Hitting the Mother Load : CHOC Seminar Teaches ‘90s Moms the Secrets to Survival

What does it take to survive motherhood in the ‘90s?

* Whether you cope with three kids at home or juggle child rearing with a career, take time to relax every day! Take a walk. Breathe deeply. Play bingo.

* Find fun things for the kids. You can fashion play dough out of peanut butter. Or make your own trail mix. Or make magic “stargazers” out of toilet paper rolls wrapped in blue paper.

* Try to keep a sense of humor--even if your 3-year-old did just smear jelly on the rug.

Those suggestions--some lighthearted, some serious--were a sampling offered recently at a seminar on “the joys and challenges” of motherhood in the ‘90s.

Sponsored by Children’s Hospital of Orange County, the half-day session offered strategies for surviving motherhood without burnout. And for the first time, a local hospital that focuses on caring for children had turned the tables--providing a morning full of specialists to advise their moms.

In 35-minute classes, experts on parenting, fashion, business and child care discussed such issues as “surviving your child’s problem behaviors” and how to balance motherhood with a career.

Though the mood was mostly upbeat, keynote speaker Teryl Zarnow, a syndicated columnist with three young children, struck a sympathetic chord with mothers in her audience when she stressed the frustrations of her job.

A more accurate name for the conference should have been “‘the joys and aggravations of motherhood,” Zarnow said, adding: “I love my children. But it is also not what you expected.”

More than 120 women--a mix of mothers-to-be, working mothers and mothers whose full-time work was at home--attended this smorgasbord of women’s issues.

For their time, each got a pink carnation, an opportunity to compare notes on child rearing, and, some said, a morning of freedom--away from husband, kids, dirty laundry--to focus on themselves.

“I’ve been with kids for eight years now, and I need a little enthusiasm,” explained 29-year-old Terry Kintz, a former recreational therapist from Placentia who gave up paid employment several years ago to care for four children, ages 1 to 8.

Added another, who offered her comments anonymously as the session ended: “Inspiring. . . . Now I feel like I have the courage to go back home today.”

And Cindy Frazee, 34, a Dana Point speech pathologist with two children, said the conference gave her “lots of good ideas”--including that quick recipe for trail mix.

But mostly, Frazee said, it gave her time to reflect on her dual roles--of mothering and pursuing a career.

The key to motherhood in the ‘90s “is keeping it all in a balance,” she said. “I think it’s really important to take time for yourself so you have enough to give something back to your family.”

Again and again, that was the message from speakers and participants alike.

Frank Carden, CHOC director of health psychology, urged mothers--no matter how busy--to watch for signs of stress and take at least a 15-minute break every day.

“Remember those Lamaze classes. Practice deep breathing,” he said. Or go to a travel agent, pick up some brochures and fantasize a vacation. And if your house is full of “naggy kids, can you put up boundaries?” Carden asked. “If they’re changing into a set of clothes that don’t match, is it worth the argument?’

In a different vein, expert party hostess Kim Ashley led an upbeat seminar called “OK. Let’s Party,” suggesting to several dozen women that every birthday party can be one with “pizazz.”

Still, such parties need not be expensive, added Ashley, who regularly stalks the aisles of Pic ‘N’ Save, finding doodads that she turns into quick, cheap but dazzling party hats.

And Cynthia Garner, the Orange County director of a national mothers advocacy group called American Mothers Inc., gave a strong pitch for staying at home with the kids.

Standing before a large poster inscribed with the words, “Mother Is the Heart of the Home,” Garner said she believes that the roles of women have changed dramatically in the last 20 years--from the liberated woman of the ‘70s, to the “super woman” of the ‘80s, to now, the ‘90s mother who is rejecting a career and “women’s lib” to return to the home.

A former fashion consultant, Garner said she quit that career five years ago--giving up the glamour, the national recognition, the $200,000 a year in profits.

Now, the only business Garner runs is “Garner Enterprises”--her term for her husband, their Irvine home and three children, a 17-year-old son, 10-year-old daughter and 3-year-old girl.

To be sure, Garner said, she has sacrificed--giving up designer jeans, a raft of credit cards, a more expensive lifestyle. But, she said, it was worth it.

Recently, when her teen-age son arrived home after school, he told Garner that he had just been offered illegal drugs--and had refused them. Garner said she doubted that she would have heard that story--or been able to applaud her son’s “courageous” refusal--had she not been a stay-at-home mom.

And then there was columnist Zarnow, author of the new book “Husband Is the Past Tense of Daddy and Other Dispatches From the Front Lines of Motherhood,” who regaled her fellow mothers with descriptions of Zarnow family catastrophes.

There was, for example, the time she went to the upper level of the MainPlace mall in Santa Ana and “my 2-year-old goes to the railing with a glass of lemonade and pours it.”

Or the time she was trying to drive all three children to the doctor’s office and all the way they sat in the back seat and fought.

Fed up, Zarnow angrily told them that they might as well finish off their quarrel by doing the most horrible thing to each other they could think of.

“Go ahead and do it now!” she recounted. “And the rest of the afternoon, don’t touch each other!”

As Zarnow explained it, all mothers--whether working at home or outside it--have plenty in common. After all, “we are inmates at the same prison, bunkmates at the same camp,” she said.

And she offered several “truths” she has learned from motherhood.

Among them:

* The washing machine will often be full of rocks.

* Mothers always have to make the rules.

* Mothers “are always going to feel guilty.”

* “Life with children is never going to be easy. It’s like walking with your shoelaces tied to someone else’s shoes.”

For all the negatives, Zarnow said, she really does love her children and her husband. Writing about her family has helped her work through the problems, she said.

And Zarnow emphasized that though she does write about family life, “I’m not an expert on anything. In order to give advice, you need to know what you’re doing. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m feeling my way.”

Maureen Williams, CHOC director of public information, said she got the idea for the October “Mother’s Day” about six months ago after she noticed that there seemed to be a “real epidemic” of stay-at-home moms.

Career mothers used to think nothing of taking a brief maternity leave, putting their new babies into child care and coming right back to work, Williams said.

But recently, many CHOC nurses have decided to stay at home with their new babies. And continuing that trend, one of Williams’ public relations consultants announced last May that she wasn’t returning to work, preferring to stay home with her baby.

Consulting with Mother’s Day program co-chair Thea Calhoun, Williams and a CHOC committee decided to provide the conference on coping skills for motherhood in the ‘90s.

Also, said Calhoun, CHOC’s director of recreation therapy, the event was meant not only to acknowledge the epidemic of stay-at-home moms but also an attempt to call a truce in the so-called “Mommy Wars.”

“There’s a lot of publicity in the media that there’s a ‘Mommy War’ between the moms that stay at home and the moms at work,” noted Calhoun, who has two children.

But “all moms have something in common,” no matter if they’re working inside the home or outside the home. “We all . . . have the same kind of issues and concerns, and we need to see the humorous side,” Calhoun said.

Based on positive evaluations from 107 of the more than 120 mothers who participated, Williams said, CHOC will definitely hold the “Mother’s Day” seminar again--probably in six months.

Some of the Recipes for Survival

Peanut Butter Play Dough

1 cup peanut butter

2/3 cup honey *

1 1/2 cup nonfat powdered milk

Mix together, adding more milk or honey to get good consistency for modeling. The children can create peanutty sculptures and then gobble up their creations.

(* The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that honey not be given to children under a year old.)

Easy to Fix Trail Mix

1 cup Crispix cereal

1 cup Quaker Oat Bran Squares cereal

1 cup Cheerios

1 cup Tiny Tim pretzels

1/2 cup raisins

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Store in an airtight container.