Agility isn't Just for Physical Phitness Anymore

Okay, there’s a book I’ve been avoiding: The Secrets of Happy Families, by Bruce Feiler. It’s bright and yellow and friendly looking, and it’s been sitting on my shelf for a few months, but I’ve avoided it. You have to admit – or at least, I have to admit – the title is a little threatening. Sure, it’s catchy, and there’s that reference to Anna Karenina implied in it, but the thing is, my family is on the old side. The 9^th grader is, well, in 9^th grade, and the 5^th grader is also no longer a small child. As for the partnership slash marriage slash union between the husband and me, that’s also in its teens. It’s not like we’re newlyweds, or just starting the kid process. What if everything we’ve been doing so far is, you know, wrong? 

Even scarier is the question that follows a book with that title, like night follows day and yin follows yang: What if I learn those secrets of happy families, and discover that our family doesn’t know them? What if my family isn’t happy?

I mean, is it? I mean, I think, objectively speaking, we’re a happy family. Or happy-ish. Within the bounds of love, we like one another. We laugh – and not only at one another. There’s some yelling and some pouting and some crying. That’s normal.

Right?

I’ll admit, I read a column Feiler wrote a couple of weeks ago that gave a little glimpse into the book. The column was about fighting well. Or, perhaps I should say, about resolving conflicts. There was a nifty bit about how if you need to have a difficult conversation with someone you should make sure everyone is sitting at the same level. Don’t have someone on a footstool and someone on a counter stool. The butts should be on the same level. Level playing field, so to speak.

There was another nifty bit about making sure, when discussing topics of potential conflict, such as curfew violations or other infractions, that you sit side by side with your child, because that position encourages collaboration and minimizes the confrontational aspect of your, uh, confrontation. Here, butts should rest on cushions, because flexibility under the butt contributes to flexibility in the head.

Very interesting.

What’s so threatening about that stuff, you wonder? Well, I’ll tell you.

Readers, there is always a chance that everything I have ever done as a mother, adult, person, embryo, and zygote has been a mistake. So I read that piece, and I thought, geez, we haven’t had many fights and arguments with the children. We’re not a big fighting arguing punishing family.

Is that wrong?

Maybe the children are just not old enough for that kind of problem and it’s comin’ down the pike. If so, I have now made note of all cushioned seating in the house and will be sure to use it. Maybe, though, something in our parenting style has squelched the children. I have enough amateur psychological knowledge to know that feelings is feelings and they don’t just vanish. Perhaps our style, the husband’s and mine, the rule-with-the-invisible-fear-of-invoking-our -displeasure style, which has so far SEEMED to serve us well, has created a system of stealth rebellion in the children. Maybe we have forced them to stuff their negative emotions. Maybe they are slowly simmering cauldrons of resentment, the kind that never boil over. Maybe this style will in turn drive them away from us and send them to the far pillars of the world, from which they will only return periodically, armed with spouses or partners, and never for more than three nights.

So I had a little fear about reading the book. Plus, a quick glance at other books Feiler has published revealed they skew religious. At least their titles do. Walking the Bible, Abraham, and Where God Was Born, for example. Which. Well, I’m wary of yet another book (or person) telling me I need to have some particular religious faith to flourish.  Also, a quick check of my search engine revealed that he’s already had four nonfiction bestsellers, has done a TED talk, has suffered from cancer, and is seven months younger than me, to the day. To top it all off, he has worked as a clown.

Despite these fears, aversions, skepticisms, and – let’s call ‘em what they are – jealousies, however, I cracked the book last night.

Not being at all competitive in any way - not that there’s anything wrong with being competitive, I have plenty of friends and relations who are competitive, it’s just that I am way above petty competitiveness - I wasn’t at all pleased to discover that the concept Bruce introduces in his first chapter, Agile development, is one I’ve learned already from my editing work on technology articles for a web content management company.

I’m calling him Bruce, now, because his book’s cover is after all so friendly yellow, and because it makes me feel more equal to him. Not that being equal matters. (See above, re: competitiveness.) Also, I was being ironic in that last paragraph, in case you weren’t reading with full attention to detail.

Anyhoo, yes, me and technology go way back. Back to high school, in fact; back to the Daisy wheel computer we had, with the password I just might have leaked to someone (a boy) at another school, thus causing an early hacking scandal.  I was never blamed for this, because apparently, someone else had also leaked the password to someone (a boy) at another school. She got caught, and I didn’t. So, my feelings of competence with technology were encouraged.

It occurs to me that this example is really something totally different than competence with technology. More like competence at lying low, a skill I honed, and which came in useful later in an episode involving several people (a boy) and Great Falls, Virginia, and some illegal substances. Which I actually hadn’t used, but I was there, it is true.

But I digress. I was trying to get to the story of how yesterday the 9^th grader asked me how I would explain what a computer was to someone who had never heard of one. I asked her, “How would you explain it?” but she was having none of that kind of parent-answer that really turns the onus back on the questioner. So off I went on a ramble about code and ones and zeros, and was filled with fond remembrances of how I used to hang around with lots of MIT grads and how they could explain it to the 9^th grader much better than I. But we got through it, somehow.

Anyway, Agile is a methodology, adopted from software developers, as an alternative to a traditional management approach to project development. Agile is based on a team model with lots of feedback and revisions at each step of the development process. It’s catching on in all kinds of enterprises, and it’s been quietly making a mark on family life. Says Bruce, “The core idea of agile development is that life is constantly changing, and we have to organize ourselves in ways to allow us to react to changes in real time. The centerpiece of the program is a weekly review session built on the principle of ‘inspect and adapt.’”  Thus, Bruce discusses establishing a weekly family meeting with a regular agenda of answering the following three questions: 1. What went well in the family that week 2. What things could be improved in the family? And 3., What will the family commit to in the next week?  The main benefit of the family meeting is that it provides a consistent slot for communication.

There are lots of other details, but this post is getting too long. And there’s a friendly yellow-covered book to read if you want to know more. It’s only one of Bruce’s many ideas, and it’s pretty interesting.  Not at all scary. I’m going to read on. 

I Regret Nothing - With Name-Dropping

Product of Good Parenting

I recently passed a diverting lunchtime with a writer friend revisiting some of the opportunities we failed to grab, back in our twenties. Turns out we have a couple of doozies. For example, I offer my tour of the The New Yorker, about 20 years ago. Through a connection I can no longer recall - something to do with his mother - Louis Menand gave me a tour of The New Yorker. Yes, that Louis Menand, who writes regularly for the magazine. He gave me a tour. Through the offices. Of The New Yorker. 

What was it like, The New Yorker? What was Louis Menand like? I hardly know. I doubt I had a better notion then. It’s as if I were led, blindfolded, on that tour. I have one memory, a glimpse into a small office space. It was empty, but showed signs of occupancy. Which famous writer worker there? I don’t have the faintest idea. Maybe it was a plebe’s office. Who the heck knows? As for Louis Menand – I have only the recollection of the sensation of being with a person. I wouldn’t recognize him now, and frankly, I wouldn’t have recognized him a week after that tour. I don’t know that I ever looked him in the face. He was with me – beside, ahead, behind? – the way any authority figure was throughout my childhood, a shape or a bulk of anonymous but indisputable existence with which I could expect no real interaction. Like a coat rack draped in an overcoat. Certainly not like person with whom I could (ought to) communicate as an equal.

Looking back, I see the whole thing as a failure of imagination, not of courage. I wasn’t nervous. I was simply unable to consider my proximity to Louis Menand and that tour as opportunities for career advancement.  It’s possible I stood on a point of honor: I didn’t want to be like everyone else he toured around The New Yorker on his mother’s request and then ASK something of him, career-related. It’s possible. And stupid. More likely, though, my muteness sprang from seeing him as an authority figure, and seeing myself – or not seeing myself at all.

So why was he an authority figure? And why was I – a child?

This where I indulge in a little parent bashing. I don’t really like to do it, because, now that I am one, I understand that parents are mere humans, full of insecurities and fatal flaws that can obscure our good intentions. Nevertheless, I have to say that some responsibility for the stupid lack of imagination I showed then lay with my parents. For who else but they were supposed to teach me how to see my possibilities? I came across this bit by none other than Martha Stewart, in which she says the best thing anyone ever taught her was that she could do anything she put her mind to – and the person who taught her that? Her dad. She says, “I think it really often is up to the parents to help build confidence in their children. It is a very necessary part of growing up.”* (Then she applies another layer of decoupage to the birdcage she's making out of strips of six thousand thread count Egyptian cotton sheets for her gazebo.)  

Now, Martha's run the gamut from model to mogul to jailbird and back. Whatever you may fault her for, you can't fault her for lack of imagination for where she could be and what she could do.

It never even occurred to me that my tour with Louis Menand could be anything other than that, a tour. I never for an instant considered myself equal to anyone working there. Even though there were people my age, people from my high school class, working there around that time, I just felt different from Those People. They were on some other existential plane. So that’s the bottom line.

I left Louis Menand and The New Yorker, and I returned to my stultifying data entry job and my novel in progress, and never followed up. If Louis Menand noticed I didn’t write him a thank-you note, I hope he didn’t tell his mother. It never occurred to me, not because I was rude. I wasn’t. I was raised to write thank-yous. I had a supply of cards with my name printed on them for this purpose. No, I didn’t think of writing him because I didn’t imagine I had registered on his brain. He was one of Those People. 

So, my point, Readers, is that it’s necessary to imagine yourself using your talents and skills for work you want to do, and it’s important to help others imagine these things for themselves. Not unrealistic things. Realistic things. Who’s to say what’s unrealistic? That’s where imagination kicks in – imagining seemingly out-of-reach places reachable. Like taking advantage of an in at The New Yorker to explore how you might fit there. If it’s too late for you, then do it for your kids, or for your niece. Do it for your mentees. You might help shape the next Martha Stewart – or, if that gives you the heebie-jeebies, the next Louis Menand. You want people to believe you could be a contendah, and you gotta do that for them, too.

My friend has a doozie of a regret story. It also involves The New Yorker. I won’t tell it here, because it’s her doozie. I’ll just say it might beat mine.

*Martha on the best advice she ever received (in LinkedIn)

Parenting for Character and Success

Reading aloud to my children has been one of the perks of parenthood. It’s fun, it’s cuddly, and when the husband or I are doing it, I’m confident we’re engaged in something proven to help our kids succeed. Plus, how else can I foist my favorite titles on them and be sure they’ll read them?

Another Dreaded Topic

My parents taught me two rules about money, one aloud, the other subliminally.
1. Do not discuss money.
2. Have it.

Am I all done here? I mean, that covers the topic. And I am breaking both rules right now. I don't have even a penny on me. In fact, the only loose change I can think of right now is on top of the dryer.

Yes, money makes me that uncomfortable. Why, aside from the taboo (#1)?  Well, I suppose it's because the finer points of #2 were never clear to me, and because I have arrived at a Certain Age in violation of it.

Nevertheless, I have gleaned some tidbits. Since my parents kept mum, most of what I've learned was inadvertent:

• They had a lot more than most people. 
• Money doesn't make you happy.
• Most of my friends, not all, but most, got through higher education with loans.
• Money is to be accumulated, not spent.
• Don't be showy. 
• Put 5-10% of every paycheck in savings.
• Invest aligned with the S&P 500 and diversify.
• College will cost approximately $100,000/year by the time the 7th grader gets in.
• Choose saving for retirement over saving for college if you can't do both.
• Lack of money makes you miserable.

I used to say (to myself; never aloud -#1) that I would never decide not to do something because of money. Keeping my word was easy when I was single, even though I was working at a low-paying job, because I had a nice financial portfolio in my name, thanks to my father. So, you know, even if I couldn't afford to buy a car, say, on my salary, I had some means. Lucky for me, I also had such an inferiority complex that I was used to denying myself most everything - something to do with my mother buying me second hand clothes - and identifying with Cinderella-- but that's another story-- so those means lasted a long time. All the way through my husband's medical school, residency & fellowship, which included six years in Manhattan mothering two children and working very part time, and trickling out coincident with the recent financial crisis.

Boom.

The thing is, and this is hard to write, because I imagine my tens of readers' faces wrinkling in disgust as they perceive the hard-core materialist I am, I really identified with that money. It reminded me where I came from, and bolstered the illusion that I was still a part of that echelon. An echelon I took for granted in a way particular to it, that I could only see when I landed, with the family, in a town I didn't really want to live in, dependent on my husband's income, with a certain amount of credit card debt (Bulletin: Manhattan is expensive), on my proverbial butt.

As usual, I exaggerate. My father did eventually tell me a few things about money. Could you tell from my list? When I was casting about in my twenties, he sent me a few books, which I read and digested. They made my palms sweat and my heart palpitate, because I really couldn't follow any of the advice, not even the bit about saving from every paycheck, because I was working part time--preserving those blocks of free time in the afternoon so important to me, so much more important to me than financial planning.  I'm not sure this counts as "telling" me anything about money, but he did transport the means of self-education to me. We never followed-up with any deep discussions. I consigned the info to the section of my brain that understood the Future would be Different and continued writing that novel and napping on my keyboard at Widener Library. When relaxing in front of the TV, I simply put my head between my knees whenever Suze Orman was on, harranguing women to take responsibilty for themselves, changed channels, and took deep breaths.

I never chose a job for money (beyond the basics of rent & food), nor a friend, nor a husband (alas?) I don't know a single person who vowed out loud to make a few million by thirty or thirty-five, although I know a few who have. I never made any decision with a monetary target in mind.

I pretty much lived by my most unspoken rule about money -- and this one I came up with all by myself. Ready?

When you need it, money will fall from the sky.

Well, really. I mean, is that such a bad way to live? You're not thinking about money, you're not caught up in the dirty business of accumulating it. You're worry free. Manna will arrive. Yes, you might spend your last twenty on a small deerskin pouch to remember your time writing that novel on Martha's Vineyard at your father's friend's house; but there will be a surprise check from your great aunt or a grandmother (disbursing funds tax-free in advance of death) waiting in your mailbox when you get home. Thank Sky, you'll be able to pay your rent after all.

I was recently at two college reunions, the husband's and mine. I couldn't help noticing that the money men weren't at our table. (They were sighted outside the Charles Hotel, comparing Rolexes -- by one of the husband's friends, a poet). I also couldn't helping noticing that with few exceptions, all the husband's friends, like most of mine, aren't in the money-making business. There are teachers, professors, writers, even a stay-at-home dad. People who save lakes in California. Museum folk. Librarians. The aforementioned poet. People in the helping professions. As I pummeled them with questions about success, I became uncomfortably aware that my financial expectations were different than theirs. After listening to me and reading my blog, one friend handed me a copy of the Tao Te Ching. By the end of the visit, I reached two conclusions. One, these people are fantastic; and two, I need to earn some money.

Now, nobody's starving in my house. We're managing, but I'm thinking a lot more about money than I've ever had to do. That change on the dryer? There's a budget line for it. This is an uncomfortable state for me. I'll say it freely. Maybe this is adulthood. Maybe you just have to think about money. Maybe all of you have your budgets and spend time thinking about them. Maybe my parents had a budget line for everything. If so, there's no doubt the allocations were larger, and all the lines were filled in.  I don't know. The flow was mysterious.

Where I live there's a lot of sky. Beautiful clouds. College funds? Retirement accounts? I'm looking.