In this post last month, I took a close look at the one-word challenge: the exercise of coming up with a singular word as a theme for the upcoming year.
Having selected my word for the year, I wasn’t trying to come up with a word for the month, but a word keeps whispering itself to me each night when I stand outside our front door looking at the night sky and taking a last deep breath of cold winter air before locking the house up for the evening. Patience.
Patience during this long, dull, cold part of the winter. No Christmas holidays to build toward; none of the enticing hibernation of January. We’ve done our hibernating; we’re ready to get back outside, thanks. But it’s still so cold, with temperatures in the teens or twenties every day and a bitter wind blowing. The ice on our driveway is so deep and dark it looks like stone; it’s been weeks now since anything frozen melted. I wish it would go away: I’m tired of wearing three layers of outerwear for my daily run, and I’m not even enjoying the running anymore because the face mask that protects my skin from the wind hampers my deep breathing so much.
But still: patience. It’s the time of year for just waiting the winter out.
Groundhog experiences aside, another month or more of winter weather is still likely at this point. In early March, it’s reasonable to grow impatient for a thaw, for milder days. Mid-February, on the other hand, is still way too early to lose one’s winter endurance.
Besides, the days are rapidly growing longer. I drove home well after five o’clock this afternoon and the sky was still light, turning pink and purple near the horizon. Longer afternoons come well before warmer ones, but they remind us that the earth is making its journey toward summer and the sun’s presence is increasing.
There are other reasons to think “patience” right now as well. I’ll be patient with the writing assignments that are uninspiring, and I’ll wait patiently for those that need outside encouragement to find the right reader. I’ll be patient with Holly’s ongoing insistence on help getting dressed every morning, a task I so wish she would take on herself. Tim is already beginning to shed his yearly Seasonal Affective Disorder symptoms, probably because of the longer afternoons; he responded to me with unusual good cheer several times over the past few days, and it reminds me that my patience with his darker moods pays off when they lift.
I have patience, too, as I wait for our strangely behaving guinea pig, who shares my office space with me, to meet whatever fate is best for her: she’ll get over her recent lack of mobility or she’ll give up peacefully. The vet said one or the other was likely, and I should just wait it out.
Models of patience are all around me this month: my mother is following medical instructions by patiently wearing bandages to cover stitches for recent skin surgery although in her case I would have shed the bandages days ago out of self-consciousness, and my sister in DC gamely tells me the aftermath of the biggest snowstorm that area has seen in centuries really isn’t so bad, thanks to the fact they still have electricity.
So I’ll be patient with the kids as we find things to do during their school vacation week later this month, and patient with the prospect of more snow later this week, even as I wish it would all melt away. Because there must be a reason that the winter air itself is whispering a word to me. I’ll listen, and make the best use of it I can.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Cocooning: Is it a sign of contentment, or is it complacency?
I’m conflicted on the subject of cocooning.
Or, to put it another way, what one day I can justify as the cozy desire to stay home on other days looks a little like a very mild case of agoraphobia.
I don’t mean to make light of agoraphobia. It’s a serious issue, and I can’t pretend that my frequent (and somewhat seasonal) aversion to leaving the house is anything like a crippling anxiety disorder associated with crowds. Once I’m out somewhere, I generally enjoy the bustle of strangers and the opportunity to meet new people.
What I find hard to confront some days is the part that comes before that: the requirement that I venture out of my own house. This desire to bask in the comforts of home rather than get out into the world is what trend-watcher and business guru Faith Popcorn termed “cocooning” in her 1991 book The Popcorn Report: The Future of Your Company, Your World, Your Life.
Sometimes I can justify cocooning as a positive thing. It’s good to appreciate what you have -- a warm well-lit home full of family members, books, fresh food, wireless connectivity and friends dropping by – not to mention the ecological correctness of staying put rather than traveling somewhere by car, which where we live is the only practical way to get to a destination more than a mile or two away, at least at this chilly time of year.
But sometimes I have to remind myself that too much contentment goes by the less affirmative name of complacency. Too much aversion to going out suggests self-limitations. It’s important to expose yourself to the ideas, personalities and issues of the outside world.
I was thinking about this earlier this week as I debated with myself about whether to accept an invitation to a newly forming book group. On the one hand, it seemed like an ideal opportunity. This one is local, ensuring I’d never have to travel more than five miles to a meeting, and the group has already decided to meet every other month. Also, they are going to discuss two or three short stories at each meeting, so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting stuck reading a 400-page novel I didn’t like.
But when the organizer sent out a follow-up email asking for commitments from members, I found myself procrastinating on a response. Going out at night is always a hassle during the week, not because my kids make it difficult – they’re old enough now that the bedtime routine is easy and consistent whether it’s me, my husband, their grandparents or a paid sitter overseeing the process – but just because it takes away valuable time from my daily routine. The hours of 7 to 10 are when I clean up from dinner, make the kids’ lunches, check that they’ve done their homework, and finish up any deskwork that didn’t get done during the day, not to mention try to get to bed early enough that eight hours of sleep is a possibility (seven is usually a more realistic goal; six and a half is typical). Even if it was just once every two months, I knew when the evening came, I’d wish I were staying home.
At the same time, my more objective side knows there are compelling reasons to accept the invitation. The guest list comprises women from a variety of professional backgrounds whom the organizer chose because of their commitment to intellectual discourse; I’d learn a lot from them, and the reading list would surely expose me to works I wouldn’t otherwise read, since I almost never opt for short story collections.
Yesterday the question about the thin line between cocooning and pseudo-agoraphobia arose again when I let the kids talk me out of going to church. On the one hand, the idea of staying home for Sunday morning was so appealing. We’d hosted a cocktail party the night before; we were tired and still had a lot of cleaning up to do. If I stayed home, I could catch up with a bunch of things on my To Do list: not just the post-party cleanup but balancing my checkbook and cleaning the guinea pig’s cage as well. And for Unitarians, church is essentially considered optional on any given Sunday.
On the other hand, it’s church. Of course it’s a good idea to go, I told myself. Don’t be so complacent. Church is always a character-building experience; it’s good for you to make the effort, to mingle with the congregation, to sing the hymns, to listen to the sermon.
But I love Sunday mornings at home, the first voice argued. It will be so cozy to just cocoon here, and I’ll get so much done.
But you could use that argument to never go to church, the second voice retorted. You could avoid every party, every community organizing meeting, every possible opportunity to benefit from society as a character-building entity. Where’s the line between staying contentedly at home appreciating what you have and failing to fulfill your obligations – social, spiritual, civic – to being part of a community?
I don’t know the answer. I skipped church and decided to decline the book club, but I promised myself I’d attend every Town Meeting this year. I suppose one rule of thumb might be that if it’s something I’ll it I feel guilty about missing– like church – I should just go. But for the most part, it’s a case-by-case judgment call.
Or, to put it another way, what one day I can justify as the cozy desire to stay home on other days looks a little like a very mild case of agoraphobia.
I don’t mean to make light of agoraphobia. It’s a serious issue, and I can’t pretend that my frequent (and somewhat seasonal) aversion to leaving the house is anything like a crippling anxiety disorder associated with crowds. Once I’m out somewhere, I generally enjoy the bustle of strangers and the opportunity to meet new people.
What I find hard to confront some days is the part that comes before that: the requirement that I venture out of my own house. This desire to bask in the comforts of home rather than get out into the world is what trend-watcher and business guru Faith Popcorn termed “cocooning” in her 1991 book The Popcorn Report: The Future of Your Company, Your World, Your Life.
Sometimes I can justify cocooning as a positive thing. It’s good to appreciate what you have -- a warm well-lit home full of family members, books, fresh food, wireless connectivity and friends dropping by – not to mention the ecological correctness of staying put rather than traveling somewhere by car, which where we live is the only practical way to get to a destination more than a mile or two away, at least at this chilly time of year.
But sometimes I have to remind myself that too much contentment goes by the less affirmative name of complacency. Too much aversion to going out suggests self-limitations. It’s important to expose yourself to the ideas, personalities and issues of the outside world.
I was thinking about this earlier this week as I debated with myself about whether to accept an invitation to a newly forming book group. On the one hand, it seemed like an ideal opportunity. This one is local, ensuring I’d never have to travel more than five miles to a meeting, and the group has already decided to meet every other month. Also, they are going to discuss two or three short stories at each meeting, so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting stuck reading a 400-page novel I didn’t like.
But when the organizer sent out a follow-up email asking for commitments from members, I found myself procrastinating on a response. Going out at night is always a hassle during the week, not because my kids make it difficult – they’re old enough now that the bedtime routine is easy and consistent whether it’s me, my husband, their grandparents or a paid sitter overseeing the process – but just because it takes away valuable time from my daily routine. The hours of 7 to 10 are when I clean up from dinner, make the kids’ lunches, check that they’ve done their homework, and finish up any deskwork that didn’t get done during the day, not to mention try to get to bed early enough that eight hours of sleep is a possibility (seven is usually a more realistic goal; six and a half is typical). Even if it was just once every two months, I knew when the evening came, I’d wish I were staying home.
At the same time, my more objective side knows there are compelling reasons to accept the invitation. The guest list comprises women from a variety of professional backgrounds whom the organizer chose because of their commitment to intellectual discourse; I’d learn a lot from them, and the reading list would surely expose me to works I wouldn’t otherwise read, since I almost never opt for short story collections.
Yesterday the question about the thin line between cocooning and pseudo-agoraphobia arose again when I let the kids talk me out of going to church. On the one hand, the idea of staying home for Sunday morning was so appealing. We’d hosted a cocktail party the night before; we were tired and still had a lot of cleaning up to do. If I stayed home, I could catch up with a bunch of things on my To Do list: not just the post-party cleanup but balancing my checkbook and cleaning the guinea pig’s cage as well. And for Unitarians, church is essentially considered optional on any given Sunday.
On the other hand, it’s church. Of course it’s a good idea to go, I told myself. Don’t be so complacent. Church is always a character-building experience; it’s good for you to make the effort, to mingle with the congregation, to sing the hymns, to listen to the sermon.
But I love Sunday mornings at home, the first voice argued. It will be so cozy to just cocoon here, and I’ll get so much done.
But you could use that argument to never go to church, the second voice retorted. You could avoid every party, every community organizing meeting, every possible opportunity to benefit from society as a character-building entity. Where’s the line between staying contentedly at home appreciating what you have and failing to fulfill your obligations – social, spiritual, civic – to being part of a community?
I don’t know the answer. I skipped church and decided to decline the book club, but I promised myself I’d attend every Town Meeting this year. I suppose one rule of thumb might be that if it’s something I’ll it I feel guilty about missing– like church – I should just go. But for the most part, it’s a case-by-case judgment call.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Do you let your kids win at board games? I say let 'em lose!
“Do you always let your kids win at board games? Do you think we should let them win when they're little?” An internet friend posed this question yesterday, and I couldn’t resist taking the bait.
Why, no, I responded. Losing at board games not only teaches children about sportsmanship but also teaches them that for some things, like Candy Land, the outcome simply doesn’t matter that much; the fun is in the process of playing.
The other learning opportunity that may get overlooked in this debate is for kids to learn what a game of chance means. Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders are, as I remember, strategy-free games; the outcome depends entirely on the luck of the draw, making the odds of winning 50/50. If you let your 3-year-old win at Candy Land every time, isn’t there a risk that he’ll get a warped view of the laws of probability?
In fact, when my son Tim was still playing preschool board games, I remember being so intent on not giving him the wrong message by always letting him win that on one long rainy day when we played several rounds of Candy Land in a row, I became concerned that he was winning – albeit fairly – too often, and that I should win a few games just to exercise his good-sportsmanship muscles, so I briefly contemplated manipulating the outcome. But the thought of myself as someone who cheats at Candy Land was just too distasteful, so I went back to leaving it up to Fate.
When Tim was about five, he invited a new friend over to play T-ball. As the visiting child stepped up to bat, Tim started calling strikes. “Strike one! Strike two! Strike three! My turn to bat!”
The other mother, whom we hadn’t met before, seemed appalled. “Tim, when we play we don’t actually keep score,” she admonished him. “We just let each batter keep going until he gets a good hit.”
Tim was clearly puzzled. “But without strikes, how do you know when the inning is over?” he asked.
Although I understood the other mother’s point, I could also see what Tim meant. To him, striking out wasn’t a sign of failure; it was a sign that your turn is over and it’s someone else’s turn to try. Easy, mathematical, straightforward.
Tim went on to be a fairly serious grade school athlete, and since my husband is a baseball coach for Tim’s age group, it’s something I hear a lot of conversation about. As a coach, my husband has never mouthed the party line about “It doesn’t matter who wins or loses.” He wants the kids to play as if winning is their goal. If they get outplayed by the other team and lose, that’s fine, but he expects his players to go into the game with a “Let’s win this” mindset.
It seems to have worked, at least with our son. Last summer, most of their baseball games ran late into the evening, and although I watched when I could, the need to put my younger child to bed often resulted in my missing the last few innings, so I would get the recap when they got home. Sometimes, Tim would crow like any other child, “We won! We won!” Other times, he would say, “We beat them, but we weren’t playing our best. We were just a stronger team. But we made a lot of mistakes.” And generally those games would be followed by a lot more analysis and intense discussion between my husband and son, and sometimes the other players as well, than those in which they lost. On the other hand, when they played hard and lost by a small margin, no one ever seemed heartbroken, just determined to be sure their hard work paid off better next time.
Last spring, Tim’s fifth grade class invited parents to a reading of personal essays they’d recently written. Tim’s friend Will wrote about playing doubles tennis with his brother against their parents. The story was a cliffhanger, with the two boys giving it their all and the nervous tension building right to game point. But in the end, somewhat to my surprise, the parents won the match. Will ended his essay with a shrug and a sheepish smile as he described that final impossible serve from his dad.
On the way out, I caught up to Will’s mom. “Nice job!” I said.
She smiled. “Yes, he loves to write, and he worked hard on that essay.”
“No, I actually meant nice job on letting the boys lose the game,” I admitted. “That surprised me. I was sure they’d win.”
She laughed, but then answered seriously. “They’re about to be eleven and thirteen and they’re turning into really good players,” she said. “By next summer, they’ll probably be consistently beating us at tennis. We wanted one last win while we could get it.”
I admired her attitude because it was so honest and, ultimately, so sensible. She gave Will one last taste of honest losing, knowing that it won’t be long until he’ll have the thrill of honest winning. I’d like to think a three-year-old playing Chutes and Ladders would benefit just as much from an honest, luck-of-the-draw win or loss as Will does from facing the truth this one last season before he becomes a better tennis player than his mom.
Why, no, I responded. Losing at board games not only teaches children about sportsmanship but also teaches them that for some things, like Candy Land, the outcome simply doesn’t matter that much; the fun is in the process of playing.
The other learning opportunity that may get overlooked in this debate is for kids to learn what a game of chance means. Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders are, as I remember, strategy-free games; the outcome depends entirely on the luck of the draw, making the odds of winning 50/50. If you let your 3-year-old win at Candy Land every time, isn’t there a risk that he’ll get a warped view of the laws of probability?
In fact, when my son Tim was still playing preschool board games, I remember being so intent on not giving him the wrong message by always letting him win that on one long rainy day when we played several rounds of Candy Land in a row, I became concerned that he was winning – albeit fairly – too often, and that I should win a few games just to exercise his good-sportsmanship muscles, so I briefly contemplated manipulating the outcome. But the thought of myself as someone who cheats at Candy Land was just too distasteful, so I went back to leaving it up to Fate.
When Tim was about five, he invited a new friend over to play T-ball. As the visiting child stepped up to bat, Tim started calling strikes. “Strike one! Strike two! Strike three! My turn to bat!”
The other mother, whom we hadn’t met before, seemed appalled. “Tim, when we play we don’t actually keep score,” she admonished him. “We just let each batter keep going until he gets a good hit.”
Tim was clearly puzzled. “But without strikes, how do you know when the inning is over?” he asked.
Although I understood the other mother’s point, I could also see what Tim meant. To him, striking out wasn’t a sign of failure; it was a sign that your turn is over and it’s someone else’s turn to try. Easy, mathematical, straightforward.
Tim went on to be a fairly serious grade school athlete, and since my husband is a baseball coach for Tim’s age group, it’s something I hear a lot of conversation about. As a coach, my husband has never mouthed the party line about “It doesn’t matter who wins or loses.” He wants the kids to play as if winning is their goal. If they get outplayed by the other team and lose, that’s fine, but he expects his players to go into the game with a “Let’s win this” mindset.
It seems to have worked, at least with our son. Last summer, most of their baseball games ran late into the evening, and although I watched when I could, the need to put my younger child to bed often resulted in my missing the last few innings, so I would get the recap when they got home. Sometimes, Tim would crow like any other child, “We won! We won!” Other times, he would say, “We beat them, but we weren’t playing our best. We were just a stronger team. But we made a lot of mistakes.” And generally those games would be followed by a lot more analysis and intense discussion between my husband and son, and sometimes the other players as well, than those in which they lost. On the other hand, when they played hard and lost by a small margin, no one ever seemed heartbroken, just determined to be sure their hard work paid off better next time.
Last spring, Tim’s fifth grade class invited parents to a reading of personal essays they’d recently written. Tim’s friend Will wrote about playing doubles tennis with his brother against their parents. The story was a cliffhanger, with the two boys giving it their all and the nervous tension building right to game point. But in the end, somewhat to my surprise, the parents won the match. Will ended his essay with a shrug and a sheepish smile as he described that final impossible serve from his dad.
On the way out, I caught up to Will’s mom. “Nice job!” I said.
She smiled. “Yes, he loves to write, and he worked hard on that essay.”
“No, I actually meant nice job on letting the boys lose the game,” I admitted. “That surprised me. I was sure they’d win.”
She laughed, but then answered seriously. “They’re about to be eleven and thirteen and they’re turning into really good players,” she said. “By next summer, they’ll probably be consistently beating us at tennis. We wanted one last win while we could get it.”
I admired her attitude because it was so honest and, ultimately, so sensible. She gave Will one last taste of honest losing, knowing that it won’t be long until he’ll have the thrill of honest winning. I’d like to think a three-year-old playing Chutes and Ladders would benefit just as much from an honest, luck-of-the-draw win or loss as Will does from facing the truth this one last season before he becomes a better tennis player than his mom.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Maintaining a daily writing habit: Here's what works for me
I’ve been invited to speak to a local women’s group about keeping a journal, so I’ve spent some time over the past few days trying to pull my thoughts together around a topic that for me feels largely intuitive, and yet still merits articulation once in a while. Daily writing: Why do it? And if you want to do it, how?
Though I make a big deal of being a daily or “streak” runner, I hardly ever think about the fact that I’m a streak journal-keeper as well. It’s become such a habit that I don’t even acknowledge it most of the time, but not since late 1994 have I missed a day of writing in my journal, when I finally realized it was easier to write every day than to skip days and then have a sense that there was “catching up” to do. As I frequently say, journaling is so much like running or any other kind of exercise: the longer you go without doing it, the harder it is to start up again, so it’s easier and certainly more mindless to just set out with a pre-defined commitment – which could be every day, but it could also be every other day, three times a week, even once a week – and stick to it rather than begin every day with a “Should I or shouldn’t I” question.
When I was younger I wrote before bed, summing up the events of the day just gone by. When I was in college, sometimes it was very late at night, well into the wee hours of the next day in fact, but I often felt like I couldn’t go to sleep until I’d processed the events of the day in writing. It was almost as if the day hadn’t officially happened until I’d made note of it.
These days I follow the method set out by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way and The Right to Write, which Cameron calls Morning Pages. The idea is to write three fast pages the minute you get out of bed in the morning. Three pages doesn’t work well for me as a benchmark since Cameron is talking about longhand and I always keyboard, so I use one thousand words as my minimum goal. Back when I was writing longhand, I used ten minutes as my framework. I don’t think it matters, though, whether you go by word count or duration or physical pages; it’s just a matter of getting yourself to stay with whatever measuring stick you’ve chosen.
And the reason I think it’s important to choose one of these benchmarks goes back to the idea of never having to decide whether or not this is a good day for writing. If you’ve committed to ten minutes, as I used to, then on those days when you feel like you have nothing to say, you’ll find something. You won’t revert to the all-too-easy “Nothing much going on” entry, or if you do, you’ll write past it. I employ a lot of journaling techniques that delve into the abstract or hypothetical. For example, if you find yourself writing “Not much going on today,” you can then pose the hypothetical statement: “But here’s what I wish were going on.” If you find yourself writing “I don’t feel like writing today,” use the rest of your ten minutes to take that next step “…because this is what is distracting me and keeping me from wanting to write.”
Often, I just write the same way children keep diaries, describing the here-and-now of the previous twenty-four hours. Finished an article; talked to my sister; went on a three-mile run; can’t wait to pick up that new novel at the library. Mundane, everyday events fill the pages of my journals, and have for years. I almost never re-read them. The point for me is the exercise: keeping a daily journal compels me to process my thoughts and feelings (or face the fact that I am avoiding them), and, just as with running, it keeps me at a certain “fitness” level. When I have to write something fast for work, it never seems like a strain, since I’m so accustomed to sitting down and writing, whether I have anything to say or not. Faced with an article assignment that I have no idea how to begin, I do the same thing as with my journal: I just start writing anything, to see if I can get through the mental static and make my way to the point.
Key points if you want to write regularly:
1) Find the time and place that work best for you. It might be 6 AM in your home office, which is what I do; it might be 3 PM at your local coffee shop or library; it might be 9 PM after your family has settled down and the house is quiet. It might even be in your parked car for ten minutes before you go into work. Experiment with different possibilities.
2) Choose your target benchmark for minimum output, whether it’s word count, duration in minutes or number of pages.
3) If you feel like you have nothing to say, write about nothing. Write about not having anything to say. Write about what you wish you had to say. Write about why you don’t want to say what you have to say.
4) It takes three weeks to build a habit. Decide your frequency goal, whether it’s daily or a certain number of times per week, and commit to that for at least three weeks.
5) Have someplace you can jot down thoughts that come to you during the day that you want to write about, and turn to that list when you next sit down to your journal.
As the late writer Donald Murray, a published poet, UNH writing instructor and Boston Globe columnist, often said, “Nulla dies sine linea – never a day without a line.” Ultimately, it’s easier to just sit down and write than to put off writing. And it only gets easier with practice.
Though I make a big deal of being a daily or “streak” runner, I hardly ever think about the fact that I’m a streak journal-keeper as well. It’s become such a habit that I don’t even acknowledge it most of the time, but not since late 1994 have I missed a day of writing in my journal, when I finally realized it was easier to write every day than to skip days and then have a sense that there was “catching up” to do. As I frequently say, journaling is so much like running or any other kind of exercise: the longer you go without doing it, the harder it is to start up again, so it’s easier and certainly more mindless to just set out with a pre-defined commitment – which could be every day, but it could also be every other day, three times a week, even once a week – and stick to it rather than begin every day with a “Should I or shouldn’t I” question.
When I was younger I wrote before bed, summing up the events of the day just gone by. When I was in college, sometimes it was very late at night, well into the wee hours of the next day in fact, but I often felt like I couldn’t go to sleep until I’d processed the events of the day in writing. It was almost as if the day hadn’t officially happened until I’d made note of it.
These days I follow the method set out by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way and The Right to Write, which Cameron calls Morning Pages. The idea is to write three fast pages the minute you get out of bed in the morning. Three pages doesn’t work well for me as a benchmark since Cameron is talking about longhand and I always keyboard, so I use one thousand words as my minimum goal. Back when I was writing longhand, I used ten minutes as my framework. I don’t think it matters, though, whether you go by word count or duration or physical pages; it’s just a matter of getting yourself to stay with whatever measuring stick you’ve chosen.
And the reason I think it’s important to choose one of these benchmarks goes back to the idea of never having to decide whether or not this is a good day for writing. If you’ve committed to ten minutes, as I used to, then on those days when you feel like you have nothing to say, you’ll find something. You won’t revert to the all-too-easy “Nothing much going on” entry, or if you do, you’ll write past it. I employ a lot of journaling techniques that delve into the abstract or hypothetical. For example, if you find yourself writing “Not much going on today,” you can then pose the hypothetical statement: “But here’s what I wish were going on.” If you find yourself writing “I don’t feel like writing today,” use the rest of your ten minutes to take that next step “…because this is what is distracting me and keeping me from wanting to write.”
Often, I just write the same way children keep diaries, describing the here-and-now of the previous twenty-four hours. Finished an article; talked to my sister; went on a three-mile run; can’t wait to pick up that new novel at the library. Mundane, everyday events fill the pages of my journals, and have for years. I almost never re-read them. The point for me is the exercise: keeping a daily journal compels me to process my thoughts and feelings (or face the fact that I am avoiding them), and, just as with running, it keeps me at a certain “fitness” level. When I have to write something fast for work, it never seems like a strain, since I’m so accustomed to sitting down and writing, whether I have anything to say or not. Faced with an article assignment that I have no idea how to begin, I do the same thing as with my journal: I just start writing anything, to see if I can get through the mental static and make my way to the point.
Key points if you want to write regularly:
1) Find the time and place that work best for you. It might be 6 AM in your home office, which is what I do; it might be 3 PM at your local coffee shop or library; it might be 9 PM after your family has settled down and the house is quiet. It might even be in your parked car for ten minutes before you go into work. Experiment with different possibilities.
2) Choose your target benchmark for minimum output, whether it’s word count, duration in minutes or number of pages.
3) If you feel like you have nothing to say, write about nothing. Write about not having anything to say. Write about what you wish you had to say. Write about why you don’t want to say what you have to say.
4) It takes three weeks to build a habit. Decide your frequency goal, whether it’s daily or a certain number of times per week, and commit to that for at least three weeks.
5) Have someplace you can jot down thoughts that come to you during the day that you want to write about, and turn to that list when you next sit down to your journal.
As the late writer Donald Murray, a published poet, UNH writing instructor and Boston Globe columnist, often said, “Nulla dies sine linea – never a day without a line.” Ultimately, it’s easier to just sit down and write than to put off writing. And it only gets easier with practice.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Family homework: not my favorite part of second grade
Family homework. The bane of my existence these days.
Most weeks, the kids come home with straightforward assignments they can do on their own, and my job is to make sure they apply backside to desk chair and execute the required task: researching Malcolm X, say, or filling in a multiplication table, or logging the reading they did for the week. Once in a while, though, they arrive from school brandishing the dreaded “family homework” – which means me giving up my evening for something their teachers insist will be fun for all of us.
I adore my children’s teachers – every single one they’ve ever had, in fact – and it’s very unlike me to vent so irritably about anything done by the faculty or staff at our school. After all, not only have my children had six and three great years there, respectively, but it’s the very same school that generated me, so how can I complain?
Well, if you saw the condition of the inside of my microwave this morning, you might understand.
Holly’s homework last night (and, in fairness to her teacher, I have to admit she brought home the assignment four days earlier, but no, we didn’t actually get it started until last night) was the ever-popular “giving specific instructions” exercise. I remember doing the same thing in elementary school: the kids called out instructions for making a peanut butter sandwich while the teacher generated hilarity by sticking the bread peanut butter side down on the counter, thereby pointing out the gaps in specificity (“We forgot to say ‘Use a plate!’ We forgot to say which sides of the bread to stick together!”). Now it’s a written, take-home assignment rather than an in-class one, and I think I know why. Why should the teachers get themselves covered in messy ingredients that they then have to clean up if they can stick the parents with that job instead?
I know this all sounds unduly cynical. My kids have truly wonderful teachers and they learn so much at school. I’m just crabby because Holly decided for her “recipe” to have me make her favorite chocolate-coconut haystacks, and the homework sheet she brought home encouraged parents to take the kids’ words as literally as possible and, yes, to “be silly with it.” So when Holly said to put a half-cup of chocolate chips in the microwave but didn’t mention a mixing bowl, I dumped the chocolate on the bottom of the microwave and pressed start. Yuck. When she said to mold the melted chocolate into balls but didn’t refer to spoons, I stuck my hands on in. Yuck again. And when she incorrectly said to sprinkle on the shredded coconut after cooling the chocolate lumps rather than while the chocolate was still molten, I watched coconut drift all over the kitchen counter.
Ah, family homework. I don’t mind helping with the big projects – the Native American village dioramas or the photograph-local-landmarks assignments – because I understand a seven-year-old couldn’t do those alone, and the school always gives us several weeks for those projects. It’s the regular weeknight assignments that frustrate me. I routinely come across quotes from college administrators complaining about so-called helicopter parents – and yet how much can they blame parents for being overly involved with their college-aged children’s work if the precedent is set in grade school that schoolwork is a family affair? As I grumble to my kids, I don’t ask for their help writing articles; that’s my job, and homework should be theirs.
Our pediatrician sympathizes with my griping. Fortunately for me, she has kids the same ages as mine. She told me that in a recent fit of pique during a family homework exercise that she didn’t feel she had time to do, she said to her daughter, “Guess what? I’ve already done second grade! And I passed it, too! It would have been really hard to get into medical school otherwise!”
In any case, Holly completed her homework. And as soon as I finish scrubbing burnt chocolate off the inside of the microwave, I know we’ll both feel a great sense of accomplishment. I just hope we get a really good grade.
Most weeks, the kids come home with straightforward assignments they can do on their own, and my job is to make sure they apply backside to desk chair and execute the required task: researching Malcolm X, say, or filling in a multiplication table, or logging the reading they did for the week. Once in a while, though, they arrive from school brandishing the dreaded “family homework” – which means me giving up my evening for something their teachers insist will be fun for all of us.
I adore my children’s teachers – every single one they’ve ever had, in fact – and it’s very unlike me to vent so irritably about anything done by the faculty or staff at our school. After all, not only have my children had six and three great years there, respectively, but it’s the very same school that generated me, so how can I complain?
Well, if you saw the condition of the inside of my microwave this morning, you might understand.
Holly’s homework last night (and, in fairness to her teacher, I have to admit she brought home the assignment four days earlier, but no, we didn’t actually get it started until last night) was the ever-popular “giving specific instructions” exercise. I remember doing the same thing in elementary school: the kids called out instructions for making a peanut butter sandwich while the teacher generated hilarity by sticking the bread peanut butter side down on the counter, thereby pointing out the gaps in specificity (“We forgot to say ‘Use a plate!’ We forgot to say which sides of the bread to stick together!”). Now it’s a written, take-home assignment rather than an in-class one, and I think I know why. Why should the teachers get themselves covered in messy ingredients that they then have to clean up if they can stick the parents with that job instead?
I know this all sounds unduly cynical. My kids have truly wonderful teachers and they learn so much at school. I’m just crabby because Holly decided for her “recipe” to have me make her favorite chocolate-coconut haystacks, and the homework sheet she brought home encouraged parents to take the kids’ words as literally as possible and, yes, to “be silly with it.” So when Holly said to put a half-cup of chocolate chips in the microwave but didn’t mention a mixing bowl, I dumped the chocolate on the bottom of the microwave and pressed start. Yuck. When she said to mold the melted chocolate into balls but didn’t refer to spoons, I stuck my hands on in. Yuck again. And when she incorrectly said to sprinkle on the shredded coconut after cooling the chocolate lumps rather than while the chocolate was still molten, I watched coconut drift all over the kitchen counter.
Ah, family homework. I don’t mind helping with the big projects – the Native American village dioramas or the photograph-local-landmarks assignments – because I understand a seven-year-old couldn’t do those alone, and the school always gives us several weeks for those projects. It’s the regular weeknight assignments that frustrate me. I routinely come across quotes from college administrators complaining about so-called helicopter parents – and yet how much can they blame parents for being overly involved with their college-aged children’s work if the precedent is set in grade school that schoolwork is a family affair? As I grumble to my kids, I don’t ask for their help writing articles; that’s my job, and homework should be theirs.
Our pediatrician sympathizes with my griping. Fortunately for me, she has kids the same ages as mine. She told me that in a recent fit of pique during a family homework exercise that she didn’t feel she had time to do, she said to her daughter, “Guess what? I’ve already done second grade! And I passed it, too! It would have been really hard to get into medical school otherwise!”
In any case, Holly completed her homework. And as soon as I finish scrubbing burnt chocolate off the inside of the microwave, I know we’ll both feel a great sense of accomplishment. I just hope we get a really good grade.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
When only one brand of cream cheese will do, what's a mom to do?
Maybe this is about the exception that proves the rule.
No sooner did I finish writing here about how I’ve developed a deep well of self-discipline that makes it easy for me to say no to my kids than a situation arose reminding me of the proverbial gray area.
I told Tim I was going to buy bagels yesterday afternoon. “Not there!” Tim wailed, knowing I meant I was going to the bagel place near Holly’s pottery class. “I can’t stand their bagels! I can’t stand their cream cheese! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go to Bruegger’s!”
“Bruegger’s is in the wrong direction,” I told him. “I don’t want to have to drive all the way to Bedford. After I drop Holly off at pottery, I’m already halfway to Bagels Plus, and that’s where I want to go today.”
Tim ranted a little longer about how much he prefers Bruegger’s Bagels, specifically their bacon scallion cream cheese.
This poses a dilemma for me. First of all, I’m not sure I believe Tim. He is an inveterate creature of habit, even more than I am, and that’s saying something. I suspect he likes Bruegger’s because until a week ago, that was where we always bought our bagels. Holly’s first pottery class was last week, and that was the first time we went to Bagels Plus. While we were there, Tim ate one half of a sesame bagel with their version of bacon scallion cream cheese and sulkily proclaimed it notably inferior. But in a blind taste test, would he really know the difference?
Well, let’s suppose for a moment he would, which brings me to the next part of the dilemma. What I wrote about yesterday was saying no to the kids when they make demands that there’s no sensible reason for me to meet. But in this case, it’s a little different. Tim is asking me to do something that he simply doesn’t have the resources to do himself: shop at Bruegger’s. It’s six miles from home. Unlike refilling the seltzer bottle or letting the dog out, there’s no question in this case that I’m the only one who can execute this particular task.
And in general, I appreciate it when they express opinions about food choices. So I’m on the fence about whether it’s reasonable for me to meet Tim’s wish that I drive a half-hour out of my way for a different brand of cream cheese. The fact is, I harbor tremendous ambivalence about being part of a community – and a society – that depends so heavily on driving. Tim is eleven; there are other places we could choose to live where he would be old enough to go to the store himself on foot. But this is where I’ve chosen to live, and in a way, I don’t feel right making my children pay the price for the fact that we live in a community where retail is inaccessible to non-drivers. I grew up here; I know full well what it feels like to be forever waiting for someone to drive you to where you want to go, whether it’s a store, a friend’s house or a school dance. (Years ago, Carlisle’s ad hoc Planned Parenthood task force concluded that their mission of enabling teens to be sexually responsible was nearly impossible in a community where people who don’t drive can neither get themselves to a clinic nor a drugstore nor a public transportation stop without walking or biking at least five miles.)
So I told Tim I was going to stick with my plan for yesterday but I’d drive to Bruegger’s later in the week, because it doesn’t seem fair for him to be disempowered where groceries are concerned. He neither eats a lot nor asks for a lot; if he really loves a particular kind of bagels and cream cheese, it seems reasonable for me to provide that for him.
And then once we have it in the kitchen, maybe I’ll try that blind taste test after all, and see if it really makes any difference.
No sooner did I finish writing here about how I’ve developed a deep well of self-discipline that makes it easy for me to say no to my kids than a situation arose reminding me of the proverbial gray area.
I told Tim I was going to buy bagels yesterday afternoon. “Not there!” Tim wailed, knowing I meant I was going to the bagel place near Holly’s pottery class. “I can’t stand their bagels! I can’t stand their cream cheese! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go to Bruegger’s!”
“Bruegger’s is in the wrong direction,” I told him. “I don’t want to have to drive all the way to Bedford. After I drop Holly off at pottery, I’m already halfway to Bagels Plus, and that’s where I want to go today.”
Tim ranted a little longer about how much he prefers Bruegger’s Bagels, specifically their bacon scallion cream cheese.
This poses a dilemma for me. First of all, I’m not sure I believe Tim. He is an inveterate creature of habit, even more than I am, and that’s saying something. I suspect he likes Bruegger’s because until a week ago, that was where we always bought our bagels. Holly’s first pottery class was last week, and that was the first time we went to Bagels Plus. While we were there, Tim ate one half of a sesame bagel with their version of bacon scallion cream cheese and sulkily proclaimed it notably inferior. But in a blind taste test, would he really know the difference?
Well, let’s suppose for a moment he would, which brings me to the next part of the dilemma. What I wrote about yesterday was saying no to the kids when they make demands that there’s no sensible reason for me to meet. But in this case, it’s a little different. Tim is asking me to do something that he simply doesn’t have the resources to do himself: shop at Bruegger’s. It’s six miles from home. Unlike refilling the seltzer bottle or letting the dog out, there’s no question in this case that I’m the only one who can execute this particular task.
And in general, I appreciate it when they express opinions about food choices. So I’m on the fence about whether it’s reasonable for me to meet Tim’s wish that I drive a half-hour out of my way for a different brand of cream cheese. The fact is, I harbor tremendous ambivalence about being part of a community – and a society – that depends so heavily on driving. Tim is eleven; there are other places we could choose to live where he would be old enough to go to the store himself on foot. But this is where I’ve chosen to live, and in a way, I don’t feel right making my children pay the price for the fact that we live in a community where retail is inaccessible to non-drivers. I grew up here; I know full well what it feels like to be forever waiting for someone to drive you to where you want to go, whether it’s a store, a friend’s house or a school dance. (Years ago, Carlisle’s ad hoc Planned Parenthood task force concluded that their mission of enabling teens to be sexually responsible was nearly impossible in a community where people who don’t drive can neither get themselves to a clinic nor a drugstore nor a public transportation stop without walking or biking at least five miles.)
So I told Tim I was going to stick with my plan for yesterday but I’d drive to Bruegger’s later in the week, because it doesn’t seem fair for him to be disempowered where groceries are concerned. He neither eats a lot nor asks for a lot; if he really loves a particular kind of bagels and cream cheese, it seems reasonable for me to provide that for him.
And then once we have it in the kitchen, maybe I’ll try that blind taste test after all, and see if it really makes any difference.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Holly can't drive
Just before the alarm clock went off, I started dreaming that Holly wanted to drive the car. She cajoled. She pleaded. She whined. She demanded. I conceded, then realized as she took the wheel that it really wasn’t a very good idea to give a 7-year-old control of the car. “Holly, please, be careful, be sensible….” I fretted as we veered across the road.
The alarm went off and I woke up amused rather than frightened, with these simple words in my head: “Holly can’t drive!”
The light of day showed the dream-conflict for all of its absurdity: Holly is seven! It doesn’t matter how much she demands, pleads, or cajoles: she can’t drive!
The reason I dreamed this seemed clear to me. Holly still has occasional tantrums and I still sometimes find it challenging to stand up to her. Tim was the same way at her age. Though I generally associate tantrums more with the preschool years, both of them at around the same time hit a streak of iron will that enabled them to stand up against every force of parental reason.
But now when it happens I just remind myself: Holly can’t drive. No matter what, it’s not an option.
Reading Eileen Calandro’s blog entry about the importance of saying no and considering some issues absolutely non-negotiable reminded me of that dream and the part its message has played in my life over the past few months. We parents encourage our children to be articulate and analytical, and then sometimes, to use an expression of my father’s, we hoist ourselves on our own petard. “Use your words,” we say over and over again when they are small in an attempt to get them to verbalize their feelings. But eventually, we reach a point where we have to remember their words aren’t always relevant to our decision-making process. Waking from the dream, I realized there was no amount of seven-year-old eloquence in the world that could convince me to let Holly take the wheel; and yet in waking life I still, after eleven years of parenting, have to remind myself sometimes that some decisions are universally mine and not up to discussion.
At 11, Tim is past the tantrummy stage; he may still disagree with my edicts but he doesn’t try to change my mind through force of will. But back when he was Holly’s age, there were similar struggles, and sometimes I found it helpful to ask myself this rather coarse but straightforward question: “He’s still, like, half your weight, right?” It’s not that I would really use physical force against my children; it’s just that reminding myself of this fact underscored the fact that it would be physically impossible for Tim to force me to, say, let him play another half-hour of video games or invite a friend whose presence I found disruptive for a sleepover. No mother really wants to think of parenting as a contest of physical might, but the obviousness of it always jolted me back to reality.
My husband’s simple sense of logic sometimes provides a useful reality check as well. Once when Tim was seven, Rick was present for one of Tim’s and my near-daily arguments about whether I would pick Tim up at school (which he vastly preferred) or whether he should take the bus (my preference). Tim was insisting that I had to pick him up, and I was dithering and arguing and protesting until Rick simply said, “Fine, Tim. You stand out on the school plaza until Mommy arrives to pick you up, because she already said she’s not going to!” And Rick was right, of course. If I wasn’t there to pick Tim up, he’d have to take the bus home. End of discussion.
Not that it’s always easy. But keeping these basic principles in mind helps in the heat of the moment. Just this past weekend, Holly and I were in my bedroom and she wanted me to read to her before bed – but she wanted me to go fetch the book from her room, and I wanted her to do it. She fussed and screeched; she pointed out that she often fetches things for me when I need them. But I simply didn’t feel like it. I was already lying in bed and I was comfortable, and she was the one who wanted the book. So I said no.
She was right; I do often ask her to go grab my phone from my purse or a stamp from the desk. But this time it didn’t matter to me; I wasn’t willing to back down. Because for one thing, when I back down on trivial things with the kids just to avoid prolonging the argument, I end up really irritable. If I went to get the book, I’d be feeling cranky the whole time we were reading. “Fine,” I said to Holly. “If you won’t go get the book, we won’t read. I’m going to do some deskwork. If you change your mind, come get me.”
Holly hates to lose face by backing down. She disappeared into her room, then reappeared a half-hour later to announce frostily, “I’m ready for bed now, if you would please come tuck me in.” So we missed out on reading that night. And I understand it wasn’t all that important an issue. But maintaining willpower against the kids’ demands is a good exercise for me. And so I’m glad once again for the practice. Because Holly can’t drive. And to contemplate allowing her to do so would just be bad parenting.
The alarm went off and I woke up amused rather than frightened, with these simple words in my head: “Holly can’t drive!”
The light of day showed the dream-conflict for all of its absurdity: Holly is seven! It doesn’t matter how much she demands, pleads, or cajoles: she can’t drive!
The reason I dreamed this seemed clear to me. Holly still has occasional tantrums and I still sometimes find it challenging to stand up to her. Tim was the same way at her age. Though I generally associate tantrums more with the preschool years, both of them at around the same time hit a streak of iron will that enabled them to stand up against every force of parental reason.
But now when it happens I just remind myself: Holly can’t drive. No matter what, it’s not an option.
Reading Eileen Calandro’s blog entry about the importance of saying no and considering some issues absolutely non-negotiable reminded me of that dream and the part its message has played in my life over the past few months. We parents encourage our children to be articulate and analytical, and then sometimes, to use an expression of my father’s, we hoist ourselves on our own petard. “Use your words,” we say over and over again when they are small in an attempt to get them to verbalize their feelings. But eventually, we reach a point where we have to remember their words aren’t always relevant to our decision-making process. Waking from the dream, I realized there was no amount of seven-year-old eloquence in the world that could convince me to let Holly take the wheel; and yet in waking life I still, after eleven years of parenting, have to remind myself sometimes that some decisions are universally mine and not up to discussion.
At 11, Tim is past the tantrummy stage; he may still disagree with my edicts but he doesn’t try to change my mind through force of will. But back when he was Holly’s age, there were similar struggles, and sometimes I found it helpful to ask myself this rather coarse but straightforward question: “He’s still, like, half your weight, right?” It’s not that I would really use physical force against my children; it’s just that reminding myself of this fact underscored the fact that it would be physically impossible for Tim to force me to, say, let him play another half-hour of video games or invite a friend whose presence I found disruptive for a sleepover. No mother really wants to think of parenting as a contest of physical might, but the obviousness of it always jolted me back to reality.
My husband’s simple sense of logic sometimes provides a useful reality check as well. Once when Tim was seven, Rick was present for one of Tim’s and my near-daily arguments about whether I would pick Tim up at school (which he vastly preferred) or whether he should take the bus (my preference). Tim was insisting that I had to pick him up, and I was dithering and arguing and protesting until Rick simply said, “Fine, Tim. You stand out on the school plaza until Mommy arrives to pick you up, because she already said she’s not going to!” And Rick was right, of course. If I wasn’t there to pick Tim up, he’d have to take the bus home. End of discussion.
Not that it’s always easy. But keeping these basic principles in mind helps in the heat of the moment. Just this past weekend, Holly and I were in my bedroom and she wanted me to read to her before bed – but she wanted me to go fetch the book from her room, and I wanted her to do it. She fussed and screeched; she pointed out that she often fetches things for me when I need them. But I simply didn’t feel like it. I was already lying in bed and I was comfortable, and she was the one who wanted the book. So I said no.
She was right; I do often ask her to go grab my phone from my purse or a stamp from the desk. But this time it didn’t matter to me; I wasn’t willing to back down. Because for one thing, when I back down on trivial things with the kids just to avoid prolonging the argument, I end up really irritable. If I went to get the book, I’d be feeling cranky the whole time we were reading. “Fine,” I said to Holly. “If you won’t go get the book, we won’t read. I’m going to do some deskwork. If you change your mind, come get me.”
Holly hates to lose face by backing down. She disappeared into her room, then reappeared a half-hour later to announce frostily, “I’m ready for bed now, if you would please come tuck me in.” So we missed out on reading that night. And I understand it wasn’t all that important an issue. But maintaining willpower against the kids’ demands is a good exercise for me. And so I’m glad once again for the practice. Because Holly can’t drive. And to contemplate allowing her to do so would just be bad parenting.
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