Working Mother

Archive for the ‘Working Parents’ Category

Back-to-school season means that it’s time to start making school lunches again. In search of some lunchbox inspiration, I asked Pierre Foods Chef Jimmy Gherardi for advice on spicing up the school lunch menu.

Q: What’s the best way to get kids to eat healthy lunches at school, especially when parents aren’t around to supervise?

A. Parents need to go over the school menus with their children and help them to make informed choices. They also need to discuss what is offered a la carte in the cafeteria and vending machines. Parents and kids need to learn about the school’s nutrition policy. Usually the “Daily Plate Lunch” is the best way to go nutrition-wise.

Q. What are the best healthy lunches for kids? Create a few menus.

A. The best healthy lunches are the ones that are low salt; low fat; no or low sugars; contain whole grain; and have the proper amounts of protein and carbs. Added benefits are lunches that are natural and contain no preservatives, artificial ingredients or colors.

For packed lunches, keep them fun and interesting. Go beyond the standard two slices of bread sandwich. Wraps, pita bread, cut up cooked meats and vegetables with dipping sauces are all things kids love.

Pierre Foods has a great-tasting, healthy line of foods that are served in schools including mini sandwiches which come in different varieties, Chicken Drummies, Beef and Chicken Dippers which encourage kids of all ages to play with their food again! As their Chief Culinary Advisor, I have partnered with food service directors around the country to develop recipes for sauces and dips that are nutritious and young people will enjoy.

Q. They say variety is the spice of life, but my kid seems to want the same lunch every day. How can I get my child to try something new?

A. Children are super tasters! Certain foods do not taste good to them, For example, broccoli can taste very bitter to them. One way to get them to try it again is to add a dip to help mask the bitter taste and divert them from eating just the broccoli. Start serving variations of their favorite foods.

Example: A grilled chicken patty burger in place of beef burger with lots of great healthy toppings and that “secret sauce” which I created to go with Pierre Foods Drummies and Dippers which are served in schools.

Research has shown that it takes 10 to 20 introductions to a new food for a child to accept it.

The history of foods also get kids’ attention and can add a sense of adventure. Did you know that in England people thought that tomatoes were poisonous and would only use them as ornamental plants until about the mid 1700s? Or explaining something that sounds exotic: Couscous is just teeny tiny pasta.

Q. One healthy (ish) food is peanut butter. But now so many schools ban peanut products. Any good substitutes?

A. Sunbutter, which is made from sunflower seeds, is a great substitute. It is lower in fat and higher in vitamin E, fiber and iron than peanut butter. Some schools are peanut-free, while others have peanut-free areas and tables in the cafeteria.

Another substitute: a cream cheese and jelly sandwich is also very appealing to kids. I created PBJamwiches and Grahamwiches which put a twist on a classic sandwich favorite and are offered in schools. Both are made with fruit jellies and creamy peanut butter to create a homemade taste kids love.

Q. Are school gardens prompting kids to eat more vegetables?

A. Absolutely! Kids that plant, tend, nurture, and harvest their own vegetables love to eat them. Another way to get kids to eat vegetables is to include them as part of the preparation in the school kitchen.

If a second grade (class) grew the steamed green beans with ponzu being served today, a sign saying so is a very good thing. Michelle Obama and family are really helping out here. Since the planting of the White House vegetable garden and the resulting publicity, schools around the country are jumping on the garden wagon.

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This entry is written by BusinessWeek contributing editor Mark Hyman who is the author of Until It Hurts (Beacon), a book about impact of parents, coaches and other adults on youth sports.

As part of my research for Until It Hurts, I spent a blustery December morning in Boston locating the office of Lyle Micheli (pictured here). My hands were numb and my ears about frozen when I arrived but it was worth it to see Micheli, one of the nation’s top docs for injured youth athletes.

Micheli has been treating such patients for decades. In 1974, he and several associates started the first sports injury clinic for kids in the U.S. at Children’s Hospital. He’s still there. And on a hectic day, he might see dozens of patients.

Micheli also has a reputation for straight talk, especially about the problems percolating in youth sports. That was true the day I visited.

I asked Micheli why parents are emotionally invested in the sports lives of children. He explained that there is a lot at stake for the adults, more than many admit or appreciate themselves.

And it’s not all about winning and losing, he said.

“In a mobile society, if your child is on a travel team, you suddenly have 30 new people who are your best friends,” Micheli told me. “You’re going to barbecues with the soccer team and so on. Participation on the team gives the family social entrees, social prerogatives, it would not have.”

Micheli spoke of parents so emotionally involved in their kids’ sports lives that they’d seemingly forgotten why they signed up their sons and daughters in the first place.

“I had a physician’s family come in,” Micheli said. “The mother was an emergency-room doctor. Her son had Little League elbow, which I operated on. The first question out of her mouth in the recovery room was, ‘When do you think he can play again?’ Not, ‘How did the surgery go?’ Or, ‘How’s the elbow going to be?’ The loss of perspective was amazing.”

I was intrigued with the idea that kids’ sports can hold such power over adults and made it a major part of my book.

Then this month, sport researchers at Purdue University published a study in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology that examines how youth sports changes the lives of the adults on the sidelines. It was exploring the same issue, yet in a kinder, gentler way.

Here’s some of what the Purdue researchers reported:

-Spouses with kids in youth sports became better communicators (with one another) and often better organized. This was attributed to the coordination skills they developed insuring that their kids made it on time time to their practices, games, private lessons and the rest.

-Some parents explained that watching their children excel in sports motivated them to pick up a sport themselves. One said that when her child took up tennis, she was soon playing too.

-Bonds among parents remained strong when children were too old or dropped out of youth programs. Some said that when their kids stopped playing they went through an emotional letdown from losing their “adult play dates.”

In a Purdue press release, one of the researchers, Alan Smith explained: “I don’t think it’s terribly surprising that parents connect with one another, but what was surprising is the intensity of that connection. Many view themselves differently, as well as their children differently, after exposure to youth sports.”

That intensity can be channeled in constructive ways. (See Purdue study).

Or not. (Consult Dr. Micheli).

For additional discussion on young athletes, check out Hyman’s blog. In addition, he’s mentioned in this Newsweek article on Why ‘Everyone Gets a Turn’ May Be Good for Little Kids

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Over at the New York Times’ Motherlode blog, there is an incredibly sad and disturbing guest post. titled Terminating An Adoption. It’s by a women who adopted a baby boy from South America when he was about a year old, and then 18 months later gave him up to another family because she didn’t think she could ever properly attach to him.

The mother, Anita Tedaldi, already had five biological daughters and a husband who was frequently deployed by the military. But she had always wanted a large family and both she and her family went through the extensive screening required by US adoption agencies. As for the boy, he had some developmental delays and suffered from attachment disorder, although with the help of therapy and a very dedicated social worker, was making progress. Nevertheless, Anita came to realize she just did not feel about this admittedly challenging boy the way she did about her biological children.

His social worker, his pediatrician and his neurologist all told me that he had come a long way, and that attachment issues were to be expected with adoption. But D.’s attachment problems were only half the story. I also knew that I had issues bonding with him. I was attentive, and I provided D. with a good home, but I wasn’t connecting with him on the visceral level I experienced with my biological daughters. And while it was easy, and reassuring, to talk to all these experts about D.’s issues, it was terrifying to look at my own. I had never once considered the possibility that I’d view an adopted child differently than my biological children. The realization that I didn’t feel for D. the same way I felt for my own flesh and blood shook the foundations of who I thought I was.

Eventually, a new family was found who had already dealt with attachment issues with their adopted daughter and was more than willing to take on the boy. Anita writes achingly about her decision to give him up and how incredibly painful it was for her, but she ws convinced it was the best choice for him. As an adoptive mother, it was also painful for me to read, and I admit to initially being horrified by her decision.

But then I re-thought my reaction. One of the main lessons Anita learned from her experience, and sought to impart to others, is that we all should be much more careful about sitting in judgment of other people’s parenting choices. My daughter was a charmer from day one–who’s to say how I would have reacted if she had major emotional or physical problems. I’m pretty certain I would rise to the occasion, but none of us really know what we will do in a crisis until we are tested. And I don’t have five other children to deal with.

As for the many commenters to the blog who pointed out that Anita almost certainly would not have given up a biological child with such issues–well, maybe more biological parents should do just that. I am often infuriated by social workers and judges who decide that a child should be reunited with his or her biological parents whenever possible, no matter how abusive or neglectful. Surely many of these children would be better off with a family that would properly care for them and love them. Again, as an adoptive parent, I do not believe that biological ties trump all.

That said, it still makes my stomach churn that someone would give up a child they adopted under the circumstances Anita describes. It particularly bothers me that this will play into the perception too many people have, that “adopted” children are somehow not the same as biological offspring, that adoptive parents are not “real” parents. And I agree with those commenters who in part blame the adoption agency, which appears to have done a poor screening job.

Read the essay and then tell me, what do you think?

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Here’s a guest post from Lisa Roberts, who was recently named “The 2010 Household CEO”:

A couple months ago, I entered a contest sponsored by Bill Me Later and Zappos.com. These two companies were looking for examples of today’s “Household CEO,” mainly (but not only!) women managing their homes, looking after their families and generally living busy lives, and I thought my roles and responsibilities around the home made me a good candidate. With help from my family, we submitted our video; when I got the call, I was beyond excited! Yesterday, I was a simple stay-at-home mom of four from Lexington, KY. Today, I am a nationally-recognized CEO!

Of course, I’m honored to have this title (and the shopping spree allows us to buy new beds for our children!). But the important part is that this celebrates all the hardworking moms and dads out there, ordinary folks who lead pretty extraordinary lives. Most people say that being a parent is a “full-time job,” but the phrase has become a cliché, not the badge of honor it should be.

In a survey of typical American households conducted as part of the Household CEO campaign, one of the key findings is that while most women now work outside the home, a majority also have primary responsibilities inside the home, including cooking, overseeing kids’ homework, and organizing the family’s social life. In addition, many working women also manage family vacations, budgets, retirement planning and car care. The number of “Mom” jobs is not a huge surprise however, because we all do whatever it takes to keep our organizations — Households — efficient and successful.

I am very thankful for my young children (a 5-year old and 3-year-old triplets), a loving and supportive husband and all of our family’s activities and needs. Take a look at my adorable assistants in my video entry here. My professional background is in public relations and customer service, and I use just about everything I learned there to do my job! The sweetest thing about being recognized as a Household CEO is having the reassurance that the work I do each day is important.

Three years ago my husband and I co-founded Project Seahorse, a non-profit designed to equip, honor and redeem families coping with the tumultuous experience of loving a critically premature baby. We create care packages and offer support to families that never expected to find themselves in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. (We’re personally familiar with that experience.)

But like most people in my situation, I find time to do everything that’s needed. I set priorities and guidelines on a daily basis and change them when I need to, which is very often. The business world calls it flexibility; I call it reality. All working parents master the art of multitasking, which is not a corporate office specialty. Talking to clients on the phone while preparing dinner for a family of five while helping one child with a school project and stopping the other three from fighting, well, that is just another day in my “corner” office!

I could say more, but I have “action items” to address and the kids are calling!

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Okay, I admit it. I’ve been on summer vacation from Swine Flu, which means I’ve given the H1N1 virus little thought. But did someone declare today National Swine Flu day?

The airwaves are buzzing today with talk of the Swine Flu epidemic now that kids are heading back to school. Here in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg briefed city officials on important Swine Flu prevention measures. And President Obama strongly recommended getting the vaccine to prevent the flu. This morning I also received an email from our pediatrician about swine flu precautions.

In the five years that my son has been a patient in the practice of Michel Cohen, I do not recall receiving an email about a medical issue, so his message about Swine Flu caught my eye. (Cohen’s book The New Basics is a must-have for new parents.)

Cohen, who is known for a no-nonsense approach, says parents have no reason to be alarmed about swine flu-yet.

“The virus causes about four days of very high fever but few other symptoms. The kids who caught it fared surprisingly well, and in our practice, all of them recovered without any complications.”

While the regular flu vaccine won’t protect us from the H1N1 virus, the Center for Disease Control is developing a separate vaccine with pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline, which they say will be widely available. “Its effectiveness won’t be guaranteed, however, because there’s not enough time for extensive clinical trials,” Cohen says. He doesn’t recommend the vaccine, which will be offered for free to New York City primary school-age children, because kids “tend to fight the flu very well.” In addition, Cohen is worried the vaccine will prevent children from developing natural immunity against the flu, thereby creating more resistant strains. (Note: My colleague Cathy Arnst has written about the vaccination debate extensively.)

That’s the medical side to consider. The bigger issue is what happens if my son gets a temperature that forces us to keep him home from school for days? Most likely, I’ll be the parent who needs to stay home until our regular sitter shows up. What about other working parents who have no such safety net? Nearly two-thirds of low-wage workers in New York City, for example, have no paid sick days, Dan Cantor writes in the Huffington Post.

How are you preparing for Swine Flu? What measures, if any, have you taken? Do you have a childcare back-up plan if illness strikes?

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This summer my daughter was fortunate to apprentice with a friend of mine, an interior designer and architect. When she came home at the end of her first day, I found her prostrate on my bed.

“How did it go?” I asked.

“Manual labor,” she moaned. “Manual labor.”

My 15-year-old daughter, who my architect friend said carried a drill as though it were a purse, had spent the day staple-gunning fabric to chairs, hot-glueing fringes to ottomans, and pulling out with pliers crooked upholstery tacks off a sofa.

In the days that followed, she went on to install curtains, make lamp shades, and help create light fixtures—an experience that probably taught her more about problem solving than those supposedly college-resume enhancing summer internships my fellow blogger Catherine Arnst wrote about and for which parents paid fees of up to $9,500. My daughter’s two weeks as an apprentice helped make this “the best summer of my life,” she said.

I remembered this as I read “Deskbound, Romancing the Brick,” the recent article on The New York Times about “recession-pummeled Americans indulging in a romance with blue-collar trades, while also questioning the hollowness of white-collar work.”

I don’t know whether the current nostalgia for working with one’s hands will result in a lasting shift in how people value blue-collar vs. white-collar jobs. But this I can say: Working in a trade benefits teens far more than an office job does.

Just think about it. Manual labor uses up all that energy teens seem to have in abundance. And the kids immediately can see the fruits of their labor—be it a well-swept garden or a lamp that actually lights up—so there isn’t the problem of delayed gratification. For both those reasons, manual labor is a great mood enhancer for teens.

My daughter’s experience was made richer by the fact that she found herself in a true apprenticeship situation: She not only worked at the elbows of more experienced workers but she also helped prepare and ate meals with them. The effect was magical. It didn’t take more than a few days before she began referring to “our clients” and “our billings.”

I know that summer jobs for teens, already scarce, have become scarcer in this recession—which is a shame, because their benefits are manifold. Next year, as I help my daughter find summer work, I’ll make sure that it again will involve a lot of elbow grease.

What summer jobs do you think are best for teens?

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In honor of Women’s Equality Day, this post was written by Lisa Gilford (pictured here), who is the president of the National Association of Women Lawyers and a litigation partner in the Los Angeles office of Alston & Bird LLP focusing her practice on toxic torts and product law. She is also a mother of a daughter and son, ages 6 and 4.

There has been a great deal of media attention devoted to the notion that the recession is having a greater impact on men than women. Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicates that since the recession began, 78% of all the jobs lost were held by men. The male unemployment rate is now almost 3 percentage points higher than that for women, a gap larger than any other time since immediately after WWII. The coverage of the “He-cession” is geared toward the idea that there has been a dramatic shift in economic opportunities in favor of women, and this shift is hitting men particularly hard, especially on an emotional level.

The raw numbers, however, don’t tell the full story, and therefore don’t lead me to conclude that women are the unintended beneficiaries of these financial hard times. I certainly don’t see my female colleagues whistling their way to work every morning, safe and secure in the knowledge of their continued employment. I am employed in the legal profession, and while comprehensive data will not be available until the National Association of Women Lawyers releases it annual survey of the top 200 law firms in the fall, anecdotal evidence suggests that women lawyers are bearing the brunt of the rash of layoffs that hit the profession this year.

One report from a large national law firm, for example, revealed that 22 out of the 30 lawyers it recently laid off were women. The explanation given for this disparity was telling. Women associates, it seems, were greater represented at the junior levels of the corporate and real estate practice groups most impacted by the crisis, and were therefore the first to be let go when the work slowed down. The more traditionally male litigation practice was less affected.

While it is the case that the recession is impacting the traditionally male sectors of manufacturing and construction in terms of a greater number of jobs lost, what we are seeing is the flip side of a situation borne of a problem women have been complaining about for years–men have historically held more of the heretofore secure, high-paying jobs in construction and manufacturing.

The only conclusion to be drawn? Where gender segregation exists in a particular field, one gender will inevitably fare worse when hard times hit the industry. This news is hardly a revelation, and it shouldn’t leave anyone, male or female, feeling particularly comfortable.

Truth be told, this is not a male economic crisis. While there is a new unemployment gap that favors women, there is a very old earnings gap that favors men. Women continue to earn just 78 cents for every dollar earned by a man doing the same job, with the same education and level of experience. The industries least impacted by the recession thus far, education and health care, employ a larger number of women, but let’s face it: teachers and nurses generally don’t earn as much as unionized workers in manufacturing and construction. So just because the numbers show men losing ground, it doesn’t necessarily mean that women are gaining. The recent media reports on the disparate impact of the recession on the sexes should only serve as a reminder that occupational segregation along gender lines is a bad thing–for everyone.

And as the number of households where women are the primary earners increases exponentially, let us be reminded of the need to make sure that jobs held by women pay better and have better benefits than they have in the past.

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This guest post was written by Erin Kane (pictured here), who is a work-life balance contributor for BusinessBalance.com

As any parent who travels regularly for business knows, we’re all just one canceled flight (or sudden high fever) away from complete mayhem back at home. Juggling work and family takes on a whole new dimension when one parent travels (never mind when both do!).

Over the years, I’ve had to travel to visit clients, attend professional development conferences, set up booths at trade shows and oversee special events. When I was in my twenties, this was deemed a valuable perk of the job. Now that I’m older—and have young children at home—it’s no longer as simple as packing a bag and heading to the airport.

While I trust that my husband is perfectly capable of feeding the kids (frozen pizza) and getting them to day care (it’s pick-up I worry about), I just feel better about my business trips when I’ve set everything in its proper place at home before I’m thousands of miles away.

For me, it all starts with an organized and well-stocked kitchen. With the economy being what it is—and our household budgets feeling the squeeze—it’s even more important to plan ahead, because making mealtimes easy also cuts down on the takeout bill. Try to buy only what the family will eat, like plenty of pre-assembled or frozen meals from the grocery store instead of food that might spoil from neglect. To facilitate an easy kitchen clean up, I stock up on inexpensive paper plates and plastic utensils from the dollar store.

Once the kitchen is stocked, it’s time to get organized. For me, this means:

* Preparing a daily schedule to share with a caregiver, babysitter and/or spouse. Be sure to include important times for the bus, day care pick-up and emergency contact numbers

* Organizing diaper bags, backpacks and signing permission slips and school paperwork in advance

* Washing the kids’ clothes to ensure the all-important T-ball shirt is clean come game time

* Swapping carpool schedules and confirming with other parents via e-mail

* Using Google calendar (or another online calendar) to lock in travel dates, log the kids’ extracurricular activities and share with others who need to be “in the know”

Once I have arrived at my destination, I use technology to connect with my kids back home. Skype and Google video chat allow me to see my kids and talk to them in real time (and it’s free!) So, even though I have complete confidence in my husband, it is so nice to see that the kids left the house that morning somewhat presentable to the public and that they have actually combed their hair.

So what do you do to prepare for business travel? How do you keep things running smoothly back home?

Erin Martin Kane is a professional freelance publicist who makes a living promoting media projects out of her home office. She specializes in public television programs and Web sites. When she’s not working, blogging or podcasting she’s chasing around her two little boys in a suburb of Boston. Erin blogs for the work/life section of BusinessBalance.com, a web site designed by Embassy Suites Hotels specifically with an eye for how to help business travelers on the road. She also produces the weekly podcast “Manic Mommies,” which she co-hosts with her neighbor, Kristin Brandt. It was through podcasting that Erin developed a genuine interest in technology, and today she’s constantly on the hunt for products and platforms that simplify her work and help her manage her household.

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We spend a lot to raise a child in this country. The US Dept of Agriculture just announced that the average two parent family will spend a total of $221,190 over the next 17 years on a child born this year. That doesn’t include four years of college, and who knows how much that will cost by then? And now there is yet another expense-some parents are buying an internship for their bred-for-success offspring.

Yes, proving that no parenting worry will go unexploited, a fast growing niche has developed for companies likeUniversity of Dreams; they will guarantee placement of your child in a resume-enhancing internship for a fee of anywhere from $5000 to $9500. These are unpaid internships, by the way.

Here’s one families experience, from a New York Times article on buying internships:

Francois Goffinet entered the University of Dreams program in 2007 as a student at the College of William & Mary, he said, because he wanted an internship at a top bank but those banks did not recruit at colleges like his. The University of Dreams advisers polished Francois’s résumé. They coached him on interviews and then helped him secure an internship at UBS, which he then converted into a job offer.
“We wanted the biggest and the best,” Francois’s mother, Lynn Andrews, recalled. “No one had the direct route.”

As someone who struggled to find an unpaid internship on her own while in college, for an arts newsletter that lost ifs funding after one issue (thus preparing me for the current state of print journalism), I’m appalled. And angry at the companies that “hire” these interns, who pay for the right to work for nothing. Is the economy really so bad that a company can’t shell out a few thousand dollars over the summer to a college kid? And what about all the tens of thousands of kids who can’t afford to buy an internship, not to mention work for free. Are they somehow less worthy of that UBS job than the candidate whose parent has deep pockets?

John Dodge, who writes the Thinking Tech blog for the website Smart Planet, has this to say about the practice:

Companies that accept this free help while enriching a middleman should be ashamed. Companies big and small should initiate there own intern programs based solely on merit and relationships with colleges which educate the individuals they need. Internships should be an integral function of the human resources department. If a company can’t find good interns, I wonder how they stay in business.
– Whatever happened to individual initiative? Whatever happened to the kid who banged on doors and used his or her dynamism and guile to land an internship? Kids should not have the door slammed because someone bought their way in.

Are John and I living in the past? Is this just the way the world works these days? Should it be? What do you think?

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David L. Marcus just wrote a book that I quite enjoyed. It’s called Acceptance: A Legendary Guidance Counselor Helps Seven Kids find the Right Colleges – and Find Themselves (Penguin Press). I asked him to write a few guest blogs on the subject of helping kids through the application process. Here’s his first entry. Feel free to weigh in with questions.

End-of-Summer Salvation for High School Seniors

PRO-

If you’ve watched friends agonizing during the college application process with a son or daughter, you probably know the dreaded 15-letter word I’m writing.

CRAS-

Think of those last-minute essays!

TINATION…

I spent the past three years researching a book on kids applying to college. I watched so many pulling unnecessary all-nighters – and making mistakes – in order to tap the “submit” button on time.

So, here’s a suggestion for anyone who has a high school senior in the house. Encourage that potential procrastinator to set aside a few hours during the waning days of vacation. In that time, he or she can polish off the three tasks, including most of the drudge work that goes into applying.

What drudge work? Two things come to mind. Late summer is a good time to fill out the Common Application, as well as the names-and-facts sections that some admissions offices require. It’s also a good time to register for the SAT, ACT, or other standardized tests.

Now these next sentences are for the applicant: Get that boring stuff out of the way by Labor Day and you’ll already be far ahead of most twelfth graders I know.

The third and final task is less drudgery and more daunting. Late August and early September is the time to start roughing out essays. Read the prompts on the Common App and look up the information about any essays that your school requires. You can often count on a “Why do you want to go to Tufts?” kind of essay. But some schools, like the University of Chicago, like curve balls, and ask you to compare the campus to a painting or some such thing.

Start brainstorming. Take a pad and paper, or a keyboard, and jot down a bunch of ideas. If you are asked to write about a particular campus, don’t worry if you haven’t visited. You can find out the basics and more online. Anyway, the essay is really an excuse to tease them with information about what makes YOU special, and to show why you’d add something to the mix of students.

Other essays allow you to talk about a book you read, a trip you took, a service project you undertook, a person who influenced your life, and so on. Again, start by brainstorming. You don’t need to write the essay before the first day of school, but you should make notes about a couple of favorite topics, and a plan of attack.

As you rough out the essay, remember that blurry-eyed admissions gatekeepers like clear, concise writing. They do not like bragging, exaggeration or pity-me essays. They’re often overloaded with first-person accounts of heroics on the playing field, and they grow tired of sports-as-a-metaphor-for-life essays. Humor is fine, but not if it’s humor that impugns an ethnic group, or tries to hard, or underscores the writer’s immaturity.

Now, flash forward to mid-September. You’re meeting with your guidance counselor, who asks what you’ve done to get started. You don’t hesitate to respond.

“My Common Apps paperwork is ready. I signed up for the ACT. I’ve started my essays…”

And this: “I did it all before the end of summer, then took time to go to the beach.”

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