subscribe | advertise | about | contact | home

Pass This On

I was always the worst person to send a chain letter to. No matter how dire the consequences, I invariably broke the chain. Maybe I’d have a yacht by now if I had been better at mailing off those batches of letters. I’m probably still atoning for a lot of bad chain mail karma.

These days I’m just as guilty with electronic petitions and PASS-THIS-ON-TO-ALL-YOUR-FRIENDS messages. I always hit the delete key, but one morning last month three different people sent me the same link to a YouTube video, and I would have forwarded it to every mother I know if I’d had the time to track down addresses.

Maybe you got the same WATCH THIS message. It linked to Anita Renfroe singing her “I am the Mom” song to the William Tell Overture. Renfroe has condensed 24 hours of mom rants and reminders into 2 minutes and 50 seconds, and she brilliantly belts it out on this little video to the classic da-dun, da-da-dun, da-da-dun-dun-dun of Rossini’s opera finale (a/k/a the theme music for The Lone Ranger.)

If you have kids, you can’t help but hear yourself in the song. If you don’t, you’ll hear your own mother. It’s the broken record I sometimes feel I’ve become as a parent, repeating the same phrases every day from the first thing in the morning to lights out at night. And funny as the video is, it also made me cringe a little because, despite all the parenting books I’ve read, I do end up saying things like “if your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?” or the time-honored “because I said so.”

Wenda Reed’s story in this issue hits on a parenting subject that can elevate the age-old parent-child struggle to a desperate new level: the homework wars. Fortunately she has some sound advice on how to tone it down and make it work for both kids and parents. (The illustration for this piece found by Garit Reuble, our talented art director, made us laugh out loud for being spot-on about kids who have trouble focusing on the task at hand.)

As much as the “I am the Mom” song hits home, it is the pace of the William Tell Overture that speaks to me most. Although The Lone Ranger was before my time, I must have seen plenty of reruns because I can’t help but link the music to horseback riding. Or maybe it’s just Rossini’s power as a composer, but every time I watch Renfroe’s video I end up galloping through my day as if in a horse race with the catchy melody urging me forward.

And that’s how I picture women whom Roberta Greenwood writes about in her piece on going back to school as an adult: pony express riders in perpetual motion. One cannot underestimate the commitment and drive of women who take on so much in order to invest in their education.

Nor can one underestimate the commitment required of their partners, children and friends, who must also make sacrifices to support their efforts to attain a degree. But even those of us who haven’t added school to our daily load end up relying on the good graces and help of those around us to get through our busy days. I know that I certainly do. I am blessed with a supportive partner who pulls his fair share and then some around the house.

It being November and a time for taking stock of all we’re thankful for, that kind of support rises to the top of my list. As does the forbearance of children who know all about the demands of working parents. And the friends and mothers who, knowing the drill, step in to offer their help when needed. To all of you out there, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Marianne Scholl
Publisher and Cofounder

©November 2007 Caliope Publishing Company