The Mommy Diaries

 I never wanted to grow up to be President. But, just in case I had any deep-down longings for the Oval Office, those feelings are forever squashed when I heard that the Commander-in-Chief can't use a BlackBerry.

It's due to the Presidential Records Act, which makes all presidential correspondence part of the official record and eventually up for public review, as well as due to concerns about e-mail security.

This, says The New York Times, is kind of a big deal for our next president as Barack Obama is a BlackBerry addict. Personally, I couldn't do it. I've checked email everywhere from red lights to restaurants, the bedroom to the bathroom. Pretty much everywhere but church is fair game (unless the parking lot counts?) My BlackBerry is my morning alarm clock as well as my flashlight (that sucker is bright.) It's not that I think I'm important, I'm just addicted to my email.

I was listening to the Q100 morning show this week where I heard Bert Weiss and his crew were each kicking a vice. They're ditching habits ranging from sleeping pills to smoking, desserts to diet pills. The most awe-inspiring for me is the guy who is ditching his BlackBerry. What is he thinking!?

I wish them all luck, but I'm not jumping on that bandwagon. I love my BlackBerry too much. I don't drink, smoke, gamble or even drive fast. Let me have my simple addiction.

Thursday, I sat in a huge community meeting as Fulton County Schools officials unveiled three proposals for redistricting elementary schools around my house in Alpharetta and Roswell. They released the plans online several hours before the meeting so I knew going in that my neighborhood wouldn't be affected, but I went anyway at the request of a friend and neighbor who wanted to hear it with her own ears.

The whole process is interesting on so many levels. First, a large neighborhood near mine was very organized, actually preparing its troop with a kind of Cliffs Notes so they could have legitimate arguments against various schools if they were proposed as alternatives to our current school. The rumor mill was working overtime as stories had our kids redistricted to schools miles and miles away. Turns out that unless all three plans are thrown out, the neighborhood leaders (as well as the rumor-starters) wasted their time and both that neighborhood and ours are safe.

Other neighborhoods weren't so happy. As the Fulton County representative pointed out, our North Fulton elementaries are facing increasing enrollment and a lot of it is due to students returning from private schools. Blame that on the economy. One new elementary and a few new school additions have caused the county to reconfigure pretty much everything in our area.

Even if they start all over and come up with a fourth plan that would directly affect my neighborhood, it wouldn't impact us because my son is in fifth grade, but I know people are still concerned about house values if the new school isn't as great as the old. Which brings up a whole new question. What happens if you get redistricted to a school that is "better" than your current one -- better academics, better parent involvement, whatever -- but your child is comfortable in his/her current school filled with friends and familiarity. What do you fight for? The new school or the comfort of the old? Sometimes we just don't like change.

Although I'm sure it's not a big deal to him, my son turns eleven Thursday without me around. His fifth-grade class is on a two-day field trip to Tybee Island so he'll celebrate his big day by wading in the marshes and whispering to his buddies from the top bunk of a fun, crowded cabin.

Fortunately, my husband is there as a chaperone and I slipped a birthday card in my son's duffel bag, so it's not like the occasion will be forgotten. But it's still kinda sad. I remember that labor and delivery room (and later that surgery room) at Northside Hospital all too well. Somehow, eleven years have passed and my "baby" is quite the big kid. No more "Toy Story" birthday parties or Mickey Mouse wrapping paper. (Although the candles that never go out are still OK, I think.)

It'll be weird to celebrate Luke's birthday without him. I hope my husband can sneak away to let him call me on the cellphone. Would it be too much to get my own Publix cake to celebrate? After all, I'm the one who gave birth!

The problem is simple. Because people are living longer and because young people in the world's most industrialized nations are having fewer children, that means a rapidly shrinking skilled labor pool. As Forbes magazine points out so well, "Only one person can save us from a future of slow decline: Mom."

Economists and politicians and people who figure out these things have concluded that long-term economic growth relies on women with children getting into the workforce. That's according to a new worldwide study called "Babies and Bosses," which also ranked the top 20 countries where mothers work the most.

But just because moms work the most in those places doesn't mean the businesses have very mom-friendly policies. Some offer meager maternity leave and much lower salaries than non-mom workers, figuring they wouldn't be as committed. That sure would make me want to stick around.

Here's a look at the top 20 countries with the most moms in the workforce. (The U.S. did make the list, in case you were wondering.)

 When it comes to sex and television, for teenagers it seems like it's monkey see, monkey do. According to new researchers, American teens who watch a lot of sex on TV are more twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy than those who watch more G-rated fare.

If normal kids are watching the TV kids on "Gossip Girl," for example, hook up in limos and in the mansions of the Hamptons, they're much more apt to do the same in their own real lives, says research published in Pediatrics. And, because those TV teens rarely take the time to discuss safe sex before they go at it, that's where the pregnancy part comes in.

In any case you think you've heard this before, you haven't. This is the first study to find a link between an exposure between sexual content on television and real-life teen pregnancies. It's obviously not the only reason kids are having kids, but it's one that maybe we parents can control a little bit.

I certainly don't know what I'm talking about because I don't have a teenager (my kid's almost 11, so I'm close), but what about not letting kids watch whatever they want? If a show is highly sexual, shouldn't it sometimes be off-limits? Or, what about sitting down and watching it with your son or daughter so that when sexy topics arise, it can become a family discussion? I can't think of anything that would make sex more of a turn-off than having a chat about conception with Mom and Dad on the couch.

If you have a teen, what are the TV rules at your house? Anything goes or only certain shows allowed? If there are no TV rules, does research like this change your mind?

On Sunday, we went to see the Jim Henson exhibit at the Atlanta History Center. It was a trip down Memory Lane -- or technically "Sesame Street" -- and days of Tickle-Me Elmo. Hard to believe that Luke, who is now almost-11, didn't recognize Grover or didn't know which one was Bert and who was Ernie.

He was more transfixed with looking at the illustrations of how a puppeteer gets inside Big Bird and makes the seven-foot yellow guy work than he was with looking at Ernie's actual Rubber Duckie. It hit me. He was a kid. Not a baby. Not a toddler. But a boy who was growing up and waaaaay beyond Sesame Street.

The baby who used to fall asleep clutching a little plush Elmo to his chest is long gone. Sometimes it hits you over the head in moments like these.

After the Henson exhibit (which was awesome, by the way), we stopped by the Olympic exhibit and he and my husband raced each other on bikes and in sculls. It's what big kids do, of course.

I miss Kermit and Big Bird and Cookie Monster and the days when Luke wanted to hang out with them instead of Sponge-Bob or the guys from "MythBusters." But I really like the big kid he's become.