Two recent parenting episodes from inside my Toyota (I note I own a Toyota since Toyota just won it’s first NASCAR race and that makes Blogenberg even cooler!):

Blogenberg: Sure, you can go over Katie’s [my almost 14-year-old son’s adorable girlfriend] Friday night, but I have to talk to her parents first.

My almost 14-yeard-old son: Something unintelligible into his cell phone.

Son [to me]: What are you going to say to Katie’s mom?

Blogenberg: What do you think I’m going to say? I’m going to say [in my best Dick Vitale voice — think very loud and irritating], Hey, Katie’s mom, BABY, how ya’ doing BABY?!?!

Katie, my almost-14-year-old boy’s adorable girlfriend, was still on the cell phone, listening. Oops.

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Blogenberg [driving my almost-14-year old daughter and friend to watch a boy’s soccer game] : So have you decided to say yes to Connor’s asking you to “go out”? [They call it “going out.”]

My almost-14-year-old daughter: We are going out, Dad.

Blogenberg: Oh, okay.

Daughter: He’s like some big soccer star. He’s on the boys U.S. National team.

Blogenberg: Oh, you can definitely go out with him!

Pause.

I mean, is he a nice kid?

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Blogenberg Oxymoron of the Day: “High-end prostitution ring.”

Blogenberg goofy media moment of the day: Fox News Channel “fuzzing” out the faces of the call girls shown on the website of that “high-end prostitution ring.”

I’m in my 10th day as a single parent — as my wife is still out of the country. I have changed. I have become Brooke Shields.

In the new NBC TV show Lipstick Jungle she plays a character you’ve seen a million times: high-powered female executive overwhelmed and flustered as she tries to balance business and children. At the end of every day the end is the same. Business deals aren’t quite consummated or, if they are, it’s by luck. Children are in bed (though probably text messaging under the covers to their boy and/or girlfriends), but at least nobody got killed or arrested. And her heels are killing her.

That, after 10 full days of parenting a teen boy and teen girl (the older one is away at school) by myself, that Brooke Shields character, is me.

My wife will be home soon. That’s a good thing — because these heels are killing me.

Regular readers of Blogenberg know my wife is black. I have often thought of my children as a small piece of Dr. King’s legacy. I’ve studied a good bit about the civil rights movement and, while Dr. King is and will always be one of my very, very few heroes, I don’t fall into America’s penchant for Hollywood simplicity when it comes to this important part of our history, suggesting that Dr. King was the man who made it all happen. But I also sincerely believe that my wife and I would not be married were it not for him.

(Carry Me Home, by Diane McWhorter and Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, by Taylor Branch are, in my view, required reading for every American.)

I put one of those small pieces of legacy on a plane today: my 19-year-old son, returning after a five week visit to continue studying piano and composing at a major U.S. conservatory. It’s depressing to see him disappear through the security gate. And it’s thrilling. Just a sophomore, he’s got a plan for where he’s going after conservatory and beyond. He’s doing exactly what he needs to do to bring his plan to fruition — he’s excelling academically and musically.

He’s carrying Dr. King’s legacy very well. Good job.

I think it runs in the family. My mother lost me when I was an infant. She left me, sitting in my circa 1959 baby carrier, on the counter at the army base PX. She had driven halfway home before she realized she left something behind.

Today, as a parent, I’ve lost three children. And it’s good.

I’m not talking literally. Well, maybe I am. Because I have indeed lost my three children. I don’t have children any more. I’m father to one man and two 13-year-olds, a boy and a girl, who are fast maturing teenagers. I know many parents find it scary. I find it exciting.

This past New Year’s eve my 13-year-old boy wasn’t with us. He was at a friend’s party. I told my wife to get used to it.

My little girl, I’ve lost her childhood to friends, phone, shopping, IM, parties, etc.

The oldest boy, I lost his childhood years ago to music. A very talented musician, he decided by the age of 13 what he wanted to do with his life.

Losing my children and watching what each of them is finding in the place of the children they used to be is thrilling — thrilling kind of like the new generation of roller coasters I’m too scared to get on.
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We’re working on slogans for every aspect of our business. How’s this one? — Rosenberg Communications’ market research: Better than exit polling.

The iPod Touch as marital aide: My wife and I love my iPod Touch. We lay in bed, one earpiece in my left ear, one in her right ear, and watch episodes of Showtime’s Weeds. We spend more time together and talk less. Clearly the iPod Touch (and all video iPods) was invented by a man!

Oh gee, what to say to my twin 13-year-olds about the 16-year-old star of the popular TV show they watch who got pregnant? According to the media, parents everywhere are struggling with this quandary. Here’s what we said to my young teen son and daughter: “That’s why 16-year-olds should not be having sex.” Gee, didn’t seem that hard to figure out what to tell them.

We’re doing a marketing video. Stay tuned — in a few weeks it will premiere on Blogenberg. Of course, I was interviewed. Now I have even greater empathy for the dozens of folks I media train every year. When you go on camera to talk about your business or your organization, something that means so much to you, man it’s hard. Much harder than the hundreds of interviews I’ve done “flacking” for some organization or issue.

My business New Year’s resolutions: market, market, market (interspersed with lots of work for clients that makes us proud). As 2008 starts, I’m exceedingly excited and equally terrified. This is the year we either continue to build on a run of success or fall backwards. We’ve got a big plateful of opportunity before us. Blogenberg fans will be the first to know what direction 2008 takes us.

Happy New Year!

One of the benefits of being Facebook and MySpace literate is I don’t cringe when my 13-year-old son opens a MySpace account, and launches his page. Instead, I realize it’s as natural a communication vehicle for youth today as is the telephone. And I teach, and set rules.

I explained safety, and made sure he understands that nothing goes on there that he wouldn’t want his principal, priest, or parents to see. I tell him about people who didn’t get a job because a would-be employer looked at their MySpace page. I tell him nothing negative about anybody or group ever goes on his page. And I tell him I have to have his user name and password, that I will be visiting his page, including private sections, frequently.

The other night, we sat and went through his entire page. To his credit, he didn’t see this as invasive or overly restrictive (like I care, if he did!). He really saw it as a chance to learn — maybe it’s because his Dad is a blogger, with his own Facebook and MySpace pages.

Oh, and how cool is this? In his profile, under heroes, he listed, “Dad.” Of course, he explained, “well I had to enter something!”

Twenty years ago, I was involved in the seemingly unending fights over interracial adoption – specifically, should white parents be allowed to adopt black children? The organization I worked for, and represented in the media, believed the answer should be yes. I was even labeled a racist in one major newspaper.

Part of the argument against allowing such adoptions was the “who will teach” argument, as in who will teach these children how to navigate an inherently racist society. My answer at the time was, I’d rather see these children trying to figure it out with parents (in this case white) than trying to figure out anything in a foster care system that was increasingly betraying their futures.

I had such a “who will teach” moment of my own yesterday, at the mall – where so many of my important parenting moments seem to happen (loyal Blogenberg readers will recognize that!). I took my 13-year-old twins shopping. Each of them, the girl and the boy, armed with a cell phone and “safe shopping” instructions, were allowed to shop on their own, while I stayed available in the mall. (more…)

Blogenberg Bit 1: Today, on Fox News Channel, 24-hour cable continued its steady erosion of American society, reaching a state of sensational nirvana. FNC ran a split screen. On one side of the screen, a tragic mining disaster. On the other side, a live car chase.

Blogenberg Bit 2: My wife and I took our family to Italy for Blogen-cation. This I can report: to a 13-year-old girl, Florence is a shopping mall surely created by the hand of God. From Michelangelo’s David, to open air markets selling Italian leather goods, to a Chanel store. So this is what the Renaissance was all about, she must conclude!

Blogenberg Bit 3: A sad scene came across me in the Washington, DC train station today as I walked toward my gate. Two very cute boys, looking about nine, were begging in the station for “my mom who needs two dollars.‿ Their mother stood to the side, looking overwhelmed by about four additional children. At one level they were cute. At another level it was so sad to see boys this age learning to beg. I gave them a dollar. (I didn’t have two.) I figure I don’t know if Jesus put them in front of me. (more…)

Blogenberg Bit 1: My daughter said she wants to be in the military when she grows up. “Why would you want to do that?�? I responded in such a way that both she and her twin brother immediately asked why I sounded so negative. Wow. Just the question had terrified me. I could only be honest. “I have great respect for the military. Serving is very honorable. Having one of my kids in the military would scare me.�?

Imagine how I would feel if I were a parent of a son or daughter who was serving today – not just asking me about it.

Thank God we have parents brave enough.

Blogenberg Bit 2: My 13-year-old son had a lacrosse tournament this past weekend in Princeton, NJ. I’m driving him and three other 13-year-old boys to watch a high school game Saturday night. One of the boys asks my son if his 13-year-old twin sister is “hot.�? My son is smart enough not to answer. I’m driving, wondering what would happen if I let one otherwise very nice, very likeable 13-year-old boy out on the side of Route 1.

Blogenberg Bit 3: Two things I’ll never enjoy in business. One is calling up a client and pushing for payment. I think I want to get big enough that I can have somebody whose job it is to do that. Second is busting our humps on a very strategic proposal and then being met by silence. Yep, can do without both.

Nobody wants this war,
Fewer seem to understand it.
Talking pundits (the non-talking kinds are better) scream
behind me on TV about Scooter not going to jail.
24-hours news predicts “spectacular�? terrorism this summer.
“Spectacular�? – TV talking heads’ word, not mine.
Wow, “spectacular�? I wonder – should they sell tickets?
I’m old enough to remember when this was not a violent society in which we lived.
I’m old enough to remember when as a kid I left first thing in the morning for adventure with directions to just be home for dinner.
How did I survive childhood without Dateline catching predators on TV seemingly every night?
We don’t get along. We can’t get along. We’re terrified of immigrants. We’re nonchalant about young mothers killed as collateral damage in gang violence.
Is this the remix that Sam, John, Thomas, George, and the rest of them thought they were starting in steaming disease ridden Philadelphia?
Maybe.
I’m confused.
But that’s good. ‘Cause I live where nobody can order me how to act, what to think, when to have faith, and when to be enraged.
I live in America.
It’s good to be confused; it shows I’m not too old to pay attention.
Happy 4th.