It happens all the time, even with careful planning. Someday, somewhere, one of your kids is going to need to use a public bathroom and only the opposite-gender parent is going to be available to accompany.

You know what I’m talking about. Your son in the ladies’ room with you. Your daughter in the men’s room with her daddy. It happens. But how do we feel about it?

My daughter, when she was 4 and 5, was frequently escorted to public restroom by her father. I was doing 24/7 nursing with her baby brother and Daddy was more than happy to assist his daughter in her time of need. I pretty much had to turn a blind eye to the whole routine and let go, but I remember being concerned with statements he made to me from time to time in an offhand way such as “men’s toilets aren’t all that clean.” He had been changing her diaper in public bathroom on airplanes and in restaurants since she was small, and I trusted that he was keeping her from contact with dirty surfaces, but it never entered into my mind until I sat down to write this post that my daughter probably was confronted with the sight of urinating grown men.
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Baby naming. It’s an art. What parent hasn’t spent hours poring over baby name books, making lists and refining them, trying to find The Perfect Name for upcoming little Junior or Juniorette, still just an oven-baking bun but nevertheless one with tiny fingers and toes that all need a name. The perfect name.

The other day I read Salon’s blog The Squirrel and was intrigued by his discussion of baby names. Apparently there are rules to naming babies. I knew this. Rules like:

• You can’t use the names of your former lovers, or even worse, your partner’s former lovers. Imagine the awkwardness. Just no.
• You can’t use a name that’s already been used by friends. This is also a no-brainer. After all, who wants to pepper the world with Jacobs or to doom one’s kid to being known as “Jacob M.”, or worse, “Jacob 3″? Plus there is the whole copycat thing. Even though you’ve been holding this name in reserve since you were 12, if a couple you know or someone at the office conceives first and uses Your Awesome Baby Name you are just SOL. You have to be unique.

But not too unique. That’s where the dance comes in. The perfect name. Not too long, not too short. Not too dorky, but just the right amount of dorky. Not too trendy, but cool enough.
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It goes without saying that it’s a challenge to work and be a mother — after all, that’s the focus of Work It, Mom. And hey, parenthood in general is challenging, work-life balance notwithstanding.

I ran across Divine Caroline’s list of the best careers for moms (I’ll list them in a moment) and was intrigued. Sure, the list is from last year, actually, but it stands the test of time. These careers make sense with parenthood. They can be rewarding, both financially and emotionally, and even more importantly, they allow for flexibility. Anyone who’s had to dash out of a meeting to pick up a sick kid from school after a call from the nurse appreciates flexibility.

But … what if your cup of work tea is something else? Most of us don’t choose college majors and then the resulting careers based on what we think might later fit in with future children. (And why should we? Can we move to a society where work life and family life can both be a priority?) The careers on this list are, for the most part, undeniably easier to fit in with a family. Would you switch to one of them, or one like them, to bring more balance to your life?
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My younger daughter is nine. Nine-and-a-half, actually, and her days as a kid are numbered. Girls are hitting puberty earlier and earlier these days, and while I kept Serena away from the hormones in milk and meat that are associated with early puberty when she was younger, she’s, well, not getting any younger. She’s going to get a visit from Aunt Flo, drive in a red car, surf the crimson wave, or ride the red pony soon enough. (Like those euphemisms? There are more. Lots more.)

I had just turned 13. It was the summer between 8th grade and 9th (how fitting, the change from little-girl junior high to big-girl high-school) and a few months before my mom had pulled me aside, handed me a box of maxi pads (how was I going to hide this? The box was as big as our new microwave oven!), and asked if I “needed anything.” That was it. That was The Talk. Thanks, Mom. I guess I can read the side of the box myself.
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I was walking my usual 3-mile hike through the forest yesterday, thinking about how much my kids love nature.  Serena (9) loves to gallop alongside me on the trail; usually she’s a mule named Daisy who helps me over streams, but not always.  She loves nature because it’s an extension of who she is.  Nathaniel (13) strides along, lost in thought.  He loves nature because of the peace he feels in it, and the connection among all things.  And Eric (5) just loves being outside, loving nature simply because it’s part of his world.

I love that my kids have a love for something I hold such a deep connection to myself.  I feel lucky to have passed this along to them.  Their love for the world around them will help them as adults, and may shape their eventual gifts to the world at large.

I thought about this as I walked, so glad I had passed on the Most Important Thing to my kids.

And then —
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We’ve all faced this dilemma: it’s bedtime for your only child, age 10, when he says, “Mom! I need [fill in the blank] for school tomorrow.” You don’t have any [fill in the blank] in the house, your spouse isn’t home, it’s past 9 pm, so what do you do?

Maybe this is a bad example. Some of us would say, “too bad, so sad” and be done with it. Some of us are never alone with our kids in the evening, being blessed with partners who are actually home and who actually help with parenting stuff. And what stores open past 9?

Having spent years married to an airline pilot who was regularly away for days at a time, and then years after that as a single mom of three kids (plus years before that as a single mom of one), this kind of thing happened to me a lot.  Not so much the last-minute Mom-I-need-it requests, but the dilemma of needing to leave kids at home came up a LOT. And mostly, I didn’t. It was pretty much out of the question.

What worked (or didn’t) for me is probably different than what works for you. But here are my general rule(s) of thumb:
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Maybe this is an unfair question.  After all, we all love our kids.  I’m not questioning that.  But what if you could turn back the hands of time for a do-over.  Would you still have kids?  And if you would, is there anything else you would change?

I have regrets.  Things I wish I did differently.  Smarter.  With more forethought.  It’s the old “knowing what I know now” thing.  Let me explain:
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Yesterday I got some advice: act like my 9 year-old daughter for a day. All day, channeling Serena.

Um. I’m not sure I can do it. She’s very different from me. When she’s hurt, you know it (so does the whole neighborhood). Me, I keep mine inside, or I try to. After all, how many of us are comfortable showing our inner pain in front of our kids?

And when Serena’s happy, you know that, too. Her whole body bounces, her eyes shoot sparkling diamonds, and the very air reverberates with her happiness. Me, happy? Hahaha. (I blog it).
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When I was a kid everyone walked to school. Everyone. If we didn’t walk, we biked. Even in kindergarten. Of course, this was the time Way Back When Before Things Were Safe, when we rode seatbeltless piled into the backs of station wagons and we all owned cap guns and we always had scabbed knees from learning to roller skate and we walked alone to the candy store every week with our Saturday allowance in hand and as toddlers we sported coffee table cornered bruises on our foreheads.

So what happened?

I’d like to think we can pinpoint one event, one moment in our collective social history that forever transformed kids from the independent little beings they used to be
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How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat?

That bowl of cold congealed peas, eaten alone after the table was deserted except by one solitary small weeping figure, was not going to disappear by itself.

Later, the rule was that vegetables were to be eaten before even a bite of bread could be consumed. You dared not even think of dessert until and unless your plate was scraped clean first. You had to consume every last inedible something-went-wrong-in-the-freezer lima bean before anyone else even touched — and then refused to eat — theirs.
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