Who's in Charge?

When I was picking up my children from day camp yesterday, a dad and his daughter came in to check out the day camp and its private school. While the staff was giving him a sales pitch, he pointed to his 5-year-old daughter and engaged her by saying, "What do you think?" Then he looked at the staff member and explained smiling, "I'm a single dad, so she runs the house."


Wait. What? The kid is in charge?


Based on what I've observed, they're not the only family with that dynamic – he's just one of the few to verbalize it. And then today, I heard a radio commercial that asked the question, "Having a hard time keeping the kids busy this summer?"


Wait. What? It's my job to provide 24/7 entertainment and activities to my children?


I love my kids to death and would do anything for them. I also try to provide them with opportunities to do fun activities and learn more about things that interest them, but I'm not their personal activities director. We don't live in the dark ages – we have all the electronic gadgets and probably spend way too much time in front of the TV – but my husband and I also like to see them stretch their minds and their muscles. 


Today my 7-year-old son and his buddy have had so much fun as "Captain America" and "his sidekick". I'm not even sure if Captain America actually has a sidekick, but nonetheless, they have been non-stop busy ALL day riding bikes, climbing trees, making themselves snacks ("No thanks, Mom, we can do it."), changing clothes to create their own "costumes" and generally just being boys. 


So, if someone were to peek inside your home, who would they say is in charge? It's something to think about as we strive to help our children grow into responsible, thoughtful and respectful individuals.

Beyond Perfection

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a perfectionist about some things - spelling and grammar, for one. It drives me crazy when the newspaper or TV station have words misspelled or use blatantly poor grammar. 


But when it comes to my kids – the only thing I see is the heart that went into their perfect works of art.

What the world needs now...

The world is filled with many things I wish would go away for the sake of my children. Wars. Illegal drugs. Poverty. Hatred. So many things that we'd all be better off without.


But there's one thing I don't see nearly as much as previous generations did – racial prejudice. Sure, it's still there on some levels, but not the way it was when my grandparents were living. A friend of mine is in the process of fostering-to-adopt a sweet little baby, who happens to be of another race. She was sharing the concern she has about what one of her elderly relatives might say.

My daughter was caught off guard by this. In her mind, the color of a person's skin is no different than the color of their shoes. We talked about it with our kids and explained to them what segregation was like in our country, not that long ago. We shared with them how white and black children used different drinking fountains and went to different schools. And how adults often couldn't see past racial barriers. That led them to the realization that if we were still living in such a society they would be missing out on many of their valued friendships.


We are blessed to be living in a world – and a neighborhood – where we have friends of all different backgrounds living together in harmony, caring for each other. And we are blessed to be living in a time during which prejudice isn't something we deal with on a regular basis.


Sure, our world isn't perfect. But we're making progress.

How to Raise a Reader

I've always loved to read. Some of my fondest memories are of my grandmother taking me to the public library in our small town. It was like the bar in Cheers - everyone knew our names. Grandma always had the latest books on her waiting list - those hot books could only be checked out for a week at a time, while the others could be kept for two.


I would browse my sections of the library - first the little kid section, then I graduated to the chapter books. We'd check out our stacks of books and head back out into the heat before arriving home to read our books in the cool comfort of her air conditioned home.


My love of reading continued throughout my life, peaking when I was pregnant with each of my children. The luxury of relaxing in my glider, feeling my babies kick while consuming a wide range of novels, was a magical time in my life.

But after the kids were born, my reading shifted to Goodnight Moon, Guess How Much I Love You and God Gave Us You. We read to the babies from the time they were very young. We had (still have) books in many rooms throughout the house - short bookshelves in their rooms, baskets of books in the living room, books in the diaper bag and car, books always within in reach.


Then I returned to work, first freelancing, then part-time and eventually full-time. The kids could now read their own books and had even advanced to large chapter books, which they read in record time. During my adult life, my own reading had first given way to picture books with the kids, and then to business books and magazines like The Big Idea, The Personal MBA, BusinessWeek and so on.


Reading for pleasure just seemed like too much of a luxury as a mom with 2 businesses, 2 kids, 2 dogs, 1 husband and a never-ending To Do list. But this summer, I've gradually started to allow myself this luxury again. I love getting lost in a book, reading until my eyes can't stay open any more. Whether reading on the iPad or flipping the pages of a traditional book, the words of a good writer pull me in to places I've never been.


Now as the summer continues to heat up and the kids are out of school, I'm doing one more thing to reinforce their love of reading. I'm letting myself read for fun, too. Yesterday was a blistering hot day so we headed to the library (at their request). We each came out with a stack of books and they opened their books the minute we got to the car. We had such a wonderful quiet evening last night while all of us read together, in our own worlds – yet very much together.