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I love your site---helps me remember I'm not alone!
Years from now, over beer and pizza with friends, or perhaps in a therapy session, my sons won?t be recalling the aroma of a home cooked Thanksgiving Dinner found over the river and through the woods at grandma?s house. Instead, their most vivid childhood memory will be of riding in the minivan, talking to the back of my head.
I admit when I started down the road of parenting I pictured something a bit different. Something more Normal Rockwell. That was before the cell phone, baseball practice and PTA meetings. That was before there were actual children thrown into the mix.
Now, after twelve-years plus of trying to hang the moon in the name of orchestrating memorable, meaningful childhood experiences, I?ve decided to throw in the towel.
I invite you to join me.
As if the universe is conspiring to force this issue, I stumbled upon the following gem while researching a totally unrelated topic. I present for your consideration Entry #27012 in the Columbia World of Quotations on-line:
?Janie works hard, of course, and she?s a good wife and a good mother. But do you know she?s never once made a gingerbread house with her children??
ATTRIBUTION: Mildred Hastings (b.1924), U.S. housewife. Hastings, who had raised seven children and always been a full-time housewife, was speaking disapprovingly of her daughter, Jane Eagen, a successful insurance broker and mother of three. The ?gingerbread house? to which Hastings referred was an elaborate creation requiring many hours of work for the family when Eagen was a child.
How scary is that? My heart and soul go out to poor Janie: successful insurance broker, flop of a mother. Surely, I thought, there must be some mistake, some meaning twisted when the words were pulled out of context.
I became a woman with a mission. I headed for the library?s microfiche room to unearth Page A1 of the New York Times for December 21, 1993. I wanted to know what Janie?s mother had really meant. But of course, there was no mistake. The message in the article (in which fifty sets of mothers and grown daughters were interviewed) was loud and clear: our children are cutting corners; their children are being short changed.
Ouch.
When I had scraped myself off the ceiling, I polled my friends. How good a job were they doing? Not good at all, it seems. And they told me all about it. Clearly my own musings on the usefulness of trying to be, as one friend put it, June Cleaver of the New Millenium, had struck a chord.
We?re doomed to beating ourselves up because our kids don?t have childhoods lifted straight from library shelves. We imagine rosy cheeks, grand plans, and endless summer days. In our perfect world we live down the road from Huck Finn and around the corner from Sunnybrook Farm. In our real world dinner often comes from the drive-thru as we car pool, rushing to beat the clock.
We chase schedules that spin out of control, always lagging behind where we think we should be. We use day planners, electronic reminders and cross-referenced family calendars---only to come up short every time.
There will always be those all too serene ?ber-parents we spy on the soccer field who make it all seem do-able from command central of their fold-up lawn chair (complete with cup holder). But the rest of us, most of us?we?re doomed to processed food, harried goodbyes and arriving fashionably late, if at all. (Ooops?was it my turn to bring the soccer snack this week?)
I?m here to tell you, this doesn?t make us bad parents.
My walking partner Carole offered, ?I think that the time we spend worrying about how we are not providing an idyllic childhood actually robs us of energy we could be spending just enjoying our children in the moment.? At age thirty-nine and counting, I?m finally getting it.
It?s not the Christmas tree, it?s decorating together. It?s not the Thanksgiving feast, it?s peeling potatoes together. It?s not the summer vacation, it?s being stuck in the car together. Important memories and traditions will expand, contract and bend to fill the space and time available for them, which may or may not coincide with anyone else?s calendar or expectations.
Let me say again: you are officially off the hook.
Absolve yourself from the guilt of having no tree house in your back yard. Stop fretting about store-bought Halloween costumes. You are not less of a parent if you don?t make your own granola bars.
We really aren?t that different from our parents. It?s just that ?together? looks, sounds and happens differently today.
?Our biggest mistake [as parents today],? pointed out reading group friend Camille, ?is to doubt our own innate ability to enhance our children?s lives.? Camille, single mother of two, marks the advent of spring by judging a lilac bush beauty pageant with her kids. On Christmas Eve, the family reads aloud from the Bible, surrounded by dozens of flickering candles.
I used to imagine my sons drifting off to sleep at the sound of my voice as I read to them. Instead, they wind down with a few video games or reading on their own. They do however anticipate the weeks leading up to Christmas when we listen in snippets to the story of Cinnamon Bear, a 1920s holiday radio show, on cassette in the car. We?ve been known to invent errands just to find out what happens next, even though we can all recount the story by heart. The year we misplaced the tapes left us all feeling a little off kilter.
My oldest son has French toast for breakfast on all major holidays: Halloween, his birthday and snow days. His brother cracks all and any eggs used in our house. The boys count on life to happen this way in the same way I counted on my mom?s lime Jello carrot-walnut-marshmallow salad to show up on the Thanksgiving table.
No two busy families are alike in how they capture and build upon the traditions that define their experience as a family. All are alike in that they improvise with impact.
Two moves ago I gave my friend Miette, an Air Force wife, a door sign: ?Home is where the Air Force Sends Us?. She incorporates the inevitable moving between assignments as simply part of the routine. Fine-tuning over multiple moves, this nomadic family of five has established a ?moving experience? providing an even mix of predictability and adventure. Miette describes it as a ritual including disposable cameras, donuts, new bedspreads (and an occasional tow truck).
The most beloved of family traditions just happen, springing from a handful of quirky moments when everyone is in tune. On September 12th, our family marks the birthday of Stippy the red, stuffed dinosaur who, in 1994, dutifully saw our oldest son through the arrival of his little brother. Stippy gets a cake with his name on it. Every year.
When dad is on a business trip, the boys and I camp out in a different room every night. If the boys behave well during a grocery run, they can choose a cold, over-priced designer sports drink for the ride home. Every night after dinner, my husband and I play a game of Scrabble?. It?s the predictability of our own personal chaos that makes our world work.
Call us lazy. Call us uncaring. My husband and I choose to pass on dragging cranky, over-stimulated children 3,000 miles round trip through airports on the busiest travel dates of the year for the sole purpose of making a perfunctory appearance at the holiday table. We prefer irregularly scheduled, off-season trips when we can be together with family. It?s not the way our mothers would like it. We?ve learned to live with that.
?It is hard to not want for my children what I had,? shared my friend Becca. ?My entire family growing up was within a two-hour drive. Now, we would have to travel 14 hours in a car with two screaming children to visit the nearest member of the extended family.?
No, my kids won?t have cherished memories of baking holiday cookies with Grandma, but, hopefully the aroma of hot, thaw and bake, cinnamon rolls (arranged, iced and sprinkled to resemble a decorated tree) on Christmas morning will stick with them. It?s no gingerbread extravaganza, but it?s something I can manage to pull off year after year and that?s got to account for something.
Gail Richards
Creative Director, Whizbang! Creative 
Hi, I'm a graphic design student at Syracuse University, and I found your web site because it was profiled in the last communication arts (on interactive design). Being a web designer part time, I just wanted to say that the site looks excellent and functions very well. I also like your decision to have all titles and headings in a built-in font. It's a little risky, but looks very good and loads very quickly. Just wanted to complement you guys on all of your work (both content and design). I hope to be making stuff like this in the all-too-near future. Sincerely, Sam
Sam
Love this site. So much relevant information, and it's so well written. I often pass along the site link to our entire office.
Typical of Herman Miller to publish such a great site. Thanks for this!
Mark VanderKlipp
Senior Officer, Corbin
I love your website, the combination of great articles and great design as made jugglezine a personal favorite of mine.
I have recommended this site to friends of mine who say the same thing.
keep the goods coming
Benjamin Ruhe
Art Director, designvisualthoughtstudios
A very good and easy, but nevertheless thought provoking, read for a quiet Thursday afternoon. The mid-week blue is over and the weekend is round the corner. This is just the right time for retrospective and introspective. The perspectives in the articles provide just the right prescriptive.
Timothy Tan
PR Marketing Executive
What a well developed, beautiful site! Your web team should be commended. Of course, the content is great, too. I've read all the articles, and have shared them with my wife, and friends at work - very nicely done! I eagerly await the next article!
Scott Wilson
(Overworked) Engineer, IBM
Hi
I was just hired to do an upcoming illustration for Jugglezine. I wanted to tell you what a thoughtful and well designed zine this is. The art, design and content is exceptional. I think my wife, who like me, is a designer/illustrator and I have read every article posted. Keep up the brilliant work and I am looking forward to illustrating for you.
Greg Morgan
Principal, Balance
Emily Dickinson once said, "To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else." It's a short, but powerful statement that helps remind me I'm not the only one living in chaos.
I took the time to read Jugglezine because I was intrigued by the name. It was time well spent and probably the best "anything else" thing I'll do today. Thanks to Herman Miller for offering thought-provoking reading.
Alexis Dankovich
Vice President, Key Asset Management
For a long time I have really wanted to be a full time freelancer, but with the kids and our stay-at-home mom situation that semed too scary right now. Jugglezine helped cement my convictions about what was important right now and how to get there. I secured a four day week with a great firm with full benefits (8 hour days to boot). This allows me to have longer weekends to be with family and also help get my freelance career moving. I think that the 40-hour (or more) corporate week is a crock. I think people waste a lot of time at work--time that could be managed better and result in having a better life.
Michael Lotenero
Graphic Designer
Leadership Is An Art
I just finished Max's book "Leadership Is an Art." I decided to check out Herman Miller, Inc., on the web and found "Juggle". As a graduate student currently enrolled in Loyola University Chicago's Master's in Organization Development program, I only have one thing to say:
OUTSTANDING--both the book and the web site!
Frank J. Szuch
On Being Pleasantly Surprised
How is it that a furniture maker is publishing such a cool e-zine? I enjoyed reading it. I guess the information age isn't all bad; some stuff isn't garbage. I especially enjoyed Kate Convissor's article on information overload.
John F.S. Bunch, PH.D.
Associate Professor and Chair of the Accounting & Business Administration Department, Benedictine College
On Finding Useful Information
This is one of the best sites I've seen. It is lean and mean.
I spent more than 21 years in the AF and retired as an E7 in the Health Care Management career field. I now work as a Technical Support Professional for a Fortune 100 company call center. I would like to start my own business with a partner and your site has given me food for thought for my current situation and the one I would like to have.
I am in my mid 40s so I have a lot of years to make my dream a reality. Keep up the good work. Thank you so much!
Paula J. Babington
MSgt, USAF, Retired
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