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

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