Category Archives: the new victorian (parenting and kid related)

gardening with kids

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Me, circa 1968.

I was a kid who gardened starting quite early. One of the first things I ever planted was corn. Yes corn. I was somewhere around the age of 3, we did it in school and yes I transplanted my corn plants into our walled garden in Philadelphia (lived in Society Hill until I was like 11).

Some of my earliest memories involved gardening with my father and his father, my Pop Pop. Pop Pop showed me how to plant tomatoes – Plum Tomatoes to be specific (he was Italian!) We also planted herbs. That first tomato plant yielded a tomato that looked like a little baseball mitt!

Gardening as a happy place started early for me. I also understood I had my plants I tended to, but left others alone. I learned early to stay away from the leaves of three (poison ivy, sumac,etc.)

The garden was not a place child-proofed other than a locked side gate in the garden wall that was locked to keep us in and strangers out – it was a walled garden with old brick walls almost 8 feet tall. I will admit I had a friend named Ali who was as agile as a cat who would climb her tall brick garden wall, walk over the edges of neighbors’ walls and climb down into my garden to hang out. It was quicker than walking around a long city block. I am happy to report she is alive and well and living in London with her husband and children.

I was told not to touch this subject with a 10 foot pole by a friend, but I feel I must. Yes I have certain plants that I do not plant because they are poisonous to domestic animals.

This topic comes up a great deal in my gardening group. And I do get frustrated sometimes by the questions. I understand that they are valid, but I grew up in a house that wasn’t childproofed to death, so did my stepson, and nieces and nephews. This also goes for a lot of my friends’ children.

Common sense dictates a lot of this. Watch young children carefully when playing outdoors. Keep indoor plants safely out of the reach of children. Teach kids from a young age to ask an adult before eating or drinking anything. Don’t eat wild plants in front of little kids who will mimic you.

You can have a garden and have small children. And the thing is, like teaching them to cook, or even just make cookies, they will probably have fun.

I have friends who often had a more grown up garden in the front yard, and out back where the kids played was more basic. That seemed to work.

You can give your kids their own “first garden” in a few pots, a low to the ground rectangular planter, or window boxes. Or you can give them their own section to tend in the garden beds you have already established. Start seeds early inside like sunflowers,zinnias , cosmos , vegetables or culinary herbs. Or buy starter plants somewhere.

Connecting with the earth and gardening is such a positive thing.  Many local arboretums even offer gardening – Tyler Arboretum, Jenkins Arboretum, Morris Arboretum, Mt. Cuba Center,Longwood Gardens, and more. Here is a whole link on Eventbrite (click on hyperlink) for all sorts of  gardening related events that are kid friendly.

There is this website called KidsGardening.org which has all sorts of information. They have an entire section on gardening basics. The have other sections on garden activities and even growing guides!  They are based in Burlington, Vermont and even have a spot on their website about designing school gardens. They are a non-profit. They have been around since 1982.  I think they are awesome.

We seem to partially live in a cotton batting world where kids are so scheduled and often overly protected.  Sometimes they just need to be kids.  I think gardening is one of those things that helps that along. Give them parameters like you do when teaching them other things. Most of all, remember, the garden doesn’t have to be perfect. It is a fun thing you can do together, learn together, and create memories with.

I still remember how fun it was when we planted my first tomato plant, and I learned how to tend my herb plants. As a child, I also loved learning how to make terrariums. In high school I was a Shipley Sprout and we even competed in the Philadelphia Flower Show!  I won a couple of ribbons too for forcing bulbs! (Not first place, but it was still awesome!)

On the U.K.’s Telegraph website there is this article:

Churchill family gardening
Seeds of success: gardening with kids cultivates life skills  

5 SEPTEMBER 2016 • 10:45AM By Victoria Lambert

Anyone who has gardened with children will know what a pleasure it is to pass on skills and see the next generation developing a passion for planting.

There may be the odd moment where “weeding” decimates your new bedding plants or a snail collection is released en masse into the veg patch, but research shows we should stick with it as experts increasingly point to the value children get from gardening and being outside.

These benefits range from the chance to be active and get away from the omnipresent screens, to real mental health gains.

Back in 2000, a Texas A&M University survey of children under 12 actively involved in gardening projects in school, community or home settings, found benefits to children’s self-esteem and reduction in stress levels.

Closer to home, Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) research continues to back this up. It suggests children perform better at school if they’re involved with gardening, and many will develop a greater interest in healthy eating if they get to grow their own veg.

Caroline Levitt, who founded the Diggers Forest School and Nursery near Midhurst, West Sussex, believes the benefits of outdoor work even for the smallest children are huge. She says: “Children can learn so much and have fun, too.

“Gardening involves lots of different activities, such as design of the garden and choice of what to plant, and it can be a good team or friendship building exercise, as they take turns to water plants and share the weeding. This is also a good way to learn responsibility.

“Gardening can also be a fantastic sensory experiment, handling dry earth or gloopy mud and even worms! It is a great way for children to naturally learn patience while they watch their produce grow.”

Ms Levitt adds that gardening is useful for stimulating creativity. “We get them thinking about the design of the layout and in terms of how seeds are planted  – for example, neatly in rows or thrown into a pot…”

….Gardening for children is also closely linked to feelings of well-being. 

 

Rodale’s Organic Life also has an article on this:

The Importance Of Getting Kids Into The Garden

Turn digging in the dirt with your children into a lifetime of love and respect for nature. by Marti Ross Bjornson November 24, 2015

Gardens are magical, fun, and always full of surprises. Watch a child pull a carrot from the earth, brush off the soil, and take a bite, or see the anticipation in the eyes of a youngster creating a bouquet of flowers she grew. There is a natural magnetic attraction between children and the earth, whether it’s making mud or discovering a germinating seed emerge from the earth. Gardening with children, from toddlers to adolescents, opens new windows in a world dominated by technology.

Whether you are an accomplished gardener or a novice, gardening with children is your chance to partner with Mother Nature to make magic. Don’t worry about achieving horticultural perfection. Just dig in and grow something beautiful or good to eat. Your garden is your treasure chest; you and your young gardener—exploring together—can discover its priceless bounty for an afternoon’s delight or for a lifetime.

Memories last longer than one season.

 

Anyway, just wanted to point out teaching kids to garden is a good thing.

Now, to be safe click below for lists of poisonous and non-poisonous plants:

PoisonControl.org: Poisonous and Non-poisonous Plants An Illustrated List

California Poison Control System: Poisonous and Non-Poisonous Plants

kitchen elves needed.

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Unless you were a complete suck up growing up, you avoided the kitchen when cleanup was needed. I know I did, although I always ended up somehow being the one that cleaned up the kitchen for the most part.

But in my defense my mother is still a master at getting other people to do what she wants done, and she was relentless when we were growing up. Come to think of it, she was also very good at getting other people to cook for her. It’s not like we had Mrs. Bridges in the kitchen it was more like me and my father. (But I digress.)

Mrs. Bridges was the beloved Cook from Upstairs, Downstairs the PBS Show. She had a veritable army of footman, maids, scullery maids, and kitchen help. Most of us don’t live like that, and never did. Which means we really appreciate a little help around the kitchen.

However I have noticed throughout my life, that cleaning up the kitchen means completely different things to men and women. And I love and adore my husband, but he and I have vastly different perspectives on this topic. And he gets really annoyed when I try to talk to him about it like I did this morning.

Face it, there are just days being a domestic goddess is harder than others. When I came down to the kitchen this morning I felt like the he-man woman haters club had held a chapter meeting in my kitchen.

There was stuff everywhere (including grains of rice lodged underneath the glass cutting board) and both sinks were loaded with dirty dishes.

So I spent a good part of my morning before getting ready to work cleaning up the kitchen and loading and running the dishwasher. That also meant time vacuuming up additional grains of rice from off of the floor.

I know, I know there are bigger problems on the face of this earth, but cleaning up the kitchen in a small house to me is a really big deal. Which means when you come in the front door it’s not too far to the kitchen. So as a woman you want everything to look tidy. Or at least I do personally.

I also live in a male household. So cleaning up the kitchen generally speaking falls to me. Not because anyone is chauvinistic, it’s just because I have a little bit of OCD going on when it comes to cleaning up.

Yes…one of my pet peeves are indeed dirty kitchens. I used to know someone that was such a slob and a pile-maker in the kitchen, that every time I came home from her house I had to clean something else up. I think to this day every time my kitchen is too dirty it reminds me of theirs.

I am also stepparent to a teenage male, and sometimes I don’t even think he sees what is in the kitchen. He is focused on being a teenage male. So he comes into the kitchen he gets what he wants and he leaves. That can be a little frustrating when it comes to cleaning up as well.

However, when my sister quipped recently that she didn’t believe either of her children (niece and nephew) knew what the dishwasher was, I know this is not just a male thing it’s just a kid thing. And I know from my other friends that there are many similar tales of “kitchen destruction” left in the wake of various aged children.

I guess it’s the whole thing when you’re a kid you don’t understand, but when you’re a grown-up you understand all too well. It’s kind of like you never understood why your mother got annoyed when there were multiple boxes of half eaten cereal in the cupboard, until you open your own cupboard and you have four open boxes of teenager designated cereal, and two are the same thing.

It seems to me that when we were growing up for the most part we had little assigned chores we were just expected to do. If we were lucky we got a little allowance out of them, but most of the time it was just we were expected to do it. We were expected to help.

Whenever I mention this, this is where my husband asks me if I was a robot growing up, and no honey, I wasn’t. We just had chores we were expected to do. And that was for me when my mother’s inner Pennsylvania German shined through, so I try not to be a bear about it as an adult in my own house. But I haven’t quite figured out what the balance is which will get me help once in a while when I need it …without me sounding like a nag.

It would be really nice to have occasional kitchen elves visit me. Unfortunately I live in Chester county, so I’m far more likely to get a mouse instead 🤣

Thanks for listening to my womanly gripes, and men? Live dangerously help your ladies clean up the kitchen. One benefit will be will you save money on hand cream and manicures.

Thanks for stopping by.

modern family

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The concept of family is a sacred thing. When you are little they are that group of people bought together by blood that all look like you.

As you grow up you realize as you form your own family units the concept of family can be redefined. I have a lot of friends who don’t have much family by related blood per se, so the friends fill the family shoes.

When my sister and I were little there were a lot more of us. Not in our immediate family, we were just four people- but through aunts and uncles and cousins and great aunts and great uncles and grandparents and great grandparents there were more of us.  As we grew up, the numbers thinned. But we still had both of our parents.

In 2005 our father died. He had fought prostate cancer valiantly and on his own terms.

For me, the death of my father is still somewhat of a surreal event. My memories from that time are a lot like flashes of  Kaleidoscope images.  Lots of bits separated by flashes of color.

I remember my mother and my sister being so instantly devastated and falling apart around me that I was almost afraid to grieve for a very long time.  I remember looking out across the church which was standing room only giving one of  my father’s eulogies .  In order to get through that and not embarrass myself by dissolving into tears I found two of my friends Stevie and Barb, and focused on them.

Other things I remember from the day of my father’s funeral were two people who weren’t there. One was my father’s brother, his only brother. Even as a child I never thought much of him and I pretty much wrote him off after that. He was like a selfish caricature version of my father. Truthfully, and without guilt and reservation, I can say with a clean conscience I don’t care if I ever see him again.

The other person who wasn’t there that day was my godfather.  That was a more bitter pill to swallow, especially since he lived down the street from the church. He was literally two or three blocks away.

My late godfather was a great disappointment to me on that day.  He had known my father (and mother) since high school and he gave the toast at their wedding.  So I let my godfather go. I was sad for a moment when I heard he had died, but I did not attend his funeral which was at the church a block away from where my father’s funeral had been held. I saw no need to open that door one last time.

We all moved on. It took a while, but we found our way and it was OK but it was different.

Then in 2010, we also lost my brother-in-law quite suddenly.   Our little family unit was devastated all over again. It nearly broke me to watch my sister and her children grieve because there was nothing anyone could do other than to be there for them. It was also so incredibly hard to watch my mother grieve this new loss as well.

Eventually the clouds lifted and we all moved on. One day our mother finally ‘fessed up and told us she was seeing someone. (We had suspected this, incidentally.) Mother seemed almost scared to tell us like we would be upset.  But we weren’t upset, we were very and truly happy for her. We also felt that our father would not have wanted her to be alone because he loved her that much. Our mother was truly happy and alive again, and we loved it.

So for the past few years we have watched a rather remarkable love story develop and unfold. At a time in life where a lot of people tend to wind down and accept a more solitary existence, my mother once again found love.

And my sister and I grew to love her gentlemen as a surrogate father. We felt so lucky and so blessed to have him.

I am especially personally grateful for him as he really gets me as an individual . He has this uncanny intuition with people and capacity to listen to, understand, and love that is just lovely. I don’t know how else to describe it.  And on Monday, 22 May, 2017 he officially became our stepfather.

It was a quiet and intimate occasion, just the children and the couple whose dinner party inadvertently introduced them. Yes, this was something that happened quite literally by fate.

My mother and new stepfather were married by a judge they knew. After the ceremony was complete, the judge asked the children if they had anything to say. My sister spoke, but I didn’t have my words at that time. So I did not speak.

It has taken a couple of days for my wandering thoughts to come together. And among those thoughts I marvel at the modern family we all have become.

My own little family unit is a blended family, and now my larger family unit is a blended family. My sister and I have five stepsiblings! We gained four brothers and one sister…and that does not include spouses and children!

The thing about my newly blended family is how marvelous they are. Seriously, they are awesome.

We (the children) have all gotten to know each other over these past few years as our parents came together from being widowed.  So this is actually a really happy time for all of us. We all have had our bittersweet moments as we remember the parents who are no longer with us, but we are so fortunate that our parents have found such a wonderful love together and bought all of us together.

The power of love and happiness is a powerful thing indeed.  We are all stronger and better together. A true case of  Yours, Mine, and Ours — which incidentally is one of my favorite movies.  (The 1968 version starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda.)

Believe in love. It takes you on the most unexpected journeys in life.

Thanks for stopping by.

prom season means prom reminders

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Victoria Pan, a senior at Downingtown East High School, earned the grand prize in the Positive Prom Message contest. This is her image as published on Facebook. See https://www.facebook.com/chestercountyAVOID/  https://www.facebook.com/DowningtownAreaCTC

It’s prom season. And well, prom is a lot different then the “good old days”. This beautiful illustration was the Positive Prom Message winner and Miss Victoria Pan at Downingtown East is the artist.  I hope Victoria doesn’t mind me featuring her art in this post – it is a beautifully executed and powerful piece of art that demonstrates maturity beyond her high school years.  Plus I just like it.

A lot of these proms are not close to home.  They can be at venues quite far away.   Lots of schools have parent group sponsored after prom activities,  instead of after parties of glory days gone by.

No matter how time has passed, it is still a terrific night to be a teenager and a nail biter of an evening to be a parent.

You want your kids to have fun. But you want them home in one piece. Proms need ground rules.

Who is driving to the prom? Who is picking up from prom? When do they come home?

What is the distance between the prom venue and the after prom event and to the various domiciles of kids? How long are these after prom events that schools and parents sponsor? I know of one that runs from 11 pm to 5 am. So, if a kid has a Cinderella license in PA and drives to prom, how are they supposed to drive legally to one of these post prom events? If parents are doing the chauffeuring, when do they get to sleep that night of prom?

When did prom get so complicated?  Or was it always this complicated but when we were teenagers we just did not pay attention to other than who we were going with, who we were sitting with at a table at prom and what dress were we wearing?

Yes, my junior prom way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth….

I do remember the whole dress shopping of it all.   We didn’t show a lot of skin back then, and the heels? Well our mothers made sure we could walk in them if we wanted to wear them. And there was a lot of “no” when it came to dress choices and parental eye rolling that we even suggested wearing a dress that made us look like hoochie koochie mamas.

Today if my friends and I were teenagers and we wore what we were allowed to wear back then, we would have looked like we were sporting Morman “modest ” clothing.

I also remember my mother and her friends rotated dresses between them – so if we were going to more than one prom it was like the mom version of “rent the runway.”  We borrowed someone else’s dress so we had no prompeat dresses from school to school. Who knew it wasn’t a new dress? (we’d never tell!)

Now prom is a big business and well half the guys don’t wear tuxedos anymore.  And what is with this trend that the guy’s tie and/or cummerbund matches the girl’s dress color? Is this like prom Garanimals? Sorry it is a trend I think is dumb.  It’s like yo Barbie, Ken will match you. And a great deal of the girls’ gowns do indeed look like Barbie inspired clothing, which I do not know is a good thing. It just is.

Girls are doing wedding caliber hair and make-up and nails.  How much does prom even cost today?

And then there is the whole promposal thing.  You can’t just ask someone to prom. It has to be this whole production.  Prom bombing a kid’s car to ask them to prom is one way to do it.

I saw this in 2011 and snapped a photo

These promposals have gotten competitive…and expensive.  At Bucks County’s Pennsbury High School they have been banned during school hours.

And wow, these promposals whether you are male or female seem like big pressure to me.  And what happens if someone turns your promposal down? Then what?

But once we get past the where the proms are, where the after parties and events are, and who is wearing what and who is going with whom, it boils down to kids being safe.

State Representative Duane Milne sent around a sober reminder today via e-mail.  I close with that because well, have fun kids but stay safe.  And take pity on your dear “old” parents who now understand why our parents were glad prom season came but once a year for a brief window of time!

 

 

cold-calling kids

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The telephone rang a few minutes ago. The caller ID said “College Admissions”.

Here we go again, I thought.

Our son is a junior in high school and in addition to the expected inundation of college literature via US Mail that makes election season junk mail look like nothing, even though we requested no college cold calls, we are getting them anyway. And then there are the hundreds of email solicitations.

So yes, back to what I am not comfortable with: these colleges and universities are cold calling minors.

They come in at odd times, like just now. Like other types of cold calls they are not particularly welcome and this latest invasion is enough for us to check out https://www.nomorobo.com/ as suggested by friends.

Lately we have had India generated robo-calls from McAfee, predatory credit card companies calling about who knows what services  (they ask for people that don’t live here and never have- they must have a script that tells them to ask for random first names), bogus breast cancer charities, bogus veterans’ charities and my new favorite to tell me I am pre-approved for a “MedAlert” or medical alert device. The MedAlert people have called so often I filed a complaint with the FTC (Federal Trade Commission.)

But colleges and universities cold calling is a brave, new, and somewhat unwelcome telemarketing world for me. Most schools have current students who call. Take Temple University for example. They called a couple of weeks ago. The student sounded bored out of his tree, could NOT pronounce even our son’s first name, and mumbled to the point he was unitellagable.  So much for good first impressions, right?

But today, Marquette University in Wisconsin took it to a whole new level I take issue with. They are paying for a professional telemarketing firm (they called themselves a professional research firm but it is the same thing) to cold call prospective students.

Yes, that’s right, a telemarketing firm calling on behalf of Marquette University wanting to speak to our child. We as parents have not given them permission to call, the child they are calling doesn’t want to talk to them. And I am sorry, even if Marquette was on any list they wouldn’t be now because of this.

And as a marketing idea, come on do these schools even know teenagers today? They communicate primarily via text and social media, so are they trying to call kids via Snap Chat as well?  Kids today barely speak on the phone with family members, so why on earth do these schools think they are going to speak to their cold-callers?

I might get these calls occurring after a kid takes a campus tour, but as a preemptive strike?  Not so much.

As a trend this is bothersome and borderline creepy.  Every once in a while I ask these callers for their home phone numbers so I can return the favor and bother them.

Sign me tired of all unwanted solicitation calls.

“netiquette” revisited

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Yesterday I posted something in an online group that was never intended to be controversial or cause a hubbub, I was sharing information and personal experience. For doing that the comments I received were in two categories: very kind and polite, and mean and piling on. 

I had warned people to take it easy this year if they get the flu shot because I found it to be tougher than last year and I am home in bed sick.  The nurse in the chemo lounge where I got my shot after my oncology appointment warned me to take it easy, and I didn’t and well…here I am sitting in bed losing a day during the time deprived holiday season.

People reacted two ways: politely and often agreeing as they had similar reactions this year and the other reaction was just piling on. Saying things like they disagreed and I was “wrong”. Wrong? My experience was not something to either agree or disagree on, it happened to me, it just IS!  One person made some inane comment about how they got the flu shot and some other shot and would do it “100 times more” or something equally moronic.

All I was doing was passing along my experience and urging people if they did have to get one like I do, to take it easy on themselves. After all, I learned the hard way when I did not listen to the nurse warning me to take it easy. Trust me with a post -cancer compromised immune system, I wish I did not have to do things like get a flu shot, but I do. So I get it. But the reactions in an online community where hypothetically you are supposed to be able to share DID make me think about something overnight I feel is important: online behavior and this holiday season.

Sociologists and psychologists will tell you that the advent of online communities and social media has created behavior patterns that are very different ONline versus OFFline. In the real world face to face you might have a discussion that gets heated, but people don’t necessarily pile on in the same way they do online, which is a virtual experience.

Online in large groups, people pile on and can be very judgmental. It’s like their keyboards give them immunity from social norms and more acceptable patterns of behavior. Keyboard tigers, keyboard cowboys, keyboard killers – all the same thing and it is behavior that can be hurtful or offensive of others.

So I spend a lot of time often  just reading what people write in these groups  and NOT commenting. And what I see at times blows my mind because as human beings we can just be so darn mean to one and other.  Or they just post things that are so wholly inappropriate it confounds me.

It is the holiday season. We are not all the same, we are all individuals. Let’s try especially at this time of year to be respectful of each person’s individuality and opinion and NOT pile on.  Especially in online communities. When we pile on it is not right and is actually bullying, a behavior we teach our kids no matter what the age is wrong.

Opinions will be different from person to person and that is quite alright. If you disagree with someone’s opinion, that doesn’t make their opinion wrong, it just means yours is different.

Online communities were started in part so we could share information and be supportive of one and other; not tear each other down and be intolerant of differences.

Enjoy the magic this season has to offer to all ages. Think before you post online. Be more kind. Be the kind of adult you want your kids to be someday. If we can’t be kind and tolerant to one and other, how can we expect our kids to be that way?

Thanks

on strike

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I love my stepson.  I do, He is awesome. But like many other kids those manners you have been teaching since embryo stage applies most often when you child is a guest in OTHER people’s homes. It’s so not cool to use those manners where you live! It simply is not done!

“Oh he is so helpful!”

“How do I get a child who helps me clean up the kitchen, set the table, walk the dog, and helps make the salad?”

“He is the PERFECT guest! And so articulate and conversational!”

Yes, I love hearing all this nice things….but here I sit laughing to myself that I wish I knew that person inside the four walls of our home!

Perfect manners. Outside the house.

Here?

Here I have a mutant ninja teenager.  He loves the inner sanctum of the bat cave, err his room.  Enter at your own risk.

Or the gaming palace, errr I mean the FAMILY room.

Want to make a teenager twitch? Have the temerity to actually sit in the FAMILY room and use it for anything OTHER than video games. Or hide their phone for a few minutes.

And when said beloved teenager is in the FAMILY room, you see him practicing to be a future corporate mogul and reclining like Julius Ceasar.  He has the head set on to communicate with his friends (and sometimes I swear they are more on the head sets to communicate than game). Then he has the super battery charger thingy in case he needs to plug in, text messaging/snap chatting/whatever on the phone, and for the technology trifecta, the tablet….with another game going on.

Teenagers contrary to popular belief can actually multitask VERY well and ever so efficiently….it just has to be something that interests them.  (Which aren’t parental units, naturally.)

When a certain someone was a little boy he loved hanging out with us.  He even showed interest in the kitchen.  When he was 10 he used to make me his world class favorite snack: he would cut up an apple, put it on the plate and carefully like he was mortaring bricks, would spread on peanut butter and even drizzle a little honey. And we would make hot cocoa together.

But at 17, you do not get that.  It is about friends, school, girl friend, gaming and not necessarily in that order.  Parental units are to be tolerated and used for rides to get places or buy stuff.  It’s not cool to hang out with the parental units, I do actually remember that much from being a teenager myself back in the olden days of yore.

Living as the only female human in the house I have resigned myself to a couple of things. One is socks form their own strange colonies along with random piles of dirty clothes.  The second is laundry looks much better when artfully displayed on the floor around the laundry hamper.

Another thing is the male of the human species have their own special, often somewhat primal non-verbal language.  They can move about the house  essentially grunting to each other and well sometimes the female feels somewhat invisible….until you cook or bake something that smells REALLY REALLY good.

One thing that doesn’t seem to happen very much in my house anymore are family dinners.  Teenager might turn into a pillar of salt or something if he couldn’t spend his time after homework on his games with his friends.  So I have pretty much given up on that ideal.  Which saddens me, but too many instances of teenager face (that special they are-bored-don’t-want-to-be-here-face), made me give it up.

But there is one thing I won’t give up on.  If teenager wants to be master of his own universe after homework, fine, but it is not my job to be the maid.  Yet somehow, I end up being the maid because teenagers never seem to know where the dishwasher is where they live…you are the maid and dishwasher.

Last night I cooked a lovely dinner.  Teenager did not join us.  But when he got off of his games and brought up his dinner plate (which was fixed and delivered to him by his father), it once again got deposited in the sink for the fairies or someone to take care of.

Proverbial straw meet camel’s back.  Time to go on strike.  I am not the maid.

So I decided to do to him what we once did to a summer beach house roommate who was a supreme kitchen slob: deposit his plate back in his room on a towel with a note (as seen above). Mind you I am being much kinder to him than I was to this woman once upon a time – we took a BIG beach towel and put it on her bed and onto the towel went a week’s worth of dirty dishes and glasses and detritus she had left trailing around for an entire week.  We had thought if we let her stuff pile up, she would take care of it but when that didn’t work, it was time for towel on bed. That worked and the rest of the summer she didn’t leave a mess in the kitchen.

Whether this leaving the plate back for my teenager to find will work or just be perceived as another parental unit nuisance remains to be seen.  I suspect I will have to go on strike a few more times.  Sorry not sorry but when I was his age I could not only cook, my sister and I were expected to clean up or help clean up.

Parents of teenagers are reading this and laughing, because you have to have one to truly get this new parenthood club.  I don’t ask for much, I just want a little help and cooperation once in a while.  And I am waiting for the feedback from some of my friends who do NOT have teenagers.  They feel free to liberally sprinkle parenting advice and while I appreciate their efforts, telling me what to do when they do NOT have a single teenager in residence is not helpful…and I will be sitting there with popcorn gleefully on the sidelines when their kids who “would never do that” become teenagers.

And I might get them the book by Dr. Peter Marshall titled  Now I Know Why Tigers Eat Their Young

Thanks for stopping by!

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gone too soon. be at peace, austin wylie

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Austin

I received word a little while ago through my Shipley network.  Young Austin Wylie is gone. Reports indicate suicide.  This teenager is a perfect stranger to me, my only sense of connection is my alma mater Shipley, and I have to tell you I find the news devastating.  I am having such a hard time wrapping my head around the photographs of a seemingly happy and well-adjusted teenager, and this news.

We have a teen close enough in age to this boy, so it hits home on that level too. My better half’s mother was  on the Board of Trustees like Austin’s mom when we were in high school . (My sweet man’s mother is one of the reasons boys were allowed to go to Shipley all those years ago, truthfully.) We  were speaking about this today, I called him at his office to tell him the news from Shipley wasn’t good.

One of the things we spoke of is how I don’t remember kids being under pressure like this when we were at Shipley. And that at the Shipley of today this was the second teenage boy from there in a little over a year to chose to end his life. I am referring to Cayman Naib.

Before all you haters pop up and criticize me for thinking about this, be honest, am I the only one? This is not a dig at my alma mater Shipley at all, they are just as devastated and this came way the hell out of left field at school officials as well. I am speaking of the pressure teenagers, and seemingly boys in particular are under to succeed.

This was not a boy anyone would have pegged for this action. But Austin Wylie as per Shipley, his family, and the authorities ended his life by jumping off the Ben Franklin Bridge. He left a note on his phone apparently, and was feeling overwhelmed by something at that time. I don’t understand how no one saw him climbing up on the bridge, but that is one of the things about cities and life: we are all so busy going about our days we often do not notice what happens around us.

Here is the letter from Shipley:

explain 1

explain 2

explain 3

explain 4

This is a very nice letter.  I am sharing in my own post because I am a little offended by the Patch and their zeal to spread devastating news like spam. They hit a power share button and just blasted the news across their sites in my opinion. Maybe if they did actual reporting they might have content for all their hyper local sites. But I digress.

Yesterday Shipley had put the following out:

shipley yesterday

I have to be honest as the hours dragged on yesterday and people in the media I knew kept commenting how they were being shuttled back and forth between the police departments involved trying to figure out what was going on that the news was NOT going to be good.  It was just a feeling, and now as I write this post I wish the outcome had been different.

What happened to Austin that made him drop everything else he was doing and go do this in the middle of the day like this?

A friend of mine just made the following comment:

Another suicide. Another young person with their whole life ahead of them. I can’t think about it without crying. But what can we do…to lessen the pressure our children feel – whatever happened to the carefree days of high school? – and what can we do to recognize and support those in need of mental health support. I can’t help but feel like we are failing today’s children.

Another friend then said:

This is horrible. We all need to stop the high expectations, pressure cooker, mentality at school and home. Isn’t great teaching and great learning enough? Manage the expectations and egos.

I agree.  And I think this goes especially for boys.  Boys internalize so much.  We don’t even realize it.  Girls seem to let emotions out more.  And they will talk about stuff more.  When you ask a teenage boy how their day was, the response is monosyllabic. I know first hand and it drives me crazy.  Ask girls the same question and you will not only get more of a response, you will get the added color of who annoyed them at lunch or what someone was wearing.

missingHowever, male or female, we do need to regulate the pressure cooker called life.  As kids climb the grades in high school the expectations grow. The expectations grow from their schools, from us as parents, and the pressure these kids put on themselves so they don’t disappoint anyone.

Another friend of mine said :

It‘s not just Shipley though. It’s an epidemic. The pressure and expectations how early it starts is terrible. And the way today’s teenagers believe their lifetime happiness and success are somehow related to test scores or number of AP classes or grades is heart breaking. In addition we need them, everyone, to be unafraid to ask for help and to not be embarrassed to address and acknowledge their struggles.

It’s a topic that is hard to discuss. It’s not something that teens or adults want to think about.  It’s unpleasant and difficult. But it does happen. Teen suicide is very real, and is preventable.

Good mental health is fundamental to the health and well-being of every person and of the nation as a whole. Our children are our future, so we need to help them know they are not alone and there are resources at their and their parents disposal.

Being a teenager is not easy. It is quite literally the best of times and the worst of times. As adults, we need to think back into the deep, dark recesses of our minds and remember what it was like to be a teenager. The hormones, confusing and often conflicting (let alone ever-changing) emotions, peer and parental pressure.  Add to that today the issues of multi-platform bullying and social media overload.

Teen suicide is part of a larger public health issue. Coverage of this topic and discussion needs to encourage help-seeking.   And we all have to remember suicide is a very complex issue. It can’t be pigeon holed into a little box and that’s it.   There are multiple causes. And the signs of suicide vary.

According to the website Reporting On Suicide, the signs can include (but not all individuals display signs):

  • talking about wanting to die
  • looking for a way to kill oneself
  • talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose
  • talking about feeling trapped or in unbearable pain
  • talking about being a burden to others
  • Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs
  • acting anxious, agitated or recklessly
  • sleeping too little or too much
  • withdrawing or feeling isolated
  • showing rage or talking about seeking revenge
  • displaying extreme mood swings

Parents  need to be  honest and admit  at times it can be a struggle when communicating with the teenagers in our homes.  And according to a study produced during the Clinton White House Years , teenagers aged 15-16 who do not feel close to their parents are about three times as likely to think about suicide as teens who are close to their parents, and teens aged 15-16 who don’t eat dinner with their parents regularly are twice as likely to have attempted suicide. This talking point about dining as a family is also just good common sense.

Togetherness as a family that is positive opens many doors, and face it, what is one of the hardest parts of raising teenagers? Communication. And communication isn’t social media like Facebook and Twitter, e-mails, chat programs, it’s a real conversation. Sitting down and talking even if it is light dinner conversation. Real and tangible contact and human interaction is so important with regard to interpersonal relationships at any age.

Teen suicide is very preventable, but as a society we have to open the doors to productive conversations and communication.  Proper education on the topic is one of the keys to prevention. This needs to be discussed in the schools, the community at large, and the home.

Again, communication is key.  When life gets bumpy or stressful it is helpful to know there are resources and people to talk to. Some teens in crisis will not display any telltale signs of issues, so it is really important to be able to talk with your children and they with you. And it is important for them to know from us that we do not need them to be perfect, and for some parents, especially if they are personally ambitious that is often hard to convey.

I am not laying blame here, I am devastated for the Wylie family.  I look at photos of a boy that will be forever frozen in time, never aging.  That makes tears run down my face. I also hope parents who were friends with, neighbors of, and went to school with Austin hit the pause button and help their children grieve and work through this.  We can’t pretend these things aren’t happening, they are happening right in our own communities and across the country.

Main Line private school mourning another possible suicide

Updated: JULY 15, 2016 — 3:21 PM EDT

by Mari A. Schaefer, STAFF WRITER

The Shipley School in Lower Merion announced Friday that a student who was reported missing earlier in the week had likely taken his own life.

Please talk with your kids about teen suicide. We need to take the top of the pressure cooker.

Austin Wylie, I never knew you, but I won’t soon forget you.  I hope you are at peace, and I pray for his family and friends to find peace at this most difficult time.  Remember the good times you had with this by all accounts remarkable young man.  Hold him in your hearts with love.

Here are some resources Shipley recommended:

Grief Counseling Referral List 2016[1]

After a Suicide- Student Questions

Parent Handout – Suicide Loss

My deepest condolences to Brooksley and Jim Wylie and Austin’s brother Cameron.

I close with one of my favorite Robert Frost poem I shared a year ago:

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Robert Frost

2015 draws to a close…year in a blog review

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1909703_1103110143035269_5097884919631902045_n2015 has been quite the year.  I have had plenty of moments where I wondered if being me on the Internet was worth it. But then today I received a note.

Every now and again people contact me with things that I think are beyond my capacity to help – and it is never about money (heck I don’t have a silver spoon in my mouth so that isn’t happening)- it’s people seeking information.  Today someone sent me a note. To say thank you for providing them with a necessary connection for their family.

It was just fate that helped me show them a good direction (nothing more) , and I did it because paying it forward in this world with no strings attached is what being human is supposed to be about. It’s not about money or status, it’s about caring.  And fate. Maybe even to an extent the kindness of friends and strangers.

And that simple thank you, privately said and heart felt? That was awesome. As opposed to others I have met in this journey called life for whom “paying it forward” comes with strings and strands of personal gain, that is not how I operate.

Human kindness.

How quickly we can all get caught up and forget about being human and being kind.

2015 was a bit of a crazy year in one part of Chester County. West Vincent, to be precise. Those folks have survived a toxic election season and as of their final meeting last night can hopefully close the door on Tammany Hall style politics….at least until their Lower Merion refugee decides to run for re-election or not.

West Vincent and their election season reminded me once again how awful human beings and purported adults can be towards one and other. It was actually nastier than a Main Line election season and that is saying something.

In 2015 I learned to shed fake friends with less regret or “what ifs”. I also learned about people not meant to be in my life for long and it was o.k. People have to choose within their own comfort level. And learning to let go of people who are wrong for your life without feeling guilty is actually hard. But I am learning.

One person who had once claimed I was a  friend was indeed a disappointing learning curve.  They deliberately lied and tried to hurt me to raise their own shall we say “sympathy” profile on social media? The irony is, I had quietly let that person go when I sadly realized the only thing they were true to was whatever anyone else could do for them. I figured it was easier to let go after a couple of years then to allow them further in. Trust after all is everything, and at least for me if the trust is broken, it’s a hard road. But Karma is real, isn’t it?

There are people who throw around catchy Christian phrases about being “blessed”, but truly those are the people you not only forgive for their idiotic selfish trespasses, but pass a prayer along for because you actually feel sorry for them and their lack of realization of how their actions actually affect them. They think their little white lies and bald faced fibs won’t catch up with them, and unfortunately they should remove their blinders.

2015 was a year of learning more about myself as an adult.  It was about letting go and learning to be more accepting about what I can’t control.  It was about taking chances on people whether or not they ended up becoming part of my world, or were just a passing, pleasant  thought. It was therefore, about personal growth after a fashion. It was also about opening other doors and windows. It was about opening completely to love and having faith and finally not being afraid of either.

2015 was a difficult year for some of my friends. But they have faced it with grace and courage. Sometimes as adults, we yearn for the simplicity of childhood. For some, childhood wasn’t so simple and growing up freed them. Life is a complicated puddle of color and emotion and life circumstances never entirely predictable although to say we have a hand in our own fates is to an extent true because life is what we make of it.

2015 was about renewing more relationships time and distance had interrupted over the years.  One of the most marvelous things I have discovered about Chester County is  who lives here.  Not just the amazing new friends I have made since moving here, but people from all stages of my life I had lost track of through distance and life circumstance…who all live in Chester County now.

In 2015 I got to see the Duffy’s Cut site and get to know it’s patron saint, Dr. William Watson of Immaculata. What a marvelous educator. And just a super bight,  genuine human being.  A perennial student of history, I deeply appreciate what he is about.  I also met some other like minded souls who also find other things in Chester County that I find important of interest.  Loch Aeirie and the ruins of Ebenezer AME on Bacton Hill.  I am also happy to discover there are many like minded people out here when it comes to historic preservation and preservation of Chester County’s amazing beauty and natural resources.

2015 was a year of super fun non-profit events. My favorites were Natural Lands Trust’s Stardust, Brandywine in White, and Main Line Animal Rescue’s Bark-O’Lounge (where I learned to wear my glasses while bidding on silent auction items!!)

2015 meant the loss of some family of my father’s and a dear family friend.  That was kind of hard. But they left wonderful legacies of their own.  And memories to keep us smiling for years to come. 2015 also marked a decade since my own father passed. Time passes so quickly.

2015 was also an amazing gardening year.  I expanded my gardens and they rewarded me. It is one the most fun things for me to just go dig in the dirt and it has been that way since I was a little girl.

2015 I became a cover girl when one of my photos graced the cover of County Lines Magazine. I also had my own photography show thanks to Christopher and Molly Todd of Christopher’s Restaurant in Malvern.

The last two months of 2015 have been a crazy kaleidoscope of everything.  Friends, family, and holidays.

This has possibly been one of the best Christmas seasons of my life and at four and one half years cancer free the emotion of the season and the joy is felt by me most profoundly. And somewhat humbly.

I am truly grateful to you my readers  and the insane numbers of people who visited according to WordPress .  As a blogger I am a writer and I have some amazing mentors and friends who are full-time writers. They inspire me daily.  I understand that not everyone appreciates my style, and that is ok.

My journey through Chester County and the second half of my life continues to evolve and grow.  It’s hard being a stranger in a new land, so I really appreciate those folks who have made me feel so welcome and shared experiences with me and pointed me in new directions. Intellectually as adults we have to continue to grow. It keeps us alive.

And as 2015 draws to a close a special note for my friends and family and especially my sweet man.  You are the bedrock of my life and the love your show me is almost indescribable. I am a fortunate woman indeed. To be loved and respected and valued as an individual just as you are is one of the greatest gifts in this world. Trust me when I say I love you all in return. To the moon and back.

Here is a wish and prayer for an amazing 2016 for all. There is no place like home, is there indeed, Dorothy?

Cheers!

 

Sit there with a blank expression

Say you can’t go on anymore

It’s not like me to come out and help you

Maybe I’ve been down this road before

 

Been living in the shadows

Now you come out slow

Now you’re in the saddle

Got to ride a long

Now your dream was shattered

These days are through

Maybe something mattered

It’s not just for you

 

Some are gonna go for broke

Some will lay down

I’ve been too long standing still

All I know is whenever you need me

You reach out and set me in motion

 

Looking out on that long valley

Telling me I’ve come so far

You’re the reason I finally got there

 

~Bruce Hornsby “Set Me in Motion”

 

a great thing: plaid pajama project

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d52a97ecd64d48da08be311e8331e66fSo my friend Pamela had this idea born of her own Christmas memories and family traditions. In her own words:

Every Christmas for as long as I can remember, my sister and I were allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve. We received a new pair of pajamas from Nonnie and Poppie and wore them that night. During our teen years we had some funny pajamas opening experiences as it was humorous to see what they would choose for us.

You’ll still find us laughing till we cry when recounting pair I got during my freshman year of college which were purchased slightly too large. How large you ask? Large enough for Kristina and I to fit in them- together! As you can see, these pajamas played a huge part of our family Christmas memories.

My parents, Mema and Pepa, carry on this tradition and give pajamas to our children each year, and even when we aren’t together it’s the only gift they open on Christmas Eve.

I wanted to take this tradition one step further, to give pajamas to local children in need this year. And while I could do this alone I thought I’d give my family and friends the option to give, too. I have a few connections working to find children for me so if you are here and there isn’t anyone left to sign up for please check back. I’ll keep adding children as I get donors! 

If this tradition touches your heart and you would like to contribute by choosing a child to buy for, or if you would like to contribute towards our wrapping supply costs you may sign up here.

Plaid PJ

Plaid Pajamas Project is just a nice thing we can do for kids at Christmas. And these are kids here in our area.  Participation is as easy as a click of a signup button on plaidpajamasproject.com.  Classes have been sponsoring classes, families have been sponsoring children who share a name or a size and when no names are available, all sizes are given to shelters where comforts of home are always in short supply.
pp1All pajamas must be brand new with tags attached and not contain any branded characters or wording. While the temptation and intentions are wonderful, Plaid Pajamas Project asks that no additional gifts be sent with the pajamas. 

Plaid Pajamas Project also accepts cash donations to support delivery, wrapping and other expenses. Pajamas and donations can be mailed to Plaid Pajamas Project, PO Box 186, Berwyn, PA 19312. Pajamas can also be dropped off at Lulu’s Casita in Ardmore or Creative Clubhouse in Havertown.  Signups have come from across the area and one name in particular stood out for my friend Pamela.

pj“I check the list every day and one day I saw my Nonnie’s name on the list and I welled up with love and pride,” said Pamela.  “She’s given me and my family so much in our lives and now she’s reaching out to help me bring her tradition to others. I guess that’s what the holidays are all about.

Pamela is one of my earth angels as well as a friend. She gives so much and has such a big heart. So not only have I donated to the cause, I am paying it forward and asking you my readers from near and far to help if you can.

To learn more about Plaid Pajamas Project, visit plaidpajamasproject.com.

To sign up to participate CLICK HERE.

  • All pajamas must be brand new with tags attached.
  • Pajamas should not contain branded characters, or any wording.
  • Only one set of pajamas should be sent per child chosen, nothing additional (i.e.: slippers, socks, bathrobe, etc.)
  • All pajamas should be sent to Pamela’s home address, she will make the drop offs to the recipient families. After you sign up you will receive an email with the mailing address. You are welcome to order online and have your order delivered to me. In the shipping area please use one of the address fields to indicate the first name and age of the child you are buying for.
  • PO Box 186 Berwyn PA 19312
  • Email plaid.pajamas25@gmail.com with any questions!

A private pajama wrapping party will be held in December.  Media will be invited to attend.