Wise Ideas

What Can't You Do Without?

It's 5:30am Monday morning, and I just finished unloading a packed dishwasher, and am getting ready to put some laundry in.  Ahhh....the start of a new day.

Life - at least for me - would be a lot more complicated without those two appliances, which I would venture to guess most American families consider a necessity.  But according to a new study by the Pew Center, American attitudes about luxuries versus necessities are changing as more and more people cut back on spending.

Pew's new national survey asked Americans what they could do without, and found that "No longer do substantial majorities of the public say a microwave oven, a television set or even home air conditioning is a necessity. Instead, nearly half or more now see each of these items as a luxury. Similarly, the proportion that considers a dishwasher or a clothes dryer to be essential has dropped sharply since 2006."

Pew researchers say these results are striking, because for the previous decade, "the public's luxury-versus-necessity perceptual boundaries" have been moving in the exact opposite direction, when we considered nearly everything a necessity...which explains why sales of so-called "luxury goods" was out of this world. 

But while people surveyed actually said they could do without a clothes dryer (are they INSANE, or just childless?) -- the number of people who said they could NOT live without a cell phone and Internet service shot up significantly.  Pew researchers say that this perhaps signals "that consumer reaction to the recession is being driven by specific personal economic hardships as well as by a more pervasive new creed of thrift that has taken hold both among those who've been personally affected and those who haven't."

You can read more about the survey in USA Today, on CBSNews.com, or in the Wall Street Journal or this NYTimes blog, proving that your Wifi-enabled laptop is a necessity -- and your newspaper either a luxury - or a relic.

Friday Short Takes

The hot teen trend is spending less at the mall.  The Obama Administration is stepping in to save us from evil credit card companies.  Unemployed high-powered dads are taking over PTAs in suburban New York.  And who among us HASN'T wanted to just kick the kids out of the car and drive off?

These are just some of the stories I got to read all the way through this week, as I spent some quality time in medical waiting offices.    So I thought I'd save you the time, link you to these gems, and provide a bit of pithy commentary because I don't Twitter and they haven't come up with a way to actually show people's thought bubbles, although isn't that basically what Twitter is -- the thought bubbles of the technologically-enabled?.

First - you can take the cash away from the teen, but you still can't take them out of the mall. The NYTimes reports that "spending by teenagers, a closely studied but rarely understood segment of the population, is off by 14 percent." This is having a "profound impact on mall culture," where teens are lining up at once-shunned deep discounters in search of the deal.

The Village Voice found the news heartening, because gay porn retailer - er, I mean Abecrombie & Fitch -  has lost its appeal among teens who no longer think it's cool to pay $30 for a T-shirt.  However, The Voice found fault with the Times' premise that teenagers are no longer brand-driven. "Kids might have less money now because their parents lost a bundle in the market, but they will always spend on trendy shit and never care about anyone but themselves," writes the Voice's Karen Benedikt. 

Second - Washington is finally taking on the credit card industry, which thinks that it's been transparent with consumers about its shady-and-bordering-on-illegal business practices just because it sends out "Changes to Your Credit Agreement" letters on a daily basis, which, if you look really close at the extra fine print, it's just the unabridged text of Moby Dick.

The President met yesterday with executives from major credit card companies to discuss their industry's roll in this recession, and what can be done to keep America from being crushed by its self-made mountain of credit debt.   The words "increased accountability" and "Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights" were bandied about.  Strangely, no one is proposing the solution provided by a simple pair of scissors.

Third - The Times reported this week on the recent influx of unemployed "Mr. Moms" into the world of the suburban mom, as evidenced by the testosterone increase in the pick-up, drop-off, and check-out lines, and at local PTAs meetings.  “I hope all these good guys who need good jobs find them,” Gina Fidele, a New Jersey PTA president tells The Times.  “But I also hope that maybe this taste of what it’s like to be more involved — not just taking the kids to school, but really helping to organize and direct the policies in the community."  Let's hope they constructively help all these mother-heavy PTA boards find solutions to real world problems....and not take-over for a few months only to be abandoned again when they find new jobs.

And finally - the now famous "Don't Make Me Stop This Car" case, which in some circles is being called the "Monster Mommy" case -- while in others it's the "I Can't Wait To Tell My Own Bickering Kids About This Story Because There's Got To Be A Lesson In There Somewhere" incident

Personally, I hope the Scarsdale lawyer/mom isn't prosecuted for her parenting tactic, which has provided us all food for thought as we swerve through traffic trying to break up the bickerfest in the back.  And while ditching the kids on a street in White Plains may not have been the smartest of moves - at least she had plenty of quiet time in jail overnight to think about it.

It's a hecka way to get away for a much-needed night alone, donchathink?

Have a good weekend.

420 Day

You might want to look more closely into the eyes of your teenager today.  The redness and sensitivity to light may be more than just spring allergies.

I learned over the weekend from a teen-in-the-know that today is 420 ("four-twenty" in teen parlance), the day teens across the country show up at school stoned.   Not all teens, mind you.  Just the ones who probably get stoned in the morning in the first place.  Still, the parents I was with when we learned of this "tradition," (and who incidentally did their fair share of stupid things in high school,) were pretty surprised that :  A)  there was such a thing as 420 Day, and B)  that none of us had heard about it before.

My curiousity peaked, I googled "420" and instantly came up with this Huffington Post piece saying that 420 actually takes pot smoking beyond high school kids, and puts it right into the mainstream - or at least the mainstream that still uses rolling papers, pipes and bongs.   April 20 is "National Pot Smoking Day," according to the HuffPost.  "A day where people across the world celebrate in the conspicuous consumption of the magical herb, marijuana. It's an unofficial counterculture holiday that is based on the simple concept of smoking some cannabis and being happy."

My teen informant, however, did not have a clue why 420 - and not 615 or more likely 711 -- a brightly lite place where many a stoner has snuffed their munchies with packages of Hostess SnoBalls and Funyons, washed down with a ginormous Slurpee. 

However, leave it to the SFChronicle to trace the legend to a group of stoners at San Rafael High School.  According to High Times editor Steven Hager, back in 1971 there was "a group of about a dozen pot-smoking wiseacres who called themselves the Waldos. The term 420 was shorthand for the time of day the group would meet, at the campus statue of Louis Pasteur, to smoke pot.  The term took root, and flourished, and spread beyond San Rafael with the assistance of the Grateful Dead and their dedicated cohort of pot-smoking fans."

Fast forward 38 years, and an estimated 40-percent of Americans have smoked pot according to The National Institute on Drug Abuse, including our current President as well as his two predecessors.  Medical marijuana can currently be prescribed to ease the pain and symptoms of many tortuous ailments.  And there's actually serious talk in political circles about limited legalization or limiting prosecution.  In fact, today's headline in the NYTimes says that "For Marijuana Advocates, Not-So-Secret Holiday Hints at Change."

But although I'm perfectly willing to give 23-year old Michael Phelps the benefit of the doubt after getting caught on a camera phone toking up at a college frat party during his off-season, and wouldn't hesitate to to ask for a pot prescription were I in pain from cancer treatments --- I'm not nearly so cool when it comes high school kids showing up at school stoned - on April 20th or any other day. 

It's the great parenting paradox of the baby boomer and beyond generations -- do as I say and not as I did, or in some cases, still do.

Why do you think they call it dope?  Remember?

Little League to the Restaurant Rescue?

Since eating out was one of the first discretionary expenses to go when the recession hit, it's not news that restaurants are seriously struggling -- if they're even still open.

Even mid-level "casual dining" restaurants like Applebee's, Chili's, and The Olive Garden are facing a new threat.  As AdAge reports, "as consumers increasingly trade down to fast food, several players such as Wendy's and McDonald's are working to cement their status as the value players" by eating away at their higher-end competition with lower prices.  Meantime, some other fast-food places like Burger King and Pizza Hut are  "going the other way entirely, marketing higher-end offerings designed to lure the Cheesecake Factory and T.G.I. Friday's faithful."

But while big league ad agencies and marketing executives pitch these kind of business strategies -- it may be Little Leagues who actual rescue mid-level chains, fast food places and local mom-and-pop restaurants from this recession.

As the Rankin Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi reported this weekend -- youth sports leagues, especially during local tournaments, can - in one weekend - bring in the kind of traffic restaurants need to hang on another quarter or two.  "Our parking lot was full and there's more than one person in those cars," a local restaurant manager reported during a Little League tournament this weekend.  "I would say it has a huge impact." 

In fact, the impact youth sports leagues has economically is much wider than just the restaurant business.  ""The revenue that's generated off concessions stays in our programs and helps with improvements in our parks," the local Parks & Rec directer says. "We started practice the first week in March, and you know that a parent will say 'while I'm out' or 'let's eat something on the go.'"

Unfortunately, as the Pasadena Star News reports, there has been a drop in membership in youth sports leagues, as parents deem even that kind expense expendable.

But back to the restaurant biz -- there is one behemoth that recognizes the power of Little League and youth sports even during times of recession.  McDonald's tells Reuters that it has no plans to cut back on sponsorships during the down economy - especially those involving youth teams at the local level.

"McDonald's is not backing away because it sees sports, whether on a large scale with the Olympics or at the grass-root level with youth programs, as a way to tap into consumers through something they feel passionate about," McDonald's Corporate VP in charge of Global Marketing tells Reuters.

This may be one time when - instead of grimacing when you bring a group of dirty, hungry kids into a restaurant -- those waiters and waitresses will welcome you in with open arms. 

Signs of the Times

It's so easy to get wrapped up in our own lives and problems, especially with multiple kids and multiple issues.  And although I'm certainly not blinded nor immune to the tough economic times, there's a massive difference between cutting back on spending and vacation plans -- and being hit full force by the financial crisis.

This fact became frightening clear to me recently, when I learned about some two particularly sad signs of the times occurring in my backyard here in California.

The first is a story I saw on MSNBC out of southern California, where the Vista school district north of San Diego is experiencing a "tidal wave of homeless students."  "The population of homeless kids in the local school district reached 2,542 this year — about 9 percent of the student body and nearly 10 times the number just two years ago," Rebecca Benner, the district’s homeless liaison tells MSNBC. 

The district is scrambling to get these newly homeless students into the free lunch program, find transportation to-and-from school for them, and provide things they might need from P.E. uniforms to counseling.  As you can imagine, struggling social services agencies in the area are over-whelmed. 

And we're just talking about the students who admit they are homeless.  District officials speculate there may be many more newly-homeless kids living with other families, or in their family's cars, vans or tents who are keeping their living status a secret. In fact, a report out today from the National Center on Family Homelessness finds one in 50 American children today live without a home - 42 percent of them are under the age of 6.

And speaking of tents -- the second story that slapped me in the face is a developing one out of Sacramento, where a tent city of 1,200 has sprung up along the American River.  It first came to attention when journalist Lisa Ling appeared on Oprah after returning to her hometown of Sacramento, and reported on the city's growing unemployment rolls, and growing homeless population.

Jim, a tent city resident for four months, is an unemployed construction worker, widower and father of five.  As you can read at Oprah.com, "Jim says he looks for work three to four days a week and told Lisa he spends about 60 percent of his day trying to stay clean and look presentable. '"It's not like you can get up and there's a nice hot shower and a bathroom to use,'"  Jim says.  In fact, clean water is a 3-mile walk to-and-from a convenience store.  

And these tent cities aren't just shanty-towns of plywood and aluminum.  These are families, couples or individuals with Coleman sleeping bags and REI tents - just like the ones many of us use when going on a weekend camping trip.  If they're lucky, they're using dishes, kitchen ware, and scraps of furniture saved from the homes they have lost.  Some tents almost seem comfortable -- if it weren't so scary that it's the only thing these people have left.

The population of Sacramento's Tent City is growing by about 50 people a week.  And although tent cities are illegal in Sacramento, the city is considering legalizing these communities and providing services.  And sadly enough, this is a story that is reportedly cropping up in hard-hit areas across the country. 

That's why the next time I get frustrated over a school auction issue, or get mad at the kids about not picking up their rooms or bickering --- I'll think about the Vista school district and the Sacramento tent city, and thank my lucky stars I still have a roof over my head. 

Recipe for a Financial Melt(down)

This week's sign that the financial apocalypse is upon us:  there's a ham sandwich on the cover of Gourmet Magazine.  Granted, it's on some high falutin' toasted bread.  But it's a ham sandwich none-the-less. 

Admittedly, if it weren't for a business piece in Sunday's New York Times, I wouldn't have known about this economic downgrading of Gourmet's culinary cover stories because, as a mom with two kids, fancy foodie mags aren't exactly the place where I pick up quick family meal tips. 

"After covering eating trends that have included haute pub food, exotic fruits like yuzu, and restaurants that dehydrated, foamed and froze everything from meat to dessert, upscale food magazines are writing about an even more unexpected topic: cheap home eating," writes The Times, as it describes the new cost-conscious recipes and menus Gourmet, Bon Appetite and Food and Wine are suddenly fascinated with. 

"This is an incredible opportunity,” Gourmet's chief editor Ruth Reichl tells The Times, putting an Obama-esque spin on the situation.  “People need help learning to cook again, and they need advice on less-expensive ingredients, and we’re trying to give it to them.”

"People need help learning to cook again.?"  You mean to tell me that Gourmet's readers never really cooked....but just looked at the pictures and then went out to eat?

Believe me, I'm not trying to kick Gourmet and its foodie mag competition when they're down.  It's just that recessions have a way of evening up America's social class structure, and all of a sudden Gourmet's upper class readership is joining us middle class folks in the kitchen eating left-overs and shopping on a budget, "activities" which Sunset, Good Housekeeping and other mid-range magazines have been covering for years.  Heck, even today's NYTImes Dining page reports that the lowly cube steak, a weekly staple when I was growing up, "is suddenly one of the hottest cuts of beef in the country."

What's going to be interesting in the coming months, is watching Gourmet and Bon Appetite battle Redbook and Good Housekeeping for the casserole crowd. 

Jane Freiman, a group manager-kitchens at Campbell Soup, tells Advertising Age that consumers in a recent study said they prepare casseroles between three and five times a week, and that "casserole-crazy consumers are being nudged along by the likes of Campbell and Kraft Food," which are featuring lots of casserole recipes on their websites.

Will Gourmet ever feature a casserole recipe using Campbell's mushroom soup?  That will be next month's sign that the financial apocalypse is upon us. 

Family Guys

There he was, THE Tiger Woods - one of the world's greatest athletes ever, known as a man of steel on the golf course, nearly dissolving into tears during his comeback press conference.  "Woods’s eyes turned moony," The NYTimes reports, "as he talked about his injury-induced hiatus and the opportunity it afforded him to reconnect with his wife, Elin; marvel at their toddler daughter Sam’s development, and attend the birth of their second child, son Charlie, on Feb. 8."

“I didn’t realize how much I loved being home and being around Sam and E and now Charlie,” Woods said. "I knew that family would be important to me, but I didn’t know it would be to this degree, the closeness that I feel,” he confessed.

Welcome to the Age of The Family Guy (and NO, not the crass animated version).  Woods' very public Family Guy admission is just the latest sign that dads are stepping up to claim their rightful role and change public attitudes about parenting.  It's been a long time coming.  Although Motherhood may still rule the media roost (and get its own new ABC sitcom starting tonight) -- dads are finally get getting their due. 

For years, the most prevalent media image of Fatherhood can be put in one word:  D'oh!  (Not that I don't love The Simpsons.)  I first wrote about the negative and stereotypical media images of dads back in June of 2007, and questioned whether the bad rap was deserved or not.

But in recent years, the media portrayal of American dads as Homeresque has been giving way to new portrayals, like that of Coach Taylor - molder of young men, role model, and co-parent of a teenage girl and baby daughter - on Friday Night Lights, and the almost-to-good-to-be-true life partner, parent and husband Joe Dubois on Medium. 

Another example of this fatherhood about-face can be found buried in a NYTimes article about Pepsi's decision to completely scrap its new Tropicana Orange Juice packaging.  It seems consumers hated the new redesigned carton and logo, so Pepsi is tossing the whole concept down the drain -- EXCEPT for the imagery behind its new ad campaign which includes photos of fathers and children hugging. "Such dad-centric images are rare in food ads," The Times notes.  

Glenn Sacks, a national columnist on father and family issues, notes on his website plenty of more examples.  Don't be surprised if you start seeing a lot more.

But the most recent public example of the new fatherhood role model is someone I'll call "The First Family Guy."  All along the campaign trail, Barack Obama boasted he had read all the Harry Potter series to his daughters, and talked about the importance of being there to send his girls off to school in the morning, have dinner with them in the evening, and tuck them in at night.  Even during his address to a Joint Session of Congress, President Obama told Americans that "I speak to you not just as a President, but as a father when I say that responsibility for our childrens education must begin at home."  A lot is being made of Michelle Obama as Mom-in-Chief, but Dad-In-Chief is a title President Obama embraces with both arms.

Scoot over Homer and Peter...make room for the 21st Century Family Guys.  

Reversal of Fortunes

What do moms from coast to coast, with 1 kid or 4, in the city or the suburbs, have in common besides the instinctual need to hoard all cash and protect their their families?  They all are - apparently - mad at Dad. 

Those are the findings of an extensive and most-read new poll on Parenting.com right now.  There are dozens of different statistics in the survey, but they all point to the same conclusion:  moms say they are so incredibly frustrated at their husbands and partners due to the uneven split of home and parenting chores -- that they are literally sick over it.  

Among the findings:  "half of the moms describe their anger as intense but passing; 1 in 10 say it's 'deep and long-lasting.'" Also, "44 percent are peeved that dads often don't notice what needs to be done around the house or with the kids."  And "40 percent are also angry that their husbands seem clueless about the best way to take care of kids."

It's no wonder that there's been so much talk about a recent NYTimes Op-Ed article by Stephanie Coontz, which says in a very elegant manner that "over the past two decades many researchers have concluded that three’s a crowd when it comes to marital satisfaction."  In other words, kids kill marriage.  

But while all the sociologists, therapists and scientists continue conducting their polls and research, a sea change in the Great American Middle Class Family may already be underway -- thanks (or no thanks) to the Great Recession of 2009.

As The NYTimes reports, "a milestone may be at hand" because "women are poised to surpass men on the nation’s payrolls, taking the majority for the first time in American history."  This is because the vast majority of job cuts our nation is suffering right now are in manufacturing, construction and other male dominated industries.  Jobs held mostly by women - in health care and education, "are less sensitive to economic ups and downs."

Bottom line:  mom is becoming the sole wage earner while dad is taking over tasks on the home front -- a trend that is expected to last the length of the recession (18 months?) if not longer. 

Sociologists are probably salivating at the chance to see if the frustration level of moms drop as they become the main breadwinners -- while that of dad rises to new heights as he takes on the unforgiving schedule that is the life of a Stay-At-Home-Mom. 

It's bound to be a grand experiment in trading places.  And just one of many life-changers forced on families by the recession.  And that's not necessarily a bad thing.......

The Caroline Dis-Connect

I admire Caroline Kennedy.  I appreciate Caroline Kennedy.  I even applaud Caroline Kennedy for the private way she's chosen to lead life in a very public family.  But I don't -  I can't - relate to Caroline Kennedy....as a woman, mother, philanthropist, volunteer, a job applicant, or anything.

This, from my perspective, is the fallacy of the media-driven discussion regarding Caroline Kennedy as a role model for mothers trying to re-enter the workforce.  It started in late December with a Washington Post column by Anne Glusker, headlined "She's a Kennedy, But She's a Lot Like Us."  Glusker wrote "If you strip away the glamour, the name and the money, then Caroline is ... me. And many of my friends."

Glusker's theory of "Caroline as every-mom" continued a week later, when the Associated Press's Karen Matthews wrote "with her Camelot pedigree and Park Avenue address, Caroline Kennedy is not exactly the average American woman. But many women identify with her impulse to enter the work force after two decades of child rearing."  

That AP article ran in newspapers across the country, re-igniting the unfortunately named (and some might say non-existent) "Mommy Wars" between stay-at-home and working moms.  Since then, the morning TV shows, cable news and talk radio have featured every woman who's ever written a book about the Mommy Track (and there have been toooooo many of them) weighing in on Caroline's qualifications - both for the Senate and for role model status within the mom community.   

Then finally last week, Susan Dominus wrote an essay in the NYTimes about how Caroline is "Coming Up Short as a Role Model for the Mommy Track."  "A 50ish stay-at-home mother looking to Caroline Kennedy for career inspiration is a little bit like your average suburban mother of twins looking to J. Lo for tips on how to lose that baby weight."

Thank you Susan, for thinking beyond the beltway where the rest of us American moms live. Ms. Kennedy's pseudo-run for the Senate looked NOTHING like your average woman's attempt to re-enter the workforce after raising children. 

The New York Senate gig is all about politics, prestige and power.  The job a former Stay-at-Home mom is trying to land is all about household finances and personal fulfillment beyond family. If women re-entering the workforce have any role models at all --- they are probably other women they actually know who have preceded them into the workplace. 

I know, I know --- Caroline Kennedy as "every-mom" makes for good copy and good TV.  But what an average "re-entry" woman does when she gets turned down for the first job she applies for (and she will get turned down) --- is applies for another job again ---- and again ---- and again.  

And -- as King Arthur sings to Guenevere in the Broadway musical of Camelot, "that's what simple folk do."

Lazy Lunches (and not the enjoyable kind)

I'll be brutally honest.  The sack lunches I pack for my kids everyday suck.  I unenthusiastically pack them the night before.  They are uninspired and boring....mirroring exactly how I feel right before I turn on the dishwasher and collapse into bed.  Suffice to say that in the parenting arena of school lunch packing - I fail.

However, I don't really feel bad about it, because my kids eat them without complaining.  They are not only creatures of habit, but picky eaters as well.  All the clever kid-friendly recipes from newspaper food sections and parenting magazines may appear to appeal to children --- just not my children.

I've mentioned this aversion to packing school lunches before here on WiseIdeas, where I have noticed the correlation between my kids getting older, and me getting lazier about what I put in their lunch boxes.  However, I bring this up today because it appears I am far from alone - not only in my hatred of lunch packing, but also the quality of said lunch.

In research published this week in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, dietary expects found that in a small study of preschooler lunches in Texas, more than half contained less than 33 percent of the recommended intakes of key nutrients, including carbohydrates, protein, calcium, iron and vitamins A and C, among others.  And 96 percent contained less than 33 percent of recommended daily fiber requirements.

However -- all were well above the recommended sodium levels.  

Remember - these were lunches packed for preschoolers.  If my bag lunch laziness is any indication, just imagine how unhealthy those sack lunches are for older kids!

“Sack lunches sent from home may not regularly provide adequate nutrients for the growth and development of young children,” the researchers wrote. “Nutrition education should be provided to parents to ensure that sack lunches sent from home meet children’s nutritional needs.”

However, although I said my kids school lunches were dull,  I did NOT say they are unhealthy.  In fact, they are probably higher on the boring scale primarily because they ARE healthy.  No cookies, sweets or bagged chips.  Instead they have fruit, rice cakes, Go-Gurts and sandwiches.  Multiply that by 5, and you get boooooorrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnng.

Sure, I could try to get creative, like this piece in the Athens, Georgia Banner Herald suggests (make "big batches of hearty soup or chili for the week," and "try cutting sandwiches into small, fun shapes with cookie cutters, she says, or use cocktail rye bread or mini-bagels.").

But until my kids complain about their boring, healthy lunches, I'll continue packing them.  Besides -- if they complain, they know they'll just have to do it themselves. 

I'm taking a four-day break from packing lunches....because the kids have a four-day weekend.  Enjoy your long lunch-packing free weekend.