Becoming Mother

A book and a blog for first-time mothers

Tag: feminism

September 29, 2019

On Not Getting the Job (A.K.A. Why It was Clearly for the Best, Part 1)

A few months ago, I got into my car after having a great series of interviews with a potential future employer. It was for a position related to instructional design, a field which I don’t have a degree in, but whose skillset is similar to my current job. With all the additional professional development and coursework that I’ve taken in integrating technology into the classroom, I’m more than qualified for the position.

The words mentioned to describe the company culture were exactly what I was looking for: creative, collaborative, candid, future-focused, problem-solving. All in the service to creating educational materials that are learner-focused.

The benefits were good: health insurance, PTO, sick days, tuition assistance, flexible hours. Written into the job description was the expectation that I would continue to learn and attend conferences about trends in educational technology.

The interviews–all four of them–were fantastic. The questions they asked me felt like softballs coming in slow motion. I knew my way backward and forward through topics like adult learning theories, learner-centered instruction, educational digital technologies, and transformative education. I quoted books I read. I mentioned real life examples. I made connections between different disciplines. I talked about my successes, my shortcomings, my research, and my goals.

So I felt good about the whole thing.

Why would they go through so many interviews with me if they weren’t serious about me?

Before I left, the director gave me a business card with her contact info. I turned it over in my hand and ran my fingers over the large quote:

Confidence is success remembered.

I felt good about the whole thing.

And yet.

There was that voice in the back of my mind… (I think we all have one)

Someone else is better than you. You don’t have the credentials they want to see. You’re too risky. If they wanted you, they would have offered you a job today. They didn’t even want to talk about start dates. 

But I was going to be positive. For once, I was going to believe that I could get this job based just on my resume and good interviewing skills. Even if I didn’t know anyone at this company, I knew that I was competent. And qualified.

So I needed to be confident.

Confidence is success remembered.

You got this, I told myself.

Isn’t that what everyone tells you these days? No matter what your chances are, no matter how bleak the outlook, there’s always someone out there in the Facebook Universe who cheerfully memes at you: You Got This!

Until, you don’t.

empty chairs around a table

Thank you for meeting with the team. Unfortunately, at this time, we have decided to go with another candidate.

Really?

Seriously?

Master’s degree. 13 years teaching experience in higher education. Frequent professional presenter. Strong communication and collaboration skills. Self-starter. Lifelong learner.

You’re going to pass on me? 

Seriously?

And then, from the back of my mind, the voice speaks up.

Of course they passed on you. You don’t have a degree in instructional design. Someone else did. And that one manager you talked to didn’t seem to really like what you said about resolving conflict. Didn’t you notice that? She made a face. You know she did. What did you say? What did you do wrong?

What did you do?

What did you say?

What is wrong with you?

If you were such a catch, they would have found a way to hire you.

It’s a huge company. They have tons of money. It’s not that you were qualified and they didn’t have the budget.

They. Just. Didn’t. Want. You.

You.

You were four years older than one of managers that interviewed you. Remember when she found out that you both graduated from Miami, but then apologized when she realized that it was four years after you did? You missed your window there. Everyone your age at that company is in management, and you don’t have management experience. That’s kind of what people mean when they say stuff like, “she wasn’t a good fit.” It’s a cover for reasons that shouldn’t be stated in a rationale for not hiring someone. Like she’s too young, too old, too educated, or not educated enough. (At least compared to who we currently have on staff.)

Shit. When was I supposed to become a manager? How? There were never any opportunities to become a manager at my current employer.

Shit. I should have left by now. When? When was I supposed to leave?

After I had the first baby? When I had a toddler? When I had the second baby? When I had two small kids?

I stayed because I needed something that I could handle while I was out of my mind being a parent to young kids.

I stayed because of the students. Even though I was underpaid by $30,000. Even as my autonomy shrank and shrank and shrank.

I stayed because I loved what I did. Because I believed that I was making a difference.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

This is what happens when you keep putting others before yourself.

Shit.

How can you feel so sad about losing something that, apparently, you never had?

Time passed.

I applied for and interviewed for other jobs.

In my search, I noticed just shortly after I was turned down from the job I wanted that they had re-posted almost the exact same position.

W. T. F.

What does that even mean? I wondered. Did the person quit already? Did they just not hire anyone and re-open the search?

So I did something I wouldn’t have done ten years ago. I emailed the same director that I had originally reached out to and told her I was going to re-apply. I truly thought, in my gut, that she had been impressed with me. But that maybe I was interviewing against some candidates that had degrees in instructional design.

She responded. She said that they did have another position open up, but they already had some “highly qualified candidates” for it. However, she would still like to “get to know me outside of an interview situation.”

That sounded promising. Maybe she did see my talent and creativity. Maybe she really was impressed with me. Maybe she had read some of my posts on LinkedIn that highlighted articles that I had just published. Maybe we could talk about how my particular area of expertise could help out her company. I came with some ideas. I didn’t over-plan. But I prepared some ideas.

After all… She wants to get to know me, I thought.

When I finally sat down with her weeks later, we started with some small talk and I mentioned that I was still interviewing for other jobs (which was true) and that I thought it was going well.

And then, her truth started coming out.

It turns out, she thought I didn’t interview well.

She thought that my training and education were lacking because I didn’t mention the word “objectives” when I answered her question about how I would design an online course.

Sitting here now, I recall that I talked about conducting a needs assessment and considering how learners would interact with content, with each other, and with their teacher, and how the course would progress from beginning to end, and how I would incorporate interactive and engaging content using learning apps to deepen knowledge connections.

But I didn’t mention the word “objectives.”

She wasn’t sure I knew what objectives were. She wasn’t sure that I actually knew how to design and implement a class.

What words can I use to describe how I felt in that moment?

Oh, yes.

Utterly shocked, comes to mind.

She thinks I’m not competent, I thought, my fingers digging into my coffee cup, my expression freezing on my face.

Wait, what?

SHE THINKS I’M NOT COMPETENT!?!?!

I clarified that yes, it’s possible I didn’t mention the word “objectives,” but that I thought that given the fact that I have a Master’s degree in teaching and that I’ve been teaching for 13 years, that I could assume she knew that I knew what objectives were. I told her that I chose to focus on the more interesting parts of the online class that would show where I really shine.

My mistake. Because, in her view, you cannot rely on a person who has been a teacher to know what objectives were.

Which is actually a pretty good representation of how American society sees teachers.

Thanks for that, America.

But fine. Point taken.

And then I understood the problem: I made assumptions. And she did not.

She interviewed for the lowest common denominator. And I thought I was having a conversation with a fellow professional in the field.

In her view, as a person who didn’t know me, I had to start from the basics.

My mistake.

I gripped my coffee cup and nodded continuously, being respectful. Because that is what you do when you are talking to someone in a powerful position who might be able to offer you a job someday. You don’t tell them that their measures of assessment are incredibly archaic, not to mention ineffective. And you don’t say, You know, I actually do know what objectives are! Because that seems incredibly inauthentic, and who would actually believe you now, after you had been told of your error?

She just wanted to share this information with me because as a woman, she has been feeling more empowered recently to help other women out who are in difficult positions. She was just like me, trying to break into another field, and she wished that someone would have told her what it was that kept her from getting a job.

So there it was: She was saving me.

This White, affluent, high-level corporate executive who had “made it” was sharing her wisdom with someone less fortunate. She drove 20 minutes from work to meet me at a coffee shop, during her busy Friday, to let me know that the reason I didn’t get the job wasn’t because I didn’t have a stellar resume.

It was because I didn’t say the words that she wanted to hear.

Completely, obliviously unaware that she was participating in the same esoteric practices that keep good potential employees from breaking into new career paths. The lack of self-awareness involved in the conversation was truly difficult to process.

Just wanted to let you know, she explained. Because I’d want someone to do the same for me.

Well, then.

To this day, that same job has been re-posted and re-posted several more times. What floors me about this whole process is how she doesn’t realize that I’m not the one who lost.

I have the skills, the knowledge, the creativity, the experience, and the drive that she should want in a candidate.

What kept me from getting the job was her strict adherence to the old-school interviewing techniques of not asking many follow-up questions. It was her reticence to engage with me as a colleague, and her assumptions that I couldn’t be trusted to know certain fundamental knowledge. It was her disregard for the meaning of what it means to have a Master’s degree.

In any case, I didn’t get the job.

And it was clearly for the best.

Why would I ever want to work for someone who saw me through those kind of eyes?

7 Comments
September 29, 2018

Republicans: It’s All About Protecting Unborn Life, Right?

A few warnings:

I kind of ramble in this post. Forgive me for that. It’s very hard to create any coherent stream of thought in regard to this thick web of issues that have become impossible to disentangle as we talk about today’s current events.

If you prefer not to read a woman writing in an “unladylike” manner, now’s the time to close this page.

Call me bitchy. Or unladylike. Whatever.

Like many other women my age, you can’t shame me for not being ladylike.

Because we have seen that being the good girl often doesn’t get you ahead and it sure as hell doesn’t get you heard.

So if you’re still here, allow me to bitch away.

***

Republicans,

You’ve got a problem. With women, specifically.

You do realize that 50% of this country is women right? You do realize that women vote, don’t you? You do realize that younger women (a.k.a. the future electorate) are more likely to believe that women are not to blame for their own sexual assaults, right?

I don’t think you do. I think you’re still banking on the idea that there are enough people in this country that aren’t completely offended by your support, nay, your approval, of a man who has been accused of sexual assault by three different women.

But why should it matter to you?

After all, 19 women accused Trump of sexual assault and harassment, and “the American people” still elected him.

Right?

Your political calculation is pretty clear to me.

You have been so, so very eager to get to the godly business of making sure that women can’t have abortions. Ever, if possible.

(At least, that’s the cover story. I’m fairly certain your fervent support of Kavanaugh has more to do with your expectations about how he’ll rule on matters of political finance and other much more boring, but far more pernicious, topics that don’t captivate the attention and ire of millions of Americans.)

No. You are very eager to “protect the unborn.”

***

That’s still what all of this is about, right?

Protecting unborn life is the reason that you’re willing to promote a man who is accused of sexual assault by three women to the Supreme Court.

(Excuse me for a moment: My brain just threw up…)

That’s why millions of us watched Christine Blasey-Ford’s worst nightmare come true on live TV. That’s why we all tuned in to see what Brett Kavanaugh had to say about the accusations.

We’re in this political maelstrom because Judge Kavanaugh may be the deciding vote on future court cases that may overturn or severely chip away the protections of Roe v. Wade.

In short, what you, Republicans, are saying is that the rights of the unborn are decidedly much more sympathetic compared to the rights of women who have been sexually assaulted.

But today, many young women see attacks on Roe v. Wade as what they really are: attempts to control women’s sexuality and their bodies. 

Maybe you’ve noticed lately that women in their 20s and 30s and 40s are not so easily shamed anymore by the old, “You don’t want to be a bad girl, do you?” playbook.

That has to be hard: to know that the women are becoming more impervious to the blows that knocked previous generations down far quicker and for far longer.

Today’s women get up much faster. They speak out much more.

And we aren’t going away.

***

Republicans,

Let me lay it out for you in the simplest terms possible (because I assume you are skimming. You’re busy. I get it. #MomLife)

You suck at making policies that help women.

(Probably because so many of you are Men-Who-Cannot-Imagine-the-World-Through-the-Eyes-of-Women.)

This is what is so frustrating about the Republican platform. Your campaign messages champion upholding family values, strengthening the economy, and keeping government small, but your political actions aim to create a very different reality for all of us. 

Republicans, your track record is awful. Let me count the ways.

You hurt women by admitting that Blasey-Ford’s testimony was heart-wrenching and credible… but she still must be mistaken about who her attacker was.

You hurt girls by insisting that sexual assault committed by teenage boys is just “horseplay” or “roughhousing” and that men shouldn’t be accountable for the actions that they commit in high school.

But let’s not forget all of your…

Favorite Hits of Ways to Hurt Families:

You hurt families by cutting spending on education and forcing teachers into unspeakable working conditions. And then appointing Betsy DeVos. (Sigh).

You hurt families by cutting Medicaid even though most of your constituents depend on it.

You hurt families by cutting food stamps or raising the work requirements for those receiving welfare.

(Haven’t you heard unemployment is at an all-time low? What’s wrong with you? Go get an $8 an hour job to support your four kids, you Low Life! In fact, go get three of those jobs just so you can make ends meet and never see your kids. What? You can’t get enough hours in one place to qualify for health insurance? Guess you should have thought about that before you had four kids! Why didn’t you use birth control? Well, whose fault is it that you can’t afford it? It’s not the government’s responsibility to make it affordable for you to have birth control. Just stop sleeping with your husband or make him wrap it up. That shouldn’t be too hard, right? Take some responsibility for your reproductive powers!)

…is the message that seems to come together in a person’s brain when they consider the barrage of “typical conservative things to say in an argument.”

You hurt families by saying nothing when the leader of your party allowed children, toddlers, and babies to be taken from their parents’ arms when they came to the border seeking asylum from violence, blamed Democrats for the problem, backtracked, refused to accept responsibility for his actions (does he ever?), and then left our government bureaucracy to clean up his mess. (Oh, right. Sorry. Immigrants don’t count as “real families,” right? Feel free to disregard this point.)

But, remember, you also hurt the working poor by applauding Trump’s efforts to “blow up” Obamacare, even though it’s providing crucial health care for dying coal miners.

***

But what hurts the most today, in this moment, is that you hurt families by using women’s bodies as a political weapon.

And make no mistake–chipping away women’s rights hurts families.

But you care about protecting the unborn.

Right.

***

Does it scare you?

The very noticeable fact that…

We are on to you.

Who are we?

Women.

Women who work full-time, part-time, all-the-time.

Women who still make less money then men who do the same work (thanks to the cultural dilemma of gender in salary negotiations).

Women who pay taxes.

Women who still don’t have any nationwide guaranteed parental leave after giving birth.

Women who give birth in a country with unreasonably high maternal mortality compared to other developed countries.

Women who spend half of their salary on DAYCARE just so they can go to work. (Citation: Me).

Women who raise kids by themselves, with their with a partner, with cobbled-together daycare and babysitting, with parents, with friends when the sitter is sick.

Women who are routinely passed over for promotions based on the assumption that, because they’re mothers, they’re probably “more family-focused” at this point in their careers. (Never considering that those same families would probably benefit greatly from their mother’s promotion.)

We’re women who run PTOs.

And women who run for political office.

Women who do the grocery shopping, the oil changes, the doctor’s appointments, the RVSPs, the thank you cards, the school pictures, the flu shots, the pharmacy pick-ups, the fundraisers, the endless permission slips and photo releases and medical forms.

We’re almost always the ones that get called at work when a child is sick. And we’re often the ones who end up staying home with them.

We’re women.

Educated. News-watching. Well-read. Thinking. Talking. Podcasting. Blogging. Campaigning. Running. Voting. Women.

Republicans, you’re the first to talk about how expensive universal preschool would be or how un-American subsidized daycare would be, or how much guaranteed paid parental leave would hurt business…

In short, you sure know how to make women feel unusual, unwelcome, and burdensome.

But you’re welcome–for giving birth to your future tax-paying citizens.

(Can we please not pretend that our birthing and raising of children has no economic value? Since, apparently, that’s all you seem to care about. Oh right. No. You also care about “protecting unborn life.” And “born life?” That’s my responsibility. I’ve got it. Thanks for the clarification.)

***

I watched both of their testimonies.

And I believe her.

I. Believe. Her.

I think it’s clear that Ford is not some manufactured pawn in a widespread liberal conspiracy.

I also believe that Kavanaugh is furious that his family and his credibility are being raked through the mud now. (Maybe he grew up over the years? Maybe he’s different? Maybe he’s the same aggressive drunk that he was in high school? Hard to say. Maybe the hard-won FBI investigation will help clarify?)

And I believe that Kavanaugh is furious that Christine Blasey Ford is so credible and that his big chance of having his greatest dreams realized is coming crashing down all because he acted like a giant douche in high school.

Is that really so hard to believe that Brett Kavanaugh may have done these horrible things to girls and women?

Not for me, it isn’t. And I don’t think it’s hard for many women. We all remember guys just like him in our high schools. We remember similar jokes circulating in school about boys who joined the “Name of Girl” club, as a way to mark their sexual conquests.

We remember the college parties where some entitled, rich White guy drank way too much and thought shoving his penis in women’s faces was funny.

The more we’ve heard about Kavanaugh’s yearbook and the nicknames, the more we remember how small and dirty we felt when we received the jokes, the taunts, the “innocent” slaps or pinches, the touches.

And for some of us, we remember the groping. The assault. The rape.

All of us remember the shame, the shame, the shame.

I hope it’s all worth it to you, Republicans: the loss of confidence, indeed, the complete betrayal that women all over this country are feeling right now.

(And the women who don’t feel betrayed are still playing by your Good Girl playbook.)

But that’s not what angers me the most.

***

What angers me the most is that you hurt of all these people…

…and still most White evangelical Christians support your party.

Because, apparently, they believe that everything else is secondary to the primary goal of…

…protecting unborn life.

God works in mysterious ways…Who’s to say that Donald Trump isn’t a vessel that God is using to accomplish his purpose of ending abortion in this country?

… is a maddening rationalization of every abhorrent thing that our president has ever done and will do.

As a former evangelical Christian, this reasoning doesn’t surprise me.

But as a progressive Christian now, this logic absolutely disgusts me.

Republicans,

When you write policy against and vote against the poor and the vulnerable and the voiceless, you don’t represent the God’s love.

And it’s embarrassing for you to claim that you do.

But what do you care?

You’ll still be able to pay for an underground abortion if your wife finds out at 16 weeks that her baby has anencephaly and she’s already grieving for her child and you don’t want her to continue to carry the pregnancy, give birth, and watch her child die in her arms.

You’ll still be able to secure an abortion if, one day, your daughter really needs one–because she doesn’t want to raise a child with her prom date just because he didn’t have a condom and you thought she wasn’t old enough for the pill yet. (And the whole experience puzzles you because, it’s weird. Your daughter isn’t usually the kind of girl that gets in trouble like this. It’s not like she’s a slut, like the girls that this usually happens to. Right?)

But for me, you have crossed the point of no return on this.

You will never win my vote back. Ever.

Oh, it’s true, I was pretty sure that I’d never, ever vote Republican again after Trump was elected even though the entire country heard his raspy, old codger’s voice saying, grab ’em by the pussy. 

But presidents aren’t elected for life.

So, never again.

You will never win my vote back. All because of your lack of empathy and foresight.

Because for you, the possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade was such a juicy prize that you were willing to steamroll right over the bodies of dozens of women and their claims of sexual assault.

But I wish you had courage to say what you really mean.

(Courage: Maybe you are familiar with the concept? It’s what Blasey-Ford demonstrated when she talked about her trauma, live, in front of a national audience.)

So, yes, I wish you had the courage to say what you really mean:

You don’t trust women.

Deep down, maybe you think women are conniving, manipulative, back-stabbing, selfish, and left unrestrained, whorish.

(Not the ones that you know, of course, but other women, definitely. You see it happen all the time.)

Deep down, maybe you think women need these laws to stay in place. To keep them from sleeping around and being sluts. Deep down, maybe you think that these laws will actually stop abortions from happening. Deep down, maybe you think that these laws will actually stop women from having sex with men with whom they don’t intend to have a family. (Or being raped by men with whom they don’t intend to start a family.)

Just kidding. Women can’t get pregnant by a “legitimate rape,” right?

But let’s be real.

Outlawing abortions won’t stop them from happening. Did Prohibition work? Nope. Instead, we got mafia and bootleggers. Did making marijuana illegal work? Nope. Just ask Jeff Sessions.

Or let’s turn to guns, your other favorite issue. Did making the AR-15 illegal work?

Oh, right. Just kidding. We would never dream of making a semi-automatic rifle illegal. That’s our constitutional American right. Right, Brett Kavanaugh?

But the right for women to control what happens to their bodies?

Nah, that’s not theirs to decide.

What happens in a woman’s body is no one’s business but the government’s.

Unless she’s assaulted by a future Supreme Court nominee.

Then what happened to her body is the business of the entire country.

It’s our right to be able to judge for ourselves how traumatized she really is.

It’s our right to be able to compare ourselves to Blasey-Ford and insist that we would definitely report a real sexual assault and speculate about the gaps in her testimony.

It’s our right to be able to hear all the details of the assault from both sides and decide that, ultimately, we’ll never know who’s telling the truth (and an FBI investigation would just take too much time and the Blue Wave is coming…), so let’s just quickly vote on this guy (even though we blocked Obama from having his SCOTUS nominee) so we don’t lose our chance to…

…protect unborn life.

Right?

I think I’ve got it now. Thanks for listening.

It all makes so much more sense now that I’ve written it out.

Supreme court

7 Comments
August 14, 2017

One Thing That Google Memo Got Right: Ladies, This One May Hurt

I’ll skip all the stuff that you can guess I’m going to say about James Damore’s memo on “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber.”

Like, no, women aren’t naturally prone to gregarious extraversion, which leads to them to avoid negotiating their salaries.

They don’t usually try to negotiate salary because they fear how asking for more money will be perceived by their future employer. And, it turns out, they should be worried about that. Because future employers very often rate women who ask for more money as “unlikeable” and “pushy.” For more on this read Linda Babcock’s Women Don’t Ask or Iris Bohnet’s, What Works: Gender Equality by Design.

Better yet, here’s a decent video summary of What Works:

And don’t get me started about the point about women being naturally neurotic.

***

But like I said, I’m skipping Damore’s points that I disagree with.

One thing Damore gets right is the assertion that he makes that is actually informed by his own personal experience (not what he imagines is the reality of women). He says,

The male gender role is currently inflexible…Feminism has made great progress in freeing women from the female gender role, but men are still very much tied to the male gender role. If we, as a society, allow men to be more “feminine,” then the gender gap will shrink, although probably because men will leave tech and leadership for traditionally “feminine” roles. (emphasis added)

First, my criticism: I have a hard time believing that just rethinking gender roles will lead to more men pursuing “feminine” roles. Money talks. And as long as the jobs that are traditionally done by women (TEACHERS) continue to offer piddly salaries and boatloads of responsibility, ain’t no guys gonna stand for that shit.

But as to Damore’s first point, YES. YES. YES.

The male gender role is inflexible.

What makes it so inflexible?

Shame.

Shame from all sides.

Sociologist Brene Brown writes about this very issue in her book, Daring Greatly. Women and men experience different shame triggers. For women, body image and motherhood are key triggers for shame.

But for men, the key shame trigger is weakness.

She tells this vivid story of a man who came up to talk to her after one of her lectures. He had been brought to the lecture by his wife and daughters and had just listened through a lengthy talk that Brene had given about women’s shame triggers. After watching all the head-nodding between his daughters and wife, he took time to talk to Brene about the lecture, out of earshot of his wife and daughters. And this is what he said:

We (men) have deep shame. Deep shame. But when we reach out and share our stories, we get the emotional shit beat out of us. Before you say anything about those mean coaches, bosses, brothers, and fathers being the only ones (who experience that shame)… My wife and daughters–the ones you signed all of those books for–they’d rather see me die on top of my white horse than watch me fall off. You say you want us to be vulnerable and real, but come on. You can’t stand it. It makes you sick to see us like that. (p. 84-85).

She then connects this story with another story of a twenty-year-old man who participated in a focus group on the topic of men and shame. Here’s how that young man described the confines of the male gender role.

‘Let me show you the box.’ I knew he was a tall guy, but when he stood up, it was clear that he was at least six foot four. He said, ‘Imagine living like this,” as he crouched down and pretended that he was stuffed inside a small box. Still hunched over, he said, ‘You really only have three choices. You spend your life fighting to get out, throwing punches at the side of the box and hoping it will break. You always feel angry and you’re always swinging. Or you just give up. You don’t give a shit about anything.” At that point, he slumped over on the ground. You could have heard a pin drop in the room… ‘Or you stay high so you don’t really notice how unbearable it is. That’s the easiest way.’

Before reading Daring Greatly, it was very easy for me to laugh at any comments from men that fell into the sentiment of “men have it tough.” I have been steeped in not only feminist literature and the psychology of prejudice, but I have also spent years and years addressing misconceptions and bias towards immigrants and international students. (Why are they here? Are they planning on staying?)

I’ve had a world-class education in identifying systems of oppression that work against the marginalized.

So I guess that led to my implicit conclusion that simply being male was probably a much more pleasant experience than being female.

Naive? Definitely.

But then again, I was drawing conclusions based on my outside observations about men. Even though I had been married more than ten years at the time that I read Daring Greatly, I don’t ever remember having a conversation with my husband about men and shame. And even if I knew what to ask (or even that we should talk about this), was I really ready to hear what my husband had to say?

Just as the man pointed out to Brene, was I really ready to see the man I loved completely fail? Completely fall apart? Be completely wrong? Be the loser?

Tough questions.

Striving for gender equality isn’t just a matter of lifting up women or leveling the playing field or sensitizing men to the struggles of women (although, yes, all of those things are important.)

If women are really ready for gender equality, we need to embrace the breaking of the male gender role.

We need to be comfortable with letting the men that we love cry and doubt and fail and lose. Instead of recoiling in their moments of pain, that is when we need to reach out and embrace them and say, “This messed up version of you? I love this. I love you.”

This also means that we have to re-imagine new love stories, ones that don’t hinge on a strong, capable man swooping in to save us from whatever problems we face (bonus points if the problem you need to be saved from is yourself!).

And perhaps more important, we have to reassure men that we don’t want that fantasy anyway.

We have to be open to relationships that don’t fit all the movies or all the songs. And hey, the best guy for us probably isn’t the one who only shows his soft side in the privacy of the bedroom.

The best ones are the ones who do the tough, emotional work that doesn’t come easy for guys. And doing that emotional work in full view of others. Like asking for forgiveness. And moving through rejection. And learning to love again. And expressing grief.

We’ve got to stop loving the image of the silent, stoic, lonely cowboy. Or the unbreakable superhero. Or the cold-as-ice mafia man.

We’ve got to teach our young girls to look for arousal beyond stories of men who dominate and control women (Fifty Shades of Grey), even if the premise is that they’re “protecting” them from danger and doing so for our own good (Twilight).

And, ladies, we have to stop putting all of our hopes and dreams into their hands. And then blaming them when they’re not able to live up to our lofty standards.

I mean, really, who can?

***

Of course, I wouldn’t be writing about any of this had James Damore not written his memo. I’d just be sitting on these little nuggets of information that I had previously gleaned from my own personal reading… And not sharing them at all. Because I didn’t have any current context to draw my readers into this piece.

So there’s another thing that he got right: We should talk about these issues.

It’s hard, yes. For women, we often immediately go on the defensive, anticipating yet another frustrating conversation in which we’re called upon–once again–to solve men’s problems of blindness toward gender inequality. I get it. Really. I want to write off Damore as another guy who just doesn’t get it. That’s so much easier than trying to contribute to any discourse on this topic.

But that doesn’t get us anywhere.

And we’ve got a long way to go.

The inflexibility of gender roles drives a lot of the thinking that leads to guys like Damore concluding that, It’s probably women’s biology that’s holding them back, which is a hop, skip, and a jump away from, This is just the natural order of things.

We know this inflexibility hurts women.

But, let’s be honest: it’s just as damaging to men.

***

Since Damore’s memo went viral, he has doubled down on his stance that Google is promoting an ideological echo chamber. It’s not surprising. He’s being attacked from all sides.

What does our society say men should do when they’re attacked? It tells them to fight back. To dig in their heels. To be a man and stand up to confrontation. And he’s doing just that.

So the question remains…

Women of the world, are we ready to embrace those moments when men experience vulnerable moments of weakness?

Or will we shut them down?

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August 3, 2017

My New Book: A Birth Story Guaranteed To Make You Cry

After I gave birth this past February, I thought,

Well. How am I going to write about that?

Because what I felt in labor had been deeply spiritual. In my first labor, I sensed God’s presence, but not in a physical way. What I experienced was beyond my physical senses.

But this time… I had seen things.

I had actually physically felt things that I couldn’t explain.

I knew that a blog post would become buried in this website over time. That’s not the way that I wanted to share this experience with an audience. I wanted something more permanent. Something more discover-able and more available to as many people as possible.

***

So I published a short Kindle book, called Why Your Middle Name is Jacob: A Birth Story.

From August 3-7, I will be giving away free copies, so I encourage you to download your copy today and share with anyone whom you think would be interested in it.

Important: You don’t need a Kindle device to read the book.

As long as you have an Amazon account, you can read this book. Just go to Amazon’s website, log in, find the book, put it in your cart, and checkout (for free). Then choose “Your Account,” and then select “Your Content and Devices.” You will see the book there and you can read it in your web browser.

Included in this e-book are six additional essays that I wrote in the early postpartum period, curated and compiled for a larger audience.

  • The World is Good Because it is Bad: A Letter to My Unborn Child
  • Postpartum Hemorrhage
  • These Holy Hours
  • Week 6: A Great Time to Return to Work
  • Week 7: And Now My Watch Is Ended
  • Is There Room in Motherhood for Feminism?

Kindle Direct Publishing only allows me to give away free copies of a title every 90 days. Please take advantage of this free promotional period while you can. After August 7th, the book will be available for $2.99.

If you download a copy, please review it on Amazon.

As an independent author, I rely on you, dear reader, to share your thoughts on my work.

I greatly appreciate your support!

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July 24, 2017

I Heart Formula Feeding (and I don’t care who knows it)

Listen to me read this post here:

 

Or read the post below here:

Something that I should say first

(I shouldn’t have to, but I know how quickly the mind jumps to conclusions…)

I think breastfeeding is awesome.

My love of formula feeding in no way diminishes your breastfeeding experience.

Infant feeding isn’t a zero-sum issue.

(And by the way, when did it become one?)

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Formula feeding, one week old

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As I’ve written about extensively in my book and in other blog posts, breastfeeding was so much worse than childbirth for me. (And I gave birth without drugs).

With my first baby, I was overcome with feelings of guilt (This shit might actually keep her brain from developing as much as it would if I were breastfeeding…) and shame (If I were a better mother, I would have kept pumping, even just a little bit. Every little bit helps.)

In my mind, I wasn’t allowed to openly love formula feeding. Proclaiming how much I loved formula feeding would have been akin to saying that I didn’t particularly care about the health of my child.

That’s what I thought.

When I try to trace back where those thoughts came from, I realize how much of my own insinuations were responsible for the guilt and shame that I felt. I read four or five credible books about breastfeeding when I was pregnant. (The Breastfeeding Book by Martha and William Sears was particularly good.) My takeaway from this and the other books was that, as long as I stuck with breastfeeding, my chances of success were very, very high.

I just needed to buckle down and commit to the process.

Because, let’s face it, breastfeeding is better for me and the baby.

I LOVED THIS MESSAGE.

Because if there’s one thing my friends and family know about me, it’s that I CAN BUCKLE DOWN AND COMMIT like no other.

I’m like a dog with a bone when I move something to the top of the priority list.

And in those first weeks after my first child was born…

Let’s just say, Ruff, ruff.

***

There’s a difference between loving the way that you feed your child and doing it simply because you hate the alternative.

I had to learn this the hard way with my first child.

Because, I confess, I didn’t love formula feeding her.

I just hated the alternative of breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding made me absolutely miserable. It brought me no joy. It only brought physical and emotional pain. Feelings of inadequacy and resentment. And days and days of being awake for 22 out of 24 hours (and that brings you to the brink of psychosis, let me tell you).

So I quietly switched to formula feeding when my daughter was 12 days old. Every time, someone saw us feeding her tiny bottles of formula, the mental tape of guilt and shame ran its course in my mind.

I bit my lip and hoped no one would say anything.

Most people didn’t.

But some did.

And then I was prepared with my boilerplate speech that grew increasingly awkward as I tried to figure out on-the-fly if this audience really needed to know the shape of my nipples or the amount of milk that I was producing. (Does anyone really need to know that?)

It was agonizing.

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***

But this post isn’t supposed to be about how hard breastfeeding was for me.

It’s supposed to be about how awesome formula feeding has been for me.

I’ll admit, I didn’t automatically switch to loving formula feeding after having my second baby simply because I had done it before.

But once I realized the absolute deluge of work that having a second child heaped upon us, I was ALL ABOUT FORMULA FEEDING.

With no grandparents living nearby to constantly stop by and help out, we bear the full load by ourselves. (Read: full-time jobs, daycare drop-off/pick-up, hours of housecleaning every day, lawn mowing (a HUGE yard), shopping, doctor visits, dentist visits, blah, blah, blah…)

So trying to breastfeed when my body wasn’t cooperating?

Nope.

Breastfeeding even if my body were cooperating would have been a challenge.

I think the only way I would be breastfeeding right now is if…

1) I truly loved the experience of breastfeeding

and

2) I could hire outside help to pick up my share of the household chores.

Barring those two crucial factors, breastfeeding would just not happen.

Because now, the day is doubly full of responsibilities.

Now, there are no simply no free moments to wade through the quagmire of the Internet and second guess everything that I’m doing and compare this product and that product and this method and that method.

I no longer run Google searches like “infant formula obesity” or “does formula cause diarrhea?” or “comparison of intelligence breastfed and formula fed” or “mother child bonding only breastfeeding?” And then get sidetracked into a discussion board where self-righteous and insecure young mothers tear each other apart.

So unh-uh. Ain’t nobody got time for that any more.

***

If you’ve gotten this far, perhaps you want some specific reasons that I love formula feeding.

Here are my top reasons, in order of importance to me.

  1. I know exactly how much my baby has eaten (This always helped put my mind at ease in those early weeks when your baby is trying to regain their birth weight.)
  2. I know exactly what ingredients my baby has eaten.
  3. I don’t have to worry about how my diet affects my baby. (After ten months of pregnancy, this is a huge relief, I can tell you.)
  4. My body starts to feel like it belongs to me again, much sooner.
  5. I can more easily share night feeding responsibilities.
  6. I don’t have to pump at night or at work, just to keep my milk supply up.
  7. Actually, just, I DON’T HAVE TO PUMP. (Those machines are like a form of torture, I swear to God. And of course, they were invented by a dude.)
  8. I don’t have to scrape the bottom of my soul for the willpower to endure a baby’s incessant need to nurse all day, for several days–just to get my baby through a growth spurt.
  9. I can get a babysitter and leave the house–without wondering how soon I’ll need to pump or nurse before my boobs explode.
  10. I will never run out of food for my baby–even if my body isn’t cooperating (a statement of middle-class privilege, I acknowledge. Although… so are a lot of these reasons…)
  11. If I get sick, I can take time to recover without having a baby attached to me all hours of the day.
  12. I can exercise without worrying about diminishing my milk supply.
  13. Actually, I can just live life without worrying about diminishing my milk supply.
  14. I only spend 2 hours per day feeding my child (20 minutes X 5-6 feedings), rather than 4.5 hours per day (45 minutes X 5-6 feedings–that was about the fastest I could ever nurse).
  15. I didn’t have to worry about whether my baby would take a bottle at daycare.
  16. I don’t have to confront the frustrating situation of wondering if some nut job is going to find my breastfeeding “inappropriate.” (IT’S NOT. GET OVER IT.)
  17. I’m sure I could go on…

***

I write this post specifically for mothers who are formula feeding.

Because I know what it’s like to be sitting in a group of moms and overhear someone refer to infant formula as “garbage.” Or hear another mom say, “Well, if that’s how you want to feed your baby…”

It ain’t fun.

And, if you were raised to be “ladylike” like me, you didn’t stand up for yourself. (Instead, you just pretended that you didn’t hear… and then complained about it later to an accepting audience as a means to let off steam. Being female is a bitch, isn’t it?)

What I want to say to you is this:

There will be sooo many times in motherhood when you can’t please everyone, no matter what you do.

This truth hit home hard just a month ago when another daycare mom who was considering withdrawing her baby (who had started just weeks earlier) called our daycare center a “dirty”, “expensive,” “baby factory.” (Expensive, sure, but dirty? Uh, have you been to other daycare centers???) After I told her that I liked our daycare, she said,

“Huh. I just thought my baby deserved better. But you’re fine with this, right?”

Ick. I couldn’t get out of the conversation fast enough.

Trust me. There will always be someone who will try to make you feel badly about how you’re raising your kids. No matter what you’re doing.

And if you need even more assurance that everything’s going to be okay, here’s Adam explaining why baby formula isn’t poison.

Press on, moms.

There will always be someone who is sure you’re not doing the best that you can. (And for some reason, it’s their responsibility to let you know about it.)

Press on.

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July 5, 2017

The Big Summer Project: A YouTube Channel (and some baby pictures… and a baby on a motorcycle)

For six weeks in the summer, we continue to send the kids to daycare and I finally have time to sink my teeth into a big, creative project.

In 2014, that project was writing my first book.

In 2015, it was publishing my first book.

2016 was a bit weird. It was mostly riding the roller-coaster of early pregnancy, dabbling in writing a short young adult novel, and (admittedly) watching a lot of Netflix.

This year, the big creative project is a new YouTube Channel, featuring instructional cooking videos.

Not recipes. Think techniques.

For years, I’ve watched my husband make simple, delicious, and healthy meals. And he can do it without covering everything in butter, cheese, and ranch dressing. He cooks a large meal on Sunday night. It’s usually a huge pot of rice, some vegetables, and grilled, baked, or roasted meat. Then, he portions it out into containers that we take to work.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heated up a meal that he makes and my co-workers have been like, “Mmm… What’s that?”

This guy is talented. The food is delicious. And he understands food chemistry and can give the best advice about how to prepare food. (And did I mention that another one of his hobbies is photography?)

But he’s not great at the storytelling aspect (although, I think he’ll learn easily).

Oh. And he detests social media.

So that’s where I come in. (And did I mention that I’ve got experience with video editing?)

I remember one night when we had a group of Doug’s friends over at our apartment for a dinner party, probably six or seven years ago, and someone said, “Doug should have his own YouTube channel!”

Our response was mostly, “Ha ha. Someday, maybe.”

“No seriously. He should have a channel.”

“Yeah, okay. Not right now.”

But have you seen YouTube lately? It’s integrated with Google now. It’s getting incredibly easy to get started.

I don’t think we can put it off anymore.

So that’s what I’m working on this summer. I have never done something like this before.

But hey. That’s never stopped me before.

Also on the summer dockett:

  1. I’m hoping to release Henry’s birth story as a Kindle single, probably for $0.99 to help me recoup some of the time spent on writing it. It’s a powerful story, but nothing book-length. Stay tuned for more on this.
  2. I also have three academic publications that are in the works right now. All of them are related to an intercultural communication program that I helped design and facilitate with our university’s Department of Teacher Education. One will be published on University of Dayton’s eCommons. One will be in the TESOL Intercultural Communication Interest Section Newsletter. And the last one will (hopefully!) be with the on-line, peer-reviewed journal, Dialogues: An Interdisciplinary Journal of English Language Teaching and Research. 
  3. I seriously need to go through some boxes of old photographs and letters that my mom gave me two years ago. I’ve been dubbed the designated family chronicler, so I’ve got to make some decisions about what stays and what goes. I know the boxes are sticking in my husband’s craw.

And hey, Henry is now officially in the sweet spot of babyhood: post-newborn and pre-mobile.

June 2017 3

June 2017 4

Baptism 1

June 2017: Baptism (Doesn’t look too thrilled)

June 2017 1

 

June 2017 2

It was Splash Friday at daycare. Thus. the swimsuit.

And how about a baby on a motorcycle?

 

So hang on to your Harleys.

It’s going to be a busy summer.

 

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May 8, 2017

I Heart Daycare (and some ramblings about feminism)

Some women tear up as they leave their children at daycare for the first time.

I practically skip inside.

Grin from ear to ear.

I. LOVE. DAYCARE.

Last Monday was Henry’s first day of daycare. Another daycare mom saw me taking him inside and asked if it was his first day. After I nodded, she jumped out of her van and gave me the biggest hug and said, “Isn’t it great!”

“YESSS!!!” I yelled.

“With the first one, you’re bawling about it and then the second, you’re just like ‘have fun!'”

She gets it.

It’s true. The first time we started daycare was much more involved and made me a little nervous. We spent about 20 minutes going through the list of critical bits of information that the infant teacher needed to know to feed, change, and soothe our baby to sleep.

She likes to be rocked to sleep while being held sideways. Like this. And try to put her down 90 minutes after she wakes up. We haven’t started solids yet. How do you heat the bottle for her? She likes it just lukewarm. Not too warm. If she starts crying and she’s not tired, she might be wet. Sometimes. Just check. You’re going to check every hour or so, right? Okay. She’s really pretty easy to take care of. 

But after two days, I’m pretty sure we thought daycare was a Gift from God. (Thank you, Ms. Cathy!)

It was like, Wait… We just drop the baby off at 7:00 a.m. and we don’t have to be back until 6:00 p.m. at the latest????

Game on.

Here’s some money.

Here’s lots of money.

I love you. Here’s some cookies.

Do you like Panera? I got you a gift card. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Thank you so much. You’re wonderful.

daycare

Daycare pretty much taught our daughter about hand-washing, drinking from a cup, and sitting in a chair for meals. They helped us potty train her. They taught her how to sit in a circle for storytime, how to cut with scissors, how to hold a crayon, and how to fingerpaint. They provided an atmosphere full of dress-up clothes, kid’s kitchens, and books, books, books. (We didn’t have to buy any of it! And I’m not responsible for cleaning up the toys!) They taught her how to walk in a line and take turns. They showed her that a room can be stunningly decorated with the artwork of little hands.

And oh so important… They introduced her to the concept of sharing.

They used the classroom to teach rules. They modeled politeness and respect for others. They reinforced the lesson that actions have consequences.

This does not make me sad.

It doesn’t make me feel like I’m not doing my job as a mother.

I don’t regret sending my kids to daycare.

I wholeheartedly embrace it. I even embrace it to the tune of half of my salary.

***

On the surface, it’s easy to see why some moms love daycare as much as I do. It gives women a break from the role of being a mother.

This is huge.

Mothers in particular are constantly carrying around a mental list of things to do that just grows longer and heavier with each child.

Daycare allows them to put some of that down.

And pick something else up.

But my love of daycare goes beyond that.

Daycare, I believe, is an expression of feminism.

For those of you who are completely turned off by the term “feminism”, stay with me for a minute. Because that word gets a bad wrap in some circles. Feminism doesn’t mean “man-hating” or “female victimization.” (I do not blame men individually for the culture and structure of our society. I blame patriarchy.)

Feminism is about sharing power. It’s about making sure that everyone has a voice. It’s about making sure that when important decisions are made about policy (both in government and business), the people who are making those decisions don’t all come from the same background (White. Male. Native-born. Able-bodied. English-speaking.).

Millienials are the first generation to kind of get feminism. Not all of them do, but from my anecdotal observations, it seems like some of the assumptions that we had about gender and power are finally not assumptions anymore.

One of our former teenage babysitters told us that when she was catcalled in the school hallway, she turned around, went up to the guy, and told him in very clear terms,

“You don’t treat me that way!”

Baller.

***

When I was growing up in the late 80s and early 90s, we were taught in school to imagine our futures. What would we like to be when we grew up? Doctors, astronauts, teachers? Athletes? Superheroes? Dinosaurs? Robots? We were encouraged to let our imaginations run wild.

Like many women in their 30s, I truly do not ever remember an adult — teacher, parent, or family friend — telling me that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted to do. No one told me that I was expected to get married and have kids right away. (Although my grandmother did ask me when I turned 18 if I was interested in any good boys…)

I was like many of my female friends. In high school, we all worked hard and earned good grades.

We went to college.

We got good grades there, too.

Maybe we went to graduate school.

And we got good grades there, too.

We followed the rules. We were doing fine.

We got jobs. We didn’t negotiate salary (because that’s not what good girls do, even though they should, we just couldn’t imagine drawing a line in the sand. That’s not who we are.)

And then we had children.

And everyone looked at us and said, “Are you going to stay home or return to work?”

No one asked our partners if they were going to stay home.

And there you have it.

The message is clear. It’s your baby.

It doesn’t provide any economic benefit to this company. It’s even costing us productivity. Make up your mind. Do you want to work here or not? Six weeks is a lot of time for you to be gone. You don’t want to make that kid dependent on you anyway, do you?

What happened?

What about all the things that I could be now that I’m an adult?

Was it all just empty promises, fueled by good intentions and a dream of equality?

Because, I’m here to tell you, access to affordable (!!!) quality daycare is critical for keeping women’s voices at the table. (Side note: The United States was a hair’s breadth away from free universal preschool for all in the 1970s. Here’s what happened to that awesome, bipartisan bill.)

The tide is turning, though.

Almost all of the dads that I know assume as much responsibility for their kids’ lives as their mothers do. When they take care of their kids, they’re not “babysitting.”

I mean… duh.

They’re being dads.

When they take their kids to the grocery store, it’s not some miraculous event that comes around only once every few years.

My husband knows how to swaddle a baby better than I do. He was the one who made the baby food and showed me how to make smooth formula without all the clumps. He can change a diaper in the dark and he’s even yelled at me for making too much noise while he’s trying to put the baby to sleep.

Ah…

Hope springs eternal.

19 Comments
March 28, 2017

Week 8: Is There Room for Motherhood in Feminism?

A few weeks ago, a friend emailed me a link to a blog post by Samantha Johnson, called “When I Became a Mother, Feminism Let Me Down.” She argues that while feminism prepared her to break barriers and pursue any dream she desired, it did not prepare her for motherhood.

Motherhood was not considered to be one of those many dreams of feminists. Feminism has railed so hard against the culture of homemaker/breadwinner that now, there doesn’t seem to be much of a space to stand inside of feminism while you are a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom, for those unfamiliar with the lingo).

Johnson writes,

We are teaching our young people that there is no value in motherhood and that homemaking is an outdated, misogynistic concept. We do this through the promotion of professional progression as a marker of success, while completely devaluing the contribution of parents in the home.

Ouch.

But I have to agree.

Before having a child, I saw myself as a successful product of feminism. I had a Bachelors and a Masters degree. I had a full-time job at a university. I had presented at state and national conferences in my field. I had married a man who was also a feminist. He was the cook in our marriage, for God’s sake.

Check, check, check. And kicked-ass-while-doing-it, check.

By societal standards of success, I was doing very well.

Our culture is very good at instilling the idea that for anything important, you should engage in some kind of education or training. But the subtext underneath all of this required preparation for a career (and the pride from all of my accomplishments while engaging in that career) is that no preparation is really needed for motherhood.

Either because it’s so easy that anyone can do it? Or perhaps there’s nothing much that you can learn before actually becoming a mother?

Both of which any mother can tell you is far, far from the truth.

In my twenties, I had privately viewed the work of mothering as not as difficult as the job for which I had worked so hard to be prepared. On an arrogant day, I might have even been so bold as to believe that mothering also wasn’t as important or valued.

My logic went like this: Millions of women are mothers, but how many women can say they teach English as a second language? And if I was doing something “less” than my what I could with all of my capabilities, wasn’t that a step backward in life? How much time would I have to take off from work before I could jump back in? Would I still be able to travel and present at conferences?

Would I be as proud of myself for being a mother as I was being a teacher? Would “mother” be a title that I would use to introduce myself to others at parties? And if not, why not?

And then I turned 30.

Tick. Tock.

***

Having a child changed our lives for sure, but our changes haven’t mirrored some of the national trends.

Unlike many American women, I didn’t have to quit my job to stay at home with the baby. We live in Ohio, where the cost of living is still very reasonable and the commutes are not bad. We make enough money jointly to be able to afford daycare (even though it’s still extremely expensive).

But I can’t deny that I’m not reaching for the stars anymore. I’m doing my job but I have to admit, I bristle at the thought of working evenings and weekends. And gone are the days when I would fuss and fret over a task until it was “just so.”

Unh-uh. Ain’t nobody got time for that anymore.

Sometimes, I think about the trajectory of my career now that I’m in the middle of “small-child-dom.” It would be nice to do something a little different than what I’ve been doing for the last twelve years… but good health insurance.

Ah, to rise so “high”, only to be stymied by family responsibilities and health insurance.

“High” is in quotation marks, of course.

That’s exactly the problem. The modern vision of what it means to “succeed” never, ever depends on having children–although plenty of “successful” people have kids. Children are definitely part of the vision that we have for a modern American family (and if you don’t have kids, people definitely notice and make comments, regardless of the reason).

But when was the last time that you watched a movie where a character was being portrayed as “successful” and that character’s success depended on their role as a parent? (See the bachelor version of Nicholas Cage in The Family Man.)

Usually, the plot of the movie is that the character needs to discover that, hey, being a parent is actually a hell of a lot more important than the job that makes you money (See Adam Sandler in Click!).

***

All of this reminds me of a recent episode of the podcast, On Point with Tim Ashbrook. In the episode called “A Scathing Critique of Contemporary Feminism,” author and writer, Jessa Crispin explains that feminism has gotten away from one of its main goals–to change systems of oppression. Instead, it has become a movement that seeks to elevate women further and further into the upper echelons of systems that have benefited mostly men. Instead of changing the system, feminism has inspired some women to not only join the system, but rise higher and higher inside of it. While it works out fantastically for those women (what company doesn’t love to brag about how many women it has in upper management?), it leaves the rest of us in the dust.

Or perhaps more fittingly, either unemployed or underemployed.

Her commentary gave me a lot to think about.

In the feminist view, what is “success?”

How do we talk to our children about what it means to be “successful?” And what changes do we need to make in our own minds about what success is so that we may instill a different understanding of success for the next generation?

rosie

14 Comments
March 15, 2017

Week 6: A Great Time to Return to Work

Not.

It’s no secret that parental leave in the United States blows big time. Until now, the most our government has been able to approve is the Family Medical Leave Act (1993), which guarantees that employees won’t lose their jobs while they take up to 12 weeks of unpaid medical leave related to family responsibilities, which can include giving birth.

Go us.

Hard-line Republicans would say that government has no business in providing paid leave to its citizens, regardless of the reason. That’s simply not the role of government. We don’t want to become a “nanny-state,” do we?

And why should workers be paid when they’re not working? Says the hard-nosed capitalist who views human beings solely as workers, completely divorced of any human attachment that might decrease their productivity.

In her book, “O

(Sorry, just needed to spend 40 minutes feeding and soothing a baby. Ahem.)

In her book, Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, Brigid Schulte describes capitalism’s “ideal worker” as

“…freed from all home duties, [he] devotes himself completely to the workplace. He is a face-time warrior, the first one in in the morning and the last to leave at night. He is rarely sick. Never takes a vacation, or brings work along if he does. The ideal worker can jump on a plane whenever the boss asks because someone else is responsible for getting the kids off to school or attending the preschool play… So tied to the job is the ideal worker that he works endless hours, even if it costs him his health and his family” (p. 77).

Obviously, there is no room in this ideal worker for care-taking. Also, this ideal worker is decidedly male.

Maybe we should neither be surprised or dismayed by this. After all, we have a capitalist economy. But pure capitalism won’t survive, my friend. Pure capitalism is calculating, cold, and ultimately cruel. If we all adhere purely to capitalism, there would be no more room for care-taking of any kind.

As long as we don’t see our country longitudinally, we’re fine. As long as only the present matters, we’re fine.

After all, pure capitalism can make a generation great.

But the generation that came before and the generation that comes after will suffer for it.

As long as our country doesn’t need to a future, capitalism is splendid.

But back to parental

(Sorry, had to rock a screaming baby to sleep once again. Also, I had a bowl of Grapenuts with one hand while holding the pacifier in the baby’s mouth with the other hand. Also, Terminator Genisys is playing in the background. I’m missing a lot of the plot points, but it doesn’t seem to matter. And for as much as I like Emilia Clarke as Daenerys, I’m not crazy about her in this movie.)

Let me summarize my rambling, because this was supposed to be a post about the lack of parental leave in this country.

What I’m saying is that our country’s capitalistic view of screw-your-need-for-parental-leave-there’s-nothing-in-it-for-the-company is dangerously short-sighted.

But, in fact, there is something in it for the company.

A future, healthy, educated workforce to do their future, highly-skilled jobs.

People like this don’t just grow out of the ground.

They start as babies. Cared for by tired, invisible, and underappreciated hands. Mostly by mothers who have either dropped out of the workplace or are pausing their careers as they take time off to give birth and provide care.

They start as children. Educated by underpaid, overworked teachers.

They end as old people. Cared for, once again, by tired, invisible, and underappreciated hands. Sometimes by their children. Sometimes, by nursing homes, where the care-takers make a few dollars more than minimum wage.

This care-taking is work, even if it is done with love.

It’s work that is done behind the scenes.

It’s work that creates the pedestal on which the Ideal Worker stands.

Now, excuse me, the baby is crying again.

IMG_3958

Sometimes, this is how you have to nap. (Moving your hand is *not* optional.)

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December 17, 2016

Why Women Have 20-Week Abortions

You are pregnant.

(Just go with me.)

You met your husband in your 30s. It took a while for you to find the right one, but you did. You waited a few years before thinking about having kids. Then, you started trying. Everyone else was getting pregnant so easily, so you thought it would happen without much effort.

Six months go by.

Then a year.

You’re 35.

You start visiting the experts. You take medications and injections. You and your husband are put through the wringer. You spend $20,000 of your own money.

But it works.

The two lines on the test confirm it.

You are pregnant.

But now, the anxiety sets in. You want to know that everything is okay. You wonder why doctors haven’t invented some special at-home ultrasound for you to check out your uterus everyday. Your bloodwork is normal. The genetic tests have come back normal, but you ask them not to tell you the baby’s gender. Not just yet.  You want to have that moment at your 20-week ultrasound.

When you’re 18 weeks pregnant, you finally feel it.

The baby moves. It kicks you. You rush to your husband so he can feel it too, but it’s still too early for him to feel anything.

You relax a little.

When the day of the 20-week ultrasound comes, you are more excited than nervous. You both stare at the ultrasound screen, not quite sure what you’re seeing. You’re smiling. You’re ecstatic even. Waiting for the technician to tell you if it’s a boy or a girl.

But she is quiet as she moves the wand on your belly. You see feet and legs, kicking and squirming. You see hands and a chest.

“So, you’ve got a little girl,” she tells you.

You cry. Because you were hoping for a girl.

But the technician is still quiet.

“I need to run some measurements by the doctor,” she says as she places the wand in its cradle. “Just one second.”

Your heart bottoms out.

***

The doctor says a word that you’ve never heard before.

Anencephaly.

…baby has no brain… incompatible with life… cannot survive…

But you’re not listening anymore.

Your thoughts are running wild.

You know it’s your fault. You should have gotten pregnant earlier. Why did you selfishly wait to try?

You should have taken more folic acid. That’s what causes brain defects like this.

And then there was that time that you went through those full-body scanners at the airport when you flew home to see your parents for Christmas. All that radiation couldn’t have been good.

And didn’t you have a spicy tuna roll in those first few days of pregnancy, before the test came back positive? That was careless.

You don’t deserve to be a mom.

Get a clue. Spend your energy elsewhere because you’re not cut out for this.

But…

When can we try again? Maybe it will be better next time. Next time, I’ll be more careful. Next time, I won’t take any risks, no matter how small they seem. I swear.

Somehow, you manage to ask the question. You’re not crying. You’re completely numb. As the words come out of your mouth, it doesn’t even sound like you saying them.

“Do you know when we can try again? Because… I’m going to be 36 soon. It took us a few years to get pregnant… and I just…” You can’t finish your sentence.

He tells you that you can start trying again when you’re ready. After you deliver this baby.

Right, you think. I still have a baby in me.

***

You spend the evening sobbing, your thoughts still running wild. You google anencephaly and you almost throw up. You google pictures of babies that have it. Actual babies who are born with it. You read miracle stories of babies surviving anencephaly.

Your husband holds you, but he has nothing to offer except his own tears.

Your head is throbbing, but you don’t want to take any medication because… Then you realize that you no longer have a reason to be careful anymore.

You toss back some Excedrin. You think about having some wine, but you can’t bring yourself to do it.

When you wake up the next day, you lie there in the morning light, your hand on your still-so-small belly. You talk to your baby.

You tell your husband, “I cannot do this. I want this to be over.”

You call the doctor. You talk about abortion. You want to know whether they use anesthetics so the baby won’t feel any pain.

And that is when you find out.

You don’t have a choice.

You will have to give birth to this child–because in the state of Ohio, it is now illegal to end the pregnancy.

You cannot believe it. Your child won’t live. You are suffering. You cannot do another day of this. And now you might be carrying this pregnancy for another 20 weeks.

***

But that’s not what happens.

That would have been much more merciful.

At 23 weeks, your water breaks.

You give birth.

Your baby tries to breathe, but she turns blue. Her lungs are underdeveloped. She makes a horrible noise that no mother should have to hear.

But she keeps trying.

It takes your little girl three hours to die.

In your arms.

***

On its face, this is a fictional story. But it is made up of a collection of stories that I have heard and read from other women who have walked this terrible path. A story like this can, and probably will, happen in the state of Ohio next year.

Because on December 13, 2016, Governor Kasich officially signed a 20-week abortion ban. No exceptions for rape, incest, fetal anomalies, and “only very limited exceptions for women’s health.”

Twenty-week abortion bans have become more and more common. Seventeen states now have similar 20-week abortion bans.

I know, I know. Some of you are thinking, Please. This emotional, fictional story that you just told doesn’t represent all 20-week abortions. I know a lot of those babies didn’t have any problems at all.

So, let’s look at some facts.

How many women would the state of Ohio stop from having abortions after 20 weeks?

In 2014, it was 510 women (Ohio Department of Health’s 2014 report on induced abortions, p. 9).

That was 2% of all abortions performed in that year.

Out of those 510 abortions, how many do you think were performed on viable fetuses?

One.

One abortion.

The other 509 abortions were performed on non-viable fetuses.

***

One of the main reasons that women have abortions after 20 weeks is because they have just learned that their child has a terminal diagnosis. And carrying these pregnancies can put the mother’s life at risk.

This is Mindy Swank. Here, she talks about how she was forced to carry a non-viable pregnancy because her Catholic hospital wouldn’t perform an abortion.

“…he tried to breathe, he was turning blue… he wasn’t conscious. It wasn’t a magical time, like people think.”

Or how about this interview with a woman who had an abortion at 32 weeks?

Or this woman who had an abortion at 21 weeks because her baby had half a heart?

Or the women mentioned in NARAL’s 2016 report entitled “Abortion Bans at 20 Weeks: A Dangerous Restriction for Women”?

These are just a few women who have had to face the reality of how 20-week abortion bans affect women’s physical and emotional health.

***

But let me be pro-life for a moment.

Let me acknowledge that some of you are reading this and thinking, Okay, fine, but I’ve read articles that have talked about women who get third-trimester abortions on perfectly healthy babies! And I won’t stand for that! It’s not right! If those women weren’t so selfish, someone could adopt that baby, someone who could give it a wonderful life!

Let’s assume you are right. Let’s assume there are women who are ending viable pregnancies after 20 weeks.

You know what?

That woman’s right to end her viable pregnancy is intertwined with another woman’ right to end her non-viable pregnancy.

The truth is, not many of these 20-week abortion bans that have been passed in individual states make a distinction between mothers seeking abortions for a non-viable versus a viable fetus.

They’re all lumped together.

Just as they are in the state of Ohio now.

Banning 20-week abortions isn’t simply a matter of “protecting life.”

At least in Ohio, a ban on 20-week abortions doesn’t save babies from certain death because many of these babies will not survive.

Instead, a ban like this amplifies the already unimaginable grief that some pregnant women bear.

The truth is, women in Ohio will soon be forced to carry non-viable pregnancies, regardless of how they feel about it.

There’s nothing pro-life about that.

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