To Hell With Her, Caitlin Flanagan Is Fired from the New Yorker

But what if it's a conspiracy? It goes something like this:

Caitlin Flanagan writes this article for the New Yorker.

Mary Poppins opens in New York City on Broadway.

New Yorker dismisses Caitlin Flanagan.

All theories aside, while I do not revel in anyone losing their job, I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief that this may mean there will be one less voice in the media condemning us for the way we choose to combine our work and parenting responsibilities.

To hell with all that. But in a good way.

A Couple of Things To Consider About Thanksgiving

Tub Tutor: Thanksgiving


Keep in mind that perfection just isn't worth it. Especially if you end up using broccoli as a loofah.

Thanksgiving Moment


If you will be observing Thanksgiving, we hope you have an impefectly happy one!

Cheers or Jeers? Parents and Booze- Cosmopolitan Moms Article

Aviva and I have long joked about to word M.O.M standing for the words, My Own Margarita. Well, it seems like we are not alone in this given a recent article in the New York Times dubbed "Cosmopolitan Moms" which talks about moms having cocktails during playdates.

And what an uproar ensued from that NYT piece. I have read commentary all over the blogosphere ranging from "so what it's not a big deal" to "these moms are risking the safety of their kids by drinking on the job"

Certainly there will be folks concerned about this because they themselves have had a history, whether it be living with an alcoholic or drinking too much themselves. And there are those who aren't able to figure out when enough is enough. I realize there are life experiences which determine our own position about the when, how, why, where and how of booze and the decisions we will make as parents for what works in our own families.

I'm going to go out on a limb and share my belief that the average parent understands not to get behind the wheel of a car and begin schlepping their children to soccer practice after they have had a couple of drinks. I also believe that when kids see a parent having a social drink,in moderation, they will then have an idea of what context social drinking can occur and that it is possible to drink responsibly.

The same is true for children when they see drinking done in a context of a religious observance. The emphasis is places upon the "why" of drinking and may also create an opportunity for parents to teach kids about how alcohol may be incorporated into some religious practices. When kids learn that booze is just not associated with *partying* there is a value in that lesson which pays out later in life.

I'd prefer my kids learn about imbibing before they get to middleschool/highschool and definitely before college. I remember the kids at my college who didn't ever get exposed to drinking were the ones going to the ER because they had succumbed to alcohol poisoning. They didn't have any idea about what drinking could do and what it meant to do it in moderation.

Another point of the article in the NYT may have been to alert us to the possibility that moms are so stressed out that they may be self medicating with booze. Which of course only ads to the stress in the long run because if you get hooked on booze as a way to deal with the stress, then you end up in a viscious cycle and the booze addiction becomes another stress in your life on top of everything else that you were trying to forget while drinking.

However it seems quiete a few moms felt they have been unduly attacked for just wanting to unwind.

So tell me are you shaken up about parents drinking or do you wish everyone would just stop stirring things up?

And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

This morning I was watching The People's Court. Yes, I admit it. Despite the fact that Judge Wapner is no longer presiding, I'd plunk right down next to Rain Man and watch. But I digress...

What I noticed this morning was a commercial for Triaminic. Am I the last mom to find out that Triaminic is "The Medicine of Motherhood"? How did this escape me for 10 years? I was shocked! Did all of you realize moms have an "official" medicine?

Oh wait, you choosy moms probably may not have noticed because, like me, you have had your nose inserted in a peanut butter jar.

Is there a medicine for fatherhood too? What about grandparents?

Jump and Shout for Play!

The American Academy of Pediatrics has a new report out,"The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds." The AAP report concludes that play is not only healthy but, in fact, essential for helping children reach social, emotional, and cognitive developmental milestones It is also a means by which children can manage stress and become resilient.

If you've read our book, our blog and/or heard us give a talk , then you already know we offer up our own brand of a prescription for the importance of play and parent-child bonds on several levels. We suggest a need for unstructured time, we recommend having fun together as a family, we emphasize laughter with your children and we relate it all to the concept that the more pleasure (and less guilt) you feel as a parent, the more confident you will feel about your parenting practices!

The AAP sets standards that are recognized on a professional level. The best interests of our children are expressed and protected from the grass roots level - us: parents, providers, teachers, grandparents. However, now that we have this "research" to back us up, maybe we can get others to listen and, better yet, act!

While we have the power of the AAP behind us, what steps can we take to protect fun for our kids, and ourselves? How can we use the AAP report as leverage in our schools, community, place of employment and local government?

Why not begin a movement in your community to address these issues? If you are thinking "Why?" Consider:
Is recess disappearing at your child's school?

Are electives like PE, art or music being sqeezed out?

Are you working so many hours so you have no time to play?

Why not do some sleuthing and find out if you have a local government representative who supports what you think is important, make an appointment to visit, or send them a letter or email asking for what you would like to see happen next. Read the AAP report and see if there is anything in it that could be used to persuade your employer to be more family friendly (i.e. cutting back some hours so employees can have more time to spend with their family). Hey, why not stick it on the break room bulletin board, see if it generates any discussion,

Parents, especially mothers, are expected to protect and stand up for the rights of children so don't be afraid to gather resources and make a statement for something you know feels right to you. Our needs are valid!

Not sure how to begin? Ask us!

Or if you are aware of something going on in your school, community or local governement, tell us more!

Thanks, but... No Thanks! A Parentopia Reader In a Parental Pressure Cooker

What we want to know is, do you agree with our reader and schools need to put a fork in it, because you are feeling "done" with serving it up and dishing it out? or Do you feel our reader just has her feathers ruffled and should simmer down?

Dear Aviva and Devra:

What is left for the families to do? I am feeling guilty for not wanting to participate in all these "celebrations" around the holidays. Let me just talk about one of them that is on my mind right now. Thanksgiving.

How many Thanksgiving dinners does it take to make sure that the holiday has been sufficiently celebrated? It sounds like one of those bad lightbulb jokes, but I am freakin' serious!

My daughter's class is having their annual 5th grade Thanksgiving potluck dinner for students and their families after school next week. I was told by the organizer that I must cook corn and and bring it- "In a large bowl". My other daughter's 2nd grade class is also having an organized Thanksgiving feast during class time in their class room on a different day and families are expected to attend this too.

In addition to these individual classroom celebration dinners, the school is offering a Thanksgiving "feast" in the cafeteria, on yet a different day, and encouraging parents to attend and eat lunch with their child.

Don't even get me started on what my son's school expects, he is in middle school and I haven't even gotten The Word, but I can only imagine it's gonna involve either cooking, shopping and more. More time from my work, more time from my family preparing to bring this stuff to school. Whatever. I'm stressed just thinking about it.

By the time Thanksgiving actually gets here, we will have already eaten "Thanksgiving dinner" three times. Enough already!

I can appreciate the enthusiasm of the schools, but it really seems to serve no purpose, other than to dilute the importance of the FAMILY Thanksgiving meal. It feels like the school is pushing to make the whole community the "family". What about the actual family? You know ,the one I live with?

This is all just more pressure for parents to perform and live up to the standards that everyone else is setting for us regarding how we should celebrate our holidays. If we choose not participate in these duplicate holiday events, our children feel left out and we have even more pressure not to let our kids down. Parents have enough pressure already. Why do we need to celebrate Thanksgiving 4 times in a week? It's enough for me to want to turn the Mayflower around and call it all off!

If schools want to emphasize the importance of Thanksgiving, then they should find alternate ways to do this that are more in line with their educational goals, and not duplicate what the families are already doing. As it is, they are just diluting the meaning of holidays and needlessly stressing parents out. Thanksgiving used to be my favorite holiday. Now I am starting to dread it along with the endless "to do" list that makes me dread Christmas. It's all just too much. Let's give it back to the families.

Signed,
A big overstuffed turkey

Take Your Children To Vote Day- November 7

According to Parents Call For Action, parents with children under 18 consist of over one third of the potential voters in the United States. By contrast senior citizens make up 16%. But in that same poll, it was discovered that parents by a 2:1 margin agreed with the statement "Public officials don't care what parents like me think".

Maybe it does seem like public officials don't listen to us as much as we would like them too, but if we want our voices heard, we need to vote.

Vote=Voice

Take your child and go to the polls. Show your children what it means to exercise your right to vote and let those politicians hear you as you pull that lever.

Here is some more information about parents, kids and voting.

Mom Feels Lousy About Daughter Having Head Lice

Dear Devra and Aviva,
I feel like the worst parent in the world. My 6 year old daughter was complaining over the weekend that her head "itched." I thought it was because winter is approaching and our forced air heating was making her scalp dry. Well, today we got a note home from school saying she has head lice! I feel like crap that I assumed she had a dry scalp problem when in fact she had insects harboring in her hair! Ewwww. What do I do about this terrible guilt I feel that not only did my lack of action contribute to my child being totally miserable and a bit traumatized, but the school think I am a loser mom too. Why didn't I pay more attention? I feel like I really screwed up. I have a really bad case of Mommy Guilt right now. Do you have something you can give me for this?

Signed,
Lousy Mom with formerly Lousy Kid (yes, she is cured at least I did that right.)


Dear Mommy Guilt Sufferer:

Lice really is what is lousy, not your parenting. Anyone could have had this happen to their kid. It is a myth that a lapse in cleanliness or poor living conditions have much to do with who ends up with head lice. Lice are an equal opportunity infester.

We know a family who's son got head lice and his parents missed it as they thought he was just itchy from not showering for three weeks while he was at summer camp. Turned out their son could have been the inspiration behind the lesser known Vanilla Ice song, "Lice, Lice Baby, Too Gross, Too Gross"

When we are faced with a situation that makes us feel like lousy parents, sometimes the best antidote is to read about someone else's experience and realize we aren't being singled out as bad parents, but we are now included in a rite of parental passage.

One of our favorite pieces ever written about the Head Lice and Parenting was penned by Marion Winik and first appeared in her book "The Lunch-Box Chronicles: Notes From The Parenting Underground". Here it is for purpose of Mommy Guilt Relief for parents (and their lousy kids) everywhere!


Are your kids scratching their heads? Welcome to phase one of lice eradication.


By Marion Winik

There are things we just don't talk about in polite company. There are subjects one doesn't broach at the dinner table. Take bodily vermin, for example. A few months ago, I couldn't have pictured myself sipping a post-prandial cup of coffee and Sambuca at a friend's house, chitchatting about the efficacy of various techniques for ridding one's household of lice and their dastardly offspring, nits, the latter almost as invisible as they are invincible. But as a member of the ever-growing group of Austin parents who know more about this subject than they ever dreamed possible or necessary, that's exactly what I was doing. And to think that I once thought of nit-picking as just a word with an amusing etymology.

My Sambuca-sipping friends and I have been dealing with this lice thing for quite some time now. Long enough that we, like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her study of death and grieving, were able to identify several distinct phases a person typically goes through in coming to terms with this experience. Kubler-Ross has five phases; we came up with ten. But after all, head lice are so much more complex than death.

Phase 1: Disbelief. You get a call from your child's school or day care center or perhaps from the parent of a friend warning you, in apologetic tones, that your little one may have head lice. You must check for nits. You pay absolutely no attention as they go on to describe the procedure for doing so since you know this simply is not possible. No one in the history of your family has ever had head lice. No one you know has ever had head lice. Maybe people who live on the streets of Bombay, poor things, but not your child.

Phase 2: Humiliation. Shortly after this phone call, you observe the aforementioned child scratching his or her head. The first time, you tell yourself it's the creme rinse you're using or too much chlorine in the pool. However, as the scratching becomes more frequent and vigorous, you can no longer deny the truth. He has head lice. Unbelievable. How did they say you were supposed to check? Didn't they mention some special shampoo? Oh God, the mortification at the drugstore. Not to mention the school and the neighbors and everyone who came to that slumber party. What about those parents who so kindly kept your kids overnight so you could go to Antone's last weekend? Do you really have to call them, too? Now everyone will think your family has third-world hygiene practices and eats meat out of cans.

Phase 3: Acceptance Once you know how to check for nits -- you look for a miniscule whitish bubble stuck to the hairshaft an inch or two from the scalp, usually behind the ears or at the nape of the neck -- you learn the extent of the horror. The day of the louse has dawned. You have lice, your spouse has lice, all God's chilluns have lice. If you are lucky, not so many have hatched out that you are treated to the spectacle of scores of gross brown bugs crawling all over your loved one's head.

Phase 4: Confidence. Fortunately or unfortunately, it's not just your family. It's your kids' friends, and the friends' parents, and you're all in this together. You'll find out what to do, you'll do it, and it will all soon be just a distant memory. Following the instructions on the lice kit package you buy at the grocery store, you wash all the bedding in your house in hot water and bleach. You spray the couches and pillows with the handy can. You have everyone over for a delousing party to scrub each other's hair with the shampoo and comb it out after with the plastic nit comb. See, all better. The kids are playing in the backyard, the grown-ups are inside drinking wine and cracking reassuring jokes -- we're not negligent parents after all! -- the clean sheets are back on the beds, and everything is fine.

Phase 5: Incredulity. A few days later, you're a little itchy. That awful lice shampoo probably dried out your scalp. Then you notice that all those kids sitting in front of your television watching Animaniacs are scratching, too. The beginnings of a frown appear on your face as you call one of them over, bend her head, and submit her to lice surveillance. Your frown deepens as you go through the strands of hair one by one, finding oodles of tiny bubbles, and not the Lawrence Welk kind either. Welcome back to Nit City! You reach for the phone. Anybody itching over at your house, you ask your friend, trying to remain calm. Um, I'm not sure, he replies uncertainly. Well, start checking, you say grimly. They're back.

Phase 6. Rage. Okay, now you're enraged. You're not just enraged, you're serious. You're not just serious, you're determined. You're on the horn to the doctor. Isn't there some horribly toxic prescription-only venom you can get to put an end to this plague? Why yes, there is. It's called Kwell, generic name Lindane. It comes complete with two pages of warnings in six-point type about the dire consequences of allowing a single drop of the poison to spill onto skin, eyes, cooking utensils, or the foundation of your home, with dire imprecations about applying it more than once every ten days, with disclaimers from the manufacturer about the effects of even the slightest misstep in observing these detailed precautions. You, who have been carefully purchasing pesticide-free fruits and vegetables for your precious babies since birth, set your jaw, pull on your rubber gloves, and pour the vile goop directly onto their sweet little heads. Then you drive straight to the nearest barber shop, biting your lip as the curls fall to the floor. On the way home, you have the interior of the car steam cleaned. Then you sterilize everything in the linen closet, pretend the couch is Vietnam and this can of bug spray is Agent Orange, and surreptitiously carry their favorite baseball caps out to the trash. It has not been easy, it has not been fun, but you have prevailed.

Phase 7: Blame. No! NO! NO!!!!! This has gone too far. You've done everything. EVERYTHING! And they're back again. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more namby-pamby-I'm-so-sorry-but. This time, it is not your fault. So whose fault is it? What about these friends of yours? Did they really do their bedding? Did they do the nit thing after the shampoo thing? Perhaps it's the cat. Yes, that must be it. You're all set to take the family pet to the pound when you learn that animals don't carry lice. Well, then it must be the day care center or the school or the summer camp. They aren't really washing those nap pads after all. You, however, are washing your sheets for the fiftieth time in three weeks and SOMEONE MUST PAY. Everyone is suspect: your closest relatives, your bosom buddies, your neighbors, your doctors, your public institutions, your child-care providers, everyone.

Phase 8: Craziness. While one friend is making jokes about the kids growing up to play in bands with names like the Scratching Heads and Itchy Scalp, another is deciding whether to relocate to Alaska or Vermont. Is there a listing in the almanac for head lice per capita by state? A divorced couple devises a plan whereby she keeps the kids for 10 days while he delouses his house, then he keeps them for 10 while she delouses hers. Neither grown-up can share his or her bed with anyone else during the 20-day quarantine. The purpose of this, like so many agreements forged between the divorced, seems only to torture each other. Meanwhile, someone is spraying the phone with Lysol.

Phase 9: Matter-of-Factness. By now, you can detect and dispatch a new generation of lice with no more horror than attends the slapping together of a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. You carry a high-tech forged aluminum nit comb complete with 5x magnifying glass in your back pocket at all times and are not ashamed to whip it out when you observe characteristic scratching behavior even among mere acquaintances or strangers. You can delouse your house and family in under two hours. You have 20 refills on your Kwell prescription. When considering a sleepover at the home of another group of vermin victims, the only question is this - have you already washed the bedding? Because if not, I won't bother with the shampoo until tomorrow. Lice, big deal. It could be worse.

Phase 10: Worse. Friend A's cleaning lady finds maggots in his driveway. Friend B withdraws her 3-year old from pre-school after receiving a notice regarding an outbreak of giardia. You, on the other hand, get a call from the school nurse informing you that both your kids have a contagious form of pink-eye and are being sent home immediately. Unfortunately, you can't pick them up, as you have locked the keys to the car in the trunk. What is this, the Old Testament? Are there kits at the drugstore for locusts, frogs, and boils? At least you have the teen years to look forward to, when you'll be dealing with problems you're familiar with, like unwanted pregnancy, venereal disease, and drug addiction.

Now if Marion's essay doesn't make you feel less like a louse, maybe you can get on the mailing list for when this comes on the market.