Just Shred It

I recently bought a shredder, and the rest is history. Or should I say my history is shredded.

The papers that are now gone, testaments to an age before digital, were filed neatly in storage folders that I hauled around without thought. Eventually, after more than a decade of accumulation, the important documents had reached an age of no importance.

It was time to let go.

Did I need a rental agreement from 1998? My name wasn't even on the lease. 

Probably safe to shred.

Perhaps the lease didn’t need to be so thoroughly pulverized, but I’d reduced the process of cleaning to two choices: keep or shred.

Those duplicate checks the bank sent by mistake? Shred.

My husband’s taxes from a year before I met him? Shred.

Taxes for both of us for several years after we met? Shred.

Pay stubs, bank accounts statements, receipts, old insurance cards, documents about our first house.

Shred. Shred. Shred. Shred. Shred.

I’ve had my identity stolen, and the initial impetus for shredding these papers was to lessen the likelihood of it happening again. But the process of revisiting the papers was emotional.

I felt that the person who kept such meticulous files had changed, at least in a literal sense. I no longer have the time or inclination to save a receipt from Kinko’s, file it, and lug it to three states and five dwellings.

That temperament and those papers were from a bygone era; one that needed paper and possession.

That thought struck me most when I found a small folder designed to hold business cards. These cards were once valuable--the information was not easily found online, you would not be scanning the card into a computer, or receiving contact information from an email, and the best way to reach someone was still through calling them on an actual telephone on a number not everybody had.

I am not sure when the year 2000 started to feel like ancient history. But the more papers I had to look at, the more the time appeared remote and unconnected.



This week on The Educated Mom we look at our first question for our Summer Series: When can a child walk to a friend's house alone?

The Cowboy at the Pump

It was a disgustingly humid and sticky day last week when I pulled into a gas station near empty. There were at least six other cars at pumps and I figured I’d be in for a wait.

Seconds later a man rolled up to the pump across from me in a big truck. He was a landscaper by the looks of the logo stenciled to the side. Without waiting, he hopped out of his truck, put a credit card into the pump and began doing what I have not seen in ten years: pumping his own gas.

“What’s going on?” I thought.

I can’t tell you how quickly my mind raced: Was he not from these parts? No, his plates were from New Jersey. Did he know the owner? Had something terrible happened and there was a suspension of state laws? 

He wiped some sweat off his face, pulled up his blue jeans and strolled into the quickmart.

Meanwhile the college girl in front of his car, impatient and probably motivated by what she’d just witnessed, got out of her car and attempted to finish her transaction without the attendant.

We are always on the brink of chaos, aren’t we?

The man in the truck came back, now with a large can of iced-tea. He popped the top and tossed it down, drinking it as if it were a cold beer. The vision gave me a flashback. Was I back in Texas?

No. I was still in New Jersey. It was humid after all. And the man was not wearing ropers.

My cowboy finished filling up before the attendant handed me back my credit card. He was long gone when I said, somewhere between a question and a tattletale: "That guy in the truck filled up his own tank, you know?”

The attendant looked at me with a smile. It seemed he didn’t speak much English. He'd had one less customer to tend to on that miserable day, I am not sure he was so saddened by my report.

If you look up the law, though, it was this attendant and not my cowboy, who’d have gotten stuck with a fine for daring to fill up his own pickup. According to the Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act:

 34:3A-6. Dispensing of fuel; regulations 

It shall be unlawful for any attendant to: a. Dispense fuel into the tank of a motor vehicle while the vehicle's engine is in operation; b. Dispense fuel into any portable container not in compliance with regulations adopted pursuant to section 8 of this act; c. Dispense fuel while smoking; or d. Permit any person who is not an attendant to dispense fuel into the tank of a motor vehicle or any container.

As for the fine: A violator of any provision of this act shall be liable for a penalty of not less than $50.00 and not more than $250.00 for a first offense and not more than $500.00 for each subsequent offense.

I don’t know if the attendant or the retailer would have had to pay the fine. But I have little doubt that someday you'll see my cowboy at a pump again.


This week on the Educated Mom, we look at the Cognitive Style of dogs.

The Missing Sock: Would You Pay More?

Recently, a friend and I had a conversation about socks. Not where most of mine were, although I’d love to know, but how much people were willing to pay for them. It started when I mentioned my concern over where my children’s clothes were manufactured.

I may have had good intentions, my friend acknowledged, but most people don’t follow through on them.

The socks she mentioned were part of a 2006 study, “Consumers with a Conscience: will they pay more?” Quentin Fottrell summed up the study well in a Wall Street Journal MarketWatch article last month (Would you pay more for fair-trade socks? Why shoppers don’t care about Bangladesh).

Given the choice between socks, one pair identified as being made in Good Working Conditions-no child labor or sweat shop conditions—and those with no description of working conditions at all, only fifty percent of consumers would buy the GWC socks even when the prices were identical. When the price of these socks went up, even fewer.

Fottrell’s article describes one reason why this might be the case, quoting a co-author of the original sock study, professor Ian Robinson. “Most people are conditional co-operators,” he says. “If other people pay more for ethical products, they will. If other people don’t, they won’t.”

We’ve certainly seen a swell of popularity for Toms shoes, it seems possible that “peer pressure” can be effective in creating a brand that is desirable and ethical. But as a parent dealing with laundry, as well as a conscience, there are a few things I’d add to the sock dilemma.

First, buying more expensive and ethically made clothing means buying less. If close to 80% of clothes bought this year eventually ends up in a landfill, according to a story on NPR this morning, it seems many of us are buying more than we need.

Second, the quality of what we do buy, not only the conditions in which it’s made, needs to be high.

This is not as easy as it sounds. Am I the only mother who has found that the clothes I bought for my oldest child—ones that have weathered years of washing and are now hand-me-downs for my youngest—are better made than the ones I might buy new right now from the same stores? I’m not talking about traditional “fast-clothing stores”, either.

My husband’s shirts—again, the same brand he’s used for nearly two decades, now develop rips on the elbows after a year. Our dry-cleaner said the fabric is cheaper these days. Her advice: my husband should stop using his elbows so much.

When it comes to children’s clothing, would I be part of the 1/3 of consumers who would follow through on good intentions and pay more for clothing made in good working conditions? I’d like to try. I don’t think I’d be perfect.

A cursory search on the Internet to find information about retailers did not yield the most easy-to-follow guidance: A t-shirt here, a pair of shoes there—clearing house of ratings with pop-up adds for stores I already use.

Recently, I ordered two shirts for my oldest from a company that uses organic cotton. Of the factories, I know nothing, however.

The purple shirt arrived in a week. The label said, “Made in China.” According to a chart in the New York Times, garment workers in China may make $500 a month compared with $37 in Bangladesh.

The green shirt arrived a few weeks later. Except for the color, it was identical to the purple one. Then I looked at the label. “Made in the USA.”

As confusing as a missing sock.



This week on The Educated Mom, we follow up our post on Summer Reading with a look at Math.

(Continue to) Listen To Your Mother

Readers may remember Ann Imig, National Director of Listen to Your Mother, live performances of poems, stories, and monologues celebrating motherhood.

It’s been two years since my post on Ann, and the reach of LTYM has spread to several more cities across the country. I caught up with Ann recently to find out what’s new.

How has Listen To Your Mother grown since last we checked in? LTYM has (more than) doubled in size each year. From my first Madison show in 2010, to five shows in 2011, to ten in 2012, to TWENTY FOUR in 2013.

Where will you be this year? This season I saw the 2nd annual show in DC, the 2nd annual show in Chicago, the 3rd annual show in Austin, and I'll host my 4th annual show in Madison this Mother's Day Sunday.

What is your goal for the years ahead? My goal is to facilitate getting LTYM to as many cities as want to host it, while maintaining the mission, the vision, and what's left of my sanity.

Can you give us a sneak preview into one story or monologue from this year that you think is pretty great? One piece of the dozens of brilliant stories I've already heard this season that took my breath away and left me weeping in my seat in Chicago, is a love letter of sorts from Liz Joynt Sandberg to the mothers in her church-- a spoken word ode to the every day details of mothering, and her fervent wish that they could even for a moment see themselves the way she sees them. I'm tearing up even at the memory.


And for those who want another way to listen to a mother, my eight-year-old can't put down this interesting book on the presidents' moms: First Mothers by Beverly Gherman with creative illustrations by Julie Downing.

Happy Mother's Day. May you get to sleep late.

Mrs. Your-Name-Here

It’s wedding season, and although I don’t expect to get any invitations this year, my heart goes out to any couple busily planning the big day. In particular, it must be hard these days to figure out how best to word the invitation-both the description of the event and even the envelope, in a way that suits both tradition and contemporary outlooks or realities.

In the few cases that we’ve received invitations over the past few years, I’m not a stickler. Spell our name wrong, don’t spend money or hours laboring over calligraphy, call me by my husband’s first name: it’s not my day, it’s the couples’, and I’m usually just impressed to get actual snail mail and to see pretty stationery.

However, in other matters, ones that don’t involve love or rehearsal dinners, I do pay attention to how letters are addressed to my husband and to me, and when, for the sake of etiquette, I am referred to as a Mrs. Thomas L. Vander Schaaff.

I image there was a day, perhaps in Holland many moons ago, when there are were a lot of Mrs. Vander Schaaff’s, and it was useful to specify that it was the Mrs. Thomas L. Vander Schaaff to whom the letter was intended.

These days, being that we’re not in Holland, the only time I’ve had a near run in with a linguistic doppelgänger was at a local bakery around Thanksgiving.

“What do you mean another Sarah Vander Schaaff reserved an apple pie? Surely that is my apple pie on the counter.”

Perhaps then, and only then, I might have asked if it was a Mrs. Thomas L. Vander Schaaff’s apple pie and not some other Mrs. Vander Schaaff, but I didn’t.

No, for the sake of clarity and dignity, it seems fitting to simply say Mrs. Sarah Vander Schaaff and not invoke my husband’s first name, especially when he’s not even listed on the envelope or, presumably, intended to read its contents.

I decided to check with the arbiters of modern etiquette. First, I turned to the Emily Post Institute online, which says that, “Above all, manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others.”

On their page, Guide to Addressing Correspondence, they have several options for addressing a woman. If you want to get a headache, try reading all the variations. Suffice it to say, they state that if you are addressing a married couple formally, and the woman has taken her husband’s name, and she uses the prefix Mrs., the correct way to address the envelope is: “Mr. and Mrs. John Kelly”.

There are many exceptions, and all hell breaks loose when a woman elects the prefix Ms. or, as they say, “outranks” her spouse.

I then turned to Martha Stewart. In a page dedicated to addressing wedding invitations, the site offers a tip for informal address: “To some couples, omitting wives' first names feels too old-fashioned; including the first names of both husband and wife after their titles is appropriate.”

Congratulations, women, having your first name appear on the envelope after your title is, in fact, appropriate in 2013. While Martha’s team intended this for weddings, perhaps we can spread the news.

A few years ago, when we were searching for schools for my then six-year-old, I looked into an all girls school nearby. I didn’t need to be convinced of the benefits of same-sex education, but they certainly did a good job of giving me the facts, including information about what a strong indicator it was for future positions of leadership.

Given our daughter was six, I did all the work for the application. I wrote the essays, I filled in the PDF forms, I wrote the check for the application fee. My husband was supportive, but I was the one who stood in line at the post office to mail in that packet.

The formal correspondence we received from this school for girls, this institution that celebrated their potential, came back addressed to: Mr. and Mrs. Thomas L. Vander Schaaff.

I don’t think it was a betrayal of their core philosophy. I think they just forgot that actual etiquette is a “sensitive awareness of the feelings of others.”

In most cases, identifying someone by her first name, even if she's elected for whatever reason to take her spouse’s last, is an acknowledgement of her personhood—if not feelings.


This week on The Educated Mom, I take a look at one school tradition that reminded me why it's good to get out of the classroom.

Hot Water

“Don’t get electrocuted,” I said to my husband as he headed into the basement.

Our water heater was gushing water, and although I had no idea what he’d need to do, the send-off at least made me feel better.

He didn’t get electrocuted, but he did shut off the water. A few minutes later he was out the door with the kids, and I was left, as any spouse who stays home would be, to figure out the rest.

First, I called the plumber. It’s always a great day at my plumber’s office, according to the recording you hear while on hold. My day was not going so well, but I was glad they were happy. They’d send a plumber in an hour.

Then I called my basement guy.

“Brian?” I said. “How are you?” he asked politely.

It was 7:45 in the morning.

“Oh, you know anytime I call you this early, I’m…kind of…”

He knew the rest. I’d had brief episodes of water in the basement before, at our previous house and once at our current house when a different plumbing appliance overflowed on the first floor and caused mayhem beneath. If he could spare someone from a crew, he said, they’d come to the house that afternoon.

I went downstairs and stomped around the soggy carpet. Fortunately, or not, most of the junk in the basement was not in the path of the stream of spilled water. Still, I had my trash bag and tossed what I could.

There was not much to do at that point but wait, so I did what anyone would do, I went on Facebook. Friends diagnosed my hot water heater issue in less than a minute. The thing was dead. This is how they end their long careers—by spilling 75 gallons of water all over the house they once provided for.

When the plumber arrived he confirmed the diagnosis.

While I read descriptions of new hot water heaters, the basement man called back with a time. He’d send someone at 1pm. Great. I was in business, but what about the dentist? My oldest daughter and I had 1pm appointments. This mother-daughter-teeth-cleaning-date was going to have to wait.

“I am very sorry,” I told the receptionist when I called, “but I need to take care of the basement.”

A bit later, I was about to eat something—sans water—when the phone rang.

“Mrs. Vander Schaaff?” said the voice of my youngest daughter’s assistant preschool teacher. It was either pink eye or vomit—I knew from her voice—something for which my daughter had been quarantined and would now be sent home. It was not pink eye today.

Well, it’s lucky the water heater broke today, I told myself, I would have been in the dentist’s chair around now and unable to pick her up right away. 

The day was looking up.

So, I grabbed a banana and headed out the door.

I’d get the sick kid first, then the one who thought she was heading to the dentist, and make it back home just in time to meet the basement guy with the shop vac.

Somewhere around this time I cancelled a playdate for the afternoon. Friends are understanding when both your hot water heater and your four-year-old are unable to keep things down.

After that, things moved quickly. The new water heater was almost installed. The basement guy wasted no time. The fans were blasting. There was hope for hot water and a dry carpet.

Then I remembered the chicken. Hot water or no hot water, that chicken needed to be cooked or it would spoil. I threw it in a marinade and tossed it in the fridge.

A few hours later, my husband returned home. We had hot water. We had a (nearly) dry basement. The chicken just needed to be put on the grill. I hadn’t showered or sat down for more than ten minutes, aside from in the car, but things were almost back on track.

Dark storm clouds rolled in as I kissed the kids good night. Downstairs, the boom of thunder and lightening made me nearly jump as I handed my husband the tray of chicken.

“Don’t get electrocuted,” I said, as he headed out the door to grill in a thunderstorm.

At least the day had symmetry.



This week on The Educated Mom we look at vision, or my own lack of it, when it came to my daughter's eyesight.

Martin

Most of the people who read this blog are probably parents or grandparents and it’s hard not to be thinking of eight year old Martin Richard right now, the young boy who died in the bombings yesterday, just a short time after seeing his father cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon.

Patriots’ Day, my husband, a New Englander, reminisced last night, is special for kids. It’s a school holiday, celebrating the battles of Lexington and Concord, and it’s also usually a home game for the Red Sox.

How much more wonderful to have your father running in the one of the most prestigious marathons in the country and to be positioned near the finish line.
One of the things that saddens me about the death of Martin Richard is that he had ever right to be joyful. Every reason to stand proudly and eagerly and expectantly near the finish line and cheer for his father. No reason to live in fear that at 2:50 that afternoon a bomb would detonate and take his life and hurt his beloved mother and sister.

My father has written about unexpected tragedies and often follows a theme that everything is normal until it isn’t. All the details of a life that seem prosaic, in retrospect, are bittersweet when placed in the context of the end we wish didn’t come.

You may have seen a photo on Facebook of Martin holding a poster board. Handwritten in marker it reads, “No More Hurting People. Peace.”

Peace.