The Illusion of Control: Are There Benefits to Being Self-Deluded?

By Lab Coat Mama

Those people who know me well know two things about me.  I am scattered brained.  As I often have multiple trains of thought going at one time, sometimes this spills over into my life.  Also, relaxation and quiet are very difficult for me, thus I tend to overstretch myself.  My working hypothesis is simply that I would not be happy any other way.   It is hard to downshift from maniac speed during the week, to blessed 3-day weekend.  

I love having coffee while piddling around my garden in the morning.

I digress.  Thanks to my 6-year old spending the night with his grandparents last night, and my husband and I relaxing alone, I woke up with ideas.... of all the wonderful things I could get accomplished this morning. As I type I am drinking coffee (see Goal A, Action A in the prefrontal cortex).  

Since working as a toxicologist, my focus on healthy and chemical-free food for my family and friends can boarder on the obsessive, says my husband. Who am I to deny- but that is another post. Goal B: a batch of pesto made and ready to be frozen from my favorite multitasking cookbook Wildly Affordable Organic: Eat Fabulous Food, Get Healthy, and Save the Planet--All on $5 a Day or Less. Also, I am determined to find some good pickling recipes to save what has become a limited but successful harvest from our experimental vegetable garden. I am envisioning interesting and surprising accompaniments made from my overload of fresh green onions, cucumbers, and carrots. Goal D- No Knead Bread, which makes my absolute favorite, crunchy loaf but rests at least 12 hours. Try it, you will never go back!
 This is my idea of relaxing.  It may seem crazy and neurotic to some, but nothing relaxes me like taking some time on the weekend to prep myself for what will assuredly be a crazy week and work and home.  Somehow, as I rush from meetings in slacks and heels to cajole my son into staying the pool during swim practice, changing the pool bathroom to get a run in, and wondering when I can squeeze in an oil change, having fresh bread and pesto angel hair pasta to come home to makes me feel in control.  Of course, so does the perfect silk dress and red lipstick, but that is a topic for another time.

So I ask, as you realize you are a slave to the reminders from your Google calender, what makes you feel in control?

The one where I expose my son to all manner of inappropriate things…

By Preschool Mom

As parents, we try to shield our children from things that are scary and age-inappropriate. We don’t always get it right, for example the time my husband let our son watch Ghostbusters, and we dealt with ghost sightings around the house for a week! But as a general rule we try to keep him away from bad language, scary images or things that are just not right for a four-year-old. Recently, I’ve managed to expose our son to all kinds of things that are not really age appropriate, but are rather funny in the retelling at least.

My oldest is currently fascinated by “old” things. I truly have no clue where this is coming from, but as I am a huge history fan I am pretty excited about this phase. He likes to look at my “old” books, one of which is an encyclopedia of mythology, a lovely illustrated look at Greek, Celtic and Norse myths. I didn’t think anything about this until he asked me to read the book with him.

 A few pages in I realized my mistake. While looking at a painting of some goddess or other he looked at me with this total little boy grin and said, “She doesn’t have any clothes on.” Oh great – here we go. “Why doesn’t she have any clothes on?” My not-so-bad response, “Because they dressed differently a long time ago and sometimes didn’t wear clothes.” His response to that, with said naughty grin, “She has a butt!” And close book…yikes! After this exchange I managed to convince him we should look at another book about old things and brought in one about the Wright brothers first flight. In this book everyone had their clothes ON!

Now I know that the folks in the paintings are classical figures and should not be twittered over, but try explaining that to a four-year-old. I also know that there is nothing sexual in his glee over the “naked” pictures, to him it is just funny to say the word “butt.” However, it just seemed wildly inappropriate to continue looking at the book when the lack of clothing seemed to be the biggest draw. 

I thought we had fulfilled our somewhat inappropriate book quota for the day, but later he brought me several Little Golden Books to read. One of them was The Owl and the Pussycat. I was not familiar with this Edward Lear poem, so I started to read without knowing the text. I felt like a total 5^th grader when it got to the part where the Owl professes his love to the Pussycat and I burst out in giggles. I

am a thirtysomething married woman who probably didn’t even know there was an alternative meaning to the word “pussy” until I was in high school, but I was completely shocked to see it there in print. The poem is from the 1870s, so obviously they didn’t have that particular slang term, but when on the very next page of the book it started talking about the “bong-tree” I’d reached my limit and burst out laughing.

My son looked at me with total innocence and wanted to know why mommy was laughing.  Not only was I NOT going to explain the humor to him, I also wasn’t prepared to explain to him that mommy was really just being extremely immature. So instead I changed “Pussy Cat” to “Kitty Cat” and managed to make it through the rest of the book.

The moral of the story here seems to be that no matter how hard you try, there are just some things you can’t shield your kids from.  And honestly that is probably a good thing. After all, he has to learn how to respond appropriately to things he is likely to encounter (actually maybe I do too) and he won’t be able to do that if we aren’t there to help him understand. Oh and as for our copy of The Owl and the Pussycat, well that just might make it into the donation pile for the thrift store. There are limits to what I can handle…

A Slippery Slope to Crazy Town

by Type A Mom

I was voted least likely to be a stay-at-home mom. If this had been a yearbook category in high school (or college or my early 20s), I would have won it. I remember vividly having a discussion with my husband -- whose mom stayed home with him and his sister -- when we were first dating: “Look, if you want a wife who is going to stay home and raise kids, you should find someone else,” I said.

I was (and am) Type A all the way. Pre-kids, I woke up each morning and raced to the computer to check the news. I took calls at night and on weekends. I stayed up late and woke up early to work on speeches when it was quiet. I was one of a small crew that opened up the gym every morning at 5:30 a.m.

I bet you can see the plot twist coming here…

Then when my son was born almost 4 years ago (wow, that’s hard to believe), I just couldn’t go back. As the end of my maternity leave neared, I wrestled with what to do. I was in completely uncharted territory here. I had a plan – we had daycare lined up, I had fought for my job just 6 months prior, we had a new house with a big mortgage. I always followed the plan. Except this time.

I spent a couple of weeks struggling to figure out some arrangement that would allow me to feel ok about going back to work. Maybe I could just work part-time. Maybe my parents could help take care of the baby. Maybe I could work from home. Every day there was a different “solution.” And every time the thought of going back to work surfaced, I cried – giant, ugly tears that wouldn’t stop. Everyone was sick of hearing about it. Hell, I was sick of hearing about it.

I went back for one half day and that sealed the deal. I just couldn’t stand to sit in meetings and chit chat with coworkers while my kid was at home. My decision wasn’t out of any ideological bent or strong-held belief. It wasn’t because of any distrust of daycare (I actually think there are a lot of positives for socialization and learning). It was just the right thing for me.

Now before you think this post ends with me espousing my newfound “balance” and “priorities,” let me stop you right there. Rest assured that I have neither tranquility nor perspective on the meaning of life. Because quitting my job was the beginning of a great adventure, but it can also be described as the beginning of a slippery slope to crazy town.

See, you can take the girl out of the job but you can’t take the Type A out of the girl (Despite what my husband claims, I do not believe there is any such thing as a reformed Type A). So, I decided to pick up a little freelance work. You know, stuff to do while the baby napped. A little extra money here and there. Then there was the opportunity to get my master’s through an online program. Sure, why not. The work became more consistent and before I knew it I was basically working part-time and in school part-time while staying home with two kids full-time.

That can be crazy-making and although I’m not that great at math, I know the hours don’t add up.

When my daughter was born I took my laptop to the hospital. When the baby was out for some test or another, I took a few minutes to finish up one last work project. The nurse questioned my sanity when she returned, but I quickly responded that there would be no nurses to help me at home. Better get the work in while I could! Yes, when you work for yourself, there really is no such thing as maternity leave.

Sometimes it seems I have the worst of both worlds. My life has become the ultimate challenge in balance. Juggling kids’ schedules, work time and school time (oh, yeah and my husband wants to hang out sometimes too). There is precious little “free” time. A skipped nap, a sick kid or a late babysitter can throw my whole world into disarray.

Don’t get me wrong. I am very blessed. Most of the time I think I have the best of both worlds. I get to spend lots of time with my kids every day, and I still get to be challenged professionally.

I’m not superwoman. But no one is.

My kids are not perfect angels. But no one’s are.

We’re all a little crazy. But, I wouldn’t change it for anything.