50-something Moms Blog

Mothering Requires Multiple Personalities

Is it me or is the world in a complete crisis?  My dad, rest his soul, used to always say the world was going to “hell in a handbasket”.  I thought he was just a little too pessimistic, but if he were alive today, I would have to agree with him.

The daily news is getting to be just too much for me.  There are too many crises or catastrophes going on at once.  I consider myself well-informed on world events.  But I have been thinking maybe “ignorance is bliss” is truly the way to be in these uncertain times.

For over a month now, the gulf oil spill has dominated the news.  If it's not the oil spill, it is the unstable stock market, the shaky European markets, Greece's failed economy, the banking crisis, terrorism, and on and on. 

These are important stories of our day.  I understand.

But to be an effective mother, I often feel like I must have multiple personalities. As a responsible adult, I want to know if BP has stopped the oil flow in the gulf, or if congress has passed needed banking reform, or if the stock market is dropping like a rock due to overseas markets.  But as a mother, my priority is to provide nutritious meals, pack a good sack lunch, provide transportation to softball and insure she has a dress for elementary graduation.  It's like living in two worlds simultaneously.  I feel overwhelmed.

Evaluating the Quality of Your Child's Education

Today is Inflatables Day at my daughter's school.  You know, those blow up bounce house things.  The school or PTA annually rents a half dozen inflatables and the kids take turns playing in them all day.  The event is funded by the money received for all the endless fundraisers during the year – wrapping paper, cookie dough, coupon books, candy, etc. 

Next week is the orchestra field trip and sixth grade track meet. The following week is the museum field trip, grade-level play day, and choir field trip. You get the idea.  You see, the state-mandated achievement tests in science, math, and language arts are finished in Texas.  So the playing begins. 

Bullying is Getting Too Close for Comfort!

All this talk in the news about teenage bullying is scary.  And the more I have tried to read on the subject, the more worried I become. My daughter is graduating from the protective environment of elementary school this spring.  I am not too excited about the junior high school setting.  When I recently attended a parent meeting for incoming students, I was taken aback with all the tough talk of random searches and locker inspections.

We recently decided to put our plans to relocate this summer on hold.  With the shaky economy and the higher cost of living at the new town, it seemed too risky.  But one of the reasons that I wanted to move was to live in a smaller town.  A smaller town where I can believe (realistically or not), that schools are less volatile than the large suburban area that we currently live in.

Lunch Box Ideas Are Getting Slim!

My daughter announced this week that she is tired of the lunches I pack. I can't imagine why! She has basically taken the same lunch for her entire elementary years – Gogurt, apple sauce, granola bar, and maybe some carrots thrown in for good measure.

My daughter eats fruits and vegetables well. She sometimes claims she is a vegetarian. That is until she wants a hamburger. Breakfast for the last two years, has been a blueberry bagel with cream cheese. Now, she wants sugary cereal.

Will Images of Hate Forever Be Among Us?

I have an image in my head. An image from 1957. I can't shake it. I was only one year old in 1957, so I am not sure when I first saw the photo. But it is an image that is ingrained in my memory. You know the picture. It is the photograph of Elizabeth Eckford, of the Little Rock Nine, who was the one of the first African-Americans to attend Little Rock Central High School. The one where 15-year-old Elizabeth is walking by herself, looking straight ahead, grasping her notebook, while an angry white mob follows her, one young woman yelling from behind.

I have always wondered what the woman (Hazel Bryan Massery) with the look of hate and disgust felt about her image forever a part of history. An image considered one of the 100 photographs that changed the world. When did Massery realize that she had made a mistake? That the fear she felt that September morning was unfounded? That life as she knew it, as a high school student, was not in danger because the public school system was going to be integrated. At what point did she realize she had become “a poster child for the hate generation” as she later acknowledged.

Is it Time to Stop Supporting My Alma Mater?

I'm angry with my college alma mater. Just when I was beginning to feel that the regional university was gaining national recognition, the president resigned. The president of less than four years was the university's first female. It appears there were differences with the chancellor and the board of regents.

When I attended college in the seventies, the University of North Texas was a college of approximately 17,000 students. It was the perfect place for me. It was 45 minutes from home. Far enough away to live in a residence hall, but close enough to go home on the weekends.

In the state of Texas, UNT has never been in the same league with the well-known University of Texas or Texas A&M. A lot of it had to do with athletics, and some of it to research dollars. I was always miffed that local Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex vendors, selling college memorabilia, seldom sold items from UNT even though it was just down the road.

But in 2006, when the university appointed Dr. Gretchen Batialle, everything changed. Every quarter when I read the alumni magazine, I commented to my spouse how impressive the current president was. A mover and a shaker. Enrollment soared to over 35,000 students attracting more transfer students than any other college in Texas. Green buildings were constructed, new degree programs developed, scholarship funding increased, and amazing interdisciplinary programs were being created.

Physicians Also Need Reform

Like many, I have followed the on-going health care debates closely. I fall on the side of universal coverage for all. I cringe, every December, when my husband brings home the specifics of his company's health care coverage for the next year. Small families are discriminated against. As a family of three, we pay more for coverage than say a single parent with five children.

This year we had the option of paying the same amount for less coverage or maintaining 2009 coverage for a mere 30% increase. We opted for the same cost with less coverage and higher deductibles. We are praying no emergencies require us to meet that higher deductible.

Should Our Children Care About the Olympics?

I anxiously awaited the start of the Winter Olympics. I have always enjoyed watching the many hours of Olympic coverage since I was a kid. For two weeks every other year, it is possible to dream what it might be like to have the athleticism, dedication, and determination to master a sport.

Ice skating is my favorite. Maybe because I was an avid roller skater as a child. I bought my first pair of roller skates with two books of green stamps. They were the steel kind with the key that tightened a clamp around the ball of your foot. I still have a pair, in an old trunk, in the closet. Sidewalk skates is what they were called. For the clamp to stay in place, one needed a shoe with a separate sole. Sneakers wouldn't work. I ruined many a pair of penny loafers trying to perform a single axle around the driveway grease spot.

Is Equal Division of Labor at Home Possible?

There's been a lot of talk lately about the increase of power for women. In their book, Womenomics, Claire Shipman and Katty Kay, state that the sheer number of women in the workforce will force a paradigm shift in business organizations' receptiveness of women's needs and wants. And Maria Shiver's Women's Nation reinforces this idea.

Yet contrary to better pay and work opportunities, women aren't happier. Marcus Buckingham's latest book, Find Your Strongest Life, explores this phenomena. He found that as women get older, regardless of race, education level, socio-economic level or marital status, they get sadder.  Men, on the other hand, get happier as they age. Buckingham believes that successful women accept who they are and find fullness in the details that invigorate them, letting go of what doesn't.

WHEN IS THE RIGHT TIME TO RELOCATE?

Is there a perfect time to relocate one's family? Being in our fifties, my husband and I have begun to examine what a Utopian retirement would look like for us. Climate is an issue. We want to experience all four seasons of the year. Six months of Texas summer heat has begun to bother us.

Size is an issue. I have lived most of my life in one of the biggest metropolitan areas of the country, Dallas-Fort Worth. As a preacher's kid, my husband moved every couple of years from one small town to another in middle Tennessee. So, the city girl is willing to move from the urban sprawl to a simpler life in a small town.