High School

My little girl is officially a high school freshman today.  How the hell did that happen?

If I close my eyes right this minute I am back in the moment when David and I walked through a soft drizzle of rain with our 5 year-old for her first day at Kindergarten. 

Now her march to adulthood kicks into high gear.  On the one hand, I’m so thrilled for her – high school is such a time of personal growth and exploration, some bad but mostly good.  On the other, I’m terrified for her, because our world today is so unpredictable, less civil, and more wantonly competitive than at any time I can remember.  My daughter will need to call on all of her social and intellectual IQ to navigate her path to the future; David and I can only help with love, encouragement and, yes, some degree of emotional and financial stability.   At the end of the day, however, her journey will be her own.

But I get ahead of myself, as I often do when it comes to this child whom I love more than anything.

For now, the focus need to be on Algebra, science, English composition, history and electives, so she can come to the task of more demanding work with an open, enthusiastic mind.  In tandem with that, David and I will happily play our parts as cheerleaders at volleyball and basketball games; chauffeurs to dances and hangouts; top cops on first dates with would-be boyfriends; academic subject matter experts where we can be without steering her wrong; and, for me, chef de jour to ensure she’s eating reasonably well so that she can function during the day.

When we look back on these years, I hope we’ll do so with wonder, pride, amusement and a minimum of regret. I also hope the friends she holds in confidence and comradery will remain among her dearest friends for life.  Indeed, this is how it was for me, looking back on my high school career – one of the greatest, most enduring gifts on my trip to today.

Here’s to the Class of 2019 and the lovely young woman I am so honored to call my daughter.

Radio Silent Summer

Hope you’ve all enjoyed the summer months with family, friends and some fair weather.  Although it’s been a while since I’ve been in touch, you and this blog have not been far from my thoughts.  I suppose my brain has been on pause for a bit, trying to puzzle the next stage of life for Mrs. Sedd and her family.  While I haven’t reached any big conclusions with my husband, I think it’s fair to say that we aspire to  “steady state” for some time to come while my daughter continues her march to young adulthood by starting the 9^th grade this Fall.

So, what can I report on that might have a modicum of relevance to your life emotionally if not practically?  Let’s see….

• Hummingbirds will become regular visitors to your yard IF you feed them their favorite brew:  cold sugar water.  My husband has become a huge (maybe even a little obsessed) fan of luring these tiny, tenacious birds to our front yard since visiting his brother’s home on high in the Colorado Rockies.  He peers out at them, records them on his phone, posts to Facebook about them, and searches out other aficionados.  I like them too.  They beat their wings frantically and buzz around like bees when they gather to take a drink, but they are comforting in a weird sort of way, too. 
• We have nothing to fear but fear itself.   Based on an earlier transit this summer, I realized that my Bay Bridge phobia (see my earlier post on that subject, “Bay Bridge Blues”) has become borderline debilitating so I decided to hire the “drive over” Kent Island Express taxi service to take me across.  For $30 a trip, why not enjoy the view of the Chesapeake as opposed to watching my blood pressure soar on my Apple watch to the point of lightheadedness?  Trust me, it was worth it, even if it did signal to my daughter (who was travelling with me to the Delaware shore) that her mother is a little bit of a nut job.   
• Steve Jobs’ Stanford University commencement address is amazing.  I keep meaning to get to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs’ and I’m looking forward to the movie version this Fall (my kind of film) – but I did run across the You Tube video of Jobs’ 2005 speech while reviewing another video for work.  Wow.  In it, he tells 3 simple stories – about the karma of his birth and unconventional education; failure at 30; and death – all pretty profound.  If you haven’t seen it, look for it.  If you didn’t think much of Jobs, reconsider.  If you want some insight into the “putty” that life sometimes molds in miraculous, world changing ways, its worth paying attention to.
• I love good science fiction.  Every now and then I’ll read a book that truly transports me to another world, and when I do, I try to share my enthusiasm with others.  In the past few years, 2 science fiction books have catapulted to the top of my list of favorite books.  I've written about the book Age of Miracles in a previous post; this past month, I added Seveneves by Neal Stephenson to my list.  This book is science fiction at its best:  Earth as we know it has been catastrophically rendered uninhabitable. Against enormous odds, the human race seeks to survive in space.  I don’t dare tell you more.  Enjoy this utterly absorbing saga with big buckets of popcorn.

There are other things I could write about, but maybe I should save them for later, whenever that may be.   Until then, here’s to Fall!

I Heart a Watch

…And so the silence ends from my little corner of Arlington, VA.

Mrs. Sedd has been AWOL for a variety of reasons, some of them having to do with the lack of irritating inspiration for penning my little missives, and some that are personal.  Plus, when you don’t have anything much to say, I say don’t say it.

However, my silence ends now, just as my heart beat per minute is 82.

How do I know this, you ask?  I consulted my watch.

No, it’s not just any watch, it’s my bat-phone, batty little fashion-accessory-cum-high-tech-toy.  It’s…yes…drumroll, please…my iWatch.

I heart my iWatch.  Not just because I can call my husband (even if I can’t really hear his reply so well because I haven’t quite figured out the audio control yet).  Not just because I can track my activity level (sometimes inaccurately, but then my watch is quirky that way).  And not just because I keep semi-insulting Siri with a bunch of ridiculous questions ("How do you like living inside a watch?").

Oh, and I also love the fact I can read CNN headlines, scan texts, buy Starbucks and browse office emails all from  my watch!  It’s true that my iPhone can do these things too and in a way that’s much easier on my aging eyes.  But it’s just not as cool as my watch which should, by extension, make me cool too.

Ok, stop laughing now.

That’s what I have to share with you today:  my pathetically pleased, sixty-something self, happily in love with a gadget.  And the best part?  I didn’t even consult an instructional video to figure out how to figure it out.

Go figure. 

 

Post-Feminist America

Two events in the past few weeks have captured my attention – the announcement that Sweet Briar College, a well-regarded southern liberal arts college for women, is closing its doors after the class of 2015 graduates as well as the Broadway closing of “The Heidi Chronicles,” a 1988 Pulitzer Prize-winning dramedy starring “Mad Men’s” Elizabeth Moss, about the trials and tribulations of feminism in the 70s and 80s.

For me these twin closings underscore that these are the best of times for women in America – and the worst of times.  Although too few women crack the glass ceiling of their professions, more and more are doing do every day. Good news, yes? And while it’s true we only make 75% of what our male peers make (ahem), it’s also true that more women today earn as much or more than their spouses and are fundamentally important contributors to their families’ wealth.  Bravo, ladies!!

And yet, and yet…

We have a powerful conservative constituency in this country that seems to want to slowly undo gains for women that have been hard won over a period of decades.  But women sometimes don’t help their cause either:  In our workplaces, our social networks, or at the ballot box, we don’t always stand up for our bodies or ourselves, or for what we contribute and the value of that contribution.  Sadly, it seems like some of us secretly don’t think they’re worth it and the risk of “complaining” is too great.  Not good news, as TV personality and Know Your Worth author Mika Brzezinski might say. 

Finally, the hyper-sexualization of American society (and I really do blame the media for this – and no, I’m not a prude) isn’t helping many of our sons or daughters navigate puberty with self-awareness and confidence.  The Rolling Stone/UVA controversy shows how hard it is to handle the difficult task of growing up without caving in to social pressures or old sexual stereotypes.  Surely, the epidemic of rape on college campuses should startle every parent of college age kids – and their student-children -- into action against this grim state of affairs.

Which leads me to Sweet Briar.  There is still an important and relevant place in today’s America for women’s academic institutions.  They build confidence in one’s capabilities without the distractions of testosterone.  They build capacity for female self-acceptance and understanding without a lot of the “mean girl” culture that can exist at larger schools with sororities, etc.  Women’s colleges are a safe place to become the woman you dream of being – and some women need that kind of space and safety to grow in.  Sweet Briar faculty members and deep-pocketed alumni are trying to find ways through the courts to keep the doors open at their beloved institution.  I hope they succeed, but I'm not optimistic. 

All of this has left me wondering about our post-feminist society.  Have American women lost a little bit of the “fire in the belly” for  their continued progress?  Are those of us who remember the feminist movement indifferent or complacent in our later middle age because we fought and won the fight, sort of?  And are we, in turn,  passing along this indifference and complacency to our daughters?

I don't know -- but I feel uncomfortably close to answering "yes" to the above questions.  All that said, the LGTB movement gives me some hope for a future where men and women, regardless of their biology or self-identification, can stand on equal footing in society and in the workplace with a genuine mutuality of interest in success for their families, their communities, their country and each other.

At least I hope so.  A post-feminist girl can dream, can’t she?

A Delicate Balance

I haven't really had much time to share my ramblings with you lately given spring holidays, work demands, and the like.  And candidly, I don't want to waste your time by just writing anything...so when the muse is away, I tend to be gone too.  

But today, I read something a colleague shared with others in my office -- and though I don't usually do this, I was so moved by it that I knew I should share it with friends too. So I hope you will take the time to read New York Times columnist David Brooks' amazing essay, "The Moral Bucket List," by following the link below. If the link doesn't work, please do try to track it down on Google, etc.  You'll be so glad you did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/opinion/sunday/david-brooks-the-moral-bucket-list.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0

 

Parenthood: The Teen Years

I have just finished reading a beautifully written and very provocative essay about raising teenagers (“The Mother of All Problems:  On Raising Teenagers,” by Rachel Cusk) which was published in the New York Times and it made me think about how my family is managing on our daughter’s journey through those difficult years.

The subhead of Ms. Cusk’s article is “Children are characters in the family story we tell – until, one day, they start telling it themselves” and that subhead is remarkably telling and insightful.  Our daughter’s journey to independence is underway and she’s keenly interested in starting to develop her own narrative and mythology.   It begins with the experiences, dreams and feelings (including those about my husband and me) she shares with her closest friends and I can only imagine how colorful and ripe they are. I know that before long they will bloom and become her own exciting, personal "story" and expression of how she thinks about her world and the place she desires in it -- for good and, occasionally, for ill.

The ways I know she’s truly a teenager?

1.      She keeps things close to the vest with her father and me – I frequently have to pry information out of her, but it comes at a cost (grumpiness for hours).  David, who has a gentler way with her, uses his lawyerly skill (more Atticus Finch than Johnnie Cochran) to greater effect and learns a heckuva lot more than I do.

2.      She spends a lot of her time behind closed doors.  When I knock to enter, I am sometimes not invited in. 

3.      She expects me to do everything (wash clothes, make meals, serve her, pick up after her, clean, etc.) and then complains about it (boring recipes, dirty clothes and nothing to wear, etc.).

4.      There’s usually girl drama in her life of one kind or another.  It takes a lot of emotional energy to whip up the content for endless hours of talk with girlfriends.

5.      Boys like my daughter in their very passive-aggressive, 14-year old way.  We’ve had our trees tee-peed, our door bell rung with “no one” at the door…you get the picture.   The cat and mouse of boy-girl stuff is beginning.

6.      My girl is dying to get the party started – because it looks like fun, with cute guys and girls dancing, scheming, and dancing when they aren’t kissing or singing in a rock band.  I blame Teen Nick and Disney Channel for this.

7.      Hello, Miss Independent: She wants it, and I am willing to consider it. One day.  It’s a big world out there, and my helicopter mom instincts scream “danger ahead.” My bad.

8.      Who is sullen, moody, and argumentative?  Enough said.  I’ve learned to live with the necessary evils of puberty, pimples and all they engender emotionally.

9.      When I pick her up from a friend’s house or school, she wants me to stay in the car, Mom!  I embarrass her.  And that embarrasses me.

But then, there are those divine, loving cues that remind me there’s still a little girl inside the teenager – notice it’s a shorter list:

1.      Curling up in her father’s lap in the family room easy chair on a Sunday morning.

2.      Thanking me for making her breakfast or dinner.

3.      Hugging me when I wake her on a weekday morning, grumpy about having to go to school but grateful for the reassuring affection.

4.      Those quiet moments, alone in her room, when I can look through the opening in her doorway and see her sitting on her bed, playing with the hair on her American Girl doll, lost in her thoughts.

My daughter is only 14 and the toughest years lie ahead.  At some point the growing pains may become hard to bear and even terrifying on occasion.  And while my experience of my daughter’s transit to adulthood doesn’t map completely to the one so vividly portrayed in Ms. Cusk’s thoughtful essay, I think it’s fair to say that we both find the experience of navigating the shoals of our daughters’ later adolescence to be challenging, unsettling but thrilling at the same time.

I'm just so glad that I get to experience the journey with her.

 

 

 

Fifty Shades of Cinderella...and Cookie

I thought I'd offer up some musings that probably reveal a lot about my Baby Boomer demo:  I passed up the opportunity to (belatedly) see Fifty Shades of Gray to attend an opening day showing of Cinderella.  That’s right.  Sixty-two and a Disney Princess Forever.

While it’s true I was bored anytime Cate Blanchett’s wicked stepmother wasn’t on-screen – which was far too often – I still got a kick out of a beloved tale told with some style.  Visually, the movie was stunning:  Vivid blues and golds, silvers and pinks and for Stepmom, chartreuse.  Helena Bonham Carter, a true English eccentric and always a fun actress to watch, was a kick as the Fairy Godmother.  The young actress who played Cinderella was utterly charming – blonde (of course), beautiful (natch) but very winning (not too sweet, not too sour).  Only the Prince was a disappointment, but that’s not an uncommon occurrence when it comes to princes, so it didn’t bother me.  I generally loved it.

At some point, I’ll see Fifty Shades (probably on DVR with my husband, so we can giggle together) but I can wait.  I slogged through the books and have a pretty good idea of how things go down in the Red Room (smile).

But then there’s Empire and crazy, angry, utterly lovable in her own unscrupulous way Cookie Lyon, and her ex-husband, the sexy, surly, seriously bad Lucious Lyon, Rap Mogul Extraordinaire played by Terrence Howard.  The 2-hour finale was as bonkers and over the top as I’d hoped for, down to Terrence Howard’s final line as he stares at the camera through the bars of his jail cell:  “Game time, bitches!”

I guess you can tell that I haven’t been doing much reading lately.

On that note, I’ve gotta go, bitches.  Game time at the office.

 

 

 

The Blahs

Every year, I find the month of February to be more annoying and less enjoyable than the year before. This year, I had lots and lots of reasons to want the shortest month to fly by – my husband’s knee replacement surgery, for one thing, the brutal cold for another and the unrelenting stream of snow, ice and rain storms drifting their way across the country to our little piece of heaven in Northern Virginia. 

Let’s start with the surgery.  First, the good news – my husband is on the mend having progressed from a walker to a cane this week, and his surgeon is a genius:  The knee itself looks like something out of Frankenstein, but boy is that incision clean.  Of course, the first week I was panicked by my role as head nurse, keeping track of the administration of serious drugs and putting him on machines to move the knee and ice the knee and generally help him heal.  And then, of course, I was worried about the weather because of my role as carpool mom and provider of all food for  family consumption – when he scheduled the surgery, he told me the weather report for mid-February to late March was relatively benign. 

LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE.

Of course I love him, and so I have forgiven him.  But this is the last mid-winter surgery (the 2 foot surgeries 3 years ago were also January and February events!) I will ever put up with again!  Ever!!

Then there’s the weather itself.  Pure misery.  I’ve decided I really hate the cold and, although I used to make fun of it in my youthful thirties, I now understand the whole concept of snowbirds.  I want Gulf Coast Florida in my life and I want it NOW.  Sadly, and along with the whole East Coast, I’ll have to make do with about 5+ inches of snow tonight instead.

Plus it’s tax time…and tuition time…and just about grey outside all the time.

I need some spring in the air and in my step.  I need a beach.  I need a break. I need a bottle of wine and a nice hunk of cheese while sitting at an outside café watching pigeons swoop and poop….

Ok, I’m done now.  Forgive me.  I’ve got the Blahs.

 

A Very Brady Super Bowl

No matter what you think about “deflategate,” Tom Brady’s four touchdowns and 37 completions were pretty impressive even for this not-a-big-football fan viewer.  I tuned into the Super Bowl mostly to watch Idina Menzel sing "The Star Spangled Banner" like "Let It Go" and Katy Perry to kick off her half-time extravaganza with a “Roar.”  Not surprisingly, however, I ended up totally into the game.  It’s true that Seahawk coach Pete Carroll’s big boo-boo will forever grace the list of really, really bad sports calls; still it did make me slap my forehead in utter amazement by making the other list  -- of really, really good television.

Once the infamous interception occurred, the game was over and my husband was totally over the game – he was still smarting over those “cheaters” making it into the Super Bowl.  It was simply too much for him to watch the Patriots prevail.  He went off into the night to collect our daughter from a Super Bowl party without watching the post-game prognostication.  I pretty much watched all of it.

And now today, with most everyone in agreement that the game was really “super,” people turned their attention to the ads that, in years past, have offered the evening’s most reliable entertainment.

From the ads I remember, I still love the horse and puppy even though it’s a really trite spot. Liam Neeson’s game ad was a hoot, and Pierce Brosnan’s Kia spot should have been funnier because he was so good in it.  Kim Kardasian was a riot because she just is. Finally, the Marsha Brady spot with that great character actor from all the Spy Kids movies whose name I can never remember was funny as was Steve Buscemi’s guest spot as “Jan Brady.”   Ha!

There were lots of other spots that were pretty bad and a few more that were ok -- but who really cares?  Are you going to buy a single thing because of them?

When it was all over, at the end of the day (literally) and well into the night, Tom Brady continued to invade my consciousness -- but not in the way you might think.  I dreamt that the NFL was paying for Super Bowl rings for every member of his family (even the little ones) although they’re not.  Weird.

If I'm dreaming about Super Bowl rings, I know it's time for us all to take our annual break from America’s favorite pastime and watch some decent TV on Sunday evenings again (actually, the only night of the week I religiously make an effort to watch shows I like.)  

Pass the popcorn.  Time for me to watch some Girls.                 

MrsSedd@Sixty: Millennial Woman

MrsSedd@Sixty: Millennial Woman: “They are not like us at all ,” my friend and former colleague said to me recently.   We were talking about this new phenom – the Mil...

Millennial Woman

“They are not like us at all,” my friend and former colleague said to me recently. 

We were talking about this new phenom – the Millennial Woman – whom Gen X-ers (like my friend), Boomers (like me), politicians, media advertisers and businesses are trying to figure out for a host of reasons.   

She is likely a colleague.  She’s finally starting to make some cash.  She will be paying for our health care and social security well into her future and ours.  She is everywhere. 

She is my daughter.

A few days before this conversation with my friend, I sat next to a Millennial Dynamo on the Acela train from NYC to DC.  She worked for a major consulting firm on their Apple (the company) business, shuttling back and forth to Cupertino, CA.  She loved the work and they were paying her “insane” money, she said with just a trace of indifference.  Still, she was getting tired of the travel and some of the job was boring and before she went to Stanford for her MBA (“I’ll totally get in,” she said) she thought she should maybe try one more career path…like in the next 6 months, because she was only going to put off the MBA for another year.  She was 23 – time was a’ wasting.

When I asked her why she felt she needed an MBA when she was already doing really challenging work and being paid very well for it, she shrugged.  “Oh, just because. It’s good to have in case, I guess.”

Got it.

I know not every millennial woman out there is like the Dynamo. Yes, this young woman represents a relatively elite subset of the millennial generation (teens and young adults born between 1984 and 2004).  Still, I wonder if her attitude is pretty common for this cohort of young woman overall.  Based on my observations of some really smart woman I work with – in addition to the 14-year old Millennial I live with -- my take on “The Millennial Woman” is:

·        Definitely post-feminist.  Unlike my generation (you’ll find me in the crown captured in the picture above with Gloria Steinem in 1974), the Millennial Woman doesn’t think much about uneven playing fields or cracking open one’s head on the glass ceiling.  She’s too busy being special – she was raised that way and just is.  She’s achievement oriented, sure, but she’s pretty Zen about it. She appears freewheeling in her attitudes, friendships, passions, etc., but she’s intentional about making them matter. But please, don’t make a big f-ing deal about it. 

·        Not careerist.  Millennial Woman doesn’t feel allegiance to any one career path or employer.  She will probably not get a “30-year” certificate and gold watch for service on the job, and it’s ok.  More likely she’ll be a consultant by day, a DJ by night…or a high school math teacher who plays in a rock band on weekends when her small catering business doesn’t have a gig.   It’s all good.

·        A teeny-weeny bit tight with a buck.  She knows the Great Recession was hard on her parents’ 401Ks and she’s tired of hearing them complain about it.  She also knows first-hand how tough the job market can be but doesn’t want to be a lifer, so she’s careful with her cash – and if that means living with her parents for a while, well that ok, because if the opportunity presents itself, like a start-up, she wants to fly.  By the way, this “tight with a buck” thing can be seen in 14-year-olds too.

·        Confident, even when she shouldn’t be… but that’s ok, too.  Mistakes are no big deal.  Everyone makes them.

·        Smart and ambitious – just don’t let it get in the way of having a life.

·        Wants to be mentored but not smothered.  Hear that work mom?  Real mom?  Me?

·        Wants to be heard when things are just.not.ok. And if you don’t hear her when she complains about salary or work-life balance or trust issues, she won’t let the door hit her on the way out.

·        Ok being alone, because she never really is.  Maybe it’s the illusion of privacy and social media exposure that’s made her this way, but the girl can happily work from home, avoid the office, skip the school dance or bar scene, be friendless on a weekend and still have a very busy, connected social persona via FaceTime and Snapchat.  I know, because I see my daughter do this most weekends.

I hope my friends who are Millennial Woman don't think I'm trivializing them -- far from it.

I love the Millennial Woman/Girl.  She may seem intense, charming and dreamily detached at the same time, but she’s aIso a little spikey on the inside.  A challenge.  Or, as my daughter said to me just this morning:  “Mom, if I was nice to you all the time I wouldn’t be interesting.” (She really did say that, trust me.)

The Millennial Woman has the guts and gumption her mom does, but she styles it differently for sure.  Maybe all of her uniqueness will dissipate the day that first kid arrives or she trots down the aisle with her partner of choice, but I suspect it won’t.

So you go, girl.  You are special.  Good luck. Take the world on in that preternaturally knowing way you have. I’ll probably need some of that luck, too, just to keep up with you.

 

Kodachrome

For my 62^nd birthday (gasp), my husband sent off about 12 tin boxes of hundreds and hundreds of Kodachrome slide photos to be digitized.  These slides, taken by my Dad through the years, are a chronicle of my family life from the age of 5 or so, right up to my 20s.

Dad became an avid photographer only because a friend gifted him with an old camera – his first, which was a big deal, because as a young school teacher on an annual salary of about $3500 and
3 kids at home, he didn’t have the money for such luxuries.  Boy, he babied that camera and became really skilled at getting the most out of it.  The majority of his photos were taken out of doors with natural light (again, a less costly way to take photos in those days – no expensive flash equipment required) and he loved to experiment with its most dramatic effects.

The other night I spent several hours going through this catalogue of our family in its younger days.  There were at least 2 dozen photos of Rusty, our old Maine Coon cat, who lived to be nearly 18 years old and passed away shortly after giving birth to her final litter.  (She certainly lived an “active” life!) There were even more photos of our family boats:  the first boat, a 24-foot Thompson motor craft, followed by the 30-foot Elco – my, she was “yahr” to paraphrase Katharine Hepburn – a cabin cruiser just large enough to accommodate us for long weekends at Fire Island.  Finally, there were several dozen slides of my father’s crowning glory and nearly-lifelong weekend wife:  the 48-foot Huckins, a 2-cabin wooden beauty, long and sleek and always in need of major repairs.  We’d practically live the entire summer on that boat, docked in the marina at Atlantique Beach on Fire Island, happy with our little Hibatchi-prepared meals and languid evenings after lots of sun and surf. 

Most important, there were the little milestones of our lives he captured diligently:  Jill’s “Rainbow Girls” induction ceremony, dressed in a long white gown; my first sorority formal; Lise’s first high school prom; high school graduations and first days at college.  Plus old boyfriends, BFFs, goofy haircuts, and lots and lots of mid-century fashion and furniture, a lot of it pretty unattractive -- except for us, that is.

We looked like the quintessentially healthy, happy and handsome American family of advertisers’ dreams and media invention.  We weren’t rich but we were solidly middle class AND we were trim, smiling, and cuddly.  We laughed a lot, if those pictures are to be believed.  I mean A LOT. 

Predictably, I cried a little, laughed a little and whistled under my breath as I clicked on file after file of photos.  They made me completely dizzy with memories. I picked out the ones I wanted to keep – after all, I didn’t really need to keep 30 photos of Rusty the cat with a variety of her many offspring -- which will be sent to me for safe-keeping on CD.  One day soon, I’ll go through them again, organize them and spend some quality time with my younger self.  I want to make a book out of them for my daughter and my sisters.  And possibly, share a few with all of you....

My wonderful Mr. Sedd also has been quite the chronicler of our little family together, courtesy of iPhone technology and his digital, easy-to-use Nikon.  Having just revisited my Hausrath past, I am so thrilled that David and I will have many special moments with our girl to revisit fondly as we age – and for her children, as she begins her own family in some future we may not be able to share with her. 

We can’t repeat the past, nor should we want to – but we can and should connect from time to time with our most authentic selves, wearing the funky clothes and weird hairdos… the different eras, joys and reflections of time passing in our maturing faces… that we are so blessed to experience in this wonderful journey we call life.

What a gift.

Tigresses

My teenaged daughter finds frequent fault with my behavior.  I talk too loud.  I kiss her too much.  I enjoy PDAs (public displays of affection), which are absolutely verboten.

In the morning carpool, I say good morning to the other kids – but my daughter rags at me about doing my job in silence.   When she puts Top 40 on in the car, and I start to bounce in my seat to "Shake It Off," she gives me her “Jinny the Judge” look.  And then, when I drop the kids off and wish them a good day, she just rolls her eyes as she hurries away from the car.

That’s why I was so surprised when we were chatting about not much of anything important, strolling through the mall for some post-Christmas shopping.  My daughter stopped, looked at me, and said I was “so confident.”  She even smiled.  Sort of.

I practically kissed her (actually, I did kiss her, which made her grimace).  I asked her why she said that.  And she said, “You’re just so sure you’re right about everything.”

“That’s not such a bad thing,” I said (assertively, of course).  “It’s good for women to be confident.”

“I’m not confident a lot of times,” she answered honestly.  “Except when I absolutely know I'm right about something.  But sometimes, you’re not right, Mom.”

“Sometimes,” I said.  “But not very often.” I smiled.  “When I’m wrong, though, I usually apologize, right?” I needed some reassurance and received a shrug in response.

We then moved on to one of our favorite debates:  the subject of age-appropriate clothing for school. 

Even so, I was thrilled that my daughter showed how well she knows me…or observes me, take your pick.  I am a confident person.  I do think I’m right about (most) everything, except when I’m not.  Just ask some of my bosses through the years. (It has come up once or twice during my annual reviews throughout the course of a 30+ year career).

In any event, what I should have said to her if I’d thought about it for more than a nano-second, was that it isn’t about thinking you’re right about everything all the time – it’s about not being afraid of being wrong.  Confidence reflects the willingness – indeed, obligation – to be authentically who you are and to say what you think, as long as it’s not intentionally hurtful or mean.   

Small moments in life sneak up on you and give you permission to consider big things about yourself.  Of all my flaws and my strengths, confidence is one of my favorite on both sides of life's ledger.  And I’m just tickled that my daughter “gets that” about me.  Now, I want to make sure that she “gets it” about herself.  On that score, I think we’re making progress.

Happy New Year.