I'm Obsessed

with rhubarb.

I thought popsicles were the perfect pregnancy food, and they are still a close second, but then I made Strawberry-Rhubarb pie. Granted, the popsicle people are on my side with the rhubarb addiction. Sara Newberry, of Cold Ones in Austin (follow them here on twitter. They're also on facebook) told me a few weeks ago that she had been brainstorming a rosewater-rhubarb popsicle, which instantly made my knees weak and hating that she was in Austin while I was in Brooklyn. People's Pops at the Brooklyn Flea had a Rhubarb hibiscus popsicle, which my son and husband loved, but I have to say it wasn't my favorite flavor of the People's Pops inventory, though I've loved everything else of theirs. I found it too herb-y. My favorites of theirs tend to be the berry variety flavors.

But then after the Strawberry-Rhubarb pie, I think I might just have to take Strawberry-Rhubarb pie filling and shove it into a popsicle mold. Except rhubarb requires knowing and understanding and cooking in some way so that it doesn't end up too tart, and while I can make a pie, I've never actually made pie filling without the actual pie.

I've spent a bit of time thinking about this as with Strawberry-Rhubarb pie being the perfect pregnancy food, I've realized I might need to make a S-R pie every week this summer. Except the week I give birth when I'll be in bed in my pajamas with my lovely newborn, at which point, I'll need to fall back on the popsicle for my nutritional needs, and I may need to do some experimenting to fully master the Strawberry-Rhubarb popsicle.
 

The rhubarb at the market is so pretty, even when I had a pie at home, I couldn't help myself but get another pound and a half. I rationalized thinking, "Maybe I'll make jam?" (uh-huh, because that's fun to stand in front of a stove stirring cooking fruit and then sealing all the jars in between chasing a toddler and trying to transcend the New York mugginess that has descended).

Then we were invited to a friend's barbecue on Monday. What to bring? Pie.

Whenever you show up at a someone's house with pie, you get instant huge karmic payoff.

Unless you forget the ice cream to go with it.



*For the record, I used the Strawberry-Rhubarb pie recipe here with some changes. I scraped the pie dough recipe part, because I'm a dedicated James McNair fan as his pie crust has never failed me (3 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 teaspoons of sugar. Blend for a second in the food processor. Add two cold sticks of unsalted butter - I always cut them into small pieces before adding. Blend until bread crumb consistency, then add 1/2 cup of cold/ice water. Chill in two batches wrapped in wax or parchment paper before rolling out the top and bottom of the pie.) For the pie, I had way more rhubarb than 2 1/2 cups - I had closer to 5 cups, but I still threw it all in. I'd cut the sugar to 1 1/4 cups or 1 1/3 cups as mine was a tad too sweet. By far the best pie I've ever made. Yum!

Pressure Schmessure

I keep meaning to write about something other than parenting related things, but I can't help it. I keep finding myself on these themes. I've started to wonder, what will I write about when my children are grown? Is that when I'll finally settle down to write a short story collection?

In the meantime, today's theme? Parenting Pressure.

Inspired by two things: 1) Lisa Belkin's post on parenting by location and the idea that parenting differs not so much by choice or values, but by neighborhood and what your friends are doing. She refers to Claire Dederer's Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses in her post. I admit, I haven't read Dederer's book, if only because I heard the review and interview one Saturday morning on NPR and before it was finished I was yelling at Dederer (via yelling at the radio) for her complaining about all the "rules" she encountered in her Seattle moms' group. From the way she tells it, the rules were strict and if you violated any of them, you risked being exiled - but in reality, it sounded like she could use being exiled to find new friends who parented in a way similar to her own thinking. I mean, Seattle is not a small city; surely there's a different moms group to be found? That said, having done yoga for 7 years, I'm totally envious of her narrative structure and wished I thought of it.

2) The statistics for breastfeeding came out a few weeks ago, and while moms the world over, but especially in Western countries, love to complain about how much pressure there is to breast feed, it turns out that the number of breastfeeding mothers is going down. When my son was born in 2008, 20% of babies were breast fed after six months, while now, only 13% are breast fed after the first six months.

When I read the recent numbers on breast feeding, I was going to jump in and write a post about what seems to be the myth of pressure to breast feed. I've wondered about this a lot, when I hear women complain about how much pressure there is to breast feed. Generally I want to respond in two ways:

1) Breast feeding burns 1000 calories a day. How much pressure do you need? Spend a fun filled sweaty hour on a treadmill trying to burn a decent 500 calories or sit on your couch in your pajamas and nurse your adorable, soft and sweet smelling newborn while relishing in the blissful release of the hormone oxytocin and burning away that pregnancy weight? I mean really. In my first pregnancy, I gained 30 pounds and lost 42 thanks to breastfeeding. I weighed less than I did in high school. I can't think of a better weight loss plan, but that's just me.

2) 13% of babies are breast fed after the first six months. That means 87% of babies are getting formula from six months on. If there is indeed so much pressure, it clearly isn't working.

Yes, I understand there are women who can't stand breast feeding, have physical issues that limit their ability, encounter nothing but problems or whatever the case may be. Most women I suspect that encounter problems end up not simply because they don't get the support or education they need whether it's from doctors or lactation consultants or their own research. I've met lactation consultants who give out bad advice simply because they don't know any better. I've heard of doctors so worried about the supposed pressure to breast feed that when they encounter patients still breastfeeding at 6 or 8 months, they tell them that they don't have to continue if they don't want to (never mind that WHO recommendation to breast feed 1-2 years). I suspect most women don't continue because they don't get the support they need when they go back to work.

But 87% of babies on formula after the first six months? Really, only 13% of us women have fallen victim to the pressure to breast feed?

Huh.

Maybe I'm sensitive to this, because I did breast feed. My son didn't take a bottle. He didn't have much occasion to as I've been very fortunate in that I didn't have to go back to work (and I didn't find the work I did before my son satisfying enough to go back to). But when I've said that my son didn't take a bottle or even know what one was, what I encountered was not high fives from the breast feeding pressure police but stares and looks of disbelief that maybe I was from another planet or maybe I was one of those women who had no personal boundaries and let her baby manipulate the crap out of her or maybe I had no sense of self etc.

Or my son wanted a doll (this probably should go in the gender neutral parenting post), but the dolls I found for him mostly had those creepy mouths so they could feed from the bottles they came with. It took me a year to find a baby doll that didn't come with a bottle (granted, I was in Singapore and Bali where the selection was not at its best).

Or while my sister and sister-in-law on my side of my family do breastfeed their babies, on my husband's side of the family, my son is the fifth grandchild and the only one who breastfed past 12 weeks.

Or when we lived in Singapore, I was literally one of four women on the entire island who breast fed their baby into toddler hood. Once when I breast fed my son in public, the daughter of the friend we were eating with asked, "Mommy, what is she doing to her baby?" simply because she had never seen a woman breast feed her baby.

So pardon me if I declare the pressure to breast feed a myth. But stand up and question why do people in our culture assume that having a baby means you need bottles and pacifiers? Oh lordy.

But really, after reading Lisa Belikin's post, I think we should declare all parenting pressure a myth. Because, honestly, who does it serve? And what does it make us sound like? We're grown ups, but as parents, when we complain about whatever the pressure we think we're receiving (in our case, I got an insane amount of strangers and family telling me to swaddle my baby even though it gave him a fever or to not hold the baby so much) and we sound like teenagers, stuck in high school and surrounded by cliques of witchy teen- aged girls who only care about expensive name brand clothing.

David Elkind, in his book, The Power of Play discusses parent peer pressure, and suggests that when some parents engage in hyperparenting, overprotection, and overprogramming it is simply because they are concerned with how they look as parents to other parents. He further suggests that when we become parents, something happens in our brains that takes us back to adolescence when we were oh so concerned about what others thought of us. Part of this is because new parents are in a new social and emotional life situation. They are in unfamiliar territory, much like teenagers, and assume that others are judging and evaluating their parenting (to be fair, some people are) while they are also looking for clues they are doing things right or for ways that they should be doing things.

Elkind says the parents who don't fit this model, tend to be parents who move a lot from location to location whether they just traveled a lot or had jobs that took them overseas. These families, in his experience, were less likely to be influenced by peer pressure or media pressure about how to parent, and rather, the family grew closer and more secure in their values and beliefs about parenting and what was right for their family.

Reading through the comments on Lisa Belkin's post on parenting by location, I found this to be largely true. And it fits my husband and I. Though, I think we were on this path anyway. Even before we moved from Denver to LA then from LA to Singapore, we knew there were things we were going to do. We didn't want a bunch of baby things that we'd use for a week or two and then would have to pass along. We knew I'd breast feed, and that we'd co-sleep. But those things we chose not because we were following other's examples. We just did a lot of reading and out of the reading we did, those things lined up with who we are and our values. Just like we prefer organic half and half and fruits and vegetables, because we like knowing our food doesn't have a bunch of unknown ingredients in it, not because we think it makes us somehow better or superior people.

We have made choices when it comes to our parenting and we continue to whether it's about sending our son to pre-school and what we think about education in general or how much time we should let him watch television and movies. I do come from Portland, OR which, from what I observed and was told, is the most friendly place to nurse a toddler. And we do parent in very similar ways to my siblings who live in Portland, but we do a lot of things differently too. My husband's family is from Texas. We are on the opposite end of the parenting spectrum from how he was parented and how his siblings parent. Husband has said that some consider me a controversial mom. I find this baffling, because I think, we just do what works for us - how is that controversial? But sure - to his family and to others who think along the same lines - breastfeeding, co-sleeping, not punishing your child, whatever else we're doing, is controversial.

I don't know - maybe I'm lucky, because in traveling the world with my child, I did see a wide variety of parents, and while some did things radically different from how my husband and I do them, all of them were still good parents and the right parents for their children. Even in my mom's group in LA, where we all largely did mother in similar ways, we still did things differently - some used strollers, some didn't, some had cribs, some didn't, some vaccinated, some didn't, but the message in our mom's group was always to just do what works, different things work for different families, and parenting is about choices, and just like anything, you should be informed about the choice you're making, whatever they are. 

But parenting is too important (as is our peace of mind) and our children are too valuable to sacrifice our individual values and sense of self for the sake of some made up groupthink exercise. There are enough parents out there, that if for some reason, we do find ourselves in a situation where we do feel pressure or don't feel like we fit in because of our choices, then we can just find new friends - and the friends who are true friends love us and adore us no matter what we choose or what kind of parents we are. I mean, isn't that what we would tell our kids in a similar position?

So why all the whining and complaining?

Wordless Wednesday - Mapping out the Garden

The Lack of Safe Haven in New York

Sunday night Laquasia Wright, age 18, was arrested for attempted murder and endangering the life of a child. That morning, she had dropped her twelve hour old infant son down the trash chute of her building in the Walt Whitman Housing Projects in Brooklyn, just four or five blocks from where I live. Wright lives on the eighth floor. Thanks to the pile of trash bags that cushioned the baby's fall, the baby survived, was heard crying by the building's superintendent and was then rushed to the nearest hospital where he is in stable condition and expected to make a full recovery and live a healthy life - in an adopted home.

This story is heartbreaking on so many levels. As a pregnant woman who tears up at hearing a song from her childhood played in a grocery store, it's hard to maintain one's composure at the truly tragic stories like this one.

From what I have noticed, the knee jerk reaction at hearing this story is to judge Laquasia Wright, to assume she's out of her mind, or to immediately condemn her and her actions as absolutely unforgivable and she herself must be some kind of monster.

Yet take into consideration that her actions come just two weeks after another young mother from Queens, Dawa Lama, age 23, threw her newborn baby girl into the trash in a hospital bathroom. She was charged with reckless endangerment and first degree assault. Except that her baby died as a result of her actions and Lama could now face more serious charges.

The actions of these young women cannot be condoned by any stretch of the imagination, yet, criminal prosecution doesn't rectify either of these tragic situations. To me, their actions reflect panic and ignorance. These are actions of someone who did not know the state's Safe Haven laws, of someone who was not talked to about the option of adoption during her pre-natal care, of someone who received little - if any - pre-natal care, of someone who perhaps should have had an abortion but didn't have the resources.

Take into consideration the exhaustion that follows labor, and the hormones that flood the system - that Wright or Lama may or may not have been educated about (even if they had been, you forget minor details like that after labor), and we might begin to understand what had them panic. Up to 80% of women experience varying degrees of irritability, sadness, anxiety, or crying after birth as a result of hormones and exhaustion, while 10-25% suffer from postpartum depression. This side of  birth is just biology and doesn't take resources into account. But from what little we know of the circumstances of these women, that both were alone when they acted, that Wright lived in the projects and was home alone just 12 hours after she gave birth suggests that these women lacked good quality care and education as well as an adequate support system in their personal lives, like someone who would tell them of the Safe Haven laws.

To me, the actions of both of these women just two weeks apart, indicates that New York should be doing more to educate young women about the options of adoption and Safe Haven centers. Most assume the Safe Haven laws are common knowledge, but I think this assumption is a dangerous one. Given that Lama was in a hospital -the safest of Safe Haven centers - when she decided she couldn't parent her daughter would indicate to me that she didn't know such a law existed.

New York’s Abandoned Infant Protection Act is very generous in allowing up to thirty days for a new parent to surrender her baby to a trusted official at a hospital or fire station while remaining anonymous and free of prosecution. Sadly, this wasn’t common enough knowledge to prevent Lama or Wright’s actions, though they will undoubtedly be the ones who pay the price for not knowing it. 

It is tragic all the way around - for Wright and Lama, their babies, as well as for all of us as it reveals quite a few cracks that these women fell through. But I don't see what good comes of prosecuting these women. A woman who throws her baby away? That's a woman who needs help, therapy and education. 

Week Wrap Up & Highlights

1. We did not get raptured. (Sadly, the ants that have infested our house after an intense week of rain did not get raptured either. Cheeky bastards.)

2. My Sis guest blogged on growing up dyslexic. (Click here if you missed it - it's fantastic and worthy of discussion.)

3. In between all the rain, we had a few bursts of sun where Fyo and I could play outside.

4. Sis then did a post on Husband's and my wedding, gorgeous, perfect and impromptu event that it was and invited me to guest blog for her too. Such fun! (But I haven't done it yet. This coming week! )

5. Husband and I ordered a new organic bed (!!!) - king size to accommodate our growing family and our big dog Finn. Then we had a lunch date in Madison Square Park and appreciated the public art on display in the park. I didn't take a picture of the art because I was distracted by my fantastic lobster sandwich that I think was my best meal this week.

6. My Saturday post for Connected Mom. (Yes, I did. I wrote about the in-laws, but somebody has to - when I was looking for helpful perspectives to get me through some of the relationship rough spots I found nothing on that particular relationship).

7. Gender neutral baby clothes (though I discovered most gender neutral clothes are actually in the boys' section).

8. Such good books from the library - I also picked up David Elkind's The Power of Play and Fyo picked out A Hole is to Dig by Ruth Krauss with illustrations by Maurice Sendak.

9. Husband cleaned out and organized the pantry

10. We had a day of napping and going to bed easily (after two days of no nap). Ah bliss!

Reading up on Gender-Neutral Parenting: It Started with the Clothes

I came home last night from the library with such good books, I didn't know what to start with. I ended up starting with Lise Eliot's Pink Brain, Blue Brain for the simple reason that the librarian had placed it on the top of the stack. I've read Dr. Eliot before, in her book, What's Going on in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years which began my phase of geeking out with baby neuroscience books. I found What's Going on in There? fascinating, but also dense and a bit scholarly, which is why I tend to recommend Jill Stamm's Bright from the Start. It's more accessible and easier reading - especially when most your reading time is on your side while you nurse your newborn to sleep.

But in this pregnancy, as I've mentioned, I've spent much more time thinking about gender and gender neutral parenting. It started with the clothes, and me wanting to dress my unborn baby in red, and not in pastels as if my baby was actually an Easter egg. When my search for bright colored baby clothes became harder than I ever thought it would be, I started wondering why I felt like the only parent who wanted to dress their child outside of the pink-blue-last resort-yellow/green color scheme.

If only for the reason that I know the sex of our unborn child and my husband does not. It's an experiment on our part. My husband wants to be surprised. But I'm a planner and have nesting hormones taking my body hostage. Given that my son was born three weeks early and we were so unprepared, so that my husband had to run out for diapers early in my home birth labor, well, when second arrives on the scene I don't want to have to worry about clothes.


In my first pregnancy, we found out we were having a boy and between the two of us, we had four nephews and their hand-me-downs. Two of those four were twins. I can't tell you how many clothes we had. Or shoes. We didn't have to buy a thing.

And I'm realizing now, we were fortunate to have good hand-me-downs. Thankfully, my sisters-in-law feel the same way I do about not wanting footballs all over their baby boy's clothes. Most our hand-me-downs were greens, oranges, yellows, jeans, stripes, blues, reds and the like. Our hand-me-downs were covered in animals - yes, they were the kind of animals that if you met them in the jungle you'd be dead, but on baby pajamas they were cute. And they were clothes that would not be inappropriate on either sex (orange and white striped pants with a white t-shirt - that kind of thing).

Then one of my sisters got pregnant with a boy and my sister-in-law with the twins had a friend who was also having twin boys and we did what you do with hand-me-downs: we handed them down. We were also packing up our house for storage before we set out for our year abroad, so it didn't make sense to save a lot of baby stuff when we were paying for storage. I picked out my very favorite of my son's clothes - and ones that happened to be (I thought) gender neutral - and kept those. Essentially, I had a shoe box of baby clothes for our much desired second child.

And I thought it would be easy to replace them with equally free and fantastic hand-me-downs.

No such luck.

In the time since my son, or rather my nephews, were born, the clothes have changed. I got two bags of "gender-neutral" clothing off craigslist. We don't own a car, and in Brooklyn, if I go to the trouble of taking the subway over to someone's house to pick something up, I'm not going to change my mind about wanting to buy it or take it home once I get there. But when I got these bags home and opened them up? Essentially the mother had had a boy and a girl and shoved everything into the same pile. The boys clothes were camouflaged and covered in football helmets. And the girl's? I had never seen so many rosebuds, butterflies, or pink in my life. Seven and half months into pregnancy and my first bit of nausea came when looking at all that pink and all those footballs.

This will make me sound like a witch, but I hate football. I hate pink (except in small doses or next to colors like brown, black, grey, or navy.) Rosebuds and butterflies are fine - but outside where they belong.

Out of two bags of clothes I found two white onesies. I also snagged some awesome winter sleeper pajamas and white bunting that I actually love. Everything else went back into the bags to go back on craigslist.

I told my mom, my step-mom, and my mother-in-law, that I think the clothes are far more sexist than they were when I was a kid. I don't remember having my first pink dress until I was six. My three mothers agree and say that I am correct.

Indeed. Lise Eliot writes, "Unlike a generation ago, when parents actually worried about stereotyping their children, the new focus on nature seems to be encouraging parents to indulge in sex differences even more avidly...The more we parents hear about hard-wiring and biological programming, the less we bother tempering our pink or blue fantasies, and start attributing every skill or deficit to innate sex differences. Your son's a late talker? Don't worry, he's a boy. Your daughter is struggling with math? It's okay, she's very artistic."

Personally, I find this troubling. Maybe because I was raised by feminist leaning mothers, maybe because I went to college reading Gloria Steinem and Ms. magazine and Susan Faludi's Backlash without ever taking a Women's Studies class, but I'm constantly shocked by how sexist our society still is - and how even male friends of mine - seemingly enlightened and in some cases married to very strong women - still think nothing of referring to women as girls or talking about their bodies as if they were chickens to roast for dinner.  Given the disparity just in baby clothes and the current mode of socialization for kids being born today, I'm scared to think of the implications. You can buy heels and bikinis for three year old girls. Isn't that disturbing?

Eliot's writing again is fascinating -and a bit dense - (She does her research and she thinks things through) but well worth it. So far, I mean. I read the first fifty pages before passing out last night, but so far, I can tell it will be a book I refer to often, if only because she points out and demonstrates that while yes, there are differences in the sexes, but mostly, actually, we're the same. Biology-wise anyway. Everything else is essentially socialization. This makes it a book that I wish those giving us gifts would read, (I know this too makes me sound witch-y) if only so they knew where we were coming from.

This of course only increases my search for gender-neutral clothes. And I admit, it doesn't make me the most popular with my mother - who while she dressed my sister and me in reds, browns, greens, and blues is so peeved that I won't tell her the sex that she insists she isn't buying my child anything until it's born. When I say I want gender neutral clothing - even after the child is born - she tells me of the cutest rosebud outfit she found in Macy's. When I say I don't want rosebuds? She tells me how the woman she bought it for loved it. What do I tell her? Send the receipt.

My in-laws this last weekend indulged me, as we shopped for both children and I rummaged through the boy/girl racks at a consignment shop trying to find all the gender-neutral clothes. My father-in-law congratulated me on all the good deals I had found, but then said, he now agrees with my mother - nothing else until the child is born. Because apparently you can only buy so many gender neutral clothes.

I should tell them all what store clerks tell me, stay in the boys clothes. For whatever reason, the bright colors and safer things go there. Because God forbid someone dress their boy up as a rosebud.

Wordless Wednesday - Just In From the Library!

I Am Dyslexic

Today I have my first ever guest blogger! Yes my very own sister! Sis (because she is sis to me, but Phaedra to the rest of the world) indulges me often by listening to me talk through my ideas on education, what I want for my children in their education, researching pre-schools, wondering if the experience I want for my children actually exists within a school building, etc. I also spend a lot of time ranting to Sis about the pre-school programs I find - that brag about how they will prepare my child for kindergarten by teaching him phonics and letters - when I think (after reading Mem Fox's Reading Magic) guessing how words is just as important (just watch a small child try to sound out the -tion sound). Because Sis is dyslexic, she too rants about the over-emphasis on phonics and how she always found it frustrating in learning foreign languages.

Sis started thinking about her experience growing up dyslexic and asked if she could write an essay for my blog as part of my ongoing considerations about education (and had me think about spending my entire blogging week thinking and writing about education). So here she is, my fantastic dress making sister, who made my wedding dress (in eight days and made it so it fit inside a Priority Mail envelope) and who I think in all ways is a genius and certainly the (first) best thing to happen to me (second and third of course is husband and son and fourth the soon to be baby). You can see her blog and work here.

 

I Am Dyslexic

By Phaedra Elizabeth Paulson

I am dyslexic.

When I was about 6, my dad pulled me out of one elementary school where my 1^st grade teacher wanted to hold me back a year, and put me into an elementary school where the school principle (Ms. Betty Campbell, you were an angel) had me tested for all kinds of “learning disorders”. It was her that got me the early diagnosis of dyslexic.

So really, I’m a lucky dyslexic.

The diagnosis of dyslexic I imagine was a relief to all my parents. From my dad and my step-mom it seemed like their mentality was: okay, this is the problem, we can address that. And they did. I was taken weekly to a tutoring company (called Learn to Learn, no judgment there) that apparently specialized in kids like me, “Bright kids that are ‘slow learners.’’ From this company I had nearly an hour of tutoring every night from my dad and step-mom, after school and through the summer.

By the time I was in the 4^th grade, I was pulled out of class for my remedial spelling lessons, where I was tutored one on one with a special ed teacher. Then later, I was pulled out of class for my reading lessons, again, one on one. (oh, public school system of 25 years ago, how we miss you.) It wasn’t until the end of the school year that I was told my reading lessons were actually above my grade level. I was reading for comprehension above the rest of my class, just spelling below my grade level.  I was main-streamed the next year.

Technically from the fifth grade forward, I was a “normal” kid, just a really bad speller.

Like I said, this makes me a lucky dyslexic.

What’s interesting to me looking back, is how often I have been labeled by others and labeled myself as a “slow learner” without thinking for a second what that actually means.

What is actually true is I struggled with reading and languages. In other areas I actually learn very quickly.

Years ago, someone asked me how I felt about the label, of learning disabled that is applied to dyslexia and I said, that label gets schools money to help the kids that are.

But it’s not that simple.

At the time, it never occurred to me that I had any negative repercussions on my psyche. Now I’m not so sure.

While I did fairly well in school, I definitely started to give up by high school. Yes, I’m sure normal teenage angst and rebellion played a part in my disinterest in school. But so did feeling like I’d never be put in an advance class due to my “issues” and that I had to sit through my English classes with my fellow class mates, that somehow never seemed to be able to remember what they had read and understand it. And yet, they had never had their own special ed teachers.

While my high school teachers likely didn’t know I was a “slow learner” or  “learning disabled”, I think I had a fair chip on my shoulder that academia had given up on me. Or, at the very least, had let me down.

So then, the sewing.

Once I had taught myself how to do this thing, that was to make the things in my head, well, I guess you could say I was hooked. I was 15 and it’s been a life long love affair ever since.

Sewing, pattern drafting, building the garment was something that came easily to me and I think my relief at having found something that I could excel at was actually profound.

What is curious to me, is there are designers and highly skilled seamstresses and engineers and carpenters and makers of all things on both sides of my father’s family. My dad and uncle have built and rebuilt airplanes. My uncle IS an aeronautical engineer.  The similarities in the problem solving that gets a dress or a corset built is not dissimilar to my way of thinking then what gets an airplane or a house built. It’s almost like “thinking as an engineer” is a genetic trait. So is dyslexia. Dyslexia gets passed down, while a daughter can get it from either parent, a son will only get it from his mother. From the experience of my dad teaching me how to drive, I promise you, I got this genetic trait from my dad. Neither one of us seemed to be so solid with our right and left. But they didn’t have this diagnosis when he or his brother were kids. That the family stories were about how neither of them seemed to do well in school despite clearly being bright and capable is, well, curious.

Last night, my sister was relating a story at her dinner party of how when we were kids, she thought I was being difficult or lazy, maybe that I was just trying to get attention with my reading struggles. The discussion got me to thinking. (hence this essay) Am I still nervous about this kind of judgment? Even though I have no fear that she thinks this now?

In this climate of our currant education system, my heart breaks at the idea of all kids being pushed into this box of teaching to the test and that all intelligence is based on reading and language and math. I never would have survived school like that. I love learning. I love working on challenging design projects and figuring out new ways of solving design problems. All of this I learned outside of my public school education. But I did learn it.

25 years after being labeled “normal”, I am still grateful everyday that I found something that proves those other labels wrong.  I don’t think anyone in my life needs me to be a talented designer to be reassured that I am not a slow learner, I’m sure my siblings and all my parents think I am quite bright. When I tell people that I am dyslexic they often ask, “really?”So it’s interesting to me that my natural tendency is to do what I do out of the sight of others. I did not thrive in the corporate design world, yet, people like, even love what I design and make. This last year I quit my corporate design job to finally focus on what I really wanted to do, to work for myself making custom things, to work one on one with my clients. I know this is the right place for me to be, working with my hands, bringing my ideas to fruition, working with a client to create the best thing for her and her event. There are so many things about this job that feels like it’s a good fit for my skill set. However, there is a part of me that wonders, am I, maybe a little, hiding from the judgment of those labels? Do I still feel that fear of people thinking I’m stupid? And the best way to hide from that is to work on my own, behind closed doors? Where I can’t be judged? Where what matters is the end result, not how I got there, not how I figured it out?

I think so, a little bit, yes.

People often seem to be uninformed about what dyslexia is. They think it means I can’t see the letters on the page or that I just, still as an adult with 2 college degrees, can’t read. They think it means that I am actually learning disabled.

I’ve met parents of young children that share stories that they fear their kid might be dyslexic, it’s an odd conversation that follows when I say, ‘your kid will be fine, I’m dyslexic’. “But did you recover? Are you still dyslexic?” . Um, yes. but you memorize the letters and use spell check and move on. It comes out really, like an old accent, when I’m really tired or drunk (If your kid is writing school papers while drunk you have bigger problems.) or when I’m trying to learn second languages, oh so help me with the foreign languages.

Now I wish I could reverse the label. I can’t speak for any other kind of “learning disabilities” or “learning disorder” but those categories really piss me off.

I didn’t fit into the box that said, I should have been a lawyer or professor, or any other kind of reading focused career. But I do belong in this box, the one about working with shapes and materials and the physics of how x will effect y if I do this. None of that makes me learning disabled. Clearly, I have learned to read and write. Clearly I have learned how to learn.

Like I said, I am lucky. I’m lucky for 2 reasons. The first being that Ms. Betty Campbell said, “there is nothing wrong with that child”. And the second is that my dad as a (highly likely) undiagnosed dyslexic himself, understood exactly the way I understand my world and believed and agreed with her.

There’s room for all our learning. We need both people like me and people like Tara, my writer and English professor sister that didn’t get it then, but knows now, I wasn’t being lazy. I just see things from a different point of view.

And I am thriving in my skill set.

Sunday on the Brooklyn Bridge

My in-laws are in town (not to worry - it has surpassed expectations and been a lovely visit) and my FIL (father-in-law) wanted to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

The last time I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge was September of 2008. I was visiting my sister from LA with my husband, was seven and half months pregnant with my son and had literally just started to show (thanks to the stomach muscles that come with 25 years of ballet).

And now-

We measured him Saturday night. At 2 1/2, he's 40 inches tall. He was born at 19 1/2.

Husband says I can't call him a baby any longer - because he is now all little boy.


And again, 7 1/2 months pregnant. 

The Business of Education

Last night, I read this disturbing Editorial in the New York Times on Scholastic's Big Coal Mistake - where they produced a fourth grade lesson packet on energy paid for by the American Coal Foundation. This lesson packet mentioned the benefits of coal but failed to mention things like toxic waste and gee, I don't know, things like Black Lung or the people who we hear about every year or every other year who get trapped inside a coal mine and die.

Last year, Scholastic also encouraged schools to have classroom parties with and to collect labels from the sugary drink, Sunny D.

As I researched pre-schools in my neighborhood, I was relieved to find the school here and there who didn't give the kids juice. My son, like me and many in my family, is a bit sugar sensitive - not that we don't have it, but we use organic free-trade non-bleached good quality sugar (which I have to say has actually increased the quality of my baking) and we eat sweets sparingly. In the past, we've given my son a half a cup of diluted orange juice and he turned into a demon. I know some doctors say that sugar does not contribute to hyperactivity, but I don't think they have children.

Anyway, in reading this editorial yesterday, I added another strike in my list against the public school system. I have a lot of concerns about the schools, education in general, kids getting what they need in the classroom, and so on. I haven't researched education as much as parenting, but almost - and it's slow reading on my part. Mostly because I get depressed. I read the fantastic Diana Ravitch's Life and Death of the Great American School System (which I highly recommend), and while I think she is right about a lot and found it an eye opening read, it left me completely hopeless about the future of education in this country, and even around the world.

This morning I woke up thinking about Scholastic's stunts and thinking that now in addition to having to worry about my son getting too much homework (as I also read yesterday here) in subjects where homework is useless (all of them except math) (for some of us who remember our school experience this may strike us as one of those moments where we say "duh"), or over tested for statewide standardized tests that have nothing to do with the curriculum he's getting in the classroom, or that he could get a really good teacher who loves teaching and loves his/her subject matter, but somehow fails to produce good test results in his/her students and ends up fired, or whatever else, but now I also have to worry about my child being advertised to - not just in school hallways as he walks past vending machines full of junk food, but in his lessons and school books? Great.

By the time I was sipping my coffee,  my head was spinning with the realization of all the vested interests in our so called public education system, from the companies who write the standardized tests and textbooks and compete for school districts and teachers' attentions, to school lunches, city and state governments, teachers unions, school buses (dare we dream of the hybrid bus or would that threaten oil interests?), and well, the list goes on.

I started to ask myself, who really is teaching our children? Can we begin to see why the interests of our kids has gotten lost, when public schools are now as much a business as anything else in the marketplace?

I see stacks of library books, new research topics and a new series of blog posts in my future as I think about untangling this knot.

Rhubarb!

Growing up, we had an enormous rhubarb plant, and we never did anything with it - because my parents complained it was too tart to eat and there was nothing good to do with it. Then just a few years ago, a friend in Denver harvested the rhubarb from her yard, made pans full of rhubarb crisp, and then had a bunch of us over. I discovered my parents were wrong. I could have devoured the entire pan. I didn't. I stopped short of a plate.

Only because I was worried what people would think of me if I did finish an entire pan by myself.

This past week, I saw the season's first rhubarb and its glorious red stalks at the Farmer's Market. I took a pound and a half home for my first ever rhubarb crisp. Mine didn't come out as good as my friend's, but still with a scoop of Coconut Bliss Vanilla ice cream, it was delicious. I think next I'm going to attempt the classic Strawberry Rhubarb pie. Yum!

They Mean Well But...

In Monday's Motherlode, Lisa Belkin asks what do you make of parenting advice from people who aren't parents?

I said (because you know I commented) that in my experience, advice from parents who were a generation or two out of date was far more dangerous than from people who weren't parents at all, like, say, my sister, who knows my husband, son and I inside and out, has the same values as we do, but still has astute observation skills and picks up on things that we don't see, like, "Gee, ever since you quit buying yogurt, Fyo doesn't always have snot pouring out of his nose." How do I miss that I'm suddenly not always wiping my kid's nose? I don't know, but that's another post.

When my son was born, like all new parents, the advice poured in from people who meant well. My family, for the record, was amazing in refraining from advice for the simple reason that they believe the first few months of parenthood is all about the parents figuring out who they are as parents as well as who their baby is and what their baby needs. They assumed (rightly) that if we needed help or advice, we were capable of asking.

Even my grandmother, who completely disagrees with most my parenting, commiserated that when my dad was a baby, her mother-in-law told her to only feed him every four hours, which my grandmother did (because apparently my great-grandmother was so mean and bossy that if you disobeyed her you then committed yourself to a life of hell). Shortly thereafter, my grandmother's mother-in-law informed her that she should take her baby to the doctor because he was crying all the time and must be colicky.

My grandmother didn't take her baby to the doctor. She instead fed him when he cried and soon learned he wasn't colicky at all. He was just hungry.

People - even mean bossy people like my great-grandmother - do mean well. They also want to feel validated by you following their advice. It reassures them that they made the right choices in their own parenting.

And some people say things they've heard their entire lives without ever questioning them or realizing there's not an ounce of truth to them. The ones we heard the most?

-"Let the baby cry. It's good for its lungs." Really. It's an old wives tale. Just like leeching strengthens a person's veins, vitality and immune system. Why leeching fell out of favor but this saying didn't, I know not.

-"You know, if you're always holding the baby, it's always going to expect to be held." At the time, I had no way to deflect this other than, "but it's such a short time in the long run." Now that my son is two and a half, I can honestly say that he does not, in fact, always expect to be held, and actually, if you tried to hold him all the time, you'd end up injured. I don't know why people say this. Why have a baby if you don't want to hold it?

And along the same lines-

-"If you always nurse the baby to sleep, it's never going to learn to go to sleep on its own." I know it seems like babies have "to learn" how to go to sleep, but sleep is actually a human instinct, not a learned trait. Which is why babies have no issue at all putting themselves to sleep while they're in the womb. The difference? They're putting themselves to sleep when they're tired, not on your schedule. Babies do have different sleep habits and schedules and circadian rhythms than adults, and yes, there are habits and routines that help them learn how to organize themselves so they sleep at night, and less in the day (which is the opposite - near as I can tell in my current state - of their life in the womb), but babies fall asleep in a myriad of ways. Yes, I usually nursed my son down to sleep, which generally worked when we were ready for him to sleep, and yes, he also fell asleep in his sling or Ergo carrier when I was just walking around. Husband too put him to sleep by walking around with him. Sometimes he fell asleep in the car (but I can't say that worked for us they way people told us it would - I think the car actually made him car sick), sometimes he fell asleep by simply being held, and sometimes he fell asleep when I held him while bouncing on a yoga ball.

And again, now at two and half, he sleeps just fine on his own. And when we struggle with putting him to bed? It's because he's not tired and he's not ready to go to bed (though we are tired and ready for him to to bed).  We're not the types to adhere to a strict schedule or who think that come hell or high water, the child needs to be in bed at 8pm - because on the days that he naps until 6pm, this would be stupid.


In lieu of advice, people also pass along the books that worked for them and their babies. (I admit my family and I do do this - but only after we realize that we have similar values and want similar things for our children. I've learned a lot from other who are also parents and love the library and research as much as I do.)

And sometimes they pass on books that really should be tossed in the trash.

The first one that falls into this category?

Yes, indeed. The What to Expect When You're Expecting series. I know. The second you tell anyone you're pregnant, you find yourself with three different copies from three different people. I did anyway. And every midwife I've ever talked to has told me to toss it. Mostly because the advice about breastfeeding is off. Also, I found it to be really negative, in that while it tells you a little about what is happening with your baby, it mostly tells you what can go wrong or what you will suffer from. You encounter women who do nothing but complain the entire ten months of their pregnancy and it is like they read this book cover to cover so they knew what to complain about when. The Baby Center website also follows this pattern: "Congratulations! You've reached the third trimester! Your baby is now the size of a watermelon and it feels like it. Things you can expect to suffer from the next ten weeks include retaining water, varicose veins, sleepless nights, memory loss, back pains, leg pains, foot pains, cramps, nausea, fatigue, an apathetic spouse, insatiable appetite but only able to eat a bite, kicks to your ribs, jerks on the bus who won't give up their seat, men who say you're fat, leaky breasts, sore breasts because they too are the size of watermelons, mood swings, wild cravings to clean your entire house in the dead of night..." You get the idea.

I had a teacher in high school who always said that attitude determines altitude. It was a common saying long before the film The Secret came out and told us essentially the same thing, that what we think determines the experience we'll have. Not that women who exercise and eat well don't still come down with gestational diabetes or what have you. But there is so much in our culture that treats pregnancy as a disease and tells pregnant women to be scared of everything (mostly because people are scared they'll get sued - I can't even take a yoga class without being told what not to do. Like hello? I have a belly the size of Rhode Island. Do I look like I'm at risk for twisting myself into a pretzel or standing on my head?), do we really need more? I'd rather live and enjoy my life and my pregnancy. If something arises that I need to deal with, whether it's a health issue or an issue with my baby, I'll deal with it then. Stressing out about potential issues isn't good for me or the baby.

The other is the BabyWise series. Steer clear of it. Most pediatricians agree it should be trashed. The AAP discredited it (I think) about ten years ago. At the time, babies were ending up with failure to thrive issues and women were complaining that they couldn't make enough milk (which is what happens if you breastfeed your baby on a schedule or every four hours). Some people claim it has since been massively revised and the author no longer claims to recommend only feeding a baby every four hours or other ideas in his original book.  Still, a book that advises not to hold your baby because it's letting your child manipulate you? Well, I like Jane Nelson but when she said that I told her to pack it, and I say the same to BabyWise. But I say that to anything that tells mothers not to follow their instincts. There's a famous article about it, (albeit dated) here. I imagine it was this article, as well as being discredited by the AAP, that led the author to revise his book, but to my knowledge, the AAP has yet to reinstate it's support.


In general, I think part of becoming a parent is finding what resonates with you and what doesn't and a good chunk of it is listening to your baby and being connected enough to read your baby's cues. But it does help to have helpful and supportive resources when you need them.

Wordless Wednesday In Our Backyard

Playground Etiquette: The Apology

It's inevitable. Hang around on the playground (some of us spend a lot of time at the playground) and at some point, one child will bump into another, take a toy, push on the slide, or in some way will do something inappropriate to another child. A parent will rush over and demand, "Now say you're sorry."

I've done it.

And I have a pet peeve with apologies. When I was teaching, students would walk in late, it would disturb the entire class, the offending student would mutter "sorry" while looking at the floor, and we'd continue the lesson. Until one day, when I couldn't take it anymore and launched into a lesson about apologies, accountability and responsibility. Because to me, this kind of apology is useless. It isn't about apologizing for anything; it's about getting off the hook or out of trouble. The student who walks in late, apologizes to the entire class and me for disrupting the lesson and discussion, in my experience doesn't exist. Yes, the lame apology is common to children, teenagers and college students. And yes, I've been guilty of doing the same thing - especially in my teenager and college years. The other apology sin I committed often as a teenager? Saying sorry just to make the other person (my mother) shut up.

For years, while I was teaching and shortly after, I said often that I hated apologies, because they didn't do anything. People generally apologize when they find themselves in socially awkward situations. Or when they're actually being dismissive (ie "I'm sorry you feel that way."). 

Somewhere along the way, our apologies have lost the accountability that goes along with them.

And somewhere along the way I changed my mind about hating them. I instead regretted that more people don't find value in them.

Sunday night, in a comment string on Dominique Browning's blog Slow Love Life, a reader lashed out at another reader. The lashing reader then apologized and somewhere along the way, everyone participating in the comment string ended up apologizing whether they needed to or not. At one point, one reader, said to not apologize. He gave the example of his grandmother who wrote him a letter telling him to never apologize, because it makes you look weak.

My tendency is to suggest that this kind of belief is more generational and cultural than insensitive- especially at the time when most of our grandparents were living and/or young and it was socially weird and awkward to talk about emotions or one's personal experiences or engage in any kind of interaction that might be confrontational in any way at all.

I couldn't help myself. I had to throw in my two cents (surprise surprise). I said something along the lines of that I have far more respect for people who apologize. And I don't mean people who merely say or mumble an "I'm sorry" to get themselves off the hook or out of trouble or to make the other person shut up (my poor mother I know...), but when people are accountable for their actions and the impact of those actions, I have far more respect for them.

To me, an apology isn't about shame or regret or being wrong or at fault - even if you were in the wrong or at fault. It's about being responsible and accountable for your actions and the repercussions of those actions. Just because you're the one apologizing doesn't mean you're a bad person. Generally, (I'd like to think) people have good intentions, and there's nothing about an apology that negates those apologies. Personally, I admire people like Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson, who years later in his book, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam admitted that he was "wrong, terribly wrong" for his actions that contributed to and escalated the Vietnam War. It demonstrated a self-awareness and personal reflection that we rarely see in politics. It was refreshing. And it's human. And in some cases, an honest authentic apology can be profoundly healing for those wounded.

So with children? 

When I was questioned about not punishing my son or not giving him time-outs? I said, I think kids learn the most from their parents example. The person I was talking to said, "but that's unrealistic. It means parents have to be perfect all the time." 

But I don't think so. Because parents aren't perfect (though I hate this word and think we need to redefine it when it comes to the world of parenting and children). How better to show your child that it's okay to make mistakes, apologize and try again? Honestly, I'd be scared to death of the parent who never apologized to their child. How does that child learn empathy or accountability?

And on the playground? 

My son is 2 1/2. He's at the age that if he hurts someone, it's by accident. He's at the age that it's useless to demand he apologize without further explanation. So I replay the scene for him, that he was doing whatever he was doing, in doing so, he bumped or hurt someone by accident, but he should still say he was sorry even if it was an accident, because he needs to be responsible for his body. 

I don't ever want to simply demand he say he's sorry. I don't ever want him to say he's sorry to get out of an awkward situation or off the hook or to make someone else (his mother - me) shut up. But I do want him to be aware that his actions have repercussions, whether he thought them through or not. 

Because I think honest and real apologies are courageous.

Quitting: The Ideal Celebration of Mother's Day?

Throughout the week last week, I encountered a new high of articles and emails about what to get mom for Mother's Day or suggestions from other moms on how to celebrate it. Some were nauseating and completely off base if only because they were the usual marketing shenanigans - my personal favorite being the email I got from the Brooklyn Children's Museum offering that if I didn't know how to celebrate Mother's Day, I should bring my family to the Brazilian dance fest at 10:30 in the morning at the Children's Museum. Because clearly what mothers everywhere want is to get up early and drag their families to places where they will be surrounded by hundreds of other people's children throwing their bodies around.

The irony of course is that my active dancing toddler son loves a dance fest and probably would have had a blast at such an event. I just don't think moms on Mother's Day should be out of their pajamas at 10:30am. I actually think that moms should be in bed with a good book and a mimosa on Mother's Day, but that's just me.

The suggestion I thought about the most for Mother's Day came from Lisa Belkin, the New York Times author of Motherlode: Adventures in Parenting blog. Her piece, "Why Moms Should Quit" suggests that this year for Mother's Day, moms around the world should stand up at their dinner tables and give their notice and declare the end to their infinite list of family chores.

At first reading her piece, I was appalled - not by what she was saying, but that she had to say it.  I admit, I looked down on the women that would need to be told such a thing - and even, I'm sorry, but if you're a mom who does all the housework, seeping in resentment for your family - husband included - taking advantage of you, it's your own fault. And I only mean that you teach people how to treat you, so if you're raising your children to think you'll always be there to pick out their clothes and do their laundry, whose fault is it when they complain they have no clean clothes? Honestly, in this day and age? Are mothers really doing everything?

Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique in 1963. It is now 2011. Do we really need Belkin to write such a piece?

Given that her piece resulted in 73 comments, all of them fascinating in themselves as little microcosms of what people think the role of women and mothers should be, I quickly realized that yes, sadly, we do need Belkin to write such a piece.

Seriously. Read through the comments. When I did, I felt sad. It's like Betty Friedan and the Women's movement never existed. Or it did out in the world, but women forgot to bring it home, though you would think that while we were out bringing home the bacon, we'd stop to pick up a cleaning service on the way. And take out. Unless of course we had thought to marry someone who had already thought about and taken care of dinner.

And I realized what a gift I got from both my mom and step-mom, because I wasn't raised that women should do everything. Simply because women can't. Men can't either.

Which I think is why I find Belkin's piece so disturbing, that in almost fifty years after Friedan's wrote The Feminine Mystique our culture still links - without even thinking - motherhood to housework. That in our culture - and in many around the world - by definition, motherhood means laundry, making lunches, cleaning, scheduling play dates and all the rest. While the same culture expects rather little of fathers, as Michael Chabon points out in his book of essays, Manhood for Amateurs where he says that he just takes his kids to the store and strangers beam at him and tell him what a good father he is. The last time I took my son to the store and a stranger told me what a good mother I was? Never. But on the way to the store, when my son insisted on walking instead of sitting in his stroller, and I let him, and he then saw that he could climb an 18 inch high iron gate around a tree planted in the sidewalk, a stranger had no issue telling me I was the most irresponsible mother who ever lived, letting my child playing where clearly he could hurt himself or expose himself to germs she felt certain would cause the next bubonic plague. That my son is 2 1/2, as tall as kids a year older, has the physical strength and agility of some five year olds, and regularly climbs things far more daunting at the city's playgrounds was besides the point. But I digress.

Both my mom and step-mom worked. And in the case of my step-mom, she came home to four kids due to the combined nature of the family. Our parents raised us to be independent out of pure self-defense. I was eight, the oldest, while my brother, the youngest, was three when my dad and step-mom married. Nonetheless, Sunday evenings were spent with all of us at the dining room table making our week's worth of lunches that then went into the freezer with our initials marked in a sharpie on the outside of the plastic bags. When we were younger, my step-mom did the laundry, but we had to fold it, and it wasn't long before we did our own laundry. We even had our own sheets and towels, and it was our responsibility to keep them clean. We each got to pick out what we got to have for dinner, but that meant it was our night to help cook the meal. We had a rotating list of chores, whether it was cleaning the bathroom or sweeping the floors or washing windows or whatever.

My mom didn't have four kids in her combined household, still, by the time I was eight she had taught me basic cooking and baking skills - that didn't involve a box or mix. She had taught me basic chores at five. By the second grade, it was my responsibility to get myself to and from dance class (granted, that was the seventies - when kids could walk through neighborhoods without helicopter parent supervision).

It wasn't just about making the life of our parents easier. It was about raising us with the skills that we would need to be competent adults. It was about having pride in one's home. To me, this all seems common sense, so I am shocked when I talk to moms on the playground, when they say how their son loves to help them in the kitchen and they then shrug and say, "I guess he can help his wife make dinner."

Really? What about cooking for himself? Don't men need to eat before they get married, or do they just gain appetites after they say their vows? Is that the real reason receptions and buffets follow ceremonies?

I end up wondering if it would be rude of me to point out to the mom I am talking to that she is raising her son to be sexist. I don't actually point this out. I just say, "He'll have to cook for himself too..."


As a parent now, I see more than ever that catering to children doesn't teach them anything - that it actually only cripples them. I realized in reading Belkin's piece that I take this idea for granted. I have realized it before too, aside from playground interactions, when a friend complained about how much she hates making her kids' lunches. Her youngest was four. When I suggested that her kids were actually old enough to make their own lunches, with supervision of course, you would have thought I suggested she move to the moon. But why not include them? Why not teach them where lunches come from?

And given how many mothers do do everything and end up seeping with resentment, wouldn't it be better for one's entire family dynamic to from the get go just not do everything? I can't imagine it's much fun being a child or a spouse in a household where one parent is constantly bristling and resenting as s/he folds yet another pile of laundry. 

My son has recently taken over feeding the dog. If my husband and I try to do it, Fyo will throw a tantrum. If he spills the dog food, like he did yesterday, he declares that he needs the broom. He then sweeps the food up and dumps it in the dog bowl. He thinks it's a game, but when he's done he beams, "I did it!" When he plays in the back yard, he insists he needs plastic bags so he can clean up the dog poo. Obviously we supervise this activity as well as the hand washing that follows, but as a pregnant woman I'm happy to let him clean the yard. If he's thirsty, he goes to the fridge for his favorite green juice. When I pour it in the cup, he then puts it away. He helps me unload the dishwasher - every time he hands me a dish to put in the cupboard he says "thank you." When my brother was three, he too unloaded the dishwasher, and to accommodate him, my parents moved all the dishes down to the lower cupboards. We don't have the lower cupboard space to follow suit, but if we did, we would (except for my very favorite dishes). He loves our kitchen appliances as much as I do - he insists on grinding our morning coffee in the grinder and blending our morning breakfast smoothie. He loves to put the clothes and soap in the washer and then the wet clothes in the dryer. The only thing my son is lousy at in this regard is folding laundry. He thinks stacks of folded clean clothes are like blocks and meant to be knocked over.

But so far, I don't think I'll need to be a mom who quits.  Because I'm not a mom who feels she needs to do everything, and as a wife, I'm blessed with a husband who does a lot around the house. I'm blessed that we got married in our thirties - and that my husband spent a considerable number of years living alone and knows that he prefers a picked up house and well-prepared food - and that he thinks the investment in household help is a wise one. We each have things we'd rather do than wash floors (and yes, I realize that household help to many is a luxury).

In our house, we say often that things have to work for everyone. Everyone gets their needs met, but everyone contributes.

For Mother's Day, my husband did make me brunch, he did bring me flowers and he did give me a thoughtful gift of a vintage gorgeous nightgown. Sadly, he had to spend the afternoon away at a course he is taking, but I still have a rain check for what I really did want for Mother's day - a day spent alone in bed, with neither husband nor child, reading a book and drinking (decaf) coffee in my pajamas. It's the one indulgence I'm craving before second child arrives on the scene. Funny - none of the emails or things I read in anticipation of Mother's Day mentioned what I think most mother's want, aside from acknowledgement - and that is just a bit of quiet.

Amoskeag

I had an essay recently published in Amoskeag, and this week, my contributor copies came in the mail. Thankfully, I got two of them, because Fyo quickly declared one of them his. I admit, I had never heard of Amoskeag  - I just had a list of places to submit and I went through it alphabetically. When they accepted my essay, I then looked them up wondering if I had just been accepted into some undergraduate journal (I have a bad habit of quickly being suspicious of good news - must rewire this part of my brain immediately). Turns out I'm in the same journal as Donald Hall. That rocks.

You can read the journal and my piece here.

(Just for the record, while Fyo, above, read "his" upside down, I read mine right side up.)

Reading: My Favorites on the Parenting Nightstand

 Part of my pregnancy nesting habits includes doing vast amounts of research. Truth be told, I can't even really blame this on pregnancy. I just am one of those people who leaves the library with a dozen books at a time and researches everything. But in pregnancy and motherhood, my research and reading habits hit a new high. Partly because my husband and I had vastly different experiences in our childhoods (i.e. His parents never talked about sex. They popped a Focus on the Family tape into the car tape deck and considered their job done. My parents, on the other hand, talked about sex, religion and politics so often at the dinner table, we habitually had friends over as dinner guests so they could get the scoop on what no one else was talking about.) and partly because we're the types of people who spend a lot of time, thought, and energy on creating what experience we want, it made sense to make a list of the qualities we wanted in our parenting experience (mainly fun, play, and respect for every family member, not just the parents) and then explore the options.  Now that I'm pregnant again, I'm revisiting my favorites.

Also, I was one of those kids who wrote in her journal incessantly, particularly when I was angry at my parents. Consequently, I have a series of journal entries throughout my childhood entitled, "Things I SWEAR I WILL NEVER do to my own children." You might say I had a promise to my younger self to keep. Not that my parents didn't have a lot of good ideas or things they did that worked. They did. 

But there were also a lot rules that didn't make sense, a lot of times I got in trouble without understanding why or what I was supposed to do to behave, or a lot of times I was accused of being manipulative when I was just asking for what I needed or was just doing what kids do,  and there were a lot of things that didn't work. At the time it felt unfair - that instead of being the given the tools to succeed, I was constantly getting in trouble or being accused of being difficult. Now as an adult, I can see the greatest thing about my own childhood is that it is a gift, in that because I don't revere the way I was raised, I essentially have a blank slate to work with in creating what kind of parent I want to be.

So I did - and do - a lot of reading. When I was recently asked for my reading list and I looked over the list of the books I had read, I got nervous. I was worried I would look neurotic. Then I realized I was neurotic and made my peace with it, and then just picked out the books I refer to the most and wish everyone had at their disposal. Granted, the ridiculous thing is that my guiding principle in child-rearing? I treat my child the way I want to be treated - with compassion and respect. Pretty simple really. Nonetheless, I have found the following immensely helpful and know that my good friends have to - as I've often followed their suggestions. And of course, if there are others please let me know! (I'm currently waiting for Alfie Kohn's Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason from the library. I can't wait!)

Parenting for a Peaceful World by Robin Grille

                        I think everyone should read this book – it’s by far my most favorite book and Grille is my personal hero. He goes into parenting practices of the past and explains the evolution of how one generation improves upon the other, and he does so in a way that is compassionate without placing blame on previous generations for child rearing ideas that now would be considered abusive or just plain whacko. He also links shifts in parenting to shifts in philosophy and world events (ie why the Holocaust started in Germany, not France or England). It's absolutely fascinating and eye opening. This is the book I cite when I get lectured on why I should teach my child to obey (because when the Nazis come to town, I want my kid to be the one speaking up, not following orders.)

            You Are Your Child’s First Teacher: What Parents Can Do With and For Their Children From Birth to Age Six by Rahima Baldwin

            I read this book when my son was two, and it’s the one book I wished I had read before he was born, if only because of her insistence that you trust your instincts and your connection to your child. It’s a fantastic reminder to just relax and BE with your child – rather than rushing them off to some overpriced nonsense that advertises to increase your child’s aptitude for music, math and the arts and have them reading by the time they are done with diapers.

            Bright From the Start by Jill Stamm

                        I’m not one of those moms who wants her children reading by the time they turn three or is especially focused on future academic achievement. Mostly, I want to encourage my child’s natural curiosity and creativity, and Stamm offers the tools for this while also explaining developmentally what’s happening in the baby’s world. I find the more I understand the developmental phases, the easier it is to not take some of the difficult moments personally, since I know that whatever my child is doing is exactly the appropriate thing for him to be doing.

            The Philosophical Baby by Alison Gopnik

                        I’ve long been a fan of Gopnik’s brother Adam and his New Yorker articles, but after this book by Alison Gopnik, I’d honestly do anything to be a guest or a fly on the wall at a Gopnik family Thanksgiving. Gopnik illustrates that babies are more conscious than we think they are, and even more conscious than adults are. They are busy little scientists and explorers, and while I was always in awe of my child, this book left me even more so – and just marveling at my son’s mind and in profound respect for his process.

            NurtureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

                        Not necessarily a book that needs to be read before the arrival of baby, but definitely by the time a child enters pre-school. My husband teases me how I have my instincts about things, do a bunch of research until I find the people that agree with me, and then armed with their book in hand, I feel empowered enough to talk back to the people that suggest I’m off my rocker (my grandmother, an in-law or two or forty, etc). This is why I love Bronson and Merryman: they did all the research that I didn’t have to to know I’m making the right choices for my son (and baby to be). I have a huge pet peeve when adults accuse children, toddlers and even babies (!) of being manipulative or lying, (especially when kids are actually just asking to have their basic needs met), now I can confidently talk back and point out that they probably are – because they learned it from their parents. They also deal with why praising backfires, and why the evaluations for giftedness are actually off.                        

            The Aware Baby by Aletha Solter

                        Awesome. Essentially a great book for how to raise children that are valued and respected, rather than controlled (ie finishing their meal for approval’s sake rather than satisfying their own appetite, doing homework to avoid getting in trouble rather than for their own pride in their work and love of learning, etc.)

            The Politics of Breastfeeding by Gabrielle Palmer

                        I love this book even as Palmer gets on my nerves. She’s done an amazing amount of research and raises some really good points, mostly in pointing out why we in Western or more Industrialized countries have more issues with breastfeeding and it’s mostly because of the assumption that breastfeeding is time consuming and difficult and an inconvenience – an assumption that derives largely from advertisements from formula companies but now pervades society at large (as evidenced by the low rates of breastfeeding).

            Palmer gets on my nerves only because she comes across as rather positional, and I have a hard time with it, even as I know formula companies have pulled some pretty evil stunts around the world and gotten away with it. Still, it’s a book I think all mothers, OB-GYNs, mothers, midwives, lactation consultants should read, if only to begin to get that to some degree the hardships new mothers face in breastfeeding are largely society’s psychosomatic disorder (not that actual issues don’t exist, but I continually found it fascinating that traditional societies have a fraction of our “common” issues.)

            I Was A Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids: Reinventing Modern Motherhood by Trisha Ashworth

                        Necessary for every mother at whatever stage she’s in. It should automatically show up on baby registries for new parents or be handed out at birth. Moms/women end up on the receiving end of so much pressure and expectations from all directions, and Ashworth – while not offering her own stance of how we should raise our kids – deals with the pressure and expectations. It’s a refreshing read – one you want handy when you’re feeling overwhelmed, behind on laundry and maybe feeling guilty for ordering take-out again. Also for the valuable reminder: if you want to be a good nurturer for your bundle of joy, you have to nurture yourself first. (Because it's no fun being a martyr or having one as a parent (or in a marriage)).

           

            The Baby Book: Everything you need to know about your baby from birth to age 2 by Dr. William Sears and Martha Sears, RN.

            Necessary in life. A resource for everything. Also good for the very wise advice that should be stamped on bumper stickers all over the world: If you resent it, change it.

            Positive Discipline by Jane Nelson (She has a whole series – for toddlers, the first three years, for pre-schoolers, teenagers, etc. She has yet to write one for family members, in-laws or grandparents though I wish she would because I could certainly use it.)

                        I’m reading this now as my son hits some of those tantrums that I know are largely because he feels disconnected or tired, but I don’t know what to do in the moment (you know those ones? “I want this. (flail) I don’t want this. (flail) I want this."  etc) and Nelson has gotten us through and reaffirmed my husband’s and my choice to not “punish” our child or even give him a time out (though I had also read the research on how ineffective time outs are – and Nelson essentially explains why with reason, not with the statistics I had read earlier.) I don’t agree with everything she says (I think her perspective on breastfeeding is weird as are her ideas that a 4 month old can be spoiled or manipulative (see above), but overall, she’s got some good ideas. As always, take what works, chuck the rest.