So...What's Next?!?

Inspirational Breakfast

Stacy and Matt Williams of Prominent Placement were wonderful enough to invite me to a fund raising breakfast for the Atlanta Children's Shelter which was held at 103 West this morning.

The event was incredible! The energy and smiles of all the people who have been involved with this organization the past 20+ years was contagious.

The kicker was when I was introduced to one of the morning speakers, a beautiful, well-spoken and educated young woman with ambitions to start her own non-profit. After speaking with her for a few moments, I learned she was a client of the shelter. It was at that moment the reality of potential homelessness for anyone hit me. But it was not a moment of dread - strangely it was a moment of hope.

We got to hear from board members and former clients and watch a video about the shelter.

The part that got me to whip out my checkbook was when I learned the child center was NAEYC accredited, because it was at that moment the value that this shelter was providing to the community really hit home.

When my oldest child was 2, my husband and I moved 8 hours away from our family to attend FSU. It was the first time I had to put my son in daycare. I was not thrilled with the one he was in and once he was potty trained my neighbor encouraged me to put him in the daycare in our neighborhood that was ran by FSU. My concern was that I was disrupting his routine again, shortly after the move - but I was not happy where he was at and so I switched.

That child care center was NAEYC accredited, which was not a big deal to me. The school was amazing and I accredited that to the director and the teachers and volunteers there.

When we moved to Atlanta, the teachers begged me to find another NAEYC accredited school. I did not take their advice, but chose a reputable "corporate" day care  center. For months my son cried every day for most of the day. Finally I took him out and found a NAECY accredited school and the change was amazing.

With my youngest, there was no question of whether or not the school should be NAEYC accredited. We found one, which shortly after a change of ownership chose not to maintain the accreditation. The quality standards slipped and many parents, including myself, pulled their child from the school.

I learned it is an incredibly challenging accreditation to get and maintain. As a young mom putting myself through school I know how blessed I was that FSU  offered such a service at a very low cost to their students. To know that women who are at a very hard transition point in their lives and have to care for themselves as well as  their children have the same opportunity I had for my children is amazing. It was a time to "pay it forward."

Once again I left inspired by the stories of the women who have bettered themselves and come out of some tremendous challenges, and by the people who not only stepped up to help, but to help with the highest standards of quality.

Mother? Father? Parents!

The essay below was written 7/9/98 for a college writing class. Today I was listening to a CNN report about the growing trend of moms bringing their babies to work and other people bashing working moms. I felt the need to republish this

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I don't know if I'll ever want to be a stay-at-home mom. When I had to stay home for six weeks after my son, Christian, was born I felt like a healthy, energetic, intelligent woman caught in the body of a quarantined servant. My husband and I both waited on tables, which were jobs flexible enough that we could begin to tag team when I finally got back to work. We were partners in the parenting game. Little did we know we were playing against the rules.

One day, while I was at work, my husband decided to take our son, who was 5 months old, to the beach. We had a little raft that Christian could sit up in, and my husband had him in the water bouncing on the waves. A woman walked over to him and said "your wife lets you take your baby to the beach." It was quite possible she would have reacted in a similar fashion to me had I been the one bouncing Christian over the waves. I just wonder if she would have phrased it in the same way, asking me if my husband gave me such permission.

In this world where women are battling for equality in the workplace, I hear little of the men battling for equality at home. I have met many men who are much more active in  the care of their children than fathers historically have been, but I've not heard anyone talk too much of the unfair treatment men receive as fathers, such as people making the comment that my husband is babysitting when he has our child. Babysitting?

As my son became a toddler, I wanted to find a weekly play group to join. Since I worked half of the time, I was looking for a co-ed play group, that way Matt and I could meet other couples that we could relate to as well. There were no co-ed play groups. I was told that some of the play groups had father's day when the dad's could join. Dad's need to be invited? These were women making these rules. Women who used to have careers, still dreamed of returning to those careers, why would they want to bury themselves and not give their partners the shovel?

My neighbor and I were discussing about why women had a harder struggle to cross the gender lines than men do. She explained that if my son wanted to take dance lessons, which we would stereotype as feminine, he may get teased, but he would be allowed. If my neighbor wanted to sign her daughter up for baseball, she could be told "I'm sorry, the softball team signs up next month. Girls don't play baseball." So maybe women have had so much held back from them in the past that they are afraid to give up what they already have, such as responsibility for the children.

I can understand the fear that if for some reason my husband an I ever divorced I may lose custody, unlike twenty years ago when men rarely got custody. But isn't there a saying about if you hold a bird in your hand too tightly you will kill it? What are women doing to this notion of equality by not sharing some of the responsibilities? I know that I am not super woman who can handle the home, the children and a career effectively on my own. Who says I need to? Who says that if I can't do it I need to give up the career part? Are fathers being given the chance to be more involved in parenting? Where do we, as a society even begin to address the changing roles of dads?

When I consider how many fathers parent, I begin to see another reason why mothers aren't so willing to give up, or share portions of their responsibility. Fathers make wonderful playmates, and sometimes are efficient at disciplining. However many of the mothers I've spoken to don't feel that the dad's handle upset children well, don't know how to comfort. Also if a mother works, dad's who share can usually take care of the children or clean the house, but usually not both. It is as though women are diving into new gender roles, men are testing the water.

I think the idea of masculinity has something to do with that. As my neighbor said, "it seems the further away from femininity people get, the better." According to her, this social idea is why my son would be teased if he took dance lessons and her daughter would do fine if she were able to play baseball. I think there is a point here. I remember a girl and a guy in my sports marketing class talking about the sports they played in school, and about the game they saw the previous night. She seemed no less feminine talking about sports than if she were talking about a great meal she made. However, when I was drawn into the conversation, I mentioned that my husband doesn't watch sports. GASP! Along came the smirks and comments related to maybe he hasn't come out of the closet yet. At this point I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to go on about how he was an interior design major and a wonderful housekeeper.

A man who is good with structure and color would be fine as a fine arts major, but to use his talent in a major with a bit more income, but dominated by women, and add that he doesn't like sports, something must be wrong. I have a feeling what went wrong was that he was raised by a single mom and missed all the masculine influences that would have clued him in that although the laundry needs to be done, and your wife has fifty hours of homework to do in one night, it's not manly to wash clothes.

I think it was my father who made me rebel against the stereotypical woman jobs. He thought that women wanted to serve men. Wanted to! He told me once, when he had a girlfriend move in, that he was going to have to let go of his housekeeper because his girlfriend might get jealous. He felt they were fighting among themselves about who would take care of him. I think it was this attitude that made me not want to learn how to cook or iron or sew and so on. I felt that if I learned to do these things I would be pigeon holed as a housewife. I also never learned how to type because I wanted to be more than a secretary. I now realize those ideas are crazy, I guess.

Once a week, my husband and son leave the house so I can get some work done. They don't go to the park to play ball, they go to the laundry room. My son learns his colors and practices his sorting skills when they are separating the darks from the lights, and whites. He loves putting the clothes in the dryer and thinks static is magic. They aren't doing anything special, my husband is not babysitting, it's just a normal day together. I fear that as we graduate and move into careers that expect me to stay home with the sick child and won't give my husband such allowances as a father, we will begin to play within what I've seen to be the proper social rules for mothers and fathers.

The essay below was written 7/9/98 for a college writing class. Today I was listening to a CNN report about the growing trend of moms bringing their babies to work and other people bashing working moms. I felt the need to republish this

-----------------------------

I don't know if I'll ever want to be a stay-at-home mom. When I had to stay home for six weeks after my son, Christian, was born I felt like a healthy, energetic, intelligent woman caught in the body of a quarantined servant. My husband and I both waited on tables, which were jobs flexible enough that we could begin to tag team when I finally got back to work. We were partners in the parenting game. Little did we know we were playing against the rules.

One day, while I was at work, my husband decided to take our son, who was 5 months old, to the beach. We had a little raft that Christian could sit up in, and my husband had him in the water bouncing on the waves. A woman walked over to him and said "your wife lets you take your baby to the beach." It was quite possible she would have reacted in a similar fashion to me had I been the one bouncing Christian over the waves. I just wonder if she would have phrased it in the same way, asking me if my husband gave me such permission.

In this world where women are battling for equality in the workplace, I hear little of the men battling for equality at home. I have met many men who are much more active in  the care of their children than fathers historically have been, but I've not heard anyone talk too much of the unfair treatment men receive as fathers, such as people making the comment that my husband is babysitting when he has our child. Babysitting?

As my son became a toddler, I wanted to find a weekly play group to join. Since I worked half of the time, I was looking for a co-ed play group, that way Matt and I could meet other couples that we could relate to as well. There were no co-ed play groups. I was told that some of the play groups had father's day when the dad's could join. Dad's need to be invited? These were women making these rules. Women who used to have careers, still dreamed of returning to those careers, why would they want to bury themselves and not give their partners the shovel?

My neighbor and I were discussing about why women had a harder struggle to cross the gender lines than men do. She explained that if my son wanted to take dance lessons, which we would stereotype as feminine, he may get teased, but he would be allowed. If my neighbor wanted to sign her daughter up for baseball, she could be told "I'm sorry, the softball team signs up next month. Girls don't play baseball." So maybe women have had so much held back from them in the past that they are afraid to give up what they already have, such as responsibility for the children.

I can understand the fear that if for some reason my husband an I ever divorced I may lose custody, unlike twenty years ago when men rarely got custody. But isn't there a saying about if you hold a bird in your hand too tightly you will kill it? What are women doing to this notion of equality by not sharing some of the responsibilities? I know that I am not super woman who can handle the home, the children and a career effectively on my own. Who says I need to? Who says that if I can't do it I need to give up the career part? Are fathers being given the chance to be more involved in parenting? Where do we, as a society even begin to address the changing roles of dads?

When I consider how many fathers parent, I begin to see another reason why mothers aren't so willing to give up, or share portions of their responsibility. Fathers make wonderful playmates, and sometimes are efficient at disciplining. However many of the mothers I've spoken to don't feel that the dad's handle upset children well, don't know how to comfort. Also if a mother works, dad's who share can usually take care of the children or clean the house, but usually not both. It is as though women are diving into new gender roles, men are testing the water.

I think the idea of masculinity has something to do with that. As my neighbor said, "it seems the further away from femininity people get, the better." According to her, this social idea is why my son would be teased if he took dance lessons and her daughter would do fine if she were able to play baseball. I think there is a point here. I remember a girl and a guy in my sports marketing class talking about the sports they played in school, and about the game they saw the previous night. She seemed no less feminine talking about sports than if she were talking about a great meal she made. However, when I was drawn into the conversation, I mentioned that my husband doesn't watch sports. GASP! Along came the smirks and comments related to maybe he hasn't come out of the closet yet. At this point I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to go on about how he was an interior design major and a wonderful housekeeper.

A man who is good with structure and color would be fine as a fine arts major, but to use his talent in a major with a bit more income, but dominated by women, and add that he doesn't like sports, something must be wrong. I have a feeling what went wrong was that he was raised by a single mom and missed all the masculine influences that would have clued him in that although the laundry needs to be done, and your wife has fifty hours of homework to do in one night, it's not manly to wash clothes.

I think it was my father who made me rebel against the stereotypical woman jobs. He thought that women wanted to serve men. Wanted to! He told me once, when he had a girlfriend move in, that he was going to have to let go of his housekeeper because his girlfriend might get jealous. He felt they were fighting among themselves about who would take care of him. I think it was this attitude that made me not want to learn how to cook or iron or sew and so on. I felt that if I learned to do these things I would be pigeon holed as a housewife. I also never learned how to type because I wanted to be more than a secretary. I now realize those ideas are crazy, I guess.

Once a week, my husband and son leave the house so I can get some work done. They don't go to the park to play ball, they go to the laundry room. My son learns his colors and practices his sorting skills when they are separating the darks from the lights, and whites. He loves putting the clothes in the dryer and thinks static is magic. They aren't doing anything special, my husband is not babysitting, it's just a normal day together. I fear that as we graduate and move into careers that expect me to stay home with the sick child and won't give my husband such allowances as a father, we will begin to play within what I've seen to be the proper social rules for mothers and fathers.

Career Day

I just returned from career day at my son's school. I got to speak to 6 different classes, but not my son's class :(

I really have fun explaining what I do to elementary school kids. They always think I have a really cool job and then they tell me about all the sites they are on that I did not know about. Specifically sites with virtual games.

I think I am going to adapt my career day presentation for some of my client presentations.

I broke it down into as simple terms as I could get. First we defined social as socializing  which is what they do at lunch or on the playground. Then we defined media, as TV, radio, mail, email, websites, online video, and so forth.

Then I spoke about how companies were once only able to speak to the masses and when the masses wanted to reply they could only do so through snail mail. I had an envelop to demonstrate the message going from one person to the next.

Then I talked about email, and as I was describing email I had the kids pass the envelop around until I said stop.

Then I explained what a blog was by writing a "blog post" on the whiteboard.

I asked how many kids held the envelop, which was usually 1/4 of the kids. Then I asked how many kids saw me write on the whiteboard - which of course was everyone. I explained to them that that was the power of social media.

I personally enjoyed the reactions of the teachers at that moment. What was even more fun is when I started talking about virtual worlds and the kids were explaining the concept to the teachers.

I think I left everyone with a couple of really good lessons. One was that technology was powerful, for both good and evil, so always use caution. Two was that the careers they hear about today may not exist tomorrow and careers that no one has ever thought  of may become their dream job. Their job is not just to learn how to read, write, and do math. Their job is to learn how to learn - because in today's world we all have to continuously be learning.

What do you want to blog about - but never would?

Last night I was feeling restless. In a chat with Tim I mentioned that I needed to join a Trouble Makers Anonymous Group...because I was in the mood to be mischievous and was struggling to hold myself back.

It is more difficult to control such urges to stir things up when the world is at your finger tips. For all of the people in the connected world,  anything we think or feel and have the urge to express can be published to the masses with a click of the button.

Today I am working from home and in the background I have the news on. I hear things about affairs and public opinion polls and think - I have an opinion on that - I should blog about it. But wait - perhaps that won't be "appropriate."

Then I paused to think about what my post would say. It would be personal. I would support my opinion by discussing what I have and have not done and experienced. However I consider myself a decent word smith when I want or need to be, so I could sterilize the post and just express my opinion. But that would leave it up to the readers to use their imagination as to how I came to such an opinion - and they could be very wrong.

The more I thought about it the more I realized how much better this blog could be if I did write more about my opinions on life, politics, society, and such. There are some who think I share too much already, and yet I feel I hold back quite a bit.

To hold back any more would water this blog down so much that it would be a waste of everyone's time.

I could write an anonymous blog, but that is not my style. I stand by my thoughts, ideas, and opinions. However, my mind is often changed as a result of new experiences, new ideas, or good counter arguments, which is why I feel it is important to be able to openly discuss these things.

But how open. Open so that all my clients, interns, co-workers, friends, and family can read? Not everything is appropriate for every relationship.

Perhaps I could write disclaimers on the top of each post. Something like This post may be disturbing to my family members, read at your own risk or This post is not appropriate for the business community.

I have friends who password protect certain posts and leave others open to the world. I can see that as an option for more personal posts, but what about opinions. Opinions that affect who we are as a society and an evolving human race. I want to express those opinions.

Well until I work this out and find a "braver" voice - here is the water down version of what I was thinking about today (last night's thoughts are still too edgy).

People have affairs. I personally have never come close to ever having one. Why? because I have seen people in my family hurt more deeply by an affair than any other event in their life. It hurts deep and forever. I have never seen a person who felt betrayed in such a way ever recover. However I know that those who had the affairs did not do so to hurt the people they love, but because they were seeking something for themselves that had nothing to do with the person that was ultimately betrayed. I do not feel it is anyone's business other than those personally involved if someone is having an affair. However when they are outright hypocrites who have allowed themselves to go to the extreme of dysfunction, then we have a problem that needs to be resolved. Beyond that - let people deal with their demons or live their own lifestyle (some are more liberal than others and that is fine) without imposing outdated puritan ideas on who people should be. Basically Spitzer was an extreme case and if I were his wife, not only would I not be standing next to him, he would have no knee caps left to be able to stand himself. But when the media starts asking public poll questions that water the situation down to "is a person who has an affair fit to lead" - I begin to get concerned, a little annoyed, and have the urge to express opinions that might not be considered "appropriate."