My day at Hedgebrook was a day in which I was completely out of my element. It was a day to be surrounded by talented, gifted and pure, non-cynical women who wear Birkenstocks, don’t perm their hair and refuse to sport designer labels. I came to learn to be a better writer. But I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. That would take more than one day. And these women were really good. Many were professional, published authors. Others were just naturally amazing. We were given an assignment to inspire creativity. We were to write instructions for something and the woman to my right quickly jotted down with ease and off the top of her graying head, a moving diatribe detailing the pain and angst of being married to an addict. She cleverly called it “How to Stay.” Are you freaking kidding me? Her first draft was like one of my 20th drafts. WTF! Then she gently pushed my hand and indicated that I should read what I wrote. Not a chance, lady. I’m not that deep. I don’t wear organic cotton clothes, I don’t meditate and I don’t make my kids' lunches from scratch. These were real ladies and real moms. Not me. I’m a lazy, surface mom who buys organic crap food because it makes me feel good about myself. In case you don’t know, organic crap food is the stuff in boxes with cute names like “Annie’s Home Grown” or “Happy Times.” The manufacturers make the junk food we used to eat as children like pretzels and cheese-its but with organic cane sugar and organic wheat. Sometimes it’s even Gluten Free! But it’s still junk food. It was created to relieve the guilt about being indolent. Let’s face it, anything in a box is junk food (unless it’s seaweed or kale chips and good luck getting my 5 year-old to choose those snacks over a ginger snap, even an organic one). There is one thing I could have written. I could have written about how to screw up. I’ve done that a lot. But then I didn’t know if I could’ve communicated that in a flowery language with powerful metaphors that would tug at the heartstrings of my fellow Hedgebrook attendees. More importantly, they would’ve probably called the department of children’s services if I admitted things like how many times my daughter fell of the bed after I nursed her and drifted to sleep or the time I almost got into a fight with a woman in a Vegas parking lot because my adrenalin was pumped upon rescuing my son from a locked car when he was 7 months old. Yes, I know how to really screw up. I’ve done it so many times, it wouldn’t fit into one essay anyway and we only had 5 minutes to write. I’d need about 5 months. As a matter of fact, I’ve gotten so good at screwing up, I don’t even realize I’m doing it until years later. I am an expert. A genius. A renaissance screw-upper. The hard part is going to be keeping this talent hidden from my kids.

Why The Heck Couldn’t I Have A Normal Kid?!

Yeah, I said it. I know it’s not politically correct and doesn’t align with my whole gratitude attitude shift but it’s the truth. Having a child that is “outside of the box” is a pain in the butt. I would like to enjoy one week free of crying, violent outbursts and calls from the teacher at the nursery school he attends. But I can’t. I would like to know what it is like to direct a child to do something without an inappropriate response almost every single time. But I don’t. I would like to experience shopping in a store without rushing out to address one of my son's major meltdowns. But that hasn't happened since he was a newborn. Having a "special needs" child can be a lonely place for a parent. Although the level of support for these children has increased over the years within the educational infrastructure, there is still a stigma attached to the label that causes family members to ignore signs, assume you're an inadequate parent, who just can't control her child, and discourage you from seeking professional help. You begin to think, perhaps, you are the problem and by somehow becoming a better parent you can rewire the circuitry in your child's brain that causes his behavior. But that is not the case. What happens in the womb is a miracle beyond our understanding and the fact is that something is wrong with each of us. In my son's case, the something is ADHD (so I've been told by three professionals). The advice I've been given? Well, everything from signing him up for sports to giving him medication to hitting him on the bottom with a spoon. I honestly wish I just didn't have this one more thing to deal with. Seriously, I thought being a grown up meant I would get to eat Frosted Flakes for dinner, hang out with friends my parents would never approve of and paint my room purple. Instead, I'm stuck with making decisions for a child that will either work or ruin his life. This sucks! I'm not prepared, I'm not ready and I didn't sign up for this. Today, after talking to staff members at my son's new school, who were of no help at all, repeatedly telling me, "we can't give an opinion ..." (code for, "not my kid, not my problem") I wanted to sit and my cubicle and have my own temper tantrum. I now realize why the informational websites tell you to be your own advocate for your child, do your own research and make your own decisions. In other words, you're a grown up now. Deal with it!

I'm The Boss Not McDonald's

This evening, my husband’s cousin (who also happens to be our occasional babysitter) told me something disturbing. She told me that on a Nickelodeon program, a young boy made a joke about having big feet, “you know what that means …” (insinuating the whole “big feet” premise). The reason it disturbed me is because I couldn’t imagine any age demographic that Nickelodeon targets, in which that joke would have been appropriate. What really gets to be about this, though, is that one of my managers at work, having just returned from a marketing conference, communicated some of the topics on the table with regard to children and advertising. This led to a discussion amongst a few members in our department about what was appropriate in terms of marketing to children. Juxtaposing these two conversations, I find it ludicrous that people are suggesting that certain advertising is “bad” while sexually implicit content, on the right tv station, seems to be okay. I, personally, find some of the content in programs far more offensive than any commercial for some sugary snack that, frankly, at the end of the day, I don’t have to buy. I digress. On the matter at hand-advertising and responsibility. I didn’t grow up with sweets in my house. Period. We got to trick-or-treat and even most of that candy was removed from our clutches. My mother determined what I ate and she explained to me why certain things weren’t allowed (e.g. sugary cereal). There was no debate. She was my mother. Period. Candy was a luxury I indulged in while in the care of my grandparents. What that led to—I didn’t have a single cavity until I was an adult. My BMI was consistently low. I was a great athlete and much smarter than I am now. I didn’t become addicted to candy later and I didn’t hate my mother. Basically, I was a good, smart, healthy kid who, looking back, was far more occupied with something some kids just don’t do nowadays—PLAYING. Has it occurred to some of these researchers that, in fact, lack of physical activity and not commercials may be the cause of childhood obesity (I play with my son, even when I don’t feel like it)? Further, has it occurred to parents that, in fact, WE are in charge of what our children watch on TV and eat? Like, hello, my 4 year-old doesn’t have an ATM card. He can’t hop on his bike and drive to McDonald’s to get a happy meal. When did it become the responsibility of advertisers and toy companies to assure the proper diets of children? Aren’t we, the PARENTS, supposed to be teaching our children about nutrition, diet, exercise, etc.? Parenting is a difficult job. It’s low paying; you usually only get recognized when your kid screws up; people are always judging you; you are always judging yourself. But it is one of the most important jobs anyone has if he or she chooses to take it on. When I see young, obese, children, my heart breaks. Research published in the journal Nature, in 2008, found fat cells can shrink--but they don't go away. This means that those children, who are obese, will struggle with weight for the rest of their lives and that isn’t fair. But it isn’t the fault of advertisers, or McDonald’s or anyone outside of the home that these kids are facing this battle. Baring disease (such as in the case with kidney recipients who are forced to take immunosuppressive drugs that can cause rapid weight gain), it is OUR fault, as parents, if our young children are overweight. I get, personally, very little sleep because I have a new baby. So, if I get 5 hours, it’s a miracle. But most nights, I’m getting between 3-4 hours of sleep (the baby is teething, oh joy). I am at work between 8-10 hours, including lunch. I am driving between 1-2 hours (depending on if I have to stop at the store, pick up dry cleaning, go to the bank, etc.). I am nursing. I am cooking. Occasionally, I am cleaning. I am reading bedtime stories. I am giving baths. I am washing clothes. I am nursing. I am 42!!! But even in my sleepy, drained, state, when I stop at Ralph’s on the way home, and my 4 year-old insists he have cereal he saw in a commercial or candy he saw on a bus or chips he saw in a friend's lunch box at his school, if I decide he can’t have it, guess what, HE CAN’T HAVE IT. I don’t care if he cries, screams, promises me I can’t be his “best buddy” ever again, etc., I run the show and no advertiser, no matter how catchy their jingle is, has more power over MY CHILDREN than ME.

Mom Vs. Kid

This morning, I realized why my relationship with my 4 year old son seems so familiar. He was headed toward one of those dreaded temper tantrums and I snatched him up so quickly his heart started beating as if he were in fight or flight mode. Yes, I snatched him. I was so angry because he literally has these crying clusters (what I call them) for days at a time and this was DAY 3. I’d had enough but I was surprised he could get me so angry and even more surprised to realize that I had experienced these strong emotions before. What our relationship has become is similar to that of a woman and man in love-but not the kind of wistful puppy love that one experiences in the beginning of a relationship. We are at the part where you see each other’s flaws, learn how to push each other’s buttons and battle each other emotionally until you figure out if the two of you are compatible or just too different to make it. Not everyone has these woes. Some relationships are seamless and you’re finishing each other’s sentences by week 2 and engaged by week 4 but, for the rest of us, we’ve had to fight our way to common ground and pile on a lot of forgiveness in order to heal the damage from the territorial wars waged in the early part of falling in love. I never realized I would be repeating this pattern with my son and this conflict is no less draining or painful than that between his father and I over a decade ago. As much as I try to keep my emotions in check, occasionally, he gets me riled up and I pull the car over in the middle of my commute to work or pull him out of a store in the middle of a should-be normal shopping experience. Sometimes I win. I am calm. I am composed. I give the perfect lecture. He listens. I am victorious. Other times, I fail miserably and resort to, “wait until I tell your father,” a weak response in my moments of pure desperation. But some of the best and strongest relationships started with two people at odds. I hope that I will one day be able to look back at my relationship with my son at the point when it is strong, powerful and beneficial for both of us and this growing pains phase is well behind us. Otherwise, I’m going to have tell his daddy!

Natural Mom in Unnatural Circumstances (Breastfeeding While Working Full-Time 101)

Okay, so my mother thinks my breastfeeding trials are perfect fodder for a stand-up routine. Let me start by confessing that this is not the life I planned for myself. First of all, I remember standing in the parking lot after pitching a sitcom episode about 2 decades ago and professing, “by age 40, I will either be running a network or running my own show, either way, my kids will have a nanny …” I also told my boyfriend at the time (now my husband) that I was going to be at home for the first few years of the lives of our 3 children. That’s right, before I became a mom, I actually thought I could effectively manage/raise/nurture three children (kudos to those women who have done it because I now know that I couldn’t)! I also thought I’d be having these three children at 32 and not one at 42. But nothing about my life reflects the plans I laid out for myself decades prior. This includes the list of mishaps that have occurred since my return to work (doing the very same job I had when I started in the entertainment industry 20 years ago). No one ever mentioned to me how difficult, inconvenient and, at times, downright painful the process of breastfeeding could be. Upon reading all of the literature on the advantages, I felt like it was the only choice I had. It’s a natural process that contributes to a higher IQ, better immune system, better bonding with your child, etc. So, who wants a dumb kid with a low immune system who can’t stand his mom? Guess I better breastfeed! Many of my friends had done it. At least that’s how they presented things to me. Upon further investigation, I found out, they didn’t all quite do it the way I meant. A few did it for like a couple of days. Some for a couple of weeks. Some did it until they went back to work. One did it a couple of hours! Hey, does that really count? And, by the way, NONE, mentioned the trouble it was until AFTER I shared my woes. “Oh, yeah,” one friend quipped, “I hated it and quit because it was so painful but I’m glad you’re doing it.” Uh, HELLO, could you have warned me BEFORE I took the plunge? Of course not. Breastfeeding, much like having children in general, is one of those things people pretend is perfectly normal and pain-free. NOT. There is nothing normal about having to run out of a conference room, down the hall, with tubes sticking out of your shirt, because your lactation room has been double booked. There’s nothing normal about having to borrow a shirt from a co-worker because you started leaking when you worked on a project too long and were late to go pump. And there is nothing normal about spilling milk in the back seat of the minivan because you were locked out of your designated lactation room and couldn’t figure out how to balance the milk bottles, keep track of time and post updates on facebook simultaneously. This is the life of today’s working mother and the reality is it is no more easier than for previous moms, just because there's some cool, $300 machine to help. I would venture to say, because of all of these gadgets, much more is expected of you. My mother's favorite mantra is, "I didn't have that when I was raising you." But even with the extra circuitry, women find this loving task of feeding their babies problematic. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, “[ women] who breastfeed for six months or longer have far steeper declines in income, mainly due to their increased likelihood of reducing their work hours or quitting,” The article also refers to a past observance that many women who intend to continue to nurse after returning to work, give it up after a few weeks. DUH! Will I personally continue? Sure, as long as I can. But I know the truth now. I am in a minority of women who are not VPs or managers who can shut their doors and have their assistants keep people out of the office or who work from home or, better yet, who are full-time stay-at-home moms. I'm just a regular worker bee who has to prove that just because I rush to take my two breaks at work, hoping that the curtain hasn't been removed from the conference room or that I've been replaced by a "real meeting," I am still a good employee who is committed to doing a great job. But it has surely not been seamless. I have had 3 lactation coaches; I have had a phone consultant; I have spilled milk on my lap; I have fallen asleep while pumping; I have left equipment at home; I have left milk at the office; I have tried 10 different creams; I have been given 4 different breast diagnoses; I have had the wrong shields size; I have had the wrong hands free bra size. In other words, I have spent a lot of time, energy and money trying to get this right and almost every single day, something goes wrong. In the end, my daughter will have received the best nutrition I have to offer and maybe, just maybe, I will have at least gotten one small portion of being a parent right. If nothing else, I will have provided comedic stories for my mother to share with her friends!

When Ignorance is Bliss is Best

Since most of my friends know me as a writer (albeit a procrastinating self-deprecating one with little finished work to speak of), it seems odd to them that I haven’t written about being pregnant. I have been asked on more than one occasion if I’ve written anything to or about the child I conceived at the end of March of last year and carried well into December. In those 40.3 weeks of time, I have written nothing. Nada. Zero. The main reason is that my husband and I were nervous the entire 1st trimester. 2010 was our 10-year anniversary and this was our first pregnancy. We were in shock! At first, we didn’t know who to tell or in what time period we should tell them. Between us, we had four friends who had recently had miscarriages. We worried about the glass of wine I had one night out with friends and the drink I had at my sister-in-law’s birthday party. We worried about the green tea I drank everyday that could have blocked the baby’s folic acid intake. We worried about the amnio and then worried that we decided not to go through with it. We worried we didn’t have enough space, enough money; enough time … we were worried. We were the antithesis of 16 years-old and pregnant. We knew we didn’t have everything together and there was no mommy and daddy to run to in order to pick up the pieces. We were mommy and daddy. Despite our concerns, we shifted into gear and tried to come up with some plans, still leaving a few things hanging, in case something went wrong. We prayed A LOT and asked others to pray for us. We tried to get in some one-on-one dating time and even spent one night at a hotel downtown together as a mini get-away to celebrate our anniversary before the world wind we were sure to walk into. By my 37th week, the OBGYNS at Cedars were congratulating me. “You accomplished a great deal, making it this far” one doctor told me. With all of my unnecessary fears, I had no idea that there were real concerns with pregnancy at my age and it actually was a real accomplishment to go full-term. According to recent studies, “at age 40, your chance of getting pregnant in any given month is just 5%.” I would be 42 by the time our daughter was born. Not only that, carrying a child over 40 weeks, at my age, comes with a laundry list of risks, of which I was completely unaware. There could been a host of real problems for me to concern myself with, google and obsess over that might have completely taken over my free time. This was definitely a case where "ignorance is bliss is best" because in the plans that God has laid out for us, stats don't apply. When he is in the midst of it, his will is bigger than numbers. Thankfully, I was able to get through most of the 2nd and 3rd trimester, feeling as if everything was going to go well and that our baby would be delivered safely. As a matter of fact, I actually thought I would be able to work until the day I needed to be rushed to the hospital. I tried very hard to do just that but succumbed to the pressure of both grandmothers and the direction of my doctor to go on leave. The baby’s arrival was imminent as I was 1 centimeter dilated on my last day at the office before maternity leave. I was also 1 centimeter dilated 16 hours before I delivered Alexandria, 2 weeks after my last day of work. Now, I hope and pray I am a good mother to her and a real friend. I hope that I can move her into her destiny and provide her a strong foundation for success in whatever she does. I hope that I will be able to allow her to make her own mistakes and live life on her own terms. I hope that I am able to teach her about God and the power of prayer. And I hope, no matter what I find on google, and how much it causes me to worry, I will be able to rely on old school mother’s instincts when raising her. And when it comes to unnecessary information that will only make me anxious, I hope to remain blissfully ignorant.

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;” Phillipians 4:6

What did you just say?

This is what my husband and shout throughout the day now. Sometimes, what we hear from our son is funny, like “go play, mommy” or “I need my coffee in the morning” but other times it’s embarrassing like when an elderly woman opens the door for me and my son and he says “that’s stupid” or in the middle of prayer service at church when he yells, “I wanna call grandma, now!” Within the span of 30 months, we have gone from “how do we know what he wants since he can’t talk?” to “I really wish he wouldn’t talk so much.” It’s both fun and scary to await the gems spewing from the mouth of a 2 ½ year-old, most of which he doesn’t completely understand. There is a lot of pure repeating (i.e. “I need my coffee in the morning”) and exploring his own voice and feelings. His real personality is starting to develop and, like it or not, it will be uniquely his. This is just the beginning. He may not be a peace-loving, tree-hugging, war-protesting, liberal like his mom or a conservative, fiscally moderate, traditionalist like his dad. He might be an amalgamation of the two of us or nothing like either of us. When his voice begins to speak his truth, our job will be to listen, influence and provide sound direction. But we will have to love and accept the parts of him that we may not understand, just as our parents have had to do for us. None of this will be easy. As a matter of fact, looking back now, the first year was probably the easiest of our whole parenting career. However, the future holds a world of excitement and we will have a third set of eyes through which to view the world. What a gift!

Modern Day Mama

Those who know me well will find it hard to believe that I now awake any earlier than 8:00 a.m. Obviously, I had to do this while working from home as my son woke up at around 6:30 in the morning. But I could always lay and vegetate for a moment—especially in the latter months when he started feeding himself. It’s amazing what the human body can do, even at 40, when forced. I am up at around 5:00 a.m. (sometimes even 4:45). Even this slacker time will soon change as I will be forced to get out of the house by 6:00 in the morning in order to beat traffic (so that's a 4:30 a.m. wake-up time). This will keep my commute down to a manageable 45 minutes. Otherwise, we’re talking 1 ½ hours, just shy of the amount of time my close friend has to drive to get to her job after dropping off the little one. This is now the life of the working mom.

Working while mothering is not a foreign concept to most women of color. For generations, most of our mothers have had to hold one or more jobs while caring for their families. However, many of these positions were smaller in scope and closer to home. I personally know of no mothers from my grandmother’s generation who drove 2 hours to get to their jobs and even in my mother’s generation most of the women I know were home in time to cook dinner and actually eat it with their families. Sometimes when I get home, both my son and husband have already gone to bed and, unlike most of my friends, I am not in a high-powered position such as producing or “doctoring.” I’m an executive assistant, who, on a good day, spends two hours each day in traffic. Further, while my job is administrative, it still isn’t the kind of thing you do just to keep busy or add a little spending change to your budget. My job is a necessary component to our economic survival and it requires mental stamina. Unlike before my son was born, I’m no longer in the position to take a low-paying industry gig in the hopes that some producer may recognize my brilliance and promote me to show runner (or at least staff writer). I have a real job, with real benefits and real expectations. This is the “Mama Big Leagues”—all so that 10 years from now I will able to avoid saying that fateful phrase, “we can’t afford it.”

The days of liberal government with liberal programs have now passed, despite the hype. The fact that my mother could simultaneously afford tennis lessons, piano lessons, theater lessons, dance lessons and private school, is a mystery beyond my comprehension (especially given the fact that this woman is no accountant). But I realize she had help. There were neighbors who were also good friends. There were grandparents who lived nearby. There was a father (though divorced from my mother) who, at one point, lived within walking distance of our house. And yes, here’s the liberal in me, there were programs. They were heavily funded by both the government and private donors. In the days when I grew up, everyone pitched in. There really was “a village.” Now, there are more like little islands and as much as friends offer to help (when it takes at least ½ hour to get to your house, you can’t go around asking folks to babysit all of the time), it takes so much more now to raise children—more money, more energy, more work, more, more, more … Even my own mother, upon visiting me for a week, commented on how much harder it was for me than her. “You get home awfully late,” she quipped. Just imagine if I were an executive! Or a lawyer! Or even a successful screenwriter! Perhaps a nanny would be involved in those scenarios but the angst, the stress, the sheer weight of a modern-day mamahood would still be present. There is no manual for us, no women who went before us and very little sympathy. After all, almost all mamas are going through some version of the same thing. It is a major adjustment, the effects of which we won’t fully see until our children have fully grown. We can only hope that while we may have missed bath time and a few first words, we’ll be able to relax in the later years and make it to the baseball games and plays. We hang onto the dream that we will not only have enough money but enough time and energy to help with prom and SAT preparation. We're banking on (literally and figuratively) a future for our children wherein we are very much present for them when they are old enough to remember.

The Food My Mama Fed Me

When I was a little girl, I expressed to my mother that I wanted a puppy. I believed that I demonstrated my maturity and responsibility through completing my chores and obtaining a part-time job at the local hair salon. I was 11 years-old. My mother thought that our yard was too small to accommodate an animal and although I certainly had proved a level of dependability, I would most likely become bored with the task of caring for a pet and she would be left doing all of the work. She opted, instead, for a garden. I took for granted that we could easily access fresh vegetables and herbs (without the use of dangerous pesticides)--just as I took for granted that the Jewish deli down the street provided fresh kosher meat. My brother and I even contributed to the vegetation by using a technique I learned in science class on a potato. We grew a watermelon patch on the side of our garage that was not approved by my mother and eventually destroyed by neighborhood kids. Years later, I learned that farming was in our blood as our great grandfather, along with some of his cousins, owned several acres of land in Arkansas. That was before large corporations produced 98 percent of all poultry in the United States and a mere two percent of farms produced 50 percent of all agricultural products in the country.

According to “The Nontoxic Baby,” a book written as a guide for parents in the 90’s, “over one half of all the food on grocery store shelves has only appeared within the last decade.” At the time the book was written, Nancy Sokol Green estimated that “in another 10 years, that number is predicted to be as high as 80%.” Much of the food research now is conducted by the corporations who produce the food through their “committees.” The regulations that existed to protect us from toxic chemicals have been cancelled or severely weakened and in the early 80’s, according to Green, “budgets of several federal environmental and consumer protection regulatory agencies were cut by millions ...” It should then be no surprise that we received toxic toys from China since, according to our own government’s documents, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has “suffered the deepest cuts to its budget and staff of any health and safety agency.”

This is the world my son will grow up in. And I am forced to make choices everyday based on the choices that our government has refused to make. It occurred to me recently, this is another way in which the poor and the wealthy will be separated. It will not just be more acreage and a better car that separates the classes but the consumption of non-organic food, containing some of the thousands of new chemicals introduced each year that are connected to the significant increase in male infertility, asthma, hyperactivity, recurrent ear infections, moodiness, depression, leukemia and several forms of cancer or the more expensive organic food that we can only hope is much safer. These children who suffer the diseases resulting from toxin exposure will probably have less access to healthcare (I’m assuming that if you can’t pay for organic food you probably don’t have comprehensive healthcare coverage). We live under a government that is directed by corporate interests rather than the interest of the people it is formed to protect. And when representatives do stand up to protect us, they are deemed radical or leftist.

So, for the mom who reads too much, watches too much C-Span, listens to too much talk radio and surfs the internet too much, the only choice is browsing the aisles of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s for the best deals she can find and waiting for the Whole Foods knock-off to open in the neighborhood (a discount organic store chain is coming soon!). What I am really trying to do is give my son the food my mama fed me—it came from a family farm, it wasn’t cross bred with anything, there were no hormones in it, there were not nearly as many chemicals on it, it wasn’t genetically produced. It was rare that it came from a box, a can or a plastic thing (according to John Hopkins Research, “the combination of fat, high heat and plastics releases dioxins into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Dioxins are carcinogens and highly toxic to the cells of our bodies ...”) and it was hardly ever microwaved. I hope and pray these small changes I make will be enough to overcome the pollutants my child faces everyday due to poor air quality and the continued use of toxic substances in toys and even in some school structures. In fact, more than anything, it is prayer that will protect my child because it is clear our government has no interest in doing that at all.

To Answer Your Question, What Have You Been Up To?

A Different Kinda Blogspot from Tales of a 30-Something Work-at-home Mom

When you become a parent, sometimes the size of your personal life simply shrinks. Weeks and sometimes months can go by without speaking to friends or even relatives because of the small amount of available time outside of tending to, dropping off, reading up on, etc. your child(ren). When you finally do make contact with the outside world, the first thing people ask is … what have you been up to? In my case, frankly I’ve been up to a lot in the past 15 months and I recently realized, outside of a close group of friends, I haven’t shared everything with people who may want to get involved or just have a general interest in what I’ve been up to. So, here goes …

A few days before Taylor was born, my friend David from church and I were supposed to be shooting a mock commercial about a new product, The Black Card. It was satire on the fact that people are always defining what a “black” person is. However, a few days before the weekend we were scheduled to shoot, Taylor came along. I had already left the Post Group to work with my friend, who had a web-based business. She encouraged me to branch out on my own and she was my first and only client. I wrote press releases for her, edited, did a little ghost writing, wrote her DVD cover language, wrote a couple of infomercials, wrote her non-profit business plan and wrote her internet content. She is a talented artist who has built an on-line community based on her motivational work. After working with her for about 8 months, she landed a music deal and downsized her company. There was no more need for free-lance workers, including me. So, I was without my only client. However, that didn’t stop me from working on my other projects. These included working on Delta Days at City Hall for which we received a write-up in the LA Sentinel (this is my 2nd year working on the historic event with my Delta Co-chair, Jackie, wherein we lobby city hall and it's he 1st year of doing it with other sorority chapters), working on a business plan for a t-shirt company with a high school friend and working on a world music festival and symposium at UCLA (which eventually was taken over by the students). The world music festival initially started out with a very ambitious goal of hosting 20,000 people and getting an artist on the level of a … hmmm U2 to perform. But I was then asked by the owner of Effortless Activism to attend an end genocide panel discussion which evolved into working with his group and a number of student groups at UCLA, on the festival. Due to costs and UCLA restrictions, time constraints, etc. the festival got smaller and the community organizations such as mine became less involved. However, it was still a success. I did a short, cable interview with Vanessa Williams to promote the festival months before it took place. But I never saw that piece.

Within a few weeks of losing my only client, I gained another much more demanding client who paid a lot less. Though I was on the computer doing work for this client, many times into the next morning, I still managed to finish my downloadable book for moms (that only my father and good friend Tiffany purchased), set up a pitch meeting at a cable network (for my writing partner and I) and I signed up as the very last Barack Obama precinct captain of Los Angeles County. Volunteering for Obama took up a great deal of time initially. I wrote letters to my neighbors and canvassed. I made phone calls out of state. I wrote an op-ed piece that was to be published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (however, I can’t seem to find it on-line and none of my Cleveland folks saw it), I produced two commercials (one for the "Obama in 30-seconds" contest and one just to show people who his national security team will be) and I wrote a number of editorial pieces (one entitled “Tales of a Last Minute Precinct Captain,” that actually inspired a friend to vote for Obama!) Since my new client was a non-profit organization, I took an on-line grant writing course at Pasadena College. When I worked with the non-profit, I wrote all of their press releases, some of their marketing materials, conducted grant research and applied for a few grants, staffed their board of directors, found them volunteers, helped them structure their programs, came up with various fundraising ideas and brought organization to the “organization.” However, at the end of the day, I was getting burned out and they believed the grant money should have been received within the 4-month period that I worked with them. We had a mutual parting and I picked up other clients who are friends. I wrote some treatments, marketing materials and did some research and finally, Taylor entered part-time daycare as it was increasingly more difficult to work at home while he was there. Until recently, he was perfectly fine going to daycare but now he cries when I drop him off. We are continuing the routine as I know he will get used to it and it will evolve into a full-time situation when I return to working at a full-time job. He loves the kids. I think he wants to me to stay and play with everyone.

So, what else have I been doing? Well, I started, then stopped, then started and then finally stopped working on my romantic comedy in order to start working on a drama (feature) and a romantic comedy with my partner, I participated in the symposium at UCLA to work on a code of ethics for the media (to protect the rights of children), my coalition (Twenty Women for Darfur) participated as one of the sponsors of the Concert to End Genocide at UCLA, I wrote an article for an on-line magazine about my adoption experience (a new one to come soon), I helped a friend raise funds for Metta (for the recent cyclone victims) through Twenty Women for Darfur, I started the process of getting non-profit status for Twenty Women (“for Darfur” will no longer be a part of the name) and I started talks with Effortless Activism about creating t-shirts through them. I also took over as editor of my church newsletter and we are in the midst of re-organizing to produce a more effective piece of communication. Last, but not least, a few weeks ago I began the arduous search for a full-time job (non-entertainment related) that will allow me time to write and, yes, see Taylor and my husband on occasion.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past 15 months! Man, it has gone by quickly and I’m looking forward to the next 15. Who knows what will happen by then!

Please Note: at the Symposium I learned about an important resolution. Please visit: http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php?story=20080526102258810

Then write your representatives to tell them to support this important resolution. It is a Global Marshall Plan. This resolution, sponsored by members of congress from a number of different faiths; it will change the entire world and you can be a part of it. Please write/call/fax your representatives TODAY!

You can see all of my blogs on my blog page: http://30-somethingnewmom.blogspot.com/

You can view my short youtube commercials at: http://www.youtube.com/marleymiles (Obama’s Dreamers & What Gives Me Hope)

You can catch my campaign writings at: www.brothersandsistersforobama.com

We're Not Okay, Okay

Recently, I was speaking to one of my successful friends about the generation which preceded us. Because we are both parents, we’ve each heard one of the staple sayings from our parents on a regular basis, “you turned out okay.” The sad and unfortunate truth is that our parents say this because they don’t really know us. Most parents know the educational and professional accomplishments of their children but they know nothing about their bouts of depression, feelings of inadequacy or struggles with loneliness. Theirs is a generation where fatherhood means providing and motherhood means nurturing and, in some cases, disciplining until “daddy gets home.” However, those deep and meaningful conversations were never broached. As a matter of fact, most of us never even had a "sex talk” and while I may not agree with the content of mine; I did receive one from each of my parents and my grandmother. My father’s mother, a preacher’s daughter, turned to me and asked me in a drugstore one day if I was on “the pill.” I was in Junior High School. I was abhorred. Unbeknownst to her, I was a late bloomer who was still very active in the Girl Scouts and whose main interest at the time was tennis and doll collecting. But at least someone said something to me. Most men I know were given a stack of condoms, usually on prom night, and told “don’t get anyone pregnant.” I only know of a few that were actually told how to use them (which kind of left the “don’t get anyone pregnant” request up to chance). Most women I know never received a talk at all, leaving their knowledge of sex up to a friend who was usually one of those fast girls you absolutely didn’t want your child to learn from. And then there are those who got the “sex is for marriage” speech but no real, useful information about how celibacy could actually be achieved. These scant tidbits of information, of course, are far more than what our parents received from their parents. However, it is one of the reasons why many women, even in my age group, confuse sex with love. This was not a problem back in the days when people were getting married at 17 and staying married no matter what. We simply can’t afford to raise our children the same way. Further, while some of us might have “dodged the bullet” in the area of sex by not getting pregnant or, for men, getting someone pregnant, it doesn’t mean the lack of information we received was a successful way to parent. We suffer from other ailments such as emotional scarring and an inability to connect with people with whom we’ve been intimate. I know countless men who suffer from this—countless successful, "degreed", intelligent, married, single, etc. men. And guess what, their parents have no idea. My theory is that for many of us, our parents are like a fan club. It’s actually quite endearing. We’ve been able to accomplish things professionally that, in some cases, they weren’t able to accomplish. Perhaps we’ve travelled to places they haven’t or perhaps we’ve just simply made more money than they did (adjusting for inflation). Some of us have bigger houses, more degrees, more properties or, quite simply, more interesting lives. They admire us the way a kid looks up to a super hero. But they don’t know us. Our conversations are relegated to those comfortable subjects of weather and world problems. No one sits at the dinner table and asks, “Are you feeling isolated in your marriage, dear?” or “How are you dealing with your spouse’s philandering?” Instead our parents ask, “How’s work?” And they sit there and wait for some juicy story of our latest promotion or accolade from our boss. They then go on to enlist others in our fan club such as neighbors and family members. All the while, you face your imminent divorce, your feelings of failure and your insecurities on your own, without so much as a suspicion from the people who raised you. If you do dare to share these feelings, they are often discouraged with words of “it’s time you got over that” or “we all have problems.” Because, at the end of the day, for the most part, they don’t really want to know us. Really knowing your children means facing mistakes you might have made. It means realizing that you failed in some areas and that, perhaps, your offspring weren’t prepared to enter adulthood just because a driver’s license deemed it so. For parents, saying, “you turned out okay” means they were good parents. They did their jobs. Game over. But in our generation, where self-introspection is part of the daily ritual and where parenting involves, well, let’s face it, much more “involvement,” we are going to be doing things a little differently. Unfortunately, due to the world our children will face, we don’t have much of a choice. With all of our imperfections and flaws, our fears and insecurities, we have to go deeper with our children. And we will. Because despite the things we weren’t taught, we were given the insight to know what we lack. So, in the grand scheme of things, we are not okay but we’re going to be alright.

Taylor Is 7 Months Old

Friday our son turned 7 months old. Already, his face is beginning to change again and he is determined to get out of his crib on his own. So far, he’s only managed to lift himself to a standing position by holding onto the slats or poking his long, muscular, legs through the front but his resolve is unshakable. He will do this one day. He knows it and I know it and I will not be ready. I finally understand the syndrome in which parents continue to treat their children like babies years after the capable and self-sufficient offspring have moved out, purchased homes and started families of their own. The baby stage is so very short. I remember laying our son on the couch and walking away, knowing he’d be there upon my return. Now, I can’t get him to sit still through a bottle feeding. He wants to talk through it, grab things through it, play with the tray through it … Sometimes I just sit and stare at him, which does nothing for my writing career. And on Friday, he reached a new milestone when he began chanting “dadadada …” throughout the day. He was so excited, for a long time he couldn’t stop. I concluded at the time that, in fact, our child was a genius!

Though it drizzled that morning, I thought we needed to do something to celebrate his life on earth for seven full months. I happened upon a children’s gym surfing the Internet which was open to children 0 – 5 years old. I thought this would be a wonderful experience because he loves scooting after the older ones. I had the entire day planned out but, of course, as traffic in LA would have it, nothing fit within the strict time parameters I intended. After running a mile at the gym, soaking in the sauna and relaxing in the steam room, I went to the gym’s childcare room so I could scoop my “kid” up and rush to the kid’s gym on the other side of town. He was sitting up in the Calvin Klein jeans and t-shirt my aunt purchased him weeks prior. There were no other children in the room. He was under the close supervision of a babysitter, playing a keyboard. He sang and hit the keys with extreme pleasure—the kind that adults rarely experience. I thought to myself, he doesn’t need a gym. He’s about as happy as he would be with a room full of children running around. That’s just his personality—plays well alone. It’s a blessing all parents don’t get to experience. So I stand and bask in it, realizing how rich I am.

ASSETS VS. LIABILITIES

I thought of this subject because on more than one occasion I have heard someone mention the charitable work that is needed here verses in other countries. Many Americans believe that we give too much to others while not servicing those at home. I believe this is because most people don’t have the full picture. Collectively, third world countries are almost 2 trillion dollars in debt. During many of the disasters when we go in to help, these countries are given loans with exorbitant interest rates that they will never be able to pay off. Thus, part of Tony Blair’s plan of calling for a 100 percent cancellation of multilateral debt owed by 62 developing nations.

Most of my friends who have travelled to third world countries (I’ve even seen this in resort areas when we’ve ventured off to where the indigenous people really live) tell about the whole other level of poverty experienced in other parts of the world. One friend describes how appreciative a young boy was in South Africa who was given a mere pair of tennis shoes. Personally, I have been involved with public service in America since age 5. A few years ago, I worked with homeless children through an organization called Stand Up For Kids. I was in charge of arranging their monthly dinner parties at the beach and I walked “the beat” a few times handing out information. I am not kidding when I tell you those homeless kids were very particular about everything from food to clothing. They could be extremely demanding and at times not even thankful. It was a job you did because you hoped it might make a difference but there was no immediate reward. In fact, it was a little draining because you knew you’d be leaving them every night to fend for themselves. Los Angeles county only has one shelter that accepts kids without their parents. Unappreciative or not, they deserved a safe place to sleep. Most of them ran away from abusive homes. Still, it was easy for us to get excessive amounts of food and clothes on a regular basis. We even had to get a bigger storage bin because of all the items we received. America has plenty of ASSETS. But we also have plenty of LIABILITIES.

Webster’s dictionary describes a liability as “the quality of being something that holds you back.” Our biggest liability just happens to be our bureaucratic government. A grand example of this is California. We have not been able to raise national test scores in schools from near bottom in over a decade. The fifth largest economy in the world is only doing slightly better than poor states (and even given the culturally diverse student make-up, this is still unacceptable). I personally know how inept our leaders are because I helped organize a day of lobbying for my sorority chapter. It was on that day that I heard a representative tell us we had approximately 20 or so gang prevention programs (I can’t remember the exact figure) that had been active for several years. However, their organizers were never able to communicate effectively. So, we hired Civil Rights Attorney Connie Rice to evaluate them and give suggestions to get them to work together. Are you kidding me? No one ever thought about this before? Rice wrote up a massive roadmap for overhauling L.A.'s strategy but this is several years and billions of dollars AFTER the problem has escalated to the point where we've had a 44% increase of gang related crimes since last year in the San Fernando Valley alone. Some of these crimes have been committed against the vulnerable homeless kids who have no where to go at night. This is because, though most runaways travel to California (and Los Angeles county specifically) there have been very few steps toward figuring out away to protect these children. However, Santa Monica did pass a law preventing us from feeding them.

California is very much a reflection of America in general. Collectively, we have plenty of Assets. In this state particularly, we pay amongst the highest property tax in the country and our sales tax is nothing to sneeze at. But we, like much of the rest of the country, have an Asset Allocation problem due to our Liabilities—our leadership. We don’t need more money. We need more competence. And we need it NOW.

To Spank Or Not To Spank ...

To Spank or not to Spank, that is the question. For most people the answer may seem pretty obvious—they received spankings, they turned out “fine.” End of story. However, for one of my close friends it was not that simple. Though she was disciplined through corporal punishment as a child, she and her husband decided that is not the route they wanted to take with their children. This involved informing both sides of the family and neither wanted to comply. When you decide to make different decisions for your children than the previous generation, you sometimes run the risk of backlash. They feel like you are criticizing them. But there is another way to look at it. If those parents raised competent, intelligent children, shouldn’t they be trusted to raise their own children? Shouldn’t any parent who is a sane, capable, loving parent be able to make those sorts of decisions for his or her own family? If, in fact, our parents have done a great job and we “turned out fine” then shouldn’t they trust us to rear children who will turn out “fine” as well?

Personally, I was not beaten regularly as a child and by most accounts I turned out “fine.” I received one spanking at age 11 (I stayed out too late), the same age at which I was employed by a local hairdresser to work on the weekends and six years before I would shoot my first documentary and raise so much money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, through my charity event, I'd be asked to present a check to them on television. On the other hand, many of my friends were hit habitually and have decided there is a different way to discipline their children. Of course that is great in theory. But what do you do when you have a screaming two year-old who refuses to listen to you? Amazingly, these same friends have very well-behaved children who have tested gifted, excelled in extra-curricular activities and who have even taken to activism. The sort of parenting they practice takes more patience and parental discipline. It requires that a parent be extremely in tune with his or her child. This is not only because appropriate punishments must be selected but an awareness of the child’s feelings is required. Is he or she depressed or angry or having trouble with someone at school? Most people I know didn’t grow up in an environment where they could express their feelings with their parents. They may have faced bullies at school, had questions about sex or any number of things. Most of my female friends never even received a sex talk from their very own parents. And, yes, they turned out “fine” because their parents don’t know about the trips to Planned Parenthood or the attempted suicides. Frankly, that is not the type of relationship I want with my children. I don’t want them to fear or be intimidated by me. I want them to respect me. How this is accomplished is a choice up to myself and the father of my children.

Recently I read that many kids who are considered to have learning disabilities, hyperactivity or problems with paying attention are actually suffering from food or environmental allergies, which can cause abnormal learning patterns and symptoms. A great number of these children are spanked or drugged because of their unmanageable behavior. Parents believe they have no other choice and it’s an acceptable response to an “unruly” child in our country. But I would venture to say if our parents knew that they might be able to calm some of us down by simply eliminating Cow’s milk, wheat, corn, soy, eggs, citrus and/or peanuts or any of the environmental causes of disruptive behavior such as molds, dust, cleaning chemicals, perfumes or pesticides, they would have laid down their straps and given us some organic veggies instead.

Time To Step Up My Game

I just walked/ran ½ mile with my baby and boy was it a struggle. No, that is not a typo. Not 1 mile. Not 2 miles. One half mile with a stroller! Though I've been working out consistently for about two months now, 2-3 times per week, I have realized it is time to take it up a notch. Age is not an excuse when you have a father 24 years older than you with better abs. My dad recently beat a 22 year-old in a tennis tournament! I doubt at this point if I could get through one match. I, on the other hand, recently attempted to play volleyball at a family barbecue where my lack of hand-eye coordination showed no sign of past athleticism. Those of you who played sports as children, remember what it was like to have your coach push you. You would run or do the required exercise until you thought you would DIE. There was an achy pain in your joints that made you feel like you couldn’t go on. But you did. And you lived. Your drive and determination was unshakable. As a nearly 40 year-old, I sit in my Pilates class and watch each of the women in the room with me, at varying times during the workout, simply stop and take a rest. Can you imagine telling your coach you needed to take a rest? That would mean more laps or more push-ups or more of whatever torturous activity they could devise on the spot. I have fond memories of literally laying on the tennis court after having a rigorous workout. Yet, last week I smugly retorted to my not so young herself Pilates instructor after she asked me why I wasn’t moving, I lack the upper body strength to do that particular move. She demonstrated it with ease and smiled at me. She sat there grinning in front of us with her perky breasts and legs so flexible she effortlessly wrapped them in strange configurations right before our very eyes, while we dreamt of laying on the couch watching Oprah and drinking Chai Lattes from Starbucks. Today, however, I realized I have to change. Running (or attempting to run) with my son made me see how important it is for me to get in shape and just how little stamina I possess. I want to have the same energy level my parents had when we were growing up. I’d like to enjoy playing tennis and running up flights of stairs with him like my dad did with us. Further, I want to live long enough to watch him graduate from high-school, college and, eventually, Harvard law school (wink, wink). This means more cardio, more discipline, more consistency. Perhaps being a parent is just motivation enough for me to step up my game.