E drew a picture and Josh translated the picture into this terrific pumpkin.
Have a great weekend!
I don't see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one.
October 29, 2010
"How to help your Husband Get Ahead" - Title of a book by Mrs Dale Carnagie
October 28, 2010
Blogger Jen Byck spent two weeks back in May living the life of a 1950's housewife. Apparently she had so much "fun" (note the quotes) that she's doing it again for another week.
Check it out. This is awesome stuff.
Check it out. This is awesome stuff.
Tomorrow night is nothing but one long sleepless wrestle with yesterday's omissions and regrets. - Faulkner
October 27, 2010
Yesterday, we made the gruesome error of letting E remain asleep after he fell asleep in the car on the way home from daycare. Typically when we do this its no problem; he just sleeps through until a stupid-early but basically reasonable hour of the morning. Last night, not so much.
Instead, he woke up at around 11:30 and came downstairs. Now its so happens that we had some friends over, and had just finished watching Glee, so not only was he disoriented and cranky, but he found it doubly (triply?) weird that the house was full of people and we had the TV on.
"But we can't watch TV after supper time. Its a rule!"
We had to come clean to him that his father and I do, in fact, sometimes watch TV after supper. Another childhood illusion destroyed, I guess.
We fed him a Peanut Butter sandwich (yes, I feed him PB&J - I wonder if, these days, this is a mark in the "bad mother" column) and sat up with him while he ate. So, more than an hour after I had intended to go to bed I was snuggled up with him, reading.
At 1 am I told him "I'm turning off the lights and going to sleep." And that's what I did. I stayed in his room, because I knew if I didn't he'd be up and playing for most of the night, and I had hopes that he would fall back asleep.
For two hours (at least) he squirmed around. He played with his teddy bears. He would periodically lay his (very heavy) head on my head. I believe he fell asleep by 3:30.
This morning, I was wrecked. He was chipper and cheerful and ready to go. Tonight, as we wait for dinner to finish, I'm still wrecked.
I wonder if employers take into account the fact that parents just don't ever, ever, ever get enough sleep. I wonder how much more productive I could be at work if I did?
Instead, he woke up at around 11:30 and came downstairs. Now its so happens that we had some friends over, and had just finished watching Glee, so not only was he disoriented and cranky, but he found it doubly (triply?) weird that the house was full of people and we had the TV on.
"But we can't watch TV after supper time. Its a rule!"
We had to come clean to him that his father and I do, in fact, sometimes watch TV after supper. Another childhood illusion destroyed, I guess.
We fed him a Peanut Butter sandwich (yes, I feed him PB&J - I wonder if, these days, this is a mark in the "bad mother" column) and sat up with him while he ate. So, more than an hour after I had intended to go to bed I was snuggled up with him, reading.
At 1 am I told him "I'm turning off the lights and going to sleep." And that's what I did. I stayed in his room, because I knew if I didn't he'd be up and playing for most of the night, and I had hopes that he would fall back asleep.
For two hours (at least) he squirmed around. He played with his teddy bears. He would periodically lay his (very heavy) head on my head. I believe he fell asleep by 3:30.
This morning, I was wrecked. He was chipper and cheerful and ready to go. Tonight, as we wait for dinner to finish, I'm still wrecked.
I wonder if employers take into account the fact that parents just don't ever, ever, ever get enough sleep. I wonder how much more productive I could be at work if I did?
"One need not be a chamber to be haunted; One need not be a house" - Dickinson
October 22, 2010
Josh and I bought this spooky Halloween tree the first year we were a couple. Its up now, in a corner of our front hall, with that house (actually a votive holder) that fits just right below it.
This weekend I make a black cat costume and finish decorating. Halloween is our favorite time of year!
This weekend I make a black cat costume and finish decorating. Halloween is our favorite time of year!
“Habit and routine have an unbelievable power to waste and destroy.” - H de Lubac
October 21, 2010
There is an overwhelming sameness to our days.
Morning. Josh sleeps through his alarm again (though I do not) and we let E sleep until the last possible minute we can. I dress him, in a rush, while wondering how he will ever learn to dress himself, realizing he probably already can but it’s a skill I don’t let him practice much on these rushed mornings, electing to give him every second of sleep he can. They bundle at the door a few minutes past 7:30 and I am alone in a cold house, trying to motivate myself to start the day.
In the shower by 8. Out the door by 9. Sometimes a stop before work, sometimes not. Drive the mile and a half to work. Sit in my office, watching other mothers and fathers walk by with their children. Wave to babies who toddle by my office window and wave to me. Wonder what E is doing. Wonder if he’s ok. Wonder if its raining.
I know Josh leaves at 4:30 (-ish) to collect him from Sarah’s house. Sometimes when Josh arrives E runs and hides and fights going home. Sometimes, increasingly, he does not. They drive half an hour, maybe talking, maybe singing to the radio. I know that around the time they pass through Yarmouth Josh will reach back with his right arm and hold E’s hand while they drive.
With driving and pickup antics and more driving and whatnot they arrive home just before 6. At some point earlier in the afternoon Josh will have called me to have a somewhat futile conversation about dinner, but mostly it is Josh’s task to start cooking immediately when he gets home in hopes that we can eat by 7. E plays downstairs or watches TV, or helps with dinner, as the mood strikes him. Our parlor is taken up with a huge train table, as it has been since Santa brought it ten months ago. Soon we’ll need to move it upstairs and then Josh fears that E will go upstairs with it in this precious hour when they are home together, and he will never see E again.
I try to leave the office by 6. I don’t always manage that, but I try. Home by 6:30, ecstatic greetings from E who runs from any corner of the house shouting “Mama! Mama!” but as soon as I am hugged and kissed he returns to whatever he was doing. I try to play with him, but sometimes the mail, the meal, the laundry, my husband, sometimes those things take up the precious rationed minutes until supper and I don’t mange to lie on the floor in the parlor to admire E’s latest stadium or destruction project.
Dinner is served. We eat, all together, E eating from his red plate. I try to use the slip of paper Sarah sends home to guide my questions to him, but often I can elicit zero details about the day. Often dinner is a struggle – here, have a bite, another, three more, two more, just one more. Although he can feed himself, he will often eat those last few bites only if I feed them to him. This weekend, a friend observed us and remarked, not unkindly “young man, can’t you feed yourself?” to which I replied “Can and Will are two separate things” and the questioner agreed this was true.
No movies after supper is a firm house rule. I will clear the table and wash the dishes while his father plays with him or bathes him. Sometimes, rarely, we will finish supper in time for me to wash the dishes and come play. More often, I finish just as bedtime is announced and we all run up the stairs racing, while E shouts “I’ll win! I’ll win!”
Bedtime. E is better at undressing himself than dressing. I get him into a diaper (yes, still, at night) and PJs and send him off with his father for tooth brushing and a final potty break. E chooses books, or I do, and we climb in bed together, often me in my PJs as well, completely surrounded by stuffed friends – two bears, a star-belly sneech, pooh friends, a rabbit, a snoopy that plays Linus and Lucy when you squeeze his hand. Three books (if he hasn’t lost any for bad behavior), and then the light goes out and he falls asleep next to me, warm and heavy, he and I cocooned against the chill of the drafty house, wrapped up in quilts together. More often than not I fall asleep, although I hardly ever mean to. If I escape the lure of Morpheus, I can go downstairs to visit with my husband a little, watch some TV, explore the internet, be companions together. If Morpheus wins, I often wake around 1 in the morning, get up, take my contact lenses out, shout downstairs for Josh to come to bed (he might be asleep on the sofa, watching TV, reading, allegedly ignorant that its gotten so late). I may at this point slip into my own bed, or just give up and crawl back into E’s. E likes it best when I’m there next to him in the morning. I have to confess, I like it best that way too.
And then the cycle begins again.
I can’t imagine what he learns from us in those few hours filled with dressing and eating, eating and undressing. He asked me tonight why he doesn’t sleep at Sarah’s, and I was not surprised. She is more of a mother to him than I am most days. But he doesn’t seem to think of her as a mother, just someone’s mother, not his. We’re in the process of moving him to a new daycare, an actual preschool, likely after the first of the year. He knows the change is coming and he doesn’t seem heartbroken. Its funny to me that despite the fact he’s been ‘in care’ with Maddie since he was 12 weeks old he almost never talks about her, unless asked directly. He talks more about Hannah, our caregiver’s daughter, but virtually always in negative terms. He never asks for them on the weekends, never has stories to share about them, never seems to miss them the way he misses our friend’s children or his aunts or even the other kids at swim class. Maybe its that they’re so familiar. And yet I sort of sense in him that he’s done with them, that he’s ready to move on, make new friends, “go to school”, learn new things.
Over the weekend a friend, a new father, was marveling to me how some of his co-workers “only” see their children “two or three hours a day. Can you imagine?” I gently reminded him that the schedule he was marveling at was my regular life. He’s a teacher, so he can be home before four, and they’ve worked out a way for his wife to stay home, at least for a while. He talked about how he has been rushing home each day as soon as the final bell rings (he’s a teacher) so he could spend as much time as possible with his infant daughter. She’s a tiny infant, born just this past July. At that age, I actually found our schedule easier with E, because as long as he was safe and warm and cared for it didn’t matter so much to me who was holding him. Now though, as he soaks up the world and tries to work out his place in it, its harder – even and despite the fact that I’m ‘only’ working one job and am home for dinner virtually every night.
I started writing this entry (which has turned into an opus, really) as I thought about other blogs I read, with their daily stories of parenting success and failure. I was watching E sleep (unusually, he’d conked out mid-story) and I was thinking again (as I have been all week) about the comment my friend made, about the parents I see all day, about my choices, about how we live our life.
A couple of weeks ago, I heard an amazing speech given by Robert Reich (its available as a podcast behind the link, scroll down to October 8th) all about the economy and the history of “crashes” in America. I’m not going to get this exactly right, but part of what he talked about was the fact that “real” wages haven’t risen much (or at all) in this country in several decades, and that families have tried to compensate for this lack of rise in wages through several strategies, including taking on debt, working longer hours, and both parents working. He quoted a statistic (and, again, I’m likely to get this wrong) that in the ‘70’s only about 25-30% of mothers with small children worked for wages outside the home, and now that percentage is closer to 70%. He made the point that this wasn’t really about the rise of feminism - although certainly women have made enormous strides in the type of work available, the salary for that work, and the general social and societal acceptance of women in the workplace – but rather it was a result of simple economics. Families, many families (my own included) must have two wage earners in the home in order to survive. (Listen to the whole thing; it’s a great speech, making some tough stuff easy to follow and comprehend.)
While its sort of comforting to know I fall into such a big group (70%!), I’m afraid I don’t have any pat way to wrap all this rambling up. There is an overwhelming sameness to our days. I will never be the parent that has a funny story to share each day, a new adventure, a new milestone. So many weekdays are just about dressing and undressing, eating and reading, playing trucks while dinner cooks. The reality of being a dual-working parent household is that its mostly dull. For us, for you as a reader, but not, I don’t think, for E. Somehow, I feel more and more that he finds pleasure in the routines of home. I don’t know why I think that, but I do. Its stable. Its normal. It’s the way he’s always known his life to be.
But I would change it, if I could.
Morning. Josh sleeps through his alarm again (though I do not) and we let E sleep until the last possible minute we can. I dress him, in a rush, while wondering how he will ever learn to dress himself, realizing he probably already can but it’s a skill I don’t let him practice much on these rushed mornings, electing to give him every second of sleep he can. They bundle at the door a few minutes past 7:30 and I am alone in a cold house, trying to motivate myself to start the day.
In the shower by 8. Out the door by 9. Sometimes a stop before work, sometimes not. Drive the mile and a half to work. Sit in my office, watching other mothers and fathers walk by with their children. Wave to babies who toddle by my office window and wave to me. Wonder what E is doing. Wonder if he’s ok. Wonder if its raining.
I know Josh leaves at 4:30 (-ish) to collect him from Sarah’s house. Sometimes when Josh arrives E runs and hides and fights going home. Sometimes, increasingly, he does not. They drive half an hour, maybe talking, maybe singing to the radio. I know that around the time they pass through Yarmouth Josh will reach back with his right arm and hold E’s hand while they drive.
With driving and pickup antics and more driving and whatnot they arrive home just before 6. At some point earlier in the afternoon Josh will have called me to have a somewhat futile conversation about dinner, but mostly it is Josh’s task to start cooking immediately when he gets home in hopes that we can eat by 7. E plays downstairs or watches TV, or helps with dinner, as the mood strikes him. Our parlor is taken up with a huge train table, as it has been since Santa brought it ten months ago. Soon we’ll need to move it upstairs and then Josh fears that E will go upstairs with it in this precious hour when they are home together, and he will never see E again.
I try to leave the office by 6. I don’t always manage that, but I try. Home by 6:30, ecstatic greetings from E who runs from any corner of the house shouting “Mama! Mama!” but as soon as I am hugged and kissed he returns to whatever he was doing. I try to play with him, but sometimes the mail, the meal, the laundry, my husband, sometimes those things take up the precious rationed minutes until supper and I don’t mange to lie on the floor in the parlor to admire E’s latest stadium or destruction project.
Dinner is served. We eat, all together, E eating from his red plate. I try to use the slip of paper Sarah sends home to guide my questions to him, but often I can elicit zero details about the day. Often dinner is a struggle – here, have a bite, another, three more, two more, just one more. Although he can feed himself, he will often eat those last few bites only if I feed them to him. This weekend, a friend observed us and remarked, not unkindly “young man, can’t you feed yourself?” to which I replied “Can and Will are two separate things” and the questioner agreed this was true.
No movies after supper is a firm house rule. I will clear the table and wash the dishes while his father plays with him or bathes him. Sometimes, rarely, we will finish supper in time for me to wash the dishes and come play. More often, I finish just as bedtime is announced and we all run up the stairs racing, while E shouts “I’ll win! I’ll win!”
Bedtime. E is better at undressing himself than dressing. I get him into a diaper (yes, still, at night) and PJs and send him off with his father for tooth brushing and a final potty break. E chooses books, or I do, and we climb in bed together, often me in my PJs as well, completely surrounded by stuffed friends – two bears, a star-belly sneech, pooh friends, a rabbit, a snoopy that plays Linus and Lucy when you squeeze his hand. Three books (if he hasn’t lost any for bad behavior), and then the light goes out and he falls asleep next to me, warm and heavy, he and I cocooned against the chill of the drafty house, wrapped up in quilts together. More often than not I fall asleep, although I hardly ever mean to. If I escape the lure of Morpheus, I can go downstairs to visit with my husband a little, watch some TV, explore the internet, be companions together. If Morpheus wins, I often wake around 1 in the morning, get up, take my contact lenses out, shout downstairs for Josh to come to bed (he might be asleep on the sofa, watching TV, reading, allegedly ignorant that its gotten so late). I may at this point slip into my own bed, or just give up and crawl back into E’s. E likes it best when I’m there next to him in the morning. I have to confess, I like it best that way too.
And then the cycle begins again.
I can’t imagine what he learns from us in those few hours filled with dressing and eating, eating and undressing. He asked me tonight why he doesn’t sleep at Sarah’s, and I was not surprised. She is more of a mother to him than I am most days. But he doesn’t seem to think of her as a mother, just someone’s mother, not his. We’re in the process of moving him to a new daycare, an actual preschool, likely after the first of the year. He knows the change is coming and he doesn’t seem heartbroken. Its funny to me that despite the fact he’s been ‘in care’ with Maddie since he was 12 weeks old he almost never talks about her, unless asked directly. He talks more about Hannah, our caregiver’s daughter, but virtually always in negative terms. He never asks for them on the weekends, never has stories to share about them, never seems to miss them the way he misses our friend’s children or his aunts or even the other kids at swim class. Maybe its that they’re so familiar. And yet I sort of sense in him that he’s done with them, that he’s ready to move on, make new friends, “go to school”, learn new things.
Over the weekend a friend, a new father, was marveling to me how some of his co-workers “only” see their children “two or three hours a day. Can you imagine?” I gently reminded him that the schedule he was marveling at was my regular life. He’s a teacher, so he can be home before four, and they’ve worked out a way for his wife to stay home, at least for a while. He talked about how he has been rushing home each day as soon as the final bell rings (he’s a teacher) so he could spend as much time as possible with his infant daughter. She’s a tiny infant, born just this past July. At that age, I actually found our schedule easier with E, because as long as he was safe and warm and cared for it didn’t matter so much to me who was holding him. Now though, as he soaks up the world and tries to work out his place in it, its harder – even and despite the fact that I’m ‘only’ working one job and am home for dinner virtually every night.
I started writing this entry (which has turned into an opus, really) as I thought about other blogs I read, with their daily stories of parenting success and failure. I was watching E sleep (unusually, he’d conked out mid-story) and I was thinking again (as I have been all week) about the comment my friend made, about the parents I see all day, about my choices, about how we live our life.
A couple of weeks ago, I heard an amazing speech given by Robert Reich (its available as a podcast behind the link, scroll down to October 8th) all about the economy and the history of “crashes” in America. I’m not going to get this exactly right, but part of what he talked about was the fact that “real” wages haven’t risen much (or at all) in this country in several decades, and that families have tried to compensate for this lack of rise in wages through several strategies, including taking on debt, working longer hours, and both parents working. He quoted a statistic (and, again, I’m likely to get this wrong) that in the ‘70’s only about 25-30% of mothers with small children worked for wages outside the home, and now that percentage is closer to 70%. He made the point that this wasn’t really about the rise of feminism - although certainly women have made enormous strides in the type of work available, the salary for that work, and the general social and societal acceptance of women in the workplace – but rather it was a result of simple economics. Families, many families (my own included) must have two wage earners in the home in order to survive. (Listen to the whole thing; it’s a great speech, making some tough stuff easy to follow and comprehend.)
While its sort of comforting to know I fall into such a big group (70%!), I’m afraid I don’t have any pat way to wrap all this rambling up. There is an overwhelming sameness to our days. I will never be the parent that has a funny story to share each day, a new adventure, a new milestone. So many weekdays are just about dressing and undressing, eating and reading, playing trucks while dinner cooks. The reality of being a dual-working parent household is that its mostly dull. For us, for you as a reader, but not, I don’t think, for E. Somehow, I feel more and more that he finds pleasure in the routines of home. I don’t know why I think that, but I do. Its stable. Its normal. It’s the way he’s always known his life to be.
But I would change it, if I could.
"To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about."
October 20, 2010
Every Tuesday night, Josh has practice and so is gone from about ten minutes after I get home until after 11 pm. I've really come to savor this evening when its just E and I, because it has a totally different dynamic than our other evenings at home. I come home, start a simple dinner (sometimes E helps, sometimes he's not interested), we eat together, just he and I, then he helps me with the dishes, we play some, then sometimes a bath (there was one last night) and bedtime - PJs, teeth, stories, snuggles - a pretty typical night really, but for some reason it seems simpler, closer, and more streamlined with just us two. I wish I could put my finger on why that is.
Recently, E has been all about Football. His aunt introduced him to the game on TV and my mom gave him a Football, and now all he wants to do is watch, play, eat, breathe, and sleep football. (And Pooh. And Trains. So, I guess, its not really all that as obesssions go, but its now on the list of things I hear about every single day.) In cleaning our house this weekend I unearthed a "7-in-1 Family Games Set" that we'd gotten as a gift at some point. Two wooden boards, and the games are checkers, chess, backgammon, Chinese checkers, mancala ... and, umm, two others that I can't remember. E broke into the box and has been playing with it ever since. His dad taught him to play checkers - an interesting experience, as E did well but then burst in to (very real) inconsolable tears when he didn't win, and E asked me to teach him Chess, which I did, but which he quickly lost interest in.
Now, the chess pieces are football players, and E and I spent nearly an hour after supper last night playing 'football' on the chess board and talking about this and that. Because we're apart so much of the day, its a constant source of surprise to me to see the length and breadth of his knowledge on some topics, and to note the (sometimes age appropriate, sometimes not) limits of his knowledge or imagination in others.
One item that came up last night was, for lack of a better phrase, "the souls of toys". E is remarkably cavalier with his toys, which horrifies me, in large part I think because as an only child growing up in a very rural area (I was the only child I'd ever seen "live" until I was four) my toys easily "became real" for me, so much so that I continue to see their real-ness as a 40-something year old adult parent. For E, toys are toys - inanimate objects that exist as entertainment, not much more.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this, but I still wonder if some irreplaceable part of his childhood is missing because his toys aren't real to him.
Recently, E has been all about Football. His aunt introduced him to the game on TV and my mom gave him a Football, and now all he wants to do is watch, play, eat, breathe, and sleep football. (And Pooh. And Trains. So, I guess, its not really all that as obesssions go, but its now on the list of things I hear about every single day.) In cleaning our house this weekend I unearthed a "7-in-1 Family Games Set" that we'd gotten as a gift at some point. Two wooden boards, and the games are checkers, chess, backgammon, Chinese checkers, mancala ... and, umm, two others that I can't remember. E broke into the box and has been playing with it ever since. His dad taught him to play checkers - an interesting experience, as E did well but then burst in to (very real) inconsolable tears when he didn't win, and E asked me to teach him Chess, which I did, but which he quickly lost interest in.
Now, the chess pieces are football players, and E and I spent nearly an hour after supper last night playing 'football' on the chess board and talking about this and that. Because we're apart so much of the day, its a constant source of surprise to me to see the length and breadth of his knowledge on some topics, and to note the (sometimes age appropriate, sometimes not) limits of his knowledge or imagination in others.
One item that came up last night was, for lack of a better phrase, "the souls of toys". E is remarkably cavalier with his toys, which horrifies me, in large part I think because as an only child growing up in a very rural area (I was the only child I'd ever seen "live" until I was four) my toys easily "became real" for me, so much so that I continue to see their real-ness as a 40-something year old adult parent. For E, toys are toys - inanimate objects that exist as entertainment, not much more.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this, but I still wonder if some irreplaceable part of his childhood is missing because his toys aren't real to him.
If you don't already know, I'm not going to tell you....
October 19, 2010
I've linked to A Room of Mama's Own before, but her post today "Why you are a bad parent (mother) and how to fix it" exactly hits the spot for me, especially this:
"Next, focus your complete, perfect, developmentally enriching attention on your children for some unknown ideal number of hours each day. Too much or too little and we are right back to friendless alcoholic. If you don't already know that perfect number, I'm not going to tell you; all good parents already know it. If you don't, you were clearly raised by wolves yourself, so there's no point. You're beyond hope, and so is your child. You'll have to skip to Option 2."
"Next, focus your complete, perfect, developmentally enriching attention on your children for some unknown ideal number of hours each day. Too much or too little and we are right back to friendless alcoholic. If you don't already know that perfect number, I'm not going to tell you; all good parents already know it. If you don't, you were clearly raised by wolves yourself, so there's no point. You're beyond hope, and so is your child. You'll have to skip to Option 2."
"It can be a verb and a noun, meaning that it can be a mother, all things motherly, or even the action of mothering."
October 8, 2010
iMama - a tale of parenting in the age of the smartphone. (from Slate)
I totally get this. It falls in the "sad but funny" category. Also, its interesting to me that so many parents (including us) do what is described here - do the thing (say, go down the slide), video it, then watch it immediately, then do it again. Its a fundamental change, I think, in the way our children will remember their childhoods vs. the way we remember ours.
"Don't ignore your son's tender years" - Juvenal
October 7, 2010
Some nights when I get home from work E and I simply don't interact much at all. I always try to find time to lay down on the floor with him and play trucks or trains for a half hour or so, and probably 5 days out of 7 bedtime is our special time to talk together, but some nights (like last night) events conspire against us and our entire interaction for the evening is sitting together to eat supper and a quick hug and kiss before bed.
I try to tell myself that its balanced out by days like Saturday (when we went to the Cumberland Fair -- just the two of us -- and rode the Ferris Wheel and petted goats and hung out together for hours and hours) and that spending one-on-one time with his father is equally valuable as spending time with me, but there is always a tiny voice inside me that says "you're his mother, damnit. Be more present for him."
Very recently our family had a financial windfall, which, if we really wanted to, could have been used for me to quit my job for a year and stay at home with E until he starts Kindergarten in the Fall of 2011. (Class of 2024 - wow, its the future!) Its very tempting to do this, enormously tempting, as in "don't press the big, red, candy colored button" kind of tempting. Josh and I talked and talked about it, and have come to the conclusion that, although it might be emotionally satisfying for me, its not strictly necessary and would be a step backwards for our family, leaving us, in a year, basically where we are now but with even less savings and less of a safety net. What if I couldn't get a new job next fall? What would be the financial impact to our insurance? What if one of our cars finally fails and we really need to replace it? So we decide to maintain the status quo, but I find myself keenly aware that its a choice that, in some ways, is putting our desire for a certain kind of middle class lifestyle above what may (or may not) be best for our child. And I get, too, that its a luxury for us to even be having this conversation -- that for many families its not a choice, not a conversation, not a discussion. Working is simply survival -- as it has been for us too, for a while now.
So, today being Thursday E and his dad are at E's swim lessons, while I work late. After lessons E and his dad will go for dinner together and perhaps some climbing on indoor play equipment. While I work late. And then they will go home and E's dad will tuck him into bed and read him stories and I will (hopefully) arrive home in time for a sleepy kiss before E drops off to dreamland.
And then I will go downstairs and wonder how different our problems would be if we made different choices in our lives.
I try to tell myself that its balanced out by days like Saturday (when we went to the Cumberland Fair -- just the two of us -- and rode the Ferris Wheel and petted goats and hung out together for hours and hours) and that spending one-on-one time with his father is equally valuable as spending time with me, but there is always a tiny voice inside me that says "you're his mother, damnit. Be more present for him."
Very recently our family had a financial windfall, which, if we really wanted to, could have been used for me to quit my job for a year and stay at home with E until he starts Kindergarten in the Fall of 2011. (Class of 2024 - wow, its the future!) Its very tempting to do this, enormously tempting, as in "don't press the big, red, candy colored button" kind of tempting. Josh and I talked and talked about it, and have come to the conclusion that, although it might be emotionally satisfying for me, its not strictly necessary and would be a step backwards for our family, leaving us, in a year, basically where we are now but with even less savings and less of a safety net. What if I couldn't get a new job next fall? What would be the financial impact to our insurance? What if one of our cars finally fails and we really need to replace it? So we decide to maintain the status quo, but I find myself keenly aware that its a choice that, in some ways, is putting our desire for a certain kind of middle class lifestyle above what may (or may not) be best for our child. And I get, too, that its a luxury for us to even be having this conversation -- that for many families its not a choice, not a conversation, not a discussion. Working is simply survival -- as it has been for us too, for a while now.
So, today being Thursday E and his dad are at E's swim lessons, while I work late. After lessons E and his dad will go for dinner together and perhaps some climbing on indoor play equipment. While I work late. And then they will go home and E's dad will tuck him into bed and read him stories and I will (hopefully) arrive home in time for a sleepy kiss before E drops off to dreamland.
And then I will go downstairs and wonder how different our problems would be if we made different choices in our lives.
"You will never stub your toe standing still." -- Charles Kettering
September 14, 2010
E has an ingrown toenail on his left foot. He doesn't complain about it, but when I look at it (when he lefts me look at it) its clearly an angry red with a little peeling skin. I have to confess that I don't look at his toes much (anymore) - his father noticed it before I did, at bath time, and we've soaked it and sort of hoped it would resolve itself, but it hasn't. I'm not really surprised at this development. E was born with the strangest shaped big toes I've ever seen on a person, and the real surprise is that we haven't faced something like this sooner.
So, last night, after bath time, his father tried to "do something" about it. I had known he was going to do this, and had hoped that he would let me know before he started, but instead I was alerted to the "something" by the shrill screaming that began to emanate from E's bedroom. When I got upstairs Josh was sitting on the edge of the bed with E's left leg clamped firmly under his right arm. E was pushing on Josh's back with his other foot, and laying back on the bed, a Thomas train playing card clutched in each hand, and he was SCREAMING. Heartbreaking, earsplitting screaming. Screaming as I had never heard from this child, not even as an angry infant. Tears running down his face, breath hitching, the whole thing.
Then I realized with a start that there were also tears streaming down Josh's face as he diligently worked at E's toe.
E's dad is a huge man. He's 6'6", broad shouldered, bearded, and slings boxes around all day for a living. when E was a tiny infant, Josh used those microscopic infant clippers they give you to try and cut E's fingernails, and ended up cutting into the tip of one of E's fingers. He was shaken when that happened, but I've never seen him quite as upset as he was last night.
I probably shouldn't be surprised at anything Josh does anymore, but somehow I found that I was surprised. And moved. We do thing together, he and I, as a team. And as stoic as he can be, I need to remember that all the pain and anger and anxiety I have as a parent lurks in him below the surface as well.
PS: We took E to the doctor today, and the doctor just told us to continue to soak it. That's money we could have saved.
So, last night, after bath time, his father tried to "do something" about it. I had known he was going to do this, and had hoped that he would let me know before he started, but instead I was alerted to the "something" by the shrill screaming that began to emanate from E's bedroom. When I got upstairs Josh was sitting on the edge of the bed with E's left leg clamped firmly under his right arm. E was pushing on Josh's back with his other foot, and laying back on the bed, a Thomas train playing card clutched in each hand, and he was SCREAMING. Heartbreaking, earsplitting screaming. Screaming as I had never heard from this child, not even as an angry infant. Tears running down his face, breath hitching, the whole thing.
Then I realized with a start that there were also tears streaming down Josh's face as he diligently worked at E's toe.
E's dad is a huge man. He's 6'6", broad shouldered, bearded, and slings boxes around all day for a living. when E was a tiny infant, Josh used those microscopic infant clippers they give you to try and cut E's fingernails, and ended up cutting into the tip of one of E's fingers. He was shaken when that happened, but I've never seen him quite as upset as he was last night.
I probably shouldn't be surprised at anything Josh does anymore, but somehow I found that I was surprised. And moved. We do thing together, he and I, as a team. And as stoic as he can be, I need to remember that all the pain and anger and anxiety I have as a parent lurks in him below the surface as well.
PS: We took E to the doctor today, and the doctor just told us to continue to soak it. That's money we could have saved.
"Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect.” - R Bach
September 13, 2010
Saturday, while walking in the park, we saw a dead seagull.
All white in the green grass, looking for all the world as if it had tumbled directly out of a tree and landed inches from the trunk. It was unmarked, its wings half folded like the eagle on the back of the quarter, head turned to the left, beak open.
E and his father were so busy watching the antics of a squirrel a little way ahead of us that I think they would have stepped on it had I not said something.
We, of course, tried to bustle E around it, but as we passed it he turned and craned his neck for a good long look. I found out later he knew its eyes were closed, which is something I had not noticed.
I don't think E has ever seen anything dead before, certainly not anything larger than a bug. I was not surprised he had questions - why is it dead, how did it die, where is its family? - what really surprised me was our inability to answer his questions to either his or our satisfaction.
Given the events of our week (I had been ill, in the hospital for a couple of days) "it got sick and died" wasn't really a good answer. Josh ventured that it might have been hit by a car, but E noted (logically) that it wasn't in the road, but was rather far from the road, near a tree. I talked with him some about steam engines, and how their parts wear out and need to be replaced, but parts on people and animals can't be replaced (an oversimplification). I talked with him about how no one knows what happen when you die, how Sarah or his Grandmother might say you go to heaven (yes, even seagulls) but that no one really knows - but that I was sure that nothing hurt after you died, and that no one was lonely.
He seemed very concerned that it would be lonely, laying there in the field. Concerned that its seagull family would be looking for it, but also that it would miss them, that it would have no one to play with. This is an ongoing theme with him, Strange, I think, for a child who has other people around him constantly - this fear of being alone, of loneliness - although as I look back now I suppose you could call my only-child childhood lonely as well. But E's driving concern is that no one he loves (parents, toys) be lonely. Its the reason I still co-sleep with him almost every night, the reason its important to him that someone be in the room with him, his concern about his grandmother (who lives alone) and his primary concern about me in the hospital (that I would be lonely, with only the doctors and nurses to keep me company - "but no one to sleep with" he says). Its the reason he has three "best toys" so that one can be with him while the other two keep each other company. It comes up, daily, and I don't know where it comes from, but its a strange dark hole inside my otherwise joyful little boy.
All white in the green grass, looking for all the world as if it had tumbled directly out of a tree and landed inches from the trunk. It was unmarked, its wings half folded like the eagle on the back of the quarter, head turned to the left, beak open.
E and his father were so busy watching the antics of a squirrel a little way ahead of us that I think they would have stepped on it had I not said something.
We, of course, tried to bustle E around it, but as we passed it he turned and craned his neck for a good long look. I found out later he knew its eyes were closed, which is something I had not noticed.
I don't think E has ever seen anything dead before, certainly not anything larger than a bug. I was not surprised he had questions - why is it dead, how did it die, where is its family? - what really surprised me was our inability to answer his questions to either his or our satisfaction.
Given the events of our week (I had been ill, in the hospital for a couple of days) "it got sick and died" wasn't really a good answer. Josh ventured that it might have been hit by a car, but E noted (logically) that it wasn't in the road, but was rather far from the road, near a tree. I talked with him some about steam engines, and how their parts wear out and need to be replaced, but parts on people and animals can't be replaced (an oversimplification). I talked with him about how no one knows what happen when you die, how Sarah or his Grandmother might say you go to heaven (yes, even seagulls) but that no one really knows - but that I was sure that nothing hurt after you died, and that no one was lonely.
He seemed very concerned that it would be lonely, laying there in the field. Concerned that its seagull family would be looking for it, but also that it would miss them, that it would have no one to play with. This is an ongoing theme with him, Strange, I think, for a child who has other people around him constantly - this fear of being alone, of loneliness - although as I look back now I suppose you could call my only-child childhood lonely as well. But E's driving concern is that no one he loves (parents, toys) be lonely. Its the reason I still co-sleep with him almost every night, the reason its important to him that someone be in the room with him, his concern about his grandmother (who lives alone) and his primary concern about me in the hospital (that I would be lonely, with only the doctors and nurses to keep me company - "but no one to sleep with" he says). Its the reason he has three "best toys" so that one can be with him while the other two keep each other company. It comes up, daily, and I don't know where it comes from, but its a strange dark hole inside my otherwise joyful little boy.
But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean. - Lovecraft
June 18, 2010
Wednesday night we took E up to Popham to spend a few days with my mom at a cottage she is renting there. He's told us steadfastly for days that he doesn't want to go, but he's a kid that has trouble with change and spending days on that beach is one of my favorite childhood memories, so our hope was that he'd like it once he got there.
There has been terrible (and totally natural) beach erosion at Popham Beach State Park in the past couple of years (Very interesting MPBN piece on the how's and why's of this) but the "private" part of the beach is untouched. However, the beach is empty. EMPTY. My mom says she's probably seen less than 100 people enjoying the beach for the entire week she's been there (including last weekend). Which is sad, but also kind of good from a "hey I get to play on this wide open beach" perspective.
Over the past two days I think I've done well. I called her five times yesterday but only once today. It was a rainy day yesterday, so they did rainy day things (like visit the fort). Today, however, is glorious and my mom says she has trouble getting him out of the water. Josh and I went to dinner with friends last night and will again tonight. Our house is achingly empty without the E there - in some ways its like a time warp, just Josh and I together, but there is an astonishingly large hole in our lives without The Little Boy.
I have to admit that there is a growing part of me that thinks its important that E had this time at the ocean, and I'm praying he remembers it. Because I'm not convinced that a year from now the ocean will still be swimable. Or five years, even.
There has been terrible (and totally natural) beach erosion at Popham Beach State Park in the past couple of years (Very interesting MPBN piece on the how's and why's of this) but the "private" part of the beach is untouched. However, the beach is empty. EMPTY. My mom says she's probably seen less than 100 people enjoying the beach for the entire week she's been there (including last weekend). Which is sad, but also kind of good from a "hey I get to play on this wide open beach" perspective.
Over the past two days I think I've done well. I called her five times yesterday but only once today. It was a rainy day yesterday, so they did rainy day things (like visit the fort). Today, however, is glorious and my mom says she has trouble getting him out of the water. Josh and I went to dinner with friends last night and will again tonight. Our house is achingly empty without the E there - in some ways its like a time warp, just Josh and I together, but there is an astonishingly large hole in our lives without The Little Boy.
I have to admit that there is a growing part of me that thinks its important that E had this time at the ocean, and I'm praying he remembers it. Because I'm not convinced that a year from now the ocean will still be swimable. Or five years, even.
The Grass is Always Greener....
May 12, 2010
How Michelle Obama Made Me a Bad Mother
(No, not me personally). An interesting set of thoughts on one woman's work/life balance.
(No, not me personally). An interesting set of thoughts on one woman's work/life balance.
“Oh yes, and by the way you might want to be a wife and mother too.”
April 19, 2010
An interesting read for your Monday morning:
Learning to be Left on the Shelf
“Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.” - O W Holmes
April 3, 2010
Saturday. My day of rest. We started our day at 6:30 am this morning, when E came clambering up in our bed, and we've been on the go ever since. Josh is out tonight with a friend, so E and I will be dying Easter Eggs after supper (I hope). (Yeah, nothing like waiting until the last minute!)
A few snapshots from our day:
Its days like these that I like the best.
"The marathon can humble you" - Bill Rodgers
April 2, 2010
Every day, when E gets home from daycare, I get a yellow sheet of paper that tells me about his day. At the top is a list of what he's had to eat that day. At the bottom, an outline of his potty habits - at one time, just a list of when she'd changed him and when he'd pooped; more recently its been a small celebration of his new-found ability to go to the potty independently (along with the occasional reminder that he hasn't quite mastered it yet).
The middle is the important part. In the middle of the page is a short list of his activities for the day. Today's reads:
gluing
toys
outside 9:30 to 11
toys
outside 12:30 - 4
visited Papa and Mimi (my caregiver's parents)
Yesterday's reads:
toys
gluing
outside
picnic set
blocks
nap 2 to 3:30 pm
I cling to the middle section. Its as much as I know about how my son spends the majority of his day. As often as I can, I use what Sarah wrote as a way to start a conversation over dinner. Asking him "what did you do today" almost never elicits a response. Being able to say "so you played outside today" or "did you play superheroes with Hannah today" will sometimes at least start a conversation. Sometimes he'll share a story or two about his day. Sometimes they make sense. Other times, the things he says are puzzling or inexplicable, but there isn't much we can do to find out the background to the tales he tells us.
A couple of days ago, I wrote a little bit about blogger Heather Armstrong being invited to the White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility. (I also made a comment on a post over on Daddy Types). Today, she published a long post about the flack she's gotten for this invitation. Reading it (and reading it again just now), I guess I have to admit that I'm probably lumped in with the people she's railing against. I've done a bit of Googling to try and figure out what made her so upset, and if there has been a big backlash on the web, I can't seem to find it. This recap is the closest I can find.
I'm not flattering my self here that Heather Armstrong reads my blog, or even knows I exist. That's not my point here. Tonight as I was putting E to bed I was thinking about my day. How I too hit the ground running at 6 am and don't stop until my head hits the pillow at night - often when I fall asleep fully clothed next to my son as he falls asleep. But a lot of what Ms. Armstrong is describing in today's post - the long hours, the pressure of never being able to take a day off -- that's not about being a working mother. Its just about being a mother. The simple and sometimes impulsive act of deciding to have a child puts you into this high pressure world.
I understand her anger at being second guessed, I really do. But even now I've not seen an answer to the original question I posed: who else was there? Was there anyone like me sitting at that table ... someone who reads about her child's day on a yellow sheet of paper instead of experiencing it? Because that is the key difference between the Armstrong workplace and mine. She gets to experience the daily routine of her children. I get to read a recap of my son's day on a yellow sheet of paper.
The middle is the important part. In the middle of the page is a short list of his activities for the day. Today's reads:
gluing
toys
outside 9:30 to 11
toys
outside 12:30 - 4
visited Papa and Mimi (my caregiver's parents)
Yesterday's reads:
toys
gluing
outside
picnic set
blocks
nap 2 to 3:30 pm
I cling to the middle section. Its as much as I know about how my son spends the majority of his day. As often as I can, I use what Sarah wrote as a way to start a conversation over dinner. Asking him "what did you do today" almost never elicits a response. Being able to say "so you played outside today" or "did you play superheroes with Hannah today" will sometimes at least start a conversation. Sometimes he'll share a story or two about his day. Sometimes they make sense. Other times, the things he says are puzzling or inexplicable, but there isn't much we can do to find out the background to the tales he tells us.
A couple of days ago, I wrote a little bit about blogger Heather Armstrong being invited to the White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility. (I also made a comment on a post over on Daddy Types). Today, she published a long post about the flack she's gotten for this invitation. Reading it (and reading it again just now), I guess I have to admit that I'm probably lumped in with the people she's railing against. I've done a bit of Googling to try and figure out what made her so upset, and if there has been a big backlash on the web, I can't seem to find it. This recap is the closest I can find.
I'm not flattering my self here that Heather Armstrong reads my blog, or even knows I exist. That's not my point here. Tonight as I was putting E to bed I was thinking about my day. How I too hit the ground running at 6 am and don't stop until my head hits the pillow at night - often when I fall asleep fully clothed next to my son as he falls asleep. But a lot of what Ms. Armstrong is describing in today's post - the long hours, the pressure of never being able to take a day off -- that's not about being a working mother. Its just about being a mother. The simple and sometimes impulsive act of deciding to have a child puts you into this high pressure world.
I understand her anger at being second guessed, I really do. But even now I've not seen an answer to the original question I posed: who else was there? Was there anyone like me sitting at that table ... someone who reads about her child's day on a yellow sheet of paper instead of experiencing it? Because that is the key difference between the Armstrong workplace and mine. She gets to experience the daily routine of her children. I get to read a recap of my son's day on a yellow sheet of paper.
"Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else." - J M Barrie
April 1, 2010
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.
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.
Happy Birthday, Mommy Track!
March 31, 2010
Slate Reports that the term Mommy Track is turning 21, and the author writes in a very personal voice about her unexpected detour from high-powered attorney to "just a mom of three boys".
Its a good article, and I recommend you read it. Given the fact that the life of an elite attorney is, at best, hectic (more likely crazy stressful) I wish she'd done a similar survey of the men in her class. How many of them have stuck with it, and how many have prioritized the 'balance' part of work-life balance?
Its a good article, and I recommend you read it. Given the fact that the life of an elite attorney is, at best, hectic (more likely crazy stressful) I wish she'd done a similar survey of the men in her class. How many of them have stuck with it, and how many have prioritized the 'balance' part of work-life balance?
"mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled." - E Dickinson
March 30, 2010
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?
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?
“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.” - R Tagore
March 25, 2010
Once a month I have to attend a 7 am board meeting, which means I need to be in the office by 6. I hate getting up early, leaving the warmth of our shared bed, but there is a moment as I leave the house when I walk down my steps, hear the birds, see the glow of the morning over the cove, hear the ever-present crows calling as they move from tree to tree, there is just a moment before I get in my car and drive away that I actually enjoy the morning.
(This is all a fancy way of saying "I haven't forgotten you" and I might be writing more here in a bit.)
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