Archive for the 'Essays' Category

Is technology driving us apart – or closer together?

Published May 10, 2012 Creative Life , Creative Parenting , Creativity Coaching , Essays , Marketing , Social Commentary Leave a Comment
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I recently attended The Art of Marketing conference in Chicago featuring Seth Godin and the question was posed to the audience: how many of you feel like technology is isolating us as a society? I did not raise my hand. I looked around and was shocked to see the majority of hands up. Now, I’ve seen this question posed in forums like TED, NPR and other thoughtful, intellectual places. But I hadn’t really formed an opinion. Until now.

I think technology is driving the need for people to come together more urgently than ever before. Children are on Facebook and Twitter doing what one expert described as “self revealing before self reflecting.” Technology changes are eliminating some jobs yet creating new ones. Our economy has been turned inside out and upside down. The business climate changes faster than Chicago weather in two hours. The changes driven by technology are happening so fast, we don’t have time to process it, let alone buy the next generation device.

As a marketing professional, I’m excited. So many new opportunities! So many new ways to communicate and share! So many new things to learn and master! As a wife, mother and regular person who regularly forgets to water her plants, yells at my kids when they get on my last remaining nerve, and can never seem to remember where I last placed my coffee or my glasses, it terrifies me.

That’s why I feel the basics of connection are more important than ever before. Saying good morning, please and thank you. Taking time before a meeting for personal chat before diving into the project at hand. Making time to meet for coffee. Asking someone, “How are you?” and meaning it – then listening thoughtfully to the answer. Picking up the phone and calling instead of emailing or texting (once in a while, anyway – I’m not really a phone talker). Sitting down for dinner with the kids with the TV off, cell phones/iPads/iPods/laptops put away, and taking turns asking how everyone’s day was. We ask questions and listen to the answers: what’s something good that happened? Bad? Sad? What is something new you learned today? What surprised you?

One of my proudest moments as a parent was when my then 11-year-old son came home from school and said he had good news to share. “What is it?” I asked excitedly. He smiled secretively and said, “I’ll save it to share at dinner.” This from a kid who believes MineCraft is a metaphor for life. :)

I think that technology is a reminder that as much as things change – or no matter how fast – we can get through it if we stick together. And remember that no technology can ever replace the basic need we all have: to connect. To share. To belong. To know our place in the big, bad, technologically savvy world. And to know that at the end of any day, someone will be sitting at the table waiting to hear about your day.

Back to the Art of Marketing conference, the first speaker: Keith Ferrazzi, best-selling author and thought leader, who spoke about relationship marketing. Technology might enable relationships. But people sustain them.

What do you think? Is technology driving us apart or driving us closer together?

Why are girls so mean?!

Published April 19, 2012 Creative Families , Creative Life , Creativity Coaching , Essays , Kids , Social Commentary 3 Comments
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Tonight I comforted my 1o-year-old daughter – again – about her break-up with her best friend. It wasn’t her idea. So while she is struggling to understand why her best friend no longer wants to be her best friend, her former best friend has moved on and is doing just fine with her new best friend. And it is getting uglier every day. I hug her as she sobs and describes in painstaking detail about the latest transgression with the ‘new best friend.’ And I feel completely, utterly at a loss to explain to her what is happening and why.

My daughter is on the far right. This is not the best friend she broke up with. It is someone she met once, one hour earlier...at an age before girls start turning on each other.

How do you explain to her that girls – all people – can be mean? Really really mean? That they don’t care that you go home at night and cry your heart out after holding in your feelings all day long? I’m not a psychologist. I’m just a mom. I’ve seen the movie “Mean Girls” and heard about the book “Queen Bees and Wannabees.” But sitting there on my daughter’s bed, seeing her lip quivering as she tried to hold back the tears, I could remember nothing from either the movie or the book in that moment.

It used to be so easy when she was younger. There was some drama, but now in fourth grade, it seems to have reached a new level. My first reaction is to comfort her and tell her I’m sorry she is having to go through this. I hug her. I listen to the stories. I empathize. I rack my brain to come up with something, anything, to tell her that will help. But I can’t fix it. I’m no expert on behavior. All I can do is tell her what I know to be true.

1. You don’t need 527 friends. Just one or two real ones. This is a tough one to explain when you are not the popular girl. My daughter has already been bullied in school and via text, though. She knows what it’s like every day to not be the popular girl – and what it’s like when the popular girl suddenly drops you. It’s a bitter, painful lesson and I hate to see her learn it. But I know she must. It’s part of growing up, made so much more complicated in our 24/7, always-on world full of technological ways to be bullied and reminded that you are on the outside looking in.

2. Own your part. I remind my girl of how she behaved badly at times when she was the best friend of the popular girl. She cries a little more, but I don’t let up on her. I remind her that others felt then just as badly as she feels now. Remember this, I tell her. Now that you know how it feels, you must be sure that you never, ever make anyone else feel the way you do right now. She nods. I know that I will need to remind her of this again. But I can see the seed is planted.

3. Be yourself. It’s hard to explain to a child that in a world where conformity is the norm, that it’s best to be your true self. When you do, you will make friends who see you for who you truly are and appreciate and love you for who you really are – warts, goofy humor, big feet and all. It may not happen tomorrow. It may not make you the most popular girl in school now. But you will have better, deeper friendships. You will be happier with who you are because you are not looking for someone else’s stamp of approval. You are the only one who give yourself that.

But my daughter is still learning who she is. She knows, but I think in weak moments like this, she forgets. So I remind her. I tell my daughter all that I know to be true about her: she is smart, creative, artistic, musical, funny, and sweet. I tell her she is an original and has a spark that lights her up inside. She listens to this very carefully. She desperately needs to hear this, to have herself mirrored back to her because right now she has lost sight of who she is. And at 10, she doesn’t know yet who she is, and the road before her to figure that out is long and hard. I want to make sure I give her the right tools for the journey.

4. You can’t control others, only how you react to them. I have to remind myself of this all the time, I tell her. You can drive yourself crazy trying to make someone like you or wishing they would change or treat you better or that things would go back to the way they were. But it is a waste of energy because you can’t change someone else. Never. Ever. So focus on what you can control and change: yourself.

5. Your feelings are perfectly normal. But it’s what you do with them that matters. I pull out the book I am reading, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and show her a picture of the brain that shows how feelings enter the limbic part of the brain first, where emotions are experienced. The picture shows that beyond that part of the brain is the rational center of the brain. Some people get stuck in the emotional part of the brain and don’t connect to the rational part, so that they can understand and analyze the feelings to try to make sense of them. Not all kids are into this kind of thing, but my daughter loves to see the science and order behind the chaos. She asks to see the book and studies the picture. And you know what? It calmed her. It made sense to her. She needed that because feelings don’t always make sense and they can be big and scary.

In the end, I turn to my words because as a writer, it is all I have. I ask my daughter: what is the center of the universe? And she says, the sun. And I ask her: who is the sun of your universe? She looks down at her stuffed bear. I tell her that right now, she is making her ex-friend the center of her universe. I tell her that she needs to be the center of her own universe. She looks up at me, hopeful, and I can see that she gets it.

I don’t tell her that someday she may have a child who will become the new center of her universe. There is time for that later. For now, tonight, she needs to know that making anyone else the center of your universe – whether it’s a best friend, a spouse, the popular girl in school – will throw your entire universe off balance. And you will cry yourself to sleep every night.

Be the center of your own universe, I tell my daughter. You are smart. You are funny. You are sweet. You are musical and artistic. You are an original. You are creative. You are loving. You are loved.

I only hope my words did not fail me tonight.

What’s so great about being in your 40′s

Published December 1, 2011 Creative Life , Essays , Social Commentary Leave a Comment
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I was talking with a good friend (are there any other kind?) the other day, and we were discussing work and the various challenges we were facing. And he said, “You’re in your 40′s, you’re supposed to be challenged.” I laughed, but later, that comment stuck with me. Most of the articles I read about being in your 40′s are related to the crappy stuff: what you can’t wear anymore, things you can’t do anymore because you’re of  ’a certain age’ now, exercising for your age, blah blah blah.

How come no one talks about the good stuff that can happen once you cross over to the land of 40? Here are five positive things I’ve noticed kicked in this decade:

1. Lower bullshit tolerance. I’ve found that the older I get, the less bullshit I am willing to tolerate. Toxic people, bad behavior, activities I participated in for other people not myself…I don’t have time or patience for it anymore. Maybe it’s because you realize in your 40′s that half your life is behind you and you never know how much more is in front of you, so why waste it on people or things you don’t like?

2. Higher empathy quotient. I’ve always been an overachiever, and in expecting a lot from myself, I think I expected too much from others, too. Maybe it’s because I’m a mom and I see how this approach doesn’t work with kids. Maybe it’s because I have a child who has ADHD and I see him struggle to overcome his challenges. Maybe it’s watching my dad struggle a little more as he approaches 80 years old. Whatever it is, I’ve learned to slow down, listen when people talk and try to hear between the lines, and try to understand where they’re coming from. We’re all doing the best we can.

3. More patience. While my bullshit tolerance has gone down, I think I have gained a little more patience. I’ve never been good at that, but between juggling work, kids, and life, you drop a few balls sometimes…so you have to learn to roll with the punches. I’ve forgotten picture day at school, shown up at meetings with Cheerios in my hair (from the babies, not me!), and once went to an event with a lollipop stuck to the back of my skirt (thanks kids for leaving that on my front seat for me!) It makes me much more understanding when things don’t go as planned.

4. More inward focus, less outward. I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the more I find myself seeking out things that will make me more balanced on the inside. Finding more meaning in my creative work, forging deeper connections with people I care about, letting go of the past so I can see what’s in front of me…all of these things matter more to me today than they ever did before.

5. More incentive to stay strong. Let’s face it, after 40+ years on the planet, you’ve experienced everything from the death of loved ones to job loss to money woes, illness, kid drama and everything in between. It can make you feel 100 years old — if you let it. And it’s hard to watch older relatives struggle with illness and age-related issues. If you’ve ever seen what cancer or Alzheimer’s can do to someone you love, you know what I mean. It inspires me to eat healthier, work out more and try to take better care of myself so that I can stay strong for the long haul.

So maybe I am wearing all the wrong things for my age, but I’m still learning, I’m still challenging myself, and I’m doing the best I can. What do you say? What’s great about your 40′s? Or was there another decade that was even better for you?

Celebrating Mother’s Day when Mom’s not there

Published May 6, 2011 Creative Families , Creative Life , Essays , Holidays 2 Comments
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We all know what moms are supposed to be: patient, kind and loving. They are supposed to know how to sing lullabies and kiss boo-boo’s. They are supposed to cook and clean and decorate cupcakes like it’s nobody’s business. They are supposed to work hard at home and at work and be good friends, good daughters, good sisters and aunts. But most importantly?

They are supposed to be there.

Moms should be there when it counts: at our sporting events and school plays. For our first kiss, first job, first marriage. Moms should be there when you become a mom and join the ‘hood. They should be there for every baby thereafter. Moms should be there forever.

But what happens when they’re not? What do you do when they leave or get sick or die? What do you do when they are there but disconnected, in a “lights are on but nobody’s there” way? What do you do when they are there but you wish they weren’t? And then Mother’s Day comes along, with its high expectations for a Norman Rockwell (or should I say Normal Rockwell) day?

My mom died on March 18, 1994. It was six months before my wedding. By the time her cancer was diagnosed, it was too late, but we didn’t know it then, my sister, father and I. We didn’t have Google or WebMD then; hope was all we had. But that was a long time ago, right? I’m done with that, right? With two kids of my own now, Mother’s Day should be a snap. Right??

But what I am learning is that when there are all these things a mom is supposed to be, you are never “done” coming to terms with the loss of a parent. Your grief merely changes shape over time. My mom and I did not always see eye to eye. She died before I really came into my own as a person, so I like to think that we would have become friends. But I’ll never really know.

I am (mostly) OK with this. I don’t cry anymore on Mother’s Day. I don’t choke up anymore when I see a mother and daughter walking in the mall who look so alike there is no doubt they are mother/daughter. But  seeing my older sister being a grandparent to her grandchildren, I feel the sadness and loss of what my children will never experience. When my elderly neighbors invite their adult children and the grandchildren over for Sunday dinner, there is something about the sight of the grey-haired couple standing on their porch stoop, waving goodbye as everyone backs out of the driveway…it’s the sting of what will never be.

I know what a mom is supposed to be. But here’s what my mom really was: she insisted on family dinners every Sunday. She wore her hair in a beehive long after it ceased being fashionable (it was once, right?). She never got her hair wet in the pool and she could sew a pantsuit like it was nobody’s business. She made the best homemade chicken noodle soup. She loved McDonald’s but maybe Long John Silver’s a little more. She read People magazine and The Star and Enquirer. She loved Elizabeth Taylor. She told me I could go to college someday, even though no one else in our family, herself included, had ever gone.

When she died, I didn’t know how to be a wife or mother. She was a buffer between being a kid and a grown-up and when she died, it was like the earth cracked open and I lost everything, myself included. But here’s the thing: I got stronger, too.

I learned how to decorate a house and order window treatments. I never learned how to sew but I did learn that a tailor and a dry cleaner work even better. I learned how to cook for 20 and make pie crusts from scratch. I learned that life is short and tomorrow doesn’t always come, so I finished my grad school application and got that MFA I’d been thinking about. I learned that if I wanted something, I was going to have to get it for myself. And while I missed Mom’s stamp of approval on my life, there is something liberating about charting your own course, free of someone else’s idea of what it should look like. My life felt more real because I had more at stake and no one to blame but me if I failed.

I remember after one particularly bitter fight when I was about 12, my mom gave me a long look and said, “You’re going to write about this some day, aren’t you?” I gave her my best eye roll and a snotty ‘tween look, but deep down, we both knew she was right. Dammit.

Miss you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.

The greatest Valentine’s Day gift: make fun of someone you love today

Published February 14, 2011 Creative Life , Essays , Fun , Social Commentary 3 Comments
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So my husband and I were having a…discussion the other day about my apparent need to tease him. Now, I don’t go out of my way to mock him. I don’t get sarcastically mean or tear him down in front of other people, nothing like that. But I do like to point out his…idiosyncracies.

For example, Hubby despises mayonnaise. He tells everyone he’s allergic to it. (We all know this is not possible.) He also despises when I defrost frozen meat in the microwave and then cook it. (He claims he can taste the difference.) These are little things, but they are the little wacky things that make him…my Hubby and not someone else’s. I am endeared by his charming quirks.

That’s exactly why I joke around with him about it. I notice these things because I love him. And how do I show affection to people I love? I make fun of then. Or rather, I make fun WITH them. It’s a long, storied family tradition. Joking around and affectionate teasing go all the way back to my grandmother on my father’s side. One of my relative’s on that side is a professional clown, for God’s sake.

Whenever I get together with my family, we all joke around, teasing each other, making fun of ourselves (we can dish it AND take it), but mostly, laughing. A lot. Of course, like a lot of people, we’ve had struggles: cancer, unemployment, marital distress, financial trouble. But we as a family have always used humor to keep us on track. To keep us sane. To make life fun no matter how dark the world may be. That’s when we all need a little lightness.

Last night, as my husband fended me off from joking about his hunt-and-peck method of typing, I told him the truth: I love you, therefore I tease you. I only reserve my joking and kidding for people I really, really care about. If I didn’t love him, I explain, I would never laugh at him OR with him. But mostly, I am trying to create that connection with him that is ingrained in me from The Family Way: when you love someone, you laugh with them. Sometimes at them, but mostly with them. :)

So this Valentine’s Day–Hallmark holiday that it is–make laughter with someone you love today.

 

Money, blue collar roots and butt steak: lessons my father taught me

Published January 12, 2011 Essays , Social Commentary 4 Comments
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I took my father out for dinner this weekend for his birthday. He is 79 and I can write about him here because he would think I said “frog” not “blog” and then I would spend 20 minutes trying to explain to him what a blog was. My dad is a steel mill guy. He has never used a computer. His hands are now so arthritic and knobby that it’s hard for him to use his cell phone. I can’t leave him voice mails because he doesn’t know how to check his voice mail and I’ve given up trying to explain it. Needless to say, he won’t be checking my blog anytime soon.

It was an old-school steak restaurant in Northwest Indiana, close to his house, that still has a coat room and serves $30 steaks and iceberg lettuce salads. It used to be one his favorite restaurants to bring my mom. There were still Christmas lights on the plants. My husband and I, at 41, were the youngest couple in the place.

My son sat across the table looking pissy as I tried to get him to pick something off the menu, my daughter is babbling about her science fair project, my husband is ordering a kiddie cocktail (for himself) and appetizers, while all I know is that the restaurant has salmon, because my dad keeps asking me every 30 seconds what I’m going to order, which means I can never get past the first entrée on the menu.

So I tell my dad to order anything he wants. New York Strip, filet mignon, appetizers. I know his budget is tight, so he doesn’t come to this restaurant much anymore.

“It’s your birthday!” I say. “It’s my treat! Splurge!”

“Okay,” he says, rubbing his hands together eagerly. He looks very handsome in a spiffy sweater with a shirt and tie underneath. He picks up the menu and he peers at it through his bifocals. His hands shake a little.

The waitress appears.

“What will you have?” she says.

He orders the butt steak, one of the toughest and cheapest cuts of meat on the menu. Some things never change.

“Dad!” I plead. “Come on, don’t you want a nicer cut of meat? What about a filet?”

“That’s $30, Chris,” he says and waves me away. “I like butt streak.”

“Right,” I say.

“I do!” he insists. “It’s the cow’s butt!”

Then he lets loose a big whooping laugh and punches me in the shoulder.

After dinner, my dad thanked me profusely, saying the butt steak was delicious. As we waited for the kids to put their coats on and stop bickering, he pointed at a photo on the wall of a 1950′s red Cadillac convertible. He whistled and said, “Look at that.” I asked him when was the last time he went ballroom dancing. He said, oh, not for a long time. Many of the bands and halls he used to frequent are no longer around. Now he spends most of his time at the nursing home, visiting his wife who has Alzheimer’s.

On the way home, I watched the cities and lights roll past in the dark. The day my father told me that I was making a higher salary than he ever had in 37 years working at the mill, I didn’t know what to say. We’d never talked much about money before, but as he gets older and his social security budget gets tighter, he’s asking more questions about how much things cost, what I spend on the nice salsa I bought for him, etc. My salary isn’t excessive by any means, and in this economy, I’m happy to be working.

Yet–being the first person in my working-class family to go to college, I am keenly aware of how different my life could have been. Seeing my dad now is a reminder of how quickly life can change, how quickly a job, money, friends, your whole way of life, can disappear. The only constant in life is change. It’s a reminder to live carefully and sometimes, order the butt instead of the filet.

Life has passed my father by. I have passed my father by. I know things, have experienced things, that he never will because he doesn’t have a college degree, he missed the technology boat completely, and is closer to the end of his life while I am more in the middle. That’s why I want my dad to enjoy a good steak, to splurge a little. He deserves it.

My husband said that’s the way it goes. Parents always want better for their kids than they had. I know he’s right. I am grateful to my parents for helping me get to this point in my life, for all the sacrifices they’ve made, which I am only now, at 41 and a parent of two, slowly coming to understand deeply and more clearly than ever before. I like to think that if my mother were here, she’d be happy to see what I’ve accomplished.

Now if I can just convince my dad that he doesn’t have to order butt steak next time around, then I’ll feel like I’ve really made it.

Drinking and decorating: The anti-Martha-Stewart-Pottery-Barn Christmas tree

Published December 17, 2010 Creative Families , Creative Life , Creative Parenting , Essays , Fun , Kids , Social Commentary 8 Comments
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Two years ago, I turned over the job of decorating my Christmas tree to my kids, then ages 7 and 9. We had just moved into our “new” 54-year-old house that needed a lot of TLC and was sucking the life out of us. After months of looking for new places for our furniture, artwork, books, games, dishes, and walking into walls in unfamiliar rooms in the middle of the night and grasping for unfamiliar light switches, the thought of having to find a good place for the Christmas tree was the last straw. I sat on the floor of the house that still felt like someone else’s and cried.

This was not Christmas as I’d known it growing up. Holidays were BIG at my house and consisted of cleaning, cooking, shopping, baking, more cleaning, coordinating outfits, practicing Christmas songs on the organ (I know, right???), wrapping, more cleaning, making cookies, making pierogis, and more cleaning. My mother spent days arranging decorations in the house; she was Martha Stewart before anyone had heard of Martha Stewart.

I was never permitted to touch the “good” tree upstairs, but I was allowed to decorate the “other” tree in the basement. I call it the consolation tree. (Usually my mother would come down later and rearrange all the ornaments again anyway.) Secretly I fear I’ll never be good enough to put together the good tree.

See, that’s why the holidays are tricky. There’s all this pressure to be merry and buy stuff but it’s also fraught with memories, good and bad. Sometime after Halloween, I remember all the old family holiday parties and every year, there are a few less faces around the table. Some years are harder than others. That year in our new old house was a hard one.

So I let my kids decorate the good–the only–tree all by themselves that year, and it was so much fun we decided to make it a new Miles family tradition. We play holiday music. I make hot chocolate.  The kids dance around all hopped up on sugar cookies. They make me wear the Santa hat with the reindeer antlers. But they take their job very seriously. Each ornament is placed with great care and consideration, although I have the most random, crazy mix of ornaments you could possibly imagine. It’s enough to make Martha’s toes curl.

The reactions to their decorating efforts are usually…not good. People walk in, look at the tree and say things like, “Oh my!” or “Were you drinking and decorating again?” It makes me wonder sometimes how my mom felt when she stood back, alone, to survey her tree and the trimmings and the perfection. I would ask, but her last Christmas was 16 years ago. If she could see my tree now, she would immediately shoo me out of the room so she could fix it. I would let her do it, but only if she wore the Santa hat with the reindeer antlers, which she’d hate because it would mess up her hair.

So yeah, my tree looks disheveled and a little tipsy, kind of like me after the neighborhood holiday party–OK, all of the neighborhood parties–and the complete opposite of any tree ever featured in Pottery Barn.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Please don’t feed the demons

Published October 15, 2010 Creative Families , Creative Life , Creative Parenting , Creativity Coaching , Essays , Social Commentary 2 Comments
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Confession: I have a demon. I was reminded of it as I watched a new E! series, “What’s Eating You: True stories about food, fear and obsession.”  The first episode features two 20-something girls suffering from anorexia. The cameras followed them through their lives, therapy sessions, as well as  interactions at home and work.

Warning: Watching a show like this is not like watching the old “After School Specials“ some may remember from the 70′s and 80′s. It’s less scripted, more raw and real. Viewer discretion is advised.

It was devastating to watch one girl being told she “didn’t have to come to work anymore” as a dancer because she had failed to get the help she needed–the breaking point was when a customer complained that she was “disturbing” to look at. Her body fat was a mere 8%–normal for her age is 18-25%.

As the second girl sat stone-faced in a therapy session, refusing to come out from behind her Hoover dam holding back gallons of raw emotion, my throat closed up and I thought, I know exactly what that feels like. I flashed back to adolescence and the late teens/early 20′s, that time when everyone says you have your whole life ahead of you, only it didn’t feel like it. Not one little bit.

We all have our personal demons.
In 1983, when I first faced mine, there were no words for my demon, let alone reality TV shows about it. Only a handful of people outside of my family knew. People didn’t speak openly about their demons then. At least, not at my house. Even now, I can’t bring myself to tell you specifics.

While my demon was not anorexia, it was a coping mechanism that I used to relieve emotional pain, to escape from an overwhelming sense of powerlessness and deep sadness that made my bones ache. It was not acceptable to be anything less than happy or perfect growing up and I was really, really good at pretending for a very long time.

My family didn’t know what to do, so they did nothing. Therapy was not as common then as it is now, at least not in my Midwestern community. Our family prided ourselves on being stoic and self-reliant. No better “therapy” than pulling yourself up by your  bootstraps. Except…I’d lost my boots. 

When I saw my own pain from years ago reflected in the eyes and faces of these girls as they struggled with their “affliction,” I wondered how seeing a show like this could have helped me back then. How it could have helped a lot of people. While some may argue that programs like this could influence, say, a young girl to consider anorexia. I say the seeds of that demon were already there.

Demons thrive in darkness, pain and secrecy. Programs like this turn the lights on so demons can’t hide anymore. Watching others struggle, we understand more and judge less. We see their pain. Hopefully, we learn to spot the first signs of demons in our loved ones and in ourselves so we can fight them sooner, harder. Demons can’t thrive  in truth and light and love. Wish the same were true of cockroaches and mold.

Are you feeding the demon?
But it’s never too late. One therapist on the show pointed out to a mother how she had inadvertently passed down a pattern of self-criticism to her daughters. She was feeding the demon and she didn’t even know it. It reminded me that I too must be vigilant. I must pay attention and listen closely to protect my children from…me. They will have demons of their own to contend with in life.

As for me, life did get better. It took time. I got help. I learned about boundaries and what I could control and what I couldn’t. Every challenge I survived taught me that there is light at the end of every tunnel. I grew up, I moved out. I remember my first night alone in my very own apartment. In the quiet, I could hear my heart healing.

If you’ve fought a demon and lived to tell about it, then you know what it’s like to claw your way back to the surface after being buried alive by raw emotion, dysfunction and fear, and to emerge–victorious, grateful–like the rescued miners in Chile, and say, I survived. It’s never easy, but demons can be tamed. They can be overcome.

Update (Oct. 18, 2010): Dan Savage’s It Gets Better Project popped up on my radar as a relevant link for those who are interested. While the videos are primarily to give hope to gay and lesbian youth that life does get better after adolescence, when bullying is often at is peak, it’s inspirational to hear the stories of others who have been through it and emerged on the other side, strong and happy.

Lessons from Oprah: 7 Reasons Why Reality TV is Good for You

Published September 29, 2010 Creative Life , Essays , Fun , Social Commentary 3 Comments
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Recently I was talking to a couple of college interns at work and happened to mention something I’d seen on MTV’s Jersey Shore the previous night. Before I could even finish, all three of them released a collective gasp. “YOU watch Jersey SHORE?” I nodded. They giggled as if I’d just told them I dressed like a chicken at parties on weekends to supplement my marketing gig. Hilarious how hilarious I’ve become without trying.

A friend put this into context for me: you have to keep up with current pop culture so that when you make references, you sound credible and current. But this is not that. I’m talking about the unspoken shame in admitting that you watch reality TV or like pop music.

While I occasionally tune in to NPR while driving, I prefer to listen to pop music. It wakes me up, OK? And sure, I watch documentaries on war and infrastructure. I dig Masterpiece Theater. But I also dabble in Dr. Phil and Teen Mom and Hoarders. I liked VH1′s Rock of Love. (Season 1 was my favorite.) And Oprah too–I was almost on Oprah, too. More on that soon.

So, for all of you out there who deem reality TV, talk shows and other stuff as beneath you, I offer 7 unscientific reasons why watching reality TV is good for you and why you should indulge from time to time:

1. You’ll sound less old. If you say, “What’s a Snooki?” or “What’s ‘The Situation‘,” you sound old. Now, maybe you are old and don’t mind admitting that you have no idea what “the kids” are watching these days. Me? I know I’m getting old. I see it in my reflection every day. I don’t need to be reminded of it every time someone mentions a TV show in conversation and I’m clueless. If you feel out of the loop on a daily basis in conversations, plop yourself in front of a reality TV channel and QUICK.

2. Get more street cred. Media viewing habits are so fragmented that it often seems as if we’re all watching something different. It’s nice to know what programs people are referring to, even if you don’t watch every single episode. It’s common ground in increasingly uncommon times. And you look like you are keeping up with the times and the Kardashians.

Plus, it’s fun surprising people. Once a new acquaintance made a comment about watching “LA Ink” and shyly said, “Oh, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about.” When I said I watched the show, knew who Kat Von D was and that I also had several tattoos, the conversation expanded and we went from acquaintance to friend in no time flat. You are what you watch. And so are your friends.

3. Be less shell-shocked by the “real world” when you see it. When I see people behaving badly or acting strangely or doing something some might consider “unconventional” out in the “real” real world, it’s not as shocking. I’ve probably already seen it or something like it on reality TV. I’ve had time to process my thoughts about “abnormal” behavior so it saves me time out in the real world. Now that’s efficient!

Confession: I like to say that I watch reality TV because I’m in marketing, and that’s partly true. I need to stay on top of what people are watching, not watching, what they’re saying, what’s hot, what’s not, so that I don’t write or pitch an idea that’s…old, out of touch or just not in sync with today’s world or my audience. It’s not for me. It’s for the good of the brands I represent. That’s…mostly true. Mostly, I enjoy it. And I don’t want to look old.

4. Reality TV is a self-esteem boost and stress relief. I can’t tell you how many times watching Super Nanny made me feel better about my shortcomings as a mom. And just knowing that there is a wife out in the world who bottles deer piss for her husband’s side business made me feel better about being my household’s primary dog pooper scooper.

Or how trying to watch the Real Housewives of any city took my mind off of the myriad things I worry about on a daily basis, from global warming to Did I sign that field trip permission slip? to potential layoffs at work down to, crap, am I wearing two different earrings AGAIN?, which leads to, Am I getting Alzheimer’s? Watching CNN gives me more things to worry about. Maybe this makes me a dunderhead, but as my design friend Kathy would say, “I’m sorry, but I’m not apologizing.”

5. Reality TV provides many teachable moments for kids. While we all agree some shows are not for kids, some have provided terrific opportunities for me to talk to my kids about things that matter. MTV’s Teen Moms is a perfect example. The girls on the show are often struggling to grow up themselves let alone raise a baby, sometimes without the support of the babies’ fathers or their families.

It’s a realistic, not glamorous, portrayal of real life. It’s made me realize what young teen moms really go through. Not everyone is open to having those types of conversations with their kids, but for those of us who are, this makes it easier to have conversations that otherwise might be forced or not had at all.

6. It’s guilt-free, budget-friendly fun. There’s not much to laugh about in today’s economy and I’m a busy working mom with two kids, no time and a lot of laundry, so I take my fun where I can get it. Reality TV is a perfectly safe, inexpensive  outlet that comes with my cable package, doesn’t require a sitter and won’t ruin my lungs or my liver, make me hungover or make my butt bigger (as long as I don’t eat M&M’s while watching it).

Unless you count how sheepish I am when Hubby catches me watching “Wife Swap” again and I say, “What?!? I’m watching it for work,” and he says, “Uh huh.” Then I remind him of his penchant for watching WWE and there is a moment of silence before he asks if I want some M&Ms. Speaking of Hubby…

7. Reality TV gives us something to talk about. Earlier this year, I took Hubby to the Oprah show. It was a surprise he would never in a million years guess let alone want. But early on in our relationship, he always liked to make our dates a surprise. So, competitive as I am, I have to spend the rest of our married life together trying to top him.

His birthday happens to be on the same day as Oprah’s and she was giving away tickets to people who shared her birthday. I wrote an essay about how I was going to blindfold him and drive him downtown early that morning and surprise him with tickets to the show. At the last minute, the producers asked if they could film the surprise and feature us on the show in a brief segment.

I was scrambling to make arrangements for my kids, so it didn’t dawn on me what would be entailed until the night before the show as I sat on my bed trying to videotape myself saying the loose script they had provided me with only hours earlier, at which time I panicked when I realized that:

A. I was going to need A LOT of makeup and I talk like a typical “Da Bears” Chicagoan (eek!)
B. This will be seen live by the ENTIRE WORLD including everyone I know (eek!)
C. My husband is NOT an Oprah fan and will NEVER speak to me again (ruh roh)
D. My husband is going to sit on Oprah’s stage during a LIVE show and look exactly like he does when I make him go shopping for pants: depressed, pained, trapped. (Oprah was gonna be pissed!)

Reality TV is a lot harder than it looks. Luckily, they called later that night to cancel our segment, replacing it with a “No texting and driving” one. We still got to go to the show and even received gift certificates for 4 free nights at a Hilton Hotel. Even though we didn’t appear on stage, I got so much out of that brush with reality TV’s 15 minutes of fame–between the clandestine calls to family and friends, hilarious suppositions about Hubby’s potential reaction, furtive Facebook status updates (“It’s 5am, I’m in Dunkin Donuts drive-thru and Hubby is blindfolded. Hope they don’t call the cops on me.”), it was a bright, exciting moment in an otherwise long, dark, freezing cold January in Chicago.

And if that isn’t a good thing, I don’t know what is.

The Father’s Day poem you’ll never see at Hallmark

Published June 17, 2010 Creative Families , Creative Life , Creative Parenting , Creative Writing , Creativity Coaching , Essays , Holidays , poems 2 Comments
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To  my husband, the father of my children and my favorite person to laugh with:

I’m sorry…
I joked that we were going to tattoo Jabba the Hut on your belly
And told the kids that you once let out a fart so big
it ripped a hole in your sweatpants

Thank you for…
Wearing the fake mustache to Subway and
scaring that gaggle of small children,
Saying you liked the Yodeling Pickle
I got you for Christmas
Making me killer egg-white veggie omelettes
that you flip in the pan like a real chef,
And for always chopping my onions

I remember…
the day we drove home from the hospital Continue reading ‘The Father’s Day poem you’ll never see at Hallmark’

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