Our Generation's Women

Generation X's women. The women in our generation have some major identity traps to slog through. Here's an example. Since I was a young child, people emphasized to me that I would go to college, that I could be whatever I wanted to be, that the idea of being a housewife was totally not cool, that if I learned how to be domestic, it would be used against me, AND that I would be a mother, and a great mother, especially since I had a great mother and since I was a teacher, well educated, socially and environmentally conscious, etc. etc.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the Lean-In/Opt Out idea around career and parenting. I've been working up to reading Lean In. This debate is interesting to me, but bigger than that, on my mind are the visions of future that we grow up with and how that shapes our choices. How we were so liberated compared to the women before us, but we have liberated ourselves into new boxes.

I find myself at home (mostly) with a toddler, working about two days a week, which pays for the student loans I needed to get a masters degree, in order to dedicate myself to teaching. I'm not teaching (officially) now, and while it may be a blip in the big picture of my career, what if it wasn't? Why would it have been so wrong for me to plan for being a mom? Why do people scoff at those who have the goal of being a stay-at-home parent? Sure, I might feel ready to go back to work after a few years, but it will be hard to feel I'm giving my child enough time after a full day, a full week of work. Even parents of school-aged children find it hard to do everything. What if someone's career goal was to be the best mom ever? Why has my generation set that up as being so wrong?

Yesterday I worked what would be a regular shift that I'd potentially be going back to next fall, and I was gone from 7:30-5:15 (with transport time and rush hour traffic). That seems like an awfully long time to be away from a toddler. Neither my husband or I have the types of jobs where we can adjust our own schedules or cut back by one day. Working part time may not be an option for me next year. These must be the types of obstacles discussed in the Lean In conversation. Oh, also, there's the fact that an executive assistant and a  teacher's salary do not pay for full time child care, housecleaning, professional cook, et al. Something has to give. I wonder what it will be.

Instead of complaining about the details of my life, it was my intention to express that these hard decisions are not part of the equation when dreaming of your future life as a mother/professional woman/wife/independent superstar. Oh, and don't even get me started on the notion of staying fit and svelte, keeping your marriage exciting, and perhaps having a hobby. Writing a book? Hmm. A big fat advance would do the job.

Some women who grew up with the ideas that I did  have chosen not to have kids. This is a more and more common choice these days, which I think is grand, for a few reasons. Mostly, when people are CHOOSING intentionally what they want in their lives, everyone is happier. This is made easier by a society that puts a bit less pressure on baby making than it used to do. Ideally, we all have the right AND ability to choose to make our lives our own. That, of course, is predicated on the assumption that we are able to get what we want, without life choosing for us.

Some women in my generation have chosen to focus on their careers early, and put kids off for later. Some of them were in the right situation at the right time, everything fell into place, they had a flexible job, a partner, financial security, and they went ahead and had those kids. Others, like me, have most, but not all of these elements (we are still renting and financially, we could be in a much better place). Others who dreamed of a family have not had all of these elements at the right time, were without a partner or so entrenched in work they didn't see a way out, looked up and noticed that time had passed them by, and are not having kids, not so much as an intentional choice, but because of circumstances.

In some studies I read, student loans were a reason that some people chose not to have kids. I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but now that we have a kid AND our substantial student loans, I can see the reasoning. We will be paying ours off forever; how will we help our own kid with college?

These dilemmas were not in my "Barbie Dream House" pretend scenarios, or even in my college "what will I major in and how will I spend my life" quanderies. We were given the impression that if we worked hard for ourselves, lived independently and not for some man, built up a career, then we would find the balance when we were ready to have kids. Maybe I still will, but let me tell you, this isn't exactly what I thought I'd be thinking right now.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. How did you envision your life in regards to career and family? How does it compare to your vision?

To Be Continued.....

Linguistic Nerd Mama

Hello. I'm going to enter into linguistic nerdiness and catalog all of Ollin's current words, mostly because it would be fun to look back after a while and remember which words he started with, but a little bit because I want to make sure I'm actually understanding him as much as possible. I only listed words that he has said in more than one situation, to show that he could apply the new language. Sorry, I'm not feeling nerdy enough to use the phonetic alphabet.
anss                ant
app                 apple
ah da              all done
baybeee          baby
ball                  ball
bzzzzz              bee
bike                 bike
bullebulle         blueberry
buk                 book
buud                bird
cock                clock, sometimes truck & quack
dock               duck
cack                quack
coe                 crow
dahh               down
foof                 food
hanna              hands
hanga              hanger, hang up
hemmut           helmet
humma            hummingbird
hop                  grasshopper
hug                  hug
shish                fish
mwa!               kiss
mama              Mama (finally!)
mehh               more (used to be nunuNUnununu)
peeez               please
pee                 pee (accompanied by a sss sound)
popp               Papa
pip                  pencil
payp                 paper
poop               poop
push                push
pull                  pull
fuafua              soft (interestingly, the Japanese word for soft, which I mentioned once)
pida                spider (sign is a little pinching motion above his head)
shyaddaahh!   (I have no idea. Sit down? Fall down? Shut up? JK, he's never heard the last.)
tall                   tall
dis, dat            this, that
chuck              truck
wawa              water

According to his pediatrician, around this time, Ollin should start using two or three word phrases. He's not doing this yet, but I'm not worried. This is his spoken/expressive language so far, but his receptive language is (in my biased opinion), much more developed. He understands multiple step instructions, new concepts, and that Mama and Papa are actually Shannon and Willow. I want to reread my language acquisition books from the perspective of new language learning, now that I'm a mom. I'm curious how teaching some basic signs has affected his spoken language, if at all. No way to know for sure, but I think it has helped him feel confident in expressing himself. He usually uses one or the other, but not both the sign and the word.

On Not Going Back To Work This Week

As all my cohorts drag their sun-weary bodies out of bed and slog through their semi-familiar morning routine, I'm not going back to work today. I wondered how I'd feel about this, but right now I don't feel much except for fine. A tad anxious about income, but mostly fine, free, happy and like it's every other summer day. Maybe next week when all the students return to school, I'll feel a pang, or maybe not. Really, I think I'll be most affected my first day of subbing, when I'm actually returning, but in such a different way than I had been teaching.

I look forward to exploring the district from different perspectives, getting into new schools and teaching different ages. This also sounds a bit overwhelming, so I'll ease into it. Actually, the at-risk middle/high school (where many of my former students ended up) sounds more do-able than, say, kindergarten. We'll see. I think I'll work my way down to younger kids gradually. I'd like to try subbing at PACE, a place for pregnant and parenting teens, the Arts Academy, as well as charter schools and alternative programs that our district offers. I'll find the right number of days to work to pay the bills, and I'll make the adjustments needed for the nanny-share we are entering into, without worrying about needing to  leave O every day.

I will miss being a part of a team. The isolation may be hard for me, but I bet I'll reach out and stay connected with my old cohort. And I get to spend most of this year watching my son grow up--being the main influence in his life, like, most of the hours of the day. For that, I am incredibly thankful.

Experiments in Domesticity (with recipes) Part I

Shannon didn't marry me because of my potentiality as a housewife. I never really valued domestic skills, as I always thought they would be a trap into traditional gender roles that I rejected. Sure, I started to see the value of being crafty over the years, but I never fully embraced it.  But here I am, at home while he works, caring for our son and our home (and enjoying it while it lasts). 
Overall, the biggest teacher this summer is pacing. Every day I clean the kitchen, and every day it gets messy again. Some days I fight that and feel very frustrated, other days I embrace it as the zen practice it is. The high chair gets used every few hours, gets dirty every time and needs to be cleaned every time. I AM starting to create systems for myself, which is something I think has always made Shannon crazy: he has a system for everything, from recycling to keeping receipts, and I go over the same issue--losing something, cluttering a drawer, etc.--repeatedly without ever thinking I need a system. Finally, it's the sheer amount of "time-on-task" that is forcing me to figure out systems. And it feels great! 
There are some areas that I am getting better at, and while it feels a little silly to share my newly-acquired knowledge with people who figured it out long ago, I consider myself a student displaying my own work (and I suppose, the teacher facilitating the learning as well...) So while I have a long way to come in the areas of sewing, de-cluttering and ironing, here are some of my recent accomplishments, mostly in the kitchen: (OH, PS: I'd like to think that my life experience thus far has informed some of my creations, for instance, my time in Japan has definitely influenced my kitchen work.)

The O-Maki: a kid-friendly "sushi" roll that is fun to make and eat

Ingredients: 
1 egg
yogurt (whole milk, organic--for kiddos)
cucumber
rice (optional, small amount)

Directions: using a small pan (cast-iron works well) and some chopsticks, crack an egg and whip it smoothly as the pan heats. Use the chopsticks to pull the egg back from the edges, cover and cook mini-omelet on low heat.  Chop cucumbers into thin strips. Pick up little omelet with chopsticks and lay it on a flat surface. spread with yogurt. Spread cucumbers along the middle, all the way to the edge. Add small amount of rice (makes it harder to keep together). Tightly roll egg up. Slice into small sushi-sized pieces. 
Variations include almost anything: avocado, cream cheese, cooked carrots, canned tuna or salmon, quinoa, etc.)

Cross-cultural O-maki: 
Ingredients: 
corn tortilla (refrigerated versions do not contain as many preservatives)
cream cheese
avocado
1 egg

Warm tortilla, cook egg as above and slice into strips, spread cream cheese on tortilla, lay avocado in a strip through the middle, add egg strips, roll tightly, slice.


Garden-Fresh Recipes: 

Eggplant casserole
Eggplant (from someone's garden)
1 fresh tomato
tomato sauce (with some flavor, either made by you from last year, or store-bought
lunch meat or proscuitto
polenta (easy option: the polenta sold in a tube in various flavors)
fresh basil
mozzarella
salt
olive oil
Optional: ricotta, provolone, or cream cheese to fill spaces)

Slice and "sweat" the eggplant--very thin slices, possibly with a mandarin slicer. Salt it on a rack and let it sit until it starts to sweat. Wipe dry. Layer ingredients in an oiled pan, starting with polenta (already cooked), then eggplant, then other ingredients how you choose. Most tomatoes will make it watery, so use sparingly. Top with cheese.  Bake at 400 degrees, covering with tin foil halfway through. Eat when eggplant pieces feel cooked, no longer rubbery. (Option: grill or saute eggplant first, then cook for a shorter time.) 

No-Cook Hot Day Asian Noodles

Ingredients: 
Rice Noodles
Bottled Peanut (or Pad Thai) sauce
2 cups rotisserie chicken, shredded 
2 cups fresh spinach
green onions or cilantro, depending on taste
sesame seeds (optional)
fish sauce, soy sauce, hot sauce, whatever you like to enhance your bottled sauce. 

This is a no-cook dish if you boil water in a kettle and pour it over the rice noodles in a glass bowl, then let it sit for 7-8 minutes. Put spinach in just before you strain the noodles. Toss noodles with spinach, add peanut sauce, add chicken, add green onions/cilantro. Serve warm or cold. 


Other domestic discoveries: 
These tricks I have learned are probably quite obvious to most people. But maybe there is someone out there with domestic inclinations as hopeless as mine, and maybe I am saving them a few minutes or one more frustrating day...

•  I try to have times that it is OK for the kitchen, living room, house to be a bit cluttered. Mid-project cleaning is for the birds! While I'm learning to be less messy, I get too distracted when I worry too much about the mess while I'm in the midst of something. Cleaning up right before my husband comes home or before going out feels more satisfying.
• I have a number of "yes" places for a toddler. A balcony can be a safe place with proper supervision and the right things to do. One or more kitchen cabinets can be a lifesaver to just say yes to (there are tupperware lids under our rug every day. We just look for them there). A small broom can come in handy as a toy... Allow more help than is really helpful. 
• I have learned to plan high chair time strategically. Recently, I've discovered that O can spend much longer than I had thought in his high chair if he has fun foods, a toy, or just music on in the background. I don't leave him here forever, but if he's content, it allows me to clean up the kitchen after a meal, finish unloading the dishwasher, or finish cooking something.
• I start prepping dinner at lunch time. Never thought I'd say that. It relieves the hardest part of the day: pre-dinner, when O is getting tired or hungry, I am too, and Shannon has just come home to feel torn between snuggling his kid and getting some down time after a hard day. 
• I can clean the bathroom or fold laundry while O is in the bathtub. 
• I have started to save the salad greens plastic containers for future salad greens, toys, bathroom organizers, outside scoopers, etc.
• Other people have told me that in the kitchen I should try these things: prep more than one meal at a time, double recipes and freeze half, clean while cooking (you know how I feel about that), keep a bowl for garbage/compost on the counter to make less trips to the trash/compost, shop smart and have the ingredients for some basic meals at all times. Also, someone's suggestion was pre-shift cocktails. That one sounds dangerous to me, but I should probably test it. 
• Please feel free to comment here on my blog (smileyface) and leave your suggestions for domestic success. 

Summer Vignettes Begun

Vignette is a word that originally meant "something that may be written on a vine-leaf." (Wikipedia) --followed by about 15 varied uses for this little French word.

For me, it's a way to capture what may be stream-of-conscience, little thoughts that I don't want to slip away. Now that summer is here, I might actually have the time to hold onto these thoughts. A post on Facebook feels too self-important, personal, or trivial (and I don't want to end up as someone's example in an "are you THAT kind of Facebook poster" survey). For example:

*I love how, upon getting down from his high chair, O will survey the damage he has caused, pointing and saying NananananNANAnana, and occasionally picking up an especially nice morsel to re-eat. 

*I love how he scrunches up his face when he's trying to smile, when he's aware that he's smiling, rather than just smiling out of the joy of new discoveries. 

*Everything is temporary. When a child goes through phases, it's sometime hard to see them as a phase. I tend to think "Oh, he's grown out of sleeping in the car" or "oh, I guess we're done with macaroni and cheese." I need to remember to be flexible, and try these items again, not give up on them. Today, we had a one-nap day that went from a few hours at the zoo (THANK YOU TIAs for our membership that makes a few hours reasonable), to falling asleep in the car (what? He can still do that?) to me going through a Starbucks drive-through to kill some time, to a successful transfer from car seat to bed! I'm thankful that he can grow in and out of these things.

*When I'm woken up early in the morning, I easily decide to take a nap at the same time as my toddler, but in order to get successfully to nap-time, I must ingest enough caffeine that a nap becomes out of reach. Elusive. A mirage. (Easy solution= go to bed earlier. Easier said than done.)

*I'm not one to covet. But I'd like to have a gene or magic trick, whatever it takes, to make my house even an iota of the clean-level of our superhero (pregnant) moms' group host. It might take a whole personality augmentation. Recently, we've had a fruit fly outbreak. I've become cleaner, for sure, and obsessed with my super-secret guilty pleasure, the counter wipe (Seventh Generation, but still surely killing all the good bacteria with the bad). But I cannot seem to achieve even a bit of the shiny floor, glistening (and clutter-free) table top, or fly-free environment that I experience at her house. Now I don't actually want to be a neat-freak, I'm glad that my priorities are 
on fun, flavor and, well, occasionally blogging, but it would be nice if the hours I spend cleaning up the kitchen and the same high-chair messes actually produced a cleaner home. Ah, well.

*Ollin keeps getting more fun. I used to think it would be sad to leave behind baby-ness, but every day is a new adventure with a cooler, more interactive, more intense, expressive, amazing little boy. I cannot get enough. From increasing sign language, to dancing, to singing, to watering the garden, to understanding exactly what we are saying and responding (to the point that we realize we need to really watch what we are saying), it certainly doesn't allow me time to miss the tiny baby that I started with. 

Okay. Those are your paragraphs-on-a-grape-leaf. 



Upcoming posts: The Garden Mafia, Summer Recipes, Toddler Adventures...

A Simple, Hard-To-Say Truth

Hi. I'm a working mom. Even though I worked part-time last year, I still worked five days a week. Even though I just decided to take next year off from my regularly scheduled work, I will still be working. Amazingly, as a teacher, I have most of the summer as a reprieve from working to focus on time with my son. Working moms have a hard balancing act, obviously, but I never really understood how hard until I became one.

The choices we make. Are very personal. Are easy for others to judge. Are really, truly our own. Are not always the best ones, even when we try really hard. Do I wish I had the ability to stay home the first three, four, five years of my son's life? Sure, in many ways. The idea scares me, too, as much of my identity is wrapped up in my career. Or even just interacting on a professional level, if I had a different career. So, if given the choice, I don't know that I would want to stay home full-time for that long.

But here's the truth I recently admitted: my son does better when I'm home. Don't get me wrong, we've had some wonderful care-providers who have loved him fully, but I'm Mama. He has gradually transitioned to not having milk while I'm gone. That's fine, and maybe even natural, though I fought it by pumping even when it was hard and unproductive and getting his nanny to push the milk whatever way possible--sippy cup, in food, etc. But now I'm home, and he gets as much milk as he wants. During the hours I used to be gone, he nurses at least twice. So, he's getting the nutrition from milk AND food, and many may say he doesn't NEED the milk, but it's certainly healthy for him.

And sleep. He's finally getting on a schedule that was not happening while I was working. The only way for our nanny and my parents to get him to sleep was by going for a long walk. This made for an interesting winter. It made for a frustrated nanny many times, until she just succumbed to it and planned accordingly. My mom just looked at it as a way to get in all of her daily steps.

Now I'm able to work out the sleep issues that have built up, from bedtime to nap time. One informs the other. The chicken and the egg. Not that we are done. Currently I am going back and forth between a one-nap day and a two-nap day, depending on when he awakes. 

That my son does better when I'm home must be the most obvious statement in the world to some of you. But we who work, while we try hard to see the situation for what it is, do everything we can to soften transitions, and see the big picture as well, sometimes justify our need or choice to work over what is best for our kid. I am still grappling with this and I'm not done. Down the line, there are probably elements where I'll be proud for O to see me with a career, see my values played out in my work, when he has a teacher, for him to recognize that his mama is also a teacher to other kids. Down the line, maybe without knowing what I'm missing, I'll recognize that O is more well-rounded when his mama is well-rounded, intellectually stimulated and in touch with the world, not isolated or unfamiliar with how to talk to adults. For right now, I am simply going to enjoy every moment of these three months being at home, for him and with him.

Summer Begins... With a Solid Plan for Next Year

It hasn't really hit me yet, but I am finished with teaching for three months, and finished with five-day-a-week, responsible for my own classroom and curriculum gig--for a year! Next year, I'm taking leave of absence to be home with O more, and I'm planning to substitute in the district. The goal is to work two or three days a week, mostly in my own school, and still make as much money as I made last year, after childcare expenses. Finally, the solution to my work-life-balance with child dilemma.

Subbing will be a great challenge for me. I say "great" because, while I never intended to sub--it always sounded miserable, I hate seeing the way students treat a sub, my strength has always been with building longer-term relationships with students--I believe it will make me a better teacher. The areas of weakness I currently recognize in my teacher-self are the same aspects I will have to nail to survive as a sub: being concise, making a strong first impression, letting go of what is not important, and being entertaining. Since I value my teacher-identity, I really do want to improve in these areas.

You see, a good teacher shouldn't only entertain, but kids certainly remember, relax, and learn more from a teacher who is funny and easy to listen to. Therefore, my public-speaking skills will need improvement, in the same way that people work to improve on them when their success does not rely on a captive audience. I want to be FUNNY, but I'll shoot for entertaining. Some students told me a long time ago that I'm funniest when I try not to be. Even though it may have been a jab, no one, aside from stand-up comics or SNL cast members, is really funny when they are trying too hard.

I want to make a strong first impression. I read that the first 10 words out of a sub's mouth will set the tone for the whole day. This won't be too hard for me, because I know how to be the alpha in the room, but I usually develop that over a longer period of time, so I will be very conscious of how this goes.

Being concise. I hate hearing myself talk too much when I know that kids are tuning out. When I tell stories, or get animated, or get off-topic, they refocus, of course. I want to keep it short and make the words I say COUNT. That is a skill for every aspect of my life, but here's a chance to practice and receive immediate feedback.

Letting go the little stuff and focusing on what is most important will be essential as a sub. I'm not very good about this in general; I dwell on the wrong things or accidentally get into power struggles that serve no one in the class. Without knowing everyone's names, their actual assigned seats, the general tone of the room, I won't be able to worry about the little things. I got some advice from a professional sub to present my three expectations at the beginning, then stick to those three things and let the others go. What are my three things ...

Last, or perhaps first, I think that a good way for a sub to make an impact is to have some stories ready to share, and use them strategically. When the students are at risk of tuning out, as incentive to get 15 minutes of work done, as a way to hook into engagement, etc.

Really, what I want is to be as engaging as a TED talk presenter! Does anyone have more great wisdom for me?