Author Urges Parents to Go Forth and Multiply . . . More Often

My latest pop culture column this week over on Modern Mom and Mommy Tracked is my response to reading Bryan Caplan's book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids.

Caplan used a multi-pronged approach to try to persuade parents who already have kids to have more. "Today's Typical Parents artificially inflate the price of kids, needlessly worry and neglect the long-run benefits of larger families," Caplan argues. Some of his main points:

If you chill out, being a parent is fun and not excessively hard (except for the very beginning). We've made child-rearing overcomplicated by all of our hovering, carting children around to a bazillion things and vigorously pursuing kid-enrichment efforts, Caplan says. After pointing to a whole bunch of studies saying that parents' child-rearing doesn't wind up having much impact by the time the kids are grown -- except how they perceive you and their childhood -- he said there's no point in making ourselves crazy by trying so hard. ". . . [B]y adulthood, the fruits of parents’ labor is practically invisible," he wrote. "Children who grew up in enriched homes are no smarter than they would have been if they’d grown up in average homes."

And if you take this more relaxed view of parenting and just enjoy your kids, adding another one won't be such a big deal. Or so Caplan says.

We, as a society, are more well off than the larger families were in the 1950s, so why are we letting financial concerns stop us from having bigger families? Caplan says: "Big families are more affordable than ever, because we’re more than three times richer than we were in 1950. You can see our mounting riches in our homes. Compared to the tiny dwellings of the Fifties, modern families live in castles, with air conditioning. Why hasn’t the size of our families grown in step with the size of our houses?” He added “our real incomes have more than tripled since the 1950s."

(My respon$e would be one word: College.)

"How many kids will I want when I'm sixty?" His pull-at-your-heartstrings admonition is for parents not to determine their family size when they're overly fatigued by raising young kids, a phase which he says passes relatively swiftly when you look at the general scheme of things. Instead, the author wants you to imagine that you're 60 and are looking at your offspring -- and potential makers of grandkids -- and decide your ideal family size from that vantage point. "Many of the benefits of children come later in life," he said. "Kids have high start-up costs, but wise parents weight their initial sleep deprivation against a lifetime of future rewards -- including future grandchildren."

More kids means more people with new ideas, outlooks and talents eventually entering the workplace and supporting the nation's retirees. "Our population and our standards of living have risen side by side for centuries, and it's no coincidence," he said. ". . . The source of new ideas, without a doubt, is people -- creative talent to make discoveries, and paying customers to reward their success. More talent plus more customers equals more ideas and more progress."

After reading this book, I was intrigued by the studies which he said showed that parents' child-rearing has little impact on their children's intellect, future financial/career success and personalities, but I was still stuck on the whole issue of the cost of college, which I didn't think was sufficiently addressed in the book. His notion, that Americans should have more children than we do, seems contrary to the assertions made by many groups including environmentalists and feminists.

What do you think? Should we be having more kids or not? Do we make parenting too hard and discourage ourselves from expanding our families?

Need Advice About the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando

While all three of the Picket Fence Post kids are still really into all things Harry Potter -- and The Spouse and I are still reading the Potter series aloud to The Youngest Boy (we're on book six, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) -- we decided that we'd take a summer trek to the new portion of Universal Studios in Orlando dedicated to The Boy Who Lived: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

I think I'm more excited than they are to step into the world of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, go to the Three Broomsticks for Butterbeer and stop by Zonkos Joke Shop. There are three big rides there, of which I think I'm likely to only partake of one, the "family" coaster otherwise known as the "Flight of the Hippogriff." (I'm not a big ride type of gal.) Though I fully expect that The Girl and The Eldest Boy will want to go on these rides multiple times.

Here's my question: For those of you who've already visited the Wizarding World, what recommendations do you have for us newbies?

Image credit: Universal Studios.

Adventures in Youth Sports: Spring Edition (Includes a Pig on a Leash)

It's been a weird week in youth sports for the Picket Fence Post family. We're talkin' a tiny pig on a leash, a whistle, heated arguments, bone-chilling dampness and bodies flying.

On the Little League front, The Youngest Boy's team, coached by The Spouse, finally won their first game. In fact, they won two in a row and actually turned some smart plays that led to runners being tagged out.

The Youngest Boy pitched during one of those games and I watched him through my fingers as I, from time to time, had my hands over my eyes. It's really nerve-wracking to watch him gun in some decent pitches, strike a kid or two out, then walk half of the other team. The hurt look on the little pitchers' faces when they're pulled . . . just breaks your heart.

One of those two games was played on a damp, cold day. (I literally turned on the fireplace and curled up in front of it with a book after I got home trying to regain feeling back in my fingertips.) The game went on for well over two hours. The league rules say you're not supposed to start a new inning more than 1 hour 50 minutes from the game start unless there's a tie. However there wasn't a tie. The Youngest Boy's team was up by a decent amount of runs. But when The Spouse wanted to end the game, the coach of the other team wanted his kiddos to keep playing. (My guess is that he thought his team could catch up.) When The Spouse returned to the bench, another mother and I started bitterly complaining to no avail that the game had gone on too long and should've ended. At least The Youngest Boy's team prevailed.

On a different playing field later in the week, The Girl's soccer team was quite well matched as they took on another area team in a tough contest. But they weren't well matched if you consider that the ref was a hometown ref, and the game wasn't in our hometown. Normally, when the officiating is somewhat imbalanced, we tell the Picket Fence Post kids afterwards that oftentimes things aren't fair and you just have to roll with it 'cause there's nothing you can do about it. But in this particular case, the guy reffing the game was so blatantly unfair, that the parents on the sidelines, including yours truly, started griping. Loudly. (I hardly ever yell to a ref, except at a Red Sox or UMass basketball game.)

Bodies were flying. Girls were falling. And penalty shots were taken . . . at our goal, repeatedly. At one point, the normally even-keeled Spouse, who never gets into beefs with others at youth sporting events (see above how he let the other Little League coach drag the game out), yelled directly at the ref after one particularly egregious missed call. The guy turned to The Spouse, held out his whistle and asked him if he wanted to take over.

After the game -- where we noticed that a spectator watching another game on an adjacent field had brought along a tiny pink pig on a red leash -- that ref was waiting near the exit for "the guy who had a question" about his officiating. Cue the loud, impassioned argument between the ref and The Spouse while The Girl rolled her eyes and urged me to keep walking to the car.

Just your average week in youth sports.

Notes from the Picket Fence Post Homefront

The velcro, plastic cone is back. Back around Max the dog’s neck. Why? Because the knucklehead bit the heck out of the inside of his right paw down to his pink skin because he appears to have two mosquito bites that are aggravating him to the point of compelling him to gnaw at his skin. I’m trying not to make him wear the plastic cone 24/7 -- as he’s quite sullen and listless when I do -- but unfortunately he needs to don the terribly unattractive accessory for a bit of time to keep the fluffy pooch from giving himself an infection.

***

The Eldest Boy was initially stung when, after his school’s band performed at a school band competition this week, one of the judges offered lengthy, constructive criticism of his drumming in front of the whole band and parents as the poor kid blushed. However his hurt feelings evaporated when he was later honored for being an outstanding musician. (*glowing as one proud mom*)

***

The Youngest Boy has been really pulling at my heartstrings lately, trying his very best to make me feel like a guilty mom, which, sadly, isn’t a very difficult feat to accomplish. Just today when I told him I wouldn’t be able to take him to a sporting goods store so he could spend some of his cash on a Miami Heat cap and jersey (yeah, I have no idea why he wants this unless he just wants to rub in the Celtics' loss to a house of Celtics fans), he yelled, “Mom just ruined my day!” Later he amplified his feelings, “Can’t believe my day’s so ruined!” I responded by telling him that I’m mad with power.

***

Speaking of The Youngest Boy . . . I need to start checking his alarm clock every night when I put him to bed because he’s clearly not setting it (or if he is, he’s ignoring it) because this previously early-rising child has been getting up very late on school days and hasn’t been able to get ready in time to make the school bus for more than one or two days over the past two weeks. That means I wind up driving all three Ungratefuls to school in my pajama pants and a sweatshirt, with a baseball cap pulled down over my hair. It’s not a pretty picture.

***

The Girl is irate. She’s distinctly unhappy with the casting decisions made for the upcoming film The Hunger Games, based on the first book in the Suzanne Collins popular series. She plucked the brand new issue of Entertainment Weekly out of our mailbox this afternoon and, when she saw the film’s lead actress on the cover, proceeded to explain to me why Jennifer Lawrence is all wrong to play the pivotal character Katniss. The Girl cannot stop talking about this book, so I guess, as a connoisseur of pop culture and the mom of two 12 ½ year-olds who loved the books, it’s incumbent upon me to tackle this series, I’ve just got to finish Pride & Prejudice first.

Image credit: Amazon.

Watching 'The Mentalist' with The Eldest Boy: What Shows Do You Watch with Your Kids?

Image credit: CBS

I’m not exactly sure how it started, but some time this winter, The Eldest Boy and I started watching CBS’ The Mentalist together and, before I knew it, it had become our “thing.”

One night I was sitting on the sofa in the family room just aimlessly surfing the TV channels while the The Eldest Boy was sacked out next to me. We happened upon a repeat of The Mentalist and The Eldest Boy asked me what it was about. I was only able to give him an abbreviated explanation because I'd never seen the show before, plus I loathed its title, really, I loathed it passionately. I couldn’t give him much more than: There’s this guy who helps the police solve crimes because he’s really smart and observes things that others don’t.

This appealed to the bookish Eldest Boy who likes to figure things out and is drawn to characters that are intelligent. So we watched it. When the episode wrapped, The Eldest Boy set the DVR to record all the new installments of the show, as well as all the repeats so we could catch up. And now it’s become something I look forward to, 40 some odd minutes of just him and me, watching an entertaining TV show and trying to figure out the weekly mystery together. (We hardly ever get it right.) I'm thinking that maybe this summer we’ll Netflix the first couple of seasons to watch it from the beginning.

Seeing that I already "share" a TV show with The Girl -- as we've loved watching the Gilmore Girls together on DVD and repeats on ABC Family -- and The Spouse and I have been reading the Harry Potter books to The Youngest Boy, The Eldest Boy is now getting his due.

I’m going to milk this Mommy & Me Mentalist-watching for as long as I can because I know that before long, he won’t want to hang with me and guess who dunnit. And if that means that, in the near future I’ll have to bribe him with popcorn and/or movie candy to tempt him to spend time with his old mom, I’m certainly not above that.

Are there any TV shows that you watch with your tweens and/or teens that you consider your “special” show together?

Image credit: CBS.

Huzzah! My Rain Dance Worked! Practices & Games Canceled!

When I saw that weather forecasters were predicting several consecutive days of rain this week in the Boston area, I was secretly thrilled. No, not because I have a twisted desire to live in dreary, Seattle-like weather where I actually want to sit in front of the fireplace (in May!) in order to warm myself up or feel the need to wrap myself in a blanket while working at my desk.

Why have I been so chipper about all this lousy, unspringlike, inclement weather (in the 40s-50s)? Because I’m a desperate soccer/baseball mom who is delighted to enjoy a break from racing the three Picket Fence Post kids around to soccer practices, soccer evaluations (for placement on next year's teams), baseball practices and baseball games. (It’s supposed to be nice over the weekend – when The Spouse is around to help pitch in on the schlepping all over town – so the weekend games should go on as planned. And I’m okay with that.)

What a relief it has been to “only” have to hound the kids about doing their homework assignments and about helping out with chores like emptying the dishwasher and feeding Max while I have the opportunity to finish my work AND make a decent meal that wasn’t whipped together on the fly (cereal, soup, PB&J) in between drop offs and pick ups.

Sometimes it’s nice to have the weather force you to take a step back from the madness of the spring youth sports season -- and from being the children's indentured servant chauffeur -- and take a breather.

Image credit: Planet Mom T-shirts.

Dogs Really Do Bury Bones, Just Like on That Commercial

The Spouse gave Max a bone the other day to chomp on when Max was left in his crate when no one was home. When I got home, I didn’t immediately notice that, when Max dashed out of the crate and headed toward the back door that he had the bone in his mouth.

While Max was outside, I saw him digging in a corner of the yard and actually putting the bone into the dirt and covering it with shredded weeds and dirt, like that dog on the Travelers Insurance commercial.

Later that afternoon, Max decided his hiding place wasn’t good enough so he unburied the bone and tried to sneak the dirt-covered mess into the kitchen . . . a move upon which I put the kibosh.