Not as Different as You Might Think

Not long ago I received an SOS from a close friend - she'd been stuck in a depressed slump for several weeks and was asking all her friends to email, call or drop by. Since she'd provided a listening ear for me earlier this year, I was happy to help her.

This past winter my family and I were mired (or so it felt) in the emotional aftereffects of an incident at school that had involved our younger son. The incident, a Facebook-based rumoring campaign, was the culmination of a years' worth of harassment where he had been one of the targets. He was stuck in anger (understandable) and I was stuck in disbelief: how could people do things like that to each other?

During a visit to my friend I told her about the incident. She told me about a devastating encounter her son experienced years ago. After arriving home that night, I remembered other friends and colleagues who've gone through things that temporarily shook their faith in people - being falsely accused of child molestation, being sexually harassed at work, falling victim to identity theft, being stalked...the list goes on. All of these people lived through the experience and moved on.

I'm startled by the number of truly good people I've known who have victims of someone else's hostility. This reminds me that the sort of traumatic events that deliver a personal blow below the belt, such as character smears, don't say anything real about the intended victim. They do say something about the instigator but that's another story. I know that my family has good company, and plenty of it. It also reminds me that bad stuff happens - if someone as full of good will and integrity as my friend Jon (not his real name) can be a target of a hostile rumor campaign, it could happen to anyone.

In fact, it's amazing how common this experience is. Instead of isolating ourselves and feeling as though we're somehow different, we can link up and support each other.

Common Sense v. Custom

Summer is a social season, including those occasions that include intricate etiquette and gifting. Some customs make sense and some don't.

The year I turned 25, my job was cut from full time to part time, my car was stolen and the house I was living in got broken into. I was beyond broke. I n December I received an invitation to a wedding shower for a co-worker.

This shouldn't have been a big deal. Since I didn't really know the woman - she was upper management, several levels above me - I wouldn't be missed. If she'd been a good friend, I'd just get her something practical, and at that moment, really really cheap. Did yard sales have registries?

Then one of the secretaries told me that if you receive a shower invite, you don't have to go but you "have to" send a gift. And Ms. Exec was registered at Nieman-Marcus & Bloomingdale's.

I wasn't even going to be able to send a Christmas present to my baby niece that year. Why on earth would I spend $80 on a cut-glass pickle dish (the cheapest item on the registry) for someone who probably already had everything? Anyway, who made the gift rule and who said I had to obey it?
jSidesteppers are practical if nothing else. I didn't go or send a gift. The world didn't end. Nobody noticed the "missing" present. And I was able to send my niece a present after all.

Social customs were created to serve people. When it turns out to be the other way around, it's time for a change.

The Rule of Two

During our active child-rearing years, my husband Tom and I developed a strategy that enabled everyone in the household to "get a life." I called it the Rule of Two: each family member could have two activities outside of job or school, and we adults agreed to limit ourselves to two evening absences per week. Everyone was able to get something he wanted, but no one got everything he wanted. It ensured that family life didn't revolve around a single member, and it helped the kids learn how to prioritize and make choices. It helped prevent the "it's all about me" orientation I've noticed in kids who aren't given limits.

If you're feeling frustrated by a hyperactive family schedule or are detecting signs of entitlement in certain family members, try the Rule of Two. You might be surprised at how effective a simple change can be.

Why You MUST Have a Life Outside Family

For almost two decades, we've been going deeper and deeper into a style of parenting that not only fosters dependency in young people but also does strange things to many of the moms who practice it religiously. For lack of a better word ( "official" terms like Helicopter and Supermom don't encompass the whole role), I call it the Fertilizer Mom trend. The unspoken assumptions of Fertilizer Mom culture are:

• Being a "good" parent is not the most important goal in your life; it should be the only goal. Wanting to do other things occasionally is selfish.
  
• A good mom exists to help her kids get to the top of the heap. Back in the day, it also meant making your kids the best-fed, housed and clothed ones on the block, via homemaking. Now it mostly means facilitating their educational careers by driving them to any team practices, lessons and other stuff you can cram into the schedule, and by volunteering 40 hours a week at the school so you can be eligible for favors from school staff (like recommendations) when needed.
• Work done in the home simply because the kid is a member of the family (popularly called "chores") robs him of time he could spend studying, practicing or working on yet another activity to pad his college apps; therefore, a good mom doesn't require that her kids do chores. Requiring them to do any "adult" work makes you a slacker mom.
  
• You can judge a mom's character and worthiness entirely by how her kids are doing. If they're on top of the world, she's a good mom. If not...
  
• It's okay to have casual buddies (all parents from your kids' various groups) but since your job is to pave the way for your kids, you may have to step on said friends' toes in order to do this if their kids are standing in the way of your kids.

Back when I was working a job, raising two kids with my husband and trying to write, I envied friends who had the luxury of being at-home moms for long stretches. Now in retrospect I notice that some of those women fell prey to Fertilizer Mom syndrome, and in all cases I think it was because they had no emotional investment in anything but their kids - no job to force them to diversify.

A few such friends underwent some unhappy personality changes. These included becoming a one-upper or "comparison" parent, with an attendant cattiness towards other women; exhibiting a growing level of desperation when things went wrong with a child (and "wrong" could mean going from a 4.0 to 3.8!), or developing a competitive streak suitable for a Fortune 500 CEO but not a parent. The first and last two changes I could ignore when I saw them in other women. After all, no one was forcing me to remain part of such conversations.

The middle change, desperation, was terrible to see. And in each instance it could have been avoided by the mom, not by changing her kid but by investing in other loves as well as in her kids.

Of course your kids will remain the most important part of your lives, and if anything bad happens to any of them, it could be devastating. But having separate interests, pursuits and friends will keep molehills from becoming mountains; you'll hurt or worry if your child falls seriously ill, for example, but not if she fails to make the A-level team and has to settle for B instead. It will prevent the sort of emotional over-investment that makes moms do crazy things like kill a daughter's competitor for a spot on the cheerleading squad or devise a fake Facebook user who convinces another child to commit suicide.

I believe it's best to even have a friend or two who have never met any members of your family. They are possibly the only people who will take you for who you are, without the strings of a dependent's reputation lifting you up or dragging you down. During one especially dark time in my family's history last year, the people who really pulled me through were the members of my writers' group. We've had very limited contact with each others' families, and several members haven't met any of mine. Yet because of their detachment, they were able to help me put things in perspective.

And you know what? They were right.

Red (& White & Blue)-Flag Words

Fourth of July in the neighborhood was a blast. There was an outdoor potluck picnic where tables sagged under the weight of the traditional potato salad, cornbread and ribs.

And tabbouleh, masala, tamales, bratwurst, falafel, sushi, couscous, pad thai, anjera, jicama, gazpacho and beignets. Board games such as Macala (Filipino) and Whist (British) were available, and someone set out a croquet set along with the softball equipment. Later there were the usual fireworks, a Chinese invention.

The U.S. is a collage of cultures. That's why an authentic celebration of American values has to be big enough to encompass all who have made it their home and whose contributions have raised the quality of living here.

For some readers, living outside the lines sometimes means challenging assumptions about what constitutes patriotism. Even in the most tolerant times, words like "American," "God" "Christian," "family" and "values" are loaded. They're often used to intimidate us into feigning agreement with the speaker or writer, or make us think that the only real Americans are those who fit a restrictive profile.

The next time you're feeling like this, step outside and take a look around your neighborhood. Chances are excellent that you'll see the homes and businesses of neighbors who come from a multitude of backgrounds and hold beliefs that run the spectrum. And you'll realize that in your "outsideness" you've got plenty of company.

The Anthropologist

There's a game you can play whenever you find yourself in an uncomfortable group situation, whether at work, at a social event or with family - I call it The Anthropologist. Numerous counselors, coaches and authors I've read or heard suggest versions of it.

In I Could Do Anything if Only I Knew What it Was,http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&tag=mozilla-20&index=blended&link_code=qs&field-keywords=b in the chapter entitled "Help, I'm not ready to be born," Barbara Sher advises young people new to the corporate world to adopt the attitude of a business reporter, and mine their workplace for interesting stories. In Fitting In is Overrated: The Survival Guide for Anyone Who Has Ever Felt Like an Outsider, http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&tag=mozilla-20&index=blended&link_code=qs&field-keywords=leonard%20felder&sourceid=Mozilla-searchLeonard Felder suggests becoming an objective observer during tense or conflict-filled gatherings - pretend that you're gathering data about people and how they interact.

Adopting this neutral observer stance helps you detach from the drama swirling around you and takes some of the sting out of barbs that fly your way. I've tried it on several occasions, including the stressful all-staff meetings I had to attend as part of a long-ago job. I stepped into an investigative point of view, using the Star Trek "prime directive" as inspiration: I was there to observe, record, learn and catalog, not change things or interfere with the corporate culture. It turned out to be a fascinating exercise in learning what makes people tick.

And I made a happy discovery: when I'm in neutral, I'm better able to offer solutions and help others than when I'm swimming with everyone else in oceans of emotions.