nearly as easy to decide.

Both Fruit Loops and Cocoa Puffs are tasty, both have the same nutritional value (or lack thereof), both have the same ability to fill one's gut, both have about the same price and benefits.  Barring a vicious allergy to fake chocolate flavoring I don't know that it would matter to anyone which cereal one chose.  Careers can often be like this.  If you have two that are equally interesting, have equal potential in the job market, have similar lengths on course requirements and cost to achieve then it really doesn't matter much which you choose.  Just pick one and get on with it.  It's more important that you pick one than forever wavering between the two. Don't kid yourself that there's magic involved and one leads to happiness and bliss while the other leads to unfulfilled dreams and suffering.  Being happy in one's career usually is more contingent on the situation of a particular job rather than a career itself. Don't get the two confused.

And then, once you're nearly done and are four months from graduation don't get freaked out and think about jilting your major at the altar.  Everyone gets that far and wonders if they've made the right decision. But who cares? Maybe it's the perfect choice, maybe it's a good choice, but the point is . . . you made it! Going back to square one is a waste of time and money. At least finish things out and then if you insist on rethinking everything you have a way of providing for yourself while you go back on through the system a second time.

So forget the idea that one needs to find one's passion as if a career is a soul mate. Instead, find something that interests you (if you have lots of things, all the better, it'll be easier to come up with something) and consider if you can expect to make money from it. Then consider whether you can expect to make enough money to fit the lifestyle you'd like to have (i.e. will you be a single income family? Will you need your spouse to work as well? Will you be flying home to Australia every year to visit family? Will you require a mansion on the hill?) Once you've been able to answer these three questions satisfactorily you're on your way and have accomplished something huge . . . but you're not yet done.

Get Some Experience
Too many kids finish college with a degree and nothing more. No experience, no job record, no letters of recommendation, no skills and no proof to a future employer that they are employable. Whether or not you feel a college degree is worth the price it's hard to disagree that a degree without experience is in a different league than a degree with solid skills and training.

I think this may be because many parents think that teenagers shouldn't work. Personally? I think that's insane but I've heard enough otherwise rational adults say, "It's just more important that they focus on their grades and not be distracted by having a job" or (my personal favorite) "They're only a kid once and they need to be able to enjoy this time." The same parents who insist on ballet, violin, soccer and drama lessons suddenly balk at the thought of little Mary working the drive-through at Taco Bell though when it comes to whether ballet or Taco Bell will influence her future ability to provide for herself it seems pretty obvious which is the more valuable. I'm not sure if they feel it's beneath them or what but I've seen enough people head into college never having held a job in their life only to find that employers have problems with blank resumes.

College is not the place to get your first job, it's the place to train for your career, you should be well past the Taco Bell phase, and never has it been more important that young adults face the world armed with active experience beyond the classroom.

So how does one get that experience and set those goals? And how can you help your children do it?

To be concluded next week.

Preparing Our Children for Life: Part One

Why College May Not Be the Right Choice

This is a three-part series running over the next three weeks that will probably make my parents shake their heads--at least at first. Hopefully by the time I'm done they'll renew their faith in me. For the most part.

When I was in elementary school, thinking about my future, it was a given that I would go to college. Both of my parents had college degrees and we six kids were taught early on that college was not only the route to success but a necessary part of becoming an adult.

Before my parents the family tree was full of blue-collar, made-it-through-the Depression, work-by-the-sweat-of-your-brow folks who had little formal education but recognized the value of a well-trained mind and through their efforts the tree has grown to support engineers, dentists, doctors, lawyers, nutritionists, businessmen, statisticians, and educators. Andrew's family is no different with computer programmers, social workers, psychologists, and mathematicians in abundance.

Perhaps it's the recession, perhaps it's the whining of the media, perhaps it's all just sound and fury but I'm hearing more and more about how a college degree just isn't worth what it used to be. Of course we know what it's worth--on average, $80,000 for a private school, $20,000 for public (and that's conservative)--but we've all heard that those with college degrees have a greater earning potential.

However, more and more graduates are finding themselves without the jobs that a degree used to promise. It's the old law of supply and demand hitting us hard. A century ago a college degree was rare and precious and therefore worth more in salary. Nowadays, bachelor's degrees are a dime a dozen and employers set it as the bare minimum for many entry level jobs, often even looking for master's degrees in their future employees, and we're hearing more and more about how a college degree doesn't present the investment that it once did.

Our own family's experience has born this out--my parents were the first in their families to attend college but all 6 of their children received degrees, along with 5 spouses who also earned degrees. Among those 11 people there are a total of 17 degrees, yet of the 7 adults actively employed, 4 have dealt with unemployment and have had trouble finding jobs in the past year.

Again, you can blame it on the recession but I think what we've got here is a lot bigger than a mere economic trend. What many people are predicting--and I think there may be some validity--is that we have saturated the market with university degrees and the market is now swinging back the other way to the point that if you want your children to be assured of finding a job, trade school and skilled labor is the way to go.

Welders, masons, heavy equipment operators, electricians, plumbers, people who spend their days working with their hands are in increasing demand as more and more of the middle class believe that the nobler jobs are those that require thinking rather than lifting. This prejudice against the blue-collar jobs has flooded the market with expensive degrees and left a demand for labor that has driven the prices up and up.

I'm not sure I buy into the idea completely and there is more to college than just a slip of paper with some initials on it but it does make a certain amount of sense. Then, if you think about it in terms of hard dollars it starts to make even more sense. If the average middle class kid goes to college, statistics say he'll (or, more accurately, she--more women are entering college now than men, but that's another post) spend $20,000 getting his four years in. But then the average isn't four years nowadays, but six. So add another $10,000 for two more wasted years in tuition for a total of $30,000 for an ultra-cheap, state school. Not including living expenses, books, fees or frat parties. Now calculate the lost income that those five extra years of university training have cost while her blue-collar counterpart spent significantly less money and time getting a tech-school degree to become a welder.

What are we up to now? Well, welders can make $80,000 a year in some parts of the country in good conditions, so five years would equal $400,000 of earnings while the other kid shuffled around campus trying to decide whether to major in humanities or women's studies. One student is $30,000 in the hole, the other is nearly $400,000 ahead and you tell me who the smarter kid is.

Now don't get me wrong, I happen to think that there are three critical things one gets from college--how to earn money (a degree), how to think (an education) and how to be an adult (experience) and I want my children to attend in no uncertain terms. However, I am saying that perhaps we ought to rethink how we approach the college and educational experience. Gone are the days where you can pack your kid off to college, wipe your hands on your apron and say, "Whew! I'm done!" because a college degree just ain't what it used to be and there is a whole lot more out there to do if we really want to prepare our kids for the real world.

To be continued next week.

Why Didn't I Think of This?

Congratulations to my sister Melissa for such a great finish to her 14 hours of labor. What a cutie I've got for a nephew!

I had to tell you about something she did to prepare for the delivery. She bought one of these little pop up tents and began letting her two year-old, Lucy, sleep in the tent for naps and sometimes at night.

Then, when the baby was ready to come and Lucy had to go spend the night at Grandma's house they just packed up her little tent with her pillow and blanket and away she went. With her familiar and fun tent there wasn't any question of being nervous about sleeping in a new place or having trouble sleeping through the night, they just set up the tent on the floor at Grandma's house and Lucy crawled right in and went to sleep. What a great idea!

I was terribly impressed with Melissa's wisdom on this one. What a mom.

I need to get on the ball and make my new little nephew Calvin these booties. I just adores them.

Sexting: One More Thing for Parents to Worry About

This month my brother, Luke Nichols and his lovely wife Becca, came to visit and during one of several interesting conversations we had he spoke of his experiences as a criminal defense attorney in the Washington D.C. area.

Through his work he's seen some of the consequences of teenagers sexting (and if you don't know what sexting is, just ask any teen) and he has volunteered time at youth centers to warn teens of the dangers they face when the law gets involved.

You may already know of the dangers this new phenomenon poses to the morality of our children and society but you ought also to know of the legal dangers children face if caught--and if they have a cell phone I can pretty much guarantee you that they've have experience in the area already.

Luke joins us as a guest poster and legal opinion on the subject and you can read more about sexting on his website at Spectrum Legal Defense.

P.S. Don't let the picture distract you--I just wanted a picture of Luke and this one of Lillian and him goofing it up and celebrating their fishing success cracks me up.

***

What Is Sexting?
While the moral, psychological, and religious implications of sexting deserves their own discussion, I am a criminal defense attorney and what I am qualified to tell you is 1) that sexting is rampant and 2) sexting can land a child in prison for years.

Sexting, or sexual texting, is an epidemic that involves using the internet and usually camera phones to share sexually explicit photos, text, and video. While not all youths are willful participants in this seedy conduct, the popularity of camera phones now means that nearly all young people are exposed to sexting whether they like it or not.

Legally speaking, the problem is that sexting is the wholesale production and distribution of child pornography within our homes and schools. When a fourteen year-old boy takes picture of his thirteen year-old girlfriend’s breast he has committed felony production of child pornography and the separate felony of possession of child pornography. If that young man or any of his friends display, copy, or share that image then they are guilty of a third felony, distribution of child pornography. If that boy or anyone else requested or enticed the minor to expose her breasts he may also be guilty of aggravated sexual battery or felony child molestation among other crimes.

While each state is different, there are few places in the US were child pornography and other sex crimes against minors are not ruthlessly punished and prosecuted. Parents should also keep in mind that because the internet crosses state lines child pornography is frequently prosecuted in federal courts as a federal crime.

In some states, the maximum punishment for just production of child pornography is 30 years in an adult prison facility. What is more onerous, in many states each photo can result in a separate charge, so that a young man or woman who takes multiple photos will be charged with multiple counts of production, possession, and distribution.

One of my more recent juvenile clients was caught with twelve pictures of his naked seventeen year-old girlfriend. He was charged will twelve counts of possession of child pornography and faces up to sixty years in jail.

So How Big of a Deal Is It?
The mistake that most adults make is that they do not realize how serious these crimes are. The first sexting case I ever worked on involved a seventeen year-old boy who used his camera phone to take a video of his naked thirteen year little brother and friend during a hazing prank. Even though the boys willingly went along with the hazing and even though my client was not accused of intending anything sexual (just humiliation) my client was charged with two counts of aggravated sexual battery for enticing two minors to take their clothes off, one count of production of child pornography, one count of possession, and one count of distribution after he showed the video to his friends.

Those charges allowed the court to try the young man as an adult and carried a maximum penalty of 104 years in prison and a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison. The boy was fortunately only found guilty of some of the charges and was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

But My Kid Doesn't Sext . . .
What I find so disturbing about sexting is just how common it is, yet the only adults who seem to understand this are the police and prosecutors. One recent trial for possession of child pornography involved a young man in his late teens. The police were chatting with this young man when the officers asked to see his cell phone. The officers searched the phone and discovered a naked photo of the teen’s seventeen year-old girlfriend. When I asked the officer why he searched his phone the officer looked at me like I was an idiot and said “All teenagers have naked photos of their girlfriends on their cell phone."

While the officer’s statement is somewhat of an overstatement, I have since discovered that he was not far off the mark. In the last year, I have since started speaking with high school students and teen intervention groups about the dangers of sexting and I have consistently found the practice of sexting utterly unchecked by adults. Every time I speak at a school about sexting, without fail many of the young men laugh or brag about the practice openly in front of their teachers or supervisors and almost none of the youth are unfamiliar with it. Getting a naked photo of a girl is simply “first base” for too many young men now days.

While the girls’ attitudes about sexting are not usually so cocky or jovial they are equally as exposed to the practice. In the short time I have been speaking to youths I have heard too many accounts of young girls being forcibly exposed and photographed by young men with camera phones at school. Often, these girls have said nothing about these attacks because, like the young men, they think that shoving a camera phone up a girl’s skirt and posting it on the web is a mean prank not a felony.

Many of the youths I speak to are good kids who feel no attraction to sexting, but they are still exposed to it. With a few clicks their friends and often distant acquaintances send them dirty photos. Naked photos of fellow class mates are now the new medium for youths to boast about their conquests or to humiliate and shame one another. While certain girls in my high school did things in private for attention, similar young women of this generation can garnish the wrong kind of attention from hundreds of boys with a camera phone and 30 seconds.

Few teenagers today have not been exposed to child pornography via sexting, and what they don’t realize is that the simple possession of those materials is a felony regardless of whether they approve of or despise the practice.

Sexting Is a Loaded Gun or a Pound of Cocaine
Legally speaking, child pornography is no different than guns and drugs. If you are caught with it, it doesn’t matter what your intentions were, you are going to jail. Additionally, most people do not realize that putting child pornography in your computer’s trash bin does not solve the problem. If there is any way you can retrieve the pornographic photo after you have deleted it, then you are still in possession.

Many courts have taken this to extremes and will find possession even if retrieving the images requires a computer expert. A common example includes the temporary files created on your computer when you view images on the internet. The police catch online pedophiles by monitoring sites which contain child pornography. They accumulate data on who has viewed the photos and when they finally shut down the site they round up all the visitors’ computers and have computer forensic scientist retrieve the temporary files created by surfing the internet. Many of the social networking sites and chat rooms popular with youth contain indecent photos of minors, and the law does not distinguish between an internet user who ogles young girls and one who was is simply reading their friend’s online profile. If it is on your computer, you are in trouble.

When teachers ask me what they should do when (not if) they find child pornography on their students' phones I tell them to treat it like a loaded gun or a kilo of cocaine. Don’t handle it. Don’t examine it. Just call security or the police immediately! No matter what happens, never ever give a child their phone or computer back if you know there is any pornography on it. Giving pornography (not just child pornography) to a minor is a serious crime and I am not aware of any law that makes exceptions for giving a kid back their own pictures.

It Can Come Back to Haunt Them
Inevitably, when I discuss sexting with youths, there are those who balk at my cautions because they don’t think they will ever get in trouble. Everyone around them is doing it so why worry?

What they don’t realize is that sexting is a new problem. Adults are learning and each year the numbers of children arrested grow as more people report incidents to law enforcement. Also, in many state there is no statute of limitation for these types of felonies. This means that the government can bring charges against a person 20 years after the crime was committed if they want to. Many child molesters are prosecuted only after their victims are grown and come forward as adults. Likewise, a young man who coerces a young woman to expose herself may not get reported to police until the girl has grown and has become old enough to know that what was done to her was illegal.

I tell young men that when they take dirty photos of a girl, that girl has complete control over their fate. If she ever gets angry and wants to hurt them all she has to do pick up the phone and call the police.

However, the more common way youths are being arrested is when their dirty photos are passed around until a responsible adult sees the pictures and calls the police. All the police have to do is threaten the last sender with felony possession and distribution of child pornography unless they tell them where they got the photos. Getting teenagers and parents to talk is easy when children are facing up to 10-20 years in prison.

Some police are also searching phones as a regular part of criminal investigations. One of my young clients was falsely accused of assault and battery after defending himself from a gang attack. When he was arrested the police inventoried his possession and discovered multiple dirty photos of his underage girlfriend on his cell phone. The police quickly realized that he was the real victim and dropped the assault and battery charges; however, they went forward with over ten counts of felony possession of child pornography.

Is There Any Protection?
Obviously sexting is dangerous, but the real question is: what can be done to protect children? To parents, I would like to point out the vast majority of the sexting cases involve camera phones, and I cannot think of a reason that a sixteen year old needs a camera on their phone.
Additionally, I think half of my clients are in trouble because of whom they associate with. Know your children’s online and real world friends. There are only two ways I know of to find out who your child associates with online: either you monitor their online activity or you ask them (I recommend both).

Finally, there is no substitute for talking openly and frankly to your children about the consequences of sexting. And while I can only address the legal ramifications, it is up to parents to weigh in on the moral, emotional, and religious implications of online sexual activity.
And if all of that fails, liquidate their college fund and hire a good attorney.

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