In which I go off on another Parenting Rant - inspired by Daughter's college orientation

My "baby" (who stands several inches taller than me now) is heading off to college in the fall, and we spent Wednesday at her institution of Higher Learning attending Freshman Orientation.

 This whole "Freshman Orientation" in the middle of the summer - with concurrent "Parent Orientation" is a new business. We did not have such things back in the Dinosaur Era when I matriculated at my Institution of Higher Learning. I flew down a week early to attend Project WILD, a pre-start of school wilderness program run in conjunction with the North Carolina Outward Bound School. My parents drove down to meet my grimy, bedraggled, but very proud self at the end, helped me move in, gave me a hug (after I'd had a shower!) and then drove away.

The best parts of the day were:

1) presentation by the avuncular head of Campus Police, who addressed the parents and students together about safety policies, alcohol and drug policies, and skinny dipping in the large fountain in the middle of the quad policies. I am relieved to report that Daughter has no desire to skinny dip in aforementioned fountain, but had thought about a surreptitious clothed swim. (Go for it, honey. (Clothed!)  You only live once!)

and

2) excellent presentation by head of the school's new Title IX department, who spoke to parents only. "I don't want to scare you, but statistics show that one in five college women report having experienced sexual violence."

Dude, I was already scared enough about sending my daughter off to college with all the date rape stories. In fact,I'm getting her one of these.

What I loved about both his presentation and others was the message, "You are losing control of your kids, but you aren't losing influence. TALK TO THEM about things like using alcohol responsibly, and parents of male students, have a conversation about consent."

I LOVED THIS. It wasn't just "Girls, don't drink and be slutty hos, because it'll be your fault if some guy can't control himself when you're passed out."

It's "Hey parents - TELL YOUR SONS THAT IF A GIRL IS DRUNK, TREAT HER THE WAY YOU'D WANT SOMEONE TO TREAT YOUR SISTER."

They even posted a great definition of consent:

But then things started to fall apart.

We had a half hour presentation on...Dining Plans. Really? I read all that stuff in the brochure when we signed up. Did I really need to sit through a half hour Powerpoint presentation about it?

And then we got to the Q & A, and the helicopter parents started piping up. A parent asked, I shit you not: "Do the washing machines in the dorms take quarters or (the college name) points?"

*Sarah's head explodes*

<Commence Rant>

SERIOUSLY PARENTS? SERIOUSLY?????????

Your child is 17 or 18 years old, and about to embark on their college experience - an experience which yes, is about academics, but which is also part of preparing them to stand on their own two feet, employ critical thinking skills, problem solve, learn life skills, and enter the real world of earning a living and supporting themselves.

Part of this is LETTING THEM FIGURE OUT HOW TO WORK THE FRICKING LAUNDRY MACHINE FOR THEMSELVES!!!

It really isn't that complicated. And if they can't figure it out? Let them learn to ask questions - to advocate for themselves. That, too, is an important life skill.

*headdesk*

Clearly it was a long time ago, but the one question I remember my parents asked during my college trips was "How much is the tuition?" I cannot imagine for a million years either of my parents asking about laundry machines. I was taking the Tube to school by myself in London by the age of 9. So there would have been absolutely no doubt in my parents minds that I could figure out how to use a dorm washing machine and tumble dryer. They trusted me to figure these things out for myself. They called me once a week, on the twin assumptions that "No news is good news" and "Bad news travels fast."

Parenting is a constant balancing act - like the Talmud says, one should "push away with the left hand while drawing closer with the right hand" (BT Sanhedrin 107b). By the time our kids get to college, we need to be able to let them go - to relinquish control, but maintain influence, trusting that if we've done our job, they'll do just fine.

We can set the expectations for ethical behavior, and what it means to be a good human being, and model that behavior. We can't say one thing and do another.

We can let them know that they'll make mistakes, because everyone does, including us, and we'll be here for them when they do.

But above all, we have to let them go figure out things for themselves. That's what it's all about.

<End Rant>

Being in the moment - do young people know how to experience concerts anymore?

I went to see Queen with Adam Lambert two weeks ago. It was, in a word, AWESOME. 

I'd seen Queen a while back with Paul Rodgers from Bad Company on vocals but I have to say that Adam Lambert blew Paul Rodgers out of the water when it comes to being a Freddie Mercury replacement. He's got the vocal chops and the flair.

I was particularly thrilled because they played one of my favorite songs from A Night At The Opera, '39.

By the way, did you know that Brian May is actually Dr. Brian May (and it's a real doctorate, not a fake one like so many folks have been exposed as having here in CT in recent weeks)  with a degree in Astrophysics? I love it that one of my favorite musicians is so brainy. 

But there was one moment I found really depressing at the concert - and I wondered how Dr. May felt about it as the performer on the stage. He had this cool "guitar cam" rigged up to the neck of his guitar, so we could see his lightning fast fingers move during guitar solos. When he walked down the runway into the audience and stood playing right there, in front of them, only feet away, what did the guitar cam capture? Excited, exhilarated people entranced by the music? No. Rows and rows of fricking CELL PHONES recording the experience for later. 

I thought about the few times I've been lucky enough to be in the front rows of concerts. I was front row at the Palladium for Carlos Santana when I was in high school, and it was MAGIC. Okay we didn't have cell phones then, because I AM OLD, but even if we did, I was so INTO THE MUSIC, so completely involved with the wonder of the experience, that I can't imagine just holding the thing up and recording instead of just being there and feeling the music and grooving.  Also, Carlos Santana smiled at me!!!! Would that have happened if he'd seen my cell phone instead of my rapturous, smiling face?

Carlos Santana vintage 1978, around when I saw him, front row

I wonder how it must feel to be playing the Garden and instead of seeing the excited faces to see people just standing their with their cell phones. I can't help thinking that being a titan of Rock isn't what it used to be. It makes me understand why Robert Plant continues to steadfastly refuse another Led Zeppelin reunion (as much as I'd be tempted to remortgage my house to get tickets if he changes his mind).  

My friend Adam Bernard (keep an eye out for his hot self in my upcoming novel, BACKLASH) wrote a great piece on The First Three Songs Rule, and how it should become universal concert law. 

Here's Adam:

You go to a concert to have an experience, to enjoy a band you love, and to create a memory. The problem these people have is that they’re so busy trying to capture the moment that they don’t spend any time creating a memory to associate with it. Sure, they have a hundred pics from the concert they just went to, but, “Remember the time I held my arm up for 45 minutes” is not a good concert memory.

This. So much this!

Kids, take a picture or two then put the phone away. Let the music fill your soul. Be in the moment. And maybe, when you're middle aged like me, you'll remember the time that amazing guitar player whose records (okay, you don't listen to records, but you know what I mean) you played so many times the grooves got worn, SMILED AT YOU.

Dear Corporations: It's a new millennium - women aren't goods and chattel

I separated from my now ex-husband in November 2003, and our divorce was finalized in December 2006. When the marital home sold, I bought the current house in which the kids and I reside. I hold the title to this house in my own name, the mortgage is held by me alone, and I have made all the decisions about financing and re-financing this house myself. My ex-husband never lived at this address, was never on any of the mortgages at this address, has had nada to do with this house. 

Yet I still get mail addressed to him here, even ten years after we separated, and eight years after our divorce was finalized. I even get mail addressed Mr and Mrs HIS NAME Littman at this address. 

About two years after the kids and I moved into the house, my son got an invitation to join the AARP. He was 15 at the time, and it was a source of much amusement to me, because I hadn't received my first AARP mailing yet (now I am deluged by them on practically a daily basis). Neither of us could understand why he would be on the AARP mailing list. 

"Maybe they figured that because you're the only male at this address, you're my husband," I joked. 

He looked at me with all the appropriate horror that comment would engender in a 15 year old boy. 

Well, recently my bank suggested I move to their private banking program. I met with a very nice chap, and before I signed on, I told him a very important story about how I feel about men giving me investment advice. 

A few years ago, I had my portfolio with an investment advisor. I wanted him to move my holdings in a certain direction, because as a political columnist I watch what is going on in DC very carefully, and I didn't like what I was seeing. He didn't agree with my assessment, and told me to "ask my father," before acting.

Now there are a few things about this that pissed me off. 

1. I have an MBA in Finance

2. I was, at the time, a woman in my late 40's, with children of my own. 

3. My father was in a nursing home with Alzheimer's, something that this person knew, because I'd bought a long term care policy from him, because of my concerns about developing Alzheimer's myself. 

4. Did this guy realize he was living in the 21st freaking Century?!! OMFG!!!!

As a result of that blatantly patronizing and sexist advice, I moved my entire portfolio away from that establishment, which lost them fees and commissions. 

MORAL OF THE STORY: BEING SEXIST COSTS YOU, CORPORATIONS. LIVE AND FREAKING LEARN. 

Well, yesterday I got some mail from my bank as a result of become a private banking client. Here is how the envelope was addressed. 

Joshua happens to be my son. He isn't the main account holder. I am. In fact, if the bank cared to LOOK AT ITS OWN RECORDS, it would notice that his account is a COLLEGE ACCOUNT. 

But no. Because his is a male name, it takes priority over the actual private banking client, ie/ ME. 

Now my boyfriend, who is a database guy, told me I was overreacting, because "it's just an algorithm." 

But when I posted this on Facebook, the number of FEMALE friends who have been similarly enraged by this was long and equally furious. 

 "(Husband) and I are joint owners of our home and have a joint mortgage, but everything comes to him. With Allstate, we both have homeowner's insurance together, and then I have a policy on my car and my condo. But EVERYTHING comes addressed to him, even for my policies! I've had numerous convos with our agent and he is clearly puzzled as to why it infuriates me."

"Do I know what that feels like! I think most women do."

"My sister-in-law kept her own last name but gets mail to Mr & Ms my-brother's-name all the time. ALL the time. Grrrrr."

Now my boyfriend may be right. It might be "just an algorithm." As one friend commented, "We can't control what the computer does" is what Allstate tells me when they send me emails about my policy that start with, "Dear Hubby's Name...". It's insta-rage for me when I read it."

But here's the thing: WHO CREATES THE ALGORITHMS?* Computers don't program themselves, as any database guy should know. And whoever created the algorithm that takes any male name in a house and puts it FIRST, even though the policyholder, or the main account holder is a woman, even though that name might belong to a child, is not making a wise business decision. 

Here's a case where the marketing people need to go to their programmers and say FIX THIS. 

Because it's long past for "Big Data" to stop considering women as goods and chattel of the male of the species. 

*let's guess: Do we think this one was created by a man or a woman?

I started another blog: ORWELL UPDATED

It's called Orwell Updated, and you can check it out here.

Please send examples! There are so many. Once compiled, this will be a useful teaching tool for media literacy (euphemisms to avoid saying what's really meant)  citizenship (politicians using passive voice to avoid taking responsibility and using euphemisms to make the grossly unpalatable acceptable ) and writing (unclear writing, passive voice etc).

April is the cruellest month

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

TS Eliot The Waste Land

Never have those words rung more true for me than this year.

It has been a challenging six months.

We lost my father after a long struggle with Alzheimer's last November. Life has been so busy since then, there has barely been time to grieve. And so it comes out at weird times. I was in synagogue on the last day of Passover and for the first time I stayed for Yizkor service (memorial service for the dead). If both of your parents are still living, you leave the sanctuary for Yizkor. On Yom Kippur, I left but sat outside sobbing to my son Josh, telling him that I was afraid that it would be the last time I'd ever go outside for Yizkor.

It was.

Yet I've discovered there is a comfort in the prescribed rituals - sitting shiva, going to synagogue each week to say kaddish, even though I find reciting it each time an ordeal (Kaddish isn't Hebrew, it's Aramaic). Everyday life is so frantic that ensuring I allow myself the time to do these rituals means I'm making sure I've got time to left the grief out for at least a short time every week.

With the loss of Dad not yet healed, this month, April, has been the cruellest month indeed. On the second, we lost my children's uncle, Roby Littman, far too young, at the age of sixty. Even while desperately ill in hospital, Roby sent an email out that exhibited his unfailing sense of humor. As my youngest niece so sagely and sadly observed, "It's just not right" that he is no longer with us. He's left a very big hole left in all of our hearts.

This morning I woke up to an email from the UK that another person we loved and cared about, the woman my kids called "Nanny Janet", passed away yesterday from cancer. My son called her "my third grandmother". Janet didn't always have it easy, but she was an amazingly positive person. She also taught me some great words like "bonce" (head) as in, "Oh dear, did you bang your bonce?" Here's Janet with her daughter Natalie and granddaughters Amy and Katie.

When one is hit by waves of loss like this, it's easy to ask the rather colorful question my son did this morning: "Why is life trying to kick us in the b*lls?"

And it does kind of feel like that. You start to dread that first look at your cell when you wake up - is there going to be another email telling me someone I love isn't here anymore? What bad news am I going to read today?

To combat that, I'm working really hard to focus every day on the things I'm grateful for. Always, the first thing is my family. I am so blessed to have a family that cares and looks after one another. If one of us is having a tough time, we know we can count on the others for support.

I'm grateful for the friends I have made in so many different spheres of my life, who challenge my thinking, make me laugh, give me hugs (either real or virtual) - especially the ones who don't send me Candy Crush Saga invitations :-)

I'm grateful that my journey in life has lead me to the point where I am finally making a living doing what I love the most.

I'm grateful for health insurance. After my dad died when I kept having really bad headaches including a migraine that lasted a week and they did an MRI and I had an "unspecified spot" and so they had to do another MRI with contrast...to rule out anything more serious - yeah, it would have really sucked if I hadn't been able to get health insurance after Anthem rescinded mine last year. And the insurance I got was cheaper and has dental. Thanks, ACA.

Forgive me if I seem shallow, but I'm going be grateful for a thing. It's my car. I'd wanted a convertible ever since I was a teenager and so two years ago I bought a secondhan hard top convertible - stick shift, twin turbo. I have had more joy per dollar from that car than anything I've ever spent money on for myself, ever. It's my therapy mobile. I'll be in a bad mood when I get in it, but then I take the hair tie out of my hair and put the top down and blast tunes and the wind blows all the cobwebs away. I'm grateful to feel that joy, especially when there's a lot of other life suck going on.

I'm grateful for T. S. Eliot's poetry, even though I was devastated when I found out that he was an anti-Semite.

What are you grateful for today?

In memory of my Grandmother Dorothy - a true character

My Grandmother Dorothy died on March 22nd, 1993. I was living in Dorset,UK and was seven months pregnant with my son. In Judaism, we bury people very quickly. I had to race over to my GP's home to get a doctor's note to fly home for her funeral, because otherwise the airline wouldn't take me.

When I was a teenager my shoulders were slumped over because I was embarrassed by my rapidly expanding chest, she'd constantly admonish me with "Wings back, chest out!" (Me: internal "What part of I don't want to stick my chest out don't you understand?") She'd also make me walk up and down the redwood deck at the back of our house with a book on my head to try and improve my posture. Picture this young Deadhead with bad body image and even worse self-esteem, being drilled on posture by her regal grandmother (who'd been dubbed "The Duchess" by her younger sister when they were kids).

My father died last November, after a long struggle with Alzheimers, and I'm still coming to terms with the grief and recognizing, every day, how he influenced the woman I am today. Last night Mom posted some of Grandma's words of wisdom, and I recognized as will anyone who has read my books and my political opinion columns, how much my life is a reflection and continuation of her legacy, as well as Dad's.

"If you have a good thought, share it. You never know when it will take wings"

When asked How do you accomplish so much she replied " by inspiration and perspiration"

Where does inspiration come from? "That's a great question! " (I would probably say, "Damned if I know!" I guess I got the language from Dad...)

"We are all part of one humanity. there is no pure group . We are all mixed up through commerce and conquest through the ages"

"How can we trace the influence of one group upon the other...through the arts! through music!, through dance, through theatre, and literature""

"Be grateful for your blessings! I am!"

"You can change the world ...First in your own circle, Your community, then reach out to the world!"

Grandma could be challenging at times. Despite her open minded views about some things, she had less open minded views about others - like the time she saw me drinking beer from a bottle. I'm not sure which transgression upset her more - that I was drinking BEER or that I was drinking it OUT OF A BOTTLE. The Horror...The Horror...

But today - and every day - I try to honor her memory by the way I live my life.

What I'm grateful for on Black Friday

I'm grateful that my kids were the ones who said they didn't feel celebrating Chanukah with presents so soon after losing my father, their grandfather, so we're just doing the spiritual part and postponing all the present stuff for some later date.

I grateful that my parents brought me up to treasure family over stuff, so that the idea of going out to shop on Thanksgiving is anathema to me and my kids.

I'm grateful I don't work for Walmart, and I support the striking workers.

I agree with Adam Zopf, who wrote this:

and I wonder how and when we are going to do something about the growing inequality in our society, which has now reached Robber Baron era proportions.

I'm grateful that I had teachers who were given the freedom to teach in creative and thoughtful ways, and that testing was kept to a minimum so we were reading, thinking and analyzing instead of being tested.

I'm grateful my youngest child is a senior so that we are going to avoid the coming debacle of Common Core implementation, SBAC and even more testing. But that doesn't mean I'm giving up the fight for public education, because it has been the key to my family's success in this country and I will not see it destroyed.

I'm grateful for musicians, who create soundtrack for my life.

I'm grateful that adversity has brought me friendship, sometimes from people who would previously have considered me "that crazy liberal."

I'm grateful that I am able to earning a living doing what I love the most, so that working my butt off, while exhausting, isn't soul destroying the way it was when I worked in jobs that weren't really me.

I'm grateful that through my work as a both a writer for teens and a political writer, I have met smart, creative people who share my passion to make the world a better place.

What are you grateful for today?