Having Enough (In a Have-It-All World)

So, as part of my Having Enough philosophy of life, I’ve made the commitment to only do work that fits my values. Fortunately, I have some of this work and I love it. Unfortunately (in some ways), I also end up turning down often more lucrative work from corporate clients or the like, as they don’t fit with my vision. And, well, you know, times are lean.

Oddly enough, because a salesperson I am not, I’ve found myself taking on a bit of a sales venture. This venture really does fit my values, though, and I hope it will supplement my writing/editing work with something I enjoy and can stand behind.

I’ve become a Stallholder (seller) of Barefoot Books for children! I fell in love with these books and this company, whose values include the following:

• Honoring difference, diversity and dialogue
• Remembering our connection with each other and with the Earth
• Reaching for the stars and sharing what they say to us
• Climbing trees, building forts, and swapping stories

The books are beautifully written and illustrated, honor the diversity of world cultures, and promote a socially-conscious, Earth-conscious next generation. As a writer, artist, and progressive (and Ms. Having Enough), I appreciate all of these qualities.

The company itself, started by two British moms, publishes on eco-friendly paper, uses fair labor practices, choose titles in keeping with their values, and started its Stallholder program in large part to allow moms to have a potential to earn a few bucks (with only a modest up-front investment) while being present for their children (and sharing amazing stories with them).

Please click here to check out the Barefoot Books catalog (and big spring sale!). If you go there through Having Enough (on this link or the icon on my sidebar), I will get credit as the Stallholder (yes, salesperson) for your purchases.

In keeping with my anti-”stuff” and pro-library values, I also want to suggest to you to check out Barefoot Books at your local library. If you or your children love any enough to want to own one, come back here and buy one through me. I thought long and hard before deciding to sell these books, to sell anything, but of all the things I’m learning I do not need to own, inspiring, enlightening and beautiful books are still something I have realized I truly do value having and giving.

What I love most about Barefoot Books is that I want almost every one for my own daughter — and that I really feel I don’t have to sell them. Their art and stories from around the world — and about the world — speak for themselves.

Thank you so much for your support!

I had this odd dream the other night.

My DH and I were sitting at the foot of our bed watching one of my friends give us a “fashion show” of her new bathing suits. Only maybe she was actually modeling new plastic surgery for us, because my friend did not have her own body, she suddenly had a Victoria’s Secret body.

You know the one I’m talking about — large, perky breasts with just the right cleavage, then tiny, toned and fatless from the tummy down.  The body (with interchangeable heads) that prances in our faces in Victoria’s Secret commercials any time we turn on network television after 7 p.m.

So, in this dream, after a couple of my VS-bodied friend’s catwalks up and down our hallway-runway, I got annoyed at my husband for just being there, clear to both of us I was having issues with her body (and it’s potential appeal to my husband).

He said to me, smiling, “What’s the matter, Megan?  You’re comfortable with your body.”

And I snapped back, “Nobody’s that comfortable!”

I woke up, told him about the dream and had to laugh.  The exchange was oddly true-to-life.  And I had commented on those commercials the night before, in my usual feminist media studies teacher way, noting how often we see the ads even just watching a couple hours of TV a week.

Dream husband is right, I am generally comfortable with my body — but it was a long road getting here.  I went through high school in dance classes feeling fat and watching friends battle anorexia and bulimia, myself sometimes eating only an apple at school all day and then gorging when I got home, and even trying appetite suppresant pills a friend gave me (the only drugs I ever tried through high school and college!).  That was all with a rare mother who had a healthy body image, and being naturally thin myself.

It took years of talking and writing, finding friends with healthier body images, taking women’s studies classes in college, and intensely studying gender representations and media in graduate school to truly (almost completely) let go of those deep-seated body issues and feel really good in my skin.  I did my Master’s research on The Vagina Monologues, performed in the play three times (!), and I taught college classes in which we tore apart images of women in media.

And, still, I had this Victoria’s Secret dream.

The battle for healthy body image in this culture, for women and increasingly for men, is still raging as wildly as certain other undesirable wars.  Even young women (and not-so-young women) who are given every positive message at home must still deal with unrelenting media images of unrealistic, ridiculously seductive women’s bodies that supposedly define “perfection,” thus leaving us to simply buy more and more products in attempt to achieve an impossible look. (Airbrushing. Need I say more?)

I think often about how I will attempt to help my daughter through this inevitable fact of growing up now, female and American.

Then I come across a book like BODY DRAMA: Real Girls, Real Bodies, Real Issues, Real Answers by Nancy Redd and I get a breath of renewed hope for my dear little girl. Actually, I sing Hallelujah!!

When MotherTalk sent a call for reviewers of this new book, I emphatically pleaded my case to review it. I wanted to see what this twenty-something former Miss America swimsuit competition winner and Harvard women’s studies graduate had to say to all the young women out there about their bodies.

Bottom line, what Nancy Redd says, and shows, girls and women in this book is, in a word, revolutionary.

It’s not for the prim our faint-hearted, I warn you. Although I also think those are the ones who may need this book most. Nancy Redd leaves no taboo body topic undiscussed — or photographed — in this book, unlike any I’ve ever seen.  (Not at all shocking to this Vagina Monologues veteran, but I have no doubt this book will be burned in certain sectors, like many truth-telling tales before it.)

I actually worried a bit at first sight of chapters titled “Boobs” and “Down There” that she wasn’t going to deal with serious issues or take a feminist (read: woman-affirming) perspective.  But, in reading the book, I see that she uses these titles to ease girls into the chapters and make them more accessible.

Once inside, Nancy does the serious work of talking straight with her readers about real issues they may face, all the while underlying every discussion with a message to learn to embrace your body and respect yourself, and be healthy without striving for “perfect.”  She does an excellent job of tearing apart media images of women, in a comfortable “girlfriend” tone.

BODY DRAMA shows photos of (incredibly brave!) young women, and all their unmentionable body parts, to give the rest of us peace of mind that our bodies are “normal.”  (Seriously, I love these girls.)  And the book takes on airbrushing (hallelujah!) with a photo spread every person needs to see (page 240). 

This amazing young author set out to write the “book she wished she had” growing up female in America (and in the beauty pageant circuit) to help her deal with her body.  She uses important research (backed by a Dr. Angela Diaz, Director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center), and courageously reveals her own very personal experiences, to give young women the tools to embrace themselves and all of their uncomfortable bits.  

This book is a gift to everyone, really — teenage girls, teenage boys, their parents.  It makes women real again in this culture of highly unrealistic images of women.

And she even taught this teacher a few things!  

In an interview, Redd says she faced a lot of scrutiny while writing this book, and I sincerely applaud her bravery and faith for continuing on and getting it published as it is.  She says her most important advice to young women and their mothers is “to talk!” She explains that, as close as she and her mother were, they never had “the talk,” as she calls it, saying, “nor did she share any of her personal body dramas with me, which left me at a total disadvantage growing up.”

I can relate to this.  As mothers, we all try our best to equip our daughters for this complicated world, while also just being women navigating this complicated world ourselves.  

For me, I will take Nancy’s advice and talk with my daughter about body dramas as she grows, and I’m saving this book as a tool for later, when we need to discuss some of the most uncomfortable body dramas (and especially ones I didn’t have to deal with as a teen myself — the body piercing stuff? bikini waxing?).  She will have plenty of body dramas. I have them. (Even still in my dreams!)  And Nancy Redd takes them on with courage, knowledge, humility and compassion.

Thank you, Nancy Redd, for BODY DRAMA, and for sending the message to women young and old and everywhere that our bodies, as they are, are enough.   

As a writer, I feel successful when I work on project I think contributes something meaningful to the world — and get paid for it!  Thus, I was more than thrilled this summer to be asked to do some independent story editing for numerous chapters of the Harper Collins book, The Daring Book for Girls by Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz.

The project was intense and oh-so-fun, and now the book is out — with 600,000 pre-sold!  (No, I don’t get royalties!)

It’s got it’s own must-see video, if you can believe that.  And Miriam and Andi were on The Today Show yesterday talking about it.

I’m having a blast watching the book take off, and the authors talk about girls in such positive ways in the media. Knowing I played a little part in a big project — and a book I really think gives girls, and portrays girls with, the respect they deserve and information they can use — feels really good. Even if I didn’t work on it, I would love this book.

Now, not to be greedy, but if the universe could please send more of these kinds of projects my way, that would be lovely.

I dig a book that makes me eager for free moments so I can sneak pages, and The Reincarnationist by M.J. Rose, my second MotherTalk review book, was one of those. I opted to review it not because I’m a big suspense reader (I’m not) but because I find the topic of reincarnation fascinating, and this novel promised a juicy plot about this topic.

Here’s how I tie it to the bigger questions of this blog: Is this life “enough”?!  And if there’s more to our karma than meets the present-tense eye, wouldn’t that tie into our notions of success?

Back to the novel, M.J. Rose combines her own experience and research with reincarnation, some in-depth historical research, and her obvious flair for sizzling, lusty plotlines to create a 400-plus-page book that I gobbled up in three days.  I appreciated the authenticity in the experiences of the characters, and I found myself wishing I could see people’s auras through my camera lens the way main character Josh Ryder could.  Is there more to our souls’ journeys that we could understand now?  I like that this book made me wonder.

Now, this is not to say I didn’t have some problems with the book, which I did. The hero, Josh Ryder/Julius, is torn between lives in the present and in ancient Rome. This dichotomy is well-developed, but I must say I wish Rose had connected certain plot pieces in the end that she did not. (I’m not looking for a pat ending, but I tend to go by the filmmaking theory that if you show the viewer a purple shoe, then you later need to follow up with the purple shoe.)  In other words, there were a few things that begged to be connected in the end that were not. (Is she planning a sequel, perhaps? I’d pick that up.)

Then there is another storyline of Percy, Josh/Julius’ reincarnation in the 1800’s, which doesn’t quite mesh with the otherwise well-woven plot until the very end.  This 1800’s plotline felt a bit like that tacked-on “gag” story they always had on Friends or Seinfeld (yes, I went to college in the early 90’s!) – there wasn’t much meat there.  It answered some key questions late in the book (so hang in there with it), but it felt as if chunks of it had to be left on the cutting room floor, or else it wasn’t fully developed.

Still, despite those minor frustrations, I kept turning the pages because I wanted to know what happened to these characters. That, to me, is a successful read.  And, of course, I appreciated Rose delving into the topic of reincarnation in a novel, and the fact that she made me think again about those moments in life that I’ve said to myself, “I know this person” when we’d barely met, or “I’ve been here before” in places I hadn’t visited in my conscious memory.

Any book that pushes beyond our narrow understanding of life has the potential to open our eyes to things we haven’t noticed before.  I’ll be watching for auras when I next tote my Nikon around — looking for more than I’ve seen before in my viewfinder — and I’ll be paying more attention to deja vus.  For me, that’s “enough” to make this novel worth the three-day read.

My father-in-law recently sent a book for my husband, which I grabbed first and couldn’t put down. It’s called The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin.

Waitzkin was the child world chess champion who inspired the lauded early-90’s book and movie, Searching for Bobby Fisher. As a young man, he also became world champion several times over in the martial art of Tai Chi Chuan (related to Tai Chi, which my father-in-law practices religiously). Now 29, Waitzkin writes with the wisdom of one many times his age.

The book was fascinating on many levels, and I highly recommend it (DH can’t put it down now!). Waitzkin writes on the premise that he is “not good at chess, or good at Thai Chi Chuan, but he is good at learning.” Then he painstakingly breaks down his learning processes in becoming world champion in two very different pastimes — and becoming a happier person in spite of his titles, not because of them.

Here are just a few messages that struck me from this book:

1. Understand the true nature of success.

Waitzkin writes in the introduction, “I had won eight national championships and had more fans, public support and recognition than I could dream of, but none of this was helping my search for excellence, let alone for happiness.” He realized young that fame is “profoundly hollow,” he says. The love of chess he started with began to dissipate the more tournaments he won.

It’s a familiar warning, one we see often — as in lately with poor Britney Spears in her miserable fall from the height of fame. Waitzkin, unlike many young celebrities, though, had the good sense (and good family) to pull back and try to rediscover what made him happy. He understood that it is a deep sense of inner joy that makes one feel successful, and no amount of external praise or rewards can create that. This knowledge led Waitzkin on a mental, physical and spiritual journey that he outlines in the book.

2. Have a certain attitude toward learning.

As a recovering overachiever and a parent, I was particularly interested in Waitzkin’s research on a certain theory of intelligence and learning, which categorizes people as either entity learners or incremental learners. In brief, entity learners see their skill or intelligence level at a given task as a fixed entitity (as in, “I’m good at cooking” or “I’m bad at drawing”). Incremental learners tend to attribute their successes or failures at tasks as attributable to their amount of effort or work, truly believing they can master anything with enough energy put in.

Entity learners tend not to take risks, and tend to get emotionally crushed by any type of defeat. Incremental learners have been found to be much quicker to accept a challenge they may not succeed at, and don’t tend to take defeat as a personal failing. They push themselves farther, and enjoy it more.

Please read Waitzkin’s discussion of this, as I’m not doing it justice, but here is the bottom line: Most of us are entity learners. We don’t risk a lot of tasks we are afraid we may not be good at. We let failures destroy our self-confidence. We don’t truly believe we can do more. And there is another way!

I admit to being an entity learner (witness my first-grade failure story and discussion of overachievers); and my husband, too, finds himself in the description. (He remembers a teacher telling his mother in fifth grade that he wouldn’t try anything he didn’t think he’d be good at. This describes many an overachiever I know!!). It’s like taking the easier class because you know you can get an “A” instead of the class that’s unfamiliar and more challenging.

I’d love to learn to become an incremental learner. Mostly, I’d love to encourage our daugther to be one. It simply opens up a world of joy and possibilities we simply miss out on by saying “I’m bad at ______” or by being afraid to fail.

3. Flow calmly amidst chaos.

Waitzkin has a real Buddhist sensibility, and uses Eastern principles in his training. A key principle for him is understanding that success comes when one allows chaos and change and the unexpected to happen, and works with it, rather than against it. To remain calm and present in every moment.

He describes dirty tricks in both chess and martial arts competitions, designed to get competitors angry or distracted, that often work. (Chess players kicking their opponent under the table; martial arts officials changing the rules for foreign teams at the last minute…)

Then he outlines how he learned to see these dirty tricks for what they are: opportunities for him to dig deeper and concentrate harder. How many of us really see mean people, unfair actions, or major annoyances as opportunities? It’s much easier said than done. But Waitzkin explains in a way I haven’t seen before exactly how he does it.

There is so much more to this book than I’ve written here; it truly got me and DH thinking. I’d say it will do the same for anyone open to it. (And all 27 Amazon reviewers gave it five stars!) Please, if you read it, let me know what you think!

And, in the spirit of the book, I offer you these questions: How much of success do you think is internal, rather than external? Do you think you are an entity learner or an incremental learner? How do you handle the unexpected “dirty tricks” that come your way in life?

While I often discuss books on this blog, this is my first official Mother Talk book tour blog entry. I answered the call to review February Flowers, by first-time novelist Fan Wu, because it is about a friendship between women in Asia, a topic and setting that greatly interest me.

I enjoyed Wu’s easygoing prose, and I loved her glimpse into Chinese university life. But, I must admit, the book left me with an unsettled feeling.

I think that is, in a way, what Wu intended. Her descriptions of this central, young friendship will ring familiar to most women, regardless of ethnicity, at least in some ways. It is unequal; Ming (17) looks up to Yan (24) and is often mocked by her. It is consuming; Ming (bookish and shy, ever-pleasing her parents) longs for the excitement and worldliness Yan (streetwise and shunned in her hometown) offers her. And, while this aspect may not play into every female friendship to the extent it does here, it is sexually charged; Wu paints a clear picture of Ming’s attraction to Yan, and perhaps to women in general.

What unsettles me about the book is not the theme of lesbianism (please, I went to grad school in Madison for feminist studies) but more the feeling that Ming is ultimately a woman who forfeits her authentic self.

Many have called this a “coming-of-age” novel, but my read was that Ming never came of age. She never shed her adolescent fears and embraced her true passions to become a woman who felt comfortable in her own skin. It doesn’t matter if her passions grew as her love for books and music, for speaking her mind, or for relationships with women. It doesn’t matter if she is straight or gay or bi. What bothered me is that she is a character who refuses to really try, or engage, with any of it.

Wu’s voice, as Ming, is of a girl (and, later, woman) afraid of her own feelings. We get glimpses of Ming’s imaginative, poetic nature — as she describes to Yan walking through a pitch-black cotton field and conjuring up a blue sky and pink flowers so as not to be scared. We see Ming’s passion for playing the violin, as she is when she meets Yan on a remote dorm roof. We see her burgeoning sexuality and romantic longing, as she watches Yan prance around in heels, looks at forbidden pictures of naked women and starts to date men.

And, yet, the modern woman Ming becomes, described through Wu’s masterful first-person weaving, seems remote and cold-hearted. She never lets herself experience real passion — just a clung-to memory of a, let’s face it, dysfunctional teenage friendship/unrequited love.

The Chinese culture in this novel is important, and my cultural bias as an American woman reader should be called out. Ming’s parents and her culture, a struggle between conservative and progressive, influence her disconnect. But, Wu clearly shows us modern China, and pretty modern Chinese parents (her mother tells her not to expect everyone to approve of her life decisions).

I realize my ethnocentricity in believing the sky’s the limit for this young woman (coming out in China is something I can only imagine the complexity of), but I can’t help it — I’m bothered by the way Ming declines to claim her life. She views Yan as her only salvation, and does not realize that she can merely look within herself. She has many chances to come of age, to become her own woman, but, to risk spoiling the ending, she settles for less and we are not sure that she ever will take a real chance to be happy.

Perhaps she will change, and that may be Wu’s strategy in the book’s open conclusion — to leave hope for Ming. But, Ming grows into a woman who chooses to hide, to compartmentalize, who chooses self-protection over love (for others and for herself). She has created her own chains. Yan, or Ming’s fantasy of Yan, will not be able to unchain her; she must do it herself.

Perhaps the book’s brilliance is in how it left me with this unsettled angst and frustration with Ming. It clearly touched on some of my own issues and judgments. I spend much of my time reading books that validate living authentically and interconnectedly, and trying to do so in my own life, so this book offered me a view of the opposite. It was good for me to get some yang with my yin (pun intended), to see from another perspective (on many levels, personal, cultural, and otherwise) how one could take a different path and hold back.

The book actually relates very much to my blog’s theme of “having enough” because it, more than any other I’ve read in recent memory, illustrates so clearly that if we do not embrace who we are, what we love to do and who we want to be with, we will drift, dissatisfied and lonely (and fantasizing about “what ifs”) through our days.

So, while February Flowers did not blow me away with excitement, it did get under my skin, and that is a testament to Wu’s writing. Wu succeeded in making Ming real for me, as disappointed as I was with her choices as she grew older. So real, in fact, that I want to call her up before she enters the next unpublished scene, give her a good verbal slap in the face and say: Live, girl! This is not a dress rehearsal!

For more great woman-focused books and discussion like this, visit Mother Talk.

DH and I just watched the movie Peaceful Warrior, about a college athlete who gets injured and discovers a new way of looking at life. It’s very Buddhist, although not called that. A little Castenada and Karate Kid, too. It is basically about the lesson of living in the now, being in the moment, not attaching to an outcome, a future or a past, and missing your life. DH thought it a bit cliche, but I love this stuff, and never regret spending my moments remembering this lesson. (Perhaps I just need it more than he does!)

I spent a bit of time looking up Dan Millman, whose book the movie is based on. And, not surprisingly, he writes and speaks about success, among other topics. I’m going to see if my library has some of his books, as my curiosity is piqued.

Clearly, the movie tells us that success is not winning the gold medal, but being present and awake in our everyday lives, that the journey is the reward, and learning to appreciate the journey leads to more contentment than attaching to a specific outcome. Nick Nolte, who plays the gas station attendant/teacher called Socrates to Millman’s cocky, young athlete, speaks a phrase anyone who reads anything Buddhist knows well, “When we don’t get what we want, we suffer. When we get what we want, we still suffer.”

A good reminder for me, another permutation of which I also bookmarked in Pema Chodron’s When Things Fall Apart, on my nightstand at the moment (for my probably tenth time reading it). Chodron writes about it brilliantly. We think we will be happy “if only…” — if only this were to happen, or that. If only we had this, or looked like that. Even those dedicated to some “higher path” can get stuck in this — if only we meditated every day, ate perfect food, never got upset, “turned swords into flowers” in our life, then we would be content, happy, successful.

Nope.

Perhaps DH sees the cliche in Peaceful Warrior because we hear these lessons spoken of often. But how much do we actually live them? How much can we actually be present in our lives, stop focusing on the past or future? It’s a hard task, and writers and teachers I like to listen to will tell us that even they have not perfected it. There’s no such thing in this life. That’s what makes it this life, and not death (see Chodron for more on this). We will never reach perfection here. So we may as well accept the suffering and enjoy the ride.

I saw a bumper sticker that plays on the “I’d rather be… sailing, golfing, etc” stickers and license plate frames. It said, “I’d rather be here now.” Be here now. The real secret of success? For Millman and Chodron, and many teachers of various faiths, I think it’s safe to say a good place to start.

An organization I like a lot, The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, just published a summer reading list. One book on there has struck my interest, and I just requested it at my local library. It’s called Buy, Buy, Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds by Susan Gregory Thomas. CCFC calls it:

“a startling look at how corporate marketers prey on parents’ insecurities and target the youngest and most vulnerable children. Using interviews with marketing professionals, product developers, and child development experts, Thomas details disturbing trends, such as the rise of the baby video industry, the false and deceptive marketing of toys and videos as educational, the growth of commercial activities in preschools, and the increased use of licensed characters to sell anything and everything to babies and toddlers. An essential read for anyone concerned about the commercialization of childhood and the perfect eye-opening gift for new and expecting parents.”

According to some excellent reviews I found online, it also talks about the phenomenon of “kids getting older younger,” and one reviewer said it reads like a detective novel and changed his mind about how “harmless” it is for young children to watch TV.

What does this have to do with “Having Enough”? Lots! How early we start to learn that we “need stuff” (and don’t have enough), how large systems are in place to ensure this feeling, and, I’m hoping, some ideas for how we can try to counteract this with our own kids, the next generation.

Want to read it with me? Get it at your local library (or buy it, if you like), and let’s chat about it soon.

I recently read a book called Women Confidential: Midlife Women Explode the Myths of Having it All by psychologist/”career guru” Barbara Moses, Ph.D. Moses’ book is based on her twenty years of counseling, an ongoing survey of thousands of women, and in-depth interviews with a selective group of “interesting” midlife women. She says of this group, I love this:

“In spite of the temptation to describe these women as successful, I call them interesting because they have defined success on their own terms. Like many women, I struggle with the word successful…”

She goes on to describe how some are traditionally successful businesswomen, while others left career paths for lives of leisurely country living or volunteer work. All are university-educated, two-thirds have children, and they “respresent all the tangled possibilities” in partner relationships. Then she says:

“Regardless of their path, the women understand the choices they have made and can reflect on what was and wasn’t wise. They accept who they are instead of endlessly second-guessing decisions they have made (and if they had any bitterness, they have moved on). They are excited about their futures. As the French say, they are bien dans sa peau, they feel good in their skin.”

So, what do you think? Does this sound like a fair description of success to you? Not the traditional description of success and “having it all,” at least, a more realistic image of what we can aspire to at midlife.

Anyway, the book is an interesting collection of insights from these women, covering topics from corporate life, approval-seeking, friendships, kids (having them or not), marriage, midlife decisions, and more. Here’s an abbreviated version of her “Summary Dish: Fourteen Secrets of Success for Work and Life from Women for Women”:

1. Know and act on what is really important to you.
2. Undrestand what you are really good at.
3. Be authentic.
4. Define yourself independently of your roles–as mother, daughter, worker, leader, friend, partner.
5. Make your own decision. (Drop people-pleasing.)
6. Pay attention to the niggling voice that says, “I’m not happy.”
7. Think in terms of life chapters. (You can have it all, but not all at once.)
8. Cherish and grow your friendships.
9. Give back to individuals and the community.
10. Invest in yourself, and stretch yourself.
11. Accept others for who they are.
12. Edit out the stuff that doesn’t add value to your life.
13. Have a healthy relationship to money.
14. Be kind to yourself and others. (This is perhaps the most important secret of all.)

So, readers, what do you think? If you’re a midlife women, does this ring true? If you’re a younger woman, do these wisdoms make sense? They do to me, and this book supports for me what “Having Enough” is all about — being real, being authentic, being kind, generous, making mistakes, letting things go, struggling and learning, becoming ourselves.

I just finished reading this book a few days ago, and I must say it has only confirmed my fears about what “top” public schools have become in the wake of No Child Left Behind, SAT-mania, US News rankings, and all that go with these cultural developments. Robbins follows a handful of student overachievers through a year and alternates between their personal stories and her own investigative research on the “bigger issues” of overachiever culture.

The kids are doing way too much, and they are mostly (some extremely) miserable, never feeling good enough even with crazy high GPAs, yadda yadda. She admits she’s one of them, a Yale grad and NYT best-selling author in her 20’s. But she is recovering, as she nicely explains in a Forbes essay from this March. Here’s a quote that captures her book’s thesis:

“We live in an achievement-oriented, workaholic culture that can no longer distinguish between striving for excellence and demanding perfection. It is time to stop prioritizing how children look on paper over their health, happiness, and well-being. By now the message should be clear: Ease up, calm down, and back off. If students are free to follow paths toward their personal joys and interests, then it is worth trusting that everything will be all right in the end.” (p. 400)

I highly recommend this book, if nothing else for a conversation starter in your own family on the meaning of achievement. As a parent, it reminds me of what I don’t want for my daughter. It reminds me of my own grade obsession, which started in first grade when I got my (literally) first wrong answer. (It was a worksheet with drawings and we had to fill in the blanks to make words. The picture was a 3-D square with a jagged top and it said “B” with two blanks. I wrote “A-G” in the blanks, but the answer was “O-X.” I was horrified and indignant. And, yes, I remember the worksheet. Overachieverism starts very early.)

I’m considering alternatives to public school for my daughter, which I never thought I’d say. I don’t want her to be over-tested by first grade, as NCLB requires (and my husband sees first-hand as a public school teacher). I don’t want her surrounded by kids with cell phones whose parents drive big SUVs and take big vacations and wear big designer clothes.

I know I can’t avoid it all, but I can at least try to find educational settings where there is an awareness of these issues and a true desire to lessen their impact. What I can do: not overschedule her (I’m already boycotting all the baby classes!), not give into the consumer crazies, be aware, not push her to “achieve,” but rather show a love of learning for its own sake in our home. Still, it takes a village and all that.

We are considering Waldorf education, a philosophy we really like but we need to see it in action. We’re also looking at California charter schools, many of which allow for full or partial homeschooling and other alternative learning methods (and are free and public!). My brother and his wife homeschool in Maryland, and are loving it.

I’m still unsure for us. I’d love to hear others’ thoughts or experiences about school settings that allow for joyful and holistic learning, and don’t push children too fast, too soon, too competitively. And, also, I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on The Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins!