Mom on Hiatus

Still mothering, but these days, most of my blog energies are spent over here.

Love (Accept? Like?) the Body You Have

According to my writing comrade and a leader in the fight against women hating their bodies, Harriet Brown, today is National Love Your Body day. Check out her site and take the Love Your Body pledge.

One of my longish poems, about the role in my life of eating, food, binges and self-love/hate, is currently part of the Love Your Body art exhibition at Salem College Fine Arts Center, in North Carolina. This, plus Harriet's well-timed reminder, and Diane Morrow's Year of Love and Healing project, got me thinking about how mothers so easily discount and verbally disrespect our own bodies.

Since becoming a mother, I try to keep reminding myself that no matter what physical/visual shape my body has been in (and believe me, the scale has ricocheted like a roller coaster stuck between gears for years), that my body continues to serve me well.

My body, I must remember, has carried me through the pregnancies and deliveries of my two sons, and nursed them for months. My body provides me with enjoyment -- bicycling, long walks, the odd tennis game, swimming, hugs, and yes, even sex!

My body can lift and carry things -- sometimes quiet heavy things indeed (think exhausted seven year old in soccer gear and cleats, or grocery/baby seat with baby in it/purse/diaper bag/keys).

My body has been resilient and resourceful, healing after broken bones, a major cut, surgeries, and other traumas.

My body gets me where I need to go, protects and comforts my children, is there for a friend to lean on, and is the best reminder system on the planet, never failing to let me know when I need sleep, nourishment, mental stimulation, a good laugh or a cleansing cry.

Sure, my body continues to vex me, but it's the only one I will ever have. I have decided to at least appreciate it?

I'm working on the love part.

Boys to (Young / Very Young) Men

Recently a friend with much younger sons – hers are two and four – asked me how motherhood looked from where I sit not, with kids aged 9 and 13.

Not quite knowing where to begin, I simply told her about my week: On Saturday, my 9-year-old and I slogged our way through the “Choose to Refuse” booklet about – you guessed it – drugs, tobacco and alcohol and I learned that ‘Special K’ is more than a breakfast cereal….We spent the better part of last Sunday afternoon and Thursday evening attending open houses at two private high schools with the 8th grader and learning to stay more or less in the background (not that we can afford private high school without forgoing groceries for four years, mind you, but one can browse)….Fall season baseball started and one of my kids (I promised not to say which) took three days to work up the courage to tell me he needed a bigger size athletic cup….my 13-year-old came scouting for new books to read (sorry, novels) on the shelves of my writing office…the 4th grader has started to hand-in-hand with me on the two blocks from where we park our car only until we get to the corner where he turns to the school, then abruptly yanks his hand out -- and is that a bit of a strut I detect in his stride as he waves `bye?...

All of which is just fine, expected and very normal.

But the thing that made me cry – most recently, that is – was when I was heading out the other day for the annual community pumpkin sale and I asked who was coming along – more as a formality, because after all, wasn’t everyone? – and not a single male in the household spoke up.

And while this meant I could pick out any pumpkin I wanted without anyone arguing that it was too lopsided, too round, too square, too big, too large, too orange, not orange enough…..it hit me: I don’t have “little” children anymore.

Sniff.

We Go Together

This was the summer my husband and I decided that we were not going to spend hundreds (thousands!) of dollars signing up our kids up for summer "camp" programs to keep them busy a few hours a day. Since I work at home, we reasoned, and we have a semi-large house, and since our boys are not little kids anymore in need of constant entertainment, and since we have a fenced backyard and more toys, games and sports equipment than Target, it would be a good thing, a very good thing, for the boys to learn to keep themselves occupied on their own wits.

Besides, I was determined not to sacrifice this precious gift of 10 weeks of unscheduled unhurried free time. I just didn't want to forsake the kids' and my own delicious right to sleep in, and I liked the idea of not resorting to a no-frills, shortened summer vacation at a relative's house because most of the disposable bucks will have been sucked up for "camp."

Besides, neither boy was clamoring to play supervised basketball for two weeks or rehearse for a goofy musical in a hot church basement or even shoot off hand-made rockets in a field behind the swanky private school where, for a few years previously, each had been enrolled in something speciously called Talent Explosions.

And so, we settled in for languorous weeks of....nothing. Well, I had work to do, but hours spent working when one hears one's children downstairs and in the yard, inevitably squabbling instead of daydreaming, quickly collapsed into two hours a day. Who wants to work when one can play with the kids? So nothing soon turned into daily trips to Grandpa's pool two miles down the road, afternoons of watching vapid videos on our air conditioned house, and mid-morning trips Dunkin Donuts. We were all happy.

For a while. We slept in. We played cards together. We all read exactly what we felt like reading, in the living room, together. We even played board games. Together. We took bike rides, all together. We went grocery shopping, school supply shopping, and shopping for new DVDS, board games and other entertainment we could do together. Can you see where this is heading?

Today, T-minus 16 days until school starts again, we have had enTirely Too much of the T words: too much Togetherness.

The boys want to scalp each other. And who knows what they want to do to me. I of course am the perfect mother - calm, full of fun ideas, unflappable. Neither mutiny nor humidity upset me.

And that bundle of unused camp cash, which we were going to use on a pull-the-stops family vacation next week? Gone, mostly - spent. On DVDs, miniature golf, matinees, bowling, bookstores, lattes, remote-controlled NASCAR vehicles, gel-cushioned bike seat covers, carnivals, IMAX, museums, and the military history boat tour of New York Harbor.

Yes, we're still going on that vacation. We will travel the highway all together in our SUV (but with headphones and DVDs for the boys!), stay in a mini-suite (separate bedroom for the boys!), and attend a family party (where there may even be a kids table). We might have enough left for a boat tour of Boston Harbor, too, when we do some sight-seeing with my sister and her fiance. All Together.

I love my boys.

But I also love that word that ends in -er, the one which signals the perfect balance between how much time a mother and her two kids should spend with one another: September.

My Own Mothers Day Gift -- to Myself !

An essay of mine, "When a Child Outgrows the Safety Net," will be published in the New York Times on Sunday, May 13 (tomorrow!).

Am I ever proud of my brave son Sean, who allowed me to share this very personal journey we made together, from the land of special needs to a brand new place.

Read all about it over at my other blog, which is all about writing.

Thanks, Maggie

In one gulp, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal has done more for mothers who nurse than 25 years of earnest blathering about nature and nutrition. Isn’t it incredibly stupid that in this country, women who bare their breasts to feed their babies are a source of controversy, but those who barely cover their nipples for the sake of publicity, commerce, or titillation, run no such risk? Maybe if more and more women breastfed in public, children of both sexes would grow up with a far healthier understanding of what those mammaries are there for in the first place.

Dad, Hot Dogs and Eggs -- and Memory

My father, who died six months ago, was not much of a cook. He didn’t have to be. In his day, that’s what wives were for and for 59 years, my mother kept him fed and satisfied – even if, in the last 10 years, much of what she set on the table came from their favorite nearby restaurants.

But Dad did have those hot dog concoctions. Now, Dad had a picky palate that ran to oysters, lobster and most of the best pasta dishes. He frequented better restaurants and didn’t mind paying top dollar for finely prepared dishes. But he was also a child of the Depression and knew his way around the canned goods aisle. He knew that filling the belly was sometimes just as important as savoring a meal. And he liked a frying pan full of hot dogs, sauerkraut and tomato sauce. Or hot dogs, leftover pasta and cheese.

Or my favorite. Sometimes for a late night snack, or a Sunday afternoon can’t-wait-for-dinner snack, he’d fill a pan with beaten eggs, toss in a few cut-up hot dogs and drop in a big handful of canned peas. He’d scramble it all up with a fork and everyone would dive in. When I was a kid, this was my idea of high cooking. I was sure there was an art to how he combined ingredients no normal mom-cook ever would.

I evolved.

Now I’m a pretty decent cook and mostly from scratch. I do many things with eggs (soufflés, quiches, breakfast, salads, homemade mayonnaises), but until today I had never once combined them with hot dogs. Yet after getting home from church today, with a foot-long grocery list tacked to the fridge testifying to our unusually bare cupboards, I poured a container of Healthy Choice egg substitute into a pan and cut up a Jenny-O turkey hot dog. Trust me, if we had a can of peas around I would have plunked them in too.

It was heavenly, delicious.

Maybe it was the older gentleman I saw at church this morning, the one who was wearing the same tan, impeccably clean windbreaker I remember my father wearing last spring. Something about the way this man slowed his stride and allowed his graying wife to slide in front of him at the communion line, or the way he adjusted his band-aided eyeglasses reminded me, all too vividly, that Dad was gone. I had to look away quickly. But my father’s memory stayed with me.

Right up until the last forkful I had the eggs and hot dogs all to myself. My kids weren’t interested. They don’t know what they missed.

Kids and Poop. Perfect together.

So, here's a little something I wrote when my younger son was, well, even younger. Ok, Ok, so he's not in kindergarten anymore and maybe he wouldn't want the world knowing about his particular pooping proclivities, but I think it's cute.

My morning, or: Why Plan?

Ok, so here's the deal -- life, kids, grad school, jobs -- it all marches on with or without your OK. I had a rocky semester in my MFA writing program last fall. Now, everything's jake. My father died five months ago and I still feel it, every day, many times a day. In August and September I lost 20 pounds, in December and January, I gained back 30. (Oh, sorry, that's business as usual.) Up until this past weekend, my older son, 13, would not spend a night away from home except for Grandma's or a family vacation. Now, freshly returned from an overnight bike outing in Manhattan and Staten Island, he has signed up for another and this morning I noticed suspiciously darker hairs at both corners of his upper lip. So we Moms go with the flow and try not to get bogged down.

Take this morning. I had it all figured out -- drop kids at school, write for 4 hours, pick up groceries, learn how to use the new printer/scanner/fax/copier, plan out meals for the next week and give the house a once-over before Mom arrives for a two-week visit.

What's that expression about making plans?

While the boys ate breakfast, I opened the cupboard to put away the clean mugs from the dishwasher. I'm not sure what happened first, whether I heard something crash and then ducked, or if the two chunky beveled glass mugs thudded into my forehead first. I know only that I quick-stepped backward just as the mugs hit the counter and floor, sending pellets and shards in every direction -- inside the dish drain, fruit bowl, toaster, sink, cupboard shelves, the open dishwasher, and in my hair, as well as on the floor and the full length of the countertop.

"Put on your shoes right away and get me the broom," I shouted to one startled boy.

And, I might have added, drive yourself to school, I'm busy.

The just-got-back-from camping son retrieved his sneakers from the back porch, and then tracked mud chevrons, in the perfect shape of the sneaker-bottom grid, throughout the kitchen, hallway and bathroom. I know I can't get to it until I return from the school run.

"Get me the dustbuster," I shouted to that boy.

And, I might have added, walk home today, now I've lost a half-hour at my desk.

Finally, we settle in the car, only 15 minutes behind schedule.

"What's that?" younger son asks, pointing to the digital diagnostic message display on my dashboard, the one I rarely pay attention to because I'm a word person and what the heck are all those little symbols anyway?

"Tire pressure," they both pronounce, certain of their interpretation of a digital dingbat in a way anyone over 40 will never be.

Nevermind, I think, I can't entertain another delay, and we drive to school. Back in the driveway, I make the acquaintance of an oversized bolt protruding out of the tread on the right rear tire. But I am "lucky" and can get it fixed for under $25 (a bargain in northeast NJ, and for a bloated SUV) I'm told, that is if I can wait until after 10:30 to bring it in and wait for about 45 minutes.

Sure, why not? I have nothing else to do.

And, I might add, no plans either. Because you know what happens when you do.

Lies

OK, so I lied. I have not been updating. But I respond well to direction. Leave me a comment and ask me something. I'll answer.

New Year, New Stuff

Hey folks. I'm not one for New Year's resolutions, but I will be keeping my blog updated at least once a week or so in 2007.....really.

So...here's something fun. Get a copy of the January 2007 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine....open to page 179 and....it's me! I wrote "Lisa R's Diet Diary" over the course of late summer and early fall 2006, when I had the privilege of being counseled by O Magazine's life coach guru, Martha Beck (who I had long admired as a writer, beginning with her exquisite pregnancy memoir Expecting Adam). Martha tried to help me understand my weight loss-weight gain cycle and eating behaviors...read Martha's article (on p. 174) first to get your bearings. [Hers is online, mine is in the print magazine only]. Martha's new book, The Four Day Win, is due out in a week or so; it's "dieting" for the I-refuse-to-be-deprived set.

Lots of other things happening as well....kids with broken bones...losing my beloved father...finishing the first semester of my creative nonfiction MFA program...but I'll let you all in on the details a little at a time. Meanwhile, happy new year to all.

Isn't Anyone at Fault for Anything Anymore?

Three premature infants die in an Indianapolis hospital and the first time the hospital president goes on record, he says it's not anyone's fault, it's the "institution's" fault, the "system's" fault. Within hours, new quotes appear, blaming "procedural and human error." Could it be that someone, someone perhaps without the degrees and stature of a hospital president, told him that this sounded a tad, well, lame? Was his initial comments his backward attempt at taking corporate responsibility? Or had he, for a few hours, joined the legion of those in authority who today refuse to lay blame on any human being for anything at any time for any reason?

Am I the only one this bothers? Am I the only one who sees this as sending an awful message to, well, to everyone....to kids, who need guidance to develop a sense of personal responsibility?...to employees of every stripe who have little incentive to cop to their mistakes?...to school administrators who find it easier to isolate victimized students than to identify and punish bullies?....to judges who find it ever more convenient to toss out stiff sentences in favor of slaps on the wrist?...to business owners, managers and stockholders who find it extremely beneficial to reap in profits but blame every mistake, blunder, problem, abuse and major error -- regardless of the economic, human or ethical harm it causes -- on systems, computer errors, societal expectations, legislative snafus, and outmoded operations?

Doesn't anyone ever fess up nowadays? Aren't human beings, after, inputting the computer information, overseeing the systems, running the institutions? Yes, it sounds as if the system the hospital was using to identify similar drugs needed overhauling, and Yes, it sounds as if the drug maker should have provided clearer labeling to distinguish between similar drugs, and Yes, it sounds as if the nurses acted in good faith that the drugs normally stocked in their neonatal unit would be of the infant-dose variety just as they always have been, and Yes, it sounds as if the hospital pharmacist was easily confused by the similar labeling, wording and color of the two drugs (one for infants, the other for adults).....BUT....

Isn't there a human being -- better yet -- many human beings in charge of all of those issues: the dispensing, labels, wording, colors, stocking the pharmacy, cross-checking, stocking the neonatal's drug cabinet, removing the drugs, administering them.......?

Isn't anyone, any human being, in charge of the SYSTEM?

Where Do I Start?

Readers, it's been ages and I have a good excuse. A few good excuses, actually. But excuses are boring, so let's just say I've been too busy with too many issues, both wonderful (first semester of my MFA program) and horrible (my father had a stroke, dropped everything and flew 2,700 miles to help out) and in-between (family vacation, kids going back to school). So let's just say, I'm back and will try to get updated little by little.

Meanwhile, here's something a little bit fun.

Friday Feast 110

Appetizer: Name 3 things that you are wearing today.
Jeans, bright blue scoop neck tee, funky earrings.

Soup: Who was the last person you hugged?
My 8-year-old son, saying goodnight. Nothing sweeter.

Salad: What do you like to order from your favorite fast food place?
Vanilla shake and fries at Burger King.

Main Course: What time of day do you usually feel most energized?
Late, baby. Midnight at the computer......

Dessert: Using the letters in your first name to start each word, write a sentence.
Lemons in store again!

If 50 is the new 40, I'd rather be old.

The folks at Good Housekeeping magazine have given us a list of 50 things/people/products that turn 50 this year. Among them are:

- Mel Gibson (drunk, stupid, but still good looking, damn it)
- "Dear Abby" (dead, right?)
- VCR (nearly dead, right?)
- Nonstick frying pan (might make you dead!)
- Jif peanut butter (clogs your arteries)
- Four basic food groups (would that be fats, cholesterol, trans fats, and antioxidants?)
- Toaster ovens (does that mean they still exist?)
- Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line" (So, he foresaw a need for a size 0 jeans-selling jingle for The Gap way back then?)
- The Hermes Kelly bag (and I thought culture was dead)


Glad I'm not turning 50 this year!

Funny in the Family

The e-mail from my cousin's husband was short: Their son, a really good kid, 23 years old and working hard to break into show business, would be performing with his comedy group at a rather small and almost seedy little comedy theater in Manhattan on Sunday night. Wanna come? Well, his comedy group is named Chocolate Cake City NY -- need I say more? (I was a bit disappointed they didn't hand out chocolate during the show, but I digress.)

Sure, we'll come. Any excuse to hire a babysitter (really, the in-laws), get out of the house on a weekend night, cross the river to the city that is only 15 miles away but that we often ignore for months at a time, see some family, and by the way, do it all for 21 bucks ($14 for two tickets to the National Comedy Theater and the $6 tunnel toll -- we scored free street parking, a feat practically unknown to those who drive into New York City and worth the trip and this blog report all by itself, but I digress.).

And now the really good news....the kid is actually funny. And talented -- he wrote the entire 1/2 hour comedy sketch, "The 7 Deadly Sins." And smart -- turns out he put together the original Boston-based Chocolate Cake City comedy group while an Emerson University student (the group, now a legend, went on to create the web-fueled spoof trailer, "Brokeback to the Future.") So after earning his theatrical degree, the kid ventured to California, where he studied with some cool and well-known groups, interned with Jimmy Kimmel Live and eventually fled from the insanity of LA to the relative normalcy of New York (go figure).

So, if you are the type to seek out new names in comedy, or just enjoy a laugh at a decent price, get thee to see my young cuz, Rob Asaro. Do it now, before he gets famous. You read it here first. Did I tell you I once hired an unknown by the name of Ray Romano to entertain at a charity fund raiser -- about 17 years ago. I think he charged about $300....see, I know talent when I see it.

Re-Entry

And so, I am back. Back from two weeks away, away from my kids and my husband and my routines and my house and my life, I suppose. It was great and it was sad and I missed my two boys and my hubby so much that when I got back I wondered how I could ever leave again. Unless of course you argue, as I might, that it was two weeks that have the flicker, an inkling, a small chance, to perhaps alter my life in a way that may be wonderful and scary and just right. I will leave again in January, and I will want to.

I was away to attend an intense 11-day session of a graduate school program, 400 miles and five states away. I was merely on the Atlantic coast of Maine, but it felt like a gazillion miles from my little (and, I have to admit, small-minded) New Jersey suburb, at least if you count those miles in the type of people with whom I was surrounded, the wash of ideas and thinking, the shower of intellect and blizzard of possibility. Sure, I know there are smart people where I live, and interesting types with cool jobs and searing intellectual curiosity; problem is, I rarely get to meet them. They don't seem to hang out on line at the supermarket, waiting outside the elementary school, on the soccer sidelines, or at the family-school association meetings that make up a fairly big chunk of my everyday.

And so, how did my little family fare in my absence? Amazingly, surprisingly, competently, and really, very very well. Damn them.

You Live, You Learn, and sometimes, You Leave

It's been a while and I will tell you why: I am falling to pieces. Maybe not a million little pieces, but enough so that I will write about it someday and maybe even tell the truth. Right now I am reeling with a toxic combination of anxiety, stress, overwhelmed-itis, worry, fear, and I suppose, a dash of excitement.

Next week, I will leave behind my dear husband and even dearer children to attend a 12-day, "low residency" session in the Masters of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction writing graduate program in which I am enrolled. At first, the idea of spending 2 weeks, twice a year, for 2+ years, away from meal-planning, nose-wiping, and playdate-supervising, seemed bliss indeed. To spend those days, alone, but with others, doing nothing but talking about writing, writing, and learning about writing, alongside others who are also writers and novelists and poets and memoirists -- well, what could be bad about that?

I'll tell you. The reality of actually going. Let me be clear, I want to go -- yes, especially after I applied to 6 grad programs, got accepted by 4 and chose the one whose facility for this course overlooks a beach and bay. Yes, I want to go. But what was I thinking? My youngest son is awash in sadness and I have not yet packed. My oldest is disconcertingly supportive.

Who did I think I was, chasing my heart's desire, when theirs are not yet fully formed? How did I think, at my old age (46), I could keep up with the work volume I now know is expected? What made me think I could live without their noise and goofy grins and hugs? (Yes, even the pre-teen boy still hugs, and fiercely) Where did I think I'd find the time, the mental space to think creatively, create and contemplate others' creative work? And that's not all.

What will happen when, in three years, the student loans (once just an abstract notion) start requiring repayment, and there I am with my artsy degree and no headhunters calling, and my oldest child's college bills looming just three more years after that? Anyway, now I understand that the price of those 2 weeks was not to be found on those student loan papers at all, but in the heart? That loss always accompanies growth?

Sure, I will go. I will learn and challenge myself and I am hopeful I will succeed, and I may fail, but I will learn. And my children will survive, and maybe grow. And I will write about it. Someday.

Meanwhile, can you tell me how to explain to my husband that's it is not just about the best time to call the pediatrician, and which friends can swim, and which cereal to never run out of, but all the rest -- all that resides in my heart and memory and behind my eyes, everything that no one else can ever know, but that my children know, in their hearts, that I know? How do you leave that in a refrigerator note?

Old Volcano, Very Old

At the library, I noticed a children's science magazine all about Pompeii, and since my 8-year-old son recently learned about volcanos, I picked it up.

"Cool Mom, thanks," he said and immediately began paging through it and peppering me with Look at this and Did-you-know?

"I was there," I told him.

"YOU were in Pompeii???" he asked, incredulous. I thought I had told him all about my whirlwind European tour when I was just 9 years old.

"Were you scared?" he asked.

"No, but it was a little spooky," I admitted.

"What did you do?"

"Well, I walked around mostly," I said.

"I mean, what did you do when the hot lava started flowing???"

I feel old. Very, very old.

How Very Suburban of Me

OK, it’s official. I am a suburbanite. I shouldn’t be surprised, really. After all, I was born in the suburbs, and except for a few years when I lived on an urban college campus and a few months when I lived in a rural horsey area, and another few months spent living in hotel rooms (don’t ask), I have always lived in suburbia. So why is it so disturbing to take the quiz at the Surburbanista blog and find that, although thankfully I do not qualify for full-fledged suburbanista status, I also am not the anti-surburbanista I imagined myself to be. But in fact, a middle-of-the-road suburbanite. In fact, my husband and I are so very suburban, so pathetically colonial-with-two-car-garage kind of folks, I'll bet you can easily guess the name of the U.S.-made, gas-guzzling, DVD equipped, more-room-than-my-first-apartment vehicle, we just bought??? Don’t know what the heck I’m talking about? Then I guess you’re an urbanista!

Not Lost in TV-Land

I grew up in a house in which the television was on, how should I say this -- a lot. Which is to say,it was on most of the time when someone was home, except perhaps in the early morning, when my homemaker mother whistled and was always in a very good mood (I may never forgive her), and did her housecleaning.

The point is that I was determined, as an adult and someday a mom, not to live is such a house. I wanted peace and quiet and a place and space to read, think, and have actual conversations that do not feature lines like, Shh, wait till the commercial, or my personal favorite, when asked what was being watched, “There’s nothing else on.” I always wanted to shout back: Then how about just turning it the *%&*&%^$# off?

And so now I do live in a house where, about 80 percent of the time, the TV is actually turned off, and the VCR and DVD player are not running much either. We read a lot, my boys and I. They play outside and play inside and make stuff up and play jokes on one another and do dopey “science” experiments. But sometimes, they do watch TV. And when one of my sons does happen to watch TV, and it’s time to set the table, and he utters this gem: I’ll do it on the next commercial, well, I am completely and incontrovertibly LIVID.

Now let me explain about the TV habits of my two sons. The older, at 12, is a NASCAR junkie, but may not watch more than 4 hours per week of cars going in circles and crashing, sometimes on purpose. Beyond that, as a future meteorologist, his favorite network is The Weather Channel and his all time favorite show is Storm Stories, a mixture of documentary narration, actual news footage and the meteorological science behind hurricanes, tornadoes, flash floods, mudslides, tsunamis, and blizzards. From September to January, he watches one NFL game a week. When he is home sick, he gravitates toward the History Channel, or Animal Planet, or Discovery, or PBS. If our cable system carried National Geographic, I am sure he would watch that too. That is about it. He has never – not once – seem The Simpsons or Ed, Edd and Eddy, or anything remotely resembling a cop, crime, or forensic show. Amazing, I know. My younger child is still in thrall to a smattering of PBS and Nickelodeon offerings, but only to the tune of about 3 hours a week. Oh, and America’s Funniest Home Videos, especially if they have anything at all to do with farting or burping. Well, he is eight.

I explain all this to illustrate that, on average, my kids, even on a week when they are home sick for a day or two, or snowbound, still watch at least 15 and possibly as many as 20 hours less TV than the average American child. (I checked). Frankly, I can’t imagine when all these other kids have the time to watch – don’t they do homework, play sports, go to religious classes, belong to clubs or organizations, attend birthday parties, play outdoors, do chores, read and occasionally wrestle with their siblings in the living room and break a lamp now and then?

So why do I go absolutely ballistic when the TV is running -- even if I’m in another room where I could close doors and still read my Sunday New York Times? Vestiges of childhood I suppose, when I knew that if I wanted my parents' attention I would certainly need to wait till the commercial, and probably even have to (as I did on several occasions), stand in front of the low-on-the-floor TV/radio/piece of ugly furniture console unit and block their view of Mannix?

I should relax, one friend says, noting that my children’s viewing parameters and their evolving viewing choices and habits, for the most part, already mirror what I set out to do – raise kids who know how to entertain themselves without television and who, when “there’s nothing good on” know how easy it is to just turn it off.

But one thing still bothers me and it’s this: If I am doing the right thing, the best thing, the wholesome thing, then when my kids are in their 30s or beyond and they lose at whatever turns out to be that era’s equivalent of Trivial Pursuit, will they really, really hate me?