Late to the Party...

So, did ya see the Time magazine cover that was such a big, fat hairy deal last week? Yeah, me too. If the internet is to believed, you were either appalled and shocked by the nudity, worried about the child, saying 'right on, Jamie Lynne,' or like me, you were too busy actually parenting a toddler to have a knee-jerk reaction to the thing. (See here for a pretty good summary of people's reactions. They also reproduce the image if you live under a rock (but have wifi or 4G) and haven't seen it.)

I do take issue with the article and the cover, but for a very focused set of reasons, and here they are:

1. The 3-year-old on the cover will be 13 one day. While I actually do think that it is his mom's absolute right to breastfeed him as long as they are both comfortable with it, I imagine his future friends (and classmates and bullies) will google him someday and find this picture. He may not be as confident as his mom in defending the practice of 'extended breastfeeding.'
2. Now, keep in mind that the Bug weaned herself at 17 months, so it might be different with an older toddler, but that cover image has very little to do with what I think is the actual experience of nursing a toddler. Thing the first: what stay-at-home mom of two toddlers looks that put together? I mean good for her, but I'm lucky my shoes match today. Thing the second: When the Bug was still nursing after breast milk was her primary food source, it was largely about cuddling and comfort and not so much about her nutrition; she had waffles and pasta and cow milk for calories, she had mama for feeling safe and loved... so our nursing sessions were generally quiet, darker affairs, and not the sort of drive-thru nursing depicted in this image. If anything, that is more like what nursing was like when she was in the 6-9 months-old range, when she nursed because she was hungry, but couldn't be bothered to lay down for it. And I will fight anyone who says 6-9 months is too old. 
3. The article (and surrounding and related content both in the print and online editions) characterizes a battle between parenting styles that has not seemed to exist for me. I was confident enough our parenting choices to ignore criticism as a general rule, and if another family picks a different path, I'm not sure how that hurts me.* Maybe I'm still a Gamma Girl at heart, but I really don't care what people think of me enough for this to hurt me.
4. The cover, through this intentionally inflammatory image, places the focus on its discussion of 'extended' breast feeding, which is one of the eight (although Time only named three) principles of Attachment Parenting, and it really isn't the most important one. In fact, Attachment Parenting International names this principle 'Feed with Love and Respect,' which sounds pretty acceptable. Because while Grumet, the cover model, was able to breast feed her adopted son, many women aren't in the advantageous situation she was for this, many adoptive parents can't or don't but still practice the other AP principles. By making such a strong statement about the breast feeding issue, the discussion largely sidesteps issues such as gentle discipline and preparation for parenting and birth. It instead focuses on the other hot button issue of AP, sleep sharing, which is one of those sorts of issues I was taught not to bring up at a cocktail party. 

If we are going to discuss how we parent as a society, I suspect that the discussion is one that we will have over coffee and at our water-coolers. It is one in which we will learn surprising things about our family and friends, and things that perhaps won't surprise us that much. It is not one we pick up at our supermarket between the celebrity gossip and the latest 1001 uses for cake mix. In a way, reality TV has done more for how we consider the issues around AP than this sort of media coverage does. Kourtney Kardashian slept with her son into his toddlerhood (I haven't seen any of the new season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians yet, nor do I make any effort to follow this beyond following all three Kardashian sisters on Twitter), Rosie Pope often talks about breastfeeding on her show on Bravo. More and more dramas and comedies assume that mothers will breast feed their children and deal with the issues of infant sleep and bed sharing. This type of presence in the media seems to do more for these issues than does a single problematic picture on a magazine cover. 

[If the prose here-- for that matter, my use of the word prose-- seems a bit 'academic-y' compared to my usual tone, I'm writing my comprehensive exams for my doctoral program at the moment. This is infecting every area of my life. When next I come up for air, I'll tell you all about it.]

*Incidentally, this is also the place where I really tick people off on the marriage equality thing: how does who you marry have any effect on my marriage? It isn't like when I moved to Canada and found out I could marry a woman there I immediately divorced my husband and went a-huntin'. (The other argument I make is about religious equity... half or more of the marriages performed by my minister aren't recognized by our state. How is that equal protection? But that's a discussion for another day on another blog.)

Part-Time Everything

At the moment, I'm in a week off between the madness. (I was asked at the last minute to teach a summer session course.)

I've been reflecting a lot on all of the junk that is on my plate that never seems to get off said plate. I think it comes down to being a part-time worker, a part-time SAHM, and never feeling 100% like I'm in the right place, doing the right things.

When I'm at work, I'm checking my phone for text messages about the Bug. When I'm at home, I'm looking at the same phone for e-mails from students and/or administrators regarding work stuff. If I was a full-time SAHM, sure I'd be looking at mother's day out programs, but so I could go knit or run, or take a spin class and shower in peace. Instead, I'm looking at these programs in order to have a day or two per week to work on writing my dissertation. I haven't been to the yarn shop in ages, and the last time I was there, I basically bought 2 balls of yarn I needed desperately, then talked for about 20 minutes while knitting a total of 2 rows and keeping the Bug out of the cashmere. (They have a strict you-drool-on-it-you-buy-it policy. I have 2 balls of merino sock yarn on account of this policy. I can't afford cashmere. I do think it is a little unfair that the cashmere laceweight is almost exactly at Bug height.)

I know there are plenty of full time working moms and stay-at-home moms who are jealous. The full-time mommies are jealous because of the time I get to spend with the Bug, the SAHMs are jealous because I get to talk to grown ups and I'm mostly able to remember not to talk about poopy. (Well, except when I have a fresh, steaming pile of student research papers.)

But. There's that old saying "Jack of all trades, master of none." I feel like that's where I am. Because every time I forgo some educational game with the Bug in favour of marking papers while she plays with the army of plastic toys that have taken over our home and Sprout plays on the TV, I feel like a bad mom. Every time I don't clean my kitchen and take the Bug for a run and then some swinging at the tot lot, I feel like a bad wife. Every time I hold onto a pile of student papers for an extra couple of days because I went grocery shopping instead of mark them, I feel like a bad professor.

I feel like I'm stretched in 1000 different directions.  I feel like I don't do anything as well as I could, and then (evidence of my crazy) when someone offers to help, I have trouble accepting because I feel like by accepting because I'm afraid that it might make me some sort of failure. Because I feel like I'm not living up to any of my roles 100%, I feel like I screw up a lot. Of course, I already felt like I screw up a lot. As the owner of what I will call an unreliable brain, I've spent most of my life internalizing the message that my brain fails me all the time, and from there, I often conflate events to "it is all my fault and I'm a hopeless screw-up."

Feminism sold us a bill of goods. It was quickly transformed from "women should be able to choose their role in the household" to "women should be able to do it all." Somehow, I bought it hook, line, and sinker. I learned from Martha Stewart that I should be able to manage my household perfectly, while also running my multi-million dollar empire and wearing pearls. I've gotta let that go.

Attachment Parenting and the Real World

So recently, feminist Erica Jong published an essay called "The Madness of Motherhood" in the Wall Street Journal. In essence, it decries the form of parenting known as Attachment Parenting (or, in internet-speak, A.P.) as stifling to women, something that families choose out of guilt or a misguided sense that they can make their children more perfect through perfect nurturing.

I've read it. I've also read Ph.D. in Parenting's refutation of it.

Then I read the comments that followed her entry in response to it. When I read the comments in response to things on the internet, this is often where I get into trouble. I don't fully agree with the author of Ph.D. in parenting, but I see her point that Jong made some flawed assumptions based on a limited understanding of attachment parenting. But one of the commenters said this about attachment parenting:

No one I know who practices A.P. to any degree feels like it is stifling. On the contrary, we feel it is freeing because it is easier and creates fewer battles with out [sic.] children

 Here's the thing. A.P. can be stifling.

Wait. Let's back up. I'm going to assume for a few minutes that some of my tens of fans don't know what A.P. is. So, first, a quick and dirty primer on it might be useful. Attachment Parenting is a style of parenting largely advocated by pediatrician William Sears and his wife, RN Martha Sears, that argues that the best way to raise a child is for them to have a secure emotional attachment to his or her parents. The most concise reading material on the subject is the Sears's book The Baby Book. But in a nutshell, they advocate bonding as soon as possible after the child's birth, breastfeeding, baby wearing, sleep sharing, respecting a baby's cry as a communication tool, and finding balance with parenting and oneself. It does put, if one were to aspire to the ideal presented in the books, a large portion of the parenting duties in Mom's lap.

In a lot of ways, this sums up how we're parenting the Bug. She sleeps in our room, sometimes our bed, she's breastfed, we don't let her "cry it out," and the Sleepy Wrap is still one of our favourite things. But I am wary to say that I am an "attachment parent." I am wary of this, because any number of unfortunate things have been perpetrated in its name over the years. Ideally, it is not overly permissive. But in practice, sometimes it is. I've seen how this ends in college students who have never, not even once, been told "no." This isn't how AP should be practised, but sometimes it is. This is certainly a large part of the media portrayal of AP and the "easy" way to interpret it.

My whole goal as a parent is to put myself out of business.  I want to raise the Bug to be an independent woman who knows her own mind and can deal with the pressures of the real world. To do this, DH and I will have to craft our own style that deals with the Bug's unique temperament and communication style. Right now, a lot of our tools come from AP. Later, they may come from elsewhere.

But I read the Sears Parenting Library books as references because they give me useful tools. Because I live in the real world, not fantasy mommy-land where magical faeries provide us with food and shelter, I am not the ideal AP. I fall out of balance. I get frustrated. I use the stroller instead of the carrier. I occasionally fantasize about how, in some ways, bottle feeding would be easier. (No public nudity. No fear that I am the cause of any discomfort she may have.)

I read the AP literature and handbooks for the same reason I buy the special edition Martha Stewart holiday cookie magazine every year. (Dudes, it just hit news stands. That's like my porn.) I can't do everything in there. I'm not going to hand pipe 100 gingerbread reindeer then sprinkle them with disco dust or sparkle sugar so they look perfect. But I will use some of what I learn. I won't do every AP thing 100% of the time. I will use other caregivers, I will start solids "early."

Because I live in the real world. And sometimes you just have to admit that you aren't going to make the cute little cookie mice with the licorice tails and almond sliver ears. Sometimes you can't cope with the baby crying, and let someone else handle it. Sometimes your back hurts and baby wearing is just out for the day. But you need the whole tool box to know what does and doesn't work, what you can and cannot balance with your real life.

I resent the hell out of parenting sometimes. And sometimes, I think if we had chosen a different way to parent the Bug, I'd resent it less. But, in the end, I know the tools we've chosen are the ones that will let her grow up into the kind of adult that we want her to become. Sometimes it isn't freeing.

Because in the real world, everything is a pain in the ass sometimes.

Pendulum Swing

Back in 1963, Betty Friedan published a ground-breaking work of American feminist literature, The Feminine Mystique. In that book, Friedan suggested that many American women felt trapped as housewives, in part because the vast majority of housework (the expected primary occupation of women) could be accomplished by an 8-year-old child. She decried the infatalization of women and the several intellectual systems (including Freudian psychoanalysis and certain social sciences) which created a belief in society that women were less capable than their male counterparts.

The Feminine Mystique is not without its problems. It over-simplifies the issues, has a marked middle-class bias, and the writing could be better. But it raised an important point, than now, in watching the early seasons of AMC's Mad Men can be seen acted out in lovely costumes and exciting plot lines. Women were treated like small children, first by their fathers, then by their husbands. Anyone who existed outside this mold was likely a lesbian or otherwise mentally ill.

In the nearly 50 years since the publication of that book, society has changed. Women now have higher rates of achieving university degrees and have access to fields they didn't in the 1960s. Our mothers were told they could have it all, by the women's movement, then later by the manufacturers of hair colour and cigarettes.

As women have taken more responsibility outside the home, however, something odd has happened. They haven't let go of their responsibilities in the home. Instead, many women work what has been called "the second shift," coming home and bearing the responsibility for kids and household. And our popular culture represents men as idiots.

That's right. Watch any family sitcom, listen to any stand up comic who talks about his family, and... well, if the space aliens are learning about us from our television, they must assume that the average married American male is functionally retarded.






This clip is just one of dozens of examples.

My point is this: we've gone from treating women like infants to treating men like infants. We find it funny when men can't manage to change a diaper or clean a kitchen, but a woman must do this in heels, while supervising everything her children do and holding a full time job.

If said woman fails at any of these things or asks for help, she is a failure. I know dozens of intelligent women with university degrees who spend much of their time trying to keep all of these plates spinning.

But I don't think I should have to ask for help. Simply put, when I have to ask my husband to help, that is one more bloody thing I have to do. Furthermore, it creates an unequal power dynamic. All at once, it sets me up as the weaker party: I am coming to him because I cannot handle my role in the household. (As opposed to his role which is to bitch about the water bill and overstimulate the baby.) It also, however, sets me up in a supervisory capacity for things that regard our child-- he does it and asks me if he did it right.

And I'm supposed to be proud of him for getting a diaper on right, or not letting her drown in her bath, or cutting her nails without damage to either party involved. I'm just over it.

We need to treat men like adults.

Am I Immodest?

So I'm breatfeeding the Bug. Breast is best and all that. Also, frankly, it is cheaper. I have the time and luxury to do it, so I am. I'm not a fanatic about it, though. I understand that there as many reasons not to as there are families who elect to feed their babies formula. Furthermore, it really isn't my business why another woman makes the choices she makes regarding her own body or her own family. (I won't go into this too much, since Ph.D. in Parenting already did it better than I ever could here.) (See, I told you I was a feminist.)

So I nurse in public. My choice is that or stay at home except when someone else can travel with me until the Bug is between 6 and 9 months old. Like many babies, she refuses to take a bottle from me. I try to use a nursing cover, not so much as an issue of my own modesty, but for the comfort of those around me. Our nursing cover is patterned though, and the Bug decides sometimes that playing with the walls is more fun than eating in her tent. I've nursed at the Y, at the yarn shop, in my car in parking lots, and at the doctor's office.

Last week, we were out running errands. The last thing on the list was the Y, and we rolled in just as she was getting hungry. Usually, when I nurse her there, I take her to one of the rocking chairs in the infant area, but this day, it was before the child care opened for the afternoon, so I took her to a bench near the child care in a hallway really only frequented by Y staff and parents taking children to activities or child care. I got comfy, changed the Bug's diaper, and started nursing her. We started with the nursing cover, but instead of eat, she just played with it. Since I wanted her to eat, I finally gave up, and stuffed the cover back in the bag.

There is a trick to nursing in public with out a cover, and I'm pretty good at it. Simply put, I wear 2 shirts, one that I pull up, and a lower layer that I can pull down. To a casual observer, between the shirts and the baby, less of me is visible than if I wear my favourite beach bikini. That's what I did. The Bug was happy, the few people who passed by largely ignored us.

But, within the same several minutes, I got two comments. One was "awww, isn't that sweet," from one of the supervisors, and the other was "you should really use a cover, a lot of men come down this hallway," from one of the child care staff. My response, as it is to most criticism of my personal quirks, was "if they have a problem with it, that's their problem, not mine." To which the woman said, "well, it's just an issue of modesty." Her tone was along the lines of the lone teetotaler at an Irish wake.

I don't think it is an issue of modesty at all. I think it is an issue of prudishness. If my baby needs to eat, I'm going to feed her. My body, through my breasts, is how I feed her for the moment. When she's older, I won't be embarrassed to give her a ham sandwich in public, will I? Indeed, aside from being rather proud of how well breastfeeding is going, I think I'm being quite modest. Furthermore, breasts aren't dirty. I can even say "nipple" on TV, even if I can't show one there. Our culture has simply hyper-sexualized women so much that it is impossible for some people to see breasts as anything but sexual.

Later, when the same woman came to fetch me out of the hot tub to console my crying daughter, she had an entire conversation with me while I was in my bathing suit. In this case, I was the uncomfortable one.

Honey, You Aren't A Rock Star

No, my DH isn't having a mid-life crisis. He's still his dorky, lovable self. (If you're into the dorky thing, that is. Good news is that I am.) No bimbos or sports cars in his future.

Nope. He's great, as far as it goes. He changes diapers, he plays with the Bug. He's a good dad.

But. Since I'm on a year's leave from school/work and he's the breadwinner*, I stay home all day with the Bug, and he leaves and goes to work. When he comes home, he sometimes "cooks" (in quotations, because he just buys frozen stuff at Costco, applies heat and calls that dinner. I'd complain more, but nursing has left me so hungry that I happily eat almost anything.) and changes a few diapers in between doing the raid-of-the-week in the World of Warcraft. He does the same thing on the weekend.

For this, I am fairly certain he thinks that our fair city should throw him a parade. I hate to burst his bubble, but he ain't a rock star. (Trust me, I'm a popular music scholar, I know the signs of rock starness. First hint: rock stars don't wear golf shirts to work. Ever.) When I tell people about his help, they act like they want to march in his parade.

If we are any sort of feminists at all, which I for one am, we have to stop rewarding men for doing minimal housework and childcare. We have to recognize that while outside jobs have a defined start and end time, parenting is 24-7. If one chooses to stay at home with a child, that is awesome, but they deserve some R&R, and their partner who is employed outside the home should be responsible for some household stuff. Not as a favour, or a way he is awesome, but just as a mater of course. After all, we talk all the time about "working mothers**" but one almost never hears the expression "working father," because it is just assumed that Dad is in the workforce. I've slowed down my career path for a year for this, sweetie. You can deal with a bit of poop and give up raid tanking.

So don't tell me how great you are for walking the dog or screwing up a load of laundry. (Hint: the expensive running clothes never go in the dryer. Ever. They haven't at any point in the 8 years we've been married.) You're a big help. But since you're an adult, you don't get a gold star. You don't get a parade. You just get a quiet thanks and the satisfaction of a job well done.

*I actually hate the expression "breadwinner." It sounds like rather than sitting in a cubicle making RSS feeds and databases work while also drinking coffee and going out to lunch, he is in some sort of gladiatorial contest for marble rye.

**I also hate the expression "working mother," as though stay at home moms don't work. The SAHM game is hard, and not just because of the hours. Parenting, cooking, cleaning, it is all a lot of work. It also seems like a lot of pressure, as the primary responsibility for my child's wellbeing and happiness is on my shoulders. This is why, frankly, I don't aspire to being a SAHM permanently. Too much pressure. I want to work (and use day care and/or a nanny) to help enlist the whole village, as it were, to help the Bug grow into a well rounded adult.