Professor Puppy

My husband, teenage daughter and I are the proud owners of a new puppy. Zydeco Royale, named in honor of NOLA, our favorite city, joined the family at the beginning of April. In two short months, he's dug up our garden, chewed through the cable TV cords and completely, thoroughly, irreversibly won our hearts.

Zydo is mischievous, mouthy and perpetually hungry. (When we brought our first miniature dachshund to the veterinarian many moons ago, he warned us, "If a dachshund won't eat, death is imminent.") Truly, anyone who saw Zydeco inhale his kibble would think we were starving him.

Trust me, we're not.

As a breed, dachshunds are notoriously stubborn. With advice from our friends at the MSPCA as well as our current vet, we signed Zydo up for obedience school. (Have you ever heard a dachshund laugh?) It began this past Tuesday evening. Neither husband nor daughter could get to the doggie daycare center two towns away in time, so I headed off alone. The first class was just for owners (or "handlers" as we were officially called). We bring the canines next week.

Over the course of two hours, I learned just how many things we were already doing wrong:

- Rewarding bad behavior
- Giving him attention for the wrong reasons
- Letting the little guy pull on the leash 
- Letting him chew on our fingers and pants legs (not at the same time though)
- Plying him with too many treats
- Spoiling him with too many toys
- Saying "No" without the right inflection
- Saying "No" when we should be saying "Off," "Down," or "Gone"

"Oh crap," I thought, as I furiously took notes. "This is going to be harder than I thought." And, I wondered "How can I rework everyone's schedules so my daughter can take this over?"

To be fair, she was disappointed when the puppy class conflicted with a weekly lesson she teaches to a younger equestrienne. And if the time and effort she's put into training our other pet (the thousand-pound one) is any indication, I think my daughter would do a bang-up job with the pup. 

If she can quit kissing and hugging him long enough.

On the way home, I thought about all the lessons little Zydo had in front of him. Then, I realized that he may be in the position to teach us a few lessons too. Like ...

- Be friendly; you never know when you'll meet a new playmate
- When you're happy, don't hold it in; run, jump and wag your tail
- Appreciate your food; clean your plate (lick it later if no one's looking)
- Naps are good
- So is a nice stretch
- So is cuddling, kissing and belly rubs
- Material possessions are meant to be chewed ... er, I mean, enjoyed

My daughter (and all the other self-absorbed, sometimes sullen, seventeen-year-olds) could probably learn a thing or two about optimism, seizing the moment and savoring it. Of course, she doesn't need any convincing on the nap front. Naps, she would agree, our good.

In the coming weeks, Zydo will learn to "Sit," "Stay," and "Come Here Now." 

But, I hope he'll also — stubbornly — stay as loving and joyful as he's been since the day we brought him home. You see, we can all take a lesson.

If you enjoyed this post, I invite you to order a copy of my book  Lovin' the Alien at www.lovinthealien.com. 

Mom-ents of Truth

The other day, I caught up with an old colleague. We compared notes about the latest marketing trends and quickly moved into more personal territory. The last time we shared an office, our children (three total, his two and my one) were very little. Today, mine is wrapping up her second year of high school and his oldest has just finished college.

Like every conversation I have with parents these days, we were soon bemoaning the pressure we're all under (moms, dads and offspring alike). His take was a little different from mine. He seemed to put a lot of the blame on mothers.

Say what?!

That's right. Today's moms (he specifically said "moms") are helicopter parents. We enable our kids; we don't want them to feel any pain. Because of us, they are not resilient enough.

I see his point, but I don't think it's just moms. In certain socioeconomic groups (upper middle class), I think it's all parents. He may just notice it more with moms because, by and large, moms still do most of the hands-on childrearing.

Of course, this discussion led me to some soul-searching. Am I one of those moms? After this past weekend, I'm afraid I qualify as such. 

In a big way. 

To my daughter's credit, she has had a lot on her plate lately. The fourth and final (Wahoo!) quarter of sophomore year is wrapping up. So, there have been projects and essays, debates and quizzes, last minute reading assignments and ... of course ... finals. Her first test (a tough one), as well as a portfolio presentation for her photography elective, took place Friday.

She had also offered to help her riding instructor by making a slideshow about the stable for a fundraiser. The woman needed it Saturday, and — whether by necessity or not; we'll have to agree to disagree — my daughter started it Friday night. She pulled still photos and video clips together and edited the project in iMovie. Then, she finally (it was quite late) went to bed while the file "exported."

Rousing my overtired teen Saturday morning is never easy or particularly pleasant. It turned into a downright disaster when she realized that the file had crashed overnight and she needed to start over.

Here's a little math for you. She had to leave for the stable (she works there on the weekends) in twenty minutes. But, rebuilding the iMovie file would take about two hours. The solution to this equation? Drama and despair!

"Why did you wait until the last minute?" I asked her.

"It's not my fault!" she protested.

"Well, it's certainly not mine!" I protested back.

Wrong. Apparently it was indeed my fault (as so very much is) because her computer isn't good enough and who gave her the computer? Me. After much ranting and raving (and raging), I took things under control and declared that we would leave ... NOW ... for the stable and her job. Then, I would return home (no Zumba this morning, I guess), build the slideshow, and then drive it to the stable. She pouted most of the way there and left the car without much of a "good-bye." As planned, I drove back home and spent about an hour or so, building a new slideshow in iPhoto as well as locating, saving and exporting the one she had done in iMovie, as well as creating a separate file of photo jpegs, so that the instructor could create something herself if the other two solutions didn't work on her system.

After twenty-plus years giving presentations at conferences, I'm all about audio-visual redundancy and plan Bs.

I loaded the files onto a CD and drove it to my daughter's instructor's house; she had it in plenty of time for her event. I was the hero of the day (in my eyes at least). But, I know (and knew then too) that I had missed a teachable moment.

Or what I think of as a mom-ent of truth.

In hindsight, what I should have done is this. I should have given her a simple choice. She could (a) call the stable owner, explain that her slideshow project for the instructor was delayed and that she would be a couple of hours late for work. Or she could (b) call the instructor, explain that she had overcommitted and that she wouldn't be able to deliver as promised. In either case, she could say she was sorry (she truly was). She made a mistake (she really did). And she would think twice the next time.

I should've done that. But, I didn't. And consequently, if the current wave of critics is correct, my daughter will not grow up to be independent or responsible. I have made her life too easy.

But wait a minute, please. That's not why I did it. 

I did it, quite simply, because I could. There were commitments made and tasks to perform, and given the deadlines and available resources, it made sense for me to do exactly what I did. This was not so much the work of an overindulgent mother, as that of a skilled project manager.

When I see things that need to get done, I get them done. That's who I am. That's what I do. And whether I spoil my daughter or not (I do), and whether I missed an opportunity to teach her an important life lesson (I did), I like to think that I'm also setting a really good example.

There are worse things she could grow up to be than a person who follows through.

If you enjoyed this post, I invite you to order a copy of my new book Lovin' the Alien at www.lovinthealien.com. 

A Very Brady Tribute: Part Two

Prime Time Life Lessons or All I Ever Needed To Know I Learned From The Bradys

In my earlier post, marking the passing of beloved sitcom creator Sherwood Schwartz, I spoke about why The Brady Bunch has stood the test of time so well.

Forty years ago, Sherwood Schwartz and his team were addressing the evolving nature of the American Household. It was a reassuring message in a changing time: where there's love, there's family.

The Bradys are often held up as impossibly idealized and yet they were a patchwork of steps: stepmom, stepdad, stepbrothers, stepsisters. And, while the 30-minute episodes all had happy endings, the characters were not perfect. They had their share of petty jealousies, major rivalries and — yes, even filial disobedience. Of course, Mike and Carol were always loving and wise, despite some rather poor choices made by the tween and teen Bradys. I certainly don't remember seeing them COMPLETELY LOSE IT as I have been known to do ... oh, once or twice (all right, maybe a few more times than that). The Bradys are something to aspire to.

And, more importantly, The Brady Bunch offers us life lessons that could rival anything you might hear from his holiness the Dalai Lama.

Here are just some of the things it taught (and can still teach) us ...

There's Sex After Marriage

The Brady Bunch broke new ground when it put the parents in ... gasp ... the same bed. If you remember, Lucy and Ricky slept in matching twins, like school roommates, with a chaste gap of a few feet between them. (Of course, one of the Ricardos must have crossed over or we wouldn't have met Little Ricky in season two.) Not only was Schwartz's series one of the first to show a husband and wife sleeping together, but many episodes ended with Mike reaching for his lovely bride in a manner that suggested that sleeping wasn't the only thing going on.

I figure that if Mr. and Mrs. Brady can still get frisky with six kids, a dog, a cat, a housekeeper, a station wagon and an astroturf lawn, I can put a little more effort into my own romantic life in a much less complicated household. Maybe I should invest in one of those little peignoir sets Carol was always wearing?

You Can't Change a Person

Alice loved Sam. And, arguably, Sam loved Alice. But, when the housekeeper tried to get her butcher to go to a Brady school performance instead of his bowling league ... well, let's just say it was "love's labor lost" — their love clearly knew some bounds.

Women (and many of my friends, in particular) think they can fall in love with one part of a man — his dashing looks, say, or his rakish humor — and then, over time, change whatever falls short. Take a lesson from Alice, ladies. If he's a slob when you're dating, he'll be a slob when you're married. If he drinks too many brewskies while you're getting to know him, he'll continue to do so when your relationship is old hat. Once a workaholic, always a workaholic. You get the idea.

However, if you are truly smitten, you can always try and embrace his interests. Alice, after all, went on a very romantic — if widely misinterpreted — bowling date in episode 12 of the final season, "The Elopement."

To Thine Own Self Be True

Forget Shakespeare's Polonius! To see the wisdom of this life lesson, look no further than Jan and Peter. In "Will the Real Jan Brady Please Stand Up?," Jan, forever lost in the shadows between teen dream Marcia and baby girl Cindy, tries to make her mark. She dons a rather ridiculous curly black wig. With the help of some sympathetic friends, however, she realizes that natural blondes really do have more fun.

Peter, meanwhile, tries to create his own unique identity when he fears he has 'no personality.' His attempts include a battery of lame jokes and a comical impersonation of Humphrey Bogart. The episode, "The Personality Kid," gave us one of the series' most famous and incessantly repeated lines, "Porkchops and apple sauce, ain't that swell?"

The moral from the middle children? Be yourself. As Mike and Carol would say, "Figure out what you do best, then do your best at it."

Girls Can Do Anything Boys Can Do

At first glance, The Brady Bunch might not seem like a feminist program. After all, happy housewife Carol doesn't seem to have much ambition beyond getting all six bag lunches into the hands of the right Bradys before school each morning. And, in rewatching the series now as a 21st-century middle-aged mom, I do find myself cringing at times when Mike holds court. He is clearly the head of the household and it often feels as though he has two handmaids the way that both Mrs. Brady and Alice fawn over him.

Nevertheless, the Brady kids prove time and again that girls can do anything boys can do. In "The Liberation of Marcia Brady," the oldest Brady daughter becomes the first female to join the Frontier Scouts while poor Peter has to sell Sunflower Girl cookies door-to-door. Girl vs. boy competitions were a theme throughout the show's five seasons, mirroring real-life political and cultural movements. And Mike, albeit flanked by his two sometimes subservient women, always reinforced that, amongst the Brady children at least, there was gender equality. Hear, hear!

Nothing Beats a Family Vacation!

This is one message that I like reinforce with my own daughter and there are several Brady episodes that help me underscore the point. Yes, weekends with BFFs are fun and horseback riding camp is absolutely an essential part of the summer. But, really, nothing beats a good old-fashioned family vacation.

Where else could you be locked up in a ghost town jail by a delusional gold rush prospector (who sounds remarkably like Thurston Howell III)? Or, discover a taboo tiki that needs to be returned to an ancient Hawaiian burial ground? Or, meet a genuine Indian? (Remember, this was the early seventies; we didn't use the term 'Native American' yet and the episode, I'm sorry to say, was called "The Brady Braves.")

The point is, the Bradys taught us nothing so much as that family comes first. Perhaps this is why so many parents as well as kids still love the show. From the Grand Canyon to Honolulu to Westdale High, it was always the Bradys against the world.

My money's still on the Bradys. R.I.P. Mr. Schwartz.