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Nobody's Perfect
So Amy Sohn has another piece in this week's New York magazine (I know, why do I do this to myself?) that has me wondering if it's just the people she bumps into or if everyone is so unexamined.
The column is about how wildly controversial it is not to want children. How's that for another manufactured syndrome? Really, why stop there? There are tons of other neglected, but surely offended, sub-groups that need their outsider status confirmed.
People who only want one child, and won't have another
People who only want a boy
People who only want girls
People who are angry because they can't decide whether or not to have kids
People who want kids but don't want to make their parents happy
People who want multiple cats and multiple children
People who want kids and dogs but no spouse.
People who want children, but not if they have to live with global warming
People who don't want children or pets
Dating is hard no matter what side of the parent question you're on, and it just seems facile to decide that being a no-kids person somehow makes one rare and edgy. Growing up, I remember many of my parents' friends, single and married, choosing not to have kids. My own acquaintance is littered with people in their late 20s to mid 50s who have either decided or eased gradually into not having kids and while most of them are in committed relationships, none of them feels particularly radical.
This is not to say that the decision to be kid-less is always easy and negotiating a child-free life isn't tricky at times, but enough with the hand-wringing. Consider the convenience of this deal breaker: if kids are really out of the question, that is one easy way to filter out undesirable dates.
The interesting part of this article is not so much that people are making these decisions about their lives, but the sense that they have to feel victimized. Why is it more comforting to think that the world is conspiring against you than that you just haven't found a good partner?
In the end, one will always have to come to terms with something about one's wife or husband, boyfriend or girlfriend. There's a reason why the last scene of Some Like It Hot is so funny and zings so hard, after all.
posted by Elise at 8:33 AM
3 Comments
Cover Your Eyes!
Body After Baby is the headline on People magazine this week and it shouted at me amid the thicket of skinny arms and legs that belong to Denise Richards (an odd-looking actress who was very good in Wild Things, a movie that is not what it appears to be).
I didn't buy the rag. I don't read People as a general matter and I couldn't bring myself to spend $4 on a magazine that would just leave me feeling like a slob in the season of candy corn. But here's the article teaser if you feel masochistic.
For my part, I have to say, I'm completely surprised by these celebrity secrets to body rebound. Who would have thought that daily exercise with a personal trainer, moderate eating and plenty of rest (ha!) would have such amazing results? I would have thought these actresses would be doing something at least a little insane... like growing weird mushrooms at home in the back of their refrigerators they way people did during the Kombucha craze.
Why isn't possible to simply admire the movie stars without getting pressure to emulate them? It is one thing to celebrate celebrity maternity, but another thing entirely to feel inferior and guilty when faced with the insanely super shapes these actresses sport mere weeks after having their children.
It's the weekend and surely the next People will be chock-a-block with heady gossip, not guilt. For the next day or two, turn your eyes away from the newsstand and consider how much lighter you will be if you don't take on the psychic burden that will surely plague you if you pick up this issue.
posted by Elise at 10:43 AM
4 Comments
New Stats: Change Is Interesting
The National Center of Health Statistics just coughed up its numbers, and the headline maker this time around is that the number of babies born to unmarried women has set a record high.
What do the numbers mean? Everyone surely will have an opinion. Does it mean fewer couples are getting married? Are more women choosing to have kids on their own? Are their more lesbian couples having children?
I'll bet dollars to donuts that political folks will find ways of spinning these details in ways that make everyone unhappy.
In the meantime, I'm hoping that this information might suggest some different interpretations of family that could, with the help of a new administration, bring great progress, great change, great news.
posted by Elise at 11:58 AM
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The Precariousness of Things
Sometime in the night, a sign appeared by the trash shute.
"Please do not throw pumpkins down the compactor shute.
They may be left of the floor."
A sign like that, appearing, with no explanation of reasoning or consequences...
My husband promply admitted that the missive is giving him ideas he hadn't had previously.
We have no pumpkin.
Yet.
posted by Elise at 7:37 AM
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Diaper Anatomy
Ask me what a modern disposable diaper has in common with gel-cap analgesics. I can tell you because yesterday the dog, feeling he was insufficiently stimulated, dissected one of Felix's disposable diapers in what I hope was a fit of scientific curiosity.
He was just looking for amusement in a morning when it was looking as if I might get something done, and I was forced to waylay my virtuous plans when I walked past his bed and saw the strange diaper wreckage.
It was quite astonishing- little paper bits here and there, a shredded image of a popular children's television personality* on the floor having been carefully snatched from the front panel of the diaper, and all around the tissue was a gel substance.
Gel is the key to the success of a disposable diaper, apparently, and the gel is so good that companies have had to develop "training" diapers that don't work so well (the code for this sort of diaper is that it has a "wetness liner"). Anyway, the gel is controversial from an ecological standpoint and the most ardent of cloth diaper users tend to think that it is more deadly than botulism. I can't bring myself to discuss the politics of the disposable diaper. I fought them for a while and then finally had to cave. The kid was leaking right and left. That's all I'll say.
Don't let my use of the Devil's product make you think I’m sanguine, however. I'm not. Worried about my dog, I started calling around:
The Vet: Not there, probably dealing with an emergency.
My Husband: "Try again. I'll look online."
The Vet: Still not there.
The Animal Medical Center: "Unless the dog is throwing up, don't do anything. We've never heard of diaper poisoning."
A Friend's Vet: "If he isn't acting poisoned or sick and he doesn't have an obstruction, he's fine. Keep an eye on him."
My Husband: "I found some stuff online, but I’m not going to tell you what the cloth diaper people say. Actually I will: just having those diapers in the house has already killed all of us."
A Human Doctor, Called for Unrelated Reasons: "You realize that it is unlikely that a product meant for use on an infant would contain a substance that is toxic if eaten accidentally."
Pampers Hotline: "No, the gel isn't poisonous. It's similar to the substance that gel-caps are made out of."
My Sister-In-Law: "Our dog ate them all the time. Nothing ever happened but they always told us to feed her a little extra."
Am I breathing easily? Don't count on it. But everyone is still With Us, so there is hope. The dog is still on his celery diet, his appetite undeterred. (One wonders if my in-law's Portuguese Water Dog told him about the suggested extra chow.)
And I have been chastened into stepping up the baby proofing.
*Yes, indeed, I am aware of the astonishing amount of branding and brainwashing my child is receiving. A sobering, if unsurprising, piece in the Guardian this weekend called "The Onslaught" highlighted what I was already too aware of.
posted by Elise at 5:46 AM
24 Comments
Dress-up
My oldest and closest friend asked me recently if I would be up for a costume party. "I'm not talking about one of those things where guys show up in suits and ties and say `I came as myself,' I mean the real deal!"
While I'm all for it, I sympathize with her concerns. It is very hard to get people into the spirit of the masquerade party, and I suspect that Eyes Wide Shut did nothing to help the cause.
On the other hand, it is almost impossible to resist dressing up one's infant for Halloween. One only gets one or two chances to impose oneself on one's kid's costume, so it's unwise to squander that precious first year to exhaustion. Still, I ended up leaving the whole costume decision in my husband's hands. Felix has a little monkey outfit now and it is my job to get him used to the little furry headpiece, and keep the dog from running off with it.
It is possible, though, to get away with a minimum of exertion. One of the few "gag" onesies around here is the white iPod outfit, and if I had been left to my own devices, Felix may have had his fate as a geek sealed at a tender age.
I also noticed on Daddytypes a few days ago, that someone else shared my costume lethargy but had the talent and generosity to not only create an iron-on transfer, easily applied to any white onesie, but shared it with the world. The R2D2 outfit would have been particularly apt, since Felix occasionally chatters in long series of clicking and squeaking noises that sound not entirely unlike the stubby droid.
I will not be dressing up this year. I love costumes, but in my case they always turn out to be the lie that speaks the truth. A picture exists of me as a child dressed up with my oldest, closest friend and a bunch of other children from the apartment building we all lived in. My friend is a ballerina and is perfectly pink, blonde, immaculate and unambiguous. I, on the other hand, have tangled hair, a black leotard and a construction paper mask on. I was supposed to be Catwoman, I believe, but while I seem to have assumed the belligerent attitude, I think that was the year I got asked if I was a mouse without a tail.
How long do I have before Felix will start getting his own ideas about dressing up? Do you think I have one more year to bend him to my will?
Next year, I have high hopes. With Felix as a scarecrow and a dog who strangers call "Toto" as he scoots down the street, all I need to do is find a blue dress and some ruby slippers and hope no one asks me to sing.
posted by Elise at 4:20 AM
2 Comments
In Defense of "Red"
Not being much in the kitchen, I am always surprised when people give me cookbooks and food books as presents, and I wonder if there is a hint I'm not taking to heart or if these are presented with extreme optimism. It isn't that I have a black apron, and I do like baking and often use it as a way of calming down. (The night my terrier spent in the Animal Medical Center, I spent many hours creating an epic 9-Lemon Lemon Pound Cake that my husband remembers fondly, while living in fear that I'll be moved to try it again. I can only say this in my defense: beware the recipe that uses the word "meanwhile" more than twice. You will be segmenting the flesh of 9 lemons at two in the morning.)
So it was a couple of years after I received it that I happened to flip through Ari Weinszweig's Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating and there I saw a little squib he wrote called "the story of purple popsicles" (no caps, please). In this little yarn, he talks about his friend's son, Leo, joyously eating a purple popsicle and when questioned, the child said that the popsicle's flavor was purple. "Like a purple magic marker." Weinszweig uses his story as a way to illustrate how deeply connected flavors and smells are for us (Weinszweig operating on the principle that the markers the kid was talking about must have been the scented ones). Now, Weinszweig doesn't go so far as to say that the purple popsicle represents proof that the Devil is walking on earth in our supermarkets, but he clearly prefers food that is what it is, pure and real and his tone suggests that the ersatz flavors "Purple" "Red" "Yellow" "Green" "Orange" that I remember from the old 5-Flavor Life Saver packages (don't go looking for them now, you can only find hideous new flavors) are bad, not real, distractions from the Platonic ideals that nature offers us: real grape, real cherry, real lemon, real lime, real orange. But the child indeed knew the difference. He asked for "Purple" not "Grape" because those two things are different in his mind. He is not confused. He is smart.
And here I must admit to something that those who know me know too well: I love candy. It is beautiful. I love the classy formality of Good n' Plenty's pink and white tablets, the jewel colors of Jujyfruit, the funny disks my father says taste like spackle that are Necco Wafers. It's in my blood, I'm afraid. I'm not highbrow about it or fancy. I'm a little ashamed of how unsophisticated my tastes are and I know exactly how ridiculous I look with a Charms lollypop hanging out of my mouth, but I can't, I really can't see the evil in confections.
So much beauty, so much pleasure can't possibly be a crime, can it? Not even if I insist on moderation and tooth brushing? I can't be doomed to be the bad mother who allows candy, the sneak mother who keeps her private stash of treats hidden in the flour canister, or the hated "do as I say, not as I do" mom who lets her kid know what he's missing.
It's Halloween time and my husband has taken to asking if I'm "frolicking in the Autumn Mix" whenever he calls and he can tell I've been gnawing on that compelling combination of candy corn, "Indian corn" and Pumpkins. I just placed my order at Economy Candy (I don't have time to go over there this year and it's both easier than having to remember to go shopping and their 10-pound bag of assorted stuff for trick-or-treaters is better delivered than carried home). I love the holiday and all its promise and I can't bring myself to be the person who gives out real fruit snacks and pencils, as virtuous as I know that would be.
I've been talking about food so much lately, and I know I'm not alone in wondering what to feed my child and questioning my practices. This doesn't apply now, but I want him to know the pleasures of treats, the beauties of foods- mostly wholesome but occasionally not so much- and not feel that there are two categories of food: Save and Virtuous or Poisonous and Evil.
Felix's first sweet taste was of a late summer white peach, one of the most exquisite flavors I can imagine. He will know what strawberries and apples, raspberries and Bing cherries taste like. But I suspect he'll come to know and understand the flavor of "Red," and I doubt he'll forsake the fruit for it.
posted by Elise at 10:52 AM
5 Comments
Food Feelings
In college, I worked briefly as a receptionist at an aerobics studio. While this was one of my less stellar career moves, some things linger. I recall an instructor one time saying, after having an unpleasant time with her hair stylist: "Hair turns into feelings so quickly."
What brought her lament out of the Dark Ages and into my mind was a different sort of conversation I had with my friend and neighbor whose daughter is a bit younger than Felix. Our chatter turned to the question of food. There is a quirky truth in the notion that hair turns into feelings, but food and mood- those things for most people are as connected as Chang and Eng.
My friend asked what Felix was eating, and I said that he eats pretty much anything, as long as it is mashed, and sadly he prefers to feed himself with his fingers, so it's a mess. Over the weekend he got to have some super fancy roast pork with cherry sauce (no, no I wasn't cooking) and he often gets leftover chicken or rice and beans, that sort of thing. The pediatrician, at our last visit was almost stern about how babies should get a wide variety of flavors and spices and not to shy away from anything. (Needless to say, his literal hamfistedness thrills the dog. When Felix gets up from a meal, a cascade of taste sensations pours onto the floor, and the dog obligingly Hoovers them up. In spite of this, the celery snack diet seems to be working on the terrier whose waistline is returning.)
This was somewhat unsettling to my friend whose child has been doing wonderfully eating mostly jarred food. And then I felt I had put my foot in it and backpedaled saying that I have jarred food too but that the kid just likes to do it himself and maybe her doctor has different recommendations and who cares anyway, and maybe her child isn't ready for finger foods and I don't know what I’m talking about.
But she remained disconcerted, and to remedy things I spilled everything about the (surely bad) non-organic puff things that my kid likes and that mesh feeder bag that he finds amusing. Suddenly all of these things that I had done mostly for my amusement ("Let's see if he likes cantaloupe!") took on a weight I didn't think they could bear. My friend knows how many ounces of breast milk or formula her child consumes every day. I have no idea at all what Felix gets, but he lets me know when he's hungry.
It was early in the morning, and I had turned food into feelings for this woman. I wish it didn't have to be this way. These things seem so different from the food issues that have clung to me since early adolescence. People seem so frightened that their child is not getting the right foods or getting them too quickly. I suspect I wasn't given a food protocol for a reason, but I see how daunting this wide-open gustatory territory can be.
Finally, Felix held the key to reassurance in his own little maw. My friend's daughter is currently toothless which might account for her love of super pureed food.
Peering at Felix, I see he is getting two more teeth. Six pearly ones. Just in time for Halloween
posted by Elise at 11:12 AM
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Possible Progress
I'm sure that people in the know will be able to explain all the shortcomings that aren't obvious to me, but the British government has apparently just published a new Work and Families Bill that actually provides paternity leave. Maternity leave will be increased to 9 months, but if a mother returns to work before her leave is up, fathers can go on leave.
Is there any legislation pending in the United States that would provide general policies of maternity and paternity leave? I ask that, knowing what the answer is, given this government, its claim to want states to look after themselves, and its passion for the interests of corporations.
Still, news like this is welcome.
posted by Elise at 5:41 AM
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Undercover Sleep Rebels
Late in my pregnancy, my husband and I decided to take a birthing class but finding one proved tricky because while we were interested in natural childbirth, neither of us has any patience for: birthing art projects, excessive homework, new-age spiritualism, complicated diets, yoga, and husband-coaching. . . I love my husband too much for that. Someone would have lost an eye.
In the end I found a really great, non-doctrinaire birth class from RealBirth in Chelsea. The center is the education and post-partum support branch of what was formerly the Elizabeth Seton Childbirth Center that was forced to close a few years ago because of the cost of insurance premiums. Our teacher, Erica Lyin, the director of the center, was wonderful and I'm thinking about her because she is quoted in the New York Times today.
The itchy subject in today's Health section is about SIDS and how some people abandon the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations and put their children to sleep on their stomachs, because when they're on their bellies, they actually sleep. Parents are extremely anxious about ignoring these protocols and tend to lie, if only by omission, about these tendencies.
This is one of the countless intractable problems of having a baby. No one wants to be "bad" and go against protocol. People are just desperate. There's no special kick in the transgression, unless it is the relief of finally getting a little more sleep.
The Times interviews a number of people who attest to the hand-wringing, doctors who explain why back sleeping is preferred, one doctor who talks about plagiocephaly (flat head from back sleeping), but Erica's comment is at once smart and comforting- a rarity in the world of infant advice which thrives on scare techniques. As if new parents weren't having enough little thrills.
"I'm very sympathetic to the mother who is so sleep-deprived that she puts the baby on its belly knowing that all the experts recommend not to... The role of the professional is to say 'these are the recommendations and this is why.' The role of the parent is to think critically and apply those recommendations in a way that makes their life manageable."
As a point of interest, the pediatricians I see recommend back sleeping until the babies themselves figure out how to flip themselves around on their own. Once the infants are doing that, they say, all bets are off.
On the other side of things, the Times also reports that if your kid drinks coffee, his growth won't be stunted. But it will be that much harder to get him to sleep on his back.
posted by Elise at 5:06 AM
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Fashion and Expectations
It seems that summer is finally releasing us from its humid grip and finally letting fall set in. This is invigorating and sobering in many ways, not the least of which being that I didn't realize my child had grown. The chill set in and I pulled out all of my favorite footie outfits that Felix looked so picturesque wearing in April, and ended up having to retire them immediately. Don't ask what I was thinking. Clearly, I wasn't.
I was unconsciously following a pattern that had been established by my own father with his kids. A small but potent photographic record reveals that my father was something of an origami master when it came to stuffing a child into an outfit several sizes too small. Some of my favorite pictures from my infancy reveal me prone and immobile in the style of a baby harp seal next to my father while he was reading. Given that my outfits were so tight you could bounce coins off my belly, there was certainly no worry that I would roll anywhere. Those days are not destined to repeat themselves, since I don't have my father's talent, and getting Felix dressed at all tries his patience.
We have come to the end of the clothes that Felix got either as hand-me-downs or birth presents, and now that I have to start actually dressing him myself, I am a little bemused, since for so long he has been wearing what other people thought would be cute or handsome or amusing. He has worn everything from tiny NBA-logo shorts to Oshkosh overalls, and slick black onesies designed by RISD graduates. But the most controversial of all his clothes is a piece of classic British babywear: the smocked bubblesuit. Someone very close to my husband's family presented Felix with this piece of tradition and my mother-in-law had but one thing to say about it: "It's very cute but it needs to be ironed. Take pictures the first time he wears it because you won't have the energy."
I can't say she was wrong and I followed her advice, but if people's responses are anything to go by, those late summer photographs will be better blackmail tools than any of those shots of him in the bathtub or wearing the bunny-foot stretchie.
My mother: "He's a tough guy. What's he doing in frills?"
My mother-in-law: "Well, it's a little feminine, don't you think?"
Felix's babysitter: "That's very funny."
Felix's babysitter's friend: "How could they dress him like a girl? Does his father know she did that to him?"
The outfit, which has been retired due to autumn, leg girth, and an internal labor dispute (I won't iron it) never struck me as objectionable. It is so incredibly British, with its little sailboats and pale blue checked cotton, that I never once thought about it seeming girly. You can see the offending outfit above, with the wearer's face conveniently turned to protect his self-respect.
Then again, I never mind when people think Felix is a girl anyway; babies are kind of interchangeable, even my own. After he was born, my husband took my mother to see Felix in the nursery where he was getting a blood test and the two of them spent a fair amount of time waving at a completely random kid. So where's the offense in strangers getting his gender wrong?
The way I figure it is this: sooner than later, Felix will have too many opinions about what he wears and I'll never be able to inflict things like his Spitfaced t-shirt on him again, but more importantly, I went for eight months without having to make more than the most casual decisions about what he should look like. Those days are winding down and given how difficult it is for me to shop for myself, I miss them already.
posted by Elise at 10:06 AM
0 Comments
Before You Think, We Anticipate
I harbor a bit of faith in the Collective Unconscious, and I knew I had to be far from alone in making the Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes / Rosemary's Baby connection. (I write that reluctantly because I truly love the 1968 movie and don't really want to muck up my thinking about it with silly pop culture ephemera, but still. . .)
But someone more entrepreneurial than I figured out a way to make a buck off the popular zeitgeist. I first spotted these on daddy types, but I imagine they're making the rounds and they're not bad looking.
posted by Elise at 6:13 AM
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Flickers of Interest
A couple of articles poked through the haze created by the terrible weather, and caught my interest over coffee:
In Slate, Emily Bazelon, writes about the No Diaper Method that has been discussed briefly on these pages once before. An article in the New York Times has dragged the issue into the spotlight again and now everyone is talking about it. Bazelon makes a lot of good points and I was fascinated to see the history of the disposable diaper in the United States (they didn't really hit their stride, so to speak, until close to the end of the 20 th century). If this project works out for some people, that's great, but I truly lost patience when I read about the Diaper Free Movement's attitude when it says that following its practices will strengthen one's bond with one's baby.
Here are some things that strengthen one's bond to one's baby: childbirth without epidural, co-sleeping, baby-wearing, no diapers, breastfeeding. I have no trouble with any of these things and I practice some of them, but I don't see why there has to be so much guilt attached if one can't potty train one's 7 month-old or finds oneself needing an epidural or stroller. I don't know if people really internalize the message that failing to follow certain practices makes it harder to "bond" with one's child, but the language always feels to me like that of the classic cautionary tone familiar to all of those who had to walk past one's mother on the way out on a Saturday night in high school: "Are you really going out looking like that?" One either dragged oneself back to the closet or stomped off in defiance.
The No Diaper people could have said: "Here's what we do. It's great, you save money and spare the environment." But I suppose the sting of guilt must give their program some gravitas.
On another front, it seems that conservative groups have become upset with the American Girl Doll people.
I have never owned one, but do know several girls who love these dolls. In my acquaintance, Kit, the Depression doll (no, her accessory kit doesn't come with a tiny bottle of SSRIs- Kit represents a industrious little girl living in the Dust Bowl during the late 1930's) is the favorite.
Anyway, it seems that one of the American Girl initiatives is to sell little wristbands to support Girls Inc., a nonprofit organization that promotes programs for girls in education, sports, the ever-elusive self-esteem, and also provides money for college scholarships. Conservative groups, fearing that Girls Inc. might provide information about contraception instead of abstinence, and support girls questioning their sexual orientation, are now threatening to threaten to boycott.
Now, American Girl Dolls are owned by Mattel, which is a substantial enough company to withstand this kind of threat, but I do hope they stand firm with the Girls Inc. initiative, which seems to have more subtlty than the protests are taking into account.
posted by Elise at 9:18 AM
18 Comments
Babble Pondering
When I was born, my grandfather, a doctor, was given a copy of one of those formidable texts, a pink volume bearing the title: How to Raise a Happy, Healthy Baby by the author, Beulah France, R.N. She is pictured on the cover and is a little Nancy Reagan-esque to be comforting.
The book is now in my possession and is a source of constant curiosity. In some ways it is dripping with that old-fashioned classic kitsch that makes collecting vintage advice books so much fun ("Wise women do not rush into strenuous activities as soon as they get home from the hospital. Those who do, all too often have to pay for their indiscretion."), but Nurse France also happily describes the home birth of her first child, approves of breastfeeding, and is generally low-key with her advice.
Chunks of the book are framed as a Q&A with Nurse France's loyal, if occasionally misguided readers ("My husband was in an accident and his face is badly scarred. Will our baby's face be blemished because of this?") and I was intrigued by the following question and response:
Q: Will talking to my twins help them talk? They are nearly nine months old and neither one is noisy. They do make certain sounds and, believe it or not, they seem to understand each other. But they don't say "ma-ma," "da-da," or "bye-bye" yet. I'm so busy I have never talked much to them.
A: Talking to a baby from birth on helps him learn to talk. Busy as you may be, make a point of talking as you go about your chores. But be sure to speak slowly, pleasantly, with a rising inflection and absolutely correctly. Don't mimic the sound the babies make; but say words of one syllable, or more, distinctly and repeatedly. Many children do not talk until far beyond the age of nine months, so do not feel concerned.
Now, I talk to Felix in a wide variety of ways: I sing to him, talk to him as if he were a grown up, as if he were the dog, I mimic the noises he makes and elaborate on them. Very few children grow up not talking at all, so I'm curious about why it would be unwise to repeat his sounds back to him.
I'm sure since this book was written, all sorts of theories about how to converse with infants have been floated and deflated, but I do wonder what the thinking is about language development and what one is supposed to do. After that I wonder how much energy I have to dedicate myself to educating the Felix, and whether that work will deter at all the pleasure I get from doing my own thing with him.
posted by Elise at 11:51 AM
2 Comments
Broadcasters
So the American Academy of Pediatrics revised its sleep recommendations, which it hadn't done in about five years, and has managed to anger everyone with its rather bland and not-remotely-shocking protocol.
Why is this report surprising? Since 1999, Pampers diapers have had "Back to Sleep" written across them. All over the New York City public transit system one can see public service ads about a number of child-related issues. (This campaign, called "Take Good Care of Your Baby" has a list of PSA issues that includes a host of topics including but not limited to: "It's Safest for Baby to Sleep Alone" "Child Proof Your Home" "Water Safety," "Window Guards Save Lives!," "Don't Shake Your Baby," "Don't Leave Children Alone," and "Get Help for Drug and Alcohol Abuse") Now, I realize that many people don't use or read disposable diapers, and that in many cities public service advertisements on mass transit are useless, but I also got stacks of pamphlets about these issues when I left the hospital and when I got Felix's birth certificate in the mail. There was no escaping these suggestions.
Of course, deciding to follow them, or being able to follow them is another story entirely, and it is astonishing how persecuted so many people feel at the hands of the AAP. SIDS is frightening, and I've written here about how often I check on Felix in the night, but I tend to look on these things the way I have always regarded the food pyramid, instructions on condom packages, gym recommendations, and pregnancy warnings. They are guidelines, not rules, thank God.
But some people claim to have been "sickened" by the press release, feel victimized and furious. . . and all of a sudden, a MOVEMENT is born. I have no patience for the over-politicization of parenting choices, which seem to me to be quite private matters and yet, people go around online and on the street proclaiming themselves with strings of bumper-sticker announcements:
Anti-Vaccination
Co-Sleeping or Nothing
No Cheerios
Anti-Circumcision
No Branded Toys
Organic Only
Not In My Bed
Attachment Or Else
No Rayon
TV Never
Pro-Breastfeeding
No Spiders
Mostly Mozart
What is the point of so rigidly defining oneself? If it is helpful or comforting to shout one's tendencies from the rafters, you'd never guess because the proclaimers get so incensed when forced to even imagine someone questioning their choices or doing something other than what they would choose.
Then again, I feel oppressed by the weather, by the way of the world, by bad technology, occasionally by my mind. I don't need to any help in the beleaguered department. When I was pregnant, I tended to keep my mouth shut. I didn't care to be questioned about things like coffee drinking and sushi-eating. With Felix, I feel the same way. I have no interest in making his life political, and while I'm often self-conscious (as when I took him out to a late dinner last Saturday) I would rather think that I'm just a citizen, not a poster girl for parenting or anything else.
Or is the real problem for people not the prospect of the tyrannizing "recommendations" but the possibility that no one cares what they do in the first place?
posted by Elise at 2:57 PM
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Dairyland
One of the traits I share with my husband it a tendency to keep things. While neither of us is anything like the Collyer Brothers who were practically outsider artists in their tragic dedication to packrat-ish-ness, we understand and respect this quirk.
In one area, however, I fear I am starting to impose. It is almost impossible to put anything in our freezer now without having some sort of genius for spatial relations, because it is so stuffed with packets of hastily labeled breast milk. Sure, lurking behind the white wall are containers of frozen tomato sauce and chicken chili. I've even found free spots in which I can wedge in strawberry popsicles, but a pint of ice cream would be much too much.
I've been storing breast milk for Felix since he was a few days old. The collection started as a solution to an engorgement problem, then it became an act of defiance during the brief (2 day) but painful tenure of an anti-breastfeeding (and anti-dog) babysitter. Then it became habit- compulsion even.
I wasn't even counting on breastfeeding working for me, but now I have preferences I never dreamed I'd formulate for things like milk storage bags. (I like the Lansinoh ones, even though they have idiotic text on them. Whose bright idea was it to write "My Mommy's Milk" on the side of these things? My kid can't read, and there's really no one else around here whose milk it could be. If they weren't so space efficient, I would boycott them based on unpleasant and unnecessary cuteness alone, but because they are so flat, I can store that much more... you see my problem.) And I have months of stored milk.
Advice about how long frozen milk really keeps is all over the place. Some say it lasts 6 months, others say 3 months is the maximum. No matter how I look at it, my freezer has at least 2 months of frozen packets I should ditch.
And I haven't yet.
I don't quite understand why I'm clinging to these things. They do comfort me in some vague way. They prove I can sustain Felix, something I worried about until he was a several months old. They prove my work and my care. Perhaps they're like so many talismans, ensuring that Felix will be taken care of until he's entirely on solid food.
As much as I want my body back, I am happy to be able to feed Felix. Throwing these packets away seems like such a waste, an insult to my hard work, and a testament to my shabby organization. A successful obsessive would have established a nifty rotation in which the newest milk would be frozen while older packets would thaw in the 'fridge, ensuring more freshness all the way around and less of the waste I dread.
What do other people do with surplus? It's too late for some of my supply, but I can't be alone with this tendency. At some point- who knows when it will be, the holidays, perhaps?- I will have to face facts. Someone around here, and I'm not saying it won't be me, may want mint chip ice cream, or feel its time the room temperature vodka took on a bit of a chill.
posted by Elise at 4:20 AM
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Older Eggs
Fresh on the stands is this week's New York Magazine featuring this article: Stop Time: Is Egg Freezing the Next Big Thing for New York Women Facing Infertility?
New York women, just to get this out of the way, are singled out not only because of the name of the magazine that published the piece, but because they are regarded here as the women who put their careers first who, to indulge in a cliched platitude or two never had time for love, who were more interested in the boardroom than the nursery.
Whatever their things were, and regardless of whether this is a problem their country cousins suffer as well, these women in question are approaching 40 and want to do what they can to maintain at least a chance of having their own biological children.
All sorts of interesting issues get dredged up by an article like this one, not the least of them are about money and social status, since these procedures are incredibly expensive, not covered by insurance, and by the nature of the problem, a financial burden that the women who try it must shoulder alone. I try to think of this the way we used to think about plastic surgery, though. Once it was the sort of thing movie stars and socialites did and lied about and now it's as common as hair highlights. Once "only your hairdresser" knew for sure, now there are television shows demonstrating every procedure in action.
Eggs are big news right now. Infertility treatments are old hat. Now there is a new angst generated by prophylactic infertility treatments. It is a world of uncertainty, and everyone wants to hedge her bets.
I never had great faith in my fertility, though have been happily proved wrong, but I don't know what I would do if I found myself in the position of being over 35, alone, with the means to freeze my eggs. I am not sure I would have the courage to embark upon that project. I am pleased to see that it gives some people comfort they yearn for.
posted by Elise at 6:09 AM
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Silent Katie
So Katie Holmes is knocked up and most of us are feeling sorry for her, not that she needs our pity, but I don't mind casting a few of my pearls in her direction.
Ink (or the Internet equivalent) is being spilled right and left over the possible ways this baby could have been conceived, why (or whether) la Holmes cast aside her no-sex-before marriage stance, and of course the nature of a Scientology approved birth which is painkiller-free and silent.
Scientology despises all medication while believing that the noise associated with childbirth will damage the baby. This is not a new concept or one unique to Scientology, by the way. The French doctor Frederick LeBoyer was a strong advocate of natural, quiet childbirth for the baby's sake and his book Birth Without Violence, published in 1975 outlines his theories.
At this point, I must confess that I wonder why it is so important to people to have rigid birth philosophies and by extension I wonder why so many of the most draconian of these were conceived of by men.
It isn't really of interest to me whether Ms. Holmes can have this natural quiet delivery, though it is good to want things, I suppose. But I am curious about why a woman would so embrace a religion or lifestyle philosophy that promises to leave her bereft of options, even small ones like choosing to grunt, at a moment when one needs choices most. So what if silence is possible? The question really isn't whether someone can deliver naturally without making a racket, but why such sadistic mandates seem like a good idea.
And when I say sadistic, I do not refer to pain of childbirth, rather the more existential problem of being told that your voice is toxic, that expressing your pain or fear or excitement will damage the psyche of your child. To preempt expression seems to create a channel for extreme loneliness and isolation. There is a remarkable book by Elaine Scarry called The Body in Pain: the Making and Unmaking of the World, which is (in large part) about pain in the context of torture and war. In it, she argues that pain itself is a destroyer of language and personality. I wonder how refusing to permit any expression of pain, even in the happy context of childbirth in some sense unmakes the person who might suffer less if she could permit herself a yelp or two.
This starlet isn't a real person as far as I'm concerned, and I'm certain that the world will never know the truth about whatever she chooses to do or winds up doing, which is good, since it's none of our business. But I do hope that impressionable types don't look at what she does or claims to do and presume that they are doing themselves or their children some sort of disservice by opening their mouths or even wanting and needing relief.
Postscript: On the subject of pain, there is a fascinating article by Jerome Groopman about reflex sympathetic dystrophy in the October 10th issue of the New Yorker. The article is not available online, but a Q&A with Groopman is. This has nothing to do with childbirth, where the pain involved is entirely different and serves a much different purpose.
posted by Elise at 9:13 AM
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Recycled
As if to prove nothing is sacred, a post-production facility challenged itself to corrupt a Stanley Kubrick movie. Witness this "preview" that wouldn't be at all out of place in the lineup for movies coming this holiday season. A writer without a son. . . a boy without a father... It's a three-hankie tearjerking weepy for men-
Except that this heartwarming teaser has been constructed out of footage from The Shining. To Kubrick's credit, every shot still looks creepy in spite of the heartwarming cordial that's been poured all over it.
For your consideration... Shining.
posted by Elise at 8:45 PM
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Kid Tunes
The adult songs in the infant music class this week were "Love Me Tender" and "Loco-motion", solidly old-fashioned tunes in two very different registers. I can't sing either of them, or at least I couldn't the other day, but in fairness, things get pitched a little HIGH in music class, and I'm a bit more of an alto.
Love Me Tender is obvious, I suppose, a love song (pre-Elvis, it was called "Aura Lee or the Maid with the Golden Hair") written in the 19th century, that brings tears to your eyes. I was interested, though in the choice of Loco-motion, which you Carole King fans out there will recognize as a hit by the Chiffons, the super cool girl group that also recorded "He's So Mine" "I have a Boy Friend" and an long-time favorite "One Fine Day."
Periodically, some parents I know have complained bitterly about having to listen to popular kid music, attend kid music concerts, and such. This is something different from the standard "Wheels on the Bus" scenario (and yes, I'm already sick to death of the song and ready to throw myself under those proverbial tires by the third or fourth verse). I am not familiar with the work of Dan Zane or Raffi and I really don't want to be. It just seems incredibly annoying.
What is interesting, though, is the way certain "adult" artists have become drawn to children. I'm cynical, but even I don't think this tendency comes entirely from the impulse to make a buck. It must be a curious challenge to try to figure out what would appeal to people whose minds are so much younger. They Might Be Giants, for instance, produced a couple of kid-centric CD's (Here Come the ABC's and No!), and Slate had an interesting piece a while ago about kid music by grown up types. They even talk about this really strange and kind of great stuff that Raymond Scott composed in the 1960's. Scott's experimental music is a lot of fun generally, and his 3-volume set Soothing Sounds for Baby is really interesting and a nice break from the endless whoosh of The Happiest Baby on the Block (which has saved many a night's sleep for me, so don't think I’m knocking it). Soothing and stimulating, that's where it's at. But remember, this is the guy who composed "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals."
One of the amazing pleasures of being a parent is getting to impress the things I love onto Felix, who I also love. For now, since he can't protest, I've been trying to introduce his ears to my music. Recently, he's been loving (and I feel I can say this with some confidence) the clear dulcet voice of Sam Cooke, and I can safely say that the video my husband shot of Felix and me dancing to "Twistin' the Night Away" (or was it "Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha"?) will never see the light of day because as embarrassing as it will be to him, it will be doubly so for me.
posted by Elise at 7:23 PM
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Something In the Air
Sweet.
"Sweet" is the word that all the local news organizations (including the New York Times) have been using to describe a four-year-old named Valery who was abandoned in Queens very early one morning last week. She was found cold and barefoot, weeping in the street. Her story has played itself out over the last few days with the kind of intensity usually reserved for end of the season prime-time television dramas. We've been on the edges of our seats.
First, no one claimed her. Then videotape of the child talking about her beautiful mother, her cat and her favorite foods was broadcast extensively on the local news channels (although my favorite one was more restrained than the others). Some unhappy closure was reached over the weekend, when the man who deposited her on the street was arrested and charged with abandoning a child, endangering the welfare of a child, evidence tampering and murder. He was the little girl's mother's boyfriend, a doctor who claims he smothered the woman with a pillow in self-defense and then cut her throat to "open up an airway." We now know a lot about Valery, the heroine of this story, and the fact that we know what happened is cold comfort. From the beginning, it was apparent that something terrible had happened. It was just a matter of discovering what it was.
The air is full right now of tales of lost children. For the second week in a row, the Jodie Foster movie Flightplan is number one at the box office. I haven't seen it, but I know that the picture is about a woman whose child goes missing on an airplane. At first I thought the picture sounded a little like Bunny Lake Is Missing (an Otto Preminger movie from 1965) because the Jodie Foster character apparently has to prove her daughter's existence. But as it turns out, the movie is more like Hitchcock's 1938 The Lady Vanishes, because we always know that the missing person is real. In Bunny Lake, there is the distinct possibility that the mother is a lunatic and has imagined a daughter.
In art houses right now there's another movie that brushes against Bunny Lake. Keane, which is in limited release in major cities, is an aftermath story. The hero, obsessively, convulsively haunts New York City's Port Authority bus depot trying to find his daughter who went missing months before- though there is here some question of whether he ever had a child- and comes up with a terrible thing he could do to mitigate his loss. Indeed, Keane offers less closure than the real events of the week.
I'm a bit vulnerable to these stories of abandonment and the threat of untouchable loneliness, though I don't believe I'm necessarily more susceptible now that I have a child than before. We all have our weaknesses, and I have many. I can't stand stories that involve animal threat (you know, where an innocent pet is sacrificed to give the movie or book or play or what have you some toughness), but don't mind all sorts of other grimness at all. Post-Felix, though, I find I can fall into a kind of Dickensian projection fugue state where just hearing the horror makes me yearn for Felix and have to run and check on him- as if he were the one who had been found, miserable, on a residential block in Queens. But I get it in the end because my prodding him generally produces screaming that brings me rapidly back to earth.
Of course I'm not alone- there's a reason these stories are so gripping and it has to do with bruised innocence, cruelty, hope, redemption... all of those themes we want from our stories, fictional or torn from the headlines. But there is something about the moment, the shorter days, the beginning of chill, that makes me wonder where this swarm of stories about lost children came from.
I'm not entirely soft, though. I was not alone in thinking that there was little hope of a happy ending for Valery's mother, though I am a bit on tenterhooks about where the little girl will go, and the movie I've seen most recently that I liked best was a picture called A History of Violence- a movie about a father who might not be what he says he is. I love the director David Cronenberg, and perhaps he can make some sense of this current grim tendency in stories. When asked about his narrative interests in a recent interview, he said: "If you admit to the possibilities of the most horrific things, then maybe they won't happen."
Gentle words from a man who tends to make movies where people's heads explode.
posted by Elise at 8:54 AM
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Music & Motion
This week's song for the over 10-month set was "When You're Smiling (the Whole World Smiles With You)."
This seemed like a strange choice of tune, not for its subject matter, of course, which is inoffensive, unless you're the sort of person who resents being told that you can't be expected to make friends and influence people if you don't "Put on a Happy Face" (Oh! I wonder if that one will turn up). Do I reveal too much?
No, what made the choice odd is that it is, like so many songs of its era, really very difficult to sing. Of course it is. All sorts of amazing people have recorded the song (Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald, Alberta Hunter- on a record called Downhearted Blues, naturally), of course they'd pick something that let them show off a little.
On other fronts, Felix and I made an initial foray into the playground. I had been putting it off, of course, but in my defense, he can't do very much, which isn't to say he didn't love it. If only there were those swings like rubber buckets with leg holes cut out of them. He would like those.
At any rate, things went well with us hunched under an underused piece of junglegym. Felix even met someone, a older (running, talking, climbing) kid called Holden. One hopes Felix didn't come off as a phony.
I'm still not sanguine about the playground. At certain hours- the one I rather unwisely chose this afternoon, for instance- the place has a cocktail party air to it. Everyone is racing around, bubbling, giddy and shrieking, or having intense conversations in little clusters that once couldn't hope to penetrate.
I'll have to squeeze around this discomfort and take refuge in Felix's flighty attention span and inability to do very much.
Perhaps we can find an opportune moment and try the slide together.
posted by Elise at 9:45 AM
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