BCC Eng 101

            Nobody ever said being a mother is easy.  If they did, they’d be lying.  When we become mothers, we are faced with a very important decision…go back to work or stay at home to raise a     child.  After asking around, researching, and being a mother myself, it seems that no matter which choice you make you can be sure you will doubt your decision at least once and feel guilty about which choice you made.  In my research process I found a mother who wrote an essay on this hot topic entitled, “Working Mothers: The Benefits of Working Versus Staying at Home,” in which she writes about how the decision is mostly based on financial need, but there are many other factors to consider.  The decision should best suit the mom, child and the family as a unit (termpaperslab.com).  I can’t help but notice that everyone from your average Joe, who gets his 15 minutes of fame on television by accident during an evening news interview who waves in the background mouthing the words, “Hi Mom!”, to an Oscar Award winner, who thanks his mom as soon as he receives his award, our mothers are the most important people in our lives.  Where would we all be if our moms were never available for us?

I, myself, was a stay at home mom.  I gave up years of my life to raise both my own children and help raise my niece and nephew.  It was very challenging at times but I believe the benefits greatly outweighed any sacrifices that I made.  All three of my kids knew how to read, write their names, knew all the colors, alphabet, and could count to and recognize numbers one to ten.  Being a stay-at-home-mom was my choice for many reasons.  I always knew where my kids were and I knew they were safe. They hardly ever were sick, because I took measures to give them the best start in life I thought I could.   I knew what they were watching on television because I was watching it with them.  I knew what they were learning because I was the one teaching them.  My children are older now but I still hear people tell me how well-behaved and respectful they are.  They do so well in school that, on many occasions, they help the other students to understand the material.  I have also been told by a few mothers that their own children are “different when they are around my kids”, meaning they listen more and are better behaved.  I know this is all directly related to the fact that I spent so much time with them when they were little.  My family was better as a whole because I was able to stay home and be the mother my kids deserved.  Even when kids get older they still say how much they love coming home from school knowing that their mom will be there waiting for them to ask how their day was.  It made sense financially for me to stay home as well.  Even though I graduated high school I didn’t have any special skills that would help me get a well-paying job.  I always felt like my children are my responsibility, not anyone else’s, so why would I hand my paycheck over to a stranger to raise my kids.  Although my husband made enough money for me to stay home, his hours fluctuated and we had times that we really struggled financially.  That’s where the sacrifices come in.  Some could argue that the more money you make the more you spend, especially when you have children.  So that is not a fair argument for the working mothers, in my opinion.

Even working mothers probably wouldn’t want to admit this failing economy is a reason why they went back to work.  Nobody wants to say they chose money over raising a child. Sometimes it is necessary for a mother to work to help support her children.  The cost of living is steadily going up and paychecks are staying the same. This is not helping the attitudes these working moms have about the ones who get to stay home.  There is an article from nymag.com that states, “Instead of directing their anger where it belongs—say at corporate America’s stingy, unpaid maternity leave and refusal to countenance flex-time—working and nonworking moms are dividing into opposing camps and unleashing their resentment and suspicion on one another”.  There are also some mothers who return to work for their own sanity.  In the “Working Mothers…” essay mentioned earlier, it is written that getting out and going to work every day can be an essential part in the recovery process after giving birth and also help prevent Post-Partum Depression.  Working gives moms an opportunity to socialize and build friendships (termpaperslab.com).  Stay-at-home-moms do tend to feel like they’re “out of the loop” and alone.  It is hard to relate to others when your best friend is bald, drools on himself and poops his pants, (even if he is a great listener).  Socialization isn’t just important for our children.  Moms who spend all their time with children under the age of ten can easily end up depressed. Maybe it isn’t always a choice of staying with the children or not; it could also be about what it is you want.  What goals do you have and what will be the most fulfilling in the long run?  I do give working moms credit.  After all, it must be hard to be taken seriously when you’re exhausted and you have baby vomit on your dress.  Times have changed; working mothers have come a long way to earn their rights as professionals and they deserve their due for all they do in the course of a day.  They work hard both at work and at home to try to find some kind of balance in their lives.

We are all mothers, so why this feud between working and stay-at-home moms?  Does this feud even really exist or is it just media hype preying on the guilt today’s mothers feel about their choices?  According to an article in the Washington Post online, “The ballyhooed Mommy Wars exist mainly in the minds — and the marketing machines — of the media and publishing industry, which have been churning out mom vs. mom news flashes since, believe it or not, the 1950s. All while the number of working mothers has been rising.”  Women are strong by nature, so why are we letting what the media instigate a feud between us?  We feel guilty enough about decisions we are forced to make that strongly affect our families.

Is it possible for mothers to have their cake and eat it too?  The technology age is making stay-at-home-moms able to work from home.  Many mothers are starting home businesses.  Cafemom.com, a website designed for mothers of any kind to find others like themselves to chat with or form groups for social gathering or working from home, invented a new term they are calling “Mompreneur”, defined as “a Woman and Mother who is balancing the life of a Mom and Entrepreneur.  A Mom who has integrated the dream of becoming a success while raising her children or has raised her children.  A Mom who strives day in and day out to balance a successful business and being there for her children.  Who puts forth the effort no matter what obstacle, wall or fear gets in her way and gives everything to her children and business.”  There is also a very popular site, Etsy.com, which sells all things handmade for a small fee.  They give you a “store” that you can list your handmade items and sell them.  This is a great idea if you are a crafter.  If you are not crafty, there are old standbys like selling Avon or Mary Kay; which is great if you know a lot of women, but honestly, if you’re a stay-at-home mom, most of the women you associate with are also stay-at-home moms and they probably don’t wear much make-up and they don’t have disposable income to spend on frivolous things like perfume.

Whatever a mother has chosen, to stay home or go to work, they are both hard work and equally stressful.  Mothers on both sides will often regret their decision and secretly wish they made the other.  Washingtonpost.com has a good point, stating, “No matter what choice a working woman makes after she has a child, the grass always looks greener on the other side. Daniele Levy is a Massachusetts lawyer who stayed home for a couple of years when her two children were infants. Now she works a four-day week at a nearby law firm. “When I was home full-time, I thought, ‘Wow, look at those women who can make it work,’ “she said. ” ‘They have their children and their careers, it must be really great.’ Now I’m working, and I just talked to a friend who’s at home, I’m thinking, ‘Wow, that’s really fun, that must be really great.’ “It seems like if you decide to stay home, you always wonder if you should have worked.  If you decided to take the leap and go back to work, you wonder what it would have been like to stay home.  I agree with an article on nymag.com that states, “Those who have chosen to make a career of motherhood wonder whether the brilliant life that was dangled as their birthright is passing them by.  Conversely, many of those who are running the world worry they’re sacrificing their families on the altar of their own ambition”.  I’m afraid none of us will ever know what the “right” thing to do is, only what is right for your individual situation.  This is just one major decision us moms will be faced with along the road to raising a family.  I believe that as long as your child grows up to be a happy and healthy individual, then you know you made the right choice.

The issue I chose for my argument essay is stay at home moms vs. working moms.  What can be done about mothers having to make the choice between staying at home to raise your family and having a career?  I find this to be somewhat controversial because it is a very hot topic for any mom on either side of the fence.  We seem to feel guilty about any choice we make.  I already know about this topic because I raised 3 of my own children  and my niece and nephew.  It seemed like I stood home and everyone around me worked while  I raised their kids.  I see both sides of this through myself and those whose kids I watched.  My plan for research is going to start online, looking at websites such as cafemom.com, which is full of very opinionated moms on both sides of this issue.  Then I might go to the library and see what I can find there.  The photo essay is going to tie in, hopefully, when I do my research I can find pictures that I can use to go along with my argument research.

The Love of My Life   By Cheryl Strayed

This article is interesting.  I didn’t know what to think at first.  It’s kind of crass, especially the first page, then here & there for the other 2 pages.  It is well written though.  The language she uses and the way things she says all tie into each other throughout the article is, in my opinion, a good way to write.  It gives you a reason to read on, because you know important topics will be brought up in another paragraph later on.

Baby Weight by Cheryl Strayed

This is an incredible article.  I absolutely loved it!  It’s very well written, easy to read and really hits home to anyone who is a mother.  I like how the paragraphs transition and  the flow of the topics.  The way this article is written and the the topics the author covers make you laugh, cry, and really relate to the things she says.  Being a mom is a tremendous roller coaster ride of every emotion there is.  I would recommend this article to anyone who is a parent.  I e mailed it to my younger sister who is 5 months pregnant with her first child.

I’m sitting in the Fall River public library, waiting for their preschool story group to start.  I have always been drawn to children this age, they are so emotionally charged and eager to learn to things.  The simplest things grab their attention and they retain so much of what they learn every day of their busy little lives.  Reading to this age group is a particularly interesting observation for me.  I think children love books almost instinctively.  With a great group like this I can’t wait to see how they react to the story.

A mother walks in with her little boy, his face, as he sees all the colorful books standing up on the shelves, shows the kind of excitement only a small child has.  They are early for the story group.  The boy’s mom sits at the small table with him and reads books to him.  Then they play at the little sand table.  Tiny boats and cars scratching around in the sand as they were pushed with magnets from underneath the table.  Next they make puzzles.  The little boy, who has dark curly hair, places puzzle pieces while his mom makes train noises and calls out letters of the alphabet.  The attention she’s giving him is wonderful to watch.  He can’t be more than two years old, yet he’s quiet and attentive.  I could tell his mom spends this kind of time with him often.  What a lucky little boy! He starts crying, I think he’s getting impatient.  His mom starts to tickle and play with him, making him laugh and giggle.

More people arrive, another mother and son duo.  This little boy has blonde hair and a dinosaur on his bright yellow shirt.  He walks right over to the dark-haired boy and they start playing together right away.  I wonder if they have met before.  They act like they already knew each other but the mothers act differently.  The boys talk that language together that’s somewhere between baby talk and plain English.  What a great way for them to develop their first social skills.  I think it’s something wonderful that most children automatically like each other and they are willing to strike up a conversation with each other without the fear of rejection.

A father came in with another little boy and a newborn baby.  This little boy is about 18-months old, wearing a blue shirt and has straight brown hair peeking out from under a little blue baseball cap.

The story group leader, who’s name is Jackie,  just came in and is ready to start the group.  We all follow her into a large room across the hall from the children’s room in the library.  The room is bright white and has long tables set up with blue chairs for the adults and red play mats scattered on the floor waiting for the eager little listeners.  There’s a wooden chair in the front of the room for Jackie to sit, a wooden play table for the children to play and a white dry-erase board with markers of all colors on its tray.  There are more and more sets of parents and children coming in.  There’s a beautiful blonde-haired girl about two years old sitting on her mom’s lap, 2 chairs down from me.  She keeps looking at me and my notebook, watching me write.  I wonder what she’s thinking.  She has beautiful brown eyes and a cute but serious face.

While waiting for the rest of the group to arrive, Jackie puts out a bin with construction paper and safety scissors.  The children immediately start to cut.  I just heard someone say that the kids are going to make frogs together after the story.  I can’t wait!  I will get to see them interact closer than just sitting together listening to a story.

Time to read!  Kids and parents start to head over to their red mats.  Small talk and introductions ensue.  Jackie tells us the book of the day is Froggy Gets Dressed.  “What’s out the window?” Jackie asks.  “SNOW!” yell the children.

I like Jackie; she’s very animated.  The kids love it.  She asks a question about each page and the kids answer very excitedly then they all giggle.  A little blonde-haired boy about two years old is shyly answering questions while hiding his face in his mom’s shirt.

It seems “Froggy” is forgetting all the things he needs to wear in order to go out and play in the snow.

Two of the boys are getting antsy.  They’re both a little younger than the other children.  I wonder if that is the reason for their short attention span.

Jackie finished reading the book and is now singing a song with the children.  “Five green and speckled frogs, sitting on a speckled log, eating some most delicious bugs”.  “YUM, YUM!” the kids all yell.  I remember singing this song with my own kids.  The beautiful blonde-haired girl with the brown eyes is very attentive and interactive.  The blonde boy (who I heard was named Cole) keeps rubbing his tummy when he yells yum, yum.

The song is over and it’s now time to play.  Three of the boys go straight to the Legos.  The girl and a little boy about 18 months go to the table to make their craft frogs.  This makes me wonder if there could be a gender predisposition making the only girl in the group go to the craft table while the boys went to the blocks.

Now there’s dinosaurs!  Two of the boys dig in to the plastic bag and grab their dinos.  One of the boys, whose name is Kayden, puts a dinosaur in the Lego bin and looks at his mom, who tells him, “No, dinosaurs don’t go in there. “  Him looking at her while he was doing it makes me think he already knew dinosaurs don’t go in the Lego bin.  The 18-month-old boy whose mom made him do the craft is dying to get up and play with the other little boys he’s been watching play the whole time his mom made his craft froggy.

Jackie just informed me that this is an Early Intervention story hour and is a little different from the regular story group.  I never would have guessed that.  These children seem like perfectly normal, happy, playful and attentive toddlers.  The fact that their parents took the time to bring them here speaks volumes to me.  If you’re willing to put the time in with your kids and help them learn at these early stages in their lives, the benefits are never-ending.  These kids may never know that they once needed Early Intervention because their parents are willing to help them develop and grow at their own pace.

The first little boy that came in today just took puzzle pieces from Kayden.  The boy’s mother gently took the pieces from his hand and gave a short explanation about taking things that don’t belong to him and he was fine with it.  The puzzle pieces were returned and there wasn’t a peep of frustration from either child.  I’m impressed.  That mom dissolved the situation quickly and calmly.  (Maybe we DO need a woman President.)  Kayden is putting all the Legos back in their bin.  His father asks him why he doesn’t clean up his toys at home.

I’m still surprised at how quiet it is in here.  These “terrible twos” seem pretty harmless to me.

The man who came with the little boy and the baby is sitting with the baby in his lap.  I’ve noticed that the little boy hasn’t left his baby brother’s side.  He’s been active and playing the whole time but has kept on looking over at his little brother every few minutes.  I think that is so great that he is already protective and looking out for his little brother  How sweet a sibling can be sometimes.

Two of the boys are stomping their feet going in circles and roaring with their dinosaurs in their hands.  I wish we all had so much imagination!

A small fight broke out between two of the younger boys when one tried to take a Lego from the bin the other boy was holding.  There’s some of the crying I thought I’d hear.  The boy holding the bin is very upset and he’s letting the other child know–I was playing with these!  His mom picked him up and snuggled him.  Mommy’s hugs and kisses fix everything.

A couple that came here together is very affectionate with each other.  It’s wonderful to watch their happy, loving family interact.

It’s time to clean up and the children are all actually cleaning up.  They’re putting everything back in its place like good little children.  That father is right, I bet they don’t clean up like this at home.

All the children are going next door to the children’s room to pick out library books.  I guess my time is up.

I’m glad I picked the preschool story hour to observe.  I had a wonderful time watching the children play and interact with each other.  They seem to have a language all their own, understanding each other even when we don’t.  It was nice  to see a room full of happy parents enjoying their children.  I honestly believe children are an investment and what you put in to them you will get back ten fold.  Preschoolers are amazing little people with blooming personalities. With some of the social skills I saw today, they might even teach us adults a thing or two!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/fashion/couples-therapists-confront-the-stresses-of-their-field.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1330876893-scbE+30blpLt2YDJFo1NfA

This article is about couples therapists and the stresses they feel everyday at their jobs.  I like how this article is written.  It was easy to read and had a good flow to it.  The article mentions how couples therapy got its start and how it has progressed  over the years.  I liked this quote from the article: “Ms. Satir claimed that the goal of marriage therapy was “not to maintain the relationship nor to separate the pair but to help each other to take charge of himself.”  After all, we are not just trying to function as a couple, but as individuals as well.

http://life.salon.com/2012/01/16/get_used_to_living_with_mom_and_dad/singleton/

I really liked this article.  It is about how many adults are living with their parents nowadays.  This article was well-written, in my opinion.  It covered different aspects of what the author called the “accordion Family”.  Adults are living with their parents for many different reasons.  Many are because of this terrible economy, whether it be because there is no work, or because they have houses they can’t pay for due to the housing market.  I liked that the author said,  “The problem with the next generation is that they’re spending money freely and they have expectations that are too high, and they’re not as disciplined.” I have to agree.  Credit card debt is ruining the next generation.  There are different reasons too.  For some families, living together is nothing new.  A sense of “family” and the fact that you should take care of those who have taken care of you has played a major role in this, especially because people are living longer now too.  Overall, this article was useful, interesting and a pleasure to read.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/07/babes-in-the-woods/5974/?single_page=true

This article is about  a mother who realizes how scary the Internet can be for her children.  I liked her writing style, but I think she could’ve gotten her point across with a lot less words.  It amazes me how parents who are raising children in this age of technology can be so ignorant to the fact that their kids are posting their entire lives online.  My computer is in my dining room, where everyone can see.  Children have no need for privacy while on the computer.  Parents need to keep an eye on their kids, check the history online, click on their “favorites” once in a while. It’s not snooping, it’s being a good parent.  Be active in your kids’ lives also.  The author of this article found a neighborhood girl on MySpace, found lots of pictures of her, her family and her boyfriend, and with little trouble found her school & where she would be almost every day of her life. Scary.

http://open.salon.com/blog/ann_nichols/2012/02/16/about_my_kid

This is an article about a woman who is struggling with the person her son is becoming.  Everyone in her family went to a well-known college and she wants her son to do the same.  She feels like she did everything she could to raise him to be the man she hoped he would be.  But he has other ideas.  He hates school and has no interest in anything having to do with school.  But he is a wonderful person. He’s sweet, smart, well-mannered and very comfortable in his skin.  If you ask me, that’s more than most of us could hope for.  Life’s not just about college and a prestigious position at work.  I hope my kids will grow up to be happy, whatever that means to them individually.  He is smart, and gifted at fixing computers so she should just let him find his own path.  We don’t all fit into a cookie-cutter design.  The fact that he’s happy with himself and is respectful and an overall good person…that alone means she did her job.

Choices.

     The phone rang.  I thought I was dreaming.  Nope, it rang again.  The Caller ID tells me it’s the hospital.  The doctor on the other end tells me that my Mom was brought in about an hour ago because the nurses at the home she lived in found her non-responsive in her room.  I think the doctor was a little surprised that my reaction wasn’t the panic he expected but more of an “Okay, thank you for letting me know.  Please keep me informed.”  He couldn’t understand why I wasn’t in my car in my pjs, half way to the hospital before he finished his sentence.  The things this particular doctor didn’t know are that my Mom had been found non-responsive by her nurses at least five times before, both of her lungs had collapsed three times, she’d been in a coma twice, and, my Mom was Superwoman and is going to live forever.  That, and when you have a four-year-old fast asleep in the other room and two boys that need to go to school in the morning, it’s a tough decision to make.  I still wonder if I made the right one.

About an hour later the phone rang again.  This time the doctor told me, “I’m sorry, but your mother has expired.”  I sat there processing for a second, then asked the dumbest question I’ve ever asked in my life.  “Are you sure?”  He didn’t know how to answer me.  That’s what he gets for breaking such delicate news in a rotten-milk like fashion.  But like I said before, this particular doctor had no idea the horrendous things this super-human SuperMom had gone through.  She’s died twice before.  Once in an ambulance, right outside her house while my little sister cried on the grass, still clinging to the fence.  The other time was at Charlton Memorial Hospital, which resulted in a two-month-long coma that she suffered through at Mass General in Boston.

That was three years ago now.  I think one of the hardest things about losing someone you love is that there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.  No amount of sorrow, regret, or anger is going to give you even five seconds back, even if it’s just to say, “I’m Sorry,” “I love you,” or ‘I still really need you and I always will”.  There’s been times when I swear I would’ve given my own life just to sit in that uncomfortable hospital chair with my cheek against the cold, hard plastic bed rail and hold her sweaty little hand just one more time.  To let her know I was there for her, one more time.  There wasn’t a dose of Morphine stronger than my Mom’s love for “her girls”.  She always knew whenever me or my little sister were in the room.  We’d stay passed visiting hours because all the nurses knew us and they loved my Mom.  So incredibly sick, in a tremendous amount of pain, but she never ever complained.

As a daughter, I simply adored my Mom.  She was beautiful, smart, funny, and my best friend.  She was my SuperMom.  She worked hard, kept a spotless house, and mended everything from dolly clothes to broken hearts.  It’s a crazy thing, when you see your Mom get sick.  A strange roll-reversal takes place that you’re never truly ready for.  We were both too young for this.  It’s very hard for a mom to allow herself to be taken care of.  My Mom got sick around the time I became a Mom myself.  Seeing her sick, taking care of her, made me see her as a person for the first time.  A human being, someone who made mistakes like normal people do.  I guess even SuperMom could have picked up a bad habit or two.  Imagine that? For my super-terrific, seemingly perfect Mom it was smoking.  See….she was so great, even her bad habits were not so bad!  Or so it would seem.  My Mom had what’s called alpha-one deficiency.  It basically takes anything harmful to your body and magnifies it times ten.  So, because smoking cigarettes was her thing, by the time she was in her forties she had the lungs of an eighty-year-old woman.  She had the opportunity about fifteen years ago to get a lung transplant that would have greatly improved the quality and longevity of her life.  The only catch–she had to quit smoking for six months before they could perform the surgery.  That never happened.  She chose cigarettes over her life.  For a long time I thought that meant that she chose her love of cigarettes over her love of her family.  But I know that addiction is addiction, whether it be drinking, drugs, or just some smelly habit you picked up as a teenager that you never thought would take your life.

I know that we are all human, we make mistakes.  But my experiences have made me think about choices and how strongly the affect the ones we love.  As a mother of three, I think about how these choices affect our kids.  Parents really need to be aware of how strongly every decision we make affects our children.  It’s 2012, unless you live under a rock, we all know smoking is bad for us.  You know it’s bad for your kids.  So maybe you smoke outside or in the other room, for your kids.  But you know what..you’re still hurting them everyday, by hurting yourself.  Your kids look up to you.  They need you.  Take it from me, they always will.  Your kids will always need their parents, even when they’re adults.  So make better choices.  For yourself.  For THEM.  Because the people you love, love you too.