Half Changed World

On one of my parenting email lists (yes, I’m on several) someone recently asked about discipline strategies for two-year-olds.  I shared some of the basic approaches that we used — nothing terribly fancy, just stuff like leaving wherever we were when D’s behavior deteriorated, ignoring tantrums at home, validating the emotions even as we said that some ways of showing them were inappropriate.  The original poster then asked "how long did this stage last" and I realized that I had no idea.

N is approaching two, and developing some bad behaviors (throwing things being the most frequent).  So we’re starting to figure this out again.  The boys are sufficiently different that I’m not sure that our experience with D is going to be much help.  Except that I think it will help to know that there will come — and sooner than I might have expected — a day when I can’t remember how long this stage lasted.

In graduate school, I took a class on income inequality in the United States.  One of the things that I learned in that class is that "within group inequality" has been the major contributor to the overall increase in inequality.  What that means in non-economist language is that even if you only look at a group of people who are all of the same race, gender, education, age, etc., inequality has grown enormously.  While the average college graduate makes a lot more than the average high school dropouts, there’s still a huge variation within each group.

The Washington Post had an article today on "housing envy" that illustrates an aspect of this phenomenon.  Real estate prices have taken off so much in this area that people with the same incomes (the article focuses on several pairs of coworkers) are in enormously different situations depending on whether they were lucky enough to have bought real estate more than 4 years ago.  People who moved to the area more recently, or were too early in their careers, or just not motivated to buy, are pretty much screwed.  Either they can’t afford to buy, or their mortgage payments eat up a huge portion of their income, or they’ve taken a risky gamble with an interest-only loan.

We’re on the lucky side of that divide.  Eight years ago, my suburban-raised husband dragged my NYC-raised self into a realtor’s office and eventually we bought the house we’re still living in.  That choice has had huge consequences for our family — it’s meant that I’m able to support the family on just my paycheck and that I only lose about an hour a day to commuting (round-trip), much of which I can spend reading on the metro.  And if we were willing to move away from the coasts, it could buy us an awfully nice quality of life, or even let us both freelance.

As the saying goes, it’s better to be lucky than good.  But I think it’s bad for society for luck to matter so much.  At least Virginia’s property tax laws don’t further benefit long-term owners over new buyers the way California’s do.

It’s 9:40, and D is just going to bed.  It was a gorgeous evening, so we picnicked by the fountain.  When we got home, he still needed to take his "jet medicine" (our name for the nebulizer treatments).  And then heaven forbid we should skip the bedtime story (Mrs. Armitage on Wheels, thanks to Jody).  So no original post today.

Instead, I offer this excerpt from Barak Obama’s Knox College graduation speech:

And then America happened.

A place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped and remade by people who had the gall, the temerity to believe that, against all odds, they could form “a more perfect union” on this new frontier.

And as people around the world began to hear the tale of the lowly colonists who overthrew an empire for the sake of an idea, they started to come. Across oceans and the ages, they settled in Boston and Charleston, Chicago and St. Louis, Kalamazoo and Galesburg, to try and build their own American Dream. This collective dream moved forward imperfectly—it was scarred by our treatment of native peoples, betrayed by slavery, clouded by the subjugation of women, shaken by war and depression. And yet, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, people kept dreaming, and building, and working, and marching, and petitioning their government, until they made America a land where the question of our place in history is not answered for us. It’s answered by us.

Have we failed at times? Absolutely. Will you occasionally fail when you embark on your own American journey? You surely will. But the test is not perfection.

Read the whole thing; it’s just lovely.  I particularly like how he brought his theme home to Knox college in particular:

And here in Galesburg, freedom found a home.

Here in Galesburg, the main depot for the Underground Railroad in Illinois, escaped slaves could roam freely on the streets and take shelter in people’s homes. And when their masters or the police would come for them, the people of this town would help them escape north, some literally carrying them in their arms to freedom.

Tim Russert, are you listening?

I’ve mentioned before that I was a Mets fan during the early 80s. I still remember the excitement over Darryl Strawberry and his amazing natural athleticism.  I also remember the days he seemed to call his performance in, causing the stands at Shea to erupt with derisive chants of Daaaaa-ryl, Daaaaa-ryl.

Today’s book is The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw, by Michael Sokolove.  It grew out of a NYTimes Magazine article Sokolove wrote about Strawberry, but broadens the focus to look at all the members of the 1979 Crenshaw High School Cougars, possibly the most talented team to ever play high school baseball.  (Chris Brown was also on the team, and several of the players told Sokolove that Strawberry was only the 3rd or 4th best player on the Cougars.)

Sokolove argues that the 1979 team was part of the last cohort of US-born black kids to consider baseball their game.  Their fathers had grown up playing baseball, worshipped the Dodgers as the team that had given Jackie Robinson his chance, and their love of the game was one of the only legacies they had to give their children.  And Crenshaw was lucky enough to have Brooks Hurst as its coach, a former minor-league ballplayer who loved the game and loved the kids who played it, but was tough enough to handle their attitudes.

Sokolove talks about the members of the team, what they were like in 1979, where their baseball paths took them (Strawberry and Brown were the only ones to make it to the majors, but several were drafted and played minor league ball), and what they’re doing today.  Some have achieved middle-class lives through other careers — cooking and plumbing.  Brown, whose baseball career ended after a series of hard to diagnose injuries left him with a reputation as a malingerer, is a crane operator.  Others found stability through military service.  One, Carl Jones, is in prison with a 25 years to life sentence for three non-violent crimes under California’s rigid "three-strikes" law.  Others are drifting along on the economic margins of society.

And then there’s Strawberry, who is pretty much unclassifiable.  His baseball career is finally over, after more second and third chances than most players get, thanks to both his undeniable talent and Steinbrenner’s love of publicity.  He seems to have blown through pretty much all of the millions of dollars that he made playing baseball, some on drugs, more on the entourage of hangers-on he accumulated, but still has his famous name, which opens doors.  He’s been in and out of rehab, and finally wound up serving jail time after breaking the terms of his probation.  The cancer he was treated for is a kind that tends to recur, but so far he’s doing ok.

The book is a quick read, although the attempt to fit so many stories into a 279 page book often left me turning back trying to remember who different people were.  Sokolove provides ample evidence of how poverty and racism limited the players’ opportunities in life, without making excuses for their failures.  And he notes that American literature — from Updike’s Rabbit to Springsteen’s Glory Days — is full of (white working-class) high school athletes for whom everything else in life is downhill.  He argues that given the limited opportunities in life open to a poor inner-city kid, going for the lottery shot of professional sports isn’t an unreasonable proposition.

My favorite line in the book comes after Sokolove has visited Jones’ family, which acted as surrogate parents to many of the Crenshaw players whose own parents were absent or messed up.  While he’s talking to Carl’s sister, Tahitha, her godson, Marvin, is playing nearby. 

" ‘His mom is out there on crack, so I keep him with me most of the time,’ Tahitha says.  ‘I love him like he’s my own.  He’s three, so we’re just starting him on baseball right now.’ "

"The Joneses are their own little social service agency.  Faith-based.  When they see someone in need, they try to give them baseball."

Politics:  Hey! Both the candidates I was supporting won: David Englin for the Democratic nomination for the 45th district seat in the House of Delegates and Leslie Byrne for the Democratic nomination for Lt. Governor.  The 45th is a solidly Democratic district, so Englin should be a shoe-in for Delegate.  Byrne will have a harder time. 

Byrne’s pretty liberal for Virginia, and some naysayers over at Virginia2005 have been whining that she’ll drag Kaine down.  I think that’s wrong — Virginians are quite comfortable ticket-splitting.  She’ll definitely help mobilize the liberal base (like me!) who otherwise would have said "eh" about the ticket.  And while we’re in the voting booth, we’ll choke down our misgivings about Kaine’s position on choice, and vote for him because he’s a lot better than Kilgore.

Running: My track group did our time trial tonight.  I ran a 3:33 for 800 meters, which I think is quite respectable — especially since it was about 90 degrees.

Baseball:  The Nationals got creamed last night, 11-1, bringing to end their 10 game winning streak.  Listened to a few innings of the game on the radio, but it was only 2-0 when I went to bed.  Oh well, an important rule of baseball is that you’re never as good as you look when you’re winning or as bad as you look when you’re losing.  Hmmm, not a bad lesson for politics either.

One of the things that I like best about blogging is the ability to pull together different conversation strands.

Via Jackie’s blog, I ran across Yes! Magazine, and this article about the characteristics of great public spaces.  I was still mulling that over when I ran across Toronto Mama’s post about empty suburban playgrounds.  So I’ve been thinking about what makes some playgrounds successful.

Obviously, geography writ large is an important factor.  Manhattan playgrounds are always busy, even when it’s bitterly cold out, because apartment dwellers are desperate to let their kids burn off some energy.  Playgrounds in neighborhoods with mostly working parents are likely to be empty during the workweek.  But there are also lots of other factors at play.

We live about 2 blocks from the playground of our local elementary school, so we go there fairly often.  We’re often the only ones there, and there are rarely more than a handful of kids, except on Saturday mornings when the soccer league is using the adjacent field.  Why isn’t it more popular?  It’s not available during school days, for one thing, and doesn’t have any swings.  I also think a lot of parents of toddlers and preschoolers are scared off by the middle-school aged kids who sometimes hang out there.  There’s also a critical mass problem — because it’s lightly used, we often go to other more distant playgrounds because the chances are better of finding kids to play with.

The Yes! article says that public spaces are best when they’re visible and accessible.  I’m not sure that’s always true — the playground in the area that’s most popular with parents of toddlers is set back from the street.  Parents like it because it’s fully enclosed, so kids can’t wander off easily, and shaded.  And it’s just a few blocks from the all-important Starbucks.

On the other hand, we’re not the only ones who bring our kids in the evenings to play on the "stage" in the plaza in front of City Hall.  Yes! would approve of the plaza, which usually has a mixture of tourists, couples, parents and kids, homeless people, dogwalkers, skater-punk teens, and people who have business to do at City Hall.  The stage is just a raised platform, with a ramp on one side and steps on the other, but my kids will run around on it for hours.

There’s a Yiddish folktale about a family that was crowded into a small house.  When they went to the rabbi for advice, he told them to bring all their animals — from the chickens to the horse — into the house.  Later, when they moved the animals back out, it felt like they had lots of room.  (A Russian version of this story was recently featured on Between the Lions.)

This story seems very applicable to my schedule right now.  Today was the last session of my sons’ classes at the local rec center (t-ball and "blast off for babies").  Last Tuesday the PTA had the end of year carnival, and I only have a few loose ends to finish off before I can hand over my responsibilities as PTA secretary.  And I just emailed to the editor a draft of the article that I’ve been getting up at 6 am every day to work on.  It feels like I’ve got lots of free time all of a sudden.

Came home from work, changed into shorts and a t-shirt, loaded the boys up in the stroller, and we all went for a walk.  Stopped at Trader Joe’s, picked up takeout for dinner, and headed down to the waterfront to eat it.

Afterwards they visited with some of the dogs, played in the sand of the volleyball pit, and climbed on the rocks near the river.  D was even a good sport when we asked him to get off the rocks because N wants to do everything he does.

On the way home, we saw the first firefly of the season.

Almost two years ago, the shul (synagogue) I had been attending moved across town.

The move made sense for the congregation as a whole, but it meant that attending shabbat services there would be an hour drive each way for me.  Not something that made it feel like a day of rest, especially since I never knew how long the boys would let me stay before melting down.  So I’ve been looking for a new shul ever since.

D attends preschool at the local Reform synagogue, and loves it.  I grew up belonging to a Reform synagogue (and identified myself as a Reform Jew, rather than a Jew), so it would be the natural choice.  Except that after 6+ years of a participatory havurah, Reform services feel too much like sitting in the audience, rather than being part of a congregation.  Plus, they don’t offer any babysitting during services, except for the High Holidays, so I couldn’t really go to services anyway.  They offer a tot shabbat twice a month, but that’s Jewish gymboree, not a spiritual experience for an adult.

There’s another shul that I’ve heard good things about, and looks like they might have child care during services.  I keep meaning to check it out, but haven’t done so yet.  One of the things that’s stopped me is the religious school pages on their website where they warn parents that children who don’t attend class at least 75% of the time (Sunday mornings, 9:30-12:30) may not be promoted to the next grade level. 

So Jody’s post a couple of weeks ago about the low priority that people place on church hit home.  She compared parents complaints about the expectations at church v. sports, and wrote:

"It’s not that parents won’t tolerate strict demands on their kids’ time, it’s just that they don’t think church is important enough to make those demands."

I do think shul is important.  But I know too many kids who never set foot in shul except on the high holidays between when they had their Bar or Bat Mitzvahs and when their own kids started religious school.  I don’t want my sons to resent religion for making it impossible for them to participate in sports, or to ever sleep late.  But I want them to know enough to make educated choices.  I attended religious school regularly as a child, but it was on weekday afternoons, which seems much less burdensome to families.  That doesn’t seem to be an option around here.

I’ve been going intermittently to another havurah, closer to my home.  They offer a low-key tot shabbat service once a month, and babysitting the rest of that morning.  And they don’t mind the boys wandering around the back of the room.  Their religious school is a "one-room schoolhouse" with mixed grades, meeting late Sunday afternoons.  It seems like it might be a good fit for us. 

Via Feministe, I learned about the bruhaha over at Daily Kos, caused by Kos’ snippy and obnoxious response to some complaints about one of the ads on the site, and the "women’s caucus" site that has been developed as a result.

I’ve never really spent much time at dKos or similar sites.  I haven’t figured out how to navigate them in a reasonable manner, and so I find myself sinking in a morass of posts.  Is there a way to bookmark the people whose posts I like?  I’m used to conferencing systems based on Caucus and Motet, which are basically modern versions of the old BBS model, with conferences, items, and posts, and get lost in the diary model.

This week, I’ve been trying to figure out the new TPMCafe, which is an offshoot of Talking Points Memo.  It’s a bit of a hybrid, with a bunch of  "professional" bloggers (including Anne Lamott), a complicated rating system for comments, and separate sections for reader blogs and discussion boards.  It looks interesting, but I’m not quite sure what the goal of the whole thing is.