Marriage, Family & Parenthood

Employees with families make good workers

I really admire the folks at 37signals, the Web 2.0 company that you could argue is the original Web 2.0 company and purveyors of some very fine online software, including Basecamp, which I used to coordinate the production of Catholic World Report when I was managing editor and then editor.

One of the reasons I admire them is because of their enlightened, employee-friendly policies. For instance, they’ve instituted a standard four-day workweek because it’s better for everyone and people are more productive. They subsidize not just employee education, but also employee hobbies because they make the employees better people and thus better employees. And, in contrast to many small Internet companies, they see the value in hiring employees with families.

This particular employee points out that Web startups traditionally favor single twentysomethings who will work untold hours with little complaint and the ephemeral promise of venture-capital millions, but that such devotion ends up being a crutch for management to shovel hour after hour of productivity after badly conceived ideas and ill-considered approaches until they uncover that one shining nugget.

That’s why I like working with the family man or woman. They come in as a cold bath of reality. When people have other obligations outside of work that they actually care more about than your probably-not-so-world-changing idea, the crutches are not available as an easy way out, and you’ll have to walk by the power of your good ideas and execution or you’ll fall fast and early. That’s a good thing!

From the experience I’ve had working with family people, I’ve found an amazing ability to get stuff done when the objectives are reasonably clear, the work appears to have meaning, and if it can be done within the scope of what should constitute a work week. When there are real constraints on your time, like you have to pickup the kids or make them dinner or put them to bed, it appears to bring a serenity of focus to the specific hours dedicated to work.

This is what companies need, startups or not. They need constraints and especially constraints on how often you can play the hero card to Get This Very Important Project Done. Most projects are just not that important and most things just shouldn’t be done anyway, despite how good of an idea you feel it is in the heat of the moment.

In most companies what you need is a good mix of mature, older workers with outside responsibilities that ground them, maybe even make them conservative and cautious, combined with young, fire-in-the-belly, go-getters willing to work long hours to make their mark in the world. Each group tempers the weaknesses of the other with their own strengths and become a powerful tool for whatever your company or organization is doing. Something to think about.

Bella discovers the “reading room”

Isabella’s latest fun quirk is picking up some of her books and announcing, “I’m going to the baf-room!”

I have no idea where she learned such behavior.

Your camera phone could save your child

Here’s a cool tip for parents that will help you if you lose your child in a public place:

So take this as a lesson. Almost all cell phones nowadays have built-in cameras. When attending large public events or outings (amusement parks, fairs, circus etc.) you should take pictures of your children with your cell phone camera. The picture you take could be used to describe clothing, physical attributes and save precious seconds. The faster your loved one can be identified, the greater the chances they will be found safe. This is a parenting toy you probably already have.

[Link via Parent Hacks]

Who’s your mommy?

Last night, as we were preparing Isabella for bed, Melanie was trying to get Bella to give her a kiss goodnight. Ever since Sophia was born, Bella’s bedtime ritual has been turned around. Instead of mommy doing the bedtime reading and rocking and tucking in after prayers, it’s daddy now. So mommy takes her leave from Bella at the end of prayers.

For some reason last night Bella was being recalcitrant with Melanie, ducking her head for a hug, instead of giving Melanie a kiss. Melanie kept coaxing her with “Give mommy a kiss, Isabella. Give her a kiss.”

In order to model the behavior she wanted, she said, “Look, daddy gives mommy a kiss.”

Then she turned to me, leaned in and said to me, “Give mommy a kiss.”

…

Um, yeah, that was a bit too weird for me.

Triduum and small children, redux

I can tell I’m getting older. I was thinking of writing a post on how some parents of very small children just can’t participate in the Easter Triduum because the kids can’t suffer the missed bedtimes, missed naptimes, and very long Masses and services. But then, I had the sneaking suspicion, I’d written something about it before.

Um, I guess I did. Last year. Oh well. I guess I’ll just say “Ditto”.

Child tax credit?

I was filling out a W-4 form at work the other day—seeing as we have another tax deduction now—and I noticed a section entitled Child Tax Credit. Apparently, we fall within the criteria which would nearly double the number of exemptions for which we qualify.

However, I did not take the extra exemptions because I was afraid of taking too many. So what’s the deal? What is this Child Tax Credit?

Are there any tax professionals in the audience who can explain it in layman’s terms? Of course, I would abide by the proviso that it would be purely for information purposes only, that I would not hold you liable for subsequent actions I take, and that I will consult a tax professional in my pay before taking any action. Just to satisfy the lawyers, like.

That said, can someone translate?

Pushing birth control on new parents

I never realized, until I starting dating good Catholic women, how much the medical establishment doesn’t just push contraception on them, but baldly assumes that every woman takes birth control.

To wit, Melanie was given a pamphlet by the hospital when she was discharged called, “Information for New Parents and Their Babies.” It contains the following paragraph:

Sexual relations - We recommend that you do not have sexual intercourse for four to six weeks and until you have stopped bleeding and have no pain. You will need a birth control method before you resume sexual relations, even if you are breastfeeding. Although breastfeeding may stop ovulation, it is not reliable and should not be considered a form of birth control. The type of birth control prescribed for you will depend on your personal preference, whether or not you are breastfeeding, and your provider’s recommendations. Condoms are a good form of birth control if used correctly. Ask your physician or midwife about available methods of birth control.

Check out that second sentence. There’s no question, no “perhaps you may need” or “if you are using birth control.” Instead, it makes bland assumption that you will need birth control. In fact, the entirety of their advice on sexual relations for mothers who’ve just had babies is “Get birth control” and “oh, by the way, wait four to six weeks to have sex.” Talk about getting your priorities mixed up.

The default position of the medical establishment apparently is that children are to be avoided whenever possible, that families will always default to contracepting except when they explicitly decide to actively acquire a child. Talk about sucking the spontaneity and joy out of family life. But then children are just a burden, right? Or so they seem to say.

Waiting: a Sophia update

For those of you who are not reading Melanie’s blog or following my Twitter feed, there’s nothing new to report on the baby Sophia front. Yesterday was Melanie’s due date, but apart from a few scattered contractions (no more than 1 or 2 an hour), nothing’s happening. Nevertheless, I’m sticking close by because these things can change quickly.

While Isabella was five days late, there’s no guarantee that Sophia will wait the same amount of time. Thankfully my mother-in-law has flown into town to be with us, so my concerns about caring for Bella during labor and delivery, as well as Melanie and the girls when I have to go back to work. She’s staying for several weeks, which is an awesome gift.

The waiting, as they say, is the hardest part. It’s an odd feeling in this hyper-scheduled, by-the-clock world we live in to be forced to wait an indeterminate period of time, unable to make commitments or to schedule anything else while we wait for a little child to decide our plans for us. And so we wait.

Meanwhile, our preparations continue apace. I’ve been fixing various broken bits around the house, carrying bassinet and swing from the basement, putting baby-carrier base into the minivan, and so on.

By the way, for those who don’t follow Twitter, on Friday I was sitting in an all-hands meeting at work when I felt the familiar buzz of my phone. Normally I would ignore it, but these days every call could be a call to action. When I saw Melanie’s number on the caller ID I sprang from my seat and out into the hall. Everyone in the meeting knew what that meant.

Heart leaping into my throat, I answered: “What’s up?”

“What kind of batteries does the baby swing take?”

I reminded Melanie that there are no casual calls from her on or after her due date. And I said told her I did not know which batteries the swing uses and that she should buy both C and D.

“You take it on faith, you take it to the heart. The waiting is the hardest part.”

Or we could call her Domino

I think we have a real shot at this.

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Feb. 25 /PRNewswire/ — While storks deliver bundles of joy to families, Domino’s Pizza delivers the birthday party. In honor of Domino’s BRKLYN (Brooklyn-style pizza), Domino’s Pizza, the recognized world leader in pizza delivery, will throw a pizza party for every family that names their child born on Feb. 29, 2008, Brooklyn. Additionally, the family of the first child named Brooklyn born in the continental U.S. on Leap Day will receive $1,000 in pizza gift certificates. All forms of the spelling Brooklyn will be accepted.

So what do you think? Brooke Lynn Bettinelli. Do you think Melanie will go for it? Feb. 29 is her due date. And, hey, free pizza! What’s not to like?

[Link via Daddy Types]

Why they want to indoctrinate your kids

They see her six-year-old’s innocence, as they see all innocence, as a rebuke to their depravity. Hating that innocence, which must pain them whenever they encounter it, they want to extinguish it as soon and as thoroughly as possible. That’s why they want into the first grade classroom.

- Diogenes on the moral nihilism of sex educators and AIDS activists.

Bottom line: they want to turn love and marriage into a disease-riddled, emotionally empty, mechanical exercise of selfishness and physical activity. Who values sex more? Those who want to cherish it in the protected context of marriage and love and family or those who want to debase it and strip it of mystery and higher purpose?

But we’re the ones who are sexually repressed.

Baby in the pool

My uncle sent me a video to this video promoting a program called Infant Swimming Resource. It teaches infants and toddlers how to swim and float while fully clothed so that they can save themselves if they fall in a pool, at least until an adult comes to save them.

I think this may be a good idea for some families, but I have to admit that my gut was twisting while watching the video. Undoubtedly the parents were very close by, yet it’s hard to see a child in distress like that. Of course, it’s a happy ending and the video is effective in (a) reminding me of this danger and (b) showing me that there’s an effective solution.

Watch it, and then imagine how they had to restrain the mom.

While you were sleeping…

While Isabella was napping, Melanie ran out to the supermarket for a few things. She usually avoids the market on the weekends because of the madhouse factor, but we ran out of some staples.

Isabella woke up when Melanie had been back only a few minutes and all was right with the world … until she saw Melanie still wearing her boots.

With an outraged sense of betrayal, Isabella started crying and pointing at Melanie’s boots, saying, “Shoes, shoes” over and over. It was like she was saying, “You went out without me? How could you?” and then she demanded to “go! go!”

Of course, Melanie bundled her up and they’re now playing outside.

(I would have taken her, but Melanie had just expressed a craving for a Coke so she’s making an outing of her trip to the corner store.)

Family-values conservatives … with families

He told me that we'd get a much different kind of conservatism if more conservative intellectuals had kids, or were more involved in family life. Conservatives whose intellections and contributions to public debate don't factor in family life are in general too narrowly focused for their own good, he said.

Dealing with the birth of the second child

We’re just about six weeks away from our delivery date for our new daughter, Sophia Therese. It’s funny that what worried me last time—labor, delivery, and what to expect being a new dad—is not what worries me this time. In fact, the actual delivery of the baby is hardly on my radar screen (sorry, Melanie).

No, what most fills my thoughts right now is how we’re going to deal with Isabella. More specifically, how am I going to deal with her in mommy’s absence? When the time comes do we take her with us somehow or do we drop her off with my sister? What if it’s the middle of the night? How will she cope with the disruption and not being able to see mommy for some period of time? (She’s never been away from mommy for more than a few hours.)

What do I do with Isabella after Sophia is born? Will I be able to get her to bed and how will I deal with the inevitable calling for mommy? What if Melanie has to have another C-section and is in the hospital for four days? What about after, if she’s not allowed to lift Bella?

It’s not like I’m incapable of doing these things. As it is now, I’m an integral part of her routine. At bedtime, Melanie and I switch off bathing her, but I’m always the one to take her to her bedroom and dry her off and play with her while getting her ready for bed. I brush her hair and her teeth and get her new diaper and her pajamas on her. But it’s Melanie who rocks her to sleep and puts her down.

I wonder what other dads have done, when faced with the dilemma of the birth of their second child. If you didn’t have ready help—your mom or your wife’s mom, for example—how did you cope?

Update: I suppose I should clarify. I’m not worried about Isabella adjusting to having a new sister and mommy having to divide her attention. I know all kids adjust.

I’m specifically thinking about Isabella having to deal with me for those two, three, or four days that mommy’s not there doing all those things that mommy does for her every day.

I know we’ll be okay, but I just wrote it down to voice it for myself.

An unfathomable tragedy

Perhaps you’ve seen in the news the tragic story of a Massachusetts woman who died with her 4- and 5-year-old niece and nephew last week. The mother of her own two teenagers had picked up her niece and nephew, the children of her identical twin, at their home in New Hampshire and was driving them back to her house in southern Massachusetts for a sleepover weekend, a common event for them. At some point, according to police, she deliberately swerved across the highway median from the southbound onto the northbound side. She then parked on the far shoulder of the highway, got out of the car with the kids, undressed herself and them, and then carried them out onto the darkened road where they were hit and killed by two cars.

Everyone has struggled for a week to fathom this tragedy, and apart from a mention of a “brief mental illness” suffered by the woman in the past year, there is no ready explanation. No note, no clues revealed in retrospect, nothing. By all reports they were twin girls in a family of 11 children, a devout Catholic family. The deceased woman was a regular Mass attendee, a regular volunteer in her parish. Normal as any of us.

Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan examines the story from the perspective of a mother and sister. When such tragedies happen, most of us frame it in our own minds in personal terms: What if it were my children and my sister? What if I were the one with a mental illness that so warped my reality I did the unthinkable? If it were my children would they be scared or just confused and which is the greater mercy?

Most of us are mothers or fathers, too. Some of us know more than we wish about what Middlesex District Attorney Gerald Leone called a “brief mental illness,” or even what psychiatrists this weekend called “psychotic episodes … when you are out of touch with reality, when you believe things that are bizarre.”

[…]

Most of us have sisters, too. We shared a bed, a bathroom, combs, shirts, lipsticks. We adored and resented each other. We could be fiercely loyal and fiercely cruel. We knew all about each other’s third-grade and seventh-grade and high school heartbreaks. We followed each other down the aisle. We held each other’s newborns.

And if a sister suffered a “brief mental illness” we were sorry and sad and stunned, or maybe not so stunned. Honestly, once or twice since then we might hesitate about leaving the children with her again. Suppose she woke up crying or lost her patience or that awful, blank look came back into her eyes? Suppose she frightened the children?

[…]

I remember so many times when my own children were small, giving them to my sister and mother for weekend overnights. I’d meet them halfway between my house and theirs, in the parking lot of a Hanover McDonald’s, off Route 3, carrying their stuffed bears and tiny backpacks and Happy Meal toys.

I remember that uneasy feeling in my stomach as my sister’s car tailights grew smaller. It was as if that physical connection between me and my children was being pulled out of me, stretched thinner and thinner until coming apart, like a strand of a spider’s web, when her car disappeared.

I knew I could not protect them then at all on the cold, dark highway. I wasn’t beside them.

But it was OK. I trusted my mother to keep them safe and my sister to bring them home to me.

There is the crux of it. We trust that all will be well, that such tragedies won’t visit us. But of course, we live in a fallen world where tragedies happen, if not to us, then someone everyday. How do we deal with such things? How do we live with suffering and the looming shadow of suffering? I don’t know how someone without faith in God can live with it. How can they not fall into despair? Christian faith and hope do not take away the sting of suffering nor does it turn us into pollyannas who ignore reality. Instead, they teach us that suffering is a moment in time; that death in this life is not the end; and that if we take a risk and trust in God and be patient, suffering and death will one day be replaced with eternal joy and life.

When contemplating the unfathomable, there is no alternative unless we fall into the abyss of despair, which is no alternative at all. Faith and hope are the only way through.