Are My Kids American?

With all the talk about getting rid of birthright citizenship, I wonder about my family's future. Not long after we moved from Germany, we had a son, our youngest child. Our understanding is that he was automatically American. Now, we're not so sure.

For a long time, I've felt like a Republican because they seem to be the most American party. They love America the most and are most willing to defend her and the American way from the rest of the world. Now, I'm not so sure. If the Republican Party wants to take away the citizenship of my youngest child, then I can't be a Republican.

In the worst case scenario, Donald Trump becomes president and my youngest son is no longer an American. My husband, myself and my two oldest kids, who were born in Germany became naturalized American citizens on July 4th, 2013. How more American can you get? My youngest son would be deported. He's only seven and speaks German like a slightly retarded little kid. He doesn't know any German playground songs. He's a vegetarian. How is he going to survive? Because he'll have been in the country illegally, he won't be able to return for something like 10 years. How is that going to work? My two oldest kids can't stand Germany, which is mostly the fault of my relatives who, honestly are one of the main reasons I wanted to come to America. The oldest, likes that he can drink beer there legally, which I admit is a plus.

If the worst happens, we won't tell him that he can't comeback. We'll put smiles on our faces and wish him a wonderful vacation.

Russia and Russians

There are a few Russian grocery stores near where I live. When I first moved to the US, I was very surprised by this. I thought that Americans didn't like Russians. You don't see many Russian restaurants, at least not around where I live. I went to Coney Island once and it was all Russian. It's right at the Atlantic Ocean so maybe they don't feel comfortable further inland. Personally, I don't feel comfortable so close to the water, so I guess we're even.

If there are no Russian restaurants it must be because either people don't want to eat Russian food, which I can understand, or people do want to eat Russian food but prefer to make it at home. Home cooked meals are more nutritious, so I can understand that.

I don't like Russian food because it is too heavy. When you spend most of your day stretching and posing in heavy spandex, you don't want to be too full and you don't want to have a Babuschka belly, if you know what I mean. My daughter once told me I look fat. I was mortified, but it was true. I'd been eating too much pizza. We have a couple of really good pizzerias near where we live. I've now since cut back and my belly is gone. It also helps to wear a girdle. If you get a good one, and I'm talking some major bucks, you can even where it under your spandex and nobody will know, even you.

Baseball

Baseball is the great American past time, the national sport, the spirit of the country. Whenever I've gone to a baseball game, I never really understand what's going on during the game. Mostly, I drink expensive beer and eat hot dogs and french fries. You talk with your friends and look down on the field whenever the crowd cheers or roars. They have enormous TV screens to show you what happened. Your American friends try to explain it to you but it makes no sense to you. A third of the game is spent waiting in line for food or to go to the bathroom. There's lots of stuff to buy and not much is expected of you. Half the crowd never seems to pay much attention. If the weather is nice, it can be a nice day or evening out.

Confederate Flag

Every time I think I understand America and American history, I find realizing that I just don't understand anything. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican and President of the country at the time of Southern States, like the one I live in, seceded. The Southern States, also known as the Confederate States of America, believed in slavery and the Republicans believed in freedom and no slavery. A poll I read on line today said that 67% of current Republicans today support the Confederate Flag, which many Americans, myself included, find offensive. I find the Confederate Flag as offensive as the Nazi  Flag. As a German, I would never, ever fly the Nazi Flag. As a Virginian, I would never fly the Confederate Flag. As an American, I would never fly the Confederate Flag.

Every election, actually, pretty much every night on the news, Republican politicians complain that Democrats don't love their country enough and aren't true Americans. However, the Republicans are the ones who support the Confederate Flag, even though the Confederates were the enemies of the Republicans years ago. If you are a Republican now are you really a Confederate supporter? Isn't that like a Jewish person becoming a Nazi? Maybe one of my readers will explain this whole thing to me because I just don't understand.

Are Republicans against slavery but for the Confederates, for America but also for the people who killed the most Americans?

Nazis Close to Home

I was at one of my favorite local cafes, Java Shack, and some people at the next table were talking about how, years ago, it used to be the headquarters of the American Nazi Party. If I were still back home in Germany, I wouldn't have been surprised, but I was in liberal Arlington, Virginia a few minutes from home.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. I can't blame the owners of Java Shack. Whether or not they knew the history of their building when they opened years ago, I have no idea. What disturbs me is that, when I go there, I breathe the same air as Nazis once breathed. In the 1960s, Arlington was the headquarters of the American Nazi Party. That means that when I walk down the streets and go to the supermarket, I am potentially going to the same places they went to.

For the first time, since we moved to Arlington, I thought about moving. I really feel unsafe. I look at old people in my neighborhood and wonder if they once were Nazis. How can you tell? I'm not Jewish, and I certainly grew up surrounded by ex-Nazis. I didn't like the feeling then and I don't like the feeling now. Are my children going to be safe going to school? One of the reasons I wanted to raise my kids American is because I didn't want them to grow up to become Nazis. Now that I know that there were Nazis here, perhaps even once in my backyard, I am faced with the realization that I may not be able to stop that from happening.

I'm sorry, I really am, if I sound like I am panicking.  I don't think I am. All it takes is one person to make the world a worse place. All it takes is one person to disturb the peace. As Swami Jarvis says, "One little fart can stink up the whole room."

After avoiding Java Shack for a couple of days, I decided to go back. By going back, I am taking a stand against racism and Nazism. Hopefully, I can also find a place to sit. Sometimes the place gets a little crowded.

Camp

When I was a kid, I didn't go to camp. The only camping we did was at an FKK, or nudist, resort in Croatia. The weather was great until we all got sunburns. My oldest, Joachim, has begged us to send him to camp. One of his friends, who had cancer but is over it now, always went to a camp and loved it. Every year, Joachim would beg us to so send him, but the camp his friend went to wouldn't take him. Really, it's discriminatory for camps like that to not take healthy kids. Isn't the goal for all of them to be healthy? I got really mad at the woman who answered the phone when I called to see if Joachim could go. I called her camp a skin cancer factory and hung up.

This year, Joachim will finally get to go to camp. It's kind of a surprise since we haven't even told him he's going. It's an environmental camp where they kids help clean up a stream in West Virginia. He'll be out doors and there are supposed to be fun activities. On the day that he leaves, we're going to just drop him off at the pick up place in the morning.

Home Schooling

Have you ever considered homeschooling your kids? I have and decided against it. First of all, that's too much time with them. Second, they don't listen to me anyway, except when I yell or threaten to take away their tablets. Third, I just wasn't that good at school in all the subjects. I did well enough at my Gymnasium (the equivalent of a high school) to get into University. 

My oldest son, Joachim, is studying French and Chemistry. I don't know anything about either of them, except that I can order in French and I've never managed to blow up my kitchen. Also, I want my kids to grow up American, which is something I think I understand but am not always one hundred percent fluent in. If I had to teach them, or my husband, they'd grow up German. In that case, I might as well not have moved my family to America.

American States Diet

Recently, I read an article that was shared to me by one of my students. The article, written by Dr. Gregor Plotczy of the University of Western Delaware. According to him, the whole idea of eating locally is mis-informed. If you live in Kansas and are Polish-American you should be able to eat pineapples, just not lots of them. According to Plotczy, each of us has a state that we are most aligned with ethnically. The immigration patterns of each state is different and therefore the ethno-genetics of each state is different, just as each person's genetic code is different. If you are from Germany, as I am, you should be eating German food or the food from places in America where Germans settled. If you really want to be super accurate and local, assuming that it's possible, you can either choose the food from your region of origin and look at where those people settled. If you do not know or are not sure, then you should have your DNA analyzed.

The basic concept, or Grundprinzip, is that the food that our ancestors ate is integral to who they were in two ways. First, where they lived determined what food they could eat. Second, what food they could eat determined who they were. My ancestors are mostly from Swabia, which is probably why I really like Swabian food as well as food that could be grown in Swabia, dishes like Maultaschen, or ravioli. Our bodies are capable of eating foods outside our region of adaptation, but in doing so we run the risk of malnourishment since our bodies have not yet adapted to the new food.

Many Americans are mixtures, or Mischlinge. Their bodies can handle food from more ethno-cultural regions. As a Swabian-American, I should be eating foods that are popular in places like Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis. I have tried making Cincinnati style chili, and it was a big hit with my family. In a way, it is like an un-filled Maultaschen.

A New Invention To Wake Up Kids

Every mom has the same problem, no matter where they live. The problem is how to get your kids up  in time for school. Kids are programmed to want to sleep, so waking them up is like swimming up stream without a paddle. My oldest son, Joachim, is especially bad. He likes to play video games late into the night, so to solve that problem, we regularly go down to the basement and turn off the power to his room. To get around this, he just uses his tablet to play games on with the sound turned off. We've taken away his tablet numerous times, but he always seems to have another stashed away. There's also his smart phone which is a whole other story.

After a while, you get tired of the games and begin to look for something more effective. What I found, after a lot of research on the Internet, is a product called Wakey Wakey. Wakey Wakey are flannel or cotton sheets in fashionable colors and patterns that plug into the wall and have a chip and receiver in them. They are a take-off on an electric blanket. What you do is plug the sheets in, tuck in your child and at the time you pre-set using a smart phone app, the blankets send out a mild electric shock. You can set the intensity of the shock from low to stun. I don't recommend stun since the child will be incapacitated till their heart starts beating again. It's all perfectly safe, if uncomfortable. And isn't that the point! If they don't get out of bed, the sheets will shock them again at pre-set intervals. I've set it at one minute.

Honestly, even though I never endorse products, I endorse Wakey Wakey. It may not be pretty, though the screams have been amusing, but it gets the job done.

Drought in California

I was in California recently for the annual Thanda Yoga International Teacher's Conference and the news was all about the drought. The skies were clear and the days were sunny in a way that it never was back home in Baden-Wurtemburg. I don't know about you but yoga makes me thirsty and I couldn't help but feel guilty whenever I wanted to drink some water. Forget the carbon emissions that I created by flying to California in the first place, I was adding to the drought. Some of the water I was ingesting I was going to take back with me to Virginia. It didn't seem fair, moreover, I try to do right by the planet. I try to eat local and organic and all of that, but in this circumstance, was that really ethical?

Is it ethical to visit a drought stricken area and consume their precious resources? I don't think it is. Who knows if the cup of water you drink will be the last? Maybe that life giving water could safe a thirsty baby or water a row of organic asparagus.

Since I was already there, the only thing I could think of doing was to drink imported water and to skip showering. I bought a case of San Pellegrino at Costco, drank half of it while I was there and poured the rest of it out onto the plants outside the hotel just before I went back to the airport.

Cowboys and Indians

In America, it is entirely possible to be born and raised as an Indian. Many Americans have Indian ancestry and increasingly are proclaiming it to the government during the decennial census. It is also not difficult to find authentic Indians. There is even a wonderful Indian museum in Washington, DC. Cowboys are even easier to find. On television and the radio there are country music channels. There are often rodeos to attend and western wear shops where you can buy boots, belts and hats.

When my grandfather, my father and my husband were children, it was very common to play at being Indians and Cowboys. Everyone wanted to be Winnetou or at least one of the Apache. If you couldn’t be Winnetou, settling for Old Shatterhand, Winnetou’s German blood brother was okay. Somebody had to be the settlers or the cowboys. My father remembers running through ruins of his hometown as a child, pretending that they were buttes and mesas and attacking the evil settlers.

As a girl, I was never attracted to those sorts of battle games, but my brother and his friends certainly were. Sometimes they would be Indians and Cowboys, sometimes they would be Cops and Robbers, but always there would be bad guys and good guys. These self-actualized morality plays would never have an ending, unhappy or otherwise. Someone would be called home for lunch. Disputes would break out over who was actually dead with every shooter claiming perfect accuracy and every target claiming they dodged the bullets or had better cover than was apparent to the shooter. My friends and I would play with dolls and play at being mothers, girlfriends or wives. I often would grow tired of these games and seek to up-end the play. My doll would run off with another girl’s doll’s husband. I would steal the babies of the other girl’s doll and not change their diaper.

When I became an au pair, one of the things that intrigued me was the difference in play between American children and German children. These differences, particularly for boys, are very instructive and illustrate crucial differences between the two cultures. When one understands these differences, particularly with boys, one can direct your child towards a more American style of play.

Go to any American city or small town and go to their parks during the working week and you will see children shepherded by women who often look nothing like their charges. These women can be divided into three groups: Au pairs, nannies and actual mothers. The au pairs are often young European women, most between the ages of 19 and 20 who come to America with a sense of adventure, the desire to get away from their family, and an interest in learning American English and American culture. The nannies are often African or Hispano-American. The actual mothers who don’t look like their children because they have adopted them are often mistaken for au pairs, but never by other au pairs. Each of these groups is distinct and rarely interacts, except when their child hits another’s child and scolding and other interventions occur. Au pairs usually separate themselves out by country or language of origin. I never felt more kinship with Swiss and Austrian girls as I did when I met them as au pairs.

I was very fortunate as an au pair in that I generally had use of a car. This allowed me a greater range of parks and playgrounds where I could take the children. My favorite playgrounds were ones with nice benches shaded by broad and leafy trees.

One interesting side note regarding the difference between German and American playgrounds is that in American playgrounds there is rarely a sign that indicates the ages that are allowed to play on the play equipment and the hours that the playground can be used. Theoretically, an American elementary school-aged child could play on the toddler swing at two in the morning. I personally never witnessed this play at two in the morning, but it was quite common to see American children overpower the toddlers on the toddler slides and toddler children trying out the older kid slides. The American parents never cared that the equipment was being misused and after a while I decided no longer to care and stopped scolding my children.

Two things immediately struck me when watching the kids play, particularly the boys. The appearance of the play was very much the same, little boys using their fingers or sticks as pistols and rifles and running around going pow and bbbbrrrrrr and falling down dead spectacularly. In fact, the play was quite different than its German form. All the kids wanted to be cowboys and those who played Indians did so reluctantly. In a way, it is understandable, given the history of American oppression of its Indian populations.

As you can see from the table below, Germany is, in some aspects, ironically, more Indian than America. While the hobby clubs, or tribes, that exist all over Germany are not strictly speaking, Indian, their members self-identify, at least to some extent, as Indians and try to replicate the customs of particular, real tribes. Most of them do this extreme authenticity. By this measure, Germany is 2.700976935 times more Indian than America, or 1.995908776 than the average. America retains a significant edge over Germany for Indians as a percent of the total population.

Comparison Relative Indianness of Germany and America
Country	Tribes/Clubs	Indians	Population	Tribes Per 1,000 Population	Percent Indian
Germany	400	40,000	81,702,329	0.004895821	0.049%
America	565	2,932,248	311,705,000	0.001812611	0.941%
Total	965	2,972,248	393,407,329	0.002452928	0.756%

When we arrived in America, at first we had a rental car. The previous renter of the car must have liked country music, because when we turned on the radio it was tuned to a country music station. Richard even said that despite the jet lag, he really felt like he was in America. For a while, that was all we listened to, so much so that when we got our new car, a large American SUV, the first thing we did before we drove it off the car lot was to program the country station as station number one. There is even an all bluegrass station in our area. That is station number two, though we mostly listen to station number one.

As a parent in America, playing the cowboy comes naturally to my sons. I have even bought them wood and steel toy flintlock rifles with which they fire caps, though not in the house. Indians are killed in droves in the alley behind our house, along with clones, rebels, redcoats. My older son, Joachim, or Jack as he likes to be called now, sometimes still wants to play the Indian. Occasionally, I try to redirect him towards playing a cowboy, but as he says, “Mom, someone has to play the bad guy, or there wouldn’t be anyone to shoot at.” This may come as a shock to German parents. Obviously, the context is different in Germany than in America. When your son wants to play the Indian and you redirect him to play the cowboy, you can tell him what Joachim said, “Someone has to play the bad guy.”

By playing the Cowboy, Joachim is rehearsing an American style of assertiveness that will serve him well when he becomes an adult. Renate, who sometimes takes part in these games, is rehearsing the independent spirit that transformed America from wilderness to advanced civilization.

If you have chosen to raise your child American rather than German, the choice is obvious. If you want them to be more American, than they should play the Cowboy because there’s nothing more German than the Indian.

Bikram Yoga

There has been a lot in the news lately about the whole Bikram yoga controversy. Is Bikram Choudhury wonderful or is he a scumbag. Because I am a yoga instructor, people often ask me my thoughts on the matter. I can honestly say that I don't know. I've never done Bikram, yoga or ever met him. He used to be pretty handsome and his skimpy yoga outfits don't leave much to the imagination. You would know if he was interested in you from afar.

Thanda Yoga is something completely different. Some might say that it is the purest form of yoga. It originates in the Himalayan Mountains next to the Spring of All Eternity, or so the story goes. The Spring was frozen so the people couldn't drink from it and be saved from their thirst. Swami Bhaji was said to have had his followers do their yoga next to the Spring. The followers were able to thaw the Spring enough just from their yoga to drink from its life giving waters. Ever since, the practitioners of Thanda Yoga have celebrated the cold in the cold.

I tell this story to my children when they ask why I never buy them winter coats. Winter coats are for those who are unable to warm themselves internally. Just as one must find happiness within, according to Swami Bhaji, one must find warmth, the warmth of love and one's body from within.

Guns Can Protect You From Your Family and Friends

There is a lot of talk lately about people having guns for protection. There was an article in the news this week about letting women on college campuses have guns to protect themselves from rape. I don't think this is a good idea. From my own college days, there are several people who I would have shot if I was drunk and had a gun, not that I was ever raped.

If guns can protect you from dangerous people, who is more dangerous than your friends and family? Everyone knows that you are more likely to be murdered by someone you know than by a stranger, unless you are unlucky enough to be around when a terrorist attacks. What the NRA should propose next is arming people at Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, Christmas, potlucks, Silvester (I still think of it as Silvester and not New Year's Eve) parties. Those are the times when you are most likely to be with your friends and family and therefore when you are most in danger.

The Day After a Snow Day - School Delay

Yesterday was a snow day, today there was a two-hour delay for schools in Arlington County. Honestly, the kids don't get any recess time as it is. They should just have the kids go to school. School doesn't even have to open. My dad's experience at the Battle of the Bulge shows that people can be outside in the cold and in the snow for hours. Sure, he was seriously wounded but he always said that he enjoyed that more than he did his time after the war in a prisoner of war camp. They had to do all these rebuilding projects and they used to talk about how they never thought about how they had to rebuild everything after the blew it up. Anyway, with the kids, even if their shoes get cold because they didn't listen to me and wore flip flops and stepped in an icy puddle will not end their lives. What will end their lives is if they don't stop asking me to do things for them that they can do for themselves.

President's Day 2

The morning yoga class went well. Keeping the windows open was a good idea because even though it was 12 degrees Fahrenheit, it wasn't windy. Stretching is really important when you do yoga, Thanda Yoga. My husband is home with the kids. I burned the pancakes, mostly because I wasn't paying enough attention. Joachim, my oldest son, should have worked on his science project but instead his girlfriend spent the night. At one point, I asked my husband to go tell them to be quieter because we were trying to sleep and his brother and sister were also probably trying to sleep.

Tonight there is supposed to be a snow storm, so I have to remember to close the windows of my yoga studio. I'm sure I won't forget. Later, my daughter and I are supposed to have a mother-daughter night. She wants to go see 50 Shades of Gray, which she says is her favorite book of all time. You know how kids are. Last year, her favorite book whatever Harry Potter book she was reading, but once kids, and especially girls, get into high school, their tastes begin to change. I suppose the one area we are different from American parents, is our attitudes towards sex. I like sex and so why shouldn't my children, after they go through puberty of course. As they say, you can take the German out of Germany but never the German out of the German.

President's Day

President's Day is one of the few National Holidays in America. Americans are very much oriented towards work and so have few holidays. Some might say that Americans like work so much that every day is a holiday, which is why many choose to go into their office on the weekends.

There really isn't much of a guide as to how Americans are supposed to each of their holidays, except for the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. From what I understand, President's Day is sort of like the official birthday for the Presidents, starting with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. So, what does that mean on a practical level? Are you supposed to bake a birthday cake or eat some special food? Honestly, I don't know.

I plan on making another batch of the cocoa Martin Luther King Junior pancakes in celebration of President Barack Obama's birthday. Why not? Also, since it is particularly cold. Today it may have gotten up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, which sounds warm to a European used to the Metric System. Tomorrow, President's Day, it is supposed to be similarly cold. My yoga studio will be open in the afternoon, so, I think I will save money, and help save the planet, by turning off the cooling system and just opening up the windows. Usually, I try to keep the place at just above freezing, but sometimes it does the body good to experience nature in a natural way. We are natural beings and so we should not be afraid of the bounty that nature gives us. Swami Anand tells us that what is natural is nurturing. Just as sometimes a mother can be angry, so to can nature. It is for us to accept nature as it is, without complaint. We should accept nature with joy, for nature has bred us just as our mothers bore us. Without them, we would be as much nothing as the emptiest empty place in space.

Car Trip Tips

The summer after we first arrived in American, and soon after Charles, my youngest, was born, we went on the first in a series of what Americans call car trips. The common definition of a car trip, which is an idiomatic expression you will not find in any English-German dictionary, is a vacation wherein a group of Americans, most typically a family but also sometimes friends or extended family, travel long distances by car and then drive back, sometimes by another route, to their original starting location. A regional, dialectical variation on the term car trip is road trip. If you hear car or road trip, understand that they have the same definition and can be used interchangeably.

Our first car trip was to Memphis in Tennessee, to see the birthplace of Elvis Presley. The drive, which took slightly more than 14 hours, was accomplished in one day. We drove south from Northern Virginia, through the Shenandoah River Valley, crossing the Great Smokey Mountains and driving across the state of Tennessee to reach Memphis on the banks of the fabled Mississippi river, making it in one day. We spent two days in Memphis then drove back via Lexington in Kentucky, which took nearly two hours longer than the drive out. During this trip, we were not able to sing songs with our children, since they only knew American songs and Joachim and Renate claimed not to remember or like any German songs. We solved the problem by having them watch videos documentaries on America’s wonderful national parks. They were entranced by the beauty of the parks, especially the bears of Yellowstone, until the Diphenhydramine, known in America as Benadryl; we’d given them after lunch began to take effect. We had heard from several of our neighbors that giving children dosages of Benadryl on car trips was quite common and generally recommended. I can report that it worked quite well, for hours there were no complaints and when the effects wore off, we fed them dinner, restarted the national park documentaries and gave them each another dosage.

On subsequent car trips, to Niagara Falls, the Adirondacks and to the Grand Canyon and back, which, remarkably, took us nearly a week, our children happily watched every single episode of the National Park documentaries many times over. We supplemented those videos with other instructive documentaries on subjects like weather, rivers and geology. When the outside light was too glaring for the DVD screen to be easily visible, particularly when we were not travelling at night, we purchased and used car window blinds.

My children have not been harmed by the time they have spent in the car. They are not less active or fit than they otherwise would have been. Joachim, for example, is fit enough to have been selected to play on an exclusive travel soccer team. They have learned a lot from the videos they have watched during drives. They know some of the information the videos so well that they have memorized the scripts. Renate is the first to ask us to turn on a video whenever we get in the car. They are often so eager, that they rush to ask for their personal favorites. Depending on the length of the drive, we usually have the children take turns by order of age. None of them has gotten car sick as they might have done if they were reading.

How Many Yards are in a Lawn?

One of the hardest things about being a German trying to be an American parent are pounds and feet. Pounds, feet, hogsheads and smidgens are all measurements that I barely understand let alone can teach my children. They come home with their homework and the homework asks what is the area of a space 3 yards long and 2 yards wide. I think the answer is a lawn, but I'm not sure. I don't want my children to think I don't know anything, so I throw it out to my readers.

How many yards are there in a lawn?

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Today has been a lazy Sunday. My kids were supposed to do their homework but are betting that they will have a snow day tomorrow. I'm not the weatherman and my husband and I were too tired from drinking too much Italian Moscato at a dinner party the night before, so I didn't stop them from not doing their homework. It's a free country, as they say in America, and if they want to do poorly in school, then that is their choice, so long as they make their choices after much thought and consideration.

The boys played video games and my daughter was over at a friend's house for a sleep over. It's late afternoon as I write this and she hasn't come back yet from her friend's house. I don't remember which friend she spent the night with and I didn't feel like calling up all the possible parents to see if my daughter was there. As I said, it's a lazy Sunday afternoon.

You work hard all week and sometimes you just have to be lazy. It's my American right to be lazy. When I was growing up in Germany, my parents were Schwabs and Schwabs, or Swabians as they are strangely called in English, are known for their industriousness. Schaffe, schaffe Häusle baue, or work, work build houses.

Colonel Rather Than Corporal Punishment

At some point, perhaps many times a day, as a parent, you are forced to confront and deal with the bad behavior of your children. My parents dealt with my bad behavior with Körperstrafe, or Corporal Punishment. Personally, I never thought it worked. If it worked so well, then why did it happen so often to me? My dad would use whatever shoe he was wearing while my mom would use a special stick that had been handed down from generation to generation in her family.

When I became a parent, I rejected all of that. It simply doesn’t work. One could argue that World War II is the ultimate Körperstrafe and that didn’t turn out well. Still, I needed a replacement. After a lot of error and trial, I came upon the concept of Colonel Punishment. The idea is really simple, though it only works if you have more than one child. This is how it works:

When a child does something wrong, they are brought before a tribunal of their peers. Their peers are their brothers and sisters. I suppose that if you only have one child, you could bring over one of their friends. The child can admit their guilt for a lighter punishment or deny their guilt for a harsher punishment. The peer children propose the punishment and then vote on it. The peer children are then responsible for carrying out the punishment.

I don’t think that any punishment system can work hundred percent of the time, but I have liked the results of Colonel Punishment. In the two years since I instituted it, they have been less bad than they were beforehand. 

Martin Luther King Junior Day Pancakes

Tomorrow is a big deal day for my kids. Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Junior Day. I don't know about you, but I really get into the holidays. In the morning, I'm going to make this special pancakes I make. You just add a little bit of cocoa powder, just enough change the color. The end up looking a bit burnt. The first time I made them, which was a couple of years ago now, they didn't want to eat them because they actually did think they were burnt. I told them that they were Martin Luther King Junior Day pancakes. It was a really good lesson for them. I told them not to just the quality of the pancake by its color but to judge them by how good they taste. They're actually pretty good.

Next, I'm going off to work and my husband, Richard, is going to do something with the kids, probably play laser tag with them at this place they go to out in Springfield.

Lemonade Stand

School was delayed 2 hours this morning because of freezing rain. Somehow, that made me think about when my kids had a lemonade stand.

When someone comes to the United States for the first time, especially if they are not an American citizen, such as a German, one is immediately struck by the amount of selling taking place. There are advertisements everywhere, including in many public restrooms. Even the non-commercial public television stations have advertisements between programs. The only place in America that has fewer advertisements than in Germany is in the movie theaters. When I first came to America, I was shocked and disappointed that the only thing shown before the movies were advertisements for forthcoming films and for candy and sodas at the refreshment stand. There were none of the fantastically brilliant advertisements I was used to in Germany. Fortunately, this situation has somewhat improved and there are more advertisements for products outside of forthcoming films.

Two summers ago, my own children asked if they could have a lemonade stand. They had heard from their friends how much money could be earned with relatively little effort. While I had some experience with this type of business, I had been more of an observer than a participant. With their help, we made up a list of the supplies that we would need. I came up with a spreadsheet that would
allow them to calculate the price they needed to charge for the lemonade in order to make a profit.

Their expenses were $63.65, including a cheap folding table and folding chair, lemonade mix and plastic glasses. The water, I provided free. They wanted to have ice in the lemonade but I told them no because we didn't have any, it would water down the lemonade, and I think that cold drinks are bad for you.

Profit Calculator
Total Cost - 63.65
plastic cups - 16
Total Cost/cup -3.98
Price per Glass of Lemonade
4
Profit per Glass
0.02
Total Profit
0.32

We calculated that we would need to sell 16 glasses of lemonade at 4.00 per glass for a profit of $0.02 per glass. We also calculated that if we doubled the number of packages of lemonade mix and doubled the number of plastic glasses purchased, we could lower our unit price to $2.42, with a profit of $0.58 per $3.00 glass. If we kept the purchase price at $4.00, the per glass profit would be an astounding $1.48. With the possibility of making as much as $47.36, my children, Joachim and Renate, very eagerly withdrew $77.33. At this point, Charles was far too young take part and his siblings had no intention of sharing their profits with him.

“If he doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid,” I can remember Joachim saying to me and his sister.

I took them to the store to purchase the supplies. In America, in most states, there is a sales tax that is added to the price of the goods. This sales tax is local, leveled at the discretion of states, districts and cities. I graciously paid the sales tax for them, for which they were very grateful. I also contributed for free the water that was added to the powdered lemonade mix and the ice cubes, to make it cold, according to American tastes. If you decided to undertake this project in Germany, which I recommend that you do, you can leave out the ice cubes since it may very well inhibit your sales.

The next sunny day, we set up the lemonade stand adjacent to the park down the street from us. It is a very popular park, especially on the weekends, and they were assured good foot and stroller traffic. Summer in Northern Virginia is quite torrid, much more so than in most of Germany. I suggested that they take their business venture seriously, so they dressed up in an approximation of business attire. Renate wanted to have a uniform, but that was out of the question for financial and lack of time reasons. Joachim wore the pants, long-sleeved white shirt and nice leather shoes that he had worn for his Spring choral concert. Renate wore a dress and we did up her hair nicely. Joachim made up the sign on his computer, adding pictures of lemons and desert cacti as suggested by Renate.

For the first half hour, many customers came past, but didn’t buy, complaining that $4.00 was too high. For the second half hour, they lowered the price to $3.00, but still were not able to sell any, except to me since I was now quite thirsty. For the third half hour, desperate for sales, they lowered the price to $2.50, $0.08 over cost, but only sold two glasses. The woman who bought the glasses for her very thirsty children loudly and rudely complained that the price was too high. Her anger caused Renate to cry.

Renate was now thirsty herself but Joachim wouldn’t allow her to have any of the lemonade so as not to eat into their profits. In the fourth half hour, tired, thirsty and under threat of rain, they lower the price to $2.00, then to $1.00 as the sky darkened in the distance. They ended up selling out their now diluted lemonade, with most of the sales going for $1.00 before we were forced to pack up and rush home.

After an early dinner, as the torrential rain poured down, I helped Joachim and Renate calculate their loss. Their total cost was $77.33. They sold one glass at 3.00, two glasses at $2.50, four at $2.00 and twenty-five at $1.00 for total receipts of $38.50 for a loss of $38.83. This money was apportioned according to how much each of them had contributed, with Joachim contributing $40.00 and Renate $37.33. Joachim received $19.91 and Renate $18.59.

Both kids complained loudly about their loss and how having a lemonade stand was a horrible idea. I told them that the lesson they had learned was priceless, or at least worth the nearly $20.00 each of them had lost. The lesson they had learned was an important one for business and one that I expect that most American child instinctively know, that business is a tough business and there’s only one sure thing in life, no sure thing. They had a good product and a good location.

“Look at it this way,” I told them, “at least you have a new folding table and two new folding chairs.”

My children learned some very important lessons from their first taste of the business world. Joachim learned has decided that he doesn’t want to go into the restaurant industry. Renate has decided to save more of her money. Charles learned that his brother and sister are not very generous. They didn’t want him to have any of the lemonade unless he paid for it. He doesn’t yet have an allowance, so he didn’t get to have any of the lemonade. All of them learned that business is business and that success doesn’t come easy.

There is nothing more iconically American as a lemonade stand. Many a famous American titan of commerce learned their first lessons in business running a lemonade stand. If you have your children start a lemonade stand business, I suggest that you try to limit their costs more than we did with our little experiment. One of the things we learned was that it is a volume business, so think about greatly increasing the amount of lemonade you produce.

Why Write in English Rather Than German?

Meine deutschsprachige Leserschaft hat mich gefragt warum ich jetzt auf English schreibe. Meine Antwort ist, dass Englisch ist die amerikanische Sprache. Deutsch ist meine Muttersprache aber ich bin jetzt Mutter amerikanischer Kinder und deswegen muss Ich jetzt in Ihrer Sprache schreiben.

Sorry if my German is a little rusty, as they say in English. My German-language readers have asked me why I write now in English. My answer is that English is the American language. Although German is my mother language, as the mother of American children I need to speak to them in their language.

Religion

The whole shooting thing in Paris reminded me of the whole religion issue. I didn't grow up religious, even though my parents were supposedly Lutherans even though we didn't ever go to church. In America, church is important for a lot of people. My husband, Richard, and I didn't realize it at first but we were trying to fit in and find our place in the year after we moved to Arlington, Virginia and people would sometimes ask us what church we belonged to.

Our search for a church for us is a story I talk about more in my book, but the quick version is that we didn't want to go to the nondenominational Church that was closest to us because I couldn't figure out what kind of Church they were. I did like that you could go for free because nobody forced you to put money in the collection basket. At one point, we tried going to the local Jewish church because I remember that my boyfriend, Benjamin, from when I was an au pair in Los Angeles was really nice. The first time we went, which was some Sunday, they were closed, which was actually pretty annoying. The next day I called up and asked if we could join, at least temporarily to see if we liked it. The guy asked us if we were Jewish and I said, not yet but maybe we would be if we liked it. He said I was Mischugge, which was offensive. He didn't know that I speak German. You don't usually think of religious people telling people they are Mischugge. Why would he even use that word? It could have been worse. He could have called me a Dummkopf and I would have been just as surprised. I asked him can I become Jewish and he said, "You can't," so I hung up.

Despite what they guy said to me, I do feel sorry for the people killed at the Jewish supermarket in Paris. They were just trying to do their Jewish shopping and didn't go out thinking that they were going to be taken hostage and killed by some crazy gunman.

Turquoise

During my teenage years, I felt oppressed by Germany, by its people, by its culture, by my parents even by my classmates and friends. I think we have all felt this way, to some degree. My first year of University was a glorious disaster. I lived in an apartment with what I thought were like minded individuals, dedicated to freedom. There were six of us in this apartment, a couple with a bird they kept uncaged in their room, a student chef, who we called Chef Koch, who never cooked for us and refused to eat meat that he had not personally slaughtered, and a lesbian couple who never wore bras at home but went out dressed in punk, bondage attire. Our politics were left wing, but anti-Communist according to the questionnaire I  had to fill out when I applied for a room.

We were close to being Greens, but purposefully rejected a dogmatic adoption of all of the environmental party’s platform. We called ourselves Turquoise, in part because that was the chef’s favorite color and because it implied a more worldly point of view. We often would have meetings to discuss and decide what we stood for and once a decision had been made, a decision that had to be unanimous, there was no turning back. Our first decision was to save energy by only taking cold showers or baths. In the winter, we would fill up the tub and let the water come to room temperature.

The couples saved water by bathing together. The lesbian couple offered to let me bathe with them, so as to save money, but I declined. Soon, there was a discussion about whether or not it was appropriate for myself and the chef, who were single, to use more water than the couples. The couples didn’t think it was right and the chef also didn’t think it was right. He even said that he felt guilty whenever he or I bathed because we were using more water than we needed to. We voted to decide that he and I should bathe together. I was the lone hold out. The chef soon got a girlfriend and I was forced to move out. I was violating the group’s principals.

Chef Koch was very inspirational, even though I knew him for a short time years ago. One of his sayings was: "We should strive to improve other people's work by helping them improve our own work."

As we go through life collecting experiences, there are things we remember to remind ourselves to tell our children if we ever have them. Chef Koch's sayings, and this one in particular, I often repeat to my children, especially when they are working on their homework. Moreover, it is a standard that I have striven to live by.

Paris Newspaper Shooting Makes Me Glad I Live in America

Every once in a while, something happens in the news that makes me stop and consider the path my life has taken. This is one of those oh so common times when I am glad that I am bringing up my kids in a country like America rather than in Europe. Today's attack on the the offices of the satirical French newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, make me glad that I am raising my kids in America. I can't even imagine something like that happening in America. That it happened in France is not a big surprise. Except for one World Cup victory, has anything good ever happened there?

When France didn't support America in its invasion of Iraq, especially after the Marshall Plan, and Congress renamed French Fries, Freedom Fries, I was all for it especially since everyone knows that France stole the idea from Belgium.

Anyway, I'm sorry for all the families and for all those that were killed. I don't mean to belittle their suffering. But really, when I heard the news this morning, I honestly was thankful that I live in a safe country, like America. The two hour school delay because of the snow the day before, I could have done without.

Technology

Most people who know me know that I'm not a big believer in technology, especially for kids. Part of it stems from my childhood where I was the last in my class to get anything technology-wise. Also, when I was in college and, for a time, part of the Turquoise movement we shunned a lot of things. Of course it was easier then. It's one thing to shun electric lights in favor of candles in a world with only TVs, radios and telephones. Now, with cellphones and the World Wide Web, it's a lot harder.

Oh, by the way, not only is today the Epiphany, but it's also the first snow in Arlington, Virginia. School is on a two-hour delay and we had more time for opening presents. My children all got the new iPhones. My husband and I have busy schedules and can't always be home when my kids are. My yoga studio, Thanda Yoga Frozen Lotus, is only half a mile away from home (though on the other side of Route 50). 

A number of years ago, my husband and I developed this point system to help keep our kids in line. Once everyone needed a cell phone to keep in touch with us and their friends, we thought we needed some way of keeping the costs in line, just a little bit, to put on the breaks just a little bit. So, what we do, and I think this has worked pretty well, is that each kid starts at zero points and then gets negative points for everything they didn't do, like do their homework on time, those kind of things. They can get positive points too, by doing things ahead of schedule or by helping their brother or sister with their homework or chores. When the new iPhone is released, the negative points are related to the number of days they have to wait from the release date till they can get the upgrade.

This year, well last year, the new iPhone was released but we were so busy that we didn't get around to getting the kids their upgrades. They were all about -20. Sometimes we just average their scores because it's easier on us to make just one trip. For whatever reasons, we didn't get around to it and so we just decided to wait till Epiphany.

Fundamental Keys to Raising A German Child as an American Child

One of the fundamental keys to raising an American child is to do what you want as a parent and allow your children to do what they want. Free yourself from our history, our culture, our good points and our bad points. Sometimes when you have a piece of fruit, vegetable or cheese that has gone bad you can save the whole by cutting out the bad spot. When you perform surgery on your fruit, vegetable or cheese inevitably a little bit of the good gets thrown out with the bad. Sometimes you just have to accept that you have to throw out the entire fruit. Similarly, with parenthood, you should not hesitate to act. Better to let some of the bad go than to ruin the whole apple. In other words, don’t be afraid to make mistakes. We all do and we all will. One of the proofs of proper parenting is if your children come to think that you’ve made a mistake and raised them poorly. A bad parent is one whose children think they were raised perfectly.

For example, my children are always complaining, so I must be doing something right. It is only when they are adults that we can really tell how good a job we’ve done. So far, Joachim, or Jack as he now likes to be called, is the most successful of my three children. He has reach third grade and has a lot of friends. His recorder playing is near the top of his class and he is pretty good at sports. He plays soccer and has been selected for an elite, travel team. He has also begun to play Lacrosse, which is a very exciting, locally popular game played on a field with sticks with little nets at the end to catch the ball. I have encouraged him to try baseball, but so far he hasn’t shown much interest. Perhaps we can get Charles, when he’s old enough, to play baseball or American football. Renate is also doing well in school and was even selected for the honors program. She is in first grade and always seems to be the center of attention. She is also playing soccer and has scored many, many goals.

Soccer, despite what Europeans might think, is very popular in America. Practically every kid in our neighborhood, Arlington, Virginia near Washington, DC, plays the game. When you drop off your kids at school, the play yard is filled with kids playing soccer, seventeen or eighteen to a side, if there is a side. The Spanish league teams seem to be the most popular. Cars sporting Barcelona and Madrid stickers are quite common. Our car sports a VfB Stuttgart sticker. Joachim wanted a Bayern Munich shirt. Richard told him that was never going to happen. He does wear the Cacao shirt Richard’s dad got him for Christmas.

Epiphany - Extending Christmas

Epiphany - Extending Christmas

You know how some families really get into the Christmas spirit and then there's that let down when it's over and you have to throw away your tree because it's a fire hazard? There's a way to solve that. It's not very American but then what is? My son Joachim once came back from school at told me that the Puritans outlawed Christmas. They didn't like celebrations and thought it was a pagan holiday. Of course, they're right but who cares? When I was a kid, the spirit of the season was Korn, which is a kind of alcohol, not the band. There was also the time when my parents were making a Feuerzangenbowle, which is a kind of Glühwein for pyromaniacs. They poured too much rum on the sugar or the rum was too strong or something anyway, the flames caught the ceiling fan blades on fire. They put the fire out so the house didn't burn down.

So, back to my epiphany. A number of years ago, I told my kids, Joachim, Charles and Renate, that they still had to be good after Christmas, because if they weren't they weren't going to get anything for Epiphany. They had no idea what I was talking about. Actually, I didn't either at that point because it was something that had just popped into my head to get them to stop beating on each other, as kids do sometimes. At least I remembered that Epiphany was the 6 January. I don't know if your kids are like my kids, but I suspect they are. My kids will do practically anything for a present. Honestly, threats and bribery are some of the most effective parenting tools. Adding Epiphany to our scheduled gained me 12 more days to keep them in line. Another benefit was that I could hold back on some of their Christmas presents and buy them afterwards when everything is on year-end sale. It's worked every year, except for the year the things they most wanted were sold out. When that happened, I just brought up some bad thing they'd done and told them they hadn't been good enough.

Two Year Old Shoots Mother in the Head

Two Year-Old Shoots Mother in the Head

One of the things that amazed me, at first about America, is the important place that gun's play in the culture. This isn't so much true in my neck of the woods, Arlington, Virginia, though you never know.  My yoga studio is a gun free zone. I have a sign on the door stating that and so far I haven't had anyone object.

At the end of 2014, right after Christmas, a mom in northern Idaho, went to a Walmart, which is a kind of hypermarkt, with her 2 year old son and some of her nieces or nephews. I suppose they were going to an after Christmas sale. The woman, who was a nuclear scientist, also had a new purse that had a special zippered pouch section for her 9 mm pistol. I suppose that northern Idaho is a particularly dangerous place. At some point, her son got into her purse, got into the special zippered gun pouch, took out the pistol and with perfect aim, shot his mom in head, killing her instantly. A day out shopping became a Christmas tragedy. 

According to this news report, Gun Expert Surprised That Toddler Was Able to Fire the Gun, typically the fingers of two-year olds are not big enough to wrap around a gun handle and their fingers are not long enough or strong enough to pull the trigger. According to the news report, most guns now don't have external safety mechanisms. They've just made pulling the trigger harder. I can see their point. A gun is inherently dangerous, why kid yourself that they aren't. It's like when people try to make desserts healthy. They're not supposed to be healthy.

While I can sympathize with the family, a couple of things are clear to me, as the mother of two boys and a girl, now gladly far past the so-called terrible-two stage. One is that the mother, if she were alive, should be proud that her son had such good aim. He really is a natural. The other is that, as happens so often in America, she lived as an American and died a very American death. There's something to be said about that. She didn't die a German death, like being killed in a massive Autobahn crash, or run over by an S-Bahn, or choking on too large a bit of sauerkraut and wurst.

Why Raise Your Kids American?

Why Raise Your Kids American?

Everyone knows the old saying, Born Stupid and Learning Nothing Thereafter. As parents, do we want to learn nothing from our past and from the past of others? Isn’t it our responsibility to raise our children in the best manner possible? Don’t we want our children to be as successful as they possibly can be? The answer, of course, is yes. Children only ever experience their own childhood. It’s our duty to give them the best childhood we can.

Why an American childhood rather than French or British or Russian or Chinese or Swahili? The answer, of course, is that America is the most successful and influential country the world has ever known. If the Chinese surpass the Americans, perhaps in fifty or a hundred years you will be reading a book about how to raise your children Chinese. I can tell you that I won’t be the one writing it.

The Americans have the concept of World View, for which there is no German equivalent. There is an American Indian saying that you cannot understand another person without walking a mile in their moccasins. So, try on my moccasins, a pair I bought at an Indian store at an amusement park in California when I was just 19, size 10 American, though they still fit, and walk a mile, or 1609.344 meters. You may find the ground rough at first since there isn’t much padding on the sole, then more comfortable later as your feet become better adjusted to the American ground they will be walking on throughout the following chapters. When you take them off, you will have a better understanding of how to raise your children American.

Americans, in just a few hundred years took virgin wilderness, sparsely populated primeval forests and created the most advanced and successful country on earth, something that took us more than a thousand years. My children are now more inquisitive, more successful at school, better behaved, more dynamic, more athletic, more ambitious and even larger than they would have been if I had continued to raise them in Germany in the German style. Living in Germany, you may not have access to all the advantages and benefits you would have if you lived in America, but with a few simple changes to your parenting style, you too can raise your children to be, if not American, certainly more American.