The Mommie Wars

There was a lot of snarling and barking in my house in Hawaii last week, and we don’t even own a dog.



The fighting (let’s call it intense marital negotiations) was over whose turn it was to entertain our five-year- old. My husband was trying to get his latest scientific paper out to IEEE; I was trying to finish a chapter in my next suspense/thriller. My daughter was reviewing our definitions of boundaries and writing all over them with orange and purple finger paint.



Several working mothers I know – the ones who hire nannies and drive off to work in designer suits every morning at 8:00 – get a lot done every day. As a writing Mom, I have a great office to write in, but I rarely get to write there. Instead, my writing gets done on a yellow pad of paper at the park, or in the laundry room near a pile of dirty clothes that dwarfs Mauna Kea. I create new characters while I'm cruising the aisles in Walmart. Work on my plot-line while I'm sitting mindlessly all Sunday afternoon at four and five-year-old's birthday parties with a lot of other parents who would give anything not to be there. I don't think this is at all what Virginia Woolf had in mind when she wrote about claiming a room of one's own.



Right in line with Mom’s Day, I have some advice to other writing moms or dads, or any person who work at home and has family obligations they can’t shirk.



Guard your time with your life, because a lot more is expected from women who work at home. Clean houses, free baby-sitting, long lunches with girlfriends and contributions to the school bake sale are for those who have "extra time" on their hands.



Learn to say “No,” and stop caring what other people think. Your life has to fit around the needs of this little person, until they are old enough to take responsibility to themselves.



These days I make zero accommodations for the gripes of those who don’t like the way I’m running my life. Except for one person—my daughter, to whom I have sworn never to turn a deaf ear. And I have another parental obligation as well, to turn my writing into a money-making business, because pesky necessities like health insurance and college tuition keep getting more costly.



Kindergarten starts for my daughter in two months—in Hawaii, it starts in July. I don’t know who is more excited: Carmen or myself. But strangely, I will miss these pre-school years because they have taught me a valuable lesson. I no longer judge other moms for their choices, or non-moms for their lack of understanding.



A final piece of advice to you if you’re a mom or a dad? Give it your best shot, one day at a time. That’s all any of us can expect from ourselves.



Posted by Cheryl Swanson, Death Game



The Trouble With Talent



have a bright daughter and I want her to succeed. I should tell her how smart she is, right?



That’s what 85 percent of parents think. But they’re wrong—according to the latest research. With Mother’s Day looming, this is a good time to focus on how we may be sapping our children’s motivation and limiting their future success. And—interestingly—our own as well.



According to a Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s recent book, Mindset: the New Psychology of Success, applying any label to our child, even a positive one, can be harmful. Telling a child they are “smart” instills a fixed mind-set and all the baggage that goes with it. Well-meaning words of praise can create performance anxiety and cause a child to give up quickly.



If I wasn’t a mother, I probably wouldn't have believed Dweck’s research. But a few months back I realized that my five-year-old daughter Carmen was throwing a tantrum when she didn't grasp new skills quickly. As an only child surrounded by doting parents and grandparents, Carmen has been told repeatedly how smart she is.



We told her she was smart because we thought we were helping to instill self-confidence. What we actually instilled was the rapid onset of frustration. When Carmen can’t master a new task instantly, she flings herself in a corner and shrieks: “I can’t do it!”



Her five-year-old friends (mostly from large Hawaiian families, where the children don't get praised for every tiny achievement) are much more likely to persist. When they can’t do something, they think they simply have not tried hard enough. Those children use their failures as fuel; they keep trying.



My husband and I are listening carefully to what we say to Carmen these days. We still praise her for her inherent goodness and let her know we unconditionally love her. But we no longer praise her talent or intelligence. Instead, we praise her for the work she puts into things and the way she concentrates.



Dweck’s research should be noted not just by parents, but by all who aspire to continue to be commercially successful authors. (Or authors at all.) The research bears directly on a problem we face every day. We’re talented, right? So how come the world isn’t beating a pathway to our door? How come we have to continually struggle to attract the attention of agents, publishers and readers?



According to Dweck, excessive concern about looking “smart” can keep us from making bold, visionary moves. If you’re afraid of making mistakes, your whole approach becomes defensive: "I have to make sure I don’t screw up."



I’m proud of our madten authors, because they don’t fall into this trap. M. D. Benoit, for instance, just did a week-long virtual reality launch of her new sci-fi, Synergy. It was a wild idea--and something she dreamed up on her own. Gloria Oliver is forever going to conferences—pressing the flesh and talking to her fans. Mayra Calvani , who writes fabulous dark fantasy, is trying something new by publishing a children’s book. (She’s already won awards for her children's short stories.) Joan Upton Hall publishes regional non-fiction, alternate reality fiction, writer's guides, you name it. Her latest project is PageTurners: a newsletter (full of contests and the latest information on 'page-turning' authors) that can be delivered to your e-mail. And then there's J. C. Hall. She's simultaneously writing and publishing two fantasy trilogies. Try that on for size!



Authors who fall into the talent trap simply don’t last. (Unfortunately, I know plenty of those authors as well.) Fear of not looking ‘smart' causes total writer’s block—which is really a kind of "learned helplessness." (We’re not doing what we’re capable of because of fear of failure.)



Dweck’s research is making waves in educational circles. She has launched a whole new field of educational psychology, focusing on how wanting to look smart might keep us from learning. According to her, intelligence is not fixed from birth; it can be developed and made to grow.



Yesterday, I spent five minutes trying to teach Carmen how to play jacks. Her hand is so small she can’t fit the ball and jacks into it Carmen explained to me that was why she couldn’t do it and started to throw a tantrum.



I put the jacks out of reach and went upstairs to make dinner. When I came downstairs, Carmen had climbed up the bookcase and retrieved the jacks. She was teaching herself how to play using both hands.



I was damn proud of her, but I snuck away and didn’t say a word.