Family Stories

I spend 8 hours a day in front of a computer (ugh) so read a lot of articles online.  Josh’s cousin shared an article she found on NYTimes.com and I thought it was so great I just had to share.  The Family Stories That Bind Us This Life.  The article spoke about the importance of creating a family narrative and sharing stories with our kids.  Studies have shown the more kids know about their families the better off they are.  When you think about it, it really comes down to communication.  If you are willing to share stories with your kids, good and bad, they will be willing to share with you too.  Knowing your history teaches you first hand that both good and bad things are going to happen in life.  When you hear stories of triumph and survival it has to teach kids that you can get through anything, right?  This too shall pass?

My two favorite times to talk with my 4 year old daughter is in the car and at the dinner table.  Emmy tells me all kinds of stories in the car, especially on the way home from school.  I love hearing about her day and answering all the questions she shoots at me.  She also happens to be a ssslllooowww  eater so we have some long dinners at the table some nights.  More talking takes place than eating!

We do not have a single family member who lives in San Diego.  And a lot of our immediate family lives in different places across the country.  So I feel even more responsible to talk to my kids and tell them about their family so they know them and understand how much they are loved.  To date, I think we’ve done a pretty good job.  As she gets older we’ll have to make sure we tell stories about how my husband and I grew up, where, etc.  We sure will have some interesting stories!! 

Here are a few highlights from the article:

The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative.

Decades of research have shown that most happy families communicate effectively. But talking doesn’t mean simply “talking through problems,” as important as that is. Talking also means telling a positive story about yourselves. When faced with a challenge, happy families, like happy people, just add a new chapter to their life story that shows them overcoming the hardship. This skill is particularly important for children, whose identity tends to get locked in during adolescence.

The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family’s positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones. That act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come.

17 Ways to be Happier at Work

I just read this great article – “17 Ways to be Happier at Work”.  I find them all to be very true but not only at work but in your everyday lives.  I have spent the last few years agonizing over situations at work and torturing myself by fighting it.  I have never accepted a situation I haven’t like by always looking for a solution or another situation.  Well, sometimes it can’t always be changed at this moment, but your attitude can.  Which is what I have really been consciously doing.  I can’t change my situation right now so I am focusing on the positive!

“To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him”. Buddha

“If you cannot make a change, change the way you've been thinking.  You might find a new solution.  Never whine.  Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighborhood”.  Maya Angelou

A few highlights from the article:

1. Don't compare yourself to others.

Everybody, and I mean everybody, starts out in a different place and is headed on their own journey. You have NO idea where someone else's journey might lead them, so drawing comparisons is a complete waste of time.

2. Never obsess over things you cannot control.

While it's often important to know about other things--like the economy, the markets that you sell to, the actions that others might take, your focus should remain on what you actually control, which is 1) your own thoughts and 2) your own actions.

5. Remember you get the same amount of time every day as everyone else.

You may feel you're short on time and that you need more of it, but the simple truth is that when the day started, you got your fair share: 24 hours. Nobody got any more than you did, so stop complaining.

12. Smile and laugh more frequently.

Contrary to popular belief, smiling and laughter are not the RESULT of being happy; they're part of a cycle that both creates and reinforces happiness. Find reasons to smile.  Never, ever suppress a laugh.

15. Remember that however bad (or good) a situation is, it will inevitably change.

The nature of the physical universe is change. Nothing remains the same; everything is, as the gurus say, transitory. Whether you're celebrating or mourning or something in between, this, too, will pass.

17. Believe that the best is yet to come, no matter what.

When my grandmother was widowed in her 70s, she went back to college, traveled across Europe in youth hostels, and learned Japanese painting, among many other activities. The last thing she told me was: "You know, Geoffers, life begins at 90."

House Phone

This week Emmy’s preschool class was learning about the letter “N”.  Each day they have a lesson, do a craft, etc., and everything revolves around the letter “N”.  This week they were learning about phone numbers so we were asked to bring one in for her to memorize.  Huh.  Which number do we choose mine or Josh’s?   It got me thinking more about how this whole phone thing is going to work when she grows up?  When I was young, we had a single house phone so we had one number to remember and our friends always knew how to reach us.  What happens when Emmy and her friends grow up and they want to call each other to play?  Do they call the parent’s cell phones or is that when you are pretty much forced to buy them a cell phone?!  Believe it or not we actually still have a house phone.  We never answer it but I guess I am living in the dark ages and am having trouble letting go of the home phone and number we’ve had for over a decade.  Plus, I keep thinking that it’ll come in handy a few years from now when Emmy and her friends start talking on the phone – they can call our home phone!  Who and I joking, give it 5 years and I can just see the look on Emmy’s face when I tell her to use our portable home phone, I bet it’ll be a dinosaur by then! 

Transitional Generation?

This weekend Emmy told me that when she grows up she wants to me a “mommy”.  Such a sweetheart.  Nothing would make me happier.  Hopefully a little of what I have done as a mom has influenced that decision.   

When I was growing up, I had the same answer as Emmy.  If anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I would say a mom as well.  When I responded a mom, I referred to the stay-at-home kind of mom.  I still want to be a stay-at-home mom when I grow up!  Part of my answer stemmed from the fact that my mom stayed at home with my siblings and I when we grew up and it was all I knew and wanted.  A lot of my friends moms were also stay-at-home moms growing up but all of us are now working women.  

 In my opinion, our generation’s parents raised us in a different time when things were less expensive and simpler.  People were more content living is smaller homes, sharing rooms and possibly even a car.  (The fact that I grew up in Toronto as opposed to Southern California where I live now, likely is a big influence on this opinion.  Perhaps it is just the environment in which I live now that makes it appear that everyone is striving for big houses and fancy cars and vacations).  It wasn’t until I grew up and graduated college and got married that I realized I was not going to be able to follow my dreams of being a stay-at-home mom, it is almost impossible to live in Southern California on one income.  My dream of being a mom still came true, I am just not living my life exactly how I had always envisioned.   

I wonder when Emmy tells me that she wants to be a “mommy” when she grows up, what does she mean by that and how does she envision her life?  She is the daughter of a full-time working mom and has gone to daycare since she was 12 weeks old.  Since that is all she knows, does she define mommy as the stay-at-home kind like I did?  Or does she assume she will also work outside of the home?  We are all a product of our homes and environment so it will be interesting to see how she ends up raising a family one day.  Times are a changing.  Are we the transitional generation that is teaching our daughters about being a mother and a working woman?  Will generations to come continue to work outside of the home without debate because more were raised in homes in which their mothers worked?  I am not sure if this is a good or bad thing but it may save our daughters the conflict and struggle some of us go through now having to accept the fact we have to work outside of the home, unlike our mothers did. 

International Woman's Day - Can We Really Have it All?

Apparently today is International Woman’s Day.  Honestly, this is the first I have heard of this day, who would have thunk?  Ironically, I found myself reading a series of articles debating about whether or not women can really have it all?  Be able to balance a family and a career?  Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook and Anne-Marie Slaughter who previously held a senior position in the State Department published pieces on this topic (Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead and Why Women Still Can’t Have it All) with very conflicting opinions.   Sandberg, who has created a very family friendly work environment at Facebook says there are ways to juggle both.  As opposed to Slaughter who stepped down from her position to raise her kids.  I haven’t read either in their entirety but based on the articles I read that compared the two, I can’t believe they are even being compared.  Sure, if you work for Facebook and have a flexible schedule that allows you to work around your families schedules and probably work from home, etc., you should agree you can juggle both.  If you were literally living in Washington DC M-F and commuting home to be with your kids only on the weekends, then absolutely that is impossible!  If you ask me the shitty thing about the whole work/life balance thing is mothers really don’t have a choice.  Their employers dictate whether or not they can have the flexibility needed to be there for their family.  Someone else gets to decide whether or not you can have a flexible enough schedule to pick up your kids from school, telecommute or work part time.  You can pitch it any way you want but if there are policies in place or your Supervisor has a different opinion you are screwed.  Look at the people who work for Yahoo who may have taken the job because they had the ability to work from home only to be told they have to be in the office 5 days a week.

Yes, I am a working mom who is constantly trying to find work/life balance.  Is this my choice?  No.  Did I try and ask for more flexibility?  Absolutely. Unfortunately, I was told I had to be in the office 5 days a week.  There is not a day that goes by that I am not conflicted about what I am doing.  I am sad to leave my house every morning and the more I do it, it is still just as hard.  My favorite time of the day is when we are finally home together and I get to put on my sweat pants.  Unfortunately, I only get to cherish this moment for a few hours a day until we go to bed and do it all over again as I fly out the door at 7:30a the next morning.  5 DAYS A WEEK.  I live for the weekends, I start thinking about the next one Sunday night.   One of the articles I read actually spoke to this conflict stating there is such thing as mommy brain!  Not in the forgetful way, but in the I am so torn up inside trying to balance work and family way.

The Mommy Brain is a very real phenomenon, says Brizendrine, a neuropsychiatrist, who didn’t expect to want to stay “glued” to her child. A woman’s brain, she says, becomes “structurally, functionally and in many ways irreversibly” altered by motherhood. “In modern society,” Brizendrine warns, “where women are responsible not only for giving birth to children but working outside the home to support them economically, these changes in the brain create the most profound conflict of a mother’s life.”


So who is right Sandberg or Slaughter?  Both.  It all depends on what company a mother (and father) work for and how accommodating their bosses are.  So for all of you who are in the position of power to make decisions on how flexible your work environments are going to be, remember, you are dictating the family lives of everyone that works for you.  Your decisions don’t just affect your bottom line, but the lives of the children of the employees who work for you.  Please do not take those decisions lightly.