I think modern, upper-middle-class American parents are crazy.

There. I said it.

A good friend of mine (who is a dad) posted a blog entry from the New York Times’ “Motherlode” column. It details the results of a survey of 1000 ‘normal’ women who are members of an online mothers’ community. Basically, women are mad at the fathers for not taking enough responsibility for parenting or for doing chores around the house. The writers – both at Parenting magazine and the blog – make it seem like this is an epidemic of anger, corroding the American family.

The writer details the problem thus:

We carry so much of this life-altering responsibility in our heads: the doctors’ appointments, the shoe sizes, the details about the kids’ friends. Many dads wouldn’t even think to buy valentines for the class, for example, or know when it’s time to sign kids up for the pre–camp physical, or that curriculum night is next Thursday at 7:30 and you need to hire a sitter and bring a nut-free vegetarian appetizer that can be eaten without a fork. Even moms who work full-time take it upon themselves to store all this data in our already overstuffed heads. We’re the walking, talking encyclopedias of family life, while dads tend to be more like brochures.

What to do about it?

I proffer an unpopular solution: Moms and Dads both need to stop making their kids the absolute center of their lives. 

Seriously. No one should have to worry about self-making “a nut-free vegetarian appetizer that can be eaten without a fork” and bring it to a school function. Or obsess about their children’s schedules or the details of their children’s lives and friendships.

Really, middle-class and upper-middle-class moms? No, really, really? 

How did we get here? 

When I was growing up, my mom knew who my best friends were (count three names here, maybe), whether or not I did my homework, if I needed new socks and underwear, and if I seemed healthy and happy – and that was it.  She had absolutely no interest in elementary or middle  school drama, or PTA meetings, or baking me a 19-tier cupcake tree for my birthday party (a tradition which, by the way, didn’t even begin until I was old enough to remember them).  

My mom had a life.

Admittedly, sometimes I wish she had been less dramatic and crazy, but I actually appreciate the fact that I did not grow up with an endless litany of “activities” and “playdates” and “extra-curricular classes”. No, I don’t know how to play the piano. But I did learn how to play the clarinet in school band.  No, I didn’t take soccer. But somehow I remain thinner and in better shape than some my friends who did, so go figure. 

Years ago, I visited Newport, Rhode Island, and took a tour of several of the old Vanderbilt and Astor mansions. You know, the ridiculously luxe “summer” homes of the fabulously wealthy during the late 1900s and early 20th century. In the Vanderbilt home, I learned that Mrs. Vanderbilt obsessed over her children’s education and up-bringing. They were, after all, the future of the Vanderbilt name. In particular, she erased the line between herself and her oldest daughter. Her daughter’s life was the property of Mrs. Vanderbilt herself, and she managed it with military precision. To the point that the girl grew up in a gilded cage of her mother’s fashioning. In the end, she married a man with a “title” that she didn’t even like, all because her mother planned it. 

Was this poor, little rich girl priveleged? Yes. 

Did she have everything that money could buy her, including the best education? Yes.

Was she any happier? No. By all accounts, she was one seriously depressed young girl.

I’m glad that my mom and dad didn’t pore over my life looking for ways to make it “better” or to give me a “head start”. Somehow, and without a single extra class or tutoring session, I made it into the top medical anthropology program in the country. I think it’s because my parents did something great for me – they made it very, very clear that I needed to take responsibility for myself. 

In the end, I learned to craft my own life.

I learned how not to be bored, how to entertain myself, how to self-soothe.

Maybe the reason modern mothers are so angry is that they are giving too much to their children in the first place. Maybe they are angry because secretly they want to be the dads for once, to take it all less seriously. Maybe they are angry because they can’t give themselves permission to be less-than perfect as mothers.

Scale it back, I say. Don’t do some of the “stuff” you are doing – the “stuff” that you think is absolutely integral to your child’s future happiness or intellectual capacity. It isn’t, and that I can promise you. 

This is from an article in the London Times:

In her book No Two Alike, Judith Rich Harris, an American psychologist, writes that children just want to fit into the popular culture in which they are being raised, which might not be quite what their parents have in mind.

“In the long run, it is what happens to them outside the parental home that makes them turn out the way they do,” she says. And while most parents know this instinctively, we carry on resignedly making arbitrary rules, labelling things “good” or “bad” with a randomness that reflects our prejudices but baffles our children.

And I’ll leave you with this, an old article from the Boston Globe, to ponder:

Leave those kids alone

The idea that adults should be playing with their kids is a modern invention — and not necessarily a good one

(Illustration/ Aaron Meshon)

By Christopher Shea  |  July 15, 2007

WHAT COULD BE more natural than a mother down on the rec-room floor, playing with her 3-year-old amid puzzles, finger-puppets, and Thomas the Tank Engine trains? Look — now she’s conducting a conversation between a stuffed shark and Nemo, the Pixar clown fish! Giggles all around. Not to mention that the tot is learning the joys of stories and narrative, setting him on a triumphal path toward school.

A “natural” scene? Actually, parent-child play of this sort has been virtually unheard of throughout human history, according to the anthropologist David Lancy. And three-fourths of the world’s current population would still find that mother’s behavior kind of dotty.

American-style parent-child play is a distinct feature of wealthy developed countries — a recent byproduct of the pressure to get kids ready for the information-age economy, Lancy argues in a recent article in American Anthropologist, the field’s flagship journal in the United States.

“Adults think it is silly to play with children” in most cultures, says Lancy, who teaches at Utah State University. Play is a cultural universal, he concedes, “but adults aren’t part of the picture.” Yet middle-class and upper-middle-class Americans — abetted, he says, by psychologists — are increasingly proclaiming the parents-on-all-fours style the One True Way to raise a smart, well-adjusted child.

There is now a concerted effort to spread adult-child play beyond its stronghold in the upper- and middle-classes of wealthy countries. To this end, many cities and states support programs of some sort. Massachusetts will give the Parent-Child Home Program, which has 33 sites in the state, $3 million this year (up from $2 million last year). Through the program, staff members visit the homes of low-income residents and offer tips not just on good books for toddlers but also on “play activities” for parents and kids. Likewise, the eminent Yale psychologist Jerome Singer has partnered with a media company to devise imaginative parent-child games (examples: “My Magic Story Car” and “Puppets: Counting”) that librarians and social workers can teach to low-income parents.

Lancy is concerned that specialists behind the movement — psychologists, social workers, preschool teachers — are too aggressively promoting this intense, interventionist parenting style to low-income parents, and that they are are too quick to claim that adult-child play is crucial for human development. He doesn’t quite rule out that some interventions may improve literacy — though the data are murkier than the psychologists admit, he insists. But the programs, with their premise (as he sees it) that a whole class of people is simply parenting badly, leave their advocates “open to charges of racism or cultural imperialism.”

. . .

One inspiration for the article, Lancy says, was that he kept coming across accounts of parents who felt guilty that they did not enjoy playing with their children. The psychologist Daniel Kahneman and the economist Alan Krueger, both at Princeton, have found that parents routinely claim that playing with their kids is among their favorite activities, but when you ask them to record their state of mind, hour by hour, they rate time spent with their children as being about as much fun as housework.

In his article, Lancy draws on decades of ethnographic work to show how rare parent-child play has been in the world. The Harvard anthropologist Robert LeVine, for example, observed in a 2004 paper that among the Gusii people of Kenya, “mothers rarely looked at or spoke to their infants and toddlers, even when they were holding and breast-feeding them.” (So much for the universality of peek-a-boo.) On Ifaluk Island, in the South Pacific, tribespeople believe that babies are “essentially brainless” before age 2, so there is no point in talking to them.

The goal of the Yucatec Maya is to keep babies in a “kind of benign coma,” through bathing and swaddling, so that parents can leave them and get work done. As recently as 1914, the US Department of Labor’s Child Bureau advised parents not to play with babies, for fear of overstimulating their little nervous systems.

Does Spoiling Your Kids Heal Your Own Childhood Scars?

Now that I’m in my 30s, most of my friends have at least one child. Most have more than one. I, however, remain on the fence with my biological clock ready to push me firmly into either camp. I remain decidedly undecided about the prospect of having my own, for several reasons.

When I was younger, I never fantasized about having a baby or getting married. I was more into playing with Barbie than with dolls. Barbie was something I thought I could become (which is another problem altogether), and I seemed to skip that age-old process of fetishizing motherhood that goes along with being a girl. Heck, even my Barbies remained committedly single, and played the Ken field.

Also, American mothers don’t exactly make it look good these days. Is it me, or are people collectively more into their children in the 00s than parents were in the 70s? I just watched a documentary on Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, and one of their sons remarked that he recalled fondly every single day he spent with his parents, since it was so rare. That kind of parenting would be akin to child abuse today. I see some of my friends carting their children to and from music lessons and soccer practice, play dates and birthday parties, and I wonder how much energy – if any – they have left for themselves. They tell me, quite adamantly, that it’s worth it. But I remain skeptical.

I also remember all the things my friends wanted to do before they had children, and I don’t see many of them doing any of them. No novels, no paintings, no political careers. Now, I realize that some people manage to carry on with their lives and raise happy children. I just don’t see many people actually DOING that. Mostly, I see people either using their children as a quite valid excuse for not dreaming big for themselves anymore, or people who have simply moved on from and/or have forgotten their own dreams. Sometimes I think that if I don’t have a child by choice, that my substitute will be a dedication to producing something else – like a body of work that’s worth a damn. It seems to be a “production choice” one has to make these days – a baby or a book. Because let’s face it, you can’t really do it all. At least not well.

But perhaps the most striking thing that makes me hesitate about joining the parental ranks is that kids just seem plain spoiled these days. I worry that my own brand of mothering might be considered, well, lacking. I know myself, and I wouldn’t bake a 2-year-old a fantastically designed cake (that she won’t remember) or commit myself to being a perpetual kid chauffeur (for which she wouldn’t really be grateful). I know that, for the most part, I would still put myself and my husband-to-be first. Oh, we’d love our child, but not in the “weekly trips to Chuck-E-Cheese” way. In the old-fashioned way, where the kid was expected to leave mommy alone when she was working on her book. Like Eleanor Roosevelt, I would hope to remain myself first, mommy second.

Sometimes I wonder if my friends are trying to heal old wounds. Not many of us had perfect childhoods. And with all the gifts, activities, trips, clothes, toys that they give to their own children, I wonder if it is comforting to them, if it eases their inner 10-year-old. Because I don’t think that their kids particularly care if they have seen France by age 8, or have a baseball diamond constructed in the backyard.

Back in Indiana, I had more fun with sticks and leaves than any kid today would think was humanly possible. Maybe that is where I got my imagination. I didn’t have 9000 toys, and I was allowed to get bored. And to de-bore myself. I remember being told to entertain myself, and I did. Oh, sure, I resented it at times, but I learned the lesson that I was responsible for myself. Thank god, since my own mother died so early that if I had been overly attached, it might have literally killed me. (I’d be smoking meth right now, I’m almost certain.)

My own childhood sucked in many ways. It did – I won’t lie. But would I feel better trying to concoct the ‘perfect’ family now? Would I? Again, I remain dubious.

Maybe by trying to give our children everything, we err on the side of excess. Maybe they will be lacking coping skills as adults. Maybe they will feel entitled to accolades and praise all their lives – by doing nothing more than what they should be doing. Maybe, ironically, they will be less happy later in their lives because of all we seem hell-bent on doing to make them happy now.

Maybe there is no winning. Maybe kids are going to get scars no matter what we do. But it seems to me that there should be some middle ground. A space where we can be good parents without sacrificing ourselves. A space where we don’t end up living vicariously through our children.

We are their role models; do we really want them to grow up – especially the girls – thinking that their lives are just about growing up, getting a job, getting married, and then being parents? Isn’t there something else? Or, in a German accent, “Is zat all der ist?”

I do have one friend – one of my best friends – that has managed to open her own successful business with 2 small children in tow. I don’t know how, but she makes it work. Oh, sure, her marriage stinks, but I think it always did. Her kids aren’t spoiled. They don’t take a lot of vacations. They don’t go on play dates every ten minutes. They don’t have elaborate birthday parties. Often, they are asked to play by themselves in a supervised setting, entertaining themselves. They don’t have a ton of money, but they are making it work. She is finding herself again, and it’s wonderful to see. She stopped worrying about whether she was a good-enough mother, a good-enough wife, and a good-enough artist and just built her own world with her own rules. And, in the end, her kids seem perfectly well-adjusted. They are great kids – the best I know. (Although maybe it’s genetics, since she was a great kid, too. She was the “good kid” my mom used as a comparison for me when she was exasperated with my behavior.)

My only worry is that I wouldn’t be like her. And that my own children would need therapy. And continue the cycle.

If I don’t have a kid, if that’s the choice I’m making, then at least I’ll have a life of my own. That’s the compromise I’m making with myself. But, as that amazing friend above also pointed out to me:

“Extraordinary lives have exorbitant prices.”

I just need to work out if I’m willing and able to pay for one.

10 Ways to Raise a Spoiled Child

Plus tips to reverse the damage by fine-tuning your approach to child discipline

By Sherry Rauh
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Charlotte E. Grayson Mathis, MD

When you picture a spoiled child, you may think of a kid with a house full of extravagant toys. But child discipline experts say its behaviors — not possessions — that define the spoiled child.

“A spoiled child is one who’s demanding, self-centered, and unreasonable,” says Harvey Karp, MD, creator of The Happiest Toddler on the Block DVD and book. He tells WebMD spoiled children may be easier to get along with when they get their way, but giving in to their demands ultimately makes them feel isolated and confused. “There is a seed of discontent that you sow when you allow a child to be spoiled,” he says. “They’ve used so much manipulation to get what they want, they don’t know when someone is genuinely giving to them.”

Psychologist Ruth A. Peters, PhD, author of the child discipline manual Laying Down the Law, agrees. “Spoiling doesn’t prepare them for anything but heartache later in life,” she says, adding that a spoiled child typically grows into a spoiled adult, and spoiled adults have trouble maintaining a job, a spouse, and friendships.

So how can you tell if you’re spoiling? Read on to learn 10 common mistakes parents make that can allow a child to become spoiled. If some of these sound familiar, don’t worry — it’s never too late to change course.

1. Making Your Child the Center of the World

Making your child’s wishes the top priority in every circumstance teaches her that the world revolves around her. This could prevent her from learning to consider other people’s needs and desires, says Susan Buttross, MD, chief of the Division of Child Development and Behavioral Pediatrics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. “Children need to understand give and take,” she tells WebMD. “When take is the only function they know, they tend to be frustrated.”

2. Ignoring Positive Behavior

Today’s busy parents may not notice when children play quietly or stay out of trouble. If you never let them know when you are pleased, Karp says, you miss the opportunity to reinforce positive behavior.

3. Accidently Rewarding Negative Behavior

Karp tells WebMD many parents make the mistake of simultaneously ignoring the positive and rewarding the negative. If you only notice your kids when they whine and cry, you send the message that tantrums and tears are the best way to get your attention.

4. Failing to put Clear Limits on Your Child’s Behavior

If you don’t set and enforce guidelines for good behavior, Buttross says, you’re likely to raise a child who is rude, uncooperative, and disrespectful. Karp adds that young kids are uncivilized by nature — part of your job as a parent is to teach social virtues, such as patience and respect.

continued…

5. Not Enforcing Rules Consistently

While some parents fail to set limits, others set “mushy or inconsistent” ones, Karp says. This occurs when you tell your kids, “Don’t do that,” but allow them to do it anyway. Examples of inconsistent limits are allowing your toddler to play with his food on some days but not on others or allowing an older child to violate her curfew when you just can’t muster the energy to fight about it. If you don’t enforce rules consistently, you give your child the message that they’re really not that important. And of course what you really want to teach your child is the opposite.

6. Picking Fights You Can’t Win

“You can win the battle of not giving your child candy,” Karp says, so no-candy rules are worth upholding. But there are many other standards that are much harder to enforce — such as making your child eat broccoli. “They can close their mouths or spit it out,” Karp points out. In cases like this, you are destined to lose the battle before it begins. And unfortunately, the consequences of this loss go far beyond wasted broccoli — picking fights you can’t win proves to your kids that they can defy you and get away with it.

7. Not Holding Your Child Accountable

Refusing to hold your child accountable when he does something wrong sends the message that he never makes a mistake, Buttross says. This teaches your child to blame others whenever problems arise. Instead, teach your child the importance of taking responsibility for his own actions and then user firm boundaries to make sure he does so.

8. Giving Your Child Gifts for the Wrong Reasons

What you buy your children is not as important as why, Peters tells WebMD. She cautions against making “unreasonable” purchases, such as buying your child a new bike because she is bored with the one you bought her a few months ago.

Another common mistake is buying out of guilt, Karp says. When a child makes a pitiful face or says, “You’re the worst mother in the world,” this is not the time to buy a gift. Allowing yourself to be manipulated won’t do your kid any favors. She may get what she wants, but her joy will be diminished in knowing that you bought the gift because she goaded you into it.

9. Giving in to Temper Tantrums

Relenting when your child throws a temper tantrum is an extreme form of rewarding negative behavior. It proves to kids that they can get whatever they want by throwing a fit — which is not how things work in the real world. “If you throw a temper tantrum as an adult, bad things happen,” Peters points out.

10. Acting Like a Spoiled Child Yourself

How you interact with your family serves as a model for how your children will behave with others, Karp says. “If you whine and complain in front of [your kids], they will emulate that.” He says the proverb has it right — “They do what you do, not what you say.”

Spoiled for Life

Spoiling has consequences that go beyond the immediate trouble of managing an unruly, spoiled child. It sets up patterns that can last a lifetime.

“Probably one of the greatest disadvantages that spoiled children face is the fact that they have not learned to work for something that they really want,” Buttross tells WebMD. “There is no work ethic, no lesson to really strive for something.”

Since spoiled people get what they want through manipulation, they develop “a dysfunctional way of relating to people,” Karp says. “Those habits can take 10 years of therapy to break.”

Reforming a Spoiled Child

Don’t panic if you’re just realized your child may be on the path to becoming spoiled. Child discipline experts say you can repair the damage.

“Tell your child the truth,” Peters advises. “Say, ‘I’ve blown it’ and explain why there are going to be some changes.” When setting new rules, be clear about the consequences. “The less nagging, the more action, the better.”

The experts we consulted suggest the following strategies to get a spoiled child back on track:

• Set consistent limits — Give your child clear rules and boundaries. If you decide to bend a rule every now and then, explain that it is a special exception.
• Establish consequences for breaking the rules – Consequences can range from revoking privileges to confiscating a favorite possession.
• Create incentives for good behavior – Depending on your child’s age, you may want to try a “star chart.” The child gets stars for good behavior, with 10 stars earning a coveted prize.
• Teach that giving is as important as receiving – Encourage your children to participate in activities that help others. Take them shopping to choose gifts for friends and family members.
• Help your child learn to take “no” for an answer — If you have decided to decline your child’s request, don’t let temper tantrums or any other form of manipulative behavior change your mind.
• Be a positive role model — Show respect and consideration toward others and your child will follow your lead.

Toddler Tips

If your chld is in the under-three age bracket, it may not be time to worry yet. “It’s common in the beginning of the toddler period for kids to have some of the characteristics of being spoiled,” Karp says, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are.” In The Happiest Toddler on the Block, he explains that toddlers are primitive and uncivilized, like little “cavemen.”

In addition to clear limits and positive role models, toddlers need a crash course in civilized behavior. “Think of yourself as an ambassador from the 21^st century to the Neanderthal people,” Karp suggests. This means you must learn to speak your child’s language and respectfully show him your ways. A couple of Karp’s tips for taming toddlers:

• The fast food rule – When you order food at the drive through, the cashier always repeats your order to let you know she got it right. Karp recommends doing this with frustrated toddlers. Before reprimanding them, “first repeat back what they want. Say, ‘You really want that ball? You’re mad that Billy took it away? OK, but that voice hurts my ears.’” This lets them know you empathize with them, while conveying that whining is unacceptable.
• Catch them being good – Acknowledge your toddler’s accomplishments throughout the day, whether it’s stacking blocks or sharing a toy with a sibling. This will help identify positive behaviors, rather than just singling out negative ones.

Lifelong Benefits

Maintaining a consistent and effective approach to child discipline isn’t easy, but it bestows lifelong benefits. “You raise a child who is loving and self-loving, who empathizes with others, who is honest and not manipulative,” Karp says. “You teach them how to pick their friends and their spouses, because if they learn how respectful people communicate, they’ll look for that in their own relationships.”

The next time your child throws a tantrum at the supermarket or tries to guilt you into bending the rules, think about the long-term consequences of giving in. But don’t worry about being perfect all the time. Karp says the overall pattern is more important than any given moment. “Do it right 80% of the time and you’ll end up with a really good kid.”

Maybe this is why I’m a pessimist: “He’s dead, Jim.”

I grew up with a hardcore Trekkie. By which I mean that my aunt would actually watch and then catalogue every single episode and had: an outfit (I think she had a gold outfit, which signified something that I can never remember), a communicator (that actually beeped), a v-shaped pin (which also did something), models of the spaceships, a book on the Klingon language.

When I was ten, I liked Star Trek. I’ll admit it. I thought they were ‘exciting’. By the time I hit puberty, however, that was all over. I began to make fun of my poor aunt for still loving the show, and of course, of having a crush on William Shatner (admit it, he was hot as Captain Kirk).

Now that I’m older, nostalgia is setting in.

I like remembering those afternoons watching Star Trek with my aunt. She’s a good egg.

In her honor, and as an apology for being a pest, I give you the following, stolen from Gawker:

Neatorama » Blog Archive » Every “He’s Dead, Jim” Line from Classic Star Trek

It does occur to me, after watching this a gazillion times and laughing out loud, why I began to be so obsessed with death and dying. If someone didn’t die in a Star Trek episode, it just wasn’t a good episode.

Finally, some sanity about eggs, drinking 8 glasses of water per day, and other health fears that our grandparents never thought twice about . . .

One of the things that boggles my mind is the fact that some people will do anything to be “healthier”, where “healthier” is a stand-in for one or all of the following:

1. Look younger.

2. Stave off aging in all forms. Haven’t you heard that 50 is the new 30? (Or so people who are 50 hope.)

3. Stay attractive to the opposite sex.

4. Remain fit enough and attractive enough to get laid, either before or after your divorce.

5. Never get cancer. Or anything else scary.

6. Live forever. No, seriously. Forever.

Obviously, these are impossible dreams.

One of my friends argued with me the other day about his parents, who are nearing 60, still being middle-age and “active”. Not unless they plan on living until 120 and hiking part of the Appalachian Trail. Which, as far as I know, is neigh-on impossible*. (*Note: not the hiking part, the living to 120 part.)

In New York, when I worked in fashion, I used to see skinny women dragging liter bottles of water around with them. Because it was healthy, and good for their skin and kidneys. Apparently, both myths.

So, it is with some sort of pride in my “common sense” attitude about things I eat, drink, and do to keep myself reasonably fit for my age, that I share with you the following myth-busting story. Enjoy. And enjoy the coffee and eggs for breakfast for once, why don’t you?

By Dorothy Foltz-Gray, Health

Myth #1: Drink eight glasses of water a day
In 1945, the U.S. Food and Nutrition Board told people to consume eight glasses of fluid daily. Before long, most of us believed we needed eight glasses of water, in addition to what we eat and drink, every day.

The truth: Water’s great, but you also whet your whistle with juice, tea, milk, fruits and vegetables — quite enough to keep you hydrated. Even coffee quenches thirst, despite its reputation as a diuretic; the caffeine makes you lose some liquid, but you’re still getting plenty.

Contrary to common belief, urine color is not a great sign of dehydration, says Rachel Vreeman, MD, a fellow in Children’s Health Services Research at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis: “If you’re thirsty, you should drink.” But don’t overdo it. Drinking too much can lead to hyponatremia, in which sodium levels fall, causing an electrolyte imbalance that can make you very sick.

Myth #2: Stress will turn your hair gray
The carpool, the spilled milk, the deadlines. Who doesn’t believe that stress can shock her locks?

The truth: “Too much stress does age us inside and out,” says Nancy L. Snyderman, MD, chief medical editor for NBC News and author of “Medical Myths that Can Kill You.” It ups the number of free radicals, scavenger molecules that attack healthy cells, and increases the spill of stress hormones in your body. So far, though, no scientific evidence proves a bad day turns your locks silver. “We gray according to genetics,” she says. And, let’s face it, when you do get those gray strands, hair products make covering them a cinch.

Myth #3: Reading in poor light ruins your eyes
It’s the common-sense refrain of mothers everywhere — reading under the covers or by moonlight will ruin your eyesight.

The truth: “Reading in dim light can strain your eyes,” Snyderman explains. “You tend to squint, and that can give you a headache. But you won’t do any permanent damage, except maybe cause crow’s-feet.”

Your overtired eyes can get dry and achy, and may even make your vision seem less clear, but a good night’s rest will help your peepers recover just fine.

Myth #4: Coffee’s really bad for you
Surely something 108 million Americans crave so much each morning couldn’t possibly be good for you? Wrong.

The truth: Too much may give you the jitters, but your daily habit has a lot of positives. “Coffee comes from plants, which have helpful phytochemicals that act as antioxidants,” says Stacy Beeson, RD, a wellness dietitian at St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center in Boise, Idaho. One set of antioxidants appears to increase insulin sensitivity, which might explain a lowered risk of type 2 diabetes in people who sip java. A Harvard study of more than 125,000 coffee drinkers found that women cut their risk of type 2 diabetes by 30 percent. Other studies suggest that coffee cuts the risks of Parkinson’s disease, colon cancer, cirrhosis and gallstones. Drinking joe gives your brain a boost, too. And, despite the jolt of energy it provides, coffee has no effect on heart disease.

Two to three cups a day is fine for most people, Beeson says. But if you take your coffee with a racing heart, anxiety, or wide-eyed nights, cut back or switch to decaf. If you’re pregnant or low on calcium, talk to your doc about the best brew for you.

Myth #5: Feed a cold, starve a fever
The old wives’ tale has been a staple since the 1500s when a dictionary master wrote, “Fasting is a great remedie of feuer.”

The truth: “Colds and fevers are generally caused by viruses that tend to last 7 to 10 days, no matter what you do,” Vreeman says. “And there is no good evidence that diet has any effect on a cold or fever. Even if you don’t feel like eating, you still need fluids, so put a priority on those.” If you’re congested, the fluids will keep mucus thinner and help loosen chest and nasal congestion. A little chicken soup spoons in some nutrients, as well.

Myth #6: Fresh is always better than frozen
Ever since scientists honed in on the benefits of antioxidants, the mantra has been “eat more fresh fruits and veggies” — implying that frozen is second-rate.

The truth: “Frozen can be just as good as fresh because the fruits and vegetables are harvested at the peak of their nutritional content, taken to a plant, and frozen on the spot, locking in nutrients,” Beeson says. “They aren’t trucked far distances to sit on grocery shelves.” And, unless it’s picked and sold the same day, produce at farmers’ markets — though still nutritious — may lose nutrients because of heat, air, and water.

Myth #7: Eggs raise your cholesterol
In the 1960s and 1970s, scientists linked blood cholesterol with heart disease — and eggs (high in cholesterol) were banished to the chicken house.

The truth: Newer studies have found that saturated and trans fats in a person’s diet, not dietary cholesterol, are more likely to raise heart disease risk. (An egg has only 1.6 grams of saturated fat, compared with about 3 grams in a cup of 2 percent milk.) And, at 213 milligrams of cholesterol, one egg slips under the American Heart Association’s recommendation of no more than 300 milligrams a day. “Eggs offer lean protein and vitamins A and D, and they’re inexpensive and convenient,” Beeson says. “If you do have an egg for breakfast, just keep an eye out for the amount of cholesterol in the other foods you eat that day.”

Myth #8: Get cold, and you’ll catch a cold
It must be true because your mother always said so. Right?

The truth: Mom was wrong. “Chilling doesn’t hurt your immunity, unless you’re so cold that your body defenses are destroyed — and that only occurs during hypothermia,” Vreeman says. “And you can’t get a cold unless you’re exposed to a virus that causes a cold.” The reason people get more colds in the winter isn’t because of the temperature, but it may be a result of being cooped up in closed spaces and exposed to the spray of cold viruses. Staying warm may not prevent a cold, but staying cheerful might. A study at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh says positive people exposed to cold viruses have a 13 percent lower risk of getting a cold than gloomier souls.

Myth #9: Your lipstick could make you sick
In 2007, an environmentalist group, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, had 33 lipsticks tested for lead. Although there’s no lead limit for lipstick, one third of the tubes had more than the limit allowed for candy. That started a scare that spread like wildfire.

The truth: “The reality is that lead is in almost everything,” says Michael Thun, MD, head of epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society. “It’s all around us. But the risk from lead in lipstick is extremely small.” In fact, lead poisoning is most commonly caused by other environmental factors — pipes and paint in older homes, for instance. The bottom line, Thun says: The risk from lipstick is nothing to worry about.

4 big health whoppers
Most of us want to believe in “miracle” cures. But if it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Weight-loss formulas
The National Institutes of Health warns against taking any drug combos sold without U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, including herbal mixes that promise big results. “The problem is that many contain stimulants and may be dangerous for people with underlying heart disease, high blood pressure, and other chronic illnesses they may not be aware of,” says Marc Siegel, MD, a New York City physician and author of “False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear.” “And you may not know how much stimulant you’re getting.” It’s far better to ask your doctor about FDA-approved appetite suppressants or, best of all, exercise and watch what you eat.

Arthritis fixes
Copper bracelets, shark cartilage, honey-and-vinegar mixtures, magnets. If only they would cure arthritis. But it just isn’t so, Siegel says. In fact, copper can cause an allergic reaction. Although there’s no cure for arthritis, rest, exercise, heat and drugs recommended by your doctor can help.

Colon cleansers
Colonics have been hawked as everything from a toxin remover to a cancer cure. But they only do what your intestinal system does already. Enemas, laxatives, or passing a rubber tube through your rectum and pumping water in and out can be expensive and dangerous. “There’s no evidence that colon cleansing is necessary,” Siegel says. And experts say long-term cleansing can cause anemia, malnutrition, infection, intestinal damage and even heart failure.

Alzheimer’s cures
Removing silver fillings, zapping your brain with electricity, or taking smart pills won’t keep your memory intact, says Stephen Barrett, MD, a retired psychiatrist who operates www.quackwatch.org. “Reputable drugs for slowing memory loss are only in their infancy. If brain tissue is dead, you can’t revive it with something in a bottle.”

Pats/Giants – The Rematch

OK, here we go.

I’ve got my beer stacked neatly in the fridge, a huge sack of Cheez-its snack mix, and friends coming over to watch me flip out at the screen.

Apart from the half-time show, the ‘bowl’ usually sucks. It’s almost never a real match-up, for some unknowable reason, and watching a 28-3 game is never much fun. This year, I have high hopes for a real game. Some action on the field. Some heart. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? There is a real sports ethic, Virginia, and the American game isn’t just about money and sponsorship.

Ah, a girl can dream, can’t she?

Hailing from a strange background – being an inhabitant of Indiana, New England, and New York for equal lengths of time – I have feelings about both these teams. Usually, I root for New England. But my dad loved the Pats so much, that he actually soured me on them. However, that being said, I have fond memories of Superbowl showdowns.

My dad and my mom divorced when I was less than a year old. She was born and raised in northern Indiana and rooted for the Bears (that being the only game in town before the Hoosier Dome even existed). The year before my mom died in a car crash, I met my father for the first time. That was the same year that the Bears and the Pats met in the bowl.

You remember that year, it was the year of the Superbowl Shuffle and the Fridge. And McMahon. (Actually, McMahon wasn’t half as talented as Tom Brady and was an even bigger ass, so I guess I should stop complaining about Brady so much.)

Anyway, my parents had finally put away their differences and I had plans to visit my father that spring. Camped out in our living room, my mom and I watched the game together as a unit. She was delighted with the Bears’ performance. Each time they scored, my mom leapt off her chair and dialed my dad.

“Did you see that touchdown, Jim?” she gleefully asked. “Well, did you?”

Sadly, my dad didn’t get to make many opposite “in-your-face” calls in return that year. But, it was the first time that I saw clearly that my parents at one time actually liked each other. Up until then, I had started to believe that I might have been an immaculate conception, because I couldn’t picture two more opposite people together than my mother and my father. Apparently, they shared a love of football.

That summer, my mom died and I went to live with my father. I attended Patriots games, back when they weren’t good at all. It was an education in the game, given by a brusque and hard-to-love man.

I used to root against the Patriots just to watch my dad steam up under the collar. Tomorrow, I’ll be thinking of him as I root for Eli Manning and the Giants against his favorite team. Just like when he was alive, I was sixteen, and we were sitting in the stands of Foxborough Stadium.

Love you, dad.

But I still hope that they lose tomorrow. Even if I know they won’t.

Choices and Regrets: To Have or Not to Have Children

I’ll admit that this post doesn’t have much to do with Southeast Asia in particular, but has a more international aspect. Or, you might say, universal. This entry is going to be about life choices – the decisions that we make and live with, their effect on our own lives and those around us, and just how we come to the conclusions that we do.

Living for the brief time that I have in Hong Kong, I can tell you emphatically that there are different ways of thinking about the same topic. However, the topics themselves seem to be human and cross-cultural. The approaches are different, however, and for different reasons. As I learn to speak Chinese, I am gaining some insight into the ways in which Chinese thought differs from American thought. Which has made me, along with my age, consider the age old question of children.

To have or not to have, that is the question.

Why is it that when people, especially, it seems, women, ask the question – “What is the meaning of my life?” – the answer is almost invariably marriage and child-rearing. Is that all there is? I ask in my fake German accent? Because if that’s all there is, then let’s keep dancing.

At the bottom of it, I suppose the meaning of life really is wrapped up in the begetting of other life. In the end, life is all about life. However, since we are not a species that plays by the “rules” laid down by nature, I don’t see why we adhere so vehemently to this one. We don’t eat raw meat, or kill each other randomly, or suffer the ill fate of destiny as easily as we submit to the credo that ONE MUST HAVE CHILDREN. Or else? Well, from first-hand experience I can tell you that the or-else goes something like this.

1. Your life is, ultimately, meaningless should you fail to bring forth life from your womb or your loins. You have failed in the most important task. (I should note that at least I have a choice and am bringing this judgment upon myself. What about the people who desperately wanted children, but couldn’t have them? Are their lives still meaningless? Should they be peppered with questions about their lack of children?)

2. You are, above everyone else, the most selfish person on the planet. How dare you not have children? Who do you think you are? What are you doing that is so special that it’s important that you not have them? (What about people who have children and can’t afford them – either financially or emotionally? Are they selfish?)

3. You are egotistical beyond belief. What makes you think you are doing anything intrinsically important? (Let’s not even get into the people who erroneously believe that they can pass down their looks, intelligence, or kindess to their offspring. Genetics don’t exactly work like that – but then, that’s an entirely different lecture.)

4. You are misguided about life and the value of having children. You must hate children and you are evil incarnate. (I don’t hate children, in fact I like them. Just as long as they GO HOME at the end of the day. I’m also the first person to be a proponent of higher tax rates for better education. I am concerned with all children, not just my own non-existent ones.)

Today, kids are overscheduled and overplanned and overvalued (yes, I said it). It’s not helping anyone to obsess over children. I understand the wish to make your children’s lives resemble the ones that you didn’t have – idyllic, happy, filled with joy and contentment. The trouble is, well, have you seen the world?

Pollution is taking over. Just come to Hong Kong and get a whiff of the fresh air to get my drift. Water and oil supplies will eventually dwindle if we keep up the consumption without sustainment. There aren’t enough good jobs to go around. And just because you have one, doesn’t mean your child will. (In fact, it is projected that our parents were the last generation which will actually do better than their parents. We are fated to wait until they all die to collect the houses and the money. Most of us won’t be able to match their lifestyles.) Education is so elusive and expensive that if I did have children, I would threaten to homeschool them. Media and culture place claims on children today that we NEVER had. And I know every generation says this, but I think that ours can actually make the claim. For instance, when I was watching MTV, they banned a Duran Duran video because a woman rode a shaving foam covered candy cane suggestively. Now, every video out has something suggestive in it. I think that now you have to kill someone in a video to get banned, but I’m not sure.

Does this mean that I think other people shouldn’t have children? That they are all crazy?

Absolutely not.

I just want the choice to be my own and for it to be accepted. I don’t comment on people’s choice to have children, but most people feel free to comment on my lack of them. Which is strange really.

When I voiced my opinion in class the other day that I felt having a maid, a nanny, and a driver would be uncomfortable for me, one of the women piped up with, “That’s because you don’t have children.” No, that’s because I have a brain and can think. Millions of women have children and don’t have the luxury of a nanny. They – gasp – do it themselves.

When it comes right down to it, we all make choices. For me, the choice not to have children has become a difficult one, mainly because of the pressure that society subtly puts on those of us who are childless. As the sesame street song says, one of these things is not like the others, and that’s me.

Someday, I might regret not having children, I don’t know. But then again, the people that had them might come to regret that decision as well. Though they would never admit it. My relationship with my parents was less than idyllic – which probably has a lot to do with my feelings about this topic – but it also goes to show that the myth of the perfect family is just that – a myth.

One of my friends actually asked me what I planned to do when I got older. There would be no one to look after me. I reminded her of her own lack of enthusiasm for visiting her mother and asked if she would house her mom when she got older. I got blank space as an answer. (Not to mention the fact that if I live my life correctly, then I will have good friends of all ages who might choose to check in on me from time to time.)

So, when we are both in the old folks’ home, I’ll invite her over to mine to watch the flat-screen television and lounge in my leather rocker. Because I might not have children to visit me, but I’ll sure as hell have more money.