Princess and the Pea

Jet Black

Someone must be reading the female traveler's mind. Or at least mine. I’ve done a fair share of business travel among East Coast cities over the last few years and have had to go through the usual travel hassles of giving up my hand lotion, hair gel or other needed gooey toiletries. Even though I had the travel packing down to a science, every once in a while I’d forget about some item over 3 ounces. At those times I would wonder why there wasn’t a makeup point-of-purchase stand right after security. What a business! Clinique, Revlon, MAC. Every so often when I’d whisk past those massage chairs I’d wonder, where are the manicurists? I’d much rather have a stranger paint my nails than rub my shoulders.

So imagine my surprise when at Dulles International Airport, Terminal B, Gate 66, just shy of 7am I spotted a salon…. with a manicurist tending to a customer. Now that is service. Had I known I might have just gotten there a bit earlier.

Since I had to get up before 5 am I didn’t bother with make-up… really, why should one bother at that hour? Plus, I tend to rub my eyes like a tag-along toddler. When I nap I drool. My flight was short, only about 90 minutes on Jet Blue -- enough for some shuteye or mindless TV surfacing. Plenty of time to put on the day face.

My next moment was hearing the announcement that the flight was preparting for landing. I missed the snack: the water and the terra blue chips. But wait! Had I just heard right?

The flight attendant was saying “Free Mascara. Mascara, anyone?” I sat up, confused. She saw my startled look. She handed over a pink Mabelline mascara tube, Great Lash, “blackest black, curved brush mascara.” Yes, the pink tube… the kind tweens buy at the local pharmacy for a few dollars. The brand I first tried 30 years ago with my best friend, Elaine.

“Really?” said another woman further down the aisle. I think the female passengers were a bit surprised to say the least. How odd. How very, very practical. Jet Blue, you must have been reading my mind and although I’m totally pissed that you no longer offer the low penalty fee for last minute flight changes, I think I can forgive you now.

Court in Recess

Recess is now only 20-minutes long during the course of an elementary school day. Gym is down to one 45-minute period a week. Lunch is a rush and it is not unusual for my second grader to come home with only half a lunch eaten. “I didn’t have time to eat, Mommmmmm!” (Like, come on. Get with the program!) She is a dawdler when it comes to eating but still… no time to inhale a sandwich?

Of course, I seem to hear more about what happened on the playground and bus rides than I do about actual schoolwork. I was somewhat surprised at the recent trend of my 4th grader’s recess shenanigans.

“We held court today at recess, mom.” Rosie said, chomping on a carrot stick.

“What do you mean?” (I was thinking kings, ice queens, and gnomes or some such Narnian fantasy play.

“Amy was on trial for supposedly stealing Jenn’s Tamagatchi.” Not the Tamagatchis again!

She continued with the enthusiasm of a reporter. “I was on the Jury with Caroline and Maddie. Zoe was the judge and Ellie was the lawyer defending Amy, while Megan was the prosecutor."

“Really?” I said astonished. This was making for interesting dinner conversation.

“What happened to tag?” I wondered aloud.

“We’re not allowed to use the playground equipment as bases anymore,” she reported.

“What about Off the Wall?” Now I was concerned. They loved that wall game and had many near misses for the school bus while searching for a tennis ball to bring to school.

“The lunch aide took away the tennis balls.” She said nonchalantly.

“Oh. So who came up with the trial idea?” I was intrigued now. If kids are stopped from exerting physical energy they might resort to intellectual play? Don’t tell the grown-ups. These kids would probably do a better job. Of course, what the boys were doing on the playground was not discussed. I didn’t think about that until later.

“It was Amy’s idea.” Oh, so she got to be the defendant. I see.

Rosie then went on to tell an elaborate tale of who said what, the nature of the clues, and how the lawyers made their cases. In the end, Amy was judged innocent for lack of evidence.

I was very impressed. “So who is watching Court TV these days?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, where are you getting all these interesting ideas to play courtroom?” (I tend to blame exposure to media for a lot of childhood behaviors.)

“Oh, we just made it up.” Like, come on. Get with the program, Mom!

Then I remembered that last year, at the end of 3rd grade, they went on a field trip to the city courthouse. The children got to sit in the various seats of a courtroom and have a mock trial. I’m not sure if I was impressed with their resources or shocked that the only 20 minutes of the day has been reduced to kids sitting around because running or playing with tennis balls have become a hazard.

In any event, this was once case that riveted the dinner conversation. It beat those usual monosyllables to “How was school today, kids?” Bad. Boring. Fine. Eh.

Juno: A paradoxical role model

My girls aren’t old enough to see Juno, the movie about the pregnant teenager. It’s the kind of movie I’d want to see with my daughters someday. It’s a quirky pro-choice movie (as opposed to anti-abortion) and it’s a good conversation piece. The movie sweeps over big topics like sex and consequences, infertility and adoption, parenting and motherhood -- and yes, reproductive choice.

My girls wouldn’t be able to keep up with the wise-ass hyperspeak in the movie, at least by the females. And they’d squirm at the kissing (not that there is much of it or anything else explicit).

I left the theater both smiling and crying. (Not anything new for me.) One of the aspects I liked best was the parents’ acceptance of Juno’s poor judgment and of her resolve. The other was Juno’s fierce independence about her sexuality and desire (that got her in a pickle) yet also allowed her to see a way out in which secrecy and shame was not the primary experience. And it this way Juno is a post-modern feminist. As her step-mom said: A Viking girl.

Moon Dance

Rosie loves New Moon, a magazine created for girls by girls. The minute it arrives in the mail she finds a corner in the house and reads the whole thing cover to cover. I like it, too, as there is usually a letter from a girl on menstruation, and how she handled getting it for the first time, or a debate on the virtues of Barbie (are there any?).

We had our first mother-daughter talk on puberty on the way to the Walgreen’s, the local pharmacy. She came along for the errand and I apologized for being in a crabby mood. It was a natural segue into the discussion of menstruation since I was getting supplies for myself. I asked her if she knew what a period was.

“Yah, kinda. It’s when... well, you know. I don’t know how to say it.” She commented that our former sitter of many years, a lovely woman from Trinidad who somatisized every ailment out loud, would refer to it as “de monthly.” So we launched into a basic discussion about periods and I showed her the wealth of feminine napkins and tampons in the aisle of the store. It is a bit overwhelming from the perspective of a child, I must admit. “I think when it’s my time I’ll just start with pads.”

Decisive kid.

It turns out that driving in the car for big discussions seems to be the way to go. When I chatted with another mom about it, she exclaimed: “We talked about it on the way to the CVS!” I think not having to look at each other helps to de-intensify the big topics of life. And you can have many small conversations over time rather than some “Big” talk. Sort of like dance steps. A leap here, a twirl there, and a graceful bourrée off the stage. Sometimes it's not so elegant. For instance, my little one, Adele, seems to ask big questions about death while driving.

“What happens when you die? Is there candy up in heaven? How old will you be when you die? Can I visit?” and so on.

I am surprised, however, that among my mother friends of other 10-year-old girls, that most haven’t even broached the subject of menstruation yet. Ten is not too young to start talking about the female body and periods! But I’m an educator on women’s health, so I forget that others don’t have the same perspective (here’s one web page on menstruation I created). Yet, just about every woman I know, when she reflects back on her own youth, says something like: “My mother never talked about it” or “I had no clue.” That’s why I created my mother survey. Please take it!

Prelude: 10 is not too early....

I spend part of my professional life being a therapist, primarily to women and couples struggling with fertility problems (see my other blog). With that said, people have been asking me if I have seen the new hot HBO series, Tell Me You Love Me. The series follows the intimate lives of four couples, including the couple therapist played by Jane Alexander. She counsels the various characters around issues of sex, intimacy and commitment.

I read the opening reviews in the newspaper and finally got around to watching the first episode while folding three loads of laundry. After I got over my OMG reaction to the sex scenes, I settled in to the story lines. The asexual couple (the only parents among the cast of characters) is confronted with their ten-year old daughter’s shy announcement at breakfast that she had gotten her period. The mother, after taking care of the child, goes into a self-blame outburst, asking her husband what they might have done wrong. Mom searches her memory bank for a reason: Was it the soy milk she was fed when she was a baby?

Of course the conflict at hand is that there is now an emerging sexuality in the household. But given my curiosity about talking to your daughter about coming of age, I thought the episode was timely. Girls can have their periods starting as early as age eight, and although people seem to think that girls are menstruating so much earlier these days, they aren’t really. A pediatrician at a reproductive health conference I attended says that on average girls are having their period 6 months earlier than several decades ago, and that “precocious” puberty is rare. I suppose that should be some solace to mothers, who might predict that their daughters will have their periods around the same time other women in the family did.

That means I have three years to go with my ten year old. But my mother never prepared me -- and I was a late bloomer so there was plenty of time for a prep talk -- so I think I’ll bring it up soon.

Basking in Bonding

The other night I sat in my bed with both my daughters flanking me, several books in hand. I had been away for a week and this was catch-up time. My daughters are 7 and “almost” 10 years old. I’ll call them “Adele” and “Rosie” in this blog (maternal protective instinct).

Adele, the younger, had scrounged up an old worn storybook on “The Nutcracker” which I proceeded read aloud. “So who is the hero this story?” I asked at the conclusion. Stumped in silence, it was unclear to them. Was it the wooden toy nutcracker – or the magical prince boy it turned into – who valiantly fought off the rat king and his army of mice? Or was it Herr Drosselmeyer, the mysterious godfather, in the shadows directing the story? Or was it the hero the girl, Clara?

Oh, a girl. On the spot, they concluded that it was Clara. After all, it was she who threw her toe shoe at the rat king and knocked him out.

They thought it was all very funny and squealed with laughter. Then, Rosie, the elder looked at my pile of books on the nightstand. “The Female Brain. What’s that about?” she asked. “Oh, it’s a book about how different the brains of women and men are,” I answered.

“Mom,” exclaimed Rosie, “That is SO obbbbvious.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, boys… they are just, you know…’’ She motioned with her both of hands shooting straight out from the sides of her forehead head, like making a track in the air. I interpreted her pantomime as “single-minded” but waited for her to find the words. “Well, they are just so physical”. And then she shifted her arms into a Pop-Eye strong man motion. “They are just so Grrrhhhh,” she grunted. This sent Adele into a fit of laughter and she ran downstairs to retell the whole scene to her father, who was watching… you guessed it, a ball game.

I basked in this moment of maternal bonding, which, according to the book, The Female Brain, triggers oxytocin, the bonding hormone that ignites nurturance, cuddling, protection and survival. I imagine my brain was “marinating” in this hormone, as the author likes to say. I wondered how many moments we’d be having before my Rosie’s brain would be marinating in estrogen – which is anytime in the next few years as puberty begins.

Earlier that evening several friends and colleagues had sent me links to the news story of the epidemic of pregnancies among 11 year olds in Portland, Maine, and where the school is now offering contraception options to middle school children. I looked at Rosie and shook my head. I guess 10 really isn’t too early to start talking to girls about – well, puberty – but sex, too. We haven’t even told her that the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are make-believe – although I’m sure she knows this and is respectfully honoring the imagination of her little sister and the conumer rewards these characters deliver.

This news story about 11 year olds is timely as I have been grappling with when and how to talk to girls, and wondering how and when other mothers are doing it (see survey link).

So, how are you mothers out there handling the topic of sex with your kids? How about the topic of sex in your adult relationships?