watch out! crazy sentimental woman gets access to blog

Every year about this time I get seriously messed up. Like an emotionally distraught, unbalanced, wacked out crazy woman. I swing madly between bouts of hysterical laughter and inconsolable weeping. I cling. I let go. I rejoice. I grieve. I sigh with mad soul-searing love and with deep, cleaving pain.

It is nearing the end of my children’s school year. And every year at the end of the school year I sort of lose my mind during the transition. This is normal, right? Back me up here, fellow crazy parents.

Because it is even worse this year.

um...this baby? in kindergarten?

It is worse because my baby is nearly done with preschool. We are nearing the official “graduation” day from her safe, clean, well-funded, inspiring, inspired, cozy little school. And she will be entering kindergarten.

This is a good thing for many practical reasons. She is bored with preschool and ready for a new challenge. It will simplify our family’s routine and my schedule. She will have fun and learn and meet new friends. We are happy with the school she will attend. We know she will have good teachers and a positive learning environment.

But it breaks my heart to say good-bye to the perfect little school that has nurtured both of our daughters for so many years. And it hurts even more to ponder the significance of the transition in my little one’s life and in mine.

I’m not exaggerating to say that it physically hurts my chest, like I can’t breathe, when I sit still and allow myself to seriously ponder the tiny little girl who originally rode in the baby sling every day to take her big sister to kindergarten, so many years ago. My heart pounds right now as I write this. And this pain fills me with conflict. Of course we want our babies to grow and thrive. We don’t want the opposite, do we?

Of course I love nothing more than to see my girls shine and blossom and climb high and play fierce and live big.

But these transitions are also wrought with sadness. It reminds me of my own mortality. Of the inevitable nature of change, that life flows on whether we are ready for it or not. That we must focus on the joy of these changes for the sake of the beautiful lives that lay out before our children, wrought with glittering possibility. This is not about me, with all of my flailing mood swings and self-absorbed assholery. This is about them.

And just like when I grieve for my baby, I ache with love for my big girl too.  When my precious first born cuts her hair short “like punk rock style” and tries to act cool around boys and says she is safe enough to be out of my sight at the big playground in Golden Gate Park and declares that she no longer likes for me to walk her into her classroom at school…well, I want to grab her and metaphorically stuff her back into the womb.  But, again, it is not about me.

It hurts to let our babies go. But it hurts even more to hold them back. As if we even have a choice. Like it or not, they are on their way. And all we can do is grab ahold of their soft little hands for as long as they let us, hearts swelling with pride and nostalgia, tears swallowed.

raising the bar for men & fathers one essay at a time

Today’s guest blogger, a rad dad in his own right, wrote this review of an anthology edited by two of our rad dad friends, in effect creating a trifecta of rad-dad-ness. I challenge all parents to read this review and this book and become enlightened: Rad Dad, edited by Tomas Moniz and Jeremy Adam Smith

 

totally rad cover

The stereotype of Western parenting is that mothers are the serious, thoughtful parents and fathers the playful, irresponsible ones.  This script for fathering has been played out in films like Mr. Mom and Daddy Day Care and is shown on television in Modern Family and the Simpsons. When fathers are around in movies – they frequently aren’t (Dolphin Tale) –they tend to be violent (This Boy’s Life) or unrealistically demanding (The Great Santini) or drunk (Hoosiers). Alternatively, when mothers fail on the job (Kramer vs. Kramer) we see children suffer and fathers bumble. Likely, there will also be messes in the kitchen!  Such media depictions of fathering do very little to further the collective conversation about men and their relationships with children. Rather, they tend to engage audiences by employing familiar stereotypes that put the audience right into the scene – “I recognize that guy.  Let’s get to the story!” While such stereotypes help engage viewers, they also place limits on our expectations for characters and any deviations from expectation require exposition and explanation for the audience.  The dire need for a new dialogue about fatherhood (and maybe new stereotypes) may be reaching a tipping point with men out of work today at a rate not seen since the Great Depression.

The contributors to the edited book Rad Dad: Dispatches from the Frontier of Fatherhood answer the call to redefine fatherhood by offering voices and perspectives on fatherhood that are about as traditional as a vegetarian cowboy. The thirty-nine essays contained in the tight 197 pages are grouped chronologically in the life cycle of the father into infancy, childhood and teens.  However, the essays offer perspectives and voices that are far from familiar. Readers meet a sperm donor who grapples with his genetic link to a child he does not parent, a transgender parent coming to terms with gender identity and gender socialization, a self-proclaimed “radical queer tranny vegan anarchist commie”, a former self-involved skateboarder socializing his daughter to be cautious of boys like his former self, and a man challenging himself to confront a neighbor’s domestic violence.  These essays provide readers an opportunity to walk a lifetime in the shoes of another person and are tightly written and short enough that the soles don’t wear out before the next essay begins. We also hear from fathers we’ve met before – men grappling with the transition from cool dude to the shlub being yelled at for crackers from a tyrant in a stroller, new fathers who reflect on their own boyhood relationships with their fathers, a fan of the Star Wars trilogy who muses on the deeper questions in the Lucas film (e.g., whether to explain that Han shot Greedo unprovoked at the Mos Eisley Cantina), and numerous feminist men struggling to raise open-minded children whose brains are hard-wired and socialized to embrace gender as the second-easiest category (after ethnicity) to organize social information about others.

In addition to the essays informed by the age of the child are two sections that have lasting impact: one debating the politics of modern fathering and a collection of interviews with “rad dads.” In these sections the reader is forced to wake up to the reality that parents are either acting with awareness that their actions matter to the future of their children or they are asleep on the job.  Two of the most important essays in the book – well worth the price of admission alone – address the issue of ethnic identity and parenting. The first, written by Shawn Taylor, recounts a benign incident on the playground that deteriorates into a hostile racially charged confrontation.  What begins as an earnest quest by a man to defy the negative stereotypes about fathering among his ethnic group demonstrates how the naivety of the majority propagates negative self-image among the minority.  The second essay by Tomas Moniz recounts the story of a young Latina girl wishing she could be white despite years of socialization to take pride in her cultural heritage.  Both of these essays (and others in the book) challenge the reader to question the status quo, to doubt certainty, to the relish questioning, and most of all to share the stories.

In fact, a common theme binding the essays is asking questions that don’t have answers.  Unlike the stereotypical sitcom father who we’ve seen so often, these essayists are creating themselves as they move forward…maybe even as they type out their experiences.  Because they are searching, they don’t offer a lot of explicit answers.  Many are asking questions so new to the conversation that any approximation of an answer would ring false to both reader and author.  Rather, by asking the questions the authors have fulfilled their obligation to themselves and together create an important discussion.

The editors are skilled at addressing the shortcomings of the discourse on fatherhood and such frank consideration of the field emboldens me to share two shortcomings of the book itself.  First, the authors have collected a remarkably diverse group of contributors – sperm donors, stay-at-home dads, multiracial men, transgender individuals – who offer voices typically unheard.  The diversity of the voices is so apparent that I longed for other fathers on the margins of this discourse who are missing from the book: immigrant fathers, divorced fathers, men who are politically conservative. I have worked with fathers from these three groups and know them to also be complicated and soul-searching, and while their narratives may sound similar, the means to that end tend to differ. For example, fundamentalist Christian families tend to co-sleep and breast feed (like their liberal counterparts) but have chosen to do so because of more traditional leanings. In short, the absence of these perspectives leaves Rad Dad leaning a bit too far to the left when redefining is a national priority. My second criticism is more shallow:  I wanted to laugh more. A criticism of the more advanced mother-doubt literature is the harsh and earnest assault such women levy on themselves. While it is illuminating to read a mother describe her anger and frustration at the isolation of parenting an infant and to hear a man adopt a similar voice, there is also a great deal of humor in parenting that goes along with the embarrassment and frustration. Despite the lack of giggles, I applaud the authors for staring into the eyes of the beast without blinking.

In short, Rad Dad raises the bar for fathers – a challenge that men today are ready to assume.  I’ll conclude with a personal story.  When my first daughter was an infant, I was a stay-at-home dad two days per week.  However, I frequently worked from home.  One day, in fact, I had to present to a group of professionals on a project I’d been tasked to lead.  The lawyers, judges, and non-profit educators I presented to were professionals with a no-nonsense approach to their work. I led the 30-minute presentation with my daughter tightly wrapped against my body in a sling, and she intermittently napped and chewed the corner of her book to a rounded nub. It’s eight years later today and the attendees at that presentation still comment what an “amazing dad” I was to have delivered that presentation while also attending to her needs.  While I originally absorbed that praise with aplomb, I’ve more recently come to realize the hypocrisy. A dad who brings his daughter to work is a hero while a mom might have been questioned about her priorities. Because the bar of success for fathers is set so low it’s easy for many men to step right over without much effort.  The Rad Dad authors claim (and I agree) that men today are ready to meet challenges that aren’t being presented.  After reading Rad Dad, you might feel compelled to help raise that bar yourself.

Jeffrey T. Cookston, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at San Francisco State University and the coordinator of the Developmental Psychology graduate program.  When he’s not researching father involvement, he is husband to one, father to two, son to four, and a barrel of monkeys. Follow him on Twitter @jtcookston.

 

my vote is for the james spaders

We have the best neighbors in the world.

They are giving us a free piano. A family heirloom. And they say we will be doing them a favor to take it off their hands!

Can't you see the DooDoo-TuTus totally rocking out on this?

As if that’s not enough, I made a deal with my Big Girl that if she keeps practicing her guitar this fall then she can take advantage of their other offer: a hand-me-down hot pink electric guitar. In my house, this is the equivalent of getting a pony. A dream come true for my child, who has planned her rock star career ever since seeing Jack Black on Yo Gabba Gabba at the ripe old age of three.

So naturally, since none of us can really play an instrument (yet) and since we get off more on the conceptual (rather than actual details and hard work) in my house, we got right to work planning the most important part of our impending family band: The Name.

Here are the finalists for our band name. Skills and practice be damned. Next we’ll design the t-shirts. Then maybe we’ll get around to making actual music. Try to guess which members of our household came up with which names:

The Golden Cookstons

The Surly Risers

Cookston Rockers

Mommy Is So Crazy

Hotplay

The James Spaders

DooDoo-TuTu

Money Man

Old Spiller

Bourbon with Silly Staws

The Tupperware with Nothing in it Except a Butterfly

Led Zepplin

shorties at burning man: don’t be a playa hater

Note from, well, me: This guest blog post was written by some good friends of mine who are seasoned Burners (see #5 here for clarification). They wish to remain anonymous, thereby sidestepping the glittery, psilocybin-infused wrath of thousands of dirt-encrusted furry-leopard-bikini-wearing fellow Burners. It is not necessarily the opinion of this here Burner Virgin. Thank you and happy reading…

one of the least-naked photos I could find that didn't violate copyright.

With the sellout of tickets this year and recent articles in major magazines and newspapers, there is no doubt that Burning Man now receives mainstream attention. Many parents out there would love to go but have the dilemma of whether or not to bring their kids along, perhaps because they are open-minded and want to share their life experiences with the whole family, or simply because they have no one to leave their kids with. After all, there is a family-friendly place called KidsVille, and several positive and encouraging testimonials from parents who have brought their kids to the playa. Last year there was a 14 year-old girl tossing fire at one of the big dance clubs, and her friend said it was her seventh burn!

For those of you who are so inclined or are considering bringing along your evolved teenager, your fun-loving tweener, or even your infant who will just hang in your sling the whole time you are there, we would love to share some dissenting opinions we have gathered from seasoned burners, all of whom are parents themselves. And, in a nutshell, why you may not want to bring your kids to Burning Man.

* You never know what you will see. As adults, we can see crazy, unexplainable, things and parse that through our brains, either making sense of it or not; but either way, we’re not going to be traumatized. Kids can’t do that. At a certain age, things are hard to explain.

* Do they have to have the experience at a young age? Why expose the kids now to the mesmerizing world that is Burning Man when there are still so many other things in their lives that provide that exhilaration? Kids still get excited by school carnivals, trick-or-treating, and even simple displays of fireworks. Burning Man is one of the few environments that can still amaze and cause glee in adults. Why expose the kids to that so early?

* Burning Man can be an escape, a bonding, a reconnecting or recalibrating experience for parents. The playa is a place where parents can feel like they are on a different planet than their kids, they don’t have to talk to them every day, or wish they were there with them. Having a complete break once a year makes for better parents the rest of the time.

* Adults at Burning Man, whether they are parents or not, don’t really want your kids there. Whether you should consider that or even care, it is hard to deny that if everyone started bringing their kids, Burning Man in its current amazing form would no longer exist.

* There is a lot of hard partying, drinking and drugs at Burning Man. While most people are having a normal, hard-charging, maybe not-so-innocent good time, there are many people who are clearly not in good shape and even look a bit disturbing. Do you want your kids to be surrounded by that for a week?

* There are very few kids at Burning Man. That should tell you something. It also means it will be less fun for your kids.

* Do you really want the parental responsibility while you are at Burning Man?

– The vast array of astounding artwork that you see at Burning Man unfortunately does not come with operating instructions and is definitely not childproofed. Therefore, if you interact with any of it, you do it AT YOUR OWN RISK. Do you really want to do this with your children?

– The Playa is not a kid-friendly environment! Kids will be sleep-deprived, dehydrated, and uncomfortable (heat/cold/wind/dust).

– You would have to disrupt your party schedule in order to tuck them in at night and also be moderately functional in the morning.

– It is sometimes hard enough to keep track of each other, much less your little munchkins, especially in a dust storm!

– The portapotties. The dust. The whining because they can’t sleep. Or the recurring thought that you should have brought them somewhere else instead.

* And some just for laughs…

– They don’t play Taylor Swift at Opulent Temple.

– Kids are more flammable

– Kids aren’t allowed to play with fire.

– Shots just aren’t the same with a sippy cup.

– Really? You paid $600 bucks for your kid to go to Burning Man?!?

mom camp redux

Every summer I write an article about the economical and emotional joys of Mom Camp.

Mom Camp (with a smattering of Dad Camp) is what my family does when school lets out for the summer. Instead of sending our kids to a bunch of (admittedly awesome) day camps around the City, my husband and I keep them with us and switch off childcare with friends and each other.

I work from home most of the time. My spouse teaches summer school at the University. We have flexible schedules and Mom Camp saves us some cash money in our pockets.

Mom Camp has its share of awesomeness. We run around San Francisco like tourists, see movies, go to the beach (in the fog, yes) eat junk food, and sometimes take field trips to sunnier parts of the Bay Area.

But so far this year, I’m in a Mom Camp slump. It’s partially the weather. SF summers always give me the blues. While the rest of the country posts on Facebook about running through the sprinklers and flitting about in tube tops, I pull on my flannel jammies and turn the thermostat up.

It’s partially that my Mom Camp comrades (other parents who make the same choice) are already taking off for places like Canada and London (where they are from) to see their families. So I’m already missing my Mom Camp team of camp counselors.

But honest truth is that my little darlings are making me nuts. This is one of those parent-guilt moments that I’m just gonna full-on own. I love my kids but sometimes I need a freaking break.

My sweet babies are fighting all the time. They are obsessed with TV and computers. They go all Sam Kinison on me when I tear their little over-stimulated eyeballs away from a screen. But my workload is greater than ever and I have to get it done during the day. I have to get it done during the day because I actually enjoy hanging out with my husband at night. And I actually enjoy sleep.

Most of the time I love working from home and I brag about how lucky we are to have such a groovy, family-friendly schedule. But for the past few days I’ve found myself fantasizing about getting up and going to an office every day.

Now, I hate it when I write only to complain or bitch. So I want to give this story a happy ending. I want to share the silver lining of Mom Camp completely kicking my ass this year. Even if it means forcing ten pounds of potatoes into a five pound bag.

So here it is. Here is my twisting and cramming and forcing my Mom Camp angst into my typical little happy go-lucky-girl spin:

I’ve been researching day camps. And there are openings.

goin’ back to cali.

California public education that is. I haven’t railed on this subject in a while, but the time has come once more for the good people of California who give a hoot about our future to take action.

Tuesday, May 24 = Wake Up California, a state-wide, multi-city day of action in support of K-12 public education in California.

I’ll personally be hanging out at the corner of Castro and Market from 7:30-9:30am, handing out free coffees, getting folks to sign postcards, and making a general ruckus in favor of funding education. Fully. Without apology. I hope you will join me!

There will be other San Francisco locations: Mission at 24th; Van Ness at McAllister. All fully stocked with caffeine, information, and sign-waving people who care about education.

All the cool people will be there. Cool people like you, right?

Only in San Francisco Parenting Moments Part 2: The Prop 19 Version

Thanks for all of the positive feedback on my recent list of “only in San Francisco” parenting moments. Read on for a few more.

Teens openly smoke blunts on the steps of Chase Bank in the family-friendly West Portal neighborhood. Not thugs, mind you. These kids look like they came over from the nearby Quaker high school.

Your kids have a screaming fight over which fancy, high-end gourmet ice cream is the best: Mitchell’s purple yam or Bi-Rite’s salted caramel.

One of your daughter’s best friends is a little boy hat model who was “discovered” while walking on (the obscenely mustachioed and Pabst Blue Ribbon-laden) Valencia Street.

The Girl Scout Cookie business plan involves selling cookies in front of the medical marijuana clinic.

The family spends a beautiful sunny day playing cricket with British ex-pat friends on Crissy Field in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge.

A beautiful sunny day is generally around 62 degrees.

A preschooler buddy on a playdate marvels at “that funny seat” that she must ride in when in your car–because her family doesn’t own an actual automobile and only takes public transportation.

You have to duck out early from the free bluegrass festival because the pot-smoking 60-year-olds try to munch on your kids’ goldfish.

When you say the word “manny,” as in man-nanny, people instantly know what you mean, with no further explanation.

You play the following games with your children to pass the time while roaming around town: Is it art or graffiti? Is he hipster or homeless?

Your neighbor on one side is an ex-Irish marine who runs a Mexican food restaurant near the ballpark and chases down partying hooligans with a bb gun.

Participation in the Bay to Breakers race involves a quickie lesson in the City’s legal accepted amount of public nudity.

Only in San Francisco…Unless you can tell me otherwise.

Feeling Sort of Left Coasty

Keep in mind that I’m originally from West Texas, so I often come across these Only-In-San Francisco parenting moments. They always amuse me, and I’ve been collecting quite a few lately.

Only in San Francisco…

The PTA volunteers nearly come to blows over the proper placement of the drag queen on the school carnival posters. (More on this later. I promise.)

There is a drag queen featured as a premiere attraction at the school carnival. (Again, to be continued.)

You get serenaded on your birthday by two cool dad friends who play jazz improv on the piano and violin in the school cafeteria every Tuesday morning.

You are concerned at the playground, not because the crazy man who keeps talking to you has glitter all over his face from last night’s party, but because he might run off with Daddy’s basketball.

We get to take our kids out of school early due to “Orange Fever” (the Giants World Series Parade) and not get counted officially absent.

Chinese New Year is a public school holiday.

Families that pay $2500 a month in rent are considered middle-class and people ask them how they found their bargain home.

You decline an invitation to a birthday party because it is in the Marina and you haven’t set foot in the Marina since 1993 and damn well aren’t about to start now.

You attend a “zero-waste” birthday party, hosted by two dads who drive an old Mercedes fueled by recycled cooking oil.

Another school-parent-volunteer feud centers on the degree and quality of the organic mulch in the school garden.

A child on a playdate tells your child she is gross because she eats meat and your child thoughtfully explains that the meat she eats is local and has been treated well.

Your child builds, out of legos, a “hot tub for hairy men who like to go there after work.” (I honestly have no idea where this came from, by the way.)

The Macy’s Santa Claus gets fired for telling an off-color joke and is immediately hired by Lefty O’Doul’s (a bar), and lines of families stretch around the block.

Your Big Girl loves to tell the story of “Remember that time we ate McDonalds? And it was so nasty? And it made us all act mean to each other?”

Only in San Francisco….Okay, and maybe Portland.

big heads. big fun.

All of these SFUSD furlough days, and Chinese New Year holidays, and teacher workdays, and other school-cancellation-related events are starting to make me feel like I home-school.

Not to worry, Big Girl and I put on our best nerd hats and celebrated this sunny San Francisco no-school day by visiting the Olmec exhibit at the deYoung. And, dang, those Olmecs made some big heads. It reinforced my pretend home-schooling thing for us to take a field trip.

We marveled at the 24-ton heads. And we were utterly enraptured by a documentary screening that speculated how the pre-Columbian Olmecs possibly transported these gargantuan objects through jungles and rivers.

So much fun to herd the nerd. 

We’re Keepin’ the Sunny Side Up

So here’s something that’s keeping me awake at night with jitters and excitement. My friend, April, and I are starting a new zine called Sunny Side Up: Notes from the Home Skillet. In case you are not familiar, a zine is a sort of home-grown, indie magazine thing. Usually printed on a copier. (And we’ll have a website too.)



<———-This is the cool logo my friend designed. Isn’t it great?

 

More good stuff to come.