pre-conference SOC

It has taken two years, but I have saved up nearly all my social "uumph" for the upcoming BlogHer. 

This is indicated by my now obsessive desire to get my hair into an actual STYLE. As in "She did her hair". 

The last time my hair was "did"? 1996, for my wedding. And I sure as hell didn't do it. 

Tonights crash course in hairstyling include me trying to learn 40 years of hair styling information which has previously pinged off of my brain as "not my thing". I went and bought Hair spray today. And bobby pins. And some crazy combs and clip things to try to get my hair to do a pouf thing in the back through the magic of back combing. 

4 tries later, I managed to get a bit of a pouf, but I am pretty sure I need to be more ruthless with the teasing and not so timid on the spraying. 

In between, I am emailing my to-be roommates. And because I am giddy and excited and a little bit high on the amount of fumes I have inhaled through the spraying of my hair, I am being kind of silly. I did just disclose my habit of imprinting on people - as in "I have decided we are friends and now, you belong to me for life."

And that I am prepared at all times for the zombie apocalypse.  Which involves making sure I have flats in my bag because 4 inch heels are super hot, but not the footwear needed in the aforementioned apocalyptic scenario.

Oh, and that because I only emerge from my cave every two to three years and speak to other humans, I tend to NOT SHUT UP. I take the dialog that goes on in my head 24/7 and simply broadcast it to whatever poor soul is in hearing distance.

And then there is my goal of speaking with at least 10 people I don't know. And who, after I blast them with my stream of consciousness chatter, may wish to not know me further.

However, I solemnly swear that I will get a photograph of the Hair once it attains appropriate pouf. And my shoes. Because these are some seriously hot shoes which will be making their debut. and maybe of me in the dress(es) - given that I find the right pair of Spanx.

I am excited.

My People

Danielle's amazing post about why she identifies as a feminist set my mind to whirling....bringing me back to this post about the people who existed before me. My grandparents have all died now. Within the last two years, they all passed away and the Rouse farm sold. I am making hooked rugs of their houses from my memories to pay homage to them, and keep them close to me. So yes. I am a feminist. For my daughter. For my grandmothers, for my mother in laws and sister in laws in Detroit. 


I have never suggested than I have come from anything than very humble beginnings.

I was born in West Virginia. You can all insert the banjo music right now and be done with it. Yes- Wheeling, West Virginia is my birth place.

My father was one of five kids, and my mom was one of four. They were neighbors of a sort, my grandparents, as they lived on farms which were near each other. Maybe a ten or fifteen minute walk. They both still live in those houses in the Ohio Valley.

My mom's family was middle class. My Grandfather, after the world war, became a meat cutter at a local grocery store. My Gramma gave up her brief career as a congressional secretary to raise her family.

My father's family were farmers. Of German heritage, they remained farmers until the kids grew up and moved away. Some of my fondest hot summer memories are of ponies and plum trees, cicadas and garter snakes under cucumber leaves. It was no big deal for the grandchildren to disappear into the woods for the whole day only to reappear to get sleeping stuff and disappear back into the woods surrounding the fallow fields. There was hunting and eating of what was brought back. There is a rather "infamous" story of my mother's attempt to barbecue squirrels my father shot during a rather lean time. Let's just say that even the dogs refused to eat them.

My parents married the October before I made my debut in April 1970. They were eighteen, which was more common in 1969 than it might be today. My father had enlisted in the Marines during the height of the Vietnam war and departed after the wedding and my mother stayed in nursing school despite my father's vehement disapproval. She had to double up on her coursework, squeezing three years into two, as the school made an exception for her stay. Only unmarried, not pregnant ladies were to be educated - and she was now both Married and quite pregnant. The nuns, I am sure, were appalled.

Of the children in my fathers family, there were 18 grandchildren produced. This may be a low number, as I suspect there are a few more floating around the valley and parts unknown who may bear a striking resemblance to my father and uncles. The Rouse's are not known for their lack of fertility. In fact, nearly all of my cousins had their first baby during their teen years. Most dropped out of high school. Some got their GED's. Some did not.

My grandmother Rouse once told me that my brother and I went through high school so "quickly". She was not being ironic. She was of old time valley stock, and still used the word "colored" to describe my now husband. To her, it was a wonder than Donnie and I seemed to go forward without falling into the pitfalls of teen pregnancy and early marriage. My subsequent college career must have seemed other-worldly to them, for both Donnie and I went to and finished undergraduate degrees. To my knowledge, this is something that the other members of my family did not do.

Anyone who has been in the Ohio Valley knows that this is one of the faces of poverty. Deep, generational poverty wrapped in coal mining and the decline of the steel industry. These are people who worked hard for their living - brutally hard, that is if they could find work. My mothers brothers, who came of age in the mid 70's, ended up being caught in a cycle of closing steel mills and foundries. I am not sure than either of them ended up ever finding meaningful long term work.

Work in the foundries was hard. I recall going to pickup my father after a late night shift with my mother. He worked there between enlistments in the Marine Corps and my most pressing memory of the foundry was the front of the building.

It was open to the night air. I always imagined that Hell looked like the inside of the building, as you could see the red hot metal being poured into the molds. The cauldron would tip and the molten metal would pour out. My father would tell stories of men being burned by the metal, or otherwise injured and I worried for him until I would see him emerge ~ Sooty, sweaty and smelling like hot liquid steel.

Work in the coal mines was not much better, and my aunt took a job as one of the only female coal miners in her company. It was not a profession that took kindly to the intrusion of women into what was considered a mans job, but it was by far the best paying job around.

When I began working with families in poverty in New Hampshire, I realized that these people were MY people. The people that I helped straighten out issues in their assistance cases, making sure their child care providers got paid - or that they had the correct information regarding their re-application dates, or what they needed to provide to determine eligibility - They were my family.

I did not feel better than they, nor did I feel that they needed to be punished for being poor. I understood them. I understood the histories, the dramas, the cycle of being caught in something bigger than yourself, for that is the story of my own family. I treated the clients with respect and equity, never allowing them to be abusive or threatening and reminding them that screaming or swearing at me would not get the problems solved. My co-workers would tell me how calm I was on the phone, even on the face of some very difficult phone calls.

Perhaps this is why I have always been attracted to the underdog causes. I mean Early Childhood Education? The year I was accepted to Columbia for my Master's degree I earned a whopping 13,000 for the whole YEAR. That was with a B.S. in education, working 40 plus hours per week.

Perhaps this is why I have often considered myself a translator between two very different worlds that exist in American society, and why I have never been afraid people who are living in poverty.

For I am no different, deep down. I am from the same type of background and family. My life, however, took a different path and I was given a skill set which allows me to navigate the waters of academia and bureaucracies.


So even with a Bachelor's degree, a Master's degree and a PhD in progress, I am no different.

Those people are my people.

Thorn in Side

I woke this morning with a lump in my stomach. I hadn't fallen to sleep until around 2:30 a.m., and was awake by 5:30 a.m. For a woman who sleeps a SOLID 8-11 hours per night, this portent bodes no good.

I wandered the house, trying to figure out if the pain was in my stomach...or kidneys, or lower back. I am now of the age when I ponder my individual organs and try to determine if it is they who are flagging me to the side of the road for a little owners manual re-read. I took a bath, hoping that very hot water would soothe whatever was troubling me.

By 7:30 a.m., I had fed the rabbits, who view the appearance of me upright in any hour before 10 a.m. with alarm and trepidation.

As I lay back down in my bed, I wondered if it was missing Emily. She has been gone for three weeks this summer and I am slowly beginning to miss her after first rejoicing so heartily in my Non-Mother status. I allowed myself to be briefly horrified that I had become one of THOSE women, the one who tell you how much they miss their kids when they leave home....because I have been orchestrating her launch into the world since about ten minutes after her arrival, and there was no way in hell I was wandering off of that plan.

Stories and thread of thought move through my brain in these times. I consider another baby. I know, I know, it not only Will Never happen, it would not be good for me TO happen. Not good for Me, for Em, for Terrance or said mythical baby.

I make lists of things I "should" do during the day. I know I won't get a vast majority of them done, but they trickle through my brain.

I can smell the rabbit litter, so I know that will be foremost on jobs to do once I figure out what is causing this pain in my body.

I think back to the previous evening - what I did, what I ate, what could be causing this solid mass of pain in my body.

When it comes to me, I am embarrassed. I should know this feeling.

It is the lump of a nascent panic attack. Since it normally blooms in my chest, it feels unfamiliar in my lower torso. It is the deep fear of being exposed. I am going back to a thing where, by rights, I should be excited and happy. And I am, somewhere in this muddled brain. But I am also worried - will I know anyone? Will I find someone I like? Will people like me? Will I have to face things and people I walked away from in Blog world without an explanation, or perhaps with too clear an explanation as to why I was severing contact? Do we have to talk about it? Are things just water under the bridge? Should I bring it up? Should I just ignore those people/things?

There is much writing about the social anxiety and awkwardness of bloggers. Shit, it is why most of us became bloggers in the FIRST place. I consider writing a sign to put next to me in the Lobby - a sort of Natural History museum sign:

Please Approach with Caution! But Approach! Please!

The genus Dawnus Bloggerus is a fairly gentle creature who is rarely seen outside of her native habitat, the bedroom. Loud noises or excessive touching will send her into hiding. She is however, interested in social contacts and friendships. She wants to be liked. She even likes to know you like her writing, but will experience a moment of fleeing panic when she realizes that this must mean you know THINGS about her - all the THINGS. She wants to have someone to sit with at lunch. Or have drinks with somewhere. Approaching her in a sideways manner is often advised as she has difficulty making first contact. She will be both riotously funny and completely unaware she has said something insensitive...simultaneously. When provided with the right social environs, she will blossom into a fiercely loyal friend.


I wonder if I write this sign and place it in front of me, if I can attract other souls like me until we have enough of us to make a small but powerful gang. I don't have a clever gang name yet. I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning to let that filter out.

Mountain Moves

I am in the library and Morrissey is in my earphones.

Do you find that funny? I certainly do. Before that, it was Beastie Boys. So here I sit, six weeks from my 40th birthday, with my youth in my ears.

I should be researching my methodology comp - but the idea of really finishing this thing is terrifying. With sharp pointy teeth and claws that catch. The theory one is done, awaiting some small revisions. Teresa, my supervisor, told me that it was "Original, Scholarly, Insightful and Clear". Her last comment was that it was "Brilliant, well worth the wait".

Which makes me relieved and frightened of having to repeat some kind of brilliance with a methodology section.

Ah, Amy Winehouse. How nice of you to pop up in the shuffle rotation! I understand your feelings on rehab. I have similar feelings on writing this methodology comp.... No, No, No.

Which is why I flipped my shit at Terrance last week when he asked me when I was going to have it done - then scoffed at the date I produced. His feeling was that I could cobble together things I had already written, but I can't work that way. I have to read and think, digest the material, fit it in with my other work. Nothing stands on it's own. The scaffolding of my brain needs to be joined together in some kind of purposeful way and there is No Easy Way.

There is never an Easy Way.


And now, as I stand on the cusp of the great leap forward in my PhD, I feel oddly detached again. My supervisor ( who may be the only person who can manage me with any success in my whole adult life) finished reading my theory comp and wrote me that it was "Brilliant. Original, Insightful,Scholarly, Clear..." It is time to finish this and allow myself to move to a new level - Expert, Professor. For real. No longer behind my perpetually moving eight ball, but standing alone. Done


The portion above was written in March. I finished the Methodology comp last week and sent it in with the revisions on the theory comp. I successfully dodged and weaved until the beginning of July when the urge came to simply be Done with it. Perhaps it was the interview for an Early Childhood position at a local university that I do not attend. It was, I think, the first time I almost saw myself as a Professor. Of course, I think I vaguely scared half of the search committee, while completely overwhelming one quarter, and inspiring love in the final quarter. A pretty typical spread in any given "First meeting with Dawn" scenario. While I did not get the job, which inspired a very upset Dawn taking to her bed like a Jane Austen Heroine, I recovered.

I needed that. I needed to see the end goal, in a tangible way. I needed to feel the potential pleasure of BEING a professor, of considering which texts I might use and how I might design courses.

Languishing in the ether of your PhD program is, I have found, a tremendously comforting place. For the first time, the cost outweighed the benefits. No amount of Terrance huffing and puffing and yelling at me made me move faster. I resisted him for three years. No, it was Me who decided. It was time to move.

Party Girl

It's funny. I have been so freaking proud of myself for simply GOING to BlogHer that I forgot about the other "stuff" that the conference involves.

Mainly Parties.

Now at my first and most beloved San Jose BlogHer of 2006, there were no "parties". Unless you count the women drinking around the pool until the sun came up the next morning. Cause that was how exclusive it got then. You wandered in, sat, drank, smoked, laughed, and generally did whatever you felt until you either fell into an exhausted heap OR saw Sasquatch.

I know there are a few peeps out there who still remember Sasquatch. Or I entirely imagined him in some alcohol/nicotine infused fugue state, which I can't entirely rule out.

In all honesty, I met most of the women who have remained my tru-luv blogger friends at that conference. There were no brands. No parties, no books to promote. Just chicks around the pool talking and laughing and generally being relieved at finding other women who "Got" them. We had all come from our corners of the globe to SEE each other.

At 2007 BlogHer, I had a fairly extensive Blogger Identity Crisis and Breakdown. True Wife was VERY new and shiny and popular and being syndicated, I was being interviewed extensively about it...I was one of the heralded gang of ClubMom paid MommyBloggers. I had TURNED DOWN Huffington Post. When the event which later inspired the "Stealing isn't Cool" post occurred, I was already fairly fried. That sent me into my hotel bed, under the kind gazes of Izzy, Nancy, Jen and Karen who let me stew and simmer and simply be.

I swore off most things Blogging after that. Sure, I did my "job" as required under contract(s)...but I was sick of it. I sure as hell wasn't going to fight another person over swag or invites or any other damn thing. I didn't want to review jack shit. I didn't want to represent any company or brand. I didn't want to hear about turning my stories into scripts. Screw all of that.

Now, some people grow and thrive on those things. I am not a hater. Truly. I simply CAN NOT do those things, so rather than stand at the window pane looking wistfully at something I never wanted to do in the first place, I simply closed my eyes to all of it.

Ignorance might not be bliss, but it can sure as hell save you an ulcer.

So when I now stumble across blog posting about bloggers begging to go to parties, I think "Really?!"

I was not invited to a thing, outside of the Voices of the Year Gala - which I am planning to bust out a dress of such supreme awesomeness that the angels will weep. I am totally NOT shitting you.

And you know what? I am entirely ALL right with that. This year I am returning to my San Jose 2006 blog feeling. I will sit in common, open to all, areas. I will bond with people I have never heard of and maybe (hopefully) see some long time Blog Loves, with whom I will drink and laugh and talk. I will allow my fragile self to receive the kudos of my peers at the Voices of the Year Gala, and soak in that what I do here in Blog World is Good. And Important. And Recognized.

But exclusivity? And Party Lists? And Invitations?

I'm Sorry, Blog World. It's not you - It's me. You want a commitment and I am a poly amorous kind of gal in this regard. So, look for me in the common areas. Rocking some fabulous dresses. And my tattoo.

You'll know me by my fabulous ankles.

Yet another "Note to Self"

When the under-wire in your bra pops out and pokes you in the tender underside of your bosoms - throw it away as soon as you get home.

Otherwise, you will put it in the wash, then wear it again unwittingly. When the errant wire pops back out and pokes you again, you will swear and curse, as you will be in the car, driving to work. You will then spend the day wishing you had thrown the damn thing away the first time, cause now you have to look all "professional" while the wire of doom pokes you repeatedly.

I'm just sayin' is all.

Unspoken

A few days ago, I was interviewed by a researcher writing an article about Post Partum Depression.

I have written about my experience on I am Doing the Best I can, and she found the post, and wanted to hear more from me what it felt like to be in the midst of those feelings. As Kismet had it, Meghan wrote a fabulous piece on her blog on almost the same day and Julie wrote a little bit about her fears in talking about her post partum depression.

Talking to the researcher brought back the fogginess of the depression for me. The things I noticed after I had begun to return to life. The thin line I walked for three and a half years. The energy I put into hiding my spiraling depression from everyone, until even that effort crumbled at my feet.

And why no one noticed.

When she asked me why no one had diagnosed me, I had to stop and think. Why hadn't they? My disconnect with my babies cues, her failure to gain weight, my mood swings...why hadn't anyone noticed?

Part of the reason, I suspect is that as an educated woman with her degrees in Education, and her jobs as an Infant and Toddler specialist and Director of a child care, they assumed I knew what I was doing. I presented well. I showed up for every doctor's appointment. I could give you Emily's vitals and statistics. Emily was clean and presentable. I was a married woman with a participating spouse. We had two incomes and excellent child care. 

Some people suspected, I think. My midwife got a glimpse when she observed a six week old Emily rooting on my shoulder, and said "Oh, I think she's hungry", to which I snapped "She just emptied both breasts 20 minutes ago - She's NOT HUNGRY!" My primary Doctor got glimpses when she would see me for my continual parade of infections and suggest that I needed to manage my stress differently. "I'll get right on that", I would respond.

I couldn't talk with the other mothers in child care...I was the Director. I was the Boss. They were Paying me for my expertise and knowledge. Announcing that I hated my child would have been less than good PR for the business I was in charge of running.

I couldn't tell my husband that I was fantasizing about killing my baby, killing him, killing myself. He would take her away and leave me. Then everyone would know that I was a bad person, a bad mother, a bad wife and a fraud as a Professional.

So I told no one, and I sank deeper and deeper into my darkness.

It was August of 2001 that I decided to seek help. I had bargained with myself for almost four years, and it never got better. "A few more weeks, and then if I don't feel better...", I would think. It didn't. I found myself screaming uncontrollably at a frightened Toddler one weekend when Terrance had gone away for business and realized that I was dangerous. A rational voice whispered "You are a danger to her....", as I fled her room and locked myself in the bathroom. Her mother. Dangerous. To all of us.

The researcher asked me what I thought was something that wasn't talked about in PPD. My answer was immediate.

"You want to kill your baby. You actually have vivid thoughts of killing your baby."

For some, it is the butchers block filled with knives, or the balcony of the hotel. I thought of drowning her in the lake, or getting into a car accident that would kill her and seem an accident. Some mothers have told me their thoughts of throwing the baby from a window, or bashing their head on the wall. It is the ugly underbelly of what we mean when we talk about PPD. It isn't "baby blues", or "feeling low". It isn't being weepy or exhausted. Shit, you don't need PPD to feel weepy and exhausted after a baby arrives. That's the NORM.

No, it's the ugly things that the books fail to mention. The killing fantasies. The anger. The resentment. The blue black hatred of this child that you carried and dreamed of and birthed, who is devouring you. No, that is never in any of the pamphlets.

"What", she asked,"is the thing you wish other mothers could know about PPD?"

"You don't have to feel this way. Motherhood is hard enough without feeling so hopeless, so alone."
For me, it was medications and therapy and the patience of my child and husband as I returned to them. It is talking openly about my experience with PPD. It is lending my ear to other mothers, or friends who are approaching motherhood for the first or multiple time. I am, I tell them, the mother to whom you can say the ugly things. I won't be shocked. I won't be horrified. I won't call the bad mother police on you.

I will hold your hand, and we will make a plan. Together.

We all knew deep in our hearts, didn't we?

That I am a Geeky/Nerdy kind of gal.

As such, I am pleased and deeply honored to be among the Finalists for this Years BlogHer Voice of the Year: Geeky/Nerdy Category.

AND I found some room mates. Who are ( and I shit you not, none of us knew this prior to arranging room shares) ALSO Finalists in Voice of the Year.

I clearly don't think blogher is ready for the jelly of this much talent crammed into one hotel room.

So, Thank you to Celeste, Kelli, and Kelli for giving me a place to stay and not reducing me to sleeping in the bathroom stalls of the Hilton.

You like me. You really like me.

And if I drink enough, you totally know I am showing my boobs.

Wishy Washy

So, here is the post that I tell the world that Yes, I think I am going to BlogHer this year. The first time since the fiasco of 07, which has been recorded here in the annals of the blog, not to mention seared into the minds of all who witnessed my spectacular crash, immolation and withdrawal from the world at large for a solid year.

I bought the ticket quite a while ago, but simply never mentioned it. I wasn't so sure I would feel like going, and I didn't know where I would be in my writing - either the blog OR the dissertation. Since I can't handle any kind of external expectation weighing on me as I already have strapped myself to a metric ton of concrete and thrown myself from the highest bridge available, I figured the less said, the better.

So imagine my own surprise when I decided this weekend - Yes. I think I want to go. I think I am ready. The armor is thick enough and I have withdrawn from the things that troubled me so about my last go-round at BlogHer.

I decided a while ago that I don't need to be a brand, and while I love to have my writing validated...being pleased with the act of writing has overwhelmed the need to be the clown. The granite mountain that is my occasional writers block allows me to truly take pleasure when the words come easily.

I may never be published in a non-academic arena. I may never be syndicated, or have articles quote me about the state of the Mommy Blog (which, lets face it, I barely fit into at the best of times). I am, however, a storyteller. I tell my stories to you. All of you out there. And while I have no real way to know if there are hundreds or five of you, I know you like the stories and I like telling them, so there it is. If not for you, the stories would remain written, in my head, zooming and zinging around with the million other bits of fact, trivia and general junk drawer of a brain I possess.

The problem now becomes Where to Stay. I went on the BlogHer Conference room mate board, with no luck to date. One pair might have had a space, but it fell through, so I am back to square one.

Sigh.

This was after I had mentally prepared myself for maybe having to stay with a STRANGER!! (cue the running around flapping) and then worrying that I should Prepare the possible stranger for me...and what did that entail, exactly. I mean, I didn't want someone to have to room with me and think "Jesus Fuck, what did I get myself into here?" So I began to think of myself as a room mate personal ad - something on Craigslist:

Low maintenance smartass needs bed from Thursday to Sunday morning. Incredibly shy and quiet before liquor is introduced...then, oh dear. Quite a potty mouth. May drink a bit too much, especially on the first night ( Mostly because she is so nervous and forcing herself to be in an unknown social situation, but partly cause she is OUT and AWAY from Home). No entertainment required. No coordination of schedules unless both parties are amenable and actively seek out such. May need to sleep past when other people are up and Out. May take naps mid day. Doesn't need to be at any particular parties, since she has done a terrible job of  staying "in touch" with the blog world. Kind (usually), Loyal to her friends. To sum it up, in the words of Britney Spears, the people of world tend to fall into "the ones who can handle me, and the ones that are scared." I am, after all, a put on a show kind of a girl.

A post in which I empathize with Mel Gibson (but not really)

I have to admit that I too have listened to those taped conversations between Mel Gibson and his baby-mama.

I too have had the perfect "O" mouth as I heard him flip his stack - over and over - spewing out hateful, terrible things at her.

And yeah, I have listened to them all as they are "leaked".  It's hard to look away from the train wreck after all.

I was all in the "What a terrible man" camp...until the last tape. Yesterday, as I listened to him Pant and scream and sound like he was amidst a panic and/or  heart attack, I actually felt..... Dare I say this? Empathy?

I know all the reasons I SHOULDN'T feel empathy. How it is Never Ok to put hands on your partner, no matter What the reason. I know the implicit power dynamic that must exist between them - he has money, she does not and is aging with no career and now 2 kids to support in a style in which she has become accustomed. How nobody deserves to have names like whore screamed at them.

I KNOW all this and still I felt for him. It isn't because I don't think he did all of the things he is accused of doing, and clearly he said the things he was recorded saying. It isn't because I have an opinion about her motives ( although I do) or her character.

So why do I feel empathy?

Well, I guess the best way to explain it is that I have Been That person...That person who is involved with someone who makes you so crazy that you do things that normally you would never consider doing and say things you would never consider saying.

And while everyone around you can see that the relationship is making you act in ways you normally wouldn't, you can't walk away. The good times - when they are good - are like a straight shot of seratonin into your adrenal gland.

But the bad times - which it all becomes - involve two people trying to rip each other down to sinew and bare bone by any means necessary.  The scorched earth approach - if you can't be mine, and there is a part of me that hates you to the core - but if you can't be mine, you will be no ones.

And that is when the "I have given you everything and you have given me nothing" martyrdom begins.  The bargaining with sex begins. Because for those minutes, you have their complete attention. Things are good. Really good until the euphoria wears off.

Then, you hate yourself for going back, you hate the person for allowing you to come back. You hate that you are now scratching at the door for any kind of recognition or scrap of love or anything. Even anger is some kind of emotion being shown, which is better than being ignored - which is the default position of the relationship. I  ignore you until I can't anymore and then I we either fight....or f*ck.

Sigh. There were several of my boyfriends before Terrance with whom I had this circle. One of whom I most famously tried to climb into his 2nd story dorm bedroom window after he locked me out during a fight.

That place is a terrible place. And I feel badly for both Mel and Oksana for being in that place. Obviously they can not be together, because I believe that this pattern is unstoppable once it is established between two people....like heroin. You are never Not an addict. You just have to stay clean.

So, yeah. I am really glad I never had a baby with any of those men before Terrance. Yikes. It would have locked me into a pattern with men who were poison to me, and for whom I was poison.

Unlike my Mom ( who LOVES the drama and had one of these relationships with my Father), I decided that love didn't mean being giddy with joy or being angry all the time. Love didn't mean fighting tooth and nail, and then passionately making up to do it all over again.

I hope for their child that at least one of them gets healthy enough to understand that.

Honestly....Why me?

So, we know my daughter asks me questions about the purpose of the penis....

I got another one today.

We were strolling in a bookstore this afternoon. There was a display of stuffed animals made in the shape of common or deadly virus/bacteria.

Emily picks them up one by one and hands them to me to read. She also requests that I tell her What they do to the human body.

I'm doing all right. We've  got the common cold, Sore throat, Bad breath...Hell, we even have Mad Cow.

Then, it comes. This one.

Good old Gonorrhea.

"What's this one do, Mama?" she asks.

I stutter. I hem.

"I'm not sure I'm ready to talk about that one", I reply.

Another mother in the store starts to giggle.

"MAMA! What's it do?", she insists.

"Um, It's a disease that adults get." How much information will satisfy her?

"Yes, but where? Does it make you throw up?"

The other mother is in outright laughter now.

"No, baby, I don't think so. But let's just say that is an adult disease and I hope that I never have to talk about this with you ever again in your life - Now, don't you want some ice cream?"

She is diverted. She drops "The clap" and walks to the door.

Thank you Ben and Jerry's, for you have saved my sorry ass once again.

One Child from being Childless

I wrote this awhile ago. It wasn't until I read this piece at BlogHer about the new Pew Report regarding being "childless by choice" that I dug this out of the drafts.

As always, I suspect I say what many other women feel, but fear to admit.

***************************************************
I would not chose to NOT be a mother.

Actually, maybe I would.  I said the first thing because I figured I would get hate mail.

My inside joke? "One child from being childless"...Ha-Ha?

Before Emily came into our lives with the fanfare of a thousand volcano's, I assumed that a child would be folded neatly into our existence. I was born to be mother. I mothered other peoples children for a living.

Ours would be a snap.

And there are weekends like this, after Terrance has been away for a week - and then hassles me for some inconsequential detail ( like the fact his bottle of water was right next to his side of the bed where he left it on MONDAY) and Emily has jumped up and down on every last one of my nerves, then taken a hacksaw and electric drill to the others,  and my sleeping hasn't been any better, and Terrance is standing in front of me RIGHT now, yammering about god knows what, but wanting my WHOLE attention ( not unlike Emily)...

That I think...Did I make the right decisions? Was marriage and a child the best idea? Would I have done better as a single girl - enmeshed in my career? What would I trade for silence? For solitude?
How many more years before she moves out?

Then I think..It's gray and cold and rainy. I am sleep deprived. I have school work to do, and no umph to get to it. I must be close to my period. It is all of those things talking, making me regret motherhood and marriage.

And the quiet voice that lives deep in my brain says, "No, sweetie - you do think about it...but all women do too, and that's Ok. People just rarely say it out loud , is all." I shake hands with my single Dawn and wave at her as she walks back out the door.

And I shake myself off and fold the laundry, and pack her backpack for tomorrow.

Storm Front

The storm arrived fast. There had been no tell tale clouds in the sky. No predictions of rain in the forecast. In fact, until the moment the storm arrived, you would never have guessed that there was even the vaguest possibility of foul weather.

It started with some mild howling. She didn't want to do her reading, she said. There was a law against kids having to do homework in the summer, she said. This progressed into precipitation - tears rolling down her cheeks as she is sent to her room, foot steps thundering away as she stomped off, muttering loudly about fairness.

Moments later, like lightening setting a meadow afire, she returned to curse at her mother. She hated her, she said. She wanted to live with her grandmother.

The mother, calm and passive until that moment, is struck by the lightening of her daughters fury. It passes from body to body, the smell of ozone lingering in the air.

The mother gets up and leaves the room for the kitchen, beginning to make dinner. The storm follows
her. Upon opening the freezer, a water bottle falls out and cracks  - the plastic shattering into jagged shards. The second crash follows on the heels of the first, as the glass coffee carafe falls into the sink and breaks.

The mother now storms from spot to spot, trying to clean the glass and plastic and cook at the same time. The daughter returns, rumbling about the choice of dinner as the thunder cloud of her mother moves from mess to mess.

The storm cloud expands, mother and daughter echoing the thunder back and forth...

until , like all storms, it passes. The child is fed. The mother cleans the mess. The quiet is restored. You would almost not know that the storm had rolled through, save for the melting ice bits, slowly melting on the kitchen floor.

Originally posted at Gimlet Eye, July 11, 2007

You should hear the one on the feasibility of cryogenics

Terrance (From Living Room): I just sent you something

Dawn (In Bedroom): What? I can't hear you the fan is blowing on me.

Terrance (living room): SENT YOUR SOMETHING IN EMAIL

Dawn (Bedroom): I'm not on email, I'm doing something else

Terrance walks from the living room to the bedroom: "Open your email"

Dawn (In bed, with wet washcloth on head, fan blowing on her): "Does it have to be now - it's too hot."

Terrance: Just open the email.

Dawn: Fine. What is it?

Terrance : Just something I sent you

Dawn: Did you just send me the definition of an ethnography? I KNOW what a freaking ethnography is...

Terrance: But look, if you just read through here and answer these questions, you'll have your methodology answers

Dawn: It is 10 o clock at night and 90 degrees. I do not want to discuss research methodologies with you. And I KNOW what an ethnography is - I am doing something in the social constructionist vein....NOT Ethnography. GET out of here.

Terrance: I'm just trying to help. Did you read it?

A Letter to Paul From Sarah

My dear Paul.

Yes, I see you a few rows over there with a fancy grave marker. People dressed in the attire of our "day" wander in and out of this graveyard all day, pointing you out. Some people leave you flowers. Nearly all of them point small devices at your grave, stopping for a few extra moments.

And where am I? Your beloved wife. Woman who bore you 8 children. Yes, count them. 8.
Nearly four rows over...buried next to your father. Who, forgive me for saying so, is a miserable grave companion.

On this day of days Paul, let me remind you of just who did the work of revolution in this fair city. Was it you and your friends? Oh, perhaps as recorded in the poems and histories of the events. But we both know who it was. The wives. The wives who spun and sewed the clothing. The wives who cooked and served meals for children, friends and co-conspirators until late into the night. While your friend Sam Adams gets a huge statue down the road, we know who the real brewers were, right? Women.

We gardened, we harvested, we preserved and slaughtered the animals. We made soap, washed, quilted, stuffed beds with straw. When you came home at all hours of the night, I made sure you had food to eat, and a warm home in which to enter. I nursed and cared for 8 babies...until I died not long after our youngest was born.

Who stitched wounds, bandaged cuts, and wrapped the dead after the massacre and battles? Women. Who brewed that tea that you all eventually went crazy over for being too expensive? Who then served it to you in the silver mugs that you crafted? Yes. Me and the other wives.

Paul, ,my love, I am not saying that you and the other "founding patriots" of the day don't deserve recognition for your commitment to an idea that a society could be different. I am merely suggesting that the visitors to this grave yard do as Abigail Adams later exhorted her husband John - to "remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors."

Yes Paul. I watch you from over here. I watch the stream of people wander by you, struck silent by you - the midnight rider ( by the by, I thought that poem was pure hilarity - I know I was dead when it all occurred, and I felt for your second wife, Rachel...You galloping off into the night, with ten children at home. The poor woman was sure that you would be hanged before the sun came up.)

This woman stops at my grave. She peers at the name engraved on the stone. She brushes mud off the letters, as the damp spring ground sucks at her boots. She walks back over the sign near your grave and reads. She comes back, kneels close and points one of those devices at my stone. She stays awhile. She leans close, and in that terrible accent the people here have acquired, she whispers "Thank you, Sarah".
Yes Paul. She thanked me. She thanked me for weaving the fabric of the country with my body and my work. She thanked me for feeding and cooking and bearing new citizens.
She whispered that it is not an act of heroics, or lofty speeches that make a patriot, but the unending toil that is life.

Indeed, Paul. That is what patriotism is - it is stoicism in the face of endless work. It is doing what is needed, not for acclaim, but because without that labor, life as we know it would halt. It is seeing your giant grave over there, and living with the knowledge that without me, without all of the wives, the American Revolution would have gone nowhere.

Happy Independence Day Paul Revere.

Your Consort,
Sarah

Feminist Crafter

For those of you who don't know....I make stuff.

Lots of Stuff. Quilts. Braided Rugs. Hooked Rugs. Needlework.

In the past I have canned jellies and ginger pear conserves for Christmas gifts. I have dried fruit and made wreaths out of them. I have made wreaths and garland from cranberries and fresh cut pines (That I cut down myself!) I made my wedding invitations with the help of a friend. I made the wedding table centerpieces too.
Before Emily was born, I even started my own heirloom tomato seeds indoors in February. Over-achiever much?

Now, my Mom was not a crafter really. Sure, she "macraméd" with the other ladies in the late 70's, but I never saw her collecting bolts of fabric, or sewing on the couch.  She never sat me next to her and put a needle in my hand and guided me towards the finer points of needlework. As a child of the 60's, my Mom was not super concerned about her "home making" arts and our house was chaotic and messy and full of kids and animals. She worked full time and her down time was spent in the garden.

It is hard to say when I got the urge to make things. Perhaps it was while I was still in high school and a neighbor introduced me to sewing. I made a few pillows from patterns...and began to expand outwards. I LIKED having something in my hands while I watched television in the evening. There was something oddly satisfying about the feel of fabric in my hands and the measurable progress I could see.

At the University of Vermont, I did no crafting. I did, however, study feminist theory and women's history.  I learned the history of the women of New England for it surrounded us. I learned about the things I had not learned from my History textbooks as a Vermont school girl, specifically the ways women surrounded all the events we had traditionally been taught. Like many college aged women who start to unpeel the onion of the empty spaces in our education, I was shocked. I was amazed. I was outraged.

These events happened in places I KNEW. Places I had BEEN. And I had no idea.

One of the books we were assigned was authored by a newish professor at nearby University of New Hampshire.  She came to speak with us about her research for the book and tell us what she was working on at that point. The book was "Good Wives", the Author, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Her talk was electrifying in a way that I can still remember after 21 years. She was passionate. The stories she told us were rich and nuanced. She was working on the life story of a Maine Midwife  then, something that would become "A Midwife's Tale".  I would read the book when it was published, and later attend the film adaptation when it was shown at the Portsmouth Music Hall.  I would again meet Laurel Thatcher Ulrich at that showing, and some descendants of Martha Ballard who still populated the area. Coincidentally, I had made my first quilt by that time, still reveling in the feel of fabric in my hands.

My growing desire to create coincided with the publication of Ulrich's third book "The Age of Homespun", which I had pre-ordered from a local bookstore. I was a wife by that time, and  "Making Things" helped me define my home. I could make a wreath from pine cones I had collected. If I could do THAT, how hard could it be to Make Garland? We were surrounded by trees, after all.

Living in a fairly small town in New Hampshire, there was a certain expectation that you would Create Things.  I am not sure how else to explain it, but it was assumed that you wanted to make your own quilts...or rugs....or wreaths...or jellies. When you walked into most houses, you would see evidence of handiwork - either through antiques passed down in families or new pieces in use.

My quilting got better and better. When on maternity leave, I decided to take rug braiding lessons from a Quaker woman out in the middle of nowhere. Once a week, I would hand Emily over to her father and drive a half an hour to my lesson to be vaguely berated by the woman we came to call "The Mean Quaker". Mean wasn't the right adjective - excessively perfectionist may be a better descriptor. But I learned how to braid a Rug, damn it.  A rug which still sits next to my bed to this day.

During the worst of my post partum depression, I made quilts for Emily.  It was, I later came to understand, the way I could show my daughter I loved her. Textile arms to wrap her when I could not connect. My quilts still cover her bed today.

My latest obsession? Rug Hooking. It suddenly occurred to me in March that it was something I had yet to learn...and so I pursued it. First finding a kit on the internet. I wanted to make sure I enjoyed the activity before investing in the equipment. I finished the first rug in a week.

I finished the second rug two weeks later. 

Then, I found a teacher here in Montreal who helped me design a simple large rug:

The photo here is deceptive. This rug is very big - and almost finished. The next rug is already sketched out on paper to be transferred to the linen once I complete the circles rug. It will be one in a series of portraits of my Grandparents Homes, distilling all my childhood memories into wool and color.

I don't make most things to give away It is rare that anyone gets a quilt. It has happened, but generally there needs to be a Wedding. Or a Graduation.  I think I given 5 quilts away. The rugs are being made for the house, for me. When I read this article at BlogHer, I thought "Why Yes - This is exactly what I am doing."

Perhaps unknowingly at times but always surrounded by ghosts of women who went before me. I am one of a long line of women who MADE things with our hands.  From new, from used, from whatever was at hand. Making stuff, putting our prints all over the things that make homes and places comfortable. Things which are made to be used - not framed and saved - but Used. I realized it was what Laurel Thatcher Ulrich was writing about in all of her books - Women, shaping their lives through the lens of what is needed, expressing their creative voice through materials at hand - be that fabric, wool, or canned fruit and vegetables.

When people ask me HOW I can create these rugs and quilts AND write the blogs AND work on my Dissertation AND Be Mom and Wife and Teacher...I don't really know what they want me to say. I do this all because I have to do this. Each role has pleasures and annoyances that balance and counterbalance each other and they all come together to form who I am.

A Feminist Crafter.

Superstar in Training

Emily came home from the last day of school, her face all smooshed up.

"what's wrong?", I inquire cautiously. 

The face she is making is the one she does before launching into her diatribe of who has done her wrong and how. A Pre-teen country song, all in one. Since her grievances may include "Wouldn't sit with me at lunch" and/or "Told me I wasn't funny" right down to "Said my shorts fit weird", I am generally loathe to leap into the pool of angst.

She climbs onto the bed and sighs. Deeply.

"I was walking up to get my award today and I tripped and the whole school laughed. Even the Kindergarteners." She is indignant, but resigned.

"oh, Honey", I say. "Let me tell you what happened to me today..."

"I was out doing errands and hit the lock switch with my elbow, so the doors locked me into the car - which meant I had to climb in and out of the passenger side of the car - Which you know how Much I love doing as a 40 year old woman , crawling in and out of the side of a Hyandai, while trying not to knock over my iced coffee in the cup holder.."

She is starting to smile. 

"So, I had to go to the pharmacy to get something, so I pulled up and parked, and then figure out how I was going to get out of the car. As you can see, I am also wearing this lovely white skirt today, so I had to calculate how to get out of the car - IN the skirt vis a vis the passenger side of the vehicle. While I was thinking about this, I noticed an elderly woman asking for change at the front of the store. She looked hot and tired so I dug around in my purse until I found a toonie to give to her. Then I leaned over, opened the passenger door and slowly crawled out of the car."

"I start walking up to the woman and she asks me for change and I smile at her and lean down to give her the toonie. As I do this and turn to walk in the store, a gust of wind lifts my skirt completely up and shows my whole Ass to this elderly woman ....who says "Watch out for that back draft there"..."

Emily's eyes are wide and she starts to giggle. "She saw your underwear?", she asks.

"No, she saw my ASS, since I was wearing a thong, she got a view of my BIG WHITE ASS CHEEKS!"

There is hysterical laughing. 

"I mean, what could I do? I smiled and said "Whoa that was something - and walked into the store as fast as I could - then when I came back out, I had to walk back in front of her as she watched me climb into the drivers seat via the passengers seat and try to not flash her my ass AGAIN..."

My child is Guffawing.  I decide to continue -

"Did I ever mention the time I fell off the stage at Kindergarten graduation at Child care after I had you and jumped up with my arms up in the arm and said "I'M OK!? Or how about the time I stepped on the front of my prom gown and tore the front of the dress off BEFORE MY DATE GOT THERE - so your grandmother and a neighbor had to tape it up with surgical tape? Or when I fell down the stairs in high school in front of a bunch of people, while wearing vintage pumps and tore the heel off the shoe and didn't have any other shoes, so I had to limp around all day with one shoe with a ripped off stilleto heel and another normal 3 inch  shoe? And you were there when I tried to do the back flip in the lake and only ended up showing my boobs to the neighbor...."

Tears of hysteria are filling her eyes. She is rolling around on the bed.

"Oh, Mom. You always make me feel better...", she gasps.

"Honey - we aren't graceful people - but the best thing to do and just know that it happens to everyone and jump up and yell "SUPERSTAR!"

In Praise of Sexual Empowerment

There are things I want for my daughter as her Mother. I want her to have good friends who love her. I want her to have healthy food and a healthy body. I want her to have a good education and work ethic. I want her to be able to navigate racism, sexism and other stupidity without these things taking a chunk our of her soul. I want her to know that her father and I will do everything in our power to keep her safe, and that we love her above all else in our lives.

There are also things I want for my daughter as a Woman. I want her to be treated fairly in the workplace and earn a living wage. I want her to find a partner who loves and cherishes her. I want the decision to have a baby to be her decision, and while I coo at my imaginary future grand babies, I am also fine if her decision is to remain child-free.

As a woman, there is another thing I want for my daughter. And this is the one that seems to really stir up the emotions of OTHER women.  Are you ready?

I want her to be sexually empowered and satisfied.

It was this post on whether or not I would purchase condoms for my teen on Blogher's Facebook Feed that set me to thinking.

My snap response was "Of course I would." Then I read the first comment:

"My daughters are of the mind that their bodies are sacred and no boy or man is worthy of their gift without the promise and commitment of marriage. We have discussed it at length many times. My girls are never left in a position where they would be compromised and left to need condoms or other birth control."

Oh. Oh my. Oh dear me. Envision me gripping my head and holding it as if in massive Pain. Where to start? With the assumption that every woman is heterosexually oriented?  With the idea that girls are to control boys with their sexuality or promise thereof? With the idea that females are above enjoying the pleasure of sexuality Outside marriage? The whole morally "holier than thou" tone?


You know I had to wade into that, right? And I did. And it got ugly. 


I forget sometimes that the things I see on TV are real. I forget that there are people in the world who would happily deprive women of particular rights because of their gender. I forget that those people may be living right next door to me. 


The heart of this debate goes much further than "Do I think my teen should be sexually active?"


Um. Hell no. The thought of it makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Do I WANT Emily to be sexually active?  Hang on for a few moments while I curl into a fetal ball and weep while sucking my thumb.  I can't think of any parent who looks at their child and thinks "Hope you go out and have some sex today!" - ESPECIALLY parents of young women. 


Terrance and I have a joke that every time he looks at his daughter, he sees every female he ever was unkind to, or had sex with and didn't call afterwards, or any of the billion other things that young, single men experience. 


As a woman, I think of  the possibility of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and heartbreak and the other billion things that a young sexually active woman experiences.


In short, I see a younger Me. 


When I was 16, I went to the local planned parenthood and got myself placed on the Pill. I had a boyfriend, and I was in love with him. We had been dating for about 6 months, and it was clear we were moving into a different "type" of relationship. 


Now, I had "information" about birth control. My mom had not failed to tell me to not get pregnant. I knew what condoms were and what birth control pills were and where to get them. In fact, at 16, I had a two year old sister, so I was pretty clear on the consequences of sexual activity. 


However, at age 16  I was also stretching out. Knowledge my parents had not shared - like how good it felt to be with someone you are attracted to physically, or the pleasure that can be given and gotten from a variety of sexual activities - was kicking down the doors into my brain. It felt good. Really, really good. And I liked it. And I was good at it.  In the transformation of child into adult, it is part of the things we learn to keep from our parents. Unlike grades at school, or cheering for them on the sides of sports or arts events, Sexuality is a somewhat lone path of discovery.  


I was on the pill for over a year before my mother figured it out. She was Furious. Furious! I stood before my parents and told them it was none of their business if I was sexually active. I was being responsible and taking care of myself.  It may have been one of the very first times I drew a line between what they had a right to know, and what was mine. I got grounded. I got lectures about how they did not "condone" my sexual activity. It wasn't surprising, I didn't expect they would cheer and bake me a cake.


Did any of that stop me? No. Of course not. The young man I was dating and I continued to have sex. Alot. And it was really great. When he and I broke up in my sophomore year of college, I found other partners. During that time, I learned the differences in partners. That everyone does not do "it" the same way. That there are some people with whom sex is really, really great ....and others, not so much.  I learned what my body liked.


I also learned that sexually empowered women are looked upon with disdain or high praise. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground. You are either "putting it all out there" or "saving it until marriage". What a shitty choice to hand to young women.  This choice fundamentally denies the pleasure in sexuality.  It strips out the Human aspect of the female and makes her an object that represents one way or the other. 


What I want for Emily - more than access to birth control, which I will happily provide - is the knowledge that Her Body, Her Sexuality is a Gift. To be Shared or not Shared with whom she chooses. I want her to know that Her Sexuality  and how she expresses it is fundamentally HER business - be that as a lesbian, or bi-sexual, or celibate, or abstaining , or straight, hetero vanilla sex. 


I want her to know that if she Does choose to be sexually active that it is a two way street. She deserves to receive pleasure as well as give pleasure. I want her to know that she is still a morally good person who has self esteem and self respect, whether or not she chooses to engage in sexual activity.


While it would lovely if I never had to consider my daughter as more than my baby, it simply is not true.  Part of the hardest part of parenting is preparing them to Leave us.


I plan on buying Em a vibrator for her 16th birthday. The very first thing I want her to learn is how to please herself. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson praised "Self Reliance" after all. 

School of Not Rock

While one of my many recent forays into the jungle that is my daughters living quarters, I came across this charming series of cards.

While I was not present during this fraught with emotion encounter, I can pretty clearly see how it all went down.

Exhibit A:
The plea. Emily has been a pest, most likely. Terrance has warned her that if she asks once more for ice cream, she will get nothing.  Using her best Clarence Thomas Logic (ie not very good) she decides to WRITE him a note. Because that gets around the "asking" part of the warning:

(Dad Can I have some desert today Love Emily)

Along with this heart filled missive was the RSVP of young girls notes:

The choice here is clear. He either says Yes, Gaining him a "You ROCK!" status, or the dreaded "You do not rock". Not even a name use there. Not even "Dad, You do not Rock". In one fell swoop she is stripping him of his title and familiarity. He has become the Voldemort of Fathers. He shall not be named.

His choice is a stark one. Does he keep the ring and become all powerful, or return it to Mordor and save the Shire? Oh wait, that is a different story. The consequences, however, are nearly as dire.

What was his choice? How did it all end?

The final Card  in this Haiku of note passing was direct:

With extra emphasis on the "rock', to demonstrate how hard he Does NOT rock. I can only surmise he said "No".

Bees in My Bonnet

Long time readers of my blog(s) know this about me: I will not tolerate bullshit. 

Especially when that bullshit is so patently in a topic that I know, inside and out. If that situation arises, than I am bound to stick my Nosy McNoserson into the thick of it and SAY something.

Which is why I need to Stay OFF the NPR page in Facebook.

It was innocent enough. First a headline stating Louisiana's new policy requiring women seeking LEGAL abortions  have an ultrasound prior to the procedure.

My comment? "So we should require any man who whips out his penis to view castration videos. You know, just in case."

I got lots of "like" on that comment. Really, I was just trying to point out the one sided nature of this law. All on the woman, yet again. All under the assumptions that women haven't thought through their reproductive choices, and if they KNEW more, they may choose to carry the pregnancy to term.  Cause really, women are silly, hormonal creatures and they need help to know what they want.

I left it alone after that for I could feel my blood starting to get heated, and what good would that do? 

Oh, but today. Today I got into it.

It was this headline:

US only industrialized nation with no paid leave for new parents

Sigh. I just HAD to get into it. I just HAD to...

Let me break this down for us all.

The issues of child care, poverty, womens rights and the rights of children are heavily intertwined.  Overlying many of these issues are confounding issues of racism and sexism.  This can make this issue get super heated because with all of this tangled up, the facts get obscured. 

However, strip it all down and the fact remains that the US wants to punish women for having babies. The babies that the US needs to grown it's future citizenry and economic base. Which isn't the point, apparently. Because Women - the silly hormonal creatures who can't make informed decisions about their reproductive health - either shouldn't be having a baby ( but no abortions!) OR should be committed to the idea that they will now be staying at home post childbirth, regardless of their income or mental health.

Apparently, according to many of the NPR commenters, having children is a "Life choice", and if "You can't afford it, you shouldn't have kids".  

Refer back to my point: The US needs babies to grow it's economic base and citizenry. Of course, some would like to control the "type" of people who are reproducing. I suspect these people are also those who want "their "  America back.

The other comments were around "Why should I pay for You to stay home". Parents, as we all know, are Lazy.  Furthermore, the labor of raising children is worthless ( which is why early childhood educators are often paid minimum wage). I think there were some comments about "Breeders" vs the responsible working populace. Of course, we know that Parents spend no money on anything. They sit at home, waiting for someone to pay them for breeding. 

Sigh. Bigger Sigh. I was getting tired. There were no facts being used, only opinions about who should be allowed to have children, who shouldn't and the archaic idea that no one is responsible to anyone else unless you are related by blood. And even then, it's iffy.  Pointing out that the policies were intrinsically misogynistic was inflammatory.  I was another bleeding heart liberal who wanted free stuff for everyone!

Let me tell you some things I do know from a personal and professional viewpoint.

1. Healthy Happy Moms = Healthy Happy Babies. Worrying about money and health care and if you are going to have a job after having a child..or worrying that every time that child gets sick that you are going to get fired? Not healthy.

2. The first 5 years of life are CRUCIAL in brain development. This doesn't mean that a child MUST be with blood relatives, but rather that the care the child receives should be optimal. It is less important Who provides the care. In the first 5 years, the foundations for brain development is well established. Experiences grow the brain. No experience or poor quality ones means No brain growth.  The more we understand the brain, the more we know that it isn't K-6 where the real "stuff" happens. That is just the consequence of the 5 years prior, the brain starting to use all the information it has been acquiring for those 5 years.

3. There remains a pay gap between men and women in the US. Women are generally paid less than men for the Same labor. Women in "traditionally" female jobs, such as Teaching and Nursing? Paid less. A double whammy for being female AND in a traditional "job". Being a woman in Early Childhood Education? Barely worth it. You are doing a job that anyone could do, and you should be grateful we are paying you minimum wage. Plus, because you are a polite nice woman, you are happy to subsidize the lower pay of other women by accepting less than a living wage.

4. A majority of people receiving child care assistance are working very difficult jobs, for very little income. They ARE working full time, and then some. They don't receive benefits such as paid time off, or health insurance. When their child is sick, they don't have sick time to cover it. They get fired from jobs because of having children who need to stay home due to illness or school vacations. I worked as the Improper Payments Specialist for the State of New Hampshire. Very, Very little of the "Fraud" was being committed by  working parents not in their jobs or other wise trying to bill for services they did not receive. It was usually small business owners ( women) trying to make up the crummy wages by billing full time, all the time.  Was it worth it? Not usually. If we caught them, they got banned from utilizing the child care program for many years AND a Fraud conviction. 

5. Hordes of Single Mothers are out there, wanting to raise babies on their own. Because our welfare system is collectively so wonderful, it is worth living in poverty to get these super benefits.

HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAH. 

OK, I must stop laughing now. Do you know what the income limits are for your state? 

For New Hampshire, the poverty level for a family of 3 is  $18, 310. Living the good life, they are. For many young families, the income of the second parent puts them over the line for assistance, so it becomes worth it to NOT live together because they will get the assistance they need that way. Our system is actively encouraging young families to not stay together. If they do, they get nothing. No health care. No child care. No housing subsidy.

Nice family values there, right?  Don't stay together because if you do, we penalize you. Either lie to us about your situation ( and be punished if caught) OR don't stay together in order to get the most minimal benefits.

Quite a little Gordian Knot there. 

Oh and did I mention that in order to get benefits you MUST be working? The time limits of TANF ( cash assistance) changed in 1996, when the 5 year life time limits were introduced.  The old trope of the "welfare queens" is passe. There are no "welfare queens". Did I mention that if you have another baby while on TANF that there is a penalty? Cause there is. They take away a percentage of the cash you receive for having another baby. You know, for "choosing life" and all.

So kids, what have we learned?

Women are incapable of making rational decisions.

Choose Life - If you are white and rich and married.

Mothers should be prepared to stay at home with any baby they do have. Because we don't promote quality child care through subsidies for low income families, nor are parents able to afford what it would really cost to provide care to a child. Any mother who chooses to work for personal or professional reasons? Selfish bitches. Should have never had a baby in the first place. 

Poor People should be prepared to be punished. Because they are poor.  Stupid poor people. 

Children born to poor parents get to be doubly punished with bad underfunded schools, cruddy non existent child care, and bad public policy which penalizes their parents for staying together. Stupid poor kids. 

Every (White) man for himself.  If you worked harder, you wouldn't be poor. If you were smarter, you wouldn't be poor and under educated. 

If you are a woman, you can't be trusted to make decisions....AND your labor is not worth as much as a Man. Plus you are a selfish bitch if you like working and want to be a Mother. Mothers should be all sacrificing, you know. The Cult of Motherhood Demands IT! Until we lose our shit and drown our babies in tubs. Then we should be killed for betraying the cult.

If you are a child, we don't care about you. Until you arrive, undereducated and in poor health, at the doorstep of the economic workforce...and then, well, what can you expect? Me to pay for You? 

Challenging anyone on any of these views makes you a "bleeding heart liberal", a communist, a socialist, a dreamer, a hippie, someone who is crying "victim" and asking others to "pay your way"...Cripes, and I didn't even get INTO institutionalized Racism in this discussion.

There are moments when I deeply fear for the seeds that America is sowing. Deeply Fear. 

No Misunderstandings

There are things I do which I simply can not help.
Discipline other people's children being one of many.

Perhaps it was all the years I have collectively felt responsible for other people's children. Perhaps it is some intrinsic bossy gene which can not be helped. Perhaps I can not take off the teacher persona that has ingrained itself into my consciousness. The bottom line is that if I see a child doing something that I - and they - know they shouldn't be doing, I am going to say something.

Last week, Emily had to go to the clinic for her physical. She was tired and cranky as it was a 4 p.m. appointment and she was already hot and tired from being at school. Fair enough. However, as she wants to go to Horse camp this summer she HAS to have a physical. No other choice.

The clinic we use is on the main street of our section of town. We arrived and sat in the waiting room with our books. The waiting room is glassed in and faces the street. Two of Em's school acquaintances walked by and began tapping on the glass to get Em's attention. Emily waved and returned to reading her book.

The two other girls were not satisfied with that acknowledgement. They knocked Louder.  Emily ignored them under the heavy and hairy eyeball of her mother. When that didn't work, the two girls began to run in and out of the clinic under the auspices of getting Em's attention and "visiting a neighbor who worked there".

The first time, I let it slide. The second and third times I spoke to the girls. Telling them to get out. There was no reason for them to be running in and out of a clinic being insanely loud. At the third speaking, I was quite firm. This was a place of business, I explained, and since they did not have appointments, there was no reason for them to be in there. GO HOME.

I imagined the other patients thanking me in their minds: "Thank you mean mother for taking control of the howling 11 year old girls who are barreling in and out of this doctors office for no reason."

The following day, Em came home with this shared news.  One mother had been outside on the sidewalk while the girls had been running in and out. She had not stopped them. The other girls mother quote "Didn't like the way I had spoken to her daughter."

Oh, really?  REALLY.

For some reason, this irritated me beyond reason. Didn't like the way I had spoken to her daughter? Are you kidding me?

I have now been on the lookout for this child's mother. For I want to speak to her. Clear up any mis-understanding there may be.  As last night was the school picnic, I thought my chance was upon me.

Now, I know most of the kids at Emily's school. Since I volunteer in the library once a week, I imprint their names and rooms. It's  that kind of school. A majority of the kids live within easy walking distance, so parents   become known by sight and vice versa.

When I saw Girl X last night I waved her over.  I was sitting on our blanket, working on my hooked rug.
"Hi", I said.
"Hi", said Girl X.
"Your mom here?", I asked.
"No", said Girl X.
"Oh. I heard she had some concerns with the way I spoke with you the other day at the clinic."

Girl X looks a little like a deer in the headlights. Crap. Emily told her mother what she had said.

"Because I would be happy to give your mom a call or discuss the situation if she has concerns.."
"No", stammered Girl X, "She didn't have concerns...well maybe a little."

"Well, you do know it was a doctors office that you were running in and out of, right?" I waited.
"Yeah but we were trying to visit a neighbor who works there...", Girl X trails off, eyes looking down.

"Maybe the first time you ran in  - but the second and third time? With the yelling?"
I continue to stare at the Girl. "It is a place of business and there were people who weren't feeling well waiting to be seen...."

"Yeah, we were being kind of loud..." Girl X makes this admission somewhat softly, her eyes still downcast.

"Well, if your mom has anything she'd like to discuss, you let her know that I am always happy to chat, OK?"

"Ok - can I sit with you and watch?"

"Sure - no problem. Have a seat."


I don't have a great ending to the story. I don't think it needs anything else. Kids need Adults. Not just for encouragement or empathy - but boundaries too. I worry when adults become afraid to discipline not only their own children, but other children in their community. Parenting is never a single player game, and it should never be seen as such. If I was able to speak to Girl X's mother, I would want to emphasize that I was acting in HER stead.  In tandem WITH her, not in judgement Of her.  We can't be everywhere - especially when our children are in this transitional age of 12 and starting to appropriately move into a more social sphere.

The root of the word "discipline" remains "to teach".

Denied

When searching your house at 12:30 a.m. in a fit of Pre-menstrual sugar craving, there is one thing of which I can assure you.

The Dried Persimmons don't taste nearly as good as you 'd hoped.

And they sure as hell aren't peanut butter cups.

Not Flash Dancin'

Note to the young ladies of Montreal - and elsewhere, I am sure:

The shiny black leggings? The ones we tried to wear circa 1982? Not cute then, and certainly not cute now. They have the ability to make even thin girls look just terrible. And pairing it with the puzzling Long camisole/slip  over a t shirt is beyond me.

What next? The return of the stirrup pant? 

I blame you, American Apparel.

 

Surrender

I am struggling with surrender. There are things in life which I CAN...NOT....CONTROL...., much as I try and struggle and fret.  I am smack dab in the middle of one of those situations right now and it is snacking on a sizable portion of my soul.

There are things happening to and for people I love which I have no control over. I can not flag that train off the tracks, despite laying myself in front of the locomotive. It only runs over me and slices me up. Since there is a loud voice in my mind which yells "Surrender means Quitting - You're a quitter! You're LOSING", I generally patch myself up - leaving some essential and non-essential parts behind - to run to put myself in front of the train yet again.

Because this time it will work, you know.

Since this all also ties into my sweet, sweet abandonment issues, I get a two-fer.

1. Can't save you or help you/nobody likes a quitter
2. I am being abandoned.

The fear has been loud in my head. I spent last week sobbing off and on for no apparent reason. Fortunately, my husband has come to terms with his crazy wife and her "moods" so he merely offers beverages and food and keeps his own counsel. When I stand up and go to the shower at 11 o'clock at night, he just says "You OK?" before settling back into his spot.

Being "The Crazy" seems to have some small advantages. One of which is that I am rarely questioned when I do seemingly random things. Which I'll take as a gift.

On top of all of this is my consciousness of the non-negotiable quality of the Surrender. This event will happen, regardless of my feelings. My 20 years of therapy is kicking in the door to tell me all the reasons I need to back the hell off. Cripes, when you best friend says to you "You've been in therapy for YEARS longer than me - why can't you see that this is unhealthy?", my Head Agrees. Yes. I know. Logical Dawn is strong with her on this one. Logical Dawn knows exactly what she must do - which is surrender to the unknown future.

Taking the path of surrender is in many ways counterintuitive to my survival instinct. Survival says "Plan ahead, scheme, manipulate to make sure you get what you need. No one will take care of you BUT you." Surrender, on the other hand, says "Observe what is happening. Do not struggle against it. Watch. Learn. Stay Quiet You can influence nothing and trying will only exhaust you".

Not being able to control my environment is a lesson that I have a hell of a time learning. As a person who planned ahead for nearly every single life event ( wedding dress bought for three weeks and hidden at friends house before Terrance said "Let's Get Married"? Check. Insane chart to know exactly when I conceived Emily, Um, Yep. Box full of Baby clothes and toys purchased for five years before said Baby came into existence? Yes sir, that would be me. Person who buys Christmas Cards in January and then addresses them in August so they can go out the first week of December? Why, Hello there Me!) the idea of letting go is terrifying.

My inner voice shrieks "BUT! BUT! BUT! IF YOU DON'T CONTROL THIS YOU WILL LOSE FOREVER AND THEN WHAT? YOU WILL HAVE REGRET, WHICH YOU WILL HAVE TO LIVE WITH FOREVER!!" Anxiety creeps in behind and whispers "You also won't ever find happiness if you let go. You will never be happy again." Despair is sliding into the seat in the corner, knowing that she will not have to work hard once the rest of the gang has softened me up.  Her twin, Desire, knows that when I am weak enough from Despair I will simply cave inward....if there is anything left to consume.

And this is how, I suspect, Delight became Delirium.

She couldn't let go. Holding on made her crazy.

I have got to let go.