ParenThesis — Explaining modern habits

Reddit is a website where people submit text, graphics, and website links, or pose a question to the site’s users.

Recently a Reddit user asked, “If someone from the 1950s suddenly appeared today, what would be the most difficult thing to explain to them about life today?” Maybe some of you saw it on Reddit or caught a reference on Twitter.

Among the responses was this commentary on our media habit. “I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man. I use it to look at pictures of cats and get in arguments with strangers.”

The response made me laugh and I liked that way of thinking. Applying it to modern parenting, I asked, “What would a time-traveling 1950s parent find surprising?” It made for a good dinner conversation with my husband.

Our first few thoughts concerned technology, and then others about culture came to mind.

Today many people live hundreds or thousands of miles from their parents or siblings. But these distances can be bridged by inexpensive telephone calls to those loved ones, and many people are even able to make video “phone calls” via their mobile phone or computer. However technology and its affordability do not automatically ensure communication. Kids like to talk with and see their relatives, yet many of us do not take the time to call loved ones.

Parents, grandparents, and other caretakers have ready access to a camera because it is built into their phones. They take lots of pictures of the kiddies. It costs about 20¢ to print a small photo at a nearby store. Yet we rarely print these photos of these memories we cherish.

Talking with the time travelers from the 1950s, you might discover that they spent a significant part of a day laundering clothes and linens. Now, we use totally automatic washers and dryers, yet we cannot seem to find sufficient time fold and put it away. Stacks of clean, dry laundry abound in baskets or piles in basements and bedrooms.

Refrigeration and transportation make fresh vegetables available year round. Yet we feed our children and ourselves lots of highly processed wheat cereal and crackers, instead of lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Even though today’s girls can participate in sports that their 50’s counterparts could not, more and more girls and boys spend their free time in front of a screen. Women often work outside the home, even when they have young children. Yet many families are not able to save as much money as they would like.

As I thought more about this topic, it became less abstract when I realized that I know some 1950s “time travelers.” I have interviewed and written about some of our oldest residents for this paper, and my own grandparents raised children in that era. Maybe it’s time to visit my grandma again and see if she will share what she finds striking about modern life and parenting.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

ParentThesis — Reality show

I saw myself on TV! Sort of. In the 1970s, my dad recorded 8-millimeter films of our family. He recently had it converted to DVD and then passed out copies. I wanted to have a nice block of time to watch the hour-long recording—and maybe a little extra time to be lost in my thoughts, so I procrastinated and really only motivated myself to view it when it was time to write this column.

Looking back was fun and thought provoking. Each recording is about two minutes long but has no sound, which was unnerving at first. Mouths move but viewers can only guess what is being said. After the first three or four clips, the lack of sound seemed normal.

Mini me waddles around trying to string together three steps without falling. My sister and mom fish from a small pier in Bayfield County. My mom, sister, and I cross-country ski in Muskego Park. Men play cards while kids cavort in the background. It was eye opening to see my grandmother, who just turned 90, back in her midlife as she tosses a ball to a bat-swinging grandchild. The woman who now navigates with a walker was once very able-bodied and just a tad sporty. People’s shapes were harder to get used to—most of my aunts and uncles are so skinny that they’d be considered gaunt by today’s standards. And the fashion rewind is fun.

The video is a precious glimpse of our family approximately 35 years ago and inspired two insights. The first is a practical one: it’s worth the effort to save greeting cards, capture some audio and video and keep it organized, and to take and print photos. I’m glad my dad shot the film and took the trouble convert it to DVD.

The second concept is harder to nail down but I’ll give it a whirl. It reminded me of an observation I made at my high school job at a photography lab. One of my tasks was to page through each packet of photos to make sure the quality was good and that they were arranged properly. After a few months of flipping through pictures, I saw similarities between families. People took the same types of photos at the same time of year. At Christmas, I’d see kids in pajamas followed by a shot of the tree, and then there was a photo of the family pet, as if to fill up the 35-millimeter roll. Easter pictures showed chilly kids hunting for eggs.

On Saturdays we processed professional wedding photos, and while the trimmings changed, like the color of bridesmaids’ dresses, the basics were all the same.

In our family’s heirloom recordings, people are enjoying many of the same things 40 years ago that we will in 2013—sharing the circle of support at a wedding, goofing around outdoors, making jokes, a husband leaning in toward his wife who resists being kissed on camera.

We dress a little differently today, we’re all carrying a few more pounds, but the love between family members is the same.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

PARENTHESIS Warming up city life

Growing up in the Waukesha County suburb of New Berlin, I didn’t know anyone who lived in the city of Milwaukee. I’m not sure that I even knew anyone who lived anywhere in Milwaukee County. I experienced Milwaukee as a sort of tourist when my parents brought my sister and me east on I-43 to enjoy Lake Michigan or a basketball game at what was then called the Bradley Center. I give my parents credit for the outings—some of their friends were reluctant to drive on the freeway and didn’t explore Milwaukee. We probably heard the most about Milwaukee from the local evening news.

I realize now that I had certain opinions of city life, including that it must lack human warmth. That’s not logical; it’s just an assumption that I made.

Now that I have my own child and live in Bay View, I find abundant human warmth bolstered by rampant interconnectedness. We see other Bay View dwellers at school or daycare drop-off and then we might see the same family at the South Shore Farmers Market or Chill on the Hill.

Those last two events were established not for the founders’ profit, but for the sake of gathering people together to enjoy local food and music. If I could write some unusual valentines this month, they would be to people—many of them volunteers—who had a great idea and made it happen in a way that warms up city life for families and residents.

It’s easy to feel bummed out as we slog through winter. With the abundance of in-home entertainment from glowing screens or the wariness about falling on icy sidewalks, it’s easy to stick inside. Something that always seems to perk me up and out of the winter blues is getting out and seeing friends, so I appreciate that our interwoven community provides ample opportunity for bumping into them. Even if it’s just a passing hello, it’s a little pick-me-up.

Our five-year-old daughter sees familiar faces all around town, and I know it makes her happier, too. It also helps her to see the adults in her life as real people. The other day at the café at Outpost, we happened to see two different adults we know. One is a musician and the other is our daughter’s former teacher’s aide. Our daughter commented that “We know everyone here!” and I got a little warm fuzzy feeling when I said, “That’s one of the great things about our neighborhood. You see people you know.”

For all the people warming up Bay View like the volunteers listed with the organizations on page 3, we ? you.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Parenthesis: Forgetting failure

I recently zipped through my Facebook newsfeed and found a link I knew I had to click. I knew that whatever it linked to would be good because two of my unrelated friends had posted it the same day. An idea is clearly resonating among my acquaintances when two people from disparate parts of my life share the same link. The post, “Dear sweet mom who feels like she is failing,” was by blogger Rachel Martin.

The next day I had a conversation with a friend about the same topic. I really knew then that it was on the minds of parents like me.

Martin offered reassurance that a pile of unread children’s books does not signify maternal failure. That piles of unwashed dishes don’t spell inadequate parenting. That ordinary mom duties can feel like drudgery.

Christmas trees displayed past their prime or forgotten snow pants should not cause parents to denigrate themselves, but trivialities like these do trip up parents who otherwise feel confident about other aspects of their life. I have reacted this way when my daughter wasn’t dressed as cute as other girls, or when she was younger, behaved so badly in a store that we had to leave.

Perhaps this kind of parental self-criticism stems from stress after the workday or from guilt over not spending more time with our children.

Martin’s text echoed through my Facebook feed for a few days as people re-posted it and commented. Martin reminded her readers that parenting isn’t about a sparkling kitchen or crock pots simmering with the next morning’s breakfast. Instead, it’s about getting the big stuff right: imparting to children (or at least attempting to pass along) a mindset, values, and worldview to be proud of.

For the past two years, I have shared my New Year’s resolution in this column. In 2010 I tried to make my circle more multicultural. In 2011 I tried to greet loved ones with happiness versus criticism. This year, I’m taking my resolution inside my head to temper the self-criticism. If you see me in the neighborhood, I invite you to remind me of my promise to myself and I’ll remind you that you’re not failing as a parent or caregiver.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

 

Looking forward to leftovers

During a demanding week darkened by the flu, I find myself looking forward to the Christmas break. Early in December, we will attend parties with colleagues and friends and spend an afternoon with aunts, uncles, and cousins we rarely see. Then our daughter has a long break from school, and my husband and I have a few days’ break from the office.

Of course, I’m looking forward to cookie baking (and eating!) plus gatherings with the extended family. I like the excuse to get out my heirloom china and serve a meal on it, and maybe I’ll even retrieve a tablecloth from the dark recesses of a closet. Opening presents on the 25th is a lot more fun than shopping for them; the gifts and meal demonstrate love between family members.

We will probably attend church and bake some cookies for Santa. We might read the book Santa Mouse by Michael Brown, which was a favorite of mine when I was growing up. My childhood memories of Christmas revolve around that book, three or four particular Christmas tree ornaments, attending church, and making spritz cookies. I find that the memories that have stayed with me through the decades are those of fairly simple elements that were repeated.

This year, I’m looking forward the most to the pleasantness of the day after Christmas. It should be a very quiet day at the office and maybe I’ll have a new sweater to wear. At home, our gift bags will be set aside to use another year, stacked up like the tasty leftovers shelved in the refrigerator. I hope that the weather will be warm enough for a starry walk and that there will be enough snow this year for an after-work sledding outing.

The holiday hubbub will be replaced by contentment. I’m looking forward to that, and to leftovers!

I hope our daughter grows up to enjoy the glitz of big, busy days, and also the calm of the quieter days.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

 

Pint-size politics

One evening this past summer, when my 4-year-old daughter and I were downtown on Mason Street, we saw people carrying signs and heard them chanting. We walked down the block to observe their political protest for a few minutes. While our daughter had seen a few Independence Day and Christmas parades, this was the first protest, and she had a lot of questions: Why were they allowed to walk in the street? What were they shouting about? How did they know what to yell?

Children are prone to asking questions and I have been waiting to field a stream of them about the presidential election. Surprisingly, the questions aren’t flowing. The kid who hones in on Milwaukee Public Library’s Super Reader yard signs has never inquired about the presidential campaign yard signs. When she overhears me talking with friends about the debates, she doesn’t follow up with questions.

She did not watch any debates with us because they begin after she is in bed and because the topics include those that are beyond G-ratings: war and abortion. Nor do I plan to let her watch them four years from now when she is 9. And, while it’s hard to be certain what my sensibilities will be in eight years, I predict that I’ll still be wary when she is 13. However, I have heard of some parents who allow their kids to watch debates while the parents stay nearby and mute the volume when mature subjects are discussed.

My daughter’s lack of kiddie questions about politics may be for the best. I would probably struggle with something as abstract as voting. I had a difficult time explaining the protest we witnessed in concepts that a 4 year old could comprehend. When I searched online for advice on talking to kids about politics, the dearth of articles surprised me. Parents who turn to the internet for advice about talking to kids about sex or drugs will find a lot more advice.

I did find a helpful article, “Talking to Kids About Politics (Elephants, Donkeys and the Media, Oh My!)” from the NYU Child Study Center. It points out that the ideal parental response should vary a lot by the child’s age but that toddlers through teens seek reassurance from their parents. “Even teens are looking for security when they come looking for answers,” the article advised.

After we left the protest, we ran into an acquaintance of mine. We adults chatted about politics in a guarded way, since we don’t know one another’s beliefs and didn’t want to get too deep or risk offense. We felt safe, though, as we concluded that we’re happy to live in a country that allows us to speak out against the government. I appreciate that I get to vote and that’s a message I’ll pass along, even if I’m not asked.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Babies in bars?

Our family was recently eating at Hector’s on Delaware and reminiscing that it was the first restaurant our daughter visited as a newborn. Partway through our meal, a newborn at a nearby table cried a little and momentarily grabbed my attention.

That baby’s small outburst made me consider the patrons of the adjoining bar. They were separated only by a half wall—how did they feel about having families nearby? Did they notice the crying and did it dampen their spirits, or irritate them? Perhaps some of the patrons were couples having a precious date night away from their own family and they were not in the mood to think about children. Maybe another patron was celebrating the end of the week and just wanted to chill out without a wailing baby in the background.

The issue of children in social establishments like bars or combination bar-restaurants has flared up on the national scene. Now that most states do not allow smoking in bars, and with so many parents away from their kids during the week, waltzing in with little ones in tow is commonplace.

Andy Heidel, a writer, bartender, and bar owner in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, wrote a 325-word manifesto expressing his opposition to parents bringing babies and young children into the local bars. He hung it on the exterior door of a bar. He has gone on to write more about the topic in the New York Times, and his objections include wide strollers that block space in a busy bar and the change in the bar’s social dynamics when kids are included.

The owner of Bay View’s Barnacle Bud’s would probably agree with Heidel. Barnacle Bud’s online children’s menu is not truly a menu, but a short version of Heidel’s manifesto. Parents expecting to see listings for chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese instead see, in a large blue font emphasized with all capital letters, “Keep your kids in tow or you’ll have to go.” In normal font and black text is the explanation, “We do not have a kid’s menu, nor do we encourage you to bring your kids. Get A Babysitter!”

(Whoops! I have taken our daughter to Barnacle Bud’s at least twice, considering its outdoor tables an appropriate dining spot with a child in tow and being unaware of their statement against kids on their website. The servers treated us kindly and I didn’t notice any askance glances from other patrons. Now that I’ve seen the no-kids declaration, I won’t take our daughter next time.)

To me, children do not belong in straight-up bars—ones with high stools that serve no entrees, but I think it’s all right to take children to restaurant plus bar venues. In the latter, bar patrons are probably not shocked to see adults with kids in tow, if they’re gone by 9pm. In that venue and timeframe, if the kids squawk, I feel that is akin to being on the beach next to someone playing a radio too loudly: It is a little distracting, but part of life.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Andy Heidel’s Stroller Manifesto 

“What is it with people bringing their kids into bars? What, just because there’s no more smoking, it’s okay? I’m sorry, it isn’t. A bar is a place for adults to kick back and relax. How can you do that with a toddler running around or crying, getting changed on the table next to you, or being breast-fed? And is a bar really the kind of environment a child should be exposed to? I know in Europe it is commonplace, but hey — this is America, baby. Besides, bars are “21 and over.” Just because a 5-year-old obviously won’t get served, it doesn’t mean they should be in there. And don’t get me started about the strollers blocking access to the bar, seating, and the looks I get when I ask someone to move their stroller because it is obviously in the way of not only me but also everyone else. Doublewide strollers are the bane of Park Slope.

“Listen, if you’re a parent now, your child doesn’t have to be the center of everyone else’s universe too. Get a babysitter if you want to go out to a bar, or buy a bottle of wine and invite your friends over, just stop imposing your lifestyle on the rest of us in our sanctuary of choice. You made the decision to have a child and now, like a responsible adult and parent, you have to change your lifestyle as well. I’ve spoken to some courteous parents who agree with this and they get a sitter when they go out because they want some time with adults, not kids. Anyways, I’m sick of kids and strollers in bars, and so are a lot of other people. If you can’t find a sitter and have to go out with your child, for the love of god, go to a family restaurant like Two Boots or the Tea Lounge, for I declare today and all future Sundays, Stroller Free.”

Frugal parenting

I got ready to take notes when I heard financial advisor Kevin McKinley speak on Wisconsin Public Radio about Milwaukee’s rank in spending on children.

I notice a lot of frugal parenting in the Milwaukee area so if I would have had the chance to make a bet with my husband, my money would have been on a low ranking.

Saving money is a point of pride for many local parents—a rummage sale find is something to brag about, and so is recounting the amount raked in after hosting a rummage sale. Friends routinely swap coupons. High-end strollers are a rare sight at Bay View’s parks.

Most people I talk with shop at secondhand stores, either those catering to children or general resale shops like Value Village Thrift Stores.

I have lived in other cities before becoming a mother and my sense is that secondhand shopping, coupon sharing, and other money saving strategies are less in vogue there.

As I thought about where Milwaukee would be likely to rank, I didn’t get the chance to ponder the high rate of poverty in parts of our city. That factor would further contribute to a low ranking.

McKinley revealed what I (and probably you readers) suspected: Milwaukee trends significantly below national spending on children. The data aggregator and analyzer bundle.com crunched three years of spending data for parents in 36 U.S. cities. *

Not only are we below the national average, we’re 54 percent below it and near the bottom of the list of spenders. Only St, Paul, Minn. and Madison, Wis. are more frugal.

In case you’re wondering, top spenders are in New York (Manhattan), N.Y.; Brooklyn, N.Y.; Miami, Fla.; Minneapolis, Minn.; and Tulsa, Okla. Chicago, Ill. is one percent below the national average.

Milwaukee’s spending cannot be attributed only to our reasonable cost of living because that is only 11.4 percent below the national average.

Madison’s cost of living is 9.3 percent above the national average and Chicago’s is 16.2 percent above the national average, so it seems that the choice to keep kid gear at a minimum is a values-based choice in our region.

For parents of school-age children, school resumption often perks up spending. Retailers try to tempt us into getting the perfect backpack and lunch gear via email and catalogs. The first back-to-school catalog shocked me by arriving at our house before July 4.

It went out with that month’s recycling. Frugal is fine with me.

The average middle-income family will spend roughly $12,000 on child-related expenses in their baby’s first year of life and by age two, add $500+ to that figure, according to parenting.com.
Source: bundle.com/article/cities-spoil-their-kids-most/

*To see the chart ranking cities and spending: tinyurl.com/d9325y8

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Neighbors

Summer affords my family more opportunities for talking with our immediate neighbors because the abundance of daylight and reasonable temperatures lure us to our front porch. Sometimes we bring full dinner plates outside and eat while enjoying the fresh air.

We often chat with neighbors while we are out on the porch. We know the names of our immediate neighbors and are up-to-date on the major events in their lives. Some blocks are even more connected than ours. There the residents come together because of a charismatic person who shares hyper-local news with neighbors and gathers and distributes block-residents’ email addresses and phone numbers, perhaps even organizing a block party. These initiatives help the neighbors gel.

Sharing information and making new friends with neighbors was far more common in the past, in Bay View and in the United States. Societal changes have altered that to the point where it is not uncommon for neighbors to rarely interact with one another.

Family sizes and routines have changed a lot in the “lifetime” of our neighborhood. In 1910, when many homes on our block were built, the average family size in the United States was 4.54, according to the U.S. Census. The average household size took a big downward slide in the 1930s and hovers at 2.58 today.

The children living on our block in the 1900s likely spent summers playing with nearby children while being supervised by their mothers. In 1910, about 20 percent of all U.S. women earned a paycheck, compared with 45 percent today, according to U.S. government statistics.

Given the prevalence and demands of full-time work of contemporary dual-income households, many children attend camp or are provided with some sort of non-parental child care from mid-June until school resumes. Therefore these children are not spending much time with their peers who live within shouting distance, and they aren’t inventing sidewalk games together.

Older children may have jobs that consume part of their day. People of all ages spend lots of time with TVs, computers, or other screens, drawn indoors by the comfort of air conditioning. Also, families are more geographically mobile and are not as likely as previous generations to live in the area where they grew up, which deprives them of multi-generational connections—kids playing with their cousins or the children of their parents’ childhood friends.

I feel fortunate that our neighborhood does have opportunities for neighbors to overcome the barriers that might keep us apart. I have made new friends—some with a child close to our daughter’s age—at a coffee shop or at the Bay View Community Center. A few have moved away, but I have seen others throughout the years at the library, playground, or a park splash pool. I see a few of them again because our kids attend the same local school. It has been especially comforting to see familiar parents at school because I’m more comfortable asking them questions or getting “the scoop” from them.

The Bay View Community Center recognizes the problem of isolated neighbors and has organized “Meet Your Community” play sessions Wednesday mornings. To aid people who might not be comfortable knocking on an unfamiliar neighbor’s door or introducing themselves in the alley, the play sessions are organized by street addresses.

When I sit on our porch, nearly every passerby seems to have a dog or a stroller. We parents with young children are lucky to have a neighborhood with abundant opportunities for strolling but also for meeting one another and even supporting each other.

Information about “Meet Your Community” play sessions is available at bayviewcenter.org

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Stealing summer

School’s out, but the hectic pace remains. Between day care, the neighborhood’s summer events like Chill on the Hill and the farmers market, play dates, and visits with family; it’s hard to steal enough time to achieve a summer slowdown. Center-based programs (day care centers, prekindergartens, nursery schools, Head Start programs, and other early childhood education programs) consume most of the day.

When school is in session, a hefty 57 percent of 3 to 6-year-olds who are not yet in kindergarten are at a center, according to childstats.gov. Presumably, most of them continue at a center for the so-called summer break. The days that I work in an office mean our daughter spends nine and a half hours away from home. I’m glad my husband and I live so close to our employers and that Milwaukee lacks huge traffic tie-ups because longer commutes would further extend the days. Evenings and weekends are frequently filled with additional high-stimulation time like grocery store trips or errands to other bustling stores. (At some of those stores, parents cannot focus on the child even in the checkout lane because self-checkout is required.) Kids come along at night or on Saturday or Sunday because their parents are at work weekdays.

Studies show that workers are spending more of each week on the job than in the recent past. Parents find it very difficult to provide any down time at home when kids aren’t bathing, eating, or focused on some glowing rectangle like a TV, laptop, tablet, or smart phone. Time playing with chalk on the sidewalk or running through a sprinkler with friends, or simply talking or playing a game with a parent, gets squeezed.

Summer might seem like a break from the fast pace of life for our children, but that isn’t reality. Parents wonder which classes or camps they should enroll their children in and how early to enroll them in ballet, soccer, or violin to keep them from falling behind their peers.

Parents are rushing to see the dinosaur exhibit at the Milwaukee County Zoo and visit far-flung relatives.

But for other parents, summer means struggling to figure out how to keep their kids safe and nourished without the support of school.

Some might feel it socially unacceptable to ask, “How will you relax this summer?” but that may be a wiser question than “What classes are you signing up for?” or “Are you going on any trips?”

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com

Sunday still sacred?

On a recent Sunday morning, our daughter asked, “Can we have a pajama day, Mom?” Pajama days involve hanging around the house without school, work, or even a grocery store trip.

My immediate reply was, “No, honey, we have to go to church today.” While we don’t view church as mandatory, that day the Sunday school teachers wanted as many kids as possible to take part in thanking their volunteers.

But I reconsidered, agreed to the pajama day proposal, and we all enjoyed a morning free of scheduled activities.

We did nothing in particular, which befits a pajama day. But we did get the chance to talk about some things that were rattling around in our daughter’s four-and-a-half-year-old mind like “What happens in a tornado?” and that her friend sometimes says she doesn’t want to be friends anymore.

After lunch, we ventured out to meet my parents (sans PJs) at a school art fair.

That morning was remarkable and memorable for the good chunk of hours that we enjoyed with few outbursts, and our daughter even made her characteristic happiness display: spontaneous singing. Our time together was as much fun as I always expect “big days” to be at the zoo or the bounce house. I unconsciously establish high expectations, but those outings often end on a sour note or involve too much begging for extras and leave me feeling unfulfilled.

The PJ day experience caused me to reflect on the tradition of honoring the Sabbath, the day of rest.

Our society, especially in the predominantly Catholic Milwaukee areas, once viewed Sunday mornings to be reserved strictly for family time and religious worship. While families were obligated to dress up and make it to the pews on time, schedules were otherwise free, except that after church, it was common to buy ham and rolls for a quick lunch that gave mothers a break from cooking. In my own family, my father often worked on Sundays but the rest of the Milwaukee Sunday stereotype held true.

Today, when stores like Target make their Sunday store and pharmacy hours nearly the same as the rest of the week, the sacred Sunday morning zone is eroded. Sundays were remarkably different when retail stores were closed in many of the state’s communities and—gasp—alcohol sales were prohibited throughout Wisconsin.

Children’s birthday parties are usually on Saturday, but friends said they have received invitations for Sunday morning parties. At work, friends have opined that older kids’ club sports, which hold tournaments beginning at 8am, totally violate the “sanctuary” tradition of Sunday morning. Organizations such as Milwaukee Recreation still honor the “day of rest” tradition and do not offer courses like swim lessons on Sundays, but our neighborhood has casual but pre-planned soccer in the park.

I have a lot of thoughts about a regular reflective block of time, but I’m not sure how to make it happen. In our house, we can’t make every Sunday a pajama day, but a constant “get up and go” pattern isn’t ideal, either. The Sunday morning sacred zone is a tradition worth keeping.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

Two adults; one car

Cars have never enchanted me, and driving seems like another chore. Maybe that’s why I’m comfortable being in a one-car family.

It’s fairly rare to be a member of a two-adult household with only one gas eater in the America of 2012, but it is not so uncommon in our neighborhood.

Bay View’s proximity to downtown employers and the availability of multiple bus routes makes two cars less of a necessity. At different times, my husband and I have each been regular Milwaukee County Transit System riders. He currently takes Route 15 a few days per week and uses the time to zone out or read. I used to rely on the 48 Flyer and enjoyed chatting with other frequent passengers.

Easy public transportation isn’t a new neighborhood asset: our senior citizens remember the precursor to the bus, the streetcar, which they rode to work, to shop on Mitchell Street, or watch a show downtown.

We currently make it to work, school, daycare, the grocery store, the gym, swim lessons, and church, plus tedious appointments and fun events, by combining trips or cooperating. We use our car, the bus, a bike, or just our feet. With these options, owning one car is unusual, but not totally out of the norm the way it would be in some of our city’s suburbs.

Mindset is a factor, too, in bucking the one-car-per-adult trend. We’re in a social circle that considers bus riding normal, and locals don’t ask the same questions that my suburban relatives do. They wonder how I survived taking the bus when the wind chill index went below minus 10. (We got creative and my husband drove me to the bus stop and waited until my bus came so I could stay in our warm car. Then he drove to his job, which was then in Oak Creek.) The suburban set wonders how close the bus stop is to the office and might be surprised by the reality that it’s nearer than many parking structures.

Maybe a practical reason for our neighborhood’s mindset lies in the backyard. Our apartments and houses don’t all have garages, much less garages with room for multiple cars.

Many Bay View acquaintances brag about living in a fairly walkable neighborhood and where many of us can buy food basics, even get a haircut or visit a doctor, without driving. Walking for errands burns calories and decreases gas bills. Along the way, we see friends or smile at strangers, and I think it incrementally draws us closer together. I’m glad our daughter is living in an area where walking to a friend’s house or hoofing it to buy eggs is feasible and normal, whatever the price of gas.

The author is a freelance writer and mother of one. Reach her with comments or suggestions at jill@bayviewcompass.com.

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