Stop trying to impress everyone

Last week I came across this article in a print magazine at the hair salon and it really struck me. I cried. "My Boss Taught Me to Stop Trying to Impress Everyone" it said, and went on to tell the anecdote of a former outgoing, overachiever who'd always reach out to people. It reminded me of someone. "Why don’t you try sitting still and letting other people come to you? That way, they can discover the real, wonderful person you are for themselves," the boss tells her.

Now, I'm not an overachiever in the true NY/DC sense. I'm not a lawyer or lobbyist. I don't have an advanced degree. To many, I'm probably small potatoes. But, I am always on it. I'm the one who picks up the slack. I'm the one who never forgets something. I'm the one who never misses a deadline. I make mistakes now and then, so I'm not saying I am perfect, but I am dogged and always trying very hard to please. It's not just because I am self-employed and have clients. I was this way at work when I was an in-house employee, too.

So, I get an email from my big client/former boss that "I'm probably not going to get edits to you on the annual report til Tuesday, and am going to ask for it back by noon Wednesday, do you think that's doable?" She admits jokingly it may be hard to say given I don't know what the edits are, and I agree, also pointing out I don't know when on Tuesday she's getting back to me. "But, I usually have a way of getting you what you need when you need it!" I replied, cheerfully.

Well, it's 5:30 Tuesday and still nothing from her. I'm not going to work on it this evening, so whatever I can get done from 9:00 am til noon tomorrow is what she is getting. I actually think she'll be fine with that. She's never been unreasonable. It's me who has had a way of setting myself up as some kind of superwoman. I'm tired of it, though, and slowly, I am going to change.

I don't want to end up like this (overworked and underpaid in the "great speedup").

We have to strategically make our boundaries and protect them.

In a mood

Posted this on Facebook yesterday—made it myself : ) Yesterday I actually also made myself that kind of smoothie, departing from the usual, based on stuff I've been reading in the Conscious Cleanse book (I am taking the book with a grain of salt, as a whole, but there are some useful points). I felt amazing after drinking it, for real. I got a flash of sun and air when I took out the trash, too, and was immediately compelled to go for a run, when minutes before I'd been kind of lumbering around expecting to do yoga in the basement. It was powerful.

(Hold on, being interrupted by kid now who wants to show me a book she just made and feel like I do actually have to stop what I am doing and pay attention. This is my life...)

Anyway, the day yesterday had its ups and downs, but overall was OK. I did my run, I ate healthy the whole day. I took my kid to the library and the nature center (which included a mini-hike in the woods). I made a perfectly lovely and healthy meal for my family—ginger-garlic wild salmon and veggies with brown rice. Read lots of stories to my kid and fell right to sleep with her.

Then, I was supposed to wake up and go spend some time with my husband. But I just didn't want to get up. We were supposed to have sex. It's been a while—over a week. He's been sick. But last night I was just flooded with such exhaustion, I didn't really know why. I tried to figure out why, in addition to being so physically tired I felt awkward and weird about having sex (I sometimes feel this way other times) and gravitated toward the fact that so many women and raped, bullied, abused—in the U.S as well as all over the world. And that in television, movies, even music, sex is portrayed as something I can't really say I like. Lots of domination, violence, women made to look very typecast either as just pretty and empty or sexy and dangerous, I can't pinpoint it, but it goes on and on (my husband, I think, thinks I am crazy, as I tried to explain this to him yesterday and he thinks maybe I consume too much media—and he may be right, but his focus was on the serious rape media, not the cheesy mainstream media that might actually be the problem).

(Hold on—just ran outside twice. The first time to ask my husband why he was taking the crappy car on his outing today when he could be taking the nice car, with heat and a decent stereo—me and the kid weren't going anywhere this morning. Whatever. Then, after coming back inside and noticing he left his credit card on the table, I ran back outside AGAIN, I ran all the way down the block in the street screaming at him, hoping he would notice so he would have his card. If we were normal people who BOTH had cell phones, I could just call him up—I guess that's another story. But, yeah, this is my life...)

So I woke up this morning generally OK. I woke up in bed with my kid. I started in the bed I share with my husband, but I went to bed before him (remember, I was exhausted) but my kid woke up sometime around an hour after I'd drifted to sleep (and it was a really, nice relaxing sleep I'd been in) to pee and I don't know, when she wakes up to pee, I guess I am programmed from when she woke as a baby to go lay down in her room with her, so I did. So we woke up together and we cuddled and she took me through the multiple "I love you mommys" and "You're the best mom evers" and I returned her admiration, sincerely, looking at her beautiful, beautiful face with its big green yellow eyes (almost the same as mine, but darker), marred only by one slightly pink eye from a little cold. She tells me she "just wishes we could get a cat now" (we cannot, my husband is allergic, she will have to wait til she is on her own)..."I wish I could make a big dinosaur" and she means like a larger-than-human-size structure she can go in, replacing her previous desire for a large, walk-in, "hippo robot" she wanted to make before, this new idea prompted by one of the books we read last night.

(Hold on another interruption..."I wish I had glitter..." said in a long, wistful whine...to which I reply, "No. I am not getting you anything or doing anything for you now. I am writing and having my coffee, then doing my exercises and making my breakfast and then, only then, will I do things with you, get things for you or play with you. You have a house full of toys. Go play with your dollhouse, build with your legos, play with your tiles, your k'nex...anything. I am not getting you anything right now... She had now moved on to playing with some tangrams blocks repeating 'Theo, Theo, pumpkin Leo' again and again, then asks me if I like what she is building...)

As I was saying, I woke up generally OK. Most always happy cuddling with my child and seeing her beauty, being grateful for her health, my health, the warm house. But there is that pink eye of hers. I will have to put drops in it from the last time she had it back in November. It's always a struggle. Who likes having something put in their eye? I like doing it even less than she likes getting it, though. And the struggle marks the bad turn for the day.

As I get up to get the medicine and face the day, and the tasks ahead—make breakfast, hope she will eat it, continue to hear and try to follow a barrage of demands for play and supplies, maybe get some client work done, while my husband lumbers around, hopefully playing with her a little bit, as he often nicely does, but leaving messes and getting in the way, too...and I just become overwhelmed with the sense that I don't really get to have a lot of fun or freedom in my life. I bitch and moan. I slip into a really bad mood really quickly.

But now, of course, typing this, I feel like an ass. "I don't get to have a lot of fun or freedom...? Really?" Asshole! Seriously.

(Mommy! I thought we were going to play dress-up dolls!—I am not making this up...)

Seriously, though? This is what I tell myself: "Bitch, you have a motherfucking DAY OFF. And every day is kind of a day off for you right now since you work in yoga pants and each nachos at all hours of the day (that latter bit is changing) watching Girls (or Cosmos, as your intellectual level fluctuates). Anyway, you have a day off today because your big client is off and so they won't be emailing you with stuff. You basically can do what you want all day everyday and so if, intermittently, you have to answer your child's request or pick up after your husband and then suck his cock at night, you better just do it and like it. You know, some women have to walk five miles dodging militant rapists just to get murky water for their starving children to drink? So, STFU."

OK, going to play dress-up dolls now. Hopefully I will get that workout in shortly after. I will, too, be interested to see my husband's reaction when he comes home from his errand and I tell him (and child corroborates) how I ran down the street waving his credit card and screaming.

A little help, please? Oh...nevermind.

After reading The Conflict and at my early parsing of TIME's attack on attachment parenting, I felt like I'd seriously turned the corner on thinking the U.S. should do more to support families. The TIME article seemed to me to be shameful deflection (strategic?) from the need for Americans to push for the first-world support other industrialized nations have for families, and I was particularly inspired by Chris Hayes speaking about this on his show.

But, I am uncertain again. While I could get over the fact that most of the mainstream commentary I've read reflects complete cluelessness of the fact that their corporate/capitalist task masters delight at them squabbling over how long to breastfeed and denigrating the value and importance of parenting in favor of work, work, work for the machine, I can't get over some people's willful ignorance and denial—even to the point of criticizing and turning away those who would help them, as illustrated by Whoopi Goldberg's comments on The View which were echoed by Elizabeth Hasselbeck. They griped about an initiative put forth in New York to support breastfeeding in hospitals, with Hasselbeck particularly complaining about being woken by lactation consultants reminder her she needed to breastfeed. Well, sorry, honey, you do have to feed them at least every two hours, there's really no way around it, except, uhm...formula. So that's why you want the formula because you can't be bothered to feed your infant in the middle of the night? You don't want to be bothered?

Indeed, on a recent New York Times Motherlode blog post, commenters reacted to the question of whether Americans really do want to encourage breastfeeding. One "Ivy League-educated, white collar professional who votes Democrat" located in DC said, "Honestly, I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to breastfeed my future children...I don't want to be chained to them and I want my partner to have the chance to bond with them as much as I do. I just wish it were more socially acceptable to say so." Willful ignorance. Even from the supposedly educated. What can you do?

I commented also, observing that I don't think Americans really do want to encourage breastfeeding. Every time I have a discussion with someone outside of an immediate circle of people I know breastfed (like from my natural birth class, etc.) it devolves into countless tales of how they wanted to so badly and yet couldn't and how they are tired of hearing about it and being made to feel guilty. It's as thought they can't understand the difference between appropriate education and public health messages versus their own personal experiences, and they refuse to hear, even in a very non-confrontational and abstract way, that there were things that could have been done differently that might have helped them succeed. These things aren't said to make them feel bad, but to demonstrate that it wasn't their fault and that women do need more education and support—and still they are angry and don't want to hear it. Then, we have voices like Goldberg and Hasselbeck slamming breastfeeding support initiatives. I am beginning to think people don't care and don't want help. Kind of like obesity...people are willfully ignorant and undisciplined. I can't imagine how breastfeeding advocates go on with the hopeless American public. What's troubling, though, is having a desire to move toward a national healthcare program, because it's the right thing to do and being disgusted at all the cost savings and health benefits lost that could be had if more women were committed to breastfeeding.

In a Facebook discussion with a mom-blogger "friend" I tried to cool the escalation concerning the TIME cover by noting the Chris Hayes story on helping out parents, you know, why can't we all get along and work together to get parents the support they need...only to have her say, "I totally agree. There are more pressing issues that should be delved into than the breastfeeding debate. But two words I feel should never be uttered in the same sentence are ‘politics’ and ‘parenting’ [emphasis mine]. Especially when certain figures are spouting off in books about something they have no idea. Take a step down and see what real middle-class parents go through, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No nannies, no cushy bank account, no advisers whispering in their ear or ghostwriters on the payroll." OK, OK, I get the anti-Ann Romney dig, but, how are we supposed to make change if we can't talk about parenting and politics together? Duh.

Children can't really speak up for themselves. It's up to us to do it and these people don't even want to do that? They'd rather just kvetch about how hard parenting is and how much they can't wait for "wine o'clock" and love to drink and swear! Oooh, you are so bad! YAWN.

So, people need help, but they don't want help. Or they want help in the form of free childcare, but don't bother them about breastfeeding? I don't get it.

It could easily be argued that supporting parents is the right thing to do and that things like protected jobs, subsidized parental leave, enhanced laws supporting breastfeeding and such are good for society overall because well-tended-to infants and children grow into better citizens. Although, not everyone thinks so, and people can't even really agree on what infants and small children need, even with humans having had a model for thousands of years, the expectations of which are coded into a baby's instinct—and into mothers if they aren't completely damaged or brainwashed by modern society.

Another commenter on the Motherlode post about Americans' view on breastfeeding noted of state supported benefits for new parents "...these are costly social policies. And they make sense for Sweden and France, because they have relatively low populations that are aging—low birth rates!—and they want desperately to ENCOURAGE people to have children. In the US, we have a huge population—overpopulation!—and huge immigration (much of it illegal)—and the last thing we need is "more babies." We have way, WAY too many babies as it is. Our policies reflect OUR reality—that we wish to (mildly) discourage childbearing, or at least keep it to one or two children per family." And, that, too resonated with me from a strictly short-term, pragmatic perspective.

As for me, I feel fortunate to have had the time to plan for a child and, with my husband, take matters into our own hands to give her the early childhood we wanted her to have, and that we think is important.

I read a really fascinating review of The Conflict just this morning that touches on an aspect of it I had not yet explored. One part of the review riffs on a 1980 article in which social critic Robert Crawford used the term “healthism” to refer to a new preoccupation of the middle class with personal health and wholesome lifestyles, drawing a connection between healthism and political disengagement. This is done as a parallel to the "naturalist parenting" (or attachment parenting) philosophy that The Conflict is critiquing. The review noted, "A sense of impotence—'I can’t change the world, but at least I can change myself,' as Crawford put it—fed the mania for vitamins, exercise, herbal supplements. And in turn, as people poured more energy into their own health, they had less time and inclination to invest in civic or political involvement. Since 1980 this outlook does not seem to have abated, to say the least, and for parents it applies doubly to their children. In shaping contemporary parenthood, this retreat to the private sphere has been at least as important as a retreat to nature."

And after reading that, the notion of "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world," however patronizing this can sometimes sound, came to mind. Although I think the reviewer might not be on board with this "retreat" into what we can control (more of a refocus, I would say), I do feel somewhat politically disengaged—and confused by my fellow countrymen and women about what the heck they want for their own children anyway. So why wouldn't I retreat (refocus) and just bolster my own child in the way I see fit? I don't feel a connection with many other Americans about raising children based on the majority of comments about attachment parenting and such, and these people don't seem to really want help, so, what can one do but strike out on their own?

The icing on the crappy store-bought, hydrogenated oil and corn syrup laden cake was an article in Mother Jones today (by a man) completely politicizing breastfeeding in the cheapest way, using a false support of this basic human function as a way to slam Mitt Romney. Again, I'm not exactly a Romney fan, but this is garbage.

So, I would tell women who are looking to breastfeed and otherwise parent on the continuum as much as possible—mamas, you are on your own. You and your, hopefully, conscious, enlightened and supportive husband. You're not going to get anything of value from this American society for a damn long time, if ever.

So, what did TIME have in mind?

As a mother and a graphic designer/visual artist, I was very interested in the controversial TIME magazine cover highlighting its feature on Dr. William Sears and the the philosophy he espouses—attachment parenting.

After my initial personal reaction, I thought I'd discuss the chosen cover image and its effectiveness from a communications standpoint.

First, the chosen cover:


Do you think TIME is aiming to portray what this mother is doing as good, or even normal?

Does the child look OK? Is he comfortable, relaxed, happy? (It should be noted that this is an actual mother and child, they are not models, and she actually does still breastfeed him. He is 3.)

In my view, the answers to all of these questions are NO.

The woman’s pose is somewhat defiant, though her stare is one of relative equanimity.

The child has to stand on a chair to reach her, rather than her coming to the child’s level.

Now, a contrasting cover shot that didn’t make the cut:


The child is in arms, eyes closed and the mother is seated.

She is non-combative, still with the look of calm on her face, but with her head tilted toward the child and her arms cradling him. He is in his own, peaceful, private world, unaware of the camera.

In spite of the child’s size, it’s far less jarring than the first photo. It probably still would have raised eyebrows in a culture where most don’t breastfeed past 6–12 months, but not as much as the chosen image.

My thoughts on the imagery and the public reaction:

In reading lots and lots of online comments on the cover—from people who did read the article, but mostly people who apparently did not read it (they didn’t know the mom and son were real, for example)—I found a range of reactions but they generally fell into some main categories.

Skeeved out

Many, many of the commenters felt this image of a preschool-age child breastfeeding was “gross, sick, repulsive and perverted” and expounded with comments accusing the mother of exploiting the child, saying that he is going to be made fun of when he’s older, saying this is going to make him “go gay,” and so on. Even as a proponent of breastfeeding for as long as is mutually agreeable to mother and child, I can understand how the average joe or jane citizen might find the image at least a little bit off-putting simply because the majority of Americans think breastfeeding is something for infants only and it’s not something they’re used to seeing. Still, I found many of the negative reactions to be needlessly angry and hostile. The jokes at the child’s expense were not funny to me

Pissed off, type A

Another sizable crop of reactions were defensive, likely focusing on the headline, “Are You Mom Enough?” Many women were offended by what they viewed as yet another endorsement of breastfeeding being pushed on them. The über-popular blogger Scary Mommy mocked up the cover expressing this, and her followers on Facebook mostly rallied in agreement. This is an interpretation I didn’t quite understand, admittedly not only because my own experience puts me in a very pro-breastfeeding place, but also because to me it seemed clear that TIME was not trying to present the practice depicted as something necessarily positive. The “Are You Mom Enough?” headline seemed to me to be sarcastic and when coupled with the assertion that “…attachment parenting drives some mothers to extremes…” it is made clearer that TIME was looking at this style of parenting with a critical eye, certainly not endorsing it wholesale (if at all).

Along with this sort of defensiveness, though to a lesser extent, was another, more predictable sort, complaining about the woman’s attractiveness and that she could not possibly be a breastfeeding mother and look like this. I’d say this might have been another strategy choice by TIME to inflict just a little pang of jealously among women, for not only are they competing in the area of “good mothering” but also in “hotness.”

Pissed off, type B

A smaller handful, mostly attachment parenting supporters, felt the cover was sensationalist for their own reasons: it not being representative of the reality of extended breastfeeding—which is usually considered to be breastfeeding for more than one year, but is not usually done quite so…shall we say…flagrantly as is depicted in the cover cover image. Indeed, one of the critical comments from a non-supporter of this kind of parenting snidely questioned whether this mom would pull her son aside for some breast milk after soccer practice if orange wedges weren’t good enough. Realistically, most people who breastfeed, still, at these older ages do it perhaps once or twice a day for bed time or quiet time alone at home.

Also the singular focus on breastfeeding for an article that was supposed to explore attachment parenting overall (of which breastfeeding is an important part, but only one of eight tenets) was puzzling to those who understand AP. This picture didn’t capture the spirit of attachment parenting that parents who practice identify with—mostly that it is very child-centered. (I think most people familiar with and supportive of attachment parenting would have preferred the second photo I show above.) Overall, it seemed to offend attachment parent proponents, though I did see one (and there could likely be more, but this is definitely a minority view) commenter that thought the cover was great in its defiance and her look of just daring someone to give her shit about how she chooses to raise her child.

Generally pissed off and fed up

Perhaps the most common response of all among those identifying as mothers was disgust at a media outlet once again “pitting women against each other” or “fueling the mommy wars.” These comments were often tagged on to those expressed by the previous A and B “pissed” versions, encompassing a range of secondary views on the matter, but generally saying “leave moms alone,” “we’ve had enough” and “we won’t play this game!”

Consensus?

So, what message did the cover convey? TIME skeeved out and pissed off a lot of people!

Obviously, it meant different things to different people—as images often do. But in this case, the meanings seemed particularly disparate.

If TIME sought to critique attachment parenting harshly, I would say it was somewhat effective conveying this with the cover, but not entirely. Many—moms especially—missed that point and were put on the defensive, thinking the question was straightforward and assuming they weren’t “Mom Enough” according to whatever this standard TIME was reporting on was.

If TIME was aiming to bring forth a better understanding of attachment parenting, the cover image was a huge fail, because it’s depicting something with many nuances in an extreme manner. It could be argued that TIME was trying to show one facet of attachment parenting—the so-called extremist—but I’m not sure that its audience is well-versed enough in the subtleties to actually understand that.

Some people chided TIME as a cheap rag scrambling for relevancy that has pulled stunts like this before, with a history of being provocative (Hitler as Man of the Year, 1938). Others reluctantly cheered its business savvy and marketing brilliance for stirring the pot and creating controversy to push sales, regardless of the quality of journalistic integrity.

I suppose it matters what your metric is—sales or clear messaging that gets your point across. Not knowing TIME’s aim (though I have my own suspicions) it’s not clear whether its message was conveyed, but if I had to call it, I’d say it’s a win in the attention grabbing/sales side but a lose in the clear messaging side—that much seems obvious.

When normal becomes notable

This week's issue of TIME magazine with its crazy, sensationalist cover of a camo-clad preschooler at the breast, features articles on "attachment parenting" and Dr. William Sears, who they say "has made parenthood more physically and emotionally demanding than ever before." (Great commentary about the visuals on KellyNaturally.com.)

Interesting, but my personal experience was that it was just not all that demanding to breastfeed, carry my baby around or hold her most of the day and sleep with her (what they're describing as 3 tenets of this philosophy—there are 8, actually...). In fact, to me, these things were very simply easier than the alternatives. That these practices are somehow new or revolutionary, or  in need of a scientific basis—some proof of their safety, benefit or efficacy—seems silly to me, also. These are things that human beings naturally do, instinctively, I believe, when they are in touch with their primal humanity and they have the liberty to do so.

Instead of positioning attachment parenting as a "thing," a philosophy with adherents and such, we should recognize it for what it is: normal human parenting. And we should recognize other practices for what they are: accommodating other things—be it parental preferences, corporate/capitalist culture, whatever. I won't even pass judgment and say there's anything wrong with such accommodations. But, let's not paint the normal human way to be as some new-fangled, cultish, out-there hippie trend with a Dr. as the "leader." It's how humans have lived for millennia.

I'm currently reading The Continuum Concept and learned from the TIME Sears feature that one of his early books was based on his reading of this book. It's a rather un-scientific book. There are no references. It's mostly the reflections of a writer, Jean Liedloff, who spent some time living with Stone Age Indians in the South American jungle. But it is very compelling. The book tells of revelations that led her to form a radically different view of what human nature really is, and challenged her Western, industrial preconceptions of how we should live—much of it dealing with how babies and children are handled (literally, handled, as in held in hands and in arms).

In her book, Liedloff observes of the treatment of infants in Western culture that "Babies have, indeed, become a sort of enemy to be vanquished by the mother. Crying must be ignored so as to show the baby who is boss, and a basic premise in the relationship is that every effort should be made to force the baby to conform to the mother's wishes. Displeasure, disapproval, or some other sign of withdrawal of love is shown when the baby's behavior causes 'work,' 'wastes' time, or is otherwise deemed inconvenient. The notion is that catering to the desires of a baby will 'spoil' him and going counter to them will serve to tame, or socialize, him. In reality the opposite effect is obtained in either case."

She explains that humans are evolutionarily programmed for certain expectations, noting that for millions of years newborn babies have been held close to their mothers from the moment of birth and that just because in recent history we've taken this to be optional (or inconvenient), doesn't change the millions of years of programming.

"The period immediately following birth is the most impressive part of life outside the mother's body. What a baby encounters is what he feels the nature of life to be....

...he has come prepared for the great leap from the womb to his place in arms...

What he has not come prepared for is a greater leap of any sort, let alone a leap into nothingness, non-life, a basket with cloth in it, or a plastic box without motion, sound, odor or the feel of life. The violent tearing apart of the mother-child continuum, so strongly established during the phases that took place in the womb may understandably result in depression for the mother, as well as agony for the infant.

Every nerve ending under his newly exposed skin craves the expected embrace, all his being, the character of all he is, leads to his being held in arms."

The TIME article says "Some parents subscribe to [Dr. Sears'] theory that attachment parenting...is the best way to raise confident, secure children. Others think Sears is an anti-feminist tyrant, or that his ideas are just totally unrealistic."But my experience (and those of other mothers I know) was that I really just did what came naturally to me in the early days, weeks and months of motherhood and it just happened to be in line with this stuff. The thing is, it worked. My child was healthy, she ate well and grew and grew. She slept well, curled up with me, and we were very close. Still are. And for me, of course, it was an adjustment, having a baby, but I never felt particularly sleep deprived (thanks to co-sleeping) and was relatively calm, thanks to the hormone flow and baby bonding.

Now, don't take this to be an implication that people who may not have done these things do not have healthy children or are not close to them—this seems to be a common response. I am only sharing my experience. I will observe, though, that I have seen many complaints of sleeplessness, frequent wakings and such, and about how difficult life with an infant is, among those who don't likely understand instinctual human parenting, and it seems they're having a harder time of it than I did.

In The Conflict, Elisabeth Badinter cites anthropologist Sarah Hrdy's work on maternal instinct. Badinter seeks to make some negative point about the tyranny of breastfeeding, but instead reveals the powerful chemical bonding that occurs between a mother and child during the earliest days of breastfeeding. Hrdy speaks of a "cascade of physiological consequences in the mother, suffusing her body with a sense of wellbeing...within moments of nursing the mother's cortisol levels subside; oxytocin courses through her veins. As if she were getting a masage, the mother's blood pressure drops, oxytocin suffuses her in a beatific calm...the mother is endocrinologically, sensually and neurologically transformed...it will be a long time before she is again emotionally and physiologically so at liberty to cut bait..." If a mother doesn't experience that, or is too weighed down by baggage about the  difficulties of breastfeeding or how it might be interfering with other (arguably less important) aspects of her life, she is not going to reap those same benefits as the mother who can get high on it, let go and float in that magical place of being with her child in such a special way.

None of this means that people who don't do these things aren't necessarily loving parents or aren't close to their children. It's just a vastly different experience. And many who haven't had that experience become very defensive when discussing it, and it seems they just don't get it. If you don't do the instinctual things, it's likely you wouldn't understand them. You're just not operating in that way on these kinds of things.

I've seen comments already from people regarding the TIME story that focus on defensive cries about how they tried to breastfeed and it didn't work and it reflects such a massive lack of understanding about breastfeeding, both culturally and biologically. For those who might stumble upon this blog and may be in search of quality information on the mechanics of breastfeeding, I highly recommend kellymom.com and for less on the mechanics, but more on social and cutlural matters, Ph.D. in Parenting has a lot to offer on this issue (and others).
I think it's odd that we've come to a place where what's normal has become something of note. In the way TIME—and mainstream folk in general nowadays—seem to consider Dr. Sears' advice and the "attachment parenting" movement, or philosophy, some extreme departure from sanity. I personally don't like to say I follow AP, really, because I don't think of my parenting as something from a book. Sure, I have learned things from books and books are great for reference, but the basics of eating, sleeping and being close, well, you shouldn't need a book to confirm those things. That we do says something about how far we as a society have drifted off the course. "Attachment parenting," if we must call it something, shouldn't need  explaining—it's the cribs, baby buckets and bottles that do.

Hideous, kinky

I'm so over the male domination in sexuality thing.

I don't want to be dominated. I don't want to be spanked. I don't want to be tied up, pissed on, cummed on or passively fucked in the mouth. (I will give blowjobs, though...uhm to my husband, just to be clear, that's not an open invitation.)

Last night we watched A Dangerous Method, a historical drama wherein a patient of Carl Jung falls in love with him as they work through her issues, which include being turned on by humiliation and what I see as abuse. I just rolled my eyes and groaned. It was very timely in the wake of the much maligned Katie Roiphe essay in Newsweek linking BDSM to women's economic success, and its mention of the wildly popular book, Fifty Shades of Gray and HBO's new show Girls. Apparently, getting off on getting treated like shit is all the rage among the younger set. Or is it?

I can't really tell what sex-positive feminists (as they like to call themselves) think for sure except just that maybe everyone should do what they want to do, and if that includes getting spanked, then go for it? It does seem that they just like to dis Katie Roiphe because she copped to really digging her newborn baby (and stuff like that...)

I know old Dan Savage, who I like, and mostly find myself agreeing with, would say that as long as it's consensual and "safe," it's a go, and most other forward-thinking sex experts would agree.

My husband even agrees. When I say there's something wrong with you if you like pain, he says "But it's a controlled pain."

On one hand, I get it. I used to have fantasies about being dominated and humiliated, although not hit per se, but maybe spanked, sure. I remember thinking Secretary was hot, back in the day. When I was a teenager I had an Arab guy fetish for a while because of all the cultural stereotypes about how they boss around their women and are domineering (no matter that the Arab guys I had crushes on were totally Westernized and just hot). And I ended up marrying a Greek guy who actually did hit me and not for role-playing purposes (and the domination fantasies persisted even after we broke up).

But, all that stuff just seems so over to me now, though. And I remember when the news came out last year about the supposedly enlightening and groundbreaking live sex demonstration as part of a very liberated class at Chicago's Northwestern University, I was so disappointed to learn that it featured male penetration of a female, with a power-tool-like dildo. This is forward thinking? Sounds rather cliché to me. Same ol, same ol.

Does this mean I have not achieved the level of success and independence that would have me longing to play out the fantasy of being submissive? I don't think so. Even though I am sort of a housewife, who lives in a household wherein my husband's salary plays a huge role in supporting us, as I make half of what I used to when I worked full time outside of the home, I know that at any point I could go out and get a bigger job and somehow make it on my own, if I had to. And, more importantly, I work part-time in my field doing something I love, and isn't that what they say most moms want? So, while I am appreciative of my husband, I don't feel a huge, ultimate dependence on him. I feel pretty equal in ways that it matters.

With all I know about the horrible things that happen in the world like trafficking and abuse of women, with what I've read about the years and years of history in which women were systemically subjugated by men, I just can't now get turned on by the idea of someone being brutish to me, or doing the thing of "hurting" me, followed by sweet comfort, or humiliating me. I don't think we're out of the woods yet enough to play that way, and I'm not sold on the idea that it would ever be a good, healthy idea to play that way. Would I want my daughter, when she is of age, being treated this way? Maybe I just don't compartmentalize my life enough—sex here, work here, friends here, family here. It's whole for me, to a large degree. It's not that I'm not imaginative or capable of fantasy, either. Really, how imaginative is it for a woman to be dominated by a man? Like I said, it's been going on for millenia.

Right now, I want to be massaged. I want to be pampered. I want to be serviced, maybe even worshipped a little, like the goddess that I am.

Why I would have been turned on by abuse (feigned or not) in my younger years, I'm unsure of. It may be because I had a domineering father who hit me, but of course loved me, and that was my vision of what men were supposed to be? How did I grow out of that? Lots of living and reading, maybe. Maybe becoming a mother to a girl. What about men who like being dominated? Is growing out of it something all women should do, but just have not yet? I think most sex-positive types would say NO, it's not a pathology or something you need to grow out of or overcome, it's a choice. But, I'm not so sure...

Barbies, beauty and keeping girls busy

I came across an intriguing post on Facebook the other day about what Barbie's actual measurements would be if she were a real woman.



I reposted because the numbers had never hit me quite like that before and what first came to mind was poor Barbie—she can't even walk upright and doesn't get to eat much. I didn't think poor me, I have to try to attain this body and it is so very hard to do so.

It started up a bit of a conversation between some who tended to agree that Barbies weren't great for kids to play with and others who thought they were just fine and had fun memories of playing with them themselves. One commenter joked that she'd be every man's dream and I wasn't sure if she was being straight or facetious, but I thought, no, the average guy appreciates a nice set of boobs, but a figure like this would be, I hate to say it—laughable, and not truly desired by most men.

Personally, I don't have a big problem with Barbie, but I think a lot of it might just be because she holds little power or interest in our house with my daughter. She'll play with the dolls she has from time to time, but she prefers to build with blocks or make things out of paper, play doh, and stuff like that. I wondered, though, what Barbie means to my daughter. Now, I don't know if she even knows Barbie, as in the blonde, name-brand iconic doll. She only has a Belle version (yeah, Belle from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, which she has never even seen, I think this just happened to be the doll they had at Giant when I got the idea to buy her a doll) and some cheap Japanese anime-looking thing my mother-in-law got her. So to her, they're just dolls. But, do they hold any influence in terms of being "models" to her for what a woman should be?

I asked her some questions about the Belle Barbie and contrasted it with a flat wood child dress-up doll, as you can observe in the video opening this post. I think her responses reveal a mixed bag of meaning. She says that the doll looks like a real lady and in fact, looks like mommy. (Really? Gee, thanks!)

When asked what the doll does for a job, she assigns a job based on what she is doing at the time—art—as well as what she perceives my job to be (art). Beyond that, she seems mostly focused on hair length and style and doesn't read the doll as particularly skinny. This in itself could be problematic to some, since, according to real measurements, she would be rather skinny, but then again, the child said the doll looked like me, who is not particularly skinny—which makes me think that maybe children are not as focused on weight as adults are (or at least my child is not).

However, when asked if she thinks everyone should look like the doll, she says yes, albeit with a mischievous looking grin. But when asked what happens to people if they don't look like the doll, she says we have to make them look like "you," meaning to me, like the real people. The rest of our conversation gives a bit of a jumbled perspective. She point blank says she feels good about herself and that the dolls don't make her feel bad, and when pressed, she decides she's had enough and exclaims "I'm busy!"

This is the part I love the most about the whole thing, I think. She was busy painting and humored me for a bit about the dolls, but then she just wanted to get back to what she was doing which was clearly more important than the dolls. It seemed to me that she wasn’t really interested in how the dolls looked in the same way adults would be (hence the disconnect between my questions and the kind of answers she was giving).

I don't love Barbie, I just don't see the doll as dangerous as some people do. I'm not saying that Barbies don't represent an unrealistic image of the female form. It's fairly obvious that they do. Some more than others. Nowadays there are a wide variety of Barbies. But what is less clear is how girls at various ages interpret this unrealistic form. And whether it matters. Few toys are realistic. Children have huge imaginations. And I just don't know if younger girls are seeing these Barbies the way adult women (or ever older girls) do. Maybe my kid is not the best barometer of the damage Barbie can cause, since she's not that into them. Still, I think her reactions to the questions about the dolls and their appearance and her own feelings were interesting in the way they didn't fall in line completely with the kind of reaction one might expect—no noting the stark difference between the real mommy and the doll, no saying mommy was fatter, no giving the Barbie a fluff "job" like "princess" or something. She was very focused on the real people setting the tone for what went on and the dolls just being stand ins for us (even the flat little girl who played with wolves was a stand in for my daughter, herself, who is forever playing such make-believe stories). Most of all, though she just wanted to get back to painting her own picture!

I think what's probably more important and effective than blaming plastic dolls for girls' self doubt and unrealized potential is to make sure they have other stuff to do and other "role models" in the form of real, living, breathing women who are involved with them and not themselves emulating the Barbie lifestyle.

I went through a rough patch with weight when I was about 10–13 or 14. At first, I didn't even know I was fat and I didn't care. My mom, whether it was by strategy or by accident, was pretty nonchalant about it. I got lead roles in school plays as Evita (in a production highlighting various Broadway shows) and as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, so no discrimination there. (Not bragging, these were small potatoes, just saying to illustrate that I was obliviously confident back then, until....). It was only over some time and a series of events—a family member made a comment about my weight, kids were making fun of me, and an ineffective doctor asked me "Is there anything you want to talk to me about?" (to which I replied, uhm, no) and then he mentioned my weight—that I started to feel bad about myself. It had nothing to do with plastic dolls, but about real people in my world. Let's not pass the buck to Barbie while failing to watch what we as people actually do and instead make sure we actively engage with our girls. Surely, living people can have more impact than dolls.

To Hell With All That—Flipping the Joneses the Bird, Namaste

I just finished reading Caitlin Flanagan's To Hell With All That, prompted by an interest in her after first reading her latest, Girl Land. The tag is "loving and loathing our inner housewife" and that dichotomy is there throughout the book. I'm never really completely sure what she's embracing or eschewing, and it may just be observational social commentary, not really pushing for anything, though it seems she leans toward the stay-at-home mom model, or at least acknowledges its value. She disses social climbers, from her apparently upperclass roost. She makes me glad I dropped out of "the game."

Flanagan tosses me back and forth with agreement and disagreement with her, or maybe more accurately between feeling an affinity then non-affinity. For example, I like how she critiques the middle class tendency toward social climbing ostentation with their fancy princessy weddings, but then later I don't see how someone who isn't even working could justify having a 9-5 nanny, even if she has twins.

She inspired me to purchase the book Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson because I like to know how to do things and I like reading. But, on the other hand, I am not going to become superhomemaker. Actually, that’s not what the book is about. I think Flanagan uses it as more of a contrast to the Martha Stewarty world of flair and superficial graciousness when she deconstructs the oppressiveness of real housework in the post-feminist era. To me, the whole housework drudgery bit is so tired. In today's world, we have lots of modern machines and fairly low standards and low level of formality in our lives when it comes to keeping homes so I just don't see it as that difficult to maintain a generally acceptable living space and get home-cooked meals on the table.

Back to the mothering part, Flanagan seems very pleased with herself for staying home with her babies, but again, she had that nanny. What gives? She seems to write from a place of privilege, which is fine, suggesting a return to old-fashioned values re-enacted in a highly stylized 50s cum 80s manner, whereas my model is 1970s lower middle class. She expresses a certain disdain for the highly-engaged stay at home mom that rubs me a little the wrong way—even though sometimes I feel it, I'd never articulate it so plainly.

I liked a lot of Flanagan’s observations about the “executive child” and moms shuffling their charges round and round from one highly enriching activity to the next—a topic by now that has been hashed out ad nauseum but still seems to be “an issue” (To Hell With That was published in the mid-90s). She ties this in nicely with the “experts’” call for unstructured time and regular family dinners—which some experts say must be scheduled, ha ha. Flanagan observes that family dinner “requires a mother who considered putting dinner on the table neither an exalted nor a menial task, and also a collection of family members whose worldly ambitions are low enough that they all happen to be hanging around the house at 630." This is totally me and my household. And I know my kid is only 4, but while I see her participating in an activity or two, I don’t see it overtaking our lives and as I always remind myself—thank goodness I only have one so I can manage these sorts of things. Yet, in our family of 4, with two kids, we still managed this growing up.

Flanagan goes on to say "If children are to have unstructured time, they need a mother at home; no one would advocate a new generation of latchkey children. But she must be a certain kind of mother—one willing to divest her sense of purpose from her children's achievement. She must be a woman willing to forgo the prestige of professional life in order to sit home while her kids dream up new games out in the tree house and wait for her to call them in for a nourishing dinner. She must be willing to endure the humiliation of forgoing a career and of raising tots bound for state college."

I know she must be being facetious, or is she? Luckily for me, our state has some really, really fabulous colleges. Maybe the fact that I am hoping for the top state college just puts me in a different (lower?) league than those of whom Flanagan speaks (and herself?) but I don’t care. Epiphany: I am beginning to really see the glories of being a middle-class bohemian, being reasonably comfortable but not rich or caught up in social climbing—and not giving a fuck about the Joneses. This is me.

Flanagan also analyzes the "mommy wars" a bit, invoking Dr. Spock, citing "one of the most compelling appeals for full-time motherhood I've ever read" (her talking there):

"The important thing for a mother to realize is that the younger a child, the more important it is for him to have a steady, loving person taking care of him. In most cases the mother is the best one to give him this feeling of "belonging," safely and surely. She doesn't quit on the job, she doesn't turn against him, she isn't indifferent to him...If a mother realizes clearly how vital this kind of care is to a small child, it may make it easier for her to decide that the extra money she might earn, or the satisfaction she might receive from an outside job is not so important after all."

This was in regard not to those mothers who had to work to actually make ends meet or even those with special professional training who felt they must work because they wouldn't be happy otherwise, but to a third group who would just "prefer to, either to supplement the family income, or because they think they will be more satisfied themselves and therefore get along better at home..."

Flanagan, predictably, because she is one of those "professional" women, noted:

"Obviously he's right about a mother being uniquely suited for the full-time care of her children. What more persuasive argument could there be than his simple and moving description of the maternal bond? What he could not have predicted was that such a huge number of women would fall into his second category. Mothers with professional training are thick on the ground these days, and their desire to work is at once more complex and more profound than the great man imagined. To be a woman with an education and a desire to take part in the business of the world—to have a public life only one-thousandth as vital and exciting as Dr. Spock's—yet to have one's days suddenly dwindle to the simple routines of child care can handily diminish what is best and more hard-fought in a person. It isn't simply a matter of ‘extra money’ or ‘satisfaction.’ For many women the decision to abandon—to some extent—either their children or their work will always be the stuff of grinding anxiety and uncertainty, of indecision and regret."

To that, I was at first humbled, or softened, because I though, OK, maybe I was just never a professional or ambitious enough woman and that is why I could so easily opt to stay home with my kid for her 0-5 years. Also, it helped that I was able to work part time from home. Still, it wasn't a big deal. I like the work I do, but it's for money, it's a minor part of my identity that could be filled with something else if need be. Maybe that's why I don't get the issue for people who "don't need the money." Still, it's their choice—whatever.

But then, I sit here and think, how self-aggrandizing of them, of many of them, anyway. They're not all cancer-curing or even baby-delivering doctors, or even teachers, many are financiers just making money to make money and they love what they do, so vulgar. Some are producing crappy TV. I mean, these are the things you'd leave an infant in daycare for? And because they identify as “professionals” this is part of their identity they can’t let go of? It seems more just like an issue of different personality types to me, more than anything else. I know I must try to nurture my softened, humbled thoughts on this and set aside the critical ones because the negativity doesn’t do me any good personally. I guess it is helpful that I can identify my personality and to allow my focus to be on nurturing the positive in that, and if I have some underlying desire to be evangelical about it, highlight the ways it works for me instead of trashing other personalities.

Girl Land—Embracing the substance, transcending the style

Caitlin Flanagan's latest, Girl Land, discusses the challenges of raising girls in a cultural landscape devoid of "commonly held, child-appropriate moral values." She notes something I have definitely felt during my few years of parenting—that "the 'it takes a village' philosophy is a joke, because the village is now so polluted and so desolate of commonly held, child-appropriate moral values that my job as a mother is not to rely on the village but to protect my children from it." It's funny, I like the substance of much of what she says, though she's a completely different kind of woman than me, style-wise. In Girl Land, the things she positions as so essential for girls were not at all essential for me. Prom? Didn't go. But maybe that's my problem—or my advantage. I tend to eschew mainstream markers and rites of passage, and their associated confused trappings.

Many contemporary feminists seem quite flabbergasted, if not offended, by Flanagan's assertions in Girl Land. I don't buy them all wholesale, but they don't seem wholly unreasonable either. She tells parents to take a "15-minute tour" of the web, typing the word "porn" into Google and seeing what happens. Been there, done that. Yeah, there's a lot of scary shit out there. So, age-appropriate, you teach them that there are some really creepy people out there, on one hand, and on the other hand, that sexuality is complex, and what's most important is autonomy. She suggests parents make their girls' bedrooms "internet-free zones." I honestly don't know how I feel about this one, as someone who is often online all day long. She says that an adolescent girl needs quiet downtime for contemplation, and I actually agree with her on that point, moreso for reasons of quieting the mind than concerns about a girl getting into trouble with web-based sleaze. She also urges parents to get a girl’s father involved in her dating life. Agreed. Her father has to be realistic and already have an established, healthy, non-authoritarian relationship with her, though. She emphasizes that "giving a girl limits doesn't limit the girl." I really like much of what she has to say, but at the same time, the stylings of her "Girl Land" conjuring images of poster beds, pink pillows and princesses seems so contrived—not like my teen years, not how I envision my own girl, with her non-frilly tendencies.

She calls for a counter-culture, but seems a little stuck in old-fashioned, mainstream culture when it comes to how I’m reading her execution of things. I’m on board with her substance, though, if not her style. Flanagan writes:

The question parents of girls must ask themselves is to what extent they want their daughters raised within this culture, and to what extent they want to raise them within a counter-culture that rejects the commercialization of sexuality, the imperatives toward exhibitionism and crudeness. Creating a counterculture is hard work, but it can be done, and it is my strong belief that the young women who emerge from Girl Land having been protected from the current mainstream values are much stronger and more self-confident than those who have been immersed in it throughout their adolescences.

I think I can do this. I can admit to probably being out-of-touch with contemporary teen culture so I might not know “how bad it is out there.” I do read things about frat houses, bros, “slutty” girls and I see news items about how women are portrayed as sex objects in videos and fashion. I saw the trailer for an upcoming movie, Miss Representation, which “exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality.” I get it, but I have to ask, if so many people are aware of this, why does it continue? Do people just not have the guts to eschew mainstream cultural drivel? I can imagine someone saying I am naive and that it is going to be really hard to keep my kid from wanting to be a part of the crap culture when she is older. But, I am managing to create a healthy environment for her now in ways that, according to popular anecdote, many find difficult. So, maybe I have a good start, a leg up. But I have no doubt that I will have to remain vigilant. You know, actually be engaged with my kid and have a real relationship with her!

"No gifts, please!" & Thoughts on "the end of gender"

In the past, we've always noted "No gifts, please!" on invitations to our kid's parties. Most of our friends had, too. In the past, we'd stuck to our (somewhat) crunchy birth class friends, the kids were just babies, and it was just all a little simpler. Now, with the girl in preschool and our circle expanding to people with values maybe a little different from our own, we experimented with leaving that off the invites for the fourth birthday party. Most of the parties we'd gone to, of children from her preschool class and friends of friends from the neighborhood and such had done the gift thing. Many even had the "let's sit around and watch the child open the gifts" portion of the party, too. I worried my kid would wonder why other kids got presents at their parties and she didn't. She even mentioned her friends bringing presents, cutely and excitedly, in a totally age-appropriately-greedy little way, but not overly so.

So, her four guests brought presents. Mostly cute, small little things. One brought a game we already had that we were able to re-gift (with the recipient knowing the story) to another child. One brought a ladybug growing kit. One brought a dolly. And one brought...a Disney Princess Kitchen set. It was a kind and generous gift that I think retails for $79.99 or something (yikes!) but the mom is a really savvy bargain shopper and she assured me she got a deal. Still, when it was presented I got the sense that I was supposed to be super dazzled and I also worried a little about what the other guests might think.

I also was a little freaked out because we don't really "do" Disney here and certainly not the princesses. I mean, we have some cheesy thrift store play jewelry with their silly little princess heads on them from the mother-in-law, but these are largely ignored and the princess aspect not really noticed. I don't have anything major against the Disney princesses, other than that they are garish and cheesy looking and think I'd be OK with them, in moderation, if my kid showed any interest, but, she doesn't. Coincidentally, the one who brought the kitchen set is one who gave me, two years in a row, razors (among other toiletry items) for Christmas and left me wondering whether she did not notice that I don't shave (legs, pits, at all) or if she was trying to send me some kind of message that I should! I wondered the same thing about the kitchen set. Did she not notice we didn't have any Disney stuff and whenever she talked about going to Disney, I just smiled politely and nodded and indicated no interest in going, at all? Did she think we were too poor for Disney and she was doing me a favor? I don't know, maybe she was just getting what she thought was a nice gift for my kid. And it was, mostly, but I was a little worried about having it in my house, even in the play area. I mean, it was just so...tacky. So I was happy to discover when I was putting the crazy plastic thing together that it did not come with the stickers of the princesses and their silly little faces already on it, and, I could choose to leave them off! Brilliant! I could also choose to not put in the batteries so we wouldn't have to hear the thing recite "princess phrases" (whatever those are). I can live with a pink stove and sink unit...with hot pink turrets and bejeweled handles. Princess characters on appliances I cannot live with, though.



All this might make me sound kind of like an angry anti-feminine person or battler of gender differences, but I assure you, I am not. Here, too, I "walk the line" because I understand, to some extent, problems with gender bias and with pigeonholing people, but at the same time I don't like to overdo the gender neutrality thing. I think gender neutrality is actually not achievable (or desirable) in reality. Males and females are different. We should obviously have equal rights for those basic things like owning property, voting, running for office, access to education. Girls should in no way be inhibited from doing what they want to do (nor should boys, naturally), but that doesn't mean we have to go to bizarre lengths to erase any reference to gender, as they are doing at one school in Sweden.

What bothers me alot about this is that, in my view, erasing the pronouns and denying one's gender, they are actually reinforcing the power of gender stereotypes. I was led, by the Feministing.com article referenced in the previous paragraph to a site explaining the term "genderqueer" and was saddened. It said:

The term "genderqueer" began to be commonly used at the turn of the twenty-first century by youth who feel that their gender identities and/or gender expressions do not correspond to the gender assigned to them at birth, but who do not want to transition to the "opposite" gender...

It explained that sometimes these folks refuse to attach a a label at all to their gender identity because they feel that no word can capture the complexities they face with regard to gender. I can respect their feelings, but, what all this tells me is that what needs to change is the attaching of certain colors, accouterments, attributes, etc. to just males or just females and kill the idea that people are one way all the time. I mean, aren't we beyond that now? I think a girl can be a girl, can have long, pretty hair and want to wear mascara but also kick ass on the soccer field and not like to cook or not want to have babies. A girl can also want to shave her head, wear no makeup and combat boots but enjoy knitting and want to have ten babies. A boy can have long hair and wear makeup and want to be a stay-at-home-dad, or have long hair and wear makeup and be a linebacker...you get my drift. People should be able to do what they want and be who they want to be, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. But, do we have to erase gender to do that? Can't we just expand on what it means to be a male or female?

If I had a little boy I'd be just as inclined to let him play with a pink kitchen set someone gave us as a gift, but would have been just as disinclined to go out and buy a Disney princess one myself! As far as gifts, I think I may return to the "your presence is your present" policy for year five. By then, I think the girl will be old enough to understand the concept of having so much already and not needing more.

The Mommy Myth

I read speed read The Mommy Myth by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels over the weekend. I have to say, it really gave me a better understanding of where I think many posters online are coming from when they get so defensive about daycare, their wanting to work, their feeling pressured and guilted and generally disgruntled about life for moms in America. Reading the book certainly underscores my own sense of not being like other people, though, because I don't really feel the way they do. I wonder, too, how many real-life women actually living in the world feel this way because I haven't met any in person. Maybe these are just not things that the people I know talk about? Maybe they're afraid to talk daycare and social change with me because they see that I stay at home right now and think I think a certain way and I'd judge them? I mean, a good number of women must feel this way, based on comments I read online. It's really hard to know, but, let's give it to the authors and assume they do.

Douglas and Michaels in the introduction say their main point is: "Media imagery that seems to natural, that seems to embody some common sense, while some blaming mothers, or all mothers, for children and a nation gone wrong needs to have its veneer of supposed truth ripped away." I can see this, I myself have applied the "so many kids have been sent to day care since the 80s, that's why X is like X..." and I know, of course, there's more to it. I certainly don't want to align myself with those figures that The Mommy Myth authors are up against, either—the Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Nixon, Schlafly, moral majority tribe (now would be expanding to Palin, et al, and wait, they even complain about Bill Clinton not doing anything about their child care, Dukakis, neither!) At the same time, I don't buy what the authors are ultimately selling—which appears to be big government funded daycare for everyone.

They say about how lots of mothers aren't buying into the retro momism (as they call it) although "it works to make them feel very guilty and stressed." The authors go on to say "they want and need their own paychecks, they want and need adult interaction during the day, they want and need their own independence, and they believe—and rightly so—that women who work outside the home can be and are very good mothers to their kids. Other mothers don't want or need these things for the time being, or ever, and really would rather stay home. The question is why one reactionary, normative ideology, so out of sync with millions of women's lives seems to be getting the upper hand."

And I ask, what upper hand? Over 50% of children under 5 are now in day care, so, where's the upper hand of the other side? Women are doing it. They're doing what they want (or, those who may not want to are forced to do what they don't want because of the unbalanced economy). The thing is, they want someone else to pay for it. They sort of seem like they want to help poor, working women get quality care, but to me, they come of more sounding like they want their own daycare to be cheaper and better (really? any grown up knows the vast majority of the time you can't have both) and they think it's the government's job to make it so. They write "...the problem with the new momism is that is insists that there is one and only one way the children of America will get what they need: if mom provides it. If dad 'pitches in,' well, that's just an extra bonus. The government? Forget it." It is on this matter that I am so torn. (And since when is financially supporting one's family, as many dads do, considered merely "pitching in"?)

I want to be a good progressive, I want to help people who need help and I am not one of those greedy "don't raise my taxes for social programs" kind of people. But, I really, really don't think that little babies should be cared for in large, institutional settings and by people other than their mamas (or, a distant but acceptable second, a dad or grandma or truly loving relative). I know some circumstances make it necessary for this to happen, but ideally, that baby needs to be cradled and near that mama's breast for the vast majority of its day and night when it is under a year old—less and less as it grows, naturally. (But, I have to observe, here we are looking at women who actually gave page space, and credence—if not complete buy in —to the concept of artificial wombs.) I just don't think setting up some kind of government care that makes it normal for babies to be warehoused like this is in the best interest of humanity. Just so women can work and feel independent? There are others ways. Fix the economy. Educate women about the reality of life with a baby, birth control and the work-life balance they are going to need to make sure they can create for themselves. Don't just throw money at setting up day care centers. Pay for a year of maternity leave. Subsidize another 6 months (for the first two children only, please!). Make it the cultural norm that women workers take time off and don't give them shit for it.

I guess this would necessarily create the situation commonly now referred to as "mommy tracking." The authors, and many women, are critical of what I think is a decent idea, and what businesswoman Felice Schwartz proposed in the late 80s. "Companies should allow 'career-and-family' women to drop out of the fast track while their children are young so they could spend more time with their children. they could return to the fast track later." What, I ask, is wrong with that? Seems like a perfect solution? (Schwartz got skewered and changed her position.)

I know the "cities on the hill," those places known as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and other European countries in varying flavors, have childcare programs that are government funded, but, they also have generally different cultures there than here. It's unfortunate because I appreciate and align more with these aspects European cultures, described in a Salon interview with Douglas, where she observes, "They have made a choice as a culture that's very different than the choices we've made as a society. Their choice has been work is work and family is family—and family matters. So everybody leaves work between 4 and 5 o'clock. Everybody. Dads, moms. They go home and spend time with their families." That said, what's wrong with "mommy tracking" everybody, then—men and women—at different points in their lives? Part of my problem with the hard driving feminists (and others) who would have children in daycare from six weeks on is that they raise the bar and crack the whip and drive the rat race to an even more unsustainable pace. How about everybody (men and women) just take it down a notch and be human? I think it's a good idea. But, apparently it is not enough for the women who "want it all."

So, what is "it all"? The authors repeatedly go back to the call for government funded (but locally ran, that part is certainly more palatable) day care centers. Repeatedly. All the content about media messaging, pressure on moms to be perfect, parenting styles, psychological and medical advice messing with people, I can agree with most of what they say, other than that I have not felt affected by it because I guess I am a bit of a social outlier (?) I even like alot of the early feminist lore and the action behind the lore about women fighting for equal pay, women progressing beyond days where they couldn't hold their own credit cards, have their names on a mortgage deed, things like that that we take for granted today. Those are all very important and reading the book renewed my respect for alot of what feminists did back then. But, what of all the weirdness? Again, the artificial womb comes to mind. The underlying current of wanting and desperately needing to escape from one's own children because they're so vexing and tyrannical. (OK, we all need a break from kid stuff sometimes, but not enough to take it into social institution territory—have a cup of tea or a glass of wine and throw them outside for an hour or put them in front of a DVD if you have to. There, you're renewed!)

So, with the repeated call for large-scale, institutional day care, they reference World War II era day care centers created by the government in cooperation with the defense industry to encourage women to go to work as they were much needed during war time. This bit of history is fascinating to me and I definitely want to know more. There are several, kind of random, patchwork links to be found in a cursory web search that shed a little light on the centers: a site that is critical in general of daycare, a personal history-buff/scholar site, the Kaiser Permanente site, the Oregon Historical Society site. The Mommy Myth authors talk about how great the centers were, how they were high quality, not bad for the children, but good (?). Apparently these, still, only took children who were at least 18 months old. The authors wrote of how there were laundries, infirmaries if the children were sick, staffed with skilled nurses, oh, and there were hot ready-made dinners to take home at the end of the day. All this while mom spent the day working in a factory (to support a war). Yay! Where do I sign up?

Seriously, though, it's a boon, perhaps, for people who really need the money, for those whose husbands were at war, and I don't mean to slam honest factory work. But, the authors are proclaiming these shipyard centers to be the cat's meow and it just doesn't resonate with me. If a kid is sick, other than the care of a doctor if it's serious, what they need is some down time, in the comfort of their own home, with the person who cares more about them than anyone else in the world. The workplace needs to understand this, understand the hands on value of mom to her children, not say, hey, we've got you covered, you come on to work the line, nurse Jones over here will take great care of your sick child. I mean, I appreciate the gesture, but...And the idea of an institutionally-prepared dinner at the end of the day. Again, thanks, but no thanks. I'd rather make my own homecooked meal. We all know what kind of meals governments and institutions pull together. They're just not very good.

What's more, what makes them think that people want to have their lives reduced to dropping their kids off in the morning, working all day, picking up a box of dinner, going home, sleeping and doing it all over again. It all seems to be to be very much in service of work and treating humans as cogs in the wheels of production. It's OK if a company wants to do that for employees because maybe it's good for their business and any thinking person should have the expectation that businesses view their employees somewhat as human capital. For the government to view their people as human capital, though, is something else. I'm not comfortable with the whole worker-commerce model being the be all and end all of everything. That women in their capacity as mothers (and of course their children) create a chink in this worker-commerce model is cool, for one thing, and important to society, lest we all just become worker drones at various rungs on the ladder to nowhere.

Another example of daycare provided to women workers is that of the WearGuard company. Their daycare sounds all well and good and fine, but, that's a private company providing a benefit to its employees. That doesn't really bolster the case for government-funded daycare. (I would add that the shipyard daycares, too, were funded largely by the companies and only subsidized by the government, and the whole war connection as impetus there is obvious.)

My final analysis of The Mommy Myth is that while it was, in many ways, a thought-provoking and enjoyable read (I like the authors' wry, sort of sarcastic humor, even when I don't agree with how they're using it), the dogged focus on government-funded daycare and general lack of respect (and refusal to face what is just the plain reality of the biology) of motherhood is not something I'm on board with.

The birthday party & "Mommy Myths" come to life

"You can go be a CEO, and a good one, but if you're not making a themed birthday party, you're not a good mother..." —Letty Cottin Pogrebin, quoted in The Mommy Myth











Ha! Well, with that metric, I am a great mother (my lack of CEO status notwithstanding)! Last week today we had my kid's fourth birthday party with a butterfly theme and a great time was had by all—even me, although it left me kind of exhausted. In fact, I keep thinking today is going to be such a great and relaxing Saturday compared to last week, in which I was kind of running around shopping, cleaning (inside the house and out), preparing food and activities (starting a day or two before, actually.) Since I am a scrappy bohemian type with (mostly) down-to-earth friends, I took the "I did it myself, therefore it is quaint and lovely regardless of the quality or perfection" route. This always works for me. If other people think poorly of me or my productions for it, they certainly don't show it. And, I guess this is a real-life illustration of what I am already finding problematic about The Mommy Myth book I quote from above—one can be a hands on, in-the-trenches, seemingly Martha Stewarty, crafty mom, but not really be, because I am, but I'm not. I do the stuff, but I do it to my own ability, patience level and financial capacity and to me, it's the doing (alongside your child) not necessarily the perfection of the result that counts. The Mommy Myth authors, though, seem to have too big a chip on their shoulder to just give it a try (or not and just own that they don't want to)—but more on that in another post. First, about the party...

My daughter and I made our own invitations for the party. We (I) made our own food and cake and games. Some highlights: pin the body on the butterfly, butterfly shaped grilled cheese sandwiches, make your own goodie bags where we laid out art supplies with which the girls could stuff treats from a butterfly piñata, and a pretty butterfly cake. For the parents, I had a spinach, gorgonzola, walnut and cranberry salad and some baguette, fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil stacks. We kept the invitees to girls in her preschool class and a couple other girls. With a few that couldn't make it, we ended up with the perfect number, 5 girls, including mine. Very manageable. But, they are four years old after all, and some girls are noisier and pushier than others.




















It ended up with 2 noisy, pushy ones and 2 mellow ones, then mine, who is decidedly on the mellow side. For some reason the noisy, pushy ones really wore me out. They ventured into the kitchen and asked for food that just happened to be in my house and was not set out or designated for the party. They asked for food before it's ready when there was already plenty of food out. They inserted themselves into my adult conversations with other parents, loudly and relentlessly. They had to be held back from getting the first grab at the piñata ribbon or blowing out the candles on the cake (I mean, we are gracious and polite to our guests, but it is my kids's birthday celebration after all.) I was totally nice, though and smiled through it all, gave them the food they wanted and all that. Anyway, it all left me feeling super tired and wondering if it was worth it.

For a day or two before and the morning of, I had to tell my kid, no, I can't do A, B or C with you right now because I am doing X, Y or Z, for your birthday party...you know, with all your friends. As the lovely, good-natured child she is, she accepted it, but I still felt a little bad. A little. The morning I was decorating (hanging 24 little cardboard butterflies from the deck gazebo thingy for a game, that also served as decoration) she watched and said "Thank you for all your hard work for my party, mommy! The decorations looks great!" She really said this. LOVE. So, I guess it was worth it.



It's funny that I should come across the quote I opened my post with on this very day that I set out to read The Mommy Myth, a book I'd previously heard of, but which I now became interested in again after it was mentioned in one of the Motherlode comments in a recent online discussion. I've just made it through the introduction and it's already exhausting—but interesting! So, there'll be a future post on that soon.