What "Having It All" looks like in my life

In keeping with the theme of this month's Feminist Odyssey Carnival, today I am writing about what "Having It All" looks like in my life. I approach the concept of Having It All from my particular set of circumstances, which include the facts that (a) I work outside the home as the primary income earner in my family (I am not in a formal leadership position but am respected as a technical expert in my field), (b) I have a rather crunchy, AP-ish style of parenting, and (c) my husband and I do not have a local “village” of support. I would expect Having It All to look fairly different for a woman with different circumstances.

Given all that, this is what Having It All looks like in my life:

• I am immersed in an imaginative world almost every day, if even for a short while. Sometimes I get to play the role of a dinosaur. Sometimes I get to play the role of a superhero. Sometimes I get to play the role of a train, horse, fairy or any other number of characters my preschooler can dream up.
• I spend a good portion of my days surrounded by really smart, motivated people that, like me, believe in public service and sustainable resource management.
• I get to exchange hugs and kisses with two sweet little schmoos every day.
• I get to nerd out to my heart’s content, studying data and figuring out how to better answer questions and solve problems.
• I get to be as silly as I can and make up songs with the word “poo-poo” in them (yeah, I’m juvenile like that).
• Several times each year, I get to present information to representatives from 7 states and numerous local and regional agencies. It instills a sense of pride to have my organization’s confidence to present high level, high stakes issues to key stakeholders.
• I am challenged to be creative with food in a way I never thought I would be.
• I derive the personal and professional satisfaction of being respected as a technical expert in my field.

Most of the time, Having It All looks and feels pretty great. I am incredibly privileged and my life is full to bursting with laughter and love and pride and accomplishment. Sometimes it looks and feels like complete chaos, but I love that there is seldom a dull moment. That does not mean that it is not hard, or overwhelming or heartbreaking sometimes. This is also what Having It All looks like in my life:

• My house is a mess. Always. Even when it’s clean there are piles of clutter everywhere, and I simply do not have the time and energy to change the average state of chaos.
• Sometimes, my last view of home when I back my car out of the driveway in the morning is my baby crying and reaching for me, trying to swim out of his father’s arms because only mommy will do at that moment in time.
• Sometimes I have to turn down good opportunities for interesting projects that would lead to better exposure and relationships with my organization’s stakeholders – which could lead to better advancement potential - because they involve overnight travel; and with a breastfeeding baby that still wakes multiple times per night and spends a good portion of the night by my side, overnight travel just doesn’t fit into my life right now. (Night weaning, I have my eye on you, but I'm not quite ready yet)
• I have heard my preschooler tell me “I don’t love you when you leave”. I know that kids his age can mix up words like “like” and “love”, and that he really means “I don’t like it when you leave”, but still, ouch.
• When my group manager retires next year, I will probably not be in the running for his replacement. I will likely stand by and watch my (equally talented and deserving) childless male coworker apply for and get the promotion, because I will not be willing to take on the additional hours or travel requirements at that time. It will be a bitter pill to swallow because I do have ambition, but I will have to maintain hope that there will be other opportunities for me at a later date, that my time will come when my children’s need for my presence isn’t so great.

Having it all does not mean having perfection (as if there were such a thing outside of fairy tales and click-bait mommy-war articles). There are always trade-offs and choices to be made. I make the choices that I think work best for my circumstances and my family, knowing fully well that other women might make different choices and would judge me for my choices.  And that is ok with me. Just as there is no single monolithic Woman, there is no single set of life choices that represent Every Woman's personal priorities. 

And really, most of the time I am simply too busy, distracted, or exhausted to care. 

Fighting the Preschool Gender Police

Good Heavens, the gender policing starts early! What kills me is the extent to which it is done by the kids themselves - and I'm talking about preschoolers here. SchmoopyBoy was once told by one of the little girls in his class that he could play with her and another girl later but now they were doing "girl stuff". Another time a little boy told my husband, as he applied sunscreen to SchmoopyBoy's face, that he shouldn't use that sunscreen, that it was for girls, because there was a picture of a sun on the container that looked feminine to him. The last straw came one day when I was picking up SchmoopyBoy from school, and he wanted a story before we left. I started to read an I Spy book from the class collection. One of the little girls joined us. On one page the book read "I spy ballet slippers" and as we scanned the page for the ballet slippers the little girl said "That is for girls."

I could not let that go. I had to correct her. "Actually, boys dance ballet too. They wear different shoes than girls, but ballet is for both girls and boys."

The next time I came to pick SchmoopyBoy up, I made a point of bringing in a picture of myself and a male dancer from back in my younger ballet dancing days. I searched out the girl and showed her that there was both a girl and a boy ballet dancer, but they were wearing different ballet slippers. Needless to say, once it got out that I had a picture of ballet dancers, everybody in the class wanted to see it - both the girls and the boys. So all the kids in the class got a lesson that day.

The teacher was thrilled. I had spoken with her before about my concerns about how gender was or was not presented and enforced in the class. I do believe we are on the same page, but the children bring the ideas to class that they have learned at home. When she hears something like what I described above, she addresses it, but she can't always hear everything. She mentioned she would love to have pictures of girls and boys doing things associated primarily with one or the other gender, similar to the photo I brought in, so I volunteered to provide her with some. I sent her:

pictures of male and female ballet dancers,

pictures of a princess and a prince,

pictures of male and female doctors,

pictures of male and female astronauts,

pictures of male and female teachers, and

pictures of male and female police officers.

She sent me a note of appreciation:
I appreciate your taking time to find the pictures for me. As teachers, we have many ideas we would like to do but don't have the time. We can use the pictures in many different ways. Thank you for also finding not just male/female pictures but also pictures that had people of different ethnicities and ages.

Yes, the different ethnicities, that too was no accident. All children, be they male or female, regardless of their heritage, should be able to see representations of themselves. I think it is important for children to be told "You can be anything you want when you grown up" and also see examples of people who look like them who have accomplished their goals - to perhaps see a future version of themselves in these representations.

I would like to think that I have helped plant a seed of thought in that little girl, and possibly other kids in the class. They responded so positively to the one ballet picture I brought in. I don't know how the teacher is using the other pictures I sent her. Hopefully the children will respond positively when they see those pictures as well.

The Love and Joy of All My Babies

I recently discovered a 1952 nonfiction film called All My Babies: A Midwife's Own Story. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, I really loved this film. It is a beautiful, touching, and instructive view into what it was like for black women in rural Georgia to birth their babies in the early 1950s. Less than an hour long, it was sponsored by the Georgia Department of Public Health and, according to the synopsis,

shows the preparation for and home delivery of healthy babies in both relatively good and bad rural conditions among black families at that time. The film is in addition both a deeply respectful portrait of "Miss Mary" (the featured midwife) who is revealed as an inspiring human being and a record of the actual living conditions of her patients.

There is so much love and so much joy in this film! And the one live birth that is captured on film – so peaceful, so beautiful. This mother is a woman of relatively good socio-economic status, as evidenced by her modern home, new shoes, and live-in housekeeper. She has successfully birthed two children already, and she is confident, calm, and quiet during her labor and delivery. Such an inspiring birth to watch. (I birthed my children in a hospital with a doctor, a choice I have no regrets about making. I chose to forego any pain medication and birth my babies as naturally as possible, and I can tell you I was not nearly so calm or quiet during either of my births as this mother was – not by a long shot.)

There is some fear and grief depicted. The other mother lives in very poor conditions and has little emotional or physical support. This is her second pregnancy – the first resulted in a stillbirth, and it is apparent that neither she nor her husband have recovered from the devastating loss. This mother has no confidence – she cannot get motivated to eat properly or start collecting the items she will need for the birth and the baby – she assumes this baby will also die. The baby is born premature, but healthy. It is a relief to see this mother four months postpardum looking healthy and stable, coming into her own as a mother. The baby is thriving and the father is so delighted with his young son he can hardly stand it. Although this father presents an unsympathetic character earlier in the film, with his anxiety and apparent lack of support for his wife, he expresses so much joy for his baby.

Which brings me to the portrayal of men in this film. Men are absent from much of the footage, but they are present in the background. There is the white male doctor at the clinic that the midwife takes her clients to see (this is 1952, let’s not forget). Then there are the fathers – waiting outside while their wives labor in their bedrooms, taking care of older children or chopping wood to keep the fire going so that water can be heated and instruments can be sanitized. In this world, although they certainly share in the joy of their new babies, the men have a supportive role. This is ultimately a film for and about women. Women birthing babies. Women attending to them. Strong women. Capable women. Loving women. Supportive women. Joyful women.

In a film like this, race must also be mentioned. This film specifically shows black midwives attending to the home births of black women. There is no indication that white women in the same area during the same time period gave birth in similar circumstances (at home, attended by a midwife). Also, the two white people in the film – the white male doctor and his white female assistant at the health department clinic – are people with obvious power and status. The white female assistant instructs the pregnant women on nutrition, and helps deliver and set up the incubator in the poor household in which the premature baby is born. It is clear that these two individuals have social status and power, and while relations between them and the midwives and families are polite and professional, there is a palpable dynamic between them.

You can watch All My Babies at SnagFilms.com. If you want to learn something about natural childbirth, learn about birthing practices in a particular time and place (this film was selected in 2002 by the Librarian of Congress as a "culturally historically and artistically significant work" for permanent preservation in the National Film Registry) or just see an inspiring, beautiful film celebrating love, joy, midwifery, and babies, I highly recommend you go check it out.

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This post was submitted as an entry in the Feminist Odyssey Blog Carnival. You can find links to the other entries here. Check it out!

Defining Womanhood

Be honest: are you consciously writing your own definition for womanhood, or are you using a definition that was written for you? And what tangible item most defines what you do or don’t want to become? ~Melissa Ford

This post has taken me over a week to finish because, you know, time and sleep-deprivation-induced brain power are limited these days, but nonetheless I thought it was still worth posting once I finally completed it.

Mel at Stirrup Queens wrote this fantastic article about who defines womanhood in the context of reviewing the movie The Iron Lady. The Iron Lady is about Margaret Thatcher (hmm, this is the second time Margaret Thatcher has come up in a post that fascinated me in a week, is the universe trying to tell me something?)

A few paragraphs worth quoting:

At its heart, the movie is dually about men’s inability to separate women from the adjectives they use to describe women, and the fact that WOMEN can’t separate themselves from the adjectives others use to describe women. That we allow others to define what it means to be a woman, and we go by a long-established, patriarchal definition for womanhood. Yes, we are sometimes conscious of that fact and rail against it, but just as often, men still have expectations and assumptions (popular ones: all women want children, women want to get married, women know nothing about sports) that they then tweak when they get to know the actual person, and women question themselves (even if it’s just in passing) if they don’t fit into these preconceived notions about women.

Furthermore,

...all will walk out of theater wondering if... we are allowing the traditional definition of womanhood to guide our decisions, or if we are eschewing the expectations the world has for women and making our own choices. Are we marrying because we want to or because it’s the next logical step? Same with family building? Same with career choices? Margaret Thatcher is just the receptacle for holding all these enormous ideas.

And moreover, when we write the definition for ourselves and state emphatically in our hearts what we do or don’t want to become, are we staying strong and following our dreams, or are we being sidetracked by self-doubt when others voice their opinions on our choices? How can we tune out the judgment; which when we boil down judgment to its essence is simply other people trying to define our lives for us, to write the dictionary of our selves.

I am a mother. Furthermore, I am a crunchy, attachment-parenting-leaning type mother. I am also the primary income earner in my family, and I work in a male dominated field. As such, I am constantly negotiating and renegotiating gender roles and expectations. My own expectations, my parter's expectations, my co-workers expectations, even my own mother's expectations. These expectations are based on traditional definitions of womanhood and the role of women in the domestic sphere.

My negotiations have not always been pretty. What I'm about to admit will probably piss off everyone - stay-at-home moms and hard core feminists equally. But, it does illustrate the conflict I've struggled with along my journey.

When I was pregnant with SchmoopyBoy, my mother told me with great certainty that I would be quitting my job to stay at home with my child because I "wouldn't want some stranger" to raise my child. Of course the idea that my husband, my child's other parent could possibly stay at home wasn't an option even considered because of her preconceived notions of the male gender role as bread-winners and bumbling incompetents with babies. At the time, rather than engage her in dialogue, I reacted angrily and sputtered that there was no way I was going to give up my education and career to be "some man's scullery maid". Yep, that's right people. Not my proudest moment. How many -isms are implied in that statement? I don't even want to go there now. I am so ashamed I ever used that comparison.

My world got turned upside down once SchmoopyBoy was born. I cried every day for two weeks before my maternity leave ended and it was time to leave my baby and return to the office. Once I returned to work, I judged SchmoopyBoy's development. Every time I observed something that didn't meet with my pre-determined (and completely cluelessly unrealistic) expectations, I blamed my husband. Clearly, I thought, if I were the one at home full time everything about my child would be perfectly in tune with what the books said should happen. After all, I am the mother, no one could possibly know how to do things better than me. When SchmoopyBoy's sleep habits fell apart at about 4 months of age (which is completely normal and common by the way - they don't call it the 4-month wakeful period/ 4-month sleep regression for nothing) I once angrily blurted out "Why don't you be a real man and get a real job so I can stay with him". Yep, that's right people. Another not-so-proud moment.

Traditional definition of (white middle class) womanhood - FAIL.

Feminist definition of (white middle class) womanhood - FAIL.

When it comes to black and white definitions of womanhood, I fail. I end up bouncing back and forth between extremes like a ping pong ball being swatted across a table in a game of Gender Role Dichotomy Table Tennis. I cannot and would not be willing to live like a 1950's housewife, taking 100% of the child care responsibilities and cleaning up after my husband as he lazily sips a frosty beverage at the end of his oh-so-hard-boo-hoo-for-you day. Nor can I be a female version of a 1950's father going off to work and coming home expecting my house to be neat and dinner prepared by my husband who would then of course taken on the role of 1950's househusband. While I do think that redefining manhood is a necessary component in redefining womanhood, trading traditional gender roles is not redefining womanhood or manhood, and is not my idea of what feminism is about.

Defining womanhood for me has involved embracing a traditional definition as nurturing mother, because to some extent I find that role with my children to be very natural. But it also has embraced non-traditional definitions because I find that I am indeed ambitious when it comes to my career, and I find tremendous satisfaction and experience greater mental health and self worth in the professional realm. I do struggle with balancing the domestic and professional aspects of my life, and frequently beat myself up for not performing either role to the best extent that I believe I can and should, but finding balance in life is rarely easy for anyone. So, to answer Mel's question, which I printed at the top of this post, I am creating a definition of womanhood that draws from definitions that have been previously written. That definition continues to evolve as I travel this life's journey.

Things I’ll have to explain to my child one day

what happened on September 11, 2001

who was Osama Bin Laden

what is a nuclear bomb

what is nuclear radiation and what are the dangers of nuclear power plants

what is global climate change and how have we contributed to it

what is/was peak oil and how will/has it changed the world as we know/knew it

what was the Holocaust

who was Hitler

what is slavery and why does it exist today more than ever before in human history

who would celebrate his death because he “has Jewish blood”

who would celebrate his death because he “has Muslim blood”

who would celebrate his death because he “has Christian blood”

who would celebrate his death because he “has Atheist blood”.

At the present time, his family and day-to-day activities are the world he lives in. How long will he live in this bubble of love, protection, and privilege? How do I teach him to navigate a chaotic, violent world and find hope, joy, and peace along his journey?

The Julie Project - musings on infertility, humanity, love and perfection

I discovered the Julie Project early this week from Blue Milk, and it's been haunting me ever since, so I thought I should take some time to put some of my thoughts onto paper, if nothing else then to at least help purge my mind from all the levels of disturbing that have been tossing around.

The Julie Project is a documentary photo essay created by Darcy Padilla, winner of the W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography, which tracks the life of Julie Baird over almost two decades. It is the story of brutal, inescapable poverty, surviving childhood sexual abuse, drug addiction, AIDS, motherhood, and loss. Blue Milk's description of the series as "utterly compelling but completely devastating" is right on target.

There have been a couple of persistent themes running my head. On one hand, I was interested in perspectives of the story through the eyes of women in the ALi (adoption, loss, infertility) community, and how socio-economic privilege might frame one's perceptive of the story. I was also interested in examining what this story can teach us about humanity, perfection (or lack thereof), and love.

First I want to think about some (but certainly not all) perspectives that might be considered in the context of the ALi community. The pain of a woman struggling with infertility can be overwhelming. The anguish can lead to some women questioning the universe. I once read on a woman's blog - such and such woman doesn't even intend to try breastfeeding and is already talking about the daycare she is going to put her child in, why is she pregnant and I am not (implying that she clearly thinks she would be a superior - breastfeeding, stay-at-home - mother and is therefore more deserving of getting pregnant). I have read numerous accounts of people crying about the unfairness that women who lack one (perceivably desirable) quality or possess another (perceivably undesirable) quality have children so easily, when they, who do not possess said undesirable quality or do possess said desirable quality cannot easily bear a biological child. What, I wonder, would these women say about a sometimes homeless drug addict birthing six children, five of which were taken by the state and given for adoption.

But it is so easy to reduce someone to "a sometimes homeless drug addict". By reducing Julie as such, she is dehumanized, and if the Julie Project does nothing else, it forces us to see her humanity. And let us discuss for a moment, this concept of fairness. Is it fair that Julie was born to an alcoholic mother? Is it fair that she was raped repeatedly as a child by her stepfather? Is it fair that by the age of 14, a life as a runaway on the streets was preferable to life at home? When one has the privilege of being what society generally considers to be the "right" kind of woman to be a mother, it is so easy to point fingers at the "wrong" type of woman. These types of judgements are by no means limited to women struggling with fertility. Certainly these types of judgements are used constantly by policy makers, with the implicit approval of their constituencies, to justify such actions as the elimination of a variety of social programs that target marginalized groups for being the "wrong" type of woman.

Back to an ALi perspective, I now want to consider those who have been on the opposite end of the same line as Julie. I am speaking of those who have become mothers via adoption through a foster-to-adopt program. Many of these women are all too aware that they have gained their parenthood only though someone else's loss. Their children may or may not still bear the physical or emotional scars of the circumstances of their births.

It is interesting to consider Julie's children and their adoptive parents. The mother of Julie's fifth child, Jason Jr./Zach, contacted Julie and openly and explicitly tried to include her in her son's life. This child had been taken away from Julie at birth - she had never seen him. Nonetheless, Zach's mother taught him that his birth mother was special. Julie had given him life and for that he should feel love and gratitude towards her, despite her inability to care for him.

I found it fascinating that, upon receiving the initial letter of contact, Julie's response was "I didn't expect this, I expected it was Rachael," Julie's firstborn, who had been with her the longest of any of her children. Rachael had spent the first several years of her life with her birth mother in excruciating poverty, moving from home to flea-infested home, surrounded by drug abuse. She was present, although sleeping, when her 15 month old brother was beaten so badly by Julie's current partner (Julie was at the hospital at the time) both children were taken by the police, placed into foster care and later adopted. Julie thought Rachael would want to contact her. I wonder if Rachael would have any interest. What might Rachael feel towards Julie? Resentment and hatred? Love and longing? Who knows if she would ever want to revisit her difficult beginnings? Would she ever want to look backwards to where she came from, or would she be happy to leave any dark memories of deprivation and loss behind and look only to the future, more bright than any Julie could provide?

This thought, in my mind, brings me back in full circle to Julie's essential humanity. I am reminded of a particularly powerful sermon I once heard. The theme - perfection and love. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be perfect in order to love others. You don't have to be perfect in order to be loved by others. I think of the people who loved Julie. The biological father in Alaska - who never forgot her - who tattooed her name on his arm when Julie's 17-year old mother took her and ran off to San Francisco - who spent the next 31 years searching for her. Jack, the man who gave her AIDS and fathered her first child - who gladly took her back after she first left him when their child was a few months old to get away from his drug use - who embraced her second child as he did his own biological child - who, after she left him again for the man who beat her child and caused both children to be taken into custody, when dying of AIDS in a public hospice, had a last wish only that Julie, the love of his life, be by his side. Jason, the father of her last four children - who stood by her side when three of those children were taken away at birth - who stood by her side all the way up to Alaska so that Julie could be reunited with her father - who nursed her day and night when she lay dying of AIDS. Julie may not have been perfect. But she was undeniably human. And you don't need to be perfect to be loved.

One last thing I want to talk about is Julie's motherhood - the transformative potential motherhood had on her. When Darcy first met and started photographing Julie, she and Jack both said "Rachael has given us a reason to live". In fact, this is why Julie first left Jack within a year of Rachael's birth. He was abusive and did not want to stop using drugs. She was trying to stay clean because she did not want to lose this baby. The story starts with hope and optimism. Would this 19 year old young woman be able to transform her life? Could she overcome her own past, filled with addiction and abuse in her own upbringing to become the mother she wanted to be? Could she escape her own drug abuse, homelessness, and poverty? On her own with no education, no family, no resources, neither boots nor bootstraps, the poverty proved to be unrelenting and inescapable.

This is one of the tragedies of Julie's story, and a tragedy of our society.

Darcy Padilla said, when asked why she took on this project:

"I guess what motivated me was this question that I kept thinking about all those years: How does a child born into this world like every other child, get to be Julie Baird?... Julie was witty and smart, and she might have grown up to be a teacher. But her mother was an alcoholic and her stepfather abused her, and she ended up on the streets at age 14."

So when I hear about how House Republicans are trying to cut down on violence prevention by defunding programs such as the Violence Against Women Health Initiative (which funds ongoing work to improve health care providers' response to domestic and sexual violence), the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (which funds domestic violence shelters and the National Hotline), and the Engaging Men and Youth in Prevention Program (which works to tap into the critical role men can play in helping youth develop respectful attitudes and behaviors towards women and girls), I have to agree with Blue Milk's final statement that every policy maker should view the Julie Project.

A tale of mac n' cheese

When I was growing up, I had no idea that macaroni and cheese could be made any other way than out of a box. No idea. And I was quite fond of my boxed mac n’ cheese. When I moved away from home I ate it for dinner at least twice a week. I’m not kidding. Sometimes I varied things up a bit and added some spaghetti sauce or a can of tuna fish (this in my non-vegetarian days). Sure it was economical, especially in my low-budget college days, but I actually was quite happy to continue to get my multiple times a week processed powdered macaroni fix even after I got my corporate finance job and enough money to easily afford more expensive fare.

Then I took up house with this vegan guy. Making two dinners at night was not anything I was interested in pursuing long term, so I sacrificed my boxed mac n’ cheese and started looking for an alternative we both could eat. I tried boxed vegan mac n’ “cheese”. Dreadful stuff. Not worth buying IMHO.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to discover the best vegan made-from-scratch macaroni and cashew "cheese” recipe ever. Serously. Best Ever. Obviously it doesn’t have any cheese in it. It is fabulously delicious, however, better than most macaroni and dairy cheeses I have eaten. Creamy, hearty, and I altered the recipe just enough so it meets my “30-minutes or less for dinner, start to finish” rule. I have been meaning to share the recipe, and I promise I’ll eventually get around to it.

Anyway, so about a week or so ago I was grocery shopping and decided, what the heck, I’ll buy a box of powdered processed macaroni and cheese. There are plenty of times I’m at home with SchmoopyBoy alone and could use a fast and convenient meal option.

This last Monday, I had my opportunity to try it out. The new semester began on Monday and the husband started his new photography class. I was admittedly feeling a bit lazy so a made the box of mac and cheese and a salad.

Wow, have my tastes changed. I am so spoiled by good, high quality whole foods. It was virtually inedible. Truly, absolutely awful. But being hungry, lazy, and hating to waste “food”, I forced myself to eat it. The only way I could stand it was to chop up a bunch of cherry tomatoes and include a piece of tomato in every bite.

SchmoopyBoy took one bite, made a face, declared it “yucky” and would not touch it again. He ate apples and sunflower seeds for dinner, and nibbled a bit on some bell peppers in the salad.

Maybe I shouldn’t share my fabulously delicious macaroni and cashew “cheese” recipe. It might spoil you too, rendering you unable to consume the convenient, cheap, and easy boxed mac n cheese of my youth. Wouldn’t that be a travesty?

I am a mother

Why do we not say, simply, I am a mother? Why do we not say: I am a feminist mother whose greatest contribution to making the world a better place is raising children with open searching loving hearts, children who might be world leaders or who might not be world leaders but who will, I hope, be caring human beings who will demand that the world be a better place? Why do we not say, I am a mother, and the work that I do as a mother – the care I give, the love that I offer – extends far beyond hearth and home, far beyond my own children, and causes ripples and waves that will shift sand on shores that I cannot see ... Why do we not say, I am a mother, full stop? Why do I not say that? ~ Catherine, of Her Bad Mother

Catherine at Her Bad Mother wrote this fantastically inspiring essay on motherhood, parenthood, womanliness, manliness, feminism, and changing the world. It is a long essay, but thoroughly worth reading in its entirety. So obvious, and yet so radical an idea - Changing the world begins in the home, by raising our sons and daughters to have empathy and be good people. This is work that is done in the private sphere, within the home. This has traditionally been the work of mothers, although it has taken increasing priority with fathers (such as in our household, where my husband is the primary stay-at-home parent). Catherine's point is that we should celebrate the work of raising children itself, and that work's place in women's history. We celebrate fatherhood, particularly when men embrace fatherhood the way my husband has and embraces the work that has traditionally been done by women. We do not so much celebrate motherhood - "just" motherhood for its importance and value and potential for contribution to the world. Motherhood and the work of women in general tends to be devalued, and she proposes we mothers initiate a change in that thinking by making a simple, yet radical statement. I am a mother, full stop.

Catherine asserts:

Not all mothers are heroines, not all mothers are feminists, not all mothers raise good citizens, not all mothers have the best intentions, even mothers with the best intentions do not always see those intentions fulfilled in the ways that they expect, or at all. None of that matters. What matters is this: ordinary motherhood, undertaken in ordinary ways, can be as extraordinary, can have as extraordinary an impact, as any work undertaken in the public sphere.

Along with Catherine, and for myself, for my child, for the world in which I would like to envision my child living, for women and mothers everywhere, I declare: I am a mother, and my motherhood is important, my motherhood can be radical, my motherhood is a feminist act.

Buying Barbie for an Unknown Girl

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I signed up to fulfill the Christmas wish lists of two children through Aid for AIDS of Nevada. One of the children is an 18 month old. Pretty easy to shop for - clothes, socks, potty - those were the items on her list. Well, the other child is an 8-year old girl. I am happy to say I was able to get everything on her list except two - shoes and skates. I would have been happy to buy this girl both, but I really needed to know something about her foot size. The contact at AFAN wasn't able to tell me anything about size so I decided to go with the other items on her list - including Barbie.

Perhaps you are thinking - "What the heck is a slightly crunchy feminist doing even considering buying a Barbie for anyone?! What kind of message does Barbie send to girls other than they should try to live up to some impossible standard of feminine beauty? It's just a form of societal indoctrination that contributes to young women hating themselves for not living up to some standard perception of feminine beauty." - Yeah, I kind of thought that too for about 10 seconds.

Here's the thing though. This girl specifically put Barbie on her wish list. This is what she wants. This is what would make her happy.

Who the heck am I - some white, comfortably middle class, able-bodied, thin, stranger up to her eyeballs in privilege - to tell her what she should and shouldn't want to play with?

I don't know anything about this girl. I don't know if she is white or black, thin or heavy. All I know is that HIV/AIDS has impacted her life, and that her family is in economic hardship so that they have sought help with providing Christmas gifts. And I know she wants a Barbie for Christmas this year.

So I walked down the Barbie isle.

One I decided I was indeed going to buy this girl a Barbie I had a whole new bag of worms to deal with - choosing a Barbie for a girl I had never seen. Is this girl white? Black? Hispanic? Shouldn't I choose a culturally appropriate doll for her? Being a clueless privileged white woman, I can't help but think that giving a white, blond doll to a black girl is in poor taste at best, and insulting and demeaning at worst. I have no desire to send any messages to a little girl that she is somehow other, or not the default, or otherwise different from what our society deems beautiful by giving her a blond Barbie. There are enough other forces in the world that I'm quite sure are bringing that message home and I certainly don't want to be a part of that if I can help it. On the other hand, if she is white and blond herself, she might very well specifically want a blond Barbie who looks like her.

So, not knowing this girl's heritage, do I get a Barbie with white skin or black skin? Blond hair or black hair?

Wanting to do the right thing for this girl, and struggling with the privileged white woman's dilemma of having no idea what the right thing is, I saw something that struck my eye that I thought might suit the need at hand - a fairy Barbie. Fairies can be anything! They can look however you imagine them to look! I wish I could say this fairy had pale blue or green skin. She in fact does have white skin. She also has purple hair and purple wings. Perhaps this is as balanced as I could find? I did see one white-skinned brown-haired Barbie - almost naked in a bikini swimsuit - PASS!

I think this Barbie looks pretty cool with her matching hair and wings. I hope I made the right choice. I hope my girl will unwrap this gift, along with the other items I got for her, and have a happy, merry Christmas.

3 Things I am Thankful For

1. SchmoopyBoy singing. A couple of his favorites are Happy Birthday to You and the Preschool Musical Song from Sesame Street. He doesn't have all the lyrics down flawlessly and his pitch indicates he has similar singing talent as his parents (poor kid), but truly a joy to behold and puts a smile on my face.

2. Random acts of niceness from my husband. I came downstairs last night after putting SchmoopyBoy to bed and discovered a gift bag sitting on the stove. In it was a cookbook I’ve been oogling for almost a year. Early holiday gift.

3. Healing through writing. It’s been a rough year. Writing on this blog and spilling my guts from time to time has been my therapy. I am privileged to have this outlet. I am privileged to have the opportunity to share my stories and find community through it.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

Sarah Palin's "Feminism"

There's been a lot of hullaballoo all over the blogosphere about Sarah Palin calling herself a feminist, and whether she should or should not be considered one.

I'm going to be honest here. I don't like Sarah Palin. I don't like what she stands for. I don't like what she has to say about pretty much anything. And she is not a woman I admire in any way or consider to be any kind of feminist role model.

Why?

For similar reasons that the gay and lesbian community told Mary Cheney to f*** herself when she had her first child instead of rallying behind her.

Because privileged hypocrisy doesn't fly. Because a person with privilege who takes advantage of the hard work of other activists to benefit herself while simultaneously working to take away those benefits from others sucks.

Some of the most insightful analysis I have read comes from Nancy Vedder-Shults, who pointed out striking similarities between Palin's "feminism" and the feminism of Nazi Militants in World War II era Germany in her Tikkun Daily Blog article, Right Wing "Feminism" Nothing New. She went into more analytic detail in her follow up article, Right Wing "Feminism" Nothing New - More Thoughts.

In More Thoughts, Vedder-Shults quotes Abby Scher, editor of The Public Eye - a quarterly publication of a small progressive think tank which tracks right wing movements, who believes that Palin and other right-wing "feminists" want

equal “rules of the game,” not actual equality for women. Palin would like opportunity for women like herself — educated, middle to upper-middle class women — to succeed in a patriarchal society. Clearly such women are the only ones who might “elevate themselves above the masses,” since the rest of us need affirmative action, family leave laws, and other government programs to make sure we have equal opportunity. But these are exactly the types of “big government” initiatives that Palin and these other “feminists” oppose. They believe that it’s up to the individual woman to compete in the market, no matter what her background or resources.

Like the right wing Nazi militant "feminists" wanted a piece of the Aryan pie, Palin and right wing American "feminists" want to advance the status of rich, white, Christian women while taking away opportunities and rights from women who do not share their privilege.

In general, I have to agree with Vedder-Shults' final comment in her original post:

What seems clear to me is that conservative “feminism” may improve the lot of a few, elite women — and even more so the situation of the GOP, if they can entice women to vote for them — but it won’t actually help women as a group. And in order to qualify as a feminist in my book, you need to work for the advancement of all women, no matter their race, color, religion, sexual orientation, or age.

Thank you, Nancy, for articulating so clearly and precisely what I think and feel about Sarah Palin.