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A Hush Falls On Pumping Time
Dahlia Lithwick commented yesterday at Slate on a court case involving a medical student (at Harvard) requesting extra time during her medical state board exams (which are nine hours long during which there is a single 45-minute long break) for breast pumping. Initially, the woman was denied the extra time but a Massachusetts appeals court overturned the decision.
As someone who has had limited oversupply issues and who is mildly prone to mastitis, I would be grateful for the extra time, if I were taking the medical boards, but I'm not at all good at asking to be an exception in any way, and my feelings are utterly secondary. Lithwick points out that most disturbing is how quiet everyone has been on the issue that seems reasonable. It is true that the person requesting the extra time does appear to be something of a pill, and thus a not particularly ideal subject to rally behind with all kinds of outrage. But still, these are medical boards, breastfeeding is something of a public health issue, as Lithwick points out, why not show some flexibility and support?
My husband tells me that there are all sorts of fascinating discrepancies when it comes to board exams, none of which seem just or sane. Apparently in New Jersey the bar exam was so rigidly controlled that the bathroom was physically in the testing room, but test takers were free to wander out of the building and smoke, unsupervised. And in a famous incident, in my own fair city, a woman failed the bar exam when she went into labor during the test (the man who helped deliver her baby was also failed-- proving the no good deed goes unpunished principle). But why should it be that real, pressing, embarrassing, physical issues need to be an additional gauntlet for people taking an incredibly hard test in the first place?
Lithwick wonders why commentators have been so silent on this breastfeeding medical board case and suspects some of the hush might come from a fear of having to wrestle with the stay-at-home vs. working mother "wars" the media likes to talk about. I wonder if the silence comes from a fear of life being unfair that everyone seems to rail about these days. Sourpusses would say that this woman chose to have a baby and go to medical school and breastfeed and that she should be responsible for all of her choices. I don't think so, really. I am pathetically grateful when people hold open a door for me when I have a baby in a stroller because I feel so defensive about the whole "it is her decision and she can't expect anyone to help her" attitude that I feel so strongly.
Or is there another reason why people might not be inclined to talk about this problem? Do they think it's silly and too occasional (how many breastfeeding women are ever taking a board exam at a time anyway?) for debate?
posted by Elise at 7:03 AM
1 Comments
But I Waaaaant It
Christmas is coming (in spite of the August-esque temperatures in Manhattan), and I know this because suddenly the mailbox is full of peculiar toy catalogues from companies I have never heard of. I'm now particularly angry at the Young Explorers folks because they, through no fault of their own, caused a particularly annoying bit of unpleasantness to rear its little head yesterday morning.
Felix got a gander at this catalogue and immediately began to demand something. Interestingly, the something that he found so desirable is an item he already has, or more accurately put, a newer, "enhanced" version of a toy that we have. I didn't want to hear about it, and probably made matters worse by not taking him seriously. When I pulled out the original toy to show him he already had it, a complete fit ensued.
This was actually a first. Of course there have been moments where he has demanded things (ice cream, mostly) but he's easy to distract and I've never experienced anything quite like this.
As the shrieking went on at an unfortunate hour of the morning (the sun was up but coffee hadn't yet been made), a cascade of thoughts fluttered around, mostly about what other people would think of this situation.
One friend would certainly tell me that this episode was my fault for allowing my kid to be exposed to advertising and I should get rid of the television and hide the mail. This set me off thinking about one of the preschools Felix applied to, which has a "no branding" policy in which children are not allowed to show up at school with any clothing or lunch boxes or pencils or toys or whatnot featuring any identifiable character from popular culture.
Then I thought of all the jokes some other folks I know would make if they heard that the toy in question was a plastic cash register. (The one Felix has just makes a beeping noise, but the new version beeps and apparently talks.) I have known more than a few Socialists in my day and I sense what they would say about this sort of problem. It would do me no good to try to defend myself by saying that toddlers know very little about politics and systems of social and financial oppression, and a lot about beeping and talking.
Next, because everyone has a few literary theorists in one's acquaintance, I contemplated what people would say about the fact that he didn't seem to realize that the item he craved in a photograph was something he also had in real life. There are a couple of people who I know could deliver a twenty-minute lecture on the Lacanian mirror stage as it applies to contemporary catalogue culture and systems of desire without breaking a sweat.
But even all of the voices in my head didn't quite shut out the tantrum that went on, undeterred by attempts to: reason with him, play with the existing cash register, point out that no store would possibly be open, sourly say "it's good to want things," and ignore him.
Sadly, in the end there was only one thing to do, and here I was lucky that this all came down so early. I turned the problem over to his father, crinkled catalogue, sniffly nose and all.
Besides, the little one began his own lament, though one assumes it was inspired by a more primal need.
posted by Elise at 7:54 AM
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Now It's Free
It is so nice that the New York Times terminated its "Times Select" service, where one had to pay for certain chunks of its content. At first I didn't mind this since I never really had any interest in reading all the bits that were denied me, the cheapskate. But then I realized Judith Warner was writing opinion columns, and I really did find her book Perfect Madness interesting if not wildly revelatory.
Anyway, I neither became a Times Select subscriber, nor did I pull any scams or beg friends and relatives who are subscribers to let me read their copies. I just sat and stewed until... well until the Times decided that the "Select" service wasn't working so well anymore and gave the world access to all the content previously unavailable.
So, when you have a moment, it's worth checking out Warner's Op-Ed pieces. Most recently she wrote about how the movie Thelma and Louise is much more depressing than she remembered it being (I actually always felt that it was a bummer of a picture and sort of interesting for being so sunny and bleak at the same time). She also has interestingly blunt editorials about the endless work and family tug-of-war. The things she writes are not always revelatory but just having someone bleating regularly about things that are so obvious they become invisible is quite helpful.
posted by Elise at 5:15 PM
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Recalling
Add another item to your recall list. I learned today, from the ever amusing and interesting folks at Beauty Brains that a lot of Gripe Water (the brand is Baby's Bliss, apple flavor, product code 26952V, expiration date October 2008) has been recalled because cryptosporidium were found in it. Cryptosporidium, if you haven't met them- and I hope you haven't, are unpleasant parasites that lodge themselves in the digestive tract and create great unhappiness and sometimes great danger for their hosts. They are really nothing one wants to encounter in any ingested substance, but they are really nothing one wants to find in a tonic one is giving to one's infant.
So this sent me running to the medicine cabinet because I actually have a bottle of the stuff left over from Sebastian's first month of life when he made noise constantly. Day in and day out, he rattled along, sounding sort of like an engine that wouldn't catch or maybe an old radiator. "What are you eating?" was the question various people leveled at me when they heard him. "If you're breastfeeding, you must be doing something to make him this uncomfortable." I don't know what I was eating but he didn't really seem to be that uncomfortable, just noisy. The few times he did seem really unhappy I ladled a little Gripe Water into him and it had no effect whatsoever. Subsequently we moved on to Infant Mylecon drops that also didn't change the racket, but having all of these remedies on hand gave me a sense that one of them might work, that I might be able to be effective in some way at some point. Sebastian has since stopped the all-night growling, without my intervention.
But now a component of my stash has a recall. My drops are not from the tainted lot, and aren't even apple flavored, but I'm wondering what to do with them. Should I keep them just in case I need to revive the hope that something might work on some future gassy gripe? Or would I be better off approaching it in the rather hysterical way that I'm a little reluctant to embrace, which is to throw out everything even connected to the brand because one never knows?
Anyway, you parents of gassy infants, check your bottles.
posted by Elise at 11:11 AM
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Panting
The first week of nursery school is over and, boy, am I exhausted. I can't speak for Felix, but given the high cling-factor and slightly elevated incidences of Tremble Chin/Pouty Lip (and I won't lie, a couple of tears-- not mine) I suspect he would agree.
What more is there to say? Not that much, really, since the one thing everyone practically guarantees is that what happens in nursery school, stays in nursery school.
"Ask specific questions if you want to find out what happened," one is advised, "don't just say `How was your day?' or you'll get nothing."
So here was my gambit. I knew that the class had spent a morning making a sign for the classroom.
Me: "Felix, did you make something today in school?"
F: "Yes."
Me: "What was it?"
F: "A cake!"
Me: "... oh. What kind of cake?"
F: "Strawberry! With sand!"
But he did happily reveal that his snack was a chocolate chip cookie, and the evidence remaining on his cheeks proved that he was on point on at least one thing.
posted by Elise at 12:29 PM
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Reviewing
So, this is just a quick hit, because there are a lot of loose ends that need tying around here, but my dander is up today (yes, Mr. Storage Facility Guy, I know you caught the brunt of this at 7:30 this morning, but that was hardly my fault).
If one is reviewing a children's book, what does one say, really? How does one write critically about something that was composed to amuse someone whose sensibility is, literally, that of a two-year-old. What does it say about how lowbrow I am that some New York Times book reviewer's kid apparently has a much more sophisticated palate than I do?
As I've mentioned before, the Elephant and Piggie books are a huge hit on this end with both mother and child. They're amusing, easy to perform, don't get old fast, their repetition isn't insane-making (here I will confess that the 10,000 readings of Blueberries for Sal this summer makes me want to avoid Maine at all costs, even if it means not being able to hang out with bears and have the best blueberries in the world- a stiff sacrifice I know).
But apparently we're just easy because the New York Times critic and his kid find these stories facile, without depth, with jokes that are just too easy, lacking in the complexity of such works as Bread and Jam for Frances and Frog and Toad are Friends.
Don't misunderstand. I love the Frances books and Frog and Toad. I even have a friend who bears more than a passing resemblance to Frog. But those books are for rather more advanced readers than the Elephant and Piggie set (E&P books only have a few words on each page), so it is hardly a fair comparison.
Oh anyway, how does one judge a children's book? I know that they are written for children, but just as I absolutely want to spit every time I hear that ridiculous "My kid could paint that" comment in the vicinity of abstract art, I also don't really want to receive my reading recommendations from a critic's kid. Some times are better left to grown ups. Or am I not getting it and this reviewer just want to brag about his tot's good taste? That seems unwise. If I wanted child reviewers, I have easy access at the playground to plenty of children who are happy to volunteer their opinions on everything from my hair (frizzy, thanks) to fruit leather (good). I can also tell you that I don't really care about my kid as book critic yet. He has liked some pretty crappy books in his day.
But hey, Mo Willems doesn't need me to defend him. I'm sure he's doing better than fine. I suppose what I object to most in this article is the reviewer's utter determination to be a killjoy about some books that I have found pretty charming at many hours when it is hard to be amused.
posted by Elise at 4:06 PM
1 Comments
From the "You Can't Be Serious" Department
This afternoon, my husband pointed me at this Wall Street Journal article, which details how difficult it is for men to be around children because people are so prone to assuming that any man, even the father of a child with whom other children are in day care, is up to no good. I thought this was a sorry article and had all kinds of trouble with the way the people described in it behaved.
(Among them, the director of the day care center, mentioned above, who apparently scolded a father for letting children, including his own, sit on his lap while he read stories to them. A parent saw this spectacle and said he was touching the children inappropriately. Why on earth didn't day care center director either tell the woman she was off her rocker or establish some sort of "no lap-sitting" policy instead of scolding the father, who probably didn't assume this was a big deal?)
Oh anyway, then I saw a similar issue raised in Slate's Dear Prudence advice column today (second question in, but they're all intriguing).
So what's the deal? Are people really more scared of men suddenly? If so, why? Or are people just generally getting more and more stupid? Because this is hardly a reasonable way for people to live and participate in society, even if they're scared.
posted by Elise at 2:23 PM
2 Comments
Masochism
Ages and ages ago I complained about Ayelet Waldman's absurd ruminations about how many of her children she would gladly sacrifice that her husband might live. What on earth is the point of that kind of self-torment, I thought.
And yet, I do often wonder how I would react in horrible situations, not Ayelet's silly fantasies (I actually find that sort of thing really unpleasant), rather, more quotidian ones. Actually, that isn't quite true. I have also entertained some rather unusual "what if" situations, such as: "what if I had been Jim Hawkins's unwritten younger sister in Treasure Island" and "what if I grew up in the days before antibiotics."
For instance, I read a piece in the New Yorker this week when I should have been sleeping by Jerome Groopman called "The Conundrum of Colic." I would link to it if I could but sad to say it isn't online. Basically the piece is about how horrible colic is for parents (surely for babies as well) and the kind of psychological toll it takes AND the devilishly mysterious fact that it isn't really clear what colic is.
Anyway, there's no question that colic is horrible, demoralizing, crazy-making and miserable even if it is a finite condition (yes it only lasts 3-6 months, but that is some substantial amount of time to have no sleep and constant relentless screaming that is apparently louder and more annoying than most infant shrieks).
So I was wondering how, I would handle life in the time of colic? I can't say, of course, but I remember very vividly Felix's early days when I would cry, cry, cry as evening approached because I knew how little sleep I'd get. And with Sebastian I was also beyond exhausted. Still am. But my kids offered nothing like the colic that Groopman describes. I think I would go mad. Perhaps I would turn to drink, though that isn't much like me for anything longer term than a few hours.
posted by Elise at 1:35 PM
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I Doubt We Can Still Blame the Pregnancies
So my only excuse is that it is very early and I'm generally irritable, but I happened to glance at a Yahoo News squib about how poorly Britney Spears performed at an MTV awards show this weekend. Interestingly, to me, was the fact that Yahoo decided to blame her figure flaws on the fact that she had a couple of kids: "Spears still had the look of the young pop star- though notably aged by motherhood and endless tabloid tension."
I have nothing much to say about La Spears generally, but given how everyone is lamenting so strongly that celebrities bounce back from pregnancies so very quickly that it gives the rest of us an unrealistic idea of how our recoveries should be, I'm tempted to say that what figure issues she has come from a source rather unrelated to her children.
posted by Elise at 3:58 AM
1 Comments
L'Engle
Whole generations of sourpuss girls, myself included, must be saddened tonight to hear that Madeline L'Engle has died. It is so completely unoriginal to say that A Wrinkle in Time made a huge impression on me, but it absolutely did. It is one of the books I can't wait to read to my children. We're deep in the "Elephant and Piggie" stage of things now, but it won't be too, too many years.
She was an incredible writer. I had occasion to think about her recently because the only book I bought to help the Felix come to terms with his impending sibling was one of hers, a book called The Other Dog in which a poodle comes to terms with the arrival of a human sibling. I couldn't bear the "I'm a big brother" type books that just seemed so goopy and unconvincing.
And even apart from that, I realize how much A Wrinkle in Time clings to me. In the last year I have found myself falling prey to a lot of Obstacle-Course-of-Life scenarios and as furious and fussed out as I have been, I inevitably recall Mrs. Whatsit scolding Meg: "We want nothing from you that you do without grace."
Then I try to improve a bit.
posted by Elise at 6:39 PM
3 Comments
Of Dubious Note
I am always intrigued but skeptical of the new fad for economic analyses of everything (happiness, for instance). The arguments are always persuasive but I don't believe them in spite of all the carefully explained studies.
But of course it was with considerable interest that I read the sensationally subtitled article in Slate: Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails: There's Finally Proof that Boys Do Ruin Schools for Girls. Not being an economist, I can't really comment on the studies and the interpretation of the data but I do know that my husband's first-grade teacher can reliably be counted on to pronounce her opinions on the advantages of single-sex education for boys. For my part, I always thought co-ed education was preferable, and there are plenty of studies that provide support for both styles of education. But, now that I have boys, I wonder if everything I assumed is either a bit off-base or out of date.
Anyway, I don't have to think about that for a while.
In the meantime, the New York Times ran another one of those guilt pieces that I don't understand in which a mother muses about why she doesn't say "I love you" to her son very often and wonders about the untold damage she is doing to her kid, who she really knows is absolutely fine. Still, she decides to plunge a fork into herself by asking the people on Urban Baby what they think about her "lapse."
If you ask me, there is plenty of opportunity to feel like crap without working so hard on it.
posted by Elise at 4:06 AM
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