Grateful or greedy in America

I feel grateful for the material aspects of my life—all the time. Rarely a day goes by that I don't, in at least some small way recognize that I have it really good.

My house is not impressive, but it's in a good neighborhood and is in generally good repair (knock on wood). We don't have cable TV or flat screen/LCD TVs. We don't have smartphones. Our stove should probably be replaced as it doesn't really heat super well or evenly inside, but it can get the job done. Our refrigerator should probably be replaced. I keep a tupperware container in it under a water drip and change it out every so often when it fills. It basically works, though. One of our cars is 17 years old. The air conditioning doesn't work and the ceiling lining has come off, but it runs (full disclosure our other car is just 7 years old and feels luxurious to me). We could probably get new things as we have a significant amount of cash savings in the bank, but we don't. That's just us. If it works, we use it. When it breaks, we'll replace it. So I do get a little twitchy when I read things like this about allegedly poor people in America, redistribution schemes and all the great things government can provide for people.

I do understand, though, that there are other things the poor may not have—health insurance, for example, or savings, or retirement and things like that—that are not mentioned in the following post and study. But still. I'm mildly skeptical of those who say we need big, new overarching programs.

Anyway, I'm not sure why NRO is tweeting this now, as the post and study is over a year old. But, I remember reading about it at the time and it was interesting to me then as it is now, comparing different points about how many "poor" people in America live as compared with how we live in our family.

  The post cites results of a study from The Heritage Foundation (yeah, yeah, I know, conservative, but I think people should be reading and parsing information from many resources) called “Understanding Poverty in the United States” which notes the following tidbits about "the poor":

• Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
• Fully 92 percent of poor households have a microwave; two-thirds have at least one DVD player and 70 percent have a VCR.
• Nearly 75 percent have a car or truck; 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.
• Four out of five poor adults assert they were never hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.
• Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television.
• Half have a personal computer; one in seven have two or more computers.
• More than half of poor families with children have a video game system such as Xbox or PlayStation.
• Just under half — 43 percent — have Internet access.
• A third have a widescreen plasma or LCD TV.
• One in every four has a digital video recorder such as TiVo. 

And the post observes, "TV newscasts about poverty in America usually picture the poor as homeless or as a destitute family living in an overcrowded, rundown trailer. The actual facts are far different:"

• At a single point in time, only one in 70 poor persons is homeless.
• The vast majority of the houses or apartments of the poor are in good repair; only 6 percent are over-crowded. 
• The average poor American has more living space than the average non-poor individual living in Sweden, France, Germany or the United Kingdom.
• Only 10 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or trailers; half live in detached single-family houses or townhouses, while 40 percent live in apartments.
• Forty-two percent of all poor households own their home; on average, it’s a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

On the other hand, "the rich" are richer than they have ever been before, too, as reporter in this New York Times editorial.

Or, are they?

It's hard to say.

But, I have to admit, I get fearful and whipped up sometimes over worry about becoming poor, or not being able to get back into the workforce full-time, or our retirement, or my kid's prospects growing up. Or I jump on conversational and link-posting bandwagons crying out for help for these poor, poor people. But maybe I just really don't need to worry so much. (Yes, yes, yes, I know, middle-class privilege, I've got it, but I've been working in some capacity since I was, like, 13 years old and moved out of parents' house at 18, so I'm no stranger to taking care of myself, either.)

Then there's this article from the Boston Review, "Before Greed: Americans Didn’t Always Yearn for Riches." That talks about how  in the time of Lincoln, people strove for a level of "competency," that is, "the ability to support a family and have enough in reserve to sustain it through hard times at an accustomed level of prosperity. When, through effort or luck, a person amassed not only a competency but enough to support himself and his family for his lifetime, he very often retired." I love this.

I feel, to a great extent, that's how we live in our household.

But, the Boston Review article notes, "Most Americans have come to think of the American dream not as a competency but rather as the accumulation of great wealth." So, it seems to me that those on both ends of the spectrum, and the policy people need to tuck things in a bit on each end. People don't need the lifestyles seen in the Queen of Versailles movie (pre-crash), but it can also be argued that "poor" people don't need flat screen TVs, Tivos, new cars, and all those trappings, either.  What they do need, of course, is affordable healthcare (this links to a must-read, loooong read TIME article) and to not have to bail out banks (much shorter must-read), so, it's a mixed bag.

I just have to wonder if things are ever as dire, across the boards, as the media makes things out to be, and I think, maybe an understanding of the mixed bag can alleviate some anxiety. Gratitude works.

New perspectives on family support, no thanks to contemporary feminists

The recent discussion of The Conflict (French "philosopher" Elisabeth Badinter's screed blaming what she calls "natural" and "intensive" mothering for lowering women's status) has predictably turned into a moanfest among Americans on the NYT Motherlode, and other internet venues, that we just don't get the same support they do in France (and other European countries) and doesn't that suck.

In my last post I questioned how so many Americans are saying that they can't afford to stay home OR to put their children in day care. I mean, they afford it because they have to do one or the other, obviously, but is it really such a crunch? I was accused of living in a bubble and so on and so forth and I will admit here and now that maybe that is somewhat true. The people I know all can afford it—either staying home or using childcare. I suspect most of the people who read and post to the NYT can also afford it, which is what gets me so cranky. These are the people who have cable, smart phones, minivans, multiple children, get professional portraits taken of their multiple children, shop at Gymboree for their multiple children, have parties at non-home venues for their multiple children, go on nice vacations, eat premium foods—you get the picture. No slam against these people, but please don't tell me how hard it is to get along. But, maybe that's just my bubble.

Now, if you're talking about seriously poor ghetto or Appalachia types, that's another story. Of course. I guess the problem for me is—where one ends and the other begins. Is there a sharp line, is it just a matter of degree, and, I am sort of coming around to the idea that collective help for everybody might be a good idea. I just can't escape what I know about how everyone I know, and even people with less money than my peers and I, live. It seems like there's a lot of excess there and why can't we just help the people who really need help rather than sign up for some weird feminist/socialist utopia that seems to me to be more about bolstering over-educated women who didn't marry well and want to be assured of their fulfillment that they are not open-minded enough to find in the children that nobody is forcing them to have.

I think yappy feminists have ruined it for me.

Let me just say that I consider myself a feminist in the sense that I think women should have full sovereignty over their own bodies and lives. Articles like this, highlighting the egregious flaws of "personhood" measures, for example, make my blood begin to boil. I think women should be able to do and be whatever they want to be. BUT the voices that proclaim women who want to dedicate themselves to motherhood (or for whatever reason, NOT doing all the stuff feminists say they should want to do) make me seriously want to distance myself from feminism. Those who warn of husbands leaving, women losing themselves, those who say they'd be so bored at home with a small child (implying it's because they are just so intellectual they couldn't bear it), these are the types that ruin it for me.

But then I learn about people that actually are disadvantaged, that actually do need help and I can change my tune about not wanting to support others.

A couple nights ago we watched a doc called The Interruptors. The film tells the story of three "violence interrupters" who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. It examines a year in which Chicago drew national headlines for violence and murder that plagued the city. A key player in the film is Gary Slutkin, M.D., Executive Director of Ceasefire, an organization that uses a public health model to mitigate urban violence in Chicago. Dr. Slutkin, an epidemiologist, explains in the film that violence is like a disease. His group's strategy is to treats it like a disease and prevent its spread. He says "When one event doesn't occur, other events don't occur and the neighborhood remains safer. Treating violence like a disease is something that we began to do about 15 years ago when we began to see that violence had characteristics like other infectious diseases. That is to say, one event, in this case a shooting, leads to another shooting just the way a case of flu or case of measles leads to another case of flu or another case of measles. So therefore, of course, we need to interrupt the spread."

And it dawned on me that these people are the people who need the free quality childcare and got me thinking that problems with education and general development, beyond violence and criminality, can also be viewed as a "disease" and that the people are not necessarily bad people, they are just afflicted with this disease.

I don't want to sound greedy. I don't want it to sound like I don't want to be taxed for a program that might help people who don't really need it—like my peers and those a little "poorer" than us—if such a program would also help those really in need.

At the same time, I feel like my way of life and the way I grew up with—mom at home with small children, the freedom, the creativity, the opportunity to bolster individuality—is under attack to some extent. We are called "privileged" when all we've done is work, get an education and prioritize, things that seemingly anyone could do, but for some reasons they don't. We are derided as living in a bubble when what we are doing is focusing on making our lives work.

All I can say at this point is that I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to give my kid the kind of early childhood I want for her. The rest will have to simmer in the murky gurglings of my brain for a while, because I don't have a clear cut position.

I love you and want you to be happy, so I am going to slowly kill you

April 1 I saw a segment on 60 Minutes highlighting data I'd already read (and chose to willfully ignore) in the New York Times last year—sugar is really pretty bad for our health and we eat way too much of it. I can't ignore it anymore and I thank dismissive friends and online commenters for showing me just how dearly we Americans—including me, until now—guard our sugar addiction and the role it plays in our culture and lifestyle. The first day of the month is a great time to turn over a new leaf, start fresh and try to do the right thing, which is, to cut waaaaaay down on sugar. It's unfortunate, though, that as soon as tomorrow our family has plans to go get our free Ben & Jerry's ice cream and that is not something my husband is going to let go of. I don't even like Ben & Jerry's ice cream, but he is a free stuff junkie and already talked it up to the kid. My solution will be to have my daughter and I share our scoop, then avoid treats as long as we can.

This should be a little easier this week, since my kid is on spring break from school. At school, it's always more difficult. Last week, for example, one child one day brought cookies for the class and later the same week, the same child brought brownies. (This is a lovely child with a very attractive and thin mom, just as a side note that I find interesting but is probably completely unrelated.) She was "star of the week" that week (a little thing they do at the school) but were two treats really necessary? We brought fruit and cheese kabobs when my child was star of the week!

Now I am totally guilty myself of giving too many treats at home, but I don't like to have them be a part of school. I like to administer them when I want to, at strategic and thoughtful times and only after nutritious and healthy food has first been consumed. I recognize, also, that I need to change (as opposed to being completely in denial). Even though our family eats arguably less junk with sugar than the average American family, too often I find myself making cupcakes to celebrate...a Tuesday? Or because I am in the mood for homemade chocolate chip cookies. It really has to stop. I have to save the treats for holidays, outings (like the Ben & Jerry's but no, not all outings) and such. That it is "hard" is a sign that it's a problem.

When I spoke to the director of the preschool after the first week of school, having heard my child had 3 treats in that one week alone (I guess they were catching up on birthdays?), my request that they stop the practice of bringing birthday treats in was met with "No, I won't do that. Birthdays are special for the children, they like to celebrate and bring treats...blah blah blah..." Well, couldn't they do a once a month group birthday celebration? I think that many people just don't get the gravity of it and have no clue how much sugar is in things and what it does to the body. That, and it's just not something we want to focus on. We all want to be happy and have fun. It's a little sad and uncreative, though, that we need junk food to have fun, isn't it?

It was interesting to me last night that the reaction to "news" that sugar is bad for us and we eat too much was...a whole lot of defensiveness and denial (discussing on Facebook and reading comments on the 60 Minutes website). Some people were like, "this is news? of course sugar's bad for you, but not toxic and we don't eat that much, anyway..." They weren't paying attention at all to the latest data indicating that sugar is much worse for us than we think (leading to more overeating, poor memory formation, learning disorders, depression, as well as heart disease and obvious things like diabetes) and they certainly weren't facing the reality of how much excess we're consuming (156 pounds a year).

When I posted the link to the 60 Minutes story on Facebook, an average-girl-mom-friend countered that "kids DESERVE ice cream on a hot summer night...or just a 'family together time'" and how mad it made her that "what we did and ate as kids is now killing or bad for our kids...and I will not stop letting my kid be a kid..they need sunshine.....and sometimes that comes in the form of sugar..." a sciencey engineering friend (who drinks at least one Mt. Dew a day, but considers himself healthy) dismissed it as vilification of one ingredient saying " ...it does no one any good blaming individual ingredients" and saying that all things in moderation are OK.

I can buy the moderation point to some extent, but the thing is, the data shows we've lost all grasp of what moderation is. So many people seem offended by the suggestion that something we all do all the time, and that we did as kids, and our parents did is bad for us. They say, "but I ate all this and I am fine" in one post, while in another one complaining of all their ailments as they creep up toward age 40 and beyond. So, not fine, actually! This data is an attack on our culture to some extent, as well as a threat to our addiction. And we are totally addicted. Even I, who eat more healthfully than most Americans (I keep saying that because from everything I read Americans as a whole eat awful diets and at least I try—no soda, no red meat, lots of veggies...) fall into the trap. The science shows that the brain responds to sugar essentially the same way it does to cocaine (this is in the 60 Minutes segment).

In considering how much added sugar one should have, I remembered a figure I'd read a couple years ago when I had started a push to get in really great shape. Jackie Warner in her book, This is Why You're Fat (And How to Get Thin Forever), explains that the body doesn't register less than five grams of sugar, so we should eat things that have five grams of sugar or less per serving (and stick to one serving, natch) at a sitting. This is moderation for day-to-day. Most cupcakes, for example, have at least 20 grams of sugar. I can't imagine a life of never again eating a cupcake, but I now believe that the instances of these pleasures should be memorable, and therefore rare.

Clearing out the clutter

In my living room right now is a 63 gallon deck storage box filled with a bunch of plastic toys and other junk. All this stuff was donated by parents of my kid's preschool class for a fund-raising auction I have been gradually roped into doing more and more tasks for. Soon, it will be gone from my living room, and I can't wait—but first I have to decorate it.

Now, as I blogged about before, I am all for getting involved in the kids' schools and lending a helping hand. And, really, at the end of the day, having all this crap in my house for a week or so, schlepping to the store for supplies to round it out and schlepping it to the country club (gag!) to drop it off is really not that big of a deal. But, I have to admit, the focus on all the stuff is rubbing me the wrong way, and I question whether the results are everything I would hope for.

I wrote in my past post about how participating in these school activities builds community, but I guess I am a little disappointed in how that's been working out this time around. I was left off a key e-mail about an early meeting and then brought in at the last minute. And, a couple times when I've seen these moms who are in charge of this at school, who know each other better than me, they still continue to talk amongst themselves without making an effort to give me an entreé into the conversation. One just barrels around blabbing on her cell phone and gives a nod. OK. Now I know I am sounding like one of those overly sensitive women that annoy me so much, but I'm just sayin'.

I got involved in this thing in the first place because one of my friends/acquaintances in the neighborhood mentioned that they needed someone to do graphic design for save-the-date postcards and the auction catalog. I thought it would be a fun way to get involved and help and also give some exposure to my business. I would also agree to try and get the materials printed for free or deeply discounted through my business contacts.

At the first meeting I went to, red flags went off in my head as I sat through an explanation of how committee members are supposed to go forth into the community and solicit donations. Not my thing. They said you could ask for donations at all the places you usually went shopping, or where you got your hair cut or massages, etc. They mentioned you could give things away that you might have two of. For example one lady got her parents a GPS for Christmas, but it turned out they already had one so maybe she would donate this $150 GPS. (I get my hair cut about three times a year and a massage maybe once or twice a year, maybe. And I don't buy my parents $150 gifts and if I had an extra one, I'd return it and get my money back. Who are these people, I wondered. What kind of wild-spending bourgeois crowd am I posing in?) They also said on the day of the auction they all hire babysitters (often their husbands take the day off work, they say...seriously????) so they can set up. I knew right then and there that that level of involvement would not be for me, but I still wanted to help with the graphics. I said as much, very politely, but somehow I got cajoled into soliciting donations and coordinating the aforementioned class "basket" of plastic junk, as well. No problem, whatev. But, I am not doing set up day of. I have paid client work I need to do! Once I get rid of this box and deliver the catalogs I coordinated, I am done. I am superwoman and can always find time to do my part. Many of these ladies are doing so much more. But, I say, each person makes a choice of what they want to do, each person should be able to give of their time and talents as they see appropriate. So, I will not be doing anything other than the graphics next year, if asked, and I will stand firm.

Now, back to the stuff. This is my real philosophical problem with the whole event. Like I said, I can deal with the stupid busy-work and things that aren't really me or my style. But, the attainment and exchange of all this junk just bugs me like crazy. Does anyone really need $200 worth of random plastic yard toys, balls, bubbles, chintzy glassware, drink mix, and more plastic, plastic, plastic stuff in their lives? (And that's just one class basket, there is so much more!) I guess they do because those involved seem stoked about this, unless they are just faking it like me. The whole notion of shopping as entertainment, which is what an auction of this sort is about, also is something I don't like. It's like a bunch of people with too much wealth are just shuffling their wealth back and forth. If the school needs money, aren't there other things we can do that are more satisfying? Or, maybe they could just raise the tuition a little and we could do other activities together as moms that would be more edifying—maybe like simple things, like volunteering in a way that could involve our kids more and teach them and all of us about other people who might actually need stuff?

A final thing about this that's gotten on my nerves is that its taken time away from me spending it with my child. And, after all, that's the most important thing to me.

I'm probably just being bitchy. But that's me, and I'm entitled. I am also entitled after this learning experience of participation this year, to clear the clutter from my life—both literally and metaphorically—and opt not to do it next year.

Why I am not trying to lose weight anymore

I'm not going to try and lose weight anymore. Almost two years after the birth of my daughter I still weight about 15 lbs. more than I did before my pregnancy. I've weighed less than I do now since giving birth, by about 5 lbs., only to gain it back. I've been appropriately active, going to the gym usually 5 days a week and running also on a 6th. My activity at the gym has varying degrees of intensity. Some weeks, when I was feeling tired, I would mostly ride the stationary bike for 45 minutes or so at a time while reading. Other times, I'd do what I feel are some pretty intense and fast runs of about 3 miles on the treadmill followed by decent weight training both with free weights and on the machines. I used to take classes, but felt out of place with the mostly 50-somethings and the moves were either too easy or sometimes too hard and the music was rarely just right. I even tried a stint with a trainer. Nothing seems to be working for me right now, though, and I think it's because maybe I am just not fat enough—and therefore not motivated enough.

You see, I think I look pretty good. Sure, about 75 percent of my clothes don't fit anymore, but I don't really go that many places where I need to wear size 6 trousers anymore. My stretchy size 8 Banana dark wash jeans work fine, as do my many pairs of yoga pants and various flowy skirts. I don't feel that bad because many of my old tops don't fit anymore either, so, its not just my gut and butt that are bigger, but my breasts, too. Yay, right? And I think the breast thing has much to do with my inability to shed the final 5-10...uh, 15 lbs. I am still breastfeeding. Everyone I hear says that once you stop breastfeeding, you typically lose that last 10 lbs. Well, I hope so. That would be cool. But, I am done worrying about it.

I know why I am not losing weight. It's because I eat like a maniac. Seriously. For whatever reason, being home all day with a toddler, for me, lends itself to wild eating binges. It's part boredom, part frustration and part because food is just so damn tasty. I will say I don't eat alot of "junk" food. I don't eat store-bought cookies or chips. I do make my own cookies, muffins and chips. I eat chips with salsa, chips with cheese sauce on occasion, chips with avocado. Lots of avocado. I eat banana pecan muffins and zucchini chocolate chip muffins. I eat breakfast burritos. I eat the baby's leftovers. I eat trail mix. I eat chocolate. I swig swigs of skim milk. I eat fruit. I eat the fruit the baby left behind. I eat carrots and hummus. Lots of hummus. I drink beer. Flavorful, heavy beer. I drink wine. I eat pasta. I eat fish. I eat salad. I eat cheese. I eat yogurt. I eat fries. I eat black beans. I eat pinto beans. I eat pizza. I eat the baby's goldfish crakcers. I eat air-popped popcorn. With butter.I eat it all. I just basically eat too much. Luckily, I have a good metabolism and I work out faithfully, so I am not obese and I look alright.

I know this can't go on forever, though. My metabolism is going to get slower as I get older, even with weight training. My threshold for pleasure is going to get higher. It always does unless you somehow check it. I think I am getting to the point where the eating has become a little manic. Like, oh, this is so good! How much can I really eat before I do get really fat? Or, I am not going to be penned into some anti-feminist skinny box and toe someone else's line of what looks good on a woman. Or, I like being a little bigger, and strong. Or, after watching The Pianist a few weeks ago, what if there is a war and I have to go without food, or live on very little food, for weeks or months? Wouldn't it be better if I was a little overweight, as an insurance policy? Then I could suffer the scarcity better. Uhm, okay, sure.

I know I have to somehow get a mature grip on my eating. I eat like a 16-year-old quarterback. I have to start eating like the late-30-something woman that I am. I recently read Naturally Thin by the NYC Real Housewife Bethenny Frankel and thought she made some really good points. She also advocates scooping out bread from bagels and throwing it away. She seems to do alot of "portion control" (read, "throwing food away"), as in eating "1/3 of an omelet". Come on, now? Am I going to eat 1/3 of an omelet? No. I am going to eat the damn omelet.

Still, I like what she says about quieting down the food noise. So many women think eating something is "bad" and not eating is being "good". Other examples of the food noise is how we are always thinking of food. I am like this. I go to bed looking forward to what I am going to eat when I wake up. Will it be one of those banana pecan muffins, warmed with pats of butter melting on them, or will it be a breakfast burrito? Mmmm. I like what she says about really savoring ones food, taking mindful bites. I like what she says about waiting til you really know what you want to eat before you start shoveling food into your face. I like her rule that says "You can have it all, just not all at once." But, we have different interpretations of this. For example, she says, you can have an egg with the yolk, or, if you want egg with cheese, you've got to throw away the yolk and have just the egg white with cheese. Now, I am not going to throw away a perfectly good egg yolk. That's just wrong. I even avoid recipes that call for using just whites or just yolks, although I did make some really good homemade pudding last year with just yolks (later found a use for the whites).

Of course, it's hard to savor food slowly when you are working on borrowed time with a toddler at the table and you want to try and have "family meals". But, I will try and do that more. And, I could use a healthy dose of increased mindfulness in everything I do, including eating. Also, it's hard not to eat leftovers of what you're feeding your toddler if it's something you like, such as avocado or macaroni and cheese or fries. But, more and more, I have been just giving her a portion of what I am eating instead of making her something separate, so that might help me in this area.

I called my mom the other night very upset about some stresses I was having with my kid. Something about "discipline", nursing, weaning. She talked me down and told me to make sure I do something for myself each day, no matter how small. Even if it is just enjoying a piece of chocolate or something. Ha ha. I told her, that's why I never lose weight. Food is about the only way I treat myself these days. She observed that weight loss will just have to wait then, that my mental health is more important. She understood that treating myself in other ways would require more free time, and that was just not something I had. So, that night, late, after my husband went to bed, I made myself the one mini frozen lava cake from Trader Joe's that we had left over from his mom's birthday celebration (they wanted store-bought) and savored it slowly, on my own, with a glass of skim milk. Next day, as I mentioned in another post, my child and I made chocolate chip cookies. A big batch. It was pure pleasure and I ate ALOT of them. That said, I think I may be getting this conspicuous consumption of food out of my system. It's just not thrilling me that much anymore because of my excesses. It just may be part of my journey on the path to balance.

The old cliché goes that if you want to find love, stop looking...so maybe the same applies to weight loss. So, I am going to just stop trying.

True luxuries come at a different price

Today in the Post, I read about how "Luxury Services for Pregnant Women are Booming" and became nauseated by more "news" illustrating how Americans think they are due these outrageous luxuries because they are "taking care of themselves" or "taking time for themselves" when they're really just spending loads of money on bullshit.

As the mama of an eleven month old, I still remember pregnancy. Ah, these were glory days. Sure, I wasn't able to run as much or weight train or drink, but boy did my husband treat me well. He brought me my nightly snacks, rubbed my back and feet. He was nice! Plus, I could still go to movies, I could still dine out without wrestling a little one in and out of a high chair. I enjoyed getting special care and attention and I took good care of myself. I even got a few massages down on my lunch breaks (I worked up til the day before I gave birth). But, all this over-the-top spa culture of extreme pampering, at crazy prices, to me seems nutso. The article even cites posh preggos paying $25 to take a nap. Come on!

The article also gives voice to one woman carrying on about how she was obsessing about where to get apple green bedding for her baby's crib, and I had to laugh. I remember I spent a weekend furiously web surfing for special crib bedding, marveling at all the cute designs out there, but stopping short and just getting a cute jungle set from Target once I saw the price tags. Good thing. We don't use the crib for much more than storage, or a cooling off jail cell for the baby when she can't calm down before bed. Instead, we do a sort of transitional co-sleeping dealio on a futon. It's the best.

I believe that the non-marketed, figure-it-out yourself discoveries and other variations on "official" philosophies/practices (attachment parenting, etc.) are what makes my life my own, what keeps it real and authentic. A little pampering is good, of course, but Americans are becoming more and more luxury-driven (when we can afford it less and less) while at the same time becoming dumber about how to do anything for ourselves and think things through practically.

What about women who read articles like this and think, "I deserve to feel good about myself. I need that, too. I am worth it..." and then they go chasing after these pricey extravagances to try and feel something? I ask, what kind of births will these women have? What kind of motherhood will they experience? I wonder, after they get sucked into the accoutrements and trappings of pregnancy and motherhood, how engaged will they be in their babies' births and their babies' lives? How many will be drugged out and turn over the power of their birth experience to more service people (doctors, nurses, etc.)? How many will then turn over the very caring for of their babies to service people (daycare, nannies)?

I know, some people have to have medicated births and some have to send their infants to daycare, but many choose to, and of course, it's their choice. But how many even consider other options? My view is that they are only cheating themselves out of truly priceless experiences when you have other people do so much for you. Are you really living your own life, or are you just in a constant cycle of earning and spending. I think people need to get reacquainted with the simpler pleasures in life—give me a foot massage from my husband and a pint of Häagen-Dazs and I'm good!

Honestly, what provided me with the best luxury of all—taking this special time in my life to relish being mama to a baby by working part time from home, rather than shipping her off to daycare as an infant—was being prudent with savings and working hard before she was born. Not blowing thousands of dollars on pampering.