Overstuffed

Being home with my children has been a well-needed change.  My miserable job environment was making me so miserable, I'd become angry and impatient, and I hated it. I hated even more how angry I would get at my husband and especially our children. 

So, I made some major changes, but am always looking for new ideas, fresh suggestions.

I stumbled on a blog post recently about simplification, and while I agree with the overall philosophy, I have to play devil's advocate on some points that were made when it came to tossing the toys.  The woman who wrote the blog was channeling someone else's advice. (Sidebar: The author kept referring to "Payne." That was it. No first name, no links to Payne. Nothing. Just, Payne said this, Payne said that. Bloggers: Source appropriately and include links. If you're unsure, go to my other blog and I can offer you a free consultation ;-) 

Turns out this someone else is Dr. Kim (Spoiler: It's a dude!) John Payne who states "society is waging an undeclared war... on childhood." I totally agree about over-scheduling our children's lives and about the over indulgence in technology, but I'm not one hundred percent sold on the toy-tossing argument. I say this because I make sure the TV is off more than it's on, the iPads and tablets are hidden out of sight (ok, so I lie half the time and say I can't find them or they're broken, so sue me) and with just this small change I see my children playing with their toys and using their imaginations far beyond what that toy was specifically designed for. And I don't see that as a bad thing. I'm talking dinosaurs overtaking Thomas the Train, stuffed animals coexisting with action figures, and don't even get me started on bath time toys! That shit gets real. Real real. 

Okay, so our kids have a lot of toys.  My boys have hand-me down toys from my husband's son, from gift giving and so on.  I do weed through the toys frequently as my kids outgrow certain ones and donate to local shelters or daycare providers. And since one argument is that our kids are overbooked, what do you expect them to do when there agendas free up?  When I was little, I didn't have dance, music lessons, soccer practice all week long. I came home from school and played - outside, yes, but also with toys. And with our weather conditions, inside play is a reality for most of the winter months. 

What bothered me about this author's take was that it seemed the toy tossing being done was more for the parents' benefit, not for the child's. Let's see where we differ, shall we?

Electronic Devices

For me, in the first few days of being home I found that while we were smack dab in the middle of one of the most gorgeous Central New York falls ever, I had to drag our four-year-old away from the iPad to go outside. This is a kid who normally runs outside every chance he gets. So the tablets are g-o-n-e Monday through Friday. We do allow them on the weekend, but my husband and I have gone in and cleaned up some of the games and replaced them with preschool learning games. We left some other games on there as well, but it's funny, they tend to choose the learning games more and more frequently. Score. I am not against introducing technology as a child gets older, but yes, a four-year-old coveting an iPad is a bit much. 

Turn That Down
Loud toys. We have some toy laptops that are learning aids, and I think they work great. Are they loud? Sure. Do they teach our kids their alphabet? Absolutely. And that's one noisy toy I will welcome. 

Tis But a Flesh Wound
I routinely throw away broken toys, which helps keep us de-cluttered. However, if the toy has special meaning and it doesn't really affect its use, we'll keep it. Besides, hasn't this woman ever SEEN Toy Story? If she wants to be the one to haul Wheezy off to a yard sale, go ahead. I prefer to sleep at night, thank you.

Disney Toys

One of my favorite memories in Florida was seeing my son's reaction to meeting the real Buzz Lightyear at Disneyland. Go ahead, judge me. Tell me I'm materialistic and going to a Pixar-animated version of hell. His reaction was precious, priceless and I will never throw his Buzz Lightyear away. Never. E-V-E-R.  While I agree with the blog's author that Disney commercializes the living crap out of everything, I am going to argue back: Just because Disney is churning out toys faster than Nicholas Sparks churns out loves stories doesn't mean I have to buy those toys. Use that opportunity to teach your children that you can't have a new Buzz Lightyear simply because the old one lost his foot. In fact, get crafty and make him crutches out of tooth picks or something. (Poor Buzz.)

Get Your Crap Together

I don't mind the plentiful toys because I have a system to keep them organized, and when we are cleaning up, our boys know where things go. There's a bin for dinosaurs, bins for books on the wall - you know, a place for everything and everything in its place. I make sure of it.

Burning Books? Banned Books? Ringing Any Bells Here?
I will go through my children's books and donate the ones that are meant for a much younger audience, but I want my children to have books to read, since reading seems to be a dying art. If I find one day they are not, that's a different story, but I want them to have a world of learning and imagining at their fingertips. As a writer and a former English major, books are special to me and are indicative of learning, education. Sorry, but I'm totally befuddled by this concept. 

As I was reading the article on tossing the toys, I kept thinking to myself that it sounded like she was only keeping the things she wanted them to have versus what they wanted. Personally, I'm not a fan of guns, but our family does hunt and if the boys show an interest in that then I feel they should explore it, even if it's not what I want them to be most interested in. In fact, the author even said that she tossed the books she didn't like and kept the ones she wanted them to read. Um, isn't that censorship?

I love my children. Do I want them to have everything? No. Do I want them to have choices? Of course, even if it means choosing something that might not be my preference. After all, I want them to be their own, individual, unique selves, not some miniature version of my self, or who I want them to be. Forcing them to be anything other than who they are?   Toss that idea right out with those broken toys. (Except Buzz. We're keeping Buzz.)

Keep Your Pants On...And Stop Shaking What's in Them

I've been bothered for a long time by images of women that are not tasteful or respectful, evidenced by my Facebook rant aimed at Jennifer Lopez's music video.  (Warning: Besides taking a big crap all over feminism, she also has no musical talent.) I just can't wrap my head around what's empowering about making yourself nothing more than a sex object while getting all touchy-feely with another woman. Am I the only one that gets the heebie jeebies at this stuff? Wait, don't answer that.

And while I don't pay attention to anything Hollywood or who is who, I do obviously see things on Facebook or on the news, since scanning for headlines is a big part of what I do.  What I've noticed is a few similar complaints - one by a brave mother who is taking on Target for selling short-shorts to little girls and another about the sexualization of young female stars.

On the left, a girls size 4-5; on the right, a boys size 4-5.

I'm not going to deal with the Hollywood angle, because it just seems too obvious, and I'm sorry, but those people? Well they're just plain effed up.  But as far as the daisy dukes and the slathering yourself with baby oil in a (wrestling?) unitard and shaking your ass? I mean, can't we do better?

I remember when I was going through those horrible stages bordering on flowering into womanhood, and for god's sake, yes, I'm being facetious. I wanted to hide my body, not showcase it. I didn't want my father to know I was changing, because I was worried it would mean the end of us hanging out, fishing, playing tennis and mowing lawns together, if I had boobs. Lucky me I never actually grew anything remarkable, so continuing on as a tomboy was manageable, but I remember mostly I just didn't want my dad to treat me differently.  Because I respected my father and enjoyed his company so much, I was embarrassed to do anything overtly girlish. Shit, I wore ripped jeans, Nine Inch Nails Tee Shirts and Flannel Shirts all through high school. I certainly wasn't at risk to star in a J-Lo video, so maybe it's hard for me to relate, but I'm wondering if strong father-daughter relationships are the missing link.

Television shows and movies are also to blame. Yes, I said it. I don't have to watch the crap on TV to know it's true, and you can ask my husband, since he laughs every time I mock the idiotic scripted words provided for the bimbo screen stars in action movies. Seriously, yes, you, the girl from the latest Transformers movie? Could you please stop hugging your boyfriend when your father is friggin Mark Wahlberg? What are you stupid? And while you're roaming around the earth dodging bullets, please button your friggin' shirt and put on a pair of sturdy Levi's (that go all the way down to your ankles) during the robot apocalypse. That'd be great. Thanks.

Writer and director Tessa Blake would know too, since she is a minority on the other side of the lens.

The more media a girl watches, the fewer options she feels she has in life. The more media a boy watches, the more likely he is to develop sexist views. No wonder. Only 25 percent of leads in movies are women, and men are more likely to be shown with a job. Weirdly, we don't even have equal representation when it comes to crowd scenes.

I know that I can just not watch. I get that. And for the most part, I don't. I guess my complaint goes a little bit deeper - to not just wish that the offensive images weren't such a staple in our culture, but to wish that young women (and old women, I mean really, leave the Daisy Dukes in the 70s - yeesh) didn't emulate that image.  Even when it was preferable to reveal your midriff in the early 2000s, and yes, even though I had awesome abs, I did not. You know, just cause they're doing it? Doesn't mean you have to.

Why should a mother of a young girl have to shop in the boys department if she wants longer shorts? I get the argument to not buy the short-shorts, so don't play that card, but if that's all there is to choose from? Yes, that IS a problem.

And the fact that it looks like J-Lo and other young women are opting for the short-shorts too in order to define themselves in an otherwise tasteless and tacky society that encourages women to use their bodies, not their brains, it means the voices that count, the Tessa Blakes and the Angry Mom Blogger who took on Target? Those voices need to sound off just a little bit louder.

Thirteen Years Lucky

An old photo of me sitting on the lap of the Coca-Cola bear brought back a lot of memories, and made me realize what a snazzy hair-do I had in college. A lot of people tell me I haven't changed much, and I usually respond, "Because I was twenty going on forty." (Seriously, look at my hair!)

I was in Atlanta for a public relations conference for PRSSA. I was a senior in college and we visited the Coca-Cola factory.  I know for a fact this was in the Fall of 2001, because we rented a car and drove - the four of us who refused to fly post 9/11. As I sifted through some relics from my past, I had to ponder the fact that I was such a serious student, so focused on my career, and then juxtaposition that to where I am now.  I am getting more than a little discouraged at where my career is today. I had so many goals, so many ambitions. It's hard to believe this was thirteen years ago.

Sidebar: If you're shocked that a twenty-one year old college student was spending a weekend networking and learning about how to break into the field of public relations, then you must not know me very well. I was a nerd growing up and still am. I didn't drink and party while in college; I worked three jobs simultaneously and studied. I went to class in dress pants and business suits. I was often mistaken for the professor. It is what it is.

Then I read a great blog post on LinkedIn called When to Turn Your Back on Your Career and I mentally slapped myself in the brain.

She was right. It's a career. It's not my life. It doesn't define me. When I went through my box of memories, it was those crazy adventures with my friends or pictures of my family acting goofy that meant the most. Sure, some of it I had completely and totally forgotten about -- either early signs of dementia or proof that when new information comes in, old information gets tossed like yesterday's trash, but a little reminder brought it all back, and that, in turn, brought a smile to my face.

I have learned a lot in thirteen years. I am not where I had pictured myself to be back when thirty seemed like a swear word, and a million miles away.  I am in a better place, and for once in my life, I'm not grasping at whatever comes my way. I'm making choices and taking charge. I think that young woman on the bear would be shocked, but also smiling, to glimpse what the future held.