Monday Update: Just in Case You Were Wondering...

For anyone who remembers my previous posts and was under the impression that my household has since metamorphosed into a Utopia of order, cleanliness, promptness and strong work ethics, let me enlighten you.

- We still have trouble leaving the house less than 5 minutes before school starts. Sometimes it's a matter of staying in bed too long; sometimes it's an argument over the necessity of brushing teeth or hair; other times it's a blissful ignorance about time, despite reminders ("It's 8:15...it's 8:20...it's EIGHT-FREAKIN'-THIRTY-NINE"). And then there are the days when they simply don't see why they should interrupt their reading/LEGO-building/sibling-chasing/coloring just to spend 6 hours in an institution of learning.

- The Set-Your-Own-Homework-Schedule Momsperiment has had its ups and downs. Sometimes the kids will get down to business on their own and at a reasonable hour; other times the work is put off for more interesting pursuits - like playing with the neighbors - and finally done a little too close to bedtime for comfort. I admit I may be contributing to the problem by letting them play in the park after school (on a sunny 65-degree day, how could I deny them a little dose of exercise and vitamin D?); once the deep freeze of winter hits, it may be easier to get work done earlier if we go directly home.

- The forgetfulness issue?  I just flushed a toiletful of waste that's been marinating nicely for at least six hours. Homework sheets and school memos are often stuffed in my son's backpack, while the folder designated for those papers lies idly in his classroom desk. Books, pencils, crayons and little rubber toys get abandoned on floors, tables, chairs and sinks, picked up only after repeated requests (or until I get tired enough to pick them up myself).

- Nagging? Still do it, even though I hate it as much as the kids do, and it doesn't accomplish much other than resentment and halfhearted efforts. I want to stop it even as the words come out, but it's like a default setting that switches on when requests and reminders are ignored or blown off. What was that about insanity being defined as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results each time?

So rest easy. The Perfect Mom Award is still up for grabs, and I'm not getting anywhere near the finalist list yet.

Oh, yes. We're still waiting for that Hogwarts LEGO set to materialize. Even Linus gave up on waiting for the Great Pumpkin after 24 hours.

Five Unexpected Perks of Motherhood

When women talk about how great it is to be a mom, they usually mention things like first steps, sticky kisses, crayoned pictures, piano recitals and misty-eyed graduations. But there are other terrific benefits that aren't acknowledged as often, so here's a nod to some of the ones you might not have realized. Thanks, kids - we owe you one!

You get an automatic excuse for everything. Nodding off at your desk? You can't help it - you were up with a fussy baby all night. In a bitchy mood? Who wouldn't be, after an hour of nagging the kids to pick up their rooms? Spaghetti for dinner two nights in a row? Sorry, but what with the parent-teacher conferences, shopping for the special jazz shoes your daughter needs for her 3:30 dance class, collecting your son from his playdate and getting homework done, there was no time to get to the market. If our politicians played the parenting card more often, they'd get a lot more sympathy for their political missteps. "I can't believe I couldn't remember the third cabinet department I said I was going to cut as president - but you try doing a televised debate an hour after your kid gets stomach flu and barfs on your shoes!"

You get parking lot privileges. More stores and malls are adding designated "parent parking spaces" close to their entrances for the benefit of moms and dads who have their hands full juggling kids, strollers and shopping bags. Granted, drivers without kids can try to get away with parking there too, but you're fully entitled to shoot your best glare at the college student sans car seat who pulls into the spot and offer your best wishes that one day she, too, finds herself trying to drag two tired toddlers half a mile to her car.

You can duck your civic duty. In many counties, being the primary or sole caregiver of young children makes you eligible for a one- or two-year deferment of jury duty. So don't freak out if you get a jury summons in the mail; you may not have to scramble for a sitter after all. And if you do have to serve and get put on a case? Just say that since becoming a parent, you assume everyone's guilty because you don't want to take the chance that any creepy criminals might be roaming the streets where your kid plays. You won't get past voir dire.

You get more stuff.  From the blingy push presents moms now claim as their due to the extra birthday and Christmas gifts that come "from the kids," motherhood can really pay off sometimes. Coupons fill your mailbox; contests offering sweet mom swag fill the parenting websites. And let's not forget that second Sunday in May. Presents, cards, brunch, maybe even an afternoon to yourself - all because you're a veteran of potty-training, mac 'n'cheese and SpongeBob. Not too shabby.

You meet some great people. By far, the best perk of all. The pediatrician who takes you seriously when your baby "just isn't acting like himself" and offers reassurance even when you call her service at 1 AM. The science teacher who sparks your child's curiosity about the way the world works. The moms on Twitter who host virtual "wine parties" every Wednesday night and share laughs and tips. The children's librarian who always recommends the best books and lets you know ahead of time when the new Mo Willems is going to arrive. They're a vital part of your world now, but you'd never have given them the time of day if the pregnancy test hadn't come back positive.

These five only scrape the surface. Let me hear from you - what unusual perks have you claimed since becoming a mom?

Prayer for the Mom of a Forgetful Child

Dear Lord:

I stand humbly before you - though it may be a little hard to see me among the clutter in my child's room - to ask a favor. You see, my child is forgetful. No, let me rephrase that. My child has elevated absent-mindedness to an art. He can look at a list of five homework assignments in class and come home with nothing in his backpack but an old permission slip, a granola bar wrapper and a GoGo toy. He has yet to see a winter soften to spring with a matching set of gloves to show for it.

And yet he is your beautiful creation, and in your wisdom you made him this way and (for reasons yet unexplained) chose me to be his mother. So I'd like to ask you for a few extra tools for my parenting kit to help me with the job. Here goes:

Grant me the eye of a decorator to appreciate the wabi-sabi - you know, that whole "imperfection is beautiful" stuff - of a floor strewn with pajama pants, random socks and a Clone Wars comforter. Instead of thinking, "Why can't he remember to put his stuff in the dresser or hamper?", let me exclaim, "He's the Jackson Pollock of bedrooms!"

Give me the fortitude not to flinch or faint when I open my child's lunch box on Sunday night and find the sticky, rotting clump that was an orange on Friday before he tasted it, found it too stringy and spat it back into the bag to remain through the weekend.

Grant me the patience not to jump to conclusions. When I see a pungently full toilet bowl and a wet seat, it may indeed, as my child insists, be the work of an ill-mannered phantom pee-er who drops by to use the facilities without lifting the seat or flushing afterward.

Give me the clarity to understand that my child's forgetfulness is not a weapon. He didn't get up this morning thinking, "I bet if I leave my hat at school on the coldest day of the year, I can get Mom to really freak out!" Then again, he does get a kick out of seeing my eyelid twitch...

Bless me with the strength to resist the temptation to "fix" every problem that results from my child's absent-minded ways. How will he ever learn to double-check for his school supplies if I'm always running back at 10 AM to deliver a forgotten recorder or pencil case? More to the point, how will I ever finish a hot cup of coffee?

Grant me the humility to accept my own failings in this area. It's hardly fair to criticize a child for forgetting a simple task when you've been carrying around an unreturned rental DVD in your purse all day.

Infuse me with the insight to understand that when my child sighs, "Here comes the lecture," it means "You've become the Lecturing Mom you always swore you'd never be." Then nudge me to be grateful for a husband who can come up with brilliant solutions like a supply checklist notebook and a Gryffindor House points system.

Give me the wisdom to remind myself that forgetfulness can actually be a sign of intelligence and creativity. The "absent-minded professor" is a well-known stereotype because it has the ring of truth. "Absent-minded burger flipper," not so much. When he's accepting his Nobel Prize, I'll gladly overlook the fact that he's not wearing socks.

Most of all, when I'm at my most exasperated, please help me see that my child's mind may not be fixed on the mundane matters we grownups harp on so often because so many other thoughts - far more fascinating ones - are running through it. Such as plans for a birthday four months away. Or new LEGO-based inventions. Or "Mom, did you ever get the sense that, even if red is your absolute favorite color, every painting still needs a little bit of green in it?"

That should about do it, Lord. Thanks in advance for the help - and for blessing me with my brilliant forgetful offspring. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to clean the bathroom. The sloppy phantom's been here.

Amen.

This Week's Momsperiment: The No-Nag Homework Plan

If my son had a personal theme song, it would be "My Way." In his view, the world would be a much nicer, fairer place if only he were allowed to choose all his meals, watch TV and play video games at will, leave his room a veritable obstacle course of books and LEGOs and bathe only when the cloud of flies around his head became too thick to see. If his friends want to play tag on the playground when he wants to have a pretend lightsaber battle, he storms off and sulks. At birthday parties, he'll eat several cookies and a piece of cake, then protest when I tell him to save the candy in his goody bag for another day.

Naturally, homework falls into this category as well. He's a good student, enjoys school probably more than he cares to admit. But having to write five sentences in a social studies journal and work a couple of pages in his math text is a chore he puts off as long as possible. There are far more important things to occupy his post-school time: running around the playground, hanging out with the kids down the street, playing with his toys, reading Harry Potter, putting on an old Halloween cape and becoming a magician or bullfighter.

Barely a month into school, the Homework Wars have already begun, a tiring and tiresome routine of reminding, nagging, sighing, procrastinating, checking in, complaining and - eventually - completing. And both Son and Parents are at the fraying point.

So yesterday I proposed a new plan. Son is now solely in charge of his work schedule, responsible for bringing home all materials (no more embarrassing trips back to the classroom to retrieve a forgotten notebook) and doing all his work before bedtime. I promise to offer help when needed and make suggestions to help keep him better organized, but otherwise, it's Hands Off, Mom. No nagging, lectures or quietly slipping a neglected folder into his backpack in the morning.

The deal: If this system works, super. Nagging will be a thing of the past, and some important lessons in responsibility, self-reliance and accountability will have been learned. But if too much work is left till the last minute, done slapdash or neglected altogether, we'll have to adjust the plan.

It's 5:30. We came home from the park half an hour ago. As soon as he hopped out of the car, Son went over to play with a neighbor. I'll be starting dinner soon. The backpack has not yet been opened. Naturally, Daughter has followed suit, because it's totally not fair that her big brother gets extra playtime while she doesn't.

So is this a Brilliant Anti-Nag-Pro-Independence strategy on my part? Or an Epic Mom Fail? Any predictions? Any suggestions? Anyone got a bottle of something to share while we see how Operation: No-Nag Homework plays out?

Sexist Messij T-Shurtz Suck

My first-grade daughter can count simple groupings in her head. Last year, she zipped through her kindergarten math workbook problems with a confident cry of "This is so easy!" On road trips, she begs me to give her addition and subtraction questions to solve.

But in a few years, she'll be hitting the mall with her friends and finding shirts like this at Forever21:










Last year, she got glowing remarks on her report card. Her science teacher smiled as she told me, "Sarah is the kind of student who will do well in any subject."

Maybe not for long, once she starts seeing shirts like these around the halls:









Swell. It's cool to hate both school and spelling.


Forever21 isn't the only store selling this crap. JC Penney had to eat a lot of product and bad publicity when the blogoverse started campaigning against this beauty of a message shirt:






Seriously? I mean, seriously? Didn't anyone in their R&D, design or marketing departments feel a qualm for even a nanosecond that this sentence might just possibly be offensively sexist? Heck, the guys on staff would know what a nanosecond is or how to spell "qualm," right?

Why are we still so in love with the girls-are-dumb stereotype? Why do we insist on perpetuating the idea that math, science and technology should be men's domains? The statistics on women in these fields - we hold just 31 percent of medical careers, 25 percent of all mathematical and computer science jobs and a mere 11 percent of engineering jobs - are nothing to laugh about, on clothing or otherwise.

We're anything but "allergic" to these subjects. One study from Cornell found that girls scored as well as or better than boys in math all the way up through college. And we're not necessarily trapped by a glass mathematical ceiling: the Cornell psychologists found that women were actually slightly more likely to be offered tenure-track science, technology and math positions. But somewhere along the line, women stop thinking of math and tech as a calling. Some switch over to more organic professions like biology and veterinary medicine (where we do outrank men); others, notably math professors, find it hard to maintain their demanding careers once they have children.

And maybe, just maybe, some internalize the message that women aren't meant to excel in traditionally male professions. Why bother trying when, as Barbie notoriously said not long ago, "math is hard"? Being a smart woman is only acceptable if you're also cute and pick a glamorous profession. We admire Natalie Portman's Ivy League degree, but we wouldn't gush over her as much if she were merely winning a Nobel in astrophysics instead of an Oscar. We give Hillary Clinton props for her political accomplishments, but unsheathe our claws if she wears the wrong pantsuit or looks a trifle jowly.

Ironically, Forever21 also sells shirts with far more empowering messages - "Believe in Me" and the like. Several are Christian-themed, cross and all. Would Jesus tell girls that they didn't have to worry their pretty little heads over algebra and spelling?

This isn't meant to criticize girls who do find math difficult, or who choose more artistic professions. Guilty as charged on both counts. But my mother-hackles bristle when I see retailers selling negative messages about education to girls with developing minds and ideas, all in the name of humor and profit.

I see my daughter skip down the street to school every morning and run out smiling six hours later, talking about the "awesome" day she had. Her joy in learning is every parent's dream.

Maybe the geniuses at Forever21 should visit her skool school and see what real girls think of math.