Mom Learns to Stand at the Window

In this column, Mrs Neu, writing as Lucy Robertson, learns to let go and support six-year old Charlie, aka my brother, as he set forth to learn a new skill: how to roller skate.

Mom was prone to run after my brother, shouting: "Yikes, watch out for that rock! Slow down! Be careful! CAREFUL! You're going to fall ...Don't go so fast."

To which my brother responded: "Your attitude is not helping me one bit!"

Mom eventually got it and realized that sometimes it's best to just "stand at the window and wave."   

And my brother did learn to skate. Happy Birthday, John.

Rest Time For Summer's Long Days

Mrs Neu, aka Lucy Robertson, shared her plan to get through the long days of summer. 

Schedules like this can rarely go on all summer. That's why they invented summer school and summer camp. 

Charting Screen Time

When I was growing up screen time was exclusively TV, but an effort was still made to limit it. 

Here Mrs Neu describes her screen time limiting techniques: 

“Each day I make a chart for each child. If he wants to watch cartoons, I point out what other programs he likes to watch that day and ask him how much time he wants to use up. We mark on the chart and I tell him when the time his up....I try to help them evaluate the quality of the programs by sitting down with them afterward to write what they liked about what they saw.”

— Surviving Parenthood, By Lucy Robertson (aka Mrs Neu)

I was kept busy writing about "Lost in Space" instead of watching it (missing the fact that about all that changes is the scenery and the type of enemy). Imagine doing this today with video games like "The Legend of Zelda."

Speaking of Lost in Space:

Ideals, Values, Morals

This column from Lucy Roberson, aka Mrs Neu, contains an important paragraph at the end. 

“The example I give as a person is going to be one of the guides for my children as they develop their ideals, values, morals . . . My example will be one of the guides they will use as they develop their own self-concepts . . . This scares me, but I find it an exciting responsibility too. ”

It is the way she lives on in us and the way we will live on in the children we guide to follow our example. 

Mom is in Washington

With all the focus on Washington and the new administration, I was reminded of the turbulent political environment that existed when I became politically aware as a child. President Nixon, Watergate and the impeachment hearings were a constant on the television. 

Lucy Robertson, aka Mrs Neu, captured this time in her column: 

“Friday morning one of the news commentators covering the impeachment proceedings on television announced: ‘You are watching one of the most important events in our history.’ And I thank him for that—it helped convince my three angry children, who wanted to watch Captain Kangaroo, that I have a good purpose for sitting entranced in front of the TV.”

— Surviving Parenthood, Mrs Neu's column.

Eventually, Mrs Neu convinced us that Mr Green Jeans wasn't as important.  We let her watch all the talk going on in Washington.

Watching the Nixon impeachment hearings took precedence over Mr Green Jeans.

This even led one of us to say to a friend: "My Mom's not here, she's in Washington."

Playing in the Street Under Home Rules

When we were kids, many of our activities took place in the street. Fortunately, we lived on a street that did not get much traffic. This column from Lucy Robertson (aka Mrs Neu) shows an interesting parenting tension of having children close to home and in view, albeit playing in the relative danger of the street, versus out of sight at the park.

The advantage of being in front of your home is that "home rules" or the "family's rules" of expected behavior apply. 

“What behavior I expect from my children, I expect from any children who happen to be at my house. I make it clear that everyone is welcome to play and make it clear just what behavior is acceptable to me as it occurs.

So far, no mother has become irate about my sending her child home for unacceptable behavior. So far, no mother has shown any sign of being upset when I’ve requested her child to follow our family’s rules—even when the mother is standing next to me. And so far, the children all like to get together and play here.”

— from Surviving Parenthood, Mrs Neu's 1970's-era column in the Daily Democrat and Davis Enterprise

The Joy of a Christmas Tree

Mrs Neu as Lucy Robertson captured the magic and joy of the Christmas tree that grows to overwhelm any room and is much more fun than television. 

 "The tree seemed to have grown on the way home because when we brought it inside the house, it was HUGE....And we've been enjoying sitting by tree-light singing songs and telling stories. The children think it's much more fun than watching television!"

From Surviving Parenthood, Mrs Neu's column. 

Santa Claus is Coming

With Thanksgiving comes the start of the endless parading in of Santa Claus. It hardly waits for Thanksgiving now. Mrs Neu, as Lucy Robertson, lamented how Santa had been done in by over exposure even when we were kids in comparison to her childhood experience. 

"It was so easy to believe in Santa when I was a child. I never saw him." 

Santa Claus was better left unseen

Family Coordinator

Writing as Lucy Robertson, Mrs Neu highlights the role of "Family Coordinator" and its importance in comparison to a "Housewife." A family coordinator is someone who helps a family interact together in a smooth and harmonious way. 

“My new term clearly covers the various aspects of the job from the cleaning and cooking for the others, to the sympathizing with their hurts. The term emphasizes that I am working with a vital institution of society: the family, and seems to stress that I am making a serious and important contribution by doing so.”

Anyone else want to be a Family Coordinator?

Back to School Means Time for New Opportunities

Lucy Robertson (aka Mrs Neu) knew that back to school time opened up time for new opportunities. After the strain of getting children (back) into the school routine and the fear of replacing the experience of having to be there for them, there is the opportunity for new experiences. It is true for the stay-at-home mom, for sure, but at the margin it surely is the same for one working outside the home (or a dad). This is is something to keep in mind at this time of year: How schools are an aid to surviving parenthood.

Use your child's embrace of new experiences at school to embrace new opportunities yourself.

Remembering Toy Eater

We are now past the first full week of school vacation here in New York. This column from Lucy Robertson (Mrs Neu) seemed appropriate for the moment. It also calls to mind one of our favorite childhood memories. 

This column points out the importance of teaching children organizational skills as well as taking stock of what they have. Unfortunately, these lessons never really stuck for me well enough--which I am sure is true for many adults. My mother noted this as well, since her closet and drawers were in worse shape than those of her kids, as she admitted in the column's close. 

I am not entirely sure of the timing, but the narrative about the toys in this column is what likely led to my father's creation of "Toy Eater." Toy Eater was a large creature made out of paper mache, painted purple and that probably stood about 4 feet tall. It had a cone-shaped snout and a large round mouth that served as the receptacle for any stray toys left on the floor. These filled the Toy Eater's large ball-shaped yellow belly until it was time to play again, and we then tipped him over to spill them all back onto the floor. Toy Eater has a special place in our childhood memories. I wish I had a picture of him to share. 

Not sure if my father's version was inspired by Shel Silverstein's "The Toy Eater" poem found in his book Falling Up, or the other way around, but the resemblance is there. 

The Longest Day

As summer begins with the longest day of the year (summer solstice), it seemed appropriate to showcase this column from Lucy Robertson (aka Mrs Neu).  

This column highlights the length of the workday for a mother. Any quality tactic to shorten that workday is thus worth considering. If you make a plan, you have to stick to it, however. 

Message Devices

I was just clearing off old voice mails from my Mom's account, so, of course this column seemed appropriate to post: 

This column shows how motherly concerns are often unfounded; and seen from a lens detached from parenthood, children can cope quite well when left to do it. 

Sense of Wonder

Keep your sense of wonder alive. That's a lesson of early childhood development that all of us should remember. As I tell my children: don't lose touch with kid world. 

My brother read this "Surviving Parenthood" column at my mother's memorial: 

This column stresses the importance of sharing a wonder moment with a child. It makes the wonder real and allows the child in all of us to see it. 

Surviving Parenthood

One of the great joys (and horrors) we have as children of Mrs Neu is that our lives were often part of her curriculum. 

We are also fortunate that many of our early childhood experiences that we’d otherwise have long forgotten were captured, only somewhat fictionalized, in a column my mother wrote for the Daily Democrat, “Surviving Parenthood,” under the pen name Lucy Robertson, when we were kids.  

Here is one of those columns:

Mrs Neu wrote these columns weekly in the Daily Democrat from 1973-1974 under the pen name Lucy Robertson. This one shows the importance of teachers in a young child's life and why you should say thank you when your child experiences a good one. 

In a note my mother wrote in gifting me a collection of her columns, she said their purpose was "to entertain and to educate."

"I used information that I had researched on Early Childhood and made my point in a personal way."

My mother liked the fact that no one knew she wrote these columns. Margaret Neu, according to my mother, once sent her a note with a cut out of the column "not knowing that I wrote it."

"Surviving Parenthood" also implies that raising children should not take everything away from your sense of self nor your other important relationships, most especially your relationship with the other parent. 

If my mother had not been a teacher, she might have been an expert advisor and author on early childhood development or she might have been a columnist.