America has a lot of long-time, embarrassingly idiotic attitudes, stereotypes and prejudices about a lot of things that make us the laughing stock of the world, and no where is this seen more acutely than in jr. high and high school.  For example, what total no-brain started the attitude, so many years ago, that athletic ability rules and that having any kind of smarts or artistic talent is considered geeky? Probably someone who ended up spending their life on welfare, in jail, or addicted to drugs or alcohol.  Someone who was no doubt operated on or supervised by, at one point in their life, by a “geek”.  But here we are, at least 60 years later, and that attitude still prevails, hurting us in so many ways.  I actually heard a friend say to me a couple years ago, “I’m not going to encourage my son to be in the band because I don’t want him to be called a band geek.” Huh? I tried to set her straight. Though my band experience ended in 9^th grade and Allison’s ended by 7^th, I have a lot of friends who found their life’s career in band, not to mention those who simply found great friends and memories.

 

“People who are in band, or choir, remember, are musically talented,” I told her.  “Which means they are pretty fun people.  Their parties are fun, even school field trips are fun, because there’s always lots of music and you never know—there could be an impromptu jam session, or singing… they have great music collections and they’re usually pretty good dancers, too.”  (well…at least the drummers are…)

 

I related some of my own memories to her.  I’ll never forget a “spring tour” I went on with my high school show choir (we were called “The Purple Aires”—  naturally, since our high school colors were purple and gray). Our choir director booked us to sing at a church and in the cafeteria of a community college in the greater Kansas City area, which was a day’s drive from my hometown.  Not sure if even one of those college students ever looked at us while we were singing, but we still had a lot of fun (Worlds of Fun, to be exact—that was the name of the theme park we got to visit)—and we did break into a song or two on our “tour bus”… Fast forward to 2007-- I’m driving a bunch of 6^th grade Girl Scouts around Washington, D.C., and the band girls who are riding in my (rented) minivan start an impromptu “mouth version” of the Star Wars theme, singing their particular instrument’s part, perfectly on pitch, using the word, “Duh” for each note. Several band “sections” were represented in my car and so, as all the parts chimed in and came together, it actually sounded good! I christened them The Duh Band.  They had so much fun, they kept doing it again and again, recording it on their phones (the second time with an emcee, of course) and eventually performing it for our whole troop.  Even girls who normally weren’t friends were having a blast and cracking each other up as they performed.  It was one of my fondest memories of the entire trip, and I felt sorry for the girls who weren’t in band.

 

By the end of our conversation, my friend said she’d never thought of band kids as “fun” before and I thought maybe I’d changed an attitude. Not sure that I did.  Her son didn’t enroll in band.  When grown adults start worrying about whether their kid is going to look “cool” or not, we’re in a sorry state.

 

Speaking of Scouts—now there’s yet another group who gets a bad rap.  The uniform probably doesn’t help, but, uniform aside, Scouts offer some pretty cool things kids can’t get in other activities, at least not at a young age.  Opportunities to learn how to lead, whether it’s leading the troop in a meeting, or leading a service project, or teaching younger Scouts how to do something. Opportunities to experience a whole lot of stuff in ways other kids can’t.  My 5^th grade Girl Scout troop is sleeping overnight at NASA next month, something only offered to Scouts.  In a couple weeks, we’re learning about the winter Olympics and going “curling” (yes, Dallas has a curling club!) and visiting the only wolf sanctuary in Texas.  It’s so much more than camping and selling cookies (although those activities are good as well) and yet parents either don’t sign up their kids (one mom told me, “I was never in Scouts so I’m not signing up my daughter”) or they let it go by the wayside as kids get busy with jr. high sports and other activities. 

 

Kudos to Girl Scouts of the USA for continually trying to update the uniform and trying to keep the program fresh and “current”.  Kudos to movies like “High School Musical” and the TV show, Glee, which has helped boost enrollment in school choir and theatre programs.  And kudos to all the travel agencies out there who specialize in arranging choir and band trips to exciting locales.  Jay Johnson, the owner of Coastline Travel in Garden Grove, CA, (I work with a lot of travel professionals in the corporate freelance writing that I do) told me last week about how his agency resurrected the Hawaii Invitational International Music Festival, and that when bands and choirs are able to plan trips to Hawaii, it doubles their membership. 

 

In the next few months, Emmie is going to have to decide if she’s going to participate in 6^th grade band next year and if so, what instrument she’ll play. (She’s already been kicked out of choir for doing pirouettes on the risers, among other things…) Band instruction is provided for 6^th graders every day during school hours in our district (even though our 6^th grade is still at the Elementary School.) I told her I thought she ought to consider percussion, since she’s had the piano experience they require, and they might even let her play her guitar. 

“But, Mom,” she said yesterday as we drove to church, “hardly any of my friends are going to be in band.”

“Why not?” I said.

“They think it’s for geeks,” she said.

 

 

 

Conversation this morning just before my teen, Allison, got out of the car to walk into school, and just after she’d complained how tired she was and how she’d stayed up until 2:30 a.m. doing homework and how she couldn’t get up this morning and how she’d forgotten her headband and now her hair would look bad and how she was going to be late to school, and… Uncool Mom : You know, sometimes you’ve just got to put your homework aside and say, I need sleep. Teen daughter: (Getting angry, voice rising) I’m not going to do that!! If I did, I’d fail everything! You’re always saying it’s important to get good grades, so DON’T BE A HYPOCRITE!! (Door slams, she walks up the sidewalk to school) << MORE >>

 If your teen drives you crazy, should you let them drive a car? Should someone that flies off the handle simply because they think you’re looking at them the “wrong” way be deemed emotionally ready to get behind the wheel?  Yet the older they get, the more involved in extracurricular and social activities they get, and if they don’t drive, the parent does. A lot.   I swear, ...

<< MORE >>

Though ESPN announcer Craig James has not made it into the College Football Hall of Fame yet and probably will never be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he can at least say he made it into another Hall—the Helicopter Parent Hall of Fame.   Uncoolmom.com hosts the only Hall of Fame of that kind—and James is the first high-profile name to join its illustrious ranks.

 

 

<< MORE >>

Last weekend, in preparation for Emmie’s first gymnastics meet, I read the instruction booklet for our “Canon Elura 60 Digital Camcorder”, figured out how to charge its battery pack, and plugged it in. I was glad to see the indicator light flashing, just as the instructions said it would.   Embarassingly, I hadn’t remembered how to work that camera without looking at the book, since it was one of only a few times I’d picked up the thing over ...

<< MORE >>

I recently caught a snippet of a TV interview with Leanne Tuohy, the real-life mom portrayed by Sandra Bullock in the movie, “The Blind Side”.   I was impressed and moved by this movie, which tells the true story of a well-to-do family from Memphis who adopts a teen (Michael Oher) from the projects.   Among the many things they do for him, they help him feel loved and needed, and help him improve ...

<< MORE >>

Is it just me, or is anyone else bothered when the sacred tries too hard to be cool when embracing the secular? I think I started feeling that way about 13 years ago when I watched a neighbor’s video of her church youth choir, or I should say, megachurch youth choir. There were hundreds of teens onstage, swaying back and forth to a funky beat and singing (or would it be rapping?), “You down wit G.O.D.? Yeah, you know me!”, sort of a Christian Weird Al version of the song, “O.P.P.” For those of you unfamiliar with “O.P.P.”, it was a 1991 hit by the rap group “Naughty By Nature”, a disgusting ode to infidelity,<< MORE >>

Today is the one-year anniversary of UncoolMom.com, and in honor of it I thought I’d give you updates on items from the past year where I promised to “keep you posted”. Here are a few: -In May, my youngest child’s elementary school was the first school in Texas to close due to swine flu, and Emmie spent the week off teaching herself to play an acoustic guitar she bought at Target. Did she ever get the dreaded H1N1? No, but her older sister did this fall. Tamiflu worked wonders for Allison and amazingly the rest of us never got it. Meanwhile, Emmie is doing a great job of teaching herself to play that guitar (with help from Uncle Steve) and now has an electric one, a Les Paul guitar that my husband found on Craig’s List. For her birthday, we had Cousin Ted hide it inside his own guitar bag, with a birthday note and ribbons, so when she was at his house and they eagerly went to get out “his guitar” to play, there it was. Loved that look of surprise on her face!! The down side is that she is so into rock music now, it is almost scary. My husband introduced her to Guns ‘n Roses once on YouTube and now Slash is her hero. Which makes it harder for her to play classical music on the piano… << MORE >>

Okay, call me a sap…that song "Seasons of Love" from the musical “Rent” has been going through my head a lot these days, probably because my teenager has it on her Ipod and plays it so everyone can hear it from time to time… ”Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure, measure a year?” But it is a great New Year’s song, isn’t it? Ranks right up there with Ella Fitzgerald's “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”, Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne” and U2’s “New Year’s Day”…It’s made me think about the past year, and while I’m not big on Year End Reviews (sometimes they can be SO stupid) sometimes it’s good for us to “take stock”… Even though my earliest blog posts date to September 2008, UncoolMom.com was officially “launched” on January 5, 2009, so New Year’s Day 2010 is just about as good a time as any for me to start assessing its first year. How should I measure the first year of this blog? One way to measure it is in “hits”, or “visits” to the blog.<< MORE >>

One week ago our family welcomed a new addition-- our great-nephew Evan was born in California amidst much excitement. We're thrilled to have our first great-nephew and my brother is double thrilled to have his first grandson. While it will be awhile before we get to see him, he won't be without company. My sister-in-law hopped on a plane as soon as my niece's water broke; by the time Mom and baby arrived home from the hospital, a houseful of more family was there. Which is typical for the majority of births in our society, right? Doting grandmothers arrive to help out; friends and other family members flock to get a first glimpse of the tiny new life. It's what we do when a child is born. It's tradition. Is it just my husband and me, or is there anyone else out there who thinks our society needs to re-think this whole time-worn welcoming process? Let's start with labor. << MORE >>

Amidst all the busy-ness of the holidays, did you catch the news last week? A study conducted by the National Eye Institute was released, and it showed that nearsightedness has increased in the U.S. population 66% since the 1970’s. Not good news, considering it costs about $3.8 billion a year to treat poor-distance vision, which goes up by another $1 billion for every 12% increase. The lead author of the study said that the likely cause is less outdoor time for kids and more time spent in activities requiring close-up viewing, such as text-messaging, playing video games and Web surfing. Interestingly, at almost the same time as this story hit the presses, Emmie’s 5th grade class finished a week-long tracking of their own electronic media habits. << MORE >>

I’ll bet I’m not the only Mom whose family is hard-pressed to figure out what to get her each year for holidays and birthdays. I mean, think about it—Moms are usually pretty good at picking up on all sorts of clues and being the “gatherers”, getting gifts for everyone else, sometimes even stockpiling them in a special closet or drawer throughout the year-- but leaving few clues about themselves. And let’s face it, since husbands and kids aren’t always very astute gatherers, they need really obvious clues. Like a wish list. But some years I can’t think of much to put on a list. And sometimes, don’t you wish they could just figure it out on their own? I realized recently that I don’t make that an easy task. Since Mom is always serving others, self too often gets left behind. For example, do my kids really have any idea what kind of music I like? When they’re in my car, I let them listen to their favorite radio stations. But when they’re in my husband’s car, does he? Rarely. Instead, they listen to sports talk radio, and CDs like The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, U2… << MORE >>

I've been thinking a lot about Lyle Waggoner lately. Lyle Waggoner was one of the ensemble players who used to be on the Carol Burnett TV show. (I interviewed him by phone once for a newspaper story-- I was a teenager working part-time at my hometown paper. He was about to star in some made-for-TV movie… I actually have a tape recording of the interview and boy is it funny—it reminds me of the celebrity interviews that Chris Farley used to do on Saturday Night Live!!) Anyway, Lyle went on to start a successful company, Star Waggons, that produces custom, luxury, portable dressing rooms and wardrobe trailers now used all over the entertainment industry. And I've been thinking lately that Lyle needs to branch out and make one called The Mom Waggon or Dad Waggon or how about The Mad Waggon... a soundproof “hideaway” you can park in your backyard, tricked out with all the things you’d like to have to chill out, to get away from your family when no one appreciates you…maybe it could have a hot tub, a massaging chair, flat screen TV, refrigerator, whatever it takes...<< MORE >>

(an edited version of the following, written by me, was printed in the Dallas Morning News on Jan. 31, 2001.)

"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a really cool fish tank."

My oldest daughter turned six on Thanksgiving Day, and we surprised her with something she's wanted for a year: an aquarium.  Only this is no ordinary aquarium.  This is the 1.5 gallon Undersea ...

<< MORE >>

I know some families who, when giving their kids allowance, or birthday money, or money earned from jobs, or all three, make them divide it up: the kids have to put some aside for savings, some for charity, and the rest they can choose to use how they like. While I do understand the reasons/values behind this (one of which is the hope that they’ll get in the habit of doing that all their life), I haven’t been of the mindset to want to force giving—I’ve wanted to encourage giving and saving, and hope my kids will do both, but give them freedom and see how the chips fall. At my house, it didn’t take long to see the chips falling on two very opposite sides. << MORE >>

Gee... just when I was feeling proud of myself for getting the Halloween decorations put away by Nov. 15... the jingling, snowflake-filled ads on TV are reminding me that in less than two weeks, it’s time to get out the Christmas decorations…but first I have to clear the birthday cards off the fireplace mantle in order to make room for the patchwork sitting turkey and vintage pilgrim candles…and the next round of birthday cards. See, in our house, the “holiday season” starts with Halloween and doesn’t stop until New Year’s Day, with all four of our birthdays thrown in there in between, in addition to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Add in all the school programs, music recitals, class parties, and holiday parties for every other organization of which somebody’s a member, and it’s truly a nonstop celebration of fun! You don't believe me? Seriously, this can be fun—I mean, who wouldn’t love celebrating four birthdays and four holidays in only 8 weeks? C’mon, now,... don’t everyone raise their hands so fast…okay, it is often a major pain in the a##. It can make for some major stress. And of course, the domestic engineer in me is always trying to come up with creative ways to make it less stressful.<< MORE >>

Did you know that a lot of women over a certain age never wash their own hair? And they have it "done" only once a week? "That's so GROSS!" say my girls. (Hmmm, if I were them, at least some of the time, I wouldn't be talking...) I think about "the generation gap of hair" once in awhile, especially lately as my 85-year-old mother has been staying with us for her annual visit. That visit always includes finding her a local "beauty operator" to "do" her hair once a week. Just like she's been doing ever since she was in her 20's. << MORE >>