One of the things I love about Netflix is that it takes me back in time to my own childhood. We’ve already watched many of my own favorite films from childhood like Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science and I’ve recently come across a whole slew of films based on books I grew with like A Wrinkle in Time, The Babysitters Club, Hugo, The Babysitter’s Club, James and the Giant Peach, Escape to Witch Mountain and Goosebumps. We’ve also watched some of my favorite shows like Gilmore Girls, a show that I loved (but after rewatching nearly 200 episodes from its 7 seasons,  I was glad that binge came to an end).

But I’m also happy to report that Netflix is producing original programming to pick up where my favorite shows left off as a child, one of them being Richie Rich. How I loved Richie Rich! It was a comic strip about a very wealthy child who got up to crazy shenanigans. He was the world’s richest kids, and boy, did I want to be him. We also watched him in the Saturday morning line-up.

Netflix’s version finds Richie as a self-made entrepreneur, having become a trillionaire after selling the green technology he invented because he stashed away his dinner vegetables instead of eating them. He drives a mini Lamborghini around the huge house he shares with his father, sister, friends and female robot assistant.

This week Netflix also announced it has five new kid shows on the way including a remake of the classic ’80s cartoon Inspector Gadget, the return of Danger Mouse and three other original titles, a series of movies from Adam Sandler, new TV shows from the Marvel Universe and a new Pee-Wee Herman film from Judd Apatow.

According to Forbes.com, Netflix recently raised $1.5 billion in debt to help fund new original content, so clearly they are putting much emphasis on original programming. I’m happy to be able to get my kids hooked on shows based on shows I grew up with. Let the binging begin….

Disclosure: I’m a member of the Netflix Streamteam and receive free service to facilitate monthly posts, but all opinions are my own.

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I’ve just spent a few days in the Florida Keys at a resort that’s ideal for families. While I’m here, I’ve experienced several activities my kids would love – from fly fishing to jet skiing to a sunset cruise to a bike ride beyond the property.

Only there’s one catch – my kids aren’t here. I’m on my own after a pursuit of solo travel. I’m actually covering the resort. It was recently renovated and I’ll reviewing its new features for several publications I write for. I’m on a press trip with four other journalists. Some have kids, some don’t.

There is no question that traveling without my kids offers opportunities to explore and get more more in depth looks than traveling with them. I’m able to wake up and go for a run without worrying about hungry children, too. The experience is altogether different.

But don’t get me wrong: I started traveling with my kids right out of my womb. They’ve circled the globe and have traveled with me and my husband many times. I get immense pleasure out of showing them my favorite spots and seeing new places at the same they do.

But traveling alone gives me something much larger than life, and every now it’s important to stop and remember what it gives me. For one thing, it feeds my wanderlust and allows me to connect with myself on a very real and intimate basis that I can’t do when the kids are around.  It also allows me to be more experimental and adventurous. Riding a jet ski two days ago in the Keys gave me an opportunity to not only feel young again but also to tour the islands surrounding the resort, something I most likely wouldn’t get to do with my kids in tow.

My kids don’t limit me – they’ve actually helped me gain perspective on life. Since they were both born, I better see the possibilities in life. I see what’s out there in the world, and I want to spend every waking moment doing, seeing, going, experiencing.

So how I travel without guilt? My kids are older, but it’s still not easy. I leave everything back home as organized as I can, knowing in my heart that things may not go according to plan. But I also know that they will survive. I will come home refreshed and happy that I am furthering this extension of my career.

Riding the jet ski refreshed and reminded me of everything I love about getting out and seeing the world. I am going home shortly and I believe my family will also benefit from my time away.

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I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Gilmore Girls on Netflix for a few reasons. For one thing, I selfishly wanted to revisit Stars Hollow, the fictional town in Connecticut in which the show was based. I missed its eccentric residents and I certainly missed Loralai and Rory. From Miss Patty’s Dance School to Luke’s Diner to Kim’s Antiques to Weston’s Bakery, I was eager to revisit parts of the show that remain etched in my memory. I have often wondered how I would perceive these characters and places today, as a mother and resident of a place not that dissimilar. I live in a small town in Westchester, New York – not that far from the border of Connecticut, where we have our own slate of unique places, characters and circumstances.

Since the show aired (2000-2007), my life has changed considerably, and I am now married and the mother of a tween just a few years younger than Rory was when the show started. She and I have recently taken to watching shows together, mostly on ABC Family, and I have always wanted to watch GG with her. She is usually resistant to watching my old favorites, even though she has enjoyed all of the John Hughes films I’ve introduced her (thank god!), too, so I have yet to understand her hesitation. This time I told her to give the show a chance, secretly knowing and hoping she would love it as much as me. She insisted on multi-tasking through the first episode but that has decreased considerably since episode two, so we are on a roll.

To be honest, watching it again as a more “mature” (oy vey) adult, I’m able to keep up with the girls’ banter, which I’ve always loved, better than ever before. There are so many nuances and references to pop culture history that I probably get now, and may not have then. While we were watching the pilot, I found myself explaining things to her that I’m quite sure I didn’t understand then. Or perhaps I didn’t watch the show as intensely, and that’s a skill that’s come with age. Whatever the case, it’s making the experience all the more enjoyable.

As a mother, watching Loraai and Rory’s bond is also more meaningful to me now that it was back then. Then I watched it comparing myself to my own relationship with my mother, which has always been close, but it wasn’t as similar. By that point, I was in college, living away from home, and much of what transgressed between the young mother and teenage daughter was unrelatable.

But now I have a 11 year-old daughter and though I was double Loralai’s age when I had her, I have the same ambitions for her. Loralai wants Rory to go to Harvard. She wants her to do the things she was unable to do in life. She wants her not to fall into the same traps that may have held her back and stopped her from becoming more successful. I’m already a good ten years older than Loralai on the show but I feel the same way in many respects. I’m sure that every mother sees her daughter as her “what if I’d done that/what if I’d done this” – it’s hard not to. It was their significant mother-daughter relationship that helped Rory navigate the waters and not feel pressured. She truly wanted to go to Harvard, and Loralai was skillful at not making her feel obligated to fulfill her lost dreams for herself.

There is so much for me to learn about raising a tween from this show.

Disclosure: I’m a member of the #StreamTeam and receive complimentary Netflix as a member, yet all opinions are my own.

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But what is bothering me lately is the fact that other moms have the audacity to judge my children, and it’s certainly more painful than personally being judged my other moms. They, of course, have perfect children.  Children who never have bad days.  Children who never get tired, or hungry, or out of sorts.  Children who behave perfectly at all times of day.  Children who never talk back to adults.

I don’t tend to talk about this often, but I have a special needs child.  Special needs in the sense that we don’t have a diagnosis but there is clear Sensory Processing Disorder.  The problem with SPD is that everything you know about your child is vague and there is no easy answer.  What you do know is that there are good days and bad days.   Often things change from minute to minute and behavior can be sporadic. Sometimes he doesn’t even want to play with other children.  He acknowledges when he needs a rest, which is unusual, but he likes his rest days. So, I don’t plan many play dates,  as a result.

But his quirks make him interesting.  He’s unique.  He’s a bit of a non-conformist.  He doesn’t think the way other kids think, he wants to do what he wants to do quite often and sometimes he may come across as difficult.  So, of course, it has happened a few times where he may have just been having a bad day, maybe he hadn’t eaten enough that day or maybe something very small annoyed him and it caused somewhat disruptive behavior – at another mom’s house.

But as moms, don’t we know that all kids have bad days?  You should never ban a child from your house because of one bad experience, or pass judgement on that child for not acting the way you expected at that particular moment.  And did you ever stop to think that maybe it was your negative energy that caused him to react badly?

I know I’m being sensitive, but it’s very stressful when the friends are no longer there or available to play because of a mom’s hard feelings.  Party invitations stop coming (not sure if I’m complaining about, though) and providing social interaction gets harder.

Granted, there are moms who do give him another chance.  At a good friend’s home last month, he became obsessed with his friend’s Pokeman cards and demanded that the child trade for the ones he wanted.  The mom was taken back as they had never traded, and both she and my son were visibly upset when I arrived to collect him.  But we talked about it on the phone and they have played again.  She just wanted to understand the rules of card-trading and I did need to talk to him about obeying moms at other people’s houses.  He does get fixated on what he wants, but it’s hard to make others understand that.

The reason I am bringing this up today is because there is one mom in particular who has asked her sitter to stop having play dates with my son.  The sitter is clearly confused about it, as I am, as her son and mine were very good friends once upon a time.  Apparently, she asked my sitter about him yesterday and when my sitter suggested they set something up, she gave her a look of negativity.  When she told me, my heart broke.  We are friends and we’ve been meaning to go out drinking.

Here’s what I suggest when a child acts badly in your care.  Rather than not invite them again, I would do the following:

1. Talk to the child’s mom.  Let them know what happened. Give her a chance to respond before you judge her or her child.

2. Give the kids another chance.  Surely, it can be chalked to a bad day.  If it happens again, take a break

3. But don’t let the break be extended or permanent.  Kids change.

My son is amazing and I only want him around people who feel the same way.  So, to the mom who thinks he’s not, please don’t ask me out for drinks again.

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When Holly first emailed me and asked if I wanted to participate in this series, my first thought was that I was woefully unqualified to discuss being a woman who does it all. I almost always feel like I need to be – should be capable of – doing more. But I suppose that’s the big secret, isn’t it? Even the most productive among us imagines that there is even more we could be doing.

While I might not be doing everything, I am consistently doing enough.

More than that, I am doing the things that mean the most to me. That, I think, is the key to a life that feels happy and successful to the one to whom it belongs.

My sister-in-law, a 25-year old mother of three who is pregnant with her fourth and working a fulltime job in healthcare, recently asked her Facebook friends how she could do it all. She expressed a frustration that I find so common among women: a lack of balance and a fear that important people and obligations in her life are getting short -changed.

My suggestion was to lower her standards and stick with the basics.

She didn’t respond, but I imagine she hated that advice. I know I would have hated that advice when I was at a similar place in my own life. Being told to lower my standards would have been tantamount to being told to give up, to settle for less than what I and my family deserved, to admit that I wasn’t as capable of doing it all as those other women I saw who were handling so much so smoothly.

Giving up was probably the best thing I ever did for myself and my family.

I gave up trying to be super mom and focused on being a good mom. I decided that my kids didn’t care near as much about home-baked school treats and well-organized craft time as they did love, time, and attention. They’re wants and needs are pretty minimal and amount, in a nutshell, to a mother who is kind more often than stressed and affectionate more often than perfect.

So, too, did I give up on the dream of being the ideal wife. I have chosen, instead, to focus on loving my husband in the small ways he prefers and to trust that he will take care of keeping himself happy. His happiness is his responsibility; effectively loving him is mine. My husbands standards for love are even lower than my children’s; the challenge is that we speak different “love languages” and so I have to constantly remind myself to love him in his own language of touch and time, instead of the one I prefer of words and service.

In my mind, I’ve chosen to add on very little to the priority list after my family and friends. I have my work, which is also my passion; my health, which is a necessity more than a pleasure; and my obsession with personal happiness, which is really at the core of every other priority.

That’s really not much. It’s not all that I do –  occasionally I find myself with extra time for incidental items – but it’s all that I need to focus on in order to feel like I’m doing enough.

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On our recent trip to the UK, we brought back a few copies of a new book by first-time author, Cari Rosen, called  The Secret Diary of a New Mom Aged 43-1/4.  Cari and I have quite a few things in common.  While I have never met her personally, I know many people who have.  My husband grew up with her.  Our friend inspired her to write this book.  My brother-in-law worked with her father.   I am also a big fan of her Jewish Chronicle column,which inspired this book so I knew I liked her writing style before digging in.  But even more important than our common friends and the fact that I know her work is what we have in common: 1. My maiden name is Rosen (and I’m also Jewish). 2. I used to work in television and moved into publishing, much like her own career path. I also didn’t want to miss a moment of my first child’s upbringing and left my stable full-time job, although I did go back to that job for a short time before making the ultimate decision.  I don’t think she went back after maternity leave. 3. My daughter’s birthday also falls around the time of Passover, which has often caused problems in the cake-making area. 4.  I, too, had no idea what I was doing when I had my first child and her fate was left to the gods who put her in my care. 5. I have also been dealing with a changing body, gray hair and stretch marks since my children’s birth, and know there is only so much time I can blame it on the kids.  My daughter is nearly 8, she wasn’t born yesterday (how did that happen?).

The list of similarities could go on, but where I do differ and what this book banks on is Rosen’s age.  She terms herself a “geriatric mother” early on in the book and keeps much of the books’ emphasis on this fact, serving as support and guidance to others moms who are giving birth later in life.  She drops statistics throughout the book about this population like “One in five babies is born to a mum over 35, and the number of over 40s giving birth has doubled” (these are UK stats. Rosen had a very exciting life prior to having a baby, career-wise and everything else and her adjustment to being a mom was not easy at first. She breaks up the baby’s life stages into chapters and provides humorous commentary on each one.  I remember all too well the pain of attempting to breastfeed a child with no prior information about how to take care of a child; being in the hospital with nurses who had no comprehension that I had no idea how much my life was going to change and who had no idea that I had no clue how to feed a baby, yet alone “swaddle,” a work I had never even heard before that day; the struggle of getting my daughter (my first-born) on a normal sleeping schedule; the desire to talk about anything non-child related after a long day of picking food off the floor and cleaning poop off the walls (that’s my experience, not Rosen’s) in the early years; how my husband and I have always enjoyed our couch-potato nights in front of the telly, armed with a curry, more than almost anything.  But Rosen adds other scenarios to the mix that relate to having a child later in life: approaching menopause; dealing with the second child syndrome of younger friends when her maternal clock is ticking or stopped ticking; exhaustion; trying to have it all when everyone in her field is young and trendy.  She is brutally honest about the challenges of motherhood.  She doesn’t want to be taken for her daughter’s grandmother (much like one of my friends, who is a father of 1-1/2 year-old twins at age 50).  But above everything, she adores her daughter and wants to make the most of her time with her and the second chapter of her life.

Here’s an excerpt from the book so you get a sense of Rosen’s writing style.  This is from the section “0-3 Months” – you can read more here:

We are home and my morale is actually in need of a bit of TLC. I have had nine months to forget the fact that there were a lot of baggy and saggy bits even before I embarked upon my gestational journey – and now I am beginning to realise that it’s going to be an uphill battle to get rid of them.

It is not in the least bit helpful that the younger members of my ante­natal group seem to have pinged back into their size 10 jeans within 30 seconds of giving birth. I have not pinged for at least a decade, and it feels as though it will take a major surgical intervention to get me into anything with a zip.

I seek solace from the other aged mums. ‘It’s your metabolism,’ says one. ‘It slows down dramatically when you reach the big 4–0.’

‘Yes, definitely an age thing,’ agrees another.
‘Middle-aged spread meets motherhood? Go elasticated. That’s my motto.’

But I am not yet ready to renounce my youth. I want to read Grazia, not Woman’s Weekly. I want to deny the fact that I think ‘Ooh, how practical’ when I see magazine advertisements for slip-on shoes.

I recommend this book for anyone who has had a baby late in life, or perhaps is thinking about it.  For me, as an aging mom of a 6 and 7-year-old mom, there was plenty in this book to relate to, even though I started slightly earlier in life.  But whether you’re a new mom or not, you’ll relate to Rosen’s story and relish in the positive and not so easy memories that we all have as moms.  Rosen makes me realize that I am not so inadequate as a mother as I thought, and I appreciate that.

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NBC’s Parenthood storyline resonates with me week after week.  I haven’t enjoyed a show this much since 30 Something.   I relate to this show on so many levels.  For one thing, it’s about parents, and their problems and realities.  For another, it’s about a family that has its ups and downs and shows that our problems are never singularly our own.

You probably already know that the show follows the Braverman clan, five grown children, their families, and their aging parents.   Last week the parents, Zeek and Camille, played by Bonnie Bedelia and Craig T. Nelson, shared their financial and marital issues with their kids.  She has just kicked him out of the house, and he moved in with Adam and Kristina, played by Monica Potter and Peter Krause.  This week problems erupted with him living under their roof as he doesn’t understand how they put up with their Autistic son, Max, and his erratic behaviors.  They let him watch TV when he wants, though it’s a set time everyday, and seem to give into their every whim including running off to buy donuts when he demands he wants them.  In addition, their daughter, Haddie, is on the verge of having sexual relations and he can’t understand how they are letting her get away with it.

At the beginning of the season, Adam and Kristina had Max diagnosed and it’s been a gradual acceptance of their living with a child who is sometimes living in his own world.  Peter Krause, in particular (who I LOVED in Six Feet Under), has really helped evolve his character’s acceptance of his son’s reality of living with Autism.  This week, we could see how far he has come, as he and his wife really seem to understand their son’s structural and organization needs.  When Max loses his turtle, he freaks out and his grandfather can’t see what the big deal is.  But somewhere down the line, he understands that their structure and organization are holding Max together, and what a good job they are doing to keep him together.  It was very touching when he told his son, Adam, at the end after finally finding the turtle, that not only he is doing a great job with Max, but it’s a far better job than he ever did with his own family.

Sarah (played effortlessly by Lauren Graham with the same wit and grace she brought to Gilmore Girls) is a single mom who fiound herself out of money at the beginning of the season, and must move back home with her parents, with her two rebellious teenagers in tow. Now she is living with her mom, Camille, who after recently having kicked out her philandering, cheating husband, is back in art school.  When Sarah stumbles across her all dressed to the nines one evening on her way to a gallery opening, she insists on joining her.  At that monent, her father comes into the house to get something he forgot and sees his wife of over 40 years looking amazing, and you can see his heart drop.  He’s clearly in love with her.  However, they go to the gallery opening and Camille runs off with her art instructor and ends up sleeping with him.  The recognition of this fact rattles Sarah.  Graham’s eyes are so expressive and her acting so subtle and she seems to have a solid grip on playing someone so sensitive.  I’m sure that Maura Tierney, who was supposed to be cast on the show before her Breast Cancer diagnosis, would have been good, too, but the role feels like it was written for Graham.

Sarah’s daughter, Amber, played by Mae Whitman (who so excellently played Gabriel Byrne’s daughter on HBO’s “In Treatment”), has been uprooted from her home to come live with her mom’s parents in Berkeley.  She’s going through a hard time, being in a new school and doesn’t always feel like she fits in.  This week, she wakes up in a gazebo at the country club where she waits on tables, with her cousin’s ex-boyfriend, Steve, who she has clearly slept with.  She tells him not to tell anyone, and then she acts tortured over the feelings he has for him.  Haddie insists that she come to a sleep-over that her mother suggests she have to get over Steve, her ex-boyfriend, the one that Amber just slept with.  Amber breaks down and tells Haddie about her night with Steve, sending Haddie as far away as she can.  Amber implies that there’s something wrong with her to do things like that.  She has issues, serious issues.

Julia Braverman, played by Erika Christensen, is the youngest of the five kids and a successful lawyer. She and her husband have a little girl and he’s a stay-at-home dad.  Her character struggles with the fact that she is never home for her daughter, and she is constantly trying to make compensations for it.
It’s easy for any working mom to relate to this character.  This week, she resolves to help solve her parents’ financial problems and asks an ex-boyfriend to come help.  He’s a real estate fund manager.  Her husband, Joel, can’t stand him and things are made worse when he offers to help with his own set of skills from his time as a contractor, Julia rejects his offer causing a tide in a relationship which seemed to be very solid.

Lastly, there’s Crosby Braverman, played by Dax Shepard.  He had a son with a woman who never told him and he missed the first part of his life.  Now the boy is around 6 and he’s getting to know him and his mother, and he’s trying to work out whether he has a future with both of them or not, as he’s also falling in love with the mother of his child.  This week, he seemed to be really thinking about moving in with them as he made a break from his parent’s home and learned how to do his own laundry.  He goes apartment searching and makes plans to have his piano removed from his parent’s attic, which is a clear message that he’s serious on his new family.

One issue that wasn’t touched on this week is the internal battle with motherhood and being a mom that each of the main characters face, except Camille.  A few weeks ago Kristina, a stay-at-home mom, who clearly struggles with her decision to be home, went away to do some work for an old friend.  She used to work in politics but left when she had her first baby.  After just two days of work, she was offered a full-time job working on the campaign for a lieutenant governor.  She was so excited about the offer and ready to jump on the wagon.  But when she got home and started telling Adam about it, she realized she had to turn it down.  She said her children would only be home once.

She was in tears and so was I.  This show can be quite realistic and heart-breaking at times.  I have been in her shoes.  I still am.

I have also felt like Graham’s character, who at the age of 40 is trying to figure out who she is.  She is now applying to universities, something her daughter convinced her to do.  One week, she had an affair with an old high school sweetheart and dumped him, leaving him in Starbucks to bad mouth her with his colleagues when she left.  Soon after, she is waiting on tables at an event where he is being honored as a poet.  As he rambles off poem after poem, he stares at her as he reads tales of a broken heart obviously aimed at her.

I also have a special needs son so that story rings a whole lot of bells.  Phew.

Stay tuned for another summary of one of my new favorite shows Parent
hood next week.

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