Chips Ahoy, Kids

When my now teen daughter was little, we often took "discovery walks" around our historic town. We played a version of "I Spy" and found all sorts of things. Sometimes, we would spot a sad, hand-made sign alerting us to the fact that someone's beloved dog or cat was lost.

Missing: Fluffy Poo-Kitty

White Persian with Blue Eyes

Last Seen on Clifton Street

Reward Offered

This would, of course, seem like a tragedy to my daughter and I would reassure her that chances were, Fluffy Poo-Kitty was either on an exciting adventure with her feline friends or more likely already safe and sound at home again.

(I think I've already made my position on stretching the absolute truth clear in a previous post.)

About this time, my ad agency did some creative work for a chain of veterinary clinics. Did you know that one of the most profitable products they can sell their patients' families is microchipping? This simple process involves inserting a minuscule microchip under the dog or cat's skin. If the animal is found by the police, it can be traced back to its owners. Happy ending all around.

Well, teenagers are neither dogs nor cats, my friends. And, I was disturbed to read about a program currently being implemented in Texas, called the "Student Locator Project." No, kids are not being surgically microchipped (at least not yet), but they are being forced to wear new student ID's that have RFID, radio-frequency identification, devices built-in. This technology will track the location of each student. Like a GPS system or a homing missile.

Yikes!

Apparently, the state has an enormous truancy problem. Also (apparently), the state has been less than successful dealing with said problem. So instead of cracking down on the offenders, they are now planning to track all students, all the time. In some schools, students who select not to wear the new devices are not allowed to vote for Prom King and Queen. In others, they are being threatened with expulsion.

I repeat ... Yikes!

Many students, parents and community leaders have issues with this new policy — and for good reason. Isn't 1984 required reading anymore? Sure, Lindsay Lohan had to wear a tracking device. But only after she broke the law multiple times. Whatever happened to privacy? Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

My daughter came home from her first week of high school, astounded by the lack of supervision. "It would be so easy to ditch!" she told me. After two years of virtual lock-down in middle school, the freedom was intoxicating. However, she isn't cutting classes. She and her peers are young adults and they are choosing to pursue their education. Besides, I believe that if their goal really was to skip school, no newfangled "smart chip" ID would hold them back. Meanwhile, they are being treated with respect and afforded the same degree of privacy and free will that this country guarantees its law-abiding citizens.

Okay, so if individuals' rights are not your concern, let's consider the logistics for a minute. The policy means providing hundreds of thousands of students with state-of-the-art technology. In the San Antonio school district alone, the program is anticipated to cost $526,065 the first year and another $136,005 per year thereafter. You can't tell me that there aren't better uses for these funds.

Here's an idea. What if that money was invested in enrichment or counseling programs for at-risk students — y'know, the same students who end up truants. Wouldn't the results be better all around?

Yesterday afternoon, my daughter went to the movies with some friends and afterwards hung out with them, at another girl's house and then at a frozen yogurt place. She "forgot" to call and tell me. As much as I would like to know where she is at any given time, I'm not going to put a GPS tracker on her mobile phone. And, the last time I checked, microchipping a human being is still the stuff of science fiction. My daughter is not my property. Those teenagers in Texas are not the property of the state.

High school should be a place where you get to practice being a responsible citizen. Not where you are treated like a convicted criminal.

Pass the (Microwave) Popcorn: Glee!

My teen daughter and I are loyal "gleeks." Unlike many critics and fans alike, we have stayed with the show through unnecessary celebrity guests, forced theme episodes and preachy story lines that taught important lessons at the price of entertainment. Let's see, we've learned about teen pregnancy, gay rights, OCD, bullying, mental and physical disabilities, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, teen suicide and not texting while driving (those last two in the same 60-minute show!). Yes, these are important topics. Yes, Glee! is a big popular forum. But, sometimes you just want to enjoy the ups and downs of the characters.

That's what we got this week. Emphasis on the downs rather than ups, I'm afraid. But, it felt like the old Glee! with less gimmicks and more heart.

This is where I warn you that there are spoilers ahead ...

Guys, there are spoilers ahead.

If you haven't seen "The Break-up," and you're planning to (which, btw, my daughter and I both recommend), stop reading. Go to your cable TV's video on demand or online after October 12th, and watch it. Then, come back and read this post.

Fox had promoted this episode heavily. "The Break-Up" promised to revolve around the show's main couples each of whom has merged into a short-hand combo-name: Finn + Rachel = Finchel; Kurt + Blaine = Klaine; Brittany + Santana = Brittana; Will+ Emma = Wemma. "Who will break-up?" the teasers prompted, promising that not all of the relationships would survive in tact.

But, we also assumed that some of the couples would stay together.

The biggest challenge the wildly successful show's creators had this year was to keep us hooked with most of the glee club's members graduating and making their way in the world.  This is often the death knell for shows about high school students. I mean, how long could the sweat hogs really welcome back Mr. Kotter? Two of Glee!'s main characters (and arguably two of its most talented performers) moved to New York. Rachel is studying at the fictitious NYADA, New York Academy of Dramatic Arts, where faculty include a shamanic Whoopi Goldberg and satanic Kate Hudson. Kurt has taken his porcelain features to vogue.com, where (not to be outdone by his former rival, now friend), he is being mentored by Sarah Jessica Parker.

Somehow, the scenes at NYADA, at vogue.com and in their amazing loft work. They don't feel separate from life at McKinley High. They feel like a very natural extension of the talented oddballs we watched grow up.

A quick aside from a native New Yorker though ... I don't care how sketchy the neighborhood is, there is simply no way that two broke student/interns could possible afford that loft. No way. No how. Okay, I'm done.

So, in "The Break-Up," Finn arrives in the city after a brief stint in the army and four months of radio silence. Shortly thereafter, Blaine arrives as well. Although both couples are still in love, they are in different places. Finn doesn't belong in New York with Rachel. Blaine can't handle the long distance between him and Kurt. The acting (and singing — this is Glee! after all) was heartbreaking. And the plot was sadly realistic. How many high school sweethearts actually weather life in the real world? Not too many anymore.

Meanwhile, Santana broke up with Brittany as gently as she could. Through song, naturally. And, Emma decided to let Will go off to Washington while respecting her own mission by not accompanying him. The episode ended with all eight characters onstage as they face their now single futures.

My daughter and I rarely watch TV together anymore. In fact, I can count the shows we share on one hand (and still have more than half the fingers left over). So, while I am very sorry for our favorite characters — I confess I teared up more than once the other night — I'm still very grateful for Glee! 

The iPhone 5: A Tale of Two Mothers

Liberté, égalité, technologé. My daughter is now the smug owner of a shiny new iPhone 5. But, the road to her new mobile device was not smooth. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." And — at times — I wondered whether she had one mother or two. Apparently, I am a veritable Dr. Jekyll and Mama Hyde.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself (and alluding to too many classic novels).

A few months ago, my daughter started having issues with her iPhone 3G. First the home button started sticking. Then, the touchscreen stopped responding. She could still use the phone if she called herself from another number to unlock it. (Yeah, that was convenient ... not!) Finally, there was the calamitous incident at the stable involving slippery fingers and a bucket of water. Bottom line, even her awkward work-arounds stopped working.

She needed a new phone. Stat.

We did what any modern family would do in such dire circumstances. We made an appointment at the Apple Store Genius Bar. As we expected, the phone was toast. However, after more than two years with it, she qualified for an upgrade. She could fix the phone for $100, get a new 3G for $100 or upgrade to a 4S for $199. My mother, who was visiting, offered to purchase the better phone for my daughter's birthday. So, it seemed as if everything would be fine. N'est-ce pas?

Mais non! You see, rumor had it that Apple was getting ready to announce the release of the iPhone 5. So, I offered my daughter a difficult decision. She could get the 4S now or the 5 in about six weeks. She made a surprisingly mature choice: she would wait.

And this is where my split personality comes in:

Good Mom: On the fateful day decreed by the house that Jobs built, I got up at 5:00 am to pre-order her phone.

Bad Mom: Apparently 20 million people stayed up until 12:00 am the night before to pre-order theirs. The iPhone 5 was — gasp! — sold out! We would have to wait two whole weeks. Mon dieu!

Good Mom: I tracked the package from ZhengZhou, China to Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong, to Anchorage, Alaska, to Louisville, Kentucky, to Chelmsford, Manchester, Lynnfield and ...

Bad Mom: I went to yoga and, of course, the UPS guy showed up while I was out. Of course.

Good Mom: I went online to UPS.com and live chatted with some faceless person, begging for a solution that wouldn't mean waiting another day. They said I could pick it up at the UPS center several towns away at 9 pm.

Bad Mom: I thought, "No way." (Actually, I'm not only a bad mom; I'm a profane one. My word-for-word thought was, shall we say, a little more colorful.)

Good Mom: I pushed back. "Isn't the driver still in town? Can't he make another delivery? Can I meet him somewhere? Anywhere?" Success! 

Bad Mom: My daughter raced home after school. "Is my phone here???" "No."

Good Mom: "BUT, we're meeting the UPS guy at 4:30 and you'll have it then!"

Bad Mom: Despite my daughter's incomparable iPhone IQ, she couldn't get the new phone to work. (How this is my fault is beyond me, but ...)

Good Mom: I went online and live chatted with AT&T.

Bad Mom: After about 30 minutes of diagnostics, it appeared that the phone was damaged in transit. (Again, and this is my fault how?)

Good Mom: It was 6:30, homework was done, my client calls had ended. "Get your shoes," I told my daughter, "We're going to the Apple Store."

"Really?" Really.

Our experience was, as always, very positive. A wonderful genius named Max took care of us. When he determined that the Nano Sim card was damaged (yes, I actually know what that means now), he walked with us down to another part of the mall and the AT&T store. After a brief wait, the card was replaced and — VOILA! — my daughter was with phone once more.

And, the beauty of all of this was that she APPRECIATED me. She THANKED me. She SMILED at me. She even asked Siri "Who is the best mother in the world?"

Siri, in her typical humorless fashion, responded, "Would you like me to search the web for 'Who is the best mother in the world?'" Uh ... never mind.

We had a quick, late dinner at a Mexican place and called it a night.

So, you would think that yours truly, after my epic niceness, would still be in favor? Alas, mes amis, non.

Bad Mom: After allowing my daughter virtually unlimited time on her new phone, I finally insisted that she shower, read a little and go to bed. The drama was over. And what a roller coaster it had been. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

She would rise to another melodramatic day of school, equipped — at last — with her revolutionary new phone. Vive la 5!

Teens Are People Too

Here's a quick question. What do you think of when you hear these nonsensical lyrics? "Wacka-doo, wacka-doo, wacka-doo." If you were a youngster in one of Metromedia's five markets in the 60s or 70s, you probably remember Bob McAllister singing "Kids Are People Too." The show was Wonderama and it was on every Sunday morning.

My dad had contacts on the Wonderama crew, so my sister and I were on the show twice. (My mother and little brother, who were waiting in the green room with other parents, were also chosen to be on the show.) One year, my sister and I competed in a "Name that Tune" sort of game. They played a snippet of music or a sound effect and we had to run down the length of the studio, grab a balloon, run back, pop it by sitting on it and announce the name of the sound or song. The one that I had was "Like a Yo-Yo" by the Osmonds. Since the only music my family listened to was showtunes and opera, I didn't recognize it. But, I still won a prize. I think it was a Talking Viewmaster Gift Pack. Or maybe it was a Super Spirograph. Cool!

The games changed each week. Sometimes there were guest stars. But, there was one thing you could count on. At the end of every episode, McAllister sang that song again.

"We may be young and not full-grown,

But we've got problems of our own.
Kids are people too.
Wacka-doo, wacka-doo, wacka-doo."

Very empowering song. You see, society needed that reminder back then; the world didn't revolve around kids quite like it does today. We wore what our parents bought for us. We did what our teachers told us to do. We weren't "wired." We didn't have millions of dollars of marketing being spent to lure us to specific mall stores, websites or movie premieres. Well, not as many millions at any rate.

Today's kids — and especially, today's teens — don't question whether or not they're "people too." They may feel victimized or marginalized at times, but they are not lacking in their sense of self. Or self-righteous entitlement. As parents we bend over backwards to give them whatever they need. (And, believe you me, the line between need and want is rather fuzzy at best.) My teen daughter and her friends are aware of the world; they're opinionated and outspoken. They believe they have the right to protest. And ... they do. Mainly to their loving mothers.

The schedule in my two-career household doesn't revolve around my husband's business trips or my clients' deadlines. It is driven by my daughter's riding lessons, homework and media preferences.

You may think that my husband and I are particularly challenged when it comes to establishing and maintaining authority. You'd be right. But, the situation is the same in the homes of pretty much all of our peers. We are all exhausted all the time and none of us has even the slightest illusion that we are in charge. 

So, for all my friends who remember Wonderama — and find themselves constantly wondering at all the drama —  I'd like to offer this little rewrite:


"We may be old and going grey 
We're just so stressed out every day,
Parents are people too.
Wacka-doo, wacka-doo, wacka-doo.
We'd be in such a better mood,
If you could ditch that attitude.
Parents are people too. 
Wacka-doo, wacka-doo, wacka-doo.
It isn't easy going all day ...
Driving you and your peeps to the games that you play
Helping with homework, carpooling at school
And trying so hard not to lose our cool.
And so we hope you'll cut us some slack
Please oh please stop talking back,
Parents are people,
Parents are people,
Parents are people too.
We're really really people too."

Let Sleeping Daughters Lie

Today is Yom Kippur. It's the holiest day of the year for my Jewish friends. It's also a day of atonement. Well, in the great karmic universe (or at least in my house), I must have a lot to atone for. Fasting would be a picnic compared to what I'm dealing with.

In recognition of the holiday, there's no school, so my daughter slept in. I opened the door a couple of times (to drop off clean laundry, not to spy on her or invade her space). She was asleep in the jeans and sweater she wore yesterday. She was lying on top of her comforter and under a small quilt that usually stays at the foot of her bed. Her abandoned book was beside her.

Apparently my letting her stay up late to read meant that she got to forego all civilized bedtime niceties. No soft pajamas, no snuggling under the sheets and covers. Most likely, no face washing or teeth brushing. (I didn't ask, because (a) I'd really rather not know and (b) I'd really really rather not deal with her reaction to my question.)

She slept until about ten o'clock. By then, I had gone for a walk, showered, dressed, had coffee and breakfast, prepared for three conference calls, edited some layouts. When she did finally rouse herself, I got a half-hearted "I'm up," from the base of the staircase. I responded with a friendly request that she come upstairs to my office so we could look at my calendar and decide when I would drive her to the stable. Apparently, she didn't hear me.

A little later, I checked on her. She was still in the same outfit, curled up on the couch with my iPad. I offered breakfast, but she declined. I then offered to help her fix her printer. This entailed a good thirty minutes at her desk with various manuals, CDs and online HELP. 

While I played tech support, I asked her to put down the iPad and, to her credit, she did. Instead of trawling about through Tumblr and Facebook, she lay on her bed. "Don't you have homework?" I asked. She shrugged and gave me one of those non-answers, like "Later," or "I've got it covered." So, I handed her the World Cultures text book. She groaned quite audibly, but started.

Finally, the printer was working with a minor caveat. It seems that it only works from the admin account on her laptop, not from her account. The admin account is password-protected, and it's where I manage the dreaded parental controls. Sore subject, to say the optimal least. We'll have to do some additional detective work to figure out how she can print. But, I felt relatively good because the printer was working again.

My daughter? Not so much.

She made a few unsavory remarks under her breath and slammed her way out of the room. 

Then I lost it.

I hate it when I lose it, but there are certain buttons that no one knows how to press like my daughter does. Is she grateful to have a nice laptop and printer (not to mention access to the iPad that was — in theory — my fiftieth birthday present)? No. Does she feel fortunate to be going to her beloved stable to be with her beloved horse later today? No. Will she ever appreciate all that I've done and do for her? No. No. No.

It's infuriating sometimes. 

Now, I am a problem-solver by nature, so I try to figure out where I went wrong, and — more importantly — how I might course correct. (Or should I "atone?") But, I am absolutely stymied. We have long talks; she agrees to change her attitude. Sometimes, we even seem to make progress. Eventually, though, I'm back where I started: deeply frustrated and trying to keep my cool. Now, I have to decide whether I go down and say I'm sorry for yelling, wait for her to apologize to me (which she will do, you can count on it, as soon as she needs something from me) or just ignore the entire episode.

Regardless, when she's asleep tonight (hopefully in pj's this time), I'll sneak in and look at her. If she's sleeping soundly enough, I'll give her a kiss. Despite the ups and downs, the raised voices and rolled eyes, I'm still smitten.

In my heart of hearts, I know my daughter is still in there somewhere.

Truth Is

When my daughter was a toddler, a colleague of mine — with no rug rats of his own — liked to spoil her. He helped me pick out souvenirs on business trips. He made her extraordinary custom birthday party invitations. He returned from Disney World with the pinkest, frilliest, sparkliest princess hat he could find. 

He clearly loved kids, so one day I suggested he and his partner think about having some of their own.

"Oh no," he objected. "That would be way too hard."

I tried to reassure him and he eventually shrugged and said, "Well, I guess the most important thing would just be honesty. Never lie to them. Always tell the truth."

There was another parent in the room with us at the time, and he and I both choked.

"Are you kidding?" I managed to say.

"I lie to my kids all the time," our colleague added.

The childless friend was surprised and we quickly filled him in. On top of the tallest tales: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, there were countless smaller stretchings of the truth every day. Sometimes for the child's own good. More often, to preserve the parent's sanity.

"Sorry honey, we're all out of Oreos."

Now that my daughter is a teenager, it's harder to avoid the truth. Tell her there are no Cheese Puffs left and she'll go and look for herself. Try to keep a private conversation with her father private and prepare to face a raised eyebrow at best, followed by unrelenting nagging until you give in and 'fess up. Somehow, between the ages of five and fifteen, my daughter has developed a finely tuned bullsh*t meter. She knows when I'm trying to cover something up and she will not rest until the truth comes out.

She's not alone. Teens these days don't want a whitewashed version of the world around them. They want truth, T-R-U-T-H. Their favorite musician just went into rehab? No problem. They not only want the juicy details, but the star's flaws make them more alluring. It isn't so much that teen fans want to emulate their idols' bad behavior either. It's more about being "real."

On Facebook, they leaves posts on each other's walls that start with the words: "Truth is ..." Then they add some private joke or personal message. It could be funny or sweet or silly. The point is, it's "truth." 

The same principle holds for YouTube videos. My generation may watch reality shows on TV. (Truth is ... I've been known to pour a glass of pinot and cringe along with The Real Housewives of New York. For the record, as a native New Yorker I can assure you that there is nothing "real" about them.) But, my daughter's friends would rather watch homemade videos of less-than-beautiful people telling it as they see it. Anything too slick, too scripted, too produced and they tune out. Truth is, it's not truth.

I find it interesting that my daughter is reaching (if not already at) an age when lying becomes more and more of an issue. I was an extremely "good girl" when I was her age, but I was still an accomplished liar. (Thankfully, my own adolescent untruths were not about sex or drugs or alcohol — they were mainly about fabricated sleepovers in order to see midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.) 

There's a certain amount of vigilance that comes with parenting a teen. High school started just three weeks ago and I've already heard tales of students feigning illness in order to "ditch." I am trying to give my daughter the benefit of the doubt, but there's a part of me waiting to catch her. When (not if) I do, I'm hoping it is something relatively harmless. A mild act of filial rebellion, not a major felony.

Just as I want honesty from her, she wants to know the truth about me too. I tend to be a perfectionist, and it's hard to face up to my own weaknesses. Then again, my daughter is very quick to find my flaws. I might as well admit when I'm wrong or just don't know the answers.

Truth is ... she'll find reasons to roll her eyes anyway. I might as well keep it "real."

PMS

I was so thrilled when I found out that my baby was a girl. Even though I was a pregnant woman of "advanced maternal age," which meant that we underwent a battery of prenatal testing, my husband and I chose to wait and learn our child's gender the old-fashioned way. Somehow, having the doctor say "It's a ... (insert 'boy' or 'girl' here as appropriate)" seemed more exciting than finding out via ultrasound or amniocentesis.

Well, my doctor rewrote the script a tiny bit. "You have a daughter!" he announced. The effect (a quick gasp and many tears) was the same.

As she grew from baby to toddler to child, many people commented on how much my daughter looked like me. And, I had great hopes that she would inherit all my positive traits. Reading and writing and collecting dolls and loving musical theatre. Even my addiction to chocolate was welcome.

Back then, it did not occur to me that she would eventually have to deal with womanly concerns like finding a comfortable strapless bra, walking in heels, getting your period the day you're supposed to go on a beach date. Or ... that emotional roller coaster females have to deal with.

That's right. I'm talking, of course, about PMS. Putting up with Men's Sh*t.

We coined that phrase about twenty years ago when I worked at a very cool new media ad agency in Cambridge, MA. There were only twelve of us in the office and we were all women. The CEO of the agency (headquartered elsewhere)  kept pressuring us to hire some men because he didn't think our clients — mainly technology companies — would want to work with so many "girls."

On top of that attitude at work, most of us had to deal with husbands or boyfriends or, in my case, a fiancé — most of whom displayed the classic symptoms of PMS: moodiness and irritability.

And, while any emotional or physical changes women might experience only last a few days, these men seemed to have license to behave erratically all month long. Honestly, I don't know one married woman who doesn't complain about her husband's mood swings. We all tip-toe around them. And, sadly, we teach our daughters to do so too.

Besides any gender tension on the home front (you cannot tell me that there's no such thing as male menopause), my daughter is at an age where she's starting to see gender bias and inequality in many different places.

In politics, for example, where we have yet to see a woman president or vice president. Or where an almost entirely male congress is attempting to legislate women's health and reproductive rights.

In the media, where even the most accomplished female journalists are pressured into getting cosmetic surgery. The lines that would symbolize experience and wisdom on a man's face are strictly verboten when we're talking about an anchorwoman.

In school, where her freshman Honors English reading list started with David Copperfield (by and about a man), then moved on to Of Mice and Men (there's a woman character but she pretty much gets squished to death). Next is Lord of the Flies (boys behaving badly). But hark! What heroine through yonder window breaks? They will read Romeo and Juliet this spring, written by a man but showcasing one very gutsy young lady.

The effects of Putting up with Men's Sh*t are significant and will last longer than the effects of Pre-Menstrual Syndrome. It seems to me that society's emphasis on total male domination is a lot more frightening than one teen's estrogen levels. Even if that teen is mine.

Now, I'm not saying that my daughter doesn't encounter her own emotional bumps in the road. When she snaps at me for no reason, I remind myself that she's just going through another type of PMS. 

Pre-Maturity Syndrome.