In Defense of Snow days

When we moved to the Northeast 12 years ago, people’s concern for us was specific: How will they handle the winters? After our first year in Maine, however, my concern for people everywhere else we had lived — California, Florida, Virginia — was equally specific: How do they exist without the promise of snow days?

Sure, it snowed occasionally in Virginia, but in California and Florida, the only time our family had an unexpected day off was in the aftermath of a natural disaster. It’s not a true “family day” if your roof has been blown off and you have no air conditioning in Florida in August. 

Snow days, it turns out, are the best part of winter. They are the north’s best kept secret, a perk for adults, children — families. They are Christmas morning, Thanksgiving and the first day of summer rolled into one. Even when snow days delay the start of summer by a day or two, nothing compares to going to bed to the sound of snow plows and dreaming of an early-morning call from the school department. And when the call does come, the house is alive at 5 a.m. with the promise of pancakes, board games and sledding with friends. 

Snow days are some of our kids’ best childhood memories. As a mother, they are some of my fondest memories, too. So I was concerned when school departments began announcing plans to eliminate snow daysnow that everyone has figured out remote learning (thanks, COVID). 

But I’m not concerned just for sentimentality’s sake. I’m also concerned about the message we are sending our children. Ever since I got my first email address and, later, a smartphone, my work life has seeped into my home life. Beginning around 2009, I was suddenly available not just during work hours, but also while making dinner or watching a movie before bed. For adults, the phones in our back pockets have allowed constant work intrusion, a disruption to the work-life balance.

And in recent years, mental health experts have begun warning against it. Getting your “life in balance” never had more application than after electronics allowed our work life into our home life.

So why are we starting kids on this path in kindergarten? Why have we decided to tell them that just because the school is closed and the roads are impassable it doesn’t mean you can’t continue to burn the midnight oil? 

Our children have a whole lifetime ahead of them wrestling with work-life balance. They have a lifetime of being pinged at dinner or feeling obligated to check email before bed. Shouldn’t we begin teaching them now that sometimes work — and school — can wait? Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. And there is nothing wrong with taking a day off for family. 

We’re on the tip of a slippery slope now that remote learning has entered our lives. We adults have lived with the crushing reality of work-from-home life since the early 2000s. Let’s allow our kids to escape it while they can, and maybe, through our example, teach them to lead more balanced lives as adults in the future. 

Instead of telling our children that one missed day of school is a waste, let’s tell them that snow days are an important reminder to slow down, relax, and connect with family. In a pandemic era, we need those reminders — those snow days — more than ever.

When the First One Goes

We dropped Ford, our oldest, at college last month, and, stupidly, I cleaned his room soon after (not recommended). When I came out of Ford’s room crying, his younger brother, Owen (16), said, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Ford’s not coming home to play with Legos,” I said.

By the look on Owen’s face, this already seemed obvious to him. Old news, if you will.

But for so many days, in the wake of Ford’s absence, I had buoyed myself with other people’s reminders that he will be back and, “He’s not gone forever.”

This advice appeared to be true. Ford would indeed be back soon for a family friend’s wedding.

But when I cleaned his room that day, I realized for the first time that although he is coming back, he isn’t coming back to play with the Legos. He will never be back to use the matchbox cars lined up on his bookshelf, which I was now dusting.

My son would come home for sure, but something was gone just the same, and that needed to be recognized.

With each toy I picked up in Ford’s room, I heard echoes of times gone by, times that won’t return, even as my adult son surely will.

Lifting a toy Darth Vader to dust underneath brought the sounds of a boyhood Ford promising to make his bed for a week if he could just get “one more action figure.”

Touching the small statue of a football player unleashed the sounds of Ford and his brothers wrestling in the front yard.

A toy Mustang heralded memories of little Ford sitting on his knees and pushing cars around our hallway rug, which served as his racetrack.

A board game shoved under the bed sent echoes of Ford running in the door after school to see if his new game had come in the mail.

And the Legos! The thousands and thousands of bricks each told me a story of the past, a time that is Not. Coming. Back.

And that’s what’s sad.

It’s not Ford being gone or starting his own life. I’m happy for Ford and what awaits him.

It’s echoes of a time that has passed that brings the tears. It’s grief.

And yet, standing at the kitchen counter that day, with a dust rag in my hand, Owen looked at my tear-stained face with utter confusion.

“I don’t play with Legos anymore either, Mom,” he said matter of factly. “And Ford will be back.”

Yes, but my Little Ford is gone. I see that now.

And soon it will be the same with Owen.

Hanging on to a Thin Hanging File

This is where I am. This is how motherhood is going right now. 

One son, my oldest, Ford, has a file in the family cabinet that is full. His SAT scores, class rank, and future plans — ones that don’t include me or his father — are tucked away behind a label that has had his name on it for more that 17 years. It’s a file that is busting at the seams; it takes up more room than even our bank statements. 

In less than a year, Ford leaves home to go to college. 

My youngest son, Lindell, has a file that can still hold its contents. Its accordion bottom is not stretched by years of report cards and reading scores. His most recent file is a contract with his best friend, a hand-written, photo-copied promise that they will never to live more than 20 minutes away from each other. 

Somewhere mashed in the middle is Owen, who will be 16 soon. I know what that means: Soon he will drive. Soon he will have test scores and college applications. Soon Owen will set his sights on someplace that isn’t home. 

Owen’s file has room for 3 more report cards and a couple mid-year assessments. His kindergarten reports, the ones where teachers made handwritten notes in cursive, are stuffed in the back, behind GPAs, reading scores and the log of his driving hours. 

It’s as if 17 years of motherhood are contained in three files. And when I saw them this past week, I sat down and cried. 

Ford’s bountiful file looms there like a clock that is ticking too loud when you are trying to sleep. I don’t even need to go through its content. I know what’s there. It’s college invitations, yet fulfilled, and transcripts that in just a few month’s time someone will need. The early notes home — the ones where he was Student of the Month or had raised the most money for Jump Rope for Heart — are stuffed and wrinkled in the back. But I can still remember the face. I remember the dark brown eyes and smile that filled his face as he ran from the bus to the front door with a certificate from his teacher. I remember the doctor’s notes I brought home with his weight, height and percentiles. 

They are all stuffed into a file folder from Staples that has seen better days. 

But Lindell’s file…his has room. Lindell’s teachers still send hand-written notes. College is somewhere he doesn’t want to go. Not yet. And the photocopied contract with his friend lies on its side, in the front of the file, like a marker of time. 

This too shall pass. 

I remember the month that Owen’s voice changed. One day he came home from school, and before he slammed his bedroom door, he told me that I had packed the wrong thing for lunch. His soft voice was scratchy and high. 

I texted my husband at work and said, “Owen’s doing something really weird with his voice.”

“Maybe it’s changing,” Dustin said. 

“No, I think he’s just trying to annoy me.”

And sure enough, two weeks later, the soft, child-like sound of Owen’s voice was gone. In another month, he’d come through the door looking so much like a man, Adam’s apple and all, that it would cause me to catch my breath. 

I no longer knew his skin, his face, his hair, his voice. When I reached out to hug him, he recoiled. His fingers and toes were foreign to me. 

And the folder in his file upstairs was getting fatter. 

I know I’m on borrowed time with Lindell. He still holds my hand as we walk into the grocery store. I’m still the first person he asks for in the morning. And when he scrapes his knee, he still wants a Band-Aid His favorite toys are Legos. He watches cartoons. He wants his peanut butter and jelly cut into funny shapes. 

But soon he won’t. His file is expanding, too. 

Next month, Lindell begins middle school. It’s hard to believe. I remember him running down the sidewalk screaming “Mommy” as his backpack bounced up and down on his back and his older brothers sauntered behind, trying to be cool. 

Lindell still gets on his knees when he comes home to greet the dog. 

Lindell still wants waffles shaped like the Death Star. 

Lindell still thinks staying up past 9 p.m. is a treat and that falling asleep in a sleeping bag is only surpassed in awesomeness by picking out the theme for one’s birthday cake.

He is amused by the back of a cereal box.

He thinks girls are strange.

He hangs his Little League hat from a hook each night.

And he keeps his Lego creations on a special shelf. 

Yet soon, he will change, too. His file will be consumed by everything official, like test scores and applications. He will set his sights on someplace that isn’t home. 

But for now, he’s my baby, the last one with a soft voice and quick tears. And I am clinging to every day, until his file expands just like his brothers’ and he leaves a man that I only know because of the glimmer of the child in his smile and the fattened folder upstairs that tells me he once was a baby I held in my arms and whispered, “I can’t wait to see who you become.”

Questions and answers About Women and the draft

Last week’s column (link) about women and the draft, and specifically readers’ responses to it, raised many questions. I answer them below.

• There’s still a draft?

I was amazed by the amount of people – mostly young mothers with sons – who were not aware that the United States still requires men ages 18-25 to register for Selective Service. To review: Selective Service is essentially the government’s Plan B for a major disaster and a nicer way of saying “the draft.”

An active draft, in which the government forces men into service for the country, has not been implemented since the 1970s. So, yes, worrying about Selective Service is based on multiple hypotheticals and “what ifs.” However, the consequences for men who do not register for Selective Service within 30 days of their 18th birthday are definitely not hypothetical, and, yes, the government does follow-up.

At the very least, an unregistered male cannot work for the government and loses eligibility for financial aid. At worst, unregistered men can be sentenced to up to five years in prison or a fine of no more than $250,000.

Therefore, in a hypothetical, what-if world, Selective Service is not fair and equitable because women would not be drafted during a national emergency. But in a very real sense today, men are subjected to consequences for non-registration, and women are not, even though by 2016 women will have full integration in the military.

• You’re a woman, so why are you against women?

Selective Service for men has largely gone unnoticed, even while women have fought for equality in all other aspects of society. We have said — and proved — that “women can do anything men can do.” Now we have to be willing to accept all the responsibility that equality brings.

As our society moves toward becoming more gender neutral, even at Target, the burdens that men have always shouldered should now become women’s, too. That’s equality.

Through Selective Service, our government operates on the idea that an unwilling male soldier is better than even a willing female one. Are feminists really okay with this?

• So you’re in favor of Selective Service?

Actually, I’m not.

• So why do you want to force our daughters to do something that you don’t even want your sons to do?

Selective Service goes under the radar because society and lawmakers are not ready to deal with the issue of drafting women. It’s a political no-win. Asking the question alone creates all sorts of problems for the “war on women” argument.

Basically, we’ve been so busy giving women access to the military, we’ve ignored the unintended consequences. Once women are included in the discussion about Selective Service, the inequalities in it for men become more apparent.

Each time someone argues why women shouldn’t be included in the draft (“we need them to procreate,” “some women don’t want to join the military,” “not every woman is cut out for combat,” etc.), it becomes more obvious — again, in our gender-neutral society — that maybe men shouldn’t be either.

After all, not every man is cut out for combat either.

Once lawmakers have to consider women for Selective Service, they will be forced to do away with this law altogether. Once lawmakers have to consider drafting their daughters — daughters who have individual feelings about serving in combat — I think they will realize that our best defense remains an all-volunteer, professional military.

• You’d think differently if you had girls. You’re just bitter towards moms who have daughters, aren’t you?

It’s true that I have three sons and no daughters. During a recent dinner-table conversation about the draft, I received very different reactions from them: one said he couldn’t wait to register, one said he didn’t want to do it and one cried.

I imagine that if you have all daughters, you children’s responses would be just as varied.

That’s the point.

I also imagine mothers of daughters would feel the same pit in their stomach if they had to imagine one of their daughters being drafted against her will, knowing she was terrified.

That’s also the point.

• But is a draft really likely anyway?

We live in a child-centric society. We have gone to enormous and sometimes ridiculous lengths to protect our children. Children have never been so cherished, protected and documented.They are celebrated with elaborate birthday parties and participation trophies. They are coddled at universities.

All of the above is why Selective Service is an unpopular topic with lawmakers.

But it sure makes you think about the thousands of mothers who watched their sons — some scared beyond belief — head off to war in generations past, doesn’t it?

Coincidentally, at the exact moment I was writing last week’s column, the Secretary of the Army was telling leaders in Washington that it’s time to consider women for the draft. So this isn’t as hypothetical as we had hoped.

• So are you anti-military?

My husband is, and father and grandfathers were, in the military — by choice. If any of my sons join, I want it to be by his choice as well.

The Draft: Why my sons, not your daughters?

If the words “Selective Service System” don’t ring a bell for you, it might be because you’re female. Maybe you have all daughters, too. For American boys and young men, however, “Selective Service” means “the draft,” and, yes, they still have to sign up for it.

I am a woman, so theoretically the draft should not keep me up at night. But I have three sons who will be 18 faster than I care to think about, and their loss of choice in this matter is something I’ve lost sleep over, even though both my dad and husband chose to serve.

And here’s the thing: No one talks about Selective Service — at all. Most people don’t even know it exists. So let me explain.

The draft ended in January 1973, but seven years later, during the height of the Cold War, President Jimmy Carter reinstated Selective Service registration for all American men ages 18-25. Within 30 days of a boy’s 18th birthday, he is required by law to register with the Selective Service so that the government will know his whereabouts should we ever need an active draft again. The penalty for not registering is up to five years in prison or a $250,000 fine.

That’s right: Your son — and even you (for aiding his crime) — can go to jail if he does not register for the Selective Service within 30 days of becoming an adult. Yet even in the likely event that that doesn’t happen, he still can’t apply for government jobs or financial aid for college unless he is registered.

In case these first paragraphs had you wondering what country you live in, you are not alone. President Ronald Reagan was opposed to Selective Service, and during a presidential debate in 1979 he said that the law requiring registration “rests on the assumption that your kids belong to the state. … That assumption isn’t a new one. The Nazis thought it was a great idea.”

But it’s not your “kids” who belong to the state; it’s just your boys. Even though women have fought for and earned the right to serve in combat positions in the U.S. military, America’s girls are not forced to register with Selective Service.

I like to picture our government wiping its imaginary brow over the fact that the Selective Service System and its website, www.sss.gov, don’t get much attention. Because if they did, people surely would have their hairs on end over the idea of this process and the language surrounding it. The webpage reads like something out of the 1950s with gems like, “Registration: It’s What a Man’s Got to Do.”

The website also dances around the fact that women are not forced to register, even though it clearly explains its position on transgenders: If you were born a female and later became a man, you do not have to register. If you were born a male and later became a woman, you do have to register.

And what if you have only one son to carry on the family name, so, you know, you’d like him to live? The SSS has an answer for that, too: “Contrary to popular belief ‘only sons,’ ‘the last son to carry the family name,’ and ‘sole surviving sons’ must still register with the Selective Service System and they can be drafted.”

Read that last part again: “they can be drafted.”

Don’t worry, your daughters are still safe. They can choose to serve or not. In fact, even if your son is disabled and in a wheelchair, he must register. But America’s healthiest daughters do not.

If you’re wondering how this law exists in the U.S.A., the website offers this: “By registering all eligible men, Selective Service ensures a fair and equitable draft, if ever required.”

Wait, aren’t girls eligible now, too, since they can serve in every position of the military?

Some people argue that women shouldn’t be eligible because society needs them safe at home to procreate. Others say not every woman wants to be in the military. But couldn’t both of these arguments be made for men as well? Can we really cherry-pick equality this way?

By luck and chance, I gave birth to all boys. Now, as my boys move toward becoming men, our government tells me it has the legal right to force all of my sons into service — and maybe death — for our country.

My friends with girls can sleep well knowing that not only are their daughters not eligible for the draft, they’ve also earned the right to be in the military if that’s their choice. Choice and freedom surrounds them at every turn.

But if we believe that women can do anything men can do, it’s time for girls to register, too. And if we aren’t ready to register women, then the Selective Service’s draft will never be “fair and equitable.”