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Monday, May 28, 2018

Brand New World


My almost ten-year old caught a feathery dandelion seed head and asked if it meant anything.  Perhaps it brings luck, I said.  She got quiet for a while then said she had made a wish.  “I hope it comes true but I bet it won’t,” she said with a hint of melancholy.  As she anchors herself into tweendom, I am getting used to these melancholy bents. 

But my mom-dar is still too strong for her.  “You wished you could have Nikes, didn’t you?” I asked.  Her sheepish smile confirmed my suspicions. 

These days it seems name-brand shoes are all this girl has on the brain.  For a while she couldn’t stop talking about Adidas, then Nikes (which the French pronounce to rhyme with “bike”) and the occasional All-Star reference, peppered with a bit of Puma and New Balance.

It’s not that I am totally anti-brands. I love my ballerina style Skechers my mom sent me a few years ago.  But I wanted them for the appearance and comfort.  The fact that they were Skechers just assured me of their quality.  With my daughter this brand envy has come out of nowhere and seems to be directly related to what she sees in the school yard.

“Will you get me Adidas for my birthday?” is a common refrain around here.  Followed by “I bet you won’t.” 
She cut out her own symbol


“Wow, how lucky that girl is, look at her Nikes!”  she’ll exclaim as we see a teen in the parking lot with pale pink on pink Nikes.  She can spot brand name shoes on people on tv, too. 
I have literally had to limit her to one shoe reference per day!  But before that I tried a few other strategies which proved to be pretty fruitless.  Let’s recap anyway:

Shaming
Taking a page from my own mom’s book, I told her about kids who had no shoes or shoes in pitiful condition.  I even took to finding her videos on youtube by typing (what else!) “kids with no shoes”.  Just my luck, one of the videos I pulled up showed poor Mexican children, one of whom was wearing a Nike shirt, which my girl was quick to point out.  Anyway, it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on her.  Though now if she goes on about shoes and I ask her if she wants to watch a video, it tends to calm her down a bit.

Non-conformity talk
Of course I tried the old “why do you have to do what everyone else is doing?” talk.  Just because other kids wear something doesn’t mean it’s the best quality or even attractive, I tried to reason with her.  For this point I showed her the saggy jeans fashion that exposes men’s underwear.  She had a laugh at those pics and agreed that particular fashion was stupid, but the shoe talk continued!

Mom stories
I read recently that kids get a lot out of their parents’ personal stories.  Or maybe not.  I told her how I was into Esprit clothes when I was in middle school but how I generally only got a shirt from the bargain bin, because that’s all we could afford.  I can still remember a shirt full of bright geometric shapes that screamed 80s.  I mostly bought it for that little red rectangle proclaiming Esprit.  Frankly it was loud and ugly, when I look back.  I told her in the end I realized I was following the crowd and that having your own style is important. 

Ignoring
When your kid asks you over and over for Adidas in a five-minute period, using a tactic she got from a ten-year old on tv, you just try to think of something else and soldier on.  It messes with your mind, but this is good preparation for adolescence whining. When she says she’s so unlucky for not having Nikes, I tell her she will survive.

Hard work
I always told myself once my kid started asking for brands that I would give him or her a limited budget for school clothes shopping and tell them, that’s it, make it work.  But we’re not quite there yet.  In the meantime I try to remind her of the value of her money by getting her to buy trinkets she wants at the store from her own piggy bank money.  She recently got herself off-brand aqua All-star low tops at the discount store and has been taking super care of them. My husband and I tell her she could get a job later on as a teen or earn money for chores and use this to buy what she wants. 

You might be asking me why I just don’t buy her the shoes she wants.  One little pair, what’s the big deal? We just don’t want her turning into a pretentious, name-dropper already.  Or thinking that she gets whatever she asks for immediately.  She’s barely out of fourth grade!  We hope she will value what she has. 

So in the end, my strategy is a modified “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” one.  She may get what she wants but not right away- a little delayed gratification.  Don’t tell her this, but she will very likely get some shoes for her birthday… but we’ll buy large so they can last a while and she’ll hopefully take good care of them. 

Are your kids into brands?  What strategies do you use?

Thursday, May 17, 2018

The question every stay at home mom dreads


Everyday at noon it’s the same innocent question from my 9 year-old.  “What did you do this morning?” 

I have just picked her up for lunch from school and it’s normal she would ask me.  I ask her the same thing, after all.  But since I have become a stay at home mom to her little brother, I get that deer caught in the headlights reaction.  What have I been doing since I dropped her off at 8:45? 

So I run off a litany of chores, if I got around to any. 

“Ermm, I unloaded the dishwasher.  I fed your brother twice.  I watched an episode of Jane the Virgin…”

Sometimes she’ll say, not unkindly, “that’s all?”

Yes, that’s about all I can get done with a baby I am still breastfeeding four to five  times a day in addition to his fruits and veggies.  Not to mention keeping him calm/occupied while I try to do something else between feedings.  And making sure he has some tummy time (but not right after a feeding!) to develop upper body strength and practice rolling over.  And maybe getting a load of laundry in.  And maybe making my bed.  And maybe ordering groceries online. 


I am not bitter.  I am not overwhelmed (ok, a little).  It’s just that the world that continues humming outside my house doesn’t always seem to get that taking care of a baby and running a household takes time.  And every morning when I wake up with a to-do list imprinted in my brain, I know full well I won’t get to half of it.  Or whether I complete it or not depends a lot on how my baby is or if he graces us with a nap (that would be just about never). 

Frankly, the transition from working mom to staying at home wasn’t as difficult as I thought.  And I have been thrilled to be home with my little one and to be able to spend more time with my big girl.  What bothers me is more the perception by others that I’m not doing much.  Or maybe that I feel I must prove to them and myself that I am really doing a lot. 

Sometimes I feel that same need to justify my hours at home to my husband when he comes home.  Yes, we are eating a frozen pizza, baby was fussy…  Or to my retired no-filter  neighbor who points out the clutter and dust in my home.  Yes, but you try helping a fourth-grader with her homework and calming a baby and finding time to dust!

But in the end it is myself I need to convince.  I must accept that I won’t get it all done.  I must accept that my house won’t be perfect.  I must accept that buying cookies is ok if I don’t have time to make a cake for friends who come by.  I must accept that less is more if it means that my baby is smiling and gaining weight.  I must accept that my to-do list can slide, morph into something more flexible. 

And I must answer without shame when my daughter asks me that question again, “I took care of your brother. “  Because that is my job for now, and I am doing the best I can.