Oh Captain (of Industry) My Captain!

Let's just start with it.  While other girls taped up pictures of Duran Duran, Rob Lowe, Eddie Van Halen, and Matt Dillon, in my high school locker, I hung pictures of Steve Jobs.  And my friends (yes, I had some, despite the previous sentence) let me.  The fact that I also hung pictures of Wayne Gretzky and Ivan Lendl means I clearly missed the memo that looks were really the point of high school hero worship.

And trust me, you can't find pictures of Jobs or Lendl in your average Tiger Beat or Teen Bop magazine.  No, my pinup pictures of Jobs were from Fortune and Time magazine.  When I asked a friend last week if she was familiar with the covers, there was immediate recognition, "the one with the 1970s porn mustache?"

Yep, again, missed that memo on looks.  But he had the glow of success, mystery and brilliant boy wunderkind about him.  If Matt Dillon had bad boy Outsider appeal, then Steve Jobs had bad boy confiscating parts of his mother's blender to change the world appeal.  And therein was the attraction.

See, when I was 12 I had the rare thrill to meet and chat with Steve Jobs.  It was an awards conference for people who'd done uber-nerdy things.  Even though the organizers dubbed it Gathering of The Greats, Slim is right when he refers to it as gathering of the geeks. 

When it came to making conversation with Steve Jobs, a few of my brethren with thick glasses and I would ask about computers and he would ask if we liked fishing.  We were quite clever in telling him that he could invent a program for fishing on his computer. (I won't actually demand royalties for iFish, but let’s just say, the seed for the game was planted long ago.)

But even when I was twelve, I got it.  He urged us, begged us to have a host of experiences and try new things.  Don't just study, and focus on grades and the next achievement award.  (Granted, that's easy to say when you've likely flown in on your own plane to pick up your award.) In order to contribute to society in a meaningful way, you had to acquire not only academic skills, but you also had to experience life emotionally, intellectually and passionately to see needs and solutions in our world.

I recently made my boys listen to the speech Jobs gave at the conference in 1982.  First I showed them the cassette tape it was recorded on, and explained that it was actually a precursor to the flash drive back in my early computing days. (And if you ever need someone to write an if-then statement that will loop your name on the screen, I'm your gal.)

They were not all that impressed with the cassette and only marginally more so listening to Jobs' words of wisdom.  He spoke about what it means to be intelligent and the challenge to find some way to give back when you do have gifts. He defined real intelligence as akin to being on the eightieth floor of a building while everyone else is on the ground trying to find their way with a map.  I thought him brilliant back then, and I still find this to be a great way to describe being smart.

When the speech ended, I asked my boys what they thought.  Two tried to be complimentary, while the middle was busy asking his brothers how the world looked from the parking garage and the sub basement.

You see, we’ve been talking about Steve Jobs at our house a lot lately.  Because when you reside somewhere between the 3^rd and 4^th floor of that building, you can get yourself enough freelance assignments that Apple will give you an iPad for a month on “editorial loan.”

Once again, we are in awe of Steve Jobs, Apple Computer, and the magic that can be made when you have innovation, a bag of experience, oodles of computer programming and luck. And perhaps my boys are just even the tiniest bit in awe of their mother - because for about three days there, the playground smack was, "Does your mom really have an iPad?"

I find it a remarkable feat of individual endowment as well as a testament to our times that my children and I could potentially hold up the same person as an object of admiration. Neil Armstrong, Michael Jordan and Sandra Day O’Connor do not appeal anew to multiple generations, but Steve Jobs has.

When my teen reverie for the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Steve Jobs takes over, Slim chimes in, “Make sure you mention that he is a control freak who backdates options and doesn’t tell shareholders he has a terminal illness.”  Corporate blemishes, I say.  Even the Greek heroes were endowed with human weaknesses.

In the years (okay, decades) since hearing him speak, Jobs’ words have come back to me periodically.  And although I may not have been a poet in Paris, visited lepers, or bought a Buddhist monk lunch – all experiences Jobs recommends to take you on a winding path – I have remembered his advice.  He was adamant that we be very careful when defining the term "success."  And to know that it is possible to be very successful and happy without being a “rags to riches” story.  And as an adult and parent today, I recognize the wisdom in those words once again. 

In today's world of competitive parenting, accelerated classes, elite youth sports, and private college admission consultants, any yield sign is good.  Hearing the words of Steve Jobs is a reminder to help my kids find a passion before a profession, teach them that they can change the world rather than just letting the world change them.  And that fishing can be just as important as solving x for y.

Remembering my high school locker, I asked my oldest about his heroes and people he admired.  Now, lest you think this is normal dinner conversation at our house, right away he said, “Are you writing about this?”  But he played along and named some of his favorite sports and music stars – Jay-Z, Will.i.am, Patrick Roy, Dustin Pedroia and Claude Giroux.  And then he said, “and probably Steve Jobs.”

Sure, there's a decent chance he's gunning for an iPad of his own.  There is also the distinct possibility that the figurehead of iTunes, iPod, iTouch, and iMac is on his list of heroes.  Perhaps most likely is a combination of the two.  And if my boy has figured that somehow my hero being his hero is just one more step in his master plan to get an iPad, well then I think the elevator just let him off on about the 17th floor.

All Hail National Babysitter's Day

Obviously this Sunday is Mothers’ Day.  Or, as a friend of mine calls it, Mother-In-Law Day.  Certainly, you’d think that as a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a mother to three children, and a bona-fide blah-ger I’d have lots to say on the subject.  Let’s just call it a Sunday and move forward.

Or backwards as the case may be – to Saturday.  Because this Saturday is in fact National Babysitter’s Day.  Now there’s a subject near and dear to me.  It would be easy to write a tribute to all the gals – and a handful of guys – I’ve gladly paid so that I could work, go to meetings, grocery shop, eat dinner out, or even, I’ll admit, sit in my bedroom and read.

But I won’t.  Instead, because this is a “blog," let’s talk about me.  And what I think.  And I think that knowing a babysitter, having a babysitter, and paying a babysitter is a thrillingly, freeing milestone of parenting.

There are many, many parenting landmarks that I have been or will be slow to reach.  Affording myself the confidence and luxury to hire a sitter has not been one of them.  And I mean this in all seriousness.

Certainly with a baby, hiring a sitter is an absolute necessity.  After enough weeks at home with an infant, the visiting grandparents leave and the sun stops rising and setting over the weigh-in at the pediatrician’s office.  At some point, it’s time to put on actual clothes and leave the baby behind.

Early on – and to this day – that act of handing my baby or my children over to someone else for a few hours says a number of significant things.  Perhaps most importantly to me, it means that my circle is large enough that I actually know people who babysit – or at least I know people who know people.

As a mother at home, it thrills me to count in my company high schoolers, college kids, part time cafe workers, grad students, and the neighbor’s boyfriend’s sister.  And each of these individuals makes my children’s world larger and more textured as well.  My kids will ask for the sitter who helps them make music mixes, or teaches them to string a lacrosse stick, or brings her beading supplies to share, or is king of basement floor hockey.

It’s also useful to have in my back pocket that one sitter I know they fear.  “No, no not her! She just does her homework and yells at us. We promise we’ll be good. Anybody but her.”  Obligingly, I call the favorite sitter who runs the family room dance contest, and harmony reigns for all. 

I know for many parents having a babysitter creates more anxiety than it seems to be worth. And some put babysitters through “dress rehearsals” while they are still at home before they consider leaving them to do the job alone.  There are also plenty of parents who will only leave their children with family members – no outside sitters allowed. 

Granted, you can only do what you are comfortable with as a parent.  But, to me, such a policy drastically limits your options for freedom, and it also seems to foster a distrust and anxiety about the outside world.  Parenting is difficult enough without having to fear every tree nut, legume, shellfish and individual outside the family.

When our firstborn was several weeks old, the momentous occasion had arrived. It was time to leave  our only child with an outside sitter.  As we drove away and headed to the movies, Slim asked if I knew our babysitter’s last name.  I told him I was pretty sure her first name was Kelly.

When we became parents, I had the supreme luxury of having a cousin majoring in nursing at a nearby college. Her roommates, also nurses-in-training, were the cutest, most enthusiastic bunch you could dream up – just ask my husband.  And with one call, I’d take anyone – we couldn’t go wrong.

Leaving my child with someone else meant that I had the self-confidence to admit that babies and motherhood were not all consuming and that I still had other ways to spend my time.  Paying a sitter is also the best way to free yourself from the guilt and the debilitating notion that you are the only one who can do it.  I have indeed left my children in the hands of capable 12-year-olds.

Hiring an outside sitter also serves as a much needed shot of praise and approval for a mother at any stage.  It seems to be part of the babysitter protocol to tell parents how great the kids are at the end of the job. Yes, I’m usually handing over a small stack of tens and twenties at this point, but I choose to believe they are sincere every time.  (Note: those who use family to babysit have assured me that this endorsement of one’s mothering is in no way part of the evening’s transaction.)

It is only after you’ve had a sitter a good many months and you tell her that you are writing an article for Parents Magazine about putting your baby on a schedule that she feels comfortable enough to burst out laughing.  It is at this point that you remind your sitter that she was the one who just waxed her eyebrows using your microwave.

My male babysitters bring their own special gifts and delights as well.  I’ve come home to a room of sweaty, shirtless boys lying on the floor giddily watching Tom & Jerry – including the 17-year-old sitter. One summer night, my sitter asked if I needed him the next day because he’d be back anyway to find the shoes he lost outside in a game of Manhunt.  My youngest declared one boy "the best babysitter ever" because he taught him how to shoot marbles out of his nose.  And I'm quite certain I paid forty dollars for that skill to be passed on to my children.

The actual transaction of paying a babysitter is no small issue either.  Every time I hire a sitter to watch my children, I know that my family is economically fortunate.  Not everyone has such luxury. (Strangely, I'm discovering that a lot of my parenting satisfaction comes from that notion of, “it could be worse.”)

It also means that it is a service that my husband and I both feel has real financial worth.  Every time we pay someone, the unspoken message is, this is valued work that someone is paid to do.

Granted, I'm not paid to do it, but the understanding is that if I weren't caring for our kids we would need to pay someone else to do it.  And when the subject of money and babysitters comes up in our house, I point out to Slim that there is actually a direct correlation between the number of sitter hours we pay for and his happiness.  I assure him this is not a threat or, more importantly, it is not a promise.  It is just an observation.

To observe National Babysitter’s Day I will simply acknowledge to myself the value my sitters have added to the peace, richness, and life of my family.  I will not actually be having a babysitter this Saturday, however, because my mother-in-law is coming to town.  We’ve both agreed to head into Mother’s Day with low expectations and hope to be surprised on the upside.

And so, a happy National Babysitter’s Day to me and the individuals who’ve cared for my children.  A thank you for giving me respite to breathe, for telling me I was doing a good job at valuable work, and, of course, for teaching my children to blow marbles out of their noses:  Ali, Alison, Amanda, Andrew, Andrew, Angelica, Anna, Ashley, Becca, Beth, Betsy, Bobby, Caroline, Caroline, Carolyn, Chloe, Christine, Christina, Claire, Claire, Courtney, Eliza, Emily, Erin, Haley, Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, Honore, Hope, Janine, Jen, Jesse, Johanna, John, Julie, Karen, Katie, Katie, Katie, Katie, Kelly, Kelsey, Kristin, Lauren, Liam, Liam, Maddie, Maddie, Maggie, Mary, Mary, Meg, Megan, Meghan, Mikaela, Miranda, Naomi, Nicole, Patty, Ray, Rose, Ryan, Sarah, Sydney, Tara, Tayler, Taylor, Tory, Tucker, Will, and Will.