Rebellin

Oh, what a morning it was.

Everything started normal.  I woke up to the sound of the kids chattering happily in the living room.  I go out to see them, exchange hugs, get Little Man dressed and oversee Little Miss getting dressed.  I then ask them what they want for breakfast, and pour out the cereal and milk that they selected.

That’s when things started to go downhill.

“I want MORE milk,”  Little Man whined.  He does this practically every morning, wanting more of something he hasn’t yet started to eat, and I know darn well he will likely not eat more than I originally give him.

“Eat what I gave you, and then I’ll give you more,” I responded.

That launched him into a tantrum.

Right about that time, Little Miss was asking me questions and I was mindlessly trying to answer them while starting to get lunches ready.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” she yelled at me.

I honestly didn’t know.  I was on auto-pilot, not yet completely awake, and my whole mind was fogged by the tantrum raging a few feet away from me.

I told her I couldn’t remember what I said, and she kept demanding me to tell her what THAT WORD meant.

“What word?”  I ask.

“That one that I didn’t know.”

“I don’t know which word you’re referencing,” I respond.

That launched her into a fit.

About this point, I picked up Little Man, took him to the rocker, and tried to console him.  That’s when he flailed and knocked his head on my lip really hard, and well, that is when this tired Mom lost her patience.

I put him down, went to my room, and shut the door, intending to get ready for work in peace.

Of course, they followed me.  Two crying, wailing kids following me and grating on my last nerve.

“YOU DEAL WITH THEM,” I told my husband angrily, who was still mocking sleep in bed.  He chose to ignore the whole situation, and it just continued to spiral from there.

I feel horrible, but I’m human.  There is only so much I can handle in the wee hours of the morning while I’m trying to get kids up and ready, and under the pressure of preparing for my own workday.

It has pretty much tainted my entire day.  Days like these, I want to just go back to bed and curl up under the covers, hiding from the world.  But, here I am at work, putting on a brave face, and hoping that things go smoothly when we all return home this evening.

Please tell me I’m not the only one with Bad Mom experiences such as this.

Today, both of my children will say goodbye to their current care takers. I found out a few weeks ago that my son’s provider, whom I have referred to here on this site before as Mary Poppins, is moving to Southern California. Little Miss is completing her last day at preschool, and will be starting a public kindergarten in a few weeks.

It’s bitter sweet. Especially in the case of Mary Poppins… Her entire family has come to feel like an extension of our family. She has truly been Little Man’s second mother, watching him ever since he was 5 months old.

It is a funny story how I met her. I was at the pool with Little Miss 3 years ago when a woman there casually asked me where I took my daughter for childcare. When I told her the institutional daycare she was at, the woman immediately got up, got her cell phone, and said, “you have to meet Lori.”

I thought this was strange. I wasn’t really looking for a change. I wasn’t really dissatisfied… But when Lori called me back telling me she had an opening, and I showed up at her house, my whole perspective changed. I walked in, and got this overwhelming sense of this is what I’ve been looking for. The house was immaculently clean, she had a nice backyard with all kinds of fun things for kids, and most of all, she has such a loving and bubbly personality that she was truly irresistable. Plus, her husband was a cop!

Little Miss went to Lori for 1.5 years before transitioning to preschool, and Little Man has also been there about 1.5 years. Every morning at drop off, the house smells divinely of freshly made waffles. I often wanted to come in and park myself at the table with the kids for breakfast.

While I’m happy for Lori and the adventure her family is embarking on, it is sad for me on multiple levels. The value of a caretaker that you trust completely and know is giving amazing care to your children is immeasurable. Plus, when you see someone like Lori every day, 1-2 times per day for 3 years, you can’t help but become friends with her. So I’m also losing a close friend.

As for my daughter, she has been at her preschool for just over a year. I was on the waiting list for this school for almost 3 years, as it is one of the best preschools in town. It is an amazing school. Every teacher and the director are personally involved and very loving. Little Miss has learned so much, and truly thrived in their care. It’s hard to take her from such an environment, but our public elementary school is supposed to be the top in the state, and I know she is ready to move to the next level.

The upside of these transitions? My kids were across town from eachother, making dropping off or picking them both up an affair that required 45 minutes of driving. I have been driving WAY too much the past few years. But I gladly took on that burden to have my children in the best care I could find.

Little Man is moving to an in-home daycare that happens to be next door. NEXT DOOR, people. The woman has been doing an in-home daycare for over 15 years. I don’t know if she’ll be able to fill the shoes of Lori, but I’m confident it will be a good environment for Little Man, with several other 2 year olds to keep him company.

Little Miss will be taking the bus. The bus stop is at my house! I have arranged for another neighbor to do after-care for her, so starting in a few weeks, I will just drive home and walk from neighbor to neighbor to get my kids. HOW COOL IS THAT?! I’ll be getting back over an hour a day — woot!

Anyway, I know today will be hard, and I’m sure I’ll get a bit misty eyed. But I’m sure my kids are going to good environments, and they seem to adjust to changes well. On to the next adventure…

Little Man with Lori:

Little Miss with her preschool teachers:

It’s a working mother’s predicament of being between a rock and a hard place. I thought Little Miss was well enough to return to school, but I wasn’t sure. I sent her there yesterday, and worried about her all morning.

I called at lunch to ask her teachers how she was doing, and I was told she was “GREAT”. The load off my back lifted, and I carried on working the rest of the day. When I showed up to pick her up, she looked exhausted. The second we got into the car, she started crying, saying, “I don’t feel well.”

She cried for the next hour. When I got her home, I gave her some medicine, got some food in her, and then wrapped her in a blanket and cuddled with her on the couch. She was out about 10 minutes later, at 6pm.

I tried to wake her for dinner. She was OUT. She slept all through us making dinner, through us eating dinner, and then cleaning up the mess. I put her brother down, and then tried to rouse her again, thinking she should eat and get a nebulizer treatment, but there was no waking this princess.

Finally, at 9pm, JB cradled her in his arms and carried her up the stairs to bed. I kept expecting her to wake up and ask for food, but she didn’t wake up until 12 hours later.

So, my assessment is that a whole day at school is a bit much for her right now. She is thrilled that I said today she could “be a morning kid”, and I’d take her home for a nap in the afternoon. Her coughing has subsided, but my motherly intuition is telling me her body is going to need some extra rest for a few days.

I’ve been tired this week. My days have been starting at 6am, where I hop on the bike and do some PT, then get the kids fed, lunches packed, and then get Little Miss to school and me to work. My lunch breaks are spent at PT, and after work, I get both kids, make dinner, put them to bed, and then do more PT. I finish this routine at 10:30 many nights.

I’ve been having trouble sleeping as well, and my daughter has been picking the early mornings as a time to test her limits with me.

Oh, sister, that is not a wise idea.

I am not a morning person. I generally wake up in a good mood, though. But take this morning, for instance, when I made Little Miss what she requested for breakfast, and after I get it on the table, she changes her mind and collapses in the kitchen when I refuse to make her another breakfast, I get a bit testy.

I set the kitchen timer for a minute, and said if she wasn’t eating her breakfast by the time that timer went off, I was taking away her brand new doll.

“I don’t care, Rapunzel is my favorite anyway,” she says haughtily.

In my early morning fog of sleep deprivation and looking at 14 hours of constant activity, my approach was no-nonsense.

“OK, I’ll take away all of your dolls for 2 days.”

“Two days isn’t that long,” she responds. Some day she will learn not to mess with me. I then marched upstairs, put all of her dolls in a garbage bag, and told her they’d be gone for a week.

Of course, all hell broke loose. All before 7am. By the time I arrive to work, I’m harried, on my third cup of coffee, and thinking my childless and single co-workers have NO IDEA of the hurculean efforts it took for me to get to work by 8:30. NO IDEA.

On this National Day of Coffee, I sit here hoping that I will eventually feel fully awake today.  Yesterday was LONG.  I flew to Seattle for the day, getting to the airport just after 6am, and getting home around 9:30pm.  But it was a great day.  I got to go to the annual company meeting with 20,000 of my co-workers. 

Sitting in an arena with that many employes is an incredible experience.  It really drives home what a big company we’re all working for.  We sat through hours of demos, which may sound boring, but the technology they were showing is amazing!  At one point, I turned to the woman next to me and said, “The technology of the Jetsons is upon us!” 

I sat there contemplating how fast technology is advancing, and what it will look like for my children as they grow up.  At one point, I also mused about what my grandparents would think about all this technology, as they never really got to experience personal computers or the internet. 

Stay tuned for wonderful things from my company.  I love working for a company with so many exciting products, that also makes it a priority to provide those tools and funding to impoverished people all across the world.

I’ve had some exciting irons in the fire at work lately, which has been helping me with my emotional struggles of being away from the kids.  Thankfully, I work for a company ranked as one of the best places to be a working mother!

Well, I seem to suck at blogging in 2010. I admit I think Facebook has a lot to do with that. I use my witty one liners there, and then when I try to think of something fresh to say on my blog (which is read by many of the same people as I’ve befriended on Facebook), I draw one big blank.

One thing on my mind as of late is the Glass Ceiling. Now I don’t necessarily believe there is still the stereotypcial Glass Ceiling per its original definition, but I’m finding myself and many of my female coworkers imposing our own Glass Ceiling on ourselves. To explain, I find myself hesitant to put my hat in the ring for new opportunities, as I’m afraid what it will do to my work-life balance. This week, I applied for a new position within my company, and made it to the first round of interviews.

But all that caused me was a lot of heartburn. I went and talked to the woman who is currently in that role, and she said, “this job requires a lot of hours.”

I just don’t have a lot of hours to give. I leave work promptly at five, do 45 minutes of picking up kids, get dinner on the table, play with the kids, start bedtime routine, and then collapse in a vegatative state once they’re asleep. It’s just such a quandry. Am I being seen at work as stagnant, doing the same job for over 3 years? The competitive nature in me hates seeing people all around me taking new jobs and getting promoted, but the Mom in me keeps me focused on the prize… When I picture what I want my life to be like, it is working less hours, and spending more time with my children.

With that vision in mind, I met with the hiring manager, and explained to him that I’d be really good at the new job. It aligns with my skills and experience perfectly. I told him I wanted to be up front with him, though, that I didn’t have “a lot of hours” to give. Really, all I could offer was 8 to 5, but I could offer that I’d be really efficient and passionate and give it my all during those hours.

That wasn’t going to work for him. Evidently the role requires a lot of “off hours” global meetings. Let me just tell you how those go down in my house… 7am meetings where the hubby is still in bed, and both kids wake up just as I get on the phone, and they’re demanding attention. Or the 7pm call, where my hubby is still at work, and I’m at home alone with two kids who are starving, and I’m trying to talk on the phone.

It just doesn’t work. My husband’s schedule isn’t that flexible, and I guess I could pay someone to come watch the kids during those off hours calls, but that is MY time with MY kids, darnit. I have limited time with them as it is, and I only have childcare available from 8 to 5, so those are my hours — 8 to 5.

It’s frustrating that such a restraint, which wasn’t really a restraint on men in the workforce 30 years ago before women’s lib and globalization, is holding me back. There is definitately a part of me that says if I have to work, I want to be able to be good — be competitive — at what I’m doing. If I’m working 40 hours a week away from my kids, than it should be in a job that is challenging and rewarding, right?

So why is it that I just feel like I’m being held back right now? I watch other working moms that are shooting up the career ladder. I have to wonder how they’re doing it. It is at the expense of their family? Or do they just have a spouse with a flexible schedule who is able to take up their slack?

So once again, I do my work, and watch the opportunity pass. Am I just shooting myself in the foot? Or am I preserving my sanity and the health of my home life? I look at my children, and when I’m home with them, I really don’t regret my choices. But I’m learning that in this life as a working mom of two… I feel conflicted so much and wonder if this is only temporary, or will this resolve itself when the kids are older?

My name is Lynnette, and I am an addict. I am addicted to finding THE perfect childcare for my children. It’s a sickness, really. I think it stems from my innate Mommy guilt of not being able to stay home with the kids. It makes me a tad — OK, really obsessed with finding the best childcare for my kids.

Little Miss has been in a great preschool since September, but it is Waldorf style, which means they don’t believe in teaching actual cirriculum until first grade. It has been a perfect fit for her this year, as she has loved the songs, stories and art, but I’m starting to think the child needs some actual cirriculum before hitting kindergarden.

Before becoming a parent, I had no idea how loaded the Preschool decision could be. There are so many different options — religious, Montessori, traditional, Waldorf… And as much as I want to find the right preschool for my child, I also wonder if it really matters. What do any of us truly remember from our preschool days?!

I have similar issues with Little Man. We currently have him in a great in-home daycare, but honestly, having the kids at two different places is a pain in the rear. It takes me 45 minutes after work just to pick up both kiddos. It’s a ton of driving, and I’m paying more than if I just put them in a daycare/preschool that would take them both.

But I just don’t like the institutional feel of many of the daycares around here. I don’t want my kids in classrooms with a ton of other children, in rooms that smell of urine and disinfectant. The places they’re at now are places that I wouldn’t mind spending my days… Homey and cozy and loving.

Registration for preschool is next week, bringing this all to a head. I think I’m going to switch preschools for Little Miss, which has had me shopping preschools this week, even though I’m pretty sure I know which one we’ll be taking her to. I truly cringe at breaking up with our existing preschool. I thought I was done with breakups once I got married, but no, there have been numerous childcare breakups… The last time I did this, I broke down in tears.

Because as hard as you try, it’s hard not to become attached. It will be hard to transition Little Miss away from her friends and teachers that she loves, but our smart and sassy girl is a bit too sassy to let me work on the cirriculum with her much, so I think instead of beating our heads against each other, I’ll just switch preschools and have her exposed to cirriculum by certified teachers.

One of the preschools I saw today touted teaching Spanish and French, which on the surface was really cool to me. But then again, I realize that once she hits public school, that won’t be continued, so is it worth paying to send her to the most expensive preschool in town? I’m thinking not.

So anyway, I forge on. I play the preschool and daycare lists like a game of poker. I look forward to the days when the school decision is just made for me by the zoning for our public school. Then I can put all of my mother guilt towards not being able to volunteer or head the PTA, right?!

A girl on my team at work just returned from maternity leave.  The other day I was marveling at how easy of a time she seems to be having with it, and that’s when I stopped myself as I rehashed my experience…

When I returned from maternity leave, I worked Monday through Thursday, and then had to work 12 hour shifts Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Reno River Festival.  I then had to go right back to work the following Monday, so I worked 12 days in a row without a break.  One of those days was my first Mother’s Day (I’m still bitter about that, as I worked a booth at an event where mothers and their children came in droves).  I can’t tell you how hard it was to return to such a grueling schedule after spending three months of uninterrupted time with my baby.  I physically ached for her presence.

Anyway, about a week after that 12 day stint, I fell while walking with Little Miss in the Bjorn, and she ended up having to get surgery on her fractured septum.  She then had sinus infections for about a month after that, and couldn’t sleep through the night because she couldn’t breathe.

So yeah, I guess I had a hard time, and I’m now realizing that my experience wasn’t normal as I watch what it’s SUPPOSED to be like. 

That’s all.  Just had to vent.  Hopefully next time around, I’ll have one of those normal experiences returning to work.

And so starts my hell day, as I am project managing a huge event at work today.  There is a knot in my stomach, and I’m keeping my sights set on 5:00 when it will all be over.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Last night, a friend and I took our 2 year olds (OK, Little Miss is a few months shy of that) to Jump Man Jump, which is basically a warehouse filled with bounce houses, inflatable slides and an inflatable obstacle course.  It was fun watching Little Miss’s reaction as we combined one of her favorite playmates with one of her favorite activities.

We had a blast, and I have to send out kudos to Jump Man Jump for having open play hours in the evening so that us working moms can participate in the fun.  I can’t tell you how many cool activities for moms and tots go on during the day in the work week, so I was thrilled to have this opportunity.

It also turned out to be a good workout for Mom, as I jumped up and down like a little kid and scrambled through the obstacle course with Little Miss.  Her playmate was much more adept, and he ended up lapping her several times as she made her way through the course.

It has been challenging now with the time change and cooler weather to find activities that are fun for Little Miss (besides going to the grocery store — woo!).  I think we’ll be frequenting this place throughout the winter. 

And I’m also thinking this could be a really fun team building exercise for my group at work.  Especially if they’d let us go to happy hour beforehand! 

Here is a pic of me with the two munchkins on a huge inflatable slide.

I returned to work today, after being mostly healed from Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (I have spots where the blisters were, but I think the contagiousness is over).  One of my coworkers decorated my cube with signs that say, “CAUTION: ENTER AT OWN RISK!  HIGHLY CONTAMINATED AREA!”  She then sprinkled antiseptic wipe packages and latex gloves all throughout my cube.  It made me chuckle, and made leaving my Lazy Boy, which had been my working station for the past three days, a bit easier today.  Most days this week, I didn’t get out of my pajamas until well into the afternoon.

I kept Little Miss home yesterday just so that we could spend some time together (well deserved after my travel last week).  She REALLY didn’t want to go to daycare today, and it tugged at my heart strings so much.  I have started to feel like perhaps I need some more work-life balance, in the form of reduced hours.  Either that, or I’m going to need to figure out how to split myself in two.

Yes, I am on my third bout with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease, thanks to my daughter being ever so generous with her daycare germs.  Little Miss has recovered nicely, and now I’m left battling the blisters on my hands, feet and in my mouth.  What fun!  I had a full blown case of this once a little over a year ago, another very slight outbreak a while later, and now, I have my second full blown case! 

So, I am working from home until the blisters subside.  I look like a leper, and my husband is definitely keeping his distance.  You should see him squirm when I pretend like I’m going to touch him.  If he teases me, I say, “watch out, or I’ll give you one big kiss and grope you with my blistery hands.”

Sexy, isn’t it?! 

The end is in sight.  I’m in the fourth day of all day meetings and all night dinners (lasting until almost 11pm).  I have been meeting with people from all across the world.  Just last night at dinner, I sat with a Canadian living in Singapore, a Russian, a Britt, people from Ireland and an Australian.  I’ve met a guy from Yugoslavia, and people from Japan, Mexico and Ireland.  It makes for interesting dinner conversation, that’s for sure.  I think I’m getting better and understanding all of these accents.

So Little Miss is on the mend, and I can’t wait to see her when I get home.  It was a hard week to be away, and our reunion will be that much sweeter.

This afternoon, I think a few of us are going to downtown Seattle to actually enjoy ourselves a bit before the flight out late tonight.  Lord knows we deserve it!

I just put my non-existant infant on a wait list for a daycare.

How insane is that?  I’ve been trying to get Little Miss into another daycare since February.  I called last week to check on her status on the list, and was told that we’re at least another year from getting into that daycare.  I then asked how long the list was for infants.

“Basically, if someone gets on the list when they’re pregnant, we can usually get the child in by the time they’re three years old,” was the response.

That is just out of control.  Anyone want to open a daycare in Reno?!  Anyway, I got to thinking…  We do plan on having a second child, and it would be best to have both kids in the same daycare, and I do hope to have that second child within the next three years, so I should get on their list.

I called and lied, saying I was pregnant, so that I could get on their list.  I even had to tell them my due date, which had me fumbling a bit.  So Baby Bellin, the child who is only a twinkle in his/her parents eyes right now is on a daycare list.  That thought has me shaking my head in disbelief, but I really think that’s what needed to be done.

And you should have seen my reaction recently when a co-worker, who is 8 months pregnant, told me she kept meaning to get on daycare lists, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.  I think my eyes about popped out of my head.   

On to another hot topic for me from last week’s Women’s Conference, flexible work.  I swear almost every session I was in touched on work life balance, and the flexible work concept ripped my eyes open to the fact that it is possible to still have a rewarding, upwardly mobile career while working either reduced hours or in a job share. 

Two of the speakers that floored me the most were women in executive management, reporting into a Vice President of my super huge software company, and THEY WERE IN A JOB SHARE.  I always assumed that job sharing would mean that you were in a lower, more administrative position, but these women were in a strategic leadership position, managing an entire team of people in a job share.  It blew my mind.

The way they worked it was by not splitting up tasks, but by splitting up their commitments (formal commitments you make to your company about what you will accomplish).  They meet every day for at least 30 minutes, and stay abreast on what the other is doing so that either one of them can act as a single point of contact for that role.  WOW.  That is so inspiring. 

There were also a few presenters that were working reduced hours.  One woman had been working 20 hours per week for the past 10 years, and had even managed to get promoted in that time frame.  She said the key was that you do the same high quality work, but just less of it.  For example, if you’re a project manager, you’ll still manage projects, just have less of them.  Great concept! 

Telework and flex-time were other concepts discussed, as there were mothers saying that they flex their schedule so that they can be home when their kids get off of school, so they work some time from home.  The key to that, they said, is that you be available via email or cell phone at all times for any specific questions.  I think that’s a fair trade-off for being able to step out of the traditional 8-5 and be able to be there for your family when you want to be.

The fact is that women make up a significant part of the workforce, and if companies restrict them to rigid work hours without flexibility, they will lose those women.  My company is taking steps to address the needs of these women, which is so encouraging.  It might take a while to bring that philosophy to the Reno office, but at least I know that when I want that kind of situation, I have a good business case, and proven examples of this working at the corporate headquarters.

As for dealing with the guilt that all working mothers struggle with, we were told to set your priorities and stick to them.  This has worked for me, as I clearly draw the line when I’m at home, I’m done with work and I’m 100% tuned into my family.  Although my time with my daughter is limited by me working right now, I make sure that the time I spend with her is really high quality – no TV, no telephone, and a lot of one on one attention. 

And when you’re at work, focus on getting your work done at the same high quality as it always has been, and you can prove to your management that flexible work can be a win-win arrangement.

Do any of you out there have flexible work arrangements that you can share?  This is really an inspiring topic for me, and I’d love to keep the discussion going.

I know last Friday I promised you all kinds of great content from the Women’s Conference I attended last week.  Well, then life got in the way.  The whole month of October was a blur, as I traveled every other week and the weeks I wasn’t traveling, I was struggling to catch up at home and at work.

And now I’m staring at my notes with such great content, but wondering how to slice and dice it for all of you so that it makes sense. 

We’ll start with Women and Finances, as that was a big topic of discussion.  The first speaker I’ll discuss was Lois P. Frankel, author of Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich.  She started off her talk asking the audience what were the messages we received about money as we were growing up.  Some of those were:

• Men take care of the finances (because they’re good with numbers, and women aren’t)
• We’re taught to be nice girls, and to have people like us (if women are powerful, they are called a B-I-T-C-H, where as powerful men are called successful)
• Don’t have uncomfortable conversations (such as those about money)
• If you work hard, you will be rewarded
• Don’t worry about your education, your income will be “extra”

And the key is that now most women are working outside of the household, and it’s time for us to stop being NICE and to start managing our finances.  We need to stop saving our money and start INVESTING it.  We need to have the goal of being rich, which is defined as having all the money you need to live the life you want, free from concerns about money.

Another big topic she covered is that women are by nature caretakers.  Women tend to go into nurturing professions, which include teaching, nursing, etc, and notice that those are the most underpaid professions.  She asked the audience how many of us were told that we should be teachers, and almost everyone raised their hands.  She then asked how many of our brothers were told to be teachers, and almost no one raised their hands.  I’m not saying that teaching isn’t an honorable profession, just pointing out how women tend to be socialized to take lower paying positions. 

And why are those care giving professions so underpaid?!  It is wrong, as where would our society be without teachers and nurses?  We need to start standing up and demanding that those people get more pay.

She also talked a lot about socializing today’s girls, noting that at 13, they tend to “dumb down” because that’s what they believe they need to do to get people to like them.  We need to teach them to save, to give back through philanthropy, the difference between wants/needs, and we need to have open conversations with them about the household finances. 

That leads into a second speaker, Valerie Morris, a former CNN correspondent, who recommended that teenagers should sit down with you when you pay bills so that they can see how much money is required on a monthly basis to keep the lifestyle you enjoy.  That is a huge concept to me, as we never talked about money much in my household.  (Not to say my parents did it wrong, as they instilled a very healthy philosophy of money within all of their kids).  I’m just saying that this is a new generation, and one way to combat this culture of greed that seems to be overcoming tweens and teens these days is to teach them openly about finances.

She said that at retirement age, 90% of women will be responsible for their own financial well being, and that the average age of widow-hood in the US is 55.

WOW.  I sure hope to God that doesn’t happen, but I had no idea about that statistic.  It does make a case for women to make sure they are financially secure for themselves, and not just relying on their husbands.  She was actually talking about leadership, and said that every day we lead, and for many of us, we are leading our children.  Teaching our children about finances is our own act of leadership.  She suggested that you start teaching children about finances at age 3, giving them four piggie banks:  one for college, one for something special, one for giving/philanthropy, and things you want. 

She said that you teach your children about needs and wants by telling them that parents will cover their needs (clothes, food, etc.), and they will pay out of their piggie banks for their wants (parents can contribute if they think it’s appropriate).  But importantly, there should be a philanthropy component in everything we do — as adults and children. 

She then said that we give our children two gifts — roots and wings.  The wings are the harder gift to give.  But the biggest gift of all that we can give our children is our own financial independence in retirement (otherwise, it will be a huge burden to them).  As for the trend of 20 somethings returning to their parents’ houses after college, she stressed that at age 20, you’re “off the payroll”, and if they return home, they need to be paying rent, for food, and to have a plan for getting out on their own.  Because all those adult children are doing by returning to the nest is spending their parents money that should have been theirs for retirement.

I hope some of my rambling made sense to you.  I came out of these sessions feeling thankful for the way I was raised, as my parents truly taught all their kids a sound financial philosophy, and I have some great ideas now for teaching my daughter about finances in this ever changing world.  I feel a bit more armed against those marketers that are just waiting to target her with their ads, toys, etc.  I’m also committed to more actively manage my 401K and savings accounts.

Edited to add:  Another thing that Lois P. Frankel said is that women are socialized to think they aren’t good at math.  The truth is that girl’s brains don’t develop to start comprehending advanced math until 11th or 12th grade.  We need to be teaching our girls math in a way that works for them, and advancing those teachings when appropriate.  It’s something to keep in mind as our daughters enter the education system.  I know I struggled a lot with math, and I think a lot of that was my attitude towards it.  And the ironic part is that I deal with math on a DAILY basis, both at work and at home.