Susiej

Adapted from my newspaper column.

I am bored. If there is any mantra that epitomizes summer with children, that phrase is it. As their mother, the words send me into a tailspin. Childhood should be happy, joyful, and adventurous. Not boring. What can I do to pull them out of this distressing state? My suggestions yield little fruit. “I don’t want to do that.” By the time the kids are done nixing my propositions, I feel just as bored as they do. Signing them up for yet another summer camp becomes appealing. But what would I be depriving them of if I rushed to fill those empty hours?

Kids have a miraculous ability to feel boredom whether they have access to stacks of the best selling kid books (the library), the latest DVDs, a new slip n’slide, or the top-rated game for their game system. The result is the same. I’m bored.

Setting doesn’t seem to matter either. My children spend most of their summer deprived of the ability to flip through the channels of a television, along the banks of a small lake. They, justifiably, in their opinion, managed to utter that phrase of tedium on a particular day, despite the fact that their morning involved tracking an army of ants to their home, feeding a lost baby Robin a worm, catching no less than 4 toads, and built and decorated a toad-condo out of an empty cardboard box. The fishing gear, rafts and water trampoline had yet to be touched. At that moment, I looked at one sincerely sad face, and into his bewildered eyes, and laughed. Preposterous. “You don’t even have the slightest idea what being bored feels like,” I decided.

Maybe, they aren’t really bored. Perhaps kids just aren’t used to the feeling of autonomy after spending most of their year being told what to do, for how long, and when. When they get home from school, there are more books to read, and more worksheets to be completed. At their sports practices and music lessons, they are to practice drills, in this particular way, for this amount of time.

When school vacation starts, kids suddenly have free rein of their own time. They are baffled. “What am I supposed to do?” they may wonder. This newfound independence must feel strange. Kids have given this, this freedom, a name of their own — boredom.

As adults, we don’t have the luxury of boredom – or freedom. If there is the slightest millisecond when the feeling of ennui takes over, we suddenly remember the emails that need answered, the leaky faucet that needs adjustment, or the fact that people will be hungry in just a few hours, and something needs to be prepared.

Some child development experts say kids don’t have enough time to feel the all-important “boredom.” Boredom sparks a child’s creativity, giving a child the needed time to use his imagination to turn clouds into animals. For only a few months of the year, kids now have the chance to think for themselves.

Now when I hear the words, “I’m bored,” I smile back, remembering that what a child really wants is permission: The assurance that it is OK to use his own power of choice. When I hear the words, “I’m Bored,” I simply look back and say, “You mean, you feel free?”

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When a woman marries a man, she gains an extra seven hours of housework each week. The man drops an hour. The findings are part of a detailed study of housework trends, based on 2005 time-diary data from the federally funded Panel Study of Income Dynamics, at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research (ISR). Obviously, she’s doing his laundry. The new lovebirds are also eating out less, so she’s cooking.

Once the woman has three children, her household chores go up to 28 hours per week, while the man gains ten hours. (The study stopped at 3 children; but if they would have asked me, I would have told them what happens when you have four boys. The number shoots up to 1,432, exactly.)  Housework is defined as laundry, cooking and cleaning, and this study excluded the time moms spend scheduling doctor’s appointments, sports and play dates and keeping track of everyone in the family. But dads do much of the maintenance, yard work and car repairs, which was also excluded from the study. Yet, those tasks only took about one-quarter of the hours women spent on core household tasks.

But what about men working outside the home? That should count for something, right? Michael Burda of Humboldt University in Berlin, Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas, and Philippe Weil of the Free University of Brussels have analyzed data from surveys in 25 countries and found that in the United States, men average 5.2 hours of market work a day and 2.7 hours of homework each day, while women average 3.4 hours of market work and 4.5 hours of homework per day. Adding these up, men work an average of 7.9 hours per day, while women work an average of 7.9 hours per day.

Yet, mothers have not always done all the housework either. In her book More Work For Mother, Ruth Schwartz Cowan reveals

Mother’s Day Art: My Mom Can Do Anything

(and hey, you, my own flesh and blood, my eyes are BLUE, remember?)

that it was the man who once held the primary responsibility of putting bread on the table — literally. Man tilled the soil, grew the wheat and had it milled. The man grew the grain, fed the livestock and butchered the animals. Once meat was available in tins, livestock was no longer necessary to feed the family. It was the industrial revolution, really, that relieved men and children of their chores: Men went to factories to earn the money to buy the goods they no longer produced at home, (meat in tins, white flour, woven cloth), and children went to public schools. Mom was left behind, alone, with her new labor saving devices, and higher expectations to do and create more. Mountains of laundry, for example, hardly existed until factories made it possible for families to buy cloth cheap. Until then, people only owned a few items of clothing that were hardly washed. Today, we need walk-in closets to handle all of our stuff.

We never expected as much from our brooms as we do of our vacuum cleaners. Our appliances may make our homes cleaner, but they come with the accompanying advertisements, and guilt, for spotless sterile homes that hold no evidence that humans, pets or the dust of the earth has ever crossed our thresholds. It’s tough to relax among the standards the media places on us.

Thankfully, these new labor saving devices have greatly increased the cleanliness, safety and hygiene of our families. Did they really save us time? Cowan says, “Women still spend as much time on home maintenance as they did eighty years ago, with less help.”

Women today are the victims of what Sharon Lerner, author of The War on Moms: On Life in a Family-Unfriendly Nation, says moms are part of the “great sea of beleaguered and overburdened people in America—mostly women, but some men, too—stuck between the need to support their families and the desire to live a decent life with them.” She adds, “Moms do not have enough time to handle the inevitable overflow of domestic responsibilities.”

So many moms feel literally choked by our unrelenting responsibilities. Is the reason our to-do list grows instead of shrinks simply because it is impossible? Are we still living by the household standards of our ancestors, who had husbands, children, and extended families pitching in and helping with the chores? We’ve been trying to find balance all this time, and society can’t even begin to support what we’ve taken on.

A little publicized fact came out in the University of Michigan research is that while moms still carry the heaviest load of core chores, men’s housework has increased to 13 hours in 2005, from six hours in 1976. Women’s work was never meant to be a woman’s work alone. It’s nice that dads are agreeing to share in the chores, just like their forefathers did.

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Before I write my column for the newspaper, I give myself a “heads up” that I need an idea. Then, I start the laundry, clean the bathrooms, cook dinner and do yoga while I wait for the inspiration.  I expect the idea to come barreling in — hitting me over the head with a ton of bricks. But it rarely does. Usually it’s a whisper; I whisper that I push aside.  The idea grows, and it starts to integrate itself into the laundry, the bathroom, the dinner and the yoga; until it is those things. At this point, the idea is pounding in my head in complete sentences, and there is no other choice but to write about this whisper that now has a megaphone blasting through my mind.

So, this month, the story of Brownie, the school bunny that met her demise in our home, can creeping in like a whisper. I gave the story the wings it wanted, and sent the article off over a week ago. Only yesterday did it dawn on me that perhaps writing a story that shows up during the Holy Week about a bunny was probably quite brilliant. But writing about a bunny that dies? What was I thinking? My embarrassment overwhelmed me. Why didn’t I make the connection?

Thank you to all of you who are stopping me in the stores, the street and at the school to thank me for the story. Because, the truth is, giving kids the honor of telling them the truth about death makes them feel like the important people they really are. That’s a story for any season. Thank you to all those people out there who helped me see this.

Here’s the column:

We carried Brownie out of the elementary school building on a Friday, while she snuggled among the newspaper clippings in the bottom of her cage. The halls were filled with well-wishers, saying “Bye Brownie,” veteran hosts, who promised, “Brownie is lots of fun.” So many people knew Brownie, that I wondered if maybe the bunny had already visited at least half of the families in the school with children grades 3 and up.

Brownie’s care package included a scrapbook, including photos and notes from previous sleepovers; a care instruction book; and a supply of food. Bunnies like to chew everything from electrical wires to shoes, I learned, so it would be best to keep her contained when she’s not being held. She also arrived with her own portable outdoor fence, and when the kids pleaded to take Brownie outside, I had a panic vision of myself chasing the bunny up and down the streets. By Sunday morning, I feared, we’d be at Kinko’s making “Wanted” posters with Brownie’s face (scanned from the scrapbook) plastered on the top, and my phone number below.

Alas, a bunny chase was not to be my fate for the weekend. Things started out well – Brownie was rotated from lap to lap, in 15-minute increments during the Saturday morning cartoon ritual. Carrots were pulled from the refrigerator for “special snacks.” By Saturday night, Brownie, like me, seemed tired from all the excitement of living in a house full of boys.

When I tucked my 3rd grader into bed that night, a tear dropped out of his eye. He wasn’t ready for Sunday, he wasn’t ready for Monday, and certainly wasn’t ready to send Brownie back to school. “Lucky for you,” I said. “We’re on the schedule again in two more weeks.” I left him with a smile on his face, and eyes that were finally closing.

Alone in the living room, I heard a crash. Brownie was doing back flips, forcefully enough to make the cage jump a few inches across the floor. Her acrobatics lasted less than a minute before the silence came… the stillness… the missing breaths… the lost heartbeat. Betsy O’Brochta, Brownie’s “mom” drove over as soon as she hung up the phone. As hard as those moments were for her, she was thinking just as quickly as me about what we could tell the kids to “ease their pain.” “Maybe,” we said, “Brownie wasn’t feeling well. So we called the vet, and Brownie died there?” Maybe.

Now I finally had the exception to that cardinal rule at First Community Church Preschool, “always tell children the truth.” Could I tell this story with the conviction I needed? The idea of shielding him from the pain was as comforting as pulling the blankets around him to tuck him in. Yet, it left me feeling uneasy. I sent an email that night to Holly Cavallaro, a teacher at FCC, saying, “Just to spare my son’s feelings, I’m burying the truth.” Her response surprised me; yet made the entire event crystal clear. “You’ll be telling this story for years,” she explained. “If you don’t tell him the truth, you’ll always have to change the story when he’s around. Eventually, he’ll learn this from someone else. He’ll be hurt again.” Why not say, “Isn’t it nice that Brownie felt safe enough to spend his last day with people who really loved her?”

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From my Newspaper Column for the SNP

She has removed the password from his Caring Bridge site, because she wants to spread the word. Seth needs prayers. The next 24 hours are critical. Feb 5, 2010 was supposed to be a day of celebration. The date would have marked the end of Seth’s 6-year battle with leukemia. Instead, Seth received more chemotherapy for the illness that was supposed to leave the 13-year-old alone by now. They also received the devastating news that not one of his 3 sisters is a bone marrow donor match.

Yesterday, a throbbing headache led Seth back to the hospital, where they learned he is now septic. He has no white cells to fight the infection. You can read the details and updates here.

All I can think about is the day, 9 years ago, when Seth was dressed like Robin Hood, running around the tree house in our backyard. Wendi, loving mom, made the costume. She made all of Seth’s costumes — including the Obi-Wan Kenobi , Buzz Lightyear, and Jedi Knight costumes. We were always impressed by her talent. The sun lit up Seth’s golden hair, and his blue eyes twinkled at me as he gripped his light saber, wondering if I was going to take away the light sabers because they were all hitting too hard. Our boys were so young and small then; we could pick them up with one arm, and hold them tight. All day long, I’ve been stuck on that day, trying to will it back. I just want to help my friend.

But we are not there. We are here. His parents want to help spread the word about bone marrow donations. I will do my part. Wendi says, “It’s one of the few organs you can donate without being dead to do it.”

Each year, we donate our blood to stock the blood banks, and this is as routine as filling up the car with gas. But how many of us have ever considered donating our bone marrow?

For some, fear is the reason we’ve never considered this gift. Fear can always be traced to unknowns. Here is what is known: No pieces of your bone are taken. Seventy five percent never need surgery; in most cases you’ll only need to give peripheral blood stem cells, which is similar to donating plasma. A bone marrow donation is a surgical procedure, done under anesthesia. Yet, both are treated as outpatient, and you go home the same day. Some donors are sore afterwards; some are not. In 2-7 days, most donors are back to normal. Most donors say they would do it again to save a life.

Thanks to advances in medicine, many of us will be hearing more about transplants; they’re increasingly becoming a path to save lives. Sometimes, it’s the only hope people have. Just like Seth, over 70 percent are unable to find a donor match within their family. Yet, even with a registry of millions, many patients still cannot find a match.

You can visit www.BeTheMatch.org to join the Be The Match Registry online. They’ll mail you a kit so that you can simply swab your cheeks at home and mail it back. Or, you can register in person February 20 at Premier Women’s Health, (614-459-1000 Ext 2007), from 8 a.m.– 1 p.m.

Since he won’t be getting a bone marrow transplant from one of his sisters, Seth hopes to get his marrow from “someone famous…. that would be cool.” Wendi wrote on Seth’s Caring Bridge web page, “In my eyes, the person who shares this gift of life with my son may not be famous, but will be truly heaven sent. An angel. A lifesaver. What more could you ever hope to be in this world?”

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Is having more time to look at the stars. I know Winter Solstice is bringing us longer days… but it’s still pretty dark around here. Here’s an article from my newspaper column.

I saw no stars on that cloudy night at the Perkins Observatory. Instead of stardust, the astronomers there sprinkled my mind, and the minds of the first- and second-graders there, with wonder.

They reminded me that when we look up, we see the past; the light is already billions of years old. They reminded us that our vast galaxy is just beginning its life. Our 4.5 billion-year-old sun is still less than halfway through its life. The future lying ahead is more prolonged than the past we’ve seen.

These concepts are staggering to comprehend, but the gem here comes from remembering what my seventh-grade history teacher used to repeat: “You can’t understand the future until you understand the past.” Four hundred years ago, Galileo turned his telescope away from the sea and began to look at the heavens, and thus 2009 is our International Year of Astronomy (IYA).

Galileo’s shift of his telescope changed the world not simply because he looked, but because he observed the sky night after night while meticulously filling in the details in his observing log. He saw that the stars do shift positions, and when one star vanished, he discovered not a star, but a moon hiding behind Jupiter.

Because our word shares the same sky, astronomy is a great unifier, and may even hold our potential for world peace. Satellite pictures of our earth show us the geographic boundaries of our continents, while the political boundaries vanish.

This revelation led astronomers in Iran to create StarPeace, a project of IYA to hold joint public star parties near the borderlines of two neighboring countries. On Dec. 4, people from Indonesia and the Philippines came together to make a peace bridge on South China Sea, with teachers and astronomers offering free public viewings of the stars through high-powered telescopes.

The amateur astronomer George Eric Deacon Alcock discovered five comets on his own through meticulous viewings and recordings in his observing log. Backyard astronomers, like you, can use their eyes, telescopes and binoculars to create their own observing logs. Binoculars provide a wider field of view than telescopes.

In the winter, no other constellation is more distinct or bright as Orion, the Mighty Hunter. This month, if the sky is clear — a minor  miracle — look for three bright stars that form Orion’s Belt. One of the brightest stars in the night sky, Rigel, represents Orion’s foot. His two shoulders are made of the stars Bellatrix and Betelgeuse.

Orion will wait for you; he will remain recognizable in the night sky for the next 1 to 2 million years, making it one of the longest observable constellations.

As we stand solidly on earth looking up, we can barely fathom our place in a galaxy that is showing us our billion-year-old past. But imagine, for a moment, looking at earth from space, where there is no solid footing. An astronaut once revealed to me the universal secret astronauts hold: They are homesick. Not for earth, but for space.

He described the familiar heavy pull of gravity as the carrier sped back toward earth, and he instantly felt a longing for the lightness he knew in space. With tears in his eyes, he also added, “The earth looks beautiful from space. The earth glows, and it pulsates with energy.”

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So far, this post has generated more personal comments to me than any other of my newspaper columns. People tell me this one is clipped, and hanging on their fridge.

We start out by identifying clear boundaries: You cannot hide on the roof (anymore), inside of cars or, definitely, in the house. Warmer Octobers, unlike this one, have, in the past, led us to impromptu games of Ghost in the Graveyard.

While summer traditionally holds hosting rights to this game, October offers an enticing venue for this nighttime version of hide-and-seek for two reasons: primarily because it’s a frightful game, tying in perfectly with Halloween, and secondly, and more importantly, October features short days, making the official start time of the game much easier to accommodate in our lives.

Still, despite this early nightfall, I find myself resistant to embark on this game. I feel the strings of domesticity and the demands of homework, and quite frankly, I’m just too tired to summon the energy to play at this hour. But there are nights when I catch a glimpse of the moon, sometimes obscured by the branches of a tree, and I see that the moon is staring right back at me.

Now, I think I’m missing out on something. We gather the kids and venture outside in the dark to play. Don’t underestimate the power of the moon; just look at what it does to the ocean.

From home base, the ghost starts the countdown — 1 o’clock, 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock — while everyone else hides. Once the ghost reaches “midnight,” he is free to leave base and search for us; our goal is to sneak back to base before the ghost finds us first.

As I hear the ghost approach “7′o’clock,” I panic because I have not yet found a spot. I start to run, I feel my blood start shooting right up to my toes and I’m breathing heavy. Soon, I’ve broken into a sweat. “This was effortless,” I whisper to myself under my breath.

Funny how this nighttime run fails to invoke the monotony that often accompanies those forced runs I try to take. Yet, it seems to have the same effect on my system.

A small hand grabs my own, and a voice says, “Mom, I want to hide with you.” We take off running, and I stumble on the perfect spot — the railing of the deck creates safe roof access to a hiding place where the floodlights do not reach. Just as the ghost yells, “midnight,” I lift my son over the railing, sit back against the wall of the house and wait.

My son’s body shakes against mine, heaving from the giggles he is trying to contain. “A spot like this could keep me winning this game for years to come,” I think. But before the ghost even takes three steps, my son yells triumphantly, “You’ll never find us! We’re on the roof!”

After a few rounds, we have exhausted all hiding spots and, unanimously, we are ready to call it a night. I catch a glimpse of the moon again, this time lighting up the flushed cheeks of my children. “Is that a glimpse of stillness I see coming over their faces?”

What originally started as the kids’ “great idea to delay bedtime” seems to have had quite the opposite effect. This evening run in the fresh air, accompanied by the adrenaline rush, seems to have flushed out the tensions of the day, unknotted my own worries about tomorrow and effortlessly moved us through that awkward transition time between day and night; between doing and being.

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