Going to the Dark Side

Every mother has this epiphany at some point in her life. Maybe your child is raising hell on a day when you're just not in the mood to cope, or maybe you just had a bad day and unwittingly took it out on your family. But at some point, in a fit of anger, disappointment, or just plain exhaustion, you will say something to your child, and those words that come out might be in your voice, but they aren't yours. They are YOUR MOTHER'S. Then you realize in horror, "I've become my Mom!!!"

It's particularly bad for me, because it reaffirms that I am now a "Chinese Mom". The Chinese Mom is an interesting breed of mother, one part dragon lady, one part Jewish Mom. My mother is a prototypical example: she is 5 feet 4 inches of impossibly high expectations and overwhelming love of the smothering variety, wrapped in cashmere and topped with a short fuse. She is always at the ready with her unsolicited advice and quick to voice her sheer disappointment with you at every turn.

So I've been upset with myself for being so disappointed in the lack of progress my son E is making in the potty-training area. E will be three in March, and he is still refusing to poop in the potty. He is a whiz at peeing (no pun intended), but he just will not poop anywhere but in his diaper. Recently, after a particularly messy poopy incident (my husband was cleaning poop off the ceiling, and we'll leave it at that), I was so frustrated, I actually channelled my mother when I told E, "You are big boy now! You need to learn to poop in the potty! You know how to do this, do this so Mommy will love her big boy."

What?! Did I just imply that I would withhold love from my son if he wouldn't poop in the potty?! What's wrong with me? Oh yeah, I'm a Chinese Mom. The poop on the ceiling was a little scary, but not as scary as my reaction to it.

These days, I try to scrutinize my emotions a bit before expressing them to the kids. The self-censorship goes like this: "Is this something Mom would say to me? If yes, then it's probably better left unsaid." It's hard to fight those Chinese mom genes, but I remember how crappy my mother could make me feel when I was little, so it's a battle worth fighting.

Ruining the Planet - One Purchase at a Time

One of my colleagues sent me a curious link to http://www.storyofstuff.com/, which turns out to be an educational, provocative, effective, and thoroughly depressing piece of propaganda about how American consumerism is ruining the planet. After viewing the video, I wondered in horror, "Am I mucking up planet Earth whenever I impulse buy a cute shirt for my son at Target or go for the 2-for-1 special on Chex cereal at the grocery store?"

The basic tenet of storyofstuff.com is that Americans, in their never-ending quest for a good bargain, feed the behemoth of Big Corporations, who lure us into buying more crap in their never-ending quest for making more money. There is conspiracy theory that manufacturers design their products to look great new but break often enough so that people will buy more. These companies also market their stuff to make people feel like they have to have the newest thing to feel worthwhile.

Watch the video and make up your own mind, but if you feel a twinge of guilt at potentially leaving a planet of "X"-ed out trees and dead fish for your kids, what recourse do you have? Does saving the planet mean that you have to be one of those fashion victims on "What Not To Wear", sporting 10-year-old clothing because you shouldn't buy any more just for the sake of vanity? Do you have to use a relic of a computer with Windows 2.1 so that you don't create e-waste?

Saving the world is like going on a diet: we all know it's good for us, and the steps are pretty simple, but doing them is hard unless they can be easily incorporated into our everyday lives. The section titled "Another Way" on the web site has some good suggestions that are easy to follow. Here are some more:

1. You don't need a phone that takes pics, plays ringtones, syncs with your e-mail, and allows you to access your Wii. My cell phone is 3 years old. It doesn't text message, it doesn't take pictures, it doesn't play MP3 files. I already have other stuff that I bought that does all those things. Resist the urge to get the newest gadget. Where do you think that cell phone goes when you toss it for a new one? It's always less wasteful to make do with the things you have already purchased.


2. Say NO to take-out. One weekend when my husband and I were both sick, we got take out at every meal because we were too tired to cook. We filled up 2 kitchen garbage cans with empty take-out containers. I had a major guilt trip when I saw how much trash we made.


3. Buy in bulk when you can. This doesn't necessarily mean do your grocery shopping at your local Costco, although those warehouse stores are not necessarily bad. I mean buy items contained in the least amount of packaging. For example, I bring a clean plastic container to the store with me and buy my flour in bulk. Try not to buy stuff that is individually packaged; rather, buy the food in a single larger container, and re-use small plastic containers to take individual servings on the go.


4. Read the label. Where was the item produced? What is it made from? How much does it cost? If the price is too good to be true, it probably is. You're better off buying a quality item that costs a little more than a cheap one that may break more easily or be unsafe for you or your family.

I'm still working on the "make do" and "buy less" part when it comes to shoes.

Stuff I Love: Simple Treats Cookbook by Ellen Abraham

I have said before that I always imagined baking cookies with my kids as one of those lazy Saturday activities that would become a cherished tradition in our family, and how disappointed I was to find out that both my kids are allergic to eggs and dairy (my son allergic to wheat as well). Well, I need not give up the dream anymore because I found a great cookbook that lets us bake our cake and eat it, too!

What I Love: Simple Treats: A Wheat-free, Dairy-free Guide to Scrumptious Baked Goods by Ellen Abraham. That title says it all, don't you think?

Why I Love It: The recipes are really good and easy to follow. OK, you will never mistake the cookies that come out of this cookbook for a Specialty's cookie, but they are pretty tasty nonetheless. They are at least good enough to fool you into thinking that they are a regular home-baked goodie.

My son's favorite recipe is the oatmeal-raisin cookie. He loves that he gets to pour the raisins into the batter, and he likes to watch them puff up as they bake. Last night, we made the vanilla cupcakes together, and he told me that he wanted to make more to share with his friends at school. The brownie recipe is awesome as well, rich, gooey, and chewy.

In addition to the great recipes, I love that the recipes make nice, small batches (each batch makes about 15 1-ounce cookies), that all the recipes use no refined sugar or saturated fats, and that the nutritional information is included at the bottom of each recipe.

I bought my copy at Amazon.com, and it was $10 well spent.

The Marathon That Never Ends

I recently had dinner with a single friend of mine, and when we exchanged our "what's new with you?"s, I said, "Not much, just dealing with the kids," while she informed me that she had just completed her first marathon. "Congratulations! WOW!" I replied.

Then it struck me: what's so impressive about a marathon? A marathon ENDS. Twenty-six miles, and you're done. If you are tired one day, you can skip your 10-mile practice run. Parenting never stops. Tired? Grumpy? Got the flu? Too bad, you still have to give your kids their bath and make them dinner.

Yet nobody says, "Congratulations! WOW!" when you say you're a mother or a father. You don't get a t-shirt or a free power bar or people passing out water all along the way. Nobody sponsors you for every child you raise (OK, maybe the grandparents do); there is no Team-In-Training program for how to parent.

People do it every day, every minute of every day. But it's not celebrated as an achievement. Nobody answers the question, "What's new with you?" with "My kid is six this year and I helped to get her there." What an accomplishment to bring a child into the world and teach him or her how to be a good person.

Over the holidays, I met someone at a party who told me excitedly that he and his wife were planning to spend New Year's Eve in Las Vegas. "We can finally afford it now that we've put the last of our four kids through college," he said nonchalantly, to which I replied, "Congratulations! WOW!"