Arizona victim Christina Taylor Green was nine years old

I want my kids to have the right to call you a slime bag or an idiot and not get shot. I want them to be able to attend a political debate as nine-year old Christina Taylor Green (see photo to left) did on Saturday morning in Arizona when she was shot dead along with five others. I want them to be able to engage in debate over the most vexed of issues:  abortion, gun control, health care, etc., and still feel safe.

Is that the case here? Is our freedom of speech being whittled away by other people’s freedom to carry arms, even semi-automatic weapons?

After more than 15 years living in the United States, we are returning to live in Australia later this year although we are all  U.S. citizens.

We’d already made our minds to leave before Saturday’s shooting, which left Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford in a medically-induced coma after an innocent meet and greet outside a local Safeway in Tucson, Arizona.

But somehow the shooting has added fear to my long list of why it is  really time to go.

• I do not want my children to grow up with the right to carry semi automatic weapons.
• I do not want them to grow up thinking that this is a reasonable right.
• I don’t want them living near people who want to exercise that right.
• I don’t want them near people who think that it is their right to carry a concealed weapon as they go about their shopping at Safeway, Walmart, pick up their kids from childcare or borrow books from the college library.

I fear for my children’s safety in a land where the response of many politicians to Saturday’s massacre in Arizona is to carry their own concealed weapons.

I fear for their lives if they attend an American college, where random shootings seem to have become routine.

I do want them growing up in a society with a lively debate. And I don’t want them thinking that if they call someone “brain damaged,” “a slime bag,” “a pig” or “a gutless spiv”  —- some of the least offensive words used in the Australian Parliament by former Prime Minister, Paul Keating —- they could get shot. See Keating Insults Archive.

I’d prefer they keep their cursing to a minimum, or at least to the car .when they’re old enough to drive .. and respond to people with civility.

But we shouldn’t have to fear that if you get angry or call someone a name, you’ll get shot.

That’s a fear I’ve known since arriving in the U.S.

I remember a time in Philadelphia when my husband and the driver of another car came to a dead stop in the middle of an intersection.  Neither could agree on who had right of way.

Both men got out of their cars, and started yelling at each other.

My biggest fear was that the other man had a gun. When I looked over at the other man’s girlfriend, she was trembling. She was equally afraid that my husband was carrying a weapon. We both begged them to get back in the car.

No matter what someone calls you, or you call them, it doesn’t warrant picking up a gun and shooting that person.

As mothers don’t we tell our kids that? At least we do. “It doesn’t matter who called you stupid, or an idiot, you can’t hit back.”

As Gail Collins said yesterday in The New York Times, “A Right to Bear Glocks?”:

“The amazing thing about the reaction to the Giffords shooting is that virtually all the discussion about how to prevent a recurrence has been focusing on improving the tone of our political discourse. That would certainly be great. But you do not hear much about the fact that Jared Loughner came to Giffords’s sweet gathering with a semiautomatic weapon that he was able to buy legally because the law restricting their sale expired in 2004 and Congress did not have the guts to face up to the National Rifle Association and extend it. ”

It frightens me that anyone can walk into a gun shop or a supermarket, in some parts of this country, and pick up a gun and kill six people easily as Loughner shot nine- year old girl, Christina Taylor Green.

I love living in the United States, and am terribly sad to be leaving, but the high incidence of gun violence (the U.S. is just behind Brazil, Mexico and Estonia) makes me fear for my children’s safety.

Australia isn’t perfect.  Far from it. It has shootings, too. But the gun controls are much tougher. The stats show that gun related deaths in the U.S. are nearly six to seven times as great as in Australia and New Zealand, and about 12 times higher than Japan.

I know many foreign-born U.S. citizens like me just don’t get the Second Amendment.  I could tolerate the right to bear arms — although I’d disagree with it — but I agree totally with Gail Collins. The right to bear semi-automatic weapons is ludicrous.

Don’t we value the lives of the people who lost their lives  in Arizona more than that?

Photo credit: CNN

Related articles

• Giffords Attack Makes Joke of Gun Control: Roger Lowenstein (businessweek.com)
• Polling: Americans favor semi-automatic weapons ban (seattlepi.com)
• Drew Westen: Gun Violence and the Lessons of Tucson: Will the Chambers Once Again Be Loaded Against the American People? (huffingtonpost.com)
• U.S. Sen. Lautenberg introduces bill banning high-capacity ammunition clips in wake of Arizona shootings (nj.com)
• Guns cost more lives than they save (salon.com)

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Breast cancer awareness

As part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I wanted to share my Aunt’s five-year story of surviving breast cancer, which is chronicled on my cousin’s fun and witty blog, The Patriotic Baker. I’ve broken the excerpts into several posts, which we will be posting over the next week or two to raise awareness of breast cancer treatment:

I am  a 5- year breast cancer survivor. In May 2005, I felt a lump and had prompt treatment (thankfully, I had great doctors). My treatment included a lumpectomy, chemotherapy for 8 weeks and radiation for 6 weeks. My focus to beat this diagnosis was to keep a positive and humorous outlook and to create a few lists about my journey

My personal top ten fun reasons to get chemo

• You can get ready for work quickly, you don’t need to do your hair
• Don’t have to shave your legs
• Your children will do what ever you ask (maybe)
• Your husband will treat you like a princess (mine already did)
• Your don’t have to cook/clean/or do wash (unless you really want to)
• You get to avoid any occasion you really don’t want to go to (your blood counts might be low)
• You can eat anything that looks good
• You have a good reason not to exercise
• You can sleep in any time you want
• You have all the time to do those things you usually don’t have the time to do i.e. watch soaps, shopping (but you might not have the energy to do them)

Some thoughts about my journey:

• Family and friends make a great support system. Let them help.
• There were days I felt I had run a marathon just laying on the couch.
• Radiation: This was fun, when else can you get 4 tattoos in an afternoon. I now have more than my daughter (I think).
• I met many very courageous people who were taking the journey through cancer the same time I was.
• Celebrate, I went to Campabello, the Panama Canal, and on a zip line in Jamaica. This is important to have a goal to look forward to.
• Follow-up visits with surgeon, Oncologist, and Radiation Oncologist, keep them, go when they are scheduled.
• Mammograms and ultrasounds, again go when they are scheduled.
• Encourage others to do monthly self breast exams, get their mammograms and have regular checkups.
• Deal with the emotional aspect of re-occurrence.
• Get on with your life.

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We’ve taken the pledge to participate in the Army of Women breast cancer campaign on October 1, 2010.  Please join us.

“We are dedicating ONE day to reach ONE million women to sign up for the Army of Women,” say organizers.

“We are declaring October 1, 2010 the official Army of Women Day. We beseech all bloggers to blog about the Army of Women and empower women to take the next step by signing up and taking part in breast cancer research studies.”

“Together, we can move breast cancer beyond a cure and eradicate it once and for all.”

The idea is to enlist an army of volunteers who will work with researchers.

Breast cancer research is often focused on killing the tumor cells, say organizers.

“Much less attention is paid to how cancer starts and how to prevent it. Furthermore, most prevention research has been conducted in the lab — on cell lines and mice. The Army of Women will focus new attention on the need to unlock the key to what causes breast cancer by having women partner with scientists.”

You can read about some of the current research projects.

It is an online initiative, sponsored by the Avon  Foundation of Women.

You can sign up at ArmyofWomen.

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Don't rely on luck and St. Pat for good health

Bonnie Bernstein survived a blood clot. She had no idea that she was experiencing symptoms of DVT. “After all, I’ve worked out my entire life, eat well, rarely drink alcohol, and don’t smoke,” she wrote.

But David Bloom, NBC news correspondent, wasn’t so lucky.

He died in Iraq in the “sand-blown heat of war.”

But he didn’t lose his life to a bullet or a bomb, but to a blood clot, his wife Melanie Bloom wrote in The Huffington Post.

Every year, 2 million Americans are affected by DVT of a blood clot, known as Deep Vein Thrombosis.

March is the seventh annual Deep-Vein Thrombosis (DVT) Awareness Month.

The Coalition to Prevent DVT is urging everyone to get moving to avoid DVT. You may think DVT only strikes people who are crammed into economy class. That was my view after seeing warnings on many Qantas flights from LA to Sydney and back.

But the consortium says blood clots strike people:

• at the office
• in bed, whether hospital or at home
• in Assisted-Living or Rehabilitation facilities, and
• during travel.

DVT occurs when muscles of the legs are inactive, allowing blood to collect in the lower extremities.

Working with Mary Ann Wilson, RN, founder and host of PBS program “Sit and Be Fit,” the Coalition has developed an educational video that features simple, low impact movements to increase blood circulation.

Visit www.preventdvt.org to take a look.

You can also hear National Spokesperson, Melanie Bloom talk about the loss of her husband, David Bloom from complications of DVT while covering the war in Iraq.

To watch a special iPSA from Melanie Bloom, speaking of the importance of DVT Awareness, please visit: www.westglen.com/online/dvt_awareness_motion.htm

What can you do? Stand up now and stretch, and prod your colleague in the next cubicle to do the same. I’ll be doing my stretches tonight as I fly to Paris.

Did I say PARIS? Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

A bientot!

Photo: Cygnus921′s photostream on Flickr.

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Add this to your list of New Year’s resolutions that are easier to achieve than losing weight or launching your own business … and better for everyone.

What is it? Try to stop talking, texting and tweeting while driving.

I love to talk on my cell phone, particularly while driving, but I’ve been trying to give it up.

Why? Because I know it is dangerous. It puts my kids and yours at risk.

It is good news to see the formation of FocusDriven, an organization aimed at dissuading people from driving while talking or texting on a cellphone.

The New York Times reports that FocusDriven, which is just beginning its recruiting and fund-raising efforts, has taken cues about how to attack the issue from the leadership of Mothers Against Drunk Driving ( M.A.D.D.).

“We’re taking the plays out of their playbook,”  Jennifer Smith, the president of FocusDriven, told the NYT. Ms. Smith’s mother, Linda Doyle, died in September 2008 when the car she was driving was hit by another driver who ran through a red light while talking on a cellphone.

You know what? I hate not talking on my cell phone while driving. It’s been hard to give it up. But sometimes I drive a few miles while talking and realize later that I have no memory of which route I’d taken.

And then I wonder: “What else haven’t I noticed?”

You can see our other posts on this topic at “Mom, did you ever text and drive?”

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A Guide To Helping Your Adult Children With Their Job Search

Pity! You can’t accompany your kids to an interview or answer an interviewer’s questions, but you can help them in other practical ways when they start job hunting.

It is a fact of life that kids are staying in the family home longer, often while they hunt for their first jobs.

In this guest post, expert Heather R. Huhman talks about how to help your older child find a job while working hard at your own full time career:

Parents of the Millennial Generation hover over their children even after they go to college and begin their job search. For this, they’ve earned the nickname, “helicopter parents.”

While it is true we only hear about the helicopter parents who hover far too closely over their children’s lives, it is possible to be an effective helicopter parent when it comes to your child’s job search.

While it is completely inappropriate to accompany your child to interviews and write their résumé for them, you still can be involved in a lesser capacity:

• Conduct research: Researching can be the toughest part. You may be able to provide your child with some direction.
• Give resume feedback: If you received your child’s resume, would you want to hire them? Give some constructive criticism on how they could better show off their experience.
• Help financially: This can be anything from allowing your child to move back in with you, paying for professional development courses, or even extending their benefits plans (i.e., health insurance).
• Provide networking contacts: If you can offer four or five colleagues or family friends willing to meet with your child, chances are each of these contacts will provide several more contacts. Before you know it, you have helped build a network for your child!
• Sound off: Be a sounding board for your child; listen after they have a bad interview or to go through a mock interview with them. Ask them tough questions.

Chances are, your child will be spending an extraordinary amount of time on their job search, and while they will undoubtedly appreciate your help, it is very important that you don’t forget about your career.

Helicopter parents come in close

Follow her on Twitter.

Photo of Marine Helicopter by Sigmaman thanks to Flickr.com creative commons license.

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I heard a weird noise the other day and turned around to see my seven year old twin boys and their friends sneezing and coughing all over each. Each wheeze was accompanied by those sound effects little boys make when they are pretending to be Ninjas or Luke Skywalker.

“Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, yeewaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak, spleeeeeerk!”

What was happening? It was the beginning of the battle of the swine flu.

“Stop that,” I screamed. “You know you’re meant to be covering your mouths, and not sneezing and coughing on each other. You’ll get each other sick!”

A few minutes later, there was another wet snort. One had done a pretend, but wet, snort over the other. They were breathing heavily over each other and giggling.

Imagine long Darth Vader sounding exhalations ….. wwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Boys play swine flu warriors

Then, as they say in the classics, dear reader, it hit me.

The boys were playing “Germ Warfare: The Swine Flu Chronicles,” a new spin on Star Wars Chronicles.

They know it’s bad to cough and sneeze on each other. Most of the time, and when parents and teachers are looking, they are good little boys. They do the right thing: They cover their mouths, they sneeze into their sleeves and they wash their hands without being asked at least four times. They even do the right thing when nobody is looking … most of the time.

But these repeated warnings about the risks of swine flu at school and at home have also made them realize that “germing” someone is about the worst thing you can do these days.

It is more powerful than a lightsaber, it is more potent than a stick and it certainly gets my attention.

After telling a reporter from the Washington Post about this yesterday, I fretted that my kids and some of their friends were the only aberrant children around.

Volunteering on the school playground yesterday, I watched for sneeze warfare. Nothing. I only saw perfectly proscribed behavior: Correct sneezing and coughing into the crook of arms.

When I sheepishly asked a friend if I was the only one who’d seen this, she laughed and said, “Absolutely not!” She’d seen her son cough all over his sister, knowing that was about the worst thing possible right now. I was relieved to find other moms like me.

In other eras, kids played Cowboys and Indians, Fighter Pilots, goodies and baddies, Batman and Robin so I suppose Germ Warfare is only natural for children of 2009.

But it makes me feel like I am Osama Bin Mommy harboring germ terrorists in the deep dark woods of Maryland.

Hey, while you are reading our blog, stick around and read some of our other posts on Swine Flu resources.

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Guess who got a D for Death in the test for Texting While Driving 101?

Experts in Utah tested some expert bloggers and texters  ( daresay they were savvy tweeters, too) in a simulator. They found even short tweets or a simple, “I’m nearly there!”  put them at risk.

It would have been bye bye blogger if they had been on the road.

They crashed.

Meanwhile, President Obama will stop Federal employees from texting while driving.

But what can parents of teens who drive do other than rant, rave and threaten to take away privileges?

A new service allows parents to put the brakes on their kids’ texting while driving habit. It’s called TXTBlocker and it allows parents (and employers) to disable texting functions, block numbers and permit calls that are on a preset. Read more at Witches’ Brew.

It is up to us to lead by example to show our kids that we don’t think it is safe.

I am trying to stop texting and talking on my cell while driving.  The talking has been the hardest part, and I have fallen from grace a few times.

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photo credit: elle.johnson

My son asked me these questions last night.

“Have you ever got drunk?”  Yes.

“Has Dad ever got drunk?”  Yes.

“Did you get a tattoo? “  No, I replied.

“Doesn’t everyone who gets drunk get one?” he asked.  Not everyone, I replied.

Fastforward 25 years and I can imagine my grandchildren asking about other odd or risky behavior in the olden days.

“Grandma, I read in the old days that people used to think it was safe to send text messages and drive their cars. Did you do that when Dad was a kid?”

Yes, I will admit,  “just once or twice.”  And I will hang my head in shame, like I did when filling out the WiredMoms survey about moms driving and cell phone habits.

You can still take the anonymous survey, but so far, WiredMoms reports that Moms admitted to communicating in all ways while driving in their cars.

“Most use handheld phones while driving.  Half of the time we do have kids in the car with us.

“About half of the Moms surveyed left comments that they knew they probably shouldn’t text while driving but that they mostly just checked messages at stop lights. Mostly. There were a surprising amount of Moms that admitted to texting and driving.”

In my defense, I have only texted while driving once or twice, and that was just to hit the send button. But a study, published in The New York Times, of truckers who texted while driving showed it increased their risk of collision by 23%.

Meanwhile I am on day 20 of not talking on my cell while driving.  Since I wrote My Worst Addiction I’ve made a big effort to concentrate on the road and my kids, and ignore my phone.

It’s been nice.

It’s been awful.

It’s been hard to admit it was an ingrained habit to reach for the phone and chat in the car, especially when I was upset.

So how are you doing with your attempts?  Follow @DonTwive onTwitter to join the conversation by using theses  hashtag, #DontTwive & #TweetSafe!.

You can also do an interactive test, Gauge Your  Distraction, to see just how distracting it is:

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madmom

Us Moggers and Tweetheads at MomstoWork couldn’t resist the  Momfinition challenge at TwitterMoms to contribute five definitions to a mom dictionary. Here are ours, and as always, we went overboard and came up with a few more than requested.

And don’t forget to check out other fun definitions, like Keything Ring (what babies chew on) at ParentsConnect.

• Hug hogger. “That little boy won’t stay out of my lap. He is a real hug hogger,  keeps pushing his twin out of the nest.”
• Ankle biters. “Watch out for the ‘ankle biters’ on the floor.”  An Aussie expression for toddlers who are crawling.
• Guilting me out.  A working mom phenomena:  “Stop reminding me about his dental appointment, you are guilting me out.”
• Mesopotamia. Imaginary country. “Don’t go into that room,  it’s Mesopotamia (a complete disaster area).”
• The NoSayer. “Are you playing with mommy’s earrings? No, mom,” says child, while doing it anyway. “She is such a NoSayer,” says Dad.
• Mogger. A mommy who blogs too much. “She’s a real mogger and Tweethead. Always tweeting and blogging and never watching her kids.”
• Tweethead. See above. “She’s such a Tweethead, much worse than a junkie. Couldn’t stop tweeting to save her own kid’s life.”

Put them together and what do you get?

“Don’t go into Mesopotamaia. The ankle biter got in there, despite telling me he hadn’t. What a nosayer … and then his twin followed him. I feel guilted out that I don’t clean up enough. But hey, they still love me, despite me being a preoccupied Mogger, they are always fighting to get in my lap, particularly John, the little hug hogger.  Is that too long for a tweet? Oh gee, how can tweethead like me get that all into 140 characters. Time to  try Facebook? I think NOT tweeps.”

Like them? Hate them? Help us win this contest by adding your comments below.

Photo: Courtesy of FlickR creative commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/littlesister/

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