Are we really at odds with each other?

This is an age-old debate and for sure I am opening an ancient can of worms. And for some, this is probably opening up some disappearing scabs from long-since-forgotten battle wounds as well...

But I don't know why something this trivial bothers me. It leaves my working-mother-core shaking. It makes me question myself whether my being a working mother is truly ruining my children's childhood.

Guilt is a bitch.

It all started when my 11 yo was invited to a friend's house for a "playdate".

(They are probably too old to have something called "Playdate"... For lack of a universally understandable term to describe an event when a child goes to another child's house, usually against the latter child's mother's quiet wish while granting the mother of the former child, if she otherwise stays home with the child, some much needed respite, I will use this term for now).

... and the earliest train I can take does not allow me to be there in time to pick him up at the said end of playdate.

The problem with being a working mom with regarding to playdates is that: it is next to impossible for me to reciprocate. And I do feel guilty about it. I do. And I let the mothers who are kind enough to invite my non-reciprocating child to their houses know how much I appreciate it, and how guilty I feel.

You know that I work, DOWNTOWN. My kids go to a childcare facility. I am sorry. I cannot come home during lunch hour to do that. I cannot take off from work just so I can drop off my child at your house to play with your child.

I did that once already: I took a day off from work once just so I could drive my kid, in less than 5 minutes, from the daycare to your house. I know I should not expect you to offer to pick up my kids from where he is and bring him to your house. You do not owe me that. And I am totally sounding like an ungrateful bitch to some, if there is anyone out there reading this, actually.

I contemplated hiring and PAYING someone to drive that 5-minute stretch so he can have the playdate with your child. I did. Would you be terribly insulted if I asked to pay you? You would, I guess. I know the point is not the money, or how easy it is. The point is "the principle" right? That we working mothers are so used to being granted all these special treatments and considerations. We should not take it for granted. I should not even be writing about this on my blog right now.

So I guess our children will never have playdates again.

It is a shame. They apparently played quite well together and that's why you invited him back. Thank you. And sorry that we had to cancel the playdate scheduled for today.

p.s. The irony with this whole crazy shit incident is that I am so shaken with guilt, doubt and undeserved self-righteousness that I may as well go home early. Calling in sick.

I GTalked my kid to ask him what he would like for breakfast today...

As over-thinking, ironically introspective, neurotic, obsessively over-analytical as I am, this incident strikes me as seminal. SEMINAL. Mark it on the calendar.

We have all seen those cartoons, parodying the increasing importance of texting in the life of teens and even preteens, showing kids texting each other while sitting next to each other on the sofa, or kids and parents texting each other while in the car, or family members texting each other while around the table, TXT "Could you pass the salt please?"

We all laugh. Then we tsk tsk and exclaim, "What the world has come to?", while simultaneously congratulating ourselves for not being like the characters as depicted in the cartoons. And then we worry that it may become a reality. It is in some way part of reality, we begrudgingly admit to ourselves.

It happened on a Saturday morning towards the end of a school year, the rare time when we did not have any place to rush to and my son was playing the ever popular Runescape on the computer in my study. Normally, it requires a lot of yelling back and forth, impatience, frustration, foot-stomping, indignation, accusations of ingratitude and false accusations for breakfast to be served. Since I had my laptop working in the kitchen, I thought, "Hey, why not Gtalk him?"

Ping. "What do you want for breakfast?"

Ping. "What the..." "Mom, is that you?"

Ping. "LOL. What do u want for bf?"

Ping. "Pancake pls."

It soon evolved into a Q&A session where the 11 yo asked me some words he'd learned from his fellow game-players but instinctively knew were "bad words" that he should not use. First right up:

Ping. "What does Jizz mean?"

Ugh, Jesus. Why can't his father be doing this? "You don't want to know."

Ping. "It is close to jazz."

"Believe me. It is not."

Ping. "tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me"

Fine. "Have you learned reproductive organs in your health education yet?"

"No. But 6th graders did. We didn't go."

I explained that he would learn about it when he has sex education in the 6th grade. Upon that, he said, "Yikes!" in spoken language which I could hear from the kitchen.

For good measure, I emphasized that it is NOT a shortened form for when you want to say "Jesus!"

Then we moved onto:

"Mom, what does f-g mean?" "It is banned from this other site." "People would say this to me whenever I kill [their characters]."

Well, the usage originated from The World of Warcraft, I believe. "You know the word 'gay' and how we agreed that we would not use it to make fun of people?" "There's this word that is even worse than 'gay'"

"Oh. I know that word."

Me. Thinking. "How the hack does he know? Where did he hear it? And who the F called my kid that word?!"

Somehow it does not seem as lecture-y through Gtalk to make him promise he would not use this word. No matter how common an expression it has become in this game or anywhere else. It is a principle thing.

Although I can only hope that he keeps his promise when I am not around, which will happen more and more often now that he's 11 going on 30, I am glad that we had this chance to talk. So, so what it is through Gtalk?

Report from the burbs: Survived sleepover, mom vowed to never say yes again, until next time.

The boys stayed up until who knows when. I slipped into oblivion at 2 am. They were playing "Truth or Dare" but soon skipped "Truth" completely and went straight to "Dare". At 11 years of age, their "Dares" were, eh, quite lame. Not that I am complaining though. Ask me again 2 years from now, I am sure I would be guarding his bedroom door with a taser...

Posted via email from The Absence of Alternatives

Obama calls himself a Mutt and I have two!

Is it wrong to have hero worship towards a politician? Ever since the night of Nov. 4, I have been walking through the clouds. Elated, of course, but that feeling also comes from my disbelief that we actually did it. Or rather, he actually did it! And of course, we all know there is a long way ahead to deliver his promises, and truth be told, I don't expect him to be able to deliver all those promises: There are just too many issues to be solved, and the biggest elephant in the room, our economy crisis, is getting bigger every day.

However, I have to say, I am a bit miffed by our President Elect, why? Because he's brought tears to my eyes almost every day since he stepped onto that stage in Grant Park in Chicago and gave one of the most inspiring speeches that any of us have ever heard. This morning, he did it again: I am trying to keep the tears from actually falling down because that would mean crying. And that would be a ridiculous thing to do, wouldn't it? Crying over some news conference remarks?? Obama describes himself as a Mutt, in a passing remark at his first news conference as President Elect.

And I have two here!

My 10-year-old boy just confessed not long ago that he is self-conscious when we are out together because people stare. For some reason, reading this news article this morning gave me hope that my children's lives would not be as unnecessarily complicated as I imagine they will be.

The day after the election, we looked at the Exit Polls statistics on CNN and marveled (but not surprised) about the "racial" divide along the party line: not as pronounced as in the past elections (12% more of the White voters voted for McCain vs. Obama, whereas Kerry was behind by 17% among Whites in the last election. So we could say that Obama did "cross over," but the difference is still obvious in the graphs). My 10-year-old asked me, "Mom, which one will I be?" The question startled and saddened me, because his identify of himself is still being formed, and yet, on any official documents, surveys, forms, he does not exist except as "Other". I have studied all the theories on OTHER in grad schools, but it does make me sad when all those theories all of a sudden become applicable to what I am dealing with at home.

So, thank you, President Obama! Now perhaps we can openly discuss issues around Race, not in a stodgy way, but in an everyday lived-through dealt-with way. They are messy topics and there are seldom clear cut right or wrong answers, but we do need still start talking about it more openly, and in my view, more casually. If we cannot find humors in some of the messiness, and if we cannot make fun of ourselves, then the day will be far away when we can actually be color-blind, which if taken literally by the way, in my mind, is like alchemy... (We will always notice somebody else's appearances first, and we need to learn as a culture to not let certain signifiers become symbols).

Perhaps now it would be easier to lobby for a label for mutts around the country that is better than "Other"?

Mom redeemed herself from being the Worst Mom of the Year...

... by dumpster diving for child's missing homework!

Thank goodness they are not perfect...

Overheard at my house (Episode 1)

Scene: after mommy serves them breakfast (oatmeal) with loud bang on the table and great indignation and runs upstairs to take her 1-minute shower before they have to rush to their first activity on a Sunday morning...

5-year-old boy: I wish mommy is less mean. Do you wish mommy is less mean, Older Brother?

10-year-old boy: Ya.

5-year-old boy: I wish daddy is nicer too and does not yell so much. Do you wish mommy and daddy are nicer?

10-year-old boy: Ya...

(Two brothers have a rare moment of peace and camaraderie)

(Bad Mom upstairs has to brace herself to prevent an emotional outburst and hits Sleeping Dad with the pillow)

(Two brothers break out in an argument over some trivial matter)

Bad Mom: (Forgetting temporarily her vow to be a less mean and nicer mother and screaming at the top of her lung) STOP IT THE TWO OF YOU AND HURRY UP BEFORE I COME DOWNSTAIRS!!!!!!!

So, how do you explain Roe vs. Wade to a 10-year-old boy??

Am I a bad mom? Sometimes I worry that in an effort to bring up children that are progressive, tolerant, self-aware, and self-reliant, and to make sure that they become "contributing members of a civil society" in the future, I may have pulled a cloud over their childhood. If they are fortunate enough to not to know about "the world out there", who am I to ruin their parade by telling them the "truth"?

So my 10-year-old had to do a research report on this presidential election. One of the projects was to interview a democrat and a republican, ask them this one question: "What do you think a Democrat (or Republican) believes?" I felt bad for putting our loved ones on the spot: voting is a private matter, in my opinion, and sometimes the true reason someone votes for this party vs. the other is for that person's conscience to know, and their conscience only. The people we ended up interviewing over the phone, surprisingly or maybe not so much, gave similar answers with regarding to almost everything: such as "A democrat/Republican believes that the middle class should receive tax reliefs."

The differences we learned from our friends and families are, based on their own subjective opinions of course, "A Republican believes in a smaller government, whereas a Democrat believes in more taxes," and "A Democrat believes in equality in all people and the responsibilities of the government to come to its people's aid when they are in need."

What strikes me the most was the fact that women from both parties see "Roe vs. Wade" as the main dividing line that separates Republicans from Democrats: one mentioned that Republicans believe in the "Right to live", the other, Democrats believe in "Roe vs. Wade". My son, being 10 years old, naturally had no idea what they were talking about, and our friends and families, bless their heart, naturally did not want to go into details.

So, how do you explain Roe vs. Wade to a 10-year-old boy?

This was why I woke up with self-doubt for my ability to be a good mother this morning: I actually gave it a try last night by giving him a general description of what Roe vs. Wade was about. How successful, I am not sure. My son understandably was disturbed by the concept of abortion, which I didn't go into too much detail of course. He does not even know how women become pregnant yet, oh my goodness... {{surge of more self-doubt}} At one point, I could see in his face his regret for supporting the Democratic Party (i.e. Obama in this election: he thinks Obama is the man, and the democrats will bring equality to the society, without me or my husband steering him either way... in fact we were quite puzzled by his interest in this election since we didn't talk about politics in front of the kids until he himself showed interest in the topic... ) And I was upset with the teacher's naivete in giving them the homework assignment: how does one talk about this presidential election, I mean, really talk about it, without getting into a discussion on the two sides over the "Roe vs. Wade" issue? How am I supposed to explain to my 5th grader, who despite his uncanny maturity still hugs stuffed animals at night? I know a lot of people would argue that this is the reason why there shouldn't be abortion allowed, period, if you don't know how to explain such a procedure to a child. This way you don't even need to explain it. To me, this is the reason why the issue of abortion should not be made to hijack the public political debate. It is a personal choice, and yes, I believe that women should have the right to choose. It is ironic to me that Republicans, for all their push for a smaller government, desperately want to extend their control over private matters such as gay marriage and this, and leave public health care issues to strictly between "patients and their care providers"...

What I learned from my 5th grader's homework this weekend...

My 10-year-old came home with a 10-page homework packet last week, a research report on this presidential election. (Let me not start with the fact that the packet is from 1997 and asks for an example of a printed ad in newspaper or magazine. I don't remember the last time I saw any candidate spending their money on a printed ad, at least, not in publications that we read at home, e.g. The Economist...)

Here is what I learned:

1. It is not easy to find out what exactly the Democratic party and the Republican party stand for. We went to both parties' websites and we ended up frustrated and confused. The "party platform" manifestos put out by both parties read so similar: they both use the same vague, generalized statements to show that they are THE party that will watch out for the little guys, the working American families. Both parties believe in education, better teachers, and the freedom for parents to choose the best education for their children. I had to explain to my son that nobody will come right out to say, "Oh, yeah. We are going to raise your taxes, and we are not going to do anything about the education system nor the health care crisis." You just have to read between the lines. Here is one great example from the "Republican Party Platform 2008" document:

"It is not enough to offer only increased access to a system that costs too much and does not work for millions of Americans. The Republican goal is more ambitious: Better health care for lower cost.

First Principle: Do No Harm

How do we ensure that all Americans have the peace of mind that comes from owning high-quality, comprehensive health coverage? The first rule of public policy is the same as with medicine: Do no harm.

We will not put government between patients and their health care providers.

We will not put the system on a path that empowers Washington bureaucrats at the expense of patients."

(by the way, how many people actually read this document? It is entirely fascinating the wordsmith effort that went into this...)

The GOP certainly did not state that they are against "health care for all" since that, on the surface, will certainly provide bad PR and negative sound bites.

2. The symbol for the Democratic Party has been a donkey since the 19th century: it has its origin in Andrew Jackson's campaign in 1828 when he was called a Jackass, and Jackson, true to his larger-than-life persona, adopted the image of the strong-willed donkey for his campaign. The symbols of elephant and donkey were later popularized by Thomas Nast's political cartoons, (in which neither animal was portrayed in a positive light, therefore, it's curious that both parties readily adopted the images!)