Christmas Fail

Many things didn’t get done this Christmas. No cards were sent, baked goods were half baked and most of them were eaten before we could send them off in pretty little gift bags. Some gifts barely made it out the door, others still sit in the back seat of my car hoping to make it to their recipient sometime before they are too old to wear/use/eat it. I did not send thank you notes for the lovely and thoughtful gifts we received. I did not set a beautiful table on Christmas Day, or New Year’s Day for that matter. Although I am the queen of eating off paper plates, I make it a habit to insist that on those two days of the year (at the very least), I rise above paper and plastic, and serve my family a meal off of something that doesn’t have to be recycled…But not this year. It was a major Christmas fail.

David and I both worked through the holidays. David worked long hours on the days leading up to Christmas, New Year’s Eve day and night, and all day on New Year’s. That blasted a hole in the seasonal holiday traditions we’d developed over the years. Hard to go caroling or drive out to see the lights at Candy Cane Lane when daddy doesn’t get home until 2am. I worked on a production the week leading up to Christmas, and all day on Christmas Eve. I loved the experience, it was amazing and I’d do it again in a heartbeat if they ask me, but that, in addition to fighting off a cold (a war I didn’t win), and a general sense of being overwhelmed by the holidays, meant a few things had to give. And give, they did.

I managed to feed the family over the holidays, but only after spending enough to boost the economy of the entire Los Angeles restaurant industry. How many times do you think you can go to McDonald’s, Starbucks, Jamba Juice, El Torito, or Big Mama’s Pizza in one week? You don’t want to know.

I hate shopping, hate malls even more. I usually plan out and do all of my holiday shopping online so I can limit the number of times I have to step foot in a mall and fight with some old lady (who I’d normally be really respectful to) because she’s about to steal my parking space and I’m one step away from ripping off her front fender and dragging her out of the car by her blue hair. But I didn’t plan ahead and order in time for online delivery, so I was forced to go to the mall. I dragged myself from store to store, mumbling under my breath and complaining as I bumped shoulders with other shoppers. My daughters, who (of course) LOVE going to the mall, were delighted. I rarely take them during the rest of the year, ranting that the mall is really just a large shrine to greed and over consumption which I only succumb to this time of year. Nicole looked at me sadly and complained, “It’s really not fair that we have a mother who doesn’t like to shop.”

Every day leading up to Christmas I’d open the mailbox I’d see another beautiful card from friends and neighbors near and far. I’d imagine the comments from people who didn’t see our picture card in their box and feel worse thinking about all those friends of my parents who would say something about not receiving any cards this year, or worse, those people who’d cross our name off their mailing list because they didn’t get a Christmas card from us this year – “Ah, one less card to send,” they’d say.

Yesterday, I’d finally gotten rid of my guilt over not sending out greeting cards for the first time in 13 years of marriage, or over the fact that for all the major holidays in December we ate in front of the t.v. with paper plates on our laps deciding what we’d watch on t.v. The holidays are over and it’s time to face the New Year.

At dinner last night, we discussed the New Year. My eight year old daughter, Natalie, reminded us all that the Mayans predicted that 2012 would be the end of the world. I told her that I generally don't worry about predictions made by people who are now extinct. (If they were so good at predictions, why didn’t they see that coming?) My husband jokingly suggested he’d try to start them up again, see if the Mayans could get a deal like the Native Americans and get their own casinos. Fiscally, not a bad idea, but practically, pretty offensive and rather implausible. Nicole, my eleven year old, was concerned about the exact date on which the world was supposed to end (according to the now distinct Mayans). We couldn’t remember if it was December 12th, which would be 12/12/12 (which would be kind of cool), or if it was December 21st, which would make sense because it is the solstice. After a few minutes of trying to determine which would be the best date for the end the world, Natalie, who has been worried about this Mayan prediction for almost a year now, reminded me that we’d have to serve quesadillas to commemorate it. “They always serve quesadillas when the world’s about to end,” she said…where does she get these ideas??? Then we spent another few minutes trying to decide which date would be a better day to have an end of the world party, 12/12 or 12/21. Either way, you know the best part about throwing an end of the world party? You don’t have to clean up afterwards. Happy New Year!

Working Mothers Make Kids Fat

A new report (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110204/hl_afp/healthusobesitychildwomen)
has linked childhood obesity to working mothers. Researchers from the American University at Washington, the University of Chicago and Cornell University, found that in a study of 900 elementary- and middle-school-aged children in 10 cities whose mothers worked, those kids were more likely to be overweight than kids with stay-at-home moms. The report claimed that the reason for the disparity in weight between kids from working vs. non-working moms was the tendency of working mothers to feed their children more fast food, processed/prepackaged food and junk food than stay-at-home mothers.

I’m irritated by this report on several levels. Do working mothers really need yet more things to feel guilty about? Don’t we have enough trying to juggle marriage, family and work without being accused of inadequately feeding our children just because we want to (and in more cases than not) need to work outside of the home. There are already so many things working mothers feel guilty about – missing soccer games, class field trips, not being able to attend school meetings scheduled at 9 am. Many would go to therapy to address our guilt if we had the time or money, but we’re too busy working and feeding our kids Jack-in-the Box to relax on a shrink’s couch. This type of research really isn’t beneficial to supporting working mothers or for that matter, working parents. Because let’s face it, dads have to claim some responsibility too. Mom’s are the only ones coming home exhausted and stuffing their kids with fast food rather than dragging themselves into the kitchen and cooking up something with at least two colors of vegetables in it.

Another reason this report bothers me is that in the last ten years I think much has been done to bring together the parenting community and to mend the rift (real or imagined) between working and stay-at-home mothers. There has been an effort to unite around mutual concerns for our children through support groups, online forums, parenting classes, all designed to discuss, share and learn best practices for how to raise our children regardless of whether you punch a time card or not. In my opinion, this type of research only goes to widen the divide.

Instead of research like this which concludes that working mothers feed their children worse than stay-at-home moms – and yes, I have often ranted in this blog about having nothing in the house to eat and sending my kids to school with carbo loaded lunches not because they were training for a marathon, but because there was nothing in the fridge to send except leftover mac and cheese and pound cake - but that is the exception, not the rule. There are so many ways that working moms can and do keep up high nutritional standards despite pursuing a career:

•Shopping and cooking for the week on Saturday and Sunday so that healthy meals can be refrigerated to eat the rest of the work week
•Serving frozen fruit smoothies with yogurt when there’s no fresh fruit in the crisper
•Tossing canned veggies with just about any pasta in a pinch

Those are just a few tricks in the working mom’s arsenal to fire off before hitting the drive-thru. My favorite go-to is online shopping at 4am to order groceries (with free delivery) when a trip to the store conflicts with too many late nights working. Those are all viable alternatives to the fast food and junk food that this report says is the diet of kids of working moms.

I bet those researchers thought this was a helpful addition to the conversation about childhood obesity and its causes, but honestly, it’s not. It feels like a gross generalization about the state of how working mothers feed their children based (probably) on a limited group of research subjects. How and what working mothers feed their children, any mother for that matter, will vary by region, education, socioeconomic status, ethnic background and a variety of other factors that make me very skeptical of the conclusions in this report. I think rather than lay the blame for fat kids at the door of working mothers, perhaps the emphasis should be more about encouraging all parents to support healthy eating and lifestyle choices for all our children.

In my initial anger at hearing this report, I had a fleeting thought of driving by the University of Chicago and in protest, pelting the building with Twinkies. I still might do it, but I have a conference call and a meeting at work later and probably won’t be able to get to the grocery story to stock up on junk food.