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I guess I am just destined to disappointment with my fiction choices.  After really liking Bridget Jones's Diary, I can barely make it through the sequel. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason has very little of the original's charm.  It drags on and on.  The entries are too long - no one writes out entire scenes with every bit of conversation and lots of description in their diaries!  If Helen Fielding wanted to write that way, she should have dropped the diary format.  Even the parts where Bridget counts things at the beginning of her entries are not funny in this book.  There are too many characters, too many long conversations with her friends, and a really silly breaking up with Mark Darcy.  A good emotional conflict is not one that could be resolved with one simple conversation if the annoying characters would ever actually talk to each other! 

The plot drifts all over the place.  I am about halfway through this book and don't know if I can finish it.  Of course, it's not as bad as Scarlett, but that at least could be blamed on a different author!  There is one funny part, which is where Bridget, thinking she will become a freelance celebrity interviewer, interviews Colin Firth. Suffice to say her career ends before it ever gets going. What's even worse is that this book routinely crosses the line over into vulgarity, which the first book did not do.  I am not big on vulgarity.

So far, Bridget seems less likeable and more annoying and stupid.  I cannot recommend this book, which is sad since I really enjoyed the first one.  I frequently laughed out loud reading that!  Sigh...

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In my quest to find some fiction to read while nursing, I looked over my literature lists last week (how's that for alliteration?) and decided to read Tom Jones by Henry Fielding.  I had to slow down enough to find the book and pull it off the shelf while simultaneously going fast enough that the twins (corralled in the double stroller) could not pull anything off the shelves.  It's a delicate balance.

Right next to The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling was Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding.  I liked the movie well enough so I grabbed that book too.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, even though I am a (hopefully not so) Smug Married with seven children.  You really can see your own foibles in her character even if your situation in life is different. She has a "laundry crisis" every so often, which basically means that she hasn't done any laundry and has nothing clean to wear.  Every time she tries to cook she gets too fancy and thinks she is going to transform into a gourmet cook overnight.  On March 19 she decided to serve shepherds pie to her friends on her birthday since it's "British Home Cooking."  Then on March 20, she adds, "Have decided to serve the shepherds pie with Char-Grilled Belgian Endive Salad, Roquefort Lardons and Frizzled Chorizo, to add a fashionable touch (have not tried before but sure it will be easy) followed by individual Grand Marnier soufflés...Expect to become known as brilliant cook and hostess." Her friends end up taking her out to dinner. At one point she reads a magazine article on "Make Parties Work For You" and tries to implement it for her big work party, and then after making all these notes on how she's going to approach the party, writes, "Don't want to go to scary party."

One of the funniest things is how she keeps track of different thing at the beginning of most of the entries: her weight, alcohol drunk and cigarettes smoked, calories, and seasonal items like Valentines and Christmas cards received.  She'll sometimes give reasons why her weight is up or down, like on February 9 "extra fat presumably caused by winter whale blubber."

The end of the book is different from the end of the movie.  I remember thinking the end of the movie was kind of stupid (wasn't she running through the streets of London on Christmas in her underwear?) so I am glad it's different.  I got the sequel out of the library yesterday and can't wait to start reading it!

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A Passage to India: thumbs down.  This book surpasses even Sense and Sensibility for the most pages where nothing happens, which I honestly did not believe possible.

The Jane Austen Book Club:  not making it out of chapter one.  Too much vulgarity.

I used to like fiction.  I remember reading lots of it. What happened?

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High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed by Michael Kodas was a fascinating book.  I have been interested in Everest since reading Into Thin Air, about the tragedy that occurred there in 1996, when 15 climbers died.  Let me clarify that I have absolutely no desire to climb any mountains myself.  I like breathing too much to depend on a machine to do it for me.  This also means that I do not ever need to scuba dive or go into space!  I spent most of the book wondering WHY anyone would subject themselves to what one goes through to try to climb Mt. Everest.  However, I also freely admit that I lack ambition.

Actually, the hard part is not climbing up to the summit, it is getting back down alive.  It seems that most people die on their way down.  For anyone who hasn't read much about the climb, it actually takes several months.  First you have to get used to the altitude.  Then there are several different camps.  You climb up to one, climb back down, climb back up, etc.  All of this is training for the actual climb.  It takes time and money, and where there is money, there are problems. And here is the actual point of High Crimes.

The disastrous 1996 climbing season made some of us in the world aware of climbing Mt. Everest and how difficult it is (though it is not the most difficult mountain), but it also made other, more unscrupulous people aware of the money to be made there.  Clients are paying up to $65,000 for the journey, guides, equipment, Sherpas (these are the natives who help with the expeditions), etc.  There is no regulation or law on Mt. Everest really, and anyone can call himself a guide - the only requirement is having someone to pay you.

The central story in the book is the sad fate of Dr. Nils Antezana, who perished on Mt. Everest after trusting his life to a "guide" who had never even been to the summit.  Entwined with his story is the story of the author and his Connecticut team's bid for the summit the same year.  And through it all, Kodas reveals the crime, the theft and greed, and the dangerous personalities that cost lives on Everest every year. 

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I just finished reading a book that I have had for a while called Maternal Desire: On Children, Love, and the Inner Life by Daphne de Marneffe.  This book is not really about what I thought it was about, and so I was mostly disappointed.  The author has a good point but never explores the why behind it.

Basically, she believes that there is a lack of recognition among feminists and society in general that many women *want* to mother their children, ie, maternal desire.  So I thought, since the author is a psychologist, that she was going to explore where maternal desire comes from, etc.  Instead the chapters are more like essays on various topics: Fertility, Adolescence, Ambivalence, Pleasure, Child Care, Midlife, etc.  I actually thought several of these were misnamed - "Fertility", for example, seemed to be more about infertility, and "Midlife" was more about intergenerational interactions between women.  There really seemed to be a lack of clear focus.

I don't know why I keep reading books by feminists.  I guess I am trying to understand them, but so often I just have no clue what they are talking about. In the chapter on "Adolescence," she discusses a book called The Hungry Self by Kim Chernin, which is about eating disorders.  Chernin argues that eating disorders are "a way for young women to manage their guilt and fear about surpassing their mothers."  Apparently Chernin drew from the psychoanalytic theory of Melanie Klein, who suggested "a kind of normative greed in infancy, expressed in fantasies of scooping out the mother's insides and sucking her dry.  A psychologically healthy mother communicates to her baby that she has survived her baby's 'attack' by being loving and constant in the face of the baby's inevitable greed."  What?  Do people really believe these things?  How on earth would we know if a baby was "fantasizing" and further, what the baby was fantasizing about?  Why would we assume that the baby is having such a destructive fantasy?  What a horrible view of babies, that they consist of greed!

I really have to say, in all the books I have read by feminists, that in general, I think they have real issues with their mothers.  These issues are probably at the heart of their problems with motherhood and why the direction of the feminist movement has never been to support mothers, but rather to make women like men.  I don't include the author of Maternal Desire in my sweeping generalization here, just to clarify.  She actually sounds pretty level-headed, and at least willing to admit that she likes her children and likes being with them and taking care of them.

Several times, the author comments on mothers' feelings that they have done nothing, which reminded me of a much better book I blogged about in the past: What Mothers Do: Especially When It Looks Like Nothing by Naomi Stadlen.  Here is a link to my 3 part review of that book.  My recommendation: skip Maternal Desire and read What Mothers Do, and if anybody knows a book that explores why women want to mother without denigrating them, please let me know about it!

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The Bilingual Edge: Why, When, and How to Teach Your Child a Second Language by Kendall King and Alison Mackey is a useful guide for parents who are interested in raising bilingual children.  Rereading it the last few days has helped me get over my meltdown of a few days ago.  The book is clearly organized and written by two mothers who also happen to have PhDs in Linguistics and are professors at Georgetown.  They noticed that many parents these days are interested in raising their children to speak more than one language, but worried that the research about how children actually learn languages was not getting through to them.  One of the best aspects of the book is the little sections where they highlight a study and present its findings.

Most of the information in the book I already knew, but it was great to read it all in one place and written so well.  While reading through this time, I highlighted some parts that stood out to me. 

Section 1 discusses why two languages are better than one. Chapter 1 begins with advantages of bilingualism: "advanced knowledge of two languages has been shown to result in specific brain benefits, like enhanced creativity and flexibility, increased test scores, and improved literacy skills, as well as social advantages such as great cross-cultural understanding, adaptability, and increased competitiveness on the job market down the line."  It's important to note that they are talking about advanced knowledge, not just being able to count or say a couple phrases. Chapter 2 deals with myths and misconceptions about language learning. 

Section 2 answers "Which Language and When?" Chapter 3 is about choosing which language.  Chapter 4 discusses when to start (in a word, now!) and addresses specific concerns with different ages of children, along with tips. Chapter 5 talks about birth order, gender, personality and aptitude and how they affect language learning.

Section 3 is "How?"  Chapter 6 is particularly relevant for my situation.  "Children who hear more language and more complex language in everyday interactions tend to produce more language themselves" and "Children learn their first, second, and third languages best by being exposed to rich, dynamic, engaging interaction in each of those languages.  The best way to get your children talking is to surround them with language."  This is definitely something I need to work on.  I started actively memorizing more of those Fingerspiele (scroll down for the part about fingerplay) and the twins love them!  Kendall and Mackey also reminded me that "it's less important for your child to hear, for instance, perfect Korean than it is to have some early and meaningful exposure to Korean."

In Chapter 6 they present a study which shows that "reading aloud clearly seemed to affect these toddlers' language skills."  When two languages are involved, the same holds true. "In fact, the frequency with which children were read to in a foreign language had more of an impact than even the total exposure they had to the language."  Wow!  Reading this made me realize that I read to the twins in German and nobody reads to them in English, so that will definitely be a part of this coming school year for my daughters.  Reading aloud to the twins will benefit Gabrielle as well.  I also may try to work in reading out loud to all of them in English as part of our school day.

They also answer how much of a language is enough for the child to actively speak it.  Research shows that the minimum exposure necessary is one-fifth of the child's waking hours.  In order to help families determine what exposure their child is getting and whether it is active or passive, they designed a "Family Language Audit" that looks helpful.

Now, here comes the part of the book that is confusing to me.  While discussing minority language at home families (for example, a Russian couple who move to the US and want to continue Russian at home), they present a study that links home language use and academic performance.  The researcher studied 3 kinds of families:  English speaking families who only spoke English at home, minority language families who regularly used the minority language, and minority language families where the adults spoke English.  Scores from groups 1 and 2 were similar, but "children whose parents spoke their non-native language, English, at home (group 3) fared considerably worse.   As an explanation, [the researcher] suggests that the parents' 'use of their native language was beneficial because it provided rich, complex language input for the children.'"

If earlier in the book they were saying that language input need not be perfect, and then now they are saying that children do better when parents speak their native language, which is it?  Is it just that the parent must make sure to provide good input?  Or are they really saying that parents shouldn't speak a non-native language to their children?

The next chapter is about the whole "edutainment" business and presents some shocking findings.  In a study of 9 month old babies, one group got one-on-one reading and play sessions with native speakers of Chinese, while the other group watched videos of the same speakers doing the same things.  "The researchers found that the babies who watched and listened to the very high-quality videos did not learn any  Chinese sounds. In fact, they seemed no better off than a comparison group who had been exposed to no Chinese at all."  The same holds true for toddlers - they basically will not learn language from a DVD. 

Instead, Kendall and Mackey recommend doing something I started doing a while back.  I only have one video in German (Bilingual Baby).  I haven't wanted to hassle with DVD region codes and buy expensive German DVDs and now I am glad I didn't.  What I decided to do was to comment in German about what's happening in the English DVDs they are watching.  I figured they may be watching in English, but I could at least provide some commentary in German.  Whatever language is on the DVD, the authors suggest pausing it and discussing, asking questions or simply repeating things the characters say.  As they clearly state, "it is human interaction itself that is crucial for language development."  However, there is a place for foreign language DVDs for school-age children.

Chapter 8 talks about various kinds of schools: immersion programs, private classes, classes for heritage speakers, private tutors, etc. 

Section 4 is called "What If...?" and talks about various situations or problems that families may have along the way: language mixing, language delay, so-called expert advice (just like when you have problems breastfeeding, the advice is usually "Stop nursing", when bilingual families have problems, the advice is often "Stop being bilingual"), special needs, and apparent lack of progress.   Chapter 11 discusses trilingualism and dialects, and point out that knowing a second language makes learning a third even easier.  Chapter 12 focuses on family problems, like children resisting the language, problems with extended family, and divorce. 

There is an interesting section about bilingualism making your family stand out.  "Only 9.3 percent of Americans speak both their native language and another language fluently (compare this with 52.7 percent of Europeans!) In real life, these statistics mean that there will probably be times when you or your child feel a bit odd...about using a language other than English."  I know that when I take the twins out somewhere, I do feel strange speaking to them in German.

The book can be summed up well by this quote from the conclusion: "the most important thing parents can do to promote language learning is to talk to their child as much as possible in the languages they want them to learn.  Both quantity and quality of talk are important here!"

I was so inspired by writing this review I took an hour break in the middle to sit on the floor and play with the little ones in German and read to them (when they let me - Alexander has confiscated "Das magische Baumhaus" so he can read it himself).  It was fun!

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I recently read Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond.  It really was a "bait and switch" experience, because what I thought was a history book ended up being about environmentalism.  I wouldn't have read it if I had known that.  Although, by the end it seemed to me that a lot of environmentalism is just common sense, in which case the environmentalists have been doing a pretty bad job explaining the issues to other people. It only makes sense to not cut down all your trees, or to not eat all the fish in the world faster than they can reproduce, or to not let all your topsoil disappear.

This book is very long and could probably stand to be shorter.  If it were a movie I would have been saying, "Isn't this OVER yet???"  I skipped the first part about Montana so I could get into the historical stuff.  The historical collapsed societies he covers are Easter Island, Pitcairn and Henderson islands, the Anasazi, the Maya, and the Vikings in Greenland.  He also analyzes some modern societies, like Rwanda, a contrast of Haiti and the Dominican Republic (which are on the same island), China, and Australia.  There are also some success stories to contrast the failed societies. 

To me, by far the most interesting section was about Viking Greenland.  He briefly covers the other Viking settlements, all of which succeeded except for North America.  (Apparently, when you kill 8 out of 9 of the first Native Americans you run into, word gets around and you aren't really welcomed! They couldn't send enough settlers to overcome the locals.) Vikings survived in Greenland for 450 years and then the last settlers starved to death even though they were surrounded by edible fish.  They did not eat fish!

The last section of the book is his analysis of the world's situation.  He makes some really big leaps in logic, and his suggestions of what any one person can do about the problems in the world are buried in the "Further Readings" section.  They aren't really that earth-shaking either, things like vote, pay attention to what you buy, talk to your family and friends about the issues, etc.

I could tell that the author and I have very different viewpoints on many things.  He stops just short of full-blown admiration for China's one-child policy.  At one point he talks about how elite people tend to try to isolate themselves from problems, but says that elites (ie, rich people) still have to breathe and drink water, and then links "chemicals in the environment" with increased infertility.  Then, later, he mentions his "Third World friends" who have heard of the "benign forms of birth control" that the First World has and want them, but the US won't include family planning in its overseas aid.  I think if he did a little research in this area, he would find that those benign forms aren't so benign, and that increased infertility in the First World is directly related.  And it seems contradictory as well - he should probably be happy for any form of infertility because it decreases the population.

He also discusses an interesting concept of a society's core values and how these can help or hinder.  His best example of this is Australia viewing itself as British and how Australians tried to recreate England there (for example, by disastrously introducing rabbits and foxes). However, when he introduces this concept and says what he believes the US's core values are, he mentions things like racism and homophobia.  Huh? If you were going to ask me, I would say things like "individualism" and "radical self-sufficiency" were core values that might not be serving us so well.

I'm not sure that all his societies even make the points he is trying to illustrate.  For example, he says over and over that because of globalization, one society collapsing will inevitably affect the rest of the world.  However, the only modern collapse he examines is Rwanda (the rest just might collapse).  Whether or not it was a collapse according to his criteria, it is really difficult to see how the collapse affected the average person in the US, for example.

My suggestion for this book would be, if you are interested in any of the societies he examines, read that section.  I finished this book nearly two weeks ago, and upon further reflection, it wasn't really worth all the time I spent reading it.

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I haven't done a book review in a while, but don't worry!  I'm still reading and will post several book reviews in the next couple days.

The Great Risk Shift by Jacob S. Hacker was a really interesting read.  If you have thought that American families are increasingly vulnerable and their fortunes can turn seemingly on a dime, this book confirms your suspicions.  He outlines the many ways that American society and businesses have saddled the family with all the risk inherent in life: from job (in)security, to family responsibility, to individual retirement planning, to lack of affordable health insurance.  He devotes a thorough chapter to each topic.  He explains how families who seem to have it all can suddenly be applying for welfare or Medicaid, by showing how the volatility of incomes has increased.  A family may be making $100,000 this year, but that is no guarantee for next year.

I personally learned the most from the retirement chapter, because I didn't really know anything about the subject.  I knew that traditional pensions were all but gone, but understood nothing about what had supposedly replaced them.  Using Enron as a example, Hacker demonstrates that 401Ks are completely vulnerable - the profits are yours, but so are the losses, and if your company disappears, so can your money.  One Enron employee had $600,000 in retirement savings, and one year later, they were worth $11,000.  Hacker also explains why 401Ks mainly benefit people with high incomes, especially since most low-income people don't even have them.  And with the volatility of the stock market, it's really hard to take a 401K and turn it into a guaranteed source of retirement income.  There is another example of a man who had $900,000 in his, and then received a check for his account of nearly $800.  Yes, you read that right.  Nearly a third of Americans born between 1931 and 1941 lost 50% of their financial wealth between 1992-2002.

You would think that these changes would make politicians and others realize the absolute necessity of Social Security, but instead there are critics who want to "privatize" Social Security to make it more like the 401Ks, which aren't working.  Hacker makes a persuasive argument that all of the doomsday talk we have heard about SS is just propaganda to undermine support of the program.  It made me think: have I ever heard someone who actually receives SS complain about it?  No, I haven't.  SS is certainly part of my financial plan should anything happen to my husband (it doesn't do much for him if I die, because I haven't worked enough to get decent benefits).  I learned enough to know now that any talk of "privatizing" Social Security would be disastrous to Americans and will vote accordingly in the future.

Over and over Hacker talks about the "Personal Responsibility Crusade" which is his term for the people who go on and on about individual responsibility and believe that it's OK for families to carry all this risk, and actually would shift more risk onto them. "Say this for the Personal Responsibility Crusade: it has a vision and a goal.  Critics of public and private programs of insurance know what they are against, and they know what they are for: greater personal responsibility and individual self-reliance, propelled by aggressive government policies that erode the bonds of shared fate and undermine the systems of social insurance that once linked Americans across lines of class and economic vulnerability."

I have run into this attitude many times on the Internet.  I'm not sure where it comes from or why.  I have seen Americans write horrible slurs about Canada and their health care system, when most Canadians I talk to seem pretty satisfied with it and relieved that they, unlike their American neighbors, don't have to sometimes choose between a doctor visit or food on the table, or face bankruptcy because of medical bills.  They don't have to worry about changing jobs and losing decent insurance, or about even being able to find "affordable" coverage.  They don't have their rates jacked up every January by a supposedly "non-profit" company.  Canada is sounding kind of like paradise, huh?  But don't mention universal health insurance in certain circles unless you are prepared for the fallout.

It just really makes no sense to me, in the supposedly richest county in the world, that we tell families that in every aspect of life, they are completely on their own.  You must pay for your own overpriced health insurance and everything that isn't covered, while simultaneously raising your children and paying for everything related to their care, while also saving enough money for your retirement AND investing it correctly, AND you must do all this by relying on the goodwill of your employer to let you keep your job.  If this is the new definition of the American dream, then that is definitely what it is: a dream.

Hacker's recommendations?  Understand the risks, save a lot more than you probably are, limit debt, don't overextend to buy a house, go to a college you can actually afford so that you complete the degree (the most important thing), have reasonable insurance, use whatever government programs you qualify for (another thing many people I have talked to on the Internet are against), get mad about the topic and speak out.  And he also makes political recommendations to address these huge areas.

This book was definitely worth reading, so that you can have a clear picture of what American families are up against.  I enjoyed it and learned a lot.

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I have been meaning to write this review since the summer, and this week I am finally doing it!  I like to tell these little stories full of twists and turns, because I think it is amazing how God takes tiny things and turns them into a path to someplace new.

Amy Tiemann, the author, lives in my vicinity and spoke to my Mothers of Multiples group.  However, I did not attend because I was either hugely pregnant and not going out, or had newborn twins and was not going out.  Plus, I don't really like the word "mojo", so I had very little interest.

Then, just before Mothers' Day this year, someone sent the group an email saying that Amy Tiemann had gotten her big media break and was going to be on a panel on the Today show the Saturday before Mothers' Day.  I thought it sounded interesting so I asked my son to tape it for me and I watched it.  Leslie Bennetts was also on the panel, and so I decided to read her book "Feminine Mistake." Part 1 of my review of that book is here, and Part 2 is here.

I began reading Amy Tiemann's website, mojomom.com, and read all the archives of her blog.  Another mom in my group kindly mailed me her copy of Mojo Mom so I could read it.  I also listened to Amy's podcast of her interview with Leslie Bennetts.  I guess you could say I was immersing myself in the idea of being more than a mother.

Since she lives near me, I wondered if I would ever run into her, and I did actually, at the mall.  I chatted with her for a minute and would have loved to talk longer, but one daughter was at ballet and the other one was with me, and I needed to get back over there so they could switch.  I was a little annoyed I couldn't talk with her longer.

Amy is a wonderful person!  She is incredibly positive, and hardly ever says an unkind thing.  Also, her daughter attends a Montessori school, and she said in her blog that if she were President, she would have Montessori school for every child.  I know I said that I was done with Montessori, but I think I spoke too soon ;-).  But that's another blog post!

Anyway, now begins the book review!  The full title is Mojo Mom: Nurturing Your Self while Raising a Family.  The first page says, "This book is not about escaping, but about surfacing.  Becoming a mom does not mean that you have to sign away your rights to individual growth for the next twenty years.  Each of us needs time, space, and support to allow us to answer the question, Who am I, now that I am a Mom? Many parenting experts will tell you to take care of yourself, but only because it will make you a better Mom.  Others make you feel like you should 'get away' from your family and do your own thing to be whole again...This is not about reclaiming who we were but discovering who we are now and who we can become - and all of this amidst the daily demands, dreams, hugs, smudges, laundry, and limits of the Mojo Mom life."

She repeats that question throughout the book - "Who am I, now that I am a Mom?"  I am usually baffled by descriptions of transitions to motherhood because I had no difficulties with it.  My theory on that is that I was 18 when I became a mom, so I was not used to having an adult life the way I wanted it, doing whatever I felt like when I wanted.  But also it was my personality. I remember reading Phyllis Chesler's book With Child: a Diary of Motherhood  around that time, and I just didn't get it.  She was worried about things like, "Will my baby hate me?" - a thought that never even crossed my mind!  My transition to motherhood was uncomplicated and easy.

But I do think the passage I quoted applies now, after having the twins.  Being pregnant with twins and taking care of twins is an intense, extreme experience, and when I came to when the second one started sleeping through the night at 14 months, I did wonder, "Who am I, now that I am a mom of twins?" (Not that I phrased it that way at the time, but looking back now it fits into the framework Amy presents in her book.)

I had my children in different sets.  Robert by himself, a 6 1/2 year gap, then Gabrielle and Mary 2 years apart, another 5 year gap, then Ryan, and 2 years and 2 weeks later, the twins.  During the gap between Mary and Ryan, I was involved in things - I led a support group meeting for homeschoolers, I taught classes for homeschoolers, I learned a lot about running our home and I did a lot of schoolwork with my children.  However, as soon as I got pregnant with Ryan, I quit anything that took me out of the house, because I wanted to eliminate any source of stress to avoid another miscarriage.  Ryan fit smoothly into our family, we had a wonderful schedule going, and then everything fell apart.  I got pregnant with the twins and basically couldn't do anything, my husband's job went you-know-where in a you-know-what, and my brother-in-law was dying of cancer.  The stress in 2005 was astronomical.

Then it was just survival.  Figuring out how to get through the days, get some sleep, pay our bills, that took all my time and energy.  There was no time for me - who was "me" anyway?  It was the summer of 2006 when I started to come out of it, and I realized that I hadn't done anything for me in years.  I started this blog, and that was the first step toward regaining myself.

Even before the twins, though, I never really felt the need for "me" time, so I rarely ever took it.  I did go to a homeschooling conference when Ryan was a baby.  I took him with me and splurged on two nights in a hotel, even though the conference was only an hour away.  I just needed it!  But that really is the only time I can think of where I had to get away. I was amazed when I read A Mother's Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot and saw that she took every other Saturday as her "mother's Sabbath."  I couldn't imagine why anyone would need that sort of alone time! What I am realizing now is that even if I didn't feel the need for me time, I still needed it.

I have mentioned before in my blog that I had gotten to the point where I felt that the only legitimate outlet for my interests in languages was making my children learn them.  I couldn't see how wrong that was.  I couldn't see that even with our very real limitations of time, money, energy, and backup, taking time for me was necessary and vital.

I have also seen arguments for homeschooling that schoolchildren are in an artificial world, where adults don't do anything but teach children.  They aren't out in the world as much as homeschoolers, seeing adults working in their jobs.  But I started thinking, how is it any different if the majority of the time, the children see their mother only taking care of them and their schoolwork?  The mother should also be following her passions, seeing where God leads her, expressing herself, and growing and changing.  And that really is the essence of Mojo Mom.  So if you need a boost with that like I did, I highly recommend this book!

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In my last post about the book, the Feminine Mistake, I said if I had anymore to say, I would just post again.  Of course, after I clicked submit, I realized that I had a lot more to say.

In reading the book, you get the impression that her highest goal in life is financial security.  It really is no wonder that I disagree with Ms. Bennetts on so many things, because we have entirely different starting points.  The Catholic Church teaches that God made us "to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world so that we can be happy with Him in the next."  Jesus had a lot of fairly negative things to say about money and about how hard it is for rich people to enter Heaven.  When the young man who had kept all the commandments asked Jesus what he must do to obtain eternal life, Jesus told him to sell everything and follow Him.  The young man went away sadly, thereby showing that he had not followed the commandments out of love for God, but merely to be good.

Now, it is the love of money, not money itself, that is the root of all evil.  And so we have to question, why does Ms. Bennetts feel money is so important?  The answer seems to be that money equals power.  Jesus also had a lot of fairly negative things to say about the quest for power. Here is just one: "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you [the apostles].  Rather, whoever wishes to be great amoung you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.  Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20: 25-28).

This is not to say that financial security is a bad thing: my husband and I have recently made some changes in our lives so that we can hopefully provide a modicum of financial security to our children.  Our goal of financial security is NOT the highest goal here: providing for our children is.  Our vocation is marriage, marriage frequently leads to children, and so we serve God by caring for and providing for our children while raising them to also know, love and serve God in this world so they can be happy with Him in the next.  Children are not an afterthought, whose care we can relegate to someone else for a large portion of the day.  Children come from the very heart of a marriage!

The care of children, as I said, is not something that Ms. Bennetts devotes many pages to in her book.  But children need care.  God designed human children to need quite a lot of care for many years, and then even when they could physically care for themselves, children require a lot of parental input.  So the question is, who should give them this care?  The answer might seem obvious but I would really like to explore this.

Grantly Dick-Read said, "The newborn baby has only three demands.  They are warmth in the arms of its mother; food from her breasts, and security in the knowledge of her presence.  Breastfeeding satisfies all three."  God designed human babies to need human milk.  Yes, substitutes can be found, but research has shown that they are not as good.  Who did God design to produce the milk each baby needs?  His mother. Since babies need feeding every couple of hours, that strongly suggests that the mother should be providing the majority of baby care. This does not suggest that she shouldn't have breaks too!

God gave my children to my husband and me, which suggests to me that He wanted us to take care of them (just as He gave Jesus to Mary and Joseph).  When I did the Spanish immersion week, I saw the twins for about an hour in the morning.  Then I had to get ready to go and left.  I came back home about nine hours later and they went to bed two hours after that.  In those two hours I was so tired I didn't even really want to interact with them.  Working full-time, no matter what the quality of the child care, is not the same as the two of us caring for our children the majority of the time.  I was very blessed to have my oldest son be able to take care of them for that week. 

It's obvious that child care has very low status in the United States.  That's why moms say they don't work or do nothing, and why child-workers get paid next to nothing.  Even Montessori teachers, who have bachelor's degrees and at least another year of training, only make about $25,000 a year.  And that's also why feminists say that mothers need to work.  Betty Friedan said in The Feminine Mystique that "You can't just deny your intelligent mind; you need to be part of the social scheme" as though mothers who care for their children are not part of the social scheme.  Status, though, is also not a pursuit of the Christian life. "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" (Matthew 16: 25-26a) 

When caring for a child, one feeds the child, clothes the child, gets the child water, wipes a runny nose, washes clothes and dresses the child, comforts the child and many other things.  This work is not well-paid.  There are no Social Security credits for it.  But read this: "Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?' And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.' " (Matthew 25: 34-40)

"Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."  Every time I feed my children, dress my children, give them water, or care for them when they are ill, I am doing it for Jesus.  What higher status could there be? Jesus also said, "And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me" (Matthew 18:5).  When Roger and I married in the Catholic Church, we pledged before all present that we would lovingly accept children from God.  We promised this because of our faith in Jesus.  We received our children in His name, and so we received Him.  Remember our goal: to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him.  Through our children, we come to know Jesus better, we love Him by loving our neighbors (our children) as ourselves, and we serve Him by serving others.

Aside from those benefits of caring for our children, when we spend a lot of time with children, we learn from them as well as teaching them. For example, I really like blue jays.  One day a long time ago, I was thinking, "God, I never see blue jays anymore.  Why not?" A day or two later, as I was rushing my oldest child somewhere, he stopped and pointed up at a power line.  "Mommy, look at that bird!" he called.  It was a blue jay.  God gave me that gift through my son, and I learned to slow down and to look around.  What else can we learn from children? "Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3).  How can we become like children if we never spend any time with them?

I think there is room in many mothers' lives for some professional paid work.  Unlike Leslie Bennetts, though, I don't see the rejection of full-time separation from our children as a bad thing.  I hope eventually it becomes possible for both men and women to spend more time with their children and caring for their families.  The way jobs are structured now, and with health insurance being tied to a full-time position, it is practically impossible for both parents to work a rewarding part-time schedule.  In our society, two twenty-hour a week positions does not equal one forty-hour a week position (and many positions require more than forty hours anyway).  I think that La Leche League is a great example of what mothers can accomplish while also tending to the needs of their children.  LLL was started by 7 women who had an average of 7 children each.  It is now celebrating its 50th anniversary and it has helped many mothers nurse their children successfully. 

And if you work full-time and your entire income goes to pay for child care and you sacrifice your time with the children to give your family financial security and opportunities, shouldn't you actually have financial security as Bennetts claims?  Another book I just read, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, makes the argument that the mother working full-time can actually make the family more vulnerable, if they depend on her income for fixed necessities, and also because they don't have someone available to go to work to make up the slack or to care for the ill person.  Very often if something happens, such as job loss, or divorce, or a child's illness, the family cannot continue their lives with only one income because they have built their lives on having two incomes.  The authors reached their conclusions by studying families who filed for bankruptcy.  It's an interesting, quick read.  Since I am now going to be working, I didn't want to fall into any traps.  My income however, won't be going for necessities: it will be going to pay off debt and for my classes.

"Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."  And now I'm off to put a little one down for a nap. 

Posted in book reviews

I've been wanting to blog about this book since I devoured it in early July.  So my goal for the day (besides keep 12 children alive and somewhat happy - I am watching a friend's 6 as well as my 6) is to finally get this done so I can get it out of my head.

The subtitle is "Are We Giving Up Too Much?"  Her basic argument is that staying at home with your children without paid employment is putting yourself in financial peril.  She has an interesting way of trying to get the women to whom she's speaking to listen to her: she insinuates that they are idiots, insults them, and tries to make them believe that their husbands are going to leave them the second they get the chance.  If their husbands aren't actually scum, they are going to die and leave them penniless (it appears Ms. Bennetts has never heard of life insurance or disability insurance.  I kept waiting for her to mention these seemingly obvious things but she never did.) It seems like every SAHM she talks to lives in NY with a millionaire husband (who controls all the money) and only has shopping on her mind.  I didn't think much of these women, and I have been a SAHM for 11 years!

So what is her solution?  We should all work full-time all the time.  Ms. Bennetts is proud that her career track "looks like a man's" in that she has never taken more than a weekend off between jobs.  Children's lives should be enhanced by quality caregivers (somehow she has been able to keep the same nanny her children's entire lives).  She thinks women underestimate how easy it is to return to the work force.

The book makes a few totally indisputable, valid points.  The main one is that you will never be able to make up the income and career growth that would have happened had you stayed in the work force.  That is true - I can't.  If I had taken another 3 or 4 years to get my PhD, making about $10,000 a year, and then gotten a tenure track position, making around $40,000 a year, by this time I would have earned about $300,000.  I would have enough Social Security credits to receive benefits in my own name. My family would receive death benefits if I died. If I had tenure, I would have guaranteed income the rest of my career.  Since I stayed home, I have nothing like that.

A second point I found intriguing was that a family's income largely determines the opportunities the children have, so increasing the income through the wife working may actually help.  There is some validity to that argument. Of course, I don't know who will be available to take the children to their increased opportunities - oh, that's right, the devoted nanny who never leaves, gets married, or has children of her own.

My overwhelming issue with this book, besides the disparaging tone and sheer repetitiveness, is that Baby Boomer feminist obsession with "careers."  Many people do not have careers, they have jobs.  Work is not some be-all, end-all for most people.  They work because they have to.  And most work is so un-family friendly even to fathers.  My husband took two weeks off after our fourth child was born, using the FMLA legislation.  The hospital keep bugging him and the midwife for a "start date" to his leave.  Of course, we did not know what day the baby would be born, and I wasn't about to induce to get rid of their anxiety.  My husband had so much vacation and sick time piled up at the hospital that he could have taken months off, but then he wouldn't have had a job.  And it was very good that he did pursue taking the leave through FMLA, because when he left that job a year and a half later, he was paid for all his unused vacation time.

Another thing that Bennetts never addresses is why continuing alimony is no longer given.  I have read before how the push for no fault divorces has led to women being shortchanged.  It used to be that if your husband left you for a trophy wife, he still had to support you and the children.  Equitable divorce law would go a long way to addressing this issue.  But to Bennetts, the only thing that will help any of this is if mothers work full-time all the time.

She never addresses finding quality child care, or that fact that studies have shown that many parents prefer their children be cared for by the mother or father, and then after that trusted friends and relatives, and then after that, nannies at their own house, and then after that, family daycares, and then after that, institutionalized day care. She does address paying for it, however, by saying that even if your entire salary is paying for the (of doubtful) quality childcare, it's an investment in the future, when childcare costs go down as your children need less care.  A commenter on Amazon.com (yes, I read every comment) even went so far as to suggest that women should continue working even if child care costs more than their salary.  However, this commenter failed to explain exactly how she envisioned that working out practically.  Should the mother go into debt by putting it on her credit card, or expect her husband to pay for it? Putting it on the credit card jeopardizes her financial future (which is supposedly what she is trying to avoid by working in the first place) and relying on her husband is apparently a big no-no.

Bennetts says that she knows that working full-time and having children is stressful to the max, but, don't worry, it only lasts for 15 years.  "Instead of feeling that you're going crazy and you can't stand it anymore, try to look at it as a fifteen-year marathon."  Is this comforting?  Does anyone really hear that and say, "Oh, no big deal, I can do this for fifteen years."  I'm 36, and 15 years is nearly half my life so far.  And this advice doesn't even apply to me, since I have been in "intensive parenting" phase for 18 years already, and since I have nearly 2 year old twins, I will be in it for at least another 10 or 12, if I didn't homeschool.  That adds up to 30 years, not 15.  However, Bennetts isn't talking to women [insert negative word here] enough to have 6 children. 

Another issue Bennetts has is that women underestimate how easy it will be to get back into the workforce.  What I don't understand is why she thinks working full-time is some kind of insurance for job security.  Has she not heard of lay-offs, downsizing, bankruptcies, and plain old firings?  Does she not know that even older people who have been continuously employed have trouble finding jobs sometimes?  I looked for a full-time job earlier this year when it seemed that my husband might not be able to find one.  I applied for 9 full-time positions and did not receive any calls or interviews.  However, I did get three part-time jobs with no trouble at all (substitute teacher, continuing education German teacher, and high school Spanish teacher).  I would think that someone with more work experience than me could find a job.  Actually, I am pretty sure that I could get a full-time job teaching high school languages right now, but that isn't what I want to do long-term so I don't want to pursue that now. After this school year is over, I will have a year's experience teaching Spanish, a master's in German, and 18 graduate credits in Spanish.  I hope to be able to get a full-time college teaching position.

Well, this has taken me all day, so I think I will stop here.  If I think of anything else I wanted to say, I'll just write another post!

Posted in book reviews

Answering 911: Life in the Hot Seat by Caroline Burau was a quick, interesting read that I enjoyed.  Don't read it if you don't want to read sad stories though, like the one where the guy called 911 from his cell phone and she thought he was drunk.  They got disconnected before she could figure out where he was, and she found out later that he was not drunk but going into shock.  He had fallen off a ladder and broken his leg and eventually bled to death. 

The central lesson in the book is "Know where you are."  She says that she cannot believe the number of people who call 911 from their cell phones and have no clue where they are.  They cannot locate you from your cell phone!  Pay attention to what streets you are on, what stores you are in (many times I've gone to write a check and have to ask the clerk the name of the store!), and even what town you are in.

Posted in book reviews

I just read The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2 by Jane Poynter.  It was really interesting even though most of the science it discussed was over my head.  And, of course, the bias toward global warming and other issues (when we just had a very early frost here!) was a little annoying, because I don't think they are proven facts.

Ms. Poynter spent 2 years from 1991-1993 locked inside a huge greenhouse-type structure in Arizona with 7 other people, one of them her future husband.  I remember reading about it at the time and thinking it was quite interesting.  The most surprising things I learned were that most of the "biospherians" did not have science backgrounds or even degrees, that it was built by a group (she discusses at some length whether or not it was/is a cult) called Synergia, and that it was entirely privately funded.  Wouldn't it be nice to have a spare $250 million laying around to invest in a project?  Yes, all that money came from one person!

The overarching themes of the book are the interpersonal difficulties of the "biospherians" and a whole lot of missing CO2 that required two injections of oxygen during their stay, going against the original idea, but necessary for them to be able to breathe.  They did finally determine where it went, and it was something that was easily fixable for the next Biosphere stay.  The 8 people, 4 men and 4 women, split into two groups during their stay.  Ms. Poynter refers to the groups as "Us" and "Them."  She explains that in all sorts of closed group situations, people split into two groups, whether it's the Biosphere, the space station, or Antarctica.  It seems like part of human nature.

I find it incredible that she and her future husband stayed together during this incredibly stressful time.  They actually had a house built for them while they were inside, which they could just see being built with binoculars.  She jokes about how they must have been the ideal clients for a builder because they couldn't hover over him and micromanage him.  However, she does say that they had a friend spy on the builder to make sure they weren't being ripped off.

I was impressed that she clearly laid out what was happening both inside and outside Biosphere 2 without getting into gossip or making you feel unclean by reading it.  She also did not go into personal detail much, which was nice.

I want to quote one paragraph, because I think it applies greatly to homeschooling moms.  "In Biosphere 2, we actively sought to reduce the filter our walls threw up. NASA later learned from astronauts living on the Russian Mir Space Station how important electronic communications are to those in isolation.  I find it hard to imagine how difficult it would have been to be completely sealed away from the rest of the world, like the crews of old ocean-crossing square riggers.  Not only did the encouragement from loved ones boost us; so did our ability to communicate with someone other than our seven fellow inmates.  These interactions reminded us that there was a whole big world outside.  If communication had been cut off, we would have become even more inward-looking, even less able to keep things in perspective."  Now imagine that your fellow inmates are all children, and you see why the computer has become a lifeline to many homeschooling moms!

If you have an older child, like 13 and up, who is interested in science, this would be a pretty good read.  It certainly gives lots of areas for research.  The book is also interesting from the perspective many homeschoolers have, that getting a degree in something is not the only way to learn about it.  Unfortunately, as the Biosphere project discovered, sometimes the "pedigree" is the only thing people are interested in.

A minor quibble with the book is the lack of good pictures.  There are a few, but they are tiny and black and white (isn't this 2006? why are they black and white?  I was wondering if there was some kind of restriction on photos or something).  There is one small diagram of the Biosphere.  But I discovered that if you go to her website, you can see the same pictures in color.

Biosphere 2 is no longer being used the way it was then.  There was only one more enclosure, which lasted 6 months.  Now it is up for sale, and the surrounding area is apparently going to be a housing development.  It's kind of sad in a way.

Posted in book reviews

I have recently become slightly interested in interior decoration - that is, I am now aware that "Baby Toys and Homeschool Clutter" is not an actual decorating style.  An online friend asked what in my home was truly reflective of me, and it made me realize that in 8 years of living in this house, we had never done anything to make it truly ours.  In fact, curtains that came with the house which I had hated the day we moved in were still hanging at the windows.  I realized that this is not the way to live.

In my quest to learn more, I got The Complete Idiot's Guide to Decorating Your Home from Paperback Swap, just before I got sick for a couple of months, so I still haven't read it.  I did make some changes to my bedroom which I've really enjoyed.  We had desperately needed new bedding for our bed and got some shortly after the twins were born in a sage green.  The color was my husband's choice, as I was more drawn to the blue, but it is so relaxing and restful that I am glad he chose it!  Then I bought new curtains that have the same pattern in a slightly different green called moss.  I moved the bed in between the two windows and hung a table topper above the bed to fill in the wall.  It is cream with pink roses embroidered on it and sage green trim.  So when I actually make the bed it looks pretty nice!  Now if I just got rid of the clutter and actually put the babies' clothes in the dresser drawer instead of on top of the dresser...

So, at some point in my short decorating journey, the name Alexandra Stoddard was mentioned.  I even remember doing a search on Paperback Swap to see what they had by her.  Last week while trying to keep up with my 3 year old in the library and trying to find an aisle I could manuever the double stroller down, I happened to pass this Alexandra Stoddard book, so I grabbed it.  I usually don't get a chance to look at my books at the library, so if I see something I think might be interesting, I just check it out and look at it at home.

I am glad that I checked this book out, because it has provided me with more laughs than the early seasons of Everybody Loves Raymond!  The book is not about decorating at all really.  The subtitle is "How to Live Graciously in a Hectic World by Finding Time to Love Your Family, Your Friends, and Yourself."  Why I would need her to tell me how to do that I haven't quite figured out yet.  I figured out a new title for the book - Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Rich People.  This book is for people who can afford the tuition at a Montessori school and actually think it's a bargain LOL!

Now while I am going to slam this book pretty hard, she does have a few good points, things we homeschooling mothers should probably hear.  The problem is that these little gems are stuck in a whole lot of worthless, annoying rock.  Actually, I might not have read the whole book, but I wanted to blog about it!

She begins by telling us to nurture ourselves.  Yes, we do need to do things that we enjoy.  Then she ruins it by saying, "No matter who you are, you are your own boss for certain times each day.  If you work for someone else you may need your lunch hour to do something for yourself.  See an exhibition or browse in a bookstore. We can't be with others nonstop without replenishing energy...Recently I canceled a meeting...with a client because the weather was foul and I felt I just couldn't keep the appointment and still be myself.  My client understood...We rescheduled and it proved to be the wiser choice because I would have been grumpy if I hadn't."

After I picked myself up off the floor, I pictured my husband calling his boss and telling her, "I just don't feel I can be myself and work today.  I'll be in tomorrow.  I wouldn't want to be grumpy at work."  Or how about another mental picture, of my husband dashing into a local art exhibition on his half hour lunch break (does anyone get an hour anymore?) and spending two seconds per piece of art.  That'll really nurture his soul!

Well, I'm glad she has understanding clients and can afford to cancel meetings.  A lot of people are not in that position!

"In the clutter and pressure of our stressful and dehumanized technological age, we need to take whatever time is necessary to rediscover the joys of feeling great about our lives.  This might mean...[getting] your hair done - which really means getting away from everyone so you can get your senses back."  OK, I have been thinking about getting my hair cut.  I have long straight hair and usually get it cut once a year.  I don't remember getting it cut since the twins were born, so I'm due.  Of course, my going and getting a trim at Walmart is probably a lot different than what she has in mind, but then she ruins it by continuing, "And under the dryer you might feel inspired...you might want to take a trip alone.  You might even decide to sell your house on the lake and free yourself to travel, exploring a variety of different places."  

Yes, I can just picture myself coming home from Walmart, six inches less on my head, and telling my husband that we need to sell our lake house so we can be free to travel.  Never mind that we don't even have a vehicle we all fit in!

Ms. Stoddard recommends getting all parts of our lives running smoothly.  "Maybe you need to organize your house or apartment so that it runs more efficiently."  Well,  yes, I probably do.  She goes on to say, "If you feel tension in your house with your cleaning woman you should probably make a change."  Hmmm, that might be hard.  How do I fire myself?

Another story that cracked me up was, "Never live without flowers - you need them to nurture your soul...A friend was starved for flowers in her apartment and canceled her plans to take a four-day trip so she could buy flowering plants with the money instead. Her mood improved immediately."  I would take the trip over the plants any day, since I would just kill the plants.  At least I would have pictures from my trip, although I guess I could take pictures of the plants before they died, I suppose.  Still, it seems like a waste of money.

"When people take short cuts, it robs them of the richness of life."  Or maybe it allows them to actually get basic necessities done when they have 3 children 3 and under. "Develop the habit of doing things beautifully out of the joy of making an effort for your own satisfaction.  If you're enjoying yourself, there is no such thing as being overly fussy." Yes, there is.  What if the people around you cannot enjoy themselves because you are being overly fussy?  (Yes, I am speaking from experience here, and the person involved shall remain nameless.) I think it's a worthy goal - and I am declaring it right here for all readers of my blog - to never be called "overly fussy" in my whole entire life!

She suggests that we devote ten percent of our waking time each week to ourselves.  That works out to a little over an hour a day.  Maybe this week I will try to keep track of "me" time.  Does that include computer time?  Blogging about this book is "me" time.  Chatting with my friends is "friend" time.  Searching for homeschooling stuff is "work."  No wonder I spend so much time on the computer!

Really I could go through every line of this book and respond to it in some way, but I don't want to spend my ten percent that way!  The basic ideas are good: be gracious, be good to yourself and others, make an effort to include beauty in your life, organize, simplify, etc.  It's just that this woman lives on a different planet than I do!

One idea she had that I will take to heart is to make a list of fun, happy things you are going to do that day and check them off at night.  I want to make sure I do fun things with my children, so last week I played games of their choice with two of them.  My oldest and I like playing games together; we used to do that regularly as part of his schoolwork.  I think I may ask myself too, each day, "What would be fun to me today?" and then try to do it if at all possible.

Part Two of the book is nearly 100 pages of her marriage advice, from a lady who has been divorced once and whose second husband told her before the wedding "I don't want you to show me love by darning my socks, ironing my underwear, or packing for me. I love you for what you are and don't want you to change a thing for me."  At that point she already had a successful career as an interior designer.  He told her he didn't want her to be his housekeeper, which is all well and good, when you can afford to pay somebody else to do all that yucky stuff. "We hired someone full-time as a day helper who also took care of the girls when I was at the office and who also did the housework.  The mere fact that I didn't have to prove anything to Peter domestically made me very happy.  This freed me to concentrate on nesting and creating our new home."

Part Three is her parenting advice, and advice about friends and others.  The parenting advice basically seems to be, "If you are true to yourself and follow your intuition, you will be there when your children really need you and everything will be fine."

I'm not sure what this quote even means. "Think of your children as naturally flowing into your life and being carried steadily forward by you like fresh clear water in a stream."  She believes that "the children who have the best chances for happiness and stability are those who were wanted and planned for" and that "a wanted child is a loved child, and love makes you instinctively know what to do."

Enough advice from this lady already!  If she has any books that are actually about decorating, maybe I'll check them out. Otherwise, no thanks!

Posted in book reviews

I read this book a few weeks ago and have been meaning to blog about it.  It's called Princess Ka'iulani: Hope of a Nation, Heart of a People by Sharon Linnea.  It was really fascinating.  I knew nothing about Hawaii AT ALL.  I've never had any desire to go there.  Something about being on a small dot in the middle of a vast ocean, in a place that experiences every possible natural disaster: earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, oh maybe they don't have tornados there.  In fact, my reasons for not wanting to go to Hawaii are very similar to my reasons for not wanting to sail anywhere out of the sight of land.  I once watched a very forgettable movie that had a great line, "My uncle hated boats, he said it was like being in prison with a chance of drowning."  That sums it up pretty well for me.  Also, I don't really like swimming or any kind of water sport.  So, Hawaii has never been high on my list of places to learn about.

So, I was totally uninformed about how Hawaii became part of our country, in other words, how it was stolen from the Hawaiian people.  Princess Ka'iulani was the next in line to the throne when the queen was deposed and the island taken by the grandsons of the Christian missionaries.

"On Sunday, January 15 [1893] while loyal Hawaiians filled the palace square,  the Reformers had an incendiary meeting only a block away. [Queen] Lili'uokalani had been warned to send for her cabinet and military advisors; instead she summoned Hawaiian Christian pastors, and they spent the morning in prayer.  So the savage queen prayed while the sons of Christian missionaries loaded their rifles" (page 110).  What a dramatic sentence!

I always enjoy reading biographies, and this was no exception.  Ka'iulani grew up a princess, pretty much the only hope for the royal family, as they seemed to suffer a lot of infertility.  She was educated in Europe, and really shocked the US by traveling there after the queen was deposed to argue on behalf of her country, at the age of 17!

Her mother had died when she was eleven, and on her deathbed told her, "I have seen your future very plainly.  You will go far away for a very long time.  You will never marry. And you will never be queen" (page 52-53).  Her nanny tried to explain it away by saying it was part of her illness but "Ka'iulani was shaken to the core.  A mother's death is a profound loss for any child.  But if Likelike's vision was true, Ka'iulani would lose not only her mother but also her home, her future family, and her life's purpose in one harsh blow.  In fact, Ka'iulani would deal with the effects of her mother's pronouncement - spiritual, emotional, and actual - for the rest of her life" (page 54).

I have to wonder if her mother's prophecy wasn't really God preparing her. After she got the telegram telling her the queen had been deposed, the shock of it was so great that she never really was healthy again.  If she hadn't been in some small way prepared, she might have died from that shock.

She was stranded in Europe by the events in Hawaii and unable to return home for years.  Although she had several suitors, she did never marry.  And she was never queen.  But she was a very good example of a Christian princess.  She had a lovely, fun-loving personality and was a beautiful girl.