Here are some lunch ideas and techniques:

• I prepared a menu for the week everyweek, which did not vary very much. There was enough to do just preparing the meals!

• For desert, I ‘d most often give them:

- > Unsweetened Yogurt,fruit, raisins, unsweetened applesauce ( in an individual serving). Whole Foods has those.

- > Or mild cheese like Gruyère, Comté or unprocessed cheddar and fruit.

• Here’s what main courses of a weekly menu were like:

Monday:

Peas, cooked, with butter or cream, with small pieces of ham mixed in. Stored in a small round thermos.

Tuesday:

Tuna, rice, corn and tomatoe salad, with oil and vinegar dressing.

Wednesday:

Green beans, cooked with butter, and pine nuts, with some pieces of meat or fish.

Thursday:

Squash with butter and some meat or fish

Friday:

Pasta with fresh tomatoes and pieces of chicken. That was real chicken that I ‘d bought raw and cooked , not the bleach white kind unfortunately found in many Caesar salards in US restaurants…

So there you have it. Alternatives are broccoli with cheese melted on top, whole potatoes with cheese or butter, etc… It takes a little time to prepare but you can plan in advance and you it spares you the thought of what sort of chemicals your child will be eating that day at school!

I do wish I’d had a service that prepared these sorts of meals for me, and remember a person in San Francisco had started doing this but cannot find her name again now.

France was spoiling me so bad, making me totally ignorant about my own body’s manifestations. If I felt like something was not quite in place in the old machinery, I wouldn’t try to figure out what was wrong myself, I’d just go see a doctor- whichever doctor was appropriate for my illness of discomfort. No questions asked, no money downÖ

Americans are raised differently by Uncle Sam (isn’t it funny the US is represented by a man whereas France is embodied in a woman figure? There’s a cultural tip fur yaÖ). Their health care system is such that for the majority of them, getting sick is not a desirable option. Even for those fortunate enough to be able to have health coverage, the US has devised things like HMOs, PPOs and other Managed Care organizations that make choosing such coverage a headache.
Started out of the sensible notion that managing the way medical care was administered would be more efficient than letting individuals make their own health care decisions freely, the US allowed private insurance companies to handle its population’s health.

Whether in a company or at the individual level, one has to confront the different plans offered by these different types of organizations in order to decide which one will better suit one’s health care needs, both financially and from a quality of care point of view.

While HMOs offer the financial security of low payments, they force you into first seeing a General Practitioner (known as a PCP) before ever letting you see a specialist. This can take some time, so you will learn to tolerate painÖThey will also make you think twice before letting you see your general practitioner, asking you to contact a screening service (called an ‘Advice Nurse’) to help you determine whether you REALLY need to see someone or not. Furthermore, if your time is of limited value, you will not mind the long waits associated with seeing any doctor, be it a PCP or a specialist.

For those with a little more money or a greater need for freedom, there are PPOs. These plans warrant higher monthly premiums but in exchange, they will let you see an “in-network” specialist at will. You will only be partially reimbursed for your visit though (80% to 90%). Hey, this is a free country, but freedom has a price- around $ 2,000- $3000 a year in most cases! So does time. When you see a doctor as a PPO affiliate, you will generally barely have time to peruse the waiting room publications, and will be given ample time to explain your case to the benevolent practitioner.

Oh, and this is only for basic medical coverage. If you want to protect those teeth and those baby blues against any health conditions, you’ll have to choose additional coverage. Teeth are a luxury in today’s era of mushy fries, burgers, and milk shakes consumption, aren’t they?

What was I telling you about being spoiled? I was giving around 10% of my paycheck to state health insurance in France, but boy, did I save on aspirin for those headaches the US system is giving me, and on self-help books with titles like: “Fight for your health” or “The Every Day Remedy Book”. Well, on the positive side, I feel lucky its only aspirin I need, and I am becoming more self-sufficient every day. I now know what a yeast infection is, and what to take when I have a sore throat. (“Throat Coat” herbal tea really works!) If only my grandmother was around…

First of all, this introduction is misleading. I don’t mean it’s an adventure to give birth or even to raise a child, (although it is also).

I mean, it’s an adventure to have kids if you intend to continue working, going out, or buying those things you appreciate in the US! That’s because adequate, affordable childcare and schooling are not a given here.

As one coming from another culture, having a child was a no-brainer.

Hell, where I’m from, women take 2 to 4 months maternity leaves from work, employers are severely monitored to prevent laying off expectant women or new mothers, and quality child care centers and nannies are available- if not plentiful. Not so here. The situation may be particularly severe in California and the Bay area, where the economy was very strong and salaries skyrocketed, however, I have heard similar stories from residents of Washington, DC and New York.

What to know about child care in the US:

The only Job with no Vacation, Pay or Training:

This “most important job” implies that you as a parent devote a significant amount of your time and energy to raising your children, between 20 hours a week to all your free time.
Often times professionals who become parents in the US have to make a choice between what they think is best for them personally and financially and participating actively in their children’s upbringing.
It’s not rare that remaining in the position they were in before having children means seeing their children little more than an hour or two a day, and some find that’s less than what they wish when their children are very young.

What it doesn’t entail, in my view is that you, as the parent who ends up not working or who works less than you’d like to personally, are going to be doing this parenting job around the clock, exclusively of anything else!
It seems like that’s what parents, often times unknowingly, sign up for when they have children in the US. Given the lack of affordable quality childcare and education, all except a priviledged minority are to stop most of the sort of intellectual and social activity they had prior to having children, and turn solely to playgroups, birthing and
parenting seminars and their kids’ activities to be able to have an adult conversation once again outside of their circle of friends and family.

Even though you may be holding “the most important job ” and you may have expected some recognition for this choice, just as a VIP is treated with some deference, you have in fact become the sole person responsible for your little ones, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week- so now, you’re on your own, baby (or should I say, you and your baby!)!;-)

Try doing something else…

Try being a volunteer on the board of a non profit for instance. You have some time on your hands- supposedly anyway- and you’d like to use it wisely by helping a local non profit of your choice as a volunteer board member. Well, if you were that prestigious, Wall Street broker who has to travel from New York to San Francisco to attend the board meetings, you might just get reimbursement for your trip because travel is a deductible expense. But say you’re just a local parent who knows the issues, and has a genuine interest in helping out, and.. you need to get child care for those few hours? You pick up the tab baby! You’re doing the most important job, ain’t ya?

C’mon, I know being there for one’s children is important in this country, but is it important to be there 100% of the time? Couldn’t there be recognition that as parents, entrusted with our sacred task of producing the best citizens a country can have, we are allowed and hell, even encouraged to take a breather, either for ourselves or to be able to continue playing a role in our community outside of attending children’s ballet classes?

Say you wished to go one step further.. As a parent, you have a neat business idea that’d be compatible with your family life. You’d like to create an exercise studio cum coffee house where children can be cared for for a fee while parents enjoy flexing and stretching those sore back muscles for an hour or so…Don’t you have about a hundred people in mind already who’d kill for such a place? If you were that person starting a venture fund who needs to offer a good meal to a prospective client so as to help get those few millions you want to invest for her, you might well be able to write off that luncheon at Chez Panisse as a business expense.
But say you have to incurr child care expenses of $800 to $1,200 a month simply to research your market, make contacts with prospective clients and lenders and search for a location..? You pick up the tab, you most important job holder you! Yeah, it sure is lonely at the very top – especially among the few who do start a business under these circumstances!;-)

Now for the small (and lighter) stuff…

Mobility for VIPs and their trusted cargo:

Try taking a bus in the city by the bay…It saves on parking tickets and it’s less polluting, so given the option, why not? If you were so lucky as to be handicapped, obese or a senior, you’d get a royal treatment.. The bus would start making this beeping noise while the platform would descend to the street level while you royally mount the vehicule. But if you happen to be a ” most important job holder ” with one or more of your precious ones, well, you can : ” fold your stroller, carry ‘them kids up on the bus while holding the stroller with your third hand and those huge arm muscles you have as a VIP and hold on ’cause the bus is already moving and you haven’t paid and no one’s moving to give up their seat”.. ” Oh, and is Billy crying now ’cause you pulled on his arm? Please quiet him down”.

Next try going to Children’s Hospital in Oakland and parking where you can then roll your stroller out of the parking garage. Are you handicapped? Not officially. Are you a doctor here, a nurse? Nope, I’m holding the most important job, you see.. Well then you can’t park in those spaces that are on the street level, you have to go up and then find some way to get down those stairs (there’s no elevator you see) with a stroller and a three year old who doesn’t feel like walking…

It’s a tough job, the most important job they say, although if you were landing here from Mars, you may not know it..;-)

Written on Monday, July 14th, 00:15 AM. Happy Bastille Day – Free American families!