Recipe:

1 load of white sliced bread
smoked salmon
4 boiled eggs
sour cream
cream cheese
capers
honey dijon mustard
mayonaise
carrots
cucumber
parsely

Make stacks of 5 slices of bread and trim off crusts. Ideally, all of the bread will be the same size.
Put 3 slices of bread in a row. Put some mayo on the bread.
Put a layer of smoked salmon and then top with honey mustard.
Add a layer of bread with some mayo.
Add a layer of sliced/mashed boiled egg and capers.
Add another layer of bread slices with mayo.
Put a layer of sliced cucumbers (I cut mine into semi-circles)
Put mayo on both slides of the next layer (to protect bread from cucumber moisture).
Add another layer of smoked salmon and honey mustard.
Top off with final layer of bread.

Get an electric mixer and mix and equal quantity of sour cream and cream cheese. Beat till smooth.
“Ice” the “cake” with the “frosting”.

Decorate with capers, carrots, cucumbers, eggs cut into shapes. You can also use radish, boiled shrimp, more smoked salmon. Be creative!

Slice and serve!

I highly recommend the book Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein. In it, she explains why manufacturers of toy and baby gear make stuff in pink and blue. And the answer (no surprise) is that it causes us to buy more stuff.

For instance, my daughter got a gift of blocks in pink. The regular, multicolor set, has a picture of a boy on the package. This is cearly a ploy to get you to buy one set of blocks for boys and another for girls.

If you must buy things in pink, do it for things that are for use by one kid only, like pacifiers. Otherwise, do yourself a favor and buy things in neutral colors that work for boys AND girls. If the package is too girly, remove the toy from the box and repackage it in a neutral box.

Both kids found this to be fascinating, especially Matilda. She started pointing out places on her body that had hair and needed to be waxed. I explained to her that the wax was hot and she would not like it — which prompted her to ask me why I put hot wax on myself if it hurts. Oy.

A friend of mine told me about how her mother hauled her into a salon to be waxed when she was 12. When I expressed my horror at this she replied that its easy for me to be against it because I am relatively hairless. To me, hair removal is a vain and unnecessary act. To her, hair removal is an important part of grooming — like showering.

A similar debate is happening right now around the book Maggie Goes on A Diet. Its about a girl who is overweight and she goes on a diet and becomes fit and athletic. To me, the book is awful because girls have enough problems trying to keep up with the photoshopped models in magazines and advertisements. But others point out that we have a childhood obesity epidemic on our hands and that the book focuses on health and not appearance.

My final conclusion is to try to keep kids focused on how a body functions and not on how it looks — and that I should keep my waxing to myself.

PS. I am sure we can all agree that this book is a horrible piece of crap. My Beautiful Mommy – Written by a plastic surgeon to explain to kids about their mom’s cosmetic surgery.

They have 2 older children (both boys) with gender neutral names and their sons also are free to wear dresses, long hair, nail polish etc..

Why did they take the step to keep the sex of their third child a secret? Because they recognized that people treat children different based on their sex. Not necessarily worse or better, but differently. Small children, like my 2 year old son, do not care if they are boys or girls. But adults and older children do. They have a very strong need for babies girls to be sweet princesses and for little boys to be little ball players/truckers/soldiers. Keeping the sex of their child secret prevents people from pushing their kids to gender identify.

Students of gender studies will recognize this story as X: A Fabulous Child’s Story. In the story by Lois Gould a child is born, called X and the child is allowed to play with whatever X wants and can grow up to be whatever it wants to be. The story ends with the happy ending that X is the most well adjusted child ever. You can read it in full here. It was written in the late 70s — back when we watched Free to be You and Me and when girls were offered an array of choices that were previously not available to females.

Women and girls since then have enjoyed the victories of the feminist movement. We can choose to marry, have kids, wear skirts, go to school, work in “male” jobs. The vast majority of us operate somewhere in the middle, picking and choosing from “feminine” and “masculine” things on a daily basis. We may identify as women or girls, but the truth is that we all do a lot of things that would have been considered to be unacceptably masculine a generation ago.

So why is the idea of a gender neutral kid so shocking? Because I have to admit, I too raised my eyebrows at this story.

I am sure that people are concerned about the child being bullied or not fitting in. But who bullies a baby? The couple clearly is not going to try to prevent their child from figuring out their sex when it is older. At some point, when the kid is around 3 years old, it will figure it out and start asking some questions and making some choices. Won’t it be nice to know that your kid likes princesses and pink because she really likes them, rather than liking them by default?

Freedom is a good thing. I think these people are crazy (what is unschooling?) but the kid will be fine.

More detailed article here.

As I write, he is wearing a ballerina skirt over his clothes and is playing with an Ariel and Barbie doll. Who can blame him? He lives in a house full of dolls, tulle and sparkle. His idolizes his sister and thus wants to do what she does.

Don’t get me wrong. Wearing dresses is not his preference. He just likes to do it sometimes, especially when he wants to dance. And he plays with  ”boy” toys just as much as he plays with “girl” toys. He loves trains, dinosoars, cars and trucks. He likes sports and is very active.

In short, he is what I wanted Matilda to be. He is open to both “boy” and “girl” toys and activities. At 20 months, Matilda knew that she was a girl, but Mateo seems to not know, or care. And I think its wonderful.

So why am I worried? I have this nagging feeling that its our job as parents to teach him that he is a boy and let him know what our society expects of him. Others clearly feel that way too. Well meaning people try to nicely explain to him that he needs to wear boy clothes, or that dolls are for girls. If someone said something like that to my daughter I would tear into them, but for my son, I keep quiet. I am conflicted.

The definition of what it means to be a girl or woman has changed dramatically since the 70s. But for boys and men, its basically the same. Will it ever be ok for boys to wear a dress out in public or to have a Barbie doll? Do we really need our children to be gender identified a such a young age? I would love to hear your thoughts.

HUCKABEE: You know Michael, one of the things that’s troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, ‘Hey look, you know, we’re having children, we’re not married, but we’re having these children, and they’re doing just fine.’ But there aren’t really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie. And I think it gives a distorted image that yes, not everybody hires nannies, and caretakers, and nurses. Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that’s the story that we’re not seeing, and it’s unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock.

You know, right now, 75 percent of black kids in this country are born out of wedlock. 61 percent of Hispanic kids — across the board, 41 percent of all live births in America are out of wedlock births. And the cost of that is simply staggering.

The press made of big deal about Huckabee “slamming” Portman, but really he is demonizing women who, as he would say, “choose life”.

In his above quote, he implies that it would  be better if those children were never born in the first place. He is strongly anti-abortion, so I know that he isn’t saying that they should have been aborted. And he is also strongly opposed to funding of birth control and against sex education, so I know he doesn’t think that we need to increase usage of birth control in the USA.

So what solutions is he offering to this problem? Abstinence until marriage? Can such a delusional man really be running for president?

Calling out a woman who is going to marry the father of her child, and has millions to pay for the care of her child, is nothing more than slut shaming. Making women wear a scarlet A is only going to increase the rate of abortion, not reduce it.

Conservatives, you have lost the fight against sex. People are not going to go back to remaining chaste until marriage. If you want to reduce the abortion rate, work WITH us to prevent those pregnancies. Stop the war against Planned Parenthood and make birth control cheap and easy to get for both men and women. Educate our kids on how to avoid pregnancy.

And then if someone does get pregnant, create an environment where its easier for the children born to unwed mothers to survive and thrive. Huckabee hints that he would cut assistance to single mothers with children. The consequences of this strategy — increased poverty — will only lead again to more abortion. We need to hold “fiscal conservatives” feet to the fire and get them to acknowledge that we need to help people avoid unwanted pregnancy and even fund abortion to save money. And “social conservatives” must support government programs for women who have chosen to continue their unplanned pregnancies.

I would be very interested to know about any “pro-life” Republican members of congress (on the national level) who also support social programs to give food, shelter, health care and education to poor children. I am also interested in knowing about Republicans who support comprehensive sex-ed, funding of contraceptive programs and are pro-choice, again on the national level.

She asked me who the “girl” was, what she is doing. Matilda was just fascinated. She tried to pose like the robot woman and I nearly lost it. I just hustled her past the ad. But its not the first time that she has noticed ads with sexualized women in them that are geared towards men. She likes the way the women look and wants to be like them. Is it any wonder why? At a young age, she already knows the truth. If you are a woman, its important to be hot. Even if you are a robot.

I recently discovered that the actress Geena Davis has an institute on Gender and Media. They commissioned a study with some interesting findings. Emphasis below is mine.

This study, undertaken by Stacy Smith and Marc Choueiti at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, analyzed 122 family films (rated G, PG, and PG-13), including 50 top-grossing ones, between 2006 and 2009 and found that only 29.2 percent of characters were female. And one in four female characters was depicted in “sexy, tight, or alluring attire,” compared with one in 25 male characters. The female characters were also more likely than men to be beautiful, and one in five were “portrayed with some exposed skin between the mid-chest and upper thigh regions.” Because you wouldn’t want to take on the world without baring your midriff—girl power! (Another study found, troublingly, that women in G-rated films wear the same amount of skimpy clothing as women in R-rated films.) One in four women was shown with a waist so small that, the authors concluded, it left “little room for a womb or any other internal organs.”

Davis points out that boys are watching these films too.

“The more we see female characters who are hypersexual, one-dimensional eye candy, sidelined, or not even there,” Davis said, “the more it affects the way boys and girls think about girls.”

Read more here.

They are totally right. Movies like Madagascar, Toy Story, Finding Nemo are great. But there aren’t many female leads for the girls to identify with. Matilda recently became interested in the new Tinkerbell movies. They gave her a backstory and made her into a girl who likes to invent things and is handy with tools. She would be a great role model, except for the way she is dressed. Why is she wearing so little? Why is there so much cleavage in a movie for kids?

So far, the kids don’t watch a lot of movies. They are more about TV shows. I like:

• Dinosaur Train. They really could have gotten away with not having any girl dinosaurs in the family, but there are two!
• Team Umizoomi. Its a counting and numbers show. The girl is girly, so Matilda loves her. But she is not sexualized and is into math!
• Little Einsteins. Great DVDs with lots of classical music and girls that are just girly enough.
• Backyardigans. There are 2 girls and 3 boys. Adorable.
• Dora. I can’t stand watching this show. Its so boring. But Dora is one of the best role models for girls ever.

I recently watched Eloise the TV show with Matilda. Just horrible. What a brat.

What movies are good for girls?

So far I can only think of Princess and the Frog – The “princess” spends most of her time as a frog in the movie — thus we don’t have to deal with her in princess clothes. And she is tough, and industrious and wants to own her own restaurant! I love this movie.

The teacher says that she is not very confident. When it is circle time and she asks the kids questions such as what letter is this, what number, who lives at [address], etc.. Matilda never raises her hand. When the teacher calls on her, she often just looks down instead of answering. At home, I have noticed that she often will give a silly answer if she is not sure of the right answer.

I strongly feel that her shy nature is just part of the personality that she was born with.. but the Asian mom in me hates it. I wonder what we did wrong to have an un-confident kid?

In an effort to build her confidence we are thinking of reversing our previous plan to not enroll the kids in activities until they were in Kindergarten. I am hoping that exposing her to a lot of new activities and people will make her less shy and more confident.

Got thoughts on this topic? Please comment!

PS. Here are the positive things that the teacher said. Matilda is kind to her classmates and is a good friend. She shares, smiles and greets people. And she is a great artist.

The piece is by a Chinese woman who, like me, grew up in the USA and has a non-Asian husband. She is raising her kids in the way I was raised. Basically, it boils down to:

• Focus on academics — perfection is the only acceptable result
• Also important to excel at violin/piano
• No sports, theater or nonacademic activities.
• No regard for the child’s self-esteem
• Spending hours a way drilling her kids with practice tests
• No sleepovers, no boyfriends

The article has some really interesting info such as:

almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that “stressing academic success is not good for children” or that “parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun.” By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way.

And some true observations such as:

If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure, and they will not call their child “stupid,” “worthless” or “a disgrace.” Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child’s grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher’s credentials.

If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.

Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them. If their child doesn’t get them, the Chinese parent assumes it’s because the child didn’t work hard enough. That’s why the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child. The Chinese parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it.

This is exactly how my sister and I were raised and I always assumed that it was a result of my parent’s insecure feelings as immigrants in an unfamiliar land. Their fear that we would not be able to support ourselves (and them, when they were no longer able to work), I assumed, drove them to push us harder than they would have if we stayed in Korea.

But this woman clearly doesn’t have those same motivations. So what is it that drives her to raise her kids in the way she was raised? Is she not scarred by the constant haranguing? Did she not have a rebellious period where she hated her parents, suffer from anorexia, or allow herself be bullied because she always felt that she was not good enough?

There are certainly some aspects of my upbringing that I plan to repeat with my kids. I plan to sit down with them daily to work on their homework and drill them as necessary. I will expect really good grades and for them to go to a top college. I know that my mother was able to successfully instill in me a strong work ethic, the ability to focus and the drive to not give up. I do not agree with many westerners who feel that these are traits that you have or do not have. I know that my mother instilled them in me through her strict methods.

But I also know the impact that my upbringing had on my self esteem and happiness as a child. I was not happy. And I want my kids to be happy and to feel good about themselves. I am not going to tell Matilda that she is too fat, too slow, to dumb. I won’t ever say to Mateo that he is a failure and a loser. If they end up achieving less than perfection, so be it.

So please post comments, I am dying to know what you all think about the article? For non-Asians, are you totally horrified? And for Asians, do you plan to do this to your kids?

Read the full article here.

_____________

Update: I checked out this comment thread on Quora. Another statistic, asian-american females have a a high suicide rate in the USA. The story posted by Christine Lu is worth reading too. Her “perfect” sister committed suicide. She wrote the author about it and the author says that in her book, she actually talks a lot about retreating from the Asian parenting model. So in short, the WSJ article is perhaps not very representative. Bet it will sell books though.

More links:

Story on WSJ about how parents in China are embracing Western parenting in order to encourage creativity http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059720804985228.html?mod=WSJ_article_related

Care.com blog http://blog.care.com/sheila/2011/01/are-playdates-keeping-your-child-out-of-harvard.html

My Mom is a Fob: Earnest Advice in Broken English from Your Asian-American Mom (foreword by Margaret Cho) http://amzn.to/hJUoft

I was working downtown, just a few blocks from the towers. I was lucky to be at home when the towers were hit, but in the aftermath I saw my beloved city overrun with soldiers with weapons and tanks. I had to wear a mask for a while to walk the streets.

The city was so sad. Everywhere you looked, people were in mourning — for those lost, but also for ourselves.

Then they shot the lights into the sky. They were two shining beacons of optimism. We were going to be ok. No memorial or “freedom tower” will ever top the simple power of two lights shining up into the sky.