Dispatches

How to Teach Kids Family Values - Let's begin with gratitude, 'cause it's Thanksgiving.

Jeanne Sager

Cake time came and went, followed by pin the tail on the donkey and bat the piñata around Dad's head. And still, I waited.

My daughter was eyeing the Sesame Street wrapped package she'd proudly placed on the far edge of the present table. The tangled wad of tape where she'd "helped" just barely covered the word "dinosaur."

"When is present time?" I whispered to the lucky little boy's mom. She looked aghast. "Um, we don't want Little Timmy [name changed to protect the rude] to look at his birthday like it's all about the gifts," she said. "You know, we prefer him to value giving over receiving."

Thus heralded my introduction to the "no opening gifts" party, to be followed as my daughter entered preschool by a steady mix of more of the same, interspersed with the "no gifts, please bring a donation to [insert your charity here]."

I admit I'd prefer a little bit of value for receiving. I have yet to receive a thank you note from one of those parties. It turns out raising a giving child doesn't naturally beget raising a thankful one.

"You would think they go on the same empathy line," says Amy Dworetsky, a child psychologist who works with adolescents in upstate New York. "But look at it developmentally, and forcing them to give is going against every developmental thread in their body. Kids under five are very egocentric. They're me, me, me."

In other words — they aren't learning to enjoy or even value giving. They're doing it begrudgingly.

Thank you, on the other hand, is something that can be taught from a very young age and quickly becomes second nature. Research shows the feeling it implies — gratitude — will follow, but does not become a fully developed part of a child's personality until age five or six.

"For children and parents, receiving should not be about the actual receiving but rather about learning the delicate skill of being gracious," says Megan Jordan, a mother of three from Gulfport, Mississippi and editor-in-chief of BlogNosh. "So what if your kid has a million toys and you'd rather her guests donate to the Humane Society? I'm betting your kid could use some honing of her 'receiving' skills. And yeah, that may mean receiving her fortieth My Little Pony. Deal with it, kid. And do it by showing gratitude and thankfulness even though you already have nine of that color."

Jordan is aware her kids are still young, but she is attempting to give her elder children — boys, three and five — early cues to balance out materialism. It's not about the object received at a holiday, she tells them, but the fact that someone was kind enough to give it.

"I tell them, 'If you get the same present, you say something about how awesome it is that you have a back-up now or something similar'," she explains.

Despite parents' push to move the toys out and turn off the materialistic faucet, it turns out "stuff" isn't necessarily so bad for kids either. A Harris Interactive survey of more than 1,200 kids between the ages of eight and eighteen found kids who were grateful for what they had were also more generous, even if they were fairly materialistic. The child who sits at a holiday function screaming, "Presents, presents, presents!" and ripping through each box is not learning to be thankful, Dworetsky allows. "My kids have a lot of stuff, it makes me crazy," she said with a laugh. "But if they appreciate where it came from, and they acknowledge where it came from, that stuff is a teaching tool."

What's more, the experts say the exchange of material goods, including holiday extravaganzas with the kids, can offer lessons in thankfulness even when the kids receive something they don't care for or simply don't get that much-wanted Xbox. Kids learn social nuances: how to be grateful that someone else did something for them (in this case, buy a gift) and how to express thankfulness rather than regret.

"Kids have to learn not everything is equal," Kashdan explains. "You can only control fifty percent of a social reaction. Short-term pain is a great tool, it teaches kids to be flexible in different situations."

It's a means to move young children out of a me-centered world, something they're generally ready to face by kindergarten. And gracious kids, it turns out, are better equipped for school. A 2008 study by professors at the University of California, Davis and Hofstra University linked "children who practice grateful thinking" to better attitudes toward school and family life.

"The research on gratitude shows better health and mental health outcomes for persons who are higher in gratitude, and that gratitude is something that can be cultivated (e.g. journaling something each day for which one is grateful)," explains Ramani Durvasula, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at California State University, Los Angeles. "These are easy skills to build in kids. In my home at dinner, when my children are with me, we play the highs and lows game. Each of us shares the high and low point of our day and then reflect on what we learned from these things. It forces us to take stock of our days, and realize that even the low stuff represents a salient and useful learning experience."

Even with gratitude there can be too much of a good thing. Like the no-gift parties, experts warn against pushing kids too hard to be "thankful." If a two-year-old is terrified of the giver, a well-meaning parent who suggests again and again that the child bestow a kiss as thanks is connecting thank you with an old man with bad breath and bristly whiskers. Would you want to say thank you again? Likewise it's wise to avoid a tit-for-tat situation, in which a child is taught that they need to reciprocate for each and every gift. Who can be grateful when they're too busy focusing on keeping score?

"If we feel that there's a sense of duty or obligation that we have to do something in return, it can negate the affects of gratitude," Kashdan explains.

Odd Man Out - Why isn't anyone else taking paternity leave?

Matt Pusateri

Something strange happens when I wear the baby.

I slip into a black carrier, strap the baby in, make sure she's snug, put a hat over her tiny head, then head out. A woman with a baby on her hip? So common most people wouldn't notice. But a man, by himself, with a baby on his chest, bobbing and bouncing with every step? Before I might have been invisible to the world. Now people look twice. Tough guys on the corner smirk, sometimes laugh. Ladies behind the donut counter wave. Security guards soften their glare and grin. Pretty women stop to talk. Old men smile.

When I wear the baby strangers in markets and bakeries and subway stations stop to ask questions, make weird baby talk, or serenade my daughter. People tell me what I'm doing is "wonderful." Flooded with waves of attention and praise, I might momentarily lose myself and forget that I'm just doing what I'm supposed to: being a father to my child.

But our culture sees it differently: a man, alone with his baby — even in 2009 — is somewhat rare and unexpected. One reason for this: most men have little opportunity to take an extended leave from work shortly after their babies are born. Within days or weeks of a child's birth, most new dads are back at work.

For me, deciding to take paternal leave last September to be with Isabella, my four-month-old daughter, was easy. I knew I wanted to spend time with her once my wife's unpaid four-month maternity leave ended. We didn't want to put her in daycare so early. And my company's paternal leave policy was unusually generous — six weeks paid, plus any available sick time, up to four months. So the question for me wasn't whether to take paternity leave, but how much? That, it turned out, was the tricky part.

Few men in the American workplace take paternal leave. In part, this trend reflects America's stingy attitude towards family leave. According to a Harvard University report, of 173 industrialized countries studied, 169 guarantee paid maternal leave for women. The U.S. — along with Liberia, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland — is among the four nations that offer nothing. Moreover, 66 of 173 countries guarantee paid paternal leave; the U.S. does not.

In the U.S., family leave benefits remain at the employers' discretion. As a result of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, men and women working for organizations with fifty or more employees are entitled to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave to spend with a newborn child without risk of losing their jobs. Few men, however, can afford to lose two or three months salary. Especially if their wives or partners may also be taking unpaid maternity leave.

Only thirteen percent of U.S. employers offer paid paternal leave to allow men to spend time at home with a new baby, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management. Even when the opportunity exists only fifty-eight percent of men opt to use paid paternal leave available to them.

Armin Brott, author of The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips, and Advice for Dads-to-be and The New Father, suggests that men often struggle with the balance between work and family roles. "Most new fathers," Brott writes, "feel torn between two options that feel mutually exclusive: protecting and providing, and being an involved, nurturing dad."

"There is still a lot of fear among people," Brott says, "that they aren't going to make partner, they aren't going to get a promotion, they won't be taken seriously in their job . . . and to some extent, they're right."

Considering all this, is it any wonder that less than ten percent of American men take more than two weeks off from work to spend with a newborn baby?

And still, some do.

George Estrada, 38, a project manager from Fairfax, Virginia, who worked for USA Today in 2001, was one of the first men in his department to take advantage of his company's paternal leave policy. Before his son's birth he went to his manager and proposed taking seven weeks off after his wife returned to work from maternity leave. His request perplexed his supervisor who said, "I don't think that's available to you. That's only for moms." After Estrada explained the company's policy to her, she remained unconvinced. "Well," she said, "I don't think we can do that." The newspaper thought otherwise and granted Estrada his leave.

Haven Perez, 39, a PhD student in Los Angeles, considered his options as the birth of his first child, Lorelei, approached. Her arrival prompted him to take time off from his job while his wife continued to work full time as a registered nurse. His decision didn't lead to a flustered manager, but rather, his own mother's skepticism. "Maybe," his mother asked, "a woman would have more patience?"

When it came to my job, I had recently been promoted to a management position. But more than that, I would be the first to really use our company's paternal leave policy. No man at my workplace had taken paternity leave except for a couple weeks immediately following a baby's birth. Nobody could provide advice, tell me how it went, or give me a sense of how people would react. Having already taken three weeks leave after the baby was born, most of my co-workers assumed I was done with time away from work with the baby. I worried about how colleagues, co-workers and my staff would react to my second extended absence. Would my decision to take leave let down co-workers or burden them with additional work or stress? Or, worse, might everyone cruise along just fine exposing me as unnecessary or redundant?

Ultimately, I opted to take one month of full leave, followed by two weeks working part-time, coming into the office only in the mornings. I wasn't sure if the decision was bold or cowardly: some men have taken much longer paternal leaves but most new fathers take much less time, or none at all. My boss, a father of three, was supportive, but reactions from co-workers ranged from modestly encouraging ("Makes sense? good for you?") to puzzled ("You're going to be out how long?) to misinformed ("Wow, a six-week vacation!") to passive-aggressively derisive ("We'll muddle through while you're off doing your thing.").

For Estrada, Perez, and myself — along with thousands of men in similar situations across the country who shrug off doubts and take paternity leave ? the experience often meets resistance from within the workplace and our culture. It suggests that America still isn't quite sure what to make of the balance between work and family, especially for men. In most modern workplaces, maternity leave, even if unpaid, is fairly common and uncontroversial. But a man, taking extended paternal leave months after a baby is born? In many offices, that idea is nothing short of radical.

On the morning that I began my leave my wife left the house in tears. It would be her first time away from Isabella for more than a few hours since she was born. And for me, this day would be the first time Isabella and I would be alone together for more than a few hours.

"You're going to sing to her, right?" My wife asked, standing at the door, in her black business suit, sobbing, "Promise me."

"All day," I said. "I promise."

And then she left. I held Isabella in the crook of my left arm and we peered trough the window together, watching her walk down the street, turn left, and vanish out of sight. Isabella sighed and looked up at me, her brow furrowed curiously, as if to ask, "Okay, now what?"

Men who take paternal leave often discover that the difficulties of getting and taking time off from their jobs pale in comparison with the challenges of caring for an infant on their own, often for the first time.

Joshua Taylor, 36, a press secretary for a member of Congress, began an eight-week paternal leave after his wife returned to work this winter. He found himself unprepared for the effort and energy required to care for his four-month-old son, Will. He struggled to keep up with the schedule and routines his wife and baby had established during their first months together. "I hadn't changed as many dirty diapers as I thought I had," he said. Taylor also found it hard to break free from his Blackberry addiction and the impulse to constantly check email that kept him connected with his job. "It's difficult to disengage," Taylor said.

Estrada, on leave from USA Today, bristled at some puzzled reactions from other men when he was out with the baby in the middle of the day. "A lot of them were just looking at me like 'What are you doing?'" Far worse than the reactions of other men, he soon found himself dealing with a sick baby, gripped with doubts about his competence to handle the situation. "I was a basket case. I was thinking the worst," Estrada said. "I was thinking, 'He's gonna die on me!'"

My time alone with Isabella wasn't quite as difficult of a transition. Maybe I was lucky. Once I was away the significance of my promotion, my projects, and reactions of co-workers evaporated. Instead, for a few weeks, at least, it was just my increasingly smiley daughter and me for most of each day. She was exploring the world for the first time. I was her tour guide.

We walked through gardens, strolled parks with our dog, cruised museums together, visited her mother for lunch, browsed furniture at Ikea, bought fresh bread at Eastern Market and watched NBA playoff games together when neither of us could sleep. I cheered her on as she flipped from her stomach to her back for the first time. When she was hungry, I gave her a bottle. When she was in the bath, I told her stories from old comic books and my favorite movies. When she cried I danced for her, put her on my shoulders, or quite often, as promised, I sang.

Despite the initial stress and the steep learning curve many fathers find the experience of paternal leave deeply rewarding. With the average American getting fewer than three weeks vacation time every year, fathers often find few opportunities beyond weekends and holidays to spend significant amounts of time alone, bonding with their children, especially during early, formative years. Strange as it sounds, a month or two alone with a new child may be a father's last chance at anything like it.

"I'm never going to get these days again," Estrada said. "There's going to be a day when these kids look at us and we're not going to be cool . . . they're going to be rebelling, and it's going to be another period until they come back. Why am I going to waste that?"

Early bonding with a baby leads to tangible benefits as well. The physical act of "wearing" an infant leads to babies who cry less, grow better, learn more, and communicate most effectively, according to Dr. William Sears, a pediatrician, father of eight children, and author of several bestselling books on parenting. His research suggests that the physical experience of "wearing" a baby in a sling or a carrier can foster a closer bond between a father and child, an attachment that can form the foundation of a close lifelong relationship. "The time in your arms is a relatively short time in the total life of your child," Sears writes, "but the memories of your touch and availability will last a lifetime."

Brott's research echoes this, suggesting that time spent between a father and baby early lead to lasting, long-term benefits. "The earlier dads get involved, their better off they're going to be, the more involved they're going to be with their kids later on."

"If you've done the diaper-changing and the bathing, and the basic stuff that seems kind of frightening if you've never done it before; you get a level of comfort," Brott adds. "That's what relationships are built on."

On one of the final days of my leave Isabella and I headed out for one of our last daytime outings. On Monday, I would be back at work. She would be in day care.

The sign read: "Movie Mom's Club," so I knew I was in the right place.

I pulled open the door and wheeled Isabella down the dim corridor in her stroller. As we rolled into the theater, we passed a dozen strollers parked to the right of the front row of seats. In the darkness, I looked up and saw the faces of dozens of young women and children, glowing with the flickering blue and white light of the movie screen. Some women sat in pairs, bouncing infants on their laps. Another mom was walking alongside her toddler in the aisle as he stumbled his way slowly down the steps. One sat in the back row, nursing her baby. Lots of eyes followed us as we crossed the theater and parked next to an open seat in the front row. By now, I was used to drawing attention. "Yes," I thought to myself, "Daddy's crashing the Movie Mom Matinee . . . deal with it, ladies!"

Isabella, unaware of the attention we attracted, stared up at the twenty-foot screen transfixed with the dancing and music of Mamma Mia, her mouth open in awe and wonder, her eyes wide with delight. As I watched her sitting there, happily wobbling, her eyes aglow with the swirling colors and motion of her very first movie, it seemed hard to believe anyone might miss a moment like this. It occurred to me that I would probably miss many more of her "firsts," but not this one.

Is Vegetarianism Right for Kids? - How to keep your child healthy on a meat-free diet.

Jeanne Sager

It wasn't the fear of sustaining her daughter on a vegan diet that gave Monica Engebretson pause; it was wondering whether it would raise some eyebrows as Engebretson and her husband waded through the process of adopting Xela.

"The only real concern I had was that our diet choice would be scrutinized by our social worker and possibly jeopardize or complicate the adoption, but it wasn't and didn't," the Sacramento mom recalled.

Engebretson is fast discovering that raising a vegetarian child isn't merely an offshoot of her own twenty-one-year history of not eating meat but a national trend. A study by the CDC released last year showed one out of every two hundred kids in America follows a vegetarian diet. If you're talking specifically about teenagers, the CDC says multiply that number by anywhere from four to six.

In the era of The Omnivore's Dilemma and Food, Inc., more parents in 2009 are putting meats on par with high fructose corn syrup.

The correlation is fair, says Dr. Joanna Dolgoff, a specialist in child and adolescent weight management. Meats are notoriously high in saturated fats, so a diet devoid of burgers and steaks is tantamount to a lower risk factor for elevated cholesterol levels. Replacing the meats and high-fat animal products with whole grains, legumes, vegetables, nuts and fruits may also decrease the risk of elevated blood cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, obesity and other diseases such as heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes.

"The challenges are getting enough protein, B vitamins, reducing the amount of processed foods and unhealthy carbohydrates consumed and overall not getting a well-balanced diet," says Dolgoff.

Studies on the affects of a vegetarian diet for children have varied widely. A 1980 study in Boston tried to pose a link between children abstaining from meat and higher intelligence, but it was largely discounted as correlation rather than causation because the families studied were found to have higher education levels than the average American family. Others have posited vegetarian children fall lower on the percentile charts then their peers in terms of height and weight. The former can be true — if kids aren't getting appropriate nutrition. Vegans are at a higher risk for iron deficiencies, and the high fiber diets of vegetarian kids have to be carefully balanced to ensure children aren't filling themselves on fiber and missing out on proteins, calcium and other vitamins.

As for the latter, dieticians are fast to warn people away from the assumption that vegetarianism is a low-fat option. "A child could be a vegetarian and consume a very nutrient-poor diet that is predominately junk food," explains Michelle May, author of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat: How to Break Your Eat-Repent-Repeat Cycle. "I would caution parents of preteens and teenage girls to be on the lookout for signs of an eating disorder. Be mindful of the possibility that their child, particularly girls, is using the excuse of a vegetarian diet to limit her caloric intake."

Of course, all of the problems — the need to balance appropriate amounts of nutrients, the need to ensure kids are eating enough but not eating too much — come with "mainstream eaters" too, says Elizabeth Ward, a registered dietician and author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Feeding Your Baby and Toddler.

Fortunately, the majority of parents who are embarking on raising a vegetarian child are already vegetarians themselves. It would stand to reason that they know what they're getting into and how to construct a healthy meat-free diet.

Joan Hobbs, a Boulder, Colo. mom, had been a vegetarian for five years by the time she gave birth to her first child in 1989. Her husband hadn't eaten meat in close to two decades. "We didn't even consider feeding her any other way," Hobbs says. It was a practice that would follow with their next two kids. All three are active athletes, and today their eldest, who went through her teens a competitive gymnast, is still a vegetarian.

"We didn't really have any concerns," Hobbs notes. "We ate a well-balanced diet, probably a bit heavy on the cheese, and we were both healthy so we knew that you didn't need to eat meat, fish or chicken to live well and thrive." The Hobbses were also wise enough to reach out to healthcare professionals when they had a concern, including their daughter's sports physician.

That's the biggest stumbling block for most parents, Ward said, whether they are vegetarian at the time of their child's birth and planning this for their child's future or their middle schooler comes home one day and announces they don't want to see another chicken leg on their plate. "Adults can get away with a lot in terms of sub-optimal eating, but kids can't," Ward says. "You just really have to bone up on what that child needs."

Again it's something Ward would say to parents she'd term "mainstream eaters" — learning to adjust a diet to meet the needs of a growing child.

It's likewise the reason not every vegetarian parent decides to raise their child without meat. Tanya Cohen, a mom of one from New York, hasn't eaten a strictly vegetarian diet in the past two years, but even before daughter Gabby was born, she was what's called a flexeterian: she phased out meats, starting with the red meats, but ate fish and chicken. But Gabby, now five, is purely omnivorous.

"Quite simply, she loves her meat, just like Daddy," Cohen explains. "I don't want to deprive her from something she really loves, besides, at present time she is growing and healthy and she does fine with it in her diet."

Cohen credits her daughter with a good diet; she eats meat, plus her mother's mix of vegetable-based foods. That's what's more important to Cohen — ensuring Gabby has fresh, healthy foods.

"I made her own baby food and attribute her great eating habits to eating real healthy homemade foods with no sugar and preservatives, which you would find in the jarred foods," Cohen explains. "When she gets older she can make her own choices whether or not she wants that type of food diet."

From a purely nutritional standpoint, raising a vegetarian child may require more planning but that's largely dependent on where you live. The Hobbses live in Boulder, Colo., where there is easy access to a wide variety of fresh foods and vegetarian options. Cohen lives in rural upstate New York, where the options are slim, especially in winter after the farmers markets have shut down.

Schools are also starting to get on board to help parents. A report from the School Nutrition Association reveals a forty percent rise since 2003 in the number of schools offering vegetarian fare. The numbers equate to at least two in three schools serving up meat-free options.

Even better news for parents of vegetarian kids: the American Dietetic Association is now officially behind you. According to paper released by the ADA just this past summer, "Vegetarian diets, if well-planned, are healthful and nutritious for all age groups and can help prevent and treat chronic diseases."

Engebretson says that raising a child as a vegan or vegetarian has shed its stigma in the day of widespread food allergies. "Sometimes kids try to share their non-vegan items like goldfish crackers. I don't snatch them away from her; I just tell the sharing child, 'thank you, but she can't eat those.' If she eats a few, no big deal," she says. "This is the same situation that kids who are allergic to nuts, wheat or chocolate face as well, so I don't see it as placing an extraordinary burden on her."

Mad Men = Bad Parents? - A stay-at-home dad says cut Don some slack.

Babble

With another season of Mad Men over, my wife and I are left with a big hole to fill in our entertainment schedule. This constitutes a real problem. We're talking about Mad Men — not some cream-puff comedy easily replaced by a few rounds of Wii bowling. Night after night we have sat on the couch, she holding a tumbler of scotch, the day's newspaper folded neatly in her lap, and me in my apron, swirling my third glass of merlot. If that sounded backward, then allow me to explain. While my wife brings home the organic, hormone-free turkey-bacon, I am a stay-at-home dad (or SAHD). Our dynamic is not atypical for today, but back when the word "stereotype" might be confused with a brand of Hi-Fi radio and helicopters were odd enough without associating them with a type of parenting, the concept of a father as the primary caregiver would have raised the suspicions of both men and women.

Watching episode after episode, my wife and I have laughed ourselves to tears imagining our lives played out as Don and Betty Draper, only in our version, the show would be called "SAHD Men" with me feeding the kids dinner every night and handing my wife a stiff drink as soon as she walks through the door after another hard day at the office. I suspect we're not alone indulging in such fantasies, which, on a broader scale, is what I think fuels audiences' fascination with the show. There's a satisfying amusement that comes from comparing past societal and cultural nuances against those of the present. With the decidedly un-PC idiosyncrasies of the Eisenhower/Kennedy-era sexism portrayed in Mad Men, it's impossible to restrain our imaginations from inserting ourselves somewhere within the drama and then dissecting those moments through the contexts of the current day.

For me, as a full-time parent to five children, there is a part of me that relates to Betty. I would love, for example, to conveniently dump off the kids on a nanny who, it seems, can be conjured out of thin air, and the isolation in being a househusband could drive me to take up chain-smoking as a hobby. (Although, due to anatomical differences, I avoid using the washing machine for, ahem . . . hard-core fans catch my drift.) However, despite my non-traditional domestic role, I am, after all, a man and a father, so Don still represents the character I identify the closest with, which also explans why I am the best-dressed, most unflappably cool parent at the bus stop.

As the show's central figure, Don is probably the maddest of the mad men (and women), and his behavior can elicit loathing, sympathy, admiration and every combination thereof. But next to Betty, who locks children in closets, lets them use a Cellophane bag as an astronaut helmet and generally treats them as nitwits, Don wins "Parent of the Year" by default.

But for all of Mad Men's vaunted authenticity, critics point out the omission of Dr. Benjamin Spock's permissive parenting philosophy which was widely prevalent among the upper-middle class during this period. This inconsistency may be due to creator Matthew Weiner's original plan to show little of Don's home life, or it might be because Betty and Don are just that selfish when it comes to meeting their children's individual needs. Although, unlike Betty, Don's problem isn't that he doesn't engage his children, it's that he's never home on a regular basis. Opinions vary on Don's parenting, and indeed, the children's reactions to the news of the divorce were telling: Bobby automatically assumes he's the cause while Sally first blames Don for never keeping his promises and then accuses Betty of instigating the separation. Still, given his own upbringing, I contend that Don is a good father, or at least a well-intentioned one anyway. (Other dads like those at DadCentric agree.)

Considering that he is the illegitimate son of a whore who died during birth and an uncompassionate father who never accepted him as a son, Don could have turned out worse as a parent. Instead, Don wants to avoid the sins of his father, who beat Don regularly. Take for instance the episode, "Three Sundays," when Don and Betty argue over his reluctance to punish Bobby. Frustrated by his wife's haranguing, Don slings Bobby's toy across the room and sends him to bed. "Are you happy?" he yells at Betty. Later he apologizes to Bobby, demonstrating a rare vulnerability in Don. When Bobby asks if Don's dad yelled at him, Don nods and then hugs Bobby at his suggestion that Don needs a new daddy.

This is not an isolated example of Don's love for his children. He attends Sally's school functions and takes her to work with him. He's understanding of her fear of the dark and promises a nightlight (provided she keeps her room clean). He gets up in the middle of the night to rock baby Eugene. "I've done it before," he reminds Betty when she walks in offering to take over. Plus, he wants the kids in the divorce. And, yes, it could be out of retribution, but I contend it's because he doesn't want them growing up being ignored by Betty. Okay, yeah, he was playing "Sputnik" with his daughter's teacher, and that warrants consequences. Regardless, Don puts forth the effort to be a real dad in a period when being a good father was judged on lesser criteria.

As I listen to my parents talk about growing up in the 50s and 60s, their stories are laced with a sense that the standards for fatherhood (and those of a husband) boiled down to the ability to hold down a steady job and put a roof over the family's head. So, screaming at my mother and smashing plates because the dishes weren't cleaned, as her father did on a regular basis, or in my dad's case, dodging the bullets fired at him by his drunken father were perfectly acceptable behaviors because my grandfathers were admirable for putting food on the table and clothes on my parent's backs. While I'm sure everyone's childhood experiences in that era were not that extreme, the mentality of fatherhood being measured predominantly on a man's role as a provider was commonly held to.

With parents, and especially fathers, being as involved in their children's lives as they are today, this mindset seems absurd. Yet it once was the norm, which is why Don deserves at least a little credit. Lucky for me, my parents, like Don, determined not to raise their children as they had been. Even though they were left without a healthy functioning example on which to pattern their child-rearing, they muddled through it doing the best they could with what they did know. Walking in their shoes, I now can appreciate what it must have taken.

With no model of his own, Don is in a similar situation, and despite his best intentions as a father, there are instances when he appears lost. A poignant example of this occurs in the season finale when he finds Sally waiting for him, asleep in the spare bedroom Don has been banished to. Don sits down in the chair, a confused expression on his face as he contemplates what is best for his children as the family is about to be broken up. With nothing to say, Don does the only thing he can think of: Rather than carry Sally to her room, he crawls into bed next to her.

Having been in that exact same position at one point in my life, I recognized the look on Don's face. I could feel the confusion in his gut, and the loss of a clear-cut path to take. As I relived those feelings reenacted by Don's character in a fictional story set almost five decades ago, it sparked an ironic thought. In this modern age when mothers and fathers consider themselves more enlightened than those of previous generations; where an unlimited amount of advice is a mere mouse click away and teams of experts wax eloquent about the newest insights into child development, sometimes it's not enough. Sometimes there are moments when we parents realize that, whether it's the 1960s or the 2060s, one truth spans the history of raising children: we don't have all the answers, and sometimes we're just doing the best we can.

Which Draper Are You? - The parenting styles of Mad Men.

Babble

Mad Men's Season 3 has come to an end and fanatics everywhere are going to have to wait what feels like a lifetime to get their next Draper fix. We've swooned over Don, envied Betty's clothes and...the kids? Well, let's just hope there's some therapy in Sally, Bobby and baby Gene's future. We've especially enjoyed tsk-tsking the mid-century parenting styles of Don and Betty, but we wonder — are there still some throwbacks out there? Do you wish your child would just "go watch TV?" So before we bid a temporary farewell to our favorite dysfunctional family, we want to know if you parent like a Draper. If so, which one? —Cary Fagan

Always The Quiet Ones - Does my daughter’s shyness need to be fixed?

Camille Sweeney

Like a lot of babies, when my daughter Roxie was still in her first year she had a certain reticence around strangers. At the time, we chalked it up to separation anxiety otherwise known as "please don't pass me to Granny or Grandpa or I'll scream my head off."

We smiled. We made excuses. But it persisted.

Now, at three and a half, Roxie is certainly stimulated by novel experiences, people and situations. But put her in a peer group setting like, say, preschool circle time, and she goes all Chauncey Gardiner — more content to watch than join in.

Or, so it would seem.

As many of her fellow preschoolers merrily belt out "Little Bunny Foo Foo" animated with hand movements, Roxie, who knows all the words and gestures (and performs them with relish at home in front of the mirror), remains silent, hands in her lap. In a free art class offered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, other kids streak by her through the halls of the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the ancient New World on the hunt for the fon elephant from the Republic of Benin. Instead, Roxie lags behind with me and the other parents and caregivers required to be there. It's not that she doesn't know where the elephant is (she does) or even that she doesn't enjoy the hunt (she says "it's fun"). But rather than let go and join the others, or even let on she's enjoying it, she walks quietly until she reaches the spot where the bright silver statue stands encased in glass, then remains outside the throng of kids and merely points. There, she says in a whisper.

Is she shy? Slow to warm up? Highly sensitive with a dread of social evaluation? What leads her to hold back in these situations? Is it genetic, environmental? A temporary stage of development? A life-long condition?

In our Got Talent culture we have come to expect even our youngest children to be high achievers — feisty swimmers, masterful drawers, gregarious preschool socialites. A shy or reticent temperament can dampen our hopes and evokes our own peculiar brand of parental angst. But is it that our child may miss out on some extroverts-only experiences that worries us or is something more primal, more prideful at work? The fear, perhaps, that our child will never shine?

According to a recent major study, 42 percent of American children exhibit shyness and the percentage only increases with age. "Thirty or forty years ago, being shy didn't used to be as negatively stereotyped as it is today," said Lynne Henderson, a former faculty member at Stanford University and director of the Shyness Institute.

In recent years, psychologists have battled as to whether or not shyness is genetic, a reaction to environment, or some combination. Jerome Kagan, a prominent Harvard research psychologist, was the first to identify traits in infancy that predict shyness. He believes temperament is destiny, or at least, shyness is a priori, a point he set out to prove when he began a major longitudinal study in 1986, researching 500 sixteen-week olds. Tracking data including how the babies reacted when given a new toy, he and colleagues determined that the most highly reactive sixteen-week olds, those with the most visible signs of distress and alarm when handed a new toy, proved to be the shyest children when they were interviewed as eleven-year-olds.

But, even if a child is hardwired to be highly sensitive or shy, many experts argue, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a behavioral marker for life on the sidelines.

"Many children will outgrow their strong reticence and reactions," said Dr. Henderson of the Shyness Institute. "About 93 percent of shy children never become problematically shy."

But, early detection of social awkwardness and intervention can make a significant difference later on she said.

"I've had a lot of parents who say they wished they'd done something sooner," said Nicole Shiloff, a clinical psychologist who specializes in adolescent shyness and social anxiety at the Shyness Clinic in Los Altos, Calif. "Giving a child a way to cope with their shyness or anxiety even really early on just better equips them for later."

A slew of books and online sites address shyness in children, and help parents understand where their child may fall in the spectrum of shy behavior. From a child with social anxiety who may experience profound psychological and physical reactions in a social situation to a child with one or two best friends who may not be in the social fray among peers, but doesn't mind it. Somewhere in the middle are the children who are slow-to-warm up, who may hesitate to join a social situation and take anywhere from two minutes, two weeks, two months or more to participate.

"I find that parents who have their own shyness or anxiety issues may over-identify with a shy child, and internalize that child's anxiety rather than help them develop mechanisms to cope with it," said Dr. Shiloff. There are also the parents who may be just the opposite. "They may be really extroverted and have some difficulty understanding a child who's tempermentally different," she said.

Which, in fact, is the case for Roxie and me.

The good news is there are many practical and easy suggestions of strategies parents, teachers and other caregivers can use not only to soothe a young bashful child, but also empower him or her. Included are tactics borrowed from cognitive behavior therapy that begin to teach even the youngest children how to identify and monitor thoughts, assumptions, beliefs and behaviors that relate to their shyness.?"With young children we tend to work on strategies for the parents," said Dr. Shiloff. "We teach parents for example, the cognitive behavior model of thinking aloud with a shy child to help alleviate some of the stress associated with an event."

For example, she suggested I could talk to Roxie before an activity to prepare her for some of the things that she may be asked to do, like sing along with the group, raise her hand or say her name aloud. Role-playing too can help to build a child's confidence. "Especially with young children who look to their parents for social cues, it's important to model the kind of pro-social behavior you're expecting from your child," said Dr. Shiloff. "And, we recommend getting the teacher involved, maybe even setting up a reward system to reinforce positive social behavior."

Although there is debate among experts over what constitutes social anxiety versus shyness, one thing all the experts agree on is not to label a child as "shy," which only serves to make a child more self-conscious and heighten his or her sense of discomfort.

Recently, Robert Coplan, a professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa and colleagues, have been at work designing a program they hope can be implemented in schools and other community activities that will challenge and encourage chronically shy preschoolers to become more active participants.

Our goal here is not to change your child, Dr. Coplan wrote of his program in a recent email. "Our goal is to help children develop the necessary coping strategies so that their shyness does not prevent them from doing things in their life that they want to do," he said.

Of course, experts also caution that we must be careful not to pathologize this temperament. After all, Dr. Henderson from the Shyness Institute explained, shyness is a blend of fear and interest.

"To have a shy reaction is a wired response that helps us pause to identify friends and collaborators from predators before we enter the fray," she said. "So shyness can also be a positive attribute," she added.

Dropping Roxie off at preschool one recent morning after a chat about some of the kids she was looking forward to seeing, I witnessed this primitive response in action. The children's day was getting started with a dance party and when we arrived, a little girl (whom Roxie had mentioned) broke from the group of kids and teachers and bounded up to us. "She's my best friend," the girl informed me as she enveloped Roxie in a bear hug. She grabbed Roxie's hand and began to drag her toward the preschool mosh pit. I saw Roxie's moment of hesitation and I found myself holding my breath, beaming a large smile of encouragement. But, without so much as a backward glance, Roxie stepped to the edge of the circle and then into the group with her friend, and cautiously, a little awkwardly, began to dance.

Home Is Where the Job Is - The pros and cons of being a work-at-home parent.

Babble

It's 3:45 on a Wednesday afternoon. My boys have just come home from school and are anxiously relaying what happened at lunch recess that day when my phone rings.?I glance at the caller I.D. — it?s The New York Times.?I sigh.

"Ok, fellas.?Mom has to take this one.?Scoot.?We?ll finish later."

On cue, they both roll their eyes and leave the spare bedroom that functions as my office, shutting the door behind them.?They have learned to always shut the door.?It will be another two hours before I can hear the rest of their day?s events. I feel a wave a guilt wash over me followed by another wave of responsibility as the phone rings for a third time.?I pick it up and get back to work, answering a series of questions from a reporter on deadline.?It?s a balance I have come to embrace over the last decade.?Since 2000, I have worked full time from home.

I manage the communications for a multi million dollar trade association in Washington D.C. from Philadelphia where I average a 50-60 hour work week. More and more I am coming into contact with professional parents like myself who make working from home work for them, their employers, and their families.?Gone are the days when you can?t have a serious career if it doesn?t all go down in an office building. Over the past decade, thanks largely to the Internet, you can hold a high powered job from your extra bedroom or basement while spending more time with the kids.?But it isn?t easy.?

Sure, it sounds heavenly but it?s not the cake walk many assume it is.?When I tell people about this arrangement, they often give me a look which I interpret as politely dismissive.?I imagine them thinking to themselves that "work" must not be the operative term in "work from home" and that my job must be mindless enough to perform while watching my children and soap operas all at the same time.?Judging by the unsolicited email offers I get for "home-based employment opportunities", these lighter jobs must exist, but mine is not one of them.?

Table Stakes

Sharing time between work and family is difficult enough; now imagine sharing time AND space. All the stars must be in alignment to effectively work out of your house but the two most important factors for a successful home office is 1) having the right job and 2) solid buy-in from your employer. Without those elements, you are doomed to fail.?The good news is that there are an increasing number of jobs that can be performed well almost exclusively via the web and telephone.?One good way to test if your job might be suitable is to ask yourself whether your work output can be produced and delivered to your customer (client, boss, or colleague) electronically.?Public relations, marketing, writing, consulting, computer programming, law and even accounting are conducive to work at home arrangements.?However, if your job requires you to manage large groups of people or meet face-to-face with colleagues, clients, or other stakeholders every day, you may be out of luck unless they can come to your house.?Conference calls work very well for occasional pow-wows, but using them in place of daily meetings can become disengaging.?

Speaking of disengaging, the second major criterion for a happy work from home arrangement is concurrence from all company stakeholders.?It goes without saying that your boss has to be on board with the deal but more importantly, so do your peers.?Jealously can be a huge factor, especially when one colleague has to brave rush hour and bad office coffee while the other gets an extra hour at home with the family and can wear sweatpants everyday.?Your arrangement must be justifiable to your team.?No one can complain that you are getting favored treatment if you live several hours away from the office.?If you live close to the office but are working from home, it?s a good idea for everyone with a similar job description to be offered the same arrangement.

Don?t Try This at Home

Once you have found the right job and the right employer to work from home, success is up to you.?Some of the best pieces for advice I have come from my experience of doing it completely wrong in the beginning.?After almost ten years of the daily grind within my own four walls I?ve learned what not to do.

Don?t go solo.? If you think you can get your work done and care for any of your children under the age of nine on a regular basis, you are fooling yourself. Assuming that you can bang out what you need to do when the kiddos are napping or watching Caillou seems like a good strategy until the first time they won?t go to sleep or the cable goes out.?Get real childcare.?Having a responsible babysitter who can take care of your children?s needs while you are working takes the stress out of your day.?This doesn?t mean they can?t pop into your office to say hello.?That benefit is probably the nicest perk of all.?But the earlier that your kids understand that Mom or Dad are working and need to be left alone, the more natural it becomes around the house for everyone.

Don?t be a sloth. ?Living the stereotypical dream of working in your pajamas is a bad idea.?Get up, take a shower, and put on day time clothes every morning. There is certainly no need to dress up, but changing into something suitable to be seen in public changes your energy level.?I wear jeans and hoodies most days at my office — but they are clean and fresh feeling each day and, therefore, so am I.

Don?t share space or devices.? Working at the kitchen table will be an exercise in complete frustration.?Try to find a place in your house that will be known to all as your office.?Ideally this space has a door you can close to shut out the joyous ruckus that occurs on a daily basis but if not, perhaps a screen or divider which creates a barrier between work and home.?This area should be as far away from the kitchen, playroom or other high traffic areas as possible.?You should also have a dedicated phone line and computer if your company will fit the bill or you can afford it.?Everything should be off limits to the kiddos and spouse.

Don?t watch TV.?? Unless watching TV is part of your job, don?t do it during the workday.?You wouldn?t watch television if you were in an office.?Even though no one will ever know, you need to imagine that your boss is there.?Besides, you will be distracted enough with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn all day long; don?t handicap yourself any further.

Don?t dive in. ??Every morning, I take my boys to school at 8:30 a.m. and return home to start my workday.?It seems inconsequential but leaving the house and returning to the office gets me psychologically ready to transition from Mom to Vice President.?I heard of one woman who worked from home who literally walked out her door each morning, around the house once, and back inside again for the same effect.?Brilliant! ?It may sound goofy but it works.

Don?t be a recluse.? After working from home for a long period of time, you do start to get a little stir crazy.?I know that I need to get out of the house when I start asking my dog for her opinion on strategic work decisions.?I am lucky that my job requires travel every few weeks when I can be among the living and have real human contact.?If you don?t have these opportunities, be sure to make lunch dates locally every now and then so that you don?t feel like a total shut-in.?Weather permitting, get outside and breathe fresh air once each day.?Walk the dog, get the mail, or go once around the block.?Otherwise, you may never stand up from your chair.

Don?t miss phone calls.? I am a fanatic for answering my phone when it rings, sometimes to my detriment.?Yet, I feel that working from home is a privilege that I will not abuse; and to prove that to all with whom I work, I pick up my phone a great deal after hours.?This commitment served me extremely well, especially in the early days of my arrangement when I proved to everyone that they could count on me even if I wasn?t in the office next to them.?

Don?t be in the closet.? Trying to maintain the illusion that you are in the company?s office when you?re not is untruthful and unnecessary.?When I am talking to a reporter on the phone, I don?t offer that I am working from home but I don?t hide it either.?Sometimes I will warn them that I may be briefly interrupted by my "lunatic nine-year-old" who is home that day with a fake illness.?Most react in a good natured way.?Not only does this relieve the pressure to keep things quiet but it makes you human and most other humans have an appreciation for the universal challenges faced by working parents provided it doesn?t get in the way of doing a good job.

Becoming a Permanent Homebody

Even if you follow these tips, working from home may not jive for you.?It is the ultimate balancing act and crossing the streams of work and play do not always turn out well. Sometimes the challenges outweigh the benefits. (see pros and cons) And situations change as you move through your work and home life cycle. When my boys were toddlers, it was wonderful being nearby all day long. I could have lunch with them and give out multiple hugs and kisses throughout the day, which easily trumped any office professional relationship I could ever imagine.?Now, that they are older and in school all day, I sometimes feel lonely.?Admittedly, working from home may have served its purpose as far as my children are concerned but other benefits endure, especially higher productivity.?It takes a certain personality to manage this delicate balance.?Those who can?t are truly better off in an office; but those who can, will find themselves in the enviable position of being able to bring home the bacon without ever leaving the house.????

Working from home is not a walk in the park but it has certain inalienable perks provided you can deal with the challenges.

The Pros

Energy Saver.? Not only do you save on automobile gas when you don?t drive to work, you also save a ton of personal energy.?You don?t realize how much effort you exert getting to and from the office until your commute involves a few short steps.?You can use this found time with your family, relaxing, or getting ahead of the game when needed.

Home Economics.? Gas, parking and lunch money add up.?I estimated that I saved more than $500 each month when I didn?t have these embedded costs in my workday.?I also save money on work clothes, because I basically don?t wear them unless I am traveling and have to clean myself up.

Extreme Productivity.? It is amazing how much you can accomplish when no one is popping into your office to share the latest gossip or there is no water cooler around which to talk about the movie you saw last weekend. Without interruptions, I can work at an exponentially higher speed without sacrificing quality. Since meeting and exceeding deadlines is critical to working from home, productivity is one of the most important benefits.

Maximum Flexibility.? Once you have proven yourself to be able to handle the arrangement, you are indeed able to get household chores completed during the day.?I fold laundry on conference calls and take my lunches at the kid?s school.?As long as you don?t abuse the flexibility, it is something you can, and should, enjoy.

The Cons

Guilt.? When you work at home it becomes very difficult to leave your problems at the office.?Be prepared to be drawn to work when you should be drawing a bath for your kids.?Inevitably there will be moments when you are being pulled in two different directions.?For those of us parents who feel as if they are never doing either job — parenting or working — very well, the work from home arrangement exacerbates that guilt because they are sharing the same time and space.

Isolation.? Working by yourself out of your home can be extremely lonely.?If you are the only one on a team that is not physically together regularly you need to be at peace with not being part of the daily party.?Even if everyone is working remotely the probability that you will feel like an island is high.?It is an acquired taste to which some folks never adjust.

Glass Ceiling. If you aspire to be the CEO, President, or Grand Pooh-bah of any kind in a large company that you did not start yourself, chances are that you will have to be in the office eventually to reach that final rung.?

Stigma.? There are enough work from home scams and bad experiences that many people write you off before they give you a chance.?You need to prove yourself and earn respect from those around you, more so than you would if you showed up in the office every day.?Working from home does not mean you are any less committed, but it could be wrongly interpreted that way.

Quiz: Are You the Work-at-Home Type? - Find out if your parenting and work skills mesh.

Emily Mendell

As a parent, working successfully from home requires the ability to balance two competing priorities both which are staring you in the face simultaneously. You also need to be able to work well with little or no face time with colleagues and supervisors. Think you have the chops to walk the tightrope alone and not fall off?? Take our quiz to see how you might fare.

1.? You are working on a project when you hear your child crying in another room where you know they are being supervised by a responsible adult.? You:

A. Drop what you are doing to check in and make sure the situation is addressed before it gets worse.
B. Wait to see if the cries turn into wails before taking a peek.
C. Let the adult who is supervising handle it.? You will only get involved if there is blood.

2. The office holiday party is scheduled for the same day as your child?s school show.? You:

A. Go to the party and makes sure someone who loves your child is in the audience, armed with a video camera so that you can watch it later with your child.
B. Happily go to your child?s show because you hate those office parties anyway.? Now you have a good excuse.
C. Try to make it to both events, missing substantial portions of each but successfully showing your face for a period of time.

3.? It is 4:30 p.m. and you have an important deadline in the morning.? You have at least four more hours of work to complete the project.? You:

A. Stop working at 5:00 p.m., spend time with the family and then, once the kids are in bed, work until 1:00 a.m.
B. Call and ask for an extension until tomorrow afternoon.
C. Work past 5:00 and through dinner because you can?t relax with the project hanging over your head.

4.? Which of the following work projects is most appealing to you?

A. A longer term project for which you are solely responsible.
B. A group effort that requires consensus and the bringing together of work and ideas.
C. A combination of both individual and team efforts.

5.? How do you like to communicate best with others?

A. In person
B. Telephone
C. Email

6. A large but important project is coming down the pike and has yet to be assigned.? You:

A. Raise your hand to lead it; you always like a challenge.
B. Offer to help if needed.
C. Make yourself invisible.

7. You get an email from a colleague that is written in all capital letters.? You:

A.Wonder why he is "yelling" at you and spend the rest of the day thinking about what you could have possibly done wrong.
B. Reply back to him in caps asking, "WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME?"
C. Pick up the phone and call him to straighten it out person to person.

8.? It has been a few days since you have heard from your boss.? You view this as:

A. A welcome rest; you take it when you can get it.
B. A sign you are about to get canned; you begin to update your resume.
C. An uncomfortable pause; you call your boss to check in and see what?s happening.

9. During work hours, the phone rings and you see it is your closest friend from college.? You:

A. Anxiously pick up the phone and talk for the next thirty minutes.
B. Pick it up and ask if you can call him or her back when you are done work.
C. Let the call go to voicemail and make a note to call back later in the evening.

10.? Which is more important to you during the day?

A. A change of scenery.
B. A change of pace.
C. I don?t like change.

11.? Which area do you question yourself the most?

A. My abilities as a professional.
B. My abilities as a parent.
C. Both parent and professional equally.

For each of the following statements, select how often each applies to you:? (always, sometimes, never)

12.? I have a hard time focusing on projects until the deadline is upon me.

A. Always
B. Sometimes
C. Never

13. I work best under pressure.

A. Always
B. Sometimes
C. Never

14.? Praise for a job well done is important to me.