Growing pains

My husband and I recently watched the movie Grown Ups with Adam Sandler. The movie was just all right, but the storyline about the spoiled LA kids had us laughing hysterically. There's a scene where the elementary school-aged boys are ordering a drink in a restaurant, and ask for "plain water-- Voss if you have it. Otherwise, we'll settle for Fiji."

Let's just say that hit close to home.

A close friend recently told me how she took her daughters out to breakfast and said they could order whatever they wanted. She was expecting pancakes and chocolate milk, instead they asked for "a bottle of Pellegrino and a spinach and egg white frittata."

My kids knew about "restaurant behavior" from the time they were able to speak, and my son was putting a cloth napkin in his lap on his own from the time he was 18 months old.

The times, they are a-changing.

Quite frankly, our kids are all coddled. And we all know it. We truly do. Of course, when their first experience with camping (as was the case with my daughter) involves personal chefs and goodie bags, it can be hard to keep them grounded.

Living in LA is a strange existence. There is such extreme wealth and such extreme poverty. But it's not a real city, where people of all socioeconomic circumstances coexist in daily life. It's a sprawling metropolis where upper-income kids see the world go by from the backseat of their parent's hybrid. And there is such an enormous gulf between the haves and the have-more's that my kids think being poor means not having a large household staff.

I wasn't raised this way, not really. My father's family had money, but my mother's didn't. And I most definitely grew up primarily in my mother's world. I remember vividly being with her at the grocery store as a child and watching her mentally adding up the cost of the items in her basket to make sure she had enough money to pay for them (the days before ATM purchases). Birthday parties were family events, and only once in my entire childhood did I have the typical kiddie birthday party with all of my friends (at Farrell's Ice Cream parlor). I was a latch-key kid, on top of being an only child, so I was responsible for entertaining myself. I made my own breakfast in the mornings, made and packed my own lunch.

Things were different when I would visit my dad. To say the least. My grandmother would take me on shopping sprees for clothes where I had no ceiling on how much money I could spend. It led to more pairs of Guess jeans and Esprit sweaters than I knew what to do with. She took me to weekends at Disneyland (staying at the Disneyland hotel rather than her house which was only an hour or so away), planned lavish trips to Hawaii and threw me a 9th birthday party for me in hotel ballroom attended by California Supreme Court Justices, the Governor, musicians and actors.

To say I've lived a strange life would be an understatement.

And now I have my own children, to whom I desperately want to instill a sense of gratitude for all of the things they are blessed to have. I'm constantly telling them that they have no idea how good they have it. How when I was a kid and wanted to go to soccer camp, my mom didn't have the money and I had to stay home (unlike them and their 12 week-long camp extravaganza each summer). Or how the last thing my mom and stepdad would have done on their weekends is to drive me around from place to place. Let alone the fact that I have never missed a single school performance, sporting event or anything else they've ever participated in. They have it good, and I want them to appreciate it.

Of course, the life my husband and I have given them is their reality. They know intellectually that they are fortunate, and that their mom and dad work extremely hard to give them this life, but they don't really understand what it means to struggle because they've never had to. And honestly, I don't really want them to have to.

I've made my proverbial bed and now I guess I must lie in it. So when my daughter asks me for the hundreth time if she can go to Botswana for her 10th birthday, rather than chew her out for asking for something so extravagant I am going to go to Plan B.

Say no and blame her father.

Born on the 4th of July

The 4th of July has always been one of my favorite holidays.

Apart from it typically being Championship Weekend at Wimbledon, I also remember it being one of the few times that my parents actually grilled outside (with plenty of charcoal). And then we would sit in the backyard and watch the fireworks that went off from a nearby amusement park. It was one of the few times I recall all of us spending time together, rather than being off doing our own things.

My husband also has fond childhood memories of the 4th. His parents are very observant Jews, so most of the "typical" holidays weren't ones that he grew up celebrating. The 4th (along with Thanksgiving) were one of the times of year when he felt as though he was just like everyone else.

As adults, we've created our own July 4th traditions, and the kids eagerly anticipate them each year. We've been inviting the same families over for an all-day BBQ (and I mean "all-day"... we serve breakfast, lunch and dinner) since my kids were in diapers, for a day full of lazy fun. I even make apple pie. From scratch. And guacamole from the avocados we pick from our tree.

Then as darkness falls we head over to the local high school for fireworks, which feels like Mayberry in the middle of Los Angeles. Families stretch out on blankets, gossip with neighbors, kids ride their bikes and toss footballs while listening to a cheezy 70's cover band entertain us with "YMCA." We eat kettle corn, cotton candy and buy raffle tickets for prizes we will never win, all while answering the constant kid question of, "how much longer until the fireworks start?"

My new favorite July 4th memory? The feel of my children leaning against me as we gasp together at the brilliant fireworks display lighting the night sky. Their little bodies squished as close to me as they can get, the faint smell of cotton candy lingering in their hair and getting my clothes all sticky from whatever they've managed to get on their hands.

Nice, simple, easy. And full of love. What summer should be all about.