A woman's place is in...

There is a trap we all fall into sometimes, whether we like it or not. I find myself stuck doing things that I think society expects of me or I unconsciously expect of myself, rather than what I really want to do. Recently it’s been the expectation that I should be the one to keep “it” together: family, hearth, and home, while my husband brings home the bacon (but, really, don’t I bring home some ham myself?). 

Our nanny requested a two-week vacation: her brother was getting married in Brazil, and of course she needed the time off.  Oh we’ll be fine, I thought to myself. I’ll just take that time off from work and hang with the kids. It will be fun.  Well, no, not really.  In addition to two lost weeks of work, I was frazzed the week before wrapping up and the week after the break frantically catching up.  And during: though admittedly there were some precious, sublime moments of fun, we all fell pretty ill during those two weeks.  Pretty miserable, actually.

But that’s life, right? Illness happens. Here’s the rub though: in retrospect, I was irked that that I had assumed all the responsibilities of childcare, hearth and home were mine. That’s right, the home was my complete domain, and if our nanny wasn't going to be there, it was all on me. I had unwittingly volunteered myself for the whole kit and kaboodle, without thinking through the alternatives. And to top it off, my husband did not protest.

Why didn’t I say to him, “hey love, M is gone for two weeks. Which week are you going to take off work to take care of the kids, and which will I take off?” Why did he let me bask in my delusion that my taking two weeks off from work was the right thing to do? We were both complicit in the idea about where each of our responsibilities lay.  He said to me, “Oh, you know I really want to help you.”  Umm, no. Let's rewind and try that again. Saying you are going to “help” me is also assuming that anything childcare- or home-related defaults to me. Instead: “How are we going to share this responsibility together?”

But haven’t we have all grown up with these assumptions of appropriate gender roles in families? They are hard to shake off. Take these two examples of some recent rather humorous faux pas from my very own dad:

Dad: “Oh I think that it is important for both parents to be involved in kids’ lives. That’s why women should stay at home.”

Or,

Dad: “I don’t understand why so and so wants to be a stay-at-home dad. I mean don’t you think he would have some ambition to do something with his life?”

Me: “Don’t you think it’s a double-standard that stay-at-home moms are completely acceptable and stay-at-home dads have something wrong with them?”

Dad: “Well don’t you think something is wrong with him?”

I don’t mean to be selling my husband or dad down the river. They are both exceptional, supportive men.  These examples illustrate that even the best of us—men and women--have a double-standard about where a woman’s and subsequently a man’s place is.

           

 When I was pregnant with each of our kids, friends and family would turn to me (and only me) and demand rapid-fire, “How much time are you taking off? When are you going change your schedule to work part-time? Of course you are breastfeeding (was that even a question?). You are going to let a stranger take care of your children while you work? Why aren’t you quitting?” The answers I gave were never good enough.  No one ever paused for a minute to even turn to my husband and ask how he was going to turn his life upside down in nine months. The assumption was, my life was the one that was going to change completely, because our family's survival depended on it.

The fact of the matter is, both of our lives have completely changed with the dude and little miss, in expected and unexpected ways.  Expected: the innumerable ways they demonstrate day in and day out how they are the most adorable kids on the planet. Unexpected? How having children would put our expectations of our roles as husband and wife, father and mother, in stark relief.  How we have had to re-evaluate how we see ourselves, time and time again.

Being more explicit about the choices we make. Thinking about how we share the load will ultimately make us each feel less pigeon-holed in any one of these  “traditional” roles: breadwinner, homemaker, or head of household. And that’s good for everyone in the family.

How Can Kids Be So Cruel?

Growing up I can remember a handful of kids that were picked on at school. I remember this one boy when I was in kindergarden that always had a trail of green snot running down his face, and was therefore called names having something to do with boogers (one of the funniest words ever when you were little). Then I remember in middle school a bunch of us moving another girl's desk that was next to mine across the room because we thought she was weird. And then in high school I can remember a boy that was obviously gay being called names by some of the jocks. Other than that, I don't have any recollection of any bullying going on in my childhood. I feel like in my little private school bubble that everyone was pretty much friends with everyone else - or at least they seemed to be on the outside.

That is not to say that it didn't go on of course, because as far as I am concerned it goes on in every school all the time. There is always that one kid that the others think is a little weird, or looks a little different, or is socially awkward that gets picked on. As a parent you pray that this is not your kid. You hope against hope that your kid is the kind kid, who likes everyone and is nice to all her classmates. You hope that if she sees an act of injustice she will do the right thing. You want her to be loved by everyone, and to love everyone the same. You think "there is no way someone won't like my kid! My kid is awesome!" A parent can dream...but kids can be cruel, really cruel.

Yesterday it was brought to my attention that a friend of mine's daughter is being bullied at school. It has been going on for the last year in the form of threatening text messages from another girl in her class. I was horrified to hear about some of the messages that were discovered. All I could do was hug my friend as she was telling me about how this was going on for so long, and how her daughter asks her, "why me mom?" I do not know her daughter very well, but from what I have seen she is an adorable, intelligent young woman with a bright future ahead of her. And I never would have thought of her as the target of any sort of bullying.

The family cold strikes again...redux

I mentioned in my last post that, being a newbie at this, I had accidentally deleted my first full-length post.  So now I am trying to recreate it in the light of day, two cups of coffee strong…and without cough medicine on board. 

I had wanted to contribute to this blog with the best of intentions: to join a great group of Boston mamas in chronicling life with the young kiddos.  We had our second child this past May, and it has been a year of transition—I thought, hey I’d love to write about my experiences as a WAHM, my thoughts about raising biracial children in an urban setting, my take on the latest parenting controversies (WSJ articles about the tiger mom and raising kids a la francaise), share a delicious-nutritious-fast-easy recipe.   The idea of being part of a progressive, thoughtful parenting community appealed to me. The suggested half-hour to one-hour commitment to writing a week didn’t seem daunting.

That is of course, until my son curled up like a ball in my lap two weeks ago, sick as a dog with fever.  That fever morphed into the worst cold ever.  For everybody.  Our nine-month old daughter had these cute but sad crustaches when she woke up every morning.  Our nanny caught it.  My husband got it. Even our nanny’s husband got it. And then I caught it.

Fast-forward two weeks, and I am still nursing that cold.  Just went to the pharmacy this morning to pick up more cough syrup.  I’ve gone through the distinct phases—the head cold to beat the band, the bone-crushing fatigue, and now the incessant cough. I’ve crawled into bed many a night at 830pm, exhausted from the day. I have reinvented the term polypharmacy—just look at our bathroom shelf! Ibuprophen, decongestant, nasal spray…if it is nursing-friendly, I have taken it.

Mostly though, I am one grumpy mama.  Nursing two sick kids (literally and figuratively) while you are sick yourself is no one’s idea of fun.  My poor husband has tried to help—soup and medicine runs included—but he’s had to work over last weekend and this week go on a business trip, all while nursing his own cold.  So we’ve limped along.

But I do not mean to whine.  I knew raising kids would be a lot of work, blah blah blah.  I knew there would be weeks like these. But when I signed up to be a mama, somehow no one told me in the instruction manual that:

1) I would wake up every morning at sunrise for the foreseeable future—well, at least until our children graduate to teenage years, and

2) Someone in our house would ALWAYS be sick.  And the corollary: that I would spend a lot of time for the rest of my life at the doctor’s office or at the pharmacy…or be the taker or pusher of a variety of medications, antibiotics etc.

Well, I have resigned myself to my fate.  This won’t be the first or last cold.  Or even the worst—for us, the worst so far was the first cold my daughter caught this summer at the tender age of two weeks, landing us in the hospital for a week with RSV bronchiolitis (just me, my daughter, and a room with a view of the Charles at MGH). So I count our blessings. We are on the mend.  Things could always be worse, I tell myself.  But now I am stocked up and ready for anything. And as I signed off on my first abbreviated post, bring it on!

Mama J's 25 bits of advice for daughters (and some for sons too)

This past week I saw a bunch of people post links on Facebook to posts on parenting blogs (some serious, some jokes) about "rules" for parents of daughters and sons. Then there was the "rules for dads of daughters" and someone brought back the classic Tina Fey "prayer for her daughter." So I figured I would do a post in the same vein as these other posts, but with my own spin on it...using my mistakes to prevent my daughter from future embarrassment and regret - or as I like to call them "moments of my life that give me the icks when I think about them."

So here goes...Mama J's advice for daughter's (and some apply to sons too) everywhere:

1. Don't drink Long Island Ice Teas. Nothing good will happen if you do. When I first started drinking at bars in college I had no idea what to order. I had had a few beers and wine coolers in my day, but never a cocktail, so I ordered what I had heard of...a Long Island Iced Tea. They are a disgusting tasting drink composed of like 7 different liquors which should never be in the same glass together, with a splash of Coke. They give you a terrible hangover, after what will most likely be a night you will regret. Stay away from them all together...which leads me to my next bit of advice...

2. Pace yourself when you drink. It takes a few minutes for alcohol to kick in, so don't just keep drinking because you don't feel anything. It will come. It is ok to enjoy a few cocktails, just don't be that girl who gets sloppy drunk and does things she regrets in the morning!

this looks better than my hair did

3. Don't dye your hair blond at home. You will never have hair the color of the person's on the box. Especially if you start with brown hair. It will turn out school bus yellow, after burning the crap out of your scalp for 15 minutes. If you must, have it done professionally, but remember it costs money to maintain. Stay brunette if you are brunette.

4. Don't let anyone touch you that you don't want touching you. You are no one's property, no one has the right to hurt you. If you are uncomfortable in a situation, get out of it quick. If it is a boyfriend that is doing this to you, he doesn't love you...get out of it quick.

5. Don't be afraid to speak up in class. I was petrified to speak up in class in college. The classes were big, the teachers intimidating, but that didn't mean I didn't know the answers 90% of the time. And because I wouldn't speak up I would always get called on when I didn't know the answer. If you know the answer - speak up! If you have a question - speak up! Let your voice be heard.

NOT OK

6. Always wear a bra. Unless you are basically flat chested, there is no excuse not to wear a bra (and daughter of mine, you will not be flat chested if dna has anything to do with boob size). Tank tops with a "built in shelf bra" do not count as bras. I went through the warm months of college wearing these hideous things, and every photo I have of myself my boobs are the first thing I notice. Not good. Wear a bra. The only people you are attracting when you don't are crazy horny boys. They will be looking bra or not, so don't give them an excuse to stare!

7. Be nice to everyone. This one is pretty self explanatory. I was the type of person that was friends with everyone in high school and college. You never know how people's lives are going to turn out, just be friendly to everyone. Never make fun of anyone's physical appearance or behaviors. There is always something on you that they could make fun of right back, so just be nice!