Momagers

I came across a word that was new to me twice last week. First, it was used to describe the mother in Ken Baker’s new book How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly in Love (which I’ll review sometime next week, but it doesn’t come out until May). The main character’s mother is intent on making sure her daughter becomes famous and manages her modeling career, diet, and extracurricular activities. Part of that plan includes getting her other daughter a reality television show.

The second time I came across that word was in an episode of American Idol. This use of momager seemed to be more benevolent as the mother and daughter seemed to share a loving relationship, unlike the one in Baker’s book.

So, as I sat here this afternoon making a calendar of Emery’s activities for the week, which include orchestra practice, a flute lesson, a singing lesson, a fencing lesson, and play practice, I wondered if I am a momager or a stage mom or a tiger mom or something else. In all fairness, most of these practices last a half hour to an hour and play practice is only for the next two months. But, it does take careful planning to make sure there are no overlaps.

So, I looked up the word momager. Here are a few online definitions:

 From Wiktionary: Etymology[edit]

From blend of mom and manager.

Noun[edit]

momager (plural momagers)

A manager who is also one's mother.

From the Urban Dictionary

Mom who is managing her family and life in a loving way.

Momagers lead their family in a loving and sane way.

And according to the HuffPost Celebrity, the term was trademarked by Kris Jenner, mom and manager of the Kardashien family.

And, stage mom? The mother of an actor. Well, technically Emery does act.

Tiger mom according to the Macmillian dictionary is “a very strict mother who makes her children work particularly hard and restricts their free time so that they continually achieve the highest grades.” Unfortunately, I don’t focus enough time on making Emery get good grades.

I’m not a soccer mom because I make Victor help out with the transportation and practicing parts. And there are so many other labels applied to moms that one could spend hours analyzing them. In fact, there’s probably a Cosmo-type quiz somewhere on the topic which could give me an answer.

So, what do we call parents like me? I think our good intentions to prepare our children for life by showing them that the skills they learn in extracurricular activities such as “practice makes easier” might lead to something else less desirable (some scholars focus on the relationships between social class and parenting styles, which are hard for me to admit might be true). While I see artistic endeavors as the few spaces where Emery can be clever, perhaps an afternoon on the couch playing video games is just as beneficial.

It might be that it's time for a new category--the ProfessorMom who agonizes over what type of mom she is and looks to research to tell her. 

Emery's comment: ding!  ding!  ding! correct! she is a professormom who agonizes over what type of mom she is and looks to research to tell her! and for bonus points, what is the capital of alaska?

Professormom goes back to school

School started last week—the week started with a full day of meetings on Monday (from 8:30-4:30) and classes started on Wednesday.

I am teaching a graduate seminar I haven’t taught since 2011. It’s popular culture and pedagogy and it’s a hybrid course which means we meet face to face some weeks and online the other weeks. I have my students create online learning experiences for each other based on the week’s readings. I can’t tell you how excited the video game group is . . .

A lot has changed since 2011 in regards to this topic. I don’t remember there being so many educational apps for phones or the role ipads now play in classrooms. Tony Danza’s reality television show in which he teaches high school English aired, as well as the film Bad Teacher. It’s going to be a learning experience for me as well.

Popular culture and pedagogy certainly isn’t always the best combination and we usually spend much of the semester problematizing the two terms that make up the course’s titles. On the first night, I ask my students to pair up with someone they don’t know and to go around on campus and take pictures of pedagogy and popular culture. For one of their last assignments, I will ask them to take a picture that contains both and tie that representation into the course’s readings and discussion. The picture at the top of this post is one of the pictures of pedagogy.

 Speaking of popular culture and pedagogy and that photo, I just read Mickey Rapkin’s Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory.  It is a great read and I love thinking about how this nonfiction book inspired the movie. (the picture at the top of this post is actually one of the settings from the film). But the neatest part was watching archival footage of the group’s on Youtube and seeing how the film really captured the world that is Collegiate A Cappella.

Book #12 Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg

I didn't hyperlink this image, so don't click on it. You can order from the links at Konigsberg's website. 

Openly Straight is the story of Rafe who decides to move from Colorado to the East Coast in order to attend an all-boys boarding school. He tells his family and friends he’s switching schools in order to have a better chance at attending an Ivy-league school, but in reality, he wants to see what it would be like not being identified as the “gay guy" and he decides to "stand in the door of the closet" at his new school. 

I like Rafe and I like this story of friendships. But, I must say even before reading the book, I knew what was going to happen, and you probably do too. But that doesn't mean the plot is too predictable to be enjoyed and be surprised. Konigsberg creates some scenes I rarely, if ever, have seen in a book—a boy kissing a boy for the first time and boys discussing their attraction to one another. These moments are tender and lovely and funny and sad.

This in not a book where the gay protagonist gets beaten to a pulp or extremely humiliated in front of his peers, but there are moments of homophobia and ridicule. Rafe is lucky to have a wonderful family—interestingly both are professors—and his mom supports her son with love and enthusiasm, and I can’t help but smiling at the way she joins in on her son’s life. And, she would probably give him a copy of Openly Straight. 

Konigsberg has a great blog; I feel as if I could spend several hours reading through his posts which are witty, readable, and personal. I'm not sure if he will ever read this post, but if you do, please consider writing a sequel. 

Lazy Saturdays and Bedtime Reading

Merry and Pippin's Lazy Saturday

Just finished a paper I’ve been working on for several months last night. Although I know I’ll probably have major revisions to make (and I welcome the opportunity to make it better), it felt good to cross it off my list. (and, yes, I have a real list I make each semester for my research projects and cross them off one by one). In celebration of that landmark (and not a day too soon since we report back on Monday), Emery and I decided to take a lazy Saturday. That means reading, television, and video games. About 2, my need to be busy and boss people around kicked in and Emery’s now practicing violin and singing, while I’m gardening and blogging.

Speaking of bossing people around, I’d like to discuss our bedtime reading routine. I’m not sure what I read in grad school, but I remember being in some literary and children’s literature courses and hearing about the importance of reading aloud to children. And, about fluency, And something called DIBELS. I then remembered (and this is completely unfair) about students I made read aloud in my high school class and how those students who would read and the other students would cringe or moan at the thought (or be embarrassed) for those students who couldn’t read as well or with emotion. I then I remembered I made no effort to work one on one with those students to help them read aloud better—what if Emery had a teacher like me? And honestly, in classrooms with 30+ kids, the amount he could spend reading aloud would be minimal anyway.

So, I made the commitment to read aloud to Emery before he was even born. And, at first, I read picture books. You may not be aware of how many wonderful picture books there are for children; I wasn’t and I would visit our local library and leave with stacks. And, I think my efforts worked. Emery would crawl up to me and shove Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus into my hands and wait for me to read it. Over and over.

As he started day care, we moved our reading aloud time to our bedtime routine. I think it was from the many parenting books I read and watched that I picked up on the keep a strict bedtime routine neatly packaged by the catch phrase “Bath, books, bed”. 10 years later, we still religiously stick to that routine, even on vacation.

Research speaks to the benefits of reading with your children, in fact, there are several public service announcements promoting the practice. And, I must admit I also saw it as a full-proof way to bond with one’s child. But, it’s exhausting and sometimes at the end of the day, I just wanted to read my own book. So, I worked out a schedule in which Victor would read to Emery one night, and I would the next. And, that’s the way it is.

The point of this entry is not to brag about my wonderful parenting skills, it’s to show how important this routine is to our lives. And, I don’t think many people still read aloud to their 10 year olds. But I did ask someone in my children’s book club how long he read to his son, and he said as long as he lets us to keep going (I suspect he and his wife read to their son when he was a teenager and their son is amazing, so it certainly can’t hurt).

 And, we’re about to finish the fifth book of Ridley Pearson’s Kingdom Keepers series and I’m ready for a change. I think I’m tired of all of the OTK, CTD, 2.0 talk and ready to return to something a little less action based and a little more thoughtful.

I think we’re ready for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

After all, we’ve watched all but the last episode of Fawlty Towers and Emery already knows the secret to the universe, so it’s time.

Emery’s comment: I am glad that I am not the only one who is tired of text speak in books. A Saturday spa day and/or lazy day can really help. Also for bedtime reading parent and child can bond together and be on the same page.

Victor’s Comment: As long as Emery wants one of us to read to him, I’m cool with it.  But I fondly remember that at a certain point, reading in bed before lights out became my time.  That was my first time through Lord of the Rings and a lot of other great books.  I hope Emery will not be too shy to say he wants to read on his own … when he wants.  No hurry.  I’d like to point out that reading in bed had been a cherished pastime until my wife made me turn out the light and leave the room if I wanted to continue to read.  She is weak and can’t stay up late.  It has been a blow to literacy and she is bossy.

Book #11 Karen Healey’s While We Run

 I’m evoking rule #3 The right not to finish this book. It’s not a bad book; it’s just a sequel and the author hasn’t made me really connect with the characters yet.

While We Run is a science fiction story set in Australia in the year 2127. The world is at a crisis—it’s close to depleting all of its natural resources, and Abdi and Teegan are the spokespersons for an opportunity for people to enter a cryonic state and take a spaceship to a habitable planet. They are not willing spokespersons, in fact, they are tortured and held captive until the first third of the book is over, when they escape and join a rebel group to—and at this point I’m not sure. That’s where I stopped. I might read the first book  because of the interesting premise, but when it takes me this long to read a book, I know something's up. I like a book that I can't put down and the next book might be like that. 

Cooking well(ish)

Hello, this is another Emery special because mom is playing video games. This post is to those new in the field of cooking. As a start make cold meals like salad, sandwiches and cold soups. Next, preheat leftovers for about 45 seconds ( I would do this for a pizza.) later on read the book How To Cook Without a book. Start small and make hot soup or salad dressing. Try finding the kind of cooking you like (ex. Oven made foods) and experiment with that . last thing is to take advantage of herbs and have fun!

Mom

Sigh, it’s true. I’ve been trying to find another piece of the master ore in Zelda: A Link Between Worlds so I can power up my sword. 

New Year’s Resolutions

Emey's Nintendo Calendar for 2014

Of course we have resolutions in my family.

The way I have made my New Year’s resolutions has evolved over the years. First, I used to make a list of vague resolutions such as “lose weight” or “save money.” That approach never lasted long. Then, I learned to make more specific resolutions like “exercise three times a week” or “save $25 each month.” That seemed to work better. Then, I heard a radio show (it might have been on a Christian radio station during a long car ride) where it was suggested that instead of making a list of resolutions one chose a word to live by for that year, such as “joy” or “love.”

Taking a word approach worked well for a while. My favorite year was the year I chose “thanks.” I focused on giving thanks and being thankful and chose to do and say things that reflected that concept. I tried that format again this year by choosing the word “celebrate.” I had just gotten tenure, turned forty, etc. It seemed like it would be a good word, but I gave it up by the middle of the year and switched my word to “think.”

Well, I can’t seem to find a word this year (I narrowed it down to “gratitude” and “support” but neither seem right), so it seems as if it’s time to change things again.

When Victor and I asked Emery about his resolution for this year (I think his resolution last year was to write neater) he said “Stay on top of things.” Today, Victor decided his would be “Get it down.” I like the idea of having a mission statement guide one’s thoughts and actions for the next year. Both have been posted to the side of the refrigerator. Now, I just have to come up with mine. . . 

Emery's  comment: support. she needs to do support. not just for others but for herself.