Blood is Thicker than Water

29. December 2012 · 5 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

This is not a statement most teenagers believe. It’s a classic struggle. The teen separates him or herself from the family by finding a group of friends to spend time with and pushing away from the family. Not every teen does this. Mr. Geeky says he didn’t really do that too much, but he says his sister was “raised by her peers.” I felt that to be true about myself, and I felt that my parents could have done things to prevent that. Looking back now, I know my parents were going through their own stuff and that just a year after I graduated high school, they were in the process of separating.

So I tried as a parent to provide reasons to believe the statement: having more family activities, spending more time with extended family, having more open lines of communication. To some extent we’ve succeeded, but not entirely. But I think I’ve done the best I can, because honestly, teens do need to have a peer group and they will be going out and making their own lives and their own families, and it is healthy to have connections outside the family. I know people whose primary, and sometimes only, peer connections are family. And that’s not good either.

I have only one or two friends from high school and/or college, people I connect with when I’m home or visiting their cities. One thing my kids don’t realize is that that might be the case for them as well. Family will always be there and can often provide a better safety net than friends. It’s also true that sometimes friends are more supportive than family. I know people whose families are unhealthy. But I also know that people with healthy families just seem more stable, and that it’s harder to launch into the world without the foundation of the family. But I see teens, both my own and some of my students, who sometimes think they’re just going to go it alone. And I see parents who are too involved.

So it’s a balancing act. And it’s a difficult one as a parent. You want to follow your child’s lead, but you also have the benefit of having been there and learned these lessons before. You don’t want your kids to learn them the hard way, but you can’t always prevent that from happening. Which is not fun to watch. But that’s what parents are for, to pick kids up and help them learn those lessons. And that role, I’m realizing, is going to last a long time.

Stuff happens

27. December 2012 · 26 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I realize I disappeared for a bit. Well, stuff happened. I got permission to write a little about what that stuff was.

About a month ago, we ended up in the emergency room with Geeky Boy because he had called the suicide hotline. Luckily, he had called before he had even really thought through what he might do. Still, we were scared. We sat in the hospital for several hours waiting for the social worker. There were several people there in a similar situation. Finally, it was recommended to us that GB be put in a residential treatment program for teens.

GB’s depression was not new to us. He’s suffered on and off for years, having a major bout just last year. After getting on medication, it seemed the worst had passed, until this happened, and then we were right back at square one. Only worse. He spent two weeks in the residential program, and came home on Thanksgiving. It was a difficult transition, for all of us.

We worried that he would try to hurt himself if we left him alone. We worried about making him do his regular household chores. We had no idea what to do. We were given zero instructions. Do we let him go out with friends or not? Do we punish him if he’s late or not? Do we push him to finish his college applications or not? Do we keep him busy? If so, how? We had no answers. The normal answers we might have if he weren’t vulnerable didn’t work. Punishments sent him into a dark hole as did pushing him to do things.

The first few weeks, we spent a lot of time talking to him, which was hard. His view of the world and himself didn’t mesh at all with ours. We couldn’t force him to see things differently. We couldn’t force anything.

Things are definitely better, but we still worry. We’re still trying to feel comfortable with where he is, and trying to let him make his own choices and figure things out for himself. Which is hard for any parent of a 17 year old, I know. But most parents of kids this age seem to have some faith that they will come through in the end. Our faith in his ability to do so is not very solid.

Our biggest setback has been college. We’re days away from deadlines, and I honestly don’t know if they’ll be met. His depression has meant that, despite being really smart, his grades are not good. So his choices are limited. There are plenty of options still, but I worry what not getting into somewhere he really wants will set him back emotionally. I am prepared to help him come up with alternative plans for next year, probably community college and work. Yes, I’ve had to adjust my expectations–a lot. But believe me, I’ll take anything over not having Geeky Boy around.

Conferencing as a family affair

23. June 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , ,

I have just returned from the NCGS STEM Symposium where Mr. Geeky and I were on a panel together.  We had originally submitted a presentation on the partnership we’ve developed between his students and mine, but we ended up on a panel about the pipeline.  It was really interesting and a lot of fun to do.  Because we have children that can’t be left at home, we brought them along.  We left them at the hotel for the first half of the day, and brought them over in time for our session, the last one of the day.  They sat in the back taking photos of us and seemingly listening — hard to tell.  At the end, Geeky Boy asked a question about the relationship between teachers and students and got several responses.  He’s decided he likes conferences and wants to go to more.  We might have a future academic on our hands.

We also spent some time with a couple of teachers and another professor from Wellesley.  Mr. Geeky has new computing platform he’s working on that is not only good for college level teaching, but has appealed to K-12 teachers (me among them, of course).  A couple of teachers contacted him and we met them for dinner and talked CS curriculum and robotics.  They were very nice people and I look forward to sharing resources and working with them.  I’m jealous of their positions–they are in a full CS department where CS is required starting in 6th grade!  It sounds awesome.

The next day, we met physics professor, Robbie Berg from Wellesley who does a lot of work with robotics and microcontrollers.  He helped design the Pico boards I have played around with a bit, and that I’m working on a way to work into some of what I do with my middle schoolers.  We got to see his robotics studio, where they have not only a ton of legos and microcontrollers, but a laser cutter, a 3-D printer, and some other cool equipment.

We had planned to hang around the next day and do some sightseeing in Boston, but it started to rain, and we were exhausted, so we decided to just head home.  We’re planning to make another trek in that direction, perhaps later this summer.  I think this was a good trip for us and the kids.  It was really the first time they’d seen us in a professional setting, talking about our work with others.  They hear it a lot around the house, and, of course, Geeky Girl sees me in the classroom, but it’s different to see how other people react and to participate in the conversation. They both got a good sense of what college is really like, another bonus to our trip.

Work vs. Family

02. April 2010 · 6 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Laura at 11D points to a slate article about the “mommy-track,” which suggests that it’s not as stigmatized as it once was and that, in fact, it’s not always just moms or even just parents that seek flexible work.  The discussion at Laura’s centers around how much of choice the mommy track really is and about the financial stability of the family and the non-working parent.  I titled this work “vs.” family because I think that’s really what happens most of the time.  They’re in competition with each other for time and attention.  And work almost always wins, for a lot of reasons.  We need money to live off of.  In this economic climate, many people fear that taking time for family is a red flag that will get them fired.  And work, not family, is generally what’s valued by society.  So we’re drawn to more time into work for its financial and cultural rewards and out of fear of losing financial stability.

But the family needs time, too.  And it needs time in lots of different ways.  I laughed at one commenter who mentioned a woman taking off during the early years of her children’s lives and finding herself with not much to do once they’re in school, especially middle and high school.  Every new mom I talk to, I tell to work through those early years when there are more public services for kids–good daycare, afterschool programs, even care for the times when school randomly closes for in-service days.  In middle school all that ends, and the bigger fears begin: drugs, sex, the kinds of things that aren’t just worrisome but could literally ruin a kid’s life. Someone needs to be there to not only make sure kids avoid those things, but to help them navigate the broader social sphere of middle and high school, sometimes to just be a positive force in their lives.  I don’t think I’m being a helicopter parent here, just acknowledging that kids need guidance during these years and sometimes the best guidance comes from a parent.

And then there’s the other things that can happen.  A parent or other family member can get ill or die.   Family members might need other kinds of help–financial or emotional support, for example.  It’s just a good thing to be able to be there for a family member in need without having to worry about your job being taken away. In my own case, I’m the only child of divorced, aging parents.  And though I think it will be many years before I’m having to worry seriously about their health, anything could happen.

Mr. Geeky wants me to return to work within the next year or so to shore up our financial situation for the kids’ college education.  And I do want to work, but I need work to be flexible and it makes it hard to consider certain types of jobs.  Geeky Girl hits middle school next year and we’re headed into some major parts of high school life–driving and dating are soon to be a regular part of our lives.  We both need to be able to juggle the needs of our family and our work lives.  Mr. Geeky tries, but he has, as one commenter called it, a job that is a calling.  Literally, the work almost never ends for him.  Before I quit, I was on a similar track, but it was impossible for both of us to have our heads that much in our work and have our kids not suffering.  Maybe certain families can make that work, but we couldn’t.

There are certain careers I’d pursue–teaching in either high school or college, continuing technology consulting work, writing–that I think would be fun and interesting careers and could potentially offer me the flexibility I need, without, in most cases, my needing to even ask for it.  When I return, I plan to get more serious about generating an income.  But I need to find a way to do it without pitting work against family.

Coming up for air

24. February 2010 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I’m in the airport with about an hour before my flight home.  It’s been a long ten days.  In a former life, I would never have been able to spend the time I did with my dad. My dad, because he works for himself, also can take time to grieve and recuperate.  I’ve thought about this a lot over the last few days.  So much focus is on work-life balance as it relates to parents, but my dad spent a week in the hospital with my stepmother before she died.  Had he had an average job, he might not have been able to do that.  We, as a society, do a pretty crappy job, ironically, of being human (and humane).

I have more to say about the last few days.  Thanks so much to everyone who left comments of sympathy on my last post.  It was nice to check in once in a while and see some heartfelt comments.  I look forward to being back in the blogging community.

Even a Vacation is about Learning

13. October 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

Our trip to Monticello happened to coincide nicely with some of the work the kids are doing in school. Geeky Girl is doing a whole unit on colonial America. They visited a colonial cabin nearby, a trip I served as a chaperon on. Geeky Boy has been studying the French Revolution, a movement inspired by Jefferson’s words and work. We were able, then, to make concrete many of the lessons they’ve been learning in school. It’s one thing to read about slavery. It’s another to see the conditions under which slaves lived. The history of our nation is written as a kind of grass roots movement by people who wanted to be freed from royal tyranny. The truth is much more complicated and visiting Monticello brought that complexity home. There’s the matter of the land and house itself, which clearly show that Jefferson was a well off man. IMGP1572Though he considered himself a farmer, he was not like the farmers who scraped out a living on a borrowed piece of land. He grew a mass amount of fruits and vegetables. And, he had slaves to tend all of it. Another complication for a man who wrote “All men are created equal.”

It occurs to me that this kind of immersion into history is not something available to everyone. We didn’t go with the intention of the trip serving as an educational moment, but we were able to make it into one without, I think, taking away the fun. The reason we could do that were a) we knew what the kids were doing in school because we talk to them; b) we have the financial means to travel, stay at a hotel and pay the entrance fee; and c) we ourselves are educated and know enough about the period to connect the dots. The first reason is easy enough for anyone to do. The second is harder. Certainly, there are budget hotels, but the cost of entrance is quite high. It’s a trip that I think many would have to budget carefully for. Monticello The third reason may seem impossible to overcome, but I think a combination of the library and available online resources could even alleviate that. But still, it’s a lot of work for a small trip, and it was no work at all for us to manage. It just made me think about advantages I often take for granted.

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When I’m Sixty-Five

12. October 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

This weekend, the Geeky family went down to Charlottesville, VA to celebrate my father’s 65th birthday. We visited Monticello and Michie Tavern and skirted over to UVA Sunday morning and walked around a bit. Geeky Boy declared it too big a school for him to consider.

We celebrated pretty simply, having a late lunch at the tavern after a tour of Monticello. Instead of a big dinner in what would have been a crowded restaurant (given that it was homecoming weekend), we had cake and wine in our hotel room. We had a big brunch Sunday at the Boar’s Head Inn, where we had celebrated my grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary about 10 years ago.

My dad does not seem 65 at all. Despite having an artificial hip and knee, he’s still very active, more active than me actually. He rides his bike and golfs. He’s still working full time as a lawyer and shows few signs of slowing down. Mr. Geeky declared that he hoped he made it to 65. I figure I’ll make it. I want to be like my dad when I get there.

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Long Weekend

28. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Piggly Wiggly was the first self-service groce...Image via Wikipedia

The kids have the day off in honor of Yom Kippur. Geeky Girl is currently at a friend’s house, having spent the night there. Geeky Boy, still asleep. I, too, slept in. It was much needed after the last two days of running around. Saturday, we had 3 hours of soccer. Pictures, lunch, then practice and a game. It was colder than it’s been all fall and so after the game, Geeky Girl and I went to Starbucks and I got my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season. Yay!

Sunday, I had an 11:30 meeting, which I had forgotten about until the woman I was meeting with called me. Luckily it was 5 minutes away. I threw some clothes on, put my hair in a pony tail and rushed out the door. Geeky Girl had to be dropped off at a party at 1 and picked up at three, then dropped off again at 7:30. In between, I finally showered and did a few loads of laundry. I sent Mr. Geeky to the grocery store, which he was none too happy about. He claims he’s never going again. Apparently, there was an altercation with the clerk and they were out of half the stuff on the list. I might have to try delivery again.

Geeky Girl and I had to make a map out of homemade play dough before her sleepover and I had to put together a beef stew for dinner almost simultaneously. Thankfully, the two projects did not get intermingled.

We popped the map into the oven and then went to Staples to get paint when we realized we’d sold all of our art supplies in the garage sale. As a sign of how I was feeling, I stopped by the beer store, which was right next door to Staples, and got a case of Pumpkin Ale. I promptly put two beers in the freezer. The map and the stew came out great and we ate the stew while watching Gosford Park. Shortly thereafter, I dropped Geeky Girl off and then settled in to kill virtual monsters, which felt pretty damn good.

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My Family’s Keeper

17. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

One of the roles I least like in my family and one that seems to have been mine for many years is that of “keeper.” By keeper, I mean the person who keeps everyone on track, at both the micro and the macro level. I know, for example, when the first field trip is, and I know when the soccer games are and when back to school night is and when school is out for 1/2 day. I’m also the one who makes doctor’s and dentist’s appointments (obviously). I actually make Mr. Geeky’s appointments for him because if I don’t, an appendage is likely to fall fall off (no, not that one), or a tumor will take over his body. As an example, after months of watching him squint while reading and doing the arm telescoping thing, I called the eye doctor, because after prodding him to do it for months, I knew he would never do it.

On the micro level, I’m the one waking everyone up in the morning, making lunches, prodding kids to take showers and eat breakfast, gather school materials and find soccer socks. I try to get the gathering to happen the night before, but alas, it’s hardly ever successful. On the plus side, I don’t have to do this for Mr. Geeky, though I do have to remind him to eat lunch. Geeky Boy has actually taken to texting him when he goes to lunch.

All this tracking is exhausting. Periodically, I’ve tried to extract myself from tracking everyone, but when I have done this, it’s always an epic fail. A kid is late to school, forgets an important assignment, can’t go on a field trip, or only has milk for lunch. And when I was working, it totally pissed me off because I myself was in a hurry getting ready and getting ready for something I didn’t always enjoy so that I wasn’t in a good mood to begin with.

Yesterday, as I was downstairs making lunches (peanut butter and banana, fruit, and a bag of pretzels), I realized that Geeky Boy was not down for breakfast yet. So, I stopped in the middle of spreading peanut butter, walked upstairs, poked my head in our bedroom where Mr. Geeky is catching up on email and reading the news, and said to him, “You know, when I’m downstairs making lunch for the kids, you could make sure Geeky Boy is on his way down and poke him if he needs to be poked.” “Okay, okay, all you have to do is ask.” And this morning, I didn’t have to ask. A small victory.

After school is a similar scenario of checking on homework, requesting rooms to be cleaned, and asking for help with chores.

The thing is, I know that I don’t have to be the morning keeper. Geeky Girl needs no keeping. She sets her alarm in the morning and comes down to get breakfast on her own. She often eats in our bedroom, chatting with us while she eats. She gets dressed, gets her school stuff together and gets out the door to the bus stop without any prompting from us. She has a strict schedule–which she made up herself–for after school activities. First is homework, then violin practice, then soccer practice. Though I check in with her, I never have to prod.

I don’t know how I ended up in this role. I didn’t want it, for sure. It could be because I’ve always been the one with the 9-5 job and so kept a regular schedule. It could be that I’m more organized than the rest of my family. Or it could everyone else is lazy. I don’t know. But my goal is to ease my way out of this role. I don’t mind having to check on everyone with gentle reminders. What I don’t like is the feeling that I’m the only one thinking of these things. So, I’m going to do a couple of things in the next couple of days. One, I’m getting Geeky Boy an alarm clock. Two, I’m going to set him up with Google Calendar–which Mr. Geeky is using too and makes some of this tracking sooo much easier. I’m sure there’s more I can do. Ideas welcome!

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Why we get defensive

11. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

I was going to post something fun here today, but nothing floated to the top as worth it, and after I read Historiann and Dr. Crazy this morning, I found myself with a lot of thoughts to put down. Dr. Crazy’s post on speaking out as a non-parent on parent-related issues is excellent as are the many comments which dig into the topic further. What she and Historiann both marvel at is the defensiveness with which many of their parent commenters express in their responses. I feel that defensiveness pretty keenly these days in all kinds of different situations. It feels to me that no matter what choices I’ve made–to be a parent or not, to work or not, to mother a certain way or not–I’m criticized for them. I think many parents–mostly mothers, imho–feel they’re in a basically lose-lose situation. And I think Histioriann’s discussion of patriarchy is right on the money as to why this happens. Here are some of my humble thoughts, mostly based on my own experience, so, as they used to say in the old days of the Internet: ymmv.

1. Women in the workforce have a difficult time. They are still often perceived, even in places that are “family-friendly” as the primary caregivers. This leads to assumptions about how dedicated they are to their work and whether they’re going to up and quit because of a child. Unfortunately, many women do quit to manage family matters because they find they can’t once they realize there’s no (affordable) child-care, no (affordable) afterschool programs and their workplace isn’t flexible enough to provide time to juggle child-care and work. Even if their partner can take on part of this, they both need the flexibility to manage this and workplaces are often even less friendly to men who want that kind of flexibility to do their part as parents. And all this is systemic, having nothing to do with individuals as individuals who just react and make choices that make sense within that system.

2. On the flip side, when mothers who work find themselves among mothers who don’t, they’re often treated as if they’re not being good mothers. They’re leaving the kids with less than ideal care (ideal being a parent). Also part of the system.

3. Mothers who don’t work feel awkward among mothers who do because again, they feel they’re being judged. As one commenter noted, and as I myself have experienced, some women will expound on the “anti-feminism” of the sahm. I’ll admit to having had those thoughts, but would never say them out loud. And now, I think that some people are sahm’s because they are persuaded or caught up in certain social norms that stem from patriarchy, mostly having to do with appropriate gender roles. And some are sahms because they get forced out of the workplace, which as I said in #1 functions under these same social norms.

So, here’s the thing. This was my first week at home after school started. The kids aren’t here from 8-3. For the first time in 13 years, I am making absolutely. no. money. It feels very, very weird. I feel all at turns useful and completely useless. And yes, sometimes defensive. When I was working at my polling place a couple of years ago, my across the street neighbor came in and one of our other neighbors, a man in his 50s, started talking to her, and she explained that she’d quit her job to stay at home (her kids are older than mine–oldest is a senior, youngest is in middle school). He said, “Good for you. As it should be.” That has stuck with me, and just the other day, when I was standing at the bus stop, a neighbor said to me, “Hey, don’t you teach too?” And I stumbled a bit, and said, “Not anymore. I quit my job last fall.” And he said, “Good for you.” And I heard “As it should be” in my head. And that does not feel good–at least not to me.

There are subtle messages that we get as parents about how we’re expected to behave. Those messages are often different for fathers than for mothers. One would think the easy path would be to meet those expectations, but most of the time, we end up trying to overcome those expectations. A working parent often has to prove to her workplace that she’s not a slacker and prove to the mothers at the soccer game that she’s a good parent. I’m getting a nagging feeling all the time that I should be working, but then I realize how much work it would be to manage the house and kids and I cringe, thinking about putting in a 40-hour week plus god knows how many hours juggling the home front. And I don’t feel comfortable at all running around with the PTO crowd, some of whom have literally said they put their children’s needs ahead of their own. I’m not even doing that now, as a sahm. I quit work for myself, for my own mental and physical health and to give myself some time to work on some projects that may or may not make any money, but I feel like I can’t say that.

So what am I saying? I guess I’m just saying that it’s complicated, but I’m very glad that the conversation is happening. And I think we should all be observant of the ways in which we might be participating in a system that reinforces stereotypes, one of which might be that parents need extra “perks” as Dr. Crazy suggests is the norm at her school, but another of which might be that non-parents have all the time in the world, which is equally untrue. Those stereotypes are damaging to us all, put us all on the defensive and make it so we can’t work together toward viable solutions, which might be local, but which might also be part of a larger policy goal related to working conditions.

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