What do Sheryl Sandberg and Kate Upton have in common?

A regular chick’s take on Lean In

I am not a career woman. I enjoy my work, I take it seriously and do a good job, but I’m under no delusions. I have a B.A. from a small Liberal Arts university. I’ve never made six-figures. I am working, right now, part time from home. Really, a nobody. And yet, Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In had something for me. I like to take lessons from wherever I can find them.

I’ve been enjoying the many reviews and online discussions about the book, and I  understand, even if I don’t necessarily agree with, many of the criticisms. Other, though, seem preemptively dismissive and angry, as this Salon piece notes.

One of the best commentaries I read on Lean In came from Penelope Trunk who observed, “Sheryl Sandberg is such an incredibly aberrant example of women at work…She is great. Smart. Driven. I get it. I am doing a life that she would hate. I thought I was a high performer, but Sheryl Sandberg has no time for people like me. I spent so many years working hard to get to the top, but the truth is that I’m not even close. I was never in the running. I am nothing like Sheryl Sandberg.” Trunk added, “Sheryl Sandberg gives up her kids like movie stars give up food: she wants a great career more than anything else.” Harsh, I know, but I don’t think she meant it in a mean way or meant that Sandberg doesn’t love her kids. She’s just…different.

I always used to think, regarding women who felt bad that they didn’t measure up to models and actresses, that they were out of their minds even thinking they were in the same league with these women to begin with. Women like Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover girl Kate Upton. The complaints about “the media” and women’s body image never quite resonated with me because I had already faced the reality: I am not a super model. Surely, most other women must know this too, shouldn’t they?

I once read a book called The Secrets of Skinny Chicks and found, really, no secrets, but just what one would expect. These women worked out a significant amount of time and they really, really watched what they ate. As one reviewer said “…this book absolutely does not pretend that you can be a Size 6 US without considerable deprivation; we’re talking 1200-1600 calories a day AND a two hour cardio and weights program, ladies. It’s also honest about wishing it could hate food; this is really not the book for anyone with much gusto about mealtime…” I kind of know. Before I had a kid, I worked out, actively, a couple hours a day, plus briskly walked a round trip of four miles to work. I just didn’t have that much else to do at the time. My life is different now and I accept it. You have to put in a certain amount of work to get certain results.

The same goes for careers. When Sheryl Sandberg was at Harvard, I was waitressing, partying, taking classes a couple at a time at community college and otherwise meandering through my twenties. I somehow made it out the other side with a degree and was able to hold decent jobs, but I don’t expect to be the billionaire superstar Sandberg is (by the way, she was also an aerobics instructor at one point). It really wouldn’t be fair. I can still learn from her, though, just like women can learn from the “Skinny Chicks,” super models and Upton, whose trainer describes her daily double sessions and multiple cleanse diets. Sandberg talks about going home for dinner at 5 and having taken a 3-month maternity leave like these were major breakthrough concessions she made for her family. The dedication to her work and the intensity with which she works is extraordinary and more than I’d be willing to put in, just like double workout sessions and super-strict diets are more than I’m willing to do to look a certain way.

As an aside, Upton’s trainer defends her “porkiness,” which, of course, is laughable, except that I can see that as lean and sexy as she is, Upton is fleshier than many other SI and Victoria’s Secret models. She’s somewhat approachable. Just like Sandberg.  In Lean In, her voice is friendly and diplomatic as she nods to caregiving being important and acknowledges “Many people are not interested in acquiring power, not because they lack ambition, but because they are living their lives as they desire. Some of the most important contributions to our world are made by caring for one person at a time…”

Understanding I’m not Sheryl Sandberg or Kate Upton, and not in their league, I can take notes from aspects of their successes I may be interested in achieving for myself to a lesser degree, keeping in mind the reality that I don’t have the will (or genetics or background at this point in my life) to take it to that level. I can still work out regularly and cut out extra junk and be in nice shape. I can speak up in business situations, be confident and lean in, where appropriate for me, and improve my place in the work world.

So with that, I’ll share some of the best points of Lean In that are applicable to women (anyone, really) in most jobs.

If you want or need something, ask for it. It never occurred to Sandberg, or anyone else at Google, that maybe pregnant employees could use parking spots closer to the building—until, that is, she got pregnant. After a mad rush to the office from a far flung spot, naseuous, she marched into Sergey Brin’s office and made her request. The company set up special parking for pregnant employees. Of course, you might get an answer of no, but you won’t know unless you ask.

Sit at the table. Sandberg tells of a Facebook meeting she hosted for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in which women on Geithner’s team hung back not even sitting at the table with the rest of the group—even when personally invited to sit there by Sandberg herself. I mean, really, I’m just a schlub and I know better than that. If there’s seats, take one. If you’re invited, gosh, it’s weird and rude not to take one. But, apparently the inferiority complex is so deeply ingrained into some women that they need extra cajoling.

When you don’t feel confident fake it. Pretty straightforward, read the book for more nuance.

Take initiative. Sandberg says, “The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.” She cited data from Hewlett Packard that men will apply for a position if they meet 60 percent of the requirements and women only apply when they think they meet 100 percent of the criteria needed. “Women need to shift from thinking ‘I’m not ready to do that’ to thinking ‘I want to do that—and I’ll learn by doing it,’” she says.
At my first job out of college I was hired as a Communications Coordinator making 30K. I quickly realized I could easily do what they expected and was always asking for more work. I got sick of asking for more so instead I just started looking for things the organization needed and doing them. I took over the website (it was 1999 and having taken one web design class in college, I knew more than anyone else there at the time). Soon after, I outlined what I had been doing, suggested a title change and raise to 45K and they agreed. That’s my little pond story of initiative. As Sandberg notes, “…opportunities are not well defined but, instead, come from someone jumping in to do something. That something then becomes his job.”

Understand and work the system, even if the system is wrong. Sandberg discusses the many challenges women face with regard to powerful women being not well-liked and the trap of women who are nice being assumed incompetent and women who are competent assumed not nice. She acknowledges this is not right, but gives great advice on walking the line, nonetheless. Using a negotiation as an example, she advises women to “think personally, act communally,” prefacing the negotiation by explaining they know women often get paid less than men so they are going to negotiate rather than accept the original offer. “By doing so, women position themselves as connected to a group and not just out for themselves, in effect they are negotiating for all women.” Sandberg advises the use of the word “we” instead of “I” whenever possible. She warns, though, that a communal approach is not enough and women must also provide a legitimate explanation for the negotiation.

Combine niceness with insistence. This piggybacks on the previous idea. Sandberg cites Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, who says this means being “relentlessly pleasant.” This involves “smiling frequently, expressing appreciation and concern, invoking common interests, emphasizing larger goals” and approaching situations as solving a problem as opposed to being critical.

Speak up, stand up. Sandberg talks a lot about how men in power can help women by standing up for them in key situations and she gives many encouraging examples of when this was done for her. She notes Ken Chenault, CEO of American Express, as a leader in this area who acknowledged that “in meetings, both men and women are likely to interrupt a woman and give credit to a man for an idea first proposed by a woman.” Chenault stops meetings to point this out when he sees it—making quite an impression coming from the top. Sandberg advises that anyone can do this, though. “A more junior woman (or man) can also intervene in the situation when a female colleague has been interrupted. She can gently but firmly tell the group, ‘Before we move on, I’d like to hear what [senior woman] had to say.’” Sandberg explains that this not only benefits the senior woman who was interrupted but boosts the junior woman as well, because speaking up for someone else demonstrates a communal spirit—and confidence—and shows the junior woman is both competent and nice.

In Lean In, Sandberg acknowledges the systemic issues women face that can make it more difficult to rise to the top, but also offers a useful mix of overarching ideas for society with nuts and bolts tips for women at work. Just like with the Skinny Chicks‘ secrets and a glimpse into Upton’s regimen, I can incorporate those ideas that fit my lifestyle, not expecting to find myself on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Edition or in a C-Suite, but inspiring me to run that extra mile or to speak up with confidence on something I’m knowledgeable about with colleagues.

Beyond Betty: Moving from feminism to human rights

Was the problem that had no name possibly the lack of Wi-Fi?

I wish that line was mine, but I have to give the credit to Noreen Malone, who in a Slate discussion of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (on the 50th anniversary of its publication this week) noted:

...Work doesn’t automatically put you on the road to self-actualization (as Friedan implies it does), and the degree to which it contributes to it probably waxes and wanes at different points in a person’s life. What about women (or men!) who genuinely do find the bulk, or even part, of their creative fulfillment in more traditional homemaking tasks, or at least less corporate ones, and who derive their sense of mission from helping people—even if mostly the ones related to them? Friedan doesn’t allow for those scenarios, at least among the educated women she’s writing about, and that feels weird. Also oddly missing in the book’s treatment of parenting, was any kind of real consideration of kids’ needs...

To Malone, I say right on!

I won't lie, I enjoy working, and of course I've been lucky to have a very unique situation (enabled by Wi-Fi!) that let me ride the fence of the SAHM thing and having work satisfaction in semi-creatively satisfying work.

But, I don't know that there are sooo many jobs out there that are sooo interesting and stimulating that workers don't have to psych themselves up for just as much as someone at home would have to do some mental gymnastics to make a "baked potato" or "vacumming" interesting. At least when you do those things you're not doing it for "the man" but for yourself and your own family!

I'm also willing to wager that my grandma who worked in a canning factory would have welcomed the life of suburban housewife ennui...

As a friend commented when I posted the Slate article on Facebook, "That's always where the feminist lionization of work breaks down. Those women are writers and academics, which is not the same thing as having a typical job. When your whole job is self aggrandizement, then of course you love your work! When you're scrubbing toilets or asking would you like fries with that?—not so much." So true!

This recent New York Times opinion piece by Stephanie Coontz attempted to answer "Why Gender Equality Stalled" and raises some interesting points. An excerpt illustrates the frustrating bias toward the idea that women necessarily want to work instead of taking on child- and home-care duties:

So, especially when women are married to men who work long hours, it often seems to both partners that they have no choice. Female professionals are twice as likely to quit work as other married mothers when their husbands work 50 hours or more a week and more than three times more likely to quit when their husbands work 60 hours or more.

The sociologist Pamela Stone studied a group of mothers who had made these decisions. Typically, she found, they phrased their decision in terms of a preference. But when they explained their “decision-making process,” it became clear that most had made the “choice” to quit work only as a last resort — when they could not get the flexible hours or part-time work they wanted, when their husbands would not or could not cut back their hours, and when they began to feel that their employers were hostile to their concerns. Under those conditions, Professor Stone notes, what was really a workplace problem for families became a private problem for women.

This is where the political gets really personal. When people are forced to behave in ways that contradict their ideals, they often undergo what sociologists call a “values stretch” — watering down their original expectations and goals to accommodate the things they have to do to get by. This behavior is especially likely if holding on to the original values would exacerbate tensions in the relationships they depend on.

But, it's really not that simple. Pew Research studies show that the majority of women want to work part-time (which is one reason why Obama's recent attention to universal pre-K may be misguided). Most working fathers, though, say they want to work full-time. At least according to this study, it would appear that men and women want different things—and to me, that's OK! It's also fair to note that different men and different women want different things.

No study is going to capture everyone's wishes and no policy is going to necessarily make everyone's path to what they want easier. We have to blaze our own trails a lot of the time.

Coontz observed:

Under present conditions, the intense consciousness raising about the “rightness” of personal choices that worked so well in the early days of the women’s movement will end up escalating the divisive finger-pointing that stands in the way of political reform. 

One one hand, I am skeptical of "political reform" based on almost everything I've read in recently years from feminists that places workforce engagement above caring for young children and goes to far as to view children basically as some sort of commodity or cogs in the capitalist machine. But, the conclusion of the Coontz piece leaves me hopeful that maybe the feminist movement is beginning to see that work is not the be-all-and-end-all of "equality" (or life) and that different people want different things, and that "people" also means men.

Our goal should be to develop work-life policies that enable people to put their gender values into practice. So let’s stop arguing about the hard choices women make and help more women and men avoid such hard choices. To do that, we must stop seeing work-family policy as a women’s issue and start seeing it as a human rights issue that affects parents, children, partners, singles and elders. Feminists should certainly support this campaign. But they don’t need to own it. 

What Coontz might not realize, though, is that for many talented, educated and able women such as myself, putting my "gender values into practice" for me meant scaling back my career when my baby was born, working part-time from home to be with her, and navigating my own on-ramp as she gets older.

I agree that feminists should not own the work-family policy campaign, because based on what we've heard from leading feminist voices in recent years (Linda Hirshman, I am looking at you) they're going to get it wrong!

Life in limbo

So last week, I heard from a colleague at my big client, in  my old department, that he's leaving to go to Sao Paulo and get his MBA—some guys have all the luck! Which meant, for me, an opening to get back in to a full-time, in-office position. I didn't think too, too much of it the first couple days after I'd heard his news, though it did cross my mind. Then, my boss/client lead called me, from her home, while out sick, to tell me they were looking at this opening as an opportunity to bring me back, pending budget and staff need factors. I was pretty stoked. While I'd stated that my ideal would be to go back this fall, at the beginning of the 2013-14 school year (so I could spend "one last summer" with my kid), I'd let them know in no uncertain terms that I'd be willing, at this point, to jump back in whenever they needed me.

After the call, I immediately started figuring out childcare options for after school and summer (both readily available) and sorting out with my husband how we'd manage our schedule, how much they'd need to make in an offer for it to be worth our while, and we were ready. (The boss confirmed they could pay at least what I was making before I'd opted for part-time consulting when my kid was born five years ago, and as an on-ramping mom in a shitty economy, that was good enough for me. She seemed very concerned, too, with not "insulting" me with a lousy offer. Imagine that!)

My heart had been so heavy (for quite a while, weeks...months...) not knowing "my place in the world," having this big empty hole six hours a day when my child's at school, not feeling motivated to do much more than whatever paid work I have (which does not take six hours, and often comes at the wrong time of day, when she is around and I'd rather be focusing on her, but can't)...and then I feel so guilty and lame that I don't make better use of all the free time I have during the days. I was really looking forward to diving into the "back-to-the-office" job, if only as a means to shake me out of this place I'm in.

But, I talked to the boss Friday and she said that they are not going to fill the position right away and that she's just going to send me a contract for another year of the work I've been doing in the mean time (with a "raise" commensurate to the raises other people there got, so that's nice...) She said the soonest they'd have me, or anyone else, in the position is May. Now, I know that if they were going to have someone else, they'd need to put an ad out and start looking, like, now, probably (to find a quality person) and she said they weren't advertising, so....

I don't think they're messing with me, trying to be sneaky, lie about what they're doing. I'm aware of a big budget hit they took recently and I think they are trying to save money by having the position vacant for a while. It's unfortunate because things in the department are already so backlogged, but, it is what it is. The boss tells me they are still very interested in having me back, that "nobody does what you do" and that she's told the president that I want a full-time job and may look elsewhere, with them running the risk of "losing" me...

So, I guess I am in a good place because I really didn't want to, ideally, with regard to my kid, do full-time til after summer and any amount of putting it off while still remaining an option is good, for a while (though they might want me in May, or June, or July...who even knows!) but, at the same time, I am disappointed because I was ready to dive in, like now (as in March, April...) and now I really need to find a new lease on life to shake things up for me because the long days of reading the internet and doing nothing are really, deeply wearing on my soul. I will do it, though...

Why have kids?

I took a little break from blogging to enjoy the last days of summer with my little one before ...gulp!... Kindergarten. We had some wonderful times and it was with wistful feelings that I let her go. She's doing great, though.

This is kind of long and maybe a little rambly, but just trying to sort out thoughts while fresh...

This week I read Why Have Kids? by Jessica Valenti, the "poster girl for third-wave feminism." And while I disagree with a lot of what's in the book, she's not wrong.

Why Have Kids is a bit of compendium of what's been going on in the momoshpere the past few years. Valenti's got Linda Hirshman, she's got Elisabeth Badinter (here too), she's got Erica Jong. She talks about attachment parenting, the anti-vaccination crowd, breast vs. bottle. In case you missed any of that. She references Babble, Blue Milk, Jennifer Block, Megan Francis, Katie Granju, Rikki Lake's Business of Being Born and even The Feminist Breeder.

What's just a little bit different about Valenti, though, and what makes her and the book so likable for me, even though her assertions go against my own experience, is she thinks what she thinks and expresses it, but is open enough to admit that other ways of doing things are understandable—which is kind of the place I've come to after five years of parenting. For example, Valenti calls Jennifer Block's book, Pushed, "wonderful," and sincerely was into breastfeeding, pursuing pumping valiantly as her preemie did time in the NICU. I was moved by her tenacity and totally get why she'd be mildly snide about lactivist rhetoric, even as much as I am a proponent—and huge fan—of breastfeeding. I have no idea what it's like for it to be hard to breastfeed and so I have to take Valenti's recounting of her experience for what she says.

It was bothersome, however, when Valenti attempted to minimize the benefits of breastfeeding a la Hannah Rosin, citing Joan Wolf. I can appreciate something being hard, something not working and a person making peace with it. Breastfeeding is not the be-all-and-end-all, of course. But don't be delusional and say things like formula is "just as...healthy a choice as breastfeeding." I often feed my kid breaded fish filets. They're easy and she likes them. But I don't think they are just as healthy as say, quinoa with kale, or something.

I also am conflicted about the idea that "Women Should Work," presented as a "truth" in Valenti's "lies" and "truth" structure of the book. Women should work if they want to (and of course, if they must). I don't like the idea of infants in daycare. I have a real problem with it, really. I understand, of course, that people do what they have to do. It's when they don't have to do it that it bothers me. Of course, I know it's not my business and I accept that. I would just never put a child under 2 (and that's the low end) in daycare unless it was absolutely necessary for the family's survival. At the same time, I don't like the idea of women who want to work having to give up an important part of who they are, not to mention some modicum of financial independence—just in case. I get it. I had the unique situation of being able to be really hands on 24/7 with my baby while doing satisfying work and earning enough to get by on my own (at least temporarily) in the unlikely even that we were left alone without my husband, and so I can't honestly be too hard on others for their choices (and besides, as I said, it's not my business). But, what I would push for is not necessarily affordable infant daycare (preschool, sure) but subsidized maternity leave, more part-time work/job sharing, more teleworking, an acceptance of bringing pre-crawlers into the office, and on-site daycare for older babies.

So I think in some ways here my views intersect with Valenti's but I'll never ever be gung-ho about daycare for infants. See, I disagree with another of Valenti's "lies," that "Children Need Their Parents." Most especially they need their mothers as infants and then, yes they do need their parents. The real idea behind Valenti's assertion is that kids need more than just their parents, I think. And of course I agree, for older kids. My daughter benefited greatly from going to preschool and being in the care of other adults for a few short hours a few days a week. Now she's doing well in Kindergarten (as much as we can know after a week). But really, I was the big influence in her life during these first most formative years and that's the way I like it. I've written before about how important a mother's influence is to a girl and how the nuclear family (another thing Valenti likes to point out is being phased out) establishing it's own sense of being a "tribe" is. This is not to the exclusion of others, this does not mean we don't have friends or are not part of a diverse community, but I think it's important to imprint on a child early on "who we are" as a family. I think it enables them to go out into the world and glean things from these "others" while remaining firm in who they are.

I liked when Valenti discussed the trope that motherhood is "the hardest job in the world" because I've always felt it's not a job at all, but a relationship. (I could have sworn I blogged about this before, but now can't find any reference to this idea, and someone else has ran with it, to much acclaim...) I don't expect pay and I can't be fired! My performance tends to fluctuate according to my mood and circumstances much more than my performance in the work I do professionally. It's just not even in the same realm as paid work, and I would never want it to be.

So, that's why I say I disagree with Valenti, but can see she's not wrong. Can anyone be wrong about this stuff? How we cobble together our lives is very personal and who among us doesn't create an a la carte life, picking and choosing elements of many paths and philosophies to fit what's best for us? It is her approachable voice and her openness to the idea that some stuff (breastfeeding, AP, staying home) may be OK for others, even though it wasn't for her, that brings such great balance to the book. She somehow manages to do it without seeming wishy-washy.

I'm coming from a different place, though. I guess I could call myself an essentialist. I fully embraced that, as a woman, with the baby having grown in my body, having come from within my body and having been fed solely from my body for the first 6 months, that I would be the primary when it comes to my kid. I fully expected this and I didn't have a problem with it at all philosophically and not much in practice, either.

Sure, there were many times I was tired and worn out from mothering an infant (then toddler, then preschooler—each age with its distinct challenges) but the deal was I'd stay home with her and do my consulting part-time and my husband would stay in his job and be the primary wage earner. I won't lie, there were times when the menial tasks, things like having to pick up toys all the time, got on my nerves. I really didn't like "playdates" til my kid was old enough to have a friend over sans mom and I could actually use that time to get things done. But I always felt like I was doing something important and right by being home with her for these earliest years. As our kid got older, my husband has taken on a more hands on, bigger role in parenting, but I'm still the primary when it comes down to it, and I think I will be til the day I die. He's a great dad. That's just the way it is for us. Sometimes I feel under-appreciated by my husband, who expresses a little envy at my getting to stay home all day for these early years (forgetting how I often stay up til 1 am getting client work done after having had to do kid stuff during the day). But, all in all, the years I spent at home with my young child were golden to me and now, on the edge of ramping back up job-wise with my kid in school full-time, I'm feeling nostalgic already...they went by really fast.

I suppose young women today can't be blamed for not being in touch with themselves as "natural" women (something feminists today seem to so hate the idea of). We live in a world where many of women's most natural characteristics and functions are reviled. There's no magic in menstruation, many women wax or shave themselves into nearly hairless fembots, it's no wonder many are put off by breastfeeding or find it gross. Eww! Female body fluids! Yuck! Very sad, actually, but I can't blame the young women, it's the culture they're raised in. To me, it's a failing of feminism that it is this way.

So, I don't personally get why so many women, as described by Valenti, seem so surprised at the work involved with—and discontented with the reality of—mothering a young child. And many of these are women who use daycare and don't even deal with said children all day long.

Maybe it's an age thing. At 40, I'm seven years older than Valenti and maybe older than many of her "ilk." I had my kid at 35 and had plenty of fun before that so I wasn't bent out of shape by the idea that I wouldn't be able to go out without the baby for a while if I was going to do full on breastfeeding, no pumping and that kind of thing. I really didn't want to "go out" for the evening at all during my kid's earliest days (OK, year...) It wasn't because I was depressed or a hermit or anything bad, it just wasn't where I was at at that time. I was into the baby.

Or, it could be my blue collar roots—I don't have the expectation that life should be easy and I pretty much thank my lucky stars every day that I have a white collar consulting job, as middling as it may be, it's not backbreaking and I enjoy it. And I am super thankful that I had the good fortune to be at home with my baby.

Who knows? Valenti describes a status quo wherein women are sold a bill of goods about how blissful it is to have a baby and then face the "truth" of how much it can suck. I mean we all have bad days, but yeah, lowered expectations, people!

For all the distancing of themselves from what felt (and feels) so natural to me (birth, breastfeeding, wanting to be with my small child most of the day) that many contemporary feminists seem to do—whether because they truly don't feel that pull, or because they have been well-taught to turn their backs on that pull in the name of the cause—I wonder why some of them do have kids at all, then.

Valenti argues that there is still a strong cultural expectation—assumption even—that a woman wants to, or will, have children. This is somewhat surprising to me in this day and age and I am prone to disbelief, but again, since I'm a woman with a child, I feel somewhat unqualified to tell other people what they feel who claim to experience this pressure. But, if you're a strong feminist who doesn't want kids, you won't cave to the pressure, right? Maybe again, some people just don't know what they're getting into, I suppose and just go for it. That's kind of what I did and it worked out.

I have to say I didn't think deeply about it before going forward with having a baby. I had kind of given up on even getting married to some extent right before I met my husband. I wasn't at desperation age yet (only 29) so I can't say for sure, but I think I was actually OK with not getting married anyway. I was kind of just floating through life, trying to earn a living, have a good time and that was that. If I met someone, great! And I did. And it turned out we talked about it while dating and he wanted kids, well, one kid, anyway,  was what he said, and I was like, sure, fine, whatever. That's what some people did, right? They got married and had a kid, or kids. So, why not me? Do I sound really vacant or stupid for putting it that way? Maybe. But I bet lots of people are that way.

In the same way I didn't think deeply about whether to have a baby, I didn't have an idea of being the "perfect mother" that seems to be a big theme for discussion (Valenti cites Judith Warner's book, Perfect Madness). We hear so much about all the pressure moms are under to be "perfect," but really, is that pressure truly there? How much of that is put on people by themselves because of an initial amount of hubris to even think in the first place that achieving perfection is possible? We see "perfect" women, actresses, supermodels, on TV and in the movies and yet most of us have come to terms that we just need to do the best we can to stay healthy and that those people are professionals and or anomalies. So why can't we understand that perfection in a relationship (remember, being a mother is a relationship, not a job) is an unattainable—and vague—goal? Some feminists argue a deep-seated, almost conspiratorial agenda is in place to keep women down by playing with their minds to focus them on this perfection in parenting, but I just don't know. Aren't we all smarter than that by now?

My favorite line in Why Have Kids? was: "The truth about parenting is that the reality of our lives needs to be enough." And, of course, this is right on. Only when you embrace the imperfection can you begin to appreciate the tender beauty of parenting. And we all have different realities, it seems.

 

How much do older kids need a hands-on mom?

My last post talked about how other cultures relate to their kids, as described in the recently-published book, How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm—And Other Adventures in Parenting. One of the things that struck me was how moms in many cultures get more "hands off" as kids get older—sometimes as young as toddlers. I should mention that there's a chapter, too, on the academic success of Asians, wherein the parenting could not really be described at all as "hands off," and that's an interesting facet to the discussion of parenting older kids. But first, I want to explore the hands off, free-range thing a bit.

Via a tweet from Dan Savage, I came across this post from Susie Bright's journal—Teenagers Can't Seem to Have ANYTHING At All - The Big Lie Behind the Mommy Wars—in response to the unfortunately titled Atlantic article, Why Women Can't Have it All. (I say "unfortunate," because to me it's not about women "having it all" it's about the importance of society supporting mothers being in real leadership roles in government and business to ensure balance.)

I remembered Susie Bright's name from some sex books my husband had and was intrigued.

In her post, Bright makes some really interesting points about Anne-Marie Slaughter's problems described in her Atlantic piece—namely her "troubled" teenage son—and suggests that more attention within the confining paradigm of the traditional parent-child-school relationship is just what the young man does not need.

"I hope you and your husband aren't going to wear him down, do endless hours of useless homework with him every night, medicate him, diagnose him with god-knows-what. If you follow that path, you will end up with an adult child who wants nothing to do with you, who hides everything that's important to him." Bright warns Slaughter, continuing on about her own experience as a homeschooler/unschooler.

She advises, "By the time you have teenagers, here's what you need to be doing:

• Putting tools in their hands
• Getting them access to the things they want to know and pursue
• Breaking down the barriers they experience as disenfranchised youth
• Encouraging intellectual and physical adventures they take the lead on
• Being there for them while they break a few dishes getting it right"

And all that sounds really good to me, the only problem is it's not entirely clear whether Slaughter could really do all these things and keep her high-powered career or not. Bright's idea that teens need to fly free is a cool one, but the free flying sounds like it, too, needs a bit of orchestration—just how much orchestration is the balancing act that would determine whether Slaughter's choice is to be so easily poo pooed as doting mothering.

Indeed, Bright leaves unanswered (as of right now) a reader's question: "I'm just wondering how an un-schooler can have a job let alone a career? Why you assume that less well off people don't feel being there for there kid is a worthwhile aspiration? I certainly aspire to maintain a good, close relationship with my child and no, not coddling, just a real genuine knowing of each other, something which requires time together. Getting those barriers you speak of out of the way often entails dollars, and as a poor, working, single mother who has no choice but to send my kid to the stupid factory the options are slim. Yes, my kid's school sucks, but I don't see a way out of the situation that doesn't involve more money or time than I have."

Of course, Bright was talking to Slaughter, to whom she says "Your family has a million bucks, literally, and could make that happen: get the barriers out of the way."

But, what about the rest of us? Is being a mom to an older kid a "full time job" or not? I am going to say it just can't be. I mean, my whole plan was that I was going to do this intensive infant/early childhood mothering and let gradually let the child fly, so I can't see myself spending all my time orchestrating learning experiences for my kids for the next 13 years. (Maybe that's not what unschoolers do, I'd have to read more on them.)

And, what about people who live in places that actually have good schools (which, right now, I feel like we are)?

Still, after reading about cultures in which seven-year-olds are caring for babies, ten-year-olds can fish as well as adult men, nine-year-olds are doing beautiful embroideries and such, I am inspired to think that, given just a bit of guidance, kids can do so much more on their own than most American parents let them.

Lots of questions here.

On one hand, I like to think that the more you pour into your kids the earlier in terms of molding them and creating an attachment to your family and the sense of a family tribe, the less difficulty you'll have when they are older—the more you will be able to let them go free, with the knowledge that you've imprinted them with what they need. But, is that being naiive? As the mother of a now five-year-old, I just don't have the experience to know, so I have to wait and see.

Mothers—and others—do best when they're allowed to be whole people

I used to say you can have it all, but not at the same time—a cliché with some truth to it, though not my own concept, of course. Now more and more women with experience are coming out with this truth, following years of trying to pull it off. In the past, I didn't think it was so important for mothers to hold high-level positions, I mean, being a mom is very important in itself, right? I've changed my mind, though. Yes, raising children is important, but women who are mothers really do need to be part of business and government at the highest levels in order to ensure balanced policymaking. Here's a very good article wherein one woman from the highest ranks shares her experience and notes what needs to change.

  

Reading comments online to this and corollary articles, I'm struck by the lack of big-picture thinking many people seem to have. I really appreciated this article in terms of it being another voice coming out in support of work-life balance in general—and for moms/parents in particular. I think it's part of the slow, but certain, wheel of change that will bring us to a better place.

I am reading Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy by Chris Hayes and it discusses the problem we have in America now with a relatively small and non-diverse leadership of our institutions, insulated at the top, who've failed us. Hyper-competitiveness and ego (the whole work-time machismo thing of being there grinding away into the night is an example) plays a role in causing these folks to actually not have the best or even good solutions to many of the challenges we face as society.

Ensuring there are mothers in high-level government and business positions will help diversify the leadership and balance policymaking. So, to me, it's not really so much about whether or not I personally "have it all." I may not want "it all," but some people do and being a parent should not keep them from achieving it.

In the bigger picture for women who may be more ambitious than I and have it in them to do bigger things, it must not be at the expense of their families—we need them in these positions of power.

Regarding work-life balance for all and in general, also revealed in comments is how some people just can't get their heads around this the concept at all. "Is it fair for childless people to have to work extra hours..." they ask. No! Nobody needs to work so much. Perhaps even more people are hired (thereby helping unemployment) and we all work a little less. Europeans seem to have a handle on this. Why, oh why, is there this assumption here in American that there is always so much very urgent work to be done that can't wait til 9-5 tomorrow? Or, maybe 9-12 pm after the kids are in bed, before which an employee took off at 2 pm? The world is not going to fall apart if certain things happen a little later instead of now. Of course, there are exceptions in emergency responder fields, certain service jobs that are less of "emergencies" but are based on timing, but don't be ridiculous, like I said, they seem to manage in other countries.

Those already well-positioned in life have to take the leap to claim it and we have to make it such that it's socially unacceptable and gauche to grind for hours and hours and hours all the time at the expense of everything else. For example, one commenter on the New York Times Motherlode blog's coverage observed, "I've learned that, in Germany, staying back late at the office too often raises questions about competency. My former boss got plenty of unpleasant scrutiny because he chose to stay back every night until 10pm, rather than go home and face his marital situation. Unfortunately, it made him look incompetent and unable to do the job in the allocated time and didn't help him when it was time to renew his contract; he was let go."

NPR did a series on work-life balance a couple of years ago. The concept has definitely been floating around for at least a few years now, so please, take it down a notch, America! We'll probably get better results anyway.

Practice what you preach: Do we value moms in early childhood or do we not? And what is government's role, anyway?

The left is now taking umbrage at remarks of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made concerning moms on welfare going to work. (Note, I am not pro-Romney by any stretch, and plan on voting for Obama, even though I'm not altogether thrilled with him, he's what we have right now and he's centrist enough to not be too dangerous either way, in my opinion. This is not the first time I've felt at odds with the "progressive" agenda.) "Women who stay at home to raise their children should be given federal assistance for child care so that they can enter the job market and have the dignity of work," Romney said in January, according to the Huffington Post article linked. Questions about whether staying home with kids is work and what constitutes "dignity" aside (for now), I don't see the problem with this when we consider it through the lens of the post-feminist world we're now living in.

All around the internet I constantly see working- and middle-class women and men calling for federally-subsidized childcare. You can't even question whether daycare is good for little ones or not without getting flamed. That infants and young children spend their days in centers or homes other than their own, being cared for by paid workers, not mom (or dad) seems to be normal and very much accepted in our society today. This situation, in fact, is even encouraged by many as good for socializing the baby/child and, of course, good for the mom, whether she needs to work for money or her own glorious personal fulfillment, which of course, could not possibly be found in caring for her child(ren) (if only for a few short years). I hear cautionary tales from women who felt they had to stay in the workforce just in case their husband left them and because they wanted to be independent. I guess those calling for subsidized childcare don't have a problem being dependent on a government program, though. Who's your daddy?

But anyway, about if daycare is "good enough" (or again even good—as is argued) for middle-class kids, then why is it not good for poor kids? Ideologically, you can't have it both ways. Is daycare bad or not? If it's not bad, as everyone seems to say it's not (I have my own views on this) then what's the problem with having a poor woman be working or seeking work as a condition for her federal financial assistance? If middle class people supposedly must send their kids to daycare to make ends meet, why should a poor person NOT have to send their kids to daycare, and then get assistance? Just because it breaks certain people's hearts to not be with their young children doesn't mean daycare is bad, right?

Or maybe it is?

Anyone who's familiar with me or my writing knows that I would not put my under-two in daycare if I had any choice whatsoever in the matter. That said, do I think it is permanently damaging or horrible to the point that I couldn't bear it if I was in the situation that I had to, truly, truly had to? No. The kid will muddle through. I kind of have a problem inasmuch as it's my business (it's not) with people who can afford to not work, or scale back, who put infants in daycare, but at the end of the day, it's not my business. When you talk public policy, though, it sort of becomes the business of anyone who pays taxes or has to share the country, and its public schools, public problems, etc. with the other millions of Americans out there.

So, maybe we need to ask again and not be afraid of the answer—is daycare good for kids under 2, or 3, or whatever, or not? And what role or responsibility does the government have in this area of people's lives? I don't have all the answers, but the feminist voices on the left seem very inconsistent on this to me.

I understand what the left is trying to do. They're trying to spotlight what they perceive to be inconsistencies with Romney's position on the value of stay-at-home moms (SAHMs)—all of this, by the way, is a stupid deflection away from much more important economic policies that need attention. They say that the Romneys took umbrage at Hilary Rosen's assertion that Ann Romney "didn't work" because she was a SAHM. Whether she "worked" or not is certainly up for debate, though it's unimportant and petty, in my view. And it should noted that Romney didn't say he's getting his info on what women want from his wife based on HER personal experience, it's based on what she's been hearing from the women she's been talking to on the campaign trail...so, it doesn't really matter whether Ann Romney worked outside of the home or not. It's about what the women she interacts with are saying...for whatever that is worth. But the left now says that Romney's insistence that welfare moms have to work "for their dignity" implies that women who don't work outside the home lack dignity and is also inconsistent with the respect we're supposed to have for Ann for staying home. Well, yes, poor choice of words for Mitt. Wouldn't be the first time.

What they don't seem to understand, or want to admit, is that Ann Romney married well (at least in terms of money) and therefore is not at the mercy of what the state doles out and the rules the state makes in order for her to get the dole (though she may be at the mercy of Mitt, which is a whole other story). For one thing, you can't enforce fairness. Everyone gets dealt a different hand. Another issue is, this ties in to another lie of feminism—that men don't matter. They totally do matter if you're going to have a kid and it shouldn't take a genius to see that having a well-earning, engaged partner is a plus. Some lose out to bad luck in the daddy department and for them, yes, there should be safety nets. We should help. But the notion that a person can do it on their own (or with help from the government) as opposed to respecting the value of an actual family unit should not be a basis for policy.

Alternately, women who can support themselves financially by whatever means (college degrees, successful careers, etc.), aren't at the mercy of the state, even if they are professional, single-by-choice moms, which I'm not a fan of, but, that's their choice and they're self sufficient, at least.

Not everyone has a good man or a good job, and that's just how it shakes out sometimes. When the state provides benefits it has to do the basics and is not always concerned about what's best for people (think of the formula-focused WIC program, the government funded food programs—school lunches and such). These programs are concerned with people getting by (and perhaps providing kickbacks to companies and interests who supply the "free" shit that the need y get) not really flourishing. It's up to us as individuals to make the flourish part happen.

What Mitt should have said was that we can't be paying moms to stay home with kids because some will just take advantage and have kid after kid after kid and never work. This, of course, would be more politically incorrect than what he actually did say. Now if you wanted to get really socialist and we could come to some consistent standard about what's good for moms and kids, I could see having mandatory classes that could include moms WITH their little ones together, and that might be a good requirement for mothers on welfare. You know, they have to learn a marketable skill, they have to learn some home economics, they have to learn about child care and development. But, is there really a will for that? I don't know. And I can already hear the argument that that's paternalistic, and maybe it is.

Maybe the best thing economically is for the welfare moms to put their kids into daycare and get their own jobs. This means jobs for them and jobs for the daycare workers, right? I don't know. I am not an economic expert. Both the jobs the moms are likely to get and the care provider jobs are low level, low paid jobs, though, so I'm not real impressed. I understand the government might have to do what's more economical /best for the economy. Can we expect government to care about what's best for children? And is what's best for children better for the economy in the long term? And do they care about the long term. It doesn't appear that the U.S. government cares about what's best for children or what's best for the long term right now and judging by past practices. Maybe this will change. I don't know.

In my view life is about more than a balance sheet, though, obviously, because I'm taking a financial hit to be with my kid more. Like with the breastfeeding issue, how can we expect the American people to support policies that are good for the nation's kids if individual middle- and upper-class parents who can won't even take the hit for their own kids?

"Choice" (the choice to stay home or go to work) is not a right. It is a privilege and one borne much out of luck, though also a good deal from hard work or merit, and often a mix of both. For women, the fact is, it's still a lot about who you marry if you are going to be a mom. How deep do you want the government to go into our personal lives to ensure some vague idea (since nobody seems to be able to agree) about what's good for kids? Or, do people want to come out and say that daycare is really not that great for little ones?

Probably neither. Each side just wants to cherry pick inconsistencies in each others' sound bites to fuel their petty political squabbles. This is why I tend toward limited government. Building roads, regulating energy, food safety and such are large-scale issues that make sense for government to handle (though I'd argue they haven't done great on even these). It doesn't appear to me that Americans have a consistent set of values and I certainly don't trust the government to know what's best with regard to the day-to-day details of my family and how I raise my children. At the end of the day, like with breastfeeding, I don't care if you put your baby in daycare or not, but I am sure glad I didn't have to—and I don't want to support policies that would threaten my ability to choose what I think is best, according to my family's means.

I don't care what you feed your baby

(Image: Human-Stupidity.com—and an interesting post there...)

The latest New York Times Motherlode blog post kind of pushed me over the edge when it comes to "advocating" for breastfeeding. Focusing on the "true cost" of breastfeeding, as in the opportunity cost of work time lost, "freedom" to go out and do whatever you want whatever time you want lost, "dignity" lost (!?!) and on and on, the post put the onus for breastfeeding success on "society." But, I am left wondering why "society" should care or make breastfeeding a priority when, clearly, a huge number of individual women don't. If a mother can't be bothered to do something that is so basic for the well being of her own child, then how on earth can employers, taxpayers, etc. be compelled to care? It just doesn't seem that important to most people.

The post closes with:

If we as a society truly place a high value on nursing — if the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation that mothers breast-feed for 12 months or more (and breast-feed exclusively for six months or more) is meant for all women, not just those with the resources to withstand economic loss — then we need to support breast-feeding by putting in place laws, policies, programs and social structures that make it easier, rather than attempt to gloss over its hidden costs. Breast milk isn’t free. But it’s within our power to make it affordable for all.

Naturally, in the comments there were assertions that only the wealthy could make breastfeeding work...what about this, what about that...I got formula and I was fine...I couldn't make enough milk, so I supplemented with formula and my kid was fine...I hate those sanctimommies who lord breastfeeding over everyone else...on and on. There were some who countered the cost issue by explaining how they kept their jobs and put in lots of effort to make pumping work, but they did it—only to be trashed for their privilege. I have read so many excuses and so many comments dismissing the importance of breastfeeding that reveal willful denial and ignorance that I just can't care anymore what some other woman chooses to feed her baby.

My comment got a few "likes" but also was met with indignation. I said:

Some things are priceless. Sadly, not all Americans place much value on a child's early development in general, whether it's breastfeeding or other things. I am one of those who made a conscious choice to take the financial hit to stay home with my baby. And I'm not much of a maternal type, either. It was difficult in terms of my sense of self with the ennui and all that, but I did it because it was the right thing, and eventually I grew into it...and because of it. Frankly, I don't have the hustle/stomach for daycare drop offs, pumping, seeing my new baby for just a few hours a day and leaving it with a stranger. (I may have felt better about a grandma or something.) I feel deeply for those who can't afford the lifestyle shift that's optimal for babies. But, for all those who can, and don't...and there are many...how can we trumpet about what this country values when the people themselves don't value it? People generally find a way to make what they value a priority in their lives. That said, I would love to see a year of subsidized maternity leave for women, for up to 2 children. That, too, seems like the right thing to do.

One of the very best comments I've ever read was this:

...It's far out, but what if we could all be ok with acknowledging that pumping sucks (t'hee) and no one should have to do it to feed their baby? What if we could just come out and say that women should be given the flexibility to work from home, or have onsite care at their offices? It wouldn't be putting down women to say that their bodies require them to stay in close contact with their newborns would it? Or would it? Why?

Sometimes I wonder why we can't take feminism to the next level and demand that our society just tolerate and accommodate our mammal needs. Providing the space for women to extract their milk and feed it to their babies later is really kind of weird if you think about it. How about just making it normal for a woman to be with her baby, and make the jobs accommodate to that role. Half of us are women! Many of us will have babies. They are babies for such a short period, and then it's over.

But, I am afraid, people just don't really want it. When women who do have the power to breastfeed because of their privilege of good white collar jobs with leave, or the means to take time off indefinitely, or a high-earning spouse, or whatever and they choose not to, even when they can, they are sending a message to society that it doesn't matter. If these women who can have "the best" blithely eschew "the best," what makes the low-income woman who needs to work think she should be entitled to help achieving "the best"? And how are we supposed to convince the non-mommy policymakers that women need support?

The benefits of breastfeeding are obvious. We don't even need to go into that. People who want to breastfeed will, and those who don't, wont. DISCLAIMER: I know there are some very rare people who truly can't who may have wanted to and so yeah, no statement is absolute and covers all people. But, the bottom line is that most people can and would if they really wanted to. Nothing we can say at this point is going to get people to do things they don't want to do. The science is there and it's been beaten into people's heads. If they don't want to take the steps to learn how to do it...If they don't have the tenacity to see it through...If X number of things are more important to them than breastfeeding, then who cares?

Some would argue that we're all going to have to pay for healthcare for these babies who would grow into adults with less than the optimal health they could have had if they'd been breastfed. That may be true. I think I am OK with that. We're already paying in one way or another for people who eat mountains of crap food, won't exercise and just basically don't give a shit themselves. Just add more on to the pile, I suppose. It's kind of inevitable. The world is not perfect.

All I can control is myself, and what I feed my own child (be it breastmilk as a baby or junk food as a bigger kid, though it's harder to control the junk food since they're not under mom's watch 24-7 anymore...) I've been told countless times in web comments (because I would NEVER impose my unsolicited views on some person I don't even know in person, in real life) that breastfeeding and staying home may be right for me, but isn't right for everybody and that I should just shut up and mind my own business. I've even been told when I expressed a sadness for those who wanted to breastfeed (or stay at home with their baby) that that was somehow insulting and my "pity" was not needed and the child(ren) is doing "just fine thank you very much"...so, yeah, I guess it's time. If anything I can feel smug that my kid will have an edge, without feeling bad about their kids, because after all, they will be just fine. Right? Right?

Maybe if was actually a breastfeeding educator or true lactivist actually doing something it would make more sense. But all I've been doing is trumpeting something I think is best, that the science shows is best, that is actually really just the normal way mammals are supposed to feed their babies, biologically speaking, and something that happened to be pretty easy for me. It was so great that I guess I could say I felt kind of evangelical about it, like spreading the good news or something (though that's not necessarily reflected in my most recent Motherlode comment). But now I kind of just feel stupid for caring.

Nobody wants to really talk about it

I really enjoyed yesterday's Penelope Trunk post on a key to productivity being choosing phone calls wisely—and saying no to things (I would carry this to things in general that are not satisfying or helping you get closer to your goals, not just phone calls). I am all over this practice in my day-to-day dealings and actually treat phone calls as client massaging (or friendship maintenance when it's personal) NOT as a truly effective way to exchange information or get things done. There are some people who, if you get on the phone with them, will suck an hour of your time away, just like that.

What really stood out for me, though, was something a little more buried in her post—"...that group child care for kids under two is very bad for the kids and people should spend their money solving that problem." (Wiki link included in her post.)

This stood out because not a lot of non-religious or non-conservative, non-old-fashioned types (see my re-run of a Dr. Laura-based-post below) really go around saying things like this nowadays. I agree with this statement myself but always feel like I can't speak my mind on it in general company because daycare is, like, the number two holy grail of feminism, under abortion rights. You'll make people feel guilty for their choices, you'll look like a weirdo for caring what other people do with their kids, things like that. They'll assume you're a crazy Mommy Wars lady, when all you want is to have an honest, intelligent discourse about choices and what's good for children.

But, I still think what I think, and it's uncomfortable to so often not be able to say what I think and so very gratifying to hear someone else (who is not religious or conservative or housewifey) say it, especially on the heels of another post I read yesterday on The Hidden Benefits of Daycare. Here we have a non-low-income person claiming benefits observed for low-income people as a benefit in general. It may be of some benefit to the mothers, but is it great for the kids, really? And do studies showing benefits for a low-income group translate to something beneficial to middle-class people? And furthermore should we be even saying "well, this is good for low income people" and keep them in that less than ideal, band-aid situation rather than tackling the core problems that make daycare really just a societal band-aid?

Penelope Trunk has another post on The Big Lie Homeschoolers Tell that discusses this notion of something being good for some people but not good for other people, only with homeschool (not daycare) and she uses breastfeeding as an analogy. It's pretty fascinating. It also is watering the seeds in my mind that have already been planted about homeschooling—which I sort of think I might like to do, but oh, I could not do.

Anyway, these issues have been on my mind for a while—and I've come to the conclusion that they key question for moms shouldn't be to work or not to work, but when to work and how much—and I recalled some relevant posts from the past on them: questioning why progressives assume that mothers of young children should work and scarily finding ways I kind of agree with Dr. Laura on some things (but not all).

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.

I walk the line: the challenges of being progressive but with ‘old-fashioned’ values

I signed the Planned Parenthood online petition this past week, both times, once before the House passed their measure to cut its funding and the other, after, when PP was looking to let the Senate know they should not cut funding. I saw alot of different discussions about this and other related issues online, and knew which side I was on for the most part in these discussions.

The MoveOn.org link, too, was valuable, in outlining several the “Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP’s War on Women,” although I am sure they (the Republicans) don’t see it as such and I honestly really don’t understand the Republican motive behind all this. Do they think they can shame people into what they feel is appropriate behavior? Do they think women go out looking to land in a spot where they need an abortion? Most of the things on the 10-point list are obvious, no-brainers that any progressive can get behind opposing.

But, I would feel a little disingenuous if I did not say something about what what I really think of point 6 on MoveOn’s list:

6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids’ preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really be home with the kids, not out working. {emphasis theirs}

Let me just first say that at the end of the day, I still support what MoveOn is driving at—that is, not pulling funding from low-income kids’ preschool programs. I get that. They’re low income. Further, I think that by simply raising taxes on the rich (I, too, though not “rich” would be willing to pay more) and then people just being a little more efficient and earnest in how they manage these funds, many of the budget problems would likely be solved, or at least it would help.

My problem, though, is the way MoveOn phrases it, as though it is a preposterously wrong idea that “Women should really be home with the kids, not out working”—wrong on the same level of Republicans allowing women to die rather than allow them an abortion, or on the level of changing the legal definition of rape, or on the level of making it legal to kill abortion providers.

I just don’t think the idea that mothers of small children should be home with their kids is really so wrong. It is idealistic, to be sure, in today’s world, but, it is not wrong. In fact, I think it is very much right. I think more people who can actually afford it should do this. I’m not saying women should not work, ever, I’m just saying that I really do believe it is better, most especially for infants, for them to be at home with their mothers and to slowly ramp the children up for full days at school over the 5-6 year early childhood stage. I do not think it is ideal for infants to be in day care centers or for toddlers or preschoolers to attend all day programs. I’ll provide a link here to some more thoughts on this including scholarly citations on the subject, though, as is the case with “proving” breastfeeding is the right thing to do, I do dare say that it seems to me to be common sense that small children, new to the world, need not be exposed to the fray of a group dynamic under the care of paid workers for extended periods of time. But, I digress.

To paraphrase a great thinker (cough cough…not really…but the sentiment works in what I am getting at there) we have to deal with the world we live in NOW not the world we want, or how we hope the world will someday be. Sure, I want a world where all mothers can afford to stay home with their infants, then send them to preschool for a few hours a week at age 3 or so, then enroll them in Kindergarten and be there at 3 pm to ask how their day was. However, I am a realist and I understand that that is NOT the world we live in right now. Therefore, we need to try and help out the best we can, which might mean, yes, funding full day preschools for low income kids. It also might mean subsidizing low income mothers staying home with their infants or preschoolers, or maybe attending classes part time, if they hit a set of targets ensuring they’re doing right by the kids and the system and not squandering the benefit.

I also understand that even among those who have a little money, with good jobs, mothers often choose to work because of a need for the healthcare benefits associated with their jobs. Another common scenario are the professionals who have to both work because their student loan payments are so high. Fixing both of these issues by bringing America more in line with other industrialized countries that do not tie healthcare to employment and that have much more reasonable systems of higher education would definitely allow more parents to do better by their young children.

I guess I am just dismayed that the progressives, with whom I share many values, think that what I believe to be ideal for children is wrong or somehow laughable or outrageous. But, the alternative—not supporting Planned Parenthood or MoveOn and allowing the attacks on women and children the Republicans are trying to pull—isn’t really an option for me either.

No regrets: Why I won’t hedge my child’s psyche to safeguard my future comfort

The latest buzz on the interwebs ingniting the fizzling “Mommy Wars” with a new spark comes from journalist Katy Read who regrets “opting out” of her career years ago to raise her sons, now that she’s divorced and can’t find much good work. In her Salon piece, not only does she tell her woeful tale, she warns new mothers against making the same mistake she did. “So if some young woman with a new baby were to ask me about opting out…I would warn her not to do it,” she concludes. She’s honest, she does mention the mixed feelings, the good times with her young boys, but in the end, it’s not worth it.

Many voices analyzed the piece, most echoing its sentiments. Two Babble bloggers discussed the piece, one a SAHM, the other a former SAHM, both clearly in the cautious camp. Some rightly hone in more on the divorce angle. And a dad blogger gives what I think is a smarter perspective. Right now, we’re in a recession. It’s just as easy to stay at work after having a baby, so better safe than sorry, right? I guess hindsight is 20/20 and one “never knows.” Feminists generally emphasize women’s need to be financially independent in case their husbands divorce them and act like its a fool’s game to stay home with small children for a few years because of the hit a career could take.

I say, one should live their ideal life, prudently, of course, if they are able and should not settle for less in order to hedge their bets against an unforeseeable future—certainly not when it comes to the well being of one’s children. Sure, there is no argument against the reality of the numbers that if you’re at home with kids and not working for money, or if you are working part time for less money, that you are going to take a financial hit. I am contributing less to my retirement fund, yes. Do I care? No. Am I unique in my confidence that my husband won’t leave me? I don’t know. I just know that’s not how I life my life. I believe in prudence, of course, which perhaps has given me the luxury of having the choice to stay home and run a low-key business for a few years while my child is young. We saved, we don’t spend wildly now, we have simple tastes, and of course we are blessed that my husband has a stable, well-paying job. I understand that other people have different circumstances and I’ve learned (mostly) not to judge. I do have a problem with the advice to young mothers from this person who has experienced the bad-end failure to do something different based on her individual circumstances.

I tend to believe that if you hedge against staying with your husband forever, that very act of hedging alone chips away at the commitment and bond. If you have the “just in case” idea poison the purity of your vow, then, there’s a crack in the foundation. This is why its so important to choose your partner well. If you work because you want to work, you’re embracing life and living it. If you work because you’re thinking maybe your husband will leave you, that’s not feminist. That’s presupposing the standard is that you’re supposed to be “taken care of” and you don’t trust that you’ll get that. If you approach marriage as a partnership between equals, the choice to stay home and raise your children (who are your husband’s children, too) is you doing that part of the partnership that you and your partner together decided was a good way to run your family. The bond has to be there and I don’t think it’s healthy for the bond to make contingency plans. (This is very different from life or disability insurance, to me.) Its recognizing that raising your children is as important as paying the bills (at least!).

The real problem here is divorce, I think. I strongly believe that if a couple has children they should really, really make the most valiant of efforts not to divorce. I don’t believe that a full half of people in marriages commit such heinous crimes that divorce is warranted. People. Work it out. You’re not that hot on the market. You need to find your happiness in your own soul, not chasing the next great thing you hope will come along, not cutting the dead weight you think is your spouse. Get it together for your kids, seriously! Men who leave women with kids in bad situations are reprehensible. Women that leave men over small things and then moan that it’s such a struggle to raise kids on their own, I don’t wanna hear it!

I believe it is best for infants and small children (preschoolers) to be cared for at home by their own mother. Yes, I know about tribal cultures and villages where many cared for the babies and youth of the tribe. The children were passed around, everybody had a hand in it and played their role very fluidly. I respect and admire those cultures, and such an arrangement may well be good for children, but that’s not the reality of the culture we live in today in the West and using daycare is in no way even a close approximation of that way of life. (It’s a common line quoted to defend daycare…”it takes a village!”) You can believe what you want about early childhood. But, given what I believe, and given that I have the means to do it, I feel absolutely compelled to stay home til my child is in school (we’ll see what the next transition will bring in a couple of years) and no fear of my future earning potential could waiver my resolve or make me regret my choice.

I scrabbled a life together for myself for many years when I was young, before getting a degree, before getting married, and I have confidence in myself that I could do it again. I hold raising my daughter as the most important job I can do. These two sentences, to me, encapsulate more of what feminism should be than the weakness and fear the one won’t be good enough later and that one doesn’t matter in their child’s early years.