To tell this story, properly, I am going to have to reveal my daughter's first name, not her middle name.My daughter Rose(reallyKatherine), age 28, is a writer and human rights lawyer. She helped write the book, Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power. Did I always know she was going to be a writer? The first indication came when she was under two. We had spelled Katherine with a K because we intended to call her Katie. She stopped being Katie the minute she told me: "It makes me sad, mommy, that you call me Katie when my name is Katherine." We never called her Katie again. How long had she realized her family did not know her name?Did she take weeks crafting such a perfect sentence that demanded and got perfect compliance?
Her dad Chris remembers: "Katherine has displayed single-minded determination in everything she has undertaken. She became interested in the planets when she was two. She learned not only the names of the planets and their positions, but also the names of all their satellites. She made up stories about the planets, and at one point every member of the family had a planet name. " I was happy my name was earth.
She started kindergarten before she was five since she is a November baby. She absolutely refused to write stories using the words the teacher gave the class. "Writers use their own words," she insisted. I deluded myself that I was articulate until I had Katherine.
Katherine is well known in political blogs as simply Katherine. Katie wouldn't have had the same dignity. She started writing on torture and extraordinary rendition when she was in law school and didn't want to make herself unemployable by revealing her full name. Try a google search on Katherine and "Obisidian Wings."
Katherine once told me: "You are more responsible than any other person for my being able to write like this--in fact, it's not even close." I felt like I had received the Nobel Prize for motherhood. and have contributed significantly to make the world a better place. The entire family is in awe of Katherine. Yet she is the sweetest, most loving woman imaginable who has been an incredible support to me during episodes of my illness. She comes across as quiet and shy.
And yet Katherine's brilliant intensity made her a very challenging child to mother. Thankfully, she was born at home, slept in our bed her first year, nursed for more years than I am willing to admit in a public forum. Because she was my third child, I was much freer to trust my instincts. She is also the daughter most like me. If I wanted to know how I was really feeling when she was a baby, I just had to watch her reactions.
My Katherine stories are often a great comfort to mothers worrying if their child is destined for sainthood or schizophrenia. In my post on my so-called normal children I described her: "The writer had meltdowns because the new washing machine wasn't blue; the pretty blue rental car had vanished; her aunt and uncle didn't have a second child her age; she was not attending a school that closed three years previously; there wasn't enough snow; election day would be a day before her 18th birthday three years from now. Her tantrums were reserved for the existential order of the universe; I could do nothing to assuage her anguish. " When I read her passionate poltical writings, I recognize the same Katherine, who has found the perfect outlet for her intensity.
Marrying the perfect husband at age 23 was the most important thing of all.
July 6, 2008
Sisters Bond After a Home Birth
Her three older sisters were there for Carolyn's birth at home in 1982. Often I think the great gift their father and I have given our daughters is their sisters.
Working When Your Children Are Young
The dilemmas facing parents of young children haven't changed since I raised my 4 daughters in the 70s and 80s. My oldest is 34; my 2nd, 32; my 3rd, 29; my 4th, 25. For 18 months after my first daughter was born, I did some free-lance editing. I stayed home full-time until the youngest started first grade, even though I had originally planned to return in work. I fell head over heels in love with mothering my children.
I stayed home full-time for 14 years until the youngest started first grade. I loved staying home with my 4. I did extensive volunteer work: La Leche League, playgroup coordinator, librarian at their schools, childbirth educator, nursery school treasurer and membership chairperson and took a few grad courses in child development. I am sorry my daughters and sons-in-law will not have that option.
In 1988 I start to work part-time in a nearby library and took two courses a semester toward my master's degree in library science. When she was 9, 10, 11, I attended social work school full-time. I find myself re-evaluating the choices I made as I take care of my 6-month-old grandson 3 days a week as my oldest daughter works part-time.
My mom stayed home with her 6 children until my youngest brother (sixth child) went to school full-time. I was just leaving for college, so I always enjoyed having a mom at home. My mom went to college, then grad school, and had a successful teaching career, so I was introduced to the idea that it's never too late. Most of my aunts followed a similar trajectory; my Aunt Rosemarie started law school at age 40 and had a fascinating career as chief counsel to a university president.
Once upon a time, my first husband and I planned ambitious careers as college professors. We would share the care equally of the two children we might or might not have. That didn't happen. I decided I hate Stanford grad school, not being willing to admit that I couldn't tolerate being 3000 miles away from my true love. The Vietnam War and his fight for conscientious objector status interfered with John's academic aspirations. He wound up as a radiation physicist working in cancer treatment; I found a niche editing psychiatry books. John had found his lifetime calling, but I was marking time when I got pregnant. I was tired of editing and knew I had to return to grad school at some point to find a career I loved. Having dropped out of Stanford and Columbia Law School, I suspected I would need therapy before I trackled grad school again.
By time time I returned to work and school, my mom was available after school and on school holidays. I was blessed not to need any alternative child care arrangement. Even so, trying to go to school part-time and work full-time while my 4 were still at home was very stressful for everyone and might have contributed to the slow death of my 28-year-old marriage. My struggles with manic depression affected every career choice. I couldn't manage what many saner mothers could.
We managed on one income by living frugally; certainly we had no savings and lived paycheck to paycheck. We only had one car. We vacationed with my parents at their expense. Dining out was reserved for anniversaries and birthdays. College costs required my financial contribution. I would not have the luxury of staying at home now. For example, my house that cost $86,000 24 years ago is now worth $450,000. All our new neighbors are both working parents.
Things are different for Anne, my oldest. First, I am available to take care of her son; I am not working full-time like my mom was when my girls were young. Second, Anne has a job she loves, for which she has prepared by a master's degree and ten years experience. Her employer knows she is indispensable and wants her on any terms--full-time, part-time, working from home. If I had had a job I loved, and not had to return to grad school to find a field I enjoyed, I probably would have figured out how to work part-time.
Now, I couldn't possibly have afforded 4 children on one income. I am sad that large families seem a thing of the past in the New York metropolitan area. I suspect two of my girls would have adjusted readily to day care, but two wouldn't. Full-time group child care is emotionally expensive for some young children. My oldest had difficulty adjusting to all-day kindergarten. When I asked her why she was being so impossible, she told me, "I used all my goodness up in school."
But every family has to find what works for them. In an ideal world both parents would have flexible schedules so they would have more time at home. One of the many things that distresses me about the mommy wars is how it seems taken for granted that dads can't and don't want to stay home
I stayed home full-time for 14 years until the youngest started first grade. I loved staying home with my 4. I did extensive volunteer work: La Leche League, playgroup coordinator, librarian at their schools, childbirth educator, nursery school treasurer and membership chairperson and took a few grad courses in child development. I am sorry my daughters and sons-in-law will not have that option.
In 1988 I start to work part-time in a nearby library and took two courses a semester toward my master's degree in library science. When she was 9, 10, 11, I attended social work school full-time. I find myself re-evaluating the choices I made as I take care of my 6-month-old grandson 3 days a week as my oldest daughter works part-time.
My mom stayed home with her 6 children until my youngest brother (sixth child) went to school full-time. I was just leaving for college, so I always enjoyed having a mom at home. My mom went to college, then grad school, and had a successful teaching career, so I was introduced to the idea that it's never too late. Most of my aunts followed a similar trajectory; my Aunt Rosemarie started law school at age 40 and had a fascinating career as chief counsel to a university president.
Once upon a time, my first husband and I planned ambitious careers as college professors. We would share the care equally of the two children we might or might not have. That didn't happen. I decided I hate Stanford grad school, not being willing to admit that I couldn't tolerate being 3000 miles away from my true love. The Vietnam War and his fight for conscientious objector status interfered with John's academic aspirations. He wound up as a radiation physicist working in cancer treatment; I found a niche editing psychiatry books. John had found his lifetime calling, but I was marking time when I got pregnant. I was tired of editing and knew I had to return to grad school at some point to find a career I loved. Having dropped out of Stanford and Columbia Law School, I suspected I would need therapy before I trackled grad school again.
By time time I returned to work and school, my mom was available after school and on school holidays. I was blessed not to need any alternative child care arrangement. Even so, trying to go to school part-time and work full-time while my 4 were still at home was very stressful for everyone and might have contributed to the slow death of my 28-year-old marriage. My struggles with manic depression affected every career choice. I couldn't manage what many saner mothers could.
We managed on one income by living frugally; certainly we had no savings and lived paycheck to paycheck. We only had one car. We vacationed with my parents at their expense. Dining out was reserved for anniversaries and birthdays. College costs required my financial contribution. I would not have the luxury of staying at home now. For example, my house that cost $86,000 24 years ago is now worth $450,000. All our new neighbors are both working parents.
Things are different for Anne, my oldest. First, I am available to take care of her son; I am not working full-time like my mom was when my girls were young. Second, Anne has a job she loves, for which she has prepared by a master's degree and ten years experience. Her employer knows she is indispensable and wants her on any terms--full-time, part-time, working from home. If I had had a job I loved, and not had to return to grad school to find a field I enjoyed, I probably would have figured out how to work part-time.
Now, I couldn't possibly have afforded 4 children on one income. I am sad that large families seem a thing of the past in the New York metropolitan area. I suspect two of my girls would have adjusted readily to day care, but two wouldn't. Full-time group child care is emotionally expensive for some young children. My oldest had difficulty adjusting to all-day kindergarten. When I asked her why she was being so impossible, she told me, "I used all my goodness up in school."
But every family has to find what works for them. In an ideal world both parents would have flexible schedules so they would have more time at home. One of the many things that distresses me about the mommy wars is how it seems taken for granted that dads can't and don't want to stay home
June 28, 2008
Fight for the Issues, Not the Pols
Big Tent Democrat of Talk Left expresses an important truth for supporters of any candidate:
Pols are pols and do what they do. That's why as citizens and activists we must act for issues, not pols:
As citizens and activists, our allegiances have to be to the issues we believe in. I am a partisan Democrat it is true. But the reason I am is because I know who we can pressure to do the right thing some of the times. Republicans aren't them. But that does not mean we accept the failings of our Democrats. There is nothing more important that we can do, as citizens, activists or bloggers than fight to pressure DEMOCRATS to do the right thing on OUR issues.
And this is true in every context I think. Be it pressing the Speaker or the Senate majority leader, or the new hope running for President. There is nothing more important we can do. Nothing. It's more important BY FAR than "fighting" for your favorite pol because your favorite pol will ALWAYS, I mean ALWAYS, disappoint you.
In the middle of primary fights, citizens, activists and bloggers like to think their guy or woman is different. They are going to change the way politics works. They are going to not disappoint. In short, they are not going to be pols. That is, in a word, idiotic.
Yes, they are all pols. And they do what they do. Do not fight for pols. Fight for the issues you care about. That often means fighting for a pol of course. But remember, you are fighting for the issues. Not the pols.
Pols are pols and do what they do. That's why as citizens and activists we must act for issues, not pols:
As citizens and activists, our allegiances have to be to the issues we believe in. I am a partisan Democrat it is true. But the reason I am is because I know who we can pressure to do the right thing some of the times. Republicans aren't them. But that does not mean we accept the failings of our Democrats. There is nothing more important that we can do, as citizens, activists or bloggers than fight to pressure DEMOCRATS to do the right thing on OUR issues.
And this is true in every context I think. Be it pressing the Speaker or the Senate majority leader, or the new hope running for President. There is nothing more important we can do. Nothing. It's more important BY FAR than "fighting" for your favorite pol because your favorite pol will ALWAYS, I mean ALWAYS, disappoint you.
In the middle of primary fights, citizens, activists and bloggers like to think their guy or woman is different. They are going to change the way politics works. They are going to not disappoint. In short, they are not going to be pols. That is, in a word, idiotic.
Yes, they are all pols. And they do what they do. Do not fight for pols. Fight for the issues you care about. That often means fighting for a pol of course. But remember, you are fighting for the issues. Not the pols.
June 22, 2008
Older White Feminist
Be judicious about joining existing Obama groups rather than beginning you own on Obama's website, unless you habor a secret ambition to be a Rorschach test. The problem is, most groups have few blog articles, and you cannot read the listserv's email until you have joined. The Obama site has approved all my requests for starting new groups.
Since I joined my Long Island Obama group, I have annoyed one of the regular posters who had been for Obama all along.
This is my high crime and misdemanor::
A reference librarian, I have already realized that the mybarackobama website is not quite state of the art. My only being able to send a message to ten friends at a time is frustrating. I keep losing what I write on blogs, group descriptions, and messages because suddenly another page opens up. Communicating through messages on your website is cumbersome.There is no real word processing functionality, no way of easily linking within messages and blog comments. Google offers much better alternatives--gmail, reader, chat, groups, calendar, docs and spreadsheets where you can collaborate in real time. Google Apps is another possibility for organizers. There is a wonderful world of opportunities and the Obama campaign is not making impressive use of them. Has anyone considered exploring them?
I was astonished by this women's letter to the whole group.
I have watched w/ sadness as this group has been virtually ripped
apart over the past several days mostly by the actions of a newcomer.
Now we have a posting using this list serve to attack the campaign
website & invite people to use other alternatives.
So whoever it was who "busted us" is there any way to exclude a
person who obviously has some agenda other than supporting Obama.
Appalled, I temporarily left the group:
I hope you're proud of driving me from this group. My sharing my internet and librarian expertise is seen as attacking the website rather than improving it. I do have my own agenda--growing a revolution that will make America a family-friendly society for my grandchildren. I consider Obama an essential leader of that revolution. I have no idea if you speak but the group, but I have no interest replacing Hillary as your personal Rorschach test.
Criticizing your candidate's inadequacies and making helpful suggestions is the best way of supporting him. At least have the courage to name names. You certainly proved how
sound my instinct was on the necessity of separate Hillary groups.
Later, I realized that I had cut off my nose to spite my face. Unless I was a member of this blog, I couldn't tell my Long Island blog about what's happening. I am sure things will get better, but we are all a bit raw still. I must have done something to this poster in a previous lifetime. She asks me to leave another group as well. I wish I could remember my crime. Mary is generally well behaved, but Joan gets somewhat unruly::)
Since I joined my Long Island Obama group, I have annoyed one of the regular posters who had been for Obama all along.
This is my high crime and misdemanor::
A reference librarian, I have already realized that the mybarackobama website is not quite state of the art. My only being able to send a message to ten friends at a time is frustrating. I keep losing what I write on blogs, group descriptions, and messages because suddenly another page opens up. Communicating through messages on your website is cumbersome.There is no real word processing functionality, no way of easily linking within messages and blog comments. Google offers much better alternatives--gmail, reader, chat, groups, calendar, docs and spreadsheets where you can collaborate in real time. Google Apps is another possibility for organizers. There is a wonderful world of opportunities and the Obama campaign is not making impressive use of them. Has anyone considered exploring them?
I was astonished by this women's letter to the whole group.
I have watched w/ sadness as this group has been virtually ripped
apart over the past several days mostly by the actions of a newcomer.
Now we have a posting using this list serve to attack the campaign
website & invite people to use other alternatives.
So whoever it was who "busted us" is there any way to exclude a
person who obviously has some agenda other than supporting Obama.
Appalled, I temporarily left the group:
I hope you're proud of driving me from this group. My sharing my internet and librarian expertise is seen as attacking the website rather than improving it. I do have my own agenda--growing a revolution that will make America a family-friendly society for my grandchildren. I consider Obama an essential leader of that revolution. I have no idea if you speak but the group, but I have no interest replacing Hillary as your personal Rorschach test.
Criticizing your candidate's inadequacies and making helpful suggestions is the best way of supporting him. At least have the courage to name names. You certainly proved how
sound my instinct was on the necessity of separate Hillary groups.
Later, I realized that I had cut off my nose to spite my face. Unless I was a member of this blog, I couldn't tell my Long Island blog about what's happening. I am sure things will get better, but we are all a bit raw still. I must have done something to this poster in a previous lifetime. She asks me to leave another group as well. I wish I could remember my crime. Mary is generally well behaved, but Joan gets somewhat unruly::)
Rorschach Test
Be judicious about joining existing Obama groups rather than beginning you own on Obama's website, unless you habor a secret ambition to be a Rorschach test. The problem is, most groups have few blog articles, and you cannot read the listserv's email until you have joined. The Obama site has approved all my requests for starting new groups.
Since I joined my Long Island Obama group, I have annoyed one of the regular posters who had been for Obama all along.
This is my high crime and misdemanor::
A reference librarian, I have already realized that the mybarackobama website is not quite state of the art. My only being able to send a message to ten friends at a time is frustrating. I keep losing what I write on blogs, group descriptions, and messages because suddenly another page opens up. Communicating through messages on your website is cumbersome.There is no real word processing functionality, no way of easily linking within messages and blog comments. Google offers much better alternatives--gmail, reader, chat, groups, calendar, docs and spreadsheets where you can collaborate in real time. Google Apps is another possibility for organizers. There is a wonderful world of opportunities and the Obama campaign is not making impressive use of them. Has anyone considered exploring them?
I was astonished by this women's letter to the whole group.
I have watched w/ sadness as this group has been virtually ripped
apart over the past several days mostly by the actions of a newcomer.
Now we have a posting using this list serve to attack the campaign
website & invite people to use other alternatives.
So whoever it was who "busted us" is there any way to exclude a
person who obviously has some agenda other than supporting Obama.
Appalled, I temporarily left the group:
I hope you're proud of driving me from this group. My sharing my internet and librarian expertise is seen as attacking the website rather than improving it. I do have my own agenda--growing a revolution that will make America a family-friendly society for my grandchildren. I consider Obama an essential leader of that revolution. I have no idea if you speak but the group, but I have no interest replacing Hillary as your personal Rorschach test.
Criticizing your candidate's inadequacies and making helpful suggestions is the best way of supporting him. At least have the courage to name names. You certainly proved how
sound my instinct was on the necessity of separate Hillary groups.
Later, I realized that I had cut off my nose to spite my face. Unless I was a member of this blog, I couldn't tell my Long Island blog about what's happening. I am sure things will get better, but we are all a bit raw still. I must have done something to this poster in a previous lifetime. She asks me to leave another group as well. I wish I could remember my crime. Mary is generally well behaved, but Joan gets somewhat unruly::)
Since I joined my Long Island Obama group, I have annoyed one of the regular posters who had been for Obama all along.
This is my high crime and misdemanor::
A reference librarian, I have already realized that the mybarackobama website is not quite state of the art. My only being able to send a message to ten friends at a time is frustrating. I keep losing what I write on blogs, group descriptions, and messages because suddenly another page opens up. Communicating through messages on your website is cumbersome.There is no real word processing functionality, no way of easily linking within messages and blog comments. Google offers much better alternatives--gmail, reader, chat, groups, calendar, docs and spreadsheets where you can collaborate in real time. Google Apps is another possibility for organizers. There is a wonderful world of opportunities and the Obama campaign is not making impressive use of them. Has anyone considered exploring them?
I was astonished by this women's letter to the whole group.
I have watched w/ sadness as this group has been virtually ripped
apart over the past several days mostly by the actions of a newcomer.
Now we have a posting using this list serve to attack the campaign
website & invite people to use other alternatives.
So whoever it was who "busted us" is there any way to exclude a
person who obviously has some agenda other than supporting Obama.
Appalled, I temporarily left the group:
I hope you're proud of driving me from this group. My sharing my internet and librarian expertise is seen as attacking the website rather than improving it. I do have my own agenda--growing a revolution that will make America a family-friendly society for my grandchildren. I consider Obama an essential leader of that revolution. I have no idea if you speak but the group, but I have no interest replacing Hillary as your personal Rorschach test.
Criticizing your candidate's inadequacies and making helpful suggestions is the best way of supporting him. At least have the courage to name names. You certainly proved how
sound my instinct was on the necessity of separate Hillary groups.
Later, I realized that I had cut off my nose to spite my face. Unless I was a member of this blog, I couldn't tell my Long Island blog about what's happening. I am sure things will get better, but we are all a bit raw still. I must have done something to this poster in a previous lifetime. She asks me to leave another group as well. I wish I could remember my crime. Mary is generally well behaved, but Joan gets somewhat unruly::)
Unseemly Older Women
want to share with you my reply to a blog post on Obama's site castigating unseemly and ridiculous older women who supported Hillary and now want their voices and ideas taken seriously by Obama.
"Comments like this alienate Hillary supporters. It feels like you are more interested in cutting older women down to size than winning the election. I hate it when women accuse other women of pity parties. Being called "honey" in political debate is as annoying as being called "sweetie" if you are a reporter asking a serious question.
It is naive to think problems with men will disappear if women just start negotiating and stop fighting. The problem is not with specific men; it is with American society. Younger women telling themselves the battle has been won might not realize the importance of government and social policies that make it possible for both men and women to combine careers with caregiving, either of children or their aging parents.
My daughters and their friends are just beginning to have children. Suddenly they realize the feminist battles have just begun. Women of my age spend more time talking about their parents than their children because trying to continue their careers and take care of failing parents is a nightmare. As a fervent young feminist in the late 60s and early 70s, I never would have believed in my worst nightmares that the US woud be about 160th in the world in maternity leave and parent-friendly policies when I became a grandmother one year ago..
I cannot understand why both Obama and Clinton did not make this a major issue.
You comment:"It looks unseemly and ridiculous for someone your age." I can't decide if I am age 62 or the age of my 46-year-old English husband born on the fourth of July, exactly one month before Obama. I expect any woman who could persuade an Englishman 16 years younger to give up home and country for her can't be a dried up old hag.I haven't been admonished about being unseemly in about 40 years. I never once used that word to clip the wings of my four daughters and they have flown very high. My restrainst was saintly because their behavior toward their mother is the polar opposite of seemly.
"Comments like this alienate Hillary supporters. It feels like you are more interested in cutting older women down to size than winning the election. I hate it when women accuse other women of pity parties. Being called "honey" in political debate is as annoying as being called "sweetie" if you are a reporter asking a serious question.
It is naive to think problems with men will disappear if women just start negotiating and stop fighting. The problem is not with specific men; it is with American society. Younger women telling themselves the battle has been won might not realize the importance of government and social policies that make it possible for both men and women to combine careers with caregiving, either of children or their aging parents.
My daughters and their friends are just beginning to have children. Suddenly they realize the feminist battles have just begun. Women of my age spend more time talking about their parents than their children because trying to continue their careers and take care of failing parents is a nightmare. As a fervent young feminist in the late 60s and early 70s, I never would have believed in my worst nightmares that the US woud be about 160th in the world in maternity leave and parent-friendly policies when I became a grandmother one year ago..
I cannot understand why both Obama and Clinton did not make this a major issue.
You comment:"It looks unseemly and ridiculous for someone your age." I can't decide if I am age 62 or the age of my 46-year-old English husband born on the fourth of July, exactly one month before Obama. I expect any woman who could persuade an Englishman 16 years younger to give up home and country for her can't be a dried up old hag.I haven't been admonished about being unseemly in about 40 years. I never once used that word to clip the wings of my four daughters and they have flown very high. My restrainst was saintly because their behavior toward their mother is the polar opposite of seemly.
Girly Clothes and Babies
I have abandoned this blog since last winter. I have concentrated on political blogging and personal family blogging about my one-year-old grandson. I just returned from a baby shower for my second daughter, Michelle, who is expecting a girl at the end of August (the family calls the baby Penelope). My third daughter, Rose, is expecting a baby the beginning of December. Five of Michelle's friends who were at the shower have babies, so I had wonderful discussions about babies/careers/husbands.
I noticed that Michelle's baby got many more pink girly clothes than the young feminists of my generation would have felt politically correct to give to a friend's baby. I am not a fan of pastels for either boys or girls. I did adore the red fleece smocked dress she received. I have always bought books, music, and dvds as presents. Since my daughters were about 8, I would never have the audacity to select clothes for them.
I was not a clothes mommy and I will not be a clothes grandmother. Penny's 3 aunts and I chipped in for a state of the art baby carrier. I also gave her a Rosemary Wells's first Mother Goose, Peter, Paul and Mommy, and Woody Guthrie's Songs for Mother and Child.
June 21, 2008
Why I Support Obama When I Voted for Clinton
Senator Clinton says it best:
I entered this race because I have an old-fashioned conviction that public service is about helping people solve their problems and live their dreams. I've had every opportunity and blessing in my own life, and I want the same for all Americans.
And until that day comes, you'll always find me on the front lines of democracy, fighting for the future.
The way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passion, our strength, and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States.
You know, I've been involved in politics and public life in one way or another for four decades. And during those ... during those 40 years our country has voted 10 times for president. Democrats won only three of those times, and the man who won two of those elections is with us today.
We made tremendous progress during the '90s under a Democratic president, with a flourishing economy and our leadership for peace and security respected around the world.
Just think how much more progress we could have made over the past 40 years if we'd had a Democratic president. Think about the lost opportunities of these past seven years on the environment and the economy, on health care and civil rights, on education, foreign policy and the Supreme Court.
Imagine how far ... we could have come, how much we could have achieved if we had just had a Democrat in the White House.
We cannot let this moment slip away. We have come too far and accomplished too much.
So I want to say to my supporters: When you hear people saying or think to yourself, If only, or, What if, I say, please, don't go there. Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.
Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next president.
I entered this race because I have an old-fashioned conviction that public service is about helping people solve their problems and live their dreams. I've had every opportunity and blessing in my own life, and I want the same for all Americans.
And until that day comes, you'll always find me on the front lines of democracy, fighting for the future.
The way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passion, our strength, and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States.
You know, I've been involved in politics and public life in one way or another for four decades. And during those ... during those 40 years our country has voted 10 times for president. Democrats won only three of those times, and the man who won two of those elections is with us today.
We made tremendous progress during the '90s under a Democratic president, with a flourishing economy and our leadership for peace and security respected around the world.
Just think how much more progress we could have made over the past 40 years if we'd had a Democratic president. Think about the lost opportunities of these past seven years on the environment and the economy, on health care and civil rights, on education, foreign policy and the Supreme Court.
Imagine how far ... we could have come, how much we could have achieved if we had just had a Democrat in the White House.
We cannot let this moment slip away. We have come too far and accomplished too much.
So I want to say to my supporters: When you hear people saying or think to yourself, If only, or, What if, I say, please, don't go there. Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.
Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next president.
My Daughter (An Obama Supporter) and I Cried
From Hillary's Concession Speech
Now, on a personal note, when I was asked what it means to be a woman running for president, I always gave the same answer, that I was proud to be running as a woman, but I was running because I thought I'd be the best president. But...But I am a woman and, like millions of women, I know there are still barriers and biases out there, often unconscious, and I want to build an America that respects and embraces the potential of every last one of us.
I ran as a daughter who benefited from opportunities my mother never dreamed of. I ran as a mother who worries about my daughter's future and a mother who wants to leave all children brighter tomorrows. To build that future I see, we must make sure that women and men alike understand the struggles of their grandmothers and their mothers, and that women enjoy equal opportunities, equal pay, and equal respect.
Let us resolve and work toward achieving very simple propositions: There are no acceptable limits, and there are no acceptable prejudices in the 21st century in our country.
You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories..... unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the president of the United States. And that is truly remarkable, my friends.
To those who are disappointed that we couldn't go all of the way, especially the young people who put so much into this campaign, it would break my heart if, in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged any of you from pursuing yours.
Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in. And, when you stumble, keep faith. And, when you're knocked down, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you can't or shouldn't go on.
As we gather here today in this historic, magnificent building, the 50th woman to leave this Earth is orbiting overhead. If we can blast 50 women into space, we will someday launch a woman into the White House. Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it...and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.
That has always been the history of progress in America. Think of the suffragists who gathered at Seneca Falls in 1848 and those who kept fighting until women could cast their votes.
Think of the abolitionists who struggled and died to see the end of slavery. Think of the civil rights heroes and foot soldiers who marched, protested, and risked their lives to bring about the end of segregation and Jim Crow.
Because of them, I grew up taking for granted that women could vote and, because of them, my daughter grew up taking for granted that children of all colors could go to school together.
Because of them, Barack Obama and I could wage a hard-fought campaign for the Democratic nomination. Because of them and because of you, children today will grow up taking for granted that an African-American or a woman can, yes, become the president of the United States.
And so...
... when that day arrives, and a woman takes the oath of office as our president, we will all stand taller, proud of the values of our nation, proud that every little girl can dream big and that her dreams can come true in America.
Now, on a personal note, when I was asked what it means to be a woman running for president, I always gave the same answer, that I was proud to be running as a woman, but I was running because I thought I'd be the best president. But...But I am a woman and, like millions of women, I know there are still barriers and biases out there, often unconscious, and I want to build an America that respects and embraces the potential of every last one of us.
I ran as a daughter who benefited from opportunities my mother never dreamed of. I ran as a mother who worries about my daughter's future and a mother who wants to leave all children brighter tomorrows. To build that future I see, we must make sure that women and men alike understand the struggles of their grandmothers and their mothers, and that women enjoy equal opportunities, equal pay, and equal respect.
Let us resolve and work toward achieving very simple propositions: There are no acceptable limits, and there are no acceptable prejudices in the 21st century in our country.
You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories..... unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the president of the United States. And that is truly remarkable, my friends.
To those who are disappointed that we couldn't go all of the way, especially the young people who put so much into this campaign, it would break my heart if, in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged any of you from pursuing yours.
Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in. And, when you stumble, keep faith. And, when you're knocked down, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you can't or shouldn't go on.
As we gather here today in this historic, magnificent building, the 50th woman to leave this Earth is orbiting overhead. If we can blast 50 women into space, we will someday launch a woman into the White House. Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it...and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.
That has always been the history of progress in America. Think of the suffragists who gathered at Seneca Falls in 1848 and those who kept fighting until women could cast their votes.
Think of the abolitionists who struggled and died to see the end of slavery. Think of the civil rights heroes and foot soldiers who marched, protested, and risked their lives to bring about the end of segregation and Jim Crow.
Because of them, I grew up taking for granted that women could vote and, because of them, my daughter grew up taking for granted that children of all colors could go to school together.
Because of them, Barack Obama and I could wage a hard-fought campaign for the Democratic nomination. Because of them and because of you, children today will grow up taking for granted that an African-American or a woman can, yes, become the president of the United States.
And so...
... when that day arrives, and a woman takes the oath of office as our president, we will all stand taller, proud of the values of our nation, proud that every little girl can dream big and that her dreams can come true in America.
Letter to Progressive Bloggers
I could never satisfactorily explain to my family of Obama supporters why I was supporting Clinton because my political views were so much more similar to Obama's. I had some difficulty understanding it myself. I did think Hillary would make an excellent president; I greatly admired her brains, hard work, and indomitable spirit. Electing a qualified women president was tremendously important to me. I was convinced it would benefit women around the world in ways we might not be able to predict. I would not have supported any Republican woman for president. Obama seemed too much of an unknown. I preferred Clinton's health platform.
I want to share with you a letter I posted to several progressive blogs I have been avoiding for 6 months. To be a feminist for Hillary in the progressive blogosphere has been a bruising, lonely experience. Here is what I wrote:
"Hillary supporters are more likely to come around and work for Obama if they swear off reading progressive blogs for a month or two. They would be far better off joining Barack Obama's online community. Many of us perceived that too many progressive blogs became almost as hurtful and sexist as the mass media, albeit unconsciously in some instances. Saying it was unconscious is being very conciliatory, but I am a 62-year-old social worker and can afford to be kind.
Too many Hillary supporters stopped reading and commenting on their previous favorite blogs. We stopped trying to explain what sexism was and why it was so hurtful. Fewer women seem to love intellectual combat. I am ashamed to admit that I did too. Fancying myself as a member of the new creative class, I had suddenly become a low-information gullible. What a dismal fate for a reference librarian!
An ambivalent Hillary supporter, I tried rather stridently to discuss feminism and the election on several blogs in January. I then disappeared for five months and only reappeared when I had become an Obama supporter. I love to argue and debate. And yet I slunk away, muzzling myself. I even shut down my political blog.
The progressive blogosphere is bleeding and needs healing. To quote Digby:
"Clinton's campaign ripped open a hole in our culture and forced us to look inside. And what we found was a simmering cauldron of crude, sophomoric sexism and ugly misogyny that a lot of us knew existed but didn't realize was still so socially acceptable that it could be broadcast on national television and garner nary a complaint from anybody but a few internet scolds like me. "
Hillary feminists do need to take some responsibility for what happened in the netroots. If we had stayed to debate and educate, the wounds might not have been as deep. Most of us lacked Hillary's indomitable fighting spirit. Need I say that I am working my heart out for Obama. But the most helpful thing I can do right now is help Obama supporters understand the bitterness and pain of women HIllary supporters."
I shared this letter on my Obama blog, adding: "I realize that I was still a stranger in a strange land at mybarackobama. I have resolved to bite my tongue even if smoke is coming out of my ears and try to help Obama and Hillary supporters listen to and understand each other so they can unite to defeat John McCain. This time I won't slunk away or muzzle my blog. It is far easier to support a Democratic candidate against McCain than a Democratic candidate against another Democratic candidate when their positions are similar. I would prefer not to start a debate on whether their positions were that similar:)
I want to share with you a letter I posted to several progressive blogs I have been avoiding for 6 months. To be a feminist for Hillary in the progressive blogosphere has been a bruising, lonely experience. Here is what I wrote:
"Hillary supporters are more likely to come around and work for Obama if they swear off reading progressive blogs for a month or two. They would be far better off joining Barack Obama's online community. Many of us perceived that too many progressive blogs became almost as hurtful and sexist as the mass media, albeit unconsciously in some instances. Saying it was unconscious is being very conciliatory, but I am a 62-year-old social worker and can afford to be kind.
Too many Hillary supporters stopped reading and commenting on their previous favorite blogs. We stopped trying to explain what sexism was and why it was so hurtful. Fewer women seem to love intellectual combat. I am ashamed to admit that I did too. Fancying myself as a member of the new creative class, I had suddenly become a low-information gullible. What a dismal fate for a reference librarian!
An ambivalent Hillary supporter, I tried rather stridently to discuss feminism and the election on several blogs in January. I then disappeared for five months and only reappeared when I had become an Obama supporter. I love to argue and debate. And yet I slunk away, muzzling myself. I even shut down my political blog.
The progressive blogosphere is bleeding and needs healing. To quote Digby:
"Clinton's campaign ripped open a hole in our culture and forced us to look inside. And what we found was a simmering cauldron of crude, sophomoric sexism and ugly misogyny that a lot of us knew existed but didn't realize was still so socially acceptable that it could be broadcast on national television and garner nary a complaint from anybody but a few internet scolds like me. "
Hillary feminists do need to take some responsibility for what happened in the netroots. If we had stayed to debate and educate, the wounds might not have been as deep. Most of us lacked Hillary's indomitable fighting spirit. Need I say that I am working my heart out for Obama. But the most helpful thing I can do right now is help Obama supporters understand the bitterness and pain of women HIllary supporters."
I shared this letter on my Obama blog, adding: "I realize that I was still a stranger in a strange land at mybarackobama. I have resolved to bite my tongue even if smoke is coming out of my ears and try to help Obama and Hillary supporters listen to and understand each other so they can unite to defeat John McCain. This time I won't slunk away or muzzle my blog. It is far easier to support a Democratic candidate against McCain than a Democratic candidate against another Democratic candidate when their positions are similar. I would prefer not to start a debate on whether their positions were that similar:)
June 20, 2008
Equality Feminism and Difference Feminism
This was written in response to a perceptive critique of my feminist rants. I entirely agree with you "that being a feminist means rejecting some of what feminism had to say over the past 40 years." What has accompanied the success of feminism is less appreciation and support for the vitally important work of caregiving. Years of child care and elder care are not seen as the excellent job qualification they so often are. Christian fundamentalists have valid points about the neglect of children and elders in today's post-feminist society. We cannot abandon this issue to them.
Thank you for bringing up the illuminating distinction between equality feminism (women treated the same as men) and difference feminism (specific role differences require specific protection for women to allow them to participate equally).What is biology and what is learned gender role in the perceived differences between men and women? Because I have 5 very different brothers and 4 very different daughters, I question overemphasis on innate differences. The spread of differences among people of the same sex seem as great or greater as the differences between the sexes.
At 1 year, my grandson clearly resembles his adventurous, world-traveling mother; he is as different from two of his aunts as his mother is. I am overgeneralizing; his mother didn't require us to remove all knobs from the gas stove, but his aunt did). He does seem more interested in being as loud as possible. I never realized how hard one can bang a xyophone. We would need several generations of both men and women equally involved in raising young children to make any significant judgment about innate sex differences.
Childbearing shifts the equation. Doctors advocate nursing for a year as the ultimate preventive health measure. So for about two years per child, women do need special accommodations. Europe in general has much better support for new mothers. They recognize that everyone benefits if new parents can afford to bond with their newborns and children receive as much parental care as possible in the early years. Fathers and mothers are equally capable of parenting young children; exclusive breastfeeding only last six months. Many heroic women now manage to work full time and give their infants only their own milk.
Day care of infants and toddlers, if done right, is usually prohibitively expensive financially. Babies usually get sick far more often in day care, and their parents have to scramble for alternatives just as their babies are needier and fussier. Premature group care is frequently emotionally expensive for infants and toddlers. My oldest brilliantly explained her daily meltdown after full-day kindergarten: "Mommy I used all my goodness up at school." Society needs to make changes so that one or both parents could work a part-time and/or home-based schedule in their children's earliest years without losing their benefits or harming their possibilities for career advancement, if that is their choice. Onsite day care should be an alternative offered by all large enough companies and organizations.
June 18, 2008
Smashing Gender Stereotypes
If this morning in the playground is any proof, every kid in Chelsea (boys and girls) has been yearning for this stroller. It doesn't have princesses, only butterflies. It is wonderfully lightweight, easily fits in the bottom of the stroller, can be lifted by one adult finger. Because it is so lightweight, it blows around the playground which amused Nate. He was generous enough to let at least 10 separate kids play with it. There is a little back basket, where he was depositing all the stuff he picks up in the playground. Gum is his new fascination.At least consciously, i did not set out to break gender barriers; that was my only choice at BuyBuyBaby. The lucky baby is the sea otter puppet Patricia got Nate for this birthday. Nate particularly liked giving dinosaurs rides.
April 9, 2008
Childbirth--Feminist Choice Issue
If you are thinking of getting pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or already pregnant, buy or borrow two excellent new books--Pushed by Jennifer Block and Born in the USA by Mardsen Wagner. Read them before your next OB appointment; they might substantially reduce your likelihood of having a C-section. As a long-time childbirth activist, I am appalled that so many American women face returning to work six weeks after major surgery.
Marsen Wagner is formerly the director of Women’s and Children’s Health at the World Health Organization (WHO). A whistleblower, he offers a scathing attack on obstetrical standards of care, suggesting they are abusive at worst, and based on nonscience that mainly serves doctors’ interests at best. Jennifer Block was an editor at Ms. magazine and a writer and editor of Our Bodies, Ourselves. Her book, extremely readable, covers much of the same ground Wagner’s does. Read the excellent, lengthy review in the Women's Review of Books:
Here are two central facts about American birth: first, the US spends more per capita than any other developed nation on maternity care. Second, the World Health Organization ranks the US thirtieth out of 33 developed countries in preventing maternal mortality, and 32nd in preventing neonatal mortality. Our country is not doing well by mothers and babies.
Both these books describe, in splendid detail, the myriad interventions of “active management”—the practices perpetrated upon even a healthy woman planning the most unremarkable of births. Although these practices may help in critical situations, they are more likely to cause harm than good in a normal birth. For example, active management includes the induction of labor in as many as forty percent of all American births, even though this leads to longer and more painful labors and “ups a woman’s chance of a [cesarean] section by two to three times,” according to Block. ...Active management also includes speeding up a woman’s labor with the use of Pitocin in perhaps a majority of American hospital births today. According to Block, “a recent American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG )survey found that in 43 percent of malpractice suits involving neurologically impaired babies, Pitocin was to blame.” And it includes routine electronic fetal monitoring, used in 93 percent of hospital births even though studies show that its only effect is to increase the c-section rate.The quintessential intervention is the cesarean section, which is how nearly thirty percent of American women delivered their babies last year. WHO says that when a population has a c-section rate of higher than fifteen percent, the risks to the mother and baby outweigh the benefits—and a WHO study found that “the main cause of maternal deaths in industrialized countries is complications from anesthesia and cesarean section,” Block reports. She cites another study published last year, of 100,000 births, which found that “the rate of ‘severe maternal morbidity and mortality’—infection requiring rehospitalization, hemorrhage, blood transfusion, hysterectomy, admission to intensive care, and death—rose in proportion to the rate of cesarean section.” As for the baby, other research has found that “preterm birth and infant death rose significantly when cesarean rates exceeded between 10 and 20 percent,” and that “low-risk babies born by cesarean were nearly three times more likely to die within the first month of life than those born vaginally.” Nonetheless, ACOG not only rejects the fifteen percent target, but even continues to support the idea of elective c-section.
What are your alternatives to an interventionist and/or C section birth?
As evidence is increasingly showing, the people who best enable normal births are midwives. Obstetricians, after all, are surgeons, and many never witness a natural, normal birth in their training. Midwives, in contrast, are women who know that one of the best answers to pain is sitting in a warm tub, who know how to manually palpate a woman’s belly to find the baby’s weight and position, and who know how to help a woman handle labor in ways that facilitate birth.But midwifery in the US is up against some powerful forces—mainly, again, obstetricians and American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Doctors throughout American history have worked to discredit midwives—labeling them dirty, uneducated, and unskilled—and to drive them out of business. Today certified nurse-midwives who practice in hospitals report having their hands tied by doctors and hospital protocol.
Is it possible for change to come from women themselves?
Block ends with a challenge to today’s organized feminists to bring birthing under the umbrella of “choice,” quoting childbirth educator Erica Lyon, who says, “I think this is the last leap for the feminist movement. This is the last issue for women in terms of actual ownership of our bodies. It will take a revolution."
These books deal only peripherally with one of the most problematic issues: what do you do when women freely choose, or think they freely choose, medical procedures that increase their risk and that of their children? If women believe their obstetricians are their best advocates, how do you convince them to think skeptically? Until women take birth into their own hands, until they realize that doctors are not necessarily women’s advocates, until they seek out the evidence, which is in these books but not in doctor’s offices, about the normalcy of birth and the dangers of interventions, they are going to continue to believe that birth is a crisis about which only one person – the obstetrician – knows best.
We fought this battle in the 1970s and early 1980s and thought we were winning. I had four children between 1973 to 1982; two were hospital births, two were home births. I employed one obstetrician, one family practioner, and two nurse-midwives. I was given pitocin against my will for my only OB-assisted birth; I received no other medications.
March 28, 2008
Michael and Barbie
Michelle:
I think it's funny that you once so objected to your daughters being interested in playing with Barbie dolls but now that you have a grandson, Barbies represent being liberated. What a double standard! I can't believe you are perpetuating unrealistic images of women from such an early age!
Mary Joan, being absurdly defensive:
Of course, I was joking about giving him a barbie doll for his birthday. Now that I have a record of his behavior, I will make sure he doesn't get his hands on another one! He would probably prefer a Sasha doll; they have much better hair. I would welcome a substitute hair-pulling object. Someone had put the Barbie with the dinosaurs. I wouldn't buy my daughters Barbie dolls. But I didn't snatch them out of their eager hands at someone else's house.For hguys not in the know-- Anne used the first real money she got--her first communion money--to buy about six of them. Very shortly they were beheaded, scalped, or drowned.
Mary Joan, still protesting too much, lists the nonsexist toys she has given Michael:
First Mother Goose
a wooden squish toy with movable beads
a world beach ball
Peter Seeger CD
Woody Guthrie CD
Rhythm set
xylophone
various books
February 22, 2008
February 13, 2008
Feminist Obama?
My generation of feminists won some significant battles, and so brilliant younger women need not make feminism their absolute priority. I was 18 when the Feminine Mystique was published, 23 when the second feminist movement began. Belatedly, I have realized this week that feminism is my make- or -break issue. But my absolute commitment to feminist issues would not necessarily make me a Clinton supporter.
Please struggle to understand this. Men and women can be feminists. Clinton, although the target of hundreds of thousands of vituperative misogynist attacks, has not committed herself to a feminist platform. If Obama campaigned as a feminist, spoke out against the sexistattacks against Clinton, and made family issues an essential part of his platform, I would work for him in a heartbeat. I am sure Michelle Obama could write eloquent speeches for him. That he doesn't seem to be considering a potentially winning strategy indicates how thoroughly feminist and family issues have fallen beneath the political radar. I can't figure out why.
I might even prefer to vote for feminist Obama than a beleaguered Clinton. Voters would find it much more possible to understand feminist issues if a younger candidate was explicating them. Even as I type, I am struggling whether I should add "a younger male" candidate.
I was flabbergasted when Obama's aide Jesse Jackson jr. seemed to be competing with Chris Matthews for woman hater of the day. Obama's failure to repudiate or fire Jackson offers me no security he even understands feminism, never mind supports it. Perhaps his daughters need to educate him.
Please struggle to understand this. Men and women can be feminists. Clinton, although the target of hundreds of thousands of vituperative misogynist attacks, has not committed herself to a feminist platform. If Obama campaigned as a feminist, spoke out against the sexistattacks against Clinton, and made family issues an essential part of his platform, I would work for him in a heartbeat. I am sure Michelle Obama could write eloquent speeches for him. That he doesn't seem to be considering a potentially winning strategy indicates how thoroughly feminist and family issues have fallen beneath the political radar. I can't figure out why.
I might even prefer to vote for feminist Obama than a beleaguered Clinton. Voters would find it much more possible to understand feminist issues if a younger candidate was explicating them. Even as I type, I am struggling whether I should add "a younger male" candidate.
I was flabbergasted when Obama's aide Jesse Jackson jr. seemed to be competing with Chris Matthews for woman hater of the day. Obama's failure to repudiate or fire Jackson offers me no security he even understands feminism, never mind supports it. Perhaps his daughters need to educate him.
February 11, 2008
Wisdom of Tears
I wonder if all the people, men and women, ranting about Hillary's "fake" tears. react the same way to loved ones crying. Do you accuse your mom, your sister, your wife or your kid of using tears to yank your chain? (I admit my 5 younger brothers did.) Do you tell your son or grandson that big boys don't cry? Do you fight tears at sickbeds and funerals? I have watched people cry for 62 years, and it's bullshit that her reaction was staged. If it was, she should get the Oscar for best actress. . SHE DIDN'T CRY. Her eyes might have been wet, but there were no tears cascading down her cheeks. Good crying is usually noisy as well.
And if she had cried, what the hell is wrong with that? The human experiment with the patriarchy has not proven that bottling up your tears in a gun, a knife, a car, a terrorist attack, or a war, rather than letting them gentle your cheek advances the human condition. I feel very sorry for people who has not enjoyed the therapeutic relief of crying. I have been a shrink and have been shrunk. The most essential equipment in a shrink's office is the box of tissues. You could always sit on the floor. Some shrinks feel you are just wasting time until you are able to cry.
And if she had cried, what the hell is wrong with that? The human experiment with the patriarchy has not proven that bottling up your tears in a gun, a knife, a car, a terrorist attack, or a war, rather than letting them gentle your cheek advances the human condition. I feel very sorry for people who has not enjoyed the therapeutic relief of crying. I have been a shrink and have been shrunk. The most essential equipment in a shrink's office is the box of tissues. You could always sit on the floor. Some shrinks feel you are just wasting time until you are able to cry.
Confessions of Misogyny
My four daughters would reassure you that I am one of the worst misogynists they know. Until I became a mother at age 28, I would always join the circle of men, never the circle of women. I was positive the conversation would be more stimulating. I despise women's fashion magazines and all the talk of diets and hair and makeup..
Spending a year in a Catholic girls college in Rochester was the most alienating experience of my life. I was sarcastic, and no one seemed to realize I didn't necessarily mean it. One night my friends and I stayed up all night, discussing politics,sex, religion, what have you. The rumor rapidly spread that we were gossiping about everyone on the floor. Learning that "there was something in the nature of a woman that unsuits her for intellectual debate with men" elicited my jail beak to being the only girl in the political science classes at Fordham.
Working in the female-dominated fields of public librarianship and social work was a disaster for me. I never can accept that is the way it is and you can't do anything about it. I am a trouble maker pure and simple. When I am upset, I defend myself by getting more ascerbic and intellectual. I perceive that men enjoy gutsy women who giggle and smile and tease and insult and debate with them lots more than women do. I have always gone to male shrinks.
My most successful social work job was working with a great group of seriously mentally ill guys who were absolutely trapped in the system. Some had been in jail; most had substance abuse problems. I never was so appreciated by a group of people in my whole life. They were so wonderful to hang out with. I excel at eliciting the sanity in crazy people and the craziness in apparently sane people. There are lots of the latter in social work and public librarianship.
I also did extremely well with male gay clients. One told me I must have been a gay male in a previous lifetime I understand him so well. I Another paid me the greatest compliment I got as a shrink: he said I was his only experience of unconditional love. We had a strange therapeutic relationship. Until I treated him, an Irishmen from an utterly abusive family, I never realized how Irish I was.
I have never been hassled on the street by a guy in my entire life. I do smile a lot. I am perfectly comfortable being the only women in a subway car full of men. African American men and immigrants tend to find older, curvier women attractive, which is lovely fun. In the early days of women's lib, women whined incessantly about street hassles. I wondered if I was the ugliest woman in the entire women's liberation movement. I often have long conversations with homeless men. One street person teased me that I looked very friendly ,approachable, happy to talk, sometimes generous depending upon whether I had exceeded my day's handout limit, but I subtly conveyed that I could turn him to stone if he messed with me.
--
Posted By Mary Jo Koch to Matriarch at 1/11/2008 02:20:00 PM
Spending a year in a Catholic girls college in Rochester was the most alienating experience of my life. I was sarcastic, and no one seemed to realize I didn't necessarily mean it. One night my friends and I stayed up all night, discussing politics,sex, religion, what have you. The rumor rapidly spread that we were gossiping about everyone on the floor. Learning that "there was something in the nature of a woman that unsuits her for intellectual debate with men" elicited my jail beak to being the only girl in the political science classes at Fordham.
Working in the female-dominated fields of public librarianship and social work was a disaster for me. I never can accept that is the way it is and you can't do anything about it. I am a trouble maker pure and simple. When I am upset, I defend myself by getting more ascerbic and intellectual. I perceive that men enjoy gutsy women who giggle and smile and tease and insult and debate with them lots more than women do. I have always gone to male shrinks.
My most successful social work job was working with a great group of seriously mentally ill guys who were absolutely trapped in the system. Some had been in jail; most had substance abuse problems. I never was so appreciated by a group of people in my whole life. They were so wonderful to hang out with. I excel at eliciting the sanity in crazy people and the craziness in apparently sane people. There are lots of the latter in social work and public librarianship.
I also did extremely well with male gay clients. One told me I must have been a gay male in a previous lifetime I understand him so well. I Another paid me the greatest compliment I got as a shrink: he said I was his only experience of unconditional love. We had a strange therapeutic relationship. Until I treated him, an Irishmen from an utterly abusive family, I never realized how Irish I was.
I have never been hassled on the street by a guy in my entire life. I do smile a lot. I am perfectly comfortable being the only women in a subway car full of men. African American men and immigrants tend to find older, curvier women attractive, which is lovely fun. In the early days of women's lib, women whined incessantly about street hassles. I wondered if I was the ugliest woman in the entire women's liberation movement. I often have long conversations with homeless men. One street person teased me that I looked very friendly ,approachable, happy to talk, sometimes generous depending upon whether I had exceeded my day's handout limit, but I subtly conveyed that I could turn him to stone if he messed with me.
--
Posted By Mary Jo Koch to Matriarch at 1/11/2008 02:20:00 PM
Equality Feminism and Difference Feminism
This was written in response to a perceptive critique of my feminist rants. I entirely agree with you "that being a feminist means rejecting some of what feminism had to say over the past 40 years." What has accompanied the success of feminism is less appreciation and support for the vitally important work of caregiving. Years of child care and elder care are not seen as the excellent job qualification they so often are. Christian fundamentalists have valid points about the neglect of children and elders in today's post-feminist society. We cannot abandon this issue to them.
Thank you for bringing up the illuminating distinction between equality feminism (women treated the same as men) and difference feminism (specific role differences require specific protection for women to allow them to participate equally).What is biology and what is learned gender role in the perceived differences between men and women? Because I have 5 very different brothers and 4 very different daughters, I question overemphasis on innate differences. The spread of differences among people of the same sex seem as great or greater as the differences between the sexes. At 8 months, my grandson clearly resembles his adventurous, world-traveling mother; he is as different from two of his aunts as his mother is. We would need several generations of both men and women equally involved in raising young children to make any significant judgment about innate sex differences.
Childbearing shifts the equation. Doctors advocate nursing for a year as the ultimate preventive health measure. So for about two years per child, women do need special accommodations. As you say, Europe in general has much better support for new mothers. They recognize that everyone benefits if new parents can afford to bond with their newborns and children receive as much parental care as possible in the early years. Fathers and mothers are equally capable of parenting young children; exclusive breastfeeding only last six months. Many heroic women now manage to work full time and give their infants only their own milk.
Day care of infants and toddlers, if done right, is usually prohibitively expensive financially. Babies usually get sick far more often in day care, and their parents have to scramble for alternatives just as their babies are needier and fussier. Premature group care is frequently emotionally expensive for infants and toddlers. My oldest brilliantly explained her daily meltdown after full-day kindergarten: "Mommy I used all my goodness up at school." Society needs to make changes so that both parents could work a part-time and/or home-based schedule in their children's earliest years without losing their benefits or harming their possibilities for career advancement. Onsite day care could be an alternative offered by all large enough companies and organizations.
Silence on Family Issues
Neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama had my enthusiastic support on the family issues vitally important to me. Universal health care, while absolutely essential, will not address most family problems. We desperately need policies that will make it possible for both men and women to have careers and take care of their children and their elders. Maternity, paternity, and aging parent leave is obviously a priority. The medical and family leave act has to be extended to all businesses and organizations, large and small, and the government will need to be involved in funding that.
Excellent day care for babies and toddlers is too expensive for parents to pay for because it requires an extremely high teacher/child ratio. Only the affluent can afford a nanny even at the less than living rates most nannies are paid. The government is eventually going to have to support child care for children under 5 just as they support education for children over 5. Child care workers ideally would have college degrees in early child education and be paid the same salary and benefits as school teachers. Dedicated present child care workers should be eligible for governments grants paying their college tuitions. Public policy should not be biased toward out-of-home care.
Health care proposals don't come to grips with long-term care. Virtually all private health insurance is no good whatsoever for what is dismissed as custodial care, which is care for people who are not going to get better, because they are old and are eventually going to die of their chronic diseases, even if they live 15 years with it. They don't need skilled nursing and they are not going to improve, so Medicare will not help.. Instead they need help with dressing, bathing, toileting, medication, transportation, shopping, eating, laundry, transferring from one place to another. If they have dementia, they need constant supervision so they don't wander off and get hit by a car, fall down the stairs, leave the stove on and start a fire, leave the water running and flood the house.
Excellent day care for babies and toddlers is too expensive for parents to pay for because it requires an extremely high teacher/child ratio. Only the affluent can afford a nanny even at the less than living rates most nannies are paid. The government is eventually going to have to support child care for children under 5 just as they support education for children over 5. Child care workers ideally would have college degrees in early child education and be paid the same salary and benefits as school teachers. Dedicated present child care workers should be eligible for governments grants paying their college tuitions. Public policy should not be biased toward out-of-home care.
Health care proposals don't come to grips with long-term care. Virtually all private health insurance is no good whatsoever for what is dismissed as custodial care, which is care for people who are not going to get better, because they are old and are eventually going to die of their chronic diseases, even if they live 15 years with it. They don't need skilled nursing and they are not going to improve, so Medicare will not help.. Instead they need help with dressing, bathing, toileting, medication, transportation, shopping, eating, laundry, transferring from one place to another. If they have dementia, they need constant supervision so they don't wander off and get hit by a car, fall down the stairs, leave the stove on and start a fire, leave the water running and flood the house.
Medicare covers only very short-term care for people recently discharged from hospitals and capable of recovery and progress. For example, Medicare only pays for physical therapy if your therapist can document that you are making steady progress. They don't care about help that would keep you out of a wheelchair and out of a nursing home. My mother suffered from Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a more than Parkinkson's neurological disorder that destroys balance. Medicare would not pay for her physical therapy to avoid loss of mobility.
Many people could stay out of nursing homes if there were government programs that paid for the necessary home modifications necessary to them in age in place. Financing ramps, guardrails , and stair lifts is lots cheaper than paying for broken hips and nursing homes.
Nursing homes in New York City and Long Island cost more than $100,000 a year. Home health agencies charge $18 to $20 per hour for home health aides. Medicaid is more likely to cover nursing home care than home care. Desperate, people spend down all their resources and are then eligible for medicaid. Well spouses don't fare that well, but at least they are now able to keep their houses. Affluent families hire lawyers to hide or transfer their assets, so they can go on Medicaid, make the government pay what they could afford themselves, and save their children's inheritance.
Don't think long-term health insurance is the solution. The amount that man long-term health insurance pays is laughable; my mom had a supposedly good policy that only paid for 6 hours a day. Lots of policies seem like a scam; they have so many disqualifying conditions that your only chance of collecting anything is hiring an expensive case manager. Home health aides are shamelessly exploited by home health agencies supposedly under government supervision. The aide typicallygets less than half of the 18-20 an hour charged by the agency. Yet many long-term health care policies require you to go through a home health agency, instead of hiring the aide privately and paying her a living wage.
Many people could stay out of nursing homes if there were government programs that paid for the necessary home modifications necessary to them in age in place. Financing ramps, guardrails , and stair lifts is lots cheaper than paying for broken hips and nursing homes.
Nursing homes in New York City and Long Island cost more than $100,000 a year. Home health agencies charge $18 to $20 per hour for home health aides. Medicaid is more likely to cover nursing home care than home care. Desperate, people spend down all their resources and are then eligible for medicaid. Well spouses don't fare that well, but at least they are now able to keep their houses. Affluent families hire lawyers to hide or transfer their assets, so they can go on Medicaid, make the government pay what they could afford themselves, and save their children's inheritance.
Don't think long-term health insurance is the solution. The amount that man long-term health insurance pays is laughable; my mom had a supposedly good policy that only paid for 6 hours a day. Lots of policies seem like a scam; they have so many disqualifying conditions that your only chance of collecting anything is hiring an expensive case manager. Home health aides are shamelessly exploited by home health agencies supposedly under government supervision. The aide typicallygets less than half of the 18-20 an hour charged by the agency. Yet many long-term health care policies require you to go through a home health agency, instead of hiring the aide privately and paying her a living wage.
January 19, 2008
Childbirth--Feminist Choice Issue
If you are thinking of getting pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or already pregnant, buy or borrow two excellent new books--Pushed by Jennifer Block and Born in the USA by Mardsen Wagner. Read them before your next OB appointment; they might substantially reduce your likelihood of having a C-section. As a long-time childbirth activist, I am appalled that so many American women face returning to work six weeks after major surgery.
Marsen Wagner is formerly the director of Women’s and Children’s Health at the World Health Organization (WHO). A whistleblower, he offers a scathing attack on obstetrical standards of care, suggesting they are abusive at worst, and based on nonscience that mainly serves doctors’ interests at best. Jennifer Block was an editor at Ms. magazine and a writer and editor of Our Bodies, Ourselves. Her book, extremely readable, covers much of the same ground Wagner’s does. Read the excellent, lengthy review in the Women's Review of Books:
Here are two central facts about American birth: first, the US spends more per capita than any other developed nation on maternity care. Second, the World Health Organization ranks the US thirtieth out of 33 developed countries in preventing maternal mortality, and 32nd in preventing neonatal mortality. Our country is not doing well by mothers and babies.
Both these books describe, in splendid detail, the myriad interventions of “active management”—the practices perpetrated upon even a healthy woman planning the most unremarkable of births. Although these practices may help in critical situations, they are more likely to cause harm than good in a normal birth. For example, active management includes the induction of labor in as many as forty percent of all American births, even though this leads to longer and more painful labors and “ups a woman’s chance of a [cesarean] section by two to three times,” according to Block. ...Active management also includes speeding up a woman’s labor with the use of Pitocin in perhaps a majority of American hospital births today. According to Block, “a recent American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG )survey found that in 43 percent of malpractice suits involving neurologically impaired babies, Pitocin was to blame.” And it includes routine electronic fetal monitoring, used in 93 percent of hospital births even though studies show that its only effect is to increase the c-section rate.The quintessential intervention is the cesarean section, which is how nearly thirty percent of American women delivered their babies last year. WHO says that when a population has a c-section rate of higher than fifteen percent, the risks to the mother and baby outweigh the benefits—and a WHO study found that “the main cause of maternal deaths in industrialized countries is complications from anesthesia and cesarean section,” Block reports. She cites another study published last year, of 100,000 births, which found that “the rate of ‘severe maternal morbidity and mortality’—infection requiring rehospitalization, hemorrhage, blood transfusion, hysterectomy, admission to intensive care, and death—rose in proportion to the rate of cesarean section.” As for the baby, other research has found that “preterm birth and infant death rose significantly when cesarean rates exceeded between 10 and 20 percent,” and that “low-risk babies born by cesarean were nearly three times more likely to die within the first month of life than those born vaginally.” Nonetheless, ACOG not only rejects the fifteen percent target, but even continues to support the idea of elective c-section.
What are your alternatives to an interventionist and/or C section birth?
As evidence is increasingly showing, the people who best enable normal births are midwives. Obstetricians, after all, are surgeons, and many never witness a natural, normal birth in their training. Midwives, in contrast, are women who know that one of the best answers to pain is sitting in a warm tub, who know how to manually palpate a woman’s belly to find the baby’s weight and position, and who know how to help a woman handle labor in ways that facilitate birth.But midwifery in the US is up against some powerful forces—mainly, again, obstetricians and American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Doctors throughout American history have worked to discredit midwives—labeling them dirty, uneducated, and unskilled—and to drive them out of business. Today certified nurse-midwives who practice in hospitals report having their hands tied by doctors and hospital protocol.
Is it possible for change to come from women themselves?
Block ends with a challenge to today’s organized feminists to bring birthing under the umbrella of “choice,” quoting childbirth educator Erica Lyon, who says, “I think this is the last leap for the feminist movement. This is the last issue for women in terms of actual ownership of our bodies. It will take a revolution."
These books deal only peripherally with one of the most problematic issues: what do you do when women freely choose, or think they freely choose, medical procedures that increase their risk and that of their children? If women believe their obstetricians are their best advocates, how do you convince them to think skeptically? Until women take birth into their own hands, until they realize that doctors are not necessarily women’s advocates, until they seek out the evidence, which is in these books but not in doctor’s offices, about the normalcy of birth and the dangers of interventions, they are going to continue to believe that birth is a crisis about which only one person – the obstetrician – knows best.
We fought this battle in the 1970s and early 1980s and thought we were winning. I had four children between 1973 to 1982; two were hospital births, two were home births. I employed one obstetrician, one family practioner, and two nurse-midwives. I was given pitocin against my will for my only OB-assisted birth; I received no other medications.
January 12, 2008
Has Feminism Won Its Battles?
Unlike most feminists with my intellect and education, I decided to stay home with my four children full-time for 15 years and part-time until the youngest went to college. I involved myself in nonsexist childrearing, childbirth education, breastfeeding counseling, parent education, toddler playgroups, babysitting cooperatives, cooperative nursery schools, school libraries, a campaign to save the local public library, the nuclear freeze movement, mental illness support and advocacy, parent advocacy for playground upkeep and a preschool playroom, a high school group for interracial understanding--the list is endless.
When I made the mistake of attending library school and social work school, I naively assumed my qualifications would be obvious and no one would dare to treat me like a beginner. I was given the responsibility of an experienced worker and the salary, benefits, and respect of a beginner.
I recall one infuriating incident during my first social work placement; my childless supervisor earnestly instructed me how to interview a client with her two year old present. I had frequently run La Leche Meetings with 20 moms and 30 babies and toddlers. Women social workers who had taken very short maternity leaves and worked full-time during their children's childhood too often acted like all my knowledge had been attained by cheating. I got more respect from male professors. The situation has worsened; women are terrified of taking only a few years off from work. And yet the men who fought World War II left their jobs for several years and did not suffer economic consequences. The government even paid for their college and grad school education.
When my mom went back to college in 1963 and work in 1968, after having raised 6 children, she was accorded more respect and her experience was more honored than mine was 20 years later Full-time childrearing is frequently belittled as beneath the time and attention of intelligent, well-educated parents, who presumably should have exploited immigrant women of color to love and understand their children while they pursued their more important jobs. Remember, things have not changed for the valiant, loving women of color who raise our children and care for our parents. I am often appalled how little highly successful two-career couples pay their nanny; many fail to provide the caregiver with any benefits, least of all health care.
I agree that most women with college degrees, graduate, or professional degrees have made enormous strides in most major professions and in the workplace generally. Even nurses and teachers have made significant progress because they unionized. Public librarians and social workers usually make less than any other professionals with graduate degrees because they are mostly women and they are not unionized.
It is only when women have children or have to care for aging parents that they fully realize that women have mostly gained the right to follow the traditional male life style, emphasizing work over relationships, caregiving, community activism.. As women chose to have children at an older and older age, the realization is late in coming. At that point their lives tend too become too frenzied and exhausting to leave any time for feminism and political reform.
I recall one infuriating incident during my first social work placement; my childless supervisor earnestly instructed me how to interview a client with her two year old present. I had frequently run La Leche Meetings with 20 moms and 30 babies and toddlers. Women social workers who had taken very short maternity leaves and worked full-time during their children's childhood too often acted like all my knowledge had been attained by cheating. I got more respect from male professors. The situation has worsened; women are terrified of taking only a few years off from work. And yet the men who fought World War II left their jobs for several years and did not suffer economic consequences. The government even paid for their college and grad school education.
When my mom went back to college in 1963 and work in 1968, after having raised 6 children, she was accorded more respect and her experience was more honored than mine was 20 years later Full-time childrearing is frequently belittled as beneath the time and attention of intelligent, well-educated parents, who presumably should have exploited immigrant women of color to love and understand their children while they pursued their more important jobs. Remember, things have not changed for the valiant, loving women of color who raise our children and care for our parents. I am often appalled how little highly successful two-career couples pay their nanny; many fail to provide the caregiver with any benefits, least of all health care.
I agree that most women with college degrees, graduate, or professional degrees have made enormous strides in most major professions and in the workplace generally. Even nurses and teachers have made significant progress because they unionized. Public librarians and social workers usually make less than any other professionals with graduate degrees because they are mostly women and they are not unionized.
It is only when women have children or have to care for aging parents that they fully realize that women have mostly gained the right to follow the traditional male life style, emphasizing work over relationships, caregiving, community activism.. As women chose to have children at an older and older age, the realization is late in coming. At that point their lives tend too become too frenzied and exhausting to leave any time for feminism and political reform.
January 11, 2008
Women's Issues Are Family Issues
The recurring reference to women's issues in the media needs to be clarified. Most of these are better described as family and caregiver issues. However, vitally important women's issues exist. These include the availability of abortions and the morning after pill, the scandalous C-section rate, and the obscene harassment of nursing mothers. Too many companies expect breastfeeding mothers to pump in filthy toilets for 20 minutes and refuse to provide a comfortable room for them to pump and adequate short-time storage for breastmilk.This is a health issue as well since the American Academy of Pediatris recommends breastfeeding for at least a year. Working mothers of infants are heroic, incredibly dedicated to making sure their babies only get breastmilk and not formula. Encouraging, supporting, and facilitating breastfeeding is an integral part of wellness and prevention.
The best way to reduce the C-section rate is to to use nurse- midwives for normal births, but obstetricians fiercely resist giving nurse-midwives hospital privileges. At this point in New York City, the first question after how big is the baby is did you have a C-Section? It appalls me that the most educated professional women in history are allowing that to happen to them. When I was pregnant with my first child 35 years ago, baby books advised not considering a doctor with a C-section rate higher than 5 percent. Obviously the human race would have died out long ago if a 30 to 40 percent C-secton ate was the norm. I crusaded for natural childbirth and had my two youngest daughters at home with a nurse midwife.
Virtually all nannies and human health aides are women. In New York and Long Island they are almost always women of color. They can't afford to own cars. They have to struggle to work on public transportation that doesn't necessarily get them where they need to be; some take three different subways and buses. Agencies fail to even provide a mapquest to the client's home. Some caregivers have left their own children in the Islands with relatives, so the moms can make enough money to rescue her own kids from abject poverty. How shamelessly they are exploited is certainly a vitally important women's issue. Caregivers who are illegal immigrants can be virtually slaves, too afraid to complain or quit because they will be deported. Home health agencies charge the clients more than twice the amount they pay the women who actually doing the caring. They have absolutely no job security. Most have no health benefits, no disability benefits, are not eligible for unemployment. How we treat these loving, warm, compassionate, kind women is a national disgrace.
But almost all other "women's issues" are parent issues, caregiver issues. We seem to have made no progress on parents' sharing equally in child care and elder care responsibilities. The oldest daughter (if there is one) is usually her parents' caregiver, no matter how many siblings are in the family. Caring for aging parents disrupts women's work schedules even more than caring for young children.
The mommy wars drive me round the twist. In the 70s the feminist agenda was that society and the economy would change fundamentally so that moms and dads could share equally in child care. Now everyone seems to work longer than a 35- or 40- hour week; grandparents are either employed or too far away; day care centers are not staffed by professional teachers with a career path, so the turnover is constant. How dedicated can anyone afford to be at $8 to $10 an hour, often with no benefits? Excellent day care, where teachers are educated, accredited, and paid like grade school teachers, is very expensive, and the state would have to offer considerable support.
Men almost never work in day care or nursery schools; the sexual abuse day care hysteria ended that. People don't want to hire boys as babysitters or men as nannies. That is revoltingly sexist. Misogyny is hatred of women; sexism applies to both sexes. Women seem to have made more progress than men in bursting through gender stereotypes. So guys, you might be entitled to call your mate a "female chauvinist pig," though you might spend the night on the couch. Men rarely seem to complain about the sexism inflicted on them since such criticism would be seen as girly.
When I was struggling to practice nonsexist childrearing in the 1970s and early 1980s, I noticed that parents of boys have a much more difficult time. Strangers abuse mothers on the street if the boy's hair is too long, his colors are considered girly, he is carrying a baby doll, he is crying. They are frequently accused of making their sons gay. I have five brothers and four daughters; my mother raised my brothers to share the housekeeping and the childcare. I love to take care of my 8-month-old grandson three days a week. He greatly resembles his adventurous, world-traveling mother, who has lived in places like Niger, Kosovo, and Rwanda. I eagerly await defending this enchanting bundle of rambunctiousness from sexist constrictions of his creativity and determination. Together we could run a childproofing business. When I put him down on any floor, he immediately crawls toward the most dangerous object in the room. even though there might be dozens of more suitable things for him to play with.
When I lamented the lack of male participation in the blog, Unfogged, I got this discouraging reply:
"It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem; as long as childcare (and kindred professions) is seen as feminized, it will be a pretty small minority of men who will consider this kind of work, and therefore the proportion of perverts in that sample is going to be way above average. Anecdotally I would say that the same is true, for slightly different reasons, of scout masters, camp counselors, and wrestling coaches. In a sense, it's not irrational when people look askance at a man interested in taking care of children; there is an inclination to ask oneself whether there is some nefarious ulterior motive at work. A result of sexism? Of course. But the motives of the individual are not necessarily sexist".
My answer: My brother has been an elementary teacher in Portland Maine for about 20 years. He laments that male teachers would be terrified to touch or hug a 5 year old who had hurt himself or herself, although a female teacher would be glad to do so. It is outrageous to say the perverts are more likely to care for young children. I doubt that perverts are more likely to choose to work for peanuts. What possible proof can you give? How can men tolerate such assertions? What message does it convey to young children if they have no male teachers. Boys learn that only girls are caregivers. People speculate the boys have more trouble adjusting to the feminized environment of school.
Things were different in the 1970s, at least in New York City. Nursery schools and kindergartens tried very hard to recruit male teachers. When my daughter went to a Montessori nursery school down by the world trade center, she had a wonderful male teacher. Fathers spent lots of time taking care of young children and to the best of my knowledge their willies don't fall off. Whoops, I am married to an Englishman. Taking care of young children is incredibly exciting and fascinating. They are the best learners and the most creative free spirits you will ever encounter.
Every industrial Western nation has more family centered government policies than we do. American families no longer believe that government could make it more possible to be good parents, good caregivers of the elderly, and good workers. I hope the first woman president can implement significant change.
The best way to reduce the C-section rate is to to use nurse- midwives for normal births, but obstetricians fiercely resist giving nurse-midwives hospital privileges. At this point in New York City, the first question after how big is the baby is did you have a C-Section? It appalls me that the most educated professional women in history are allowing that to happen to them. When I was pregnant with my first child 35 years ago, baby books advised not considering a doctor with a C-section rate higher than 5 percent. Obviously the human race would have died out long ago if a 30 to 40 percent C-secton ate was the norm. I crusaded for natural childbirth and had my two youngest daughters at home with a nurse midwife.
Virtually all nannies and human health aides are women. In New York and Long Island they are almost always women of color. They can't afford to own cars. They have to struggle to work on public transportation that doesn't necessarily get them where they need to be; some take three different subways and buses. Agencies fail to even provide a mapquest to the client's home. Some caregivers have left their own children in the Islands with relatives, so the moms can make enough money to rescue her own kids from abject poverty. How shamelessly they are exploited is certainly a vitally important women's issue. Caregivers who are illegal immigrants can be virtually slaves, too afraid to complain or quit because they will be deported. Home health agencies charge the clients more than twice the amount they pay the women who actually doing the caring. They have absolutely no job security. Most have no health benefits, no disability benefits, are not eligible for unemployment. How we treat these loving, warm, compassionate, kind women is a national disgrace.
But almost all other "women's issues" are parent issues, caregiver issues. We seem to have made no progress on parents' sharing equally in child care and elder care responsibilities. The oldest daughter (if there is one) is usually her parents' caregiver, no matter how many siblings are in the family. Caring for aging parents disrupts women's work schedules even more than caring for young children.
The mommy wars drive me round the twist. In the 70s the feminist agenda was that society and the economy would change fundamentally so that moms and dads could share equally in child care. Now everyone seems to work longer than a 35- or 40- hour week; grandparents are either employed or too far away; day care centers are not staffed by professional teachers with a career path, so the turnover is constant. How dedicated can anyone afford to be at $8 to $10 an hour, often with no benefits? Excellent day care, where teachers are educated, accredited, and paid like grade school teachers, is very expensive, and the state would have to offer considerable support.
Men almost never work in day care or nursery schools; the sexual abuse day care hysteria ended that. People don't want to hire boys as babysitters or men as nannies. That is revoltingly sexist. Misogyny is hatred of women; sexism applies to both sexes. Women seem to have made more progress than men in bursting through gender stereotypes. So guys, you might be entitled to call your mate a "female chauvinist pig," though you might spend the night on the couch. Men rarely seem to complain about the sexism inflicted on them since such criticism would be seen as girly.
When I was struggling to practice nonsexist childrearing in the 1970s and early 1980s, I noticed that parents of boys have a much more difficult time. Strangers abuse mothers on the street if the boy's hair is too long, his colors are considered girly, he is carrying a baby doll, he is crying. They are frequently accused of making their sons gay. I have five brothers and four daughters; my mother raised my brothers to share the housekeeping and the childcare. I love to take care of my 8-month-old grandson three days a week. He greatly resembles his adventurous, world-traveling mother, who has lived in places like Niger, Kosovo, and Rwanda. I eagerly await defending this enchanting bundle of rambunctiousness from sexist constrictions of his creativity and determination. Together we could run a childproofing business. When I put him down on any floor, he immediately crawls toward the most dangerous object in the room. even though there might be dozens of more suitable things for him to play with.
When I lamented the lack of male participation in the blog, Unfogged, I got this discouraging reply:
"It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem; as long as childcare (and kindred professions) is seen as feminized, it will be a pretty small minority of men who will consider this kind of work, and therefore the proportion of perverts in that sample is going to be way above average. Anecdotally I would say that the same is true, for slightly different reasons, of scout masters, camp counselors, and wrestling coaches. In a sense, it's not irrational when people look askance at a man interested in taking care of children; there is an inclination to ask oneself whether there is some nefarious ulterior motive at work. A result of sexism? Of course. But the motives of the individual are not necessarily sexist".
My answer: My brother has been an elementary teacher in Portland Maine for about 20 years. He laments that male teachers would be terrified to touch or hug a 5 year old who had hurt himself or herself, although a female teacher would be glad to do so. It is outrageous to say the perverts are more likely to care for young children. I doubt that perverts are more likely to choose to work for peanuts. What possible proof can you give? How can men tolerate such assertions? What message does it convey to young children if they have no male teachers. Boys learn that only girls are caregivers. People speculate the boys have more trouble adjusting to the feminized environment of school.
Things were different in the 1970s, at least in New York City. Nursery schools and kindergartens tried very hard to recruit male teachers. When my daughter went to a Montessori nursery school down by the world trade center, she had a wonderful male teacher. Fathers spent lots of time taking care of young children and to the best of my knowledge their willies don't fall off. Whoops, I am married to an Englishman. Taking care of young children is incredibly exciting and fascinating. They are the best learners and the most creative free spirits you will ever encounter.
Every industrial Western nation has more family centered government policies than we do. American families no longer believe that government could make it more possible to be good parents, good caregivers of the elderly, and good workers. I hope the first woman president can implement significant change.
January 8, 2008
Isn't Fighting Sexism a Progressive Value?
Melissa McEwan has an excellent article on Shakesville, pointing out that Edwards and Obama should be commenting on the sexism directed at Hillary Clinton.
Read the whole article. Here is part of it:
Isn't it? One wouldn't think so, given the way Hillary Clinton's peers are allowing her to be subjected to all manner of indignity on the basis of her sex, with nary a peep in her defense. John Edwards' response to reports of Hillary's emotional moment—which, once the national press was done with it, had turned into a full-blown emotional meltdown—was disgraceful. Obama merely declined to comment in this case, but he hasn't gotten to New Hampshire with clean hands, having recently reduced Hillary Clinton's experience as first lady to attending tea parties; then, responding to being called out by the Clinton campaign on the obvious sexism of that jab, he denied he was referring to her gender (really?—he'd describe a man's experience as having "tea" with people?) and resorted to a thinly-veiled update on the old "hysteria" chestnut: "Those folks must really be on edge."
Yes, that must be it. Or, perhaps, they were rightfully angry about the oblique use of sexism as a political weapon from their own side of the aisle.
Further down:
Obama and Edwards ostensibly believe that men and women are equal; the people who share that belief should expect them to endeavor to defend that principle at every turn, not just when it is politically expedient. See, the thing is, it's been politically expedient to throw women's rights under the bus before, and some of us would like the assurance that we're casting a vote for someone who regards women's equality as an unyielding and constant principle—not a bargaining chip nor just another plank in a platform that can be discarded as necessary. If these blokes refuse to mount a vociferous opposition against sexism on the campaign trail, just because it helps them, that doesn’t bode well for the women they seek to represent as their president.
Read the whole article. Here is part of it:
Isn't it? One wouldn't think so, given the way Hillary Clinton's peers are allowing her to be subjected to all manner of indignity on the basis of her sex, with nary a peep in her defense. John Edwards' response to reports of Hillary's emotional moment—which, once the national press was done with it, had turned into a full-blown emotional meltdown—was disgraceful. Obama merely declined to comment in this case, but he hasn't gotten to New Hampshire with clean hands, having recently reduced Hillary Clinton's experience as first lady to attending tea parties; then, responding to being called out by the Clinton campaign on the obvious sexism of that jab, he denied he was referring to her gender (really?—he'd describe a man's experience as having "tea" with people?) and resorted to a thinly-veiled update on the old "hysteria" chestnut: "Those folks must really be on edge."
Yes, that must be it. Or, perhaps, they were rightfully angry about the oblique use of sexism as a political weapon from their own side of the aisle.
Further down:
Obama and Edwards ostensibly believe that men and women are equal; the people who share that belief should expect them to endeavor to defend that principle at every turn, not just when it is politically expedient. See, the thing is, it's been politically expedient to throw women's rights under the bus before, and some of us would like the assurance that we're casting a vote for someone who regards women's equality as an unyielding and constant principle—not a bargaining chip nor just another plank in a platform that can be discarded as necessary. If these blokes refuse to mount a vociferous opposition against sexism on the campaign trail, just because it helps them, that doesn’t bode well for the women they seek to represent as their president.
January 6, 2008
Divergent Thinkers
Some parents have asked me why I feel so passionately about preschool psychiatric diagnoses when my own daughters didn't have such serious problems. I will let you in on a secret. Bright, creative children can have a terrible time adjusting to traditional American grade schools. Bright bored children don't finish worksheets, don't pay attention, daydream, forget assignments, leave books and homework home, ignore the teacher, read ahead of the class and miss their place if called upon, miss many days of school. My local school insisted on testing a kindergarten boy for development disability; his IQ was genius level. When my writer, pictured above, was in first grade, her teacher refused to assign her to the advanced reading group until she was more "cooperative and compliant."
Rose never became compliant. In kindergarten she refused to do assignments because "writers use their own words." In high school she refused to do art projects because "artists paint what they need to, not what the teacher assigns." Now I would be told to have her tested because her "emotional maturity" lagged behind her intelligence. My two high school valedictorians were not given any awards from grade school. They only truly liked school when they got to Yale.
Your bright preschooler might face as many challenges as your friend's autistic or ADHD son. More schools have special ed services than have gifted services. Again and again, I questioned whether home schooling might be easier than my daily struggle with their school. Younger parents might not anticipate the extent to which they need to be advocates for their kids in American's test-obsessed schools. Getting high test scores is more important than being a gifted musician or artist. Kids who don't adjust to the norm are stimatized. The most creative, divergent thinkers our society desperately needs can be slapped with a psychiatric label and have their giftedness drugged out of them.
December 11, 2007
Golden Compass and Children's Reading
I have followed with great interest the ongoing discussion of the Golden Compass, the movie based on the first novel in Phillip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials. These young adult novels could fairly be termed anti-organized religion. The movie is getting lukewarm and poor reviews and low attendance. Its opponents probably should stop giving it free publicity by calling for boycotts. I urge parents to read these three excellent books and struggle with how they would answer their teen's questions about them. They are not children's books; almost all public libraries classify them as young adult novels suitable for high schoolers.
The Archbishop of Canterbury had a more enlightened approach. He has had public discussions with Pullman and urged that religious educators use the novel in classes with teenagers. At a certain point, all believers have to struggle with the history of their faith and its failure to live up to its beliefs. It seems far better to do that as a teenager with adult guidance from fellow believers.
My parents never censored my reading. They supported me in my 11-year-old effort to convince the local librarian to allow me to check out adult books. The Catholic Church's index of forbidden books was a factor in my eventual estrangement from Catholicism. I never censored my four daughters' reading. But I always paid careful attention to what they were reading. If the book was questionable, I read it too and discussed it with them. His Dark Materials was published after they were grown, but I have analyzed it with the two daughters who have read the trilogy.
I took a very different approach to TV and movies. I believe children can protect themselves from upsetting reading, skipping over the violent parts, choosing not to continue with the book. Scary, violent movies and TV shows are far more likely to cause nightmares and persistent fears. For five years we didn't have a TV; their watching was always restricted. At one point we had a lock on our TV. I have always objected to violence far more than sexuality or bad language.
As a librarian, I would be opposed to removing His Dark Materials from any high school or public library. The books are considered among the best young adult novels of the last ten years, far better written and more demanding than Harry Potter. A boycott of a novel written 12 years ago indicates that the boycotters don't read enough. The bright side of the controversy is that more people will read the books. When I recommended the books to mature teens, they claimed they were too long and too hard. Banned books always increase library circulation.
The Archbishop of Canterbury had a more enlightened approach. He has had public discussions with Pullman and urged that religious educators use the novel in classes with teenagers. At a certain point, all believers have to struggle with the history of their faith and its failure to live up to its beliefs. It seems far better to do that as a teenager with adult guidance from fellow believers.
My parents never censored my reading. They supported me in my 11-year-old effort to convince the local librarian to allow me to check out adult books. The Catholic Church's index of forbidden books was a factor in my eventual estrangement from Catholicism. I never censored my four daughters' reading. But I always paid careful attention to what they were reading. If the book was questionable, I read it too and discussed it with them. His Dark Materials was published after they were grown, but I have analyzed it with the two daughters who have read the trilogy.
I took a very different approach to TV and movies. I believe children can protect themselves from upsetting reading, skipping over the violent parts, choosing not to continue with the book. Scary, violent movies and TV shows are far more likely to cause nightmares and persistent fears. For five years we didn't have a TV; their watching was always restricted. At one point we had a lock on our TV. I have always objected to violence far more than sexuality or bad language.
As a librarian, I would be opposed to removing His Dark Materials from any high school or public library. The books are considered among the best young adult novels of the last ten years, far better written and more demanding than Harry Potter. A boycott of a novel written 12 years ago indicates that the boycotters don't read enough. The bright side of the controversy is that more people will read the books. When I recommended the books to mature teens, they claimed they were too long and too hard. Banned books always increase library circulation.
November 30, 2007
Homework: A Rant
For the first six years of grade school, my oldest daughter went to schools in Manhattan and Maine that did not give homework except for some long-term reading expectations. At the time I didn't sufficiently appreciate how lovely and stress free after-school time was.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)