Better Parenting via Science Theory**

There are several scientific theories that would have been discovered faster if only the world of science had allowed for mothers to be part of the discussion much earlier in history.

Nature seeks homeostasis: This is a truism. Every time I wash my floor, a child attempts to reassert the natural sticky feeling their feet have become accustomed to, by spilling something impossibly hard to clean up within ten minutes of the floor actually drying. Olive oil, maple syrup, and salt are amongst three of the most memorable illustrations of this theory in practice.

Opposites Attract: Clean white wall. Permanent Black Marker. Any questions? I mean, other than from my own mother asking why in heaven’s name do I even own a permanent black marker, or from my mother-in-law, where is this clean white wall you speak of?

Chaos Theory: Some individuals would stipulate that a child's very essence illustrates Chaos Theory's validity, independent of space, time or setting. Some individuals don't yet know the untrammeled power of a hungry child. For those who are still confused by chaos theory, perhaps a live demonstration is in order.  Please come on over to my house at five o'clock and try to fix dinner.  I will take a nap. 

Matter cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.

Exhibit A: my son’s laundry.
Exhibit B: An orange oversized tee he got in 3rd grade that defies all maternal efforts to transform or destroy. Handing it down has not stopped the older child from retrieving it for his wardrobe. Purchasing new shirts has produced no measurable effect. Now that it is, arguably, a bit tight around the arms, he still resents the fact that his mom has twice attempted to give it to goodwill. The shirt in question is currently stored in a secret bunker under his bed and heavily guarded by legos, books, smelly socks and other items that if discovered, would lead his mother to despair.

Time is relative theory: The simple errand of driving to school normally takes twenty minutes. Starting at 8:39 a.m. after Mom has whisked away breakfast materials and begun the getting dressed routine for all occupants still home, there is a tearful phone call from her third grade son. “Today is bake sale day and I didn’t bring any cookies.” Thinking about the frozen cookie dough in the freezer, Mom stupidly agrees to bring something by 10:30, as the bake sale starts at 11.

While in the process of getting the toddlers dressed, Mom throws the cookies in the oven, locates shoes, puts three unmatched socks in the laundry basket, flushes an abandoned toilet, puts milk away, turns off the lights, removes four bikes and two whiffle ball bats from the driveway, takes the cookies out of the oven, straps the two toddlers (who both want cookies) in their car seats and the baby and then signs a form for a package being delivered before starting the car.

Once in the car, Mom remembers that the aforementioned cookies are still in the kitchen. Retrieving the cookies, the phone will ring; it will be the same child asking if you are bringing the cookies. While inside, Mom will spot permission slip that needs to be dropped off and feel so virtuous for multi-tasking, she will run to her closet to gather the dry cleaning. Leaving for the second time, Mom gets half way down the driveway before realizing; she brought her purse in, but not out. In the few seconds Mom is in the house, the phone rings again, she forces herself to ignore it. Grabbing a prescription bottle on the counter that is about to run out, Mom returns to the car with her purse, cell phone and a diet coke. Triple checking to make sure she has all her children, her errands, and all required equipment for those errands, she drives.

It is part of the law of nature that she will then hit every red light plus have to navigate one traffic jam owing to a cop issuing a ticket and a second at a train crossing. She arrives around 12:15. The bake sale is over, and the volunteer has several dozen frozen dough baked cookies left over. When she checks the message on her answering machine at home from the phone call she ignored, it was her son saying “Never mind, third grade isn’t doing the bake sale this week, it’s fourth grade.”

Theory of Gravity: How annoyed your mother will be after enduring the above mentioned scenario versus. how much she loves you.

Next week: Scientific Law in Relationships:

Theory of Constancy: The level of stress in a marriage is constant, the level felt by the individuals within the marriage, is fluid.
** Originally ran on January 20, 2008, back when I only had 8 children. What a piker! 

Jack Bauer vs. Moms of America

Because the series "24" is coming to an end, this piece will lose it's humor shortly after the show loses its shelf life.  As such, it is time for a rerun because these babies will never be found on a best of DVD.

The running gag/conceit on “24” is that Jack Bauer never gets to do anything to maintain himself, eating, sleeping, using the bathroom, showering. He's always on the go.

Big deal.

Moms have been enduring this sort of relentless timed to the second hard press scheduling for years. Every fall, if you just look at the mini-vans lined up after school you’ll find not one but multiple examples of women talking on their cell phone while writing in a calendar, skimming and signing papers and providing two or more minors with the specialized equipment they’ll need for their afternoon activities, along with a snack. That’s all in the fifteen minutes they’re stuck in the slug line waiting to drive away from the school.

Jack Bauer searches through a myriad of places to find the stash of weapons or suspect or bomb he needs to find with mere moments to spare.

Yawn.

Try finding three pairs of clean white socks from the laundry for children who forgot to lay out their stuff the night before, while fixing five lunches, making sure each gets their breakfast and has their backpacks, lunches, diorama’s, permission slips and gym clothing for the day all before 7:30 am. Also, please remember to take out the garbage, remove the two bikes from the driveway and the car’s on E.

Jack Bauer sometimes resorts to unethical methods of getting information.

Hah! Like we mothers didn’t see that one coming. In the afternoon, after casually offering to charge the eldest’s cell phone, we check the numbers in and out. Moms specialize in benevolence that masks other motives. “I noticed you put your hair back yesterday in a pony tail, it looked nice.” Is mom code for “Your hair looks like the body of an emu, please find a brush and attack it at once!”

Intrigue and espionage? Please, moms invented it. Most mothers usually have more than one child who is a good mole for kid information, both about school and domestic issues. Some have been known to switch the baby monitor to other rooms, helpfully hidden under a pile of laundry, the ultimate camouflage. We conduct unauthorized search and seizure raids to evict illegal television watchers during homework time, and have special vice units (Dads) for serial offenders.

Jack Bauer doesn’t recognize proper authorities in some situations. He often deals with apparently cataclysmic explosions. He uses his wits to survive.

The parents of adolescents everywhere are nodding their heads at this one. We cope with unexpected emotional teen age equivalent of land mines at any waking moment, and must disarm them without so much as a paperclip or a welding rod. We do not recognize opening a locked door within our own home as breaking and entering, we monitor incoming and outgoing email, phone conversations and do background checks on all personal contacts. The HSA has nothing on us!

Jack Bauer has never been known to sleep or use the facilities in the course of a vigorous 24 hours. Parents do this on a regular basis, or irregular, depending upon your meaning. As an aside, all our 24 hours are vigorous, or at the very least, exhausting.

Jack Bauer still hasn’t eaten.

While abstaining from food might help with never getting to use a public restroom, most parents, even Jack's find it isn’t a healthy habit. Just as surely as Jack gets terrorists to spill the beans, we could make Jack eat them. Moms and Dads everywhere, say it with me, “You sit down and you’re not moving until everything on that plate is gone!”

The Posture of Prayer

This ran on Catholicmom.com but I edited it to improve the flow.

With my first name being Margaret, I appreciate the genius of Saint Margaret of Scotland’s prayer life that enabled her to glorify God while multi-tasking to manage her many children (6 sons, 2 daughters), and kingdom. However Saint Margaret never lost focus of why she was praying. For me, multi-tasking prayer began with the best of intentions. For a time, I rationalized, “God knows how busy things get,” but that put the thankfulness on God’s part for my praying. Not good. Not correct. We cannot serve two masters. The prayers made me just aware enough of my own diminishing experience of “trying” to pray. Our Fathers, rosaries had become part of the things to do, that got sandwiched into the process of getting through the day. The multi-tasking hurt me in other ways too.

Everywhere I felt distracted. Everywhere, I felt I wasn’t giving the time and attention necessary; and the days got harder and harder and harder. Cooking the meals; doing the dishes and even reading the stories, there was something of me holding back, being unwilling to give or be present because as I rationalized, I was doing so much. It was true in all things, everywhere, I was restless; everywhere I was somewhere else. For a time, I told myself I was being too critical and to relax and ignore it. After all, I was still praying. I was still doing. But the prayers done on the fly while still a gift, were not done mindfully; and the tasks done on the fly, while still acts of service, were not done mindfully. I was cheating myself of the full presence of God and others by being distracted.

Our parish priest suggested kneeling or going off into a room and light a candle to bring about a more prayerful mindset. I knew already that this was the correct advise because my brain came up with a thousand reasons not to do as he said. I could hear with all those excuses of what I could be doing if I just prayed as I worked but the words “Martha, you are anxious about many things.” popped in my head as a response. And I was. “How could I subdivide my time even more?” I wondered. The answer was, I wasn’t supposed to subdivide at all.
“Could I not stay?” I could hear. It wasn’t harsh in my head, it was more like a request, an invitation. Could I go on a date with God daily or not? If I would learn to be fully present to those I loved, shouldn’t I begin by being fully present to the One who is love? This was the spiritual food for which I had been starving but unable or rather unwilling, to seek.
The first stint lasted only seven and a half minutes; but tomorrow, I’m setting the timer for ten.