Barbie Will Destroy The World

The other day as Layla was playing with her Barbies, she paused mid-game and considered the Barbie in her hand at arms length for a minute. When I asked her what she was doing, her response simultaneously shocked me and snapped my heart in two:

"I was just thinking that I wish I looked like Barbie".

Immediately, my stomach sunk and I broke into a cold sweat. She wishes she looked like Barbie?! Why would my beautiful girl with her big eyes, rosy skin, and radiating sweetness want to be anything like that generic piece of plastic? My mind whirled, desperately searching for the right thing to say, feeling like this was one of those critical parent moments where what I said could set a definitive course for how my daughter felt about her looks, her body, and herself in general. No pressure, right? Treading carefully, I asked Layla what she meant by her comment. In what ways did she wish she looked like Barbie? Layla responded:

"Because I want all of my clothes to be pink!"

Immediately, my pulse slowed down to normal and the blood pounding violently in my ears subsided. I can handle a five-year old wanting to wear all pink clothes. I briefly considered pointing out how Barbie was too perfect and nothing to aspire towards, but I realized that I would probably be creating a problem when there really wasn't one there to begin with. Instead, I took refuge in Layla's lingering innocence and in the fact that I avoided the metaphorical firing squad.

My relief didn't last long.

Yesterday was one of my days to volunteer in Layla's class. I'm there twice a month to help the kids with their workbook and reading skills. I love to do it, not only because it's given me a whole new respect for the work that teachers do, but also because I get to put faces with the kids that Layla is always talking about at home. We're a little more than half-way through the school year and because the kids all know me pretty well now, they love to tell me stories about their siblings, pets, and things they see on TV. Despite struggling to listen to ten little voices talk to me at once, it's pretty awesome and their stories have always stayed pretty neutral. Until yesterday.

Warning: Though I'm going to try really hard not to, there is a chance that I might sound like I'm up on my parental high horse in a minute. I don't mean to be. God knows I'm nowhere near being a perfect parent, but there are lines that are crossed sometimes and it upsets me. Despite my own faults of struggling to be more patient mixed with my own insecurities and frustrations, I would never, ever put my child down or make them doubt the fact that they are smart, sweet, funny, beautiful and above all, important for even a second of their lives. It sounds like a tall order, but I plan on delivering. My kids deserve it.

Anyway, enough disclaimers. Back to the story.

There's a little girl in Layla's reading group who is sweet and smart, but always slightly off in a way that I've never been able to pinpoint exactly. At first I thought she was just always a little tired or just one of the quieter kids, but she sighs a lot, avoids most eye contact, and always seems a just a little bit sad. Anyway, my volunteer day happened to fall on Layla's snack day (where the kids are responsible for bringing a snack for the whole class), so I brought the snack with me when I came in. Since the kids only get a snack day about every other month, I usually let Layla pick out something fun and this time she chose mini-Valentine's Day cupcakes and milk. I noticed that Ruby (not her real name) kept looking over at the counter a few feet away where the cupcakes were sitting. I noticed her looking so much that I finally asked her if she liked cupcakes. She looked me in the eye and, in a very Matter-Of-Fact, I've-Heard-This-A-Million-Times voice, told me "I love cupcakes, but I'm not allowed to eat sweets at home. My mom says I'm fat enough as it is".

Here's the thing. I believe in a healthy lifestyle. We make sure our kids eat their fruit and vegetables and drink plenty of water, but we also believe that kids are kids and that there is nothing wrong with a treat every once in awhile. If Ruby had told me "I'm not allowed to eat sweets at home because my mom says they're not healthy for my body" I can honestly say that I probably wouldn't have thought twice about it. I don't believe that healthy lifestyles and eating/body issues are mutually exclusive at all. Many people are healthy just for the sake of living a better life. Healthy is a good thing and a great example to set for your kids. "Fat" is a different story.

Honestly, what kind of person calls a five-year-old fat? Moreover, how could any parent knowingly bestow the kind of damage that comes from that kind of a statement onto their child? I can't wrap my head around it.

I posted Ruby's words on Facebook yesterday looking for some kind of insight. An overwhelming number of people confirmed my own suspicions: Ruby's mom has body issues of her own and is projecting them onto her daughter. Awesome.

Believe me, I understand body issues, I really do. I could go on and on about body issues of my own, but what good would that do? Am I going to forbid occasional cupcakes in my house because I have a saggy butt but I'm too lazy to actually do anything about it? No. Am I going to call my daughter fat or make her worry about food because I don't have the body I did when I was sixteen? Absolutely not. And shame on anyone who would.

Life is more than fat or skinny, pretty or ugly, perfect or not so much. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and what's inside matters just as much (if not more) than what's on the outside. I feel like the more our society progresses in some ways, the more it seems to go backwards in others. Women can vote, work, choose to have children, choose not to have children, choose to get married, choose not to get married, speak their minds, and pretty much do anything we set our minds to. We're just expected to look physically perfect while we do it. Want to hear something depressing? I did a little digging and found that the beauty industry (which is everything from fad diet programs to Botox) generates 160 BILLION dollars annually, and that's just in the United States. That's a lot of skinny women whose smile muscles don't work anymore walking around this country. 160 Billion dollars is more than treating yourself to a manicure every once in awhile because you're a hard working Mama! And since Botox isn't exactly something you do for your health, that's who knows how many moms setting the example for their daughters (inadvertently or not) that the way God made them isn't good enough. Or in Ruby's case, it's equating how you look with how much kindness and love you get from the one person whose job is to love you and be kind to you no matter what. And if that doesn't make your heart immediately snap into two, then I don't know what will.

I ended up telling Ruby that she reminds me of my own daughter: She is sweet, smart, and beautiful and that her mom just wants her to be happy. What sucks is that she's not my daughter and has to go home and continue to be called fat and God only knows what else and be hurt by it all, because the things we say to our kids matter. What really sucks is that I'm sure that she's far from being the only one in this situation, and that many moms out there wish their daughters were perfect little human Barbies.

No one should aspire to be Barbie (all-pink wardrobe and all). Barbie is too perfect, too unblemished, too boring. Flawless is highly overrated.

The Year Of My Brilliant Career

There's nothing I love more than a fresh start, so I'm always excited at the beginning of every new year. 2013 promises to be a year full of new adventures, new challenges, new opportunities, and most importantly, a new Vampire Weekend album. I'm turning twenty-nine this week and instead of freaking out about the last birthday I'll ever willingly celebrate, I'm remarkably okay with it and actually find myself looking forward to the next chapter in my life.

Truth be told, I rarely make New Year's resolutions mostly because when I do I tend to make outrageous resolutions, like the year I turned twelve and I decided that I would teach myself how to be ambidextrous (which I'm sure you're all shocked to learn is absolutely, positively impossible). Or the year I decided that a different hair color every month for the entire year would be fun. It wasn't. Or at least, the three months I actually did it weren't fun. But I digress. When it comes to resolutions, it seems I can't come up with one single, realistic, achievable goal.

This year I decided it was time for this pattern to change. So I...well, resolved to resolve better basically and came up with a brilliant goal that turned out to be a disastrous goal, which was revised into a new and much more feasible goal. What can I say? It's been an interesting first few weeks of the year and if anyone out there has missed me the last few weeks, the following will hopefully serve to explain my absence.

So here goes. 

It all began with my original goal which dawned on me about two weeks ago when we took the kids bowling with Josh's parents. We went to a ridiculously delicious restraunt that happened to be attached to an equally ridiculously old-school bowling alley. If it helps, try to remember a bowling alley from your childhood and you'll have a pretty good mental picture of this place. It was rickety and freezing cold and came complete with a super mean stray cat that lived in it. In other words, it was awesome.

As we laughed and high-fived and bowled our games, my mind was in overdrive as an idea was slowly beginning to piece itself together.

As some of you might remember, in addition to this blog, I also write part-time for an online magazine and do any freelance work for pretty much anyone who is willing to hire a perpetually stressed-out mother-of-two who is in the middle of an English degree and can have a hard time talking about anything that's not directly related to Elmo. However, I've always felt like my ultimate dream/goal is to write a book. I've never had a clue what I'd write about, but I believed that the "right idea",whatever it may be, would just sort of come to me out of nowhere (and believe me when I say that I have been waiting impatiently for this moment to occur since said revelation).

Anyway, here we were at this very unique bowling alley occupied by the world's most cantankerous gypsy cat and it hit me: This whole scenario would make a great children's book.

As a parent of two and an avid reader myself, I have read enough books to my kids to feel like I should earn an honorary degree in Children's literature. I know children's books inside and out; The format, the language, the ratio of pictures to words, the whole nine yards. I felt like I could totally do this. This could finally be my genre, my niche, my thing I could finally stop obsessing over finding. Best of all, it was a relatively logical and realistic goal, all things considered, so it could also be my new and improved resolution. I immediately began brainstorming for my brilliant children's book.

 Which is just about when I hit a big, fat, figurative wall. 

Children's books, as we all know them, are mild and sweet but despite having kids, my mind doesn't always (okay, ever) work in a kid-friendly kind of way. I gravitate towards sarcasm and self-deprecation. It's a full-time job within my full-time job of motherhood to remember to keep my sarcasm/eye-rolling/snide comments to myself. Over the years, it's gotten to the point where I worry that Josh feels like he's walked into his own personal celebrity roast every time he comes home from work just because all my bottled-in jerk comments need to come out and he usually falls victim to them. Unfortunately, I'm smart enough to know that no matter how sucessful I am at keeping my petulance for bathroom humor and four-letter words away from my kids, there is absolutely no way I can control it in my own head. And because of this, it was slowly begining to dawn on me that I might not be able to write the kind of "Kitty counts the pins, one-two-three, Kitty says 'Please come bowling with me!'" type of book I had originally intended on. Or, as it turns out, anything remotely close.

In fact, by the time all was said and done, my demented little mind had come up with the story of a salty, old, barrel-chested gypsy cat (living in a bowling alley, of course) with a faded Hawaiian shirt, an ever-present stump of a cigar, and an ill-fitting fedora witnesses a rather gruesome murder, but refuses to talk about it because he's afraid that the head of the Cat Mob (Meow Capone) will go after his estranged wife and kittens who stopped talking to him once he became a lowly drifter. Basically, picture The Dude from The Big Lebowski in cat form and you've more or less got the idea.

But kids like that stuff, right?

I'd be a liar if I said that I didn't immediately fall into a state of mopey depression reminiscent of the days of my failed self-taught ambidexterity upon learning of my unavoidable ineptitude. This wasn't going to be as easy or cut-and-dried as I thought. Who knew that something for children could be so damn complicated? In fact, I was ready to throw the whole idea of writing a children's book into the metaphorical wood stove altogether, when a friend of mine asked if I had ever heard of the children's book "Go The F@%k To Sleep". My first reaction was (naturally) shock. Someone used the f-bomb in a children's book?! How have I never heard of this? How on Earth did they manage to pull it off and most importantly, will he/she be my new best friend?

As it turns out, writer Adam Mansbach pulled it off because he created a children's book for adults, which if you think about it, is so brilliant it's ridiculous. Think about it. All "adults" really are are  overgrown children with slightly better vocabularies and slightly fewer temper tantrums. Most people like the idea of reading, but due to our frighteningly toddler-esque attention spans, it seems to be increasingly harder to get adults to read a good ole fashioned book. So if you take our general immaturity, factor in our tiny attention spans, add a dash of our barely-contained love of profanity, stir and BAM! Children's books for adults (For the record, Adam Mansbach has neither confirmed nor denied by offer of best friendship as of yet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he's the kind of fella that can be won over by a complimentary paragraph in a total stranger's blog). When I really stop and think about it, I'm sort of shocked that the idea never occurred to me sooner.

So over the last few weeks, while I have been studiously dodging my blog, I have also been working on what will (hopefully) be the greatest children's book for adults since Go The F@%k To Sleep. And while my bowling alley-dwelling feline will probably sit this one out, what I'm trying to do is turn certain aspects from this blog (mostly parenting rants) into a book that just might rhyme and, depending on my levels of ambition and geeking out, might even be in iambic pentameter. Without giving too much away, I am writing a book for every parent who has ever had to forcibly wrench a beet-faced, screaming toddler away from the Thomas the Train tables at Barnes and Noble, all while knowing that they are going to have to avoid the judgmental eyes of people who have forgotten that children are emotional and human, and thought to themselves "Kid, I love you. I just don't like you very much right now". I'm beyond excited about it.

In a few short weeks, this has gone from concept to reality and even if the only thing I ever do with this book is post it on this blog, I like to think that this process is just another step in figuring out what it is I'm supposed to be doing and why I'm here and existing on this crazy, mixed up planet. Good or bad, at the very least, writing it will mean achieving a realistic, career-oriented, make-myself-a-better-person-by-embracing-my-demented-mind goal. Finally.

It's going to be a great year.