Let Them Be Little

This weekend was filled with a lot of football.  Saturday was all about USC football with the boy.  We ventured out to the desert (aka Riverside) to hang out with some friends to watch the Steelers vs. Raiders game.  But what I took out of this weekend wasn't that I'm a really good girlfriend to go watch all of these football games (which I do enjoy, by the way).  No, what I realized more and more was what kind of kids I want.

I realize I might have lost you there.  There's not a clear connection between football and children, especially when you throw in a tailgate or two along the way.  But, my dear friends, let me show you how this is done.

While watching USC win, there were two brothers sitting in front of us.  I'd peg them at about ages five and three (or younger) and they were THE cutest.  Both were geared up in USC red and gold from head to toe; my favorite were the ears sticking out from under the too-big baseball caps.  I was skeptical of the parents at first.  The mom had her nose pierced like a bull and had a half-shaved head with crazy-big earrings.  I totally judged.  But the boys put my judgement to shame.  They were extremely well-behaved and I could tell that they genuinely loved each other by their actions.  The older brother would push the little brother back into his seat if he got too close to the edge.  They shared a water bottle.  The older boy pointed out the airplane because he knew his brother would get a kick out of it.  They didn't cry.  They didn't scream.  They weren't running around.  But they were still happy, funny, friendly kids.  So I have to give mad props to the parents for the way those boys were acting; I'm sure it's not easy raising two young boys.

Take-away lesson number one: Raise kids who know how to behave in public but still have fun.

On Sunday I had the pleasure of hanging out with two little girls who are six and three.  They reminded me so much of me and my sister; they played really, really well together.  They spoke the same language and fed off of each other's enthusiasm.  They were so creative!  At one point, I found myself in a "doctor's waiting room" with an un-diagnosed illness.  After that, we were at a crazy dance party.  And then, of course, they had to take me to the yoga show.  

My favorite part of the day, though, was when they were running around in the backyard (which was mostly dirt and rocks) barefoot.  They weren't worried about their feet getting dirty or stepping on painful stones.  They were having too much fun showing me their chickens and swing set.  This struck a chord in me.  Most of our backyard growing up was gravel and although the first couple of steps out there always stung a bit, once your feet got used to it, the darkening sky at the end of the night was the only thing holding you back from a whole day of playing.  

Take-away lesson number two: Teach girls that it is perfectly acceptable to be dirty and running barefoot is freeing. 

These are obviously only two things that I hope to instill in my children.  But it's so good to see that children can grow up without iPads or distractions from their parents (which I didn't see at all this weekend).  Kids can be kids.  That's what I want. 

An Educational Shift

I am a nerd, therefore I like NPR.  My favorite part of public radio, though, is the once-weekly show, This American Life.  It is a long-form radio show that touches upon a wide array of topics.  The most recent show, entitled "Back to School" was mind-blowing.

This is the synopsis of the show that is posted on This American Life's website: As kids and teachers head back to school, we wanted to turn away from questions about politics and unions and money and all of the regular stuff people argue about, and turn to something more optimistic - an emerging theory about what to teach kids, from Paul Tough's new book, "How Children Succeed". 

I would hope that everyone reading this would listen to the show because it is hard to write a really good synopsis that includes ALL of the topics they touch upon.  But I will point out a few highlights that I found extremely interesting.

* When telling middle school girls "scientists have found that you can improve your intelligence" on a regular basis, studies show that those girls, who have often "fallen apart" when it comes to math, catch up to their boy counterparts in that subject.  They close the gap and perform at the same level as boys; the girl's average math test scores were the same as the boy's average math test scores.  Telling students they can improve their intelligence changes the mindset of these kids.  They are learning resilience and optimism.  That alone can change test scores. Holy cow!

* Kids who have "attached parents" - those parents who empathize with their children and comfort them during stressful situations - are more socially confident and successful later in their lives.  They're better at dealing with other people and picking themselves up after setbacks.  It seems like common sense.  But for those kids who don't have attached parents, they don't have those non-cognitive skills and therefore don't do well in school (focusing on non-cognitive skills is the premise of most of the show).  Teaching parents how to be empathetic and connect with their children can help those children later on in school.  Studies show that having an empathetic parent who can be supportive during stressful times (poverty-stricken childhoods, domestic abuse situations, etc.) can reverse the effects that those stressful situations create.  Potentially changing a child's life is as simple as teaching his or her parent how to be empathetic and supportive, something that can help even the poorest of the poor. Again, holy cow!

I truly believe that education is one of THE MOST important things in a person's life.  But here's where I often stray from other's beliefs.  I believe that money doesn't have to buy education.  My sister and I went to public schools from kindergarten to the day we got our high school diplomas.  She went on to get a bachelor's degree from Stanford University and I received a bachelor's degree from Colorado State University and a master's from Stanford University. We didn't go to some fancy pants boarding school and my parents didn't splurge on overpriced tutors.  Instead of those things, we had them, our parents.

I know that our parents were the driving force behind our successes academically.  From practically the beginning, they read to us every single night.  They asked us questions. They encouraged us to ask questions (my mom would always send us off to school saying, "Ask good questions").  They took us places.  They let us experience things.  They expanded our minds.  They talked to us like adults.  They pushed us (but not too hard). They built our confidence.

We went to rural public schools that didn't have the highest achievement records in the state and we could have drifted through. While I can't give all of the credit to my parents (my sister and I took upper-level high school classes and were involved in a lot of activities), without them, who knows where we would have been.  

I'm not saying teachers aren't important.  And I'm not saying that parents can do it all on their own.  But what I am saying, and what the This American Life show describes, is it is clear that outside forces beyond what we learn in the classrooms affect how we learn and how we succeed. 

My Worst Habit

I've said it so many times before.  I need to write more.  I need to study Spanish more.  And just like most New Year's resolutions, these actions become inaction.

I'm still trying to figure out what is going to motivate me to do both of these things regularly (hopefully, daily). Today I was overcome by the need to have a calendar that I could write my to-do list in (to-do: write, Spanish).  I stopped at CVS because I couldn't wait and picked up a cute little calendar planner that goes all the way through 2013.  And now, on every single day (except weekends, maybe), I'm writing down how long I study Spanish and what I write about.  Keeping tabs of what I'm doing on a daily basis and the progress that I'm making will hopefully keep me accountable.

Another tool that I'm going to try to use, which I've referenced before, is "The Writer's Block - 786 Ideas to Jump-Start Your Imagination."  I never thought of my imagination needing a jump start, but it totally makes sense.  I often feel like I need to be motivated by a song or an event or something in order to write.  But if I end up letting that happen, I will just be waiting around.  I need to be proactive, which is why, although prompts and fiction aren't usually my thing, I'm going to use the book.

So...let's not waste time.

The first randomly-picked prompt: Write about your worst habit.

I lie.  Sure, everyone does it.  And the reasons that we do it vary just like us.  Maybe we're trying to spare someone's feelings.  Maybe we don't want to get in trouble.  Maybe we're scared of what the other person is going to think of us if we don't answer the way they expect us to.  I fall into that last category.  I lie because I don't want to lose face.

The small lies began in college.  During my freshman year, I found myself at a crossroads that questioned everything I had ever believed to be my calling since I was five - did I want to be a veterinarian or not?  The answer was no and I had to move on to life calling number two.  I might as well have stuck my hand in a hat and drawn out a random profession.  My odds of becoming an engineer were practically the same as becoming a journalist or a clown in the circus.  The journalist slip got pulled from the hat and I had to figure out where I fit in in  a world of beats - the sports beat, the crime beat, the city beat? So I did what any good college student would do; I tried to fit the mold.  I became a sports reporter because it was what I had the most interest in.  I watched baseball with my grandpa.  My dad had taught me the (general) rules of football. I was hired.

And there was where lying came in.  I couldn't hack it like the other sports reporters.  These were guys, for the most part, who thought the first regular season NFL game was equivalent to Christmas on the excitement scale.  They talked in stats.  The words that came out of their mouths only had to do with sports.  I wasn't like them.  I liked the human feature side of sports.  What made athletes tick?  Why did they do what they did?  How did they start doing what they were doing? Weren't they scared?

But people expected me to know what Chris Johnson's 40 time was.  And all of the intricate rules of football.  And which team had won the 1972 World Series.  I didn't know those things.  And honestly, I didn't have any desire to ever know those things.  What good is it to know who won the 1972 World Series - that answer only comes in handy on Jeopardy.  At this point, I started to lie and fudge the information I did know.  When surrounded by a bunch of sports reporters, I would keep quiet and listen A LOT.  I would interject when I did have a tidbit of information, but not until then.  I would hope that they wouldn't see the fear that they might expect me to answer some obscure question.

Now, as a college graduate in the working world, I've found I have carried this habit over to my regular life, and in particular, my job.  I can't lose face - I can't let my co-workers see me as anything less than an extremely knowledgeable person.  I say I know what a specific term means even when I've never even heard the word.  Or I lie and say I totally know what site they're talking about when I clearly don't have a single clue.    

It's a bad habit.  And I'm trying really hard to make myself realize that it's totally acceptable to not know everything.

Finding the Balance

Life is all about getting to the sweet spot between careening out of control and sitting still.

Lately, I've felt both the insane feeling of having your hands off the wheel and the quiet solitude that can sometimes drive you crazy.

On one hand, my boyfriend and I have been taking a lot of fun trips here and there and have a lot of weekend plans for USC football -- these things keep us busy and going, going, going.  We get to people-watch, dine at hole-in-the-wall places and stroll hand in hand down the windy streets of San Francisco.  It's perfect. And perfectly draining.

On the other hand, when I am home, I've been doing a lot of reading.  I'm deep in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, which requires concentration and a tenacity for keeping names straight.  When I'm not reading that on my iPad, I'm trying to keep up on all of the latest long reads that get mentioned by people on the Internet.  And then there are the regular blogs to keep up with.  (On an aside - it can get overwhelming to think that that there are millions upon billions of words on the Internet, and while many of them are superb and yearn for readers, I will most likely not get to a large fraction of them.)

Which brings me to the third hand (third hand?).  I haven't been doing the thing that I believe hits that sweet spot - writing.  For me, since I am mostly a non-fiction writer, this requires me to step out and away from my normal life and experience ... things.  But it also must be done in a quiet, singular place.  What's unfortunate is that I haven't willed myself into that sweet spot lately (if at all in the past few months).  I'm either careening or sitting still.  I'm either busy or not busy.  I'm never writing.

Maybe I'm not meant to write.  Maybe I'm meant to be a professional reader (no, but seriously, do those exist?).  Maybe instead of creating more words that go into the ether of the Internet, I should try to figure out how to give more attention to the words that are already out there (and get paid for it).

Or maybe...just maybe...I need to write.  To will myself to write.  To do it.  To make myself find the balance and not wait for the balance to find me.