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Here is a selection of Alison's columns that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News.

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Speed Bumps: savoring the gift of community and kids
By Alison R.G. van Diggelen

It stretches like a big sleeping snake right across the street, outside our front door. It’s been there since we moved to this little corner of suburbia; a five-inch-high speed bump with black and white diagonal stripes along its girth. At first irrelevant, then an intense irritation, over the years it has become a treasure, like a bountiful fruit tree or a family heirloom.

When we bought this house I didn’t even notice the speed bump. I had a large bump of my own to think about: I was five months pregnant. My only focus was getting the house organized before life, as I knew it, would change forever.

Four months later, my bump produced a healthy baby boy; but the outside bump’s harvest was much longer in coming. Its first fruit was sour. Shortly after my son was born, the speed bump made its presence known. There we were in the dead of night, a nervous new mom and her ravenous newborn. Not a tree or animal stirred. I sat on the rocker, barely awake, cradling him as he nursed. Suddenly I heard the far off sound of a creaky car approaching. As it took the turn in front of our house, the screech was deafening- metal on concrete- as the car bottomed out on the bump, right outside our window. My whole body tensed and the baby started to scream.

The local security guard doing his nightly rounds made this scenario a regular occurrence. Satiated and smiling in his slumber, my son would be startled awake when the low-slung car grrrrraaaaated over the bump. I came to hate that speed bump. In my groggy sleep-deprived state, I considered taking a pickaxe to it, but somehow didn’t have the energy.

Seven years and one more child later, I’m glad I didn’t. My kids love the speed bump and it attracts the neighborhood kids better than an overflowing ice-cream cart on a hot afternoon. Our street is especially quiet; a crescent shape that serves only a dozen or so houses. They come with their scooters, their BMX bikes, their skateboards, and roller blades. Their parents come to watch and chat. Our front doorsteps have the best view. We shout out scores for their stunts, fifteen for wheelies, ten points for catching some air, five for a spin, three for some flare. We’ve spent some of the best evenings, literally right here on our doorstep. Adults are inspired to be kids again. To the delight of  the neighborhood kids, my husband does a handstand on his skateboard and rides it over the bump. I watch, barely able to breathe.

It rekindles my own childhood memories of Scotland, the long summer evenings that stretched forever. We played outside till late, even in the rain, riding hand-me-down bicycles with clunky pedals, savoring the glimpses of watery sun on our backs, splashing through puddles, oblivious to the mud, not a care in the world. I even had a scooter, an old rusty one with a wide platform and big blue handle. But we were deprived: we didn’t have a speed bump.

Over the years, as the kids follow more sophisticated paths, the bump may fade in usefulness. Yet I think they’ll always remember it with special fondness. It gave them more than just a fun place for stunts. It gave them an obstacle when the training wheels were cast off like unwanted chrysalis. A friendly, achievable obstacle. One that my son crossed four years ago with some gentle coaxing from my husband. One that my daughter crossed for the first time this summer on her wobbly bike with my steady hand on the saddle, whispering encouragement in her ear. Today, she just needs an empowering push and she’s off…ah, the exhilaration, the freedom. She races toward the wide-open road ahead.

This evening as they career around on their bikes, I think about how our perspective changes over time. Motherhood is a journey with surprises around every corner, where sleeping serpents can shed their skins and become best friends; where unexpected U-turns sometimes happen.

Dusk comes sooner as we move deeper into Fall and Halloween fever begins again in our neighborhood. I grow aware of the passage of time that draws our children to independence and maturity, one little speed bump at a time.

Alison van Diggelen welcomes your comments. Email her at siliconmom@earthlink.net.  She is editor of www.siliconmom.com

Comments may be sent to siliconmom@earthlink.net. Alison van Diggelen is editor of siliconmom.com.

September remembered: remembering a father and a childhood
By Alison R. G. van Diggelen

Anniversaries of the death of loved ones are hard. Each year as September approaches anxiety and dread start to grip me. It was a day in September, three years ago, that my father died. My son, only four at the time, instinctively knew what I needed: the simple quiet comfort of his little arms around me.

The immediate shock of losing a parent is hard to process. Being thousands of miles away from my childhood home made it unreal at first; the sense that it wasn’t really happening to me, this grown-up me, the mother of children. This was happening to the “other” me, the one I left behind when I was 21. The girl who thought she knew everything, but knew nothing at all.

My father wrote to me regularly from Scotland in his spidery handwriting. A lefty like me, he was forced to use his right hand at school. He wrote about discovering the meaning of life, of passing on the baton to the next generation. He wrote about the dreary weather, and being ‘out of puff’ on his daily walk to the village to buy the newspaper. Habitually, he told me how irritating the cat was: it hogged the best spot in front of the fire. He described the bountiful harvest of potatoes in the garden, and of the days shortening as we moved into winter.

We spoke almost every Sunday. During our last phone call, he seemed in good spirits, jokey and jolly. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I stood out in the back yard, overlooking the ancient oak trees and the creek beyond, seeking quiet. My two year-old was desperate to speak to grandpa. She had an urgency that day as though she sensed it was her last opportunity. She sang him “Twink-elle Twink-elle Little Star,” just before we said goodbye. For the last time.

Tender memories console. I recall how my father cradled my son so delicately on the day he was born.  “That’s a wee girl,” he kept repeating. For him, the habits of having three daughters were hard to break.

A short video clip we have of him grows poignant over the years. Filmed in the dark hallway of my parent’s home, he is holding my baby son, demonstrating how a grandfather clock operates. “Tick-tock, tick-tock,” my father says in his slow and deliberate voice, the one he always used to explain something complex. He is pointing at the big brass pendulum. Tick-tock, tick-tock. My son stares with wide brown eyes. Stop.

Time does heal, but its progress can be painstakingly slow. Sometimes at unexpected moments, an image will trigger the painful raw emotions again. Like the day I saw an elderly man at the grocery store, dressed in a tweed jacket just like my dad’s, with the same stoop, the same stretch in the fabric across his back.  Or when I see a shiny bald head or a grandpa wearing woolly socks with leather summer sandals.

I’ve learned not to stay stuck in the moment of loss. I’ve learned to let the wave of grief wash over me-let the tears come -then take a deep breath and think about the future. Having kids (or grandchildren, or nieces or nephews) helps: their exuberant energy and candid questions prevent me from being introspective for too long.

“Why didn’t Grandpa live till he was 100 like the Queen Mother?” my daughter will ask over dinner.

I read about those who lost loved ones on September 11. People like Marian Fontana, whose husband was one of the firefighters killed at the World Trade Center. She feels abandoned by God, “I guess deep down inside I know he still exists and that I have to forgive and move on. But I’m not ready to do that yet.” For others, like Terry McGovern, the experience made them return to a faith they had lost.

As we move through this month of remembrance of those who died on September 11, we must each take comfort where we can. For me, seeking solace in the hugs of family and close friends is a good start. With my wee ones in my arms, I can’t help focusing on the future and my firm faith in a brighter one.

Comments may be sent to siliconmom@earthlink.net. Alison van Diggelen is editor of siliconmom.com.

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Rent A Granny: what mothers really need on "one of those days"!
By Alison RG van Diggelen,

I’m working on a business plan for the new new thing. This one won’t lie in the palm of your hand, or connect you with the world 24/7. But this item will certainly change your life. I guarantee it. I’m calling it: Rent a Granny.

As we returned from vacation, not only was I ready for another holiday, but an hour later, once I’d carted in half our lifelong belongings and listened to the phone messages which blinked urgently on the kitchen answering machine, I was DESPERATE for a one way ticket to anywhere else in the world. Preferably somewhere with mountains for company, where no one wants fed, watered or toileted every other second.

My first message was an electronic voice from the San Jose public library (don’t you hate them? It sounds just like Darth Vader); saying that my son’s library books were now overdue. Sure we had fun reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, but another dozen unread books were hiding somewhere within our sandy, sunscreen-smeared mountain of dirty clothes.

Another call was from my daughter’s soccer team coach, “Your check is past due. Your daughter’s place is in jeopardy.” This is a scary prospect in overcrowded Silicon Valley where parents think nothing of camping overnight to secure a spot at the right extra-curricular activity for their 4 and 5 year olds. (For the record: I haven’t yet passed this Silicon Valley mom initiation test, and don’t plan to.)

Finally there was a reminder from my son’s class mom, “Don’t forget to bring two dozen juice boxes and two dozen triangular shaped sandwiches to the class reunion.” Calendar check: it happened yesterday. Just great.

This called for a cup of tea and a serious reflection of the state of my household. Quite frankly, I’m baffled. How on earth do other people do it?

Some mothers seem to sail through all their parental duties, picking up extra volunteer jobs as though they were Betty Crocker cake mixes at the grocery. They never seem to get flustered or stressed. These mothers come into class flaunting lavish homemade cookies with luminous frosting at all the proper occasions. They inform you modestly that they handmade the extravagant Halloween costumes their children win prizes for. They always look so stylish á la Anne Taylor and coiffed hair that it’s hard to look them straight in the eye. Not for them the crushed t-shirt/tousled hair/straight out of bed look that I have perfected.

What is their secret? Do they have an army of grandmas living in their attic who surreptitiously provide the backup and inspiration? Or do they stay up till 3 in the morning getting everything done? But if so, why don’t they have suitcases like mine under their eyes?

While on vacation I luxuriated in the company of my kids’ granny and Great Auntie Jean who attended to every whim of my kids. There was always a soft lap available for a cuddle, an Enid Blyton storybook ready, patience aplenty and scrumptious treats galore. For two solid weeks I was in heaven. Heck I even had time to take a bath.

Five thousand miles later, back home in San Jose, I’m the mother whose chaos is manifest in her generous (if unintended) support of the public library system. I only go to the library at the quietest time of the day, to avoid bumping into anyone I know. It’s humiliating to be counting over ridiculous amounts of money in late fines.

I’m the mother caught at the grocery store with an embarrassing amount of frozen items in her shopping cart at the store. As for coupons? I always forget them and when a small miracle happens and I produce them with an ecstatic wave at the check out, nine times out of ten they’re expired.

As I brace myself for the start of school, humorist Phyllis Diller offers solace. She once said “I buried a lot of ironing in the backyard.” This cheered me up for a whole hour until I realized that my garden is so small I couldn’t even bury a pair of underpants without the cat digging them up! 
It’s definitely time for Rent a Granny!

Alison welcomes comments at siliconmom@earthlink.net. She is editor of siliconmom.com.

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Kids and Travel: the horrors, the secrets 
By Alison R G van Diggelen
SILICONMOM

This summer I’ll be stepping on a plane for the first time since September 11. Friends ask, “Aren’t you worried about flying?” I shrug in my best cavalier manner, “Not for the reasons you’re thinking,” I say.

No, my worries will not be centered on terrorists or shoe bombers because I’m traveling transatlantic, alone with my little kids. I’m not psyched out about that shifty looking guy in Row 12, or worries over the strange white powder on the restroom floor. No, I’ll be crawling under the seat trying to find Barbie’s other pink clog, pulling magnetic chess pieces out from under the lady sitting next to me, coloring with indelible neon markers, sticking Sponge Bob stickers into books and sculpting luminous, sweet smelling playdough figures for ten hours straight.

After the rumpus last month over Did President Bush know? Could he have stopped it? Bush’s team has been issuing warning after warning of sky-falling scenarios. Rumsfield’s cautions about the inevitability of terrorist strikes are enough to keep you vacationing in your own backyard. Never mind embarking overseas destinations where all the “evil doers” lurk. But locking the front door, grabbing the kids, taking cover under my Queen size bed, ordering in summer fun online and surviving on ice pop deliveries from Albertsons.com is not an option for me. This summer my mum turns seventy and is throwing the mother of all parties. Bonnie Scotland here we come.

I’m no expert on traveling with kids but I am a recovering transatlantic toddler-toting traveler. Years later, I still have flashbacks to the worst moments, like when my two year old daughter woke up 10 hours into the journey, in the middle of her “night time” and had a fit when she saw it was still daylight outside. To spare you some of this joy I’d like to share some of my hard-earned wisdom.

First, ask yourself if you really have to travel so far? Can it wait another year or perhaps twelve? Secondly, make the journey as family friendly as possible. This means think hard about how long your kids can sit in one spot with out the aid of bungy cords and a tether. Ask yourself if it’s worth saving a buck or two to travel a convoluted zigzag journey in the wee hours when God did not intend young ‘uns to be awake?

Thirdly, plan ahead, ideally I think a decade in advance is a good rule of thumb. In January this year I started calling United to check availability and cash in some air miles. Over six months in advance and all flights on my preferred travel dates were booked solid.  180 days prior! I couldn’t believe it. My conscience told me we’d been black listed; that we were on permanent record after the last transatlantic howler, I mean, journey.

Rule four: don’t rely on the “goody bags” the airlines advertise. Your average one has the amusement capacity of a soggy ham sandwich. It’s such a miserable effort given the length of the flight. Like offering mom a band aid for a 10 lb C-section. Right.

Instead think Hannaka/Christmas. Ideally, one little surprise for every hour on the plane…wrapped tightly in five duct-taped layers is good. Some moms I know also swear by Benedryl, but let me tell you, it can’t be relied upon.  It works in inverse proportion to the anxiety level of the parent in charge. Nervous parent: 2 tsp Benedryl=twelve Hershey bars + sixpack of Mountain Dew.

Don’t rely on friendly grandma/ grandpa types to help you entertain the kids. If your luck is like mine, you end up sitting next to the kind of people who think kids are as cute as Madagascar hissing roaches.

If all else fails, and your kids are bouncing off the food trays, you can always give yourself a time out in the restroom. Where are your kids going to wander off to anyway?

Finally, make sure you have someone waiting for you at your destination, preferably with a stretcher and team of trauma specialists on hand. Tell them to skip the flowers and have a strong G & T ready for you instead.

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Jake’s Play Lot: a little boy's life, a park to remember him
By Alison R.G. van Diggelen

For months now the excitement has been mounting in this corner of San Jose. Tomorrow Jake’s Play Lot opens with a little carnival of family activities: face painting, jumpy castles, mounted police, Sharkie and The San Jose Shark’s fire engine. It’s a fitting tribute to a little boy named Jake whose memory will endure a good deal longer than his short life of two and a half years. The play lot is testimony to the strength of friendships and community in this neighborhood and the desire to make something positive out of a terrible tragedy.

In January 2000, a freak accident led to Jake’s death. Someone backing out of the driveway, unable to see the little one run out. Suddenly a life ended, a little light snuffed out.

Laurie Chiappe, volunteers for the Jake Thomas Eby Memorial Fund and many Las Madres Neighborhood Playgroup members have been working tirelessly and creatively for two years to raise the target $400,000. Describing her motivation to help her close friends, the Eby family, Chiappe says, “It’s terrible such a sad thing happened, you want to do something and you can only bake so many brownies.”

Every day since groundbreaking last December, my kids and I have watched the park evolve as we drive to and from school, sports and errands. My daughter decided in March that she’d bring her little three-year-old friend Evan to the park. “He’ll love it!” she shrieked when she saw the colorful train. In early May, the climbing wall with overhang became visible, and my six-year-old whooped for joy. The play lot has a mining village theme with an archeology wall; a sand and running-water play area, and sand diggers. My kids can’t wait to get their little hands on it.

Every time I see Jake’s Play Lot I get a little melancholy. I want to pull the car over, and have a long tight family hug right there by the roadside. It reminds me how precious my kids are. How precious and also how fragile. Sometimes we need a reminder of how dear our children are to us.

For most of us, a tragedy like this is unthinkable. It’s hard to get your mind around it. No matter the urge to wrap our kids in cotton balls and be at their side every minute of the day, no matter how hard we try, we can’t protect them from every eventuality. When my son first started walking I wanted to put a little crash helmet on him to stop him damaging himself. Today I still can’t look when he climbs trees or goes on roller coasters.

Tomorrow, the dedication ceremony will take place at Parma Park on Camden Avenue, adjacent to Almaden Community Center and Library. Councilmember Pat Dando will officiate.

I believe Jake’s Play Lot will be a very popular one, not just because it’s brand new and packed with the coolest kid stuff, but because it celebrates a life and a community. Chiappe’s grassroots fundraising means the community is part of the lot, in a physical sense. Hundreds of hand and footprints made by neighborhood kids, and engraved bricks donated by families, schools and local groups, are integrated throughout the park. Kids will come and play, remembering how they donated boxes of their precious toys and books, and helped with garage sales to make an exceptional park. Every one of them will feel part of its creation, especially, the seven-year-old boy who sold his whole Pokemon card collection for the fundraiser.

Jake’s two year-old brother, Michael, will be there tomorrow with his parents. Chiappe says, “It’s nice for him to grow up and know just how loved his big brother was.”

I look forward to the happy sounds of kids playing, to marvel at these innocent souls engrossed in play, their energetic shouts of glee, their bravado. Amidst the excitement and celebration, there will be a contemplative time for parents, hearing amidst the rumpus, the echo of a wee boy who is not with us today, a wee boy who loved playing toy tools with his daddy and snuggling in his mother’s bosom. A little boy who would have turned five tomorrow.

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The Perfect Recipe for Mom: My guilt trip in the kitchen
By Alison R. G van Diggelen

For Mother’s day, my daughter brought home a handmade recipe holder from preschool. It is made from two pegs painted bright purple that stand upside-down on two purple Popsicle sticks, covered with shiny brightly colored “crystals”. It holds a pale pink card with this “Recipe for my mother” typed on it. (Before I go any further, you may want to grab a pen and paper. But on the other hand, if you’re anything like me, get the Pepto-Bismol handy.)  Here’s the recipe, brace yourself:

1 cup of patience
2 cups of love
Mix well and add:
A pinch of thoughtfulness
A dash of kindness
Blend and bake for a lifetime!

Results: The Perfect Mother

You’re probably saying, “Oh, how divine…that picture of perfection it creates ” as you think how sweet those words will look stenciled in dusky pink “a la Martha Stewart” over the range.

I’m hugged my daughter, thanked her profusely and sat it in the window by my kitchen sink. But as I looked at it through the day, a wicked blend of queasiness and irritation came over me. It wasn’t the sappiness of the message; it was the fact that my daughter had gifted me with the perfect reminder that I can’t follow a baking recipe to save my life.

I couldn’t go five minutes without reading another line and seeing the double meaning. Bake for a lifetime …The perfect mother The words brought me out in a fiery sweat. How could kind Mrs. Miller at Precious Preschool do this to me? Oh please remove this vehicle of torture, I pleaded. Yet my conscience forbade it. I just couldn’t hurt my daughter’s feelings.

Yes, I have to confess it, for me this innocent little recipe had written all over it: Bad mother. Bad mother! Because you see, I am a disaster in the baking department.

Why, I can change a dirty diaper, rock a child to sleep, remain calm during monumental tantrums, even make a mean macaroni cheese, yet ask me for a fresh cookie and I’ll direct you to the Pepperidge Farm aisle at Safeway, thank you very much.

My trays of disasters can be traced back to one catastrophic day in Home Economics class in high school. My dreadful baking efforts were shown to the class, “this is how rock cakes should NOT turn out” my teacher chortled, displaying my soggy little mounds of pale brown, singed black around the edges.  They weren’t the least bit appetizing. Couldn’t be, even to a starved pack of wild teenagers. My face burned with shame as my peers giggled and pointed. It was the beginning and the end of my disastrous baking career. But little did I know it would impact my worthiness as a mother.

It’s a standing joke among my close friends that I can’t bake, sometimes I even pretend to be proud of it, but it’s all bravado really. Rocket science… baking cookies? You gotta be kidding me! Friends buy me those ready made cookie dough packets. All you have to do is cut the stuff into little rounds, pop it in the oven and voila! But my voila becomes Ooops…what the heck happened?

I’m in awe of people with “the touch”. My mother-in-law arrives off an international flight and within minutes has a tray of scrumptious cookies baking in the oven. The kids love this delicious smell wafting through the house, but I’m afraid to even try. I know I’ll burn them, undercook them or in some way ruin them. I feel like Harry Potter without the magic.

Why is it that good motherhood is always equated with being a good baker? Why is it that I always feel my poor kids are deprived, just because I can’t produce a decent chocolate chip cookie?

I happen to choose gifted surrogate bakers as friends. My good friends Christine, Lisa and Leslie could make a delicious cookie out of an empty cereal carton I reckon.

This morning, that recipe holder caught my eye again. It reminded me focus on the other ingredients of motherhood; the ones that are best not measured in cups, dash and pinches. The ones that come from the heart: like patience, love and kindness. Just please don’t ask me to mix them, blend them or bake them. Or I’ll invite you over to clear up the mess!

Happy Ending: a true story of a family and a writer in Afghanistan
By Alison R.G. van Diggelen

Once upon a time there was a storyteller who lived in a far off land. He cared very much about poor people and children. One day, while walking in the mountains, he came across a very sad man who had to sell his children to buy food.

The storyteller told the tale of the sad man and his children. People were deeply moved and told others about the story. So the story traveled throughout the land, and woke everyone from a deep slumber.

Meanwhile the storyteller sent two friends to search for the children, and to pay whatever it took to buy back their freedom. One fine spring day the lost children were reunited with their family and they all lived happily ever after.

But wait. That’s not the real ending.  The storyteller knows that he will never write, “And they all lived happily ever after,” because life is not like that in the far off lands.

The story and the teller are real, though. Barry Bearak is a New York Times journalist who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize on April 8 for stories like the one printed in the San Jose Mercury News last month, titled: “Hunger leads some Afghans to trade children for food.” It recounted the ordeal of Sher and Baz living in the mountains of North Afghanistan, boys aged 10 and 5, whose father was forced to sell them for food.

I contacted Barry in Delhi, India and asked him about the reunion he’d arranged. He told me he couldn’t be there on March 29, the day of the reunion, because he is based in India. But he heard from his friends that the mother was overjoyed.

“She cried,” he said, “then quickly went into the house, which would be typical for an Afghan woman around strangers.”

Last month, Barry arranged for two Afghan friends to find the boys and reunite them with their family. He paid $30 for the five-year-old’s freedom and $500 to the father; enough money to sustain the family for over a year.
 
Barry says, “it’s a happy ending, except when you think about all the other kids in the same predicament. This (selling kids) practice was commonplace in the region around Mazar-i- Sharif. ” He is unsure just how common it is across Afghanistan today.

“I don’t know that any charity is helping to reunite these kinds of families,” Barry says, “However a lot of good work is being done to feed people. I would recommend Save the Children, Oxfam, Doctors without Borders and the International Rescue Committee.”

Last month when I first read Barry’s story, my four-year-old daughter asked me why I was crying and I explained. We were reading Cinderella that morning and she said, “I hope Sher has a fairy godmother.” Her optimism somehow didn’t console me.

When I read the happy ending, I cried again. Tears of joy and relief this time. “Fairy godmothers do still exist,” I told my daughter, “This one is a writer from a far off land.”
My little girl’s reaction surprised me. She asked, “Did they have a party to celebrate with cake and balloons?” She didn’t doubt for a second that there would be a happy ending.

And I don’t doubt for a second that Barry will keep up his powerful writing. I simply hope that his stories will prevent us from falling back into our deep slumber.

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For Afghan children, life is no fairy tale
By Alison R. G. van Diggelen

Last night, my four year-old daughter, finished her first entire book, Cinderella’s countdown to the ball. She is thrilled and so am I. Fairy stories can be so reassuring, even when you’re in your fourth decade, there is a war going on and you no longer believe in fairy godmothers.

This morning, I wake to the front-page story by Barry Bearak of the New York Times: “Hunger leads some Afghans to trade children for food.” It’s all too real, it’s happening today. My daughter finds me at the breakfast table holding my head in my hands. I finish the article, my stomach knotting, and am overcome by a huge wave of despair. I go to the bathroom to wash my face and pull myself together but end up sobbing into the bathroom mirror, my face flushed and distorted. I look about 65. My daughter follows me and asks, “Why are you crying? What happened mommy?”

I tell her a little of the story. Not too much, I don’t want to scare her.

How could the father do such a thing? I ask over and over. Then I pick up the paper again. They live in Kangori, in the mountains of northern Afghanistan. The father has eight other kids to feed, he’s traded all their possessions and has no food. Two months ago he traded his two smartest sons for a monthly supply of 46 pounds of wheat. He asks, “What else could I do?”  Needs must.

Where is their mother? I wonder. Did she have any say in the decision? What would I do in the situation? What would you do? What a painful circumstance. What a sacrifice to make.

The optimist in me says, at least they will be fed and won’t die of starvation, but the pessimist says, I bet they feel utterly abandoned by their parents and are abused by their new “owners”. The emotional impact of that rejection must be greater than the physical. Unbearable.

After six weeks the father comes across his son in the town and the boy says, “They don’t treat me well,” his eyes wet with tears. This is not a face of hope. “I cry at night. But I understand why the selling of me was necessary.” What a brave wee boy. I imagine my own six year-old son fetching water and rushing back to his “owner” so he doesn’t get beaten. It breaks my heart.

The story is familiar. It’s an old one. A biblical one. Remember Joseph and the slave traders? Yet even Joseph wasn’t sold by his parents, but his half brothers.

In Victor Hugo’s masterpiece, Les Miserables, Fantine sells her daughter to an innkeeper since she can’t afford to feed her. This heart-wrenching story is hard to put down. But you can close the book and say, it’s just a story.

But this is today’s paper. This story is no ancient history, no fiction. For 10-year-old Sher and his brother Baz, 5, this is their real life in the year 2002. This is all they have. They are slave laborers. This is their childhood. What kind of future do they face? What sort of kindness can they expect? This is a story outlining the depths humans can sink to, thanks to famine, thanks to war. It’s how the seeds of another Taliban clan can be planted.

We can toss the paper in the recycling and try to get on with our lives. But their story stays with us, it haunts us.

I put the paper down, try to get on with clearing the breakfast things. But my daughter insists on another reading of Cinderella. She sits on my lap. There are two or three words to each page. She reads, “Poor Cinderella.” The page shows Cinderella in rags, scrubbing the floor as the evil step-mother looks on.
On page two, “Poof! A fairy godmother.” 
“One magic coach.” …
“The Prince!”… 
“Ten fingers touch”…
“One glass slipper.” 
“Happily ever after!” 
“The End.”

“I hope Sher has a fairy godmother,” my daughter says. I hug her tight, too tight. Long, too long. Her soft skin against mine feels so warm, so soft. Oh for the optimism of a four and a half year old.

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Motherhood, Yates, the real truth
By Alison R.G. van Diggelen

“Just relax and enjoy them,” my mother said on a recent visit. I was having a particularly trying afternoon with the kids and her comment didn’t help. I wonder if anyone ever said this to Andrea Yates, the former nurse who once had five children under the age of 7. Her shocking story shone a laser beam on the issue of postpartum depression, jolting the world to face the huge chasm between the reality of motherhood and the idyllic version we’re expected to live up to. Our job is harder because we must carry on with the burden of society’s untenable expectations.

Modern motherhood has been grabbed by marketing consultants and given a makeover. Surprising they didn’t rename it sainthood. The Hallmark-ization of motherhood is all too apparent in the pink and lacy festival leading up to Mother’s Day, but it permeates our lives all year. As mothers we’re constantly bombarded with the good mother image sold to us in movies, TV, and magazines. It’s easy to become resentful for falling short. A friend of mine suggests motherhood should be renamed guilt-hood, what do you think?

I’ve given up reading parenting magazines; they leave me feeling like the mother of all failures. Articles like “Advice for 7 to 9 month olds: Let your baby make a huge mess. It’s great practice for little fingers,” and “Advice to 3&4 year olds: Your reaction to your preschoolers mishaps may be driven by guilt or frustration. Remember this is not about you. Parents need to lay aside their own agendas.” Daily lessons like these in selflessness are bad for your mental health.

Let’s face it. Motherhood is not a bowl of soft pink cotton balls. So why do mothers still maintain the “stiff upper lip” of motherhood? With all the cuddling and bonding talk, few people make space for the real truth. The truth of sleepless nights, seas of spit up, crying, colic and endless diaper changes.  As Newsweek columnist and real life mother, Anna Quindlen says, “There is no leave to talk about the dark side of being a surrogate deity, omniscient and out of milk all at the same time.”

I vividly remember the gentle grandma who peeped at my newborn as I shopped in Safeway one day. She said, “What a darling! You must be overjoyed!” I just nodded. What I wanted to say and we should be free to say is, “No, I feel like a milk factory and have never felt so exhausted and challenged in my life.” But who has the courage? Society’s expectations weigh heavily.

It’s a brave new mother who admits that her darling baby in its pristine white babygro and matching sunhat is a raging howler at bedtime.

A friend of mine, Gillian, recently suffered postpartum depression.  During her second week with her newborn, her doctor said. “It’s just baby blues, you’ll get over it.” She went home and cried even harder.

She described to me how she felt: being overwhelmed by every little thing, nervous to be alone with her newborn, unable to make decisions about anything, from what to cook for dinner to which diapers to buy the baby. Every single issue she described made me think, “Yes, I’ve been there.”

I too had short glimpses of that desperation, moments when I cried louder than my newborn and felt alone and inept. But for Gillian to top it all, she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat and found herself in a downward spiral. Finally, she saw another doctor and was given the appropriate medication.

She's now doing well and talks about the conspiracy of silence that surrounds motherhood. She's angry that the parenting classes she attended didn't prepare her for what is really involved once the baby is born. At times it seems we haven't progressed much from our mothers' attitude of "you just get on with it.'' 
But we need to move forward from that attitude. Our generation needs to take responsibility for talking openly with the Gillians of the world. Perhaps we need to look at each other a little more closely, to probe a little more deeply, and make sure we are collectively doing OK.

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Kids and Computers: For two year olds? Surely not!
By Alison R. G. van Diggelen
SILICONMOM

This summer, forget Baby Beethoven toys and Mozart Magic cubes for that new baby in your life. Computers are the latest must-have item for baby. We all know that life is short, but in Silicon Valley, life is even shorter. It’s evident in the latest craze to hit the valley: the rush to equip every under three year old with their own computer.

What? Did I hear you correctly? You’re not there yet? Well, my word you’d better get up to speed or little Michael is going to lag behind his colleagues when he starts preschool. Oh, you say Michael was just born last winter? Well, now is the perfect time to start shopping. Today in Silicon Valley, “too soon” is as gone as Pets.com.
 
Why waste his time with plastic bath toys, building blocks and playdough? In Silicon Valley these days, old-fashioned toys are almost as passé as reading books and 486’s. Just get little Michael his own computer and you can hold your head high in any parenting circle. Consider Apple’s stimulating options; and don’t forget to color coordinate with Michael’s nursery. The lime green iMac might be a perfect match with his van Gogh style crib and bumpers set.

I hear you saying, “What’s wrong with the family PC? Couldn’t we all take turns?” Nonsense I say, exposure to an old machine will not cut it today. How can it possibly have the capacity for the latest software, oops babyware, that is geared to the 9 month old? How can you check your email if Michael is hogging the machine all day? Your future prodigy won’t need to learn to share. Kids who don’t have their own computers will be on the street anyway.

Now you’re worrying about socialization skills? Don’t give it a second’s thought. The only skills that are going to count when Michael is older are computer ones. OK, Michael’s speech might be a little strange if he listens to squeaky Elmo or Barney trilling at him all day, but life is short. This grounding is crucial to his high tech education. In no time at all, your little computer geek will have made his fortune during the next upswing in Silicon Valley. He may find it hard to relate to real people but who ever heard of a lonely millionaire?

I know, I know, you’ll be out over $2000 by the time you get the latest computer, ergonomically correct chair and furniture, but pretty soon, Michael will have paid you back ten hundredfold. Think enormous dream home, think sail boat in the Caribbean.

Listen, even the “baby bible” What to expect the first year, is redrafting the pre-iMac milestones, “At six months your baby should be: responding to its name, making sounds, rolling over etc.” That’s so 486, don’t you know? Instead, we’ll get: “At 6 months: your baby should be able to stare at the computer unblinking for up to five minutes; demonstrate dexterity with the mouse, and double click at will. At twelve to eighteen months he should have mastered programming in basic, and touch typing at 80 words per minute.”

There will be a help line for parents of struggling babies who have fallen behind. They will be eligible for a baby boot camp where they can go for intensive computer training. It’ll shift them from Blue’s Clues ABC Time Activities to Math Blaster for 4th Graders in a matter of days.

For babies with finger dexterity problems, voice activated e-mail letters to grandma and baby’s favorite store: Fry’s Electronics, will be possible thanks to headset microphones. Think: Pampers TV ad meets Madonna live on stage.

This new craze will change the way we boast about our kids. No longer will you hear two moms exchanging potty training stories in line at Starbucks. No they’ll be discussing what Jumpstart program their kids have mastered. Anything less than four grades above their age level will be considered neglectful parenting.

No research has yet been done on kids that miss out on the important grounding of three hundred thousand readings of “Good night moon” and “Go dog go,” or the olfactory effects of extended hours of playdough exposure. But I think as his parent that’s your call.

“Tomorrow” helps conjure traditions of yesterday
By Alison R. G. van Diggelen
SILICONMOM

Tradition presupposes the reality of what endures, Igor Stravinsky
 
As a child in Scotland, Christmas season was the one time of the year our family went to the theater. It was also the one time we ate in a restaurant. For the rest of the year, my mother brought soggy corned-beef sandwiches, smelly hard-boiled eggs and a flask of tea everywhere with us. I thought eating out was something only rich people did.

The annual outing was quite miraculous. My dad, who played Scrooge for the rest of the holiday, polished up his shoes till they shone like Black Magic chocolates, dug out last year’s Christmas sweater-still untouched in the drawer- and put on his smart wool coat and hat. I wore my sister’s frilly party dress from last year, and she had the latest hand-me-down from my aunt. Mum put on her sparkling silver bracelet and a spray of perfume and shepherded us all to Glasgow’s downtown.

After dinner, we trooped to the King’s Theater Pantomime. We came in from the cold, dark street, and butterflies of excitement played in my full belly. I remember being bathed in the warm light from the stage, and the itch of the rich red velvet seat against my thin cotton dress. We laughed like hyenas at the crazy antics on stage; boo-ed at the villain till we were hoarse; and yelled frantically “He’s behind you!” when the plump dame with the scarlet bloomers seemed to have gone blind.  Dad winked and slipped us squares of Cadbury’s milk chocolate.

This colorful world mesmerized my youthful innocence; a world where poor became rich, where love conquered all and good vanquished evil. They all lived happily ever after and we went home to our cold house.

Last night, thirty years on, we took the kids to see “Annie” at the Montgomery Theater in San Jose. We rendezvoused early with my husband Frank to see the downtown lights. Walking past the Tech Museum, our six-year-old yells, “Look there are lots and lots of Christmas trees!” As we neared the island of light, he became captivated by the colors and almost walked smack into a palm tree. Above the multitude of trees decorated by every conceivable San Jose organization from The Humanist Society to the Corrections Facility, a sign read “Christmas in the Park, a San Jose tradition.” Four year-old Tanera spent a long time staring at Rudolf. His red nose glowed, he was being groomed by a little bearded elf.

We took our seats in the theater and Tanera announced, “We can’t see the movie with all those towers.” The stage set of the 1930’s New York skyline, though rose-colored particleboard, is all too real.

When the orphans take the stage, Tanera leaned forward, spellbound. In no time, orphan Annie sang, “Tomorrow,” with such assurance and feeling that both kids gape open-mouthed. Frank beamed and squeezed my hand. As the story progressed, the Roosevelt cabinet scene struck a contemporary chord: war looming, growing unemployment and depression at home. Little Annie took the floor and changed the atmosphere from one of gloom to optimism for tomorrow. Lewis came sliding on to my knee and wound his arms around my neck, hugging me close. In that moment I allowed myself share the dream. Both kids clap and clap when Mr. Warbucks and Annie embrace. Finale. And they all live happily ever after.

En route home, I’m singing “Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow,” in my best New York accent and a sleepy Tanera yawns from the back, “I think I’ve had enough of that song now,” and nods off to sleep. Lewis and I are left to belt out the words. His high pitched, “The sun will come out tomorrow…” as poignant for me as my own childhood memories. This year, I’m joyful that a tradition has been rekindled in our family, a tradition that will endure and keep us connected with family passed and present. I check my mirror and see Frank’s headlights follow us home.

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Love letters to George Bush
By Alison R. G. van Diggelen
SILICONMOM
Published in San Jose Mercury News, November 17, 2001

If you’d told me a few months ago that this Fall I’d be sitting down with my kids to write love letters to George Bush, I’d have questioned your sanity. But that is indeed one of the bizarre results of September’s events. OK, they weren’t exactly love letters, but it was a close thing. This Thanksgiving, my kids have been doing the giving.

Mid October, Bush announced a plan to have each child in America earn a dollar to send to the suffering Afghan children. From the White House East room he announced: “I want to make a special request to the children of America. I ask you to join in a special effort…One in three Afghan children is an orphan, almost half suffer chronic malnutrition. We can and must help them. Winter is coming….”

Whoever thought up this idea deserves a medal. This plan gave our kids something concrete to do, and taught them about caring for others less fortunate. And more profoundly, it underscores how far we have moved from the mindset during the Second World War, when demonizing the enemy was pursued. Today, someone has seen the error of brainwashing a whole generation of children, returning hate for hate. Instead, our children are being taught that the bad guys may be hiding in a country, a huge desolate country, but that doesn’t make the whole country bad.

One morning at breakfast, I read about Sabara and her 6-year-old granddaughter, Bulale, who fled from Afghanistan after a stray bomb hit their village killing Sabara’s daughter-Bulale’s mother. They crossed the unforgiving mountains into Pakistan, feet bleeding, bodies aching, looking for safety. Asked if they’re angry at America’s bombing raids, Sabara replied, “I don’t know what governments or politics are all about….I’m just someone from the countryside.” It broke my heart. And the saddest part is that their story is just one of millions of refugees seeking shelter in Pakistan, Iran, and neighboring ex-Soviet republics.

Saturday morning, I sat down with my kids at the dining room table and told them about orphans like Bulale and the president’s plan to help them. The prospect of earning a dollar for the poor children in Afghanistan and sending it to the president was a bigger incentive than any alternative for them that morning, even Saturday TV! (If only I could harness that enthusiasm for any given chore!) Lewis (also six) ran outside to water the garden with almost as much gusto as he tackles his opponents in soccer matches. Tanera (four) ran to help me unload the dishwasher, stacking plastic cups and plates with deep concentration and delight as she made wonky Dr. Seuss-style castles in multicolored splendor. They both cleaned their room.

I set the two dollar bills on the table and gave the kids paper, markers and some stencils. They set to work instantly. Tanera drawing her signature rainbow and flowers of red and yellow. On the back she scrawled in big letters “To President Bush” and below “Love Tanera.” Lewis cut out two teacup size circles and a huge triangle, which he fashioned into a body and smaller triangle for a crown for his 3-D paper model of President Bush. On the arm he wrote To George Bush Love Lewis xxooxx.

Despite my husband’s objections that he didn’t really want to remember this sad time, I took a photograph of the kids proudly holding their new artwork, the envelope bearing the President’s address in Lewis’ best handwriting and the two crisp dollar bills. I want to remember the satisfaction on the kids’ faces for doing something for these poor kids thousands of miles away. Kids like Bulale, made orphans by the fighting, innocent lives wounded forever by war. I’m proud of Lewis and Tanera for their energy and enthusiasm, and hopeful that Bulale and her new friends in Pakistan will somehow experience the kids’ love in more significant and tangible ways.

Thanksgiving 2001 is hard. Yet, there are glimmers of hope to cling to. For this I’m thankful.

America’s Fund for Afghan Children
c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20509-1600

Overcoming our Fears at Halloween
By Alison R.G. van Diggelen
SILICONMOM

“Do you think the other neighbors will think it’s disrespectful to go on with Halloween?” my next-door neighbor asks me. She nods toward the American flags lamenting over almost every house on the drive. Her brow furrows on her wrinkled face and her eyes become teary, “My little granddaughter is so eager to get the decorations up.”

I think she speaks for many of us, eager to let life intervene, even if it’s only on a superficial level. We’re all anxious to dull the horror of September, but is a ghostly festival really appropriate? It’s as though someone has turned up the volume control on all our senses, especially our sense of fear.

“In light of what is happening in the world at this time,” my son, Lewis’s elementary school Principal writes in her weekly newsletter, “we are asking for no blood or violent costumes. We encourage…storybook characters, movie stars, environmental themes.”

I ask my kids if they’re worried about Halloween. “NO!” my four year old Tanera shouts, “It’s just costumes. Just pretend!” But then she reflects on that monster guy at the end of the road who was a little too real last year. “Maybe I’m a wee bit scared of that house,” she concedes.

I feel defiant, patriotic even, to be shopping for costumes. Even in the first week of October, there was a buzz about Party America. Already some Batman costumes were sold out.

Tanera and I avert our eyes from the ghastly black costumes, and find a soft pink butterfly outfit complete with sparkly wings, a delicate tulle tutu, bobble antenna and a magic wand with silver tinsel streamers.

It is profoundly heartening to do the pre-Halloween parade for daddy in the evening: Lewis walking with the care of a real astronaut in his new spacesuit and holding a little American flag aloft; Tanera offering to grant us any wish in the world with one elegant swish of her tinsel magic wand.

When the kids sleep, Frank and I make wishes. I want to turn the clock back to September 10th, and Frank talks of what John Lennon imagined: “Imagine there’s no country, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill or die for...” We both know the wishes are equally unattainable, but it doesn’t stop us wishing.

Terrorism might have exposed a deeper level of fear in every person in America, but it’s also bringing out a new spirit of community. You see it in the abundance of old Glory flags, spontaneous candlelight vigils, huddles of mothers gathered to share, hug and talk after school; unexpected calls and emails from long lost friends round the corner and around the world. My neighbor Colleen left a homemade pumpkin pie on our doorstep last week, and another friend, Leslie, baked special high-iron cookies for the new mother in our extended family. Ronna, a new contributor to siliconmom.com writes about her visit to Afghani House restaurant to show her support. We’re all united in a kinship of unspoken anxiety and grief.

Since our world came to a standstill we realign our priorities and remember what it’s worth spending time on.

There is incredible joy to be found in simple pleasures we took for granted before September. There is incredible comfort to be had in daily routines like watering the plants, bathing the kids. It’s possible to taste moments of calm amid this fear.

I cling to small signs of progress. Last week I saw a local white bearded Sikh in the bank, wearing a Fujitsu baseball cap, instead of his regular headwear.  Yesterday, I met him in Safeway. His sky-blue turban looked so becoming, so dignified. We shook hands and I felt a glimmer of hope.

I believe that all across America on October 31st, people will open their doors wider to friends and neighbors than ever before, and offer them more than just candy. We’ll savor the delight in our children’s eyes and help them understand that tinseled or turbaned, we’re all the same underneath. This Halloween will not be disrespectful, it’s for our kids, and it’s healing for our country. Those delicate butterflies standing on our doorsteps in their size 11 pink ballet shoes can’t help but give us hope.

September 2001:

The day after
By Alison van Diggelen

September 12, 2001.  It’s the day after. American flags are beginning to sprout up in my street, big ones out on poles, others nailed to eaves. My four-year-old Tanera helps me attach a little one to our mailbox. I want to cry every time I see this silent sign of solidarity against someone, something out there that has stolen our innocence.

September 11, 2001, we’re home alone. Just the kids and me. My husband, Frank, is gone on a business trip. I wake at 6.30 a.m., as Tanera crawls in bed with me. “I miss daddy,” she says. “I do too,” I reply; giving her a big hug and snuggling up against her warm body, cozy in her favorite Blues Clues pajamas. I kiss her soft chubby cheeks, pat down her tousled hair. It’s getting light outside, I tuck her in and get up. Still oblivious to a fearsome new world slowly dawning, I turn on the radio in the kitchen.

Minutes later, both Lewis (six) and Tanera are awake. I switch on Fox Channel 2 to see the enormous cloud of soot billowing down the narrow Manhattan street like a great volcanic eruption, engulfing people in its path. My hand clamps my shrieking mouth. Muted, for the sake of the kids. I can’t take my eyes off the screen, yet Tanera demands “Pancakes!” She can’t wait another second. I pull out the Aunt Jemimas Pancake mix from the cupboard and Tanera helps me crack the egg; measure the milk, oil and powder.

The San Jose Unified schools are open. I’m at once relieved and anxious for the kids’ safety. Once they’re at school, I let the deep wrenching sobs of despair come for all those innocent people, just going about their business, sipping morning coffee, checking emails, perhaps enjoying a rare bright morning view.

My husband, Frank is almost a thousand miles away, in Salt Lake City. I thank God it wasn’t New York City or Newark, where his company have an office. He, like thousands of others throughout North America is stranded where he’d rather not be, where his family cannot reach him. At a time like this, we yearn to hold our loved ones tight, feel their warmth, their strength, share our grief. A hundred phone calls don’t come close.

Random, crazy ideas go through my head. I think of the library book I read with the kids last week, “Henny Penny: Ducky Lucky the sky is falling…let’s go and tell the king.” I think of the two minutes of Washington This Week that I caught last Friday 7th. How the presenter jokingly chastised the President for having an unannounced firework display in honor of Mexico’s President Fox. She said, “Next time, invite your neighbors. For all we knew there was an attack on The White House!” All this foreshadowing.

I wait for Frank to return. Want him home today, fear further bloodshed. We can no longer be blasé, as individuals or as a nation. We have real enemies, ones with serious capacity for destruction.

“Just come home safe,” I say. I think about that giant American Airlines Jumbo slamming into the World Trade Center Tower as though its walls were cardboard. That surreal image is engraved on my brain. “What about a car rental, couldn’t you just drive home?” I say.

Tonight, before I read his bedtime story, Lewis asks me, “Does it hurt when you die?” I hug him tight.

Dan Rather on CBS News describes the “edgy calm that has descended in New York,” and I know that for the hundreds of mothers like me around the Bay Area, the thousands nationwide, waiting to hear from their loved ones each hour is a lifetime. We just want them home, to sweep us up, hug us close, to be a whole family again. I pray that for us it will be tomorrow, maybe the day after tomorrow. But the true tragedy is, for an unthinkable number of families, that tomorrow will never come.

Keep those flags flying!

Time for motherhood: should I tell her the messy truth?
By Alison van Diggelen

“When do you know you’re ready to be a mother?”  A close friend (and newlywed) asked me this month. Trying to cover the wry smile that surfaced, I replied, “You can never be completely ready.”

What on earth can prepare you for the challenge, the agony, and of course the joys that motherhood brings?

My friend has made a good start. She has found the perfect partner, a gorgeous home in Marin with a sunny spare room overlooking the garden. Add the crib set, matching border and mobile and what is she waiting for?

No analogy is monumental enough to describe the experience of motherhood. Becoming a mother is fundamentally life changing yet so instantaneous. One minute you’re in DINKY status, (however enlarged) next you’re wheeled into the birthing room and boom, bang, you’re handed this little person and your whole life’s priorities are flipped.

Before kids, I definitely had highly sensitive “brat” sensors.  On a transatlantic flight, I remember getting irate when a kid behind me kept kicking my chair, even after I asked him very politely (between clenched teeth) to desist. Finally I turned around and gave his mother a good “Paddington Bear” hard stare.  I think I was under the mistaken illusion that parents have an “on/off” switch and volume control for their children, that managing them is as simple as that. How naïve I was.

My friend’s question took me back to my DINKY days in Colorado, those halcyon days when the day’s work was done, it was quite definitely done. My French girlfriend came to visit with her husband and one year-old daughter.  I was astounded at the impact this little person, the size of a small houseplant, could make on our tranquil existence.  Within minutes the spiral staircase was barricaded off with an unsightly collection of chairs and suitcases to stop Mademoiselle going exploring. Right in the middle of lunch, as we were trying in vain to talk in complete sentences, Sabine’s husband threw down his fork and made a dive for our cactus collection, which had suddenly caught Mademoiselle’s eye. Without even asking, he roughly transferred my darling cacti to the study.  My husband and I looked at each other, aghast. Where were his manners?

Was I ever not ready for motherhood? I vowed that the visit had set my plans back a good five years, maybe forever. Guess what? Within a year I was pregnant.

Motherhood for me was a big shock. You may have read every book on the bookstore “parenting” shelves, but still not have all the answers.

A friend of mine, a respected doctor was blind-sided when her daughter was born. One afternoon, she called a friend in despair, driven to tears by the constant demands of her newborn, “No one warned me it would be so damn hard,” she said.

Is there a conspiracy of silence about the trials of motherhood?  I think not.  It could be we have selective memory that only allows us to remember the good bits. Or it could be we so want our friends and family to join the club that we consciously avoid telling the horror stories, perhaps even take delight in anticipating how they will manage with sleepless nights, the mess and chaos. And even if we “tell all”, I think human nature prevents the unsuspecting from taking us seriously anyway.

For my friend who is considering the plunge, I have the easy questions: Are you ready to cradle a tiny bundle that lives and breathes thanks to you, whose whole future is in your hands? Are you ready for smiles that melt your heart, little eyes that look into yours with unwavering trust? Are you ready to revisit your favorite nursery rhymes and Dr Seuss books, and build sandcastles at the beach? Is your heart ready to explode with pride when your child takes her first steps, utters his first words, and gives a recital for the first time?

Then there are the harder questions: Are you ready to put your own needs second to another? Are you ready to be kind and loving when your own well has run dry? And lastly, most fundamentally, can you see yourself going out to buy a whoopi cushion a few years from now?

To all the mothers, Happy Mother’s Day!
And to the moms to be: Brace yourself!

The other woman: she's in MY bed!
By Alison van Diggelen

A tall blond recently moved into our house.  She has long legs, rock-hard abs and a plunging cleavage that she frequently displays.  Occasionally she goes completely naked around the house. Some mornings, she even appears in our bed.  Needless to say, my husband was delighted by her arrival. He said, “I’d no idea she was so sexy.”

Yes, our house became home to Ballet Barbie at Christmas.  Barbie was top of my three year-old daughter’s wish list.  So who was I to encourage a falling out with Santa?  Ballet Barbie is now part of Tanera’s arsenal of dolls and, I may add, it has not produced a marked change in her self-esteem, personality or aspirations.  Tanera still appears to want to become CEO of a fortune 500 Company, or else President of the United States.

For some, Barbie seems to epitomize society’s fixation with commerciality and sexuality and should be kept away from our kiddies’ little fingers at all costs.  For others Barbie is simply a toy their kids crave and they see their role as satiator of this passion. One thing is for sure; the question of Barbie (to buy or not to buy) seldom elicits an apathetic shrug of the shoulders.  It’s the timeless hot potato issue in most parenting circles.

In a recent unscientific poll of my girlfriends, I found a whole spectrum of views regarding Barbie, which I’d characterize as “Anti-Barbie fundamentalist” to “Pro-Barbie-why don’t we buy the full collection and visit the Barbie museum in Palo Alto while we’re at it.”  Some moms don’t object to Barbie per se, but fear the Barbie pink-wash taking over their child’s world, so that every belonging from bedcovers to backpacks must bear the Barbie colors and logo.

One of my girlfriends, an attractive redhead with Barbie length hair and curves to match, issued a serious warning to friends at the time of her daughter’s third birthday: “Don’t buy her a Barbie.  I don’t like them.” As a joke from friends, guess what her daughter got?  Not just one either. Now, my girlfriend proudly announces her daughter never plays with them.

Another friend, a retired pathologist says, “Barbie is harmful to girls.  The body of Barbie together with the Playboy Bunnies is responsible for changing the desired body image of women in the U.S.” Yet she let her daughter have Barbies over 20 years ago knowing she couldn’t overcome peer pressure.

A different view is offered by a girlfriend who is an at-home mom. “Barbie is just a tool for their imagination,” she says, “I don’t see what all the fuss is about. A three year-old girl knows perfectly well the difference between imaginary play and the real world.”

To me, it’s interesting that the male dolls, Action Man, Power Rangers and Superheroes don’t stir up the same emotion as Barbie.  Perhaps that’s because there isn’t a widely popular archetypal build for men. There’s no consensus on whether fit and lean is preferable to muscle bound.

Like it, or loathe it, Barbie appears to epitomize some general definition of perfection for the female body, as emphasized by magazines such as Vogue and Cosmopolitan.

I think within the spectrum of Barbie haters and lovers there’s room for some balance and acceptance.  Acceptance of the fact that Barbie is just made of hard plastic and metal screws.  She may have impossibly long legs, and a chest you could balance a tray on, but she is make-believe.  Yes, she’s anatomically incorrect, but then so are Madeline and Pooh Bear.  No one seems to complain about that, perhaps because they are cuddly and not threateningly curvaceous.

Barbie stirs up so much passion because she’s sexy.  But she’s just a doll. Barbie is hardly the role model our daughters will aspire to any more than they will want Madeline’s body or French accent: “We love our bread, we love our butta, but most of all we love each udda….”

We mothers provide the principal role models for our daughters.  It’s what we do with our lives and how we treat others that matters; our cellulite-loaded or sylph-like bodies are not the issue.  We are their reality, imperfections and all.

By the time our daughters are ready to jump into their own jeeps, (be they pink, piebald or purple), and choose the career path that’s right for them, Barbie will probably be the last thing on their minds. That is until their daughters write their first letter to Santa.

Positive Energy from Unplugged Metropolis
By Alison RG van Diggelen
Blackout is magic time for kids

This afternoon as I write, there is something spurring me on. Something beyond the Editor’s deadline, the sitter’s ticking clock, and my own adrenalin.  At any moment I know that this area of San Jose may be next up for the rolling blackouts, the Russian roulette of electricity rationing.  In the next second, my computer could go black, the lights go out and chaos reign.

Despite the turmoil and outrage that this badly managed attempt at power deregulation has produced, and the shock waves of doom which have spread to Washington D.C., there is a silver lining. Here in Silicon Valley, our children remind us that blackouts can bring their own magic.

Last night I took the kids to their evening gymnastics class.  As we entered the reception our eyes struggled to adjust to the gloom. Instead of the normal strained silence, an energized atmosphere permeated the group of waiting parents.  Here in San Jose, the energy debacle was breaking down barriers.  People sat in the gloom, swapped blackout stories and compared their latest PG&E bills. Like the flick of a switch, relationships were transformed in that little room as we all shared the common worry.  With the Stage 3 Power Alert in force, would we have electricity that evening?  Would it be morgue-cold when we returned home? Would the traffic be in turmoil? What about that deadline at work? And most crucially, how could we produce dinner for our ravenous kids without the microwave doing its stuff?

Whether we rent a condo or live in a multi-million dollar home, we were faced with similar worries.
  
“Why is it so dark in here?” asked a curious kid. The woman at the desk explained, “We’re trying to do our bit to save electricity”.

I was transported back through time and across the miles to Scotland in the 1970’s.  As a teenager, I experienced the infamous “Winter of Discontent” in 1978 when a series of labor strikes led to severe power shortages and frequent blackouts.  This coincided with freezing weather and many basic commodities like sugar and potatoes were scarce.  Stinking garbage piled high on street corners.  Altogether it marked a low point in Britain’s post war economic history (and paved the way for radical political change and the landslide election of Margaret Thatcher.)

I vividly remember sitting by candlelight watching the long shadows dancing on the walls as I shared a meager meal of fried potatoes with my mother and sisters while my father worked overtime.  Wearing three sweaters apiece, we sliced the potatoes wafer thin and fried them on the gas stove.  Never has a simple potato tasted so delicious. The candlelight transformed our little kitchen into a magical refuge from the bitter cold outside.  Even through the eyes of a teenager this was an adventure, a time of altered values and fresh perceptions.

Similarly, this year when the blackouts hit San Jose, a kindergarten teacher calmly read to her children by flashlight since her classroom had no natural light.  The kids’ concentration had never been better.  Mid-sentence, towards the end of the story, the lights came back on.  Wails of disappointment filled the classroom.  Returning early to pick up her 5 year-old daughter, Lorraine Gabbert expected anxiety and chaos.  Instead, little Allison said: “Mom, it was like a party today…we read a book in the dark.  It was fun!”

How quickly things can change.  We’re suddenly the unplugged metropolis; changing from high-tech powerhouse to third-world power louse.  We’re forced to fall back on resources like pen and paper, flashlights, log fires and back-up generators.

As people in power pontificate, I’m pointing my thermostat a shade lower and explaining to my kids the importance of using our resources sparingly.  Not just because the electricity meter is effectively running double or triple speed, but in terms of the bigger picture. Sometimes, kids can grasp the concept of global resource scarcity better than we do and embrace environmentalism and economy with an enviable gusto.

There’s no denying that blackouts can be magical for kids, but they also provide us with a sobering time of reflection, about priorities and pocket books, consumption and saving for the darker days to come as the economy cools.

Timed out, reflections on the last election, while parking
By Alison van Diggelen

Enjoy the baby years; a friend with older children advised me, because when kids grow, you become their chief chauffer and timekeeper. You know what?  She was absolutely right.  My five year-old son has started asking me lately, “Mom, are you going the speed limit?” as we rush around from doctor to dentist, school to work, soccer to Safeway.  It’s the merry dance of the overstretched mother in Silicon Valley.  Time seems to be the rare commodity we’re all hankering after, yet, if we have some, it’s all too easy to fritter it away and end up even more frazzled.

After all the election wrangling to distract us from our Christmas shopping and affect the civility of family get-togethers, it’s good to savor the slower days of January, the kids back at school, the Inauguration finally here. It’s an ideal month to reflect after the Holiday Hurricane that sweeps in with increasing intensity as the kids grow and their circles of friends and activities expand.  The sideshow of the election added spice. It was almost surreal to hear the law courts’ lengthy deliberations, driving arguments back and forth at record-breaking speeds while the clock ticked. Even more surreal were the placard bearing protesters on the streets of sleepy south San Jose, ironically bringing passion to an uninspiring election campaign. The kids thought it was Fiesta time. In the end, engrossing as it was to study the careful maneuvers of those older and wiser than us in the courts, no one was particularly satisfied with the outcome.

With fewer than twenty shopping days till Christmas, on the day the debate reached the Supreme Court, I had the unenviable task of finding a parking space in the huge Blossom Hill lot that accommodates the multi-faceted customer base of Costco, Circuit City, Barnes & Noble and Bed Bath & Beyond.  I must have been crazy to think I could dash in with my daughter to collect photos at Costco, still have time to stand in line with the monster carts, and dash back to my son’s school in time for dismissal.  But then, a little of the Holiday/Post-Election madness was already skewing my brain.  The tension in that parking lot was tangible. Tires screeched, horns honked, shoppers wielded carts like battering rams.  Carts were loaded to the gunwales with Christmas goodies.  Every reverse light seemed to have at least four cars vying for the spot.

Finally, I lucked out, spotting an older gentleman busy opening the trunk of his car.  I was first on the draw, my turn signals went on; the spot was mine.  Prime real estate, mere inches from the entrance to Costco.  My heart sank however, as I watched his slow progress.  My daughter yelled from the back of the car, “Why aren’t we moving, mom? Go, GO!” He painstakingly lifted each box into his trunk and I was left to clutch the steering wheel in exasperation as around me at least four cars found swifter swapping partners.  The man wasn’t frail; he was simply slow and careful, as though loading valuable cargo, boxes of eggs or cream pies perhaps.  He seemed to savor the act of pushing his cart back to the proper place and all I could do was simply watch in frustration and wait.  With my 3 year old in the back, screaming for her Cinderella tape, I felt kind of indulgent listening to the slow deliberations of the Supreme Court, but after all, it was history in the making.

Finally, finally, he backed up the scruffy old Cadillac and the space was mine. But as I swung in and set the gear to Park, I looked at my watch: I had less than three minutes to pick up my son whose school was a good eight minutes drive away.

At the end of the day, I got my spot and we got our election result.  I had thought that slow and deliberate was always preferable, but perhaps sometimes when the clock is ticking, the results are far from satisfactory.