Life in the Fast Lane: Working Mom & 3 Tweens

I can't even remember the last book I read for pleasure. Time to exercise is almost nil. My kids are eating on the go almost nightly because I don't have time to cook. My house....well, at least the laundry is kept up somewhat because we need to wear clothes!

But as busy as I am (as we are as a family) I can't really say I have complaints. Look at the beauty of it all:

My babies are all growing up!

My kids are getting BIG. Each night, my 12 year old son gives me a hug goodnight and stands on his tiptoes so that we are eye to eye. I am just over 5'9", and he is just over 5'4" in 7th grade. Each night, I stare in amazement into his eyes, remembering that not very long ago he fit in the crook of my arm.  We argue about chores, homework, and his lack of ability to remember anything unless it is attached to his body (he would forget his head if it wasn't attached, I swear!) When I can, I watch him play basketball (7 practices and 2-4 games/week) but mostly I drive him to his stuff and pick him up again. When I drop him off, he walks off towards a group of friends from junior high school that I don't know. He interacts with them in a way that is new to me. His age won't reflect it for a few more months, but he truly is a teenager now--from his pimple-dotted nose to his rolling eyes. But he is still my baby, and those nightly hugs when he looks at me, eye to eye, remind us both of what it was like when his favorite things were Blue's Clues and collecting rocks.

My middle daughter is going to be 11 this month. She is in a phase I remember well--the beginning of puberty. She is struggling to feel comfortable with her changing body and experimenting with how she looks. She wants to hide her new femininity by wearing baggy tee shirts, but experiment with it by trying new hair styles. She worries a lot (she always has) but the things she worries about have changed a little. She worries about big picture things more--like saving humanity from _____________ (fill in the blank with your favorite plague.) She started a school bakery--which means whenever we have "free" time on weekends, we are baking. She sells the products after school to her classmates and teachers, then donating the proceeds to our Parent Teacher Organization. Though she is selling sweets, she specified that she wants the funds from the bakery to be limited to the purchase of P.E. equipment. How proud am I? Very. She has an amazing heart, loves sweets, and knows how to balance out that love of sweets by exercising! She also played volleyball for the first time this year, starts basketball in a few weeks, takes tap dancing, hip hop and acting classes, got a part in a play that will be performed in January, AND started playing the trombone. When I am not driving her brother to his stuff, I am driving her to her stuff--classes, practices, rehearsals every single day. Yes, you can call me "Taxi Mom."

My youngest daughter will turn 9 just after the New Year. Much to her older sister's chagrin, she is about to pass her up, height-wise. The most frequent feedback I get about my youngest is this: "She TOWERS over EVERYONE!" Yes, she does. She is literally head and shoulders above the rest of her class, and there is only one boy taller in the grade above her. Yet, despite her height she is still just a third grader. Lately she seems to have regressed to the maturity level of a toddler. Veruca Salt comes to mind--"I want the world, I want the whole world! Don't care how...I want it now!" (Check out the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory video here.)  When my daughter doesn't get what she wants, she throws herself into a tizzy of crying, screaming, and carrying on that really takes me back in time to the toddler years. It is a classic case of tween terror: "I'm getting so big and grown up that I need to regress for a while to the comfort of being little."  She has these fits pretty regularly and I have to send her to her room, ignore her for a while to let her know that I'm not falling for the theatrics, and she can't have what she wants (chocolate at bed time, a cell phone of her own, whatever other inappropriate for an-almost-9-year-old demand that she is making at the moment.) Every 5 minutes or so, I go to her room and remind her that if she keeps crying she will make herself sick. She sniffles some snot and then wails a little louder. I walk away until another 5 minutes have passed. (Any behavior focused teachers out there will recognize this as "neutral prompting"--teaching is an awful lot like parenting!)  Eventually, she comes to the realization that I am not going to give in and she walks out of her room like nothing ever happened. She carries on with her life, and then clings to me all night long. She is wandering out in life: playing basketball on a club team twice a week, taking dance, acting and singing classes, participating in a garden club and a Girl Scout troop...but when she gets home she needs to cuddle in close. Venturing out into the world can be scary business! She really reminds me of a toddler--you know that stage where they learn to walk and can get away from Mama, but when they get too far they come running back to hug your legs, feel safe again.

They are busy. And I am still working at my new job, learning things, and getting to know the system. These are crazy times, but I love it all. Life is good!

Crashing Dreams: Featured on BlogHer!

"Crashing Dreams: Parenting in Reality" is a post that first appeared here on empatheia.   I shared the story of my struggle to keep my kids' feet firm in reality. Is that the right way to parent? Or should I let them dream about being professional athletes (which is not exactly realistic.) I wrote the post because it was such a hard situation; very emotional. Parenting is so very, very difficult sometimes.

Soon after I published the piece,  it was featured on Multicultural Familia, an online magazine to which I contribute. 

Now, that post was picked up by BlogHer!  I am excited to have my post featured on such a huge, thoughtful and thought-provoking site for women. I hope that others will discuss the complexities of parenting I wrote about...I still don't have any answers and can use all the help I can get!  Visit BlogHer.com, follow the conversation on Twitter by following @BlogHer and @BlogHerCultures,  or visit the BlogHer Facebook page to share your thoughts.

Crashing Dreams: Parenting in Reality

Image via Gangway Advertising. The chances of being an NBA All Star whose picture gets displayed on the side of a building are about two in a million. 

Last week I had one of those horrible parenting moments...the ones where you wonder whether or not you've scarred your child for life, knowing that someday there will be a therapist listening to her blame her mother for long-term issues stemming from that day of that moment when she said something awful.

Maybe it wasn't that bad. Maybe it didn't scar her for life. Maybe it was a valuable lesson.

Yeah, right.

Am I just talking myself out of the significance of it all? Did I crash her dream or give her a needed reminder of the realities of life? I guess only time will tell.

What did I say? Well...some words just bubbled out that I'd been thinking about for a long time. My thoughts are all jumbled up because of sports--sports in my house, sports in the news, sports sports sports everywhere. Add that to the fact that my eyes are always seeing the influence of race on society (once your eyes are open it is impossible to close them) and you have a recipe for pre-teen dream crashing.

Here's the gist:

My son plays a lot of sports. As a preschooler he wanted to grow up to be a superhero, but when he realized that there weren't really web-slinging mutants in real life he decided to go for the next best thing: being a professional athlete. In the United States, professional athletes are iconic heroes, showing their guts on the field and living in glory after the game. From age 3-7 he played soccer and studied the Japanese martial arts of Aikido and Shinkendo. At 5 he started tee ball, which morphed into full-fledged baseball (this season he signed up for one team, but was invited to play on two others.) At age 7 he started flag football and now has two years of full-contact tackle under his belt. He's played basketball every season for the past 5 years. This past year he played on two teams during one season, meaning he had a game or practice every single day of the week. Every writing assignment he does for school is about sports. Every book he reads is about sports. You know that phrase "for the love of the game"? That sums up his life's passion so far. He loves to play. And it doesn't matter which game--he loves them all.

As a parent and an informed citizen, I know that the chances of him becoming a professional athlete are  pretty slim. A report put out by the NCAA lists the probability of high school and college athletes going pro, and the numbers are dismal. The NCAA report for men's basketball shows that only 3.2% of high school players make it to the NCAA, and of those only 1.2% make it to the NBA. In real numbers, the report says that in 2011 there were over half a million high school basketball players. Of those, only 48 made it to the NBA Draft after playing in college. The stats are like that across all sports--the chances of going pro are slim to none. Yet everywhere, young boys dream the dream of being a professional athlete. Young boys of color are particularly drawn to the dream of being a professional athlete because the media doesn't really give them many other images of themselves to consider. How many professional men of color do you see in the media who aren't athletes? As a result, boys of color dream about a better life--wealth, fame, and giving back to the community--through sports. My son is no exception to that rule.

He works hard at sports. He practices, exercises, lives, eats, and breathes sports. He is hard-working and talented, but I have always told him that while he's dreaming about going pro he also needs to dream a back-up plan. "In order to be a college athlete, you have to be a college student. So what do you think you might like to study?" We've talked about Sports Medicine, coaching, training, and Sports Law and he knows that there are lots of other opportunities to earn a living in the world of sports that occur off the field. His dream of being a professional athlete has always been tempered with a dose of reality.

So, when his sister started talking about being a professional tennis player I thought it would be a good idea to have a similar chat...

Except I didn't remember to keep in mind that my daughter is a completely different kid than her brother. She has a wide variety of interests and is always trying something new--from art and basketball to acting, softball, and playing the viola. She is a very well-rounded individual so far, who I am sure will be a very intelligent and well-rounded adult. In fact, when she was little her daycare provider predicted that she would be the first woman President of the United States, and our family often reminds her of that fact because it really could come true! She is just that smart, creative, (and gifted in the art of argument--which is both a blessing and a curse in our house.)

Image Credit: Flickr/mrlaugh

Tennis is something she tried years ago and didn't really like because "it's too hot and sweaty." After that first session of lessons, she opted for princess dance camps, acting classes, or art camps during the summer instead. This year, she decided to try tennis again. On the second day of lessons, she announced that she was going pro so that she could travel the world and be a tennis player just like Venus Williams.

When my daughter decided that going pro like Venus Williams was her goal, I instantly wondered why. She has never watched tennis on TV, never read about tennis, and only played for 6 weeks as a first grader! Why is this now her dream?


First thought: my daughter idolizes her older brother and a couple of months ago admitted that her interest in sports is largely due to his interest in sports. Could this just be an attempt to imitate her brother? One thing that's different, though, is she doesn't have the same opportunity to see professional athletes who look like her on TV as he does. They just don't show a lot of women's sports on TV.  


Second thought: what type of professional women do they show on TV?  What  role models for women of color are out there in the media for my daughter to see? 


Really-- think about it. When I did, I realized that she has one main source to see women of color in the media: music videos starring scantily clad singers and dancers.

There is of course, Michelle Obama. She is the First Lady: sophisticated, intelligent, polished, socially active. But she is the wife of the President. It doesn't really compare to what I've been trying to tell my daughter: "YOU can BE the President!" Don't have to be the "wife of " anyone...you can be the President.

All this swirled through my mind, along with all the stats about how slim the chances are for any athlete to make it to the elite level. I told my daughter, "You are so good at so many things! I'm glad you like tennis, but remember that it's really hard to be a professional tennis player."

"Don't try to talk me out of it, Mommy. You're just being negative."

Ugh. Here is where I  inserted foot in mouth. "I'm not trying to be negative, I just want you to be realistic. People who are professional athletes spend a lot of time practicing and they work really hard. Not to mention that tennis is an expensive sport to learn, and we really can't afford to get you the kinds of lessons you'll need to play at the professional level. When Venus and Serena were your age, their family moved to a new town so that they could study in an elite tennis academy. We can't do anything like that! Can't you just play for fun and think about what else you can do when you grow up?"


At that point the tears started falling. The voice turned into a shriek. "You're ruining my dream, Mommy! Why can't I just dream?"


Indeed, why can't she? I felt sooooo badly then. Evil Mom. I wanted to slink down to hide in a hole in the ground.

After a little while, I apologized to her. I told her the truth, which is that as her mom I don't want her to get hurt. I don't want her to dream about something that is so far out of reach--like a career in professional tennis--when she is so talented and smart in so many other areas and could be successful in something more attainable. Realistically, you might ask--is being President more attainable than being a professional tennis player? I don't know. But I know where her talents are--in reasoning, argument, tenacity, creative thinking, and her ability to communicate. Those talents can take her much closer to being President than they can to being the next Venus Williams.

It all backfired, though. Trying to call attention to her talents in an attempt prevent any hurt she might feel if she fails to become the next Venus Williams... well, that's what hurt her. My attempt to save her from hurt is what caused her a lot of pain.

We both felt terrible. We both shed some tears. I worried, and still do, that I scarred her for life.

Thankfully, we  made up later that afternoon. We went to bed on good terms and woke up the next day to get ready for tennis lessons. I tried not to talk about it, but worried that after our previous conversation she wouldn't want to go back to tennis at all. So I asked her, "Are you okay with tennis now?"

She said in a rather low-key way, "Yeah. I think it's a good idea to just play tennis for fun now."

I don't know whether she is crushed and defeated, scarred for life, or just more firmly trenched in reality. It feels to me like she lost some innocence, though. And I might need to visit a therapist myself to get over the guilt I feel for being the one to take that innocence away.

After her lesson (maybe to appease my guilt?) I told her that if she really wanted to pursue a career in tennis I will support her. We will look for scholarships and try to find a teacher who can work with her in the winter. It will mean some sacrifices--like giving up other activities so that we can pay for tennis; but we can do it if she really wants to. I meant it, too. Whatever it takes, we can do it.

Her response? "Mommmmmmy.....I already told you! I just wanna play tennis for fun!"

Hmmm....

What do you think? Should we let our children dream big, no matter how unrealistic? Or should we temper their dreams with some reality? I wish I knew the right answer. I really do...

Yes, This Baby is Mine

Happy Mother's Day! In honor of this day, I am featuring a guest post from one of the feistiest, funniest,  most thoughtful and thought-provoking mom bloggers I know: Martha, from Momsoap. Thank you so very much, Martha, for sharing your experiences of being a mom on this Mother's Day.

Photo courtesy of Momsoap.com

If you look at our features, my daughter looks exactly like me, not her dad. But most people don't notice it until they get to know us. Most people don't look past the color of our skin.

I'm white. My daughter is, as she puts it, "light brown." Her father is Nigerian, so he is very dark. I'm as waspy as they come, full-on European background and raised in west Texas.

But since becoming the parent to a biracial child, I've become accustomed to  the once hurtful, now simply, banal, question, "Is that your daughter?" Or, "Is she adopted?"

Yes, yes she is my daughter. And no. No, she is not adopted.

I carried her around for nine months. Spent 19 1/2 hours in painful labor, pushed her out and nursed her for a long, long time. She is fully mine.

I made her with him. And we are different colors. The conception doesn't seem to fully register with many people until they see us all together. Or get a glimpse of my daughter's dad, who is now my ex.

Over the past four years, I've been asked if my daughter is adopted; had strangers insinuate that I'm the nanny; poked fun at, until they realize I'm not joking, that she really is mine; and just been stared at in general.

All because my daughter and I have different skin colors.

If you look at us up close, I mean, stop, and look past our skin, we look very much alike. I've been told that my daughter is just a mini version of me, with brown skin and curly brownish/black hair. She is mine, through and through. It's difficult for me to see how people don't see it.

Yet, over and over again, we get questioned.

Once, we were at a funeral of a distant relative. My own flesh and blood looked me in the eye and said, "How long have you had her?"

As I bounced my baby in her Mei Tei, I thought it was a strange way of asking me how old she was, confused, I responded, "She's almost a year old." At that point, I had not yet learned to see how we looked to people outside my own frame of reference.

I had a baby. She was mine.

It never occurred to me that people would question my parentage. Until it started happening.

He went on to tell me that he and his wife as missionaries in third world countries had adopted some biracial children. Too.

Too. It was that word that sent my mind quickly to what he had assumed.

I laughed. "Oh, she's not adopted!"

Stammering for a moment he finally managed to spit out, "Uh, uh, OH! You mean your husband is African American?!"

Once he realized that I had indeed procreated with a man from another race, I thought it best not to bother correcting his assumption that we were also married (we were never married) and move into the realm of a hell-bound sinner who had sex outside of marriage. After all, I was at the funeral of Bible-thumping west Texas Christian. There was no point in asking for a prayer session to bless me away from the eternity of hellfire.

Not to mention, possibly confirming for him the stereotype that white women who sleep with black men are sluts. Yes, another small town Texas stereotype that I battled as a youngster when I began exploring men of different cultures, and had long forgotten after living for nine years in Detroit where mixed race couples were much more common, but still not without stereotypes.

Motherhood to a Biracial Child

Now that it's been a few years into motherhood of a biracial daughter, and I've worked out the basics -- like how to comb her unbelievably thick hair; how often to moisturize her skin; and managing to mostly ignore that mini punch to the gut when someone asks me if she's mine --  I realize that I am in a wonderfully amazing position here in between the racial discussions in our society.

Something I learned from a mentor years ago, and I'll share with you here today, is we do a great job with racial discussions here in the United States. We do the most important thing when it comes to relieving racial tension. We talk about it.

We may not always agree. But we talk. It's the most important thing. To not be afraid to talk about race and ethnicity. Because it's all around us.

And as a white woman, who grew up around lots of racism and negative stereotypes about people with brown skins, I know how and when to measure very subtle racism. I also know how to address to my own people, which is an important part of the talks.

And best of all, I have come to realize that there is an important place for the biracial family in the midst of racial conflicts.

We see both sides. We really do.

Since having my daughter I am truly and honestly able to look quickly past the exterior and see a whole person, no matter what color the skin, what kind of clothes they are wearing, and what side of town they live on.

Many people believe that we are already living in a post-racial society because we have a black president. Because we got rid of Jim Crow laws and because everyone has the right to vote.

But we are far from a post-racial society. There is still racism in our culture. And it's time we talk and try to see the other side. All of us. Because eventually, if you don't already, you will probably have someone in your family who has different color skin than yours. And they probably won't be adopted.

___

Photo Courtesy of Momsoap.com

Martha Wood lives in Austin, Texas where she is a single, self-employed, work at home mom. She runs a small social media business, and blogs as a freelancer. She also authors her own blog at http://www.momsoap.com where she writes about racism, attachment parenting, and just general motherhood.

Tweenage Choices/Consequences, Casting Stones & Trayvon

My son is officially a hormonal tweenager. He is a year away from having the official -teen at the end of his age, but he's definitely there, and I know it because of last week.

On Saturday at bedtime when I told him it was time to put on his head gear, he hated me. I could see it in his eyes. He gave me that look. When I ignored it, and kept insisting on the head gear, he cried.

On Sunday when his dad was cleaning up he found old pizza crusts under the love seat. He informed our son that he could no longer eat in our downstairs family room (aka "the man cave.") In that moment, he hated his dad. We could see it in his eyes. And he cried so hard that he threw up.

On Monday after school, he happily played basketball with his friends, mocked his little sisters and had a great day...until I asked him to stop mocking his little sisters. Then he hated me. I could see it in his eyes. But he didn't stop the teasing, so I had to pull the "wait 'til your dad gets home" card. When his dad got home, then he hated him, too. Of course, he cried (and lost his video-gaming privileges for the next day.)

On Tuesday, he came home from school and laid on the couch because he wasn't allowed to play any games. He sulked. Thinking he was sick, I asked him if he was okay. "No," was all he said. After some prodding, he finally let loose one detail, "Papi looks at me like he hates me."  (Hard not to smile at the irony here... really...)

I comforted and consoled him, but also explained that when I ask him to stop making fun of his sisters I expect him to stop. When he doesn't clean up after himself, he will lose some privileges.  I also explained that neither of us hate him; we're just trying to get him ready to be a responsible adult. He's probably going to alternate between hating me and hating his dad for the next 5 years or so; but that's just part of being a teenager. He looked at me and said, "I don't hate you. I just hate wearing head gear. I love you."

Awww....that melted my heart. (But not enough to give him back his gaming privileges.)

Kids, especially tweens and teens, make some really poor decisions. Their brains aren't fully developed, they make impulsive choices, and have that extra added element of peer pressure working against them. My son is just embarking on this journey of hard choices and harder consequences known as the teenage years. I hope we all make it through okay...but I worry. I've seen my students make a lot of bad choices. Some choices are much worse than others and can lead to life or death situations. Others aren't so serious. I told my son, "All kids make stupid decisions at some point; I just hope the ones you make don't hurt you or anyone else too badly. Try to stop and think before you do anything. Think about the possible consequences."

Here's a laundry list of common poor choices made by teens: stealing booze from a parent's liquor cabinet, driving without a license, driving while drunk, sneaking out at night for a date with a boy/girl, cheating on a test, procrastinating a homework assignment, shoplifting, drawing/writing on a wall, calling a parent a name, staying out past curfew, saying you'll be with one friend when you're really with another, smoking cigarettes, taking money from mom/dad's wallet without permission, paying for one movie at the theater but watching three, illegally downloading music/movies from the 'net, talking back to a parent/teacher, making fun of a peer/bullying just to look cool in front of "friends",  speeding or driving erratically...

That list could go on and on and on...there is really no limit to the number of bad choices teens can make. Is there any adult who didn't make at least one of those bad choices when they were a teen? Really?

I've been sickened to read stories about people trying to prove Trayvon Martin was a thug by hacking into his email account and looking at his school records; they are looking for evidence that he "deserved it."  Here's the deal: just like I told my son--EVERYONE makes bad decisions as a teenager. I did. I'm betting you did. I know my kids will. It's a fact of life. Imagine if your bad teen decision came back to haunt you as a reason you deserved to die.

Imagine it.

Perhaps you lied to your parents once about your whereabouts in high school--that makes you a thug who had it coming. Or you caved in to peer pressure and hid someone else's evidence because they were worried about getting caught. Now you're a no-goodnik who deserved to be shot.

I admit it; I can't let the Trayvon Martin story go. It rained a couple of times this week and I watched my son go out the door in a hoodie. It just came to me again...a boy who is not much older than him is now dead. Trayvon may have made some bad choices in his teen years. We all do. But that night in Sanford, FL he didn't deserve to die.

I am still worried about my son. He is going to, like every teen, make some bad choices. I have no trouble at all making him face the consequences of those choices. But he didn't choose to be born with brown skin. He shouldn't have to face consequences for that.