The best piece of parenting advice I ever got came from my mother. I was stressed out because my son wouldn’t eat — what else? — his veggies. He was happy to dine on mac and cheese and more mac and more cheese. Especially more cheese. (This was in the days before my pal Sneaky Chef Missy Chase Lapine taught me you could bury broccoli in just about anything.) I thought I was failing motherhood. I was new at this.
In swooped my mother who told me to calm down. She said you can’t look at what kids (or adults for that matter) eat at a single meal or even in a single day. More…
This morning, as we were rushing to stuff lunches into already over-loaded backpacks, grab the tennis rackets and coats (because despite the fact that it’s officially spring, it was 20 degrees outside) my 14-year-old hit me with this question: “What’s a hedge fund, mom?”
I backed into an answer.
Me: Do you know what a mutual fund is?
Him: Ummmm….
Me: It’s usually a bunch of investments in stocks or bonds or both bundled together.
Him: Okay. (He turns and walks out the door and then, realizing we are having a conversation shouts,) I’m still listening.
Me: Well the whole point of a mutual fund is that if one of your stocks or bonds is losing money, the rest of them may not be so you won’t end up losing your whole investment. That’s called “diversification.” Anyway, a hedge fund invests a whole bunch of investments at the same time too, but many of them are riskier than stocks and bonds. So for the most part only wealthy people are allowed to invest in them.
Him: Do you?
Me: Do I what?
Him: Do you invest in them?
Me: No.
Him: Can you put on Z-100?
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I am — as I am sure so many of you are — so sad about Natasha Richardson. I didn’t know her (I met her once, at a wake, but that doesn’t count as knowing). But I am truly upset for her children, her husband, her mother, her sisters. She seemed to be one of those one-in-a-million Hollywood people who actually did have it all. Perhaps because she lived no where near Hollywood.
For me, freak accidents like this one bring me back to the question: What if it was me? My literary agent told me of how he was once on a plane that seemed like it was absolutely going down. In that few moments he asked himself: Had he taken care of the people he loved? Had he dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s? And because he had, he was able to be at peace in the middle of a situation that turned out not to be a disaster after all. More…
