Geisha School Dropout

Working Mom Saves "Toy Story 2" From Extinction

Every programmer has a story about how someone on their team (it's never them, of course) typed in "rm *" and deleted the entire code base.  Usually, you strap that person to a post, and everyone takes terms kicking that person in the balls while IT restores the system with back-ups.  You might lose the day's work, but you still can recover fairly quickly.

But what if the back-ups were corrupted?  Then you have a fucking situation.

"Toy Story 2" almost disappeared from existence due to this worst-case scenario.  Check out this story and french-kiss the next work-from-home mom you meet while I try to stop my heart from palpitating.

Working moms unite!!!

Mother's Day

I don't say it enough, but I really do love hanging out with my kids.  They make me laugh, and their personalities are so vibrant, I can't help but admire them.  But it is getting to be increasingly more difficult to just unplug from all the other responsibilities I have and just enjoy them, undistracted.  On Sunday, I made a conscious effort to "be here now," and hopefully I did right by them.  You never know with kids; their hearts are so big, you can act like any old asshole and they'll love you and make handprint crafts for you anyway.

We had Mother's Day brunch at an adorable boutique hotel near the Queen Mary, and the weather was perfect.  We dined al fresco on all-you-can-eat ceviche, oysters, omelettes, coffee-rubbed beef tenderloin, paella, and of course, mimosas.  It was awesome, and hopefully my mom approved.  Although you never really know with Korean moms either.  

Come to think of it, I spend a lot of my spare brain cycles wondering if I'm a total fuck-up or doing fine in a variety of arenas.   I am good at a few things.  I have impeccable taste in music, I can turn anything into a raunchy joke, I rock at standardized exams, I can bridge the gap between nerds and "normal" people, and I have a good appetite, both literally and figuratively.  None of these things really come in handy when raising small children.  But hopefully one day, there will be an intersection between the curves of Isaac's and Emi's development and my personal skill set, where I can show them that their mom is actually good for something.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: I've been a late bloomer all my life, and parenting is proving to be no different.   So, I'm a pretty mediocre mom for now, but wait until they need to take the SAT man, I'm all over that shit.  

Sponsored: The Best Advice My Mom Ever Gave Me

Thank you to Tout for sponsoring this post and encouraging me to share mom’s best advice! Visit the SELF + The Honest Co. + Tout contest  on.self.com/MomKnows  to share the best advice you received from your mom and enter to win $500 worth of The Honest Company product and a Maya Brenner Designs necklace valued at $200, in addition to having their Tout featured on SELF.com.  Additionally, for every response, a donation will be made to Baby2Baby.  

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The best advice my mom ever gave me actually started with an insult.  

"Julie-yah, since it seems you will always be fat, be the interesting girl...and the one who has the best skin."

 Emotional scars aside, I did take her admonitions to heart, and she was right.  I am never the prettiest girl in the room, but I am the girl having the most fun, and that grabs people's attention.  And by the law of social induction, interesting folk seek out other interesting folk, so pretty soon you're surrounded by an awesome group of fascinating co-conspirators, a few of whom who could not imagine life without you in it, and thus the seeds of romance are planted.

So how does one become interesting?  There are a lot of different strategies: you can be funny, be smart enough to be able to help anyone with their homework, become adroit at a hobby, keep up with current events, know a lot about sports and pop culture, or be the car wreck people can't help but slow down and watch (this strategy, however, is risky).  Or, you know, be a mix of everything. What's most important is to be someone with an open heart who is sincerely curious about how other people tick, and people will feel good just being around you.

Okay, now on to the skin.  It is so, so, so much easier to maintain already-young skin and postpone aging than to try to reverse the clock.  Cleanse, moisturize, and put on sunscreen in the morning, and you won't be reaching for the hardcore hydroxy acids in your twenties.  For bonus points, go to an esthetician for facials once a month, and you'll be gleaming like a Barbie doll at all times.

Take me for example.  I've always been mistaken for being younger than I am, sometimes ridiculously younger.  I'm 33 now, a mother of two, and the last time I bought tickets for an R-rated movie, the teenager in the ticket booth asked for ID.  I know, that's not that great, in fact it might be a liability to look too young, but I think I'll be happy to cash in on my dermatological fastidiousness when I'm 50.

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Let's see what Jessica Alba has to say:

 

Thank you again to Tout for sponsoring my post. Visit on.self.com/MomKnows  to share the best advice you received from your mom.  Fans and readers can reply directly via webcams at www.Tout.com, through Tout’s mobile application, on www.Facebook.com/TheHonestCompany andwww.Self.com/health/mothers-day in addition to other promotional sites.  Viewers can watch the entire stream of replies on the Tout widget on http://www.self.com and share their favorites to their Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest pages, as well as by email and SMS.

Isaac Reacts to the News

I recently came across this Forbes article by Jessica Hagy, the genius behind one of my favorite webcomics, Indexed.  It's called "Nine Dangerous Things You Were Taught in School," and it made a variety of fine points about how success later in life isn't necessarily attained by the behaviors most rewarded in a school setting: compliance, performance on standardized tests, and adherence to majority rule.

I decided to present the nine points to Isaac, our resident 2nd grader and Quintessential Good Student, as true/false questions, and this is what he had to say about them:

1. The people in charge have all the answers.

False: Because sometimes the teacher doesn't check your work and somebody else does.  That means someone else has the answer sheet.

2. Learning ends when you leave the classroom.

False: Because sometimes you have recess, then you come back to class.  Then you have to learn more.

3. The best and brightest follow the rules.

False: Because sometimes they don't follow the rules.  Then they get in trouble.

4. What the books say is always true.

False: Because most books are fiction, and fiction means that it's not true.

5. There is a very clear, single path to success.

False: Because there's more than one path.  Sometimes you learn different ways.  Sometimes you learn by reading, sometimes you learn by listening and watching, other times you just learn by following the instructions!

6. Behaving yourself is as important as getting good marks.

True: Because if you get good grades, then that means you're really working hard, and if you have good behavior, that also means you're trying to work hard and never give up.  No one wants to be the smart person who's really mean.

7. Standardized tests measure your value.

False: Because you can show your value without doing the STAR testing.  [Editor's Note: They are in the middle of STAR testing right now.]  For example, you can show it by your facial expression.  *smirk*

8. Days off are always more fun than sitting in the classroom.

False: Because you could have camps, and camps are boring sometimes!  Staying at home could be fun, but usually your parents have to work and you have to keep finding fun things to do by yourself, and that's boring.

9. The purpose of your education is your future career.

False: Because you can do dirty jobs but still get good grades.  For example, you can be really smart, but you can go be a plumber, which is kinda boring.  You can also help with sewer problems.

 

Life with a 5-Year-Old

With so much drama at the JCC, it's kinda hard being Emi D-O-double-G...

Yup, Emi had to move to yet another new preschool, this time because she kept getting into these epic battles of will with her teacher, to the point where she was kicked out of  the classroom into the hallway by herself over things like playing with the Velcro of her shoe (which I thought was unnecessarily punitive), and she started shutting down at the very mention of school.  So we bid the them farewell.

And since it was during the middle of the school year, the only school who would take us in was the one across the street.  It turns out they actually are the best school we've ever experienced, but they only have a half-day program, so twice a week I get to spend my lunch hour with Emi.  It's actually been a lot of fun hanging and dishing with my girl, but man, the conversation topics are starting to get heavy.

"Mom, what does God look like?"

"Mom? Someone at school said heaven is a fluffy cloud. How come I don't see angels in the sky when there are fluffy clouds?"

"Mom, have you ever seen infinity?"

"Mom, when will my belly get as big as yours?"

If I had a collar, I would pull on it and gulp like in the cartoons.

Normally, I would BS my way through by saying, "Wow, that's a great question!  What do you think?"  However, she is not so easily distracted anymore.

So I hem and haw and give overly-complicated explanations full of caveats and exceptions with tidbits from my own spiritual journey, to the point where her eyes glaze over, so now Emi no longer thinks of me as a reliable source for information.

Luckily, my sister's boyfriend offered a cheat sheet:

-God is present in everyone, you can't see him.
-You can't see the angels because they're on earth doing good already.
-Infinity... um, yeah, you'll discover it in college. Don't tell mommy, just have fun.
-Belly when you get pregnant, but that won't happen until you're 35 so don't worry.

Bada-bing, bada-boom!

What I want to know is: how would you answer these questions?

Discussing Charity with Isaac and Emi

Instilling philanthropy in two kids who have never really wanted for anything has proven difficult. Emi and Isaac have always had enough to eat, belongings to call their own, and  a strong and active support group.  Poverty, malnourishment, and chronic illness are abstract concepts to them still, thank goodness, but now that they are 5 and 8, I am wondering how to show that we are indeed one of the lucky families, and it is our duty to give back to the communities who support us and to other communities who do not have the resources we do.

One obvious strategy is to lead by example.  I do give a regular amount to charity every month, but have yet to include the kids in doing so.  Letting the kids in on that would at least remind them to think about others on a regular basis, but ideally, I would like Emi and Isaac to figure out the causes that are important to them.  

To this end, I joined a community called Members Unite, where every month, each member donates $5 and votes for their favorite philanthropic projects, American Idol style.  Right now, the initial 9 contenders have been announced for March, and the winning project will receive $5,000! Each family gives the equivalent of a drop in the bucket, but when united, we can make a real impact.  True democracy in action, no?  

I showed Emi and Isaac the site today, and much to my surprise, they really caught on to the concept very quickly.  It really helped that the projects were very well-curated, offering a variety of different causes: mental health, education, housing, and the environment, to name a few, as well as choices between domestic and international organizations.    

 

Right now, Emi is leaning towards a project called "Give Infants a Lease on Life," which will provide formula to malnourished infants in Guatamala.  If this project wins, they will provide 20 infants with milk for 500 days - over a year’s worth of sustenance.  

 

 

Isaac really likes "Help Plant 5,000 Trees," which will help the Nature Conservancy plant 1 BILLION trees back into the Brazilian rainforest. If this project is selected, they will purchase 5,000 native trees for the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. 

 

 Isn't that really neat to know?  My heart, it seriously is fit to burst.  

Even though our $5 this month is subsidized by Members Unite, we are definitely going to continue this in the months and years to come, and will post about this more in the future.  I totally encourage you to join, so we can make an impact on people's lives together!

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For a limited time, Members Unite is offering my community a 50% off discount on the annual membership fee of $25! Use code “WELOVEMOMS” when you sign up!

Fight Night: Kids Edition

 

 

 

Last night, while waiting for a table at Islands, I witnessed a bout of sibling rivalry so extreme, it haunted my dreams and is still weighing on my psyche.

Another family was sitting across from me, also waiting for a table: a dad and his two kids, a girl who looked about 9 and a boy around 6 or 7.  Everything seemed normal at first, the dad was on his phone talking to what was obviously a business contact, and the boy and girl just sat in their chairs, the boy occasionally kicking his sister's feet out of boredom.

Then the boy walked up to the dispenser of free hand sanitizer and poured a large amount onto his hands.  He started rubbing the sanitizer in while walking back to his sister.  Then he started gleefully flinging his hands in his sister's face.

It took her a few seconds to realize that the liquid on her face was not water, but actually rubbing alcohol, and she looked moderately annoyed...until some splashed into her eyes.  She winced and pressed her fingers into her eyelids to relieve the pain.  Then her brother, still wearing a smile, grabbed her hands to prevent her from rubbing her eyes.  The sister then pulled her hands away and pressed her thumbs into her brother's jugular, so hard that he gagged and threw up in his mouth.  That's when he motioned to his dad, pointing urgently at his mouth.  The dad, to his slight credit, definitely looked concerned and got right up to take him to the restroom.

This whole incident took about 10 seconds, not enough time for me to butt in and say something (although even if I did have the opportunity, I think it would be inappropriately nosy of me to intervene).  But it really got me thinking about all the things our kids experience, all the small and large cruelties they inflict on each other, that we parents have no idea about.  Specifically, I remember one day last year when Isaac pulled his eyes back and asked me what that meant.  I feigned ignorance at first, to see if he'd tell me more of the context in which he saw that.  He said some kids at school, not friends of his, were doing that to each other.  I told him it might be that they were teasing someone, so to let me know if it ever happened again, especially if someone did that at him.  I didn't want to bring in the racial element then, especially when the context was unclear, and he hasn't mentioned it since, but I definitely am on the lookout whenever I'm on campus for other signs of racial insensitivity.

The not-knowing really sucks, and it's not always the parents' fault because most incidents happen at school or what-have-you, but as open as I urge my own kids to be with me, they only rarely tell me any details about what goes on in the playground, or any specific things people have said to them.  In the past, I had hoped it was because those things didn't affect them and they had since forgotten, but now I really wonder.  What if Isaac and Emi really are getting hurt and I am just not picking up on the cues?

That would make me absolutely no better than the father of those two kids.

Houston, We Have a Problem...and a Confession

(My response this short article on self-harm and violence in the Korean American community.)

I know this seems like a big bummer to post this during the holiday season, but 'tis also the season for a spike in suicides, suicide attempts, and domestic violence.

Does this ring a bell for you at all?  It definitely did for me:

Grace Yoon, executive director of the Korean American Family Service Center in New York, told The Huffington Post that Koreans come to America with high hopes of acquiring wealth and providing a good education for their children. When their expectations are not met, some feel like they have let their families down. Yoon commented that the problem has gotten worse since the recession, "especially with Korean fathers and heads of households whose small businesses are not doing well."

The article goes on to say that the intergenerational language barrier as well as the cultural taboo against seeking mental health services may contribute to the higher-than-average suicide rate in Korean Americans.

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If this helps anyone at all, I'll just put myself out there as someone who did try to kill herself when she was in the throes of what she now recognizes as a major depressive episode.  

I was 21, feeling exhausted and beaten down, not doing well in school, but instead of seeking help, I just ignored my health and soldiered on, terrified of delaying my graduation by yet another quarter or year.  It got to the point where I stopped talking to my friends and stopped checking in with my parents, unable to keep up the lies when I claimed I was okay.  As I got more and more insular, my whole world consisted of my classes and my inability to attend them, my lack of focus, my inevitable failure.  So a few days before my first finals, hating myself for letting my parents down, they who worked so hard and sacrificed so much so that I could go to a top-notch school, and I couldn't even repay them with simply succeeding, I tried to take my own life.  I honestly thought I was doing them a favor, relieving a burden.

I was so, so lucky that my attempt was feeble at best, and my roommate was in the apartment.

After that, I was hospitalized for a week.  For some reason, I had this stereotype against psychiatry and didn't consider it a fully-valid field of medicine.  I could not have been more wrong.  Thanks to the medication, counseling, and support I received then and afterwards, I finally graduated from university.  My grade point average was barely enough to scrape past, and my department might or might not have overlooked a single missing requirement, but I did it.  And my life instantly became easier once I stepped foot outside that damn campus and moved on with my life.

Did I at 21 have even the tiniest correct inkling about how life after college would be like?  Absolutely not!  My instincts and intuition that I relied on so heavily turned out to be completely off; I think it was because I was completely biased to see only the negative.  That's what depression does; it skews your outlook on everything to just remember the negative and completely ignore the positive, and that small shift in perspective is what makes depression so dangerous.  It was actually quite a relief to discover that my "lenses" were off and needed readjusting.  

The turning point for me was my dad tearfully telling me that he would rather have a non-college-graduate daughter than no daughter at all.  That he would have let me crash at home for as long as I needed in order to get back on my feet again.  And that he was truly sorry that it had to come to this for him to tell me that, that this was completely uncharted territory for him, that we would get through this together.  My mom was too overcome with emotion to speak to me then, but as time went on, I came to realize that she felt the same way.  And believe me when I tell you that my parents made the Tiger Mom look like a kitten; that I was pushed very hard all my childhood; and if you had asked me before all this if I truly believed they loved me, I would have a hearty laugh at the mere notion.

But it turned out that my Korean parents, as stoic and strict and cruel and physically punitive as they were, were still parents.  And now they are very demonstrative, nurturing, giving, loving grandparents.  

And now, daily I think to myself, "I'm so relieved I'm not dead.  All the fun I would have missed out on!"

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If you at any point feel as hopeless as I did that summer, please know that you aren't "crazy," that you are struggling alongside countless others, that there are other solutions besides death, that people love you and are rooting for you, that honest-to-goodness there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Or at the very least, there are enough points of light inside the tunnel to make it worth sticking around to observe.  DO NOT MISS OUT ON THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

Call a friend and tell them you need help, call 1-800-273-8255, go to the emergency room, connect with people online, just don't leave yourself alone with the thoughts you are thinking, the same way you would try to save your friend who is trapped in a house with someone who is trying to kill them.

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If you got this far, thanks so much for reading.  This was difficult to write.

Cross-posted on Kimchi Mamas

Finding my Inner Crafter

Emi's teacher asked each family to create a Snow Friend to contribute to the classroom's winter decorations.  Instructions and expectations were frighteningly open-ended for this software programmer:

You can make it with bottles, cans, paper, white trash bags filled with cut up newspaper, paper plates (remember to make a stand of some sort please, boxes, anything. (The only exception is the use of food products…….bugs, etc) You can use paper, felt, wiggle eyes, pom poms, yarn, jewelry, bows, ties, ANY accessory. Have fun, do it together, make sure your child really gets involved.

My eyes crossed at the supply list.  So, basically we need to create something out of anything and everything on the planet?  I need a real specifications document!  Who signed off on this thing?

So, panic-ridden, I actually dreamed about this Snow Friend for days before making my first foray to the craft store.  One night, I imagined a Snow Friend made not out of snow, but balls of yarn, so I googled "Yarn Ball Snowman" and found "Happy Homemaker Me," a crafty genius mama who does every domestic thing I do not.  However, I swear she has an engineer's mind, because her post detailing her yarn ball snowman project was so well-organized and intuitive, she made a crafter out of me.

Top three lessons learned from this:

1. Michael's is more effective than Target in separating me from my money.  All I wanted to do was buy some styrofoam balls and some yarn, but I came out with over $50 worth of sewing supplies, ornaments, cardmaking materials, a dark chocolate Snickers bar, and a dozen wild ideas about how I'm going to quit my job and start scrapbooking, wreath-making, and quilting.  HALP ME.

2. Apparently, if I was a smart consumer, I would have saved 50% with one of Michael's myriad of coupons.  Ugh, forgive me Father, for I hath paid retail price.

3. All hail the mighty hot glue gun!   A really good adhesive can change worlds!  Seriously, somewhere between the trigger and the nozzle lies the secret to world peace, plus the searing pain you feel when you accidentally get some on your fingers satisfies my periodic yen for S&M.  Hurts so good, baby!

And here are the results of about 4 hours of labor:

Hat sewn by yours truly; arms courtesy of our recently-pruned pomegranate tree; eyes made from fireplace remnants; embellishments, gift boxes, and buttons curated by Emi.  Just look at the smile on her face!  I'm hooked.

Questions from the Audience #3

Anonymous IMer asks: How has your love story with your husband changed since you first fell in love?

Oh, jeepers.  The short, smart-ass answer is, "A shit ton, give or take a shit."  The long answer deserves more time and thought than what I'm about to say here, but I'll limit the focus to just the "love story" part of our relationship (i.e., not our co-parenting, the daily banalities of marriage, or what-have-you), and just from my point of view.

First and foremost, I think it's important to point out that I was 23 when we got married.  I was a baby, and didn't know myself and/or my potential selves, let alone all of the intricacies of Tim's psyche.  All I really knew was that our connection ran deep, like animal-brain, pheromone-level deep.  I could just stare at him for hours, talk to him for days on end, memorize every pore.  My heart rate would palpably slow down if I just leaned into his neck and breathed him in.  And of course, there were fireworks every time we touched.

(Sounds so cheesy and stalkery now!  But I shall go on.)

Because this kind of affection inevitably cuts both ways, and probably also because I was still very much at the mercy of my depression, I really, really needed him.  I had this juvenile desire to spend every moment together, so any meal, movie, or laundry folding session spent apart wounded me.   I also thought the relationship would end quite often, so I would constantly miss him, sometimes even when he was right there next to me.  As you can guess, Tim felt suffocated and would pull away at times, which made me feel worse.  The whole thing was pretty unhealthy, and I really had to grow up quite a bit and learn how to be my own person.  Unfortunately, this was when I was also trying to figure out how to be a mother, so Isaac's early years were tumultuous for Tim and I couple-wise.

Nowadays, things are much more stable.  I still like to smell him, but I'm more comfortable in my own skin.  I've developed and nurtured my own self-identity, learned to recognize where I end and other people begin.  So now I'm fine being alone, with or without the kids, and that's very much a good thing.  Having a home to call our own with the little family farm out back helped me greatly, too.  Once we were able to put down roots somewhere, my spirit really started growing.

We still can talk for hours, make each other laugh, and we go out a couple times a month to concerts, movies, dinners, drinks, etc.  But now the stakes aren't so high, perceived rejections aren't constantly plaguing me, and I feel more relaxed.  There are still fireworks, but toned down a smidge because our house is small and Emi has an uncanny "business time" spidey sense.  I think she wants to ensure she's the baby of the family.

So, moral of the story is: relationships are extremely tough to sustain because you are not just dealing with two people over a certain period; you are also dealing with the people they morph into over the years as well as the shifting whirlpools of their environment.  So at any given slice of time, are the partners compatible at that moment?  Hopefully so, but chances are there will be time periods of incompatibility.  And I think that's okay.  If you're really in it for the long haul, when you look over at your partner and find an almost-complete stranger who isn't up to snuff, at some point you will have to think, "I will wait; this person is worth waiting for."  Of course, the two of you could always find other people who are already at the levels you need, but what's the fun in that?  :P