tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-149624222024-03-13T00:20:38.667-04:00Crunchy Granolachronicles from the north,<br> where our two academic mom, one daughter family<br>crunches its way through life's adventuressusanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.comBlogger398125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-54081452685724909002015-08-24T17:13:00.000-04:002015-08-24T17:13:05.640-04:00Five Ways to Eat TomatoesCollin Brooke's <a href="https://tinyletter.com/rhetsy" target="_blank">Rhetsy</a> has a bit of the old school blog about it. It's powered by TinyLetter, so it arrives by email, but each week's contribution has a few links, with some comments from Collin about what he finds of interest. I like it.<br />
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He's called for <a href="http://tinyletter.com/rhetsy/letters/rhetsy-a-call-for-fives" target="_blank">lists of five</a>, and that inspired me to dust off the old blog. It's August, and in northern New England, August is tomato time. So what's on my mind? Five ways to eat tomatoes. (Although what I really need are 500 ways to eat zucchini.)<br />
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1. <a href="http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/08/slow-roasted-tomatoes/" target="_blank">Slow-roasted oven tomatoe</a>s. Yes, it can be hot in tomato season. Yes, three hours is a long time to leave the oven on. But these tomatoes are simply a taste of heaven. I dream about these tomatoes all winter long.<br />
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2. <a href="http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2015/08/angel-hair-pasta-with-raw-tomato-sauce/" target="_blank">Raw tomato sauce</a>. Another Smitten Kitchen recipe description--she adapts it from Gourmet. And I like her notion of simply asking people what recipes they adore. Trusting people who don't like to cook to find the most reliable recipes intrigues me. <br />
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3. Another raw tomato sauce, this one from the most unlikely of places: <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=zvOppQPQxPgC&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=PMLA+recipe&source=bl&ots=Eh8ZUJ_0qk&sig=p3ctFTxdIxLHraEjrQyqVuaKCTE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEcQ6AEwB2oVChMI6JS_1c3CxwIVAR8eCh2lzQLh#v=onepage&q=PMLA%20recipe&f=false" target="_blank">PMLA (104, 1989)</a>, the rather stuffy journal of the Modern Language Association. When I first started graduate school, a requirement in the MA program was a proseminar for new students. The proseminar professor brought in a recent issue of PMLA, showing us that a graduate student had published a piece in it. He wanted us to know that publication was something we could do (this was back in the mid '80s, when graduate education was not professionalized in the way it is now; more graduate students publish more pieces these days.) PMLA--which I never read anymore, having moved away from literature and the MLA--always reminded me of my imposter syndrome as I started graduate school. But in 1989, this piece by Susan Leonardi captivated me: it opened with a recipe, and it referenced Nora Ephron. That's my kind of literary criticism. I keep this issue of PMLA on my cookbook stand, even though you really don't need to follow the recipe once you've read it more than once. But it amuses me that I have a tomato-and-oil-stained PMLA in the kitchen.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOQ9Yv2qos0s4XdI4bPhB4d8dh341jqFO5dfhieBo06f0FvbSkEaJJVxCJUBHi2hZywr3rPKNhKQ_RTmBpagrKzC3mJG14XRhyphenhyphenln5_MnaoxGVbV87QmDzuJRudom3K40jZpYKr/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-08-24+at+4.57.25+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Recipe for a raw tomato salad" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOQ9Yv2qos0s4XdI4bPhB4d8dh341jqFO5dfhieBo06f0FvbSkEaJJVxCJUBHi2hZywr3rPKNhKQ_RTmBpagrKzC3mJG14XRhyphenhyphenln5_MnaoxGVbV87QmDzuJRudom3K40jZpYKr/s320/Screen+Shot+2015-08-24+at+4.57.25+PM.png" title="" width="257" /></a></div>
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4. Sliced, on toast, with salt. Classic. Simple. Tasty.</div>
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5. Tomato soup, with chickpeas, pureed. The chickpeas create a creaminess that you'd swear comes from cream, except it's not. In the winter, pair with a grilled cheese sandwich. In summer, perhaps a salad?</div>
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So what are your favorite ways to eat tomatoes? (Can I slip in a sixth, in my list of five? Munching on sun-warmed cherry tomatoes as I garden is pretty darn delightful.)</div>
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School is starting again, but I find myself holding onto summer with each bite of tomato. May we all have a bit of late-summer sweetness as the seasons progress.</div>
susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-13512856675653721522014-06-02T13:13:00.000-04:002014-06-02T13:13:08.252-04:00Love PerserveresIt's <a href="http://www.mombian.com/2014/06/02/blogging-for-lgbtq-families-day-master-list-of-posts/" target="_blank">Blogging for LGBT Families Day</a>, which draws me out of my bloggy hiatus. What a year it's been, politically, in the US, for many LGBT families: so many weddings! It's amazing how fast the political landscape in this country is changing.<br />
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I'm spending the day home with a sick child. For the zillionth time, we're watching <i>High School Musical 2</i>. I've been trying to get her to drink fluids, trying to get her to rest, trying to get her to alternate activities so she doesn't just spend the whole day watching TV (even though, if there's any day to watch TV all day, it's a sick day). I'm thinking about planning dinner and watching our garden out the window, while also trying to finish a work report in the way one does when a child is sick and the office calls. Pretty much, just a regular gay old day around here.<br />
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But I've got a story to tell, about love and dementia. My mom had a stroke last fall, and then she fell getting out of bed a few months later, and the combination of the stroke and the fall and the passage of time has accelerated her dementia (where are the blogs about taking care of aging parents?). She doesn't always make a lot of sense anymore. But recently, this happened:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mom: I'm glad everything worked out with you and Politica. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Me: Yes, it really has. It's good.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Mom: You're very happy.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Me: Yes.</blockquote>
Somehow, out of all the confusion, she remembers that we're happy. And given that she declined to come to our first two ceremonies, and had a really hard time when I came out to her in the first place, I think this is really quick remarkable. She's watching and listening and growing and learning, even though her brain is weakening.<br />
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It's nice to be loved, and it's nice to have love be noticed. And nice that my very Catholic family has managed, in its own way, with very little explicit talk, and a lot of passage of time, to fold in two happy lesbians and their daughter. Hurray for all of us.<br />
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<br />susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-66822585652802568442012-12-07T12:50:00.002-05:002012-12-07T12:50:15.994-05:00Be Nice Out ThereIt's not news, exactly, that Bad Things Happen to Good People. But this semester, I've been really struck by how very many Bad Things have happened to Good People I know--and also struck by how many of these Bad Things are probably invisible to onlookers. I remember, vividly, the first afternoon of the separation that was the first step towards the formal end of my first marriage. I didn't quite know what to do with myself, so I took a walk downtown. I remember thinking that my world was crumbling, and marveled at the fact that every person who walked past me on the sidewalk had no idea how sad I was. We carry our burdens quietly and sadly, so often.<br />
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This semester, I know people who have:<br />
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<ul>
<li>watched their child die</li>
<li>watched a parent die</li>
<li>been abused by a spouse</li>
<li>had trouble finding medical help for a seriously ill family member</li>
<li>suffered a depressive episode</li>
<li>filed for divorce</li>
<li>failed an exam</li>
<li>failed out of college</li>
<li>gotten fired</li>
<li>gotten a scary new diagnosis</li>
<li>called a crisis line</li>
<li>despaired that a problem would get better</li>
<li>refused medication that might help</li>
<li>been rejected by a sibling</li>
<li>watched a parent decline</li>
<li>gotten a call about a distant parent falling suddenly, seriously ill</li>
<li>struggled to help a child get to school</li>
<li>been separated from those they love for too long</li>
<li>had trouble finding schools for a student with special needs</li>
<li>lost a spouse</li>
<li>watched a child drop out of school</li>
<li>separated from a spouse</li>
<li>had a cancer recur</li>
<li>had a parent go to jail</li>
</ul>
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Some of these people I know well; some I know through nodding acquaintance. Some live near me now; some live far away. Some of these stories I know well--although they are not mine to tell--some I know just the barest details of.</div>
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In response, I've also seen people circle the wagons and surround people with love, meals, and offers to walk pets; I've seen administrators reach out to help. I've seen a lot of good things moving in the world--but oh, the sadness I've been aware of.</div>
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Which just makes me think, as the days grow longer: we should all put some kindness out into the world. We could all use it.</div>
susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-40620773982627745752012-11-27T21:22:00.002-05:002012-11-27T21:22:22.194-05:00OverheardCurious Girl is 10 now, and one of the reasons I've been blogging lightly of late is that I'm not always sure what's her story to tell, and what's mine. I'm working that out, still, but will try to focus on my part of her story......<br />
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School is a bit of a struggle for her, and we've been working for the past three years to understand just why things are hard and how to best support her. She's a bit of a perfectionist, it turns out, and she has some extraordinarily talented friends, so when she looks around and then looks at herself, she often finds herself wanting. She's not always an accurate observer, I hasten to add, but she does look about and conclude that she's just not fast enough, not accurate enough, not smart enough. This breaks my heart.<br />
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We pursued an independent educational evaluation, which turned up an ADHD diagnosis, and otherwise generally confirmed that she struggles in math. (Not so helpful to take your child in for an evaluation because she struggles in math, to get a report that says she struggles in math. Rightio, then.) We hadn't talked with her about the particulars of the report (in part because we're still in the talk to the teachers, follow up with the evaluator, make sense of it all mode.)<br />
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Tonight, though, Politica was on the phone with someone, seeking some advice about how to handle part of our plan to support Curious Girl. And CG, who'd earlier run upstairs in anger, had crept down the stairs to eavesdrop. I found her on the stairs. "Mommy thinks I have ADHD!" she said indignantly. "I don't!!!!!" <br />
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Oh, dear. Can I borrow<a href="http://writingasjoe.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"> jo(e)'</a>s language and talk about my beautiful smart wonderful daughter? She is just an amazing little person, and it breaks my heart to see how broken she feels inside. And overhearing talk about ADHD probably isn't going to help her feel any less broken inside. She's not broken. Although perhaps she is broken. But not in the way she thinks. I feel so, so sad for the burden she carries, and for the ways she resists help because she fears admitting a problem.<br />
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We're still coming to terms with it all, Politica and I. One thing the report suggests is that this isn't an issue of just "catching up" in math. Curious Girl has been saying that math is hard since Grade 1, and those complaints coincided with two years of rather poor math instruction. We were hoping that some catch up, once she got teachers who were more comfortable with math, would ease her way. But it looks like she's facing a longer-term project where we'll need to find our way to help her face work that is challenging. She can do it, I know. But on a different timetable than the school curriculum has progressed.<br />
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I feel a bit like I've gone down the rabbit hole, ending up in a world where I need to be a guide to my wonderful girl, helping her figure out what kinds of practice and work-arounds will help her have the wherewithal to persist in the face of challenge.<br />
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<br />susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-73250511901122555962012-06-01T22:55:00.001-04:002012-06-01T22:55:18.489-04:00Another Gay Day<i>Thanks to <a href="http://www.mombian.com/" target="_blank">Dana at Mombian</a> for being the central location for <a href="http://www.mombian.com/2012/06/01/blogging-for-lgbt-families-day-2012-contributed-posts/" target="_blank">Blogging for LGBT Families Day</a>.</i><br />
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Another week, another Friday: woke up, read in bed for a few minutes, snuggled with Curious Girl, went down for breakfast and wowed her with the new cinnamon sugar shaker I'd put together after my last pilgrimage to King Arthur Flour. I wrote her a little love note and tucked it inside her homework folder (ordinarily, I put it in her lunchbox, but on Fridays, she gets school lunch). I helped her practice cello (<a href="http://birdandlittlebird.typepad.com/blog/2011/10/one-hundred-days.html" target="_blank">inspired by an acquaintance from a local music program,</a> she's been aiming to keep a cello practice streak going, and is currently at day 107), and then we walked to school. I went to work, although I left a bit early to come home and shovel mulch around in the garden after Politica called to say that our 3 cubic feet of mulch had arrived. Then off to pick up CG, and then to gymnastics, where Politica met us and where she and I cheered for each of the girls as they performed their routines on bar, floor, and beam. Home for dinner, and then out to a marshmallow roast at the neighbors'. The kids ran around in the cool evening, while the adults talked around the fire. We talked about aging and failing parents, about school, about kids, about houses, about summer. We talked about spelling. We walked home.<br />
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Such is the life of the homosexual elite. When the Westboro Baptist Church came to town last summer, they said we were headed to hell and destroying society. Me, I'm more concerned with trying to help my kid figure out how to cope with school projects than I am trying to undermine our neighbors' straight marriages. In fact, I rather enjoy most of my friends' marriages--straight or gay, legal or not--as I find that most of my friends-with-spouses/partners tend to choose people who are themselves interesting and wonderful. We can all support each other--no one's marriage is a threat to anyone else's.<br />
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This is pretty much the kind of post I wrote last year for this occasion: a post chronicling the ordinariness of a day in the Granola household. We work, we read, we play music, we eat, we garden, we hang with friends.<br />
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<a href="http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/tenuredradical/2012/05/doma-heads-to-the-supreme-court-threatening-end-to-civilization-as-we-know-it-thank-the-goddess/" target="_blank">Tenured Radical writes today</a> that marriage isn't her top political priority, but that the ways in which the Obama administration has worked in stepwise and significant ways to reduce institutionalized homophobia can ultimately work to reduce the power of marriage or other gay rights referenda to serve as get-out-the-vote drives for the far right. She hopes for a day when marriage will be a purely private matter, not the public moral one it is right now. Marriage didn't use to be my top political priority--and truth be told, it's probably not my top priority right now either. But goodness, am I tired of the political initiatives that let voters in various places step up and vote on whether or not to take rights away from me, or to put in place insulting laws or policies that further distance even the possibility of change. I'm tired of <a href="http://granolacrunchy.blogspot.com/2008/11/for-lesbian-dad-with-readings.html" target="_blank">the challenge of remaining hopeful in the face of bigotry,</a> even as I do. I'm tired of the hypocrisy of a world in which cheating politicians pontificate about the sanctity of marriage.<br />
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But here and now, I'm tired from a day of good work and hard parenting. I'm tired from a week of trying to figure out what sorts of school problems are normal and age appropriate and what sorts of school problems might be more concerning. I'm tired from a week of special events that keep my child up late and run all of us happily ragged. I'm tired from a week of worrying a bit about aging parents (who seem to be fine now, but still...it's hard to be old). I'm so tired, I'm not really up to the task of ruining society. I have enough to do just keeping my little corner of the world working OK.susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-68616083856159794442012-05-04T16:44:00.000-04:002012-05-04T16:44:47.849-04:00Where I've Been<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today <a href="http://www.magpiemusing.com/2012/05/50-of-fifty.html" target="_blank">Magpie wonders where her readers have been</a>. Turns out I've been to a lot more states than I'd thought: only 6 more to go to have been in all 50! Still a lot of work to do on the Canadian provinces, though (although it's hard to see the Maritime provinces I've been to on that small map). I've always wanted to ride VIA Rail across the plains and the Canadian Rockies.</div>
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Where are your travel dreams focused on? (<a href="http://www.visitedstatesmap.com/" target="_blank">Maps made here.</a>)</div>
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<br />susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-61376950573899298172012-05-04T16:10:00.000-04:002012-05-04T16:10:21.696-04:00TenThere are some newborn babies being rocked in their pumpkin seats at the table behind me at the coffee shop. They're sleeping, their wrinkled little hands involuntarily curling as their bodies snuggle into handmade blue blankets. Every now and then I hear a little snort or sniffle, and catch a glimpse of an eye slowly opening, then closing. It's a baby's business to sleep, sometimes, and these two are working hard.<br />
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9 years and some months ago, I was in a coffee shop with Curious Girl, herself getting rocked in a sling. She was 9 months old, not quite a newborn, but so very new to me. She loved the foam on the coffee drink Politica got (and we had no idea then what foreshadowing that foam held: it would be years before she could really drink a beverage, years in which she would rather just play with the foam on the surface and ignore the nutrition). And we loved seeing the drink through her eyes. The foam was fun. The spoon was fun. Just being out of the hotel and out on the streets with a baby--our!! baby!!!--was a miracle.<br />
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Today, I sit in the coffee shop alone. My baby--for she will always be my baby, I tell her, just as I at nearly 50 am still my mother's baby in a way--is off at gymnastics, and then off to dress rehearsal for a figure skating show. She could drink a whole beverage tonight if she cared to. She can flip and turn and twirl and jump, on ice or off. Her life seems a blur (literally, she would tell you. I love the way she uses <i>literally</i>, as in <i>Literally, I love the way she says literally so often</i>.). She doesn't just walk places. She turns cartwheels or forward rolls or walks on her hand. She does waltz jumps or ballet jumps as she moves from the kitchen to her bedroom. She's ever in motion, so absorbed in just the sensation of moving that she might not hear us speak. She's so graceful, so packed with power.<br />
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And curious, ever curious.<br />
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And 10. Happy birthday, beautiful girl. Happy birthday, my big, small-and-mighty girl, who's growing into her very own mighty self.susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-44233080645966727622012-04-10T21:42:00.000-04:002012-04-10T21:42:22.552-04:00Good Viewing: Love Makes a Family, and Practice Makes an EaterJust a short pointer to a very cool documentary made by The Devotion Project. It's called <a href="http://devotionproject.tumblr.com/post/20776075032/donate-to-help-give-lgbtq-teens" target="_blank">Listening from the Heart</a>, and it profiles two loving women and their almost four-year-old son. He's got a feeding tube, and looking at them feeding him, and doing what they call "therapeutic meals" brought back <a href="http://granolacrunchy.blogspot.com/2006/06/healthcare-hollaback-or-why-i.html" target="_blank">so many memories</a> for me. The <a href="http://simonlev.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Fitch-Jenetts keep a blog</a>, and I'll be adding it to my feedreader.<div><br />
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</div>susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-3469252232995011732012-03-09T14:21:00.001-05:002012-03-09T14:22:43.203-05:00The Arc of the Moral Universe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgRRxj6PXLWPT6OPjpm8k8UkuzcLm-IJ3OMfrKKSSo4RprHsMsnkfXe2WbZEoSYYD2VT8IE-g6G2GCjv7CkXKdIcmTllw0mlDQMDf8Rm-vFGCSZ2P9w-cySJr7o7bJnGYpzXt6/s1600/photo+(3).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgRRxj6PXLWPT6OPjpm8k8UkuzcLm-IJ3OMfrKKSSo4RprHsMsnkfXe2WbZEoSYYD2VT8IE-g6G2GCjv7CkXKdIcmTllw0mlDQMDf8Rm-vFGCSZ2P9w-cySJr7o7bJnGYpzXt6/s320/photo+(3).JPG" width="320" /></a><a href="http://raisingweg.typepad.com/raising_weg/2012/03/book-spine-poems.html" target="_blank">Jody posted today about book spine poems</a>, and here's one from me. I'll call it <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/03/01/436021/maryland-becomes-8th-state-with-marriage-equality-following-governors-signature/" target="_blank">Maryland</a>, I think.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Anyone else want to play along?</div>susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-24598689972858268952012-02-19T21:41:00.000-05:002012-02-19T21:41:38.023-05:00Looking UpThere's a folder on my iPhone labeled <i>Space</i>, and in that folder is the NASA app, and a star gazing app, and apps that show the phases of the moon, and ones that let me explore the surface of both Mars and the Moon. In my twitter feed are various NASA missions (to Mars and Jupiter)--I have a space list, in fact, that you can follow if you like. They are there because of <a href="http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Susan</a>, a blogging friend who was a Discovery program scientist at NASA, and whose writing about science, children, and space reminded me just how fascinating it is to look up at the stars and wonder.<br />
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There have been so many beautiful remembrances of Susan written by people who knew her better than I did, like <a href="http://www.magpiemusing.com/2012/02/lavender-teardrops.html" target="_blank">Maggie</a> and <a href="http://cribchronicles.com/2012/02/07/all-the-best-things-she-said/" target="_blank">Bon</a> (and of course so many words over so much time by Susan's best friend <a href="http://canapesun.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Marty</a>). I don't quite know what to say about such a remarkable woman--an <a href="http://nieburconsulting.com/Experience.html" target="_blank">astrophysicist</a>, <a href="http://susanniebur.com/" target="_blank">a breast cancer advocate</a>, a friend. Susan was smart and funny and savvy and prescient. Her <a href="http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/inflammatory-breast-cancer/" target="_blank">post about inflammatory breast cancer</a> has been reposted thousands of times. Her <a href="http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/fb/" target="_blank">post about the idiocy of Facebook breast cancer awareness memes</a> and the need for action instead got her a BlogHer voices of the year honor. Susan was unlucky, in some respects, getting so much cancer so young. She blogged her life from the diagnosis on, and inspired and educated so many of us. Breast cancer doesn't need to start with a lump. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/health/cancer-screening-may-be-more-popular-than-useful.html?_r=3&ref=health" target="_blank">Early detection</a> isn't the panacea we might think. <a href="http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/from-awareness-to-action-from-ribbons-to-research" target="_blank">And we need more research into cancer</a>. Until we know what causes cancer, we can't prevent it.<br />
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I learned a lot from Susan's fierce writing about cancer. But what I miss, most, are her posts about every day, her tweets about friends and NASA missions and science with her kids. I miss exchanging tweets about what we were doing with our kids--I know how much she loved getting outside with her boys, showing them science in action, showing them love. Last summer, when we were both reading posts by all the folks we knew who were at the BlogHer conference while we were not, we traded a series of tweets about what we were doing instead. Nothing particularly eloquent, but a delightfully ordinary connection with words.<br />
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Susan wondered, back in 2007, <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2007/08/31/what-would-you-do/" target="_blank">What am I leaving to be remembered by?</a>. In that post, she mentions her ability to work with other people. She was a connector, someone who brought people together, and the many, many posts full of love for her are proof of that. Later in 2010, Susan thought ahead to questions her sons might someday have. Reading <a href="http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/unexpected-strength" target="_blank">this post</a> again last week took my breath away:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One day, when my children ask, “Why didn’t my mother fight the cancer harder?” I ask that you tell them, “She did, honey, she did,” and also, “Your mama also trusted in God. She prayed for healing, and for her aches and pains to have a purpose.”</span></span></blockquote>I don't know that any of us ever know the real purpose of our lives here--and I'm sure that each of us brings a different understanding of the role of God in those lives. Susan's approach to living encapsulates a sense of purpose better than anyone else I've ever met. As she put it in her <a href="http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/mantra-2/" target="_blank">mantra</a>, <span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: left;">All that survives after our death are publications and people." She tended to her words and her people carefully, loving her family so very much, using her words to encourage women into the sciences, to capture the history of space exploration, to advocate for cancer patients and research, to advocate for a better world for today's children.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: left;">She reminded me to look up, and to look ahead. I can't see the stars and the moon without thinking of Susan. I miss her. And I will remember her.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px; text-align: left;"><i>Susan's family requests memorial donations to<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px; text-align: left;">the </span><a href="http://www.ibcresearch.org/" muse_scanned="true" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 17px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation</a><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17px;">. <i>Or, in her husband's </i></span></span><span style="line-height: 17px;"><i>inimitable</i></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17px;"><i> words: "Or please choose to make a difference somewhere, anywhere, to anyone</i>." <i>Susan did make a difference, and she made anyone who knew her feel that we, too, could make a difference. Go and do likewise.</i></span></span></span>susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-74849348396989343942012-01-23T20:46:00.000-05:002012-01-23T20:46:29.269-05:00Swanky ScienceBlogging, even intermittently as I seem to do these days, has brought me the good fortune of friendships with so many interesting people in the computer. Some I've actually met in real life; others I've come to know through words and images online. Susan, who blogs at Toddler Plant, is someone I've only ever met online, but her words and passions have touched my heart and challenged my thinking so often since I first started reading her. Her blog started as a chronicle of her life as a planetary scientist and mother of two young children, and then became transformed into the story of her life fighting <a href="http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/inflammatory-breast-cancer/" target="_blank">inflammatory breast cancer</a>, and being a planetary scientist, activist, and mother. She's graceful, smart, funny, and simply amazing. Reading her latest posts, including <a href="http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/how-did-we-get-here/" target="_blank">today's post</a> about coming home from the hospital and getting ready to welcome her hospice worker, made me cry, and marvel yet again at her astounding grace and eloquence. <div><br />
</div><div>It also reminded me that I'd never blogged Curious Girl's 8th birthday party, which I was able to have only because of Susan. She writes a lot about doing science at home with her kids, and writes a lot encouraging all of us to show kids how science is fun. In 2010, <a href="http://www.stimeyland.com/" target="_blank">Stimey</a> organized a <a href="http://www.stimeyland.com/2010/04/team-whymommys-virtual-science-fair.html" target="_blank">virtual science fair</a> to help support Susan as she went in for her 3rd surgery:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">I hope she knows that she is not alone. I hope she knows that even though we can't all be there in person, we are thinking of her, sending love, good wishes, and prayers.</span> </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">That is what </span><a href="http://canapesun.blogspot.com/2007/06/team-whymommy.html" muse_scanned="true" style="background-color: white; color: #3179bd; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">Team WhyMommy</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">'s Virtual Science Fair is all about. We want her to know that she is loved and supported. But we also want her to know that our love and support is not all because of the cancer. We love and support her because of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">who</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"> she is, not just because of what she </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">has</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">. She is not just a cancer fighter, but an incredible person, one who is passionate about science and especially </span><a href="http://womeninplanetaryscience.wordpress.com/" muse_scanned="true" style="background-color: white; color: #3179bd; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">women who do science</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">.</span></blockquote><div>I didn't do a virtual science fair entry, but I showed some of the entries to Curious Girl, and she wanted to do those activities. And so, the Swanky Science Birthday Party got planned. Swanky, because CG wanted a fancy party, and science, because of Susan. And who says scientists can't be fancy? So off we went to get fancy tea cups at a thrift store, and off we went to find some great science activities. We played with vinegar, food coloring, and baking soda to make gas swell up ziploc bags (and sometimes break them open). We made ooblek. We made bubbles. And we laughed, and ate, and enjoyed a beautiful spring day.</div><div><br />
</div><div>I hate watching cancer sap the energy of someone so wonderful, even as I marvel at the outpouring of love and affection. But I know that the curiosity of children, and the oohs and ahs of young girls playing with materials to see what will happen, will bring to mind memories of Susan.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Tonight, my heart is full of love for her and her family.</div>susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-47380420124753598312011-08-16T09:24:00.001-04:002011-08-16T09:47:56.056-04:00Hovering over HopscotchI've been thinking about helicopter parents a lot this summer. While Wikipedia tells me that Foster Cline coined the phrase in a 1990 book, I came to hear the term more via the NYT ever-odd coverage of parenting issues and through disparaging comments from colleagues. I've written a fair bit here over the years about the importance of independence for kids, and I've built my career in part around the ways institutions can help students make a good transition to college (and independence). I like reading Free Range Kids. So you might think I'd be a critic of helicopter parenting myself.<br />
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But no. I've spent a lot of the summer simmering about the way the notion of helicopter parenting plays out in our culture. Helicopter parenting is said to be bad. It's said to deprive our children of the chance to learn how to solve problems and work things out. It's said to keep children from learning how to play independently. It's said to get in the way of teachers doing their jobs. eu retesting language note: in Scandinavia, the analagous term is 'curling parent.')<br />
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But......the thing is, I've read a lot more text about helicopter parenting than I've seen in real life. I occasionally have a parent call me to talk about their college student child (not even once a year). I explain that I can't talk about the student's record, but explain the general policy issue at hand or explain the course and tell to encourage their child to talk to me directly. I hear stories of parents who are over involved in their children's sports ( but CG doesn't run in those competitive sports circles.) I imagine that anyone reading this might have a story to tell about Parents They Have Seen Behaving Badly, but on the whole, helicopter parenting is something I've read about more than I have observed. <br />
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So let's think about whAt I have been told parents should do. Be Involved in Your Child's Education! Parents are home partners of the school, we're told by the principal. Rightio then: you want me to be involved, just not too much. My sister and brother-in-law are teachers, and a few weeks ago I had dinner with them and two other teacher friends of theirs, one of whom works in a district that,s been taken over by the state. The teachers are getting paid for an extra 4 days of professional development and the school year has been lengthened. My brother-in-law's first question: are they requiring parents to come to those workshops, too? We all laughed, but again the implication: the problem with parents is that they are not involved. Unless the problem is that they are too involved.<br />
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I've been sensitive to this issue lately because we've been wondering for the past 2 years what to make of the fact that CG has been saying she's not good at math. Sometime in the fall of 1st grade, I mentioned it to her teacher, that CG was getting pretty frustrated at home whenever some calculation needed to happen and she was verbalizing that she wasn't good at math. 7 years old seemed a little young to start buying into this cultural script (especially for girls). Not to worry, said the teacher. She's meeting all the standards, and it's ok if she counts on her fingers. After all, your fingers are always with you! But second grade has now come and gone, and the same math panic has continued. And inefficient counting on fingers. And continued shrieks of I CAN'T DO MATH. Yet still, the teacher said she couldn,t understand why CG would say this. She was meeting standards. She was fine. We should just continue to point out all the ways math comes up in daily life (counting change, cooking, counting place mats needed, etc.)<br />
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Except she isn't. Make a long story short, after several more conferences, the teacher finally agreed to have the district math coordinator do an informal assessment, which revealed that CG has erratic understandings of the math curriculum so far. While there are some big conceptual areas where she is performing at the highest levels (she is awesome at fractions, e.g.) there are some basic things about numbers that she couldn't do. And those areas, the district coordinator says, could really start holding her back. Her conclusion: CG just needs to play! And practice math as it comes up in everyday life! Her recommendation: hopscotch. In other words, you just need to play with your kid and she will learn what she has been missing.<br />
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Bull. Granted, we haven't ever set up a hopscotch board that counts by 2 or by 5, but I don't really think that would matter. We never did flashcards (never once has any teacher suggested them for anyone) but we have, since CG could talk, gotten her to help measure, cut, count, and order things. When the district coordinator finally understood that I was mightily irritated by the suggestion that parental play was the answer after 2 years of my telling teachers that there was something not right about CG's math performances, she backtracked and said that clearly the reason CG did so well on part of the assessment was because of all that parenting. We just need to play in a different way. But where's the role of, say, the math teacher and curriculum?!? Why isn't the math teacher offering clear advice to kids about how to learn what they need to know (instead of leaving it up to parental trial and error and emotional upheaval?)<br />
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We haven't been playing hopscotch this summer. CG is using an adaptive online site (Dreambox dot com, a subscription site developed by Pearson publishers), recommended eventually by the district person. We've also gotten her a tutor, a recent Math graduate who comes once a week and has been working with her on math facts. We could do flashcards ourselves, but having Cool Tutor come makes her feel like it's ok to make mistakes and it's possible to learn.<br />
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CG would tell you, if she trusted you, that sometimes she gets mad at me because I hover too much. She would probably tell you that I make her do math when she doesn't want to, and if she could read about helicopter parenting she might say that my attention to her math is something she doesn't want. But....if it weren't for our pushing the teacher so hard this year about what has turned out to be 2 years of my child struggling to learn a key part of the math curriculum, CG would just be heading into another year destined to fall further behind. (and if it hadn't been for the feeding journal I kept when she came, her serious medical problems wouldn't have been diagnosed right away, but that's another story). <br />
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In terms of math, things are getting better. It's a complicated situation, and CG needs to figure out how to remember some facts as well as how to access what she knows when she's nervous. It's coming, although I have lost faith in the teacher assessments and I have little faith in the district math curriculum. And mostly, I'm done with criticisms of helicopter parents. There are conversations to be had, for sure, about how to foster independence and how to help kids learn to fail and succeed. But the discourse around helicopter parenting serves largely to slam parents for whatever we (don't) do. And that, I have decided, isn't helping me sort out how to raise the powerful, articulate, and capable young woman I see CG yearning to become.susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-33975489404347267822011-07-07T20:44:00.002-04:002011-07-07T20:58:56.077-04:00Where I'm From<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">I am from sandy beaches, from Coppertone and flip flops and beach towels and bike rides from my house to Patricia's and back again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">I am from the house around the corner from the bay, with lilacs out back, a paint-splattered patio with an outdoor shower, with bright yellow walls that curve in over the bed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">I am from the crashing waves and the sweet salt air. I am from the skating rink on Friday nights.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">I am from Dad's poems on the refrigerator and melons for appetizers, from Anna Banana and Bob and Susan and Marion and Eugene, too.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">I am from the people who talk so easily they forget to listen, and people who don't talk about things that bother them and people who would give you the shirt off their back to keep you warm. I am from people who say "I love you, bup bup."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">From not going in the water until an hour after lunch and from vague, rhythmic advice about the importance of girls setting the tone for relationships, ever since the time of Anthony and Cleopatra. From advice that sometimes needed setting aside, and from advice that sometimes comes out of my mouth (but not the part about Anthony and Cleopatra).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">I am from Catholicism that didn't stick (although it did supply a love of ritual). I am from show tunes and Girl Scout songs and hours of piano practice. I am from classical music and Celtic music and dreams of travel around the world. I am from the field where my best friend was the first girl in Little League and from the place of hope that thought the ERA and the space program would change my world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">I'm from New York and Ireland, from frozen spinach and fish cakes on Friday. I am from Gino's pizza and bagels with a schmear and regular coffee and tea with the milk put in first. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">From stories I can't tell because nobody tells them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">I am from parents who took in their parents, from long-lived parents who have outlived their siblings, from people who slowly, silently, change their minds, who eventually act out of love. From a father who drove me and my friends everywhere, because that's what his father did. From New York Football Giants memorabilia, from photos stored in boxes, somewhere in the house. From silver and china that didn't get used enough. From a kitchen that always had a cuppa and an extra seat and plate. From quiet mysteries and unanswered questions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">**************</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;">This is based on a poem by George Ella Lyon's poem </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"> "</span><a href="http://www.carts.org/staff_poem2.html" muse_scanned="true" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Where I'm From</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;">," which </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;">gave </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.swva.net/fred1st/wif.htm" muse_scanned="true" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Fred First Floyd</a> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;">the idea to create a writing assignment. I've seen this form around before, but this week got the idea from</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"> <a href="http://www.magpiemusing.com/2011/07/i-am-from.html">Maggie</a>, who got it from <a href="http://amandamagee.com/2011/06/where-im-from/" style="color: #5588aa; text-decoration: none;">Amanda</a> and <a href="http://byflutter.com/?p=1168" style="color: #5588aa; text-decoration: none;">Flutter</a> and <a href="http://obladeidre.blogspot.com/2011/07/i-am-from.html" style="color: #5588aa; text-decoration: none;">De</a>. A blogger named Schmutzie is making a <a href="http://www.schmutzie.com/schmoetry/2011/6/29/where-i-was-from-when-i-was-seven-bearing-down-upon-the-buoy.html" style="color: #5588aa; text-decoration: none;">link-up</a>. If you're inspired, click on Fred Floyd's name above for the template.</span></i></span>susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-74780484868056860292011-01-08T17:38:00.000-05:002011-01-08T17:38:45.494-05:00WWGMDCurious Girl has recently learned that a slightly younger friend of her has her own e-mail account. As she learned this via borrowing my e-mail account to send a message to this (distant) friend, she naturally started asking for her own e-mail account. Politica and I agreed to investigate, but discovered that gmail won't set up an account for anyone under 13. So I'm pondering whether to set up an account named Curious.Girl there with my b-date. Given the privacy issues on Facebook, I can't see myself being persuaded to avoid the age restrictions there. But on e-mail? Not sure. Of course, this little hangup has given CG more time to discuss this matter with her friends at school, and she's coming home saying things like, "Oh, one of my friends says we should get yahoo.com on our computer because it works much better than gmail." Looks like at least the claim of having e-mail accounts is emerging in Grade 2.<br />
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I've been trying to remember keywords from some of <a href="http://www.geekymomblog.com/">Geeky Mom</a>'s posts on her kids and screen time. As I recall, she's been playing games with her kids since they were young, and <a href="http://www.geekymomblog.com/2008/01/23/growing-up-online-a-review/">advocates for children's privacy online--as well as parental conversations</a>! Politica and I have set up some parental controls on Safari for the computer that sits in our living room--setting up a bunch of different game sites on the toolbar for CG to access as she wishes--but as CG doesn't actually want to spend a ton of time online, we've never needed to set rules about screen time or access. (The first weekend she had a Webkinz, she probably played 4 hrs a day, but after that....not so much.)<br />
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So, the e-mail. One of my friends says that she set up her kids' first e-mail accounts so that all incoming mail forwards to her account--she talked about that up front with the kids, so it's "not creepy," and it lets her say to her daughter, "you know, I didn't really like the tone of that e-mail from so-and-so" when some insults go flying around. I've seen sites advocating kids' email services, like <a href="http://www.zoobuh.com/">Zoobuh</a>, and I've seen sites recommending that parents check their kids' emails.<br />
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I don't want to teach CG that the internet is a dangerous place--well, at least, I don't want to teach her that it's ONLY a dangerous place. I tell her, for example, that if she wants to go looking for videos on youtube, she has to do with with one of us sitting with her, because it's very easy for the "related videos" sidebar on youtube to feature things that are not-so-related and not-very-appropriate for her. I haven't taught her not to talk to strangers so much as not to *go with* strangers.<br />
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Ah, lots of rambling...hard to compose good sentences here when I don't really have a well-thought-out philosophy of my own to share here. But I'm curious about how folks with older kids have navigated their kids moving online. What are the perils and pitfalls?<br />
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I'm leaning towards letting CG have an e-mail account, but telling her that e-mail is for communicating with people far away (she asked whether she could e-mail her teacher, and I said no, that she should talk with her teacher and if there was something she couldn't talk about, we'd help her write a note). I'm leaning more toward a learn-by-doing, in other words, than a learn-in-the-protected-kids-email world.<br />
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But what would Geeky Mom do? Or what do you do?susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-53482279683914012382011-01-02T20:54:00.000-05:002011-01-02T20:54:21.745-05:00Happy New Year!<div><ul><li>Hello there, invisible friends in the computer! Happy new year to one and all.</li>
<li>Oh, the posts I have started in my head and never finished. Like the one on girls, science, and Curious Girl's birthday party (last May!). Or the one on adoption and school and genetics. It's never too late, right?</li>
<li>I'm going to join the<a href="http://thechroniclesofmunchkinland.com/2010/12/28/adoption-reading-challenge-2011/"> Adoption Reading Challenge</a>, hosted by Jenna. I wonder if it will be cheating to include Scott Simon's memoir, which I actually read, and loathed, in December. I have a review post started in my head on that one.</li>
<li>I'm loving the idea of a theme for 2011, rather than a resolution. I'm toying with a combination of <i>openness</i> or <i>generosity</i>, as I want to do something to counter a kind of weary grumpiness that crept into my daily routines as the fall semester ended. I am very taken with <a href="http://www.chookooloonks.com/blog/2010/12/31/the-technical-definition-of-badassery.html">Chookooloonk's presentation of <i>badassery</i></a>, though. Doesn't that just make you want to have a badass year?</li>
<li>More to come, in the new year. Figuring out writing time is on my list of things to do.</li>
</ul></div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div>susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-2591843616817969542010-09-06T22:14:00.000-04:002010-09-06T22:14:47.272-04:00Considering OriginsI usually love the <i>Lives</i> column in the <i>New York Times Magazine</i>. No surprise that someone who blogs--no matter how slowly or sporadically--likes personal essays that offer brief glimpses of other people's lives. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/magazine/05Lives-t.html?ref=lives">Yesterday's column</a> deals with adoption, as an adoptive, lesbian mother listens to her five-year old son begin to make sense of his own story.<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px;"></span></div><blockquote><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">To Molly and me, our children are so completely ours it feels impossible that anyone else had anything to do with them. But for Jonah, who knows? Some would say, for example, that it was the hand of God that saved his namesake, the original Jonah, from the belly of the whale; others, that it was luck that caused the beast to spit him out.</div></blockquote><blockquote><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">So here I am in the bed with our youngest boy, telling him the truth as I see it: “Some babies come out of their mommies, and some come through other bodies to get to their mommies. My body couldn’t make babies, so we had to find another way to get you here.” I’ve told him this before, but the story no longer satisfies the way it once did. He may be only 5, but it’s time for Jonah to begin making his own version of the narrative.</div></blockquote><br />
These aren't the conversations that happen around our house. Politica and I started telling Curious Girl her adoption story---her birth story--her early story--even before she could talk to us. (This was handy, as it let us practice all kinds of explanations! and it let us try out different stories, as we practiced putting words to what we know, and practiced forming questions we thought she might have.) Politica and I wrote a life book for CG sometime during the time she was 1 and 2 and a half, and that was another opportunity for us to pull together the past for her. But always, we looked at our roles as trustees for her story. There's so very much we don't know, but we have tried to give her one kind of narrative about how she came into the world, and then later into our lives, so that she could get started telling her own story.<br />
<br />
I understand the fierceness of her love for her children; I can't imagine my life without Curious Girl. At the same time, I don't understand the language of possession: do I consider Curious Girl wholly mine? Not in the least. Do I consider myself wholly a mother, and she wholly my daughter? Yes. At the same time, she's wholly herself, her own person. She's wholly Politica's daughter. And also, always, wholly her birthmother's daughter. I'm (one of) the mother(s) day in, day out, the person who helps get her ready for school and takes her on rides and gets her to try oven-roasted tomatoes ("These are really good, Mama! They are delicious! They looked disgusting, but they are great!"). But then, day in, day out, there's another woman, miles away, perhaps with CG's eyes, or hair, or build, who brought CG into the world and holds the ties to her past. CG belongs, really, to none of us, but it's through all of us that she'll move into the future she claims.<br />
<br />
The <i>Lives </i>column reports just one conversation. I don't know, of course, what other conversations Melanie Braverman and her family have had about adoption. Braverman's two sons have a sister, adopted by another family they know. That girl "plays a starring role" in their house, so it's clear that there was ways in which their notion of family includes the rich complications of her sons' past. But why can’t those conversations include, more easily, conversation about her sons’ first parents? She says that her sons were never much interested in their birth stories—but it’s hard to be interested in something you’ve never heard.<br />
<br />
The birth mothers (and fathers) of children placed for adoption are more than just transport mechanisms to get children to their (real) parents. For all that I can’t imagine my life without Curious Girl, I can’t imagine that massive social problems are ordained by the universe in order to bring CG to us. It’s a weird thing to ponder, I’ll grant you, the vagaries that have formed this family of mine, and CG has recently started to wonder about that, too. “What if you got another baby instead of me, Mama? Would I have stayed in the orphanage?” or “What if some other family adopted me?” And she wonders, too, what it would be like to be living with her birth parents. <br />
<br />
Braverman says her son is now ready “to make his own version of the narrative” of his own life. On this point, we agree: our children will tell their own stories, making sense of their lives. I hope CG makes sense of her life, knowing that Politica and I respect the people who brought her into this world, that our love for her is a safety net, ready to catch her when she needs it, that over the course of her life she’ll probably imagine many, many versions of her life story, and that the ability to tell her own story is what makes her her own person. She’s not mine alone to hold, and in loving her, I hold her in the messy complexities of a loving adoptive family.susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-51055552276293419532010-08-04T22:40:00.000-04:002010-08-04T22:40:15.808-04:00Quick Vacation Blogging<ul><li>Why is it that long days full of vacation activities are making it harder for Curious Girl to sleep? At least our vacation digs have some very lovely king-sized beds so drawn-out bedtimes are comfortable affairs.</li>
<li>Politica and I are doing a little happy dance about the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/35374462/Prop-8-Ruling-FINAL">Prop 8 ruling</a>. Well, we would be doing a happy dance if she hadn't been glued to the iPad for the past hour reading through the text of the decision. The decision got announced just before dinnertime here, and I ran back to our apartment to download the decision so she could be scanning it between bites. That's what passes for lovingkindness in a politically geeky family enjoying their latest technology.</li>
<li>There are more than 20 states in which it is legal to fire employees because they are gay, lesbian, or transgendered. There are millions of Americans--gay or straight or bi--who are not partnered, who don't have good health insurance connected to their own job or to a partner's job. If--and it's a big if--the Prop 8 ruling withstands the two or three levels of appeal that will follow (9th circuit, 9th circuit <i>en banc,</i> and potential US Supreme Court), the slow tide of marriage reform will do nothing for those problems. Marriage reform isn't the only sort of change we need to make a safety net for <i>all</i> families.</li>
<li>But still: marriage reform is a nice step for <i>some</i> families, and I can't help but smile as Politica reads or summarizes parts of Judge Walker's amazingly detailed decision. (He--and doubtless hardworking clerks--did a thorough job putting a clear record of the trial testimony into the decision, with an eye toward the scrutiny that the decision will get on appeal.)</li>
<li>Vacation is a wonderful thing, even if Curious Girl keeps announcing that she is homesick because 11! days! is too long! to be away from her very own bed. And even if she is not sleeping well. I am loving the smell of the sea air, and I am loving all the ice cream.</li>
<li>Happy summer!</li>
</ul>susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-84490348728765469792010-07-09T19:04:00.000-04:002010-07-09T19:04:54.132-04:00St. HarrietI'm starting to re-read <i>The Dance of Anger</i> tonight, starting by browsing for some inspiration. One I've noted already:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>We may view it as our responsibility to control something that is not in fact within our control and yet fail to exercise the power and authority that we <i>do</i> have over our own behavior. Mothers cannot <i>make </i>children think feel, or be a certain way, but we can be firm, consistent, and clear about what <i>behavior</i> we will and will not tolerate, and what the consequences are for misbehavior. We can also change our part in patterns that keep family members stuck. At the same time we are doomed to failure with any self-help venture if we view the problem as existing within ourselves--or within the child or the child's father, for that matter. There is never one villain in family live, although it may appear that way on the surface. (148) </blockquote>I'm a do-er, and Phantom's comment on the last post reminded me of this book, and I felt more hopeful already, just knowing I could stop at the library on the way out of work and pick up a copy. I feel more hopeful knowing that I can read more of it.<br />
<br />
Although I snorted as I read a few pages later, in a story about a woman whose 4 year old daughter was upset about the mother's dating, and kept throwing fits that would get the mother to cancel dates. With St. Harriet's help, the mother realizes that she can't control her daughter's reaction to the dating, and that her daughter shouldn't be the one making dating decisions for her. So she learns to validate the daughter's feelings and make adult decisions about the dating. Good work all around. And then there's this: "....throwing a tantrum was unacceptable behavior. If Claudia did this, Alicia would pick her up and take her to her room, where she would have to stay until she calmed down" (152). And of course, if CG were the sort of child who would just stay in her room until she calmed down, I'd be blogging about something else entirely.<br />
<br />
I think I'll also pull out my copy of Deborah Gray's wonderful book on attachment and adoption, and Keck's <i>Parenting the Hurt Child</i>. I don't know--I never know--whether CG's emotions are adoption-related, but I always wonder. Her anger has to be trying to communicate something, and those are some other resources to try.<br />
<br />
I don't mean to overstate the problems here, nor do I mean to assume that I (or even Politica and I) can change CG's behavior. Seems like there's a little less resiliency there than there used to be; maybe it'll pass; maybe we need a little professional help, in or out of school. I don't know.<br />
<br />
But I do know that I can change <i>my reaction</i> to CG's outbursts, and I can snicker at all the parenting books that make it sound like time outs work if parents are serious about them, and that will probably make me feel more hopeful.<br />
<br />
And feeling hopeful is a good thing. Harriet. Hope. H.<br />
<br />
This is really thesusanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-55590895553571385932010-07-08T19:25:00.002-04:002010-07-08T20:13:08.073-04:00Are we having fun yet?It's been a hard summer so far, and this week has been hardest of all. What with the zillion degree heat, none of our coping skills have been particularly wonderful, and we're back into a rather tumultuous dynamic where too much of our conversations are about regulating Curious Girl's behavior. That's just no fun--but it's hard to have fun when a kid just seems determined to push back at every opportunity.<div><br /></div><div>CG is 8 now, old enough to read this blog over my shoulder if she were to be next to me, and old enough to have opinions about what parts of her stories I tell to others. Last week, we were camping, and she sustained a minor injury due to inadvertent carelessness of another child, and she didn't want to tell anyone about this (but did want to put a very big band aid on it, which only raised more questions). Part of what I've been doing while not posting very much lately is pondering how I want to tell stories about CG in more public places--and telling stories about hard times is, well, hard.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've written before about <a href="http://granolacrunchy.blogspot.com/2009/01/even-in-australia-with-chocolate-tale.html">anger management</a> and the challenges of parenting someone whose anger, sometimes, can just spin so out of control in no apparent relation to the provocation. When CG can't cope with her feelings, we need to help her cope, and my best moves there come when I can stay calm myself and not get dragged into her feelings. That's all easier to do when she'll let one of us help her. This summer, she's been working on not having such big fits--she talks about it; sometimes she'll have a little outburst and then calm down and say, "My body wanted to have a big fit, but I didn't. Isn't that good?"</div><div><br /></div><div>This summer, though, has been hard. She's been in camp every week since school ended--programs that have run mostly 9-3 or 3:30. After camp, we've not been doing much (although this week we've started going to a wonderful pool a bit), but she's been exhausted. And the afternoons and evenings have been a real struggle. She's just so tired, and I suppose at 8 looking to develop a bit more separation from us....but good FSM, the oppositional conversation is so draining. When she's tired, she never wants to sleep; she just gets cranky. And even though I keep resolving to stay calm, to be positive, I'm getting worn down by her opposition to me (quick example: about an hour ago, when it was bedtime, I told her to come upstairs, take a shower, and we'd get ready for bed. "NO! I don't want a shower!" she said very crabbily. "Fine," said I. "I'll bring the fan up and we'll head right to bed." "NO! I'm taking a shower!!!!!" she yelled. Whatever I ask, she doesn't want to do.)</div><div><br /></div><div>So I'm just worn down. It's a good thing that my darling girl wants to be more independent. I'm a big advocate for her independence, as I've <a href="http://granolacrunchy.blogspot.com/2006/10/everything-but-bear.html">blogged about before</a>. I love watching her learn to do things on her own. I've been re-reading my own posts (wondering where all the old comments went? I've always used blogger's own platform for comments and I'm surprised that the comments all seem to be missing on older posts), looking at <a href="http://granolacrunchy.blogspot.com/2006/05/its-all-about-perspective.html">older posts</a> about parenting frustrations, wondering where that mother-writer went. I used to be better at handling CG's challenges; I didn't used to escalate small incidents into big fights; I used to be the one who helped her calm down, not the one she rages against).</div><div><br /></div><div>I miss all that. </div><div><br /></div><div>I know, it's probably a good thing that her feelings are overflowing at home. </div><div><br /></div><div>I know, it's a good thing that out in the world, she's delightfully flexible and adaptable and resilient.</div><div><br /></div><div>I know, the heat will break, and coping skills will rebound a bit.</div><div><br /></div><div>I know, it won't be like this forever.</div><div><br /></div><div>I know, I'm probably still internally over-reacting to my sister's comment, when I mentioned that this summer had been a little hard and CG had been a little overtired, that perhaps CG doesn't know how to deal with a lack of schedule in the summer. Maybe she didn't mean that as a criticism of the fact that Politica and I end up working in the summer more than she and her husband do. But that's what I heard. I know, I should not be holding onto that.</div><div><br /></div><div>I know, I'm not the only working mother feeling dammed if she does and dammed if she doesn't: if I can arrange to work less next summer, I will (on the theory that too much camp is getting CG's rhythms out of whack...which leads me to wonder whether I agree with my sister's own comment, which just gets more more mad all over again).</div><div><br /></div><div>I know, it's not good to whine. But it's also not good to sit in your house feeling like an alien with no parenting skills. So I'm telling my story, feeling a little better even in the telling, and hoping that some of you will read it and feel a bit less like an alien without parenting skills the next time your kid loses it. (Right?)</div>susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-28427702040106164802010-06-12T19:14:00.005-04:002010-06-12T21:23:14.104-04:00GoodwillCurious Girl is reading <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Warriors-1-Into-Wild-Erin-Hunter/?isbn=9780060000028">Warriors: Into the Wild</a>, the first book in a series set in a kitty universe where clans of cats negotiate territory, myths and history, and build social alliances. As a series, it seems not so bad, although my favorite part about the book is that CG is drawn to it, although it's a little over her head for an independent read. (She's a fluent reader, but she doesn't like reading books with dense text. I use a bookmark to block off the lines below the one we're reading if she's reading along with me, but she doesn't have the stamina to read the book independently.) So I've been reading it to her at bedtime. She closes her eyes, and tells me that she's imagining the pictures she wishes were in the book. And amazingly, sweetly, wonderfully, she relaxes herself, and she nods off as I read.<div><br /></div><div>I remember an assessment CG took around 18 months at the developmental pediatrician's. One of the questions on the parent part of the assessment was whether she relaxed into a parent when a bedtime book came out. Relaxed into a parent? Not so much. Reading has always been an aerobic experience for her. There was the year, for instance, when <i>The Snowy Day</i> was in regular reading rotation, no matter what the season or temperature, and CG would jump out of bed and act out the story as I read. She likes talking to her stuffed animals about what she reads. She likes putting her hand on the pages and feeling the book as she reads. She likes petting the cat as she reads. Relaxing? Not so much. That comes later, with the songs and the snuggles.</div><div><br /></div><div>Except for this past week, as we've started this book. She does remember the plot--she can talk about the universe of the book and she seems to remember the plot about as well as she does the plot of anything we've read before. But something about this book and our reading routines lets her drift herself into sleep.</div><div><br /></div><div>Towards the beginning of the book, there's a report of a battle with another clan, and the beloved Thunder Clan deputy is killed. His body is brought back to the clan, and CG was full of questions about how the cats would react. What would they do? Could the dead cat hear them? Would there be a coffin? Would they bury him? We talked about what might happen--but then, as the book is silent on some parts of the evening in question, there was still room for speculation. "They'll put his name on a stone with his dates," she said. I didn't think so, I said, as the cats don't seem to ever use stones in this book. "But humans do," CG said. "Humans do, with the stones of goodwill."</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Stones of goodwill</i>. What a phrase. CG has experienced loss, but hasn't had much contact with cemeteries. I didn't even know she knew the word <i>goodwill</i>, and I don't know where she gets her cemetery notions from. But I love the idea of stones of goodwill, stones beaming goodwill into the world for people who are mourning.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've read Katie Granju's blog, <a href="http://mamapundit.com/">Mamapundit</a>, on and off for a while. The past few months she has been very honestly writing about the death of her 18 year old son Henry, his drug addiction, and the assault and overdose that precipitated the medical crisis that killed him. Today, I mailed off a donation to the <a href="http://mamapundit.com/2010/06/the-henry-louis-granju-memorial-scholarship-fund/">memorial scholarship </a>the family has established to help families pay for the costs of addiction treatment for their children. </div><div><br /></div><div>Two of my college friends have lost teenaged children in the past year. I didn't know either child, but their names and the stories I've heard haunt me, as does Henry. As I walked downtown today, I looked around at what some of the older teens or young adults were doing, and thoughts flitted through my head--that child will never get to do that. My friend will never get to see her kid climbing a rock again. Katie Granju will never be walking through a bookstore to redeem a gift certificate with Henry. It's so sad.</div><div><br /></div><div>But as I saw the rocks downtown (yes, our downtown has rocks. Doesn't yours?), CG's <i>stones of goodwill</i> came to mind, too. Katie Granju's grief is raw, and I don't know what, besides time, will soften its edges as she incorporates her unimaginable loss into everyday life. But if the stones of the earth could radiate goodwill for the mourners, what kind of world would we have?</div><div><br /></div><div> </div>susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-5815063333751522010-06-01T12:12:00.006-04:002010-06-01T13:20:57.858-04:00The New Normal<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiyhpzafzYafIuFacA2ITO-nHpi7cqvx1xETmfjcwVdpMO3bYcGb9DH6TDiIHfvV01W-h-BLFe6NukKMIy1IZfMjrm-md73GgqxP7kzOEIuARW2zki3Choz9g0UdECuKeah1x-/s1600/2010familyday125x125.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 125px; height: 125px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiyhpzafzYafIuFacA2ITO-nHpi7cqvx1xETmfjcwVdpMO3bYcGb9DH6TDiIHfvV01W-h-BLFe6NukKMIy1IZfMjrm-md73GgqxP7kzOEIuARW2zki3Choz9g0UdECuKeah1x-/s200/2010familyday125x125.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477838959083331522" /></a><br /><i>Dana is hosting the <a href="http://www.mombian.com/2010/06/01/blogging-for-lgbt-families-day-2010-contributed-posts/">5th annual Blogging for LGBT families day</a>, and that seems like a good excuse to get back in the business of blogging again. So here goes....</i><div><br /></div><div>Hello blog and readers: I've missed you. What have I been doing, you wonder? Probably what many of you have been doing: wrapping up a university semester, looking forward to the end of the elementary school year, figuring how how to help some Daisy Girl Scouts bridge to Brownies, experimenting with different bread recipes and coming to terms with the fact that Politica really can taste the tiniest bit of wheat flour if I try to sneak it into white bread.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've been sick a fair bit, and was well-cared for by Curious Girl and Politica. They've been sick, too, and I helped take care of them. I've been reading every other week to the first grade, and I had a friend and her daughter come visit in March.</div><div><br /></div><div>I went to work a lot, and dealt with budget problems. I signed up for a CSA, and I went to CG's spring ice show, applauding for all the children who take lessons and wanted to come out and skate to music.</div><div><br /></div><div>I visited my parents, and had a lot of fun watching my daughter interact with my parents. We went to the beach, and collected shells, and splashed in the waves, even on the day that CG said she really was very, very sure she didn't want to go in the water and thus didn't wear her bathing suit. We went swimming in the pool every day, too, and loved watching the birds in the palm trees.</div><div><br /></div><div>We've been eating dinner together every night (except for those terrible weeks where one or the other of us had a GI bug bad enough that it kept us from the table). We read together--Politica and I passing books back and forth between us (read Jo Nesbø's <i>The Redbreast</i> if you want a gripping political/historical mystery), all of us sharing the fun of Curious Girl's explorations of Edward Eager's books about children and magic (<i>Seven-Day Magic</i> is just wonderful).</div><div><br /></div><div>Still reading? This is not, perhaps, the most elegant blog post I've put up, but this is the life of a lesbian family. Most of what we do is pretty darn unremarkable. Most of what we do looks a lot like what the rest of you are doing. </div><div><br /></div><div>And most of us lgb parents could be any of your relatives. Some of us come from extended families with gay cousins, parents, aunts/uncles, or siblings; some of us seem to be the only lgb relative around. Any family can be queer. And queer....well, maybe queer will become the new normal.</div><div><br /></div><div>That's a post for tomorrow, perhaps: how queer families can be read as more queer and less normal. But for today, I want to focus on the ways that queer families can be read as just another kind of normal: we're parents who are doing the best we can, loving our kids, helping them grow, and juggling work and home responsibilities.</div>susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-24196150507923923942010-01-22T19:54:00.003-05:002010-01-22T20:04:00.911-05:00Linkalicious<ul><li><a href="www.pih.org">Partners in Health</a> and <a href="http://doctorswithoutborders.org">Doctors Without Borders</a> are doing amazing work in Haiti and around the world.</li><li>I followed the story of the BRESMA orphanage in Haiti (the children there all got airlifted out of Haiti, to the US, Spain, and the Netherlands). International adoption is complicated, always, but it's particularly complicated in the wake of a natural disaster. The BRESMA children seem largely to have been in the process of being adopted by non-Haitian families--but there are many children in Haitian orphanages who do have extended family in the country. There are warnings emerging about the dangers of child trafficking in the wake of the earthquake. I hope that aid organizations focus on what children really need--which is first, safety and shelter and food; secondly, ties to their home land and home families if possible. Some good analysis comes via <a href="http://osolomama.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/10-ways-to-think-about-the-lost-children-of-haiti/">O Solo Mama</a>.</li><li>Kristen Laine has a <a href="http://amcoutdoorskids.blogspot.com">parenting/outdoors blog</a>! If you liked <a href="http://granolacrunchy.blogspot.com/2008/12/airport-blogging-cool-video-cool-book.html">American Band</a>, head on over! Or if you like being outdoors with your kids, check it out.</li><li>I've been experimenting with <a href="http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/">crusty bread</a> at home, the no-knead kind made from dough that can be refrigerated for weeks. Very handy, and very delicious.<br /></li></ul>I have posts in my head--oh, so many posts in my head! Here's hoping that the winter season will afford a bit more chance for those words to wend their way to the screen. I think about you, oh kind blog readers in the computer. Belated wishes for a happy 2010 to each of you.susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-90630217338761164382009-12-16T19:41:00.002-05:002009-12-16T19:58:38.243-05:00Good ReadsThe friendly folks at Henry Holt sent me a review copy of <a href="http://www.hope.edu/academic/english/fac_bio/janzen.html">Rhoda Janzen</a>'s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mennonite-Little-Black-Dress-Memoir/dp/080508925X"><span style="font-style: italic;">Mennonite in a Little Black Dress</span></a>. I received the book free, but no other compensation.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.apt11d.com/2009/11/book-review-mennonite-in-a-little-black-dress.html">Laura at 11D </a>says that Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is an impressive book because it appears to start off as a chick lit memoir about the search for Mr. Right, but turns out to be an ode to a daughter's coming home to the Right Family. If you're not usually into books with photos of high-heeled shoes on the cover, think again about this one: it's much less a story about a woman and her wardrobe than the story of a woman and her childhood and a woman and her parents. Rhoda Janzen, whose sudden divorce and subsequent car accident leads her to head half way across the country to spend several months living at home with her (Mennonite) parents, tells a story about going home and growin up.<br /><br />At times, she's laugh-out-loud funny (anecdotes about traveling with her siblings on family vacations, going out shopping with a pee bag taped to her leg, and arguing with her mother about whether it's better to date a preacher or a pothead made this a bad choice for a book to read while a child was trying to fall asleep on top of me). At other times, she's serious and tender (an anecdote about her first Thanksgiving away from home, when she and her sister raise their voices in traditional Mennonite song before eating, is just lovely). Some times, as Laura notes, she's elusive: she's an academic, but I didn't always recognize my academic life in hers. She seems to have a bit more money than many academics I know in English departments.<br /><br />Janzen is a poet, and this is her first turn toward memoir. I thought the book could have been edited more tightly--I'm trying to put my finger on just what it is about it that made me connect with her up front. I want to <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">like</span></span> Janzen more. We should have a lot in common--as Laura points out, growing up Mennonite Brethren is not that different from growing up in a conservative Catholic community, and I, too, had arguments with my parents about unstylish clothing that they valued for its modesty. But somehow, I wanted something a little bit more from Janzen's memoir....but as I try to describe what that is, I can't. I wanted to know a bit more about the marraige whose failure opens the memoir (it turns out later that she and her ex husband actually divorced twice, but there's nothing in the text to help us understand what drew her to him so repeatedly). I wanted to know a bit more about her academic experiences as she juggled the personal turmoil. There are more stories there, for sure.<br /><br />But what is there is pretty interesting. So if you're looking for a memoir this season, consider this.susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-33034275501877592582009-11-25T10:18:00.004-05:002009-11-25T10:45:03.238-05:00Sloppy Data on Stupak AnalysisPhillip Levine has an Op-Ed piece in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Times </span>today, "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/opinion/25levine.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=Op%20Ed&st=cse">False Alarm on Abortion</a>," and as Curious Girl has a play date going on, Politica and I are sitting here in the living room, talking politics and having a hot morning beverage. Politica may or may not get around to writing a letter-to-the-editor in response to Levine's use of data about the effects of the Stupak Amendment on US women's access to abortion services, and she said she'd be happy to have our conversation blogged, for anyone else who wants to get their hackles up before lunch today.<br /><br /> Levine's basic point is that the rhetoric about the Stupak amendment exaggerates its potential impact on abortion restriction and misses the benefits that increased access to health care would bring for many women. He slings around a lot of statistics, like:<br /><blockquote>The Stupak amendment’s effect on any individual woman’s insurance coverage for abortion depends on what kind of insurance she has now. About 12 percent of the 62 million American women of childbearing age — ages 15 to 44 — are now covered by public insurance plans like Medicaid. For them there will be no change because current law already prohibits the use of federal funds to cover abortion costs.<br /><br />Likewise, the amendment would change nothing for women who now have no insurance — about 20 percent of women of childbearing age.</blockquote>So the fact that 32% of American women currently have no access to a legal medical procedure means that we shouldn't protest the fact that this situation won't change in the future? <br /><br />Levine continues:<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><blockquote>The women whose abortion coverage would be at risk are those who are covered by private insurance — some 42 million women aged 15 to 44.</blockquote>Note that here he switches from discussing the <span style="font-style: italic;">percentage</span> of women on Medicaid or uninsured to the <span style="font-style: italic;">number</span> of women with private health insurance. 42 million women with private insurance are <span style="font-weight: bold;">68 percent of the women of childbearing age in the United States</span>. Are we to believe that since the Stupak amendment might only affect 2/3 of the women of childbearing age, it's really not as big of a problem as some critics have suggested?<br /><br />Well, that's not exactly what Levine is saying, for he goes on to note that those 42 million women are more likely to be older, to have higher family incomes, and to be less likely to have abortions than uninsured women or women on Medicaid. (He doesn't cite the sources for his figures about income and abortion, and I've not tried to verify them myself; for my argument here, I'm assuming those figures are accurate, but he's sloppy enough with the data he presents that I'm skeptical.) So because of the higher family income, Levine asserts that the Stupak amendment won't pose a big problem:<br /><blockquote>Even if women with private health insurance find themselves seeking an abortion, the out-of-pocket cost for the vast majority of them is not that high relative to their income. In general, 89 percent of abortions are performed in the first trimester; these non-hospital procedures cost an average of around $400.</blockquote>$400 can still be a lot of money.<br /><br />Levine also says:<br /><br /><blockquote>The small group of women who decide to abort after their first trimester — perhaps for reasons of fetal health — could potentially be affected more seriously, as these abortions are considerably more expensive. Yet the women who undergo second-trimester abortions are unlikely to be covered by private insurance now; nearly two-thirds of them have family incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level.</blockquote>Again he backs into the "these women are currently in a bad position so there's no need to complain that this won't address it" argument, with the "perhaps" suggesting that women seeking later-term abortions are perhaps doing it for "real" reasons, but perhaps not. Late term abortions aren't sought lightly, and it's maddening to read commentary that suggests they are.<br /><br />Levine does make a good point: that even with the Stupak Amendment in place, health care reform would bring better access to health care to millions of women, and thus provide better access to contraception. This would be good, to get contraception to women who want it. But look at the way Levine plays out this point to slam the decisions of poor women to have children at all:<br /><blockquote>[His prior research on the effects of expanded Medicaid coverage and contraception and a reduction in unintended pregnancies] suggests that health care reform could lead to a substantial reduction in unintended fertility. Consider that there are 12.4 million uninsured women of childbearing age. Suppose that health care reform ended up providing health insurance for 10 million of them. Each year, roughly 7 percent of all women this age give birth, amounting to about 700,000 births to this group of women. If their rate of fertility were cut by 9 percent, then 63,000 unintended births could be avoided if health care reform is enacted.</blockquote>He has labeled every.single.one. of the births to uninsured women as "unintended," equating a reduction in births with a reduction in unintended pregnancies.<br /><br />Politica's students are often surprised by the history of eugenics in the United States. The word may not be so common these days, but the prejudice against poor women having children is alive and well.<br /><br />So that's what we're talking about after breakfast around here today.susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14962422.post-22176248654473582382009-10-29T15:21:00.003-04:002009-10-29T15:30:41.218-04:00<h2><br /><br /><img src="http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/-/321countdown-map.png/" /></h2><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(This post was actually written by the fine folks at the <a href="http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/content/321CountdownForEquality/">Courage Campaign</a> website (thanks to a post by Lesbian Dad, who saw a reminder from <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/28/798191/-ACTION:-Help-the-nationwide-fight-for-LGBT-equality">hekebolos at DailyKos</a></span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/28/798191/-ACTION:-Help-the-nationwide-fight-for-LGBT-equality" target="_blank"></a><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span>):<br /><br /><blockquote> <p><span>Progressives are closer than ever to a victory on health care reform. As 2009 comes to a close, we’ve moved forward on other issues. But what’s looming up ahead could be a disappointment.</span></p> <p><span>On Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009- less than a week away- there will be critical votes on on LGBT equality in three states: Washington State, Maine, and Michigan. With so much attention devoted to other issues in the political realm, bloggers have banded together to ensure we don’t forget the ones with a firm deadline next week.</span></p> <p><span>For that reason, we’ve [The Courage Campaign] joined with these three campaigns to put together a summary of who, what, and how. If you haven’t heard of these campaigns, and/or haven’t done anything yet to support them, please consider helping out. <strong>If you are a blogger please feel free to grab this content whole cloth and use it for your blog posts.</strong> Scroll down to the bottom to grab the formatted HTML to drop into a post.</span></p> <p><span>Last year, as Obama and Democrats were winning across the country, we lost marriage equality in California. It was a bittersweet victory. Pitch in to make sure 2009 isn’t a bittersweet year. Take action to support LGBT equality TODAY.</span></p> </blockquote><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://approvereferendum71.org/phonehome"><img src="http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/-/approve71_phonebank.JPG/@mx_350@my_350" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="5" /></a><h2><b>Washington:</b></h2><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>Who we are:</b> <span style="font-size:100%;">Approve Referendum 71 is the campaign to preserve domestic partnerships in Washington State. By voting to approve, voters retain the domestic partnership laws that were passed during this year's legislative session, including using sick leave to care for a partner, adoption rights, insurance rights, and more.</span></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>What we need:</b> We need phone bankers to get our supporters out to vote. Washington is an all mail-in ballot state, and we need to ensure our supporters put their ballots in the mail. Also, youth turnout is a critical component of our campaign, and youth turnout historically drops in off-year elections. So we need a lot of help to turn them out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>How you do it:</b> <a href="http://approvereferendum71.org/phonehome">Sign up here</a> to make remote calls for Approve 71. We'll then contact you for a training, and you can make GOTV calls.</span></p><br /><br /><h2><b>Maine:</b></h2><a href="http://www.protectmaineequality.org/callforequality"><img src="http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/-/MaineVirtualPhoneBank.jpg/@mx_350@my_350" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="5" /></a><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>Who we are:</b> The No On 1/Protect Maine Equality campaign is working to protect Maine's recently-passed law legalizing marriage equality for same-sex couples. Our opponents have put the issue on the ballot for Nov 3, 2009. Because of Maine's early voting election laws, people are already voting at the polls, so we need help immediately to turn out our side at the polls.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>What we need:</b> We need you to devote a few hours to Call for Equality. Call for Equality is a virtual phonebank set up so that you can call Maine voters wherever you are. Much of Maine is rural, where canvassing isn't effective, so we need to reach these voters- along with other supporters- by phone. All you need is a phone and internet connection. No experience required! We'll provide the training, and all you need is a a few hours to help get a win in Maine.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>How you do it:</b> <a href="http://www.protectmaineequality.org/callforequality">Click here</a> to sign up for a training and your shift. There are lots of times available for your convenience.</span></p><h2><b>Kalamazoo, MI:</b></h2><a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/3-2-1-countdown?refcode=therometer"><img src="http://www.actblue.com/page/3-2-1-countdown/goal/light.png" alt="Goal Thermometer" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="5" /></a><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>Who We Are:</b> The Yes on Ordinance 1856 / One Kalamazoo campaign is working in Michigan to support the City Commission of Kalamazoo's twice approved ordinance for housing, employment, and public accommodation protections for gay and transgender residents. Opponents forced a public referendum on the ordinance so dedicated local volunteers, led by former Stonewall Democrats Executive Director Jon Hoadley, are working to ensure voters say YES to fairness and equality and keep Ordinance 1856. </span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>Why The Urgency:</b> In the final weeks, the opposition has gone all out with aggressive disinformation and misleading red herrings to try to defeat the ordinance. This includes <a href="http://responsiblevoters.org/Portals/0/YardSign.jpg">signs that say "No to Discrimination"</a> (even though voting No actually supports continued discrimination of GLBT residents), <a href="http://www.queerty.com/kalamazoos-misleading-special-bathroom-rights-propaganda-20090921/">transphobic door hangers</a> and <a href="http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/playlist/1598/1148127?cpt=8&title=sports&wpid=2057">fliers</a>, and now <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X09QEjZoH8Y">radio ads</a> that falsely suggest that criminal behavior will become legal when this simply isn't true. The Yes on Ordinance 1856 supporters are better organized but many voters who want to vote for gay and transgender people are getting confused by the opposition.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>How To Help:</b></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-size:100%;">1) Help the One Kalamazoo campaign raise a final $10,000 specifically dedicated to fight back against the lies on the local TV and radio airwaves and fully fund the campaign's final field and GOTV efforts. </span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>Give here:</b> <a href="http://www.actblue.com/page/3-2-1-countdown?refcode=courage">http://www.actblue.com/page/3-2-1-countdown</a> </span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">2) If you live nearby and can physically volunteer in Kalamazoo <a href="http://onekalamazoo.com/countdown">sign up here</a>. If you know anyone that lives in Kalamazoo, use the One Kalamazoo campaign's online canvass tool to remind those voters that they need to vote on November 3rd and vote YES on Ordinance 1856 to support equality for gay and transgender people.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>Contact voters:</b> <a href="http://www.onekalamazoo.com/tellfriends2">http://www.onekalamazoo.com/tellfriends2</a></span></p>susanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000470374101306070noreply@blogger.com0