Poetry and More

As a mom I'm a bit fascist about certain things that can, and will, influence my son's life. We monitor his television viewing assiduously, only allowing an hour each day. We don't allow him any video or computer games. We make sure he eats good, wholesome, healthy but tasty food. We don't allow him to play with guns, although we did break down and allow him swords. We are, like all other parents of our generation and class, annoying helicopter parents. Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for him, our 'uniqueness' makes all the rules interesting, at the very least.

As a writer, I am strident in things I will read, or not read, to our son. Books without a narrative, the only exception being poetry, are off limits if it's mommy's turn at the bedtime reading ritual. The information laden books boys love about topics like Mummies are saved for his father, who has no such ridiculously pompous edicts. Music, something on our house more than the television, is expansive, covering all genres and styles. We deplore the new batch of music for kids, put out by musicians who seemed to find success with the four and under crowd. The only exception to this was Dan Zanes, formerly from the Del Fuegos, who put out albums that adults could stomach. Let's just say we attended enough Dan Zanes shows, which reminded me a bit of the Dead shows I used to attend, to label ourselves Zane Heads.

So, last night my son and I finished off his Valentines for his classmates. We were feeling especially close, having had an inordinate amount of time together this week. He read to me from the two books he was assigned for homework. The repetitive sentences in the books, all in an effort for him to learn to read, are prosaic, and in truth, boring beyond belief. They make the Dick and Jane series from our childhood read like masterpieces. After two such books, I suggested we read some poetry to counter balance the stilted prose and unimaginative vocabulary. He agreed and suggested Robert Frost's, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". We read this familiar poem two times because of the brevity, and to prolong that time of the day when we say 'goodnight'.

After we were finished, I asked if he would like me to read him some Langston Hughes, whose collection I was rereading. I chose as the first poem "Negro". He listened intently to it, not asking questions as he is apt to do. I should have stopped there, but I was quite honestly reveling in the language of Hughes, and wanting to prolong this day just a few minutes more. So I picked "The Negro Mother," a longer narrative poem that is beautiful and heartbreaking. As I got to the line, "Children sold away from me, husband sold, too," a sob welled up. Yup, crazy, right? Crazy to be reading him Hughes, and this poem in particular. As tears streamed down, I read on. My son's little hand wiped away my tears as he listened to his lunatic mother continue to read Hughes words out loud.

It's times like this when I think how much better off he'd be with a more normal mother, one who'd happily read him books about Mummies. The only consolation is, I suppose, his life will never be dull. Not with me as his mother. So, we kissed and said our 'goodnight.' It's funny what he'll remember about this night. Will it be my tears, or the transcendent language of Hughes, or both? I pray that it is both.

Sick Days

There is nothing worse than a sick child. You are never more helpless or desperate than seeing your child taken down by whatever ailment. When my son was just over a year old, he became very ill. His cough was so violent he vomited the little food we had been able to feed him. As we listened to these coughs wracking his little body, I went upstairs half-crazed with worry. Not knowing how to make him better, I found myself climbing into his crib, so I could lie next to him, rubbing his back, hoping his cough would ease enough for him to sleep. I remember listening to his uneven breathing as he finally drifted off to sleep, my feel scrunched up under me, realizing I was quite stuck inside his crib. When my husband finally came upstairs to carry me out of the crib, he knew I had turned a corner, some would say into the heart of every mother where any, and all, sacrifice for your child is never given a second glance. You can understand how mothers of serial killers will be unwavering in their love for their child, even if he or she had become a monster of the most unimaginable variety.

I pray for his health, always. I'm always aware of how precarious life is for us all, especially the young. And nothing seems more cruel or inexplicable than a child facing down a life threatening illness. With that said, I can honestly say I get more than a bit annoyed when my child develops the sniffles, something that occurs with great frequency given his age and the propensity for kids his age to touch everything and everyone. Being sick is terrible, indeed. But being just sick enough to warrant a stay home, but not sick enough to sap his energy is what feels like you are the unwitting victim of a cruel hoax, the kind that ends up on "Candid Camera," with you looking like an idiot on national television.

First, there is the energy level, which doesn't seem to abate with a little cough or stuffy nose. In fact, there are moments during the day when the energy level seems to spike, so you watch in amazement as your child does a strange Irish jig across your living room rug. With his hands on his hips, doing a strange imitation of Lord of the Dance, you wonder what about parenthood was enticing enough for you to have gone off of birth control. Along with the energy, which doesn't cork itself with a few sniffles, is the never quenched inquisitiveness. It's as if his mind becomes one big permanent question mark since each sentence is guaranteed to start with, "Mommy, why---". Perhaps your sympathy, empathy, and patience would be unflinching if only your child didn't suddenly turn into Lord of the Manor, every request sounding more and more like an imperious bark as the day wears on.

The day has a certain symmetry to it. It is something I can predict with some accuracy now, my fifth year into motherhood. The first hour they are home is fueled by your anxiety that he is simply battling a cold and nothing more serious. With the recent meningitis outbreak, my mind immediately rushes toward the catastrophic as my hand reaches out and feels his forehead every few minutes. The second hour we are stuck together has me looking anxiously and longingly at the work on my desk, all of it obviously left untouched. See, even if he weren't so noisy, demanding, and just a plain nuisance, all of my energy is sapped from all the worrying,tending, fetching, and negotiating.

The third hour has me wishing I'd sent him to school, germs be damned, instead of having him cooped up in this apartment with me. The fourth hour, the most dangerous time of the day, has me contemplating stealing out of my apartment, leaving him alone so I can clear my head and squelch my ever-growing anger and antipathy for him, his father, his school, that cough-riddled classmate, and the parents that sent the germ-riddled kid to school. Yes, child welfare services would certainly get involved if I were to do that, but I can't stop dreaming about escape, no matter how severe the consequences. The fifth hour is when I call my husband at the office, my anger having built to such a level where blame needs to be aimed and fired. Yes, poor husband.

By the sixth hour, I am doing online searches for apartments in Paris, my new city of choice. When I was in LA, I used to spend hours on Craigslist looking for places here or in New Orleans, another city (pre-Katrina) that seemed exotic and exciting, two words that would not be used to describe my life with a sick child home from school. The seventh hour has me cowering in utter defeat in the face of the little Napoleon sprawled all over our bed. Every bark is met with me rushing to fill his water cup with icy cold water, the pillows plumped up for fear his neck develops a crick, and possibly rubbing his little feat, if he so desires. Should I also say that I am still in my pajamas as is my congested child?


As the gray day turns to early night, my body aches from the emotional turmoil of being an attentive mother to a mildly sick child. With dinner looming, another demand to be met as his stomach seems untouched by this recent ailment, I marvel at the vicissitude of this life, my life, so utterly different than anything I had ever imagined. I know all mothers out there, those that are somewhat attentive and loving, have had many days like this one. But you never quite get over how alone, utterly alone, you feel in this prison the one created by a little cough, a little congestion.

I am into hour two of our day together. I haven't yet started online searches for a new home, really a studio apartment for one in some far flung city. But I'm sure that will occur within the next hour or two. With the imperial request for salmon for lunch, I find myself taking out the frozen salmon pieces from our freezer. As wearying as the day becomes, the phrase, "This day will end," becomes a mantra of sorts.

Families

It's endlessly fascinating how families function, or not. As an outside observer you are given mere glimpses into the dynamics of mother, father, child or children. Don't add grandmother, aunt or uncle to that mix since that will surely mean endless hours of speculation and discussion. I feel you always get a more honest view when you aren't intimately involved with other families. It's as if proximity has a way of distorting the reality of a family's dynamics, the dysfunctions, in particular. I suppose that's to be expected since your affection for the family will make you gracious and generous in your opinions, even if their child is a hellion and off the hook, the parents barely functioning, and the husband prone to alcoholic rages. See, your affection can forgive many, many transgressions.

When you are mere neighbors, your view, really, snapshots into their lives, occurs with no ability on your end, or theirs, for control. You, and they, are exposed in such naked fashion. The shrieking you hear through the walls has no context since you aren't in the apartment to witness the irrational, full-blown melt down your child or theirs may be having. Instead, all you hear is the shriek, which sounds, despite it being muffled, agonizing, as if the child were being tortured behind the wall that separates your apartment from theirs. These unplanned occurrences do have a way of exposing the real truths to families since you aren't in control of them. I know most of us wish walls were thicker, the ceilings made of steel, basically your apartment soundproofed to mask your family's dysfunctions from the rest of the world. If only.

Living so close to others makes you hyper aware of how your family sounds more than the way you appear. You become self conscious about the noise you make, even if it is more pleasant than a child's shrieks. Even in your most heated moment, you are reluctant to raise your voice above normal speaking range, for fear your neighbors will imagine you and your spouse headed to divorce court.

All of this is a change from our life in LA where sound was rarely considered. You felt quite alone in your home, the neighborhood just a backdrop to the drama unfolding behind closed doors. I can only imagine how much more alone, and the sense of freedom that must provide, if you lived in a home shielded behind gates. It's only in LA that the Manson family could have tortured and brutally murdered so many people. You can imagine those poor souls crying and begging for their lives, their pleas unheard or noticed by their neighbors. Such a thing is unimaginable here where lives are barely separated by walls and ceilings.

As our son pitches a fit about something, whatever is the grievance of the day, I become aware of how we must sound to those next, above, and below. They must think, as we do about our next door neighbors, that our child is either a monster, our parenting skills bordering on ineptitude, or our child is the victim of the worst crime imaginable--child abuse. After one of these episodes, your chagrin is written across your face as your run into one of your neighbors in the elevator or by the mailbox. You smile, make small talk, and hope they have picked the less egregious assumptions about your child, your parenting, and your family. And pray their memories are not so long since they will hear the distress signals coming from our apartment soon enough.

International Luncheon

My son, who'd read and reread Rosemary Wells' "Yoko" book--a cat, named Yoko, who is Japanese takes sushi to school. Kids make fun, prompts teacher to create International Luncheon, sushi is eaten and liked. All's well in this particular school of cats and dogs--was reliving the book's story since he had requested Korean sushi as our contribution to the luncheon. We also added Korean dumplings my mother has made by some Korean woman, she's enslaved in Philadelphia. My mother arrived the day before, such a luxury for us that she could hop on a train and land in Penn Station, just a mere hour or so later. This trip was to coincide with her spending the night with our son, allowing my husband and me a night away.

The day of the luncheon arrived with much anticipation for my son. My mother and I pan-fried the dumplings, rolled the Korean sushi, and carted everything to school in large foil roasting pans. There were two Jewish dishes, a few Eastern European dishes, a West Indian curry, and of course, the requisite Irish dish of boiled beef. Someone, who could claim an Italian heritage, brought in pizza, which got devoured by all the kids, of course. My son was happy and proud to have his Korean grandmother there, all bedecked in her fur, meeting his classmates' parents. We sampled a few of the dishes, noticing the dumplings were disappearing rapidly, the sushi almost nearly all gone.

My son ran over with the classroom copy of the "Yoko" book. I had already connected why he was so excited about this luncheon, but the confirmation was all the more poignant. This day, the last before Christmas, is busy with people standing on every corner with a suitcase next to their feet, their arm raised desperately hoping to hail a cab to the airport to Penn Station, all heading home for the holiday. The roadways are especially congested, making getting from one part of the city to the other a challenge. We, so delirious to be here, aren't grousing about any of this yet. I'm sure that will come in a year or two when we start whining like every other New Yorker about those pesky tourists, making our daily lives extra difficult. Never mind that our economy lives off of the tourists.

It's nearly impossible to imagine our lives a year ago, exiled in LA, so desperately helpless about how we'd gotten ourselves stuck there, of all places. Or, that was the way I was feeling. If nine months can bring about such radical changes, well, it does give one pause about what could be around the next corner--hopefully, all, or at least some of it more positive than not.

Holiday Shows

When you are a parent, it is expected you will sit through interminable performances of your child singing, banging instruments, and in my case, flitting across the stage. And despite my better efforts to avoid these nights, we found ourselves scrunched in between eager parents, sitting on hard chairs, as we were 'entertained' for the next hour.

I know, I know. Most parents love this stuff, and think these evenings are the culmination of all the arduous work in parenting their kid(s). My excitement, much more muted than is politically correct, was more a result of my son's excitement about performing the three songs his class had been practicing for the last month. And since this is a public school, even thought most of the families are white, Irish, and Christian, there were none of the traditional Christmas songs that I remember singing when I was his age. Let me just say how much I despise this watering down of the holidays to insure no one religious group gets offended. Who are we kidding? And why discount the religious significance of Christmas that goes beyond garland, Christmas trees, and the massive consumerism that results in non-Christian families putting up trees and exchanging gifts on this day?

My son, after much negotiation, allowed me to put him in tie and jacket, but only after I gelled his hair into spikes. He expressed his anxiousness about singing in front of so many people--all the usual expected build up to the night.

The show was ear-splitting, the song selections strange, none of them referring to this holiday season. I'm convinced the music teacher must drink heavily every day to endure eight hours of this endless cacophony. The best part, of course, is the one or two 'odd' kids, whose antics on stage keep me entertained. There is always some strange kid, whose tics, outsize personalities take all of my attention. And last night was no exception. The strange kid was a boy, a plump bespectacled boy, whose carefree performance (as in acting out the songs and doing a little robot dance in between) stole the show each time he was on the stage, much to my sheer delight. Yes, I'm one of those who laughs out loud and makes declarations like, 'he's hilarious,' with no regard for the possibility that his parents might be sitting next to us, or worse, in front of us.

The evening, thankfully, came to an end after a hair-splitting finale. My son, delighted to have performed in his first Christmas evening show, chattered away during the short walk home. I know I'm supposed to enjoy these nights since they will, too soon, come to an end. Or rather, his exuberance and delight that his parents were there, will come to an end. I'm sure in a few years, my ringing laughter will be the source of his embarrassment, so that our walk home will be sullen and quiet. Ah, the things to which we can look forward to.

School Skirmishes

As a parent, you find yourself having to advocate on behalf of your child at all times, particularly in the public schools. And we are no different than any other parent, who work over time as parents. My son's recent school project has raised many concerns for us as a family, all of which has ended in a letter being written to his teacher. My son, who is a mere 5 years old, brings home endless notes from his teacher, it seems every day. I knew his class was working on a family project, the culmination of which would be an international luncheon. The international luncheon part is hilarious since his class is, for whatever reason, predominantly Irish-American. I know this has to do with the fact that the previous owners of this mammoth real estate didn't allow blacks to rent in their apartment buildings. And as my son noted, there are no Korean students in his class, unlike his preschool in LA, which was situated smack dab in the middle of the largest Korea community outside of Seoul, Korea.

A sheet was sent for us fill out with prosaic questions like: Where are you mother's family and father's family from? I, of course, filled in Korea for me and North Carolina for my husband since that is where his family is from. The teacher took me aside to ask what country my husband's family origins trace back to. Hmmm. It took me but a minute to respond his family were slaves. Of course she was flustered by my direct response. The urgency to know the origin of country for the kids' maternal and paternal family was a result of the flags the kids would make to correspond with whatever country their ancestors traced back to. She said she understood the sensitivity of slavery, a topic we have yet to discuss with our child. But she pressed the point in us identifying a region or, more specifically, a country in Africa where my husband's family could be traced. This is the point where I wanted to deck her, not only for her doggedness, but for her absolute dimwittedness about all of this. The worst part of this discussion was her revelation she'd run into this same problem before with other African-American students. Hmmm...Yes, this is an educated person in charge of teaching young kids.

You can imagine the discussions that ensued in our house. My husband, rightly, declared we should tell her to use the American flag since slaves were largely responsible for building most of the institutions of this country. And if she had a problem with this logic, she should call him at the office so he could make his point. Obviously, this was not an ideal solution for the situation since I'm the one having to deal with her daily. After some research, really just typing in Pan African flag into a search engine, I discovered there is such a flag. Again, why she couldn't do this is beyond me since she's the one who created this particular curriculum. I printed out the information sheet on this flag and attached a letter we wrote to address our concerns this project raised for us, but would certainly raise for others,most notably and ironically, the only true Americans--Native Americans.

My husband always points out that the majority of the country is run by C- students, a most sobering thought if you give thought to this. We know the top job in this country, namely the Presidency, could be attained by those with far less on their academic records. A certain idealism on my part would have hoped teachers would be more worldly and rigorous in their own classrooms. But that's expecting more than is the reality.

The Economist recently had an article about the academic rankings of countries. Finland, it seems, is the most ideal place for one to be uber-educated. The United States didn't even rank in the reading scores--a grim statistic indeed since Bush's "No Child Left Behind," touts its successes. The article pointed out the one stark differences between countries with high scores and those with scores that don't register is how the top scoring countries take only top students as teachers--hardly the reality in this country. We all know this stems from the devaluation of teachers in our culture, a trend that has reached an all-time low. What does this mean for our children? Well, it seems they will be behind many of their international peers in reading, math, and science. What does that translate into for our country's future? It means innovation, those ideas that can spawn entire industries, will occur more often on soil other than the US. It means the dumbing down of our cultural institutions will occur without the citizenry, smart enough, or engaged enough, to take note or to argue for more. It will mean the constant polarization where religious fundamentalism will take place of intellectual curiosity. People, finding their world confusing (and too dumb to understand why) will turn to the "opiate for the masses"--mega churches to answer all the ills of a world where children's futures are just a bit more hopeless than the previous generations'.

It is a grim picture indeed. It's enough to make us want to immigrate to Finland, the only biracial family to ever arrive on their shores.

We are Japanese

I don't know how or why this has happened. It seems our country is now Japan. Let me explain for those who are confused by such a ridiculous question. We, my husband, son and I are on the private school interview circuit. Despite the number of private schools when compared to the 8 million population in this city, well, the hustle to get into one of the top schools is as competive as anything I've seen. And this is what I mean about our country is now Japan, a country known for excessive parental pushing of their little tots to get them into the 'right' school. The school can, even at the tender age of five, determine whether the young one will determine his or her socio-economic standing for their entire life in the country of Japan.

For our meritocratic nation, the notion of a school determining one's entire destiny is laughable, but is it so laughable after all? A bachelor's degree, now much more ubiquitous than 20 years ago, takes on significance if attained from a small number of prestigious universities. Therefore, the need to insure your child will get their BA from, not a state university, but one of the elite schools that is known in far flung places as Sudan.

Each time we enter one of these private schools, I am struck by the parents attending to their little one. It is as if we had all be cut from the same cookie cutter--father in suit, mother dressed appropriately, and both attentive over their little one, nudging enough to make sure their child is not relegated to a second tier elementary school, a fate that could determine the outcome of their child's entire academic future. It is all too pressure filled to be believed. And yet, here we are, schlepping our little guy, coaxing him to go off with another Admissions person as we sit and are grilled by another school admissions director.

This vying for the so few spots at the top tier schools is intense, much more than anything we experienced in LA, where the vying felt less about the importance of the education your child would receive than about the social milieu your child would be exposed. Let's face it, most parents in LA, particularly those in the Entertainment business, were more concerned their kids attended the same school as Celebrity X's kid than about the actual curriculum of the school. Here there is a bit of the social jostling, but the emphasis is really about the education your child will receive--the ultimate goal being your child's entrance into Harvard, Yale, or Brown.

Our son, despite his kvetching about these interviews in the beginning, is now an old pro. He goes off happily with the new person, coming back with pictures drawn. I wish I could say we only have a few more left. Sadly, this driven couple, otherwise known as us, had applied to a dozen schools in the city. We are now halfway through with the list. And each time we head off to another school with our son in tow, we mutter to each other about how we had taken on the absurd social practices of a country half way around the world.

Heartbreak

As a parent, you think your job is to love (not really a job but a condition), nurture, encourage, protect, and to take care of your child(ren). Most of us take on the multitude of duties this role requires, the new fragility of your life and your child's making your earlier invincibility a distant echo. The world becomes fraught with potential danger for your young one, your spouse, and for you. No one told me becoming a parent would make me so afraid of so much in the world. But the other secret, the one no one ever divulged, is the heartbreak of a parent when your child faces the childish rejection that comes so frequently in the world of elementary school.

All of us have many heartbreaks, wounds healed or simply scabbed over with time. Most of us can recall the first time a peer, or friend, made you cry, your heart breaking as this person you thought liked you now decided you were no longer likable. It starts as early as memory itself, the heartbreaks of childhood.

Your personal aches are unbearable, becoming bearable only with time and distance. Each of those tear-filled afternoons, holed up in your room, wishing you lived somewhere far from whatever town, city, or neighborhood are easily recalled. They become the thread of your personal quilt of memories.

But to see your child's heartache, a certainty for any child, is something no one can prepare you for. It is doubly more painful than your own woeful rejections. Today was a day I realized how emotionally fragile I was to the many heartbreaks my child will surely face. It was no longer an abstraction, something I had steeled myself for, but was happening in front of my eyes. The look of pain and sadness I saw flit across my little boy's face was enough to make me want to snatch him from his classroom, keeping him home, protected from such things in the future. Each of these moments will aid in his ebullience and sense of wonder become just a bit more fragile, so that one day that sheer delight in being five will be replaced by all the reserve of having to protect yourself from others.

Walking home after witnessing, unbeknown to my son, his rejection from his 'best friend,' I thought how unprepared I was for all of the messiness of life. I projected to a future where his aches and disappointments will be wounds that linger, leaving traces of its existence beneath the skin and bones the world only sees. And how I have to love him enough to let him experience each of these moments, never standing in the way of them, no matter how difficult that is for me. These thoughts stayed with me all day, bringing on moments of panic. I waited to see him at the end of the school day, trying to see what damage that rejection would have. When he rushed into my arms, still exuberant, I knew that moment was simply that--a moment. And tomorrow would surely bring others.

Vacation Days

I've been joking of late about our dire need to get our son into a very conservative religious school, the kind that is not inclusive. Why you may wonder for such a reactionary statement? In our time of uber political correctness, public schools, and even religious schools that are inclusive, celebrate every holiday--with the exception of Kwanzaa and Hindu celebrations--which offers schools an excuse to close its doors. Closed schools only mean one thing for parents--hellish days of trying to keep the little ones occupied. And since we know the two most dreaded words in my lexicon is play date, that means a day off will surely bring a play date or two to keep our little one engaged. And since I don't have the luxury of working outside the home in the traditional sense, I am the one left to fend for our child's limited attention span.

Yesterday was election day, which meant the schools closed their doors. Our son had to take the ERB test for admittance into a New York City private school, so the morning was filled with that appointment. As a way to entice him to take this test, which he didn't know was a test, I promised him a visit to Toys R Us on Broadway. Right, you can imagine.

One thing about our son is his ability to accept the cruelty of his parents. Since he was very young, I've enforced the promise rule, which means he is allowed one thing, and one thing only, on visits to Target, bookstores, and toy stores. The one remarkable thing about our son is his ability to understand that the one item rule is really a rule. Therefore the process of picking the item is one long torturous event since it has to be the absolutely perfect thing he has wanted forever and ever.

Patience, a virtue, and a requirement for parenthood, is something that is needed in spades on such outings. My son, determined to get the exact, perfect toy, perused every aisle of this mammoth store with the ferris wheel in its lobby. After our third go round in the Star Wars section, my patience had worn thin and I was threatening the two minute rule, which translates into 'you have two minutes or else you don't get anything.' In all fairness, he did have items he wanted, but they were either too large for the apartment or they bordered on the violent play things that boys gravitate toward like moths to a flame, but is not allowed in this house. Yes, you can see how we torture him with such rules. So, this careful selection process was guided firmly by me telling him what was not acceptable or too big, hence, one can argue the prolonged, agonizing process.

After some final threats from me, he finally picked a Pokemon thing. It is usually when he's clutching his one item with not a peep about something else that my heart breaks for our rule-following kid. And that is when I break my own rule and throw in something else, something small to make this day even more special for him. Yes, he's spoiled. But when you see a five year old in a place that is nirvana for any child, satisfied with his one choice, well, such restraint makes a parent proud. He's not whining about something else, showing signs of a gluttony that could foretell a future filled with the need to satisfy an ever growing need for things.

Having paid for his items, we stepped out on to Broadway to make our way to 32nd for a Korean lunch. He prattled on about his new items, begging, of course, I open them on the bus or the subway. I know this innocence, the ability to make him so happy with a $12.00 plastic toy, will too quickly come to an end. And that whatever our hopes and wishes for him will mean nothing as he grows into the man he will become. The sense of how fleeting this time is for him and for me hits me in those moments when his hand is clutched in mine, his ever flowing chatter rising above the honks of car horns and ambulances shrieking. Too soon, he will be too old and independent to want to hold my hand, his chatter now staccato one word responses to my desperate attempts to connect with him. So, no matter what a nuisance it is that schools seem to close their doors every other week. In truth, I will, no doubt, look back to this time with more than wistfulness as our house stills and he goes out to seek a life wholly his own.

Halloween in the Big City

The area where we are living was built for returning war veterans, one of the few affordable housing left in this city. It is a massive footprint, large enough to warrant designation on any given city map. This community of buildings and green space is where young families live side by side, underneath, and on top of older long-time residents, whose days are now measured by the smaller details of life. It is strangely like living in a suburban spread, yet in the middle of the city. For our first year here, it has been the ideal choice. In some ways, it resembles Park LaBrea except the property is not cut off to the rest of the city by gates. Instead, the property blends into the landscape of the East Side, open, inviting, and easily accessible. Even the lack of gates doesn't deter you from feeling safe here as you walk around, noticing the older residents sitting on park benches, enjoying the fresh air.

The large green space held a Halloween festival for the plethora of kids, who call this home. There was an impressive corn maze in the middle, games along the edges, and a dance floor where loud music blared from speakers. My son, who had been beyond excited about this day, soon joined in the fracas of playing games for candy and trying to get through the maze. We took a break from the festivities by heading to a friend's house for pizza, and wine for the adults. Then we went 'trick or treating' city style. We rode the elevator up the top floor of our friend's building and made our way down by walking down the stairs of the fire escape.

Each time a door opened to welcome our gang of kids, you couldn't help but glimpse the life inside. Older people, some with live-in aides, still opened their doors, eager to give out the sugary confections, perhaps nostalgic about former lives when they were the ones knocking on doors with their young ones behind masks. Each opened door also revealed the way people imagine spaces that are all identical to their neighbors. You could see how a bookshelf in one corner changed the way the room flowed. Or the way long-time residents hung chandeliers over dining areas. It was illuminating for each of us adults as we wound our way down 14 flights. The kids' bags full, we headed to our building and to our apartment. The adults continued drinking wine as all the kids played, or rather, destroyed our son's room. Every so often, the doorbell would ring, signaling another round of 'trick or treaters,' who had ventured to our door that had been covered in fake cobwebs.

My son didn't comment on the differences of trick or treating in apartment buildings versus his old neighborhood in LA. Instead, he was concerned he have the 'right' costume this year and for the next year. His friends left with their tired parents behind. My husband and I put our young boy to bed, relieved to have survived this first Halloween in the city.

The United Nations of Families

My son's birthday was celebrated in D.C. at my in-law's, who delighted in being able to throw him a party for the first time in five years. My mother-in-law, the embodiment of the 'perfect' martyred mother, baked cupcakes, a cake, and then the bonanza--a cake shaped like a Volkswagen car. She invited my husband's cousin and his three kids along with her own first cousin's daughter and her two kids. Their small house soon filled with laughter and talk about people's health in between bites of the fried chicken I had helped fry that morning.

I looked outside, reveling in the perfect fall day, noticing the 6 kids, my son included, playing various destructive games that involved the immolation of an apple tree. What struck me about all of the kids was that each was the product of an interracial marriage. The three from my husband's cousin are half Bolivian, each of them calling me Tia instead of the customary aunt. The other two half Caucasian girls, their father the offspring of a Lutheran minister from Pasadena, California, were precocious in a way I found unsettling. Once you've spent any time with Black families, you quickly realize the color spectrum of Blackness, even among members of the same family. And nothing was more striking about the kids than the various shades of brown.

This color spectrum will play out in how each child will maneuver their identity as a Black American. No doubt for some, being Black will be all encompassing of their racial identity, the result of the roll of the dice of genes. For some of the others, whose hues may be lighter, their hair straighter, they will have to manage to feel their way in a world that is so quick to prejudge based on race. I always believed the world gets murkier when your looks belie your true identity. There is no more tragic figure than the 'mulatto,' able to pass in most situations, having listening to people freely expressing their racial attitudes. Anatole Broyard, a well respected literary critic for the New York Times and writer, who lived his life as a white man, his secret identity a well-known secret in the black community of intellectuals, left behind a legacy of secrets that his children are still trying to sort out. His children learned about his father's subterfuge from their mother upon his death, this cataclysmic secret having his children question every aspect of their father's role in their lives. Such is the murkiness of race and color in this world, even in the 21st century.

My son's cries of frustration, a result of his 'girl' cousins excluding him, soon overtook any of my pensive thoughts about the future of all of these kids. I had to console him, trying to explain that this was only the beginning of a lifetime where women will play some role in his emotional turmoil. Soon enough, the kids had found another object of their focus. And my son, the first time in his five years, got to blow out his candles, surrounded by the many shades of brown faces of one half of his family.

Childhood Accelerated

Everything in our culture feels accelerated from the most mundane to the most esoteric. Communication is now available to us in milliseconds, a call arriving anywhere and anytime. The written correspondence composed on beautiful stationery is now available as quickly as a thought is cogent--the internet. A leisurely meal now means you've lingered at your table, gasp, for more than two hours. As everything gets accelerated, it's only fitting that childhood gets on this speed cycle. Kindergarten is now what first grade used to be for us--those of us north of thirty. Learning to read and write are part of the curriculum in Kindergarten. The days when kids came for half day programs, played some blocks, learned to socialize with peers have been replaced by journal writing, math, discussion of 'feelings,' art, music, and gym. I get tired just thinking about my five year olds full day. Hence, it's only fitting that their games, the intricacies of their games have accelerated. My son, who is a mere five only days ago, discusses at length about the number of children he will have, and who will be caring for them. At five.

A documentary about adolescence, narrated by Samuel Jackson, brought the hyper speed of childhood into light. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen year olds gave candid interviews about their sexual experiences, usually fueled by drinking parties. Drinking parties at twelve. Somehow these sexually-loaded, alcohol-fueled nights felt so adult, in fact, they reminded me of the parties I had attended as a sixteen year old in high school. Children today are experiencing things three years ahead of previous generations. To listen to a twelve year old girl describing how acceptable it was to give 'head' to her boyfriend made my head spin. This troubling trend is all the more disturbing since we, Americans, have made an art of preserving childhood-- compared to the rest of the world. This twelve year old discussing fellatio is a tad bit less disturbing than the nine year old prostitute in Thailand, whose childhood came to an end a long time ago because of poverty. So, compared to the rest of the world where childhood is a commodity for sale, our children do remain innocent longer. Or do they?

This speeding up of life will, I assume, only accelerate. What's next, drinking parties for third graders? If we keep up at this speed, that seems to be the way our world will end up, a bunch of brazen, drunken third graders, discussing fellatio.

As much as I try and preserve our son's childhood, it is a constant battle in a world where at every turn, our culture is aimed at curtailing this brief period of innocence. When we were in LA, our neighbors were taking their two year olds to see the latest animated movie from Pixar or Disney. A movie theater for a two year old. Somehow that didn't feel right to us as a family, considering I didn't see a movie till I was at least 9 or ten. The need to keep our child plugged into the latest cultural fad, dictated by a bunch of animated characters, seemed like a fools errand.

I know each generation says parenting is the hardest job. And it is. But I know the world, our world, is out of control when my parents tell me they'd hate to raise a child today. This same sentiment has been expressed on more than one occasion by a number of older people. I don't what's more challenging: raising a boy or raising a girl.

I wish I'd been able to sleep that night instead of watching with mouth agape at these 'tweens' discussing their worlds. Shock was one emotion, but sadness was what I'd most felt, seeing such young kids sorting out emotions and the intricacies of intimacy and sex, complications adults can barely manage to figure out. Since this generation is on such a fast track, perhaps they will have it all figured out these perplexing questions by the time they reach 40, which in our world won't even be middle age, but what was, in the past, considered to be the 20's.

School Applications

We, my husband and I, are in the process of applying for Kindergarten for our 4, almost five year old. Since he has a late fall birthday, we are of the belief that a boy needs a wee bit, try years, more time to mature compared to their female counterparts. It is still amazing to me most of our world is run by men when I see my son and his cohorts in action. We are, in essence, holding him back a year by having him repeat kindergarten at a new school. Yes, we're part of the annoying trend of parents, who do all they can to insure our child will succeed in a life, something increasingly difficult given the early age at which competition starts. The stigma of being held back is no longer such a big deal as parents, even with kids whose birthdays aren't in fall months, are holding their little ones back--to insure they will succeed, of course.

This application process has been illuminating in the monumental differences of quality and quantity of educational opportunities between New York and Los Angeles. The two cities mirrors one another in certain neuroses of the upwardly mobile class. Everyone is out to insure their progeny can get as many advantages in education and enrichment--to churn out the future titans of business. In our present culture, there is a serious disengagement of upwardly parents from the much thwarted public school system. Los Angeles was, by far, the worst I'd seen of parents having completely abandoned a school system so entirely. Most middle class parents, those not wealthy enough to afford the escalating costs of private schools, found themselves truly in the lurch as the idea of a neighborhood school became another casualty of urban life.

True, Los Angeles suffers from the devastating affects of Prop 13, and the unforeseen surge of the immigration population, whether legal or not. This has created whole swaths of public schools in dire need of so much that the middle class citizenry has decided is not worth putting the effort into changing. With the grim situation of public schools, you would think the private institutions would be competitive with their counterparts throughout the country.

Let's just say that when we were going through the application process for Pre-K programs, there were so few schools that were options. In fact, the one truly noted school--noted as in it is ranked nationally, although not in the top ten or anything--was a school started by psychologists. How this institution became the most prestigious place to send a child still baffles me. This school, overrun with celebrities and the Hollywood elite, is the place that everyone in the city tries to get their little one into. The rest of the schools are supposedly second tier compared to this one school. Whether a child is better off because he or she attends this uber-privileged school is still to be determined. What's ironic is this 'prestigious' school in Los Angeles is not recognized one iota here in New York. If you were to tell people your child had attended this school X, most people look at you with not the faintest glimmer of recognition. It's not as if you had told them your kid had gone to Exeter, Andover, or even Hotchkiss. Even Harvard Westlake, the most difficult school in Los Angeles, is not recognized here. This may have something to do with the East Coast snobbishness about all educational institutions not within their borders, or it may truly be indicative of the gulf in quality between LA and the East Coast.

So, here we go again in New York, a city so vastly different in tone and anxiety in this arena of determining our child's future--as if such a thing was possible. We have applied to ten schools, most with stellar reputations. This large number is what amazes us, that we would have so many options, whittled down from an even larger list. What's also vastly different is the number of good, decent public schools available in the city, if we decided that was the way we should go with our son.

But for an island so small, it is astounding to see so many schools, elementary to colleges and universities here, period. It feels like every other block has another school or university, its banner blowing in the wind. All of the emphasis on schools makes me think there is something real and tangible in how and why Los Angeles differs so greatly from its East Coast counterpart. What is in that Los Angeles water, actually derived from Colorado, that makes education such an afterthought? It makes sense that Villaraigosa is the mayor of Los Angeles, a man who barely finished high school, attended a community college before finally making it to UCLA. His law degree came from an uncredited law school, perhaps explaining why he never passed the bar exam, and is therefore not licensed to practice law. His counterpart in New York, Mayor Bloomberg, has an educational resume far different: Johns Hopkins, Harvard Business School. This isn't to dissect their backgrounds, but really to dissect the citizenry that voted these two people into office. The question, one that begs to be answered, is would either candidate stand a chance if they were to switch cities?

Would the staid, geeky demeanor of Bloomberg be enticing enough for the people of LA to vote him into office? And would the flashy, quick grinning Villaraigosa be enough to get New Yorkers to vote for him as their mayor? An interesting thought, if you think about it.

This hyper-focus on education can be a bit overwhelming. I say this as I head off to my first interview for a potential school for my son. This bit of the process is stressful, making the hours we agonized over our essay for the applications, seem innocuous in comparison.

Nanny New York Style

After much time, we have found a part time babysitter for our son. Unlike his Tia, this woman is not meant to replace me by any means. Instead she helps me to do a bit more work during two afternoons a week since she picks him up from school and takes him to his Tae Kwon Do. This city, haven or home to so many foreigners, is where nannies of every complexion can be witnessed. The West Indian women with the lilt in their words, Indian women, Filipino women, and the Latinas are the caretakers to countless children, rearing kids who may not yet understand the significance of these women to their lives.

This time out, our nanny is not another Latina, but an East Indian Guyanese. When she told me she was Guyanese, I asked how it was there were Indians in Guyana, formerly known as British Guyana, a country, ironically enough, where my husband spent some time as a child. She answered with a smile on her face, "See, my people--Indians, were slaves brought over to Guyana from India." To which, I could only say, "I see." My post-colonial theorist head was already screeching, "Those f**king Brits," but I figured such an outburst would not have helped me in getting this woman to commit to working for us.

A Hindu woman as a nanny is a first for our family. And with a Hindu in your home, there are many considerations. For instance, on the days she is here, I find myself cooking vegetarian meals or meals with chicken or fish. The whole beef brisket thing seems inappropriate since cows are sacred to them.

One forgets how many Indians live on the Eastern seaboard. With the exception of the short block on Pico where Indian shops selling saris indicates a smallish Indian community, New York and the surrounding cities is home to many, many Indians. My school, not exactly a multicultural place, did have a fair number of East Indian kids by the time I reached high school.

My son is adjusting to having this new addition to his life. There is less resistance to her when she arrives at school to pick him up. Last night, he actually asked she not leave. He, being super color conscious, did point out she was "browner" than he. The significance of his sitter being darker is something I don't understand yet. Perhaps some day I will. But most likely not. That is my greatest regret: to never fully understand his experience of being brown in color. And how that colors the way the world deals with you or not.

Blind 'Friend' Dates

I have had three blind 'friend' dates this past week, having been set up by three separate people from LA with friends, good friends, here. And so, I got dolled up to meet these strangers I've only communicated with via Email and one phone conversation. Women, as everyone knows, dress for other women. We are forever putting together outfits, not to attract the whistles or cat calls from men, but to get affirmations from our own gender. We doll up, try to look cute, all for the satisfaction of knowing our girlfriends appreciated the effort, or better, to receive that compliment and cooing when something you're wearing is envy worthy.

This position of being set up is a new one for me. I've never had trouble meeting people or making friends. If anything, I am a pathological people collector, the crazier the better, as my husband likes to say. And with most of the people I know living in the suburbs or in Brooklyn--I am still artsy enough to have quite a few contacts out that way--I have found my social calendar in the city quiet. This quiet for some would be a source of sadness, but for me it has served as a nice refuge from the social whirl of my life in LA and my summer on the Vineyard. But I knew this solitary life would, should come to an end with each passing week.

It's interesting to experience being on a 'blind date' even if with another woman as a possible friend candidate. The expectations and same anxieties prevail despite this meeting not being determined by the possibility of an attraction. Or isn't it? Aren't female friendships as fraught with the same emotional intensity as relationships between men and women? Aren't these relationships also relationships of the heart. Aren't these relationships as time consuming? And aren't these relationships also devastating when a relationship comes to an end? So, there I was, sitting and waiting at various restaurants or venue across the city, all with the same anxiety of: I hope they like me.

Each meeting brought forth another potential friend: one woman, definitely a 'girlfriend' of the drinks and kvetching variety, another of the proper lunch and tennis date variety, the other the one you make yourself see because they are connected enough to warrant time. These blind dates made me think about how we sound on the phone versus the way we actually look. Since I'd had opportunity to speak to only one blind date, my opinions were formed from email correspondences, not the most reliable way to envision someone. Each of us, all at varying stages of Motherhood, bonded over the fact that we were connected to someone they cared deeply about and for. So, each meeting was a total surprise, in a nice way. All of my 'blind friend dates' were a success. I could see the potential for these relationships to flourish in a way most conducive to the personalities involved.

This new life where relationships, each one a brand new start, is a good place to be for now. I wouldn't wish for anything else. I am happy to correspond with strangers, hoping this new connection may be the relationship that will make me feel tethered to this place. But if that weren't to happen, I always have all the other days when I'm quietly thrilled to be here, to be living my life in this city that I'd always dreamed of living.

Play Dates

Play Dates, the two most dreaded words in my world, is how parents, of all stripes, control who and how their children spend their free time, something not in abundance given how over scheduled all our children are these days. I detest these fabricated social events. This hour or, God forbid, two hours is ripe for so many catastrophes. What happened to the days when our parents, truly brilliant all of them, sat around drinking heavily, parenting in what my girlfriend so aptly described as, "benign neglect?"

Yes, the world has changed. Or has it? I'm sure there were pedophiles lurking around every corner when we were children. I'm certain there were as many car crashes as there are today, but we weren't harnessed to the very death of us. There were, I'm sure, all the dangers that have turned our jobs from 'taking care' of our children: feeding, bathing, nurturing, teaching, to policing our children to the nth degree. Believe me when I say after an hour or two of rambunctious boys screaming and playing Indians and Indians (yes, I know how unPC this is, but am too tired to try and correct them), I wish, yearn, dream for the day when I can banish them out of this apartment to run outside. Yes, child welfare services would certainly come to my door before the kids return. And certainly the other child's parent would never, ever invite us to their home or allow their kid to return for another Play Date. I understand all the social taboos about doing such a thing, but surely I'm allowed a bit of day dreaming, right?

David Sedaris writes about how his mother would do just that--lock out all the kids in the winter and not let them in for hours. Again, 'benign negligence,' didn't do him a great deal of harm, right? Yes, he's spent exhaustive time and money in therapy unpacking the complicated relationship he has with his mother, who comes across in all of his work as: funny, alcoholic, funny, and uncaring.

This word, play date, is now so used or overused, it is a given that if you are a parent, you will find yourself using this word more than you care to remember. This event, the play date, is fraught with social disasters, the most noxious being having to spend that time with a woman you don't like or have anything in common with. It is all annoying, to say the least.

But as a parent, you have no option but to engage in this ridiculous charade. If you don't have a healthy amount of play dates, you, or rather, your child will become that odd child no one ever asks to birthday parties. See, what a trap all of this is for parents? Why none of us haven't rebelled against this inane practice is beyond me. If given my way, I'd banish this social obligation entirely, but then my child would be odder than he will surely become given his parentage.

So, another afternoon was spent with my son's play date, this time with the tomboy in his class. It was just raucous enough to bring on a headache only curable with a bottle of wine.

The New Graying Parent

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed how old parents are these days? Particularly in urban centers? As I write this, I am one of those who had their child well past the age of 30, having delayed motherhood, and apparently adulthood, because I thought I could do it all, meaning the self-focused drive for advanced degrees, world travel, and just plain growing up before feeling mature enough to have a child. And whether I was ready or not is not the issue since we now have him, for better or worse--poor little man.

With that said, I am forever seeing couples, who look old enough to be grandparents, pushing strollers of youngsters, obviously their own offspring. One can no longer assume just because a woman or man is gray, wrinkled, and tired that they are the lucky grandparents since such questions could alienate your child rather quickly from the neighborhood. Now, when I say older, I mean older. I now see with greater frequency couples, who look well into their forties, if not pushing early fifties, the proud papa or mama of a toddler. There was a fair amount of this in LA, the city notorious for men having, not just second families, but working on their third when most of the peers, in other parts of the country, are shopping for retirement communities. But in those sitations--most visible at school functions--their counterpart, otherwise known as wife number 3, was usually blond and younger, significantly younger, like thirty-something to their sixty or, god forbid, seventy-something.

But the aged couple as new parents is a trend, occurring with greater frequency in cities like New York. When I tell people how old I am, they immediately suggest with great optimism, I should have another baby. If one were inclined to do such a thing, then I'm sure I could. Older women with the help of invitro, surrogacy, and all the other aids for couples facing infertility, are having children later than was possible, even ten years ago. Usually at this point, I tell them I have no interest in having a child at my age, even if 40 is now considered young enough to still have another baby. See, we can delay motherhood or parenthood with all the technological advances available to us. But in truth, my body is still 40, each year another muscle a bit achier or just cranky. Tiredness is a constant in my day since my body, which knows its age, is 40. I may appear youthful--with the help of die for the gray, diet and exercise, no botox yet--but I am still 40. Before long, I will be writing and b**ching about night sweats brought on by menopause. There is no getting around this reality of my own mortality. So, no, I don't want to forgo the little sleep I'm able to get, even with my insomnia, for a new little addition to our family.

I guess I have strong views on this new trend. My parents, for their generation, were older parents. Therefore, my mom and dad were always a good 10 or so years older than my friends' parents. Back when I was growing up, women were generally having kids at the ripe old age of 20 or 21, so having a mom who had had me at 30 something was exotic, different, strange. I never thought I would be an older mom, although in this new trend of parents being older, I fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. The say the national average for women having children is 25.1, up from what had been the average age in previous generations. I have one friend who'd had her kids, or started having kids in her twenties. She is the only one of my friends, whose kids are now teenagers or tweens, and who herself is in her early forties.

There does seem to be a cultural shift or bias toward women who'd started having kids younger, or rather, closer to the national average in my world. See, if you'd had your kids in your twenties, chances are you don't have a graduate degree since you were a tad too busy being a mom. And forget trying to go to grad school with kids in the house. How anyone would manage such a feat is beyond me. One can also assume you may not have had a full blown career before starting on the "Mommy Track." So, here's the big assumption: you are somehow less accomplished, less educated, and less something since you started a family at an age that is biologically more appropriate, if not culturally appropriate, for those of us so inculcated by the Feminist Movement. And as I watch my friend, the end in sight when her house will be quiet as her kids head off to college in plain view, I have to wonder if she wasn't the smarter one since I'm now just starting Kindergarten, years before I can drop my son off to some remote college far, far away from home.

What does it mean for a generation of kids, whose parents will be in their fifties, if not early sixties by the time they start college? Our mortality keeps getting extended, so that people living into their 100's is happening with greater frequency. And if you'd read the New York Times article from a few months ago, Korean women who live in Fort Lee, New Jersey outlived their counterparts in any other part of the country. Why anyone would want to live that long is beyond comprehension. That 'cutesy' Today show segment where these old, old faces are imposed on the backs of Smuckers jars is my worst nightmare. Needless to say, I will not be moving to Fort Lee, if, God forbid, there is something in that New Jersey drinking water that serves as a strange fountain of youth for Korean women, specifically.

So, I wander around the city, noticing all the old parents, wondering, how do they do it? I'm just tired looking at the ring of fatigue under their eyes. And forget it if they have two. You know my eyes are frozen like that famous Munch painting, "The Scream," with: fear, dread, incredulity, all mixed with a look like, 'you must really be crazy.'

Parenthood---Hardest Job, Ever

There comes a point in your journey as a parent when you have to make difficult choices, the kind of choices that will make you seem monstrous to your kids, and to those witnessing this moment. Such a moment has come to pass in our family. Our next door neighbor, who has two kids--one boy and one girl--had invited us to their country home in the Catskills for the Jewish New Year vacation. While the invitation was a lovely, generous gesture, it did seem a bit premature since we have been in the city a total of three weeks, and our, the two moms, conversations have occurred in short fits since we are usually standing at the front door as our two boys careen up and down the hallway of our apartment building. Thank goodness for nice and forgiving neighbors. I had noticed that her son was even more high energy than my son, which is saying a great deal since our kid is like bottle fuel packaged in a 40 pound body.

But since I was raised ever so properly, I accepted for a shorter duration than the five days that had been originally offered. I baked a cake and brought some of the home made pasta sauce I had made and frozen for those days when all I have the energy for is to defrost and boil some noodles.

And so we set off in her station wagon with the three kids in the back, a DVD machine hooked up for the kids' viewing pleasure, and water for two plus car ride. We had left after my son's swim lesson, which was around 4:30 or so. Well, let me say that everyone seemed to have left work early that afternoon, heading their cars for the FDR and destinations in New Jersey and New York State. It took us two hours to snake our way out of the city toward the freeway, or rather, highway that would take us to our final destination--The Catskills. Imagine being marooned inside a small car with three, verbal kids, who are tired, bored, hungry, and now just plain angry. Right, a root canal would be more fun than those two hours in that car. By the way, the total car trip took 5 hours to get to their house. During the course of this lovely car ride, my son, aided by the precocious 7 year old, got into an argument. The outcome being the little girl, who did goad him, started crying.

So, here was the difficult moment when I had to a) reprimand him, b) and then follow through with the threat I had to use for him to quiet down and to then apologize to the little girl. I know I must have sounded like Joan Crawford in "Mommy Dearest" to this mother, who doesn't, obviously, do a great deal of reprimanding of her kids. But I know I'm not trying to raise a precocious, obnoxious, off the hook kid, who is just a general nuisance to the world. We arrived in the darkness, one child already asleep. My son and I slept together, giving us a chance to discuss what had occurred and why we were getting up to have breakfast and to go home.

There was the moment, the difficult moment: we got up and I followed through with my earlier punishment option and left on a Trailways Bus after breakfast. I could have ignored what had occurred during that interminable car ride, the result of which was me being "Mean Mommy," but then that would have meant the possibility of having a child who would always disregard my threats as idle.

A few invaluable lessons were learned by this beleaguered Mom: never accept an invitation from someone who is essentially a stranger, never get into a car headed anywhere outside the city limits during rush hour, and never be held hostage in a car with three kids for more than half an hour, tops. My son fell asleep in the bus so pooped out from the arduous trip there. Relief came in spasms when I saw the first peaks of high rises in the horizon.

Education Differences---kindergarten years

I knew there were huge differences in emphasis and quality of education between LA and the East. I had no idea how vast the difference since I had spent a large chunk of my adult life in LA, having been brainwashed to believe that Buckley--the school that can claim as its alumni, Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton--was a great, prestigious institution. The lapses in intellectual rigor of those attending state institutions: Cal State, UCLA, and the rest of the UC's was apparent to me since I had been ingrained in the educational expectations of the East Coast. The reality is not just about quality, so much as the inherent cultural schisms between the two coasts. In LA, a city where a window washer can one day, miraculously, become a 'power broker' in the film industry, is a city that believes its own mythology about people becoming instant successes. Most of the 'old money' in LA were families from dusty, Midwestern small towns, who, unlike their Eastern counterparts, didn't buy into the idea that educational institutions were the necessary building blocks to prestige and success. This prevalent, long lasting cultural bias has carried over into every aspect of the city.

Despite the sunny clime and the suburban lifestyle, LA, I now discover, doesn't hold a candle for the kid-obsessed generation of new parents. New York, that fast-paced urban mecca, is all about kids and all about enrichment opportunities for the littlest denizens of the city. In LA, my husband and I, not being able to run too far from our East Coast expectations, were the parents whose kid was enrolled for endless classes, or so it felt. Now in New York, well, it seems our child has been leading a much too relaxed first five years. The endless opportunities for him to enroll in classes--Mandarin anyone? French cooking for preschoolers?--in this city is longer than the length of Park Avenue from downtown to uptown. The sheer number of activities available to kids is shocking, to say the least. Who knew? But then, it seems fitting that the neuroses of the parents, all driven people, would bleed down to the little citizens of this city of steel and glass.

Another inherent difference between the two coasts was felt my first few days at my son's Kindergarten class, which is public, albeit a very good public school, when the teacher explained that kids were to have composition notebooks to write journal entries. Journal entries? My son, who has not been pushed to read or write before the start of Kindergarten, can barely write his name much less a journal entry about how he feels. So, here we are now joining this new race. Despite my sheer relief to be back after so many years, I have brought with me some of the cultural mores of the city that had been the root of so much my unhappiness. I am signing my son up for the Tae Kwon Do classes he seems to enjoy so much, but am passing on the Mandarin classes, and definitely ignoring the French cooking classes. See, I am an Easterner, through and through. Those inherent expectations where education are concerned are at the core of who I am, and how I was raised. But I, after so many years on the Left Coast, recognize when parents are pushing their children for ego and not for the benefit of the child. Will my son spend his later years in therapy about missing the French cooking classes? I can guarantee he will spend a few number of years on the couch, but I am pretty certain it won't be for that reason. I, unfortunately, will provide him with so many other reasons.

Full time Motherhood--Oh Vey!

This summer has been a time, making up for all of my previous negligence--I'm sure, of being a FULL TIME MOM. It has been eye opening on so many levels. First, I've not wanted to jump off the two bridges on this island. Second, it's much more manageable than I had previously imagined. Third, I've rather enjoyed it--shock, shock, shock. I, like most women like me--double degreed, pampered, spoiled--assumed doing this job full time was not suited for me. My first few months alone with our infant son I found myself in a state. There were many days when I tried to figure out ways to give the baby back to the hospital, to let them know what a terrible mistake this was for me and for him. The image of me with my lumpy body, sore nipples, and terrible hair--never cut one's hair when in this mental state--should have been on every poster for Post-Partum Depression. It was the first time in my life when I felt I couldn't cross this hurdle, when I felt ready to give up. It was a new emotion for me, a child who had always done well in everything I had set on my sights. To say this was shattering for me would be a mild understatement. It was the earthquake from which I am now recovering.

When our nanny arrived, I was torn between wanting, needing the help and not wanting to relinquish my role of being the only care taker, despite doing it all in a crazed state of shrillness. So, for the last four and some years, I've had the helicopter nanny, always hovering over me, ready to swoop down to relieve me of my responsibilities. Some days, I was only too happy to be granted the freedom. I got used to being able to walk away, to parent from a certain distance. Please don't mistake this statement to mean I didn't care. No, that's not it exactly. It was being given a filter for the panoply of emotions when one is a mother, affording me a perspective much needed given all of my tendencies to obsess, to be perfect. So, I became a strange hybrid of hyper-vigilant mom--the kind that reads labels on boxes before feeding the food item to her child--and a mom that maintained the rituals and routines of her previous life. I realize now I was the kind of mom most feminists would admonish for, oh, so many reasons. See, I didn't go back to work, to teach, until his fourth year. That didn't mean I wasn't working since I sat around in a numbed state of panic about my novel, my upcoming novel, and fueling all of my melodrama into personal memoir essays. Work was, like much else in my life at that time, sporadic, at best.

Each summer on the Vineyard with our helicopter nanny flown away to hover over her own family, I managed taking are of my son without having a nervous breakdown at the end of my time. In fact, I noticed the emotional, mental leaps he and I would make, each of us coming into our own, as they say. He is now at an age when he needs a teeny bit less supervision. I'm more at ease letting him outside without my constant look out for the foreseeable and unforeseeable dangers. I have discovered, to my amazement, how interesting he is, and will be. He still jumps, hops, runs, the full embodiment of rambunctiousness, making me wonder what it would be like to have a calm, quiet, little girl.

There are aspects to the new cultural mores for Parenting I find mind numbing. This new pressure for us to not just parent, but to be the source of entertainment for our children is a trend I find troubling. A little boredom never damaged children, did it? Boredom is what teaches us to be resourceful, creative, and, sometimes, mischievous. Our parents were not our play mates. And so, I refuse to play with my son. Whether he will talk about this with his therapist for years on end remains to be seen.

Last night, I found myself on the floor, piles of plastic pieces surrounding me in a circle. Being forced to be the only person in his life meant I had to put together a castle from Playmobil. I now have new bruises on my knees, my fingers scratched. What would take any other person half an hour took me two hours to put together this new toy. The thought of abandoning it was not a consideration since my husband would not be arriving for two days. And in truth, this time here has become another way for me to overcome those notions of myself that I had developed over the years like how inept I am about following directions to put things together. And so, I plodded on till the castle was finished, each character dressed in their proper armor. I took it up to his room, setting it on his floor, so it would be the first thing his eyes would see when he woke up. It was a proud moment for this reluctant Mom, now Full Time Mom.