The grass is always greener….but sometimes it turns out to be astroturf.

A year ago we moved to Arkansas, a state with some of the best charter schools in the country. Coming from Ohio, this was a bit of a shock. In Ohio, you don’t find the words “best” and “charter school” in the same sentence.

After living here for a year I have noticed a culture where it is seen as prestigious to send your child to a charter school. The schools play into this notion, calling their students “scholars” and advertising numbers on scholarships and college acceptance that cause alarm bells to ring even with my one semester of statistics training. When pursuing the websites of local charter schools, I noticed lots of words like global citizen, integrity, and innovation.

These are fancy, emotion-triggering words. They are also pretty hollow.

While I know many people whose children are happy at these schools, I am finding an increasing number of parents who are moving their children back to the public schools after realizing that the grass may not really be greener after all.

Let me tell you about a recent experience… Earlier this year, hoping for a part-time teaching job, I sent my resume to both public and charter schools. The first to call was a charter school that continually ranks in the top 3 of ALL schools in my state, according to U.S. News and World Report. I was excited to get an interview.

During the interview process, there was a conversation that went something like this:

Them: So besides Spanish, what else can you teach?

Me: Well, I’m only certified in Spanish.

Them: No, no. Here you don’t need to be certified, you can teach anything. Most of our teachers teach two or three subjects. What are your other interests?

Me: Oh, ok…Well I love literature and reading, so I would feel comfortable teaching those.

Them: Could you teach marketing?

Me: I suppose I could with the right materials, but I don’t know much about marketing.

Them: Could you teach Phys Ed?

Me: Um….no.

Now, if you know anything at all about education, this should frighten you. And while I could probably muddle my way through a marketing class, I know a woman who interviewed at the same school for an art position who was asked if she could teach math. An art teacher should not be teaching math.

Teaching is both an art and a science. I have been known to say that the “art” part cannot be learned, you are either born to teach or you’re not. However, the “science” part of teaching CAN and definitely SHOULD be learned. The science part involves training teachers on brain development, child psychology, learning styles and methods for teaching. However, many charter schools do not require their teachers to have a teaching degree, or this training.

Public school districts provide hours of training to their teachers on how demographics affect students’ abilities to learn. They provide support for students with special needs. Public schools require teachers to get a certain number of continuing education hours and they provide their teachers time to collaborate with colleagues. All of this leads to teachers who can effectively meet the needs of the diverse children in their classrooms. 

Public school teachers are guided by state and national standards. When I asked the charter school if their teachers needed to follow state standards, they gleefully told me “No!” as if that were a good thing.  It’s NOT a good thing.

Charter schools will tell you that many of their teachers come from jobs in the private sector and offer a “real world” perspective. While I see value in educators with this sort of experience, I see more value in degreed educators trained and guided by science and standards. I know people that teach in local charters and they are delightful. Our favorite babysitter attends the school that interviewed me and loves it. I also know parents who decided that the hours of nightly homework given by their children’s school didn’t amount to a better education. I recently met a student who returned to public high school because his “academy” wasn’t going to help him with college admission. The principal of a local charter just resigned a week into the new school year for "reasons unclear."

I’m not saying that all charter schools are terrible or that I disapprove of sending your child there. I fully admit that public schools do not work for all students. I am simply asking you not to blindly assume that the grass is greener on the other side.

The happy end to my story is that last week I started work at our local public district. The level of training, support and professionalism that I’ve experienced has blown me away. I feel blessed that my children attend such a district and even more blessed that I get to work there. Just like some charters in our area, our district advertises global citizens, integrity, and innovation… The difference is that they have the science and practice to back up their promises.

"Fut" is NOT a Word

If you have children who are anywhere over the age of two, you have probably begun to negotiate the tricky world of BAD WORDS.

Let's just be clear up front that I have very little good advice about this topic, I just have some slightly funny experience.

When our girls were five and two they were obsessed with the song Hot and Cold by Katy Perry. If you are not familiar with the lyrics of this deep, deep song I'll help you out: "You PMS like a bi*ch, I would know."

Go ahead and imagine my adorable children bopping around singing that at the top of their lungs.

What, us?!? We would never repeat a bad word.

Now, we should take a moment to address an important tenet of my parenting philosophy here...my husband and I do not go out of our way to shelter our girls. While we are not regularly dropping F-bombs in front of them, we don't turn off music or movies with the occasional bad word, because LIFE has bad words in it, people. I offer this explanation in case you're wondering why we didn't just play the Kids Bop version for them...

Also, Kids Bop makes me want to scratch my ears out.

Back to Katy Perry. After about three days of listening to my darlings sing "Bi*ch" over and over and over again, I took a page from a friend's play book. I calmly explained "Girls, Bi*ch is a word that only adults say. It is not appropriate for kids."

This did NOT nip the problem in the bud. Later in the day, our snuggly toddler brought over a book to "read" to me. The story went something like this: "Bi*ch, bi*ch, bi*ch...bi*ch, bi*ch, BIIIII*CH!"

When our oldest was in first grade, she came home one day and asked "Mommy, What does fut mean?"
I went with the theory that you should always give children the simplest answer to their questions and replied: "Fut is not a word."
She persisted, "Oh yeah it is. Tyler told me that fut is a BAAAAAD word."
"Nope, not a word."

The next day Tyler enunciated more clearly and also showed her the hand gesture, which she promptly taught to the three-year-old.

As our daughters get older, I have found an updated version of the "These are words that only adults say" approach. I appeal to their pride. I say "Sometimes people say bad words, but there are lots of places where it is never appropriate to say these words. Do you know why I'm ok with you hearing these words? Because I know that you are such polite and grown up girls, that you realize these are not words you should say."

Recently, our daughter caught a bug for The Phantom of the Opera (Probably my least favorite musical on the planet, only because Cats doesn't even count as a musical). After listening to the screeching-singing for a week, I intervened. I said "Come watch this musical called Les Miserables. I think you will love it" 

She DID love it. It also has a surprising number of swear words (and prostitutes, but that's a whole 'nother blog post.) I finally had to say "Please stop looking at me every time they say a bad word. It's not that shocking."

So to review, I have no real strategy for bad words. I alternate between trying to remove the taboo and just reinforcing that there are just words kids don't say.

Sometimes I just say "Fut it" and play some Eminem for them.

Kidding. So kidding.

"Just remember how much this feeling sucks:" Not exactly good advice for kids.

One day last year my then second grade daughter came home from school and said "Fifi* and Bertha* are starting the Teddy Bear Lovers Club and they said I can't be in it." (*Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent) My first response was to say "Well that's good because that's the stupidest club I've ever heard of," but I've learned the hard way that this sort of response isn't really what kids are looking for.

This declaration was just one of many I've fielded since the start of school. It goes in the same file as things like "Sally said I couldn't sit by her on the bus to the field trip because she's sitting by Susie" (The field trip was three weeks away) or "Jenny and Becky were playing together on the playground and every time I went up to them, they just ran away from me."

Now here is a confession: I don't feel like I navigated social waters well as a child (and I feel like I only somewhat do it successfully as an adult) so I don't feel very qualified to offer my child advice in these situations. Even more problematic, is what to even say in these instances. This is not bullying (which in my opinion is a very real problem in schools today, but is also a very overused term, applied to things that are not bullying at all.) These situations are really just kids choosing to play with one child over another. I'm left saying things like "In the future, remember how you felt when someone didn't include you and don't do that to someone else."

I recently read this post by blogger Leslie Blanchard. She perfectly sums up my own disjoined thoughts that this sort of behavior is not about being mean, it's more about our own children looking for acceptance:

"We would serve our children well, in my opinion, if we had a frank conversation with them about what motivates human beings to accept and reject others. It happens at every age and stage of life, race, creed and religion. It has its roots in our own fears of rejection and lack of confidence. Everyone is jockeying for their own spot on the Social Food Chain."

I really like the thought that most of our children have "social bank to spare" and that just telling kids to "Be nice!" is not enough because usually our kids are nice. They need to be explicitly told that they are expected to reach out to others and to find the value in all people.

Another blogger, Lisa McCrohan, talks in a post about raising girls who are "includers" instead of "mean girls." This is exactly what I'm going for, what I think we're all going for.

What I'm still working on is teaching my girls how to respond when they come across those "mean girl" situations.

Please stop feeding our kids sugar.

Let's start by establishing that I am not a candy-hating witch.

I eat chocolate every single day. I'm not exaggerating there. Some days that small chocolate square is the only thing that keeps me sane. Yesterday I ate a baseball size serving of Swedish Fish because I have no willpower. I love candy. I am also a mom trying to feed my children healthy food, and I am making this request on behalf of moms like me: Please STOP feeding our kids sugar.

The AHA recommends that children ages 4-8 eat no more than 130 calories from sugar per day. That's the same as 3 teaspoons or 12.5 grams of sugar. Studies suggest that the average kid actually eats around 21 teaspoons per day.

I want you to stop for a moment and image a child you know eating 21 teaspoons of sugar.

We've all heard the facts. Anything processed or packaged in any way usually has added sugar. The Cheerios my kids eat for breakfast have 1g. The "healthy" greek yogurt has 13g. A Capri Sun drink pouch also has 13g- that's all their recommended sugar in one little pouch. I can't speak for other kids, but mine don't consider yogurt or a drink pouch their treat for the day.

Treats are everywhere in a child's world. Restaurants and offices have bowls of suckers. The grocery pick-up place gives out fruit snacks. I ration Halloween candy to one per day. I threw out the remaining Halloween candy the day before Valentine's Day. The candy stashes were restocked from the class parties. On St. Patty's day there is now a leprechaun that brings treats to school. Last year our kids were really confused why he didn't come to our house too. I could keep going...

I feel like I am fighting against a constant bombardment of sugary junk food, and I am always losing.

The actual candy situation at our house right now. I guess I missed some Halloween candy.

Just as an example, last Sunday my own children found fruit snacks and powdered sugar doughnuts at church, they ate pancakes for brunch, had a sucker from some errand I don't even remember, and then asked for some of their Valentine's Day candy in the afternoon.

What all of these statistics and anecdotes mean is that whether you are a teacher, a babysitter, a grandparent or just some well-meaning stranger at a football game, by the time you see our kids they have already FAR exceeded their 3 teaspoons of sugar for the day. That "one little treat" that you rationalize won't hurt at all is adding to the extra 18 teaspoons of sugar every day.

We are beyond thankful for all of the people who help us care for our children and want to spoil them with treats, but therein lies the problem: Everyone wants to spoil them with treats.

Maybe even more important, I would like to spoil my children sometimes. I love taking them for ice cream or giving them a treat once in a while. But every time I do I think of the fact that they already got all of their allotted sugar for the day just from their regular food. I read the articles that say sugar, not fat, may be the #1 cause of heart disease. Processed sugar intake has been linked to cancer. I'm not worried about ruining their dinner, I'm worried about not killing them.

I say "no" to treats more times in a day than I can count. I don't like that. I want to be the fun mom who says "Here, eat a Starburst." But when three other people have already fed my kids treats that day, I'm stuck being the witch.

Please don't make me be the candy-hating witch.

A Love Letter to the Husband That Doesn't Buy Me Flowers

My Dear Husband,

You do not buy me flowers very often.

You also tend to claim, often at the wrong times, that we don't celebrate Valentine's Day because "Every day is like Valentine's Day around here." That's one of the reasons I love you: Your snarky sense of humor.

Back to the flowers. Maybe it's because back in my college feminist days I said "I don't need a man to buy me flowers." Or maybe when I told you that cut flowers are REALLY bad for the environment you took me REALLY seriously. I used to get a little upset by the no-flower thing, this past year has put that in perspective.

We were babies!

Almost 14 years of marriage had already solidified for me that, in fact, I do not need a man to buy me flowers. What I need is a man to pick up the slack when I'm sick in bed for a week. That's you. I need a man to bounce ideas off of when I can't decide if I'm all worked up over nothing or something huge. You are great at that too. And yes, my feminist side points out that I don't actually need a man for those things, But I am really glad it's you, anyway.

You are still my #1 partner for new
adventures!

Seven months ago, when I told my friends that we were moving, one of them replied "You must really love your husband to quit your job and follow him to Arkansas!" I still laugh at humor and truth of this statement, but now I know for sure that I would follow you anywhere.

If you came home tomorrow and said "I took a job in Northern Saskatchewan." I would first say "What the hell is wrong with you?!?" but then I would follow you there. Because at the end of every day I am excited for you to come home. When something good happens you are the first person I want to tell. When something bad happens, you are quick to tell me "We will get through this together." You are there every time I, or our daughters, need you. What's more, you seem to enjoy being with us more than anything else, and that means a lot to me.

Don't go getting a big head now, because we all know nobody is perfect (and by that I specifically mean that YOU are not perfect) but you do a pretty amazing job of never letting me down when it matters.

You have said to me so often in these last months "I dragged you across the country. You should do what makes you happy." even though we both know you didn't have too much of a choice either. The grace and command with which you have handled our past year makes me feel far more appreciated than flowers ever could. I'm proud of the team we make together and I am thankful every day that our girls are growing up with you as a role model.

Te amo

P.S.- I worried this was too mushy to share with the Internet, but don't worry, no one really reads my blog anyway.

On second thought, why don't you just stay away from my towels?

You’ve all seen them. The helpful internet posts about getting children to do chores. The guilt-inducing blogs about moms who have their sons empty the dishwasher every night. The helpful downloads of chore charts that you can post for your children. Recently my own mom shared this Montessori-inspired checklist on my Facebook page:

Thanks for the blog idea, mom! It's such a beautiful scene: Little independent beings toting the firewood and sorting the silverware while simultaneously learning the satisfaction of domestic work and how to do it properly. In real life, though, this quickly becomes messy, unhygienic and just not worth my limited time.

Please don't misunderstand me. I feel the guilt. I don't want to raise kids that don't know how to clean a toilet or disinfect doorknobs (I just learned that I should be disinfecting the doorknobs) but I also don't want my kids walking through my house dripping chemicals. I'm controlling like that. And have you ever seen clothing folded by an eight-year-old?!? My obsessive-compulsive tendencies already activate when my husband folds the towels and they aren't all the same shape.

I am fully aware that an internal debate about kids doing chores falls squarely under the "First World Problems" column heading. But it is a debate. Between our two kids, we currently have after school activities every weeknight. In around these activities we cram reading, math and piano practice, dinner and showers. If there is any time leftover (and sometimes there's not) they get 30 minutes to play together or with neighborhood friends. I have told myself for a long time that I will start asking them to do more on the weekends, but that is when we all want to unwind or are off on other adventures.

Our checklist has a lot fewer chores.

For now, I require our girls to keep their rooms clean and beds made and that is about it. I did get sick of yelling the same mantra five times every morning: "Go upstairs, make your bed, brush your teeth, put clothes in the hamper and turn out the lights." I made them their own checklist and put them in picture frames. That way they could check them off with an dry erase marker. This worked great for a week until the novelty wore off, but here is a PDF of the list if you'd like to give it a try. (I would also like you to know that it took me waaaaay too much time and Googling to figure out how to embed a PDF and you probably won't be able to download it, but best of luck!)

Mom Guilt: Sorry, not sorry.

We need to talk about a very important topic: Mom Guilt.

This topic is important because it is a giant load of garbage.  It is the invention of a modern society with both too much and too little time on its hands.

I want to discuss this topic so we can all NEVER mention it again.

I didn't even know that mom guilt was a thing from which I wasn't, but should, be suffering until I started reading blogs. I heard women bemoaning the fact that they were not spending time playing with their children because they had to work or fold laundry or cook.  Women feel guilty because they choose to tackle housework or job-work or just take time for themselves during daylight hours while they still have a shred of energy left.  They spend all day providing for and caring for their families, but then feel guilty when they occasionally go out with friends or get a manicure. This is madness!

Ladies, let's go back in time to the days of the pioneers.  Do you think Ma Ingalls (Obviously the paragon of pioneer women) even stopped and said "I feel so guilty. I should be playing with Laura and Mary right now instead of peeling these potatoes"?!? Heck no! That woman was busy washing laundry in a stream and fighting off bears. Her kids grew up fine.

Jump ahead more than a few decades to the 1980's.  I remember only a few times when my mother sat down to play with me.  The times I do remember, I was probably 3. By the time I was able to not stick metal into outlets when left unsupervised for 20 minutes, I was playing dollhouse or making up plays by myself in the basement for hours. I was an only child and I still managed to play happily by myself.

Now, I'll agree that from time to time it is nice to play with your kids. but who invented this idea that it is a parent's job to entertain their children? Children are capable of entertaining themselves. They can play with all the junk we buy for them. When they get bored of that, they can play with siblings. I tell my kids "Play with your sister. Why do you think I had two of you?"

Without waxing too prophetic on another topic on which I am not an expert, I will tell you that children need time alone to develop creative thinking skills. Traits like originality and the ability to interact with others don't come from playing with you, they come from being given the space and time to make choices, create and play with other children.

Mom guilt gets also gets me riled up because it is pure sexism. Have you ever heard of Dad guilt? Has any man ever said "Wow, I couldn't even enjoy golf today because I kept thinking that I should be spending the time with my kids."? I won't insult your intelligence by answering my own rhetorical questions. Mom guilt comes to you from the same folks that call assertive women "bitchy" and imply that women do not have the necessary faculties to control their own fertility. We tell women they should do it all, but then make them feel guilty for DOING it all. Garbage.

We are all caring, giving women. We spend hours with our children. They are bathed, clothed, fed, supervised, read-to, worried-about, transported, supported and continually helped by us. They will grow into well-adjusted, self-reliant humans because they have parents who get stuff done and take time for themselves.

I refuse to feel guilty about not feeling guilty. Sorry, not sorry.