MotherPie

The Proper Thank-You Note...

Do hand-written thank-you notes matter anymore?  On personalized, monogrammed Crane stationery? Sent promptly?

The postal service is losing money.  If we all sent thank-you notes we might help it stay afloat.

When my oldest daughter was married it was so confusing; we were moving from NYC, we had a destination wedding, she was finishing grad school and moving cross-country to a new city.  Our addresses were shifting all around.  She had thank-you notes written, addressed and stamped, that got lost in the melee buried in a satchel with her wedding shoes.  We had gifts that arrived without an identifying card or tag.  She had been taught to write thank-you's immediately.  She knew the rules.

Since then, all I want to know when I send a gift is whether it arrived.  An email is sufficient and a few sentences of appreciation are just fine.  I'm more worried if a gift gets there than I am about the proper etiquette of things, especially since we've lived in Santa Fe, NM, where the mail and other delivery can make me think we live in the Third World.  Really, just tell me: did you get it?  did you like it?

Long ago I quit giving gifts to some people after I never had a word of appreciation, written or otherwise. That proper thank-you was a big deal.  Sometimes gifts just aren't wanted and -- why waste time with the process?  But etiquette is fluid and a thank-you should be done by the receiver of any gift.  I just think email is fine, even a text, or even in person. What is required is that a special effort must be made by the receiver.  I still send proper notes on fine stationery to some people (which include all of the people who can still tell an engraved invitation from a printed one).

Manners and customs are fluid while courtesy and thoughtfulness are the benchmarks of etiquette.  I'd much rather get a warm, heartfelt email promptly or a personal face-to-face thank-you than a perfunctory written note that says the most minimal thanks.  I can't stand not knowing if my gift ever got to the receiver.

Intrinsic Motivation...

How do you instill and encourage intrinsic motivation in children? Will Lion reminds us that expectations of rewards means decreases likelihood of continuing an activity in his photo, at left (click to enlarge).  Do external rewards motivate adults?

I stopped at this particular photo while browsing Lion's Mind bites photo set linking images to studies on the mind and brain.  Go check it out, highly recommended.

When an adult daughter turns to mom and an external reward is given to help motivate, am I doing the right thing?  When we share the reward?  I guess we never stop worrying if we are being good mothers. 

Parenthood and Marriage: Performance Art!

 You do it.  You do a dance of togetherness, a partnership of working towards goals, of managing life, of supporting each other. I guess going on my 29th year of marriage with three kids, I have experience of that but I'd never thought about it as an art form.  My life is my tableaux and living is an art, and most is not done publicly; a tabula rasa in progress. But these guys, right,  make you think, which is what art is supposed to do.

Miller & Shellabarger are two performance art guys who call themselves a husband and husband team. Reminds me of the Art Guys in Houston who made lamps out of macaroni but you can't buy their works because their message is in the doing of it.

At Art Basel Miami Beach this weekend, they sat crocheting with pink yarn in the middle of exhibit space at NADA.  Their performances are "always together, always in public" and they document the bittersweet rhythms of human relationships. Their work shifts between moments of togetherness and moments of separation, between spaces of private and public, protection and pain and visibility and invisibility. (via Irene Sperber)

The dance of parenthood: For me, getting two children at college in two states to an ear, nose and throat doctor and other support while they suffer through finals weeks (need stylebook references for those research papers? Michael Leddy has links).  For Susie J, it is extreme ironing - using an iron to feed the kids.

Fat Cats...

The joke is that The David came to America for a special exhibit and now he's returned to Italy, fat.  Used to be that Fat Cats, linguistically, stood for those who were rolling in the dough, financially speaking.  Now the fat cats are those rolling in the junk food and I wonder why food policy is not a campaign issue. Who are the Fat Cats now?  Junk food producers and eaters.

My favorite food writer Michael Pollan (also Gary Paul Nabhan, an ethnobotanist combines food and culture writing) wrote a food article addressed to the future president.

Food marketing to children is obscene and just way out of line.
According to a Federal Trade Commission report:

44 major food and beverage marketers spent $1.6 billion to promote their products to children under 12 and adolescents ages 12 to 17 in the United States in 2006. The report finds that approximately $870 million was spent on child-directed marketing, and a little more than $1 billion on marketing to adolescents, with about $300 million overlapping between the two age groups in 2006. Marketers spent more money on television advertising than on any other technique ($745 million or 46 percent of the 2006 total.)... but, themes from television ads carried over to packaging, displays in stores or restaurants, and the Internet. That same year, cross-promotions tied foods and beverages to about 80 movies, television shows, and animated characters that appeal primarily to children. In total, the companies spent more than $208 million, representing 13 percent of all youth-directed marketing, on cross-promotional campaigns.

What food producers don't want you to know is that they "support studies that minimize health concerns associated with their products and junk food makers donate large sums of money to professional nutrition associations.  Profits aren't found in minimally processed foods and whole foods."

The Fat Cats are the immoral people in this process contributing to our societal obesity and our policies must change.  Moms, we've got to make a difference.
P.S. Mother, thanks for emailing me that Fat David photo, you skinny minnie.

The Pareto Principle of Parenthood...

How does the Pareto principle, or the rule of 80/20, apply to parenthood?  Named for the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who noticed that 20% of the population held 80% of the wealth, can this be applied to our families? Do 20% of the children get the most attention? Is 80% of the home less tidy than the rest? Are we good mothers if we are successful 20% of the time and really, isn't it true that 20% of our actions are responsible for 80% of the consequences?

As much as we try, as parents, to be fair, does this rule that explains clumping and a law of nature of uneven balance that happen anyway?  Do children mind 20% of the time? Do 20% of the children excel in the classroom while 20% excel in the athletic arena?  Is this why the gifted and talented programs are so sought-after, as teachers can teach to the top, rather than the middle?

The idea of dumbing down - teaching to the middle - and the idea of the cream rising to the top is a principle we've accepted.  As a PTA officer, or organizational leader, a rule of leadership is to influence the top 20% and pay attention to that group in order to have the most impact and to get support for reaching the goals.  If 20% of the group is naysayers and armchair critics, responding to the negative 20% will get a group nowhere.  If you let the bottom 20% command all the attention, the goals will be diluted.  Paying attention to the top 20% means the middle group will float in the wake.  The middle is influenced by the Pareto 20% in any case.

Why is this hard for parenting and our attempts to be fair?  Because we want the least of our children to succeed so we work hard to be fair and pay attention to all.  Is unconditional parental love an exeption to the Pareto Principle?

Mothers & Daughters, Art & Culture...

The White Sunglasses. That is the title of this art piece, at right.  The youngest daughter is now out of her teens.  She is putting her cool sunglasses (aren't daughters the best thing to have to stay with it????) on me.  They are much more cool-istic on her.   This was at a Mother's Day brunch.

Special moments are always up for reinvention and so are we in this digital age.  That Mother's Day Lunch, which happened before she left her teens, will always be remembered. I'm clinging to the remnants of REAL motherhood, when motherhood matters when children are young.   Now I'm moving to  Significant Motherhood, where living as a woman is a thing full of grace, once the children are grown.

The glasses can filter all, change all, conceal all, be all.  Women in White Sunglasses.  Right on, mama.

Living Through The Lense: Present & Past...

Memories, Past: Don't memories change?   Over time, what you see in your mind's eye changes?  You are aware of the consequences and what happens over time.  You look at photos of yourself from the past and you notice things you didn't notice then. 

When you take the photos, you think you might be capturing one thing, but later you realize that something much different has been captured.  Your carefree expression; your stupid hairstyle; your trendy clothes that look fruity now; your self as skinny or fat; or your youth and what you were doing...then.

Memories, Present: When you take photos, you lose the moment itself in the effort to be the voyeur and to caputure memories.  You take yourself out of the experience life to view it and frame it for later.  You cease to be the participant, and instead become a creator, a producer, a memory-maker.

Memories, Mixed-Up: We took two of our three children to re-experience, now as grown-ups, something they had experienced as children.  Then, we didn't have cameras with us.  Then, Dad wasn't there.  How they experienced the re-run was completely different.  It was an effort in posing as well as an experience in fun, all wrapped in the excitement of capturing what had once been an outsized memorable adventure. The moments captured were more fun than the moments-as-lived, right then, as we experienced it.  We replayed the moment immediately afterwards to find the best shot.  The fun of the seen shot was better than the moment itself.

Memories, Quixotic: When capturing the present for online presentation, living and life itself becomes an exercise in creative production. At least that is what I've found with my daughters. For me, I captured photos for sharing with close friends and family and the element for presentation was the well-maintained scrapbook.  For my children, the scrapbook no longer tangible, but is an online venture, with personal photos posted for friends and acquaintances but knowing the self as posted online is never a private thing.  It can be public for the whole world and just knowing that makes self-presentation and self-editing an incursion into how we live.  Cameras, with phones, can capture anything most anytime, most anywhere.  Such is the self in the moment as captured for and posted on Facebook.

Worldwide audiences: In June 2008 Facebook has 132,105,000 users (up over 80 million from June '07)and MySpace has 117,582,000 (up three million from June '07) according to Comscore.  MySpace was the world leader a year ago but the surge in Facebook users is attributed to worldwide growth as the U.S. audience is already saturated (49 million U.S. users). 

There are times when I want the cameras and the phones and the blackberries turned off and left out of the moment.  It doesn't happen much anymore when we are gathered together.

Old Farms and Family Gardening...

Motherhood used to mean work of an entirely different way, as far as our daily chores go.

But really.... don't you think that mothers have always been charged with the task of raising up the children in the way that they should go, and caring for the family, however we term that, now.  Gen-Yers want more flex-time in their work schedules so that they can focus on their personal lives.  Used to be that the sun and the seasons ruled our lives, the timings, and the ebb and flow.  With air conditioning, no longer.

How long has your family been urban, not rural?  How long has your family been "off the farm"?  My husband and I find that to be a major difference in our lives; I'm one generation ahead of him.  The biggest cash crop seems to be, for the farms I pass in  Texas and Oklahoma, cell phone towers.  That, or wind farming.

I bet we all start gardening more.  I've enjoyed my herb gardens that I've had everywhere except the terraces in NYC.  But our own personal gardening might be trending more towards family farming with eatables?

Then & Now...

When she was born, women used binding for birth cords and were told that putting a baby on a schedule was most important.  Fresh air and sunshine everyday were keys to keeping healthy. How to discipline children was a major theme of motherhood. How to keep a house and how to be a good wife were themes she was raised on.  When she was growing up as a child in '30s and '40s books were treasured. When we are together, we talk about the now and the present mostly, my mother and I.   

But perhaps we're missing an important conversation in talking about cultural changes between the women who have shaped us and the women we've produced and the women we have become.  Now that her granddaughters are maturing into grown women.  The Chinese writing  for Then and Now illustrates the idea of character bounded by these changes.  What is her Then and Now?  What is mine, what is our next-gen of females take on what mattered in the past and what matters at the moment and what will matter over time?

It is more than the cultural moment, this conversation.  What has brought us to the point where Sex & The City draws women of a certain age out in groups, Facebook time is more than face-to-face time, the sexism some have dwelled on so stridently with the run of a women for president, and what threads run through our female lines and what threads fray out with time or with technology?  Are we different structurally?  Has the essence of female-hood mutated?

Today she is hitting her mid-70s and she's seen many changes.  Her grandmothers were among the first generation of women to seek professional degrees yet instilling character in the children and exhibiting self-discipline were high-ranking values defining daily living. She, like the women in her family before her, defines culture as refinement and considers a well-cultured person to be an important character trait.  She gave up the girdle.  She, like the women before her, found much to embrace outside the home yet understood the home to be the well-spring of the family and the place where hospitality is most meaningful. She, like the women before her, cherishes her life-long friendships and girlfriends.  She has given much thought to what is important in life.  The autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was a fundamental book in defining how she would live her life and her Bible is a living book and the most constant presence from her birth to her present.

Yesterday my husband called his mother for an important conversation about an interpretation of the past.  It made me think that these conversations are ones that should be written down in an era where we don't write letters anymore.  The laundry line of my mother's early days is the Facebook/MySpace of her granddaughters -- the place where any peering acquaintance can try to grasp the private presentation of the personal self in a drive-by sort of way.

Then and now and the idea of the female self in relation to ourselves and our families and our world. What is the same, what has changed besides the fact that Hillary broke the dress code barriers of Congress and the Wall Street Journal this week took a long column to discuss panty hose and the office dress code.   The girdle is long gone but female bonding isn't.   Hmmm. What else.

Someday You'll Know...

Mother drove the car and checked her face in the rearview mirror.  She smiled.  "You have to be careful to have your face lines be happy lines," she said.  "Someday you'll know."

Mother put her car into reverse in the driveway at her parents' home and watched her parents walk across their porch.  "They look suddenly old to me," she said to me in the seat beside her.  "Someday you'll suddenly think that of me, and you'll know what I mean," she said.  I watch her vitality, energy and strength from her exercise routine and wonder what defines old?  Will I know?

Mother was exasperated with me, the stubborn teenager that I was.  "You'll never know the patience it takes," she said.  "Someday you'll know." 

Don't you miss me, I asked my mom, when I went away to college.  "It is good to see you launched," she said.  "Someday you'll know."

As I drove out from my mother's house, she said how much she appreciated this extended one-on-one time with me now that my own children are out of the house, and said she savors every moment with me.  "Someday you'll know," she said.

Once, I don't remember when, she said that I wouldn't understand until I became a mother myself.  "Someday you'll know."

Someday is today.  Happy Mother's Day!!!