Recently in Motherhood Category

Hi, all. I've posted earlier about my web site Teen Mama , a web site dedicated to educating and helping teen parents. However, I want Feministing's help on a particular section: the abstinence section. I cover many help topics on Teen Mama, and abstinence is one of them. I make it clear that having sex or staying abstinent is a personal and individual choice, but I would like to hear any suggestions Feministing posters have about how I cover this topic.

I want to err on the honest side. The truth is that abstinence is an extremely good idea for most teen mothers, but as a teen mother myself, I have too much respect for my fellow teen moms to act like it's the only reasonable option. Here is a link to my abstinence page or here it is posted in full:

If you're an unmarried teen mom or teen mom to be, you've likely heard one recommendation at least a few times from well-meaning people around you: abstinence.  Should you follow their advice? Maybe, but that's not my decision or theirs. It's yours, and you need to think it over carefully. Here are some issues to keep in mind when it comes to whether or not to have sex.

Abstinence is difficult. If it was easy, you wouldn't have gotten pregnant. So, if you really don't want to get pregnant again (or catch a disease) keep condoms on hand. Ideally, get on birth control. Even if you think you're going to stay abstinent from now on, keep in mind that will power has a much higher failure rate than the pill. That failure rate is called "the heat of the moment". Maybe you've heard of it.

However, it's true that abstinence is the only 100% effective way of not getting pregnant, but let's face it: the pill + a condom is very nearly 100% effective as well, and you probably got pregnant because you didn't use that combo. If you don't want another baby, but you aren't mature enough to utilize these tools, then don't have sex.

Don't let shame or embarrassment make the decision for you. Be rational about this -- you're not a less valuable or less good person for having sex.
Not desiring or enjoying sex is a great reason to be abstinent. Don't have sex just to get someone to stay with you or make someone else happy if you don't want to have sex for your own enjoyment as well.

Another great reason to abstain is if sex is causing you to feel more attached than you should to a partner who isn't treating you right. Sex can cause people to hold onto relationships they should really let go.

But sex, if both partners are giving and thoughtful, can make relationships richer and closer. Sex will not make a bad relationship good, but lack of sex can make a good relationship more difficult. For some people, sex is one of the most important ways to feel close to their partner. This doesn't suddenly become false just because you're under the age of twenty.

Sex isn't dirty or shameful.

Teen motherhood is usually a hardship, and I wouldn't recommend that any teenage girls (at least in the sort of society with which I have experience) get pregnant -- but teen moms can still be great parents and members of society.

I've created Teen Mamas Inc (currently in the process of incorporating as a non-profit) in order to support and educate teen mothers and pregnant teens who plan on keeping their babies.

Teen Mamas Inc. is absolutely not anti-choice. On the main page, we acknowledge that abortion is a completely valid option. However, deciding to keep the baby is a valid part of choice as well, and the girls who make that choice deserve knowledge and opportunities instead of isolation and shame.

Visit us at www.teenmama.org

Please feel free to comment here or contact me through the web site in order to make suggestions. I want this to be an amazing resource for teen mothers. I'm working on getting some local parenting classes running soon in association with the site.

Cross-posted at my blog.

As a working mom of an almost-2-year-old, I feel terrifically relieved when I read headlines like this: "Working mothers 'don't harm their children's development', major study reveals." All along I've been so worried that I was single-handedly harming her development. Because, of course, if anything goes wrong with her, it must be my fault. In fact, I must have directly and selfishly caused it. You'll notice that the headline isn't phrased like this: "Having two parents who work full time outside the home does not harm a child's development." And it's especially never, ever this: "Working fathers 'don't harm their children's development,' major study reveals." Cause if you printed something like that everyone would be like "well, duh."

This study obviously aims to answer the question "Do working mothers harm their children's development?" And that tells you a lot about the assumptions and beliefs of the people who asked the question, the culture that the question came out of, and the people who are framing the results of the study. In Philosophy, we tend to think there's a lot of significance in the way people phrase things and in the questions they ask. You can tell a lot about a person's worldview by listening to the questions they think are worth pursuing. This is one of the most fundamental ways in which science is influenced by the culture in which it's embedded. Why would anybody even think to do a study asking whether working moms damage their children? Because the attitudes and values of the larger culture saturate whatever kinds of research occur within that culture. It's inevitable.

I had a really unfortunate experience growing up with a mother who was secretly mean to me at home but heaped praise onto me in public. She was and still is very distant emotionally and I don't really know who her authentic self is. I can only ever remember her talking to people about me as defined by my prizes and achievements. She actually became emotionally abusive in my early teens and would scream in my face for hours and hours on end. I didn't know it was abuse until nearly a decade later and I think I just used to disassociate and ignore it by day to survive. It affected my emotional and personal development in many ways. I ended contact with her a couple of years ago as she is still way up Denial Creek without a paddle, and it's too painful to deal with right now...

Anyway, after the recent community post asking how people came to be feminists, I've been reflecting on how I think I was drawn to feminism as a way of dealing with my situation.

Firstly, I think I was drawn to feminism to counterbalance the overwhelming reliance I felt towards the men in my life, particularly my father. I was always looking for a male 'rescuer' in my first romances, so unsurprisingly they were fairly imbalanced and age-inappropriate relationships and I'm lucky to not have been taken advantage of.

Secondly, when I was first introduced to feminism I remember thinking that perhaps my mum would not have been so awful to me had she been a feminist and been able to articulate her frustration in meeting expectations in the roles of 'wife' and 'working mother'. I do feel really sorry for her as she must have been going through hell inside to act out that way.

Thirdly, I think my vulnerability made me very influenced by the strongest forces in the somewhat patriarchal and conservative (though thankfully not overly religious) community I grew up in. When I left home for more cosmopolitan surrounds during my university years I played up to pretty much all the expectations of young women (cringe). So gendered expectations were instantly familiar to me and easily recognizable when I heard them critiqued in the context of feminism.

What I find interesting is that so many of my feminist friends come from backgrounds with strong mothers or had a strong feminist influence in their lives. I'd love to know how your (good or bad) relationships with your mothers has influenced and defined you as feminists.

... This is my first post at Feministing, though I've been an almost daily reader for about 2 years now. It's great to finally join the community!....

Months ago, I came across a web site called India Parenting. I bookmarked it because for whatever reason, I'm really into reading parenting websites, even though I'm not a parent myself. It wasn't until recently that I actually got around to reading it, and lo and behold, it's super feminist-friendly.

I often see parents here on Feministing as well as on other websites asking about how to raise their children to be open-minded and/or feminists. It's a difficult question to answer in a comment box, but this website touches on a lot of feminist issues. On their general "Raising Children" page (http://www.indiaparenting.com/raisingchild/index.shtml), there are articles about how to discourage prejudice in your child and encourage tolerance, why it's important to be loving and accepting towards your gay child, tips for working mothers, having a family with more than one religion, giving your child a healthy outlook on masturbation, talking to children who have been sexually abused, and my personal favorite: "Fathers are Parents Too!" And much, much more, of course.

The site's homepage (http://www.indiaparenting.com/) has even more to offer, including an article explaining what feminism is and why it's not scary and threatening. (And yes, the article is in a section called "For Women" which also includes beauty tips and articles about diet and exercise, but I personally find this a very mild annoyance which is hugely outweighed by all the feminist-friendly info. on the rest of the site.)

And as an added bonus, there's a baby photo contest, with pictures of the most adorable little babies. Yay!

Has anyone here read any wonder woman comic books? When you tell people about things like this they usually don't take it seriously. They think oh it's just a cartoon what can you learn from it? But the wonder woman comic books I've read so far are really entertaining and teach young girls that there is a heroine for them. I wish western culture would be less sexist and promote female heroes as they promote spider-man and bat man or superman. But the unappreciation of wonder woman shows how we live in a culture were strong intelligent and independent women are not taken as seriously. Anyways I just wanted to let some mothers and fathers (I'm not a mother ) out there know that if your son takes up a comic book to read (which is shocking nowadays)or your daughter, that maybe you should try to get them more into wonder woman. Her philosophy is based on justice and feminism. All I remember when I was little was seeing all the guy heroes and I thought they were amazing, but I always grew up without a strong fremale hero, and believe it or not that affects you.I always grew up thinking that women should be treated equal and respected; that women are as capable at being intelligent and strong as men, but I only thought that way because I thought that was logical. However I would never see any proof in my culture or on t.v. books, music... that would tell me that was true. So in conclusion a friendly advice. Don't just lecture your children on how equality is important but inspire your daughters and sons with strong female hereos.

I have frequently heard fathers refer to time spent alone with their children as "babysitting". I realize this may sound like I'm being picky about semantics, but when was the last time you heard a mother talk about babysitting her children?

As a society, we believe women should be caring for their children, whether they work outside the home or not. Women who are mothers have children who require their care. Great. This assumption has positive aspects: We value the maternal-child bond, perhaps; we believe women are excellent caregivers; we think young children in particular are devoted to their mothers and their mothers to them. [These assumptions are highly debatable; I'm just trying to offer a positive spin].

I'd like to focus on the negative implications of this: Why is a father any less valuable to his children? Why is his time seen as his own and his children as an inconvenience upon it? This appears to be the assumption inherent in the claim that he babysits his children. It is a chore. Even more than that, it is unpaid, rather unlike the babysitters I employ to care for my girls. So, not only is he going out of his way to offer a service (and allowing his partner the luxury of time spent away from the children), he is doing it without asking for anything in return.

As the mother of two young daughters, I am acutely aware of the influences upon my girls and how the choices I make on their behalf are effecting them.  One of my goals as a parent is to raise strong, assertive, confident women which, though relatively abstract, does help me strive to make informed decisions about concrete aspects of their lives.  My question is, where does it start?  Is it enough for me not to buy pink or otherwise gendered toys?  Is it enough to read them stories with strong female heroines who do more than prance around in pink dresses?  Is it enough to discuss the problems with barbie dolls and encourage my children to aspire to something other than wearing Disney princess costumes for Halloween? 

Clearly, there are too many things – both insidious and obvious – that are influencing how my children view the world and their place within it.  However, what else can I do to make my case?  The way they see me and other female (as well as male) role models around them will likely have a lasting effect.  The way their father and I discuss gender roles, power dynamics and feminism will, I hope, be influential, as will practical actions like dividing household chores.  Despite this, I can’t contain or prevent media influences, peer influences, other adults who praise only my girls’ appearance while simultaneously encouraging “strong, smart” boys etc.  As a mother who acknowledges these issues and their complexity, where does raising empowered daughters begin?  And, can we really ever do enough?

A lot of things leave me speechless in this world, most pertaining to women and women's rights.

No surprise there.

I was surprised, however, to find that according to a midwife, pain during childbirth is a GREAT thing. In fact, Dr. Denis Walsh takes on a 'no pain, no gain' attitude.

Let me clarify.

According to him, epidurals are the big bad wolf -- not for a decent reason, but because the pain of childbirth prepares women for the responsibilities of motherhood.

"A large number of women want to avoid pain, but more should be prepared to withstand it," Walsh said.

"Pain in labour is a purposeful, useful thing which has a number of benefits, such as preparing a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby."

Yeah. Right.

He also stated that "e]merging evidence [shows] that normal labor and birth primes the bonding areas of a mother’s brain better than caesarean or pain-free birth.”

I'd have thought the nine months of being in the womb would've done the bonding trick, but hey. What do I know? I'm just a woman with a simple lady brain.

Sarcasm aside, I think this dude, while maybe (emphasis on 'maybe') meaning well, is a little touched in his gentleman brain. I mean, he's completely underestimating the pain of labor. Not only that, but there are so many things that can go wrong during childbirth --billions of women have died throughout history from giving birth, after all, and too many still encounter life threatening problems. I realize that there are some major problems associated with epidurals, but those and other pain relief are a godsend, if you ask me. On top of that, what about the women who can't have a normal birth, or something goes wrong during the birth? For example, a C Section. How does 'no pain, no gain' work with that?

My opinion: normality is relative, even in childbirth. You have to go with what works, and no one thing works. Whenever someone, like Dr. Walsh, says something like this, I worry that women will be intimidated and pressured to be 'normal'. I especially hate that he basically stated you'd be a bad mom (or at least have a bad bonding exeperience with your baby) if you wanted pain relief.

You can read more about this guy and epidurals here, here and here.

A mother who does porn gives an interview about her opinions on the porn industry. The interviewer prints her real name. An angry ex-husband finds out, and the woman subsequently loses custody and all visitation rights for her child.

Though somewhat strangely written, this Salon.com article asks the following questions:

Is a pornographic actress inherently unworthy of being a parent? Setting aside the morality of the industry, will even the best-intentioned porn star put her child in danger of stalkers?

Is a pornographic actress inherently unworthy of being a parent? Absolutely not. Are men who watch porn unworthy of being parents? Nope. And as far as stalkers—vitctim-blaming, much? Women are stalked every day, regardless of their livelihoods. Aren’t non-pornographic actresses just as likely—if not more likely, depending on how famous they are—to have stalkers? Should Angelina Jolie lose custody of her children? How about Gwyneth Paltrow?

If there is no evidence that a mom who does porn exposes or directly brings any of it to her child– why should she lose all rights to visitation? Because our society has a hard time understanding women who don’t fall neatly into the falsely constructed virgin-whore dichotomy— women who can be sex workers and good mothers, at the same time.

Women who are sex workers—in porn, prostitution, stripping, etc—have jobs and lives that are highly stigmatized. Yet the men who use the services they provide are seen as normal, mainstream individuals. Women in porn are shamed and lose their children, yet pornography remains a multi-billion dollar industry, and an accepted part of American male life. This hypocrisy should be the real shame.

by Laura Baudo Sillerman

Jenny Sanford and Katherine Jackson. Did we even know their names before last week? Can we connect them by anything other than the point size of the headlines surrounding the doomed men in their lives? Is it about what mothers have that allows them to hold themselves together for their children? Or is it as Amelia Earhart would have had us believe when she said, “Courage is the price life exacts for peace?”

These questions insist themselves as one reads today’s newspaper (Yes, most of us who write for and read WVFC still read newspapers).

Jenny Sanford has said that though she knew of her husband’s affair with an Argentinean woman since January of this year, she decided to plug on and keep her home intact until the end of her children’s school year. Descriptions of her paint the picture of a bright, directed woman who could have run the state of South Carolina single-handedly.

Katherine Jackson reared nine children on her own and bore up under the repeated humiliation of her husband’s infidelities. She was Essence Magazine’s mother of the year in 1985. Yet she saw herself shuffled aside as her sons’ careers as performers took off, though it was she who sewed their costumes in the early years when the Jackson Five was but a family-held dream of success.

Read more about both women at Women's Voices For Change.

It's father's day tomorrow.  We are a single parent family, and my daughter does not see her father (she is 3, and he has been absent since she was 10 months).  I have a partner, whom my daughter loves, but we don't live together.  We have a grandpa who is great (aren't they all?).  

Each year the children paint/make something and it gets stuck on a card and sent home.

Two years ago at my daughter's private daycare we did not receive a card, and when I kicked up a stink about their narrow-minded conceptualisation of family, and exclusion of my child, they made us one as an afterthought addressed to 'Someone Special'.  Last year we got the same 'someone special'.

She has subsequently moved rooms, they are aware I am single, my partner collects my daughter and so they know about her relationship with him.

What approach should I take if I have to handle the situation again this year?  I was a little heavy-handed the first year round.

By the way, I'm from Belfast, and the majority of the nursery staff are young, female, married and religious.  I don't know if this should make a difference to how I approach the situation...

I've noticed several  "Here I am!" type posts lately, and so I'm now making one. But I barely know where to start.

I was raised by a single mom, and I don't want to get into specifics, but our household wasn't a healthy place, and I eventually ended up in foster care. I was seventeen when this finally happened. In foster care, I worked full time because I'd already gotten my GED. I hadn't gone to high school at all -- had just studied on my own as an escape mechanism of sorts. I went to therapy during this year in foster care, an I felt like I was coming to terms with my past. I took the SAT and got scores that looked like they would change my life.

Then, when I turned eighteen, I immediately moved to another state. I'd been miserable my whole life in my hometown and didn't want to be anywhere near it. I planned on applying to colleges and, until going to school, just working and chilling and learning about living in the real world. I met a smart, older man and we fell for each other and I quickly got pregnant despite our perfect condom use.

My partner and I have had a lot of arguments about who does what when. It was especially hard when our daughter, S, was first born. J was stressed out of his mind, and so was I, and neither of us dealt with it very well. He expected me to care for the baby the great majority of the time because "Babies just like their mothers better!" and yet he also expected me to do a good deal of housework. And he worked at home. He would sit around at his desk, editing something or other and ignoring the fact that he'd become a father.

As time passed, and as I got closer and closer to just losing my mind, J and I worked out new arrangements. He realized he'd been unfair to me. I realized he'd been afraid of not knowing enough about taking care of our daughter. To make a long story short, this is the arrangement we've arrived at after a lot of trial and error:

We switch back and forth as to who gets up with S, our daughter, in the mornings
We switch back and forth every day as to who does the major housework
We split the day exactly evenly as to who is on active baby care duty. We either do this by switching every few hours or switching once in the middle of the day. Whoever isn't on active baby-care can, aside from relevant chores of the day, do whatever -- work on a project, go out, nap. Whatever.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here. Maybe just: it seems like task equality can be possible. I don't think this particular arrangement will work for everyone (especially factoring in jobs), but it does for us. It is, in fact, the only thing that has worked for us in any way at all. Change the balance, and one of us gets grouchy and depressed. Keep it, and we're all pretty content.

I have recently experienced what I lovingly refer to as a "mind explosion." For those who may not be familiar with this term, this is when a large portion of what I believe about myself or about the world collides in by brain resulting in extensive periods of, simply put, "brain chaos" (also my term).

Here's a little back story: I think of myself as a strong, independent, feminist woman. I am a therapist at a rape crisis center and believe fully in doing everything I can to challenge and counteract all -isms (sex, race, age, etc.) Up until about 1 ½ years ago, I never had any desire to have children. This was due to several reasons: wanting to remain independent, believing that having children would just reinforce everything that patriarchy preaches about women (and damn it I didn't want them to win!), etc. So, you can imagine the confusion I felt when, all of a sudden, in Feb. 2008 I had this strange longing to have a child. I spent quite some time (unsuccessfully) trying to convince myself that I had just fallen hook, line, and sinker for everything that society says women are "supposed" to be. I even contemplated writing a piece on how the "biological clock" had been invented by men as a way to keep women submissive and dependent (still pondering this one...). I finally got to a point where I just accepted that my beliefs about myself as a woman were changing and that it was ok that I wanted to have a child.

Fast forward to present mind explosion: My husband and I have been trying to conceive for a year. He has been checked out, and is fine, which means that the problem is with me. For the first 8 months when we didn't conceive, I was devastated each and every month. Over the last four months something has changed: I no longer want to have a child. I could easily seek infertility treatments (in vitro, etc.) since we have not been able to conceive for over a year, but I do not think I want to pursue this.

Some may be asking: So, why the mind explosion? Here's why. These are the current thoughts/questions that are colliding in my brain: Is my desire to have a child "un-feminist?" Is the part of me (no matter how big or little) that wants to have a child betraying my values/beliefs regarding feminism and myself? When I feel like less of a woman because I am unable to conceive on my own, am I just buying into the societal/patriarchal idea that all women should have (and should want to have) babies? Is the part of me that does not want to have children just reinforcing what patriarchy says feminism is (selfish, uncaring, etc.)? Or do I only feel guilty about not wanting children because society has convinced me that it is un-woman-like to remain childless?

Although I do not have any concrete, elaborate answers to any of those questions, I feel pulled very strongly in one direction: The answer to every one of those questions is a resounding NO. As people, our beliefs about ourselves and the world are constantly changing and evolving. This is evidenced by the fact that I no longer believe that I can sustain myself on Spaghetti-Os and gummy worms alone or that a vampire lives under my bed, both of which are things I fully believed 20 years ago. Just as these beliefs have changed, my beliefs about what it means to me to call myself a "feminist" and a woman have changed and will continue to change. So, my desire several years ago to remain childless was true to my views of myself as a feminist. And my desire a year and a half ago to have children was also true to my views of myself as a feminist. Finally, my desire now to not have children is still true to my views of myself as a feminist. Some women could echo these statements with desires to work outside the home or not, to marry or not, to hyphenate or not, and so on. Sometimes people get caught up in what it means to be a "real feminist" (as opposed to a make believe feminist??). This is something that each of us need to define for ourselves and understand that it may change. One thing that I love about claiming my membership to the "feminist club" of the world is that it is NOT an exclusive club...it is all inclusive!

Today, as I was walking home, a man said to me, "Smile! It's not so bad."

I react pretty harshly to being ordered around by anyone about anything, and this sort of thing hasn't happened to me since I was thirteen. I turned around not sure if I had heard him right.

He got awfully uncomfortable and said, "I'm sorry I didn't mean that. It's just you looked so serious, why don't you smile?"

So I said, "Yeah thanks for telling not to look the way I want to." And walked away.

Apparently he still wanted the last word, or maybe he actually learned his lesson, because he worked up the courage to shout at my back."I'm sorry I shouldn't have said that."

It didn't sound like a sincere apology. So I ending the conversation with. "No, you shouldn't have."

And he finally gave up.

I suppose this isn't a particularly harsh example of sexism, and the man at least gave me a token 'sorry', I probably wouldn't have been as annoyed by it if it hadn't reminded me of something.

When I was twelve two of my teachers came to my mother with concerns that I was unhappy because in their words I didn't "smile enough" (I was unaware of the quota). My mother dismissed it as sexism and it probably was seeing as, in retrospect , that was one of the happiest years of my life (I'm only nineteen so there isn't much competition yet). The odd thing is not the sexism involved, but the fact that my mother never realized she was doing the exact same thing to me.

I had a glimpse in to I guess what one could call the mainstream culture of babies and motherhood this weekend.   I was invited to my first baby shower and, despite hearing about all the inane games that can be played at baby showers, I was excited to go and celebrate the growing family of a woman I’ve gotten to know over the past few years.   I was one of the youngest guests (I’m 22), and most guests were married with children.  While I was thankful that the shower was free from the chocolate diaper game, I was disturbed at how gender stereotypes permeated the conversation and at how unsettled guests seemed to be at not knowing the baby’s gender.  Each gift was assigned a gender, and at the end of the gift opening one guest, who had tallied the number of boy gifts and the number of girl gifts, announced that, according to the gifts given, the baby would be a boy.   Over the course of an hour or two, I heard the following: 

Girls like pink, sheep are for boys, the plastic cell phone is so girl, girls don’t like lizards, I would never dress my little girl in a lizard onesie, girls cant wear blue, that [travel baby toiletries set] is so boy, boys are more on-the-go, boys are more adventurous, teddy bears are for boys, a girl couldn’t wear that sailor outfit, boys don’t like pink, why would you dress a boy in pink?, how could pink be boy? we need another boy in the neighborhood.

I found it interesting that the gender stereotypes seemed to come most from the women who did not have any children.   I don’t really know what to make of that (maybe that children challenge mothers to see past gender stereotypes?) but it also may have been coincidence.

Anyway, this whole experience reaffirmed what I already knew about myself: that I am definitely not ready for motherhood and I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for the type of motherhood that is praised in mainstream culture. But, this experience also underscored the importance of getting advice from and asking questions about motherhood to feminists. How do you challenge or avoid the mainstream culture of babies and motherhood? How have you carved out a space that allows you to raise your children with the values you hold? How have your alternative choices surrounding children and motherhood impacted your relationships with other parents? What elements of mainstream motherhood/ baby culture have you decided to go along with and how did you decide?   How do you operate within the mainstream culture of children and motherhood?

I am nine months pregnant with my first baby, and my doctor says that I am going into labor any day! Two days ago I went to the hospital to fill out all of the pre-admittance paperwork so that when I arrive at the hospital I can merely concern myself with birthing a baby. During the course of the interview the nurse asked lots of questions, much what you would expect. But then she asked one question that really rubbed me the wrong way - "are you single, or married?" My first response to this . . . neither.

A little background. My partner (Dan) and I have been together for a little over five years. We followed a fairly traditional trajectory in the relationship realm (at least what is the expectation of middle class white folk living in the pacific northwest). We met in college, moved in together when we graduated, bought a house, and then decided to have a baby. We simply decided to skip the marriage part. We made this decision for numerous reasons, but mostly because we are the way we are and see no need to get a piece of paper to solidify our relationship. We are very frequently mistaken for married, and we long ago stopped correcting people when they refer to us as husband and wife. It was just getting tedious answering their questions about why we weren't married. Dan was unable to come to this meeting because he had an important meeting at work. Also, he is saving his time off for after the baby is born.

So, when posed with these two options I responded with what Dan and I have agreed is the best option in such scenario: married. Why is this the best option? We have found that we generally receive much more respectful medical attention when we present ourselves as a married couple rather than a "dating" couple. Which leads to my frustration. Why is there no third option of something along the lines of committed life partners? I know many couples who have known each other for four or five months who have already gotten married, and their relationships are for some reason given far more validation than mine simply because they are married. Why all the emphasis on marriage? I have always felt that signing a 30 year home loan was far more of a commitment than a marriage certificate! (for me, anyways)

An acquaintance of mine has recently had a baby, as well as someone in my family. Naturally, this has caused me to think about childrearing a lot and contemplate what my own childrearing techniques would be. As a feminist and someone who holds gender fluidity very close to their heart though, I find myself being critical about every single baby-raising process. I've made this rant countless times before on personal blogs, but I'd like some input from the community at this point.

It's so peculiar to me, how even from the moment a child is born, a gender identity is forced upon it by everyone around. For example, if the baby is a female, they put a fuzzy little pink hat on its head and start feminizing her from the moment she pops out of her mother's vagina. The moment the doctor sees a penis-less baby and says "It's a girl!" people already have preconceived notions of what that means. They envision a little princess that they can force to wear frilly dresses. They imagine the tea sets and doll houses that will be in her near future.

This becomes even worse when parents find out the sex of their baby before it is born with an ultrasound. Now, even BEFORE the baby is born, it is already being socialized into its predetermined gender role. The frilly dresses are already bought. The baby shower was filled with pink ribbons and the cake had little pink roses on it. Some family member may have already bought her a baby princess outfit or cheerleader uniform. The walls in her bedroom have daisies painted all over them and her mobile has little pink ponies on it.

The war on Abortion is not The War. There are not two armed sides rumbling in another country where we send our people in camouflage and tanks. Therefore, we don’t get a Memorial Day. We get a Roe day—an observation of a single Supreme Court decision that allows Abortioneers and pregnant women to proceed with great caution while riddled with pure sensibility and an overall desire to eradicate danger.

Lest we remind ourselves why abortion is a vital occurrence in every society 'til Kingdom come:

The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner. (Thank you, Guttmacher Institute for getting real, Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States)

Lest we forget the compelling casualties in this zealous, self-righteous, clinically-cookoo, schoolyard bullying that drives our otherwise hot president to ask us to find common ground as if we had fashioned our desire to provide sound health care on a battle field with intent to fire our canons and have sword fights WHILE ALSO trying to shepherd families through the whack-ass abortion process in the United States, care of the Anti-abortion, pro-war, sweet-baby-Jesus-fetishizing movement…

The women who die when they can’t access a clean, safe abortion with a skilled professional.

In remembering that each year about 67,000 women die worldwide due to unsafe abortion procedures, almost always occurring in countries where abortion is illegal,—therefore, leaving about 220,000 children motherless—the Abortioneers would like to honor the mothers who give their lives every year to preserve the dignity of life. (Facts on Induced Abortion Worldwide, the Guttmacher Institute)

Of course, Abortioneers never forget that about 2,700 women died in the United States in 1930 due to clandestine abortion.

Common ground? How about all the anti-abortion folk move to Tanzania?

Where Life’s Start is a Deadly Risk from the NY Times

About half an hour before my shift at work was over, I overheard a mother say to her two children (a boy and girl), "C'mon, girls..." When her son (who I would place at about five or six years old) didn't respond with protest, she asked, "aren't you going to yell at me for calling you a girl?" He just looked at her and didn't respond. The mother then mentioned to her friend that he didn't protest (to her friend's disbelief) and proceeded to 'prove' it by saying again, "C'mon, girls..." Even after a second time, the little boy did not show any kind of opposition to being called a girl.

After they left the store, I wondered to myself why a grown woman would want her son to find offense to be calling a girl. To expect such anger from her son would suggest that this woman finds something wrong with being born female or she believes that the biggest insult a boy can receive is to be called 'a girl'. Furthermore, her daughter (about four or five) had to hear this entire interrogation. Imagine what kind of message that must send about gender to her young and impressionable children.

Ironically, her son didn't seem to care at all. That gave me some hope. I had to smile at his complete look of confusion at his mother's question. Despite his youth, he must understand on some level that there is nothing wrong with being a girl. I found it inspiring to see a young boy not insulted at the thought of being labeled a girl.

Because after all, there is nothing wrong with being a girl even if the world says different.

I take it really personally as a sociologist when other sociologists take data and use it for to blame specific groups of people for specific social problems. The real world isn't like that. After ranting and raving this morning about and article I read in the WSJ I decided to try to use reason to pick apart the arguement presented. I don't think it's more useful than action, but it's something (maybe).

My Response to “The Real Pregnancy Crisis” by W. Bradford Wilcox

My writing is in bold while Dr. Wilcox’s word are taken from his Wall Street Journal Article Published Friday May 18, 2009.

Dr Wilcox – your brand of Sociology embarrasses me both as a sociologist interested in thorough analysis and as a human being with an interest in fairness.

Earlier this month, Bristol Palin turned herself into a poster child for the nation's continuing effort to prevent teenage pregnancies. She made the rounds on the morning TV show circuit and spoke at town hall meetings to drive home the point that other teens shouldn't make the same mistake she did. Ms. Palin's campaign could not have come at a better time. According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. -- after witnessing a 14-year decline in teenage childbearing from 1991 to 2005 -- saw the number rise from 2005 to 2007. In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, about 450,000 adolescents gave birth.

The recent uptick in teenage childbearing has public-health experts, scholars and government leaders concerned. "Let's hope this sobering news on teen births serves as a wake-up call to policymakers, parents and practitioners," said Sarah Brown, CEO of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, "that all our efforts to convince young people to delay pregnancy and parenthood need to be more intense, more creative and based more on what we know works."

But the nation's intense focus on teenage childbearing has obscured a more fundamental problem in childbearing trends. Last week, the CDC reported that about 40% of American children were born out of wedlock in 2007, more than triple the 11% who were in 1970. This means that more than 1.7 million children were born outside of marriage in 2007. Moreover, the vast majority of these babies -- 60%, to be precise -- were born not to teenagers but to women in their 20s (only 23% of nonmarital births were to teens). Furthermore, the CDC reports that nonmarital childbearing has been rising much faster among adults than among teenagers.

None of this should come as a surprise, given that a 2003 Gallup Survey found that 64% of young adults age 18 to 29 thought that having a baby out of wedlock was "morally acceptable."

The author clearly means for the reader to be outraged. This data simply means that most young people don’t think it’s immoral to have a child if you haven’t been recognized by the state as married.

Cross posted from my blog.

Now I love the dentist just as much as everyone else.

...that being, not at all.

But the one saving grace of visits to the dental office is reading the trashiest celebrity gossip magazines known to man. They're all there in a neat little pile, just waiting to distract you from the $1800 you're about to throw down on getting those wisdom teeth "tickled out" (yeah, right, Dr. M.)

Aside from a short article about Michelle Obama (it makes me feel like I'm keeping up on politics when I read about her fashion choices), there was an interesting article on Cat Cora, winner of the "Iron Chef" reality show.

So here's the story. Cat Cora and her partner, Jen, already have two (super cute) sons, and they are currently both pregnant with another two (four kids, yikes!) They've divulged quite a bit of personal information on their blog, and to OK Magazine - the Cora is carrying an embryo generated from Jen's egg, and their last son was from Cora's egg, carried by Jen. Jen's current pregnancy happened after she was implanted with two embryos - one from herself, and one from Cora. All children came from the same sperm. Technicalities.

Technicalities that blow the mind of conservative America.

I recently wrote a piece for The Nation about the disconnect between mom activists/bloggers and young feminists, and I sent the link to Jessica and Courtney to get their thoughts.  Both of them disagreed—that they actually saw a lot of overlap between feminist blogs/community and parenting issues.  And it’s true. Feministing does post on these issues, such as here , here and here .

Yet, all of the mombloggers I talked to, feminist/activist/political or not, felt very separated from the young feminist community and discussions around it.  Blogs and orgs I mentioned in my article, like Sistas on the Rise and Hip Mama , as well as ones I didn’t, like MOMocrats and PunditMom , don’t often, if ever, get linked to on sites like Feministing, Feministe , and Broadsheet . (In fact, MOMocrats wrote me a letter telling me that my own omissions proved my disconnect theory even more.  Point taken.)  MomsRising shows up from time to time , but not in the context of reproductive rights, an issue that needs to be associated more often with economic parenting issues (e.g. maternity leave, daycare) if we want to have real choice.

I certainly didn’t mean for my piece to single out Feministing and feminists as the culprit for this separation.  It also has a lot to do with what the media focuses on when they talk about feminists—namely sex, reproductive justice, and body image—and by contrast what kind of mombloggers Oprah’s producers choose to feature on the show—not the feminist/political ones, to be sure.

I know that young women and feminists care about these issues.  My article (and Feministing) proves that. I also know that there are feminist/political moms out there.  Still, parenting organizations who are under the media’s feminist radar but instituting real change need to align themselves with younger feminist blogs and organizations that get more face time. And vice versa.  They should be linking each other, Twittering each other, and inviting each other to conferences.  There needs to be groups like the MOMocrats that includes and speaks to non-moms, too.  Young women need to not only comment on, but be engaged with these issues—and connect them to issues of abortion and birth control. It’s always hard to take action on issues that don’t directly affect you, but childless young feminists need to secure their futures.

In short, I think moms and feminists need to work together more.  What do you all think?

Dear greeting card companies,

Mother's Day is supposed to be a celebration of our mothers.  Instead, for me, each year is a study in angst inspired in large part by your total ignorance of a variety of mothers, mothering styles, and family compositions. 

First of all, I have multiple mothers.  They know about each other.  Even if they didn't know about each other, I wouldn't send a card that said "you're the best mother in the world" because I don't play favorites.  I appreciate each of them for the contribution they made, and continue to make, to my life.

Second, the contribution they made to my life was not a permanent role in it.  The cards that actually detail the ways in which mothers are important inevitably assume that she has always been there.  Yet mine couldn't always be a part of my life because my father wouldn't let them.  It would be immeasurably cruel to send any of them a card that says anything about always being there, supporting me throughout my life, watching me grow through all of the stages of childhood, etc.  That would be like punishing them for my far-from-perfect family .  A mother doesn't have to be there at every moment to be worthy of celebration on this designated day.

For this same reason, I despise the cards that say "you're my best friend."  My mothers aren't - we just aren't that close - and they don't need to be anyway to still be a vital element in my life.  My mothers were mothers to me, not friends, and mothering doesn't require friendship to be significant.  Also, at this point at least, the idea of friendship with them seems presumptuous.

That doesn't leave me much. 

That leaves cutesy, "feminine" pap like "All we want is peace on earth and cute shoes."   There is far more to my, and my mothers', lives than cute shoes.

There are further details that I must use that narrow down my choices even further, if I am going to be true to the relationship I have with my individual mothers.

And ultimately, I am left with not much.  The only cards that work for me, after all of these considerations, are bland and generic.  For someone who loves to give funny cards or something with a little more personality, especially, the options are too limited for my taste.  I can't imagine I'm the only one, either, considering contemporary trends in families .

It's sad that there seem to be only about 4 kinds of cards available for Mother's Day when there are so many different mothers in the world.  We can't all squeeze our mothers into these boxes, and many of us wouldn't want to.  Of course there is a limit on how personalized a store-bought card can be, but if we judged American mothers by the selection of Mother's Day cards in the Hallmark aisle, we might come away thinking that motherhood is a very limited and limiting role to play.

Next year, I am making my own cards.  At least then I know that they will get something that applies to the most basic standards of my mother-daughter relationships.

In other words, until you can drag yourself into the 21st Century, you won't get any more of my money.

Sincerely,
wax_ghost

(Cross-posted at What If )

We at Planned Parenthood are honored to bring you this special Mother's Day message - straight from Judy Blume herself!

Judy Blume is an icon to generations of teenagers and one of the most beloved writers in the world (her work has been translated into 28 languages!).  She made curiosity feel normal, addressed the trials and tribulations of growing up openly and honestly, and realistically portrayed teenage sexuality at a time when that topic was largely taboo.  For me, Judy's stories were a constant source of laughter and comfort throughout my childhood and adolescence, and she taught me just how important it is for young people to have access to accurate information about their bodies and sexual health.  Judy's frank and fearless writing definitely inspired me and the work that I do with Planned Parenthood today.

Another person who greatly influenced me is my mother, a whip-smart and hilarious woman, who was never afraid to answer my questions truthfully, no matter how silly or embarrassing they were.  She taught me about life and love, the importance of compassion and social justice, and she had a seemingly endless supply of patience, wisdom, and hugs.  Mom also gave me every single one of Judy Blume's books, knowing full well how priceless they are!  I still have those books, creased and worn from many loving reads, and someday I'll proudly pass them on to my kids.

It's safe to say that both Judy Blume and Mom hold a special place in my heart, and I know I’m not alone.  This Mother's Day, why not honor the mom(s) that you know and love with a gift in her name to Planned Parenthood?  Don't forget: Mother's Day is this Sunday, May 10, and in-honor-of donations make great last-minute presents!
 
You can also spread the word on Twitter by re-tweeting our message: @PlanParenthood Judy Blume and Planned Parenthood remind you to wish your mom a happy Mother's Day! http://bit.ly/fcv5V 

And don't forget to follow us: http://twitter.com/PlanParenthood

Thank you for all you do for moms (and all women) everywhere!

-Kendall at Planned Parenthood Action Fund

P.S. Love you, Mom!  Happy Mother's Day!

With Mother's Day just a few days away, we are being bombarded with messages from greeting-card companies, florists and every other company under the sun, telling us how we can buy stuff to celebrate dear old Mom and how well she raised us. But while honouring parenting labour is always a good idea, it wasn't the original idea behind the holiday - and neither was the commercialism.

As many Feministing folks may know, but the general public does not, Mother's Day in North America has its roots in social activism, in particular that of three women: Ann Marie Reeve Jarvis, Julia Ward Howe, and Anna Jarvis. AMR Jarvis was the original founder, who led mothers' clubs to address the poor public health conditions that wer killing her and other women's children, and worked to reunite families torn apart by the Civil War. Julia Ward Howe, a suffragist and abolitionist, was inspired by her and issued a Mothers' Day Proclamation, calling on women to oppose war and the killing of each others' sons. Anna Jarvis, AMR's daughter, led the charge to have the day declared an official holiday to celebrate mothers' "matchless service to humanity," only to spend the rest of her life campaigning against the commercialism that so quickly took over the day. (You can watch a short animated video on the history here)

The Canadian organization where I work, Inter Pares, is a feminist social-justice organization that supports women and communities around the world, primarily in the global South. Like the Mother's Day founders, they are opposing war and building peace, constructing healthier communities, promoting justice, and supporting women's activism and leadership. So we've been doing our bit to share this radical history with others through our campaign Take Back the Day (http://www.takebacktheday.ca), which tells people about this her-story, and raises money for women's activism through alternative gift cards. Our hope is that like Take Back the Night and International Women's Day, Mother's Day will come to be recognized as a feminist holiday that celebrates the force for social change that is mothers around the world.  

However you celebrate the holiday, don't just thank your mom and other moms for creating and raising kick-ass little people - thank them for all the ways they make the world a better place.

I'm sure many of you have seen this, but if you do not subscribe to the Planned Parenthood Action emails you should know that beloved children's author Judy Blume has come under attack.

She wrote a simple note in support of Planned Parenthood offering the idea that readers could show how much they appreciate mothers by donating to Planned Parenthood in mom's name.

Today I received another email that she has now come under attack for her support of Planned Parenthood and has been inundated with hate mail and phone calls. We are now being asked to show our support for Judy by sending her a note and letting her know how many people feel the same as she does; that mothers should be honored and praised for the hard work they do raising children.

The original letter and new request can be found here.

At first glance, I was outraged by this ruling on the front page of today's Globe and Mail: A judge has ordered a mother to pump breastmilk  for her child so the father can have more access to the child.

However, reading the article, the child in question is over two years old, and the mother has claimed that, since she was still nursing, the father could not claim joint custody of the child. (It's an interesting case; the parents only had a brief relationship, and the father is trying to be positively involved in the child's life). The judge rules that the child will benefit more from developing a relationship with her father, which will compensate for any loss in having to drink pumped breast milk. 

I'm rather inclined to agree (due to the age of the child and the reasonableness of the arrangement outlined in the article), but I was interested in hearing what the community here thinks. Do you agree or disagree with the judge's ruling in this situation? If the mother's view is breast is best, should she be able to set the schedule for weaning, regardless of the father? Or should there be some set time for reasonable weaning to allow for joint custody arrangements? 

Women across the blogosphere have responded to Hanna Rosin in droves, but I haven't seen some of my thoughts, so I am posting them here.

I agree with Rosin that people such as Dr. William Sears hype breastfeeding out of proportion to its proven benefits.  However, that doesn't mean that breastfeeding doesn't have very real benefits.  Rosin's attempts to distort science in the other direction are weird and sad.  She makes herself out to be someone who cannot understand the concept of statistical significance.  There is NO experimental data with human controls that exactly match the experimental group--you'd have to have a parallel universe.

Crossposted at The Feminist Agenda.

Now that the birth of Nadya Suleman's octuplets has become old news, I've been thinking about the lessons feminists can learn from the news coverage and blog posts and comments concerning it. Most people come down strongly on one side or the other - either Suleman is irresponsible and self-serving, or we should all just back off and shut up already about what a private citizen chooses to do with her uterus. But to me the polarizing effect that this story had was not its most interesting, or disturbing, feature. What really disturbed me was the plethora of mental health speak surrounding the story. An average of 78% (8 of 11, 7 of 8, and 5 of 7) of the Google news hits on the Suleman story on three different days speculated about Suleman's mental health, used terms like "crazy," "unstable," and "obsessed" to describe her, and consulted "psychiatric professionals" who conjectured freely about her mental health without ever meeting with Suleman or reviewing her health record. In fact, even in the comment threads on several feminist blogs, commenters referred to Suleman as "crazy" and "obsessed." This is an issue that should be of deep concern to feminists.

The linking of poor mental health with reproductive attitudes that do not align with current societal norms is an old tool in the patriarchal arsenal of controlling and containing women's reproductive behavior. In Homeric epics, women who didn't want to reproduce, even during times of war or social unrest leading to scarcity and deprivation, were generally characterized as "unnatural." During the Victorian era, when (white, middle- and upper-class) women had attitudes toward reproduction that were deemed "unwomanly" they were disciplined through the use of extensive and stifling bedrest, having access to all their hobbies or intellectual interests cut off, and losing access to the children they already had, who were whisked away to be raised by nurses and governesses. In the 1950s, women who resisted motherhood were frequently diagnosed as schizophrenic and subsequently drugged and/or institutionalized until they became more compliant. Similarly, pregnant women who wanted abortions were frequently given electric shock therapy based on the doctrine that any woman who did not want a child must be experiencing a mental illness or serious emotional disturbance.

I'm sure there are many other examples of this phenomenon, which I don't have time to research right now. Suffice it to say that basing assessments of women's mental health on their attitude toward reproduction alone has a long and rich history, but it's a history that feminists should fight against, not contribute to. Enough with the crazy talk already!

As someone who is childless by choice, I’ve been reading with morbid curiosity the voyeurism of Nadya Suleman. Suleman, of course, is the California woman who recently delivered octuplets -- but she’s not being met with open arms of Pampers. 

The last baby had barely emerged from Suleman's womb when the media revealed that she: has six other children under the age of 7; is single; declared bankruptcy less than two years ago; is an unemployed student; used a sperm donor and IVF; lives with her parents, one of which is threatening to move out and another who had to return to his native Iraq to find work to support the family; will most likely require significant taxpayer contributions to support her large family.

Suleman gave an exclusive interview to Today’s Ann Curry last week that will air on Feb. 9 – read highlights of it here – “defending” her choice.  In a separate segment shown this morning (video link ), NBC’s chief medical editor, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, and contributor and psychiatrist, Dr. Gail Saltz, raised some highly moralistic (and incredibly assumptive and judgmental) concerns:

Snyderman : “Long term, because some of these children will be physically or mentally challenged, there’s a looming price tag out here. The hospital bill alone will run $1.5 to $3 million. Forget about getting to college; just to get through special-needs stuff — it’s going to have to come from somewhere, either the taxpayers of California or her family or her church or the hospital. But she can’t do it alone.”

Saltz : “Undoubtedly these eight children are going to have issues: at the minimum, the issue of neglect.  Obviously, she’s saying she’s going to love them, but there are 14 children and [only] one of her.  There’s going to be an absence of some emotional needs.”

I think she’s in a bit of denial here and quite defensive, because in fact she does talk about the fact that this has been her life’s mission: to have babies, have babies, have babies. There’s an obsession to this, and I think it’s quite disturbing.  When you don’t have a connection in childhood, you go see a therapist; you don’t have 14 babies.”

Let’s juxtapose the creepy coverage of Suleman with that of yet another woman seemingly obsessed with birthing a large brood: Michelle Duggar . 

Duggar, husband Jim Bob and their now 18 children have been the subject of four Discovery Health/TLC documentaries and have appeared on The Today Show, The Early Show, The View, MSNBC, Italian Public Television, the Korean Broadcasting System, Discovery Home & Health (U.K. and Australia), Jimmy Kimmel Live, Fox News Network and CNN, and been positively featured in magazines and newspapers around the world.  The state of Arkansas presented Michelle with its Mother of the Year award in 2004.   The family now has its own TV show on TLC and just released a book, “The Duggars: 20 and Counting!” 

Given my obsession with The Duggars, I guess it's no surprise that I cannot get enough of this octuplets story (for those of you with other obsessions - lame! - the short story is a woman, Nadya Suleman, recently gave birth to octuplets thanks to fertility treatments and she already has six children under the age of seven at home), and I have many, sometimes conflicted, feelings about the whole thing. But I'll keep the list to 8:

1. It is irresponsible to have so many goddmaned kids! Children are amazing. I know, I have one. But it is unnecessary to have so many children. It's impossible or one adult to give fourteen children adequate attention and love, especially when they're all so close in age and some of them are medically fragile.

2. Uh, Adoption anyone?
There are millions of unwanted, neglected, and at-risk children throughout the world who would love to have a family. And, instead, you go get pumped full of embryos? For what, so you can have kids that look like you? Get over your damned self!

3. Why is this country so obsessed with women's reproductive choices?
(Oh, and before you say anything, I don't count because a) I am a woman and b) I'm a Feminist). Whether it's old dudes on the floor of Congress bemoaning the number of abortions in the United States, or old dudes gripping their rosaries in front of clinics, railing against "baby-killers," or the a-holes at Fox calling this woman a bad mother - mainly because, as it turns out, she's *gasp* unmarried - I have had enough of people's opinions about what women do with their own wombs! If you are so concerned about what happens in a woman's womb, get one of your own to worry about.

At my graduation party last month, I was shocked and insulted.

While opening all of the cards and presents that my family had given me, a cousin-in-law blurted out, "So when is the baby due?"

My first reaction was, "Huh?"

She repeated it.

Should I laugh it off, like I'm supposed to?

But I didn't want to laugh it off.  I wanted to say, "Thanks for marring an otherwise perfect day with your stupid little joke."  I wanted to say whatever mean thing I could think of to shock and hurt her the way she had just shocked and hurt me.

I smiled weakly.

Because the thought chasing on the heels of my initial violently-pissed-off reaction was, she didn't know that would hurt you, and if she did, she wouldn't have said it.

Does that justify it?  I don't know.  I don't think it does.  And yet I know she is a good person with a good heart who has accepted me unconditionally as part of her family.  She has overlooked all of my quirks (and I would guess that a lot of my behavior qualifies as "quirky" to her).  It seems only fair that I do the same.

The line is fine.  On the one hand, my adult female life sometimes seems like one long string of telling others that I will never give birth if I can possibly prevent it and don't want human children (I'm dying for some cat children) of my own, to which they invariably scoff or look smug.  On the other hand, how could she know that?

While I know this is pretty standard sexist fare, I can't help but be pissed off by it. We all know this wouldn't even be discussed if she were a man. Many of the comments, from both men and women, are just sad. If they aren't blasting her for being a horrible mother, they are blasting the women who are complaining for being jealous. They get better towards the end, though, something to smile about.

Family is important to me.

I'm not alone in this- there are many people who have wonderful, nurturing relationships with their families, who find them sources of help, love, enlightened guidance, and every good thing. So how could there be those who disagree with the idea of family?

When discussing family and reproduction, one of the dangers is to conflate the good things a family can provide with the actual, literal structure of the "classic" family unit of Grandparents, Mum and Dad, and the kids. These good things are what we defend when someone calls for family to be thrown aside, for a new way to be forged- we cannot imagine that the love we find in our families being discarded. And that's as it should be- love should never be cast aside. But we may be in danger of clinging to the bathwater to save the baby.

When I talk with people about the positive aspects of family, two things always come up as unique- currently- to the family unit. The first is that of cross-generational bonds. In my family, I learnt about the second world war from my grandfather, who fought in it; about sexism in the 50's from my grandmother, who fought against it; about what falling in love was like from my parents, who would tell the story of their complicated affair whenever we asked. The first baby I held was my cousin, who is ten years younger than me. All these things helped foster a wider understanding of people in the world in me, and those people I talked to who had positive things to say about their families had similar experiences. Knowing these people, at once so similar and so different from you, helps strengthen your empathy.

The second is the sense of community a close-knit family can give. The idea that your parents love you No Matter What is powerful; that they will do whatever they can to be able to keep loving you, and that means knowing and accepting who you are. None of us are our parents- we are different from them in ways that sometimes, neither party in the relationship can understand. But the fact that you are both family encourages you to spend the time and effort bridging that understanding gap that otherwise you would not spend.

So why dispense with family? Because for every good experience there are bad ones. People manipulating others who feel obliged to take it. Women essentially forced by a misogynistic society to play "good wife" or suffer unmitigated, privileged scorn from the wider community. Families can, as many will attest to, be deep, dark, hateful places that are hard to escape from.

The real question is how to redefine family- how to maintain the good parts, the unconditional love and the communication, without coercive and patriarchal bonds. I think the way is to expand our families, not dissolve them. 'Ohana (as made famous by the Disney movie Lilo and Stitch) is a Hawaiian term meaning "family in an extended sense of the term including blood-related, adoptive or intentional". It means bringing people into these bonds deliberately- it means extending the family privileges of unconditional love and unexpected bonds and throwing away the social exclusivity.

By pulling people- especially people not like us- into our 'ohana, we expose ourselves, and our children, to a wider, more vibrant range of experiences. I won't say this is a perfect fix. I have no idea how to implement it in a real way. But I firmly believe that the replacement for traditional, nuclear family is an extended 'ohana, with all the acceptance and love- and love is the defining word here, and not a dirty one- that it implies.

In my last post, I spoke about marriage and family - how these are are oppressive social arrangements that are perhaps best adapted for patriarchal nuclear families, how many of us, especially the underprivileged, labor under the expectations that come with 'family values', and how obsession with giving your children the best and leaving them a hefty inheritance makes family units selfish. I proposed that, as the ecological imperative on reducing human population also becomes more pressing, perhaps we need to do away with reproduction, getting over whatever biological/psychological impulses there are for making babies. What I perhaps failed to emphasize was that I was proposing a structural and cultural change to reduce the obsession with reproduction, and not advocating any Draconian law enforcement measures that would persecute those who do want to make babies.

The view I gave was that of a radical - a radical feminist who can't reconcile with women being put to reproductive and domestic labor, an anarchist against institutional practices, and an environmentalist who believes in the inherent value of the biosphere. Such views are perhaps rightly criticized for being too pie-in-the-sky, obsessed with a revolution that is not happening anytime soon and not concerned with immanent realities.

Along with the emancipation of women, sexual liberation has become very much a part of politics around the world. To the conservatives, both these issues challenge ‘family values’.

But what if there were no families? What if we say no to reproduction?

My understanding of reproduction is that it is the basis of the institutions of marriage and family, and those two provide the moorings to the structure of gender and sexual oppression. Family is the social institution that ensures unpaid reproductive and domestic labour, and is concerned with initiating a new generation into the gendered (as I analyzed here) and classed social set-up. Not only that, families prevent money the flow of money from the rich to the poor: wealth accumulates in a few hands to be squandered on and bequeathed to the next generation, and that makes families as economic units selfishly pursue their own interests and become especially prone to consumerism.

Like many politicized and not so "political" women of color I've had my qualms identifying as a feminist. As addressed before the Internet blew up, traditional western feminist discourse connotes white, middle class, straight women and many of the issues fought center this group; that has been covered extensively Online, in print, and on Feministing by folks like Samhita. Zoom back to me, as a 27 year-old daughter of working-class Mexican immigrants and a single urban mama , my lifestyle and at times worldview does not seem to be grasped by western feminism.  Like I've said before in my other blog and in real life conversations, my mama, grandmama (resting in peace now) aunties, mentors and closest friends do not identify as feminists and are some of the staunchest, strongest, hard working, autonomous independent thinkers, and just people that I know. All without identifying with feminism, and as complicated as that is, I respect that and even admire it. Honoring the women in my blood and non blood family  relating to them, has made it easy for me to question and at moments reject dominant feminism.

Are my two biggest fears.

I know, I know, many people I tell that to laugh at me and tell me when I'm ready to have kids, I'll want to, but at this moment, I don't ever think I'll want to.

As an almost 16 year old, my mother believes I have no reason whatsoever to even think about becoming pregnant.  (I love her so much.  But her motto is if she isn't getting any, there's no way in hell I am :D)  She says her pregnancies (I have an elder sister) were pretty good, but she wishes she didn't have to get c-sections.

The mention of a c-section sends shivers down my spine.  I can't stand the thought of a flipping KNIFE cutting through my ABDOMINAL MUSCLES to get some filmy sea monkey extracted.

But I guess some people think it's worth it if it turns cute in a couple hours.  :DD

I know from previous experience that breastfeeding is a very sensitive topic here, and that it's almost impossible to say anything, on either side of the issue, without hurting feelings and stepping on toes. This has been kind of perplexing to me, but I'll admit I haven't spent much time thinking about it. I have strong convictions about the benefits of breastfeeding, but then my mom is a nutritionist so I have access to a lot of research that others probably don't. I also have strong feelings about the influence and control of the formula companies, etc. but then, I tend to be a little more anti-capitalism than most people on Feministing. So I understand that my view is probably not the norm, and this seems unproblematic to me.

The thing is, I have never pushed my views on anyone else or tried to guilt anyone for their decisions. In spite of this, I have been attacked (called a "tit nazi," even) for even mentioning the benefits of breastfeeding, the lack of support most women experience, and for noting that I made the choice to breastfeed for a full year because of the history of diabetes in our family and the resulting risk that formula presents to my daughter. On the other side, it is suggested of mothers who don't breastfeed that they are not concerned about their child's health, that they're lazy, etc. So the attacks seem equally harsh from both sides. Up until now, this has seemed like the kind of disagreement that's both irresolvable and highly emotional, so I've sort of left it alone. But the coverage of this topic on this post has made me rethink the source of the controversy. I'm very compelled by Lauredhel's take on this:

It's not as simple as "The Patriarchy wants women to not breastfeed" or "The Patriarchy wants women to breastfeed". What The Patriarchy "wants" (if you'll bear with me on this somewhat teleological train of thought) is to have control over breastfeeding. Sometimes that might involve coercion to breastfeed (while withholding full support), sometimes coercion to not breastfeed, sometimes breastfeeding is a tool to confine women to the domestic environment, sometimes guilt over not breastfeeding is cultivated to sell women more products. Above all, breastfeeding women are reminded day after day after day that their bodies are public property, that breastfeeding isn't a free pass out of the sex class, and that whatever they do, there will be no shortage of people telling them that they're doing it wrong.

Australian and USAn societies are down there with the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world. We have developed a peculiarly pernicious mix of:

* half-secularised Puritanism;
* half-baked woman-hating Freudianism;
* toxic capitalism;
* mother-hostile workplace practices;
* social isolation of new mothers;
* a deep-seated fear and suspicion of any bodily intimacy that isn't sexual;
* and an overwhelming sense of proprietorship of breasts by heterosexual men.

It seems to me that conceptualizing the controversy as a patriarchal means of control makes sense of a lot of the contradictory messages women receive about breastfeeding. What do you think? And is there some way to approach this topic (which I think deserves a lot of feminist dialogue) that would steer clear of the hard feelings and emotional baggage that's currently tied to it? Because it seems to me that if we could do this we could make a lot of headway and at least begin to sidestep the whole patriarchal-control-of-women's-bodies thing.

Catherine Skol, 40, worked as a Chicago police officer for more than a decade in some of the roughest assignments until an on-the-job head-on collision put her on medical disability.  But nothing could prepare her for the pain of birthing her fifth child -- pain needlessly inflicted by her own doctor. 

The Chicago Tribune reports on the civil suit filed this week by Skol and her husband against one Dr. Scott Pierce , a fill-in for Skol's doctor who was out of town.  According to the suit, the doctor arrived four hours after he was called and immediately began chastising Skol for not calling ahead.  Appalling, for sure, but it gets even worse:

The suit said the doctor told Skol she would soon have the baby and that there was no time for pain medication.

Later, Pierce allegedly told a nurse that Skol deserved the pain because she had not called before coming in. "Sometimes pain is the best teacher," the suit quoted him as saying.

The doctor conducted a painful vaginal exam in the middle of a contraction and then told Skol to start pushing, despite not being fully dilated, according to the suit.

Pierce also berated her and hospital staff who questioned him, telling her to "Shut up, close your mouth and push," the suit said. Pierce said Skol was likely to hemorrhage during birth and said the baby might die, causing Skol and her husband to fear complaining, the suit alleged.

Pierce also made cell phone calls during the more than two-hour labor, cursing about colleagues and talking about an abortion for a woman he said should never have gotten pregnant, the suit said.

After the birth, Pierce gave Skol needless stiches for tiny tears, using a needle that was unnecessarily large, the suit alleged.

The hospital said that Pierce is in private practice, and therefore they could do no more than give him a written warning and an indefinite probation with the warning that if he messed up again, he'd be barred from the hospital.  The Illinois Department of Professional Regulation is also investigating.  According to their records, he's never before been disciplined, but they also don't make public letters of complaint that were not acted upon.

from MetaHara

Guilt is self serving and interferes with intuition.  Yet, so many  have been conditioned to feel guilt.  Sometimes guilt is thrust upon us by an outside source. The next time someone tries to give you a guilt trip, you can know that is a form of abuse and reject it. 

What if every time you felt guilt creep into your consciousness, you replaced it with another G?

Glad
Good
God
Goddess
Gratitude
Grace

Finding something to be grateful for in the situation is like  a light at the end of the tunnel.  It allows us to accept where we are in the moment, directing ourselves toward  more ease.  I'm not suggesting denial.  If something that isn't working can be changed, work at changing it.  Guilt doesn't help in that process.

Motherhood is full of opportunities to feel guilt and worry.  I haven't figured out how to get rid of worry so much, but, my technique for guilt seems to work just fine.

For instance, I could feel guilty that I had my son experience the institution of school.  He is someone who could have been better off home schooled.  Or I could be grateful that he experienced the challenge and list the many benefits he  would not have had in a home school environment (like learning to produce music on a computer).  I can help him with  the options available to him now and be supportive of the choices he makes to educate himself further.

Examining guilt to relieve ourselves of it informs us that every choice has pros and cons.   Sometimes we do make a poor choice.  We can examine that & make adjustments that guilt would get in the way of.  Guilt fogs up the head.  Gratitude creates clarity.

Looking to start a discussion on the particular issue of the insidious devaluation of stay at home moms... In reading some past posts and comments I believe there exist 3 or 4 implicit and completely unacknowledged assumptions in the discussion at large. They are as follows (in no particular order):

-Women who stay at home do not use their brains let alone utilize their degrees they may have earned

-Women who work outside the home do use their brains and utilize their degrees they may have earned

-The only place women can affect any change or make strides towards the feminist cause is in a paid and/or public position

-Women at home are living less than fully satisfying lives -- as women at work are living fully satisfying lives

The overall and often unrecognized assumption in this discussion at large seems to me that even feminists seem unable to imagine a thing as valuable if society has not placed a dollar sign on it. To me the point of feminism is striving towards equal access to all choices. I see very little difference between a person who tells me "your place is in the home" and a person who tells me "get off your ass and go to work." As a stay at home mom I do a lot of work, I affect change in meaningful ways beginning but not ending with my own children. It's a bit disheartening that we seem concerned about affordable childcare and good childcare as important until one chooses to do it oneself.

Crossposted from my own blog.

We held a fantastic event at our medical school Wednesday night. We were a little disappointed in the student turn out, but otherwise, it was wonderful. We had a panel of eight female physicians speaking about being a woman in medicine. Seven of the eight are mothers, so there was a lot of discussion about pregnancy, babies and family. I was happy with the diversity of our panel. We had one Chinese doctor, a few hispanics, a lesbian (who humorously advised us to wait until menopause and then let our partner carry the baby), a few Jewish doctors, and only two WASPs like me. Unfortunately, the two black doctors (I don't like the term African American, which rarely applies to the frequently Caribbean born blacks in South Florida) who we invited were not able to attend, and neither were the Indian doctors. We are blessed with a diverse pool of professors and physicians associated with our school.

I wish we videotaped or had transcripts of the discussion. We got great advice, from having a fire drill-like plan of what to do if we get groped by a patient or a fellow physician (which has happened to members of the panel), to how to answer (or not answer) illegal questions in interviews about how soon we were planning on getting pregnant, how to manage when our kids our sick, and other wonderful bits of information and experience.

The next morning, I was driving 4 year old Z to school. He was sitting next to the big contraption the catering company rented to me to keep the food warm for the event. He was confused, somehow thinking it was for me to bring food to the people at the hospital. I explained to him that I was still in school to learn to be a doctor, then I would go to the hospital to help people.

Z paused for a second and then asked, thoughtfully, "When you are a doctor and you go to the doctor place, will you still be my mommy?"

"Yes," I said. "I will always be your mommy."

"Will you still come home to me?"

Oh, kid, you're killing me. "Yes, I will still come home to you." In my head, I was thinking, sometimes, during residency, it may seem like I don't. But I will always come home, eventually. When all the babies are born, all the sutures are closed, all the cases are presented, I will come home. And I will try to find out about your homework and listen to you and hug you and kiss you before I collapse into bed.

How do you feel about women who donate their eggs?
Do you think it is wrong because it is selling a part of your body?
Do you feel it is right under certain circumstances?
Are you completely against it?
Any other thoughts?

Tell me how you feel... I have gotten mixed reviews about this from other women. I don't think it's something a woman should do just for the money. Maybe for a friend, sister, or family member who really wants a baby and can't have one? I don't know if it is something I would do, but I was curious about how other women feel about it.

Hello Ladies,

This is my First post and I'm still a little un-sure of how this works..here I go. I am in a Kinship, Marriage and Human sexuality class and we were randomly assiged debate roles. My role is a FEMINIST PROFESSOR WHO ARGUES THAT SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD EXPLOITS WOMEN. I have no idea what to say??? I consider myself a Feminist but I personally dont know why surrogate motherhood is a bad thing. Or maybe I am just seeing things one sided because I think that any couple that are willing to go through all that hard work to get a baby and want a baby should have one no matter their disabilities and if there is a women that is willing to give them a baby is a great person.Can any one out there help me?

My mom called with a very surprising request today.  She wanted me to recommend books on feminism to her!  This was surprising because this is the same women who used to tell me to "not be such a feminist!"  And who used to be (might still be) convinced that declaring myself a feminist is scaring all the boys away.  Okay, to be fair, I do consider her to have a lot of feminist values, but she's just not a fan of the label feminist and its (negative) connotations.  I would love for her to learn more about something I care so much about and hopefully understand why it is so important to me.  The only problem is that I don't really know any easy-to-read intro to feminism books to recommend to her. Can anyone help me out with some recommendations?  Thanks in advance!

I have been mulling over this for a few days, since the incident occurred, and I am still trying to formulate answer as to what I think the best response is.

I am part of a group that is comprised of people with varying mental disorders - this is through my therapist's office. One of the women, who I am pretty close with, because we are both bipolar - came in with an upsetting story. She recently had a baby, which was a incredibly happy moment for her. But she was very upset with what happened afterwards in the birthing center. The center permits lactation consultants to come in and speak with the women prior to feeding their newborns to inform them about the benefits of breastfeeding. Now, this woman was well-aware beforehand about the benefits of breastfeeding, as are many women. There have been campaigns, it seems like an increasing number, telling women that "breast is best" and why they should consider it. Now, here's where it gets tricky - for my friend in particular and myself -
My friend currently takes Lithium for her disorder. Lithium is known to cause detrimental effects when exposed to developing unborn children and newborns. It is present in a multitude of bodily fluids, including breast milk. My friend ceased using Lithium during her pregnancy, which she did at personal risk. She was advised by her doctor that it was up to her to decide whether she wanted to breastfeed while on Lithium, though the drug has been linked to impaired kidney function in children and people who ingest it long-term. Now, almost all people who my friend has disclosed this to are extremely understanding, but a few are not, including the lactation consultant in the hospital.

with permission from Metahara journal

"...We really have to be more open and honest about motherhood.   About the pros, cons,  joys and the extreme challenges.  You don't have to pretend that it's all good and easy to be a good mother who loves and finds joy in  raising  children.  We can be more honest about it than past generations were.  Glossing over the challenges is a disservice to women who are making the choice to have children or not.

I recently read a journal entry from a new mother who is experiencing very typical challenges that come with nursing.  It occurred to me that pregnant women may witness a mother nursing in public (thankfully it's acceptable in public now more than ever before) or see an ad from a La Leche League and think, "Oh, how beautiful".  It is beautiful, but, before it became beautiful, for many, it was painfully ugly.

I was inspired by anti-feminist bingo and white liberal bingo. Play along on your favorite message board or blog comment thread!

Why is teen pregnancy so much more acceptable when accompanied by teen marriage?

Getting married at seventeen is generally seen as a bad decision. At seventeen, most people haven't quite figured out who they're going to be yet, and settling down with one person for the rest of their life is likely to end in disaster. I'm nineteen now, and while I was very much in love with my boyfriend when I was seventeen, even a few years later I know that breaking up was the right thing to do. 

We've seen it with Jamie Lynne Spears and now we're seeing it with Bristol Palin. A teenager announces her pregnancy, and is immediately lauded for taking responsibility and marrying the father.

My mom is a Black single mom, who never married my dad. Because of that, everyone makes wrong assumptions about her. I hate it. People either assume that my dad is dead, b) my dad and I have some sort of visitation schedule and I see him every weekend or c) my mom is on welfare and barely finished high school. I'm going to talk about C because it's the most common.

When I went to school in areas that were middle class or lower middle class, nobody cared. In fact, quite a bit of people were exactly the same. But when I went to a private school, things changed.

Once, in 5th grade, I was talking to the people at my table. All the girls were talking about how their parents met, about the wedding, etc, etc. I said my parents were never married. This one girl, Heather*, said "Oh, well my parents aren't those types of people." I was confused. Then another time, me and Heather and another girl were talking in the lunch line about babies. Somehow we got to talking about young mothers(I know, we were mature 10 year olds). Heather looked at me, like "I know your mom is one of them." I said "My mom was almost 30 when she had me." and ignored her. After that, she pretty much avoided talking to me.

So, I just want to say something to Heather and the rest of her rich friends:

My parents didn't get married because they didn't want to, it was as simple as that. Not all women think "Oh joy, I love you! Now let's get married and live together forever and ever, and I'll do whatever you want and be your eternal slave!" My mom was 28 when she had me and was in college. My grandma would have MURDERED her if she had gotten pregnant in high school, and for that matter, any of my uncles if they had gotten a girl pregnant. Also, my mom has a Master's Degree in nursing, and is a professor at Georgia State University. Also, at least my parents didn't try to stay together 'for the kids', like a lot of your parents are doing.

*Not real name, but I didn't want to keep on saying This One Girl, and also, I am a name nerd :p

What do you do when your partner is an asshole? Not a dyed-in-the-wool jackass, but on those off days, or more likely in our culture, in those frequent nearly subliminal ways that undermine you. Does he readily blame conflicts on your feminist leanings? Does he make casual sexist remarks out of habit or social indoctrination? Since marriage and/or kids, does he find it easier to discount your intelligence? Is his work or activities de facto more important than yours, or when your views differ, do you notice that the burden of proof is always on you to justify your perspective? When you start to look, even the healthiest and happiest relationship turns out to be a warren of inherited sexism. Left unreflected on, even for the footloose and childfree, the matrix of attitudes and assumptions that crop up in the average Western/American heterosexual partnership, especially marriage, can grind a woman down. Younger women can be particularly vulnerable. On the flip side, these things are pervasive and insidious, trying to root them out can turn into a death struggle. You can easily become so fixated on the smallest expressions of these problems that your nitpicking (it can feel like nitpicking, even to the blamer) takes over your home life. To some extent, I'd guess all women have to weigh up these low level conflicts, but once again, maternity ups the stakes.

This is something I ponder quite often, as I am currently a student in the "How To Raise a Five Year Old Boy" school. My son is beautiful, smart, and extremely capable. Obviously, this terrifies me. I have spent a lot of time asking myself this very, very important question: How do I teach my son to not abuse his privilege?

To be sure, I recognize the privilege my son received by accident of birth. He was born to two white, middle-class parents. I have a college education, as does my current partner and my son's father. He is an only child, and has four grandparents in his life that absolutely dote on him. There is a never-ending supply of love, learning, and involvement. My son has opportunities that many children are not blessed with. Obviously, I don't think I'm the perfect parent, nor is his environment guaranteed to always work in his favor. I make mistakes, I do stupid things, and I don't spend nearly enough time thinking about how my parenting reflects my feminist beliefs.

However, I do spend a lot of time analyzing the role that early childhood shapes who we become, and especially how parental beliefs can conflict with what society teaches our children. Below are some of my musings - I would love to have a conversation about how we should be raising young boys to actively engage in our world in a feminist manner.

As soon as I was old enough to sit down for several hours in a row without fidgeting, my mother would take me aside and tell me long stories about growing up in South Korea, her relationship with her sisters and her father, and stories her mother had told her.  She always did this when my father was out of the house.  He systematically isolated her from her family, discouraging her from visiting her sisters or going back to Seoul.  He did not accompany her to my grandmother's funeral and wouldn't let me go either.  Nor did my mother have many friends.  So when I got older I deduced that I was the only outlet for her feelings of isolation.  I was, and continue to be, the recipient of all of her family's history. 

When I finally escaped the small southern community where I grew up (sorry, South; I love you and I hate you in varying measure), I was able to compare my experiences with other first generation Asian-American women.  To my surprise, they had never had these long mother-daughter talks.  Guilt trips, to be sure, but never an outpouring of familial history.

This disconnect begs the question in my mind: is there an oral tradition of passing on stories, wives' tales, lineage, etc. between mothers and daughters specific to Asian cultures?  Was this a unique condition created by the pressures of loneliness and isolation?  Is this a normal mother-daughter thing?  I can't help but feel that my mother is telling me all of this so that I can pass them to any daughters I might have.  It's a disconcerting thought.

If all goes according to plan, a continuing column on the issues mothers of daughters face in our misogynist society. This edition shamelessly inspired by the How Do You Deal With It? post below.

I'm a lion in my house, I rule from the kitchen with a heavy cast iron pan and walnut rolling pin, or a cranky zinger when interrupted at my desk. Even the man of the house, with his endearing manly swagger, treads lightly when he knows I mean business and leaves the gender role play for another time. In the bedroom, I'm a lynx who pursues my own pleasure and agency, much to the aforementioned man's delight. With my baby I'm a mother bear, known to drop dinners and jump ottoman hurtles at the delicate sound of a sniffle. But on the street, I'm a mouse. I don't want to be seen, I don't want to be noticed. That guy in Jamaica that "complimented" my figure in a bathing suit by leaning on his pickup truck horn as he slid past at 2 mph made me want to die. I didn't say anything. I giggled nervously to my mother who was with me and tried not to cry.

What's an otherwise ballsy lactivist to do now that her even bigger and better breasts are attracting attention in the public sphere? I'm fortunate enough not to receive the anti-nursing nagging, but the indiscrete leering is more unnerving. And though I'm usually accompanied by my partner out and about, we live in what seems like the street harassment capital of the Eastern seaboard. When I glance into my daughter's sweet brown eyes to avoid the aggressive male gaze across the street and pretend I don't hear the frat boy analysis of my fuckability, I start to seethe. As a feminist mother, do I have the right to keep sweet under this duress? What message does my silence and beet red blushing send to my newly aware toddler?

I'm angry today. Angry that street harassment here is backed up with a very real threat of rape and assorted violence. I'm angry there are enough assholes per block that they can clot into packs that intimidate. I'm angry at the compromises I must make. Do I nurse my hungry baby and attract the attention of the wolves over there? Do I stand up for the coed running the gauntlet at the building door? Do I let them bully me out of whole sections of the city? Do I buy the rhetoric that their menace is so much my fault, that it is my responsibility to prevent their harassment by just not existing? Will she notice and absorb these choices? Do I want her to? Then I snapped. Bro #640 oggled and dripped his lechery on the steaming sidewalk for all to hear. Hot, grumpy, and decidedly not feeling like a sex object for Bro's consumption I snarled "what would your mother think?" Ok, it wasn't witty and it didn't make him fall into the earth, but it did make some pedestrians chuckle at him and his fragile ego wasn't up for that. Since then it's come a little bit easier. "What? Were you bottlefed?" "Never seen breasts before?" "Didn't your father teach you any manners?" "Aren't you embarrased being so desperate?" But standing up to an adolescent's bravado or a frat boy's display is shooting fish in a barrel. I still hold my tongue in certain parts of town, I still choose my battles. I'm sick of structuring my day around where the degenerates gather, I worry my little girl will figure out why. When will we be past this stage?

Hi Everyone, I saw this in the bbc news today and I though it would be of interest, especially since it's good news.

I don't have much to say because I'm just in shock that a doctor would feel entitled to refuse the patient in this way.

In my web crawling this morning I came across an article in The Plain Dealer about Shannon Davis, founder of www.beyondmotherhood.com and mother of two.

Beyondmotherhood.com is a job site for women looking for flexible employment or to re-enter the workforce.

Davis tells The Plain Dealer:

"I'm hoping to create an awareness for women entrepreneurs," she said. "You can pretty much do anything if you take action and don't let fear run your life. Other women have told me that they had the same idea but never moved on it."

I think the site is a pretty sweet idea, though I have to admit it seemed like the postings (at least in the categories I browsed) were a little spare, and the cartoon woman on the front page is a little.. weird. That aside, hopefully people like Davis will continue to bring attention to women's ability to do both if they want to, and maybe make it even easier.

Thoughts?

I have a problem with everyone expecting women want to be mothers. I come across that a lot. People are always expecting girls for their life goal to be a mother. Even when we are as little as five years old, they give us baby dolls to take care of! what's a baby doing taking care of another baby? Anytime I come across someone and they ask me the question of motherhood, I tell them that I don't ever want to be a mother. I respect mothers because it is one of the hardest jobs you can do and a beautiful one too. But people only limit women to that of their " biological desinty".

People always also say "oh, don't worry you'll change your mind" they say the same thing for marriage. Not all women want to nurture and have kids. I want to have a life of my own and not so much responsibilities. I once joked to my mother and told her "I'am a good mother because I'm deciding of not being a mother" she go it and laugh. If you know you can't be a mother or don't wan to be, then don't let other people drive you to think that you'll be missing something out, that is just the way you are.

So, as I've mentioned now and then in comments, I am pregnant. I am very pregnant. I'm gigantic. One thing about being pregnant is that once you start to show, people stare at you like you're some kind of freak. That is annoying, but I'm used to it. The thing that prompted me to write today is the way complete strangers somehow feel like they have the right to make comments about me and ask me personal questions. The following is a recreation of my most recent encounter at the supermarket. I had just entered the check out line.

Today marks yet another episode in my love/hate relationship with the New York Times.  (Today is "hate", if you couldn't guess.)  I ran across this little gem in the Op/Ed pages:

Honey, I Plumped the Kids
by Olivia Judson

Judson starts out describing an experiment done on pregnant rats, in which Group A was given access to as much lab-rat chow as they wanted, along with access to as much human junk-food as they wanted.  Group B was only given access to the all-you-can-eat lab-rat buffet (sans junk-food).  This continues after birth and during nursing, and then the pups are given access to both kinds of food.

Experiments like this have found that pregnant females with access to junk food ate, on a daily basis, roughly 40 percent more food (by weight) and 56 percent more calories than rats that just had chow. Moreover — and this is the interesting bit — pups whose mothers ate junk food while pregnant and lactating had a greater taste for food high in fat and sugar than those whose mothers did not. The junk-food pups ate more calories and were more prone to gaining weight.

Okay, that doesn't seem like such a revelation.  Most educated people realize that what happens to us in the womb has a significant impact on us once we leave the womb.  So clearly we shouldn't feed pregnant rats or their babies junk-food.  Oh, but wait for it...

What goes for rats does not necessarily go for humans. Nonetheless, such results are thought-provoking.

I was recently informed by a guy friend of mine that there was a breastfeeding protest at a Vancouver clothing store after a woman was asked to move to a change room while feeding her two-month old child.

I thought it was awesome that it garnered so much response from the local community. He wondered why it wasn't reasonable to ask her to cover up or use a washroom while breastfeeding.

The Canadian Pediatric Society recommends feeding a baby exclusively breast milk for between four and six months. Are we really, as a society that supposedly encourages breastfeeding, still hung-up on the idea of an exposed breast as being "icky"?

Elisabeth Sterken, a nutritionist and the director of INFACT Canada (Infant Feeding Action Coalition), says "Because there can be no discrimination on the basis of sex, and breastfeeding is something women do, to discriminate against breastfeeding women would violate that."

All I see is a society that so sexualizes the female breast, that to view one being put to use in ways that are natural and normal is actually seen as pornographic or disturbing. What's really disturbing is that it is normalized to ask women to feed their children in public washrooms (those very same washrooms where the walls are said to have more bacteria than the bottom of a garbage can - gross).

Why can't we get over the fact that boobs are naturally for feeding babies and can serve secondarily as areas of pleasure and sexuality? It's disturbing to me that people can still state that "...breastfeeding is a choice not a right, and just like with all of our choices we need to stop being selfish and consider how they will affect others."

Breastfeeding in public = selfish decision-making? Ouch.

Regardless of the opinion on the matter, Canadian public policy supports breastfeeding in public establishments. Asking a woman to leave is a violation of the Human Rights Code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Yet, here we are for the millionth time. What gives? I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on the issue.

Today I came across a fairly older blog post about the "Quiver Full" movement.  It can be found here .

The post begins with a bit of self promotion, but goes on to talk about this woman's experience as a "quiver full" mother.  Individuals who are a part of this movement leave family planning up to God and try to have as many children as possible.  She describes how women and children are the victims of this situation and the cult-like feeling of the whole movement. She describes the horrifying situations that many of these women are put in and how the media doesn't cover this side of the story:

I am a feminist, a planner, and I am planning on having a baby in a year. (Shout out to having access to the birth control that allows me to plan).

I am also get dizzy everytime I walk into the pregnancy section of a bookstore. There are too many books on baby planning that look they will just make me mad because of too many stereotypes or no mention of subjects like midwives/doulas/going back to work after having the baby, etc.

Are there any books or resources that you all have enjoyed and found helpful about babies or pregnancy?

Sometimes the perfect storm of patriarchy brews in such a way that you are left baffled and left with nothing to do but bang your head against a wall.

My co-worker and friend K and her husband M just had a baby, who is now four months old. We work for an organization that employs about forty-five people.

For the first three months of little J's life, K stayed home with him and was able to do some work from her house. Although I missed her a lot, everything went smoothly.

I have been going over and having some serious conversations with myself with regards to my family planning choices lately and have discovered something that kinda makes me a bit uncomfortable with myself.

I have had and continue to have fertility issues. About a year and a half ago, my doctors found cysts on my ovaries that could create complications for the process of getting and staying pregnant. Due to lack of insurance, I have not had the opportunity to see a specialist and confirm a diagnosis of a specific hormonal disorder, but since I will be covered shortly, I should be able to get that taken care of.

I have also discovered recently that I am able to conceive, but nothing has stuck yet. I have miscarried twice in as many months and was surprised to find that I was not particularly torn up about it. Don't get me wrong, my spouse and I both want a family and chilluns eventually, but so far it doesn't seem to be in the cards without help.

With the birth of the Brangelina twins, the "attack" on Hollywood mothers that don't vaccinate their kids recently made by Amanda Peet, and the paparazzi trolling for baby bumps, I have been thinking alot about media "Pro-Mommy Propaganda." It seems like it is everywhere.

As a woman who never wanted children I confess that this is the thing that would make me nuts if I ever became a mother: Getting dragged into the Cult of Motherhood. I have seen people that I like and respect - both in Hollywood and my personal life - become boring, indulgent, judgmental drones when they become mothers.

My question is this: are there things that would change (for the worse) even the most committed feminist if she embarked on them? I think for me those things are marriage and motherhood - I feel that I would become a person that I didn't even recognize. I have seen it happen to so many others and it saddens me. Thoughts?

I do not want to have children. I have never wanted children. Not to say I have anything against children... I just do not want to be a mother.

Motherhood is a complicated, and truly important issue, and understandably a major focus point for many feminists. It was a topic that was debated for hours in my various gender and women's studies classes throughout my university career. But I was always struck by the lack of discussion of women who choose not to be mothers.

All women, whether they have children or not, are affected by issues of motherhood. Sometimes we face the same challenges, such as employment difficulties solely because we MIGHT have children, which are very similar. But sometimes, those challenges are very different.

Women who choose not to have children are often not taken seriously. Soceity as a whole does not value their reasons. Women are selfish for not wanting to have children. Women will change their minds. Women just haven't met the right person to have children with... for every reason a woman might have for choosing not to be a mother, society has negative response.

In an academic setting, such as a university, it shocked me that vocalizing my concerns about the lack of discussion of this issue was often brushed off. I was once even told that we talk about motherhood as the norm because more women choose to be mothers. Obviously, it cannot be denied that many women choose motherhood, otherwise humans would cease to exist eventually. However, in an academic field dedicated to deconstructing and often combating societal "norms", this response just seemed really out of place, and frankly, a little inappropriate.

I am feminist because I value choice and equality. I respect and value motherhood and the women who choose it. I just wonder when I am going to be able to sit in my women's studies classes and hear academic discussion about the otherside of the motherhood question.

Just as I was about to start this post, I realized I had not heard much noise coming from my daughter's room.  That, of course, can be a sign that something is up.  Thankfully, she was sitting on her floor in her "Buzz Lightyear" costume (she is almost 5) playing with the mechanical crane she got for Christmas last year.  Score one for gender free childhood exploration.  And so I hope you all will welcome the concerns, rants and raves of a Feminist parent trying to raise the next wave.  I will be posting about feminism and motherhood (which HAVE to be compatible, hello we are still doing most of the work raising the next generation), gay parenting, caregivers' rights, economic justice, safe schools, adaquate and affordable childcare, healthcare, etc. 

But let's start on a lighter note. The other day my daughter asked me if there are evil people.  As every parent knows, children tend to ask these kinds of questions (will you die, where do babies come from, is Santa real, why does water make me wet) at the worst time (on the way to school, just before bed).  She asked me this as we were getting ready for school.  I answered something like, " I don't think there are evil people, I think sometimes people don't think and do really mean things."  She answers, "Well, Mr. Whosamacallit is evil."  I ask, "Who is that?"  "The man in Frosty the Snowman that ...."  I don't even remember what he did but I realized that maybe we were working with different ideas of evil.  My daughter thinks of evil and imagines a cartoon character. I think of evil and imagine any number of people from  the Bush Administration.  Hmm, maybe our ideas are not so different.

Renee at Feministe has a post up about the ethics of surrogacy, particularly the morality of surrogacies in which higher- and middle-income families from the US hire lower-income surrogate mothers from countries like India, Mexico, Russia, Thailand, and South Africa.

She responds to an article on the issue from Women's ENews, and in her response somewhat reduces the complicated moral debate over surrogacy to a system of clear-cut profit and exploitation. She comments on the concerns of US families who can no longer afford to fly to their surrogate mother's country of residence (to, in the article's words, "monitor pregnancies and legal proceedings"):

Oh dear, due to financial restrictions you may not be able to aptly police the woman that you have chosen to exploit. Heaven forbid that western women are unable to make sure that the leash does not aptly restrict the blood flow. What if mammy forgets her place? What if Mammy makes a decision that is not in the best interest of my genetically superior child?

I find these words judgmental and unfair. I don't think the issue is that simple - or that shaming women who choose to seek out surrogate mothers is a good way to combat the exploitation that does exist.

She also opines:

It is arrogance to prioritize western biological imperatives in this way. Our DNA is no more necessary to the progression of humanity as a species than the DNA of an impoverished woman of Delhi.

Personally speaking, I agree with her. I believe that it is not worth the expense, both financial and ethical, to hire a surrogate mother in order to ensure that my genes are passed on. As someone who wants both to adopt and to have kids biologically, if I was faced with infertility I would take it as an opportunity to adopt all my children instead. But that's me. Other women should be allowed to make different choices. It's not fair to label all families who hire surrogate mothers as arrogant or exploitative. There is a great risk for exploitation - after all, as Renee points out, it is mostly impoverished women who are hired as such, and it is their bodies (which, as we pro-choicers know, are battlegrounds) which are being commoditized - but that doesn't mean that all women who hire surrogates are thoughtless or manipulative.

In many cases the exchange provides surrogates with opportunities for education, investment, and housing. This New York Times article tells the story of one such surrogate mother, from India:

Separated from her husband, she found that her monthly wages of 2,800 rupees, about $69, as a midwife were not enough to raise her 9-year-old son. With the money she earned from the first surrogacy, more than $13,600, she bought a house. She expects to pay for her son's education with what she earns for the second, about $8,600. (Fees are typically fixed by the doctor and can vary.) ''I will save the money for my child's future,'' she said.

There's no disputing that it's unfair that this woman, or any woman like her, must sell her body to finance her son's education or their living arrangements. But, from this example at least, it seems that by taking on work as a surrogate, this woman was able to positively shape her and her son's futures.

The morality of surrogacy, especially when the agreements cross international and class lines, is complicated and greatly disputed. As a young, privileged, white woman, I recognize that my thoughts are greatly biased and that I am overall somewhat ignorant on the issue. But I do not think that a blanket attitude of shame and accusation does anything beneficial for women who are exploited by this idiosyncratic system.