“Mama, don’t let your sons grow up to be cowboys!” So advises the country song - which may be good advice, or it may not.

As parents, we should put up barriers to “careers” that are harmful or illegal. But as for the wide variety of trades and careers that our children may be uniquely gifted for, and inclined to, we should not erect artificial fences.

The world needs good cowboys. And plumbers. And electricians. And shepherds. And mechanics. People good with their hands.

If your son shows strong interest in fixing cars, and has limited academic drive and ability, why in the world would you push him to become a lawyer? We need great mechanics, and his gifts and inclinations are already showing you a potential career path.

If your daughter gravitates toward making beautiful floral arrangements, why should she be guilt-tripped into being a business executive? Is there not an ongoing need for all sorts of gifted designers?

The fact is, we’ll always need people who are good with their hands. And even the greatest and wealthiest among us recognize that, when you find a capable and reliable craftsman, tradesman, or laborer, they are gold. These folks have tremendous earning power and job security, because there are so many shoddy and unscrupulous workers in the marketplace. People who are skilled in their work, and prove themselves over time, are almost always in demand. Compare that to the job insecurity of many in white-collar careers, and you begin to see that it is not a step down to learn and ply a trade.

I have five sons. It has always been my perspective not to pre-determine their academic and professional careers, but to carefully evaluate their wired-in gifts and budding interests, and seek to move them in that direction, even if it is quite different from the course my wife or I took as young adults. And, sure enough, we’re having some surprises. As you will with your children.

If you have children that are good with their hands, and you worry about whether they will go to college and launch into some high-profile information-driven career, remember - this is not about you and your reputation. Most people throughout history learned trades that were passed down through generations, and many still do. You can be immensely proud of a son or daughter who works with his/her hands, and who is skilled in the tangible arts. Make it your goal that if your mantel has smiling pictures of a fireman, a professor, a pet shop owner, and an architect, that you will be equally proud of each one.

Don’t rob your child of fulfillment in pursuing a direction that “fits” with her gifts, and don’t rob the rest of us of his abilities as we plan, build, landscape, and repair. Frankly, we don’t need a whole lot more lawyers, executives, and investment bankers. We will always need capable cabinet-makers, graphic designers, tailors, and - yes - devoted mothers who work part-time out of the home. These less-glamorous spheres of labor, using active minds and active hands, are where tremendously valuable work gets done.

Until I get back into the swing of things, I’ll be occasionally reposting from my own blog, Antithete. I wrote this one earlier today.

It has been challenging, learning to mother four children, and take care of six peoples’ worth of laundry, dishes, and general dirt. Not to mention they all like to have mommy time, and I like to have one-on-one time with them. Once again, the schedule is my friend. I know plenty of you hate schedules and feel completely weirded out that I am SCHEDULING things in order to feel on top of them, but for me, WOW, it works. It works awesome!

With my schedule laid out, whether or not it ends up being followed during the day, at least I feel like I know what’s coming. And I can make sure each kid’s laundry gets done, that they each get baths or showers on a regular basis, that they get their schoolwork done, that they eat, and all go to bed at basically the same time every night. Now that the weather is nicer, we have a lot more outdoor recesses, which is all kinds of awesome too, almost as awesome as my schedule. Heh.

I think the funniest thing that happened in my brain after the baby was a week or so old was that I suddenly realized OMG I HAVE A SIX-PERSON HOUSEHOLD TO MANAGE. AIEEE! I could hear all of you giggling uncontrollably over my sudden DUH moment, I really could. Because HELLO, obviously there were going to be four kids now, right? Six people altogether, right? I spent so much time worrying about having enough room in the car, and focusing on getting the van we have now (w00t w00t eight seats baby!), that I kind of forgot to spend time figuring out ahead of time how to make sure things got done around the house in a timely manner.  (Read: in a manner that does not make me pull out my hair and cry into my coffee cups.)

I never dreamed that by the time I was thirty years old, I would have four children. I also never dreamed of the kind of dedication and hard work it is to have four children – not so much the providing for them, because that’s a hard work all unto itself – but the day-to-day caretaking of them. The clean sheets, tasty nutritious meals, and playtimes. Teaching manners and how to not bonk each other with toys when playing. Teaching how to communicate with each other. Teaching math concepts, proper grammar, and how to put away your dishes.

I guess what I’m saying is that I have arrived at a point in my life that I’m a little at a loss to know what to do with. Apparently I am a mature adult with four well-behaved, intelligent children, and goshdarnit if I have NO idea really how I got here. How am I supposed to comport myself? Does this mean I have to stop shopping in the juniors section of Walmarts? Am I allowed to keep dying my hair raspberry pink when I feel the need to?

Which, by the way, I am going to do again soon. I even bought the hair lightening powders a few days ago – I have the hair dye stocked up in my linen closet when I bought it on sale last year.

P.S. Can you tell I am feeling much much better?

P.P.S. Troy is working a third shift at the factory now. They re-hired him (he had quit to try his leather business full time, but it wasn’t bringing in enough income yet so he asked for his old job back and BANG PRESTO, the NEXT DAY he got it back. I’ve never known anyone with that kind of crazy luck). This means I get the bed all to myself at night, heh heh heh. And also it means NOT a new schedule for us really, except for him needing to sleep during part of the day.

P.P.S.S. Now I don’t know how to end this post. I think I will just stop typing. The End.

Greetings all staff and stakeholders of Coddled Teenage Boy Enterprises.

It has come to my attention that there is some confusion about your roles and responsibilities within the organization, which has led to infighting, yelling, and name-calling—this happened just yesterday, prior to 7 AM. Such behavior is both unprofessional and upsetting, and it is my job as the CEO and central “brand” of this enterprise to address this situation before it begins to negatively affect morale as well as my performance in the marketplace, also known as “high school and social life.”

First, a word about the incident that prompted this memo and took place at headquarters yesterday. Many of you, I know, heard it—or heard of it—and I need to clarify actual events to dispel any notion that the CEO of Coddled Teenage Boy Enterprises was at fault. Because, as you know, it’s never my fault.

The incident took place in the early morning. It concerned the puzzling logic that asserts two individuals traveling to the same school campus should to be liveried in the same vehicle, and therefore ought to be ready to depart at approximately the same time, even if one of us requires more careful and meticulous currying of my excellent hair and a careful consideration of which band T-shirt looks most awesome with my jeans. There was some crazy bellowing about did I know the price of a gallon of gas, and some asinine stuff about the driver’s own needs (don’t get what that means), and something—completely overwrought now—about how It’s all about you, isn’t it?

All of this made the second and final shuttling to school tense and unpleasant, and left me grounded this weekend, which is a wholly unacceptable result of what I see as a giant misunderstanding. The bottom line is that the sister involved in this situation is… well, clearly, a Sister Subsidiary. Known officially as The Easy Child Enterprise, the Sister Subsidiary should be staffed and run as a separate operation, independent of the needs of Coddled Teenage Boy LLC. Especially since a tenet of that aforementioned subsidiary enterprise is Hates to Be Late, whereas at Coddled we take a much more interpretive view of the clock.

Now that we have that out of the way, I’d like to get back to the business of this memo, which is to redefine and, in some cases, reassign the various roles each of you play in keeping this enterprise running. As you know, we have grown in leaps and bounds over the past decade, growing literally from a Mom-and-Pop entity to a conglomerate with endless, gaping needs and demands. While it once took only one or two people to feed, diaper and bathe me, it now requires an entire staff to manage the complex operation that is my life.

You might think that because I have learned to actually use my limbs purposefully and have mastered other basic life-skills (like the ability to read signs, or jot down a note, or climb bus stairs, or use the toilet) I might exploit those abilities to increase self-reliance. But, sadly, the answer is no. In ways that even I don’t really understand, it seems that the operation has grown more complicated than ever, and it requires additional resources and more staff than ever to maintain.

Last year in Math, we studied Inverse Functions, in which the sign f “acts on” a number and transforms it. Essentially, you can define the inverse of f as the function that “undoes” what f did. My understanding is some enterprises grow precisely like that: As new products are brought to market, or new services introduced, others are mysteriously negated. In other words, it’s not my fault that company operations have gotten multifarious and increasingly unwieldy. You can argue the application of this point to my situation—but not with me. Take it up with a mathematician.

So without further ado, herewith the new Job Titles as reflected in this most current Reorg of Coddled Teenage Boy Enterprises:

Manager of Livery Services—Dad (AM Manager), Mom (PM Manager)

Director of English Essays, Proofing and Editing Division—Mom

Laundry Services—Mom, Dad, Sister-When-I-Have-Something-to-Bribe-Her-With

Bag Lunch Boss—Mom, Dad

Homework Helpers—Mom, Dad, the Friends-Who-Actually-Take-Notes-in-Class Squad

Personal Belonging Tracker—Mom, Dad, various friends (Gordon, Zach, Janey, Chris, etc.) in various classes who run after me when I leave my various shit behind

Shower Timer—Mom, Dad, Sister-When-She-Needs-to-Use-the-Bathroom

Forms and Paperwork, Small Details Division—Mom

Dispenser of Petty Cash—Whichever parent drives us to the movies

Emotional Support Team—Pretty much everyone, all the time (note on-call hours)

The two remaining jobs still available at this time are:

Minister of Wiping My Ass

Director of I’d-Forget-My-Head-If-It-Wasn’t-Attached

Referrals welcome.

It is my dearest hope that this memo will help you to accept and relish the critical job you have as part of Coddled Teenage Boy Enterprises—and to see yourself for what you are: part of my team, because we are all in this together. As they say, there’s no “I” in “team.” And there’s no “Boy” in there, either… God knows I can’t do this on my own.

Regards,

Coddled Teenage Boy

P.S.: Has anyone seen my soccer shorts?

(From an original post at Annarchy.)

My nine-year-old came home with a project from his gifted services teacher last month linked to Art History Month. He was asked to select an artist, musician or playwright whose work has stood the test of time and determine which of the Habits of Mind this person demonstrated.

My son selected Vincent Van Gogh, probably because the art teacher at my son’s school had delivered a great lesson on Van Gogh recently. We got books from the library, found websites, and my son started taking notes in Inspiration.

After a while, he thought that one of the habits of mind that Van Gogh demonstrated was “Listening with Empathy and Understanding,” because of his compassion for the poor. He consulted with his art teacher, who suggested that “Determination” would be another hallmark of this artist. Another online connection through a professional learning network (an art teacher who is a friend’s mother) suggested that Van Gogh’s experimentation with color might demonstrate “Creating, Imagining, and Innovating.”

My son browsed online galleries, collected the paintings that he thought best represented each of these Habits of Mind, and began assembling his tri-fold board. I think he did a nice job on it.

Somewhere in the process, he asked me if we could do something using some of the technology that I use every day with students in the district where I teach. I wasn’t sure what that would look like, but he collected the paintings in a folder on our computer, and started keying in some notes about what he wanted to say about each one. He really liked the idea of using the green screen effect and the Alpha Tool in Keynote, so we assembled the project there.

I was really proud of him for learning so quickly how to import, crop and edit photos in iPhoto, export them to Keynote, layer the photos after removing the green, and then resize himself appropriately for the paintings. It reminds me a bit of the book Katie’s Picture Show.

He then set to work writing his own scripts for each slide. He rehearsed them and recorded them (patiently, as I had not done that before, and we kept making mistakes.) Then he happily ran off to play while I worked on exporting the Keynote to a QuickTime movie so that his school could show it.

But then disaster struck. The exported version made all the timings go wrong. So we re-recorded the audio and re-exported it. It was even worse than the first one. Suggestions from my online PLN came in, and we opted to try to reconstruct the whole thing using Audacity, GarageBand and iMovie. So that meant having to re-record the audio AGAIN.

He got most of it done Sunday night, but was just too tired. So get this — he got up at 5:45am on Monday morning to record the last four audio clips before I went to work. THAT’S dedication.

Anyway, it took a little tweaking and editing, but he completed it. He added some cool transitions. (Gotta love iMovie for those!) And he selected the parts of Don McClean’s song that he wanted. I’m proud of him for wanting to do something different, something 21st century and beyond the trifold board. I’m proud of him for recording all of the narrations three times. And I’m really proud of him for all of the tech learning he’s done in the last week.

So proudly, proudly, I share with you…his presentation.

Please leave your comments for him here or on the fliggo site.

(Cross-posted at Onionskin)