Not that my life hasn’t worked out just fine. For the first five years of my adult life, I actually was able to combine public policy with the natural sciences. But then we moved to a town where my husband found a great job, and then we had kids, and then one day, quite recently, I awoke to the sickening thought that I have lived about 1/2 of my life and still don’t know what I want to do.
mothering
A Passion for Speed: Two Family Ski Racing Success Stories
Thus, in the interest of fairness and diversity of opinion, I am revisiting junior ski racing one more time, but this time through the eyes of two families, one in Idaho and one in Colorado (which will have to do because I don’t know any Austrians and I don’t speak German). To those of you who are completely bored by this topic, I apologize. To those of you who felt that I slighted this great sport, I offer this post. It is my olive branch to all ski racing families. I salute you. I really do.
Fear Factor
When our boys started skiing, I decided that I wanted to avoid programming fear into them. I would ski with one of them on the run of his choosing. The boy had complete control of our agenda. If he wanted to stay on a green or blue run all day, no problem. And if he told me that he was ready to try something harder, no problem, even if I didn’t think he was ready.
Me? A Party Girl? Not.
When I was 14 I was invited to a party. The party was going to be at Ann’s house, and while Ann didn’t invite me, Suzanne, who apparently had the authority to invite people to Ann’s house did. I was thrilled. There had been a number of parties involving my junior high classmates, but never was I invited. This was the very first boy-girl party that I could attend. Or so I thought.
Skippin’ School
As I sat on a bench at Legoland with a napping baby, a grandmother sat down next to me. She told me how she and her husband try to take their grandchildren on vacation each year during September. “It simply is the best month to travel,” she told me. I had to agree, but then I said, “It will be hard when they are in school.” She looked at me incredulously and said, “You’re the parent. You can take them out of school whenever you want to.”