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I said (because you know I commented) that in my experience, advice from parents who were a generation or two out of date was far more dangerous than from people who weren't parents at all, like, say, my sister, who knows my husband, son and I inside and out, has the same values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.

What is Justice?

If I was still teaching, this - and yesterday - would be one of those days when the planned topic and lesson would be tossed out the window, and we would instead talk about current events, but within a particular framework of course. I'd probably start by asking about justice, if only because since the news of Osama Bin Laden's death broke, it's been a term that has been thrown around amidst much celebration and flag waving. Yay for us Americans! We got him! (wave flag) Justice has been served! Go team!

And I'd ask students to write on the notion of justice, even while knowing it in itself justice is a word that upper level philosophy classes and seminars focus on as well as law school classes. It's a question that could start many a research paper, and I imagine if I was still teaching composition, I'd receive a whole lot of papers on justice and the death of Osama Bin Laden. I might even be tempted to write one.

If only so I could begin to reconcile the questions it has me go back and grapple with - what is justice? Has it been served? And if yes, now what? And what difference does the serving of justice make in this case? Wikipedia explains that understandings of justice differ in each culture, as cultures are dependent on a shared history and mythology and/or religion. And it goes on to say, that each culture's ethics create values which influence the notion of justice.

But I have to wonder - especially after yesterday - if we don't have some expectations linked to the notion of justice. I think of one of the last scenes of Sister Helen Prejean's Dead Man Walking. In the film based on the book, as Matthew Poncelet is executed, he tells the victim's parents that he hopes his death brings them peace. In the last scene of the film, as Prejean visits the victim's father, the father confesses that his death did not bring him peace - that he feels just as empty after the loss of his daughter.

Monday morning, my family woke up to the news reports of Bin Laden's death and the celebrations at Ground Zero, where people were cheering and popping champagne. A glance on facebook was the Internet equivalent - there was much God Bless America and our troops and thank God he's dead brouhaha. I found it sickening. It made my skin crawl. I felt like I do when I watch movies like Dead Man Walking where I see someone put to death. And of course, like everyone writing these kind of statements, I have to say that I didn't like the man, and obviously - even though assassinating him has questionable legal issues - killing him was the preferred way of capturing him - if only, as the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin points out in "Killing Osama: Was it Legal?" what were we going to do, put him on trial? With who representing him? And who would? Let him represent himself? And how much would that cost in the security it would require?

No. I have no issue with his death, and even if the killing of him was illegal, it may be one of those necessary evils like so much within the operating of a military is.

It's the champagne popping. It's the celebrations. The skyrocketing of American flag sales at Ground Zero. The shouts of "justice was served" across the land that made my stomach ill, my skin crawling with unease and my heart wishing that I was once again an expat - and preferably an expat in France where in a pinch I can pass as a native.

I'm an NPR addict and can listen to the radio all day. I check facebook all day via the iPhone. But yesterday was a day that I had to turn the radio off, get my son and I out of the house for an all day excursion away from our beloved technology. At ten am EST, the shouts of "Justice was served" were slipping into propaganda, which especially makes me ill, and I didn't feel comfortable saying, Isn't it kind of twisted to rejoice over someone's death, even the death of an enemy? It was my own cowardice that sent me out of the house, I admit. I was too much of a chicken to be the one in the town square to stand up for the human dignity of the executed to be respected - or to be the first one on facebook to admit I wasn't celebrating. And if I had, I would have taken the easier route - of asking is this really what I want to teach my son? That this is how we end the show - by singing, Ding Dong the witch is dead? When someone hurts you, you shouldn't rest until he's dead?

In my own personal failings, I'm working on gaining the confidence to speak when my gut instincts are itching - and not like I did yesterday in the safe company of my husband and sister who happened to agree with me. By the time I went back to the Internet in the late afternoon, I sighed relief as I saw facebook posts, New Yorker blog posts and other parenting articles that felt what I did.

And this morning it seems the pendulum has swung the opposite way, that instead of champagne popping, people are now sharing a reluctance to partake of celebrations, with a lone voice or two saying, "But justice was served."

Yeah, so it was - as much as it could be, even as it is a necessary act for the overall good in the long term. But don't we have unrealistic expectations of justice? I mean, really, what is different about our lives now than two days ago?

Are we safer? No. Can we now meet people at the gate at the airport? No. Can we now say the military has been so effective it's made itself obsolete and we can now put those funds into education? No. Does it change that since 9/11 we've lost tens of thousands of lives? No. Or the ones that have fought and survived come home with such severe PTSD and depression they have a 50% chance of dying at home but by their own hand? No. Or that we've invaded two countries and left them no closer to safety or stability in terms of their government? 

And is this what I'm supposed to tell my son when that 4 year old brat bully on the playground gets punched by a bigger kid, that justice was served? Or that he should deal with problem kids the way the government deals with its enemies? By engaging in assassinations that technically are illegal, but that Bush said were legal when it came to Bin Laden? 

After yesterday, I'm starting to realize that "justice" is as much a created myth as "truth."  So justice was served and Bin Laden is dead. But what again does "justice was served" mean? The Old Testament "eye for an eye"?

In the end last night, we turned the news off again. It was all more of the same, so that Husband finally asked, "What were they going to talk about today?" Husband got a new guitar that he doesn't actually know how to play. But Fyo and I watched him as he practiced in the living room, which took on the look of a coffeehouse. 

By the time he was done, he had worked out the first few chords of "Chariots of Fire" and Corey Hart's "I Wear My Sunglasses at Night." Fyo and I played photo booth with the iPhone.

In the years to come, I imagine this week's death of Bin Laden will take on the significance of the Rosenberg Trials or Germany's Nuremberg's trials, and that it will be an event talked and written about at length, that Obama will get credit for it, much like Reagan got credit for the fall of the Berlin Wall and Communism. Obama may even get re-elected in its afterglow.

And if I was teaching this week, I don't know how I'd wrap up the class, or answer the meaning of serving justice. Only that it's something we do and that the notion of fairness is something wired into our brains. And even as I can see its necessity, it doesn't make me feel good. Or safer.