Driving Miss Cranky

Hi. My name is Karen and I have a Facebook page.

That’s right. I’m a mom and I have a Facebook page. I’ve been there and I’ve been back and I’ve been all around and I’m here to say that Facebook, although not perfect, is not the devil.

Here’s the story: I ended up with a Facebook page totally by accident. If you want to find out the details, read here.

Nevertheless, it was my choice to keep my Facebook page. I could have taken it down, but I didn’t. In fact, from the time that I created my page, some of my fellow moms also created Facebook pages. Suddenly, my peers were Facebookin’. Huh. Who knew?

So I stuck with it, mostly because it was the path of least resistance. I have a whopping 29 friends. 29. To my kids, that’s kind of pathetic. But I don’t care.

Oh and since my first exploit, I re-invited my kids to become my friends and they continue to reject me – multiple times. They've welcomed my brother-in-law and one of my best friends with open arms. But me? No, I’m like the plague. No thank you.

(Sidenote: my kids’ friends continue to allow me to be their Facebook friends. They think it’s hilarious that their friends, a.k.a. my kids, reject me and so as sort of an act of pity they add me. You’d think my own would let me in, but no. Not gonna happen.)

That’s OK. I know that someday they’ll come around. In the meantime, I update my status and I add to my list of interests, books, music and I even add a photo or two. It’s not much, but I kind of like it. As a mom, I like understanding the attraction of a social utility like Facebook. I like knowing what brings them back time and time again.

You see, I’ve always had this feeling that before I condemned my kids’ interests, I should at least try and understand why they like something. To me, that’s part of my responsibility.

What do you think about Facebook?

The other day, some moms and I were talking about going away without our kids and, sometimes, without our husbands. We were talking about the degree to which we prepared our families for our departure.

Back when I was working full-time, I took great pride in my ability to juggle it all. (Turns out it was all a myth in my own mind. Something is always sacrificed for right or for wrong.)

Occasionally, I had to travel, which left my husband in charge. Being the control freak that I am, I worried that he’d have to struggle with something that I usually handled or that something might go wrong.

Before I left, I diligently did every last piece of laundry and left outfits labeled for each of the days that I would be gone. (Imagine the horrors if they dressed badly!) I typed up meticulous itineraries explaining where everyone should be and when they should be there. I left emergency contact lists. I filled the fridge and the cupboard with an abundance of meal options.

Looking back, I wouldn’t say it was all for naught, but I have to wonder if I should have let go just a teeny bit. So what if they wore mismatched clothes? If a permission slip didn’t get somewhere, my husband also has a college degree. I’m pretty sure he would have figured out how to handle it.

The funny thing is, I remember that they didn’t miss me all that much when I was gone.  (I remember one heartbreaking moment at the airport when my then infant son had no clue who I was when I got off the plane. Ouch. That hurt.)

Perhaps they didn’t miss me because I micromanaged my absence to such a degree that they hardly noticed I was gone. In my exhaustive efforts to make things easier, I may have taken away an opportunity for them to figure some of it out on their own and maybe miss me a little bit. And imagine the stories they could have told me upon my return!

I probably wouldn’t change a thing about what I did. As we all know, there’s no instruction manual for motherhood, especially being a working mom. We do the best we can with the circumstances we’re given.

This weekend I’m going away for my annual Girls’ Weekend. Granted, my kids are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, being 16 and 20. But I still get that itch to leave a list or write an itinerary or suggest clothing options. You see, it never really goes away, that need to mother.

What about you? Do you have opportunities to travel without your kids? What do you do to prepare for that?

When my husband was in high school, he was the starting center for his school’s football team. He sometimes laughs about the fact that his parents almost never saw him play. They certainly never went to his practices. Having known his parents for more than half my life, I can assure you that they were and are terrific people who loved their nine children very much. But back then, in the mid-70s, kids’ sports were exactly that – KIDS’ sports.

Today, everything is different. A child doesn’t participate in a sport without a complete commitment on the part of his or her parents. COMPLETE. Suffice it to say that if your kid is in Select Soccer, YOU’RE in Select Soccer.

How did we get here? When did we get so over-the-top about kids’ sports?

Although my own kids were never very athletic, they played their share of sports. I have spent plenty of time in bleachers and on the sidelines watching them run up and down a field or a court. Those days were sometimes fun, sometimes exciting, sometimes frustrating and often exhausting. We’ve driven as far as Waukesha to see them play, and that was just during grade school. To be honest, I’m thankful they never qualified for a traveling team.

I have plenty of friends whose children play sports at various levels and their universal feeling is that there is no easy or casual way for a kid today to participate in a sport. And if their child is athletically gifted, it makes it all the more complicated.

These friends tell stories about juggling carpools and schedules and their other children so that one of their kids can fulfill their obligation to a team. They eat in their cars in-between practices. The kids get tired and weepy and difficult and neither the kids nor the parents know how to stop the madness.

We want our kids to be well-rounded. We tell them to try different things but we should consider the implications of that advice.

If a child is in multiple activities, they could easily be “booked” every day of the week. If that child has siblings and those siblings also participate in sports, things can get absolutely crazy for that family. It’s a veritable treadmill that’s nearly impossible to stop.

And there are other issues: Where does schoolwork fit into an athletic family? And what about injuries from year-round playing and training? How can the average family afford the various fees and equipment associated with a sport? Do the kids really enjoy it or are they just trying to live out the expectations of their parents?

I admit, I have no answers, but based on the conversations I’ve had with parents, they’re concerned about the toll that sports take on their kids and their families. They seem anxious to vent about the nightmarish schedules and the endless miles they put on their minivans.

What do you think? Do your kids participate in sports? Are they enjoying it? Are YOU? I’d love to hear from those of you in the trenches.

I love Summerfest. I love kids. But frankly, sometimes the two don’t mix.

My husband and I have taken our kids to Summerfest since they were very young. We’ve spent hours upon hours chasing them through the PlayZone (really hard), searching for food they would like (not too hard) and looking for entertainment that would hold their interest (pretty hard.) Some years they enjoyed themselves, others, not so much. Every visit was different.

One thing was the same year after year. When the sun went down, we went home. In fact, I think our kids were 13 years old before we stayed at Summerfest with kids after dark. Now, they are obviously old enough to be there when it’s dark, but I still worry.

Apparently, some parents feel differently than I do. Last Thursday, I saw several parents with infants and toddlers at 11:30pm. That’s 11:30 pm. I’m sorry, but that’s just wrong.

Let’s talk about the good reasons for having a very young child at Summerfest at that hour: …………………….

That’s right, there are none.

I’m a grown woman and I feel rather uncomfortable in the aggressive crowds at 11:30 pm at Summerfest. Imagine being 2 years old and being there. You’re exhausted. You’re hanging on to your mom or dad for dear life as people bump into you, spill beer on you and, if you’re in a stroller, flick cigarettes in your face.

I know that Summerfest is expensive and that babysitters are expensive. Not everyone can do both. I’m suggesting that if you can’t do both, then go home when it gets dark. It truly is one of the toughest aspects of parenting – sacrificing your social life for your kids. But really, it’s the right thing to do.

Besides, before you know it, your kids will be old enough to be at Summerfest after dark. Believe me when I say that’s when it gets really hard.