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Uncategorized
Written by Ally Loprete
As the owner of OMM and a representative of so many members, I’ve had to do something I’ve never done before, and that is to swallow my political opinions and keep them to myself for the sake of everyone. This is because I care about all of our members, the parents who are working hard to support their children and are doing so by running their own businesses. I did not want anyone to think for a moment that I if my opinions differed from theirs in the political arena, that I was not FOR them, when I certainly am.
But I feel the time has come to open my mouth a little. There is so much happening in our country right now that I feel it almost ridiculous not to talk about it, especially when so much of it affects us directly and what we are trying to achieve as an organization dedicated to working moms and dads. So I’ll just say it. I love President Obama. I believe in what he is trying to accomplish, and I think for the first time ever, our voices are being heard.
According to a recent letter I received from Momsrising.org, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was the first piece of legislation signed by President Obama, both the House and Senate passed an expanded State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and now the Senate is getting ready to vote on an economic recovery package that has a number of key provisions that would directly help moms and their families.
Whether you like Barack Obama as a candidate or not, I think we can all agree that we have been fearful of anyone to step into the white house and take on the mess that has been left for him. Therefore, we are fearful of any new maneuvers that the new president will take on to help the situation. But the reason I am so impressed with Obama is because he is not afraid to take risks. He did not take office to sit quietly and second guess every move that might rock the boat. He is diving in and making something happen. I think if we all follow suit, something WILL happen.
When Our Milk Money was just a blip of an idea, the economy was not in the state that it is today, yet it was created for this exact time. Let me tell you a quick story, that you may or may not have already heard. Before OMM was conceived, I was trying to price a piece of jewelry that I had made, and wondered how it would compare to the prices in the department stores. I guessed $50 would be a good price. And then I imagined all that I could do with an extra $50; a tank of gas, a small trip to the grocery store for milk, bread, eggs, cheese and some fruit, a month of Gymboree classes for my toddler, date night with my husband…
It wasn’t difficult to conclude that $50 was more valuable to me and my family than a large corporation or department store. I wondered if anyone else would care about that value enough to make an effort to change their spending habits and buy my product over someone elses. Yes. Other parents would feel the same way, I just had to find them. I made a decision right then and there that I would make an effort to search for a parent who might possibly be selling whatever it is I needed each time I made a purchase. With the internet, and the master search guru I had become, I should be able to find anything online, right? Wrong. I searched and searched. Nowhere could I find the answers I was looking for.
The rest, you probably know. Our Milk Money, and the first parent only business directory was born.
Why am I talking about this now, almost a year later? Because while I am thrilled to see that our directory is growing, I am concerned about how little it is being used. I imagine that the excuse is that our country is in a state of crisis and people are just not spending money. Wrong. If there was ever a time to use the directory, its now. What better time to rebuild the economy in a way that supports small businesses than right now? The slate is practically clean at this point. And while the excuse is that people aren’t spending money right now, I beg to differ. We are all spending it. That hasn’t stopped. It can’t stop, because in this country we need to spend money to survive. We need to buy things to live, even if they are just necessities. Well, guess what! Those “necessities” are available for purchase by a parent somewhere in your local community, and may even be listed in the Our Milk Money business directory. If you are a parent, you have even more reason to support the directory, because it benefits you as well. We are an organization and a community of parents that need to stick together. What are YOU doing to support others like you?
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Chris Loprete, daddysden, Dads, Family
Written By Chris Loprete
Why is it that when women see a father alone with a baby, they immediately assume we don’t know what the hell we’re doing? Now I don’t want to generalize here. I’m not talking about single women. In fact the single women tend to gravitate towards the daddies at the park or in other public places. Chicks LOOOOVE guys with babies. Babies and dogs. They say, “I want that.” Now of course we men are kidding ourselves because ‘that” is not specifically us, but rather a stable man who’s a good father, and the fantasy is fun. Anyway I’m probably already in trouble with my editor who happens to be my wife (and the two are very rarely mutually exclusive) so I’ll go on. No, I’m talking about the annoying mother who wants to give all kinds of unsolicited advice on how to raise your child. And rightly so. OBVIOUSLY I MUST need this unsolicited advice because my child’s mother is nowhere in sight. I therefore MUST be doing something wrong. And then, I imagine this “guardian angel” will go along her merry way and later at the dinner table tell her family how she saved a child’s life today.
Take this little encounter for example. It was a summer Saturday afternoon about two years ago. I was in my townhouse downstairs and my wife was upstairs with our infant son. I was watching a baseball game and cleaning. The cleaning part is not important to the story but I specifically remember doing it and I always like to remind my wife/blog editor that it does happen on rare occurrences. Anyway I could hear my son crying upstairs pretty loudly. He was probably getting his diaper changed which to him has always been the baby equivalent to a root canal. There was a knock at the door. When I answered it I saw a woman who was walking her dog in front of our door. She asked, “Do you have a baby?”
“Why yes” I said waiting for the inevitable compliment. Something along the lines of, I see you walking him. You have a lovely family. or Well, he’s obviously going to grow up to be a very good looking man. Why else would she take the time out of her dog walking to knock on our door?
This is why: She looked at me and said, “He’s crying upstairs.”
I paused to make sure I had heard her right. Then I said, “Yeah, my wife’s upstairs with him.”
She replied, “Oh, I heard the game on pretty loudly so I wasn’t sure you if could hear him”
Yyyeeeeahhh. Handled, honey but thanks. I’m sure the children of our housing complex are a lot safer with you roaming the sidewalks knocking on doors. Hey hero, I think I hear a baby coughing a couple of houses down. Do you want to call child services or should I?
Or how ‘bout the woman on the beach later on that same summer? I was walking on the beach, my son safely strapped into the front loader on my chest. I felt good. First of all the Baby Bjorn completely covered my huge gut so I wasn’t nearly as self conscious as usual. And secondly, it was a beautiful day and I was walking with my new son at the place I’m always the happiest: the beach. So when I saw a woman walking toward me and eyeing both of us, I started to feel even better. I was sure she could sense the good energy coming off of me and like I said the baby was covering up my huge white shirtless girth so I thought Hey, I think she’s checking me out.
So when she passed by and asked, “Does he have sunscreen on?” I was a bit nonplussed. First of all I had practically bathed him in SPF 560 or whatever the strongest baby sun goop is nowadays. This kid could have crawled across the surface of the sun and come away with nothing but a nice base.
So I told her, “Uh….yeah…plenty.”
She replied, “Oh. Cause his legs look a little red.” and passed by me never breaking her stride.
I immediately turned and shouted after her, “Yeah? Well they call his chubby legs and butt baby fat. They call yours cellulite!” ZING! That got her. Of course I didn’t actually say that but ooooh I wish I had.
And these brilliant pieces of parenting wisdom are not confined to just me when I’m alone. My wife has had to endure some slings and arrows of her own. It’s like divide and conquer. Once my wife and I are divided, they love to conquer. I don’t ever want to hear a sentence that starts with, “Y’know what WE do…” I don’t even like hearing it from our parents, but that I understand and tolerate because “parental interference” is in the grandparent’s code book. It’s a God given right. To tell you the truth as my wife and I get ready for baby #2, we’ve learned to tolerate buttinskys a little more. In fact I’m amazed how laid back we are about having another child and we’re only 3 months out. I guess we think of ourselves as old pros now. In fact it probably won’t be long before we’re handing out some advice of our own to other parents who obviously don’t have a clue what they’re doing. I’m sure they’ll thank us for it.
daddysden, Dads, Family
Written by Guest Blogger James C. Ferguson
Apparently, as I endeavor to educate my toddler by increasing her vocabulary at every waking opportunity, she – ironically – is turning me into an idiot.
As I mentioned in a previous piece, my daughter adores the written word; she loves books (which, at her reading level of almost two, consist primarily of about fifty actual words plus a never-ending parade of brightly colored genetic testing escapees). It is not uncommon for our daughjter to slip quietly out of sight. But rather than putting all of her socks in the cat’s water bowl, or trying to eat every single piece of fuzz on the carpet, she will retrieve a book from what I call “the library cart” (a little red wagon filled with books), plop down on the floor and begin to read.
My wife and I do our best to encourage this habit. We read to our daughter almost every night. And if she runs up to us brandishing yet another tale of what I can only assume are anthropomorphized aardvark-clown crossbreeds, we temporarily set aside whatever we’re working on and read to her. (Thankfully, she has yet to interrupt any sort of carnal activity.)
Because of what I can only label her aggressive reading habits, our daughter knows a lot of words. And this is where things get paradoxically complicated.
Certain words, if she hears them, elicit such an over-the-top emotional reaction – akin, I’m guessing, to an opera singer getting a wedgie – that we do everything we can to avoid using them in day-to-day conversation. One of the words you can always count on to turn our daughter into Jamie Lee Curtis from Halloween is “milk.” She loves her milk. When she wants her milk, she wants her milk. And if you foolishly happen to utter even part of that particular word anywhere where she can hear you, the sweet child who loves to hug the cats and laugh at The Daily Show turns into a banshee.
So we sometimes find ourselves in situations where you need to use a word like … you-know-what and you do exactly what I just did: you hedge, you weave, you bob, you duck – you do an embarrassing and awkward verbal dance to avoid using the … you know … “it.” And you sound like a complete and total moron. You can feel you I.Q. sliding out your ears. You think, even as it’s happening, “I wish the producers had contacted me about playing Bob Thornton’s part in Sling Blade.”
It might go like this:
Me: “Honey?”
My beautiful wife: “Yeah?”
Me: “Are you going to the store?”
My beautiful wife: “Yeah.”
Me: “We need more, uh, you know …”
My beautiful wife: “What?”
Me: “The stuff.”
My beautiful wife: “Crack?”
Me: “No, not crack; I’m not going to ask you to buy crack at Ralph’s. … It.”
My beautiful wife: “What are you talking about?”
Me: “Come here. Let me whisper it to you.”
My beautiful wife: “I’m in the bathroom!”
Me: “You know what I’m talking about.”
My beautiful wife: “Even less than usual.”
Me: “You know, the … uh … the, um … um … You know, the liquid cheese!”
And if you think your wife is ever going to have sex with you again after using a phrase like “liquid cheese”, I’d buy some stock in cold showers. There’s no coming back from a phrase like “liquid cheese.”
But I guess that’s how it goes. The new generation replaces the old, like New Coke or The New Monkees. As our daughter grows increasingly verbose we – her elders – march slowly down the path towards life as a bad Saturday Night Live sketch. I guess, at the end of the day, you just have to hope she has her own bank account and a driver’s license by the time you get there.
(And if you happen to be driving by a store anytime soon, would you mind picking us up some … you know.)
James C. Ferguson lives in Los Angeles with his wife, daughter and a pile of books about a monkey. James’ own book, Context Clues, is available on Amazon.com. And his film, Happy Holidays, is available at iTunes, Indiepix, Cinemanow, Caachi and Eyesoda. (Soon, the film will also be available on WebMovieNow, Amazon On Demand and Jaman). Additional information can be found on the Happy Holidays MySpace and Facebook web sites.
daddysden, Dads, Family
Written by Guest Blogger, Chris Mancini
Let’s face it, it hasn’t been a good year for the dollar. From being gouged at the gas pump to the financial markets all put collapsing, it makes me want to go into a large corporation at random and punch a CEO right in the face and then smother him with an actual golden parachute.
Then when you have kids, every time there is a food price increase due to higher fuel costs, it hits you exponentially. But there’s all that money you’ve put away for retirement, right? Right?
I work free-lance. I don’t really have a 401K. My wife, however, is a normal person. She does. Or, she did. Before our eyes we saw our balance that we… I mean my wife, worked very hard for years and year so it would hopefully grow into something we could use when we retired. Or at least blow on something stupid like a yacht painted with the slogan “Gas, Grass or Ass, No One Rides for Free”.
My wife and I knew very little about money and the “markets”, “401Ks” and “investing.” We really didn’t. So we learned the hard way, by making mistakes. Not a good way to learn.
Our generation learned nothing about money from our parents. “Put money in a savings account” was the long and short of our financial planning advice. I remember once my father asked me what a stock option was. Then I told him. He looked at me like I just tried to explain quantum physics.
But then I asked my father how his pension was doing. “Fine” he replied. “I don’t trust the stock market so all my money was in fixed.” Whoah. Stop right there. It was the wisest thing my father had ever said. That wily, wily son of a gun.
Obviously now this whole “knowing nothing” about money and the economy was all a ruse. My father was a financial genius and saw this coming a mile away. His money wasn’t in the market. He was safe. And since he’ll be retiring soon, he doesn’t have to worry about working another 100 years, like the rest of us. This of course made me both impressed and resentful.
But who do you turn to? Financial planners? They are nothing more than glorified bookies. We had one that was so moronic he actually got us into more debt. Thanks, I could have done that myself and saved $500.
So we had to learn about money on our own. But more importantly we have to teach our kids about money. We just have to. Things are too complicated and unstable. They have to know. Right after they get their $5.00 allowance tell them if they hold on to it for a year and keep it in the market then they’ll only have to pay capital gains taxes on it. Their response will probably be “But I just want to buy candy” which is certainly valid as well.
Recently our 401K (I can say “our”, we’re married) went down to a 30% loss. At least that’s something. Right now all you can hope for is a smaller negative number. But when my father comes to visit this Christmas, he’s buying.
Chris Mancini is a comedian and author. His first book “My Life is Over, A Handbook for the Freaked-Out New Dad” will be out next father’s day.
http://www.daddyneedssomealonetime.blogspot.com/
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Ally Loprete, Family
By Ally Loprete
They call me “supermom”.
That is because I am a mom, and I have super powers. How else would I be able to manage the chaos in my life and handle everything with a smile on my face without breaking a sweat?
Don’t believe me?
See for yourself: I have a very demanding 2 year old, and another on the way. I am the co-founder of a national organization that caters to 4500 recipients in 80 cities nationwide, and the CEO of a handmade jewelry company that I design and create. I am a leader, a motivator and a people mover, giving public seminars, volunteering to teach improvisation to inner city children, planning community events, writing guest blogs and articles to over 25 news sites, not including my own. I participate in my son’s pre-school twice a week, teach musical theatre and performance to 9 year old girls at a local dance studio, and still find time to run a household, go grocery shopping, prepare 3 meals a day and sleep. I do not have a nanny, rely on daycare, nor do I have any family close by (or even in the same state for that matter) to rescue me or my schedule.
That is why I am known as “supermom”.
But like any superhero, I have a secret identity. Behind the mask is a woman who struggles to maintain the balance of it all, has broken down on more than one occasion, exploded with Niagara Falls, water works hysterics, has turned to one too many bottles of wine in the middle of the day, screams at her husband “how DARE you ask me if you can hang out with the guys tonight???” and has made several “parenting” mistakes such as putting off a dirty diaper change to finish a blog- which resulted in a diaper rash for her infant son. Even as a superhero, I wonder how others are able to pull it off.
Look closer.
Is anyone really pulling it off?
What is this term, “supermom” really doing to our society? Does the term inspire, or intimidate? Does it put added pressure on the women of today that are trying to do it all?
The truth is I am no supermom.
I don’t have any super powers, and I certainly have a breaking point. The more women I speak to, the more I realize we are all very similar. Mothers today are simply amazing- but then again we HAVE to be. Of the women that I know that are working full time- or even part time- and raising a family and maintaining a household, none of them are doing it just because it’s fun for them, and they were looking for MORE in their lives. Most of us are doing it because it’s what is necessary for our families to survive in today’s world. Our families need us to try and bring in a supplemental income because one income is not enough from our husbands- not even those with college degrees and higher educations. It’s not their fault, and we certainly don’t blame them. It’s just the way it is these days.
Before you choose to let someone who seems to be able to do it all overawe you and minimize what you know you are capable of doing, LOOK CLOSER.
If there are days that you feel you are barely staying afloat, take a moment and look at the others in your very same pool treading water. Perhaps they are looking at YOU and wondering how you got YOUR superpowers. All the things that you accomplished today? You seem pretty amazing to me. I’d love to know your secret…
…or your secret identity. I think I might relate better to the woman behind the mask. The real person who falls down often, forgets to eat, lets the laundry pile up, and cries from the overwhelm. It feels better to unveil myself, come clean that I am not actually able to “pull it off” and laugh about it with others who often feel the same way I do. It’s a relief to know I don’t have to save the planet all on my own.
Again.
and again.
and again.
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daddysden, Dads, Family
Written by Guest Blogger James C. Ferguson
Is it just me or is Curious George kind of an asshole?
Whenever my toddler brings me one of her numerous Curious George books, of course I’m always happy to indulge her; I want her to learn how to read and white and communicate, you know, good. I make a point to read her anything that she brings me: “Wonton Soup,” “jury summons,” “Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe—How did you find that old chestnut?” More often than not, my daughter’s reading preferences tilt towards a tall, lanky man in a bright yellow hat and his mischievous simian companion.
Some might even say “curious.”
But is he? Really? Or is he just a brat? (A brat who, amazingly, never seems to get his comeuppance.)
“He’s a literary icon,” you say. “You can’t come down against Curious George!”
I disagree; I think that if I saw a child do some of the things George does out in the “real” world, I’d want to drop kick him like the hard drive for my stupid computer (which, as I type this, is an overpriced doorstop that I can’t re-gift).
“But he’s just acting like any normal, ordinary, two-dimensional, multimillion dollar franchise child,” you say. And I agree. Because what you’re essentially saying with that statement is, “He’s acting out.”
And I don’t think it’s fair. My job as a parent is tough enough, man. Of course kids like Curious George because he gets to do all the things that they cannot. He gets to act out … without repercussions! I don’t need some irresponsible simian encouraging my toddler to do things she isn’t supposed to be doing. And I certainly don’t need said simian reinforcing the idea that after a particularly irresponsible action, everything is going to be fine, we’ll share a laugh and the sky is going to rain gumdrops. Why haven’t they published Curious George Gets A Time Out? Or Curious George Goes To Bed Without Reading Himself? Or Curious George Sneaks Into An Abandoned Nuclear Power Plant and Makes Himself Infertile?
I can hear your response: “You’re overreacting,” you say. Or maybe, “You’re making too much of this. You’ve got issues. See someone.”
“Do you have any idea how many of these stories they’ve published?” I counter. On Wikipedia, I count fifty-eight. That’s exactly fifty-six more than my wife and I. They outnumber us by, well—a lot. Those books are like the monsters in Aliens, or the Huns, or Mondays: they just keep coming and coming and coming. They’re unstoppable. We have to protect ourselves; we have to do whatever we can.
Then again, as much as it pleases my cynical side to beat up on a character that brings joy to millions of children around the globe, there was a moment at the playground the other day that made me reconsider my position.
The word “hellion” springs to mind. A mother sat reading as her child—who couldn’t have been more than two—played in the sand. Except that he wasn’t playing in the sand, he was throwing it. At people. Dogs. Other children. Himself. And between throws, he would return to his mother, not for a hug, or a “hello,” but to rip pages out of her book. Shredding them. Eating them. And what was the mother doing? Nothing. Well … she was reading. (How, I have no idea.) But was she doing anything to restrain, discourage or curtail her three-dimensional monster’s excessively aggressive mischievousness? No. And this is the kicker, ladies and gentlemen: guess what she was wearing. “A hat?” you say. Well, no, actually … She was wearing a scarf. But it was yellow! Mostly. Partially. Sort of.
This made me think that maybe I haven’t been looking at the big picture. Maybe I need to take a step back.
Insomuch as it is the job of my wife and I to nurture and protect our toddler, perhaps George’s mischievous behavior can be attributed to a certain fellow with a jaundice-colored sombrero. As my wife oh-so-wisely observed a few weeks ago: “Who the hell brings a monkey to a baseball game?” Or the ballet. Or a library. Or anywhere that doesn’t have bars and a padlock. Who is this mysterious “man with the yellow hat” and why is he such an irresponsible guardian?
Have I been missing the entire point of these stories?
Are Curious George’s adventures … not really about Curious George? Are they, in fact, a plea to parents to not be like the man in the yellow hat? Are we to learn from his poor—nay, dreadful—example? Is it up to us to fill in the times outs and the repercussions?
Maybe this George character is cleverer than I thought. I think there may actually be a method to his mischievousness. Does that mean—
Ah … My time here seems to have come to an abrupt end. My toddler is prodding my kidney with a book. “What title have you brought me now, my darling? Let’s see … Curious George and the Hot Air Balloon.”
A hot air balloon???
Who the hell brings a monkey up in a freakin’ hot air balloon??
James C. Ferguson is an author, playwright and screenwriter living in Los Angeles with his wife, daughter and a dead plant that should probably be thrown away. His novel, Context Clues, is available on Amazon.com. And his film, Happy Holidays, will be available this winter. (Look for info. on MySpace and Facebook.)
daddysden, Family, Uncategorized
My wife and I are either crazy or stupid or so self loathing that we feel we deserve to be punished. It must be that, right? How else would you explain it? Why on Earth but for any of the above reasons would anybody want to go through this again and so soon after the first time? Oh by the way, my wife and I are expecting our 2nd child. Thank you. Yes, it is very exciting. We’re thrilled. Sure. Whatever. It is said that the body and mind are able to block out memories of pain and misery. That must be true. If it weren’t, all families would only have one child. We would be a “single child” society. Maybe the Chinese are on to something after all. My wife is in the last weeks of her 1st trimester. She’s miserable, fatigued, nauseous, hormonal, oh and trying to raise a toddler on top of all that. It only gets better from here on out. Soon will come the heartburn, the restless nights, and the various physical ailments that accompany a pregnancy.
My wife will go through some of these symptoms too. Then it will all culminate in that “wonderful day” that I described in a blog a few months ago. Oh, but wait. There’s more. Just when we trained our first child to sleep through the night, here comes baby # 2 to carry the sleep deprivation torch. It’s time to get spit up on again and time to look forward to another 2 years of changing diapers. Now once the baby comes, our little boy will be 3 years old so I’m sure he’ll be able to take care of himself by then, yes? No, you say? In fact he’ll require even MORE attention so as not to incite any sibling jealousies? Oh great. So I have THAT to look forward to as well. We’ll be finding out the sex. I’m not sure I understand the “we want to be surprised” philosophy. There are enough surprises on the day your baby is born anyway so why not knock as many of them out as you can before hand? My wife and I want a girl. We would be happy with a healthy baby no matter what the sex … but come on. Neither of us can handle another boy running around this house. We’re just barely able to keep this one from burning down the neighborhood, why would we want to unleash another Y chromosome onto the world?
Our little boy sees the potential though. The toddler Sith Lord needs his apprentice and knows that together they can rule the galaxy. He has stated very plainly that he wants a little brother. He has also made it clear that he wants us to name the baby “Braden”. We have assured him that while it is a beautiful name, it is also his name and things could get confusing around the house if we duplicated it. So, while we would love a little boy just as much, my wife and I are hoping for a girl. And then we’re hoping she’ll magically turn into a boy when she reaches high school. At least I am. So why do it? It’s not like it was forced on me. My wife didn’t suddenly leap across the bed and ambush me as I innocently read a book. (Believe me I would have loved it…) No, we actually tried to conceive another child on purpose and succeeded. In fact I am very proud to say that THIS time, we didn’t need any help from the medical industry.
Nope. All me, baby. A solo slam dunk with no time left on the clock.
Thank you. So why go through all of this again? The answer is simple. Why the hell not? I can’t go out anymore anyway, so I might as well raise another kid and get them all out of the house at the same time so I can go back to enjoying my life.
Okay that’s only part of it.
The truth is our little boy needs a sibling. He has friends, but he needs to be a big brother. He’s only two, but we can almost feel his loneliness. On a recent trip to the park he slid down the slide, looked around and shouted “Hello?!” to an otherwise empty playground. It was if he was saying, “this is only fun if I can share it with someone.” It’s heartbreaking to me when he wants to play with his toys and doesn’t have a playmate. Oh, shut up, I play with him plenty, okay? I just don’t have the energy of a 2 year old. I have the energy of a 37 year old that’s raising a 2 year old which amounts to… not a lot of energy. There are selfish reasons for having another child too. I got a little teary-eyed when I took his crib down and put him in his “big boy” bed for the first time this past month. It’s only been two years but I get very nostalgic when I look at pictures of my boy as an infant and how small he looked in my arms. I had been warned about how fast they grow up and while my son isn’t exactly borrowing the car or moving out of the house, I do feel like those early stages of life are past him. I’d like to experience them just once more. I’ll savor them a little longer this time. I promise. Then we’re done. Seriously. I don’t care how fast this one grows up. I’m not doing this any more.
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Chris Loprete, daddysden, Dads, Family
Written By Chris Loprete
It’s true what they say. Once you become a father, you start to live your life all over again. My son is 2 ½ and I’m finally getting it through my thick skull that while I have said goodbye to many aspects of my younger self (i.e. sleeping in on weekends, peaceful mornings and quiet nights at home, 2 AM drunken breakfasts at all night diners), I have just begun to experience an entirely new quality of life. The life of a father, nurturer, protector, teacher and dare I say, hero. While it is absolutely one of the hardest roles I’ll ever take on, the perks of daddy-hood are irresistible. For instance: nobody has ever been so happy to see me when I come home from work. Every day without fail! Only a dog shows that kind of loyalty and they emit a loud bark rather than an adorable, “Hi daddy!” And I challenge your heart not to melt when your son or daughter lays their head on your shoulder as you gently rock them to sleep.
Something that I didn’t expect was the flood of forgotten or suppressed memories from my own childhood that would begin to resurface. I’ve always prided myself on having an incredible memory. I can rattle off dates, places, historical and personal events at a clip. And don’t even get me started on movie and TV dialogue. I tend to give the impression that all I did as a child was sit inside all day and memorize cartoons and sitcoms. That’s NOT tr…well okay that’s mostly true, but it also has to do with the fact that I have a memory like a steel trap. I thought the extent of my memory only reached back to my 4th or 5th year however. So I’ve been surprised recently because ever since the birth of my son, memories of my toddler years which had been tucked away for one reason or another have been popping up without even trying to recall them. The memories are so vivid it’s as if they happened yesterday. When his cries split the night at 3:00 AM, I no longer curse under my breath while stumbling into his room to calm him down. This is because I recently remembered a particularly terrifying recurring nightmare that I had as a baby. While I don’t remember the details of the dream, I do remember jolting awake while screaming at the top of my lungs and looking towards my bedroom door through the bars of my crib just waiting for it to open and my parents to come to my rescue. I also remember a particular bully from when I was 3. Who bullies a kid when he’s only 3?! Anyway I think I remember him because of his name: Keith Newton Shot. Isn’t that the greatest name ever? Sounds like an assassin. “The Prime Minister’s life was tragically taken by Keith Newton Shot” Then the local news would interview me and I’d say, ‘It doesn’t surprise me. He used to push me off of my Big Wheel when I was 3.” But the point of this memory is whenever I see someone pushing my 2 year old around I have to restrain myself from shaking the kid while yelling,” I WILL NOT LET YOU BE HIS KETH NEWTON SHOT!” But I digress. Another wonderful memory hit me recently and inspired this month’s blog.
Last weekend I spent a lovely weekend at the beach with my family. I’m a HUGE fan of the beach. I tend to pine for days gone by. It drives my wife crazy. The summers are a particularly nostalgic time for me. Growing up I was lucky enough to spend 3 weeks every summer at the beach or “down the shore” as we say back East. 3 WEEKS! 2 weeks mid summer were spent at a rented house at the Outer Banks of North Carolina (the greatest destination…EVER! Don’t argue with me.) and 10 days at the end of August were spent at Ocean City, New Jersey. I looked forward to those weeks all year long. Every morning I would hit the beach with a ravenous appetite and stay there until sundown, alternating between boogey boarding in the waves and sitting in my beach chair listening to music or enjoying a good book. My family soon bestowed upon me the title of “Beach King”. Then at night the entire family would have a huge dinner and play games or head to the O.C. boardwalk and go on the amusement park rides, play mini-golf, eat Mack and Manco’s pizza (best pizza anywhere! Don’t argue with me.) And eat caramel popcorn or salt water taffy. It’s the kind of stuff that Bruce Springsteen songs are made of. They were the happiest days of my life. And not only did we kids enjoy those vacations, but the adults seemed to be having the time of their life too. Now that I’m a little wiser I realize that they were all completely drunk much of the time. We kids had no idea. We just thought that they were having a REALLY good time playing Charades with us.
Anyway ever since I became a father, my dream has always been to someday recreate those memories with my kids. Last weekend was my first taste of it. My in-laws own a lovely condo at the beach about an hour from our house. They have been generous enough to share it with us for which, believe me, I am eternally grateful. Last year my son was 1 year old and to him the beach was a brand new and wonderful world. He was terrified of the ocean though. You would be too if the only body of water you’d seen was a bathtub and a pool. This was water that actually crashed down and moved towards you! This year however he grew a little bolder. He would take my hand and actually lead me into the ocean and say, “I need up” which meant he wanted me to pick him up and carry him out to sea. While I was slowly wading out to just in front of the breakers feeling my son clinging to me in excitement with a touch of nervousness, I was blindsided by another memory. I remembered that I wasn’t born the “Beach King”. I had to earn it. When I was my son’s age, I HATED the beach. I used to stand at the top of the dunes and scream my lungs out because I wanted nothing to do with this hot and oddly textured ground and the roaring water beyond it. Then one day my father picked me up and carried me into the ocean gently telling me that he wouldn’t let anything happen to me and that frolicking in the waves could actually be quite fun. I remember how incredibly safe I felt in his arms and the complete trust I put in him. I survived my first foray into the Atlantic and an obsession was born. I saw that same trust in my son’s face along with that same look of cautious excitement as he truly experienced the ocean for the first time in his life. It was amazing. It felt like somebody hit rewind on my life but this time in a weird “Freaky Friday” experiment, the son had now become the father. I’ve begun to relive my life through my son. It made me realize that it was time to let go of the summers of my past and prepare myself for the summers ahead. We’ve conquered his fear of the waves. Can drunken Charades be that far away?
This all being said, is it too much to ask for the little guy to learn how to swim so I can relax in my beach chair and read a good book?!
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I was a working parent, and struggling with one of the most difficult years of my life. As much as I dreamed of winning the lottery and being able to spend time with my beautiful new baby boy, only 5 months old when I returned to my day job, I did not believe that I had a choice. I searched online often for the perfect opportunity that would make me stand up and go, “this is it! This is what I’ve been looking for! This is the perfect way to make money from home. Now I can quit!” But I never found it. It felt almost paradoxical that I was getting a decent middle income salary but I really only worked 10% of the time I was actually at my office- the other 90% just did my best to make myself look busy so that I wouldn’t be “found out.”
I needed the stable paycheck to pay for daycare. I grew to rely on that income, and not because I needed extra indulgences. Once we became parents, we cut out a lot of extras – going out to eat, we commuted in one car to save on gas, we gave up morning starbucks when the office coffee was just fine and free, and we stayed above water, but barely. So, believe me, it’s not as if I didn’t want to give up a posh lifestyle. With the cost of daycare, we were paycheck to paycheck and our incomes were the only stability we knew.
I was pretty convinced, even with all that internet searching that there was no alternative to this life. Although I found ads for millions of companies promising to give me EXACTLY what I needed, ironically, it was the very reason I didn’t feel that I could trust any of them. I wasn’t trying to be difficult and talk myself out of a good opportunity just because I was afraid. As a reasonably intelligent person, I know nothing was a guarantee, but there were just too many gray areas…the fine print that one doesn’t discover until AFTER you’ve already made the leap and are knee deep in your new “woops” career that will go nowhere and will eventually be shrugged off as, “well, I wanted to try.”
As a new parent, I couldn’t take that risk. Not when I had to think of my family. I’d made mistakes falling for the wrong get rich quick schemes before, and although it stung a bit, I would eventually get over it.
But this was different. I couldn’t afford a mistake this time. Not when I had a son, a mortgage, and job that gave me group health insurance.
It wasn’t until I was suddenly laid off and was forced into finding a new alternative that I saw things differently. With the severance I received, a bit of unemployment, and the daycare expense now non existent, I now had time to stay home with my son, at least for a little while – until I discovered what my next move would be. I had time to breath, even if only for a moment, and I wanted to take advantage of every second that I was able to stay with my son until the day I had to go back to a new job. I knew that day would come fast, but for the time being, I was just going to hug my son and breathe…just for a moment.
6 months later, I had a new viewpoint. After seeing my son flourish, my husband and I both feeling less stressed, time to actually spend weekends together rather than a frantic rush to finish laundry and grocery shop for the week, I called a family meeting and made a very important announcement.
“I am not going back to work.”
I didn’t care if I had to live in a cardboard box. I would never work for anyone else again, and leave my son. When I told my husband this, he stood there quietly staring at me, as if he was waiting for the punch line at the end of the joke.
Finally, he said, “Um, okay. That’s a nice thought, but…you can’t just DECIDE not to work again…”
Yes, I could. Every fiber in my being told me that I belonged at home with my son, and that if there was any way to make it work, I wanted to find it.
As a recent mother, I became intensely aware of the “maternal instinct” which fascinated me to no end. I had watched myself transform into everything a mother is supposed to be- even though a year later I was sure that there were things I wouldn’t be able to adapt to. I also learned in all my prenatal classes, how important our instincts really are when caring for a child, and how listening to them will almost always guarantee your best parental performance.
It wasn’t until this moment that I realized that extreme pain and turmoil I was in when I first dropped my son off at daycare to return to work after my maternity leave. This pain was unlike anything I’d ever known- and yet, I did my best to ignore it just to get through my work day. NOW, I was seeing in clearly- my instinct was shouting and pleading with me – “NO! Don’t leave your son. You aren’t ready and neither is he!” As much as I tried to avoid it, it followed me every where for an entire year. Once I went back to work, I couldn’t stand any “down time”. Infact, it made me crazy…so crazy that I’d walk in and out of every office asking if anyone needed any help with anything. I was afraid that if I stopped for a spilt second to think, my mind would take me to the one roomed home daycare where my child was growing up without me. So I kept myself as busy as I could to avoid that reality.
Yes, being at home with my son and living off of an unemployment check may have seemed irresponsible, but I was certainly earning that paycheck. And the more I thought about the kind of work that was involved in being a stay-at-home parent, the more it angered me that I wasn’t going to be able to keep that income flowing in. Didn’t I deserve it as much as anyone? Especially when I’d spent the last 5 years at my day job doing approximately 75% personal stuff, anyway?
NO! I wasn’t leaving my son again. I didn’t care what it took, I’d find a way to stay home. I’d even be willing to sell our house, our 2nd car, shop at thrift stores and garage sales. Nothing else mattered. I would not leave my son again. I knew, beyond any doubt that I would find the answer I so desperately tried to find on all my internet searches 6 months before. Because this time I HAD TO.
Literally keeping me up at night, I couldn’t shake the idea that there had to be others who were just like me, not knowing that it was possible to make a change and have a better life. It made me horribly sad to think that had I not been laid off, I’d still be working, surfing the internet and praying that the miracle answer would come save me. Ironically, my lay off was the answer to my prayers- even if only temporary. It brought me home to my son and showed me that I clearly didn’t belong anywhere but here. I began jotting down some ideas.
Although it’s easy to blame others, for the situation I was in- Bosses who should have promoted me, or been more flexible, allowing me to telecommute, better and more affordable daycares, politicians who didn’t spend our tax money in areas that would have helped better our situations, our government for not making paid maternity leave longer, my parents and inlaws for not being able to retire, move in from out of state and become permanent babysitters… the fact was, I didn’t know who to blame.
We live in a democracy, and what that means to me is that no one is allowed to tell me what career to have, or what role to have in my life. Although they may not be easy to find, there is always an opportunity to work, to make money, to seek a better education. We all know we can do anything we want if we put our mind to it, so then why aren’t we doing it? Why are so many of us struggling? What are we missing? These are the questions that kept me up at night.
I also couldn’t shake the feeling that others out there, just like me, even less fortunate than I- who weren’t lucky enough to be laid off, and might never have the chance to experience what I had- and be given the answer that I had. I wanted others to know that they did have a choice and despite their fears in leaving their stable cor
porate jobs, they had no idea that it was seriously necessary. Thinking that I might never have been given the gift of knowing what it was like to stay at home would bring me to tears.
I had to do something. Now that I was seeing things so much more clear than the year before, I knew I had to find a legitimate way to bring in a supplemental income, at least as much as unemployment would pay. I had to use my passion to help others.
But, what could I do? Somehow get everyone fired from their day jobs so that they could collect unemployment, too? No- obviously not the answer.
I want to not only help other parents have the opportunity to stay home with their children, but to help them realize that they are not wrong in wanting to do so. I want for other parents to be able to stop denying themselves the truth in what they deserved. I want them to know that they do belong at home with their children and their families deserve to flourish.
We have listened to politicians from every group talk about family values as if it was the one thing that was ripping our country apart, and yet there doesn’t seem to be any concern for the fact that the average educated family with two parents and at least one child need 2 incomes to survive. If family values are really what our country needs to get itself into a healthier place, then why isn’t there more focus on keeping children at home with their parents rather than at a daycare?
In my frantic search for some answers, I found that there were many people who felt the way that I did, and some very smart groups had already formed movements to get themselves heard. I encourage you to check out some of these groups: www.momsrising.org and www.moveon.org
That is a good place to start.
Welcome to my brain. It keeps going and going and going- like the energizer bunny. I am anxious to see if OurMilkMoney helps the situation the way I believe it will. But if it doesn’t… you can bet I will keep on tweaking until it does make some sort of impact. I won’t give up trying. None of us should. Our families are counting on us to save the world.
By Ally
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Family, Member Contributions
By Guest Blogger, Lisa Lange
It’s not as hard as it sounds. Just reach out your hand.
I know that may sound absurd, but I know that many people understand
this concept. I know, as many of you do, that there is always
something to give. Time, energy, a helping hand, a shoulder to lean
on, an ear to listen, a pat on the back, a kind word, a kiss or a hug.
Giving of yourself is truly the best gift of all. It doesn’t cost any
money, and it keeps the energy flowing. Since the universe works in
full circle, you must give in order to receive.
Over the past year, while in the infancy stages of my business, I have
been faced with many obstacles, opportunities, whatever you would like
to call them. And, I know that they will keep coming. The difference
between now and then? The way I look at life. It’s not a chore, it’s
not “hurry up weekend”. It’s a journey.
I have always been told that people come into your life for a reason,
a season or a lifetime. It is amazing when you change your focus,
decide to maintain positive energy, and focus on what “really matters”
the people that come into your life. And, unfortunately, the people
that make their way out of your life. What happens when you welcome
these “new” people into your life? They bring the gifts to you, like
you have brought to others. You become surrounded by the people that
make a difference. Here comes your pat on the back, your listening ear
when you feel down, your shoulder to lean on when you think you’ve had
enough, and the kind word you’ve waited so long to hear.
What are you going to do the next time you feel like you have nothing?
Lisa Lange, Owner of Reading About Me is a friend of the Our Milk Money organization, and a very generous support to parents and families around Arizona and all over the online community.
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