What Religion Are You?

I have had trouble answering this question since I was 18 in 1963. I come from a family that has been Catholic as far back as our known family history. I had an academically strong Catholic school education for 16 years. I was educated by Jesuits at Fordham University; Jesuits are the intellectual elite of Catholicism. I was an atheist from 18 to 28. Fordham was in the existential, God-is-dead phase of the late 60s, so I never even looked for spiritual counseling.

I became a believer at 27, when my first daughter was born. This miracle could not be the result of a chance collision of molecules. I was in and out of many Catholic Churches for 20 years. We baptized our 4 kids Catholic, but sent them to religious ed only sporadically. Two never received penance, one Holy Communion; none were confirmed Our youngest is a pagan for all practical purposes. We were very bad Catholics even when we were going to Catholic Church

Both my parents and I had always been Commonweal Catholics; Commonweal is the Catholic Nation. Commonweal Catholics are widely viewed as heretics and traitors, relentlessly critical of the church, cafeteria Catholics who pick and choose what to believe.. My enlighted parents and I loathed the church's refusal to ordain women, married men, or known gays. . The church's virulent condemnation of gays is morally wrong.

It seems easier for an ex-Catholic to be nothing, then to step into a Protestant Church, but for ten years I went church shopping--Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Quaker. I will always consider myself a Quaker at heart. We loved Orono Friends Meeting in Maine; it was full of seekers with young families like ours. When we moved to Long Island, we tried Westbury Friends. The meeting house is 200 years old; must of its members are lifetime Quakers.

We had attended an Episcopal Church in Chelsea in 1979 and 1980, but went back to being Catholic briefly in Maine. Ten years ago I started sttending the Epsicopal Church. It seems ideal for a Catholic--no pope, same service, better music, divorce does not bar you from the Eucharist, women, gay, and married priests. Now the US presiding bishop is a woman, and the US Church has ordained a gay bishop. . I was formally received into the Episcopal Church in 2003. For years we shopped widely for the right Episcopal Church. In our area they are likely to be pathetically small or entirely African American or located in offensively rich communities. and have found one in the next town. My English Anglican husband sang in English Cathedral choirs; only two nearby richer churches are tolerable musically. The African American curches are magnificently friendly with a strong social mission, but their musical tradition is completely alien to and Englishman. We have compromised on the church in the less rich town, where I went to high school.

Sometimes I still go to Catholic masses. I still read Commonweal. The Episcopal Church seems a bit too austere for me; I miss the quasi-superstitions of the Catholic Church and the devotion to Marythat lets women into the Godhead. I still remember how thrilled I was to crown Mary as Queen of the May in third grade. I wear a miraculous medal that belonged to my grandma, then my father. People usually notice it, and I tell them it is Mother God. I prayed to Mary when I considered myself an atheist. I have always prayed the Rosary; it is the way I meditate. The rosary has gotten me through every plane trip. Although the Episcopal Church has woman priests and bishops, their God seems very masculine.

I still sometimes walk into a strange Catholic Church and go to confession. My luck has been good; I have found gentle, compassionate men. In 1973, I had a hideous priest, who tried to figure out how many masses I had missed in ten years. I believe he came up with 600 mortal sins, each of which could send me directly to tell.

I love Catholic funerals and believe in an afterlife. I loved learning the lives of the saints in school. What an incredible bunch of weirdos, rebels, heroes, crusaders, and eccentrics. I have always prayed to the departed as well as saints and God proper. I conceive of God as Jesus, Mother, and Holy Spirt. I do not accept a patriarchal God.

I have always believed in evolution; I never have read the Bible literally. I have always despised fundamentalist Christians, who don't regard Catholics as Christians anyway.

My Grandma, My Heroine, My Role Model

My grandmother, Mary Catherine, born in 1898, left school after eighth grade. One of her first jobs was to mount women's combs on cards. She married my grandfather, a widowed lawyer with a toddler son, at age 22. She had seven children, four sons and three daughters; she raised her stepson as her own. Tragically one daughter died before she was two. Her husband died when she was 40; her children ranged from 17 to 2. She had lost her parents the year before.

My grandpa was a lawyer, but had been in bad health for 10 years. There was no insurance. When they opened his file cabinet, they found stacks of unpaid bills that he never tried to collect because his clients were too poor. The Social Security Act was passed in 1938, shortly before my grandfather died. I know she collected something later. She collected rent from three small apartments in Brooklyn, but the apartments were the source of endless headaches. She owned the house, but I am not sure it was paid of. Grandma worked part-time in a laundromat.My mother was 17; she gave up her college dreams and worked as a secretary. All the 7 kids helped support the family as they grew older.

Grandma was a very loving, giving single mother; all her children turned out well--two lawyers, two teachers, a nurse, a social worker, a computer programmer. She was always there to help out when babies were born, when someone was sick, when someone was in crisis, when someone need a kind, gentle, loving listenener. Her oldest graddaughter, I always loved spending time at her house. She was greatly loved by all her daughters-in-law. Christmas at Grandma's house was a joyous celebration with all the aunts, uncles and cousins. When she was older, she visited from house to house, always there to listen, always there to help, never there to tell tales.

A very religious women, she was empowered by her deep faith. A lifelong Democrat, she voted in the first election open to women. A self-educated woman, she read newpapers daily and was always ready to discuss world events, sharing her well-informed opinions. I could tell her things I couldn't tell my parents. She lived long enough to know all 4 of my children. She was a devoted, attentive grandma. All our lives, all 31 grandchildren got a birthday card from grandma, with a $1 enclosed, a widow's mite. Her cards were never late.

When she died at age 86, she had 31 grandchildren and 23 great grandchildren; most of them attended her funeral because they had loved her so much. She is my heroine, inspiration, and role model.

Returning to Work after Caring for Your Children

Unlike many feminists with my beliefs and my 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 attended 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. Instead, 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 graduate 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 aging parents. I take care of my toddler grandson 3 days a week; my friends are mostly nannies from all over the world. 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. They think nothing of calling the nanny on Sunday and telling her they don't need her that week. As one dedicated women from the Dominican Republic told me, "the more I love the children, the more it hurts my heart."

Many 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.

When college-educated women have children, or have to care for aging parents, they begin to 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. My four well-educated, successful daughters are only having their consciousness raised as they begin to have children. You might make over $100,000 a year, but you still will have to pump breastmilk for your infant in the toilet and find somewhere other than your workplace refrigerator to store the "biohazard" of your breastmilk.

The mommy wars infuriate me because they presuppose it is the responsibility of mothers, not fathers, to raise children. In the 70s we believed in equal childrearing, although we fell far short of that goal. Fathers who stay at home with their young children probably face the same discrimination and disrespect when they return to their former career.

Growing Up in 50s, Early 60s

When I compare my life with that of my parents, they were far more rooted in the community and virtually immune to the seductions of consumerism. Raising six kids and sending them to Catholic schools on one middle-class income, they had to stetch every dollar. A pound of chuck fed 8. We didn't get a TV until I was 14; we got a mediocre audio system at about the same time. The radio was our main entertainment. I recall the thrill of my own radio as a birthday present when I was 10; I could listen to Dodger games whenever I wanted. Movies were a luxury; we ate out about twice a year, usually when someone graduated.

We had fun visiting family and friends. On Sundays we often visited my nearby aunt and uncle and watched Disneyland. All of my 45 first cousins were an easy drive away. There were countless Christening, First Communion, Confirmation, Graduation parties. We had frequent family picnics with terrific softball games for all ages.

There were gangs of kids in the neighborhood to play baseball, shoot baskets, play badmitten, volleyball. Someone's basement had ping pong or a pool table. There was no extra money for music or dance lessons or gymnastic lessons. Starting at 12, babysitting was my income, enabling me to go to NYC to see Broadway shows twice a month. Summers we swam at the high school swimming pool or went to Jones Beach by bus. We had a huge backyard, so all of the neighbors' kids hung out there. There were no girls in the immediate neighborhood, so I was always one of the guys. I had memorized the baseball rule book. My brothers would challenge their friends to stump me with baseball questions. They couldn't.

We learned how to take the bus by the time we were 8. We used our bicycles for transportation. My parents only had one car. My mom used to drop off and pick up my father at the railroad station, so she could have the car for the day. My parents were too busy to play chauffeur. We were far less supervised and much more self-sufficent than kids are today. On the other hand, there were always parents around to keep an eye on all the neighborhood kids. People felt free to admonish children not their own or report bratty behavior to their parents. When Sister said in our Catholic school was upheld and reinforced by our parents.

Card playing was the way adults socialized. Almost every adult was competent at cards, and many were excellent bridge players. My parents played bridge with friends once a week. We used to creep down the stairs to hear the kibitzing. Every home had a card table. People almost always had a deck in their bag or their pocket if you had to wile away time. Periodically my family discovers there is no cheaper or more varied form of free entertainment than card playing.

My parents were devout Catholics, genuinely good people with a stalwart faith. When they moved to Long Island after my dad came home from the war, our home town was just potato fields. Schools, churches, community organizations had to be built. St. Martha's, the local Catholic parish, met in a nineteenth century building that became the volunteer library after the church was built. My parents and their friends worked tirelessly to raise money for a church, a school for 800 kids, a convent for the nuns, and a rectory for the priests.That represented huge generosity by Catholics in a modest, working-class community.

My mom and dad were tremendously involved in social action outreach with the local Catholic Church. My dad was head of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which ministers to poor struggling families in the parish. He visited the local nursing home every Sunday without fail. They visited parish families in need once a week. Some evenings he was called out to visit a family experiencing a sudden emergency.

The local library was run by volunteers for the first ten years. I had been infected by my parents' community spirit. When the library was vandalized when I was 9, I volunteered two times a week to sort it out. I remember the chief volunteer struggling to explain the difference between fiction and nonfiction. My best friend and I also established the first library in our grade school. I spent four summer working as the children's librarian in high school. With no professional librarians, I had freedom to create entertaining children's programming.

My parents upheld their commitment to social justice for their entire lives. They taught me what real religious faith was.mom's obituary described her as a trailblazer. She wasn't able to go to college after high school. Her father died and Mary had to go to secretarial school, though all five brothers finished college. Mom stayed home with her six children from 1945 to 1963, always actively involved in the community as a volunteer and a leader. When my youngest brother started first grade, she went to college, graduating the same day I did in 1967. A student of the 60s, she became a fervent feminist. After getting her master's degree, she taught high school history. Her obituary described her as a teacher, activist, and trailblazer.

My mother bore no resemblance to the stereotyped 1950s housewife. Neither did my aunts or my friends' mothers. They had their big families when they were very young andd when back to college and career when in their early forties. The second wave of feminism belittled their intelligent commitment and generosity.

I am not romanticizing my childhood, just trying to describe how I experienced it.

Mothers, Lawyers, Politics

My mother had 6 children and 15 grandchildren. Born in 1921, she wanted to be a lawyer. Her father died when she was 17, and she had to go to secretarial school, not college. Her family required her financial support. From 1945, she raised 6 kids, was an active volunteer in her church and community. When my youngest brother was 5, she returned to college, graduated the same day I did in 1967, became a fervent feminist, got her master's degree in American History, and taught high school. 

After she retired, she worked for Bread for the World, an international organization fighting world hunger. When my dad developed Alzheimer's Disease, she became a support group leader, then the Long Island legislative lobbyist for the Alzheimers Association. Later she became a lobbyist for long-term health care. She was an officer of the Women's Ordination Conference, fighting for women priests. She would have been a superb congresswoman or senator, much more effective because she didn't go to law school. Her obituary characterized her as a trailblazer.

I was raised Roman Catholic and have 45 younger first cousins.

 Like my mother, my aunts, their friends, my friends' mothers could not afford to attend college before they had children. They had their large families very young, then got their degrees and started their careers by the time they were in their early forties. Since their children were largely grown, they were able to focus their tremendous energy, talent, and experience on their jobs.At that time being a mother of a large family was considerably more respected than it is now. My grandmother had 8 children; my mother had 6; I had 4. The extensive volunteer executive experience of my mother and my aunts was more likely to be acknowledged. My aunt went to law school when she was 40 and in a few years was chief counsel to the president of a large university. Now even many professional women don't seem to value women who chose to emphasize mothering instead of careers while their children were young.

I stayed home with my children full-time for 14 years, then got two master's degrees. I was a political activist, editor, childbirth educator, breastfeeding and parenting counselor, researcher, nursery school vice president and treasurer, PTA leader, volunteer teacher and librarian, mental health advocate. i Even in the traditionally female fields of library science and social work, I often felt that my experience as a mother and community activist was not acknowledged and valued. In social work school, I often was regarded as a beginner, and the tremendous amount of knowledge I had gained by reading, childrearing, and counseling, activism was regarded as cheating, because I hadn't put in the requisite years on the job.On the job,. I was given the responsibilities of an experienced librarian and social worker, but paid and promoted like a beginner.

Ann Crittenden has a provocative book, If You've Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything." Anyone who doesn't think PTA activism is political experience has not been involved in Long Island PTAs:) Mothers' executive experience seems invisible to most people because they are not highly paid.

We need to broaden our conception of political experience. We cannot draw our political leadership from graduates of Yale and Harvard Law Schools. Sixty US Senators are lawyers. That certainly rules out most people, who could not possibly afford law school. How much of the adversial, partisan character of our politics is shaped by the exceess of lawyers? A Congress of PTA presidents would be considerably more effective.

Women need not follow the traditionally male path to political power. Otherwise they have to be Hillary Clinton's age before they can aim for major office and then are dismissed as too old, too entrenched in the status quo.

Women who have raised families are the most untapped resource for political talent. The mother bloggers who list a truly impressive list of achievements and experiences, claiming that doesn't make them qualified for being vice president are undervaluing themselves. Women who run for political office are relatively successful. The problem is most women, not graduates of elite law schools, aren't confident enough to run because work that mostly women do is often unrecognized and even scorned. 

From the Trenches of Motherhood

"Experienced" mothers owe it to younger mothers to be brutally honest occasionally . I wrote this in 1977; I had a 4 year old and a 2 year old. Two year olds get a bad press.

We lived on the 20th floor of Chelsea apartment building in Manhattan. We had a terrace that was 46 feet by 6 feet with gorgeous viewsof the Hudson River. On the terrace was a kiddy pool, a sand table, a large table for arts and crafts and birthday parties. The terrace had a hose and a drain. The terrace below ours was 46 feet by 12 feet so things thrown off the terrace would likely land on our downstairs neighbor's terrace. I was so thankful our building had odd and even elevators . I never had to meet this unfortunate saint downstairs in the elevator.

If the kids pointed the hose over the north side of the terrace, they could water pedestrians 20 stories below. They were allowed to blow bubbles and chalk the side of our apartment. We were certifiably crazy, but everyone loved to play at our apartment.

This journal excerpt was written in the summer of 1977.

A day like today convinces me that we have not expected enough of Anne (4). In many ways she is no easier to manage than she was 14 months ago. I have totally failed to set consistent limits. She has been allowed to do what she wants around the house. We have not expected her to follow any rules to kept the house from becoming intolerably chaotic. I have continually lowered my already low housekeeping standards to tolerate toys in every room, discarded clothing everywhere, sand everywhere, liquids spilled over rugs, chairs, and beds, crumbs underfoot, the terrace's resembling a slum. All so Anne won't be repressed, so her creativity won't be reined in by artificial standards of order.

I read too many psychoanalysts on the subject of child care and not enough learning theorists or teachers. Undoubtedly, I misinterpreted what I read about setting limits. It probably never occurred to any of these gentlemen that any woman would be as lax and accepting as I am. Their strictures were appropriate for a compulsive housekeeper. No one advocated turning your living room into the beach.

I sit surrounded by the shambles of our living room. I laid down a whole set of terrace rules for Anne at the dinner table in my worst lecture-room fashion. I know such harangues make little impression on her. Just now she told me to "stop ruining her by talking to me." If she can't follow the terrace rules, she comes right inside.

• No one except me empties the pool
• Absolutely nothing gets thrown off the terrace
• The hose can only be used to fill up the pool, not to water the ground or the terrace below
• She can only pour water over her own head
• No sand in the swimming pool
• No forcing Michelle (age 2) to swim
• Only a reasonable amount of water in the sand table
• Sand and water stay around the sandbox and pool; they don't go beyond the card table
• No sand in the apartment
• Turn off the hose when I say so

Did I succeed in enforcing these rules? Sporadically. Once the pool blew away, but that wasn't Anne's fault. Two years later we moved to a three-bedroom apartment without a terrace, and my mom took the pool and the sandbox. However, the living room was now a playroom, complete with a tent, a six foot blackboard, hundreds of blocks, thousands of legos, enough art supplies for a nursery school, and hooks in the ceiling for a swing, rings, and a trapeze.

Giving Her Children Wings

My mother's combination of fearlessness, faith in God, and experience with five brothers made her wonderful mother of boys. She didn't worry; she didn't clip any wings. She didn't let little things like sons on the roof or a son out of touch hiking the Appalachian trail for months upset her. Joseph and Andrew look so pleased with themselves, without any fear they might fall off or get in trouble. Her shy, timid, anxious daughter was a mystery to her:)

What she did effortlessly, I have had to struggle with every day of my 35 years as a mother. All my daugters are braver and more adventurous than I am. For the most part, my anxieties have not infected them. They respect my fears. They always call, email, or text when the plane lands, at any hour, in any part of the world. Flight Tracker is my friend.

Importance of Birth Order

In the first picture, I am two and one half; Joe is one. In the second I am four, Andrew is six months. In the third picture, I am seven; Bob is newborn. In the fourth picture, I am 12; Gerard is 1. Next I am 13; Brian is one month. The last picture was taken when I was 14.

Studying the pictures, I understand family dynamics much better. It has always seemed that sibling relationships matter more to me, that I try harder to keep the family connected. Being both the oldest and the only girl seems central. I was my adult height when my two younger brothers were born; they were only 5 and 7 when I left home for college. I must have seemed a quasi-maternal figure to them. In some pictures I look like their young mother.

We did not grow up in the same family. My mother returned to school full-time when Brian was 5; when he was 7, she started teaching high school. Joe, Andrew, and I had had a stay-at-home mother until we went to college. Brian doesn't remember my mom staying at home full-time. My father retired before Brian finished college.

We have very different perceptions of our parents. Joe, Andrew, and I remember our dad as a brilliant intellectual and mathematician; Gerard and Brian remember an old man who disappeared into Alzheimer's Disease. The three oldest remember our childhood perceptions of my mom as "just a housewife" who never went to college. My younger brothers remember her the way her obituary describes her: "teacher, activist, trailblazer."

With the death of my mom, Joe, 18 months younger, is my collaborator in family history. Unfortunately Joe was too busy climbing on top of the roof as a kid to remember very much. I realize I could write family fiction and convince everyone it is family history.

I struggled not to favor my first daughter Anne in sibling squabbles, because she, like me, was the oldest of several siblings. Both my first husband John and I were the oldest children of oldest children of oldest children--not the best recipe for marital harmony. Certainly Anne shows the same sense of responsibility for her younger siblings that I felt. John, Anne, and I thought younger siblings owe considerable gratitude to the oldest, who has fought all the battles necessary to whip parents into shape.

In my constant discussions with friends about baby spacing when my kids were young, I noticed that adult relationships with your siblings greatly influence you. If you love your sibs, you might think a brother or sister is the best gift you will give your kids. If you don't talk to each other, you will feel guilty about the trauma you are inflicting on the oldest. As people only have two children, there will only be younger and older older. Middle children seem to have special gifts society will sorely lack. When I told 6 year old Michelle, I was pregnant with Carolyn, she rejoiced, "Now I won't be the only middle child."

3rd Child, 4th Child

In this and my previous post on my two older daughters, I am concentrating on their very different environments. Then I will tackle the far more fascinating question of persistent individual differences and siblings' impact upon one another. Because I kept journals and wrote graduate school papers when Anne and Michelle were young, I tend to write less about Rose and Carolyn, my third and fourth daughters. Again, they grew up in a different world than their older sisters. By Rose's birth I was a La Leche Leader and a fervent believer in attachment parenting. Both were born at home, both nursed as toddlers, both enjoyed the family bed in infancy. Both were carried far more in the front back and back pack than their older sisters. I had developed my own mothering style; I was no longer captive to the latest book I had read.

Both had wonderful older sisters. When Rose was born, Anne was 5 and Michelle was 3 1/2. I had absolutely no worries about their trying to hurt her. My only worry was that one of them would try to carry Rose around and drop her, but that never happened. By two months old, Rose loved lying on the bed and watching her sisters jump up and down. Anne and Michelle loved to make nests on the floor for Rose, and they would all play happily for a very long time. Michelle particularly spent countless hours amusing Rose. We have more pictures of Michelle with baby Rose than we do of me with all of my daughters combined.

Rose's first two years was absolutely tied to her sisters' schedules. During her infancy, I had to take her out three times a day regardless of the winter weather. Michelle went to nursery school five long city blocks away, five days a week, 9 to 12. Anne went to grade school in Soho, near the World Trade Center. Her dad took her down on the subway; I had to meet her bus on 23rd St. and 7th Avenue at 3 pm every day. Getting infant Rose and tired, napless, 3 -year-old Michelle to that bus stop every afternoon was extremely stressful. I put Rose in the corduroy snugli and wrapped an old peacoat of my husband around both of us. During Rose's second year, their dad took both Anne and Michelle downtown; Michelle attended a Montessori nursery school two blocks away from Anne's school. In addition to meeting Anne's 3 pm bus, I took Rose in the backpack on the subway every day to pick Michelle up at nursery school at noon.

It got easier the year Rose was 2 and Michelle had joined Anne in grade school. I only had to do the 3 pm bus pickup. Several days a week Rose went to a toddler playgroup a block away. Rose was traumatized by the move to Maine when she was 2 1/2. Before we bought our house in Bangor, we rented an apartment in Hamden Highlands; we had a frog pond right next to the house. Suddenly we owned a car; the kids could play outside without Mommy. I quickly found a playgroup for Rose, and she was excited about the first meeting. We got out of the car and were quickly led into the barn with a cow, horse, pig, and ducks. Rose started crying hysterically. Playgroup was supposed to involve elevators, not barn animals.

Our lives had changed dramatically when Carolyn was born in 1982. We lived in a house, not in a high rise; we owned a car for the first time. Both Carolyn and Rose spent lots of time at Anne's and Michelle's school. Skitikuk, a unique school for 45 children 5 to 18, was in a old barnhouse, with abundant fields around; they even had ducks and three horses. I taught a baby development class with Carolyn as the experiment. We always went to the weekly talent shows. I found a playgroup for Rose without horses, and when she was 4, she went to nursery school three days a week and took gymnastic lessons.

When we moved back to Long Island, Rose was 5 and Carolyn was 17 months. Thankfully, the grade school was a block and a half from our house. Carolyn went to playgroups until she was 3, nursery school 2 mornings a week when she was 4, and 3 mornings when she was 4. She saw her grandparents at least three or four times a week. She got to be an adolescent and a 3 year old simultaneously, as she was exposed to her sisters' friends, TV, movies, music. She knew all of Madonna's songs and told everyone, "I am a material girl."

Carolyn had adoring, doting older sisters until she got to be about 5, and everyone discovered how much fun it was to tease her. She was an incredibly good loser, so she was welcomed to play games with her sisters by the time she was 4. From kindergarten to senior year, any teachers who had all four of them found Carolyn the most delightful, the friendliest, the best adjusted. Her older sisters were enthusiastic about her visiting them at college.

When I need either complicated event planning or delicate personal mediation, I call Carolyn.

Parenting and Grandparenting

I am often asked how being a grandma differs from being a mother.. I have been a mother 35 years and a grandma 20 months, so I can't yet do justice to this question. In May 2007 I became a grandmother for the first time; now I have 3 grandchildren. I was 27 when Anne was born; I was 61 when Michael was born.

As a grandma, I know what I am doing with babies and toddlers, and I have absolutely no conflicts about it. I know how quickly babyhood passes so I cherished every minute of Michael's infancy without being eager for him to sit up, crawl, walk before he is ready. Now that he is an incredibly active 20-month-old, Anne and I joke about how we could have slowed him down. He is exploding into language, and the miracle seems even more astonishing.

When I am with him in my daughter's apartment, I can focus entirely on him. I don't have errands to run, bills to pay, laundry to do, cars to bring to the mechanic, careers to lament. Anne has made it clear I am not her maid, and I am very good at taking her at her word. This is exactly where I want to be; this is exactly what I want to be doing. I had expected to go back to work part-time a few months after Anne was born; deciding to stay home full-time was a complicated, conflicted decision.

Of course, loving the baby is the simple part of grandmothering. Learning to mother Anne, the new mother, is far more complex. We are both strong, opinionated women who have frequently disagreed over the last 35 years. It seems miraculous how well we are doing now. To my great joy, Anne is mothering Michael essentially the way I mothered my two younger daughters, when I was confident enough to honor my heart and my instincts and not let experts persuade me to impose unrealistic expectations on the baby. I couldn't be prouder of her.

I have learned to respect and follow her decisions on pacifiers and regular naps, even if they require a few minutes of tears. I am excessively tolerant to toddler messes, but I am learning more orderly ways. Taking care of Michael enables me to time travel. Anne lives in the exactly same Chelsea co-op apartment complex where I raised here and her two younger sisters from 1974 to 1981, Because it is the best deal in Manhattan (ten year waiting list, income limits, lottery to get on waiting list), none of my friends have ever left.

I am a cautionary tale and am supposedly the only one who left a three-bedroom apartment without undertaker assistance. "Look at her," they warn people lured by the siren call of the suburbs. "She was the sanest women in Chelsea. She left the city, she developed bipolar disorder, her marriage ended in divorce." Most of Anne's childhood friends live here as well. You used to be able to put your children on the waiting list. These kids have returned from all over the world when offered an apartment.

Sitting in the same playground, with my mommy friends, now grandma friends, watching Michael pull hair and eat sand like his mom, looking at the Empire State Building from their windows that I used to see from our windows--I am supremely blessed. So many happy memories cascade back.
I am reconsidering my choices on combining work and mothering, so I can be supportive of my daughters' different choices. I can't pretend mothering was always the most fulfilling job I ever had. I have to confront my own ambivalences. If I had had a job I loved, which I had undergone rigorous training to prepare for, if my mom had been available to babysit, I suspect that, like Anne, I would have tried to work part-time.

My second daughter Michelle has a 4-month-old girl and my third daughter Rose has a three-week-old girl. Already I am making different mistakes. The lessons I learned from Anne do not necessarily help. I am still a very inexperienced grandmother without my mom to teach me how. My mother was fantasically lucky. She was the grandmother of 11 before her mother died. I admit it had never occurred to me until my mom's rapid decline that she would not be alive to help me avoid similar mistakes with my new mothers as I did with my new teenagers.

Michelle has just returned to work; my granddaughter Emma is in an excellent day care center a block away from where her mother works. Michelle can visit, breastfeedindg Emma. during her lunch hour. Michelle would tell you in considerable detail how I have not been as supportive of her decision as she needed me to be. After lots of honest discussions, after learning how happy Emma is in the center, I am doing much better.

I was extremely fortunate that I had the option of staying home from 1973 to 1987, when my youngest turned 5. By being frugal, we were able to live on one income. That is not truly an option for any of my daughters, whether they live in Manhattan or near Boston. I am sad that I will not be able to offer my Boston daughters the hands-on practical help I can offer their Manhattan sister.
Fortunately my daughters were raised to tell me when and how I am making mistakes. Most of the mistakes are with them, not with my grandchildren.

Missish Damsels in Distress and Their White Knights

I also post on Open Salon,  and I wrote this as a result of a brouhaha. A women in Australia claimed an OS member was stalking her. There ensued a witch hunt.

Immediately rent all 7 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Do not communicate with any men online until you have watched the entire series and learned how best to handle stalkers.

I assume most of you are familiar with Pride and Prejudice. If you haven't read it or hated it, please don't tell me, or I will have no choice but to block your comments and private messages:)

As you recall, the hero, Mr. Darcy, made Elizabeth Bennet , the heroine, a highly abusive proposal of marriage. This is just a small excerpt from her devastating response.

"I might as well inquire," replied she, "why with so evident a desire
of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me
against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?
Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was_uncivil?

"You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your
declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern
which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more
gentlemanlike manner."

"You could not have made the offer of your hand in any possible way that
would have tempted me to accept it."

"From the very beginning--from the first moment, I may almost say--of
my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest
belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of
the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of
disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a
dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the
last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry."

Not able to accept her scorn and hatred, Darcy wrote a long letter defending himself. Elizabeth initially denied the truth of anything he said in the letter. Eventually constant reading made her realize she had been very prejudiced against Darcy, and there was another side to the story.

Elizabeth, fearing that the letter proved that Darcy would stalk her, turned it over to the eventual villian, George Wickham, without even reading it. Lizzy was initially charmed by Wickham; he who might have won her heart if she had 10,000 pounds a year. Wickham and Darcy had known each other as children. Wickham had spread vicious lies about Darcy's behavior toward him that Elizbeth unquestioningly believed. She only learned the truth from Darcy's letter. In addition to lying, cheating, and other dishonorable behavior, Wickham had tried to seduce and ruin Darcy's 15 year old sister. Finally he elopes with Lizzy's 16 year old sister, and Darcy, out of love for Elizabeth, essentially bribes him to marry her.

Elizabeth didn't turn to any man; she took care of herself. She did not show the letter to anyone Both Darcy and Elizabeth took each other's letters to heart. Darcy overcame his pride, Elizabeth her prejudice, and they understood each other. Women love Pride and Prejudice because Elizabeth Bennet, poor and only "tolerable" in appearance, wins her rich Prince Charming by putting him down.

Pride and Prejudice was published January 29, 1813. Elizabeth, many women's favorite heroine, spoke for herself. She did not turn to a white knight who would have made the situation infinitely worse, even if he wasn't the real villain. Knights might prefer pissing contests to Elizabeth's spirited eloquence.

Family Issues

Neither Clinton or Obama had my enthusiastic support on the family issues vitally important to me. Universal health care will cure all 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 usually 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.

The health care proposals of the candidates don't try to 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, so Medicare is no 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 nursing home.

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 most 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 gets 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.

Blogging and Me

I asked Janet, author of the excellent blog Three and Holding to send me some questions. She asked such thought-provoking ones that answering each one deserves a separate post. I am tackling the easiest one first:

You took a three year break from blogging. What brought you back to the blogosphere?

I am guilty of seriously misleading my readers. My break was from Matriarch. but I worked on several other blogs. After my mom died in 2004, I worried that family history might die with her. So I started a blog called Remembering: Time Travel Through Photos. This was a blog for my daughters and brothers and their spouses as well as my 11 nieces and nephews. I use lots of photos. When I was taking care of my mom, I scanned thousands of slides and family photos and made them into photo websites. I hoped the photos would reawaken my brother's memories. I invited other family members to contribute, but no one has shown much interest. I seem to be the designated family historian and photographer.

Another family blog consists of selected letters my mom and dad wrote from 1942 to 1946. There are thousands of letters, and I have only transcribed a few of the earlier ones. The later ones are less interesting; how many "I love you my darling" letters does anyone else want to read:). I have recently begun transcribing some of the letters my mom wrote to my dad in France when she was pregnant with me and during the first 7 months of my life. I probably will be sharing some of them on this blog, so I can compare and contrast three generations of mothering infants.

I have another blog, Ageless Internet, that I have neglected since my grandson was born. Last year I started a internet tutoring service, aimed specifically at senior citizens. I did lots of volunteer work at Penn South, where my daughter lives. It is a 2800 unit cooperative; seniors made up the majority of cooperators. If I had volunteered full-time, I could have had several hundred students, but I can't afford to do that. I learned that people who so far have not seen the need for the Internet are not willing to pay for private lessons. I might try to revive it on a small scale this fall now that my daughter's part-time work schedule is worked out, and I know when I am committed to care for my grandson.

When Michael was born, I started another blog about him for family and friends. It is far more pictures and video clips than text. But it got me back in the habit of blogging. Being with Michael 25 hours a week in the same place I raised my girls evokes hundreds of memories of their early years. So I am back in early motherhood again and have lots to write about on Matriarch.

I have another blog I don't link to, even though it is available to everyone. Under a pseudonym, I share the sordid details of my experience as a manic depressive. I keep revising this blog, adding or deleting stuff according to my moods. My mood swings are entirely predictable. I am up in the spring and fall, level or slightly down in the summer and winter. I don't truly get depressed anymore, but there are significant fluctuations in my energy levels and motivation. The spring and the fall are times to write; the winter and summer are times to edit. I hope if I get in the habit of blogging here every day and attract some regular readers, I will continue writing this winter.

I suspect you wanted a few sentences on this topic, Janet. Answering the question was helpful; I forget how much blogging I have done when I beat myself up for neglecting Matriarch. In truth, I have more blogs than I can possibly keep up, so I am concentrating on Matriarch and my grandson's blog.

Importance of Birth Order

In the first picture, I am two and one half; Joe is one. In the second I am four, Andrew is six months. In the third picture, I am seven; Bob is newborn. In the fourth picture, I am 12; Gerard is 1. Next I am 13; Brian is one month. The last picture was taken when I was 14.

Studying the pictures, I understand family dynamics much better. It has always seemed that sibling relationships matter more to me, that I try harder to keep the family connected. Being both the oldest and the only girl seems central. I was my adult height when my two younger brothers were born; they were only 5 and 7 when I left home for college. I must have seemed a quasi-maternal figure to them. In some pictures I look like their young mother.
We did not grow up in the same family. My mother returned to school full-time when Brian was 5; when he was 7, she started teaching high school. Joe, Andrew, and I had had a stay-at-home mother until we went to college. Brian doesn't remember my mom staying at home full-time. My father retired before Brian finished college.

We have very different perceptions of our parents. Joe, Andrew, and I remember our dad as a brilliant intellectual and mathematician; Gerard and Brian remember an old man who disappeared into Alzheimer's Disease. The three oldest remember our childhood perceptions of my mom as "just a housewife" who never went to college. My younger brothers remember her the way her obituary describes her: "teacher, activist, trailblazer."

With the death of my mom, Joe, 18 months younger, is my collaborator in family history. Unfortunately Joe was too busy climbing on top of the roof as a kid to remember very much. I realize I could write family fiction and convince everyone it is family history.

I struggled not to favor my first daughter Anne in sibling squabbles, because she, like me, was the oldest of several siblings. Both my first husband John and I were the oldest children of oldest children of oldest children--not the best recipe for marital harmony. Certainly Anne shows the same sense of responsibility for her younger siblings that I felt. John, Anne, and I thought younger siblings owe considerable gratitude to the oldest, who has fought all the battles necessary to whip parents into shape.

In my constant discussions with friends about baby spacing when my kids were young, I noticed that adult relationships with your siblings greatly influence you. If you love your sibs, you might think a brother or sister is the best gift you will give your kids. If you don't talk to each other, you will feel guilty about the trauma you are inflicting on the oldest. As people only have two children, there will only be younger and older older. Middle children seem to have special gifts society will sorely lack. When I told 6 year old Michelle, I was pregnant with Carolyn, she rejoiced, "Now I won't be the only middle child."

Penguins

This picture brings back many memories, whether fond or not I have to puzzle out. From first grade through high school graduation, I was taught by the Dominican Sisters of Amityville, Long Island.

My new post-World War II community did not yet have a Catholic school. My mother carpooled, so I could go to Holy Redeemer in Freeport for first and second grade morning classes. With so many Catholics eager to send their kids to Catholic schools, they offered split sessions. Then I took a bus to the closer Queen of the Most Holy Rosary in Roosevelt for third through eighth grade. I was in the Queen's first graduating class. I then went to St. Agnes Cathedral High School in Rockville Centre.

My first grade teacher taught two classes of 60 children, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. All of us learned how to read and write, both printing and cursive. She recognized better students and gave them additional challenges. I craved gold stars on both my papers and my forehead. Regularly, I was sent to the second grade teacher, Sister Paula Anne, to report my latest accomplishment. I was her teacher's pet before I started second grade.

The tall nun on the right is Sister Miriam Francis; she was the principal at both Holy Redeember and the Queen. She died 3 years ago at age 93, having worked well into her 80's. I wasn't surprised; in retrospect she was an amazing educator. A tall, elegant, brilliant woman, she effortlessly ruled her 800 students with a clicker; she never had to raise her voice. One click, and we were instantly silent and attentive. She knew the name and the history of every student in the school. We all respected and admired her, were willing to work hard for her praise.

I was a very good girl. In seventh grade Sister Miriam Francis told me I could not have had a more perfect record. So I was never the victim of a nun's wrath, never had an eraser hurled at me, never was hit by a pointer, never had to stay after school to clean the blackboards, never was ordered to put my gum on my nose, never was compelled to bring my embarrassing private note up to the front, so Sister could read it to the entire class. Destructively, my innate shyness was reinforced, however. Good students only answered questions; they never asked them. Class discussion only occurred in high school history and English courses.

Most of the nuns were very young. Many had not yet been to college but were expected to teach classes of over sixty students. My young, beautiful physics teacher, who used to flirt with the boys, was one chapter ahead of us in the regents review book. None of my classes were chaotic; I simply can't remember how they did it. The nun's habit must have disguised a superman costume. I loved grade school, but was critical of high school. I resolved never to send my daughters to strict Catholic school that prized obedience over creativity.

As the negative memories fade, I can appreciate the excellence and rigor of my education. Writing this post has been a revelation. I have never publicly appreciated the penguins. For 8 years I edited books on the basis of my grade school English grammar classes. I always enjoyed diagramming thousands of sentences, especially at the blackboard. We had fantastic geography lessons. Every classroom had many world maps, rolled up in front of the blackboard. I loved drawing maps. A test would be a continent map with the outline of each country. We had to fill in the names. We were given a US map outline and had to fill in the state and its capital. We would never have been allowed to graduate from eighth grade if we could not fully explain Social Security.

The nuns were the only professional women I knew. As a group they were amazingly hard working and dedicated; most of them were warm, kind women. I remember only one mean nun in high school, Sister Jean Paul, who taught eighth grade, the nun on the left of the picture. She loathed FDR and made no pretense of being objective. The class wore black armbands the anniversary of his death and sniffed audibly whenever Sister mentioned his name. Too pull off such a massive group effort, we had to have learned lots of American history.

The high school curriculum was rigorous--4 years of English, Social Studies, Math, Science (Earth Science, Physics, Biology, Chemistry), Religion, Art, Music, Gym, and Two Languages, including Latin. As freshman, we had a half year library science course, mastering the card catalogue and the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature.

In English class, we loved reading aloud all of Shakespeare's major plays. We were expected to memorize the major soliloquies and sonnets as well as many English and American poems. We read Dickens, Austen, Elliot, Conrad, Dostoevsky, Hardy, Shaw, Ibsen, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck.

Sister Grace Florian was the best teacher I ever had in my 20 years of education. She taught first year Latin and senior year English literature. A tiny woman, she was brilliant, erudite, funny, and demanding. I still have the Jane Austen paper I wrote for her. It is rather good, but Sister Grace Florian incisively criticized the content, the typing, the organization, the grammar, the footnotes, the bibliography. My best friend recalls: "I also remember Sr. Grace Florian describing some Greek play to us in English -- she was just telling us the story, prior to our starting to study it (maybe Antigone?) and the bell rang. No one moved. She stopped, but then realized that we all wanted to hear the end of the story, so she continued. Don't know if we were late to the next class."

Sister Mary Cyrilla, who taught senior religion, was a fervent believer in Vatican II. Questioning traditional Catholic beliefs were encouraged. She later spent 15 years teaching at the seminary, where men study to be priests. Sister Mary Luke was an excellent French teacher; Sister Gloria Marie taught me to love Math so much that I considered it as my college major.

My friends and I ran the high school newspaper, the Agnesian Rock, and were members of the Speech and Debate Clulb. Debate was enormously challenging, requiring countless hours of library research. We had to argue both sides of each years's resolution, always a major political policy controversy. The paper advisor, Sister Veronica Marie, obviously independently wealthy, treated the editors to two nights in the Waldorf with room service while we gave workshops at the Columbia Journalism Conference.

But all was not ideal. Science was very weak. There were no female sports, because the champion boys basketball team needed the gym all year round. We had no choice but to apply to Catholic colleges. Those who wanted to attend non-Catholic colleges were refused recommendations. We were regularly taken to Church service; we had to go to confession once a month. In grade school, we had to report our attendance at Mass every Sunday; missing Mass compromised your religion grade.

My mother was an active member of the Women's Ordination Conference. I occasionally attended meetings with her, even though I had not been a committed Catholic after age 18. Many of its members were older nuns; everyone seemed to have a Ph.D. There are very few young women entering the convent. Catholic school kids aren't taught by penguins anymore.

Later:

JS's comment helped me realize that I give my family too much credit and the nuns insufficient credit for making me realize I was smart and education was so much more important than being pretty or having boyfriends. My mother wanted me to have boyfriends and spend less time reading. The nuns always encouraged my writing; they would have been disappointed that the best writer of the class of 1963 years has been burying her talent for 45 years. But with the exception of one shrink, people have been convincing me that too much writing equals mania. Actually letting other people, strangers even, read my writing makes me a candidate for the loony bin.

Giving Her Children Wings

My mother's combination of fearlessness, faith in God, and experience with five brothers made her wonderful mother of boys. She didn't worry; she didn't clip any wings. She didn't let little things like sons on the roof or a son out of touch hiking the Appalachian trail for months upset her. Joseph and Andrew look so pleased with themselves, without any fear they might fall off or get in trouble. Her shy, timid, anxious daughter was a mystery to her:)

What she did effortlessly, I have had to struggle with every day of my 35 years as a mother. All my daugters are braver and more adventurous than I am. For the most part, my anxieties have not infected them. They respect my fears. They always call, email, or text when the plane lands, at any hour, in any part of the world. Flight Tracker is my friend.

In Praise of Mud and Sand

I recall convincing myself that being a good mother required my faking an enjoyment of holding frogs. Emma seems to have made the same decision about muddy sand. Mucking around in the mud as frequently as possible is a toddler necessity.

Mothers, Lawyers, and Politics

My mother had 6 children and 15 grandchildren. Born in 1921, she wanted to be a lawyer. Her father died when she was 17, and she had to go to secretarial school, not college. Her family required her financial support. From 1945, she raised 6 kids, was an active volunteer in her church and community. When my youngest brother was 5, she returned to college, graduated the same day I did in 1967, became a fervent feminist, got her master's degree in American History, and taught high school. After she retired, she worked for Bread for the World, an international organization fighting world hunger. When my dad developed Alzheimer's Disease, she became a support group leader, then the Long Island legislative lobbyist for the Alzheimers Association. Later she became a lobbyist for long-term health care. She was an officer of the Women's Ordination Conference, fighting for women priests. She would have been a superb congresswoman or senator, much more effective because she didn't go to law school. Her obituary characterized her as a trailblazer.

I was raised Roman Catholic and have 45 younger first cousins. Like my mother, my aunts, their friends, my friends' mothers could not afford to attend college before they had children. They had their large families very young, then got their degrees and started their careers by the time they were in their early forties. Since their children were largely grown, they were able to focus their tremendous energy, talent, and experience on their jobs.

At that time being a mother of a large family was considerably more respected than it is now. My grandmother had 8 children; my mother had 6; I had 4. I am so pissed when I read mockery of Palin for not knowing how babies are made. With my fertile genes, having only 4 planned children required practicing birth control every day except the four months it took me to get pregnant and the 8 months I was knowingly pregnant with each baby.

The extensive volunteer executive experience of my mother and my aunts was more likely to be acknowledged. My aunt went to law school when she was 40 and in a few years was chief counsel to the president of a large university. Now even many professional women don't seem to value women who chose to emphasize mothering instead of careers while their children were young.

I stayed home with my children full-time for 14 years, then got two master's degrees. I was a political activist, editor, childbirth educator, breastfeeding and parenting counselor, researcher, nursery school vice president and treasurer, PTA leader, volunteer teacher and librarian, mental health advocate. i Even in the traditionally female fields of library science and social work, I often felt that my experience as a mother and community activist was not acknowledged and valued. In social work school, I often was regarded as a beginner, and the tremendous amount of knowledge I had gained by reading, childrearing, and counseling, activism was regarded as cheating, because I hadn't put in the requisite years on the job.On the job,. I was given the responsibilities of an experienced librarian and social worker, but paid and promoted like a beginner.

Ann Crittenden has a provocative book, If You've Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything." Anyone who doesn't think PTA activism is political experience has not been involved in Long Island PTAs:) Mothers' executive experience seems invisible to most people because they are not highly paid.

We need to broaden our conception of political experience. We cannot draw our political leadership from graduates of Yale and Harvard Law Schools. Sixty US Senators are lawyers. That certainly rules out most people, who could not possibly afford law school. How much of the adversial, partisan character of our politics is shaped by the exceess of lawyers? A Congress of PTA presidents would be considerably more effective.

Women need not follow the traditionally male path to political power. Otherwise they have to be Hillary Clinton's age before they can aim for major office and then are dismissed as too old, too entrenched in the status quo.

Women who have raised families are the most untapped resource for political talent. The mother bloggers who list a truly impressive list of achievements and experiences, claiming that doesn't make them qualified for being vice president are undervaluing themselves. Women who run for political office are relatively successful. The problem is most women, not graduates of elite law schools, aren't confident enough to run because work that mostly women do is often unrecognized and even scorned.

The positive aspect of Palin's candidacy is the possibility of opening up dialog and debate about what kind of experience qualifies you for public office.

Feminists Don't Tell Palin How To Mother

I am a lifelong Democrat. I supported Clinton in the Democratic primary, but switched my allegiance to Obama as soon as he became the presumptive nominee. I have actually been campaigning harder for Obama than I did for Hillary.

I was sickened and infuriated by the misogynistic, sexist attacks on Hillary coming from the media and from the progressive blogs I regularly read. I found it necessary to stop reading and commenting on many blogs and retreat to feminist ones. For almost a year I have been writing posts on how Obama needs to campaign as a feminist.

I have been disappointed by Obama's and the DNC's continued reluctance to address misogyny and sexism. I prayed that Obama would make a speech on sexism equivalent to his speech on racism. I am not entirely sure he gets it.

I had very mixed feelings about Michelle Obama's superb speech. It disturbs me greatly that she felt compelled to downplay her educational and career achievements and stress being a daughter, sister, wife and mother. Michelle has had to quit her job and her mother retired early to help take care of the children. Obama hardly sees his children by his own admission.

The Democratic Convention left me optimistic that the Obama and Hillary supporters could unite and defeat McCain. I thought we might be spared sexist onslalughts for the rest of the campaign.

Then McCain appointed Palin, and I am drowning in sexist bilge from leftist blogs. She is not experienced enough to be vice president. But she is not a twit, a VPILF, a beauty queen, an abusive mother. Too many of the young progressive bloggers who attacked Clinton can't seem to help themselves; they require a woman to kick around.

The sexism is different this time. Much of it concentrates on her mothering. Details of her labor are analyzed, debated, criticized. Her daughter is potrayed as her sibling's mother. Pictures of her daughter's belly are scrutinized. People are comparing her marriage certificate with her first son's birth certificate. This is just creepy; it feels stalkerish. That Democrats are doing it is revolting.

People don't seem to be able to get beyond stereotyping conservative women to hear that her husband plans to be the primary parent. Abortion is not the only feminist issue. Mothers' being able to care for their children and hold demanding jobs, fathers' sharing parenting equally with mothers, seem even more important to me. Palin has laughingly dismissed people who questioned her ability to mother and to govern as neanderthals. It must do girls good to see that the mother of young children can also run for major office. Despite the fact that I would never vote for her in a 1000 years, I still got a kick out of a picture of Palin's signing a bill into law, wearing her baby in a sling.

As the mother of 4, I am offended by the jeering that she obviously doesn't know how babies are made. Have we decided we don't need the vote of anyone who dared to have more than two kids? Her right-wing nuttery is being exaggerated. She doesn't have a record of imposing her views on anyone. I find it very upsetting that OBs are now recommending that every women be screened for Down's Syndrome, and that most people chose to end their pregnancy if they have a DS baby. I admire her keeping the baby and not hiding him at home.

Of course, Obama has considerably more experience. But being the mother of 5 over a period of 20 years probably is more than the equivalent of being a community organizer.

During the Democratic Convention, I watched the absurdly short speeches allowed to the women senators, representatives, and governors and sadly concluded there was not a Hillary in the bunch. There wasn't a Palin either. Democrats seem to be underestimating her. She is an American original, a women Daniel Boone, and the media as well as progressive bloggers seem obsessed by her.

I want us to campaign against her as we would against any conservative Republican. But along the way, we might want to celebrate the historic nature of a woman with a young child campaigning for major national office.

Hillary's comment seemed right: "We should all be proud of Gov. Sarah Palin's historic nomination, and I congratulate her and Sen. McCain. While their policies would take America in the wrong direction, Gov. Palin will add an important new voice to the debate.”

Please refrain from telling a mother of 5 how to mother. It is already obvious that his father and his sibs are very good at nurturing Trig. Being in the thick of things is good for babies.

I have always understood Hillary supporters who are still not on board with Obama. It was not about Hillary. It was about the sexism and misogyny of the Democratic Party. It was about the Democratic Party's offering women little more than Roe vs. Wade. I think Hillary's speech convinced many of them, but the sexist onslaught on Palin might reopen the question. I am sadly concluding that if I want to continue to work hard for Obama, I better not read the progressive blogs I couldn't read during the campaign. Every time I read, "what kind of mother.." I want to make one fewer phone call, register one fewer voter.

Weekend Visit with All My Daughters

So far, I have mainly shared some struggles with my daughters in childhood and adolescence. Talking too much about their present lives seems a violation of their privacy. I might have given the impression that everything is lovely now that they have grown up. It's more complicated than that. Often I try to avoid thinking about disappointments and hope that once they become mothers, things will change. I discipline myself not to nag them about calling or visiting so infrequently. Certainly my relationship with Anne, my oldest, has become even closer since she became a mother.

All four of my daughters and their guys visited the first weekend in November. It wasn't planned far in advance; it just happened. Two are in Boston and one is in Chicago, so I don't see three of them nearly as much as I would like to. Marriage and in-laws complicate holiday get-togethers. Three of them aren't celebrating Thanksgiving with us for the first time. I know Anne is disappoined that Michael doesn't see more of his aunts and uncles.

The visit was great. Everyone lavished love and attention on Michael, who was his usual friendly, happy self. For once I didn't try to do more than I could manage without resentment; my injured knee helped to lower my and everyone's expectations. We had cold cuts for lunch and pizza for dinner instead of our making lunch and dinner. No one complained that our house wasn't up to the standards of their true loves' mothers. The girls didn't act like a bunch of selfish brats who will always expect to be waited on, who complain about the house but never lift a finger to clean. I did not have to question my whole childrearing philosophy. Had I raised ambitious members of the new ruling class or decent, helpful human beings? Their husbands/boyfriend helped clear off the table, loaded the dishwasher, made coffee, because their moms obviously trained them better. I was lavish in my appreciation.

Often it works better for them to visit one at a time. Returning to their childhood home often seems to evoke mass regression. My husband grew up in a civilized English home with only one sister. He finds it overwhelming when all 4 of them are talking at once, interrupting each other. Rose got married in 2002; Anne and Michelle in 2005. Carolyn met her true love last year. Having 4 guys around is delightful and brings out the best in everyone. Three years ago I created a family email list including me, my husband, my ex-husband, the four girls and their four guys. Six months ago, when Michael was born, I started describing his development in a photo blog. Everyone reads all their email and the blog, so we stay connected with each other's lives.

I am jealous of mothers whose children live nearby. Rose does want to come back East from Chicago as soon as her husband, an economics professor, gets another tenured position offer. Michelle and Carolyn are probably in Boston for good. I recall asking a library patron if her children lived close; she said, "no"; one was in Manhattan (20 miles away), one was out on Long Island (25 miles away). At the time Anne was in Niger and Michelle was in Australia on business. My uncle warned me if you send your kids away to college, they will never move back close to home, and that seems to be true.

Ripples

"We drop like pebbles into the ponds of each other's souls, and the orbit of our ripples continues to expand, intersecting with countless others. " J. Borysenko

Most children and their daddies love throwing pebbles into the water. What I loved about being a public librarian was the opportunity to throw thousands of pebbles over the years. Handing the right book to a child going through a difficult time could be worth months of therapy. A ten minute conversation with a distressed mom can help her and her child. Fifteen minutes coaxing an elder to try the internet can open up the world for her. Guiding a frightened new cancer patient to local support groups might lessen their fear. I prefer being a librarian to being a social worker. Insurance companies compell therapists to put numbers of people; librarians only number the books." So many public librarians considered being social workers.

I once treated a young Irishman struggling with gay identity issues. Introducing him to James Baldwin was my crucial intervention. A friend, a ER psychiatric social worker at a large municipal hospital, has an office filled with books that he gives away. Chris believes many people experiencing the spiritual emergency of acute mental distress need a good listener and the right book, not hospital admission and mind-dulling drugs.

Being a La Leche leader was also a deeply rewarding way to create ripples. In the days before cordless phones, I use to have a phone cord that stretched anywhere downstairs, from the front to the back door, so I could give breastfeeding suggestions and make sure my kids weren't painting themselves purple or making potions to feed to the baby or decorating the playroom with talcum power and desitin.

Blogging, commenting, and linking allow us to throw even more pebbles.

Duck and Cover, McCarthy, Assassinations, Vietnam

This is a picture of Robert Kennedy speaking at my graduation from Fordham University in 1967. RFK was running for president in 1968 when he was assassinated June 5, ten days before my wedding. I had a final wedding dress fitting the day of the assassination, and I was in tears the whole time.

My first specific political memory centered around the duck-and -cover, hide-under-our-desks, exercises that were a regular feature of my early school life from age 5 on. I knew enough about nuclear war to be terrified. We lived one mile away from an air force base, and I used to go out to the backyard, look up at the planes, and try to determine if they were American or Russian. I remember getting a book out of the library on aircraft identification. When I heard Joseph Stalin died, I remember asking if that meant no one would drop atom bombs on us.

In 1954 I had a severe case of the measles and Grandma Nolan came to help nurse me. She was listening to the Joseph McCarthy army hearings. Hatred of McCarthy's voice might have shaped my entire political development. In 1956, just turning eleven, I fell madly in love with Jack Kennedy as he made an unsuccessful bid for the vice presidential nomination. A good catholic school girl, I was initially attracted by his Catholicism; ten minutes later I was smitten by his intelligence, wit, and charm. I was luckier than his other women. Loving Jack Kennedy was good for me. I read about politics and history. From 1956 to 1963, I read everything I could about Kennedy, politics, American History.. When I was 15 I did volunteer work for his presidential campaign.

In high school we had political debates to imitate the famous Kennedy/Nixon debates and I represented Kennedy. What he believed in, I believed in. Gradually I moved to the left of his pragmatic liberalism. Certainly Kennedy was responsible for my decision to major in political science in college. Kennedy's assassination, occurring in the fall of my freshman year in college, devastated me. I felt like there had been a death in my immediate family. I quickly transferred my political allegiance to Bobby Kennedy.

I cannot precisely date my interest in and commitment to civil rights. When I was a freshman, I joined my college's Interracial Understanding Group. I was envious of those college students who could afford to spend the summer down south registering voters and didn't have to worry about money to pay their tuition.

Gradually during college I became a pacifist. Opposition to the Vietnam War right from the beginning was the catalyst. My husband to be, John, applied for conscientious objector status and was willing to face jail rather than be inducted. We became very active in the Catholic Peace Fellowship, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the War Resister's League, all pacifist organizations. We went on several anti-war demonstrations both in New York and Washington. I briefly attended Stanford University where resistance to the war was at its height. Almost every afternoon, David Harris, Joan Baez's future husband, spoke out eloquently against the war.

My first job after Stanford was as an assistant to Victor Riesel, a labor columnist, who had been blinded by acid thrown in his face by the mob who controlled the waterfront he was exposing. My assignments included reading the AP ticker to him every day, clipping and reading articles in about 20 newspaper and labor papers. This was in 1968, when King and Kennedy were assassinated, when anti-war protect was at its height, so thinking about politics was my job.

After I returned from Stanford, I had rented a room from an elderly women on the Upper West Side, who supported herself by taking in borders. I spent most of my time with my fiance and didn't want my parents to know it. (I now know they saw through me.) I wasn't supposed to use her phone. I had gone to bed very late; I had stayed up to hear the results of the California primary. I was ecstatic; Bobby had won. I always woke up to a clock radio. As I groggily came to consciousness the next morning, it took minutes to penetrate what they were saying. At first I told myself they were talking about someone else. I crept into the hall and used the telephone for the first time to call John. I was crying so hysterically he thought something had happened to my parents or brothers.

I was working for Victor Riesel, the blind labor columnist. He had been blinded by racketeers because of his investigations of waterfront corruption. Acid had been thrown into his eyes. He was too proud to learn Braille, so he always hired bright young political women to be his eyes. My job was to read about 7 newspapers and 40 labor newspapers and bring to his attention anything that might provide column ideas. The equivalent of the internet was a constantly running ticker tape. All day and all wee I had to read him about the assassination between my tears. This was less than two months after MLK had been shot. The world was shattering, and it was my job to read about it and talk about it all day, everyday.

My husband escaped jailed by getting a high number in the 1969 Draft Lottery. I will never forget the night. I arrived home from work when they had reached 50. As time when on and they didn't call out John's birthday, I was convinced he had been in the first five. His number was 339. For the first time in two years, we could plan our lives together without worrying about a jail sentence.

Pride Overcomes Anxiety

I would like to share something I wrote in 2001 to a Salon group:

"My 28-year-old daughter has just accepted a summer internship in Rwanda. Seven years ago, a million people were killed in three months in the worst genocide since the Holocaust. She is getting a master's degree in international affairs at Columbia, specializing in human rights, transitional justice, and Africa. If she wasn't going to Rwanda, she would have gone to the Congo. I am fiercely proud of her. But I worry about how to handle my fears as she goes from one world flash point to the next. I want to support her, not burden her with my anxieties. I would like to share experiences and ideas with other mothers of children whose idealism and dedication take them into danger. "

Learning not to burden my daughters with my anxieties is a lifelong struggle. But my anxiety is not nearly as great as my pride:
The daughter I was so worried about, Vanessa, co-edited this new book, which is being ordered for international relations classes throughout the country.