Mayor Nagin

When I saw the mayor of New Orleans so upset by what was unfolding before him, my first feelings were confusion and anger at how they could all feel so unaided and alone in the USA in the year 2005. Everything seems so easy here. Then I realized that that is exactly why they felt the fear and pain so deeply. We live a washed, sanitzed and protected life in the US. Our poor are not in the dire straights of poor people in other parts of the world. We are rarely without the necessities or somewhere to find them when we're down and out. We are rarely without unless a hurricane or other disaster finds us completely cut off from everyone else with 8 feet of flood waters surrounding us in every direction and absolutely no means of communication lest a reporter fly by. That is the predicament in which Mayor Nagin and the others trapped in New Orleans found themselves.

There was a lot of blame going round and now we have a dedicated man out of a job and a slow-on-the-pick-up President trying to improve his image, and people everywhere across the nation doing what they can to help. Those first days were scary, shocking and eventful. They were also a real life scenario for disaster relief.

Scenarios are scripts played out by every level of being involved in disaster relief. Everyone gets involved in trying to solve the made-up problem so that they are prepared in the event of an actual disaster. National scenarios will be played out by heads of government, FEMA, the CDC, Red Cross, all levels of hospital staff, all varieties of mobile emergency services, members of the press, and anyone else who is believed to be able to play a part in disaster relief. I hope they were all paying attention to this one. I hope the leaders in my area were watching, listening and thinking about this place where I live and raise my family. I know I was and still am. I know you all should be, too.

One of the first thoughts that entered my mind is that Mayor Nagin was as hungry and scared as those around him. He was blaming everyone who wasn't in there with them. I didn't agree that the President should be blamed for this one and I still don't. The President doesn't run FEMA. Homeland Security might have been running FEMA into the ground, but the head of Homeland Security is not President Bush. I'm no Bush supporter. I didn't ever even consider voting for him, but we can't blame the man for everything. When responsibilty is delegated at that level, it is delegated. The Presidency is a very busy job. The President can't run every organization within the governement. No one could. Unfortunately the writing was on the wall for Brown. Anyone who has ever functioned in a corporate environment could have predicted it was Brown who would be the fall-guy. My opinion is that the problem lay in poor attention the preventive measures and on that front Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco need to take their share of the blame.

What preventive measures, you ask? Well, let's see. It was very clear that those trapped were poor or sick or emergency staff along with the Captain of the ship. "Captain" Nagin insinuated that no one was rushing to help because the were mostly poor and black. Although that is wholly uncalled for and untrue, I respond, "Why, Mayor Nagin, was there not a plan to remove all your poor black population (and they were clearly not all black) and the sick and elderly during the evacuations prior to the storm? Why, Governor Blanco, were school buses from New Orleans and surrounding communities not used to remove those who had no means of transportation or were unable to remove themselves from the impending danger? If you are telling people that they must get out because staying is life threatening then doesn't it seem to make sense to provide transportation out for those with no personal means of escaping? Was this not considered during the disaster scenario round table?

I believe Benjamin Franklin is credited for the saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." I hope all leaders who might be involved in disaster relief ask themselves what might be done before hand to lessen the loss of life and human toll. This one was a no brainer to me. I can't believe all those people were left there for this to have even occured. If everything was done to remove people beforehand when all the warnings and evacuations were taking place, then there wouldn't have been so many trapped and those that were trapped would have been there by choice and would have had no one to blame but themselves.

Mommy or Me

Sometimes I'm just confused. Am I Mommy or me right now? Some would say that there shouldn't be a difference, but I'd have to disagree. I love being a mommy but it is only part of who I am. There are wants and desires of mine wholly unrelated to parenthood. I cherish those but rarely find the time to follow them. My blog, for instance, is important. At least I finally took the time to create one. Now I just have to figure out how to get readers to ping. Finding additional time to research this blog thing is difficult. Learning a new subject requires time.

Time, time, time. We all would like more time.

As a mommy I'm happy and content. I willingly gave up my career to be home with my kids. I live in an area with terrific schools so I don't have to home-school but I do have to monitor their learning and support additional needs beyond the learning during the school day. On top of education is sports. I have athletic boys. I do not want couch potatoes. Practices, classes and games all require my time. My husband works a longer than usual workday and can't always help with carting the kids around. He does it when he can and will show up at a class or practice so I can take the younger son home to get ready for bed.

Shopping, cooking and cleaning all require time. You need to eat well to play hard. You need to eat well to keep up with kids 30 odd years younger than yourself. You need clean clothes and uniforms as well as creature comforts at home. Home is my lauching pad and who wants a dirty and confused lauching pad? We all pitch in and my oldest earns stars for just about anything he can do to make my job easier and his life more fruitful. We are a family and work together to get things done. The buck stops with me, though, so it's ultimately my job to get it all done for everyone else. That's where the question arises. Am I Mommy or me right now?

Maybe the kid just needs a little help.

Parenting is my favorite career so far. I have had two others: one in sales and the other in education. Teaching offered job satisfaction closer to parenting but there's nothing like being a mom. I have two boys who are 3 1/2 years apart in age but worlds apart in how they have developed to date. My 7 1/2 year old boy is precocious and his 4 year old brother is immature. They are both within the normal range of abilities with one exception each. My older boy was tested at 5 with a series of tests normed for 6 year olds and scored off the charts on cognition. My younger son has multi-sensory integration deficits and at 3 1/2 was a year or two behind on some skills including speech. My focus at this point is still to maintain their self-esteem, help them bond as family members, and teach them the basics of decision making. I simply need to go about it in completely different ways. Therein lies the art of parenting and teaching: make sure they get the information and can use it independently while protecting their self-image and fostering the best of their innate personality.

You have to know your kids strengths and weaknesses. You cannot put blinders on toward the latter. Knowing their weaknesses and how to compensate will make all the difference in the future. Fostering their strenghts will help them find purpose and direction in their lives. Be an honest, loving parent and you will do a good job. I live by it. I have gotten both my kids the help they needed as soon as I saw that my husband and I couldn't do it alone.

My older boy is a type-A personality. He stresses himself out about things, loses his temper easily, and always has to be doing something. When his little brother was born he got angry at me for the time I had to spend with the baby and for replacing him with another baby. He regressed in toileting and started sucking his thumb. By age 4 he was acting out against me by hitting and saying mean things and by 4 1/2 he was hitting and threatening peers. He didn't do it often with peers because it was an anger management issue and so he had to be truly angry before he would act out. With me, if he just didn't like what I wanted him to do or was annoyed by my parenting, then I would pay. He started to get that way with his grandparents, too. He slept over at my mother-in-law's house once a month until this began and then she didn't feel comfortable keeping him because she couldn't handle his moodiness and anger. The child psychologist had it all straightened out within 6 months. By the time he started kindergarten he was himself again.

My little guy is in a self-contained pre-school and it has made a noticable difference within months. After 8 weeks of going for 2 1/2 hours each day and getting speech and occupational therapy 3 times a week, we noticed his full-blown anger tantrums stopped. His ability to express every thought and feeling has improved. He's becoming a little chatter box and puts fewer things in his mouth. His listening has improved and so has his imaginative play. He's even begun to be scared of ghosts in the dark. That may seem like a funny thing to be happy about, but by age 4 a child should show some normal expressions of fear. It's all good. It's all healthy. It's just what I would have hoped for him. I don't want to rush him into kindergarten. He is immature. He'll start when he's 6, but now I know he'll be ready to learn and fully participate in kindergarten and I know there will be professionals who know him and can help him feel successful from the very beginning.

Parenting is not about brag books and trophies. It is about little people who have to learn and grow into successful and happy big people. It is about stepping back and discovering the resources within yourself and all aound you that will help your children to blossom and grow into normal, healthy members of society. So if the kid is struggling with anger or learning or anything else, don't let them languish, maybe the kid just needs a little help.