A letter to their father

Maybe we should see a mediator. I agree that our interactions
are not healthy. It drains me to deal with you over anything... an ill child, a trip
to the doctor, medicine, shoes, activities, vacation, school, events,
holidays, a ride, etc. It is rarely simple.

To stop communication is not an option as long as they visit your
home and you are in their lives with some regularity. Perhaps a
calendar sent at the start of the month, then a weekly checkin with
any changes will help. You must assist with transportation
(50% of the time) when bus is not an option. That is your agreed responsibility.
Thankfully this year they are able to bus to school and many activities.
Stop putting me down every opportunity you get. If it
is over then stop attacking me. I write back to defend myself. You
are always the antagonist, always. I defend myself against your
unending putdowns.

I gave up on any kind of appreciation or acknowlegement years ago, but
I am not immune to your repeated verbal assaults.
Hopefully one day I will be immune. It hurts the children when
you bring them into an attack on my character. All three of
them have had counseling because of the abuse they have witnessed.

May would not have behaved towards me the way she did without a
model. Her behavior the day she went to Juvenille Hall should have been
stopped long before that time. She modeled what she grew up with.
Thank god she went into the juvenille court system. It was a massive turning point for her.
Diego's and Summer's positive changes are no accident, they are a result of counseling and
involvement. You do not participate in the ups and downs of the day to day. You explode and then we have
to cope with the mess you leave. You really have not been engaged with them since they were little. What you have done is destructive, you have repeatedly hurt them, manipulate them by attacking. They feel as if they are a burden to you.
Rather than a joy in your life, they seem to remind you of your pain.

Thankfully they are resilliant and they will survive this and be strong. Children in the world have faced far worse and
come out in one piece.

I do not know what the answer is? But it didn't work when we were
married and it sure isn't working now. I am willing to go forward and
work towards better communication, but stop the attacks.

The Escape of Marvin the Ape on Spring Break

Esther called today. I have been invited to a fancy affair in NYC, I rarely travel w/o one of my kids, but it is a week before their spring break. There is so much to do at home in the NW. But I am so homesick for NY. Jen is working on a film, but has told me I can stay in the apartment, 3000 square feet, the apartment I lived in long ago. I feel guilt, their grandparents do not think I should go, how can I leave the kids. May will be on her spring break, she could stay with them. She has changed, I do not think she would ever have a party again or lie to me again. After all, that was years ago, at the start of high school. It catapulted us into counseling, she had to pay me back for all the damage. What am I saying, of course I can not go. It is irresponsible of me to even think about it. Stay home, there is a lot of work to do.

How different is this generation of teens?

Does every generation complain about the generation after them? How different is this generation from the generations that came before? There is a span of eight years between my youngest and my oldest. Are some of the differences between them experiential? Are they different because the older had less channels of television? because she didn't have 16x9 HD? Are they different because the standards I hold them to are different? What are the standards? What were the standards back then long ago? Where are the sociologists when we need them? Is this generation more violent because of video games? Are they disrespectful? Few people know my vocabulary. Archie and Veronica, Howdy Doody, the Flinstones...black and white and 3 channels. Was there a revolution? When did it occur? How do we raise compassionate, caring non-materialistic children when the media is so pervasive and persuaisive?

Growing Up Online

The future shock explosion of the internet has brought the good the bad and the really ugly into our home, and into the homes of families we know. I feel there is very little knowledgeable support for families coping with these new distractions. This documentary touches the tip of the iceberg, more like a glacier. It has begun a healthy dialog for us. Please make the time to watch this with your children. In addition to the one hour documentary, there are tools, articles and ideas on their website.

FRONTLINE Growing Up Online

teen angst...I hate you mom

Today my daughter thinks she hates me. Without realizing it I betrayed her trust. She told me that a friend was in a fight with her parents. She said she would share the situation with me later in private. I thought her sister might have some insight. I pushed her to share it with her sister. Summer and her sister are very different and over eight years apart. Summer is openly artistic, creative and expressive through her clothing and art. May is outwardly a conformist, she was always slim, preppy and very popular in high school. Summer sees herself more as an outcast, an iconoclast, a rebel. Summer sensitive and cries easily. She did not want to share her friends situation and bad became worse as I began to push.

Memories of European Youth 60 years ago

from the Seattle Times February 27, 2008 by Haley Edward

The dress rehearsal at Roosevelt High School this week was a little surreal.
Kelsey Sanders, 17, stood center stage, playing the lead role of Eva Geiringer, a 15-year-old Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz in 1944. She huddled under a tattered scarf, shivering with imagined cold.

Meanwhile, the real Eva Geiringer, a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, sat alone eight rows back from the stage, watching as a girl she'd not yet met — a girl who was born almost a half-century after World War II ended — acted out one of the most horrifying moments of her life.

"We could smell the human flesh burning," said Sanders, her young voice echoing into the microphone. "We pretended it was rubbish, but we knew."

The real Eva, who is now Eva Schloss, shifted in her seat, her gold-rimmed glasses glinting in the blue stage lights.

"And Then They Came For Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank" is an hourlong play that centers on the lives of two Holocaust survivors, Schloss and Ed Silverberg, both of whom were childhood friends of the famous diarist Anne Frank. The play was written in 1995 by James Still, who intersperses the live action on stage with projected video interviews with Schloss and Silverberg.

The play premieres at 7:30 tonight and runs through Saturday. Schloss will make a guest appearance at the end of each show.

"It's hard to watch [the show] sometimes," said Schloss, whose London English is salted with German and Dutch. She flew in from London for the production. "But these young people, in the cast and the audience later, are going to be the decision makers, the leaders, in the future.

"If you can affect one of them — if they can have an idea of what that experience was like — that will maybe stay with them."

Halfway through the dress rehearsal Monday, the six student actors and the student director took a break to meet Schloss backstage.

"It's so intimidating," said Devin Field, 18, a senior playing Schloss' brother, Heinz Geiringer, who died in Auschwitz in 1944. "I mean, how can amateur high-school actors like us do justice to her memory of these people, like her mom and her brother, who meant so much to her?"

Ruben Van Kempen, the director of the theater department at Roosevelt High School who arranged for the school's drama booster club to sponsor Schloss' visit, said he was nervous, too.

"I wondered if she was going to say, 'You're doing this wrong! You don't have that right!' " he said.

During the 15-minute meet-and-greet, Schloss did not critique the production, but instead spoke matter-of-factly about the importance of remembering the Holocaust.

"Humans have the ability to be hardened to things," she said. "But there are some things I never got over. Like the death of my father and especially my brother. ... Remembering their lives in front of thousands and thousands of people is one way they can, as Anne [Frank] writes in her diary, live on after death."

Schloss was a childhood friend of Anne Frank's when both their families lived in Amsterdam. After the war, Schloss' mother married Frank's father, Otto Frank.

Silverberg, the other Holocaust survivor whose story is featured in the play, was Anne Frank's first boyfriend, whom she writes about in the beginning of her diary.

Maddy Robinson, 18, who plays Anne Frank in this production and has read Schloss' first book, "Eva's Story: A Survivor's Tale by the Step-Sister of Anne Frank," said meeting Schloss Monday night was "just incredible." In the past few months, Robinson said, she's researched as much as she could about her life.

"When she finally walked in, I felt like I knew her," Robinson said. "But I know I have so much more to learn from her, too."

Searching for Godmother at Charles De Gaulle

When the call finally came I was frantic with worry. I could hear a terrible cracking in her voice. She sounded so close over the phone, as if she were next door. "Maddy isn't here mom, I waited for one hour in baggage and I did not see her. I waited and waited, I was so scared mom. I want to come home. I feel sick, and I want to catch the next plane home." My heart sank into my stomach, I felt faint. I breathed deeply a few times. I asked if she was at the Air France Counter. "Yes Mom, I am at the Air France counter" "How are they treating you?" I remained calm, and focused on the positive. I knew they would treat a lovely, polite, and frightened 13-year-old well, why wouldn't they? I asked her if I could speak to one of the agents. I tried to think in French. Thank goodness the woman spoke to me in English. "Yes, she will stay here until her godmother arrives. Do you have a phone number" No I did not, Maddy could easily have purchased a European Sim phone and card. I wanted her to buy one. Damn, I should have bought them myself. Alas there was no way to reach her, I just had to wait for her to call me. I reassured Summer. Maddy will be there soon. She called last night, she is stuck in traffic, maybe there was a strike, there are often strikes. Do not worry, I heard myself say. Call me in one hour, I told her regardless of whether she arrives or not. Relax, this will be a story you tell your children later in life. Now you understand the saying "If it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger!" She laughed nervously. I ached inside hung up and ran to the computer to see the next flight to Paris. What if something terrible happened to Maddy. Why would she be late, we discussed it, she knew how important it was to meet her. I was frozen with upset and concern. I watched the clock. About 40 minutes after I got off the phone with Summer it rang again. It was now 3:30am. It was Maddy and she was crying. I have know her for 35 years and I have never seen or heard her cry. It was a mess. She used the alarm in the apartment, not her own clock and she had set it incorrectly. It was dark and she slept through it. She was in the Metro now, inroute to the airport. I was faint with relief. I did not want to make conversation, I told her exactly where summer was and hung up. The minutes seemed like hours and at about 4:15am Summer called again. I told her that I spoke with Maddy and that she would be there in about one hour. I spoke with the same lovely agent I had spoken with earlier. I laughed with Summer, told her some very silly jokes, we hung up and I waited and waited. Around 5:45am the phone rang. Maddy finally found her, she had originally gone to the wrong terminal. Relief, I spoke with Summer, she had been up for hours but was not tired. They were going to take the Metro into the apartment a lovely place in the 6th Arrondismant, near the Luxembourg Gardens. At around 7am, I fell asleep.