We Are Women. Hear Us Roar. Again.

This article originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of Diablo Magazine.

Kriste Michelini and Children (Photo courtesy of Diablo Magazine)

It’s 7:30 on a Thursday evening, and 10 moms are gathered at Kriste Michelini’s interior design studio in Danville, drinking wine and eating off a veggie platter artfully arranged by Michelini. This isn’t a book group or PTA fundraiser. These mothers are busy trying to help Bridget Scott finalize the details of her business plan. She’s preparing to open her own chiropractic office, a lifelong dream, but is still determining the best way to incorporate the hours while placing family first. Scott wants to work while her children are in school and is confident she can find clients who will fit her schedule. But issues around finalizing a name and staff management are what she needs advice on. The other women, all business owners themselves, readily offer it.

Scott started Business Owner Moms (BOMS) in 2008 because she wanted to gather like-minded working mothers to offer each other support and guidance as they struggled to balance their professional ambitions with their personal lives. BOMS includes women such as Alamo’s Kristin Kiltz, a mother of three who quit her high-powered job at a public relations firm to set up her own PR consulting business; and Danville’s Julie Ligon, also a mother of three, who left her exciting marketing position at Gap to open one of the first franchise studios of the Dailey Method. The BOMS could have given up work completely to stay home with their children, but haven’t.

Prom: It’s More Than Just A Dance

This essay originally appeared on BlogHer.

Daddy's Little Girl - All Grown Up

It’s prom season around our house. My seventeen-year-old son is a prom pro. He’s been to so many in the past few years, I don’t even need to give him the Prom Speech.  He knows the drill and I trust him. This year, however, his fifteen-year-old sister was invited to the prom. Funny how different my reaction was; I said, “No!”

Speaking the Truth About One Teen’s Suicide

This article originally appeared on Palo Alto Patch.

Loving the Rainbow

I was browsing the local news the other day when I came across this headline: “Apparent Suicide With Chemicals Forces Evacuation in Redwood City.” It seemed so innocuous. A small bit, really. Not even worthy of an obituary. But I knew better. It was what the story didn’t say and what it got so very wrong that haunts me. 

What Age Is The Right Age To Talk About Rape With My Daughter?

This essay first appeared on BlogHer.

My fourteen-year-old daughter is upstairs in her bedroom listening to Shakira on her iPod and studying for a french mid-term. Me? I am downstairs watching a horrific rape scene on a television show called Private Practice and remembering the stories I have heard from family, from friends, from strangers, and wondering, when do I tell her it isn’t all peaches and cream?

How Do We Protect Our Kids In Cyberspace? The Old-Fashioned Way.

This essay originally appeared on BlogHer.

My son came home the other day and told me he heard from his college advisor that colleges now check out various social media sites to determine what kids are posting about themselves and others. I told him not to worry, his grandmother checks his Facebook page everyday to make sure he doesn’t post something he’ll regret. “I knew I shouldn’t have friended her,” he said only half jokingly.

Guess I Can’t Stalk My Kids On Facebook Anymore…

The Womb Police

This blog first appeared on BlogHer.

When I was six months pregnant with my third child, I had the honor of toasting one of my closest friends at her wedding. I stood, wine glass in hand, extolling the great gifts of a well-met marriage rubbing my expanding belly for emphasis. After I sat down, one of the men at our table took away my wine glass and said, “I know you know your baby doesn’t need this.” Now, it should be noted, I hadn’t taken a sip from the glass, but that was not the point. This guy was just another in a long line of well-meaning men (and the occasional woman) who felt compelled to tell me what to eat, drink, and generally do while I was pregnant. Funny thing is, my doctor had actually advised me (off the record) to have the occasional glass of red wine.

Managing the Gimmes During the Holidays

This article first appeared in BlogHer.

It’s that time of year again when the wants far exceed the needs. The Greek chorus of  “gimme, gimme, gimme,” swirls around the house drowning out the muzak of Christmas carols that began long before Thanksgiving. “I want a car,” sings my soon-to-be sixteen year old. “Well, I want a new laptop,” trills his thirteen year old sister. “I want an iPod,” chants their ten year old brother. In unison, all together now: “But all my friends have one!” Uh, huh.

Mmmm…well, let’s see. I want world peace, a cure for AIDS, the troops to come home, and if I am really greedy maybe I’ll even ask to lose the last five pounds of baby fat (even if the last baby is over a decade old). Guess I won’t be getting my wishes either.

How is it the Gimmes keep getting bigger every year? At three, the Gimme was a stuffed bear. At five, it was Thomas the Tank engine. At eight, a new bike. At ten? Well, see above. Clearly I have failed as a parent. I wanted children that spent hours hand-crafting special gifts for the ones they love. Children who get more pleasure in giving than in receiving. Children who actually stop to ask, “Hey Mom, what do you want for Christmas?” Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.

My father warned me about this.  I think I was sixteen or so, asking for a car no doubt, when he said, “Just wait until you have children of your own. I hope for your sake they aren’t Gimme Kids like you and your brother.” It must be inherited like blue eyes or a crooked nose.

And then it dawns on me. The Gimmes are a disease, a pandemic far worse than any flu, swine or avian. They are the product of a society drunk on the idea that we are defined not by who we are but what we have. My kids aren’t any more greedy then the next lot, they simply the reflection of a society built around crass Commercialism and it’s twin sister, Materialism (let’s just ignore their mother Capitalism for the moment). My children live in a society where commercials make up half of any television program, where product placement has wormed its way into movies, where the most important question the day after Christmas isn’t whatdcha do but whatdcha get. A society where the cost of privilege is the ability to ignore those in need and worry most about what you want.

I had fantasized the downturn in the economy would stop fueling the Gimmes but the pandemic is hard to control. Despite a continued spike in job losses, a concurrent rise in  welfare recipients, and a trend in foreclosures that has yet to peak, we are still bombarded with messages that engender material lust. Buy this. Lease that. Even presidents tell us to shop more; its our civic duty!

I can wash my hands and try to wear a mask but the Gimmes still seep under the door jam and into our home. Perhaps it’s time to stop the madness and fall back on that old cliche, the buck stops here. A recent article in The New York Times science section revealed that we have an innate desire to help. Another article highlighted the healing aspects of giving. Finally, I read research the links materialism to self-esteem. It was time for a talk.

So, we had a family conference the other night. I asked the kids what they could do for others. “Let’s volunteer in a soup kitchen,” one suggested. “Let’s adopt a soldier for the holidays,” said another. “I’ll use my allowance to fund a need at my school,” the third chimed in. “By the way Mom, what do you want for Christmas?” they asked. No worries angels, I just got my gift.

My Mother’s Thanksgiving

This blog was originally posted on BlogHer.

Of course there is always turkey; its skin golden and and slightly crisp, its meat moist, juicy,

Mom and Little Bro - now you know who wears the pants in the family

and cooked to perfection. The chestnut colored gravy is never lumpy and has a hint of red wine. She doesn’t like what is the best part of the meal for the rest of us, the unparalleled apple, cranberry stuffing. It took years but we finally convinced her to make double the recipe so we wouldn’t fight over the minuscule portions. Side dishes are always the same: rice and sausage casserole, brussel sprouts with bacon and brown sugar  whipped sweet potatoes. She always makes her own pumpkin pie and ends the meal with lefse, a potato crepe delicacy from her norwegian homeland. For over four decades this has been my mother’s Thanksgiving dinner and we, her family and friends, have eager awaited its annual debut.

I have been married nearly twenty-three years and only cooked Thanksgiving twice. The first time, in addition to my parents and siblings, I hosted a large contingent of my husband’s family who had flown across the country in celebration of the baptismal of our youngest son. My mother graciously wrote down her memorized recipes but failed to explain the exact measurements of “pinch” of this and a “dash” of that. The cafe-au-lait colored gravy was lumpy because she forgot to share her secret ingredient-a norwegian browning and smoothing sauce. It wasn’t until I was about to pull the turkey out of the oven when she pointed out that I had cooked it up side down. My sister, bless her heart, explained that upside down cooking was all the rage–makes the breast meat more juicy. She was right, it did. But the bird looked pale and anemic on the outside. Its skin had not gotten the golden glow my mother’s always boasted. The dessert was perfect though because she had brought her famous pumpkin pie and delicious lefse.

The second time I was in charge of Thanksgiving dinner was a few years ago. My mother had spent the fall with an undiagnosed stomach ailment. She couldn’t eat without horrible bouts of nauseous and diarrhea. Test after test, they couldn’t figure it out. Her stomach ballooned like some poor starving child in Africa. We were worried and then even more so when she asked me to cook the meal. This time I made sure to cook the turkey right side up, and included drops of her norwegian magic potion to the gravy which turned out just the way she cooked. Even the pumpkin pie looked inviting.

But it was the lefse that offered the biggest challenge. When I asked Mom for her recipe she hemmed and hawed.

“Come on, you’re going to have to pass the tradition down sometime,” I argued.

“Lefse is very difficult to make. It requires special equipment and my recipe is written in Norwegian,” she explained. She offered to make it but it was clear she was too ill to do much of anything. Finally, in a moment of weakness she handed me a phone number.

‘What’s this?”

“It’s the number for the Norwegian bakery where I order the lefse every year.”

“What? You don’t make it from scratch?”

“Are you kidding? Do you know how hard it is to get it right? Ask for IngerBritt, she knows me. She’ll

take care of you.”

Now, Thanksgiving is a family affair. I make the rice casserole, my brother makes the sweet potatoes, and my son makes the pumpkin pie. Turkey is cooked by whom ever is hosting with detailed instructions of which side is the right side up. My mother is still in charge of the lefse though. Some traditions just can’t be passed down.

What’s A Good Mother To Do?

This blog was originally posted on BlogHer.

I’ve been good mother. I done what I can to keep my children safe. They eat mostly organic fruits and vegetables, and tuna only occasionally. They bike with their helmets and usually with me. School maybe only eight blocks away but I would never let them go alone. They wear

The Good Mother's Reward

shin guards and sunblock. They know our emergency earthquake plan and have memorized their out-of-state relatives’ phone numbers. They don’t have mercury fillings and I try to keep the x-rays down to a minimum. When it was time to vaccinate, I did, but on a much slower schedule to reduce lingering risk.  When they are sick, which is rare because I keep them healthy with regular doses of vitamin C, vitamin D, and a variety of my favorite chinese herbs, I tend to them with the focus of mother lion protecting her cubs. I try not to hover but they tell me they can hear my helicopter even in the dead of night when I insist on leaving their doors open just in case they need me.

But let me tell you, this swine flu thing has me stumped. The news is replete with stories of healthy people who are dying, pregnant mothers who have suffered months in comas, children who suffer needlessly. Just vaccinate we are told and all will be well. Then of course the internet is filled with horror stories of the risks of vaccination. “The manufacturer has not done enough testing.” “The last swine flu vaccination actually killed people.” “It’s a conspiracy!” one email declared. “The government is in cahoots with the pharmaceutical companies in an effort to boost sales.” And by the way, you can’t call it swine flu anymore, its H1N1(the new designation advocated on behalf of the pork industry whose lobbyists worried the negative association would affect their sales: score another one for the conspiracy theorists).

The media has me in a tizzy. Do I vaccinate my children even though the serum has not been fully tested? Do I risk the chance that they will get this horrible disease? And then, I learn there isn’t even enough vaccination to go around. A recent article in the New York Times declared that good mothers vaccinate but limited supplies are rendering we good mothers failures because we can’t properly care for our little angels.

You can imagine my deep anxiety when not one but two of my children recently came home complaining of aches and pains. First, my son showed up one afternoon having skipped his cross country practice declaring he wasn’t “feeling too hot.” He had a fever of 103. I sent him to his room where he spent the next four days battling a high fever, a sore throat, a headache, and a mild cough. He returned to school on the fifth day, fever free but still coughing and weak. His illness reminded me of the flu the entire family had three years before. Horrible, but not life threatening.

A week later, my daughter complained of a sore throat and earache. She was also nauseous and suffered mild diarrhea. She too stayed home for four days. She never had a fever but was uncomfortable. In both cases, the doctor diagnosed H1N1. She told us that it was a waste of time to get a blood test. In 100% of the cases her office had sent to the CDC for testing in the past month, no matter the symptoms, the patients had Swine Flu. “If you are sick right now, you have it,” was our doctor’s conclusion.

Both my son and daughter survived the H1N1. They are weak and tired but they’ll live.   The good news is my youngest son has not gotten sick – yet. Do I vaccinate him now? Do I wait to see if he will get it? What if something really bad happens? What if he is the one in a thousand? Tell me, what’s a good mother to do?