I turned 44 today. In other words, as of waking up this morning, I was no longer considered to be in my early 40s. I have now crossed over into the category of mid-40s.
By this time in my mother's life, she had just had brain surgery to remove a tumor, and told me that she would be looking forward to finishing treatment and celebrating in 5 years when she would get her last scan that, she believed, would come back clean. It never happened, the brain tumor came roaring back, and she died 2 weeks after her 49th birthday. I don't think there is a birthday that I will have clear through the rest of my 40s and into my 50s where I won't think of this as a perspective on my own age.
Since I'm feeling reflective on this day, I thought I'd give 44 short reflections on this life I've had so far.
1. When I was in the 1st grade, I remember sitting at my desk looking at a poster of all of the presidents and wondering why none of them were women. I'm still waiting.
2. I read the book "Grease" when I was 12 and thought that Danny should have picked Marty, because she was far more interesting.
3. Beavis and Butthead was a must right before pulling an all-nighter to study when I was in college.
4. I remember my friend, Kori, and I staying up all night when we were 16, because we had done our hair and it turned out perfectly. We wanted to go to the mall the next day with that great hair.
5. After spending the first weekend hanging out with my husband, I remember my roommate telling me that I "floated" into the house. She told me that she knew I would end up with him, and so did I.
6. I remember watching some of the most amazing bands from the PacNW in the 1990s at a little club called Crazy Horse in Boise, Idaho including Fastbacks, 7 Year Bitch, Coffin Break, Dinosaur Jr, Tad, Mother Love Bone, Sleater Kinney, Hammerbox, Mudhoney, Flop, Green Apple Quick Step, and yes, Nirvana.
7. I always loved the intro to the Wonder Woman show when she said, "You have little regard for womanhood, you must learn respect." then punched the guy in the face.
8. Riding my 10-speed bike around Nampa, Idaho when I was a teenager was my idea of freedom.
9. I remember wondering why it was so easy for that crazy Hinckley to get a gun and shoot the president.
10. I remember growing up in a rural community where owning a gun was no big deal, because every body had one, and you damn sure didn't treat it like a toy.
11. I planned my first event at age 16. It was a battle of the bands talent show for the Art Club, and I made every mistake possible.
12. I was taking a nap when the news came on tv that Kurt Cobain was dead. My boyfriend woke me up, and we stared at the tv in disbelief. We went to Grainy's Basement in Boise that night and did shots of Jagermeister with a room full of sad, silent people.
13. I remember cutting class with my friend, Missy, to go to the Idaho State capital building to protest the fact that Idaho refused to recognize Martin Luther King Day as an official holiday. We were 17.
14. I remember the last conversation I had with my grandmother. It was 2 weeks after I was married, and I called her while working late one night. We had a circular conversation where I repeated myself several times, because she was in the early stages of Alzheimer's and kept asking the same questions.
15. I used to buy cigarettes out of a machine on the second floor of the Karcher Mall for $1.50 per pack. I hid them in my pencil case and we smoked them out in the tennis courts at West Jr. High. The only adult they ever sent out to talk to us was a school guidance counselor who was an avid smoker himself, and was also one of my dad's poker buddies. We never got in trouble.
16. The first time I read "1984", I knew it was one of the most important books I would ever read. I reread it every few years. I'm about due again.
17. I had never felt so strange as I did in the hours right after I gave birth to Rachael. She was next to me, but I couldn't stop thinking about her and wondering if she was comfortable and okay. Two days later, she was still all I could think about. I told my mother about this, and she said it would never go away. It still hasn't.
18. I was standing in the middle of the floor at the Bank of America Center during Queensryche's soundcheck. Just me. I closed my eyes and smiled, and when I opened them, Geoff Tate had been watching me. He smiled, and looked at me while singing for the next minute. I thought my heart was going to explode. It was a fan's ultimate dream.
19. Jeff took me to New Orleans for my 43rd birthday and we had dinner at Commander's Palace. It was one of the best meals I've ever eaten.
20. Watching the Ramones perform at Bumbershoot in the late 90s was a wonderful bucket list show I will never forget.
21. I had just started working for the Museum of Flight in Seattle and it was my first fundraising auction. I saw a 'Day on the Set with Harrison Ford' package sell for $85,000 and was nearly ready to pass out. I purchased my first home for $82,000.
22. I shed a few tears the night Barack Obama was elected, because I really didn't think our country would actually shed its racism and elect him. Unfortunately, I would shed many tears of anger in the years to follow as I watched our country's racism rear its ugly head every time he tried to get anything done.
23. I was a diehard Republican from a Republican family until I moved to Seattle. After living in Seattle for 6 months and having a better standard of living than I had ever experienced, I embraced liberalism, and have never looked back.
24. I remember escorting a teenager into the women's clinic when a tall, fat man with a beard wearing a yellow t-shirt screamed in my ear that Jesus was going to send me straight to Hell. I muffled my laugh, got the girl inside the clinic, burst out laughing, and told her that I didn't have the heart to tell that guy that I was Jewish and we don't believe in Hell. She was at the clinic getting birth control pills and treatment for an STD.
25. I remember being consumed with rage after going out of my way to get out of class early, arrange a ride with my roommate to get to Planned Parenthood to have my annual pap smear only to have my appointment cancelled, because some asshole had phoned in a bomb threat. I was in my sophomore year of college. It would take me another two months to get to a make up appointment.
26. Stealing a package of Chocodiles from my dad's stash was always one of my favorite things to do.
27. The first time I had to sue an employer for shorting me on wages and benefits, I lost, but I didn't lose the second time I had to do it. Three years later, I would start my own business.
28. Fantasy Island and Star Trek were some of my favorite shows when I was a little kid, because anything could happen.
29. I'll never be able to thank Ray Missouri enough for introducing me to Blondie, Sex Pistols, and Pink Floyd when I was in the 2nd grade. My mom had to have surgery, we had no family to stay with, so CPS put us in a foster home with the Missouri Family. Ray was their adopted, teenage son who took it upon himself to educate me on what constituted "good music".
30. The first video I saw on MTV was Black Sabbath's "Paranoid". It's still my favorite Sabbath song to this day.
31. Jeff and I traveled to New York City less than a year before the Towers came down. We rode the train passing through the bottom floor and I commented that the last time I was there, when I was 19, you couldn't go near the Towers, because they had been bombed. I told him that they had re-built them so well you'd never would have known they were bombed.
32. Jerusalem was magic. I've never felt that way about any place I've ever visited. I'm a skeptic at heart, and a bit of a cynic, but there hasn't been a day that has gone by since I've been there that I haven't wished I could go back.
33. The moment I realized that I couldn't make a living in the music industry, because the business was changing too rapidly and there was no stability in it was one of the worst moments of my life. I cried hysterically while on the phone to my mom. Up to that point in my life, it was all I had ever wanted to do. A few months later, I ended up in the nonprofit world, but it took me years to feel like I belonged there.
34. Every now and again I think I was too old when I had Shayna. She has a difficult personality, and is very stubborn and persistent, which are things much easier dealt with at a younger age. She is 7 1/2 and still comes into our room to sleep in our bed at night. We are both too tired to kick her out and deal with the tantrum. We just figure she will age out of it.
35. I saw the first Star Wars movie (A New Hope) at a drive-in, and was ecstatic when I got the Luke, Leah, and Darth Vader action figures for my birthday. I was 6 years old.
36. My favorite video games to play at the arcade when I was in the 3rd grade were Asteroids and Ms. Pac Man. Now video games look like movies.
37. I never got into Dungeons & Dragons in high school, but once pretended to be into it just to get a guy to like me. It didn't last, and I felt stupid about faking my D&D interest for several years after that.
38. I was never afraid to fly after 9/11. Jeff and I went to Buenos Aires a month after the attack. I emailed my mom everyday from the business center at the hotel to assure her that I was safe, and called her the moment we got back to Seattle. My feeling always was that once we alter the way we live, the terrorists win.
39. Turning 40 was the only age I had ever dreaded, but the morning of my 40th birthday I woke up not giving a damn about pleasing anyone. I had shed every ounce of the need to be liked, to please people who didn't matter to my life, and to deal with bullshit. My biggest regret since then is not having had this attitude a heck of a lot sooner in life.
40. I knew the moment my mom passed away that I would be burying my dad within 5 years. She took care of him, and all of his health issues. I knew he wouldn't treat his health as well. He died 4 1/2 years after she did.
41. I used to stand next to the tv in my room on Sunday night with the volume turned down to 2, so I could watch the "Young Ones". I was in high school, and it came on past my bedtime, but I loved that show.
42. Watching Rachael do her Torah reading during her bat mitzvah was one of the best things I've ever seen. I have always been proud of my girls, but on that day, it was the most proud I had ever been of anything in my life, including my own accomplishments.
43. I've never not liked cartoons. I watched them when I was a little kid on Saturday morning (Flintstones, Space Ghost, Scooby Doo, Bugs Bunny), when I was an older little kid when Fox got its broadcast license (Inspector Gadget, He-Man), I watched them when I was in college (Ren & Stimpy, Beavis & Butthead, Aeon Flux, Liquid Television), and I watch them now (Family Guy, Robot Chicken, American Dad). It will be interesting to see what cartoons I'll be watching when I'm in the old folks home.
44. I've done a lot I regret. I've done a lot that I'm proud of. I spend every day trying my best to take care of my family, contribute to my community, and make the world a better place, while trying to improve myself. This will be my mandate for the foreseeable future, and if I can be a change agent in the process, I'm good with that, too.
Monday, February 27, 2017
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
The Disgusting Art of Appeasement
Not too many things in this world piss me off worse than appeasement. Appeasement is the willful act of giving up on your wants, needs, and own best interests to try to please the other party in the naive belief that once you have given enough, the other party will be satisfied enough to treat you better or meet you halfway. Appeasement, also, never works, and nowhere do we see the failure of appeasement more than when it is applied in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The demands for appeasement mostly come from the Left, which has a tendency to blame Israel for everything while framing the Palestinians as the constant victims. In framing the Palestinians as constant victims this sets up a very unproductive dynamic in which Israel is always wrong and the Palestinians are always right, which becomes harder to explain when you see the leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority absconding funds, cancelling elections, appointing leadership without the say of the people, and focusing their resources on destroying Israel rather than building industry and infrastructure for their own people.
Time after time, the Left demands that Israel appease the Palestinians by giving up land, safety, funds, and more. Israel gives in and appeases only to be told that they haven't done enough, and this is usually followed by more demands for appeasement.
The Left's obsession with Palestinian sovereignty is perplexing, because it flies in the face of everything the Left supposedly stands for. Under a sovereign Palestinian government, homosexuality would be outlawed and punishable by death, other religions would be illegal, women and minorities would be second class citizens, and the West would likely be targeted as enemies.
Israel, on the other hand, is the embodiment of Leftist ideals with universal healthcare and education. Women are full and equal participants, minorities are given equal status, other religions are accepted and welcome, and the only gay pride parade happening in the Middle East is in Tel Aviv. Yet the Left can never be appeased enough.
Lest I focus my ire squarely on the appeasement demanded by the Left, there is a much quieter, sinister appeasement that is happening right now on the Right. Lately, the Right has taken the reigns as the champions of Israel. Jews all over the U.S. are flocking to vote for Right Wing candidates who, publicly, can't proclaim their love of Israel enough. In voting for candidates on the Right, American Jews are engaging in a far more dangerous appeasement.
Aside from their proclamation of fiscal responsibility, which hasn't really been seen since prior to the Reagan era, the platform of the Right does not align with Jewish values. They are not accepting of homosexuals, minorities, and women, they don't believe in providing healthcare, social security or a basic safety net, they are not champions of education, and are all about rewarding a vulture capitalist system that destroys communities and leaves the majority in the dust. These are not Jewish values, yet time and time again, we watch leaders in the Jewish community embrace the Right in hopes that the U.S. will continue to support Israel.
This kowtowing appeasement has been particularly disgusting given who is in power and the actions of the new Trump Administration. Steve Bannon gave the new Neo Nazi movement, revamped with the shiny, new name, Alt-Right, a strong presence on the internet. He has also promoted fake news, and his political tactics seem to be borrowed straight from the Goebbels handbook. The sweeping, and unAmerican travel ban, hit many people in the gut, especially Jews, because during WWII, we were the ones turned away from the safety offered in the U.S. Of course those on the Right will rush in and say that the Administration is very Jew-friendly, because Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller are in top positions, but never forget there were many Jews in Germany during the late 1930s who believed their status and money would keep them safe. They worked with Nazis believing that if they appeased the Nazi radicals, they would be spared. Again, appeasement led to death.
The truth is that the Christian Evangelicals on the Right; the ones who are quick to point out the sin in others, but managed to look past the sinful life of Donald Trump, in order to seize power, are no friends to Israel. In order for their messiah to come, all Jews have to return to Israel to die, so is this really a group we want to appease?
Negotiations with clear and objective goals, willful compromising on both sides, a mutual understanding of common interests, the elimination of extremists on all sides, all of those things are reasonable and should be the foundation for establishing peace and ending the conflict, but appeasement should be avoided at all costs, because, in the end, no one ever wins the appeasement game.
The demands for appeasement mostly come from the Left, which has a tendency to blame Israel for everything while framing the Palestinians as the constant victims. In framing the Palestinians as constant victims this sets up a very unproductive dynamic in which Israel is always wrong and the Palestinians are always right, which becomes harder to explain when you see the leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority absconding funds, cancelling elections, appointing leadership without the say of the people, and focusing their resources on destroying Israel rather than building industry and infrastructure for their own people.
Time after time, the Left demands that Israel appease the Palestinians by giving up land, safety, funds, and more. Israel gives in and appeases only to be told that they haven't done enough, and this is usually followed by more demands for appeasement.
The Left's obsession with Palestinian sovereignty is perplexing, because it flies in the face of everything the Left supposedly stands for. Under a sovereign Palestinian government, homosexuality would be outlawed and punishable by death, other religions would be illegal, women and minorities would be second class citizens, and the West would likely be targeted as enemies.
Israel, on the other hand, is the embodiment of Leftist ideals with universal healthcare and education. Women are full and equal participants, minorities are given equal status, other religions are accepted and welcome, and the only gay pride parade happening in the Middle East is in Tel Aviv. Yet the Left can never be appeased enough.
Lest I focus my ire squarely on the appeasement demanded by the Left, there is a much quieter, sinister appeasement that is happening right now on the Right. Lately, the Right has taken the reigns as the champions of Israel. Jews all over the U.S. are flocking to vote for Right Wing candidates who, publicly, can't proclaim their love of Israel enough. In voting for candidates on the Right, American Jews are engaging in a far more dangerous appeasement.
Aside from their proclamation of fiscal responsibility, which hasn't really been seen since prior to the Reagan era, the platform of the Right does not align with Jewish values. They are not accepting of homosexuals, minorities, and women, they don't believe in providing healthcare, social security or a basic safety net, they are not champions of education, and are all about rewarding a vulture capitalist system that destroys communities and leaves the majority in the dust. These are not Jewish values, yet time and time again, we watch leaders in the Jewish community embrace the Right in hopes that the U.S. will continue to support Israel.
This kowtowing appeasement has been particularly disgusting given who is in power and the actions of the new Trump Administration. Steve Bannon gave the new Neo Nazi movement, revamped with the shiny, new name, Alt-Right, a strong presence on the internet. He has also promoted fake news, and his political tactics seem to be borrowed straight from the Goebbels handbook. The sweeping, and unAmerican travel ban, hit many people in the gut, especially Jews, because during WWII, we were the ones turned away from the safety offered in the U.S. Of course those on the Right will rush in and say that the Administration is very Jew-friendly, because Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller are in top positions, but never forget there were many Jews in Germany during the late 1930s who believed their status and money would keep them safe. They worked with Nazis believing that if they appeased the Nazi radicals, they would be spared. Again, appeasement led to death.
The truth is that the Christian Evangelicals on the Right; the ones who are quick to point out the sin in others, but managed to look past the sinful life of Donald Trump, in order to seize power, are no friends to Israel. In order for their messiah to come, all Jews have to return to Israel to die, so is this really a group we want to appease?
Negotiations with clear and objective goals, willful compromising on both sides, a mutual understanding of common interests, the elimination of extremists on all sides, all of those things are reasonable and should be the foundation for establishing peace and ending the conflict, but appeasement should be avoided at all costs, because, in the end, no one ever wins the appeasement game.
Thursday, February 09, 2017
The Lost 24 Years
A few years ago I contemplated heading back to work full-time, so I took a position that was temporary with the option of permanency. I was there for about two months when I did a sit-down with the big boss and argued that my position should be eliminated right before turning in my notice. In my other life as a do-gooder, honesty is always the policy I go with.
In my do-gooder life, I put together big fundraising events for worthy causes as a way to make the world a better place. In my life as a punk, I relish watching certain segments of the world burn while I eat popcorn. On some levels, I'm sure I'm a head shrinker's dream.
Getting back to the temporary position, while at the job I would talk myself out of, I worked with a woman who was about in her mid-50s, and had been doing events for years, and she was done. It was the first time in my life that I realized there would come a day when I just didn't want to do events anymore.
Fast forward three years to this past Wednesday where I was sitting in Day 2 of a three-day grant writing class. It was a small, nine person class for nonprofit professionals, so there was great shop talk, and schmoozing. Everyone, except me, worked for a nonprofit organization, and I think they were a bit skeptical about who I was, because I was a dreaded "consultant". By Day 2, they knew that, not only, did I know my stuff, I knew quite a bit about the nonprofit world, in general.
At the end of the class, a nice young man from a great organization came up and asked me why I wasn't in a director level position at a high profile nonprofit. This is a question I have grappled with, and have asked myself several times. I have the experience, the professional accomplishment, and sometimes, the desire, but there is one reason why I'm not at a major organization collecting a six-figure salary and doing million dollar events: my girls.
I told him that I choose to work as a consultant, because it affords me the freedom of schedule needed to pick my kids up everyday from school, schlep them to their activities, do all of the mom volunteering, and be there for them 95% of the time. I told him that I had a 13 year old and a 7 year old, and he thought about it, and said, "that's a 24 year gap".
24 years seems like a very long time, and to this young man, who was unmarried with no kids, and likely in his mid-20s, the idea of suspending a career for 24 years is probably unimaginable. What this young man doesn't understand is that, in the big scheme of things, spending 18 years raising a child doesn't seem like 18 years. 18 is a big number when thinking about years, but it flies by in the day-to-day of raising kids. My oldest is 13, and in 5 years she will be heading off to college, and the major part of my job will be over. 5 years will fly by.
If someone would have told me when I was in my mid-20s that I would choose to forego a lucrative career to raise kids, I would have thought they were crazy, but here I am and this is what I'm doing. Some days, particularly when my 7 year old is driving me up a wall, the years can't go by quick enough, then other days I pine for the times when my girls were babies, and I could snuggle them close while they slept in my arms.
I'm not an executive director or vice president of a high-level nonprofit organization, but my daughter told me today that she thinks I'm the bravest person she knows. In 11 years, I will be 55 and an empty nester. I could step back into the 9-to-5 world and run a prestigious nonprofit, but I think I'll transition into grant writing, because you can do that from anywhere. I'll spend my precious years before the AARP card traveling and writing grants in the mornings on my laptop while dressed in a billowy, comfortable kaftan, sipping tea, and listening to the Misfits.
In my do-gooder life, I put together big fundraising events for worthy causes as a way to make the world a better place. In my life as a punk, I relish watching certain segments of the world burn while I eat popcorn. On some levels, I'm sure I'm a head shrinker's dream.
Getting back to the temporary position, while at the job I would talk myself out of, I worked with a woman who was about in her mid-50s, and had been doing events for years, and she was done. It was the first time in my life that I realized there would come a day when I just didn't want to do events anymore.
Fast forward three years to this past Wednesday where I was sitting in Day 2 of a three-day grant writing class. It was a small, nine person class for nonprofit professionals, so there was great shop talk, and schmoozing. Everyone, except me, worked for a nonprofit organization, and I think they were a bit skeptical about who I was, because I was a dreaded "consultant". By Day 2, they knew that, not only, did I know my stuff, I knew quite a bit about the nonprofit world, in general.
At the end of the class, a nice young man from a great organization came up and asked me why I wasn't in a director level position at a high profile nonprofit. This is a question I have grappled with, and have asked myself several times. I have the experience, the professional accomplishment, and sometimes, the desire, but there is one reason why I'm not at a major organization collecting a six-figure salary and doing million dollar events: my girls.
I told him that I choose to work as a consultant, because it affords me the freedom of schedule needed to pick my kids up everyday from school, schlep them to their activities, do all of the mom volunteering, and be there for them 95% of the time. I told him that I had a 13 year old and a 7 year old, and he thought about it, and said, "that's a 24 year gap".
24 years seems like a very long time, and to this young man, who was unmarried with no kids, and likely in his mid-20s, the idea of suspending a career for 24 years is probably unimaginable. What this young man doesn't understand is that, in the big scheme of things, spending 18 years raising a child doesn't seem like 18 years. 18 is a big number when thinking about years, but it flies by in the day-to-day of raising kids. My oldest is 13, and in 5 years she will be heading off to college, and the major part of my job will be over. 5 years will fly by.
If someone would have told me when I was in my mid-20s that I would choose to forego a lucrative career to raise kids, I would have thought they were crazy, but here I am and this is what I'm doing. Some days, particularly when my 7 year old is driving me up a wall, the years can't go by quick enough, then other days I pine for the times when my girls were babies, and I could snuggle them close while they slept in my arms.
I'm not an executive director or vice president of a high-level nonprofit organization, but my daughter told me today that she thinks I'm the bravest person she knows. In 11 years, I will be 55 and an empty nester. I could step back into the 9-to-5 world and run a prestigious nonprofit, but I think I'll transition into grant writing, because you can do that from anywhere. I'll spend my precious years before the AARP card traveling and writing grants in the mornings on my laptop while dressed in a billowy, comfortable kaftan, sipping tea, and listening to the Misfits.
Sunday, February 05, 2017
Food By The Bucket
Some days, I feel like dinner around my house has become a bit of a holy war. On one side, the mom who wants to feed her family nutritious, vitamin-rich, locally grown organic food, on the other side, the family who would love to spend the entire meal eating processed, barely identifiable crap.
My children have accused me of taking away their childhood, because I won't buy them sugary cereal with cartoon characters parading across brightly colored boxes. I have been told I am mean and terrible, because I don't buy Doritos, Lays, Cheetos, Twinkies, and Fruit by the Foot (which, upon reading the box, one would notice that the only mention of "fruit" is in the title). I am the mean, non-fun mom, because I opt for the organic, healthy juice boxes instead of the watery, artificially flavored, corn syrup concoctions that pass as "fruit" drinks (there's that word again, in title only).
I'm not a complete stickler, we do make our way through a drive thru every now and again for burgers or donuts, but for the most part, I opt for healthy food. About 3 years ago, I switched to organic meat, because I was tired of the headlines about the amount of hormones and additives that were being pumped into our meat supply. My husband wasn't too happy at first, because organic meat is three times the price, but with the uptick in expense, I was forced to get real about portion size. The average household throws away 30% of the food they bring into the house to consume, so buying something more expensive forced me to become more efficient.
Shortly after the meat, I switched to organic fruits and veggies, again, becoming very conscious of how much we actually consumed versus what my perception of what was consumed. I became a fierce reader of labels using the 5 ingredient rule; if there are more than 5 ingredients and most are unidentifiable and hard to pronounce, then you don't want it. I made an initiative to cook at home more, and be the healthy example I never had growing up.
My mother did many things right, but the one thing she really nurtured in me and my siblings was an incredibly unhealthy relationship with food. Mom taught us that food was a great activity when you were bored, food was a fantastic way to celebrate, food was good for when you had the blues, and that "you don't have to be hungry to eat" was more than a catchy phrase. Tens of thousands of dollars wasted on weight loss and dieting and 32 years later, it's still a daily struggle. A struggle that I do not want to pass on to my kids.
Yes, I'm the healthy mom, but I also let them have unhealthy food about 10% of the time. I try to educate them about moderation, and teach them about reading food labels. However, health is an uphill battle in a country that celebrates the "never ending pasta bowl". The other night I asked my 7 year old what she wanted for dinner, and she enthusiastically told me about a magical place called KFC where they give you a whole bucket of chicken. Her friends had told her how great it was, because the chicken comes in a real bucket. A whole bucket of chicken!
Food, health, not consuming a whole bucket of chicken, all uphill battles that I hope I'm winning. For my part I'm going to continue to be the healthy mom, the mom who opts for the organic over the chemical, the mom who reads the labels and says a lot of "no" at the grocery store. I'm sure I'll get a fair amount of pushback, but to all of this I say; too freakin' bad!
Yes, I'm the mom who doesn't let you suck on GMO corn stick puffs flavored with cheese-like dust. I'm the mom who cuts up watermelon after school instead of shoving a corn syrup popsicle colored with Red 40 dye in your face. I'm the mom who gives your friends carrot sticks instead of candy, and I refuse to apologize for it. And maybe, someday, when you and your friends don't have cancer, you will thank me.
My children have accused me of taking away their childhood, because I won't buy them sugary cereal with cartoon characters parading across brightly colored boxes. I have been told I am mean and terrible, because I don't buy Doritos, Lays, Cheetos, Twinkies, and Fruit by the Foot (which, upon reading the box, one would notice that the only mention of "fruit" is in the title). I am the mean, non-fun mom, because I opt for the organic, healthy juice boxes instead of the watery, artificially flavored, corn syrup concoctions that pass as "fruit" drinks (there's that word again, in title only).
I'm not a complete stickler, we do make our way through a drive thru every now and again for burgers or donuts, but for the most part, I opt for healthy food. About 3 years ago, I switched to organic meat, because I was tired of the headlines about the amount of hormones and additives that were being pumped into our meat supply. My husband wasn't too happy at first, because organic meat is three times the price, but with the uptick in expense, I was forced to get real about portion size. The average household throws away 30% of the food they bring into the house to consume, so buying something more expensive forced me to become more efficient.
Shortly after the meat, I switched to organic fruits and veggies, again, becoming very conscious of how much we actually consumed versus what my perception of what was consumed. I became a fierce reader of labels using the 5 ingredient rule; if there are more than 5 ingredients and most are unidentifiable and hard to pronounce, then you don't want it. I made an initiative to cook at home more, and be the healthy example I never had growing up.
My mother did many things right, but the one thing she really nurtured in me and my siblings was an incredibly unhealthy relationship with food. Mom taught us that food was a great activity when you were bored, food was a fantastic way to celebrate, food was good for when you had the blues, and that "you don't have to be hungry to eat" was more than a catchy phrase. Tens of thousands of dollars wasted on weight loss and dieting and 32 years later, it's still a daily struggle. A struggle that I do not want to pass on to my kids.
Yes, I'm the healthy mom, but I also let them have unhealthy food about 10% of the time. I try to educate them about moderation, and teach them about reading food labels. However, health is an uphill battle in a country that celebrates the "never ending pasta bowl". The other night I asked my 7 year old what she wanted for dinner, and she enthusiastically told me about a magical place called KFC where they give you a whole bucket of chicken. Her friends had told her how great it was, because the chicken comes in a real bucket. A whole bucket of chicken!
Food, health, not consuming a whole bucket of chicken, all uphill battles that I hope I'm winning. For my part I'm going to continue to be the healthy mom, the mom who opts for the organic over the chemical, the mom who reads the labels and says a lot of "no" at the grocery store. I'm sure I'll get a fair amount of pushback, but to all of this I say; too freakin' bad!
Yes, I'm the mom who doesn't let you suck on GMO corn stick puffs flavored with cheese-like dust. I'm the mom who cuts up watermelon after school instead of shoving a corn syrup popsicle colored with Red 40 dye in your face. I'm the mom who gives your friends carrot sticks instead of candy, and I refuse to apologize for it. And maybe, someday, when you and your friends don't have cancer, you will thank me.
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