I have a few cardinal rules for parenting...
Wait. No... I have several cardinal rules for parenting...
Hrm. Okay, actually I have bazillions of cardinal rules for parenting.
One of our hard and fast parenting rules pertains to 'helicoptering' or the avoidance thereof. DrC and I try so hard not to hover that we have achieved a state of zen subterraneanism. The manner in which our children venture forth into the world completely unguarded from the various slings and arrows of outraged Other Folk can and has been described as neglect. I prefer to think of it as creative unobstructionism.
While cruising, it is easy to forget how unusual we are because we literally swim in a sea of corner-case people. It is also true that the cruising community might well be the most supportive place in the world to raise children. In the absence of winged parents, the girls have spent years with cruisers in all shapes and sizes who want nothing more than to see them to a better place physically, emotionally, and educationally. Maybe small towns are like this, maybe communes. Hard to say. I just know that DrC and I -- never mind our daughters -- owe an exceptional debt of gratitude to the amazing people who raised the girls with us and who continue to support them.
Which is all to provide context for the oddly Rut Roh! quality of the week. The first hint that we're not the average North Shore family came in the form of an email from one of the girls' deans.
"Your child missed a day of class without a note and was late for two more. She says she has trouble catching the bus in the morning. Would you please write said child a note and help her get on the bus?"
"No."
"?"
"No really. Her problem. What's your policy for such things?"
"Um.... detention?"
"Great. Go for it."
"No note?"
"No."
"No help for the bus?"
"Absolutely not."
...[silence]...
The child in question immediately stepped up to the plate. "Yeah, I screwed up. Yeah, I'll do detention. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, I won't do it again." She's now talking about staying every day after school for an hour in a self-imposed detention since it appears to be the best way to force herself to sit down and master physics. I don't know how much of that I believe, but I do know that she wasn't surprised that we wouldn't defend and protect her. We're not Uncle Sam. Her mistakes, her responsibility, and her job to fix it. And honestly? This child isn't a child any more. She's a very smart young woman who is making her own choices. Some of those appear in the short run to be surprisingly bone-headed while others are so smart they make my eyes water. Ultimately, I am positive she is going to be just fine, assuming we don't all kill each other before we get her off on her own. And if she's making decisions now that mean life will be tougher in the future, she gives every appearance of understanding the trade-off.
Another befuddling problem is the fact that every single person who interacts with the girls appears to think DrC and I give a damn about their scheduling commitments. I really don't care if they have a meeting, netball practice, rehearsal, or spray tan appointment. The sole service I am willing to provide is to add the events to the family calendar and print it once a week. As soon as the home network gets set up (please let those pay checks start to roll in!), I won't even do that. If paid, I will taxi them around town. You think I'm joking. Every month the girls get a bus allowance. If they want me to drive them because the skies are falling -- and in Auckland this is actually a literal weather condition "Skies Falling" -- then they pay me $1.10/person. I'm just about ready to route all the school notification spam to /dev/null.
So the question becomes at what point are we failing to provide the supportive and loving environment deemed necessary for kids to thrive? What I believe what might ultimately redeem us is that we will do just about anything the girls ask us to do. Dad, can you please chaperone the intermediate school disco? Yes. Mom, can you put my hair in pin curls every morning for the play? Of course. Dad, can you read my essay? Yep. What makes people mean? Can you find me an alternative to going to college straight out of high school? Can you help me find white knee high socks? Why is my body doing this? What is the square root of 7? Can you stay up with me while I try to make the national level in this math game? Did you download Glee? How do I calculate the volume of a bottle of mustard? Where's the cat? Can you help me build a shelf? Why are people homophobic? Clearly, we are not completely disengaged, though it's hard to say if the pull method of parenting rather than push notifications is any superior.
So no, Dean Good Guy, we're not going to rescue her. No Director Great Show, we're not going to hold her hand and make her little sandwiches. No Coach Energetic, we don't plan on driving her to morning practice. We suck. Fortunately, the girls don't, so don't worry about it too much. They'll get there.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Do It Yourself - Science
I am not impressed with our global, political leadership. Actually, I am not particularly impressed with their economic leadership, their intellectual capacity, or really any important aspect of their personalities, politics, choices, or methods. In fact, I am becoming That Guy when it comes to politics. Cranky.
Basically, every single one of them appears to spend their day figuring out new ways to make me cranky.
Fortunately, my good friends in the computer world introduced me to ways of thinking that I find sufficiently utopian and anarchist to salve my bruised spirits. The open source movement gives me a nice tingly feeling every time I prowl around and download software or read a well-written blog. When I hear bits of news about progress driven by an X prize, learn of software bazillionaires funding private expeditions to mine asteroids, or monitor the progress of Diaspora, a wee bit of optimism returns.
Kickstarter rocks my world.
Now I have another in my list of reasons to not despair: the #SciFund Challenge. From their web site:
Yeah! You want science to move forward, and you don't think your pet interest is getting enough love and attention in the form of public funding? Fine. Pay for it yourself. I like this idea at so many levels. As a serious skeptic, I'd like to see a lot of nonsense debunked with nice, double-blind, ultra-well constructed tests. While there will always be those who choose to ignore the results, having them in hand to argue with is certainly a starting point. Or maybe I would just like to see more SETI research or help some high school students do serious science or help someone design a better hospital gown.
See, it really doesn't matter, right? I can throw my $10, $20, $100 at whatever toots my horn, yanks my chain, drives my curiosity.
Actually, it's all a bit nepotistic on Don Quixote since I confess that we chose this year to fund a friend doing evolution research. One of those things that routinely has us banging heads on the desk is political leaders who think the world is only 6000 years old. Or 3000. Or ending in 2012. Anything that supports evolution science is yummy tasty to both DrC and myself. Siouxsie's project is a nicely blended mix of "support evolution science" and "figure out how to deal with the super bugs evolving to kill us" dripped liberally with flossies. I'm a cruiser. Small bits that float around and phoesforesce is near and dear. For our pledge, she says she will draw a few words of our choice in glowing bacteria. Be still my beating heart. DrC would like her to write "Fiat Lux" while I am rather partial to the completely self-aggrandizing Toast Floats.
Your opinion matters! Tell me... what should we have Siouxsie write in bug lights?
And PS, go fund science. Now.
Basically, every single one of them appears to spend their day figuring out new ways to make me cranky.
Fortunately, my good friends in the computer world introduced me to ways of thinking that I find sufficiently utopian and anarchist to salve my bruised spirits. The open source movement gives me a nice tingly feeling every time I prowl around and download software or read a well-written blog. When I hear bits of news about progress driven by an X prize, learn of software bazillionaires funding private expeditions to mine asteroids, or monitor the progress of Diaspora, a wee bit of optimism returns.
Kickstarter rocks my world.
Now I have another in my list of reasons to not despair: the #SciFund Challenge. From their web site:
The #SciFund Challenge brings scientists together on RocketHub to raise money directly from people like you. The goal: To fund research in new ways and to connect everyone to the excitement of doing science.
Yeah! You want science to move forward, and you don't think your pet interest is getting enough love and attention in the form of public funding? Fine. Pay for it yourself. I like this idea at so many levels. As a serious skeptic, I'd like to see a lot of nonsense debunked with nice, double-blind, ultra-well constructed tests. While there will always be those who choose to ignore the results, having them in hand to argue with is certainly a starting point. Or maybe I would just like to see more SETI research or help some high school students do serious science or help someone design a better hospital gown.
See, it really doesn't matter, right? I can throw my $10, $20, $100 at whatever toots my horn, yanks my chain, drives my curiosity.
Actually, it's all a bit nepotistic on Don Quixote since I confess that we chose this year to fund a friend doing evolution research. One of those things that routinely has us banging heads on the desk is political leaders who think the world is only 6000 years old. Or 3000. Or ending in 2012. Anything that supports evolution science is yummy tasty to both DrC and myself. Siouxsie's project is a nicely blended mix of "support evolution science" and "figure out how to deal with the super bugs evolving to kill us" dripped liberally with flossies. I'm a cruiser. Small bits that float around and phoesforesce is near and dear. For our pledge, she says she will draw a few words of our choice in glowing bacteria. Be still my beating heart. DrC would like her to write "Fiat Lux" while I am rather partial to the completely self-aggrandizing Toast Floats.
Your opinion matters! Tell me... what should we have Siouxsie write in bug lights?
And PS, go fund science. Now.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Their Adventures
I need to talk about my children for a few minutes. This is going to be a fatuous, fluttery, overly sweet and sentimental in-your-face-my-children-are-awesome post. Either move on or brace yourself.
Jaime is climbing mountains. I think I might have mentioned that before. Briefly. I don't mean she is climbing mountains metaphorically. No, I mean that she took her hard earned work money to pay for a trip to Taupo so that she could do the very challenging Tongoriro day hike. This warms the cockles of my heart for several reasons. First, she's spending money on experiences... an expenditure at this age of which I wholeheartedly approve. Second -- and a corollary to the first -- she spent all her money and can now not afford to buy a car, which is another situation of which I wholeheartedly approve since her driving terrifies me. Third, she's hiking across mountains. That is just so awesome! She went without us, which is probably four because it indicates a certain independence of thought and spirit, but... I want to hike across mountains. I might be jealous.
Okay, I'm jealous.
Mera is a star. Well, actually she is "Unnamed Young Shark Girl #3." We're okay with that. She is one of the only year 10s in her high school production of West Side Story, and she is thriving. I enjoy watching her grow more confident, learn about the theater, and become an increasingly better vocalist and dancer. She's pulling that A+ student plus extracurricullar thing with a vengence. Probably more important is she has Friends. Lots of them. She is starting to have a rather busy social calendar. Go Mera!
Number 3 is playing netball. Despite our initial groan of comically American dismay, DrC and I are attempting to step up to the parental plate and learn the rules. All thoughts of this not being a contact sport are evaporating in the face of several team injuries, including Aeron's rather nasty jammed finger and an elbow to the eye. I still find some of the rules bizarre (and do not even get me STARTED on the uniform skirts), but there is no question those girls run for 45 solid minutes per game. She is starting to look like a lean, poorly fed, fiendishly blonde animal. Apparently, a steady diet of fresh veg and fruits, good quality breads and meats, and a glass of warm milk in the morning are insufficient for her current metabolic rate which runs at roughly the same pace as a squirrel on Ritalin. I might break down and start stuffing sausage pies and Pop Tarts into her lunch.
My husband is a musician. Now would somebody please just give us a call and agree to play with him periodically. It is time he got out of my bedroom and started playing in front of someone other than his sleepy wife. He's better than half the buskers you hear out there. Actually, maybe that's the solution to our money problems too... I could just send him out to busk every night. Hmm.
I am sort of employed. I should start work next week in fact. Maybe hopefully probably. Before anyone asks, no details forthcoming until the final paperwork gets through the byzantine adminsitrative system of my employer. I don't want to jinx anything. So while the family set the bar pretty high, I'm limping along behind them waving the weekly calendar and chore chart and trying to get them take their fish oil. Sadly, only the cat is impressed.
Jaime is climbing mountains. I think I might have mentioned that before. Briefly. I don't mean she is climbing mountains metaphorically. No, I mean that she took her hard earned work money to pay for a trip to Taupo so that she could do the very challenging Tongoriro day hike. This warms the cockles of my heart for several reasons. First, she's spending money on experiences... an expenditure at this age of which I wholeheartedly approve. Second -- and a corollary to the first -- she spent all her money and can now not afford to buy a car, which is another situation of which I wholeheartedly approve since her driving terrifies me. Third, she's hiking across mountains. That is just so awesome! She went without us, which is probably four because it indicates a certain independence of thought and spirit, but... I want to hike across mountains. I might be jealous.
Okay, I'm jealous.
Mera is a star. Well, actually she is "Unnamed Young Shark Girl #3." We're okay with that. She is one of the only year 10s in her high school production of West Side Story, and she is thriving. I enjoy watching her grow more confident, learn about the theater, and become an increasingly better vocalist and dancer. She's pulling that A+ student plus extracurricullar thing with a vengence. Probably more important is she has Friends. Lots of them. She is starting to have a rather busy social calendar. Go Mera!
Number 3 is playing netball. Despite our initial groan of comically American dismay, DrC and I are attempting to step up to the parental plate and learn the rules. All thoughts of this not being a contact sport are evaporating in the face of several team injuries, including Aeron's rather nasty jammed finger and an elbow to the eye. I still find some of the rules bizarre (and do not even get me STARTED on the uniform skirts), but there is no question those girls run for 45 solid minutes per game. She is starting to look like a lean, poorly fed, fiendishly blonde animal. Apparently, a steady diet of fresh veg and fruits, good quality breads and meats, and a glass of warm milk in the morning are insufficient for her current metabolic rate which runs at roughly the same pace as a squirrel on Ritalin. I might break down and start stuffing sausage pies and Pop Tarts into her lunch.
My husband is a musician. Now would somebody please just give us a call and agree to play with him periodically. It is time he got out of my bedroom and started playing in front of someone other than his sleepy wife. He's better than half the buskers you hear out there. Actually, maybe that's the solution to our money problems too... I could just send him out to busk every night. Hmm.
I am sort of employed. I should start work next week in fact. Maybe hopefully probably. Before anyone asks, no details forthcoming until the final paperwork gets through the byzantine adminsitrative system of my employer. I don't want to jinx anything. So while the family set the bar pretty high, I'm limping along behind them waving the weekly calendar and chore chart and trying to get them take their fish oil. Sadly, only the cat is impressed.
Monday, April 30, 2012
A Walk in the City
I love cites in the morning. Marching through the brisk air with a spring in my step and head buzzing with ideas for what I want to accomplish, it is finally time to admit that I missed this. I still pine for the people we left behind in the States, but most of the life we precipitously abandoned causes me no pain of loss. But this... these cool mornings in a city just waking up, the air fresh from sea breezes, the sky almost painfully blue, the commuters all around pushing through the crowds with feet on auto-pilot while they check email on their phones, the busses rumbling by and the cars getting jammed up at the corners. This city is so familiar, and this walk is reminiscent of hundreds of similar mornings in That Life. The one part of that life I unequivocally loved was going to work downtown with people I absolutely adored, respected, savored.
I play a game as I walk, people watching and trying to match the outfits with their job description. The women are easy, the young ones in tight little outfits with costume jewelry say new to the business world, probably working as assistants, clerks, receptionists. While the wiser, older women in the same outfit are much sleeker, the gold and gemstones real, the shoes fine tooled leather and the overall look so much more polished in a way that says management or executive. Males in New Zealand are either white colar in blue, black or grey suits, open dress shirt of a light color and faint pin stripe, no tie, leather shoes, or they are blue colar and sport some form of flourescent vest. Sprinkled throughout are the geeks -- the IT professionals are an entire gender-less class in expensive jeans, software branded t-shirts, ear buds firmly lodged under hair cuts that are inevitably at least a month past their prime. There are a few students either young enough for school uniforms or scruffly shlepping their way to University. They are hard to distinguish from an entire subdivision of the service sector on their way to retail shops. The baristas are, of course, already in place as are all the many newly arrived entrepreneurs who have opened Korean, Thai, sushi, curry, and Chinese food shops all over the city.
It amuses me to wonder what I am saying to the world with the look I sport this morning. The rough, tattered backpack says tourist or college student, but the iPhone says money and the expensive leather boots say management. The wash and wear haircut, no jewelry, no makeup put me squarely in the old-school feminist camp but the gawdy tanzanite and diamond ring DrC likes me to wear is so girly it messes with my dyke groove. But the strongest signal I send this morning is probably the jeans and t-shirt look.
A confession... During those dot-com boom and bust days when I was a pregnant, tech writing matron, it's true that I found it delightful to watch the eye candy of Hbunny, Noey and Greg parading around in their artfully aged, insanely expensive jeans. The boys (and they were boys at the time even if now they are quite clearly attractive men who would balk at the diminutive) were appealing in a way that a mother, wife and manager should not ever admit. So yes, they are the inspiration for my current outfit. Because it's 10 years later, and I can't resist painting these pants on to my newly sleek legs. Every time I pull on a size 10, I chortle and preen. I strut through the city with the slight bell sliding over my black, pointed boot toe and like to think that I am even half as sexy as my lovely young friends were in the same styles. Of course, the very fact that I am hiking up Queen Street in jeans that cost roughly the same as a smartphone screams tech.
A casual people watcher might be confused about the mixed signals I send with my basic tech mixed with executive and college student look. That's okay. Frankly, I'm confused, too. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Part of me wants to stay scruffy, barely off the boat and picking up the occasional contract to plump the cruising kitty. Another part wants to dive hell-bent into the management career track I left in Seattle. I love telling other people what to do. As with my clothes, the only clear signal my heart is sending my head is tech tech tech. I want to stay in software and hardware development if I can. I love the gadgets and the newness and the constant change and the insane schedules. I like the sexy young engineers who don't know they are sexy because they are so frickin' smart and so incredibly dorky. I want the bleeding edge crap that breaks every time I work with it and sales teams who straddle some strange line between engineer and carnival barker. I love the feeling that I know what's going on in a world that most people find necessary to their very lives but completely incomprehensible. I want to crawl back into the black box.
My pack weighs heavily on my back, chock full of a Windowsian brick, power cords, and a newly emptied to-go mug as I turn the corner on the last stretch to my client. Today, I get to restructure a single-source database for a software company in the business of electronic medical records. It's a start in the right direction. Passers-by can attribute my little smile as amusement at the podcast feed trickling into my ears, but I know it's because I'm exactly where I want to be.
I play a game as I walk, people watching and trying to match the outfits with their job description. The women are easy, the young ones in tight little outfits with costume jewelry say new to the business world, probably working as assistants, clerks, receptionists. While the wiser, older women in the same outfit are much sleeker, the gold and gemstones real, the shoes fine tooled leather and the overall look so much more polished in a way that says management or executive. Males in New Zealand are either white colar in blue, black or grey suits, open dress shirt of a light color and faint pin stripe, no tie, leather shoes, or they are blue colar and sport some form of flourescent vest. Sprinkled throughout are the geeks -- the IT professionals are an entire gender-less class in expensive jeans, software branded t-shirts, ear buds firmly lodged under hair cuts that are inevitably at least a month past their prime. There are a few students either young enough for school uniforms or scruffly shlepping their way to University. They are hard to distinguish from an entire subdivision of the service sector on their way to retail shops. The baristas are, of course, already in place as are all the many newly arrived entrepreneurs who have opened Korean, Thai, sushi, curry, and Chinese food shops all over the city.
It amuses me to wonder what I am saying to the world with the look I sport this morning. The rough, tattered backpack says tourist or college student, but the iPhone says money and the expensive leather boots say management. The wash and wear haircut, no jewelry, no makeup put me squarely in the old-school feminist camp but the gawdy tanzanite and diamond ring DrC likes me to wear is so girly it messes with my dyke groove. But the strongest signal I send this morning is probably the jeans and t-shirt look.
A confession... During those dot-com boom and bust days when I was a pregnant, tech writing matron, it's true that I found it delightful to watch the eye candy of Hbunny, Noey and Greg parading around in their artfully aged, insanely expensive jeans. The boys (and they were boys at the time even if now they are quite clearly attractive men who would balk at the diminutive) were appealing in a way that a mother, wife and manager should not ever admit. So yes, they are the inspiration for my current outfit. Because it's 10 years later, and I can't resist painting these pants on to my newly sleek legs. Every time I pull on a size 10, I chortle and preen. I strut through the city with the slight bell sliding over my black, pointed boot toe and like to think that I am even half as sexy as my lovely young friends were in the same styles. Of course, the very fact that I am hiking up Queen Street in jeans that cost roughly the same as a smartphone screams tech.
A casual people watcher might be confused about the mixed signals I send with my basic tech mixed with executive and college student look. That's okay. Frankly, I'm confused, too. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Part of me wants to stay scruffy, barely off the boat and picking up the occasional contract to plump the cruising kitty. Another part wants to dive hell-bent into the management career track I left in Seattle. I love telling other people what to do. As with my clothes, the only clear signal my heart is sending my head is tech tech tech. I want to stay in software and hardware development if I can. I love the gadgets and the newness and the constant change and the insane schedules. I like the sexy young engineers who don't know they are sexy because they are so frickin' smart and so incredibly dorky. I want the bleeding edge crap that breaks every time I work with it and sales teams who straddle some strange line between engineer and carnival barker. I love the feeling that I know what's going on in a world that most people find necessary to their very lives but completely incomprehensible. I want to crawl back into the black box.
My pack weighs heavily on my back, chock full of a Windowsian brick, power cords, and a newly emptied to-go mug as I turn the corner on the last stretch to my client. Today, I get to restructure a single-source database for a software company in the business of electronic medical records. It's a start in the right direction. Passers-by can attribute my little smile as amusement at the podcast feed trickling into my ears, but I know it's because I'm exactly where I want to be.
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