"Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else." - J M Barrie

Burning the midnight oil.
Originally uploaded by grapesmc

About six months ago I started a new job. It was a significant step up for me in terms of pay and responsibility, and its hard, challenging, fun work. I actually sort of love it. Except for this unexpected part:

I'm on call all the time. For the past three or so weeks I've had work to take home on the weekend, I've sat down to work (at home) at 7:30 am as soon as Josh and E leave, worked for a couple of hours at home, gone in to the office and been there until 7 at night. Although I know that many people work this way, its a big change for me, and an adjustment for my family.

From a certain point of view, you could say that I'm actually filling the traditional "Dad" role in our family. I'm the main breadwinner in my family, and my husband is the person in our house who ends up doing most of the cooking, the laundry, the pickups and drop offs from daycare, bath time, and so on. (He also works outside the home. Much of my angst about parenting would be relieved, I think, if only he were able to leave his job. Financially, we could do it, but his company offers really stellar health insurance while my employer offers none. So he continues to work.)

I get home from work to find supper on the table, and have just about enough time to eat, perhaps play a little after dinner, then take E upstairs for PJs and tooth brushing and stories - our bedtime routine. Over the past couple of weeks, though, even the bedtime part has been handed over to Daddy, partly because I was sick and partly because I was working every available minute to get a certain project off the ground.

A few nights ago, for the first time ever that I can recall, E woke up in the middle of the night and called for father rather from me. I was the one who woke up anyhow, and went into his room to see what he needed. "Go away," he said. "I don't want you. I want my Daddy."

Even the next morning, as I snuggled up with him at sunrise, my son pushed me away. "I don't need you," he said.

"Well, I need you. Are you mad at me?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I just am." He burrowed deeply under the covers.

"Are you mad because I couldn't do bedtime last night?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry, buddy. But sometimes Daddy has to have a turn too. You know I love you wherever I am."

It didn't take much convincing for me to lure him out from under the covers. We read some (The Sneetches are a current favorite) and after the book was over he gave me a tight hug and told me he loved me and we started our day without much more fuss. Somehow, though, I thought he'd be older than three and a half the first time he told me he didn't need me.

We have friends who raised two daughters while the mom worked as a nurse and the dad was a stay-at-home dad. Throughout their childhoods, the girls looked to their father for their daily needs, much to the chagrin of their mother, who would often say things like "Its almost like I'm not their mother anymore."

Feminism taught us that gender roles could be more fluid. But biology holds more sway over us sometimes than we'd like to admit. I'm comfortable in my role as the breadwinner, the career woman, but at 2 am when my son cries out in the night I still also want to be the Mamma. For a child, though, the idea of "mother" is a different thing - the nurturer and caregiver is the person they cleave to, no matter gender or biological relationship. So as I work to identify the causes of my ongoing inner turmoil about parenting, I have to try and resolve this tug of war: biology wants be to be the Mamma, but our life as it is now puts me squarely in the Daddy role.

"mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled." - E Dickinson

Preschool Colors
Originally uploaded by barnabywasson

Heather Armstrong (the author of Dooce) announced yesterday via her Twitter feed that she's been invited to attend The White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility.

I want to state up-front that I'm a big fan of Heather Armstrong, and a big fan of the current White House. (So much so that I'm strongly considering standing outside all night in the rain tonight to get tickets for the President's visit to Portland on Thursday.) In particular, I think her voice has done a lot to educate people about the need for healthcare reform in the US, not to mention how she's raised awareness of post-partum depression. However.... (you knew that was coming, right?)

But Heather Armstrong is also the object of envy of every working mother I know. She is one of the few people I can say honestly "has it all" -- she's doing something she loves and has become very famous for it. She and her husband both work from home, on whatever schedule works for their family. You could easily say that she, almost uniquely, has built a career for herself that is the ultimate in family flexibility. But her very unique set of circumstances are not, I think, replicable by a large number of people in the world.

One of the things that makes me proud to have the Obama family in a leadership position in this country is that they are a real, working family. I do strongly believe that they get it, that they do really think they "understand the challenges" of balancing work and parenting, to use the phrasing from their press release.

But, even before he went to the Senate, they were also highly-educated professionals in leadership careers, who had family and paid in-home caregivers available to them. I doubt Sasha and Malia were ever in daycare (although I don't know that for sure). I think its more likely that they were cared for in their own home, either by their Grandmother or by someone else (a nanny, perhaps) who became, more or less, a part of the family. I know they mean well. But the experience is so different for working mothers who are a bit farther down the pay scale.

The press release says they've invited "labor leaders, CEOs, small business owners, and policy experts" to this forum. I wonder if there will be actual working mothers there? Women who hand their child over to a facility at 7:45 am and pick them up at 5:45 pm, who work blue collar jobs, who work service jobs, the low-income women and families for whom workplace flexibility is most needed. There is a cynical voice in my mind who says that the mothers who most need to have a voice at this summit won't be able to attend, and will, in fact, not ever even realize that anyone was having the conversation.

Every morning, I send my son off to be raised by a woman whom I don't know well and who doesn't really share my personal values. And I count myself lucky, because she's warm and loving, because my son spends his days in a mostly unstructured way, because he gets to run in a pasture and play outside for hours ever day, and (to be frank) because she's very inexpensive. And then I go to work and spend a large part of the day watching other, more fortunate parents as they come into my workplace and share experiences with their own children.

I have to wonder if my voice and experience will be represented?

One interesting note: in searching Flickr for an appropriate photo to add to this post, I noted this: if you search on the word "daycare" you get page after page of child care facilities in third world countries. To get middle-class American images, you have to search on the phrase "preschool". I wonder why that is?

"Pour down your warmth, great sun!" - Whitman

This morning, as many mornings, I woke up in E's bed with no memory of how I got there. I went to sleep in my own bed. I have a vague memory of moving him over to climb into his, but what prompted the move -- a cry, or just my own dreaming -- I have no idea.

We've all grown used to this. I'm sure at some point E will request that I don't co-sleep with him but that's long in the future. For now, he's joyfully snuggly when he wakes up and finds me there. I'm often awoken by kisses and hugs, or just a small warm cheek laid against my own cheek as he lays his head on my head. Sometimes, in the early morning hours when he's half-asleep and dreaming he will ask me things, and I will shush him, reassure him, which sends him back to sleep again.

I've realized slowly the reason this always felt right to me. I slept in the bed with my own mother until I was in elementary school. For her it wasn't a parenting choice -- we just lived in a two bedroom house with my grandparents: they had one room and I had the other. She worked nights, so often I would climb into my Grandmother's bed if I was sad or sick or lonely and fall asleep there. When I woke up in the morning I would be in my own bed with my mother beside me. We had a secret code between us, a hummed pattern that stood for the words "I love you" and I can remember resting my head against her back and humming it over and over until she woke up.

Humans are social, pack animals. We band together for safety reasons, and for social ones. For a long time I fought against my nocturnal wanderings, but I've come to accept and embrace them.

"Most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber!" - Lord Byron

Have to say, I certainly had days when I wished I could hire a night nanny, not for every night but just for a night or two until I could get rested again:

(NY Times) Baby Cries at 2 A.M.? No Need to Get Up

Of course, my second thought was "what are these babies eating?" I'm sure many of them are being fed breast milk by bottle, but I also suspect that women with these "high pressure" professional jobs, as well educated about infant health as I'm sure they are, just aren't able to pump four or five times a day to provide milk for their babies.

As a working mother, night nursing (and snuggling) with my son was such a wonderful, close time time with him. It provided him with food, security, and close contact with me, and it gave me time to just gaze at him in wonder. Four a.m. in the half-light of dawn is always the way I'll see the infant E best in my mind's eye. He loved to wrap his tiny hands up in my hair before he went to sleep.

“To campaign against colonialism is like barking up a tree that has already been cut down.” - Andrew Cohen

Sociological Images The White Woman's Burden

Apparently, Pampers is in partnership with UNICEF; for each package of Pampers you buy (perhaps only in the UK, its not clear), Proctor and Gamble will donate five cents to UNICEF to provide tetanus vaccines to infants in developing countries.
(Details from UNICEF; Details from P&G; Press Release)

I'm always puzzled by the idea of "activism by purchase" ... if I don't buy Pampers, does that mean that some children will die because of my choice???!! Argh! Its a great selling tool, but frustrating from the philanthropic side.

However, I'm not really posting this to rant about that.

Instead, please read the insightful commentary in the post linked above about the imagery used in the ad. P&G's marketers know a lot about how to push our "mothering buttons" and its interesting to analyze how those particular buttons are pushed in the creation of this ad.

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Personal Note: The last week has been a rough one. My son was very ill for the first part of the week, and then his birthday was yesterday.

Daisy: No, we never found the schoolbus. Its vanished. I did buy him another one, though.

"I do not know how to distinguish between our waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are? " - Thoreau

I've developed a strange problem in the past few weeks: I've become a zombie co-sleeper.

Everything starts off fine. I fall asleep in my own bed. But sometime in the night something happens, and every morning for almost two weeks I've woken up snuggled up with my son in his bed. The strange part is that many mornings I don't remember what woke me or remember getting up and moving. Not at all.

What probably happens is that E wakes up sometime in the night and calls for me. He used to cry, but over time he's realized that if he's awake in the night he can just call out "mamma, mamma" and I'll hear him and come in. Typically the reason he's awake is that he's kicked off all his covers or has flopped over so he's sideways on the bed, and now he's cold, so the easiest thing to do is to snuggle under the covers with him until I doze off. But more mornings than not, now, I wake up in his bed with no memory at all of how I arrived there. This morning I woke up at 4:45 am in his bed, no idea how I'd arrived there, and thought "this is dumb. I'm going back to my own bed." and so got up and slept for the next hour and a half or so in my own bed, next to my husband.

I woke up when E woke up at 6:30 am and cried out "Where mamma?! Where mamma?!"

I guess I don't really mind this odd routine. E clearly likes waking up next to me (I often get kisses and hugs when waking up), and my husband doesn't really mind. I do find it strange, however, that I don't remember it. I almost see it as some sort of weird reversal of the way we often move sleeping children around - they fall asleep in one spot and wake up in a totally different one.

I'm pretty sure no one is carrying me into his room, however. At least I hope not.

"It is some relief to weep; grief is satisfied and carried off by tears." - Ovid

My son saw me cry for the first time ever last night. Sitting on the floor of his room, as I was talking with his father about a current disappointment and a small frustration I just burst into tears. E was perplexed, to say the least, and walked over and solemnly patted my leg. His father tried to encourage him to say "its ok, mamma" but he wouldn't speak - just stared up at me for a long moment with is big blue eyes, then handed me a plastic knight and held up his own, ready to fight.

I recovered quickly, then fought as required. Later, we read books and sang our goodnight songs and struggled over tooth brushing and snuggled and slept. As I cuddled my son as he made that final transition between sleepy and sleeping, I thought about the first time I saw my mother cry (that I remember).

The first time I saw my mother cry was when I was 27, and my Grandmother -- my mother's mother, the woman who was my primary caregiver for most of my childhood -- passed away. My mother (a solid, capable midwestern woman) had been a rock through her mother's final illness, through telling my Grandfather that his wife had died, through the funeral planning, only to break down weeping in the parking lot just before she started the car. I was taken aback, but also understood that she'd been trying to hold it together as much for me as for herself, and, after all, crying when your mother dies is normal and fully expected. Still, it was a momentary shock, simply because I'd never seen it before. Through her struggles during my childhood and our struggles as mother and daughter during my teen and college years, if she'd cried she always did it in private.

A good friend recently said to me "I hope [your son] doesn't have to know how hard you work to make his life as good as it is". I appreciate the sentiment, but its not something it would ever occur to me to hide from him. Its important to me that he understand that life is not easy or handed to you. I also think its important that he understand that Mamma and Daddy are people just like him, and that we cry and hurt and laugh and dance just as he does.

On the other hand, I'd sort of hoped the first tears he would see from me were tears of joy, not tears of anger and frustration. His job as a son is not to comfort me, although his presence provides much comfort. Our job as a family is to provide support for each other through highs and lows. Being open about our emotions - teaching him that all feelings are ok even as I strive to make sure that I'm not overwhelming him with things he can't possibly process - is just another in the long series of balancing acts that no book or parenting magazine can prepare you for.

"There is no delight in owning anything unshared." - Seneca

In Sunday's New York Times Magazine there was a parenting article (When Mom and Dad Share It All by Lisa Belkin) that's getting a lot of play on the blogs this week. In a nutshell, the piece rehashes the familiar housework-imbalance stats: women, even working mothers, generally spend two hours on household chores for every one hour spent by men, and that ratio remains consistent when looking at childcare (which is split into its own category, separate from housework).

The article then goes on to profile a couple of families who have tried to change this, and talks about how they have succeeded or failed to various degrees.

In response to what I posted yesterday (about outsourcing some work so you can free up time to spend "quality time" (notice the quotes) with your child(ren), or perhaps so you can just get everything done that you want to get done without losing your mind), a friend who is a stay-at-home mom wrote "Multitasking is what being a mom is all about - regardless of whether you work or not." Given how much balance their is in their family and their marriage, her comment surprised me -- not because I disagree, but I was surprised at how she phrased it: I immediately wondered why she had not said "Multitasking is what being a parent is all about"

I know I'm the dad at my house. My husband watches our son while I'm working at night and on weekends, he puts away the dishes, does the laundry, changes the sheets, cooks dinner, vacuums, and, in general, makes sure the house is more-or-less acceptably tidy. Earlier this week he cleaned the tub before giving E his bath, and took me to task for not noticing how gross it had become (the bathrooms and loading the dishwasher are my only two assigned tasks. Plus my own laundry). I'm very guilty of being the parent who comes home and wants it to be baby-play time instead of trying to balance spending time with my son with doing some routine household chore. I want to give him my complete and undivided attention for the hour or two we have together before he goes to bed.

Balance in a relationship is a tricky thing. Gender roles, social norms, and personal preference all play a part in making sure that everyone is happy with which way the teeter-totter is pointing (is that too weird? The Teeter-totter thing?). I'm wondering if a sociologist would say that I'd rather be home with my son and doing dishes and cleaning baseboards because society has conditioned me to believe that this is my role. If s/he did, I'd say "Sorry, not true. Its not society. I never wanted to do any of this stuff before my son was born."

Honestly? I think its the hormones.

(Two other links that are mentioned in the article: Equally Shared Parenting, Third Path Institute)

“We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.” - Marcus Fabius Quintilian

I'm realizing with some horror that its not just been "a few days" but rather more than a week since my last post here. I might try to excuse it by saying "I've been busy" but, while true, that shouldn't be an excuse.

Its more that I'm self-censoring too much. I never intended this site to be a long litany of the ways that I'm dissatisfied with my own life as a working mother, but that is, of course, what its turned out to be. So I end up saying nothing when I can't say something good.

(Also, if you search Google news for the word "Mother" you bring up a bunch of wretched stories like this one, which just sort of ruins the rest of my day.)

This has been a tough couple of weeks at my house. I'm working even more than usual (my day job has me working at special events both this Saturday and next), and these days whenever E sees me the first thing he says is always "bye bye mamma," which breaks my heart. I'm coming to realize that there really isn't any way out of this for our family - that our lives are going to continue to be like this for years yet - and its amazingly depressing. I'm not sure how we're going to heat our house this winter, and money continues to be a driving concern.

This is not to say that we haven't had some great moments - on Tuesday, for example, thanks to the generosity of a great friend we were able to go see the Portland Seadogs at Hadlock Stadium (long details over here, with photos), which was a really wonderful evening, but its like a shooting star - only there for a moment, and I'm not sure when it will reappear.

Driving home from Hadlock on Tuesday night I realized that part of the problem is that I see him so little that I'm starting to feel like a divorced non-custodial parent. We have "special treat" days, but no real time to just hang out and do normal things. When I have a day off, there is such a strong pull to make it "special" that there is no normal routine of doing regular household things.

I don't how to combat this. But I'm open to suggestions.

"The marathon can humble you" - Bill Rodgers

Today was one of those crazy 15 hour days I sometimes have, where I work both jobs and only get to see my baby awake for the first forty minutes or so of the entire day. It was his first day back at daycare after a week away, and the day our roofers arrived to tear our roof (and lawn. and driveway.) apart.

But, strangely, here at midnight, at the end of this marathon day I'm not nearly as tired as I was last night at 8pm when I fell asleep in the bed next to my baby boy.

Being a stay at home mom isn't something you just jump into. Were I to suddenly win the lottery and be able to stay at home from tomorrow on, I'm not sure I could physically handle it. I'm just not in shape. On the days -- the rare and beautiful days -- when I get to spend the entire day with my son, with no plans and no agenda, I feel as though I've been thrown headlong into a marathon without having ever run a step. My body aches. I'm tired - the bone tired of physical labor, but also the deeper tiredness that happens when you work your imagination all day. I've spent the day doing laundry and playing trucks and making lunch and being hyper vigilant, and by E's bedtime I'm a wreck - ready to lay down next to him and fall asleep, struggling to keep my eyes open until he shuts his for good. In some ways, working is the easy way out -- I get to do the fun stuff, the easy stuff, and someone else gets to do the more difficult and exhausing day-to-day grind of maintenance.

Last night I was waiting for his peed-on bedding to finish it time in the dryer, so we put him to bed in our bed as his father waited for the laundry to dry. E and I snuggled up, as we often do, and read books. But I kept yawning. I had to read the same page three times, because I kept yawning. Finally, E looked up at me, and patted my face, and said "night night, mamma, night night." He reached over and closed the book and laid his head on the pillow next to mine. And held my hand, as we both went to sleep.

"Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge." -- Paul Gauguin

I recently stumbled across SouleMama, which is a wildly interesting blog - moreso because she lives here in Portland and writes about a lot of things that are very familiar to me (like her current post about the Salvation Army Fabric Sale, for instance).

Days one and two of the "daycare vacation" have gone quite well. My mother was here looking after E (with her dog, Nick, with whom E is wildly in love). Tomorrow E is home all day with Daddy, and Thursday its my turn. I can't wait for my turn. Its a chance to live my fantasy life as a Mamma more like Soulemama -- an earth mother, a bread baker, a maker of things.

When I was home on my maternity leave - a moment and a lifetime ago now, it seems - I made myself crazy because I couldn't seem to do anything. I vividly remember the day I went back to work. I got to the stop sign at the corner and actually yelled "Yipee!" out loud, because I was so happy, at that moment, to be going back to the world of adults. My infant son was beautiful, but (truth to be told) a trifle dull. But my toddler son - so bright, so full of words, so interested in things, so loving - he's a person.

These past two days, instead of E leaving at 730 with is father, he and I have been home together for two hours before my mother arrived to watch him. This morning we played with blocks. Yesterday we touched our noses for fifteen minutes, then talked about elbows and knees. I'm starting to think that finding a way to have those two hours every morning would make a huge difference in my life, but doing that would involve so much upheaval for him that I'm reluctant to do it.

Having my mother here for two days has also been an interesting experiment in Free Range Parenting. She has a whole different set of expectations about what his abilities (and responsibilities) should be. And I learned, I think, that my expectations of him and his abilities should be more like hers. I have to stop thinking of him as "the baby". He's a toddler now, and more independent by the day.

“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” - Thomas Merton

I've written about our Tuesday's here before. On Tuesday,E's dad has a weekly practice he attends (along with many of our friends) and I've been trying to make those Tuesday evenings a focus-time for E and I to have some time where we do something fun, just he and I.

For a few weeks (while the weather was still lousy here) I was taking him to Whole Foods, letting him select what he wants to try ( or what I think he'll eat) from the immense buffet of pre-made food and we've been having dinner together. However, there are a ton of distractions there (last week I think he fell in love with a much older girl -- she was easily 7 or 8 -- who was wearing a full ballet outfit, classical tutu and tiara included) and he tends to want to people watch and not eat. The people watching in and of itself isn't a problem, but considering how tight our budget is it was somewhat frustrating to me to spend ten or twelve dollars ($7.99/lb for the buffet) on dinner for him (with me eating the leftovers) and still have a hungry toddler at the end of the meal.

Last night, with the advent of better weather and longer days, we took a different approach. I loaded him in the car and bought him a huge treat -- a fast food kids meal from the burger joint drive-through -- then we went to watch daddy at practice (which was being held outside for the first time this season). He ate everything, watched practice with rapt attention (Dadda! Dadda!), then ran amok on the grass until it got dark and he was so tired he could barely put one foot in front of the other.

The running amok part I hope will always stay with me -- his warmest sweater, black, with his blond curls blowing in the breeze as he ran and ran and laughed and laughed and laughed.

For the first time since we've started, I felt like, at the end, his evening had been as special as mine had been.

"A smiling face is half the meal" - Proverb

How To Get a Toddler to Eat Something New

1) Make him his mostest-favoritest food that you can think of.

2) Make you and your husband a different meal -- something with a strong garlic flavor that your son has shown repeatedly to dislike.

3) Let the toddler eat first. Do not get upset when he rejects his mostest-favoritest food, eats three bites then dumps the rest on the table, booster seat, and floor.

4) Release him from the table and let him run around and play as you and your husband sit down to eat your garlic-laden (or otherwise "yuchy") meal.

5) When, after your first few forkfuls, your toddler appears at your elbow saying "Bite? Bite? Bite?" tell him "No, this is mommy's dinner. You had yours."

6) Repeat.

7) Repeat.

8) Repeat but substitute "No, this is daddy's dinner" for dialog listed in step 5.

9) After he's asked at least ten times, give in. Feed him a single forkful, confident that he will spit it out as he's done about three dozen times before.

10) End up feeding said toddler your entire adult-sized portion of dinner, one forkful at a time, as he practices saying the word "Bite" about a hundred and fifty times.

At least at my house, it never fails.

"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."- W Edwards Demming

Things have been kind of dark here as of late, which doesn't really reflect the true mood either in my house or inside my head. So lets try to lighten up some.

Its been so beautiful here for the past week or so. We took E to the playground after work yesterday afternoon, but our visit had to be cut short .... due to poop. You'd think after all this time I would have learned to put an extra diaper or two in my bag or stashed in the car but I have not yet learned that lesson.

My son is totally in love with "The Tivo Guy" but when our Tivo broke and was replaced the old Tivo Guy startup animation was replaced with a new one. You would think the world had ended! So I asked some questions about restoring the old animation on the internet, and a very kind stranger from Washington state mailed Evan a stuffed Tivo guy. He adores it.

Because everything is better with pictures, here's a very short (about seven seconds) clip of E welcoming "the guy" into our home.



Last night, for the first time in ages, I woke up in my own bed and E woke up in his. I did have to go lay down with him for about an hour in the middle of the night, but I do view this as a big step towards actual and for real "sleeping through the night". Plus, he woke up at about 530 and called for me once, but I waited a minute or two and no second call ever came. When we got up at 630 he was fast asleep, and I had to wake him at five past seven by opening the shades in his room.

"A question may be asked, ‘Will mothers have their children in eternity?' Yes! Yes! Mothers, you shall have your children." - Joseph Smith

Walther acknowledged the nutritional and bonding benefits of breast-feeding. "But every day in this country, we have mothers who go back to work after six weeks of maternity leave," she said." - Texas Judge Barbara Walther, as quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune

When my son was eight weeks old, I left him at the home of a total stranger -- a woman I had met only the day before -- in hopes that she would love him and care for him as I would. It was easily the most terrifying moment of my life.

When we decided to have a baby, we knew this day would come. I knew that I would only have a few short weeks with him as a newborn before I needed to return to work as our family's primary wage-earner. At the time we made this choice, though, we had no idea what it really meant. I suppose you could say that we did have other choices, but none of those were good choices - I could have quit my job and we could have sold the house and tried to live on my husband's salary alone, but we probably would have quickly ended up on welfare. My husband could have quit his job, but that would leave us with no affordable insurance option. We could have chosen not to have a child. (This last would have been the least selfish, from a certain point of view.) At the time, at that moment, on that first day, I was at peace with the decision we made, but as time has rolled on and I've realized all that my son and I have missed and lost I'm less and less comfortable with it.

Parents like us, with a child in full-time daycare, are actually a minority in the US. In 2005, 61% of preschool children spent some time each day in "non-parental" care, but only 36% of those children were cared for outside the home or by someone not related to the child (source). Of all the mothers I know with children under the age of 6, I am the only mother who is working full time and has a child in full time daycare. To say that I'm jealous of those other mothers is an understatement. Every day when E walks down the stairs to go off with his father to Sarah's house, its like a stone in my belly. He sees it as his normal routine, and can get flustered on days when he doesn't go. I die a little more inside each morning as I watch him leave.

Every other issue of the FLDS case aside, what has made me so angry about Judge Walter's comment as quoted is that she seems to view leaving a baby in care at 6 weeks as normal. You already know, of course, that in other (I was tempted to say "civilized") countries they don't give new mothers' six or eight weeks leave. In Canada I believe the standard is 37 weeks. In the UK, its 52 weeks. In Sweden, 18 months. In most countries in Africa, 14 weeks. (Wikipedia to the rescue - I don't have to list them for you, here's a handy chart.

Judge Walter, just because women do this every day doesn't make it ok and it certainly doesn't make it the best choice for any child. We do it, mostly, because we are forced by circumstances, just as these FLDS mothers are. Your comment, which has been published in just about every newspaper in this nation, reinforces to the public at large the ideas that a) breastfeeding is some kind of luxury; and b) that there is nothing at all broken about the current support system (or lack thereof) for mothers and families in this country. Perhaps your intended meaning was "it happens every day and kids survive it". Yes, they do. But the losses sustained for the mothers and babies cannot be balanced in any accounting.

"Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless" - B.Waterson

I've recently discovered a blog called Career and Kids (one of the few so-called "mommy blogs" out there that I really feel like is written by someone who shares my challenges and frustrations) and their post from last night struck a particular chord with me: Busy Weekend Sabotages Chores.

This weekend, in particular, was a little too full (next weekend is that way, too, for different reasons), made fuller by the fact that Josh was away all day Saturday and E was stricken by some sort of particularly icky stomach bug on Saturday afternoon. (It struck while we were on our way home from the playground, too. Poor little guy - he was wet right through his diaper and I ended up changing him on a breezy park bench near the cove (which made him shiver), and then he had to ride home in his wet jeans, all of which really just added insult to injury for him, I think.)

Because I work two jobs, often my "weekend" is more of a "day off", and its not unusual for me to attempt to pack a little too much into that single day (or, really day-and-a-half because my Sunday shift was scheduled to begin at 130 pm). Of course, because I get to spend so little time with E during the week (and much of that time is focused on getting him "fed, read, and bed", as we like to say), I want to make sure that the time I spend with him on Saturday and Sunday morning is as focused on him and his wants and needs as possible. But I also have a long list of "gotta do's" and "wanna do's" that I always hope I can find a way to get done. Realistically, though in a tug-of-war between laundry or playing, raking or playing, building shelves or playing, or even cooking (I mean really cooking and experimenting with food, not simply heating up nourishment) or playing, playing will always win.

Still, there are certain things that simply must get done (laundry, for example, or raking the back yard, or repairing the broken window in our garage) and it sometimes becomes a frustrating exercise to try and move anything off that list. (This is, in part, because Josh -- for all his many virtues -- is not "handy" but we're mostly too broke to hire contractors, so doing a lot of these jobs takes far, far more time and effort than it really should.)

So, by the end of an overstuffed weekend like this one, we end up in a situation where no one is happy. I'm not happy because I feel like "nothing got done" (despite the fact I ran four loads of laundry and did the dishes and we went to the playground and I nursed my miserable son with bananas and yogurt and Elmos and snuggle time), because I really didn't get anything more than basic maintenance items checked off my list. E's not happy because he's gotten a taste of what its like to have Mamma cater to his every whim 24-7 (including sleeping in his room snuggling him when he was sick) and now he wants it All. The. Time. Josh is unhappy because he feels like I've been nagging him all weekend about "things" that need one (and I have, which is unfair - I'm just as able to clean a gutter as he is, after all) when all he wants to do is kick back and relax and maybe sleep late one morning or the other.

I won't lie to you and say that its not putting some strain on our relationship, because it is. After fifteen years of settling into life as "a couple" we're having to relearn the rhythm of working together as a family unit - not only as a parenting team but also as a flexible triangle, trying to keep all our angles aligned in such a way that no side is overstressed. Its a hard curve, and I fully understand how less healthy relationships might not stand the strain. In some ways, being a "family manager" is a much more difficult job than being just Mamma, because when I'm Mamma, I can make the rules or break them (within the parameters of comfort and health and common sense) whereas the "family manager" needs to take so much more into account.

If we could destroy custom at a blow and see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other apocalypse. - Chesterton

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the end of the world.

Peak oil. Food insecurity. Global Warming (or Climate Change, if you prefer). Mutant viruses. Extinction. Inflation. Recession. Pestilence. Senseless violence on an epic scale. Floods and displacement. Religious intolerance and fanaticism. Unending war. All of these are features of my daily news feed, and life here in America in the 21st Century.

Talking to my mother last night, I mentioned that I carry deep inside me a certain amount of guilt for my selfishness in deciding to bring our beautiful, sunny, pure, joyful son into this world. He doesn't know it yet, but his Earth is, I think, going to be a substantially less beautiful, less healthy, and less prosperous place than the one we currently enjoy. Will he resent us for this? Will he have cause to wonder why we chose to create him at all? Will he go hungry, or be homeless, or suffer in some unimaginable way?

I'm very conscious of my privilege, and of his. I am, in fact, painfully aware of how easy we have it compared to most mothers and babies across the globe. We live in a nice house, and I have no reason to believe that anytime soon we'll personally be facing famine or violence. One could even say that we are affluent, although by American standards we are most certainly just on the cusp of middle class. On the flip side, however, it is also true that we undeniably live in "interesting" times. I have no trouble at all imagining post-election riots here. Its disturbingly easy to picture my beautiful coastal city locked-down under martial law. I have to confess that I'm unseasy every time I hear a helicopter flying overhead, even though I know its probably just a lifeflight transporting a patient to Boston or bringing them home again. I found that I couldn't watch Jericho because I found its core idea - widespread destruction followed by splintering of the Union and civil War - to be all too plausible to be entertainment. In those first few sleep-deprived weeks when E was a newborn I had a reoccurring dream that Josh and I were on foot, carrying E in a backpack, trekking through the forests of Northern Maine towards the Canadian border, fleeing ... something. I don't find that far-fetched and actually find myself subconsciously thinking about it, planning for it -- looking at details, thinking how we would live at survival level or even flee on short notice if it became necessary.

I wonder how other mothers - in Kenya, in Haiti, in the dumps of Guatemala City, in Tanzania and Darfur, how those mothers find the strength to continue to bear and raise children, knowing there is an excellent chance that beautiful, beloved child will die before it can walk. I find myself thinking of European women who became mothers in the 1930's and early '40's - even Jewish women living in Germany under the oppression of the Nuremberg Laws, knowing or fearing that worse was to come. What mechanism enables those mothers to handle the fear? Cope with the loss? What mechanism enables them to have hope? Will this become clearer to me should I ever need to face it close up?

I was talking this over with my own mother last night. My mother was born on the cusp of WWII; she was four when Pearl Harbor was bombed and just about every childhood memory she has is tied in some way to living on the home front during the war. And this was her insight:

In those times, she said, there was a sense of community that is simply lacking in America today. There was a sense of "being in it together" and looking out for one another that is tough to find in the well-manicured suburbs and condominium developments of modern America, but which is much more prevalent in impoverished communities both here and abroad. My mother believes that one upside to the pending crisis of the American Empire is that it will force us, as citizens, to be less selfish and less greedy - that we will somehow become better people in the face of this deprivation. And that because we are able to hope for a better world for our children, we teach them to aspire to something better, and it is that aspiration that enables both us (as mothers) to endure and them (as children) to continue on, trying to build a civilized life as best they can.

I have to hope that she's right - that somehow hope and aspiration are enough to allow us to endure the changes that are surely coming. But I'm also making sure we have canned food and powdered milek and extra propane in the basement, just in case.

"There is no instinct like that of the heart." - Lord Byron

I wish I understood the mechanism by which you can put a toddler in a space with a thousand new, interesting, colorful things and that toddler, by some instinct, makes a beeline for the single thing in the room that you did not want them to have.

"Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid." - F. P. Jones

Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone

I hope I am as brave as this mother when the time comes. One key point that I've known for a long time, but that she reiterates here, is that "Justice Department data actually show the number of children abducted by strangers has been going down over the years.". We're just so much more aware of it now that the world seems more dangerous (a point not new to me, obviously, but made many times in more eloquent ways by others.)

But the author here has touched on the core point, I think, which is not that your child is in danger if s/he uses the subway or walks home from school alone, but, rather, that the parent is in danger of having Child Protective Services called for allowing the child this measure of independence.

When Josh was nine, he was often in charge at home with no adults about, taking care of his seven year old brother and two year old sister (and, when he was 12, another sister as well). He changed diapers and made food and gave baths and was the caregiver for hours at a time. Although today, of course, we'd be shocked and DHS would probably be called to interview his mother, I honestly believe that this is a big part of the experience that shaped him into becoming such a responsible adult (not to mention an excellent father).

So, when my son is old enough, I hope I'm brave enough to let him be independent. Because its not the "stranger danger" I'll be afraid of -- its the other parents and the Culture of Fear that I'll be bucking against.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be" - D.Adams

Its 5 pm. E is still in his PJs. I just took a shower. It would be an understatement to say that we've had a lazy day.

Josh and I both had plans that got canceled at the last minute. E and his dad took a three hour nap, while I lay on the sofa, being indolent and reading. E's dad kindly let me sleep late. Now that its supper time we're all up and ready to start our day. We've left E in his footy PJs all day because -- well, for no real reason. There just didn't seem to be any point in getting him dressed.

I'm not what I would call "a natural" at mothering. Oh, I love my son and I take great pains to make sure that he gets fed and played with and read too and snuggled. (After all, he's too cute not to snuggle and hug.) But I have a sort of "intellectual" approach to it. I sometimes expect him to be rational when its not really realistic for me to expect that. And sometimes I just have no idea what to do.

Today, for example, we should probably be outside. That would be the "right" thing to do. Time with him is so precious that I feel like I should make every day like today -- days when mamma and daddy are both home and we have nothing on the schedule -- an adventure, a special treat. But instead, we've napped and E and Daddy played ABC on the computer, and we've read some, but also mamma and daddy spent some time sitting on the sofa like vegetables (if vegetables read books) watching E play on the floor. Right now I think E and his father are wrestling while I'm supposed to be getting dressed.

One thing I love about E's dad is how natural he is as a father. He instinctively knows how to discipline, how to soothe, and how to entertain. Its one of the things I love about him and one of the things that I envy, too. Its also the reason that I'm pretty sure I'd never "make it" as a Stay-at-home-mom. I'd be too driven by the checklist (must do dishes, must make lunch, -- now its craft time .... here, son, lets play this game) and unable to make the most of the spontaneous moment.

As E gets older, I hope I'll get better at this -- that both entertaining and duty will be come more of an instinct and less of a checklist. In part, I'm sure, it will get better because we'll be able to communicate more easily. I'm not one of those mothers who an hear her son make string of sounds and know "Oh, his sock is wet." Most of the idea I have no idea what he wants, and I'm sure he's as frustrated by his attempts to communicate with me as I am in trying (desperately, sometimes) to understand what he's trying to tell me. Often, he seems to be warning me about Gungins. That will sort itself out over time, I think.

Right now, however, its like a tiny incontinent elf with a strong self will is living in our house. And that's ok with me. I just hope he's willing to put up with me until I figure out how to do it.