Political commentary from my six year daughter

My daughter watches political ads with me and hears us talk and here's her political commentary. I find it both amusing and insightful.

"Obama is too famous." (she says this one over and over) "I don't want to vote for a president who's too famous."

"I want a president who will protect the environment. Why do you say that McCain won't protect the environment He says he cares about the environment?"

"McCain wants to reduce spending."

As you might be able to tell from these remarks, she's a McCain supporter. She's disappointed she can't vote. McCain had some appeal as a moderate Republican (particularly in his trade policy) for me until he brought on Palin ("I can see Russia from my window".)

I feel perhaps weird saying this as feminist, but I can't get over how strange and artificial her appearance is which is matched by her lies about her records. She supported the bridge to nowhere until she didn't. As apparently, she did a decent job of reducing earmarks in Alaska. Why lie about her record unless it's a cheap ploy to get folks to attack her and then she can say that she's being attacked for being a woman?

TV my drug of choice

I confess tv is my drug of choice when life is stressful. When things are bad with Little T, I watch a lot of tv. In the hospital, at home holding him being human pillow, I watched a lot of tv. When life gets too overwhelming and talking about it just won't help, I watch tv. Being a Silicon Valley mom, I have a Tivo, so I only watch tv of my choice. The tv my kids watch is always educational.

As drugs go, tv is wonderful, the best. It lets you forget about life for a while. It relaxes you. It produces a trance like state similar to that found in a good narcotic. Then you can turn the thing off,and except for perhaps wasting some time, there are no side effects. And you might even learn something.

The righteous parents who decry how tv rots children's brains must have forgotten how much tv they watched as kids. The studies that show kids IQs dropping or speech delays with a few hours of tv a week seem extremely flawed to me. They are often based on self-reported data. Sure if you sit your child in front of the tv all damn day, their brain will rot. Not necessarily because of the tv watching, but because kids need stimulation besides tv.

Or maybe the parents of kids with problems sit them in front of tv because they don't know what else to do with them. These parents will probably not admit in a survey that their child watches tv all day. Instead they'll respond 'a few hours a week' like the rest of us.

Both my children watch tv as part of a balanced diet of activities. Special K also eats treats as part of a balanced diet of food. I feel sorry for those kids who never get to watch tv. I regard them the same as the child who never got to eat anything sweet growing up. She was always sneaking candy, because it was this forbidden treat. Once your kids go to school, you can not escape tv or sweet things, so you may as well teach your kids to be responsible consumers.

We don't watch commercials, though sometimes we zip by them. I've told my daughter how ads make things frequently look better than they are and people are trying to sell things. She notices ads all the time anyway. Ads are not restricted to the tv. Step outside and billboards are everywhere. Another silly argument for avoiding tv, shot down.

The Tivo saved my breastfeeding. Sure breastfeeding is magical for five minutes, but then your baby breastfeeds for another fifteen to twenty minutes. I had limits to how long I could stare at my baby's guzzling mouth and the back of my baby's head.

The Baby Einstein video or any video has allowed me to regain my sanity during the midafternoon crazies when the kids are getting way too punchy and I'm too tired to wind them down myself. The alternative is me yelling at them or putting them screaming in their crib or bed. Instant calm. We all relax.

I'm not saying hand over the remote control to your toddler and let her watch hours of tv unsupervised, but this parent is really tired of reading about how tv or any technology is the cause of a host of ills and therefore should be avoided. Cars accidents are a leading cause of death for children. Nonetheless I drive my children in cars everyday. No one suggests banning children from cars.

I believe my job as a parent is to use technology responsibly. I use tv like any other parenting tool I have. I have no problems with tv rating systems. I do have a problem with parents who expect the rating system to supervise their children when they use tv instead of themselves and then make it harder for me to have access to tv. Unlike a movie on the big screen, it costs nothing but time to watch a tv show.

I personally have watched every show my kids have watched, not every episode, but every show. I plan to do this until my kids are old enough to be saavy media consumers. I don't think any rating system can tell me what my child finds scary or disturbing. My daughter doesn't find hospitals at all scary, so any medical drama is fine. However arguing is scary to her, so Cinderella is scary.

If I had to do slogans for tv education, it would go like this: "TV's a powerful and useful drug, so please watch it responsibly."

A healthy birth is not a US birthright

I read a post that made me cry. It was about a child that died. But what stunned me and made me feel both sad and angry was the fact the post implied that babies are safe in the US. Unfortunately according to a CNN headline, the The U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world.

My baby was almost one of the newborns that died. It took three hours to stabilize him, then he was whisked away to another hospital. My husband frantically followed the ambulance in our car. As I sat bereft in my maternity room, a doctor called and told me "We have to operate on him to save his life." and "He probably won't make it."

My son has faced death several times since then and survived. I'm very thankful and I feel I must whisper this lest I jinx anything. --I start 2007 for the first time not worried he might die.

Like many newborns, a contributing cause of his problems was inadequate prenatal health care. A simple prenatal ultrasound done at any point in the second trimester would have shown there was a problem. And a vaginal birth was nearly impossible. His left arm had a massive tumor of 24 cm. Larger than the usual cervix dilation of 10cm. No one knew until his arm got stuck as he was born, and he was deprived of oxgyen for three minutes. In addition the strain of being squeezed during birth exacerbated his condition of low platelets and red blood cells. He was completely depleted of clotting factors by the time he emerged and almost died at birth.

For a time I was very angry about this but at least in my case I realised that no one would have expected me to carry this child to term. He with a blood tumor and me with a blood condition where half of my blood cells are smaller than others. It's a miracle. So much of pregnancy is still unknown.

But when I tell women from other industrialized countries about the lack of ultrasound, they're horrified. Most routinely offer two ultrasounds - one at about 13 weeks, and another at 20 weeks to look for physical abnormalities. At 13 weeks, my son's tumor was too small. At 20 weeks, his left arm would have been visibly deformed.

We have good insurance. My husband is a software engineer. If my family was like millions of Americans, and my husband had the typical 80-20 insurance or no insurance, the costs of our son's medical care would have bankrupted our family, even with my husband's relatively high income. The billed costs (not the costs the insurance paid) for my son's medical care are over a million dollars and are still ongoing. He visits a specialist about once a month (down from 5-6 a month). Billed cost:$300-500. The insurance pays about $60 a visit.

However the insurance company pays for very little of his care, because a dirty little secret is that while HMOs whine about the high cost of health care, they don't actually pay for their most expensive patients. For very expensive patients like my son, the HMO has secondary insurance that pays for all of his care.

But we're the lucky ones. The number one reason for bankruptcy is medical bills. The Washington Post states,"Most of the medically bankrupt were middle-class homeowners who had been to college and had responsible jobs -- until illness struck."

Before my daughter was born, I had this naive idea that "babies don't die anymore". Unexamined, but I suppose due to our advanced health care. Now I know several children who died as newborns. In fact two babies died while my son was in the NICU.

In all these cases, except one, there was a failure of our medical system. In all the cases I know about, the mom desperately tried and failed to get the help she needed. But due to bureaucratic problems designed to "save hospitals money" or lack of insurance, the mother didn't get the medical help she needed in time. I dunno if getting help earlier would have prevented the baby's death. I'm not a doctor. I do know it caused the mom a great deal of unnecessary anguish.

In my darkest moments I can imagine what it feels like to experience the loss of a child. But my experience was like gazing down at a huge abyss versus falling into it.

But I can't imagine what life is like for the millions of expectant mothers who don't have insurance and literally can't afford to get adequate prenatal care. I can't imagine what it must be like to have a child born with serious health problems and have to worry about money to pay for it all. I can't imagine the anguish of wondering if my child would be healthier if only I had scraped enough money to go to the doctor earlier. I can't imagine having to go into bankruptcy to pay for my family's medical bills.

We have the latest and greatest neonatal intensive care, but do so little for most pregnant mothers.

I'm thankful for the good birth, the healthy birth I had with my older daughter. My daughter had jaundice, a common problem. For most babies, jaundice is resolved easily if treated quickly. In this country getting quick treatment for jaundice is a privilege I have due to my relative wealth, the fact that our family has health insurance unlike 13.4 of pregnant women. Furthermore, this March of Dimes article says the income thresholds for infants are often higher than for moms, so moms are denied health insurance as soon as their babies are born.

Our health system is the most expensive in the world and it is the worst in providing basic health coverage. It ends up costing a lot more, because an ounce of prevention often costs a lot less than treating something after the fact. The US spends billions of dollars treating NICU babies. I wonder how many are there simply because the mom wasn't treated adequately during her pregnancy. It all makes me cry when I think about that. It also makes me very angry.

I'm definitely not a socialist. I believe in the free market. However I also believe a few things are public goods. For example most people accept the idea that everyone is entitled to a free education through high school, because it's a public good. Everyone is worse off if education isn't provided to everyone. I don't understand why unlike the rest of the industrialized world, people in the US don't feel that health care is also a public good. This country does accept health care is good for senior citizens and children in very low income families.

I originally wrote "Will it take a national health crisis before the country wakes up?" Then sadly I realized we already have one. The rate of premature births is rapidly rising. 1 in 8 babies are born prematurely. No one knows why. Based on my experience, I'd have to say a contributing cause is inadequate prenatal care, even for women who have insurance.

I read recently that Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (sadly a representative of my town) and a Democrat wants to ban spanking. Meanwhile our Republican governator is proposing state health insurance. I will not vote for Sally Lieber ever again although I have voted for her every single time she ran for office and I could cast a vote. Before this proposal I would never have voted for Arnie. However I will if he gets this though.

The NY Times and Bittman meets cutting back meat

Jed blogged about cutting back on meat. Like him I don't eat red meat. Unfortunately I didn't find Mark Bittman's article "Putting Meat back in its place" to be at all helpful for my needs though others may find it useful. Unlike Jed, I have seen plenty of articles that address cutting back on meat or becoming more vegetarian while on briefly touching on the reasons. Jed says the reasons aren't addressed, but they are briefly mentioned. The vegetarian and sustainable and slow food movements are quite diverse. What is relatively rare about this article is it's in the NY Times. We have arrived.

I don't remember if Jed was a vegetarian, but I was actually an ovo vegetarian and a little pesco for four years. I gave it up because some of my red blood cells are smaller than others, a Burmese variation of Thalassemia (I tested negative for the known Thalassemia genes, but my blood cells are clinically different) and I became anemic. It is possible to get all one's protein and iron from a vegetarian meal, but it's harder and frankly I didn't always have time.

One of the ways Bittman's article didn't help is that living in Mountain View, I do eat out at a lot of Asian restaurants. I dunno where he eats where the food doesn't revolve around meat. It's not in any down home Asian restaurant I know. I can't help but think he only eats in fusion Asian restaurants.

Also his tips are based on the premise how to stop eating a meal that revolves around meat. Because I was a vegetarian, my life doesn't revolve around meat. I feel satisfied with a meal that contains entirely vegetarian ingredients. For example one of my favorite lunches is Trader Joe's Eggplant Parmesan. I also typically eat a vegetarian breakfast, though more for convenience. However at some point I need to eat a meal with a complete protein source and iron. I find most types of beans difficult to digest, except for soy. I really like soy if prepared properly but so many people can't cook tofu properly and it tests rubbery and horrid. So that leaves chicken and pork for me.

I focus more on I buy food on buying from the farmers' market if I can and organic. I have not done the calculations of the amount of waste and pollution the pork we buy from the farmers' market generates versus a factory farmed vegetable from Safeway. I do also eat out and the food probably comes from sources I would not buy from. But as Bittman says it's about creating a lifestyle you can maintain.

My votes for Super Tuesday

I'm pleased California actually counts in the primary. My two top issues are health care and the environment. Clinton and Obama are similar on environment. Clinton favors health care for all which makes sense but I'm not sure will pass politically. Obama favors health care for all kids. It means adults are left out in the cold but who can vote against kids. Congress already has some healthcare for kids. So I'll vote for Obama.

I think America is more ready to elect a man whose father was from Kenya and mom from America than the wife of a former president. The Clintons have made a lot of enemies as well as friends. I am also impressed that Obama has lined up some key endorsements like Ted Kennedy and several unions. Clinton is very detail oriented a good thing. Unfortunately attention to detail doesn't make a president electable as Reagan and Bush Jr have shown. It's the ability to surround yourself with good people. Obama appears to have that trait. Since turnout is usually low I think if Barack can get out the vote on presidental election day he will win.

On state propositions:
I'm voting yes on reform to term limits. I think term limits are undemocratic and don't allow congresspeople to build up enough experience and longevity to allow them more free reign to make deals and not be so tied to lobbyists. And the same folks run over and over just in different jobs so it doesn't stop the politicians from coming back anyway.

I'm voting no on everything else. I think the Indian gaming agreements need to happen in Congress and not via propositions. I don't have time to figure out all the ramifications of the agreement. That's why I elect politicians. I have seen countless ads on tv and via US mail so clearly a lot of money is riding on this.

I don't like earmarking funds for specific things in the budget. The state Congress needs the flexibility to create budgets in good times and bad. If you don't like your Congresspeople then vote for better folks.

$30,373 medical bill $0 paid

We get bills like this all the time. This one was a relatively small one. Little T pulled his g-tube out and we weren't able to put it back in time. We had to go the Emergency Room and then Little T had an minor operation to widen the hole to put another g-tube back in.

The total billed costs which is what an uninsured person would pay are $30,773.50

Medical Inpatient $ 21,921.00
Outpatient charge $ 91.50
Diagnostic Testing$ 8,361.00

Our insurance actually paid $3,900 of the inpatient rate which is their contracted rate. They paid nothing for the other two charges "payment for this service is included in the per diem rate or per case rate fee paid to your provider."

We paid nothing as our insurance pays for all hospitalizations and ER visits that result in admittance to the hospital.

Moral of the story:
1. Uninsured folks get really soaked.
2. Get the best health care insurance you can afford
3. We really need health care reform in this country, because it's a crappy system where folks who are either too poor or too unable to plan to get health insurance pay the most.
4. I bet Medical/Mediaid also gets soaked as they probably have a higher negotiated rate than insurance.

When will a president care about the fat and sugar offered to kids every day by the US government?

I am worried that the school will make my daughter fat and unhealthy with bad food choices. Is she going off to college? No she's going to kindergarten.

I looked at the school lunch menu for the entire months of August and September. I see items I might feed my child once in a while like hamburgers but not every day. During the Reagan era ketchup was declared a vegetable but I thought perhaps naively that things had gotten better with all these drive to get healthy. In fact at the bottom the menu declares in bold letters "Off to" (in an apple) A great Start" I also thought I could control whether or not my daughter ate lunch at school by choosing to give her money. No now they have a new convenient "card swipe system" so my child needs no money at all. It's a heavy burden for a five year old to make healthy choices and I am disappointed but unsurprised that I see so few healthy choices to make. The government rails that kids are fat and then offers them a host of fattening food subsided for $.40 to low income families. When will school meals actually become healthy instead of a victim of special interest groups? When will one of the presidential candidates actually speak up about this issue? I am listening and waiting and I am angry at the hypocrisy.

Here's Monday's lunch menu:

All white meat Chicken Drummies w/Tots Corn Dog (full of fat and nitrates) (some form of deep fried processed meat is offered four days a week one day a week the nuggets are baked whee!)
Reduced fat Pizza (offered twice a week)
Mini Twin Cheeseburger (offered twice a week under a different name)
Turkey (nitrates) and Cheese (processed) on whole wheat (a sad rather soggy sandwich).
Salad mix (a sad affair of iceberg lettuce and a couple carrots - offered twice a week)
Carrot Sticks with ranch dressing
Corn (buttered and heavily salted)
Mixed fruit (a fruit salad drenched in corn syrup - some form of fruit in corn syrup is offered every day)
Offered every day
Apples
Oranges
Bananas

Milk
1% Low Fat
Non Fat Chocolate

Now it's not that I expect the government to understand or value organic produce but to me "Off to a Great Start" implies more than just offering 3 types of fruit every day. What about some pasta? I have yet to meet a child who doesn't love mac and cheese. What about bagels?(Oh but they offer that twice a week at breakfast) along with Cinnamon roll Pancake on a stick and other ways to give your kid a great sugar high for the rest of their day.

Today we had a somewhat disturbing conversation to me. "Is it true that you need to drink three cups of milk a day?" she asked. I blinked a bit. "There's a cow in the cafeteria... A picture of a cow." she added hastily as she interpreted my gimlet gaze as perhaps thinking there was a real cow in the cafeteria. Instead of I confess I was thinking hormones from nonorganic milk. I take a deep breath. Well maybe a little hormones aren't so bad. Then she continues "I love chocolate milk. I dream of chocolate milk in class. I dream everybody except the people are made of chocolate milk."

Sending my oldest child my daughter off to kindergarten brings with it a whole host of worries. Will she enjoy kindergarten and learn? Will she make friends? Will her teacher like her? But all my typical fears have been addressed. She comes home each day excited and happy. But I did not expect to worry about her health.

I have solved this problem by telling her the school cafeteria is completely out of the control of the school. True. That she goes to a wonderful school. But the school lunches are terrible. And the school has no choice in the matter. It works for a five year old. But I think about other parents who go to the school. The one who qualify for the $.40 cent reduced price lunch -- a really low income level. Or even those who are at a slightly higher income level for whom spending $3 for lunch versus spending the money to get a proper lunch is an issue. I think it's fundamentally unfair. I also get angry with people who argue that kids will only eat fat and sugar. Sure that's what they'll eat if that's the only thing on offer.

Friend's blog banned from hospital

Chicago Moms Blogger Mary Anne's blog from my son's hospital. Her blog now contains cute baby pictures,but yes she does write porn.

I'm amused by the idea of a hospital blocking cute baby photos and a bit sad since they do brighten my day.

I understand that the hospital doesn't want people even parents viewing photos of porn in what is essentially a public place.  Even in my son's room people walk in and out all the time.  I do agree that seeing a porn image without one's consent is sexual harassment and doesn't belong in a hospital,  especially a children's hospital.  But I read her mommy blog posts only. And I can read this blog and any other Mommy blog to my heart's content and some even talk about *gasp* sex. Ironically Mary Anne recently wrote a post Things I'm Scared to Blog About.

Don't worry Mary Anne. They're much more scared of you. I wish there was a better filtering system. What people *read* on their own PC or laptop is their own business and reading is something one has to make an effort to do while an image is something one can see inadvertently. I'm not sure what the answer is.

Do you think I should be able to read Mary Anne's blog from my son's hospital?

Why I love American Idol: an embodiment of American values

I'm definitely what we'd call in Silicon Valley a "late adopter" to the whole American Idol thing. This is my first season ever watching any episode of the show. But I guess blogging about it several times and watching every single episode this season makes me a fan now. I blame Jill for the blogging part. Her hatred of Sanjaya prompted me to write my first blog about American Idol: Sanjaya makes me laugh.

Okay maybe blogging does not a fan make. But what makes me a fan is American Idol embodies some American cultural values (both good and bad)

* Absolute faith in the democratic process. The people decide who wins
* Glorification of entertainment and the entertainment industry
* Belief that individuals can make a difference not only by voting but in huge problems like poverty by voting and donating their money - Idol Gives Back
* Like the idea that "anyone can be president" (some restrictions apply), "anybody can be the Next American Idol(TM)" (some restrictions apply)
* Entertainment covering entertainment
* The belief that you can know someone's heart from watching them on tv, even though you have never met them.

And since I'm a fan, I know the show started in the UK, but it has really taken off here. I had shied away from American Idol for years, because I thought it was only about entertainment, and silly at that. And I still feel we get carefully packaged versions of these singers, but after all that's entertainment. It's the moral values that kept me coming back. And as an import from the UK myself, I think that makes me an American to believe that a show about entertainment can have morals.

The week Sanjaya stopped being entertaining and I stopped voting for him, he got voted off. Even my 5 year old daughter wouldn't watch him that week. I sorta miss Phil and his big blue soulful eyes, but he's not a good a singer as some of the others. And as for Chris, there's only so much Boy Band a girl can take.

I like the Final Four. I still want Melinda to win. She combines both a wonderful voice and a lot of heart and delivers it week after week. Plus my 2 year old son still screams like a groupie whenever he hears her sing. But Blake comes a close second. He makes every single song his own. Jordin has a great voice and great potential, but sometimes does seem young and misses in her performances. And LaKisha sometimes just blows me away with those pipes of hers, but other weeks, her heart doesn't seem to be in her songs.

Mini-vain and ashamed

This is my dream car. Only available in Japan. The Toyota Estima minivan which first came out in 2001 and has been redesigned this year. I'm not ashamed to say it. I am ashamed of how I got here.

When I was pregnant with our first child, we bought a Passat. My husband tried to get me to buy a minivan, but I categorically refused. I had this "eww!" reaction. It's funny, because I'm not really a car person. I want quality and reliability. Stylishness and image are not really on my list. Or so I thought.

My previous car was a Honda Civic hatchback. When I used to work in middle management at an Internet company, the people that worked for me used to rib me about my car. I occasionally thought "maybe I should get a more 'managerial car'." but I never did. I count on my Civic to always work. It fits five people and tons of stuff. The only thing that makes it less kid friendly than the Passat is it has just two doors. So you have to push down the seats to get at the kids. Plus the doors are pretty heavy.

But somehow a minivan symbolized something awful to me back then. I've always wanted to be a mom. But moms in minivans are a shamed group.

After child #2 , it became clear that the Passat was in fact antisocial, and very environmentally unfriendly. With today's car seats, it fits just our family of four...and a very skinny person who can squeeze between two car seats. So far we only know two people that can fit. But not another car seat. We don't want another child of our own. However as child #1 heads off to kindergarten this fall, we do want another child in our car, so we can carpool. So later this year, we'll buy a minivan, a Toyota Sienna

I feel ashamed of the incredible waste. My Civic is 11 years old, and my husband still drives it to work everyday. But we'll give up our Passat after just six years. I know some folks buy a new car every two years, but the Civic is the first car I bought new and only the second I've ever owned.

I really wish the hybrid minivan was here already, so at least I could say that I was holding out for a hybrid minivan.

A hybrid SUV is pretty environmentally unfriendly too. They're actually lower MPG than say a Prius and hold as many people, though I do admit they hold more gear.

But even so the environmental costs of buying a new car usually far outweigh keeping your old one. I feel ashamed that I listened to marketing and media instead of the common sense of my husband.

I share my shame with you in the hopes that someone reading this will learn from me as an example of what not to do.

But I'm also annoyed that every car maker under the sun is coming out with hybrid SUVs, but no minvans. Come on automakers. Surely, there's just as big if not bigger untapped market of environmentally conscious minivan mamas? Or is it just a weird artifact of the Bay Area and everyone else in the US is so minishamed that they'd rather buy an SUV?

Planet Earth needs a star

I'm really ticked off. This wonderful show called Planet Earth will air March 25 on the Discovery Channel. It's the American version of an English show originally produced by the BBC and David Attenborough. In case you're not living on planet earth, or at least not a nature show lover, David Attenborough is a wonderful naturalist who has produced many amazing nature shows. He also has a rich plummy English accent, and when he talks about certain natural wonders or discoveries, he brims with joy and enthusiasm. He literally becomes breathless with excitement. It's absolutely infectious, and wonderful to watch and hear.

When I was a kid, my dream was to become the next David Attenborough. Unfortunately I discovered that much of his work consists of sitting around for literally hours and hours waiting for that perfect shot. So now I just live vicariously through him.

But do I get my David Attenborough? Noooo. The American version of the show is narrated by Sigourney Weaver. Now I happen to like Sigourney Weaver as an actress. And yes she has spoken up about conservation. But she's no naturalist. It's not her work.

I want my David Attenborough! I am extremely disappointed. I'm also insulted. David Attenborough has produced several highly-rated and watched nature shows that have been aired by the Discovery Channel in his own voice. Why do Americans now need a famous actress to watch a nature show? Yes, David Attenborough is grey-haired, and even when young, his looks were not movie star quality. But he's the man. On the other hand, this is the first time I've heard about one of his shows on the Oprah show. Though no mention of his name was made there either. Hmph.

The merits of failure

Back when I was a kid, skipping grades was thought to be the ticket for the most concerned parents to achieve academic excellence. When we moved here from England I skipped a grade. My brother had a September birthday, and skipped two grades. My husband had a September birthday and stayed on grade level. He started taking college classes in high school.

Because I was born in November I was a ten year-old in a classroom of twelve year-olds. Due to the age gap, making friends was very hard for me. I think I missed out on a lot socially, because of that age difference. Academically yes I did well on paper. I went to a small private college. I got an MBA from UC Berkeley. But it took me almost flunking out of college to realise how to resolve my academic issues like how to study and how to compensate for my disability.

Now I understand the new trend is to hold children back from attending Kindergarten. I certainly understand that some kids simply aren't ready for kindergarten. But many of these parents have children who are ready, but hold them back to give them a better advantage. I wonder if these kids like me will have a hard time in later grades fitting in, because of their age gap.

My husband and I both agree that we want our kids to make friends. I don't want my kids to be bored, but my husband says "Learning how to cope with being bored isn't a bad thing." My husband says "we can teach our kids anything they need to know." I'm not so sure about that but I don't want to push my kids the way my parents did. I don't want them to get the message that my grades were the be all and end of my school life. I don't think that's what my parents intended but that's the message I received.

Our daughter is entering Kindergarten in the fall. She has an April birthday. She already knows how to read and write. Neither my husband nor I speak Spanish fluently. We both speak French, but we're too rusty to really teach her, and besides Spanish is much more useful. So we thought about the Dual Immersion program at Castro in Mountain View. Spanish is one of the few things I can't really teach her.

We were a bit concerned that the parents might not be involved at all, or too pushy. Instead they seemed to have the right mixture. I want my daughter to do her best, because she enjoys school. I didn't do my best until midway through college. I hated school for years.

Nobody at Harvard cares what grades my kids get until high school. My kids will have from high school onwards to compete with their peers. I hear some schools go to the other extreme and have no competition at all. Winning or losing is not allowed.

But there's a balance there somewhere. I think that pressure to strive needs to come from within. Too much pushing results in a child who develops that late or who strives in the wrong ways. I read that cheating is rampant in Palo Alto schools. I think a large part of that comes from the idea that winning at any cost is good. That is not a lesson I want to impart to my kids.

Anyway at a certain point, I won't be around to push them anymore. Nor will I be around to tell the teacher their rules are stupid. Sometimes one just have to follow stupid rules. That's life. A lesson my children need to learn. Ever dealt with the INS? I would rather my children figure out these important life lessons in grade school as my husband did, than in college as I did. My parents and grandparents imparted a love of learning through their own actions - their love of travel books and science.

My son has a September birthday. He has multiple delays at the moment due to spending the first 18 months of his life on steroids and going in and out of the hospital. I'm not sure if he'll be ready for kindergarten or not. He's only two, so it's a long way away. However it will based on if he is academically and socially ready.

I do agree that the cutoff date for Mountain View (Dec 2) is rather late and I wish the US had a more standardized educational system. I quite understand a parent choosing to delay a child who was born later than September if they're thinking about moving or if they simply aren't ready. However, when I hear about perfectly typical kids born in August or even July delaying Kindergarten, IMO it gets a bit silly.

I wonder if these kids are being taught the same lesson my parents unconsciously taught me. Getting along with your peers isn't important. Getting good grades is all that matters. I rebelled against this message by not getting the best grades I could. My parents upped the pressure. Yes I did fine. But I think I would have done fine anyway without the pressure and pushing. My parents now tell me this. I believe them.

Of course I do care a lot about my children's future. But as I learned from my son who is one of the hardest working people I know. Success in life ironically comes from failing. My son almost failed to live.

I feel like as a culture we're afraid of failure. We're afraid to let our kids fail lest it scar them. Parents either avoid competition altogether or push their children to always succeed. Parents tell me if my child doesn't get into X preschool or Y school they will fail in some way. My parents failed me in a sense. They weren't perfect. But I turned out just fine.

One of the great things about the US is that you get loads of second chances. You can go back to school and/or change careers. The apocryphal story about Einstein is he had speech delays etc. I think what's more interesting is that he dropped out of secondary school and also failed the entrance exam to go to college. He went to Switzerland to attend another secondary school.

Inadequate use of technology costs lives

With great sadness, I just read a news headline Report: Frequent Confusion in Kim Case. James Kim was the man who died of exposure while hiking out to save his family. I don't know if a better search operation would have changed the outcome. However, the "what if?" must be agony for his family.

Unfortunately it reminds me of the reports I read about the rescue operations for Katrina. Lack of communication, lack of coordination, and lack of appropriate use of technology cost lives. We have the greatest software and networking companies in the world. We spend billions of dollars on the "war to fight terrorism." Our phone records can be tapped without our knowledge and consent? How about spending some money on producing systems that work for saving people from natural disaster? How about a system that tracks cell phone records for folks that are reported missing?

"Two Edge Wireless engineers acting on a hunch sifted cell phone records and found a text message for the Kims that had bounced off a cell phone tower near Glendale and had been received somewhere to the west of the tower. They notified authorities the night of Dec. 2, which focused the search."

Before this was done the authorities had a search area of 300 miles to search. I don't understand why a cell phone search wasn't part of standard search and rescue procedure. I also don't understand why this records search took so long when the family was reported missing on November 29. I can search all the calls I've received or placed in a matter of moments. But then it's not a manual process.

It's just incredibly ironic to me that a man who advocated the latest and greatest portable technology may have died because people didn't use technology appropriately.

The government didn't even rescue the Kims stranded in the car. A helicopter hired by the extended Kim family acted on a hunch. The Kims were lucky and wealthy. I applaud the Kims for using all the resources they had, but one's ability to be rescued shouldn't depend on wealth. It's shameful in the richest country in the world.

I don't actually blame the sherrifs involved. I myself have worked on disaster recovery, albeit for computer systems. I know that in crisises people rely on procedures; procedures they've already rehearsed. It's hard for people to think clearly. The procedures must involve using technology and coordination in ways that work. Otherwise many people get confused under intense pressure. And if this occurs rescuing computer systems, I can imagine how much more confused people get trying to rescue people. Much more pressure and also emotion.

I'm still very sad that James Kim died. And getting a better search and rescue effort for Oregon after the fact is probably little consolation to Kim's family. However, I'm glad that a relatively wealthy and well known individual was involved to give the state a wake up call.

Unfortunately I still feel that a failure in other states could still happen, because most of the individuals involved in Katrina were poor and uneducated. We really need national procedures to deal with disasters.

I read many many articles and blogs that blamed the victims of Katrina and individual officials. "They should have left when they heard the warnings." Well, if you don't have car, or enough gas to get out far enough, you'te stuck waiting for the government. Confusion also reigned and inadequate resources were deployed too late. It meant that pets or people in hospitals couldn't be transported. People had to choose to leave loved ones behind. Some people chose to stay. James Kim chose to leave to find help. It's easy to second guess after the fact. Katrina victims should have left. Kim should have stayed. But the right answer at the time wasn't clear. And these folks should never have had to face these terrible choices.

Another report states "The US is unprepared for another disaster." I don't know if terrorists will strike our airports or airplanes. I do know that people will get lost, and more major hurricanes will strike. I wish our country had good plans to rescue our own before we try to rescue other countries like Iraq.

Silence about Disabilities=Shame

I thought that attitudes towards disabilities were changing. I thought that what made things awkward, about talking my son was that for a time he was not only disabled but in danger of dying. The infant death taboo is a whole other post.

But when I read this article "What's the greatest challenge of having a daughter with autism? Telling people about it. , It makes me sad. As someone who grew up with a movement disorder, it's the same attitude my parents have. My parents occasionally talk about "my shake" at home but they don't use the proper term or say I had a disability. I don't actually shake at all. I jerk. My parents very rarely talk about it to others. Like the writer of this article, they're not ashamed of me but hope they can hide my disability from others. That people will only notice my good qualities.

Unfortunately, the world notices differences. As a child other kids called me names and people stared. They sometimes stare now. I don't have any problems with speech like Paige, but as a child I didn't know the words to defend myself. I grew up feeling ashamed of my disability. My parents occasionally told me they were proud of me, but I interpreted their silence as shame about my disability. Some people felt awkward around me not necessarily because of my disability but because there was this elephant in the room that we never talked about.

Parents think they're protecting their children by not talking about their disabilities, but really they're leaving their child unprepared for the world. For a time I was very angry with my parents.

Now with a son with an unrelated physical disability, I understand the awkward silences. I understand the looks of horror. Sometimes people's eyes fill with tears. Sometimes people spill their life story. It creates odd moments sometimes tender and sometimes so awkward or maudlin I wish I could just leave.

My son has a giant vascular tumor in his left arm that is currently in remission. The details are horrifying. He has multiple delays and his left arm barely moves. But those are his problems. I want people to see my son as the bright, social boy he is, and not his disabilities. However, his arm is a part of him as surely as his sunny smile.

For a time I stumbled around, lost in medical jargon. I didn't have easy words because my son has a disease that no one has heard of. No one understood me. Later, I realized I needed to keep it simple and use easy words like "tumor" "speech delay". Most people don't actually care about the details. They just want to have some understanding of what they see right now.

So I talk about it in a matter of fact way when things come up. For example the other day I was talking with friends about first haircuts. I said I put off cutting my son's hair for far longer than I prolly should have. I was afraid he might go through another round of chemo and steroids, so why cut his hair when it would just fall out? My friends have gotten used to this kind of talk and it's just part of the conversation.

I won't lie. I have lost some friends. Some friends who say "it's too hard." "why do I have to talk about this stuff?" aka my life or simply avoid me. You don't know who can handle the truth and who doesn't. It has surprised me who left and who stayed. But I would rather have friends who truly accept and appreciate me and that includes my son.

Everyone has good days and bad days. My bad days include trips to the ER. My good days include one of the happiest people I know. I wouldn't trade my son for anything. And so every day I model for him what I wish I had when I was growing up.

Kind blog but not any kinder

After some thought, I decided to join Karen of Chookooloonks in designating this a I hope you find what I say occasionally insightful. I don't promise to be uplifting since my life is sometimes sad, and I also think that's a adjective others give to you rather than one you can give yourself, but the sign didn't say uplifting. It said "kind." I suppose I feel kind is also an adjective that others give to you as well.

On first impression, I don't think I come across as kind, so I'm not sure this blog comes aross as kind. I'm often preoccupied. I hvae a sharp wit. I'm slow to warm to people. But yes, I suppose I am kind. I help people. I used to do more when I could do more. I'm the sort of friend that people drop in or call when they're having a really bad day, even now. I sometimes say nice things, which are true, and always seems to startle people. But I'm the Elizabeth Bennett type. You'll have to read a fairly long way into the story to find my acts of kindness.

I've always been very careful in this public blog about what I say about other people, both those I know and don't know. Too many people have said cruel things to me either intentionally or unintentionally on my journey as a disabled person, especially, and sometimes as a woman of color for me to want to be cruel to others. Anyway, I find it's not very productive for me personally. It's more of a selfish thing. I'd rather devote my energy to people who are actually nice to me.

But still I'm English and I'm not entirely comfortable with the label 'kind'. So mushy. A part of me says stubbornly, "I absolutely refuse to blog any differently." But I don't think I have to. And the flower is very pretty.

I can't vote on my own anymore

For the past two elections, for the first time in my voting life, I couldn't vote on my own. I had to ask my husband to help me use the touchscreen. I have a movement disorder, but I can use an ATM touchscreen on my own just fine. However, the touch screen bubbles on the voting machine were placed so close together and the screen was so poorly designed that I could not pick the candidates on my own. Just one of the many flaws of the touch screen voting machines.

Like the rest of the country I was really embarrassed about the voting shenanigans in Florida. In response, the California politicians rushed in these touchscreen machines. Many people don't trust them and rightly so.

More than terrorists hijacking airplanes, I worry about terrorists and other extremists hijacking our voting systems. It is too easy to change the software of our current machines and therefore change people's votes. The code is proprietary. Under current law only certain groups are allowed to test the machines.

Even with no malicious intent involved, computers crash. Software has bugs. You can not count on any computer system to work flawlessly. Yet our current voting system is based on that assumption. The error checking and auditing is laughable. No business would stand for such a system. I used to work for bank systems at credit unions. Believe it or not, yes there's a paper trail for every single transaction you make, even at an ATM. And occasionally the credit union must go back and audit every single transaction. The incumbent Secretary of State only got the machines to produce a paper trail after massive protests. The fact the machines weren't designed with a paper trail to begin with indicates the massive ignorance of the current Secretary of State about technology.

Some folks say "vote absentee." That will not help you. A human will merely use the same machines to put your vote into the same flawed machines.

Before my life as a mom, I help design and deploy the infrastructure of a major broadband ISP. I thought a lot about security issues. I don't believe in government conspiracies. I do believe that my vote counts if the machines work. However I don't trust that computers will always work perfectly.

We're at a crucial time in this whole voting machine process. I actually haven't made up my mind who will get my vote for governor. I still haven't made up my mind about the huge numbers of other ballot initiatives, except I'm pro choice so I'll vote no on 85. I still have to sort through piles of information and actually read the text of all the initiatives. But I do know I'll vote for Debra Bowen for Secretary of State.

One of the first things she did as a rookie congressperson was to pass a bill to put the State Congress online. She also passed a bill to prevent identity theft. Her web site says sensible things about the voting machines. If you care about the integrity of our voting system, I urge you to vote for Debra Bowen.
Crossposted to Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Mixed headlines on the causes of autism

This graph shows the rising number of cases of autism. And the headline of the Washington Post on Monday read
Autism Risk Rises With Age Of Father
It began with "Children born to fathers of advancing age are at significantly higher risk of developing autism compared with children born to younger fathers, according to a comprehensive study published yesterday that offers surprising new insight into one of the most feared disorders of the brain."

According to a United press article released yesterday, the study was comprehensive, but it was done in the 1980's and while the number of fathers was large, the total number of children with autism who had older dads was small, only 13. There were also only 4000 children born to fathers over 40 versus 128,000 children with fathers under 40. It makes the possible margin of error enormous. It means that the higher number of children with autism born to fathers over 40 may simply be due to how the data was collected and there may be no age difference at all.

The United press article then goes on to argue how autism isn't genetic, but caused by environmental factors. I think more data definitely needs to be gathered to make any sort of conclusion. But I suspect as with most health issues, both genetics and environment play a role. Perhaps certain genes combined with toxins in the environment give you autism.

Even though I didn't agree with either article, I was glad to see more discussion about the causes of autism on the front page of a major newspaper. Also for once, dads' age is getting the spotlight instead of the usual moms' age story.

We're not color blind unless we can't see colors

Just as I think it's silly to deny that the men and women are biologically different, I think it's silly to deny there are races, or whatever you want to call, specific genetic characteristics that tend to cluster together. There are slight differences in biology beyond gradiences in skin color. However we're far more than our biology. I think the main ways race actually denote any differences of importance is in medicine. Even in anthropology and archaelogy, people are discovering that people are more interbred than previously thought. Like gender, race is mostly huge layers of cultural constructs layered on top of a thin layer of biology. So please don't tell me you're color blind unless you can't actually see certain colors, or I'll laugh at you.

These babies all look slightly different in terms of body shape, hair type, not just skin color.


Though people fail to recognise that many multi-racial people break their standard filters for determining race. Transgendered or intersexed people break people's filters for determining gender, but that's another discussion. And especially if you're a doctor, you had better ask someone's race rather than just assume you know, because it should affect how you treat them medically.

So I don't see anything wrong with identifying someone by race or ethnicity anymore than I see something wrong with identifying someone as a man or a woman. It's usually easier to tell someone's sex, than someone's ethnicity and you might be wrong more often, but it is an identifying attribute. However I do see something wrong with using race as the sole identifier to describe someone. I'm not the Anglo Burmese woman. There are others like me.

And then of course there's the problem that once you've identified someone as belonging to a particular race or ethnicity, what you do with that information. Small children like Special K don't understand race and ethnicity, but the construct is embedded in our culture and after a certain age, it becomes part of one's way of thinking like gender. Special K already understands gender. And unless you're somehow incapable of absorbing cultural norms, I just don't believe that people don't assign people to some category of race or ethnicity. Categorizing is what humans do. How we make sense of the world.

I would argue that a person who says "I'm color blind" actually assigns everyone to the category of white. People who are rude, or uneducated, or somehow don't fit zie's notion of whatever white means are then downgraded to whatever ethnicity they actually are. That way zie is free to comfortably keep zie's stereotypes about race or ethnicity, because these people fit the stereotype anyway.

Blog against racism week

It's Blog against Racism week. Details are here.

I'm a disabled Anglo Burmese woman of above average height. I'm married to a Chinese American man of average height.

The worst way I experience racism is when I've been mistaken for Hispanic and get treated badly. Along with this assumption is frequently the assumption I can't speak English, and the person speaks to me in loud patronizing slow tones or tries really bad Spanish. However as soon as I open my mouth and my slight Queen's English accent comes out, the person realises I'm not in fact Hispanic. That may be part of the reason I retained a little accent, but if so it was unconscious.

The main way I experience racism is white Americans often assume I'm white, because I have relatively pale skin (not white but a little lighter than most East Asians) and I'm tall. Sometimes African Americans do also. That unconscious assumption that everyone is white dovetailed with my childhood discomfort with my own race. There's much about my Burmese heritage I don't understand and most Americans have never even of heard of Myanmar. I used to feel bad about this, that I wasn't Burmese enough. My brother and sister are both several shades darker than me, darker than most East Asians, unmistakably a non-white shade. Then I realised that beyond this set of folks, other people knew I was multi-racial. They might not get the Burmese part, but they knew I wasn't white.

And I'm afraid when people do know something about Burma, their characterization of my mother's people invariably grates. They describe them as happy or loving life or backwards, terms you'd use to describe children. Yet before college I didn't identify as a person of color.

But I also see that it's hard to recognize the privileges one has. I went to a womyn's music festival and yes woman was spelled with a 'y'. At a concert, some women of color were dancing in front of some white women in wheelchairs. The women in wheelchairs asked the women of color to move, because they couldn't see. The wheelchair seating was limited to a specific area. The women of color called them racist and oppressing them. Finally a woman in a wheelchair managed to get a guard who escorted the women of color to another area. Later one of the women of color complained to me about their "ill-treatment". She was totally shocked when I not only took the women in wheelchairs side, but that in fact she was being incredibly ableist not to see how far from being oppressed she was abusing her able-bodied privilege to oppress others.

But in many ways my self-image has changed a lot. I feel a lot more comfortable identifying as half Burmese. I can see more clearly the culture my mother passed on to me. And in some ways right now I'm the ideal Burmese woman.

Yet this has not changed people's assumptions. Most people who know me say my daughter looks a lot like me. However she has straight black classic Asian hair. My hair is a couple shades lighter than black and wavy. Once I was asked if my daughter was adopted! Others would ask the question "Where does your daughter come from?" and look surprised when I said "From me". Now that my son has been born and he has dark brown hair, I rarely get asked if my children are my birth children. Ironically other than hair color and skin color, he looks a lot like C.

Earlier in my life, I would feel offended or worried that people think my children don't belong to me. Now I think it's funny and reflects their own silly assumptions. I accept my role as someone who can pass as both white and ablebodied not because I am either or get to bask in privilege, but because people fail to notice the obvious due to their own blinders. At some point, another family member shows up (besides C), or I have to eat, and the gig is up. I get tired of speaking up sometimes and I haven't had much energy to do it lately, but I do still speak up instead of remaining silent. That's the best I can do right now.

But actually I do think I have a tremendous amount of racial privilege that Americans don't talk about much. I profit every day from other races in the Third World including my mother's native country. The US spends billions of dollars arming oppressive regimes who kill and rape people. Billions of children starve while my country and other rich nations do very little. The Gates foundation leads the fight against basic African diseases. I think it's shameful it has taken so long and it takes a software engineer to wake up the Western world. The equivalent masskiller European diseases were wiped out or controlled in the beginning of the previous century or earlier. I buy goods made by people who will never have access to the infrastructure, education or goods and services that I do simply because of where they were born. I know I contribute to the problem by not paying careful attention to where I buy things and that my government's own policies contribute massively to the problem. And most of the time I don't give it a second thought. I take it for granted my numerous privileges like running water, a tv, and basic sanitation. Only sometimes do I remember shocking things like if Little T had been born in Myanmar, he would not have survived.

Relationship models

I watched the Montel show on polyamory and it turned out to be surprisingly balanced and respectful. I thought a lot of the views that Montel voiced are simply what the average American thinks and feels. I thought it was interesting that Montel contrasted polyamory with the religious right's definition of relationships and said "by their standards we're all living wrong".

I did have one quibble which was that the people on the show were careful to say that they weren't advocating polyamory and of course the blurb made it out that they were saying it was "the best way". Neither am I. Polyamory works for some folks, but it requires a great deal of time and energy. If you read my blog for any length of time, you'll know I have very limited time and energy right now.

I just think it's important to talk about sex and love and your model for relationships with the person you're with. I don't think people talk enough about their assumptions. Basic assumptions like what constitutes sex and intimacy, whether or not to have kids, when to have kids, who will look after the kids, who will do chores, what's your basic spending patterns, attitudes towards money, etc. C and I talked a lot about these things before we got married and I attribute our basic level of happiness to our shared bedrock of common understanding and values.