Mama Doc Philosophies

At dinner tonight we had breakfast for dinner (genius meal when you’re stumped by an unending need to create something “new”). At the end of the meal we were all discussing our love for bacon. Without a beat this came from the 6 year-old in our midst:

“Mama, could I live a long time and still have a piece of bacon everyday?”

I thought about it. Yes, it seems, yes. Yes, every day with bacon!

“Yes, I said, “I think you can have bacon but only if you exercise everyday and if you have really great friends. The kind of friends that make you feel alive.”

I launched into some sort of summary of the art of moderation with bacon, pouring out facts about fats, cholesterol, and diverse food choices – the essential need to balance bacon with things that grow in the ground. As I waxed on with a macronutrient-level discussion the 6 year-old in front of me just kept moving with his idea. Turned out he wanted concrete responses for his life with bacon. He pushed into the friendship part.

A long life with bacon goes something like this: of course you need to eat a lot of other goodnesses with your bacon. We can borrow wisdom from the Mediterranean diet and reduce the red meat we eat, put fish on the table twice a week, eat lots of seeds and nuts and ensure fruits and veggies show up on every plate we serve. Debates will wage on about the magic foods we eat, today it was the complexities to the value of an orange over OJ so we always have to put food advice in the context of life. I told my 6 year-old tonight he’d have to exercise every day and get outside, twirl around without a ceiling, take a lot of steps, and be connected with nature.

But perhaps most essential to living a long life (with bacon), I repeated, is solid choices with whom he chooses to live his precious life. If you’re going to eat bacon every day you have to make great friends and forge partnerships with those who make the world feel possible. In my mind you need soul-fetching friends — the ones who literally make you feel like you can fly. We have to spend time with those who let us unpeel ourselves without judgment and urge us to take risks, help us take our time, and lend support to shelter whatever we consider dear. Read full post »

Our children will never be the sole judge of our job as parents of course. We are likely our own closest and most fastidious critic. And really it’s just us (and our partners) that can truthfully reflect and evaluate how it goes as we raise our children — what our hopes were when we started on the journey of raising another and where we find ourselves. And so, however radiant the peaks and successes seem, the anxiety of our choices in this high-stakes job will likely dominate. The angst with how this all goes as our children mature ties our feet together at times, and can feel a little like stuffing big rocks into our pocket as we jump off the dock into the lakes of our lives. We’re hard on ourselves. Sometimes this is good and motivating, centering or stabilizing, and at times it can even be useful when sorting priorities. But sometimes, it’s simply unkind. Some of the best advice I was given after my boys were born was this: Read full post »

I recently listened to an interview on This American Life that stuck with me. The show was entitled “It’s Not The Product, It’s The Person” and went through a series of examples uncovering the reality that great business (or great work) is more a product of the who than the what. Who people are, how much grit, tenacity, raw or natural talent, passion, or skill really matters when doing whatever it is that that they do. Far more perhaps than what they actually create, sell or even perform. And although this isn’t the point I mean to make (you’ll see) it’s worth noting that the show opens with details of a young entrepreneur, like really young (age 11 years) and demonstrates how her talents, bravado, and finesse allow her to sell things and attract attention that others can’t. The show rounds out as the narrator showcases the varying pitfalls in his own quest for success as an ex-NPR radio producer turned start-up entrepreneur. The story was somewhat lighthearted, of course, but one point stuck. As he was gleaning information from an established, successful venture capital investor he was asked a potent question. The investor was interrogating how this fledgling entrepreneur could get funding; assisting him in creating his “pitch” for the money people. He asked, “What’s your unfair advantage?”

Think about it, what’s your unfair advantage?

It stuck with me because it was so relevant for success in an often random, senseless world of building ideas and companies but also in parenting “like a pro.” An unfair advantage sometimes facilitates success and I would suggest nearly all of us have something in our pocket that we know makes it work. You can think of this unfair advantage in terms of celebrity or early success for some (Kate Hudson’s mom is Goldie Hawn after all, and it certainly seems easier to get a bedroom in The White House if your last name is Bush or Kennedy or Clinton for that matter). Yet we all also know that success isn’t only built of “unfair advantages,” that it does take advantage wed to sheer passion, purpose or intent. But clearly those unfair advantages help people get their ideas and skills discovered.

It was only recently that I realized my unfair advantage this past decade or so. Read full post »

I felt very much alive reading Dr. Atul Gawande’s new book, Being Mortal. Not because I have a sense of youthful immortality, but because stuck here in the sandwich generation I’m feeling a bit caught in-between — feeling simultaneously mortal and then very alive. In my mind this has a little bit to do with turning 40, a bit to do with the gift of raising young children, and a whole lot more to do with a year of losing people I love. Over the last 11 months I feel like my soul has aged by a decade as people I’ve loved and held onto have passed away. When dealing with death some hours can feel far more centurion than any others we can remember.

Gawande’s words granted some space to reflect on both my profession and my role as a parent, wife, daughter, sister, relative and friend. There’s a balanced vulnerability woven throughout the book that facilitates our joining into his stories as peers. And although the book begins notably academic, it accelerates into a rich narrative of love, endurance, small failures and singular courage. In its essence, Being Mortal is about one man’s journey loving his family, caring for patients, discovering inadequacies in his profession and interrogating the options afforded us all in living our lives with intention.

As a true “middle-ager,” sitting with these words felt to me a bit like peering over a vast, newly frozen Great Lake. Imagine letting your eyes move from left to right, looking out at the cracks in the ice and swirling snow as you capture the enormity of the expanse and what lies in front of you. But remember that this Great Lake is enormous, as big as the potential space of the lives in front of us. The words in Being Mortal can feel like a nudge. It’s as if while looking out from the shores of that frozen lake you hear someone whisper, “ Why, yes, it’s only been frozen overnight, but please just get up and run across it, Girl.” And you will, never knowing just when you’ll fall in. Read full post »

Photo: Claude Truong-Ngoc/Wikimedia Commons

Malala, Malala, Malala – this is a historic day! A child has just won the Nobel Peace Prize! Our heroine, Malala Yousafzai, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She shares the prize with Kailash Satyarthi. Children and parents everywhere on planet earth have a perfect bedtime story. The youngest ever recipient of the prize goes to a girl born and raised in Pakistan who was denied equal access to her education. I mean, really, whenever you think your child’s potential is bounded or someone in the community minimizes the importance of your child’s ideas or implies that their potential is truncated by their age, limited by their perspective, or premature because of their experience, we have a new story to tell. We have an extraordinary antidote to those who treat children as lesser citizens of the world.

Malala Yousafzai.

Malala, you amaze us and you open up doors for little girls and little boys everywhere. Parents and pediatricians can and will share the news with young children and teens who falter.

First off, don’t let her globe-trotting-book-writing-media-circus attention fool you into thinking she’s an adult. She found out about her Nobel while in class, a place where all the other 17 year-olds in our country get the opportunity to sit…

17-year-old Nobel Peace Laureate Malala Yousafzai found out about her win in her Chemistry class. — USA TODAY (@USATODAY) October 10, 2014

Malala has leveraged her skills as a brilliant communicator and wed it to the courage of a champion to change the world’s understandings and opportunities. We are all so lucky.

Quick Facts For Your Family About Malala Yousafzai:

• Malala started penning ideas and sharing perspectives by blogging for BBC about equal access to education when she was just 11. Here’s a TIME For Kids write-up.

• Malala and her father report that part of her success is based on the reality that her “wings were not clipped.” More from her dad in this popular TEDtalk.

• Malala is a world leader. Read Amy Davidson’s New Yorker article from earlier today as a reminder of her influence — note Davidson saying, “It is past time to stop seeing Malala as simply the girl who survived, as a symbol. (The Times called her a ‘global emblem.’) She is a girl who leads: who addressed the United Nations on her sixteenth birthday; who amazes Jon Stewart and asks Barack Obama about drones.”  Watch her interview on Jon Stewart for examples of her unflappable courage and determination.

Age-Appropriate Malala Bedtime Stories:

Age 2-5: There once was a little girl loved to go to school. But one day the rules changed where she lived and she was unable to Read full post »

I was at Back-To-School night this week at my boys’ school. Heard something I’m still thinking on. One of the teachers talked about how students are introduced to technology in the school house. She detailed how her philosophies helped shape their evolving understanding of, skills with, and opportunities with computers, code, and digital tools. She discussed her opacity with instructions as just one way to help develop grit. She said,

 

I use deliberate ambiguity. I want to make it a bit of mystery getting from point A to point B…

In ways, this is our job as parents in rearing independent children. Strike through childhood with deliberate ambiguity and provide a sense of mystery each day. With it, we can prime opportunity for our children to discover and stumble upon a sense of mastery. We can vilify technology in our children’s lives or we can facilitate our children’s use of new tools for expression and creativity. But deliberate ambiguity? That’s genius that we can apply in all sorts of places in our children’s lives.

Florida politicians will not change pediatrician resolve to advocate for and protect children. There’s no question that a gag order cannot halt a passionate child advocate. I’d call the recent Florida ruling a dull tool taken to a very sharp crowd. Consider this post an open letter to Florida politicians…

I live as far away from Florida as any continental American (you do the math) yet Florida politics this past week affect pediatricians and families everywhere. In my opinion, every parent should tune in and follow this case. Florida just restricted physician free speech and hindered a physician’s ability to help your neighbors, your relatives, and your family create a safe environment for children.

Guns In Your Home? Do you ask about guns at playdate drop-off? Have you seen the Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America online presence (and progress) or follow their feed on Facebook?

Florida may have gotten this wrong thinking that restricting a pediatrician’s words and inquiry about safely storing firearms meant that pediatricians were trying to take away guns. Not so fast.

The Florida Physician Gag-Order Law:

Last Friday The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Florida upheld the “physician gag law” in Florida, a law that violates the First Amendment rights of pediatricians and family doctors and threatens their ability to counsel parents about how to protect children from unintentional injury and death. This started way back in 2011. Then the law was appealed. Now the appeal is overturned. This ping-ponging is just politics but the waste here is distraction from protecting children. In 2011 I explained the gag-order for pediatricians — basically it’s this: Florida says it’s illegal for pediatricians to ask about how families and guardians store firearms in their home even though we know about 4,000 American children die every year from firearm injuries. Read full post »

Sometimes it can feel that a career of crafting prevention messages can be snuffed out in a moment. Every once and a while this work in media/messaging can take my breath away, for all the wrong reasons. Today, I realize my work educating parents and children about sunscreen use, UV radiation, aging, and skin cancer risks may pale in comparison to the potential power of a single quote on the side of a shopping bag. I mean, how can I compete with a company that sold $1.6B of merchandise last year and likely distributes tens to hundreds of thousands of reusable bags around North America everyday? Shopping bags have the luxury to walk around for years and tuck into peoples lives in remarkably intimate ways. Even I use these bags (or used to) to carry my lunch on a daily basis. It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized I’d been carrying my lunch around in a bag that goes, in part, against my entire mission. When I read about recent dermatologist outrage for Lululemon bag quotes I literally turned my head to my kitchen counter (see photo) and there sat my lunch bag on my counter just staring at me. Under the tote’s handle was the devious myth, “Sunscreen absorbed into the skin might be worse for you than sunshine. Get the right amount of sunshine.”

Now, that’s not true. In fact there is no “right” amount of sunshine and absorption concerns for sunscreen haven’t proved more dangerous than sunshine. Also, absorption varies with age and body site, here I review information about why to use physical sunscreens (and sun protective clothing) in infants when possible to reduce any risk from ingredient absorption because of their more immature barrier. That being said, I’d always recommend sunscreen over sun exposure for infants and children. The conversation about getting sunshine is centered around getting enough vitamin D. Although minutes (not hours!) in the sun provides vitamin D, we can safely get vitamin D entirely from the food we eat or a daily supplement (all children are recommended to have at least 400 IU Vita D daily). We don’t need to consume sun. In fact all sun exposure comes with UV radiation that contributes to mole production, aging, and skin cancers– even the most deadly kind, malignant melanoma. Sun protection keeps skin looking beautiful (prevents aging) and prevents skin from discoloration and cellular/immune changes that can lead to cancer.  Sun-protective clothing, seeking shade, and sunscreen are our best bets for beautiful, healthy skin. Read full post »

My husband is often in earshot when people probe, “I don’t know how you do it all with your family and your career.” In asking the question there is doubt, of course, that it’s possible. My husband is never the recipient of the same question regardless of the facts: we both have intense, high-demanding careers in medicine as physician leaders. Reality is, there may be little different in our level of responsibility, time commitments, and our opportunity to improve pediatric health care while there is no difference in our passion and commitment to raising our boys. So the calculus around the questioning doesn’t equate — nobody ever asks him about his balance with work and family.

My grudge with this disparity wavers in intensity. I bring this up now because of Matt Lauer’s controversial conversation with General Motors CEO, Mary Barra. He wondered if she could be a good mom and run GM on national TV. He said,

“You’re a mom, I mentioned, two kids, you said in an interview not long ago that your kids said they’re going to hold you accountable for one job, and that is being a mom,” he said. “Given the pressure at General Motors, can you do both well?”

It’s not only his egregious comment that aggravates, we’ve all gotten used to similar questions for women who work. What sets the interview on fire is his deflection of bias and responsibility. With this episode in the never ending media series on women and work-life balance we learn again that there is quite a bit of:

1. Ongoing persistent cultural bias against women in leadership roles: we constantly wedge women and their success into the construct of balance with work and home when we rarely project men against the same backdrop.
2. Ongoing anxiety about this bias coupled with a desire to eradicate it. Culturally, most of us don’t want to think about men and women’s responsibilities in the work place and home differently. We like to mature past our current realities when it comes to equity and sharing responsibilities for child-rearing and work.

Can we acknowledge the ongoing, profound cultural bias against women leaders and control that doesn’t exist in similar ways for men? Read full post »

The boys still eagerly hold my hand when we go out and about. And it’s not just when we cross the street. I find that, my 5 year-old in particular, will just show up alongside me while we’re walking and all of the sudden his hand will be in mine. Divinity. This little hand doesn’t go unnoticed and I suspect although it won’t always come so frequently or so eagerly or so spontaneously, I’ll get to hold my son’s hands throughout my life if I ask. I really do treasure that hand in mine.

There is nothing of more value than this love of family we find as our children grow. Nothing more striking really than the intimacy that can exist between a family totally in love.

When we’re walking hand-in-hand my mind often slips to a stunning obituary I read last summer. In it, Jane Catherine Lotter (who wrote her own obituary) details her life’s achievements, her love for family, her gratitude and wisdom, and her memories. As she’s closing the piece she says, “At any rate, I am at peace. And on that upbeat note, I take my mortal leave of this rollicking, revolving world-this sun, that moon, that walk around Green Lake, that stroll through the Pike Place Market, the memory of a child’s hand in mine.”

There’s wisdom in clarity and it seems to me Jane had it and was generous enough to share it. One distillation of life’s joy being a child’s hand in her own. When you hold onto that hand today perhaps take notice of the extraordinary thing it is to have it curled up inside your own. I mean, wow.