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!

The voice of a young woman on leadership

Forbes recently published an essay by a 19-year old undergraduate student on why Millennial women don't want to lead. I don't interact with many women in this age group these days, so it was an interesting perspective.

Her conclusion:

Ultimately, women equate leadership with perfection in a way that men don’t…

So, why don’t women want to lead? The answer is in the pages of the magazines we read and now even in the news coverage of the political debates we watch, which promote cultural standards that destroy women’s confidence and prescribe unattainable standards in all areas of our lives. In order for women to lead – for women to want to lead, to feel that we are capable of leading – we need to redefine leadership altogether. We need to define leadership not as perfection but as intelligence, honesty and doing the right thing. It is also essential that we question and change a society that sets the standard for achievement impossibly high for women and upsettingly low for men.

I find it a bit problematic that this young woman appears to confuse leadership with political power, a very specific type of leadership. At age 19, she is a published author and the founder of The FBomb.org, which describes itself as "a blog/community created by and for teenage girls who care about their rights as women and want to be heard." In other words, she already is a leader.  White women are the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action when considering management positions in the U.S. and it is difficult to believe that this trend will reverse in the coming decades. 

Nonetheless I find her link between the acquisition of perceived physical perfection and perfect life balance with the acquisition of leadership relevant. Additionally, I agree with the premise that the role of media in sending harmful messages to girls cannot be understated. I highly recommend you go to Forbes to read the full article.

chris wind's collection - I want to read this!

I just discovered chris wind's collection of poetry, fairy tales, and more in a book called "Satellites Out of Orbit". I was able to preview the first few pages through Smashwords, and I tell you, I want to read this book (actually it's a collection of five shorter works, each of which can be purchased separately). The chris wind website describes the works as "feminist critique of the Bible, Shakespeare, Greek and Roman mythology, and fairy tales, with a bit of fictional women's history thrown in."

 Excerpt from the Note to Reader:

This is fiction catalyzed by fact. It is not fiction supported by fact. What I mean by that is that the fiction is totally mine—I didn’t conjecture a reasonable fiction based on the facts: these pieces are not so much what the characters really would’ve said but what I think they should’ve said. And at first I thought I was simply imbuing the past with a contemporary perspective, but then of course I had to qualify that it was a contemporary feminist perspective, and now I recognize that it is my own individual feminist perspective. So in light of historical evidence, I may have misrepresented some of the characters. To those who are offended by perceived misrepresentation, my apologies. But since history is, in these cases, scanty, suspect of masculist bias, and sometimes outrightly contradictory (see especially the notes for “The Dialogue”), it is hard to know the extent of any misrepresentation. These women might’ve said what I want them to have said!

I love this, the idea that these women of famous literature might have said what she wants them to have said. I also love the idea of telling the story from the woman's perspective, especially when the woman is only mentioned in passing in the official story, or not mentioned at all although it is understood that such a woman must have been in the background of the story (I'm thinking of Noah's wife and Cain's wife in particular here).

I'm excited to have discovered this, and can't wait to get a copy and read it.

Good reads by attachment parenting feminists

There have been some excellent articles lately on issues that are important to be as a feminist and a parent. I don't have the time to provide well thought out and written commentary on them all. Nonetheless, here are the links and a few snipits to whet your appetite to click the links and read more.

1) First, Annie from PhD in Parenting really hit the nail on the head with this essay about women and the media.  In this article, she quotes Tara Sophia Mohr in her Huffington Post critique of the montage of great movie moments shown at the Oscars:

When women can't see strong, interesting, female protagonists in the stories we watch, it becomes harder for us to see ourselves as the strong, interesting protagonists of our own lives. When girls grow up seeing story after story that tells them they are sex objects, accessories or victims, they will learn that to be a "woman" is to play one of those three roles.

This was certainly true for for me. I had a rather defining experience when I was young. I was old enough to stay at home at night by myself, and was surfing the channels. My family had gotten cable fairly recently and I settled on an HBO movie that I was much too young to have been watching. Without going into too much detail, I saw images that taught me that my role as a woman in this society would be that of sexual victim, and the role of men is that of sexual predator. I spent a good portion of my young adulthood challenging and resisting that role of woman as sexual victim.

2) Here's another by Annie from PhDin Parenting about the controversial book by Elizabeth Badinter called "The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women". I've read quite a bit about this book and the perspectives of mothers that challenge Badinter's assertions. You can read those articles too through links that Annie provides. I highly encourage you to do so, especially the articles by one of my favorite feminist parenting bloggers, Blue Milk. Here is a highlight of Annie's analysis:

Choosing a parenting style shouldn't be something the mother does alone. She should have control over her body (and therefore have the final say on issues like breastfeeding), but decisions about how to parent the child should be something that both parents make together and that both of them invest equally in. There are certainly mothers who choose very intensive parenting styles and take everything on their own shoulders. But I don't think the answer to that problem is to suggest that certain parenting styles (like attachment parenting) are wrong.

The solution is to ensure that fathers are equal partners in parenting, so that mothers are not the only ones to suffer physically, professionally and personally from the demands of parenting. Being a parent is incredibly fulfilling, but it also involves challenges. In my opinion, both the rewards and the sacrifices stemming from the decision to procreate should be shared equally by both parents.

3) I love this perspective on the fire storm that occurred in the media a few weeks ago when the SAHM vs WOHM war was rekindled by Hilary Rosen's comment that Mitt Romney's wife "never worked a day in her life". Paige at Baby Dust Diaries brings up the primary issue on what makes the best mom - and it has nothing to do with whether a mom works outside the house or stays at home, per se:

I’m not a better parent because I’m at home – I’m a better parent because I love where I’m at and I throw myself fully into it. You are not a better parent because you work – You are a better parent because you love what you do and throw yourself fully into it.

All of us are valuable to society because we are raising the next generation! We all deserve the support and accolades of society.

The sad circumstance is when a woman is not in a place that fulfills her and thus maximizes her mothering potential. This is where I want to see OPTIONS for women.

Ina May Gaskin on Rising U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate and More

Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman interviewed famous midwife Ina May Gaskin. They talk about the rising U.S. maternal mortality rate and midwifery in the U.S. in general. You can watch the interview here, where there are links to download the audio file and read the transcript as well.

A few choice quotes:

We don’t have feedback to our obstetricians, to our hospitals or maternity wards, to find out what we’re doing wrong and why the United States is one of four countries in the world where the maternal death rate is going up, not down.

and

Insurance has incredible power now, power that it didn’t have 70 years ago. It’s the reason that doctors aren’t learning to do breech deliveries anymore...it’s one of the huge reasons that we have very few midwives in this country. We need 120,000 more easily.

Interesting Discussion Here

There is an interesting discussion going on at Blue Milk at her post on why pro-life is anti-feminist. I particularly agreed with the article by Anne Summers in The Age, an Australian publication. Makes me want to do more research on Margaret Thatcher, of whom I shamefully know so little. One day when I have more time (and am getting more sleep) I should add some of my own thoughts and commentary. Until then, I give you links and quotes.

From Anne Summers' article Yes, I know, I'm quoting the same section as Blue Milk. I think this sums up the issue quite well):

So what is a feminist? Can you be a political conservative and a feminist? I would say, Yes. Can you be (that heavily loaded oxymoron) ''pro-life'' and a feminist. I say an emphatic, No.

Let me elaborate. Feminism might be blandly defined as the support for women's political, economic and social equality, and a feminist as someone who advocates such equality, but these general principles need practical elaboration and application. What does economic equality actually mean? How can women in practice achieve social equality? As far as I am concerned, feminism boils down to one fundamental principle and that is women's ability to be independent.

There are two fundamental preconditions to such independence: ability to support oneself financially and the right to control one's fertility. To achieve the first, women need the education and training to be able to undertake work that pays well. To guarantee the second, women need safe and effective contraception and the back-up of safe and affordable abortion.

Feminism has taken on all sorts of issues over the decades, from the need for childcare to criminalising domestic violence to the rights of sex workers. Feminism has undertaken campaigns for everything from equal pay to paid maternity leave to the need for more women in parliament. There have been debates with, for example, some supporting women in the military, others claiming women are inherently pacifist.

But whatever the differences and however the issues have evolved over the years, with new ones (like sexual harassment) emerging as we develop greater understanding of women's experiences as new barriers are broken, the fundamentals have not and will not change.

Check out the discussion in the comments of Blue Milk's post. Some thought-provoking discussion.

Good analysis of a complicated issue

You may or may not have heard about the controversy surrounding a certain barf-inducing sexist shirt for girls on sale at a certain major retail store. I won't get into the details here, but rather refer you to the most articulate and well thought out commentary I have read about it by Liz at Mom-101.

It is useful to note that she approaches the issue from the perspective of a mother of girls. As a mother of boys, I will need to approach the topic of sexism with my children from a slightly different angle. I will confess I'm still sorting out in my head how I am going to do this.

My 3 year old son has remarked on the giant billboard on the freeway near our house which shows four scantily clad women with bare midrifs. The photo is cropped to just above their necks - the photo is literally a bunch of faceless bodies. He thinks it is hilariously silly that there's a giant picture of a bunch of tummies. He has also deduced, in true 3-year-old logic fashion, that since the tummies in question are clearly those of women, and clearly flat (versus his own mother's huge round pregnant tummy) that these "mommies" have already pushed out their babies and that is why their tummies are now flat.

I have no idea how to address this in an age appropriate way, other than to say that they may be mommies and they may not be mommies - I don't know because not all women are mommies. I have not touched the whole objectification of women's bodies issue, nor have I touched the idea what constitutes female attractiveness in our society and how that contributes to unhealthy body image and behavior.

I don't know when is the right time to start talking explicitly about these topics. I do believe it will be critically important for me to talk to my sons about it though, because teaching women to empower themselves is only half the equation. As one of Mom-101's commenter's put it, "You know who will help stop sexism? MEN. Men standing up and saying THIS IS BULLSHIT." I want my sons to be two of the men who recognize sexist BS when they see it and stand up and call it for what it is.

Cads, Criminals, and the Media

Trigger warning for discussion of rape
Cecily at Uppercase Woman referred me to this excellent article by Kate Harding that critiques the way the mainstream media has been discussing the rape allegations of Dominique Strauss-Kahn as well as the historical coverage of Arnold Schwarzenegger's "groping problem" and latest news of adultery.

I must quote a bit of the Harding article here, because I know a few certain individuals, ehem, you know who you are, that won't bother clicking the link, and I think this is really important:

So, whether Strauss-Kahn is “the great seducer,” for instance, has very little to do with whether he might also be “the great rapist,” because rape is not actually seduction gone pear-shaped. It’s a whole different thing! Similarly, any consensual affairs Schwarzenegger had over the years have very little to do with his “groping problem,” which would probably be better described as “a problem with giving a tiny rat’s ass about consent.”

That’s not to say these things are entirely unrelated, mind you. There are certainly points of overlap between being a cad and being a criminal: An overblown sense of entitlement, an apparent lack of empathy for anyone you might hurt, an erection. But cheating on your wife is not a gateway drug to sexual assault. They are two different things, one of them a crime. If you’re a journalist, please take a moment now to repeat that to yourself a few times.

And then please consider this: A man who’s known for grabbing women’s breasts and asses without their consent (a crime) is not just some amusing, slightly pathetic Pepe Le Pew cartoon until the day someone accuses him of non-consensual penetration. He was actually already a sexual predator! And yet, inevitably, as soon as someone does accuse him of rape, friends who are familiar with his history of non-consensual groping will rush to tell the press that the accusations are absurd, insulting, inconceivable! Sure, everyone knew the lion liked to chase gazelles and pin them down and bat them around a bit for fun, but he would never eat one. That’s just not in his nature.

Do you see the difference? One guy treats women rather shabbily, and he should be ashamed of himself. The other guy treats women like inanimate objects he is entitled to do whatever the fuck he wants to, and he should be ashamed of himself and also held legally responsible for his crimes. The line between the two is really not all that fine or blurry, you guys! It’s actually pretty recognizable!

March of Kindness

Between having a household full of sick people for over 2 weeks, and my anger and outrage at what's going on with our government, I haven't had a particularly giving and kind disposition lately. Which is why I totally love Dionna at Code Name: Mama's idea for A March of Kindness. I think it's quite inspiring and motivating to get more positive energy back into my life. The idea is simple - for each day in the month of March, perform one random act of kindness.

Check out her post here giving some background on the March of Kindness, and check out her follow up post, which provides 155 ideas for random acts of kindness to consider for the month. She lists 31 ideas for kids, 31 ideas for partners, 31 ideas for friends, 13 ideas for yourself, and 31 ideas for strangers.

What a lovely idea! Come join me in attempting 31 days of random acts of kindness. You never know, you might just help make this word a more positive place to live.

What Conservatives Really Want

Why, oh why, aren't any Democrats in Washington or anywhere else for that matter listening to George Lakoff? Why aren't they re-framing the discussion the way he advocates? In this insightful article, Lakoff articulates what exactly the Conservatives are after, and what is the underlying belief system behind it.

Budget deficits are a ruse, as we've seen in Wisconsin, where the governor turned a surplus into a deficit by providing corporate tax breaks, and then used the deficit as a ploy to break the unions, not just in Wisconsin, but seeking to be the first domino in a nationwide conservative movement.

Deficits can be addressed by raising revenue, plugging tax loopholes, putting people to work, and developing the economy long-term in all the ways the president has discussed. But deficits are not what really matters to conservatives.

Conservatives really want to change the basis of American life, to make America run according to the conservative moral worldview in all areas of life....

Conservatives believe in individual responsibility alone, not social responsibility. They don't think government should help its citizens. That is, they don't think citizens should help each other. The part of government they want to cut is not the military (we have 174 bases around the world), not government subsidies to corporations, not the aspect of government that fits their worldview. They want to cut the part that helps people. Why? Because that violates individual responsibility. (emphasis mine)

To read more and get the critical details, read the complete article. It isn't too long, but vitally important for this country.

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.

Coded Misogyny and Institutional Prejudice

I highly recommend you get your Feminism 101 on and check out the excellently written definition and explanation of coded misogyny and institutional prejudice by Melissa over at Shakesville. It is long and academic in style, which I know some of my readers can't stand (ehem, you you know who you are) but really important information. Stuff of the eye-openning, thought-challenging nature.

Go there now! I order you! Like the super masculine authoritarian that I am! (If you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, all the more reason to go read this.)

Badassery in 2011

Once again, I am referring to you to the fabulous and inspiring Karen of Chookooloonks for her post on 2011 as the year of badassery. I love love love her definition of badass. You must check it out.



Here’s to practicing badassery in 2011 and always!

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.

The Beauty of Different

Today I want to share a blog I’ve recently fallen in love with. Karen Wolrond, writer and photographer, blogs at Chookooloonks and The Beauty of Different (which is also the title of her recently published book). The photographs she takes and the messages in her writings are nothing short of inspiring. To give you a taste, so as to whet your appetite so you’ll click the links, I’ve copied a few of my favorite passages.

On beauty:

While something or someone who has been declared commercially, aesthetically desirable might have the power to incite lust or longing, only true beauty has the power to stir someone's soul.

Given this fact -- given the fact that at some point we will all experience love (romantic or otherwise) and that we have experienced our own souls being moved by the mere presence of another person (a romantic interest or otherwise), it therefore cannot be too big a leap of logic to realize that, regardless of some arbitrary societal standard of whether we possess a commercial-aesthetic-capable-of-marketing-or-selling-a-product, we all, every single one of us, without exception, have the capacity for incredible, indescribable beauty. And this beauty, this ability to truly stir someone's soul, is communicated in a combination of a myriad of different, uniquely-you ways:

- the way your eyes flash when you talk about something that you're passionate about;
- the quickness and suddenness of your smile;
- the intense expression on your face when you listen to a particularly lovely piece of music;
- your wit, your intelligence, your unique view of the world;
- the extraordinary way you laugh.

All of these things -- your "youness" -- are what make you stunningly beautiful. And furthermore, since you are so stunningly beautiful, all those flaws that you think you have? They're a myth. There are no flaws. They are simply characteristics that make up parts of your beautiful whole.

On creativity:

I've come to believe that in fact, we're all creative beings, and we all have the power within us to create art. The trick, it turns out, is to avoid falling into the trap of believing that art or creativity is limited to the ability to take a pencil and a piece of paper and draw a realistic likeness of something that exists in real life. Art and creativity can, and should, mean so much more than this. Art should mean photography. Writing. Music. Cooking. Building. Needlework. Mechanics.

Creativity and art should be defined as the manner in which we are called to express ourselves, in ways that fill us with joy and grace.
…
Practicing our own ways of self-expression and creativity is how we become confident and secure in our Different. It is one path to owning our beauty.

Empathy is the Invisible Hand

Class, your homework for today:

Rethink the human narrative.

Prepare the groundwork for an empathic civilization.



The video is Jeremy Rifkin: The Empathic Civilization. I saw it here originally.

You Must Read This

TRIGGER WARNING on the link below

I know I share what I think are fun or interesting links from time to time. But every once in a while I read something that so thoroughly rocks my world, I must share with a little more urgency, because it is just so important. Yesterday I came across such an article.

This should be required reading for everyone - man and woman.

And thou shalt teach it to your children and your children's children. It's that important.

Melissa at Shakesville did a stellar job of defining and describing, in all it's all-too-familiar ugliness, what is rape culture.

Filled with links and references, it may take you some time to read through the whole thing. It may be quite eye-opening to see and acknowledge how pervasive the problem is.

So go to this link, send everyone you know to the link, and teach it to your children in hopes that we can find ways to resist, oppose, and dismantle rape culture one day soon.

“You can't raise a child in a dictatorship and expect them to function as an adult in a democracy.”

Dionna at Code Name: Mama provided a really great list of links worth clicking and reading. I’d like to go over a few I think are particularly important and useful. In particular, I wanted to get the word out on the site Parenting Wisely – What to do instead of punishment. The site is basically comprised of a list of articles on discipline. I haven’t read every one of them yet (there are quite a few) but I wanted give a sneak peak of some of the good stuff on some of the favorites that I have read so far.

Judy Arnall’s article, Positive Discipline; How to Avoid Power Struggles, has so much good stuff, I could practically quote the entire article here. Here are Arnall’s suggestions for discipline tools:

The most common discipline tools used for younger children up to preschool age are redirection, substitution, supervision, offering choices, changing the environment, learning child development, ensuring enough nourishment, sleep, stimulation and attention. Most discipline at this age is prevention.

The most effective discipline tools used for older, school-aged children and teens are active listening, "I" messages, time in, changing the environment, modeling, related consequences, and problem solving. Family meetings are also especially effective for this age.

Here is the underlying concept, which I agree: “You can't raise a child in a dictatorship and expect them to function as an adult in a democracy.”

I know I’ve mentioned it in other posts, but if you want a fabulous primer on how to use I-messages and active listening, read Thomas Gordon’s Parent Effectiveness Training. Even better, if there is a trainer from the Gordon Training Institute in your area, take the class. For a sneak preview of Gordon’s theory, go check out his article listed on the Parenting Wisely site, What Every Parent Should Know.

Back to more important concepts, in Annie Addington’s article, Rethinking Discipline, she interviewed author Alfie Kohn. Moving beyond just concepts of punishment, here are some key points on the use of rewards:

Rewards and punishments are not opposites; they're both ways of doing things to children to make them obey rather than working with kids to try to solve problems and help them become decent people. Rewards and punishments can achieve only one goal and that is temporary compliance but at a very large cost... . More than 70 studies have found that the more you reward kids for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward.

Thus research shows that children who are given positive reinforcement are somewhat less generous than their peers because they've learned that the only reason to help is that they will get something out of it. Research also shows that when kids have been led to work for good grades they lose interest in whatever they were doing in school leading up to the grade. That's why the best schools in the country don't use grades at all and are more likely to produce kids who are deeper thinkers and more excited about learning.

What I noticed these articles and the other articles I read have in common is the theme of Respecting Your Child’s Needs. Children don’t ‘misbehave’ per se. They behave in ways they think will get their needs met, and they don’t yet know socially acceptable ways of doing this. Rather than punishing your child for misbehaving, Find Out What His Need Is!

Thoughts on Being an Anti-Racist Parent

I was perusing through the entries to the ninth carnival of feminist parenting and I came across this post by Blue Milk, in which she describes an incident where her preschool aged daughter and her daughter’s friend encountered a nasty episode of racism at a public pool. Some boys at the pool “taunted her saying her friend has skin like poo.” Reading about the episode really had an effect on me. I was sad. I was angry. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD THESE CHILDREN ARE ONLY FOUR YEARS OLD! WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

It got me thinking about how I can approach the issue of race with SchmoopyBaby.

Tami Winfrey Harris wrote on Love Isn’t Enough:

If love alone won't keep a toddler from touching a hot stove or stop a teen from engaging in unprotected sex, why, then, do so many of us think love is all you need to keep a child from absorbing prevalent biases against people of color or being damaged by them? …An anti-racist parent is a proactive parent, who includes race in the canon of important values that must be actively enforced in age-appropriate ways throughout a child’s life

So the question for me then becomes HOW? How can I proactively teach my white male child about important values such as this? How can I keep him from becoming one of those jerks at the public pool?

SchmoopyBaby is growing up in a much less diverse community that the one in which I grew up in California. In his play group there are two black children; all the rest are white. Familiarity with people who look or sound different, although not a be-all-end-all cure to racial discrimination, is at least a first step. His own (half) Jewish heritage ought to be a reminder of the dangers of discrimination, but that is invisible. His white skin, blue eyes, and non-Jewish last name hide his cultural identity, and *might* protect him from the insults I encountered and the beatings my father encountered growing up. It probably will not, however, protect him from internalizing discriminatory episodes, be they based on religion, skin color, or anything else.

One of Blue Milk’s commenters left the link to a Hand in Hand article called “Inoculating Our Children Against Racism” written by Patty Wipfler. The article has a series of suggestions, which I thought made sense, so I thought I would share some key ideas.

The basic premises of the approach are justice and respect:

Children have an inborn sense of justice. Children are able to retain their keen sense of justice if they are treated with respect. If a child feels safe and strong, he will respond with indignation to racism, whether it's directed at him or at someone else. He will know that the racist attitude he has witnessed is wrong, and won't adopt it as his own…What makes children vulnerable to racism is to treat children like we are better than they are, we know better than they do, we are more important than they are, and our feelings have more validity than their feelings. Instead, we need to guide them with respect for their intelligence, whether they are acting intelligently at the moment or not.

So what does it mean to treat a child with respect? The article includes a list of specific things, most of which I think are intuitively obvious - things like don’t use put-downs such as bratty, whiny, and stupid and do not hit, threaten with physical attack, shame, or blame. These kinds of attacks by adults lead children to believe that some people deserve to be called “bad” and then mistreated.

This one bullet point in particular caught my eye because it contradicts something most mainstream parents in this country take for granted:

The child should not be intimidated for having upsets about the things that matter to him. In particular, the child is allowed to express feelings with crying, tantrums, and "freedom of the mouth" while crying or tantruming. You, as parent, will often set limits that upset your child. That's your job, and it's an important one. However, your child's job is then to blast away the bad feelings that those limits bring forth, so he can recover his sense that you care and that his life is a good one. When a child cries, has a tantrum, or storms in response to a limit, he is using an inborn healing and cleansing process. He needs your attention while he gets rid of awful feelings. It restores your child's sense that his life is good, and his trust in you and others.

I can see in my head a number of people I know snorting and rolling their eyes at this point. I would guess their response to the passage above to be something akin to “So I’m supposed to reward my child for throwing a tantrum by giving him attention? No way. What do tantrums have to do with racism anyway?!”

The article addresses that question by describing how racism "piggybacks" on early mistreatment and fears. Rather than repeat the entire section, I will quote the bullets that pertain to the white child, because that is what I am raising.

* A child has bad experiences, either at the hands of adults or during threatening accidents or illnesses. He carries feelings of being terrified, separate, helpless, and unable to fight for himself. These feelings can be kicked into play by small incidents like not getting the first turn at bat, or losing his lunch pail, or having heard a fight between his parents. His fears make him withdraw at times, and at other times, those fears make him aggressive and angry.

* When any child witnesses racism, it frightens him. The racism fastens onto fears that have cracked a child's confidence in himself and others, like a secondary infection invades an open wound. He doesn't feel good enough or strong enough to reject racist mistreatment and protest it. So the words, tones, and attitudes are imprinted in his mind, along with a fresh helping of fear.

* A white child's fears make him vulnerable to adopting racist tones, words, and stereotypes. When a white child feels separate, scared, or disconnected, he tries to escape these feelings by playing out the oppressor role he has been frightened by. The intensity of his actions will reflect the depth of the fears that the child carried before the racism he witnessed gave those fears a racial twist.

The next section of the article covers what to do once your child has experienced an upsetting encounter involving racism. The key activity is to listen to the child’s feelings so the child can heal. The child may need to cry, tantrum, or rage. The parent's role is to actively listen and support the child while he releases his anger and fear. Protecting the child from exposure to racism is discussed in detail as well.

I highly recommend you read the entire article at Hand in Hand. There are a lot of good suggestions. I haven’t had to broach the topic of racism with my 1 year old yet, but I think this article provides a thoughtful toolbox for how to be a proactive anti-racist parent.