Growing Book Worms

I am a grandma who never buys cute clothes, but always either buys books or lends books from my children's huge picture book collection.

1946

In my baby book my mom wrote: "A book worm--she loved all books. At 2 years her favorites were Dumbo, Children's Garden of Verses, Alice in Wonderland. Was always eager for Cinderella, Goldilocks, etc." My parents read to us every single night. I left home for college when my youngest brother was 5, and they were still reading. They tended to pick books of interest to the older children, so the younger ones were exposed to Winnie the Pooh, The Jungle Books, Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in ththe Willows, etc. at an early age. When they visited Vanessa the day she was born, my parents brought her three picture books.

My mom and dad were consummate book worms. Our local library was a tiny volunteer operation in an old church. They took us to the Hempstead Library, three miles away. We were each allowed to take out as many books as we could carry; once I managed 20. My first library card seemed magical. I vividly remember my awe when I realized that card was a passport to the entire world. Wherever I have been in the world, libraries are home. Jorge Luis Borges wrote, "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."

Vanessa, 1974

Three-year-old Patricia's kitten-holding technique was not optimal in 1985. She assured me she could talk to animals, and I absolutely believed her. Reading to toddlers and preschoolers is one of life's supreme pleasures. It is the natural follow-up to breastfeeding. Preschoolers who are read to realize that reading aloud is a wonderful way to nurture someone. I recall Elizabeth's saying to her doll, "Don't cry baby. Mommy will read to you." I always read aloud to the older girls when I was nursing the baby.

For almost two years I took care of Nate three days a week. Since birth Vanessa, John, and I have read to him everyday. He enjoys the same books his mother and aunts did--Mother Goose, Dr. Seuss, Frog and Toad, Make Way for Ducklings, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Runaway Bunny, Where the Wild Things Are. Now his attention span almost always outlasts my voice. Sometims he will sit on the floor by himself with a pile of books, "I read."

Vanessa loved the Curious George books. She loved them so much that both my parents and I gave her the same giant Curious George for her second Christmas.

Now Nate loves Curious George just as much. Watching Vanessa read to Nate the same book I read to her, her sisters, and my brothers is lovely beyond my powers to describe.


Vanessa was 15 months old; maybe that is why she is distracted by the camera, unlike her more attentive son. She would have listened more attentively to Andy than to someone reading with her eyes closed.

Joe: Love at First Sight

Her name was Mary, of course. She was a blue-eyed, smiling, long-legged, cool -looking girl--a trifle naive. A girl with class, he thought when he first saw her, but young. A bus seems an awful place for things to start, but there was she on a bus going to church and planning to have a chocolate ice cream cone with sprinkelettes. He was going to church too, but she sat in back of him and that was that.

He said hello to her that afternoon or more likely she said hello to him. Again nothing happened--there are lots of shapely girls in blue bathing suits at a lake summer resort. The summer resort was one of those let’s-be-one’big-happy-family sort of places--it even had a social director and a social directrix.
Naturally one afternoon there was a baseball game in which all the boys and girls (in those places they’re all boys and girls even if the boys and girls have big boys and girls of their own) were to participate. Well this particular boy and girl were antisocial or mutually social. They sat out the ball game on a raft. Long afterward he learned her reason why she was there but being a romantic still doesn’t believe it.

They talked about prosaic things--families and schools; after all he was a shy young man. She wasn’t. Maybe that is why he was sure it happened then. That’s the trouble with shy young men: they are not used to openhearted friendliness. He never knew what she saw in him, but for the rest of the week they were summer friends. He struggled a little bit--an inherent male instinct. Why one rainy afternoon they went to a Bing Crosby movie in separate groups. They had only a week, not even a full one.

However, this time it did happen on a bus. They had made some sort of plan to ride back to New York on the same bus. He from the summer resort, she from Albany where she was visiting. He was positive. She says it couldn’t haven happened then--that soon.

He didn’t know the proper method of courting a girl, not a beautiful one like her. Oh he was quite proper. The movies he took her to were always approved for adults and children. A baseball game, a few football games, a little bowling--that was about all. He didn’t have much time, altogether three months. He then went away as did twelve million other men young and old. Oh yes, he finally kissed her once. He was very proper and very shy and afraid she would say no.

He did have a secret weapon. His job had been writing letters under constricting rules. He now could write letters without rules. She claims it was all platonic yet her first letter to him was a sixteen-page affair. Looking back he is smiling at the strategy of the salutation of his letter. First it was a proper Dear Mary--it’s possible to write the same two words so they are less proper but more warm. She should have realized what his plans were right from the very beginning. The first thing he did was change her name,, he first name that is. How could he ever have written letters beginning Dear Marie.

Three months of seeing her, three months of exchanging letters and she was sure too. A little later--less than a year after they first met, it was properly formalized. She got a ring (It was not in a car; it was outside on the sidewalk in front of her house). The ratio was changed. One kiss in three months to how many kisses in two weeks? Not enough, there will never be enough. His heart was just too full--that time was a blur to him. Did it happen to her as it did to him? There was no beginning. It just always was. Just two he and she.

Of course they were going to be engaged for a long time, and it was a long time. Six months and twenty-six days. One could say he was respoinsible. Too much of his heart got into one of his letters and now slipped in. But she was more direct and she knew her hussyness. She met his train and before they got home it was all decided. And then for a week they didn’t see each other, well hardly at all. A girl has a lot to do before here wedding. Some girls take months and months. This girl did it all in a week.

Married on Monday. What plain words. Rainbow isn’t a fancy word either. Nor sunrise,nor moonlight. Love and sacrement--a sacrament of love. "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two but one flesh."

Joe: Army Life

I recall that on one Sunday afternoon, about five hundred years ago, someone told me how the army made a friend of theirs so much bolder. I hope you're not drawing a parallel. If you had higher mathematics at Queens college, you show know that, according to Riemannian geometry, there are no parallels. It's not the army, Mary; it's the fountain pen for a mighty man with pen and ink, am I. In all these years it's been a hidden talent.

Since one Nolan at least is interested in the army, I should begin by describing the process of Uptonizing. The prospective soldiers arrive in Camp Upton (I can't tell you how since that is a troop movement and troop movements are military secrets) late in the afternoon , and the balance of the day and night is spent in being acclimated. This involves standing out in the open, swept by cold winds (and rain if there is any) until the body temperature is about 40 degrees, and then marched into a building to thaw out. Just so this time is not wasted, they dish out either a meal or a test.

I was lucky because my first day ended at 11 pm; if my name began with a "z" it probably would have concluded at about 4 am. The next day the process is repeated beginning at 5 am--it is dark at this unearthly hour . However, after breakfast and after the inevitable standing around being counted and recounted , we were marched into the processing unit. I entered one door as a civilian and came out a fully uniformed soldier (in fact, carrying three other complete uniforms in a large canvas bag), possessing an insurance policy, and bearing the imprints of typhoid, anti-tetanus, and smallpox innoculations. After that the entire group is marched to the cinema to see a double feature entitled, "What Every Young Soldier Should Know." Thus ends the process and the solider is usually sent to some other camp for basic training.

But you are probably saying to yourself, Joe must be still at Camp Upton because the envelope says so. Yes I am still out here in the woods. It seems that I'm on a special detail; the requirements for which seem to (1) that you wear glasses, and (2) that you pass the intelligence test (I got 151 but I always knew I was a genius). After working for a week I don't think the second requirement is at all necessary. On the whole work is rather easy--just routine clerical work handling the records of the incoming soldiers ,but there is certainly enough of it.

Because of our work we live in a special row of tents. I'm sleeping in a 6 man tent and believe it or not, my principal complaint is that it is too hot. One of the soldiers in my tent was formerly a fireman on a Coast Guard rum chaser during prohibition days: he has appinted himself chief of the tent stove and he keeps it red hot night and day. Even on the windiest days the temperature inside our tent is about 85. We use coal so we're not affected by oil rationing. Heh, Heh.

You can almost hear his voice.

Faith Paulsen

May 19, 2009 03:22 P

Joe: Professor Koch on Procrastination

It was my intent to begin this letter with a lecture on procrastination delivered in Prof. Koch's inimitable style. This is how I used to work it. In those days I got off at 4:30 so I would be home considerably before 6.

Since dinner would be ready at 6 it was hardly worthwhile to begin studying. So I would start reading the LI Daily Press. After supper it would be only a few minutes till Lowell Thomas comes on so I might as well wait. (Please excuse the shift of tenses to the narrative present.) Well, a fellow needs some amusement and what's fifteen minutes; so to WEAF for the Chesterfield program with Fred Waring. Time out to rest so now it's 7:30. The half hour from 7:30 to 8:00 was really the difficult time to waste. I usually couldn't think of a valid excuse for not studying. Since I wasn't a lawyer, I usually got by without one.

Of course, everyone knows that the good radio programs come on a 8 o'clock so I was saved. This was good for Monday and Tuesday nights. Wednesday was a tougher struggle for I knew if I could get by Wednesday, I was saved for the rest of the week. What would be the use of studying for the last two days of the week? Occasionally, though, I would lose on Wednesday nights and I would have to make some attempt at getting to work.

I usually got seated at my desk about 9 but I was still struggling. I could rearrange the papers on my desk for ten or fifteen minutes , but finally I would have to pick up my book. However, there was still life in the old procrastinator: instead of opening the textbook at the assigned chapter, I could skip a hundred pages or so and then begin reading there. If I was near the end of the book, there were always other ones to look over. At approximately 10:30 the struggle would be over. It always puzzled me why I felt so tired after studying for only three hours.

New Years Day 1943

After making our beds and cleaning up the barracks, you can well realize why we don’t have to report for calisthenics until 8 o clock. The exercises are given out on the drill field and it certainly is cold out there because the sun has not cleared the mountains that early. For the first few days calisthenics were easy because the corporals giving the exercise would tire soon and we’d be through. Today, however, a new system was inaugurated--a shuft of four corporals put us through our paces. After briskly running about a hundred yards we then have to “police up” the company area (It’s now seven minutes to nine so this epistle will have to be continued tomorrow since we have lights out at nine. Oh well early to bed and early to....!)

Policing up consists of spreading out in a line and marching forward picking up stray bits of paper cigarettes etc. from the ground--street cleaning in other words. That is the theoretical aspect. Actually you walk along with your hands in your pockets studiously avoiding looking at the ground.

In My Grandmother's House

My daughter Katherine wrote this about the wartime letters:

In my grandmother's house, past a stone Mexican statue named Harry, up the front stairs and to the right there is a bedroom. In this bedroom there are a pea green carpet, a bed with yellow and orange flowered sheets, and a cracked blue dresser. This dresser, unlike every other bureau and closet in this house, does not contain any seventies-style ties, old scarves, or early feminist t-shirts. Instead every drawer is filled with letters.

Joe lived in Jamaica, Queens, with his parents and six younger sisters and brothers. His college yearbook said of him, "Even his own brilliance could not fathom the enigma that is Joe." Mary lived in Queens Village. She was the second child, and the oldest girl, in a family of seven. Her high school yearbook described her as, "Sincerity coupled with bubbling vivacity, scholastic excellence with literary talents, athletic prowess, sparkling wit." She would not have a college yearbook until many years later, because her father had died without much life insurance when she was seventeen years old. Her father's brother squeezed together the money for her older brother to continue school at St. John's, but Mary was just a girl.

Mary and Joe had met the summer of 1942, on a raft at Loon Lake in the Adirondacks. He was 28, she was 21. A week later, back in Queens, he took her to see Bambi. They saw each other often in the three months after Bambi became Prince of the forest, and before Joe was drafted. He kissed her for the first time on the day he left for the army.

They will get engaged the night before her 22nd birthday in August 1943 and will marry the next March. The wedding will not be fancy, since it was planned in about four days and no one had much money anyway. The reception will be in Mary's backyard. Joe will go off to war in Europe, though his bad vision will ensure that he never faces combat. They will have their first child while he is away. There will be short letters to Baby Mary Jo, my mother, enclosed with the longer ones to Mary. Then in 1946, when Mary Jo is eight months old, Joe will finally come home and the letters will end.

They will have five more children, and the children will have fourteen kids of their own. Joe will die of Alzheimer's disease in May of 1987. Mary will become a lobbyist and counselor for victims of the disease and their families. She will become even more involved with her church,
and even more of a rock for her distressingly heathen children and grandchildren. Mary will die in April 2004 of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

My grandparents' generation has been called "The Greatest Generation." They survived the depression, they fought Hitler. Yes, they did, but many of them also contributed to horrible racial inustice, and a few of them dropped the bomb. I suppose that talking about our parents' and grandparents' moral superiority is an improvement over not trusting them because they're over forty, but it's not much of an improvement. It would be far more honest to say that they did some very good things, and some very bad things. They had fewer toys, and certainly they wrote better love letters, but they were more or less just like us.

To put it another way, generation schmeneration. I'm not going to even try to judge. Instead I will sit here and read these letters. I will learn that my mother's mother is more than the grandma who babysat for us almost every week for ten years, and who is always inappropriately freezing things. I will learn that my mother's father was far more than the sick, confused old man I remember.

Emma: Mother's Day 1986

1974, 2007

Mother's Day 1986
Dear Mommy,

Here’s to the memories. All the laughter, tears, happiness, and sorrow that we as your children have experienced with you right beside us every step of the way, making sure we didn’t stray off the path. Thanks, Mommy, for who would we be without you.

Love, Emma

Emma gave me a small book of family photos with this lovely message inscribed on the back cover. She was just 13. I carried it around in my bag for at least 3 years, so I could read it every time I felt like murdering her. Her eloquence was only matched by her --what word can I use-- spawn-of-Satanhood?

When she was 6, her first grade teacher said, "Emma knows exactly where my limits and she will go right to the brink, but never cross over." She didn't show such diplomacy with her mother. However, when she worked around the world in her 20's, she never had to bribe anyone at airports. After her first trip to Africa, she got several letters from cabdrivers addressed to "my angel Emma."

Emma repeatedly stuck her tongue out at me minutes after birth.This picture of her at 17 months (the day I got pregnant with her sister Rosalind), is revealing.  She should have been born with a printout: "You will win five battles with this child. Choose them carefully." I learned what the five battles were by losing hundreds of others.

At the height of our teenage struggles, Emma used to say: "I don't have sex, don't smoke, don't do drugs, don't drink, don't party at all hours. I am not pregnant; I do well in school; I plan a serious career in world saving. What is your problem, mom?" Of course she was right, and that's why her sisters seemed easier. I didn't fight the silly battles.

But it was all worth it. Watching her mother my grandson gives me absolute joy. Despite our arguments, we have always been extremely close. As usual, my writer Jane says it best (2001):

"Emma is capable of more generosity than anyone I know. She holds herself responsible for you, me, Rosalind, and Molly.. Being incredibly brave as well as generous, though, she doesn't stop there; she is now going to try to save some people in Africa (Rwanda) too, or at least to learn how."

Emma deserves this more than I do: " Here’s to the memories. All the laughter, tears, happiness, and sorrow that I as your mother have experienced with you right beside me every step of the way, making sure I didn’t stray off the path. Thanks, Emma, for who would I be without you?"

Books and the Giant Squid as Transitional Objects

Teens, Sex, Love, Commitment, and Academic Excellence

When I speak about teens, I mean those under 18. I believe in a excellent, comprehensive sex education, and I don't know anyone who thinks schools provided that. Ideally parents would provide it, but schools have to emphasize it because so many parents don't do it at all or get it all wrong. I am startled that parents of my children's generation often seem more reticent than my generation of fervent feminists. Liberals might consider screaming less about abstinence education and more about parental failure to do their jobs. I was rather obsessed with educating my girls because my parents failed to do so. I developed my excellent library research skills looking at every book in my local library. In 1957 there was only one that told me what I needed to know.

I had two babies at home. Their older sisters, 3 to 9, were there. Sex education in my family began at birth. Discussing how babies are made and born is so much easier with preschoolers than with 11 year olds.

My 4 daughters all recall the condom-on-a -banana demonstration. My four year old wandered in, discovering a challenging new game. (We were willing to purchase bananas for her, but not condoms.) My oldest told me "You talked so much about sex that I don't even want to think about it until I am 30." At every sleepover, every sex-ed book and Natalie the birthing doll mysteriously migrated to the basement with the revelers. My kids all reported that they could have taught the school sex education courses infinitely better than their creepy gym teachers. Does anyone know of a truly excellent sex education curriculum?

Emphasis on love and commitment, not using people, should be a vitally important part of the curriculum. I wish more adults would see junior high and high school sex as undesirable. Parents should fight the sexualization and pornification of our culture, in our advertising, media, movies, television. Women are denigrated. The sexualization of little girls is criminal.

So many parents are puritanical about drugs, booze, smoking, high school soda vending machines, pizza or hamburgers in the cafeteria, yet are not confident enough to warn about the physical and emotional damage of premature sexual activity. Most young teens are not ready for sex. Surveys indicated that many young women do not find it pleasurable. Teens too ignorant and reckless to protect themselves are particularly unready. Too many girls have sex out of insecurity, not lust, and do not exactly find it ecstatic.

Yes teens desperately need to learn how to protect themselves, both physically and emotionally. I took my college daughter for the pill. I would have helped a sexually active daughter of any age to protect herself. I work with teens both as a librarian and a social worker. No one has ever accused me of being judgmental.

Teens without adequate parental sex education are more likely to be sexually active. Parents whose kids can tell them everything are more likely to have kids who wait until late high school and college. If you want your daughter or son to graduate from high school a virgin, demand rigorous academic effort and excellence. AP courses might be the best abstinence education. Valedictorians often seem to be virgins; they have enormous self-respect for their bodies as well as their brains.

I think that I, my siblings, my children, my nieces and nephews all had sex in college, mostly, but not entirely, with people they loved and were faithful to. I and my sibs mostly married their college sweethearts; my children and my nieces and nephews mostly married people they met after college. Obviously I haven't taken a comprehensive survey. Hooking up, friends with benefits, drunk sex with a stranger upset me, because sex, love, and commitment have been inseparable in my life.

Love is a decison as well as an overwhelming emotion and passion. You can honor the commitment even though love and passion ebb and flow. If you don't feel your love for your husband or wife any more, try acting loving toward him. Obviously I am not talking about abusive marriages. We saw many of our friends give up when their problems seemed so less serious than ours. There have been remarkably few divorces or affairs in my extended family. I have known dozens of happy marriages, some lasting 50 or 60 years. I have seen spouses taking tender, dedicated care of their demented or chronically ill spouses. I know too many excellent parents to count.

My favorite sex education book for kids of all ages is The Facts of Life by Jonathan Miller and David Pelham. It is a magnificent, astounding, 3-dimensional pop-up book. It seems to be out of print but you can track copies down. Every kid in Baldwin who set foot in my house studied it carefully. Sheila Kitzinger's wonderful Being Born concentrates on pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding and is also essential. How could these books have been allowed to go out of print?

I would like to see a study on teen girl sexual activity and academic excellence. In many ways I was a permissive parent, but none of them were ever allowed to quit the gifted program, drop out of honors classes, or choose not to take as many advance placement courses as they could. God had gifted them with excellent minds, and it was their moral responsibility to themselves and to the world to honor and develop those gifts. They have more than carried out my dreams for them.  All have married wonderful guys. It has been an utter joy watching them and their husbands parent my young grandchildren.

Working Mothers

Perhaps it would help both me and my daughters if I could clarify my thoughts on working mothers. Reviewing family history might be illuminating.

Grandma Nolan only graduated from grade school. After Grandpa Nolan died in 1938, I recall she worked in the local Laundromat to help make ends meet. Perhaps she did some home-based work. She was widowed at 40 with 7 children, including a two year old. Her parents were dead so they couldn’t help her. She had survived the death of a two year old daughter. She was always available to her family when someone had a baby, when someone was coping with illness. She always lived for others, was busy, involved, purposeful. She was probably the best listener in the family. Her daughters-in-law have expressed nothing but praise for her love, supportiveness, wisdom, nonjudgmentalness.

My mother was a highly intelligent women who today would have graduated from college and grad or professional school. I suspect she would have become a lawyer like her dad. Maybe she would have run for political office. She would not have become a teacher; that was a pragmatic decision. She makes that clear in her retirement interview in the Uniondale high school newspaper. Most likely she would have had fewer children. I know my parents practiced rhythm, now known as natural family planning. My mom insisted it had worked for her and they wanted each of their kids.

My mom went back to school in 1962 as soon as Mark started kindergarten and went to work full-time when Mark was 11. My grandmother helped out, but working right down the block was an ideal situation. My dad left about 7:30 AM and got home around 7 PM, so he wasn’t involved. Mark had two older brothers at home. Certainly Grandma was never available to help me during weekdays until we returned from Maine. If she hadn’t bee working, I might have gone back to school and then work much earlier.

My family lived very frugally on my father’s income; most of my mom’s earnings went to pay for my younger brothers’ education. Because she was working, they did not win the scholarships Richard, Stephen, and I did, and the cost of college had increased significantly. My dad was retired before Mark graduated from college. So they always raised children on one incomeThat is no longer an option if you chose to live in a major metropolitan area. 827 Henry Street cost them about 7,000 in 1947. They did refinance the mortgage to make the expensive addition of the dining room, garage, and upstairs bathroom and dormer in 1957.

Growing up, I knew four aunts with careers. Joan married late and was a nurse for 10 years, always considered herself a nurse, took refresher courses etc. Uncle Jim’s wife, Aunt Kay, was a teacher and returned to teaching once her youngest started school. Aunt Rosemarie taught high school Math, returned to teaching when Michael started school, went to Hofstra Law School at age 40 and had an excellent job as chief counsel to the president of Stonybrook. My Aunt Mary worked for AT and T and its predecessors for almost 50 years. She advanced rather high. At some point she went to college and got her degree. She considered teaching high school, but I think the phone company offers her a very appealing promotion.

I am not sure about my Koch aunts. As far as I know, none of them ever went to college. I think Agnes was a practical nurse. Peggy worked for Nassau County

Work and Children--Family History

Perhaps it would help both me and my daughters if I could clarify understand my family history on parenting and working.

Grandma Nolan only graduated from grade school. After Grandpa Nolan died in 1938, I recall she worked in the local Laundromat to help make ends meet. Perhaps she did some home-based work. She was widowed at 40 with 7 children, including a two year old. Her parents were dead so they couldn’t help her. She had survived the death of a two year old daughter. She was always available to her family when someone had a baby, when someone was coping with illness. She always lived for others, was busy, involved, purposeful. She was probably the best listener in the family. Her daughters-in-law have expressed nothing but praise for her love, supportiveness, wisdom.

My mother was a highly intelligent women who today would have graduated from college and grad or professional school. I suspect she would have become a lawyer like her dad. Maybe she would have run for political office. She would not have become a teacher; that was a pragmatic decision. She makes that clear in her retirement interview in the Uniondale high school newspaper. Most likely she would have had fewer children. I know my parents practiced rhythm, now known as natural family planning. My mom insisted it had worked for her and they wanted each of their kids.

My mom went back to school in 1962 as soon as Mark started kindergarten and went to work full-time when Mark was 11. My grandmother helped out, but working right down the block was an ideal situation. My dad left about 7:30 AM and got home around 7 PM, so he wasn’t involved. Mark had two older brothers at home. Certainly Grandma was never available to help me during weekdays until we returned from Maine. If she hadn’t bee working, I might have gone back to school and then work much earlier.

My family lived very frugally on my father’s income; most of my mom’s earnings went to pay for my younger brothers’ education. Because she was working, they did not win the scholarships Richard, Stephen, and I did, and the cost of college had increased significantly. My dad was retired before Mark graduated from college. So they always raised children on one incomeThat is no longer an option if you chose to live in a major metropolitan area. 827 Henry Street cost them about 7,000 in 1947. They did refinance the mortgage to make the expensive addition of the dining room, garage, and upstairs bathroom and dormer in 1957.

Growing up, I knew four aunts with careers. Joan married late and was a nurse for 10 years, always considered herself a nurse, took refresher courses etc. Uncle Jim’s wife, Aunt Kay, was a teacher and returned to teaching once her youngest started school. Aunt Rosemarie taught high school Math, returned to teaching when Michael started school, went to Hofstra Law School at age 40 and had an excellent job as chief counsel to the president of Stonybrook. My Aunt Mary worked for AT and T and its predecessors for almost 50 years. She advanced rather high. At some point she went to college and got her degree. She considered teaching high school, but I think the phone company offers her a very appealing promotion.

I am not sure about my Koch aunts. As far as I know, none of them ever went to college. I think Agnes was a practical nurse. Peggy worked for Nassau County

Women's Issues Are Men's and Women's 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 Pediatrics 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 using 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-section 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 career paths, 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 rambunctious ness 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.

Would You Use a Male Babysitter?

Have you ever hired a male babysitter? Would you hire one for your son, but not your daughter?How many male teachers in day care and grade schoool have your children had? Have they ever asked you why?

I would have hired four of my brothers as babysitters; one might have taken his charges out on the roof. I still remember how delighted we were when one of my young uncles came to babysit. My Uncle Frank, six foot five, would hang from the top of the swing set, and we were allowed to keep all the money that fell out of his pockets. My youngest brothers were 15 and 17 when my daughter Anne was born. Going on vacation with them was pure joy for my daughters.

Several of my daughters' playgroups had helping daddies as well as helping mommies. We used a babysitting cooperative of parents when we went out; daddies were more likely to be the evening babysitter. The rest of the time we used our parents or my brothers. My daughter uses several young male actors as babysitters on the days I don't care for my grandson. I keep expecting Michael to say, "Go away, Grandma. I want Trevor or or Anthony."

One daughter had a male teacher in a Montessori nursery school in Manhattan. They  had one male teacher in a one-room schoolhouse private school in Maine. On Long Island they only had two male teachers in grade school; one was their favorite teacher. My brother is a grade school teacher in Maine. He says male teachers of young children now feel like everyone regards them as potential child molesters. He is cautioned against touching or picking up a crying child.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.men comprise:

• 5.4 % of Child Care Workers
• 8.5 % of Teacher Assistants
• 2.7 % of Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers

The same issues arise again with male home health aides. My mom, the big sister of 5 younger brothers, the mother of 5 boys would have been  happier with male aides. Several agencies absolutely refused to assign one. 

Who Takes Care of Babies and Toddlers?

I hope the comments don't become a parent care vs. day care debate. We all need to unite to create a society where parents can afford to decide what is best for their families and their children, where parents even have the economic option of caring for their children at home.

US Census Bureau, February 28, 2008

Relatives regularly provide child care to almost half of the more than 19 million preschoolers, according to tabulations released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Fathers and grandparents were the primary relative child care providers.

The series of tables, Who’s Minding the Kids? Child Care Arrangements: Spring 2005, showed that among the 11.3 million children younger than 5 whose mothers were employed, 30 percent were cared for on a regular basis by a grandparent during their mother’s working hours. A slightly greater percentage spent time in an organized care facility, such as a day care center, nursery or preschool. Meanwhile, 25 percent received care from their fathers, 3 percent from siblings and 8 percent from other relatives when mothers went to work.

I question the unthinking hierarchy set up by the Census Bureau. They seems to be saying mothers are always better than grandparents who are better than institutional day care, which is better than fathers and other relatives. Still I was pleased that the Obamas' grandma solution is more widespread than people realize. I wonder how grandparents can afford to take care of their grandchildren as their pensions and savings disappear. I certainly have no problem with paying relatives for child care.

Were you surprised that 25 percent of preschoolers received care from their fathers? According to the Census Bureau, "Preschoolers whose mothers worked a night or evening shift were more likely to have their father as a child care provider than those whose mothers worked day shifts (39 percent and 18 percent, respectively)." "Research shows that blue collar fathers have actually changed more in terms of their involvement in homemaking and child care than have middle class fathers (including professionals), when their wives are employed away from home. " Middle-class and professional fathers profess to believe in more egalitarian sex roles, but they don't provide the child care.

Although I was fortunate enough to be able to stay home with my 4 daughters for 15 years, I am not a traditionalist who believes all mothers should be home with their babies. I wish more fathers could take care of their young children. I believe children thrive when raised by people who love them--mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, siblings, close friends--who are a permanent part of their lives. I believe group care too early in life is not the ideal solution; conforming to group norms is hard on toddlers, especially boys. My highly creative first daughter even found all-day kindergarten hard to take. At 3 PM, she warned me : "Mommy, I used all my goodness up in school." The other three thrived in half-day kindergarten.

The energy wasted on the vicious mommy wars could be directed toward Corporate America. The idealistic young feminists of the early 1970's believed that social change was possible to enable both parents to care for their children. As the work week got shorter, that seemed a possible goal. We did not envision a world whether mothers and fathers worked far longer hours than their own fathers had.

It would not require a massive reshaping of the American economy to make it feasible for parents to stay home more with their babies and toddlers. If we can outsource radiology jobs to China or India, we can figure out a way for parents to work partly in the office, partly at home. Most people only have two children; most children at three can benefit from care outside the home. Unlike the parents of my generation, today's young parents have no expectations whatsoever that anyone--government, employers--are going to help them with their work/child care dilemmas.

The argument that taking time off work would ruin career advancement is absurd, particularly in the Internet Age. Soldiers fighting World War II were absorbed back into the economy, given help with education and retraining, without being penalized for leaving their jobs for four or five years. If raising young children were properly valued as an essential contribution to the nation's future, parents need not suffer dire career consequences for working part-time or taking a childrearing break.

Taking care of my grandson in Manhattan, I talk to many nannies in playgrounds and playrooms. I am aware that very few working parents can afford even a badly paid nanny. Virtually all are women of color; most come from foreign countries. Too many have left their children with relatives in their own country. One superb young nanny told me, "this job hurts my heart." Nannies come to love the children they care for, but parents can call them Sunday night and tell them they are not needed anymore. Few are paid salaries they can live on; few have health care benefits.

Tragically, women's returning to work had resulted in the devaluing of nurturing young children. Day care workers are paid too badly to make a long-term commitment possible. Taking care of children under five is not a viable career option unless you have a working partner who makes a more adequate salary. If we truly wanted the best for our children, day care teachers' training and compensation would resemble that of grade school teachers. Companies would provide excellent onsite day care, so mothers could spend more time nursing their babies than pumping in the toilet, so parents could play with their babies during lunch and coffee breaks.

There are excellent day care centers. I suggest parents join the National Association for the Education of Young Children. The NAEYC provides a list of accredited child care centers. But high-quality child care is out of the reach of most parents. Surely society could figure out a way to make it more possible for parents to take care of their own children. If a mother or father cares for their own children, their work is not included in the GNP. If he cares for someone else's child and hires someone to take care of his own child, both salaries are included in the GNP, even though the children almost certainly receive less optimal care.

My granddaughter, my grandniece, and my grandnephew go to excellent day care centers. Excellent day care seems a much better option than isolated nanny care. Most parents cannot afford excellent day care. But group care starting in fancy doesn't work for all children. I suspect only my youngest would have thrived. My first daughter even found all-day kindergarten hard to take. At 3 PM, she warned me : "Mommy, I used all my goodness up in school." The other three were happier in half-day kindergarten. Y

Early child care seems almost entirely women's job. How many day care centers, nursery schools, kindergartens have male teachers? In NYC playgrounds, I occasionally meet a male babysitter who has a flexible work schedule. I have yet to meet a man who cares for young children as his regular job who is not a father or grandfather. How old was your child before he had his first male teacher? What message does that send to children?

The choices facing my daughters in 2008 are no better, possibly worse, than those facing my husband and me in 1973. We could live frugally on my husband's income. Enough parents were at home to create highly successful playgroups and babysitting coops, so we could work part-time or go to school. Mutual aid was a more realistic possibility.

I believe how society treats its children, not its wealth, not its military strength, is a measure of its worth. Feminists, nonfeminists, parents, grandparents, progressives need to unite in a movement for a family-friendly, child-friendly society.

Worm Turns; Younger Sister Learns to Scheme

I don't want to masquerade as an all-wise  mother and grandma. No mother of 4 daughters ever masters sibling rivalry. In the last 3 years, since 3 daughers became mothers, I feel like I am back in adolescence and all the rules have changed.

My daughters find my journals hysterically funny.

 Fall 176--Emma is 3 1/2; Michelle is 17 months


 When Emma came home from nursery school, she wanted me to read Green Eggs and Ham. She settled on my lap in the small black chair, and I began to read. Michelle immediately came over protesting, tried to climb into the chair. I assumed she wanted to listen to the story, so I asked Emma to move to the couch, so we all could fit. But then Michelle started grabbing the book, bringing me her books to read.

I discouraged her, feeling she had had my exclusive attention for 4 hours; now it was Emma's turn. My friend Terry offered to read to Michelle, but she struggled down from her lap 2 or 3 times. I finished reading Green Eggs and Ham. Terry started to read to Emma and Erin, so I could read to Michelle. Michelle got down from my lap and tried to grab the book away from Terry. When that failed, she tried bribery--3 books, her blanket, a slip, her rabbit skin. Erin wanted the rabbit skin, but every time she took it away from Michelle, she protested and only stopped when Terry took it back from Erin.

Finally Michelle used one of the cardboard blocks to climb on the ottoman; from there she lunged for the big black chair where Terry was sitting with Emma and Erin. She didn't quite make it and had to be rescued, but she had achieved her purpose--the reading stopped. I've noticed that she often starts fussing if someone picks up Emma, reads to her, pays her exclusive attention in any way, shape, or form

I'm glad to see such self-assertion on her part, even though I feel pulled in two directions now with both of them clamoring for exclusive attention. It frees me from being Michelle's defender. More and more I can let them learn to handle their disputes by themselves. I know Emma's worst won't really hurt Michelle, and Michelle's protests more than enough to warn me if any mayhem is actually occurring. Once or twice lately I've rushed in ready to scold Emma, when Michelle's protests had absolutely nothing to do with her. Emma's being away at school mornings seems to have encouraged Michelle to increase her demands. If she could get rid of Anne in the mornings, why not all day?

After describing this revealing incident, I earnestly tried to establish rules for myself . As the oldest of six, I probably overidentified with Emma. I read this to her recently, when her son was Michelle's age, and we collapsed in helpless laughter. How earnest and intellectual I was trying to be, pretending I could objectively stay above the fray. Some of my advice is excellent; too bad I wasn't able to follow it. I had obviously read too many parenting books and taken too many contradictory parenting classes.

1. When in doubt about what to do, don't interfere.
2. If I am concerned that one of them could really get hurt, always intervene. In practical terms, that means always being within interfering distance when they are both playing on the slide, on the climbing structure, or on the terrace.
3. When other people are around who would tend to think very badly of Emma if she made Michelle cry, intervene.
4. Protect Emma from Michelle. She should have time alone in her room to paint, to build with blocks, when Michelle is not constantly at her back, intent to destroy what she has just made. When Emma complains that Michelle is bothering her, respond and help her out. It is completely unreasonable to expect Emma to handle Michelle's interference by herself. I find it hard enough to distract single-minded Michelle.
5. Encourage Anne to find solutions to the problem herself. "I'm sorry Michelle keeps knocking down your blocks. Do you have any idea how we can stop her from doing it." Poor Anne. No wonder, she told me, a few years later, "Don't give me any of that active listening crap."
6. Try to spend one hour special time with Anne after dinner. Now that she will be away from me three hours a day in nursery school, this is particularly important.
7. Make a firm rule about no hitting with things. The thing used as a weapon gets put in the closet until the next day. "Blocks are for building, not for hitting Michelle. You can have it back tomorrow."
8. When I find it necessary to intervene, use actions not words. No screaming, no getting angry. Separate them physically. Then, and only then, try to help Anne. "I think you are trying to say something to Michelle. Talk it. You can talk; you don't have to hit. I know how you feel, but I can't let you hurt Michelle. It makes her feel like hitting you."
9. When one of them is likely to continue hurting, use physical restraint. Take her to another room to calm down, telling her she can come back when she can play without hurting.
10. Don't get angry. If I can't intervene without getting angry, don't bother. Michelle is not a helpless baby, and she is not always an innocent victim. Don't always assume I saw the curtain-raiser to this particular squabble.

In my defense, my daughters are all very close to one another and form a wonderful support system.

Sexism, Misogyny, and Misandry

Let's distinguish among misogyny, misandry, and sexism. Misogyny is hatred and disdain for women in general. Misandry, hatred and disdain for men in general, is often totally denied. What reception does a man get if he accuses women of being misandrists? Although a lifelong feminist, I have always loathed knee-jerk male-bashing and defended men against stereotyping. Wikipedia has a decent definition of sexism: "Sexism is commonly considered to be discrimination and/or hatred of people based on their sex rather than their individual merits." Both men and women can be sexists; both men and women can be the victim of sexism.

I credit my 5 younger brothers, 5 young uncles for my comfort with men. I am far more confident that men will like me than women will like me.  I tend to be a misogynist. I don't do tact. If I see a group of 5 men at a party, I know they need me:) I don't do shoes, don't want to talk about fashion, diet, and makup. I am not fighting gray hair or wrinkles. I doubt I could be friends with a woman who had been botoxed. Women's fashion magazines appal me.

Misogyny and misandry are equally sexist. Women can be just as guilty of sexism as men. When people complain that Obama isn't tough enough, or nasty enough, they are being sexist. The glorification of the macho man is sexist. The idea that little boys can't cry, wear pink, play with makeup or nail polish,  or play with dolls  is sexist. The denial that fathers can be  just as loving, tender, gentle nurturing parents as women can  is sexist. Questioning the masculinity of a man who stays home and cares for his children is sexist. Expectations that daughters are better qualified to care for aging parents are sexist.

When I spent time with my 21-month-old grandson Michael, I recaptured many memories of my youngest brothers, 11 and 13 years younger, as little boys. I remember their tenderness, sensitivity, gentleness. Yet even when we were all keeping watch at my mother's deathbed at home for a week, only one of my brothers cried openly. His four brothers in another room assumed it was me.

Sexism underpins our whole glorification of war and violence. It cannot possibly be defeated in one generation. All of human history is not changed quite so quickly. Taking care of Michael, I am conscious that preschool boys possibly suffer more from sexism than little girls. When a girl shows interest in traditionally masculine activities, it is often seen as upward mobility. When a boy shows interest in girlie things, people start wondering if he is gay. Older men in the elevator are already fretting about Michael's curls.

All of us are crippled by such sexist attitudes. Preschools and elementary schools are a better match for most girls. Boys too often wind up on medication so they can conform to classroom rules and expectations. The idea that boys can't be babysitters or men can't be daycare, kindergarten, and grade school teachers is disgustingly sexist. Home health agencies seem to find it unimaginable that a client might want a guy to care for their aging mother. The idea that every man is a potential rapist or sexual predator is hideously sexist. Admtittedly Michael will probably be a much better babysitter than my brother 18 months younger, who led his charges out on the roof the only time my parents trusted him to babysit:)

My daughter and her husband hadn't wanted 21-month-old Michael to watch television until he is two. The only two exceptionswere  the wordless video of The Red Balloon and the  absolutely wonderful Tales of Peter Rabbit by England's Royal Ballet. I urge you to get the Peter Rabbit Ballet for every young child you know. The costumes and marks are magnificent, and all the animals are dancing classical ballet. Watching Jeremiah Puddleduck's duet with the Fox is an experience everyone should have once in their lives. Michael watched the whole 90-minute DVD sitting on my lap. Several  times he said "I like it." When it was finished, he said "again. " He loved trying to imitate the dancing animals, and requested r them unsuccessfully at least once a day. I told an acquaintance about it, and she reacted as if I was determined to make him gay.

Is School for Learning or For Socialization?

I had 16 years of academically rigorous Catholic education... In high school we read all of Shakespeare's major plays, many of the classics of world and English literature. Our history teachers expected us to read a daily newspaper; ignorance of what was happening in the world was not acceptable. I had six years of language study, three in Latin, three in French. There were no electives; everyone had four years of math, four of science. In grade school we had superb instruction in English grammar and surprising good lessons in American history.

I did not appreciate my good fortune. I was obsessed with the conformity imposed, with the nun's puritanism about makeup, hair decorations, hemlines. My high school uniform was designed to remove all secondary sexual characteristics. I led a crusade against uniforms and fought for the right to wear political buttons. However, in grade school I was a good girl who did all the homework and was various teachers' pets. My first grade and second grade teachers pasted gold stars on our foreheads. I have to resist the temptation to seek editor's picks as the equivalent.

At Fordham everyone had to take 21 credits in philosophy, no matter what their major. So we all had a major and two minors. My four kids went to excellent universites, but they are totally ignorant of philosophy. What they know comes from Wikipedia articles on the philosophers Lost characters are based on:)

High school graduates, never mind college graduates, of Catholic schools were expected to have a broad general education. They understand the constitution; they woud have enlightened voters if they hadn't had to wait three years or more to vote. They could quote many excellent poems and Shakespeare's most famous sonnets.

The teachers didn't give a damn about our social skills. Their one concern was that we didn't fall into the clutches of a bad crowd of kids. Living up to your intellectual potential was their priority. Underachieving was how you got in trouble with Sister and it was extremely difficult to bullshit them about that. Cheaters and plagiarists faced dire consequences.

Going back three generations in my family, people are very intelligent, but socially shy and awkward. Boredom in school has been a persisting problem. Being the oldest in the class just exacerbates the boredom. School is for learning. Catholic schools were known for intellectual challenge, not social remediation. Socialization was what happened at recess and after school. It was not in the teachers' job description. The nuns didn't care if we liked school or had friends. They had no idea.They cared about how hard we worked, whether we were lazy and not living up to our intellectual potential. They had their priorities straight.

Looking back, I simply cannot understand how the nuns did it. Could the habit be that powerful? Do they bewitch us? In postwar suburbia Catholics schools could not be built fast enough. I never went to school in my hometown. For the first two years I went to a split session. The teacher had to teach 60 kids in each session. That is 120 students.Yet our first grade teacher taught us all how to read, to print, cursive writing. She worked with me separately. Now her brother owned a candy factory, but this does not seem humanly possible. Can wearing uniforms make such a difference?

My evaluation of my Catholic education as changed as I have grown older and students have become less educated. I never would have sent my kids to Catholic school--too strict, regimented, hostile to creativity and individuality. But my cousin's children have gotten excellent educations in Catholic Schools, and my stereotypes are outdated.

My high school had an extremely active speech and debate club. Many of the top students belonged. Debate devoured your time as much as varsity sports does know. Extemporaneous speech was exalted. There was one debate topic annually. Debaters spent ten hours a week in the library. I was more knowledgeable than most members of the Senate are now. Twice a month we went to debate tournaments, mostly in Queens and Brooklyn, sometimes in Manhattan. It was the most academically challenging and competitive activity I have ever undertaken. My kids' academically strong high school didn't have a Debate Club.

What about socialization? That word didn't exist. We had three, four, five siblings and dozens of cousins. Older brothers and sisters are excellent socializers. You weren't allowed to play board games unless you could handle losing repeatedly. There were no handicaps. Younger kids would do anything to be included. I wonder why I did take advantage of my superiority in height, weight, education, and intelligence over my brothers. The one 18 months younger only reached my height the summer before I left for college.

Most of us spent thousands of hours in the backyards or basements of our neighborhood with only the bare minimum of adult supervision. Now kids are almost never that free. Their lives are completely regimented. I never knew anyone who had planned afterschool activities until they went to high school. Our parents, raising large families on one income, didn't have money to spend on such luxuries.

In grade school we went outside and played after school--baseball, basketball, football, badminton, ping pong, knock hockey. We biked everywhere without helmets.. By 7 you were given free rein of the neigborhood. By 8 my best friend and I walked 2 miles to the nearest big town, disappearing for the day. We had to come home by dark. Our parents didn't drive us places. We biked or took buses. By 12 my friend and I were taking the bus and subway to go to Manhattan. There were no cell phone.

At 12 I was babysitting at least ten hours a week. That financed the trips into Manhattan to see Broadway shows once or twice a month. This is why parents handled having 6 children better than people now handle having 1. We were all expected to figure out some way of earning money by the time we were 12. For my brothers, it was paper routes.

Now we come to the hard part, the explanation that severely troubles my feminist mind and heart. We all had mothers at home. Even lower middle class families with many children could bring up a family on one salary. By today's standards our life was austere. We made our own fun. Cynics sometimes think feminism was the creature of late 20th century industrial capitalism. Why couldn't one salary support a family when women went back to work? Did women's joining the work force hide that salaries were stagnating. I realize things were different in African American familes where women always had to work. I led a sheltered life. The only single-parent families I knew were the result of widowhood.

I loathe the stereotype of 50s mothers presented in TV shows and movies. Long island had been farmland. Communities had to be created. There were not enough schools, few churches, community organizations, or libraries. Libraries were run by volunteers. My parents raised money for a Catholic school, church, rectory, and convent. There were few social workers. Churches took responsibility for the poor and the wretched. Women routinely took care of their sick and aging parents in their own homes.

I am not glorifying my past. But certainly the 50s and 60s were much better times to be a child. We didn't go to day care, nursery school, or after school activities. There was a limit to how much trouble teenagers could get up to in homes where an adult was always there. Denigrating the 50s too often become a way of discrediting the tremendous contributions of those supposedly oppressed housewives, who raised 4, 5, or 6 kids, who gardened, canned the produce, sewed the family clothes, took care of aging parents, made every penny count. Mad Men and Revolutionary Road don't portray any woman I ever knew.

Christian Feminist View on Sex and Politics

This post only makes sense if you read the preceding one, "What Religion are You" I haven't found many comrades who share my political and social convictions. Being for a feminist and advocating a consistent-life view is the stumbling block.

I have always been a feminist. Before my mom got sick in 2001, I always attended meetings of the Women's Ordination Conference (WOC) with her, even when I was in my anything-but-Catholic church-shopping phase. WOC is dominated by fiercely feminist, brilliant nuns who feel called to the priesthood. Many have Ph.D's, have run hospitals, been school principals or college deans. They would be the best priests I have ever known.

There is no shortage of priests in the Catholic Church. The cretins in Rome refuse to bow to God's will and ordain all the women and married men he has called to the priesthood. Many men who left the priesthood to get married and have a family would come back if the church accepted married clergy.

My ethics and politics are shaped by my Catholic education in social justice and our responsibility to the poor. There are many progressive Catholic organizations and publications that are way to the left of the Democratic Party. I have known hundreds of Catholics who are genuinely good people, dedicated to helping people, living out their faith, politically active. Since college and the Vietnam War, I have been a pacifist, always involved in anti-war activism. I am a member of the War Resisters League, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Pax Christi, the Catholic Peace Fellowship. Dorothy Day and the Berrigan Brothers are my heroes. When there was a draft, I counseled young men on conscientious objection through the Catholic Peace Fellowship.

I belong to the consistent-life movement--anti-war, anti-capital punishment, anti-abortion, anti-racism, anti-poverty, anti-euthanasia. I think the church was prescient about the long-term consequences of abortion--a society that increasing devalues children and families. I think abortion is morally wrong, yet support its being legal, at least until quickening. I am appalled at the high percentage of Down's Syndrome babies aborted after screening reveas their disability. That inevitably undermines support of disability rights.

When I speak about teens, I mean those under 18. I believe in a excellent, comprehensive sex education. Ideally parents would provide it, but schools have to emphasize it because so many parents don't. Liberals should scream less about abstinence education and more about parental failure to do their jobs. My 4 daughters all recall the condom-on-a -banana demonstration. My four year old wandered in, discovering a challenging new game. (We were willing to purchase bananas for her, but not condoms.) My oldest told me "You talked so much about sex that I don't even want to think about it until I am 30." At every sleepover, every sex-ed book in the house mysteriously migrated to the basement with the revelers. I corrupted an entire town:) My kids all reported that they could have taught the school education courses much better than their creepy gym teachers.

Emphasis on love and commitment, not using people, should be an important part of the curriculum. I wish adults would see junior high and high school sex as undesirable. Parents should fight the sexualization and pornification of our culture, in our advertising, media, movies, television. Women are denigrated. The sexualization of little girls is criminal.

So many parents are puritanical about drugs, booze, smoking, high school soda vending machines, pizza or hamburgers in the cafeteria, yet are not confident enough to warn about the physical and emotional damage of premature sexual activity. Most teens are not ready for sex. Teens too ignorant and reckless to protect themselves are particularly unready. Too many girls have sex out of insecurity, not lust, and do not exactly find it ecstatic. Oral sex often seems to be about cocks, not pussies.

I work with teens. Teens without adequate parental sex education are more likely to be sexually active. Teens with parents who don't have happy, sexually fulfilling marriages are more likely to be sexually active. Parents whose kids can tell them everything are more likely to have kids who wait until college. If you want your daughter to graduate from high school a virgin, demand academic effort and excellence. Valedictorians tend to be virgins; they have enormous self-respect for their bodies as well as their brains.

I think that I, my siblings, my children, my nieces and nephews all had sex in college, mostly, but not entirely, with people they loved and were faithful to. I and my sibs mostly married their college sweetherats; my children and my nieces and nephews mostly married people they met after college. Obviously I haven't taken a comprehensive survey. Hooking up, friends with benefits, drunk sex with a stranger upset me, because sex, love, and commitment have been inseparable in my life.

Sadly, even tragically, my first marriage ended in divorce after 25 years. It was a happy marriage for 20 years. I will always love my first husband and rejoice he was the father of my children. I have been able to remember all the thousands of good times. I am happy we both found new love and marriage. We tried very hard to save our, through years of marriage counseling, which wasn't very helpful. We mediated our divorce.

Love is a decison as well as an overwhelming emotion and passion. You can honor the commitment even though love and passion ebb and flow. If you don't feel your love for your husband or wife any more, try acting loving toward him. Obviously I am not talking about abusive marriages. We saw many of our friends give up when their problems seemed so less serious than ours. There have been remarkably few divorces of affairs in my extended family. I have known dozens of happy marriages, some lasting 50 or 60 years. I have seen spouses taking tender, dedicated care of their demented or chronically ill spouses. I know too many excellent parents to count. Faith, usually Catholicism, has played a vital role in their lives.

My views on abortion do not influence my vote. I am a lifelong Democrat, but believe we need to hold Obama's feet to the progressive fire. I have always been way to the left of the Democratic Party; some would perceive me as a lifelong 60s radical. My Catholic upbringing shaped that progressivism. I am infuriated when all Christians are dismissed as dogmatic evangelic fundamentalists. Many fundamentalists do not accept Catholics as Christians.

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.