Isn't a "tag" really just a label?

Ok, I never participate in chain letters, forwards and the like, but since my husband tagged me I thought I'd better placate him.
So here are my answers:

4 Jobs I've had in my life:
a. Age 7-selling gold fish from large trash cans at swapmeets 25 cents ea. or 5/$1.00 (one of the many careers my parents tried)
b. Age19-floor guard (ref with a whistle), dj, concessions stand and birthday clown at a skating rink.
c. Age 23-mixing 100's of pounds of scented bath salts and potpourris by hand (another family business)
d. Age 24-32-working with severely handicapped and developmentally delayed children and adults (class room aid for children, community intergration for the adults)

4 movies I would watch over and over:
a. Some kind of wonderful (reminds me of Hermans and my story)
b. Joe vs. the volcano (love the orange crush)
c. Under the Tuscan sun (encourages me to work on the house)
d. Toys (I love the big green fields in it)

4 places you have lived:
a. Bakersfield Ca. (as a small child)
b. Long Beach Ca. (small child to adult)
c. Belmont Shores Ca. (young married)
d. Walla Walla, Wa. (now)

4 TV shoes you love to watch:
a. Reba (made me feel at home, when stuck in hospital after giving birth)
b. House (love the sarcasm)
c. Criminal minds (lots of suspense without gore)
d. Jimmy Neutron (what can I say....I have kids)

4 places you have been on vacation:
a. Tahoe, Ca. (graduation gift/trip)
b. Laughlin, Nv. (always fun with Herman)
c. up and down east coast in motor home with Grandparents (1976-great trip for a 12 year old)
d. Jamaica (in my dreams)

4 web pages visited daily:
a. my email
b......
c.......
d.....Don't have the same "down" time as Herman so page visiting is limited

4 of my favorite foods:
a. Pizza
b. Steak
c. lasagna
d. club sandwiches

4 places I'd rather be right now:
a. 15 years in the past (doing it different this time though)
b. some beach in the sun
c. on vacation
d. 30 years in the future

4 bloggers I am tagging:
"Ollie Ollie Oxen Free Free Free"-all are free from being tagged

Not too exciting, just a game of tag.

And the madness continues

Well I finally finished the book. hmmmm, well I didn't leave it with an excited view of the world and how NOW everything will fall into place. I came away with sort of a sadness for the author who herself feels this pressure now and doesn't see a way out. One chapter was called "Wonderful husbands", it started out with women all saying how wonderful their husbands were, then got down to the nitty gritty about how lacking they really are on the home front. Ok, well Herman is a wonderful husband also. But he is also human and I don't expect him to be able to run this household if I were gone any more than I would expect myself to be able to go to the prison and do his job. Not without the training first. Why do we moms choose to do it ourselves? Because it's easier. How many times have I wanted to just fold the towels myself because when Becket does it they look like a rolling mess on the shelves. Just last night after coming home from a therapy session (another story) the table was set. My first statement was, "Did Tansy set the table?, cuz she really did a crappy job" Turned out Herman set the table. Oops. I explained that Tansy has been learning how to set the table the right way. And I really appreciated his helping, but it might be a good thing if he learned to set it correctly also so we can both teach the children how to do it. Whew, I think it was a good save. That is our nature, to do it all ourselves because it won't get done the way WE want it to. This is one area that lessening the pressure on our family may come in.
Ok, another subject I am milling around. How can I possibly raise my children the way WE want to, and still raise them to be able to fit into any part of society when they are grown? If I am not pushing my children to take on 4 classes of dance, karate, or baseball, and if I'm not forcing Becket to read for a full hour a day and if I'm not playing classical music for Andrew will I doom them for a life of under achieving? Herman and I were talking about this and his reply (which I found very profound) was that we need to raise our children to be parents. Whether they choose to be a CEO of a company or an Abbot or Abbess, whether they are teachers, or lawyers, or artists they will all need the skills of being a parent. A parent has to delegate, challenge, encourage, submit, give in, rally, teach, provide, allow and prepare just as much as any of these other careers would call for. A mom has to know her math to get around in the kitchen as would a chef or dietician. A dad needs to be able to fairly impose consequences when a situation calls for it, much as a supervisor would need to. So now I'm thinking that I can still raise my children in a loving, fun, carefree yet stimulating atmosphere by using a secret weapon that God has given me. It's called: Common Sense.
One last warning though, it's a rough road going from "going with the flow" of society to swimming up stream, without placing a judgement on those that have yet to "turn around"

The Perfect madness

"Manic cookie-baking at midnight. Play dates as complicated as peace summits. Mother-of-the-birthday-boy meltdowns. Ambien nights and Ritalin days. No sex. No nights out. No sleep. Ever. What's wrong with this picture? That's the question Judith Warner asked herself after taking a good, hard look at the world of modern motherhood, at anxious women at work and at home and in bed with unhappy husbands. Warner, a writer and journalist, returned to the United States after living a becoming a mother abroad and was shocked to find the mothers she met here living lives of quiet desperation. Mothers working outside the home were cruelly burdened with double-duty workdays and nights punctuated by anxiety and guilt; stay-at-home moms often seemed overwhelmed and depressed." -The Perfect Madness

I was at a local bookstore the other day and a book caught my eye. It was called, The perfect madness, mothering in an age of anxiety, By Judith Warner. I imagine you know why this title would catch my eye. 1. I am a mom, 2. I have anxiety and 3. I am mad (sometimes)
I am almost finished with the book but I have to write about it now. The author has taken a look at our society since the 50's up until now and has interviewed thousands of moms on the topic of being a mom. There is so much in this book, my thoughts may seem scattered as I fritter to and fro. She starts out by sharing the results of interviews with moms. Mostly upper middle class. Ok ok, gotta back up. The author lived in France for several years as a mom. In France there is government assistance for nannies, day care, schooling, doctors etc. There are also various grants to help out families. She stated that a mom is never "alone" in her parenting. There are numerous resources for the mom to be a healthy, complete, balanced and happy mom. Once she returned to the states she was amazed at the anxiety level of mothers who work outside the home as well as stay at home moms. She realized that our society has made it near impossible to be a parent without an enormous amount of pressure. Pressure to teach your child to read before kindergarten, to search for the best educational toys, to spend quality time with your child as well as quanity time, to assume that it is your responsibility to have your kids in various activities that require driving to and from, to take your child to the "experts" if your child is appearing a bit slow, to pursue the best education regardless of cost and the list goes on and on. Moms talked about how they are up at dawn, getting their kids ready for school, getting their own excerise in, finding forgotten homework assignments, putting together last minute projects all before the day really starts. The topic of the lack of government support there is for families comes up. The rise in medication for kids that aren't able to sit very long in class for their teachers, the rise in medication for moms to just get through the day is talked about. The fact that in large cities a one income family means the father is working 60+ hours a week and ends still aren't being met is a common thread. Moms often feel like they are failures in some capacity if their children don't have the right blend of social activities and friends. If she doesn't use the 0-3 years of age to fill her baby with as much learning material as possible she has set him up for a life time of struggles. If she turns on the TV for any amount of time she has filled her daughter with dangerous body image problems. Warner touches on everything from eating disorders to food allergies, from private school to home schooling. She doesn't exactly offer an opinion, she more presents these truths. As I said I haven't read the last chapter yet and am secretly hoping she will offer the cure all for it, but I doubt I'll find that in the last pages. What this book has done is opened my eyes! I remember having to find every piece of Jimmy Neutron party ware for Beckets 4 year birthday, I gave in to getting Tansy LOTS of Groovy Girl stuff to play with, I taught her how to write her name before she was 2 and a half, I had them in rock climbing class at 4 years of age, swimming lessons by 6 months, soccer, t-ball, karate, library story hour every week, toddler class for socialization, kindermusic and the list goes on and on. I set up such high standards for myself as the mom, if I didn't take advantage of those times to play music to open the math part of their brains, or to read to them while still in the womb I was guilty of not giving them a good start in life. How many moms are truly living a life without any anxiety or exhaustion or just plain apathy. Our society has turned into a society that accepts the sacrificial mom as a norm. And if you are not putting your children first in EVERYTHING then you aren't not really a nurturing parent. Ok, so here's where I'm changing my views of my own momminess. If Becket doesn't love reading as much as his parents do and struggles with it, he's not going to end up robbing liquor stores. If Tansy watches television she isn't going to become an anorexic model. If Andrew continues to throw major tantrums in the store I am NOT going to die there on the spot and melt into nothingness. If I only homeschool 2 hours one day and 1 the next, the school district will not come and arrest me. We only own 1 car, and a small one at that. It doesn't have a DVD player in it. Herman gets off work at 2 in the afternoon. I will ignore the kids for an hour or two to read a good book. I will allow Andrew to cry in his crib until his two hours of nap time are over. I will take a bubble bath at 6 pm while the kids are playing in the living room if I need to. And in the summer I will lay on my hammock telling the kids they aren't allowed to talk to me till my alone time is done. I will pretend I live in France and will follow their idea that if a mom isn't happy, then her kids won't be happy either. It's not about me becoming a selfish mom, it's about me protecting my family from a society that has dictated far too long that in order to produce productive functioning children the parents need to die a slow emotional death.

"Perfect Madness offers a rich and provocative history of contemporary American culture. It thoroughly examines why mothers who appear to have everything are feeling exhausted and dissatisfied and powerless. It explores how the current generation of moms became a generation of control freaks convinced they must handle everything alone......Warner provides a context in which to understand the way we live now and to imagine an alternative way of life. She argues that all of us-men, women, society at large--need to demand more support for our families: from our government, from our workplaces, and from one another."