Tell it!

So, it's Friday afternoon, and I'm sitting at the dining room table pumping out some extra milk while checking blogs, and I come across this post on babble which almost makes me stand up at the table and shout YESSS! only I don't because that might wake up the baby and WE DO NOT WAKE UP THE BABY. Anyhoo, it's this essay about breastfeeding and cultural attitudes thereon, and you really SHOULD read the whole thing, but the part that made me want to jump up and yell was this:

We tell women that breast is best, we tell them to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months, we even tell them it will raise their kid's IQ (and we should give that a rest), and then we send them home with formula samples, or with a baby whose throat is too sore to suckle, or a mom whose milk is delayed because of surgery, and we don't teach technique, and we are offended when a woman breastfeeds in public, so we make her feel housebound, and we don't give a mother and her partner paid leave, and we send her to go back to a workplace without on-site childcare, and so her only alternative to formula is to plug her nipples into a machine, and if she's lucky she gets periodic breaks and a "non-bathroom lactation room" in which to pump, and if she's not she gets a toilet, and so on and so forth.

It's no wonder women are ready to burn their nursing bras.

But it's not that these public health recommendations are grounded in some return-to-the-1950s conspiracy, as Rosin suggests; they're grounded in physiology. And science is validating the physiology of the mother-baby dyad — that is, both are healthier when they remain close to each other during the first several months postpartum. It's not simply the milk that's inimitable; it's the mothering. (Indeed, "We actually don't know if feeding infants human milk has the same benefits as breastfeeding," says Labbok.) And mothering is something that our culture does not value enough to support. It is this dissonance between physiology and culture that has women so frustrated, and feminists like Rosin grasping at the bottle as a proxy for equality.

But is that really what we want? Powder rather than real power? In a brilliant New Yorker piece about the rise of the breast pump, Jill Lepore questions the direction of breastfeeding advocacy, which seems to be settling on the pump as a compromise to this conflict, with tax incentives for businesses with "Mother's Rooms" in which babies are explicitly not welcome ("pump stations," Lepore calls them) and Baby-Friendly hospitals sending women home with manual plastic pumps, and the president of the National Organization for Women calling for more "corporate lactation" programs. "It appears no longer within the realm of the imaginable that . . . 'breastfeeding-friendly' could mean making it possible for women and their babies to be together," writes Lepore. "When did 'women's rights' turn into 'the right to work'?"

What a great question. Why did American feminism evolve in such a way that we think of biology as destiny, and that destiny as a prison? Why are we so willing to surrender the parts and processes that makes us female rather than demanding that society support them? We've broken down doors and cracked glass ceilings, when what we need to do is redesign the building.

YEEEEESSSSSSSSSS. How can we get policy makers to hear this and understand it? How can we get the medical establishment to give breastfeeding and mothering in general more than just verbal support? (Did anyone ever mention to me that my c-sections were likely the reason my milk took so long to come in? No. And have I told you about the crazy night nurse who told me I shouldn't breastfeed my baby or hold it for too long?!!?) Breast is best: OK. We get it. But it's also goddamnmotherfucking HARD for a whole lot of us, for a whole host of reasons. Maybe it's time for the people pushing the breast-is-best message to stop using it to make mothers feel guilty and start using it to push for social changes that will actually enable families to breastfeed if they can or find optimal alternatives if they can't. For chrissakes.

Oh, and on the same topic - this post has some interesting information, too.

New Year's Rejections

So, while I get the principle of New Year's resolutions, they mostly make me feel like a failure at some point during the year, and lord knows I don't need any help with THAT. I'm having a bit of a downer of a week anyway, partly trying not to get freaked out about the second kid, partly money worries (join the club!) partly that I've been on a Nick Hornby streak lately, and while the dude can definitely write and is often funnier than hell, he's not always exactly uplifting. Also: this FUCKING MINNESOTA WEATHER. Christ, I hate the cold and the snow. And I hate it even worse when I'm responsible not only for moving my own fat pregnant ass around but also a squirming, slightly rambunctious toddler, size XL.

But I digress. The point is, I decided it would make me feel better to list the things I plan on rejecting in 2009. So here's a list of things that will be getting a big ole middle finger accompanied by several rude noises in the coming 12 months:

1. Dieting. Rejected totally, comprehensively, and absolutely. 'Cos it doesn't work, one, and it's bollocks science, two, and it sucks, three.

2. People dying. Yeah, I know it will still happen, but I REJECT IT.

3. Feeling like a failure either professionally, maternally, socially, or otherwise. I will do the best I can on all fronts, and people will just have to DEAL.

4. Bigotry. One of these days I'm going to be behind a car with a "Yes on Prop 8" or those stupid mudflap girls or, hell, even "Bush/Cheney '04" and I am just going to REAR END IT. Consider yourselves warned, people who almost certainly do not read this blog.

5. Shitty TV/Movies/Music. Unless it's the good kind of shitty. Because life is just too short.

Whew, that feels better. Join me in some negativity, won't you? What do you reject this year?

Irritating

So we're all set to go to the library this morning, to FINALLY return our insanely overdue books and CDs, and the Hatchling is totally jazzed about it ("I so 'cited to go whyherry!") and we get there, and the damn branch doesn't open on Tuesdays until noon. Not for lack of demand, I might add, but because our stupid, stupid governor keeps cutting the freaking budget for public services like libraries and the parks and education and don't even get me STARTED. Grrrrrrr.

Grump

I've been in a royally bad mood for the last 5 days, and bad moods are not conducive to blogging, I find. Partly I'm in a bad mood because I feel like crap ALL THE TIME, whether from the nausea - which is not going away because apparently nobody told Bubba that he or she is supposed to knock that shit OFF in the second trimester - or constipation, or allergies and sinus headaches, or fatigue, or whatever. It's a fucking feel-like-crap cocktail over here, and I'm good and sick of it.

And then last Thursday night, I got into Cherry Ames to go to rehearsal, and saw that some person or thing had hit my windshield, hard, with a pointy object, resulting in a big crescent of cracks on the lower driver's side. Y'all, I can't even describe how PISSED OFF this made, and is still making, me. I am so fucking OVER living in a neighborhood where I cannot park my car on the street outside my house without some asshole crashing into it, vandalizing it or breaking the windshield. (All things that have happened to family cars in the three years we've lived here.) I am sick of the gunfights, and the stuff being stolen from my yard, and the break-ins, and the graffiti, and All. The. Shit. I mean, Christ! I know I live in an urban area - and I'm committed to that, I have absolutely no interest in living in the suburbs. I value city living, and being in a neighborhood where white is not the dominant skin color, and where kids from families from different income and education levels all play together at the local playground. These things are important to me. But I am getting real close to my limit on destruction of my personal property and use of violent weapons in my immediate vicinity. Not that my limits matter a good goddamn, because what are we supposed to do? The housing market is plumb saturated in this town, and I highly doubt that we'd get even what we paid for the place, much less making a profit on it. Not to mention that there are still some improvements to be made before it would even be worth putting it on the market in the first place. And even LESS to mention that I have negative interest in moving while pregnant - I did that last time and it's, you know, no good. So we're stuck, and I just have to suck it up and deal with it, just like I have to suck it up and deal with the nausea, etc. If anyone knows of an available donor for an attitude transplant, y'all let me know. I sure do hate being grumpy all the time.

Pass it on

This has been making the rounds, so you may have already seen it, but if not I encourage you to email it to everyone you know, preferably with threats about what will happen to their family if they don't forward it to everyone they know.

Let me get this straight ...

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."

Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers -- a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track -- you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

Attend five different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend three years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a constitutional law professor, spend eight years as a state senator representing a district with more than 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees ... you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your total resume is: local weather girl, four years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with fewer than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people ... you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising two beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner-city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude," with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

It's all clear now, right?

Spreading the (partisan) love

Love.

Love (starts about three minutes in):


So Much Love:

What a dickwad.

An Open Letter to the Douchebag Driving In Front of Me on Hwy. 77

Dear Mr. Asshole,
I appreciate that on a lovely, sunny morning it's nice to drive slowly across town with the top of your convertible down. However, you might want to consider that lowering the roof of your car makes your creepy predilection for gawking at every woman you pass that much more obvious. I imagine there are those who would argue that your "no ass is bad ass" policy, the way you check out all the laydeez, from barely pubescent to barely ambulatory, at least makes you more broadminded (HA!) than your average Peeping Tom. However, those people are stupid and wrong. While I expect nothing will make you change your ways, I nonetheless feel obliged to point out to you that a) most women are neither blind nor stupid, and b) contrary to popular (male) belief, when we notice a strange man checking us out, our reaction is less "ooh, maybe that hott guy will ask me out" than it is "Christ, another dickhead to ignore." Also, I have to say that when it comes to "chick magnets," a sky blue Chrysler LeBaron convertible ranks somewhere below my nephew's old Radio Flyer trike. Just a few things to consider the next time you take a spin.

Sincerely,
The Snarky Squab

*headdesk*

As long-time readers will remember, we did not find out the Hatchling's gender prior to her birth. Partly just for the surprise element, and partly because I didn't want to get a ton of gender-specific baby stuff, because that just makes me cranky. Anyhoo, this meant that I spent a fair amount of time thinking about the gender thang and all of its myriad implications. I really, truly did not have a preference as to male or female; I figure I can fuck up my kids no matter what flavor they are. But, the world being what it is, there are certain things that I'd worry about more with a boy, certain things more with a girl. And me being who I am, as soon as the Hatchling presented her cooter-equipped little self, I locked into my own personal set of things-to-worry-about as the parent of a female child. Tops on this list is something I'd call "bodily integrity," which is a term that covers a whole mess of things, mess being the operative word. Things like body image, sexuality, abortion, eating disorders, physical confidence or lack thereof - all that stuff that is so damned FRAUGHT if you happen to be possessed of two X chromosomes. Of course, there's not a whole lot I can do about everything on this list. I mean, I can't prevent assholes from breaking her heart when she's in jr. high; I can't prevent peer pressure; I can't prevent her from wanting to be popular - I just have to roll with the punches on some stuff. I figure the most I can do is give her a background that will allow her to be resilient, and make sure she always knows how totally awesome she is in our eyes. And I can do my best to model the attitudes towards sexuality and body image that I'd like her to adopt. That latter one is a toughie, since boy HOWDY do I ever have some bad body image. I mean, c'mon: I'm female and fat, and in this culture that pretty much guarantees that I'll have bad feelings about my body. Until recently I was so benighted as to accept my poor self-image as my just desserts: I "let" myself get fat, so self-hatred and low esteem were the consequences, and I just had to live with it until I could muster up the willpower and self-discipline to lose about 1/2 my body weight.

This, I hope I need not add, is BULLSHIT. First, because we are all worthy of respect as full human beings, regardless of our height, weight, color, sexual preference, creed, yada yada yada. I mean, duh. Second, because, as overwhelming amounts of research conclusively shows, diets really don't work. (Which is to say: diets do not lead to permanent weight loss for the vast majority of people.) In fact, a dieting lifestyle makes you demonstrably less healthy than a fat one. Because, third: being fat does not equal being unhealthy. No, it does NOT. You know what does? Being sedentary and eating crap. And you can do that at ANY body size.

So anyway, lately I've been trying to reject the thin paradigm much as I earlier in life decided to reject the patriarchal paradigm, and for basically the same reason: THEY ARE TEH SUCK. It's difficult, but it will be so very worth it if I can make it easier for the Hatchling to have a good relationship with her body. Which is why reading this post today made me feel sick.

I am the father of two (local school) students, one of whom is (my daughter), a 6th grader. I am writing to express my extreme concern over a Physical Education project that started this week in Mrs. (Physical Education teacher's) class.

The kids were to enter their height and age into a computerized program, which informed them of their "ideal" weight and percentage of body fat. They have been instructed to count their daily caloric intake. Wednesday night I picked up a pizza on the way home from (my 2nd grade son's) little league game and (my daughter) was frantic because the box didn't indicate how many calories were in each slice.

She and her friends now discuss each other's weight, body fat, and how many calories they ingested the night before.

WHAT. THE. FUCK. Read the entire post for the father's justifiably furious reaction. This is where all the ridiculous "obesity epidemic" crap gets us. I'm sure the PE teacher and the school that approved this are well-intentioned, but give me a fucking BREAK, already! This is like eating-disorders 101. And RIGHT at the age when lots of girls are developing breasts and hips and, you know, extra tissue. That is all too easy to be perceived as "fat." Not to mention that talk of "ideal weight" is about as damn useful as talking about "ideal height." Sure, I'd like to be 5' 10" but my genes only gave me 5' 4" so what do you recommend I do about those lacking 6 inches? GAH. I'm going to stop writing because I cannot be coherent about this, but suffice it to say that I will now be on the lookout for this when the Hatchling starts school, and if anyone tries this kind of crap on her or her classmates I will HIT THE ROOF. Now somebody get Mamma some Atavan.

Right. I have HAD IT.

You know what we had today? SNOW FLURRIES.

You know what the forecast for this coming week is? SHITTY.

You know how much I want to flee this godforsaken state right now? NO. NO, YOU CANNOT EVEN IMAGINE.

Can I PLEEEEEZ win the lottery so I can get the fuck OUTTA here already? It. Is. Almost. May.

WARM. THE FUCK. UP.

(Okay, my caps lock is off.)

Quote of the Day

Twisty again. Because I just can't help it:

I’m gonna start calling myself an evangelical pro-life Republican. I’ll go on talk shows and say, “Well, Rush, the mistake made by the *old* evangelical pro-life Republicans was that they relied for their ideas on a 2000 year old novel written by misogynist barbarians. The *new* evangelical pro-life Republican says that if you want to spend your free time appeasing an invisible racist celestial ghost, go right ahead, fool, but put a sock in it in the public arena. Also, we now assert that scientific method is an excellent way to ascertain facts. Also, we now assert that women and brown people are fully human. In fact, the new evangelical pro-life vision is the overthrow of the patriarchal order.”

See, now, THIS is the stuff that makes me want to vote for her

I admit it: I'm already getting election fatigue. I honestly DO NOT CARE which of the top two democratic candidates gets the nod. Really! I will be all too happy to vote for either one of them! I'm just so tired of the campaigning and trying to keep track of who's gone more stupidly negative this week. I really don't know what I'll do come Tuesday. Flip a coin? Eeeny-meeny-miny-mo?

But I'll tell you what, I'm just enough of a contrarian that reading stuff like this makes me want to vote for Hillary JUST TO SHOW THEM. A sampling of some of the slogans available on everything from bumper stickers to tee-shirts:

"Just vote for the bitch"
"Monica Lewinsky's ex-boyfriend's wife for president,"
"No Penis, No Problems"
"H08!"
"This Woman Scares Me"
"Anyone But Her '08"
"Even Bill Doesn't Want Me,"
"Stop Mad Cow,"
"Stop the Beast"
"Two fat thighs, two small breasts and a bunch of left wings."
"Wanna See Hillary Run? Throw Rocks at Her!"
"I Wish Hillary Had Married O.J."

Kind of makes you feel sick, doesn't it?

Warning: Self-Indulgent Rant below

So I just called my doctor about getting back on Zoloft for a while. Specifically, until I'm done with my damn degree. Because, y'all: I have been FREAKING OUT about this whole thing. My three primary emotions about my dissertation are fear, anger, and resentment. Fear that I can't do it, can't complete it after all this time, fear that it will take too much out of me and I'll be an empty shell, fear that I just suck too much or don't care enough or lack the necessary skills/gumption/wherewithal to get the fucker done. And I'm not talking casual kind of "oh, dear" fear: I'm talking TERRIFIED. Like, sitting in front of my computer with my pulse racing, hoping and praying for ANYTHING to come up that I have to attend to so I don't have to try and write. And forget about calls or emails with my advisor - those both send me practically into myocardial-infarction land.

That is not a functional state of mind, y'all.

And the anger, the anger is so consuming. Why didn't I wait for a while between my MA and PhD to make sure this was the degree I wanted? Why didn't I finish the dissertation during the YEAR back in 2000 when I had an extremely light teaching load and specific release time to write? (I went on Prozac that year, because of the stress.) Why didn't I finish it before I got pregnant? Or before I had a kid? OR AT ANY OF THE MULTIPLE TIMES WHEN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH EASIER??!!

Or there's the resentment: I resent the time and energy this takes away from my family, I resent that I'm making all this effort for a degree that won't actually prepare me for the kind of job I ultimately want to get, I resent that I *knowingly* chose an advisor with an extremely hands-off style, because I'm macho like that, and couldn't admit to myself back then that I need a much more interventionist kind of advising. I resent being in a position where I have to accept all these huge favors from friends and family to help me get it done - not that there's any doubt the offers are made sincerely and unconditionally, but I HATE being in a position where I need those offers! I resent that this whole process stresses me out to the point that I have to go on prescription anti-crazy meds, simply to function at an every-day level. And wear a mouth-guard when I sleep at night so I don't grind my teeth down to splintered stubbs. I RESENT.

It's funny how sitting in front of one's computer and mentally chanting "I HATE this" over and over again doesn't exactly produce a flowing literary style. Or much of anything, really, except the occasional fantasy of throwing said computer out one's second-story window. So, you know, enough already. I mean, at some point it doesn't matter that I picked the wrong degree or had multiple chances to finish earlier or that my advisor hasn't been as supportive as I might have hoped. None of that is important. What's important is, am I going to fish or cut bait? Shit or get off the pot? And I've decided that I'm going to fish. Or shit, whichever. (Hopefully the former is a more apt metaphor for the final product.) So, yeah, OK, it's not on the top ten list of things I'd like to be doing this year. But fuck it. I decided to do it; I'm doing it. There is no "try," motherfuckers.

It's a good thing I'm hard-headed

You know how sometimes, when your mom has taken a whole week off from her extremely busy career to watch your kid just so you can have some dedicated writing time and jumpstart the massive revisions you need to do on your dissertation and you aren't sleeping well because that's how your stupid, self-defeating brain handles stress and when you sit down in front of your computer you have one of those sessions where you write four sentences and then delete them because they're crap and then write four different sentences and then delete them because they're also crap and that's kind of the pattern of your day?

Yeah. That was yesterday. Kind of like beating your head against a brick wall. Today is going a little better.

Other things that might make you feel like you're beating your head against a brick wall:

1. Harry Reid - who is, let's remember, a Democrat - who's been giving Repubbbs a total pass on anything they say they're going to filibuster, has decided that his fellow Democrats don't deserve the same treatment. WTF, Harry?

2. Did you know that Hillary Clinton is a CUNT? Isn't that, like, the most hilarious observation you've ever heard, like, in your ENTIRE LIFE? Also brilliant? Christ. As Shakes says, personally, I'd consider it a compliment (if I didn't know the source).

3. You know what's even funnier than calling Clinton a cunt? Making fun of Heath Ledger for dying! Especially if you can do it while gay-bashing! Whoo, that's hilarious.

This is why I love the internets

This photoset* is amazing. If you've ever had body image issues (so: if you're alive) and most especially if you've ever been suspicious about those fucking BMI categories and even MORE especially if you haven't been suspicious of them, you need to check this out.* (via Bitch, from whom I steal all my best stuff.)

*Note: if you view it as a slideshow, be sure to click the "i" in the center of the first photo so you can see the titles and captions.

Oh: and also - Read this, too.

Sigh.

She's so right. (As usual.)

Oh, it's not selling unsafe toys to American kids that's so shameful. What's fucking shameful is that we--and I include myself--only give a shit about the American kids whose rooms are stuffed to the gills with cheap-ass toys made in sweatshops in China, whose workers are often not much older than children and who not only handle the lead paint or other toxins that we don't want our kids to have even minimal contact with, but do so for 12 hours or more a day, for a few cents per week, while living in cities where the air is polluted by the same industrial toxins that we're suddenly so concerned about.

Gah. It cannot be denied. What's to be done? I will say, all the toy recalls *have* made me rethink what I buy for the Hatchling, both for safety reasons and for the reasons Bitch cites above. I mean, hell, she already has more crap than she knows what to do with, and often her favorite toys are things like my measuring spoons or toilet paper tubes. And when I stop and think about it, I mean DUH, of course I'd rather buy her one or two really top notch toys than nine or ten shitty cheap ones. But then we get to Target, and her eyes light up at some plastic geegaw, and it's only $5.99, and, and, and ... And gross. Feh. I gotta stop that. Mass consumption on that scale is good for exactly nobody's children. Next time we're at the store I pledge to take the time to remember that what I'm buying affects more kids than just my own. Who's with me?