The Civil War

I have travelled a bit and have had the pleasure of good conversations with interesting people along the way.  Years ago, I was at the end of a very long overseas flight and was finally on a connection from Chicago to Dallas.  I was fortunate enough to be in first class, which I have only had the pleasure of a few times in my life.  There was a seemingly nice family sitting across the aisle from me.  The mother and father were doting on their four year old boy, who, at the time, was sitting quietly as we awaited our take off.  The father and I took up a discussion on some topic, I forget now, but then it quickly turned to their son and how advanced he was and what schools he was attending to assure he remained advanced and gifted.  The mother stated that he was learning Japanese and French and had just started violin lessons.  It was apparent to me that impressing a stranger with their feats in parenting was extremely important to them.  As the flight went on, the food cart came out, as did the little devil within their boy – as it always does with little boys.  He saw that there was chocolate milk and became rather vocal, with extreme volume, that he also wanted chocolate milk.  The mother was shocked, stating that he has never had chocolate.  In that moment, it was more important to her to state she had not given her son chocolate, than it was to calm him down.  The flight attendant was waiting on the people two rows ahead of us, but due to this boy’s outburst, the attendant leaned over the cart and handed the father a carton of the coveted chocolate milk.  When the meal cart came along, the parents chose the fish plate for their gifted son.  As you can imagine, he was just as vocal in his protest of the fish and green beans with rice.  He jumped up in his chair and started hitting the head of the man in front of him and then threw the plate down on the floor, causing it to throw the contents on the other passengers, and loudly demanded McDonald’s.  The mother, again more worried what others thought of her parenting skills rather than apologizing, went on to say he had never had McDonald's and she did not know where this was coming from.  Now, you and I know that there is not a four year old on the planet that would ask for something out of having no experience with it.  What we also can ascertain from this story, is that teaching this boy advanced languages and skills was taking precedence over simple skills in civility.

The current rage in parenting is all things French.  Pamela Druckerman’s new book “Bringing up Bébé" sheds light on the contrasting methods of parenting in France versus the U.S.  In reading this book, I found it to be quite similar to the methods in Germany.  One section, in particular, discusses what Ms. Druckerman refers to as the “four magic words”: please, thank you, hello and good-bye.  The French government runs the preschool programs and this teaching is in every curriculum across the country. She goes on to explore the importance France places on children and adults acknowledging each other with the civility of saying “Good day” when coming across each other.  Living in Germany, I have found this to also be very important.  Children will say either “good day” or “hello” when riding their bikes down the street upon seeing me taking my kids for a walk.  If you go to a doctor’s office, upon entering the waiting room, you always say “good day” and when the doctor calls you in, you say “good bye” when you exit the waiting room.  You say this to everyone you come in contact with – no matter to status or occupation. Ms. Druckerman describes that in France, this is to show the utmost respect.  The book further explains that it allows children to be acknowledged as people as well – not only teaching children to respect adults, but for adults to respect them as well.  I believe that is the root of the practice in Germany, and perhaps other countries in Europe. 

My mother often says that she believes the end of children showing civility towards adults began when they were allowed to address adults by their first names, rather than surnames.  An article titled “10 Questions on Jane Austen” was written about Jane Austen’s writings and described in detail the practice she had in always referring to the parents of her matriarchs by Mr. and Mrs., possibly because she felt writing their names would remove their power.  So perhaps our laid back approach to our children with our “Just call me Joe” attitude is lowering our ranks from general to private. The less powerful, revered, and respected we are, the less our children can treat us with manners.  Perhaps this, along with the abolition of cordial greetings of “good day”, is what has lead to our current society’s demise.

In today’s culture, parents have brought competitive parenting to a new level.  It’s not just about sports as it was when I was a kid.  Parents do everything possible to make sure that their kids are in the most prestigious and expensive schools and are enrolled in every curricular activity imaginable in order to mold the children into being a master of everything and the ideal candidate to Ivy League colleges and high paying jobs later in life.  A man I used to work for once stated that trying to be a master of everything usually yields the result of being a master of nothing.  Perhaps all this education being fed to children like spoons heaped with food, needs to be dwindled down to basics.  Sure, it’s nice to have a child who can speak many languages while playing the violin and riding a horse while playing hockey, but if a child cannot be civil, then what’s the point?

This goes beyond children behaving rudely, as they had to learn this from the adults in their environment.  Adults are taking insulting behavior to new lows, it seems.  This goes back to what I said about entitlement in my other article, “The Age of Entitlement”.  People will be rude if it serves their purpose.  It’s a lot easier to be rude to someone you cannot see, so if you are removed from acknowledging another person’s existence, then it becomes easier and easier to be uncivil to strangers.  Think about how irritated we are with people on the telephone, especially after being on hold for an inordinate amount of time.  We cannot see the customer service person, how our belligerent behavior makes their eyes well up with tears and their smile turned to a grimace.  Again, we forget that this person is, in fact, a person with a story and history and could be having a terrible day, and we have made it worse by behaving heartlessly.   However, if we would rewrite the script of our culture and make it a rule of etiquette to cordially wish everyone a good day and good bye as we come in contact with them, then maybe our heartlessness would morph into something more dignified.

A friend traveling on holiday witnessed an incident which reminded me of a similar situation I encountered when I was eight months pregnant with my firstborn. My husband and I had taken the train to attend a lunch for me and the baby downtown to my office.  Upon coming home, our train was packed and there were no seats available.  We were told to go to the first class cabin because a pregnant woman is entitled a seat anywhere.  While the train company felt this way, their passengers, unfortunately, did not.  I walked up and down the aisles looking for a seat without success.  So, my husband and I sat on the steps outside the upstairs of the first class cabin.  We were very entertained by these lively fourteen year old boys who were shocked that no one would give up their seat for me.  They even spoke loudly about their disapproval in the hopes someone would hear and feel guilty enough to give up their seat.  While nobody ever took pity on me and my eight month bump, my heart was warmed by their manners.  So I refuse to believe we cannot win the war in civility and will pay attention to my actions and especially the actions of my children.  I hope my kids grow up to be like these boys as living proof that there are still some civil children  in the world.

Soul Interrupted

Do you ever get to the end of your day and are hit with the reality that your day was designated to everyone else but you?  Usually, the first thing that comes to mind when we wake up is what time it is and the second is the fear that we are late for someone else.  Often we are at the demands of others.  Whether it is our children, spouses, partners, or the deadlines and expectations of our careers, we easily fall into a routine of neglecting our own demands and needs.  When we make our to-do lists, usually others take top priority and we are at the bottom, if we make the list at all.  So, what do we need to do to get bumped up to first?

As children we are encouraged, enabled, in fact, to be self-centered and strive for our ambitions.  We are the one and only priority on our to-do lists.  Yet, somewhere along the way there is a paradigm shift.  As we enter adulthood armed with our education, diplomas, certifications, etc., we move to the end of the line.  Our daily ambition to be self-centered gets interrupted.  Even as I write this article, I am interrupted by my bosses – my children.  As my children take center stage, once again, to my focus and concentration, I wonder what interrupts our ability to be at center stage in our own focus and concentration.  What interrupts our inner-selves and souls? 

Of course, being interrupted by my little angels is par for the course of being a parent and is totally what I signed on for.  Just as it is when we take our jobs.  But as we coast along in our positions as parents and employees, we forget to put on the brakes and breathe.  If you are like me, you over think everything and get swallowed up by striving to meet the expectations you and others put on you to do the best job you can.  While this is admirable and rewarding, whether we have little angel bosses or a CEO, there is nobody striving to meet our demands.   If we are always thinking of others, and the others are always thinking of themselves, then who is thinking about us?  We have to find a way to retrace our steps in life and get back to some basics in order to take priority in our lives.  I love the movie “The Holiday” when the charming Eli Wallach and the gorgeous Kate Winslet have a conversation that allows Kate to come to the realization that we need to be lead actor in our own lives, not a supporting actor.

In order for me to be a lead actor in my life, I need to make some changes.  While the larger changes are something that will take time, I have found there are some minor changes I can make in order to reconnect with what sustains me.  As a kid growing up in Texas - the state where the weather is hot and hotter – I was always outdoors and in motion.  I would dance in ballet or on a drill team, I was a cheerleader, and was always finding a chance to go swimming and bike riding.  As a teenager, one of my favorite things to do was go for long bike rides along the country roads that ran north of where we lived.  I would go for long stretches along beautiful scenery and would just feel completely connected to my core.  Later, before landing my coveted role as wife and mother to Team Katzenberger, I would do yoga almost daily or run outdoors or on a treadmill to train for a marathon.  Now that I have been swept up into the amazing worlds of my dear prince and princess, it’s been a bit difficult for me to find time to keep in motion save for running after my kids up and down the stairs and doing baby swimming classes.  My fortune of living in Germany is that everyone here bike rides everywhere.  So my darling husband and children gave me a beautiful bike for my birthday.  Now, I can strap my little one into a bike seat and do a nice long ride around the countryside where we live and, once again, reconnect to my core.

Maya Angelou wrote “Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.” I don’t think our bosses and demanding schedule eaters are going away anytime soon.  So, we must think outside the schedule in order to revamp and edit to allow us more soul time.  I don’t mean watching endless hours of television or movies, because this is something in which we are not always cognitively engaged.  I mean, what makes us feel like we are the only person in the world, what makes us smile without even realizing it, and what makes us feel energized and alive?  I challenge myself and all of you to go down memory lane and revisit what connected you to your soul.  Upon finding these answers, pen in some much needed time in your busy schedule for you and your past self to get reacquainted.  

Remember, you have to come first for the rest of your world to work.  Just as a building cannot be built upon a weak foundation, or why adults have to put their oxygen masks on first before their children’s’ (or bosses), you have to put you first in order to help others effectively.   I hope to see all of you at the Academy Awards as we take the Oscar for best lead actor in our lives!

What Lies Beneath

Follow me down a path, if you will.  Take out a piece of paper and write the words “I am” at the top of the page.  You don’t have a paper and pen readily available?  We will wait….   Ok, now that you have your pen and paper and have written down the words “I am” at the top, you get to brainstorm.  No, this is not a religious exercise, though it will involve your spirit.  Write down all the descriptions of you that come to mind.  Do not over think this.  Write down everything, be it a word or a sentence that you feel describes you.  If you were to paint a picture of you to someone, how would you describe you? 

Are you finished with your exercise? Now, look over your paper and take a bit of inventory.  How would you tally up your comments?  Are they predominantly negative or positive?  Maybe I am not the only one who had this result, but mine were heavier in the negative remarks than the positive ones.  If you are like me, are you wondering why as well?  How do we get to a point of focusing on ourselves in such a manner?  I believe it is because we are liars.  We are liars to ourselves, to our spirits.  We are so quick to convince ourselves that our makeup consists of such negative propaganda.  I am rather certain that if we asked our closest loved ones to describe us, they would not use such pessimistic words. 

Take a look at this old Cherokee proverb:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight between two wolves.  One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.  The same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person too.”  

The grandson thought about it for a minute and asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”  The grandfather simply replied, “The one you feed.”

We often believe the words of the loudest voice in our lives, and who is louder than our inner self?  Here is our question, the ones like me - the liars, which voice do we feed?  We could have a rather lengthy explanation for how we got here. We can say the media, society, our culture, our childhood, our families, our ex-loves and our ex-friends have helped fuel the fire of our inner deconstruction.  Because that's what all of this is:  the deconstruction of what makes us beautiful people inside.  Maybe we all started out in life listening to the good wolf, but as our lives and brutal challenges and people came about, the good wolf grew quiet.  Yet, if we all came by boat, plane, train, or car to the same destination, it really doesn’t matter how we got here, but rather where do we go from here?  Which wolf do we continue to feed?  Are we surrounded by people who feed the evil wolf as well?  Perhaps their evil wolf has also won the battle.  Do we set ourselves up to be in situations that will give the evil wolf more voice over work in our heads?  Maybe once we work on silencing the evil wolf, he will become obsolete.

In a marketing class in college, I was taught about how grocery stores market their cereals.  The highest price items are on the shelf that is at eye-level or the shelf above.  The lower priced items sit just below, and the generic, low-grade items are on the bottom shelf.  The bottom shelf is usually where you can find an undecorated, clear bag of cereal for 50 cents whereas the eye-level shelf houses the five dollar boxes with cartoon mascots.  I think if we believe all the evil wolf has to say, we buy into the thought that we are the 50 cent bags of cereal on the bottom shelf.  However, we try to convince/lie to others and ourselves that we are the five dollar boxes on the top shelf.  We cannot be effective salesmen if we do not believe in our products.

So, let’s all take a new trip together.  Or, as my son loves to say, let’s all go on an adventure together! Let’s make the evil wolf anorexic and feed the good wolf a big spoonful of much needed comfort food.  We have to be our biggest fans for the rest of the world to buy it.  I want each of us to tear up our evil wolf pieces of paper.  Put them in the paper shredder, burn them, let your dog eat them, etc.  They are no longer the words we will allow to be in our life’s constitutions.  Instead, we are going to amend our constitutions. We are going to take out new pieces of paper and write only what our voices of “joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith” have to say about the great “I am”.

Take a look at the picture at the top of the article.  Do you see the liar?  If you look for it, you will see it.  Abraham Lincoln was quoted as saying “When you look for the bad in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will”.  We need to stop looking for what is bad within ourselves, because it is in there – just as with everyone else.   We need to stop lying to ourselves when we say that all we are made up of are negative, pessimistic, evil components.  We need to put the lies beneath to rest and raise the truth to the surface:  we are great people! 

The Mother Load

People who know me may be surprised to hear this confession, or those who know me really well may not – I am lazy.  If I were allowed, I would lie around endlessly watching TV marathons or movies.  I would eat pizza, drink loads of Coca-Cola and eat cupcakes and peanut M&Ms until I would slip away into a sugar/carb hangover.  Before I met my husband, I had become a workaholic to prevent my lazy side from winning the tug-a-war that always went on in my head.  I never minded it really, I enjoyed the challenge.  In fact, the night before I met my husband I confidently declared to my friends that I would be single the rest of my life, and I felt very comfortable with that being my fate.  Of course, fate had a different plan in mind for me.  I thought working 90 hours/week in New York would be enough for me.  I did not see being a wife and mother in my future, nor in my constitution. 

Being a mother, to me, is a sacred role and one I was rather certain I was not cut out to take on.  I have watched my mother and other mothers work so very hard at doing the millions of jobs that are under the umbrella of the word “mother”.  My mother was, and in many ways, still is, my nighttime storyteller, my lullaby singer,  my live in cook, my live in entertainer, my adventure planner, my arms of comfort, my cheerleader, my navigator, my voice of common sense, my teacher of manners, my lion tamer against my fears, my friendly voice amongst the noise of unfriendliness,  the Lincoln to my Douglas, my career-driven/educated/”I am woman, hear me roar” Feminist, our family holiday event planner, the Thanksgiving turkey chef, my comfort food Iron Chef, my fashionista shopping buddy, my movie-goer/popcorn-peanut M&M sharing Siskel to my Ebert, and book-club reading reviewer.  I could handle doing one job for 90 hours a week in a firm.  I could not, however, see myself taking on the thousands of jobs my mother did for me and our family. 

That’s the funny thing about being a mother.  You never feel you are prepared for it.  You never feel you are worthy of the angel God has entrusted to you.  You never feel you are enough.  Whatever your feelings are, they are not reciprocated by your children.  To them, you are the thousands of people all rolled into one glorious deity.  You are the one person they get to call “Mommy” the rest of your lives.  You get to have the coveted role in their life that cannot be replaced by an understudy.  You will make mistakes, but they will not remember.  They will remember the memories you created.  They will remember the fun and silliness, the adventures you took them on, and the trinket reminders of sounds and smells that will forever be associated with you.

My husband often says that children get to ask God who they want for their mother and that our children picked me.  I am so eternally grateful, every day, that they asked for me. I could have never have had the courage to ask for them, as they are far more precious and beautiful than I would have dared to dream. 

Being a mother is the ultimate of “Pay-it-Forward”.  As mothers, we get to give to our children what was given to us by our mothers.  I am no longer afraid of being a mother because I get to give to my children all the bounty my mother gave to me.  On this day, whether your mother is with you or is dancing with the angels, know that you have been given the ultimate gift God can bestow.  If you are a mother, whether it was born to you or granted to you, know that you were chosen by your angel children.  You are among the chosen, which is an even greater gift from God.  Happy Mother’s Day!!!

The Age of Entitlement

Many years ago, when I lived in Washington D.C., I decided to use my lunch hour to go to the post office to get my passport for an upcoming trip overseas.  When I arrived at the post office, I found that about one hundred other people had the same idea.  This was before the invention of the iPhone with the lovely game apps or the Kindle,  so there was little a person could do to pass the time in the long lines.  After about 20 minutes of waiting, people were starting to get impatient.  This man behind me was starting to huff, stating that he had a vote he had to get back to Capitol Hill to attend.  This man became increasingly more impatient, shifting his weight from foot to foot and huffing and puffing even more.  He clearly had never been taught to self soothe as a baby.  As we were moving closer to the front desk, he completely lost his patience and declared loudly that he had to be somewhere almost immediately and that because he worked for a Senator, he should be moved to the head of the line.  The lady at the front of the line looked back, completely unfazed, and said, “You can go ahead of me.  I am late for my chemotherapy treatment for my Stage 4 lung cancer, but you obviously have a more important place to be.”  We all laughed, but shockingly, the man had the gall to accept her offer and moved to the front of the line. 

I often remember this story when I am in a situation completely out of my control and am forced to wait in line – be it traffic due to construction, the line at a dry cleaner or to put my name in for a table at a restaurant.  This story showed me, quite clearly, that everyone has somewhere to be, something to do, or has someone waiting for them.  Perhaps if we did not stuff our schedules the way we try to fit the most dishes in a dishwasher, we might have a more carefree attitude towards these situations. 

This story also gets me thinking, what in the world is wrong with us, as a society, that we all feel entitled to be first in every line without having to wait?  Another story I heard on the radio, when I lived in Dallas, discussed a man driving home from the hospital with his wife and newborn baby girl.  They had twins, but the other baby had died to a premature birth.  They had waited months for their other baby girl to be healthy enough to be released so they could get home and start being a family.  On the way home, a man in a truck grew angry at how slow they were driving.  Mind you, they were driving the speed limit.  This man in the truck pulled next to them, took out a pistol and shot the father, paralyzing him for life.  Now, this is an extreme example, but seriously, where in the world could this man have been driving to that warranted this absurd reaction to driving slow?

Our society today is about not waiting for anything.  If you don’t want to get in your car and go shopping, you can go online.  If you don’t want to cook a meal, you can buy prepared meals from restaurants; have them delivered to your house, or get fast food.  In New York City, you can even have McDonald’s delivered to you!  If you want a quick exit from your marriage, there are plenty of flights to Barbados to get quickie divorces.  We have computers that work at the speed of light, all at the click of a button or the touch of an icon, and we have what we want immediately. We are a generation of conveniences which has resulted in us being people intolerant of inconvenience.

The other aspect of entitlement is the people who complain about everything.  I have friends who have survived some of life’s cruelest times and never complained.  On the other side, I have friends who complain about the smallest things that make me wince with frustration.  I have been blessed with people who love me and support me.  My husband and I are blessed with educations that allow us to have good jobs that put a roof over our family’s heads and food in our mouths.  We are blessed with health and healthy children.  Every night I get to hug my children tightly and kiss them until they are exhausted by it.  I am privileged with the physical ability to ride my bike with my kids when we take my son to school. I get to buy fresh foods from our local farmers and do what I love to do most: cook for my family.  We are blessed; we truly have nothing of significance to complain about.  I know people with more than us, who complain more. I know people with less than us, who complain less.  Perhaps, the more you have, the more you are convenienced, the more you feel entitled?

Over the past few years, my friends have lost their children, some born, some not.  Friends have lost their dearest loved husbands, wives or partners.  Other friends have been faced with the excruciating challenge of not being able to walk again, cancer that may end their lives and leave children behind, or, even worse, watch their own children battle cancer.  I am fortunate to not be facing these challenges right now. 

There are people who are entitled to be at the first of the line and who are entitled to complain.  So, if we are not one of these below, or someone else battling something truly life altering, then we need to build a bridge and get over ourselves and sit tight until it’s our turn.

The Age of Entitlement by Tracy Katzenberger is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Senseless Beauty

Imagine if you would, that the human race had only four senses, with vision being taken out of the mix.  Can you fathom a world without it?  We would be unable to see the magnificence of nature, the Impressionists’ works on display at le Musee D’Orsay, or the looks on our loved one’s faces.  However, we would be eased of the burden of the superficial, artificial beautify that is plaguing our society in the media today. 

If we had no history of vision, we would have a different standard of beauty.  Our measuring stick would be skewed more towards the substance of our vessels, our bodies, than their appearance.  We would have no need to be thin to fit into fashion, because fashion would have a practical function, rather than the need to be on a thin frame to showcase better.  Our face’s architecture would be more interesting with imperfections because they would be filled with texture, which would be glorious to the touch.  Literature would serve, I hope, its continued purpose to whisk readers into different worlds, but without the limits of physical descriptions.  Music would remain unchanged save for the musicians whose only talent is in their looks that blind their untalented voices with synthesized microphones.  Actors would be chosen not for their appearances or their ability to physically transform for roles, but, instead, for their tone and melodic voices – such as the sumptuous voices of James Earl Jones, Maya Angelou or Sean Connery.  We would seek to be more intelligent, courteous and kind.  The words we would speak would be more carefully chosen.  Our ability to craft sentences to a sound that is pleasing to the ears would be the goal in which everyone would strive.  Of course, our culinary fascination would endure as our senses of taste and smell would be heightened and we could savor our meals without the fear of it taking up residency on our hips.  Our confidence and self esteem would be fueled by our intelligence, hoping to impress others with our minds rather than our dress size or bank accounts that enable us to buy things to make us feel superior to others.

The manner in which our daily routines begin would be limited to what was necessary and not ornamental.  Our need for makeup or other cosmetic routines would be banished.  Perhaps we would all have short, shaved heads to be more efficient.  Our clothes and shoes would be comfortable and function to assist us as we maneuver around the elements. We would have no need to look in mirrors – so perhaps the invention of the mirror would not exist.  However, what if mirrors and a surgical procedure to be given the gift of vision were invented in this four-sensed world? Would your first declaration upon looking in the mirror for the first time be “I am not beautiful” or “I am too fat”? 

Every day we make decisions based on our own experience, history and preferences.  We have no problem deciding what we want to eat or how we want to be entertained.  Yet, we have a problem knowing what makes us beautiful.  Rather than make this decision for ourselves, we allow others to make it for us – be it the magazines, the runways, or the commission-driven sales rep from the high end department store.   We are intelligent and confident people, we should be able to define ourselves.  We should have more of a say in what the standard of beauty is.  Why does changing the standard render us paralyzed and turn our brains to atrophy?  Why, as a modern, forward-thinking society, have we lost our senses?

Senseless Beauty by Tracy Katzenberger is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.