I work really hard to remember that I'm a wife as well as a mother. My husband works really hard to remember he is on the hook for a lot of the parenting responsibilities. I've read every book on shared care parenting...I even teach seminars on the subject. as a couple, we've drawn up lists and had endless conversations about sharing parenting tasks. And yet every single day I say something that makes me sound like a shrill-martyr-mommy-harpy, and I assume the role of default parent, while feeling alternatively heroic and sick to my stomach. This morning, in front of my in-laws, father, and husband I let loose a diatribe about how everyone else (e.g, my husband) felt they could go off an do their own thing while, yet again, I was stuck holding the baby...and trying to get work done. I heard myself shriek, I hated myself for doing it, but I couldn't stop myself. And the worst thing is, after I yell, I get up and assume control of the baby anyway, pushing away those who seek to help. What's wrong with me? Is the controlling mom thing genetic? Do you just outgrow it as the baby matures?
So yes, this week, we've been at my in-laws. My six month old son blossomed while hanging out with his two girl cousins, nine months and almost four years old. The four year old caused him to giggle like I've never seen, and the nine month old inspired him to sit up, unassisted. My son has been with a nanny since he was about two months old, and he doesn't see other babies that much because we're all so busy. From my first tour of a day care center, I felt strongly I didn't want to put him in day care until he's at least a year- it just didn't feel cozy to me for a little one. But now I'm worried I'm depriving him of important contact with other little ones. After just a few hours with other kids he changed. On the other hand, he's never been sick. Is this the time to find an in-home daycare perhaps?
The baby is teething, and everyone wants him to eat arrowroot biscuits or teething cookies. Back to the controlling theme, I'm scared to give him cookies 'cause I don't want him to develop a sweet tooth. Many of them have hi fructose corn syrup. And more than that, I'm terrified he will choke. Yes, I know they've been around for a hundred years and untold millions of babies have eaten them and emerged breathing and thin, but they still make me anxious.I think we'll try cold rings, instead. Any advice for teething foods? He is on purees.
The Sloan Work-Family network just introduced a policy memo on breastfeeding in the workplace. It quotes Massachusetts State Senator Susan Fargo: “We need public policies that recognize that new mothers are returning to the workforce faster than ever before. Breastfeeding not only helps the baby and the mom, it helps our economy by giving employers workers with healthy families and, to make a good thing even better, breastfeeding ultimately takes pressure off of public health-care spending, which saves taxpayers money.” as MomsRising noted, the recession means many women are cutting maternity leaves short. It's crucial that moms who want to pump or breastfeed are able to do so at work. This one page memo provides a great overview of public policy supporting breastfeeding and work: http://wfnetwork.bc.edu/pdfs/minib_breastfeeding.pdf
Finally, I thought this study on the results of employee teleworking from Cisco (see http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/careers/showArticle.jhtml...) was interesting for working mothers. Here's a quote: "In a generally glowing report, the networking company found that telecommuting improved employee productivity, job satisfaction and work-life flexibility. The average Cisco employee spends two days telecommuting each week. "After examining the telecommuting activities of nearly 2,000 of its employees, Cisco has concluded that telecommuting is a win-win-win activity. The study found that telecommuting delivers favorable results in social, economic and environmental areas." This study will hopefully provide ammunition for those who want to try working from home. Anyone proposed such arrangements recently? Results?
]]>Choreplay. It goes by several different monikers: “Shared care” parenting, “Getting to 50-50,” or ESP (Equally shared parenting). One thing is consistent, though: proponents of man and woman splitting home work agree you’ll have more sex if you share chores. The clever men at DadLabs call this “choreplay,” and I was thrilled to see a section on the benefits of choreplay in their new book, “Dadlabs Guide to Fatherhood.” The Dads write that seeking to attain a 50-50 co-parenting split will pay dividends in terms of dads’ relationships with their kids and will virtually guarantee MORE SEX. They provide helpful tips to work on getting to 50-50. The dads actually make a long list of all the minutiae of running a house (from getting dressed, to buying gifts, to picking up dog turds to the usual cooking and cleaning) and suggest that couples sit down and decide how to split such tasks-- forever. Awesome stuff.
Crying it out. My boy is nearly six months, and until 6 days ago, he rarely slept more than 3 hours at a stretch, and he never napped. This was clearly a miserable situation and sadly, the No Cry Sleep Solution was not helping. But like bottle feeding, crying it out sleep training is pretty out of fashion in my neck of the woods (there is even a website for those trying to "recover" from trying CIO). A dear friend sent me a copy of Marc Weissbluth’s Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. On a whim and at the end of my rope, I decided to try the extinction method one night. Dr. Weissbluth frames it well: although you think you are being a loving parent by preventing your child from crying in the crib, by running in every time he cries, you’re preventing your child from getting what he needs: sleep. So…I just put him to bed one night. And let him stay there. And he cried a little, maybe 5 minutes, but he slept 12 hours with only one feed halfway through. He'll wake up and whimper sometimes but quickly fall back asleep. And he’s continued this for a week- last night was 13 hours total with one waking. I pinch myself each day. I don’t feel even a little guilty for letting him cry. He’s so much happier, as are we!
What is making me want to cry is his new lack of interest in nursing. The world is exciting, solid foods are exciting, trying hold the bottle is super exciting. Nursing, which I have come to really cherish, is not exciting. He can barely be bothered to suck. Is this it for us? Is he ready to wean? I’m not ready to wean him! How can I tell if it's time? Is this the first of many mommy twinges as he samples his independence?
Finally, I have to give Jill Miller Zimon’s column a plug. Jill is running for election in her Ohio city and she has three children and she’s a prolific writer and blogger and…I’m exhausted just writing this. But Jill brings up a great point about a recent favorable article about NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s struggle to balance it all, an article which candy-coats a lot of working mother aspects:
"I do have a real problem with these peeks inside: they make the experience look too nice and uncomplicated by the reality that was John Lennon's philosophy: "life is what happens while you are making other plans."
Where's the photo where Gillibrand pokes her cheek with her mascara wand and has to start her makeup all over again and then starts running late because the faux pas will add on another crucial two minutes to her routine (I know you all know what I'm talking about!)?
And because Gillibrand is a working mom means she gets Valentine
women's interest pieces from EMILY's List while facing feuds on several
fronts in politics-land. This is smart strategy from the Gillibrand shop. Jill, I think the whole point of the sanitized
article is to deflect from the tough recent press. The working mother
angle is a distraction, and therefore it's not a very realistic portrayal.
It's also disheartening.
I sat next to Working Mother magazine CEO Carol Evans at an event this week and I really wanted to ask her this one question: Why are the working mothers you feature always superwomen who get up at 4:45 for “me” time?
Getting up that early is punishing, not “me” time, in my book. Do any of you get up that early for "me" time? Is it rewarding?
]]>These were the key messages shared by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, who together have written Womenomics. It’s no coincidence Womenomics debuted at no. 10 on the New York Times Bestseller list. Shipman and Kay have other priorities other than a “climb up the ladder,” although they are high profile journalists. They wanted successful careers but they also wanted time for family. And so they negotiated with their own employers and changed how they work. I was fortunate to hear them speak about their book and I’ve tried to capture some highlights here (and here).
Kay and Shipman stress that women have the power and the talent and the clout to change the way we work. And as Anne Weisberg at Deloitte –co-author of the excellent book Mass Career Customization—notes, the work world is changing too. Katty Kay says “We need to start talking about this openly and talk about what we need and how” we’re going to get their. “We have a real shift taking place. It’s positive and it’s empowering and move beyond the mommy wars scenario to something that really works for us.”
Kay said, “this is real feminism. If we can create a work world where women’s needs are genuinely met rather than a world where women are trying to be men, that’s real power. We empower workers, and empower families, it doesn’t need to be seen as non-feminist.…We’re not saying people don’t want to work; they just want to control the hours they have to be in the office.”
Before they wrote the book, Kay and Shipman were depressed by the plateauing data and the “opt out revolution” argument. Women, they say, have somewhat different values of what women want at work. Claire Shipman: “We are willing to say no to things in a way that men (at least of our generation) are not. And we’re saying that the workplace is changing to fit that.” She continued, “The case we’re trying to make with Womenomics is that women have so much more power in the workplace than they even understand.” We can use this power to help ourselves, and companies. Research shows that the more senior level women in the company, the more money the company makes.
Shipman believes flexibility “is something that will keep women in the workforce. It’s a positive way to keep our talent engaged. It’s not about opting out for ten years, or either or choices... The other real business case about all this is that the companies that do this see much higher productivity.”
How many times have you heard this statement from self employed or entrepreneurial friends? “Now I work for myself and I work all the time. I want to work” Why is this a cliché among people who have left the corporate world?
For me, this cliché proves true. Because, as Kay and Shipman noted, people want to be able to have a sense that they have some control over their time and their energy. No one likes to feel like a drone. We want a seat at the boardroom table that decides how we spend our days.
I started to opt out of the corporate hierarchy and I didn’t even know it. And I didn’t have a husband or children at the time. After some rocky times at work and a sense that I had no autonomy, I ducked responsibility. Even though it hurt my feelings when I wasn’t included in big meetings or decisions, I made the choices that put me in that situation. Was I less ambitious, or preserving an important part of myself?
Most people just value being able to have the conversation about working a schedule that suits their needs. As Katty Kay said, they’d like to “stop whispering in corners without people thinking we’ve lost their ambition.”
Shipman added, “The case we’re trying to make to women is it might seem like it’s scary to ask [for a new way to work] but it’s not if you’re making a strong business case to your employer. This is a business strategy. Letting people work the way they work makes sense and it will benefit the bottom line.” It’s not a perk.
The director of HR at Marriott says flex works for him because in this global and high tech world, “It’s absolutely crucial that I have a team who can manage virtually. Who is equally able to develop relationships on phone calls rather than being in face to face meetings.” Another senior manager says, “at Sun, we don’t even ask where people will live- it doesn’t matter if they live in Tokyo or Boston.” The authors concede that employers have to learn new management skills in a flexible culture- it can seem like an extra burden. It’s much easier to look out of your office and see if people are sitting there. And yes, as we see with our President, change is hard.
And, living on your blackberry when you’re out of the office is hard too. But that’s another column.
Sometimes, the authors noted, it’s just about making minor adjustments in a culture where facetime-heavy culture: “just treating people like grown ups makes a huge difference.”
Amen to that.
For great blogs on work life and building flexibility into your work see:
]]>I was extremely anxious by December 31, the baby’s due date. I’d been on bed rest in November, as I’d dilated to two centimeters. I’d had my bloody show in early December. The baby was large- apparently about eight pounds at 36 weeks. Every single day in December I woke up and thought, the baby will come today. I had phantom contractions and convinced myself I would give birth early. Every time I had an urge to tidy the house we joked, “it’s time, she’s nesting”! I wanted so badly to have the baby come early, as I was sure he was large and I really wanted a natural childbirth. But an early birth was not to be; in fact, he arrived on January 3, the original due date I’d been given when first pregnant.
On New Year’s Eve, we went out to dinner. My ankles were so swollen I could barely wear socks. I had eggplant caponata because I’d heard eggplant could help bring on labor. I also had two glasses of champagne, figuring it couldn’t hurt. When I went to bed at 12:05 on New Year’s Eve I had no idea what the next day would bring!
At 4:15 am I awoke with a strong cramp. Instantly, I knew this was a contraction. It felt totally different from anything I’d felt before. But it was ok, not too painful. About 45 minutes later I felt warm water in my underwear, followed by another contraction. I was totally wired, and so I lay in bed and watched TV. I felt excited and peaceful at the same time. The water kept coming; any doubts I had about my water breaking were gone. I changed underwear about every hour all day. The contractions were consistently about every half an hour through the afternoon. I lay around in a sense of disbelief and bemusement. Could it finally be happening? It wasn’t so bad.
By the evening of January 1, it was bad! Contractions, though still about 12-15 minutes apart, were viciously strong. I’m grateful to my husband, my doula, and the Hypnobirthing technique for getting me through the following day. I was determined to have a natural childbirth. We hired a doula (Ananda Lowe, who has actually just written a great book called The Doula Guide to Birth). I was group B strep negative and prepared to stay home as long as possible. I didn't call the doctor or hospital at all.
Ananda came over at about 9 pm. I was in agony. All night, she sat beside me on the bed and held me during contractions. She rubbed my back and helped me breathe. Although my husband was amazing, there was something about having another woman to hold me and know what I was going through that really helped. I was so nauseous; I couldn’t eat anything but I drank a lot of fluids from a giant sippy cup. I remember feeling as if the whole world stopped while I was in labor. All that mattered was trying to survive another contraction! And so, the next 18 hours continued: I listed to the Hypnobirthing tapes on repeat, keeping myself in a trance like state. There’s a photo of me in a glider with the cat on my lap and I cannot recall that moment. I truly went into myself; surfing waves of contractions (“surges,” in Hypnobirthing parlance) was all that mattered.
By 7pm on January 2, I’d had a day and a half of strong but far-apart contractions. I just wanted to lie prone but forced myself to move a lot to try to bring them closer together, keeping in mind the “311” rule of when to go to the hospital. But they didn’t come closer with any regularity; I wasn’t at 311 (or even 411). Ananda said I should prepare for another long night of contractions at home since I didn’t seem far dilated. She went home to rest. But my mother wit told me I needed to go to the hospital…now. I got very anxious and said to my husband, we have to go immediately. We called the hospital and Ananda and got into the car. The drive was utter agony, with contractions every few minutes. At this point, I couldn’t walk a few steps without a strong contraction.
We arrived at the hospital at 8:30 on Friday night, Jan. 2 and sure enough, I was seven cm dilated and in active labor! The nurses couldn’t believe how quiet and calm I was because I was doing the hypno-trances. I literally was semi-conscious. Later, I found out they told my husband, “she’ll be done in two hours.” I wasn't.
Miraculously, my doctor (from a practice of eight) was on call. It was a quiet night at my hospital, another miracle since it’s one of the busiest in the country and also a level one NICU!! I felt so happy to be safe and sound at the hospital. I told all the nurses, I’m doing natural, no drugs please. Except, if I need it, please give me some Nubain. I learned about Nubain--a narcotic that provides short-term light pain relief-- from a friend who’d done NCB in the eighties and she swore by it. It’s not a popular option, but I felt it would be a good option for me if I wanted to avoid an epidural but get some relief.
I got settled into my birthing room and endured the pain of transition. I wore a walking monitor and spent a lot of time in the shower. It was the only thing that helped. I lost track of time and all modesty. I was completely naked for hours and had no idea! A nurse from the ward gave me a high five for having natural childbirth. I felt proud.
But by two am I was spent. I was still having contractions about every five minutes, and not fully dilated. I had been in labor for 46 hours. I asked for some Nubain. I don’t think the nurse wanted to give it to me, because they didn't want my labor to slow down further, but she did and I had a blissful 90 minutes of rest, with manageable contractions. When it wore off and I awoke, the doctor was a bit concerned. She started a Pitocin drip. I'm not sure you can give birth in an American hospital these days without pitocin, they use it so frequently. Another couple hours passed, and the Pitocin made the surges even stronger. I felt completely focused only on my pain, but also pretty relaxed because I had no sense of time or how I “should” be progressing. I had no urge to speed things along. The monitor showed the baby was fine and I was completely self-focused on managing my surges! At about four am I was in the shower and I screamed. I felt the most terrifying feeling while standing up against the shower wall: I needed to push. This is a purely instinctual feeling and thankfully cannot be imagined until you feel it. The nurse rushed in and I said, “I have to push,” and she said, “Don’t, you’re not ready.” I kept screaming. The doctor came in and examined me: I was ready! 10 cm.
For the next couple hours, I bore down with intensity. I cannot recall how it felt, but I remember it being the most intense feeling I’ve ever had. If you’ve never given birth, just don’t think about it until it happens. You will survive it. Still, the baby was not coming down the canal quickly enough with my walking around or crouching on the bed. My instinct was to rest and slow down my contractions, but this was not good for getting the baby out! My Ob-GYN came in and asked me to lie down and actively push with my legs up. She explained I should imagine pushing the baby down and then out- a scooping motion through my pelvis and birth canal. My husband took one leg and the labor nurse another. I pushed, but my contractions were still 10 minutes apart! I was ok with this, as I was on another planet. I’m sure those holding my heavy legs and waiting to deliver the baby felt otherwise! I remember the doctor encouraging me to have another contraction and upping the pitocin drip but knowing I could only do what my body wanted me to.
I pushed for about a half hour and the head was visible. I was almost there. But I ran out of juice. At this point, a contraction was very slow in coming- ten to fifteen minutes! It was a tense period, everyone waiting, tired, and probably nervous.
Finally, I had two strong contractions and out Asa’s head came. It hurt, but nothing like the bearing down had. Once his head was out, his shoulder came out with a little slippery “plik” sound and I knew it was done- 50 minutes of pushing. 7 lbs, 11 oz and 21 inches- a perfect little boy. I was in bliss. I felt like I could conquer anything and I felt a rush of love like I’d never known. All the clichés were true for me. I’ll never forget the feeling of his shoulder coming out. He nursed right away and I held him to my chest. Then I asked, “where did all my clothes go?” and everyone laughed. His hands were blue and wizened like something from a horror film, but the rest of him was beautiful!
The rest of the day was euphoric. I couldn’t sleep even though I was so exhausted. I felt exhilarated and safe in my nice hospital recovery room. Nothing else mattered but my little boy my husband and me. It was the best day of my life. The best thing is, five months on, I can't remember how the pain felt, couldn't recall a contraction if you paid me, and so I'm willing to do it all over again!
]]>
“The ‘mommies club’ – not only the formal playgroups and drop-ins, but also the cultural and conversational space in parks, schoolyards and grocery stores that all mothers inhabit – is a lifeline. But the club, she says, can be stigmatized, even by the women who belong to it, because it is concerned with the minutiae of mothering – which culturally is viewed as talk about nothing…. This idea that when women are talking about mothering stuff, it's perceived as talking about nothing, just blabbering on about diapers and poo. So admitting to be part of this mother's club is like admitting “motherhood is all I am.” At the same time, the women do easily and readily acknowledge they need contact with other mothers. They are an absolute lifeline.”
My small group of new mothers is my lifeline. These women are literally the only people with whom I can share anxieties and questions that most people would think are silly, boring, or self-evident. I think Nelson captures it when she says,
“I was really struck by how much thought and research and effort and angst and agony goes into every decision regarding mothering, from what kind of diapers will I use, to am I going to breastfeed, am I going to vaccinate the baby, are we going to Ferberize [teach babies to self-soothe], or practise attachment parenting. That's why other mothers are so important. They are the ones who know what you're doing, and they're cheering you on.”
And yet, my experience is that my mommy self is very compartmentalized and disciplined. Mommy talk is portioned out like the ice cubes of baby food I defrost each day. I tread carefully if we don’t discuss baby stuff in mommy group. I want to scream and rage about the murder of Dr. George Tiller. I save that rage for the online feminist community. I want to talk about frustrations at work. I save that for rigidly scheduled phone calls with friends from my pre-mommy life.
My whole self is now dividing. Is this a side-effect of motherhood? What’s been your experience? Do you save the mommy part of yourself for time with other mothers?
I’m going to try here to blend. I’m a fervently pro-choice mother; I know this website is non-partisan and takes no stance, but I do. I feel shocked and helpless in the face of Dr. Tiller’s murder. Here are some things I’ve found to do to help fight back against the violence and protect reproductive rights (there might still be some vigils going on- see the NARAL Blog for Choice):
Feministing has a great list of peaceful actions to take, including:
"Discuss how this is connected to the daily intimidation of abortion providers all over the country.
* Write letters to your local media when you see this framed as an isolated incident, or as the act of just one extremist. Explain how this is connected to the broader issue of threats and intimidation against women's health care providers.
* Encourage your friends and family members who aren't pro-choice to reject groups that endorse or support extremist behavior.
Thank an abortion provider!
Ask Obama to commit to reviving the National Task Force on Violence Against Health Care Providers.
Write to the Obama administration and ask that the Department of Justice work to enforce the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. FACE was enacted after the murder of Dr. David Gunn in 1993, but the task force to ensure its enforcement was basically dormant during the Bush years. Ask Obama to revive it to protect reproductive health care providers and women who seek these services. More info here."
A commenter suggested, “Volunteer as a clinic escort or a patient advocate”!
Support Planned Parenthood!
Sign Dr. Tiller’s Online Guest Book
Another commenter suggests, “The George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund will help women in the second trimester with assistance paying for abortion care, as well as paying for travel and lodging enroute to providers.
To donate to this Fund, please go to: https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=19862
You can also send donations via snail mail to:
National Network of Abortion Funds
ATTN: George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund
42 Seaverns Ave.
Boston, MA 02130”
Or, you can donate to a number of pro-choice organizations. I like the idea of donating to Medical Students for Choice -- to train the next generation of abortion providers.
Also, if you haven't read it yet, Cristina Page wrote an excellent piece on why Dr. Tiller's murder happened when Dems are in power.
When Della’s lame website came out and hawked netbooks by treating women as if they had never turned on a computer, the effort fell flat, to say the least. So what’s the difference between honestly saying that you want to reach more women by offering cuter laptop bags, as Best Buy’s Liz Haesler told me this morning, and patronizing them by suggesting they use their laptops to find diet tips, as Dell did? It’s a fine line. Best Buy’s approach is to enlist their women- seems like common sense. So, WoLF has about 10,000 members from the community and from the stores. It sounds like most of these women are hourly employees.
Any percentage gain of women buyers means serious cash. Apparently, Best Buys controls 45 percent of the $200 billion consumer electronics market in the United States, but only 16 percent of the total female spend on consumer electronics. According to Best Buy, the female consumer electronics market share is $90 billion.
If they have more women making corporate decisions, will they succeed in selling to more women customers? At Best Buy, “about 29 percent of all U.S. employees are women, and 31 percent hold executive titles.” That’s not great. So the hope is that if female employees grow female market share, the women will get promoted. 85Broads’ Janet Hanson writes,“WoLF packs” are highly innovative teams who are invested in using their IQ and their EQ to create a higher “return” for Best Buy by providing a “differentiated experience” for their increasingly valued female customers.
"Here’s the deal—women not only purchase the majority of consumer electronic in this country, THEY ARE JUST AS TECH SAVVY AS THE GUYS.”
Best Buy faces an honest business challenge, and I think it’s interesting that they are pegging women’s organizational advancement to helping solve that challenge. In my experience, this is unusual; most company women’s groups don’t impact the bottom line and as such, are easier to dismiss. Most large organizations have networks of special interest groups, and pretend they want to advance minorities for the sake of the common good. However, this is a tricky business for many executives to talk about (and we see this in some of the coverage of the Sotomayor nomination). As anyone who’s ever been the designated woman (or African American, or Latina, or non-American, or Liberal….) in a meeting knows it’s a double-edged sword. Sometimes, as my friend Jewel said once in a graduate school management class, executives can interpret “Special interests as special needs.”
Haesler said of WoLF, “It’s honest.” Women can have new opportunities to advance if they help figure out to move more product to women. According to Haesler: "If we want to be a great place for women to shop, we have to be a great place for women to work." In addition, they aim to provide growth opportunities for hourly employees to increase retention and engagement. I asked about flexible work options and other family-friendly policies. On this the Best Buy folks demurred, although they did point to some “Job share” pilots.
Is engagement and innovation sometimes as important as family friendly policies? Research says sometimes. It depends where you are in your life.
But, according to their spokesperson, the company saw an 18% reduction in voluntary female employee turnover from FY08 to FY09, and has contributed to an incremental improvement in the overall number of female employees (a 3 percent increase since F07).
What do you think?
]]>When John Edwards’ affair was revealed, I wasn’t surprised at all. I never liked him. I was angry that both Edwards had dallied with America’s future by choosing not to reveal his affair and continuing in the presidential race. Mrs. Edwards tells Oprah that when she learned of the affair in December 2007, she asked John to get out of the race. And what did John do? “You know, I’ve just gotten in....Let it run its course and see if this woman’s a problem or not.”
Oh and the woman was a problem! Elizabeth Edwards maintains that Rielle Hunter, John Edwards’ mistress, was some kind of groupie stalker
“What John said is that this woman spotted him in the hotel in which he was staying. He was meeting someone in the restaurant bar area, and she verified with someone who he worked with that it was John. John went to dinner at a nearby restaurant, and when he walked back to the hotel she was standing in front of the hotel. She said to him, ‘You are so hot.’ ”
Hunter, who Edwards won’t name in any of her interviews or in her book, is the other woman, the harpy, the homewrecker. Elizabeth tells Oprah, “John and I are “old-fashioned” people.” And, she notes, Elizabeth wants to be remembered as a homemaker, not a lawyer or advocate. This is an about face for such a passionate public advocate who fought for smarter politics and political coverage.
But actually, I reread what I’d asked her. I asked her why so few women run for federal office. She said, it’s just hard for a woman to leave her family behind to serve in Washington:
“That’s how it is. I think there are just some things we have to say, that’s how it is. ….the way I’d like to improve it is I’d like to see the men to feel the same responsibility! I don’t want it to move in the other direction…I kind of think families ought to live together- that’s one of the things that makes us a family. Certainly as much as our blood makes us a family, living together makes us a family.
I don’t think we feel hesitation anymore whether we can be effective advocates, whether we can be effective candidates. I think it’s lifestyle that keeps us from running [for office]….If we had public financing we’d have a lot more people engaged.”
Here’s she’s talking about money in politics but is she also alluding to other corrosive aspects of public life? She’s maintaining the same theme we hear now: politics is a tough lifestyle.
In her interview with Oprah about the affair, Mrs. Edwards paints the whole situation as a byproduct of political life: “I knew there’d been a night. And I’d been around politicians long enough to figure there were a lot of people for whom there’d been a night.”
Edwards keeps blaming politics for the Edwards’ strange situation! As Mickey Kaus noted, “When Oprah remarks that hmm, she doesn’t know a lot of men who would run off to a hotel somewhere in the middle of the night to hold a baby that wasn’t theirs, she repeats her husband’s lie - or maybe he’d repeated hers: ‘Golly, then you don’t know that many politicians. We do it all the time. Holding babies is what we do.’”
And so apparently, is fighting off “groupies.”
Revisiting this sordid situation feels like a nasty reminder of the old politics as usual: of Clinton era dalliances and decades of philandering politicians. Smarmy politicos and their entourages corrupting “old fashioned” folks like Mr. and Mrs. Edwards. Oh, please.
The Obamas don’t seem to have let politics corrode their marriage; it's a miracle actually. When we see Barack and Michelle on date night and swoon, when we see the President at his daughters’ soccer game, even when we see him sexy and shirtless on vacation with his family, we can breath a sigh of relief. We don’t have to deal with families like the Edwards or Clintons and their sexual baggage. We can watch Elizabeth on the View and feel a momentary pang, and then move on to our real First Family.
Much of the discussion among bloggers focuses on if all this is somehow Elizabeth’s fault. Suburbanmomnotes says
“It is with a grave amount of sadness that I've been watching the media coverage of three high-profile women whose husbands have been accused of/have admitted to being unfaithful. While the stories, blog posts and analyses about the betrayed wives generally start out as sympathetic, inevitably things take a turn and the women are blamed, mocked, or worse….The vitriol is being aimed at the wrong people.”
Indeed, women have tried to relate to Mrs. Edwards. On the View, host Sherri Shephard used her own experience to try to bring Elizabeth out of her shell by relaying Sherri’s own experience with a straying husband and his child by another woman. Edwards didn't bite.
Fausta writes that Edwards behavior is at attempt to rehab her husband’s image and preserve Elizabeth’s own legacy, which Fausta calls “disgusting.”
Goodbye to all that. I’m looking forward to another Obama date night. But if I ever find out Barack Obama had an affair, I’m going to jump off a bridge.
]]>Recently CNN featured a piece on the “baby boom among female lawmakers.” Seven, now eight (with Linda Sanchez) women have given birth while in Congress, recently Kirsten Gillibrand and Herseth Sandlin. Even post-Palin, to say new mommies in elected office are a novelty is an understatement. So I’m glad that the media is re-introducing the concept now, while we’re in love with Democrats and Mommy-party governance is not a pejorative. But let’s take a feminist perspective on the CNN piece, just for fun.
Margaret Thatcher famously staged a scene during which she ended a Cabinet level meeting at 5pm to hurry to the shops to get “her Denis” his bacon before the shops shut. Done for the benefit of the press, Thatcher wanted and needed to tone down her Iron Maiden image.
In a way, Herseth promoting her breastmilk on CNN is as much of a canned statement as Thatcher’s. Women politicians are often still a novelty, and as the Politico points out this week, the old boys club is alive and well on Capitol Hill. Erika Falk writes of how media treatment of elected women differs from the way men are covered. Coverage perpetuates female novelty and cultural biases. Women are described differently than men. This maintains the perceptions that women in leadership roles are tokens and focuses people’s attention on more personal aspects rather than on more relevant information.
Most political associations and legislative bodies are skewed groups, with percentages at about 85% men to 15% women. Both houses of the US Congress are at about 17% female-- keeping women in token roles. As Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Kanter wrote, tokens are not judged on their individual merits, but are expected to act as one expects their larger group to act, as mommies, for example. They are highly visible, and they typically perform their jobs under public and symbolic conditions different from those of the dominant group.
Let’s talk about the comfort factor. One of the most common threads in the leadership literature is the impact of the “double bind,” in which people like a woman if they see her exhibiting communal traits, but do not respect her as a leader with the necessary agentic qualities. The reverse is also true, that a woman can be seen as possessing agentic qualities, but will not be liked and therefore not seen as a successful leader. I actually see this changing in the coverage of women officials, and I think we can thank Hillary Clinton for it. The thing I liked about coverage of Gillibrand was that her work as a tough lawyer for Phillip Morris showed her as pretty cutthroat and a true corporate force to be reckoned with.
But does any of the media coverage matter if women accomplish important tasks while in office? There is the “New Hampshire” effect and this is what gives me hope. New Hampshire with its female majority has introduced a trifecta of paid leave and work family bills. This message is being carried to the federal level: "Our approach to policies that were important to us before become even more important, whether it's early childhood development and how you fund it, child-care, quality child-care, child nutrition, prenatal care," said Herseth Sandlin.
So, the time is right for breastfeeding Congresswomen; hopefully the novelty will wear off. I’ll close with the words of Michelle Obama at a recent Corporate Voices for Working Families meeting:
“We need to discuss flexible work hours that give employees greater ability to attend to important family responsibilities like child pick-up, something as simple as that; doctors appointments for those not just with kids, but for people with elderly parents. We're finding more and more that families are in that crunch, as well.
We need to discuss paid leave for birth or adoption of a child and when there's a serious illness that arises.
We need to discuss quality on-site child care, something that keeps many of us up at night as families; you're just wondering where are we going to put our children where we feel like that they're being safe -- that they're safe and being loved. That will relieve many of the stresses that parents feel on the job throughout the day.
These types of policies can be the key to whether a family remains economically viable or slips into financial uncertainty.”
PS: Ellen Galinsky is offering us the chance to ask Michelle Obama questions about work and life policy solutions, based on the First Lady's talk last week.
We’ve grown accustomed to twinning the web with mothers (I say “mom,” you say ”blog) but I was thinking back to the late nineties when I worked at iVillage.com. Every Mother’s Day we’d launch a campaign called “Take Your Mom Online.” It was so incredibly fun, and kind of a radical concept back then- and I remember wanting so badly to bring my own mom online so our photo could be featured on the website. Ten years later, she’s definitely online, video chatting and eBaying up a storm. But I’d say it took her these ten full years to reach a point where the web was a fun destination, not something she got dragged into.
So, in celebration of moms webby and not, here are three fantastic online happenings that celebrate Mother’s Day online.
The lineup features amazing writers like Rita Arens and Catherine Connors. Katherine Stone, who founded and runs PostPartumProgress, has been a lifeforce in normalizing peri and post natal depression and sadness and providing information to those in need. I've called on her, and I'm so glad she's doing what she is doing.
Happy Mother's Day everyone!
]]>At Salon, Joan Walsh wrote, “Finally with a Democratic president in the White House, he can go home to New Hampshire.” Walsh’s point is that the putative Republican, faced with a recent stacking of Bush-era mega Conservative appointees, feels safe to leave his spot to a less right-wing replacement. I’m glad Souter waited.
But I was struck by Souter’s justification: he left because he wanted his life back. When powerful people-- politicians or corporate executives-- leave huge jobs to “spend more time with the family,” we almost automatically assume it’s code for a huge sex scandal in the making or some kind of fraud or looming failure. But a Supreme Court Justice is not subject to the damage of scandal or public pressure; it’s the ultimate tenure. When a Justice leaves, it’s because he or she wants to, or must because of health reasons.
When I suggested that Souter was leaving to seek better integration of work and life, several colleagues wrote back, “but he’s not married and he doesn’t have children.” Indeed, as Brian Williams wrote on his blog, “Souter’s been described as an almost Victorian figure, straining to maintain the lifestyle he prefers while the world changes around him.” Williams is saying that Souter is kind of odd, and that’s why he wanted to escape his extremely powerful but all-consuming job and go home to Vermont. How ridiculous.
This country’s emphasis on work is so insane that we presume only harried parents of young children (usually mothers) want some kind of measure between their work and their personal or home life. That’s ridiculous. Kate Hutchinson writes,
“In my office, women who are single just work their asses off until they have kids, and then comes the work/life balance question." Really? Single women--or in my case--childless women are just expected to work until they drop? What about time off for reading, yoga, traveling, volunteering, doing things that are personally fulfilling?”
At the Glass Hammer, Cynthia Diaz writes,
“I have been told that putting in extra hours would be expected during a crunch, not a problem. I think everyone has heard that request at one time or another. It is what often follows that is insulting: “After-all, you’re single. You have no responsibilities.” Being single somehow allows my free time to become someone else’s asset.”
But, let’s face it, single women “complaining” is hardly a force for change in our country; usually women voicing objections are discursively constructed to be a force for ridicule. I tried to find some single men writing about the need for more work life integration, but I came up short. Recent studies show men in two earner households feeling more conflict than women about work and life. But it’s still pretty much a taboo subject for many men to discuss publicly, especially during a recession.
The more powerful (and frankly) men we hear from who insist on their right to some kind of integration between their work life and their personal joys the further along we’re going to get. Thank you, Justice Souter. I hope you have a wonderful summer at home.
]]>About a week after my son was born I had the baby blues something fierce. I wept all the time, and I had terrible anxiety about death- his, my husband’s, even mine. My mother said to me, “now you’re a hostage to love.” Indeed. The anxiety has faded as I see just how resilient the little guy is…but swine flu is making me completely irrational. The intense mother love that's grown exponentially in just a few months is very susceptible to fear. My husband’s great-great-grandfather Archie, after whom my son is named, lost three of his four sons in one week to the influenza epidemic of 1918. Here is an anecdote from Archie’s granddaughter:
Dad was the youngest and they had shipped him out of the city to relatives in upper state NY [during the flu epidemic]. Can you imagine how Grandpa and Grandma must have suffered? …. After Dad and Mom got married they all lived together in an apartment over Dad’s shoe store in Brooklyn. Dad was afraid of germs and always washing his hands with that awful smelling red soap and I think that must have come from Archie. I remember him as saying; did you wash your hands?
As Karen Walrond wrote, she’s “not agoraphobic, but my kid is starting to smell like Purell.” Does applying copious Purell give you some sense of control back? It does for me! We’re so blessed in this country to usually feel in control of our children’s health. For most of us colds and flu are par for the course. The scary thing about H1N1 is the lack of control it presents. Is it lurking around the next corner? At school? At a restaurant? We like to think we can control nature, but as Nordette notes, she is beyond our control. I had to go to New York for work yesterday and I found it difficult to be in the city. I sat in Penn Station waiting for a train and wishing for that sterile bubble. What if I inadvertently brought flu home to my baby? Panic rose in my chest as the tunnel between New York and New Jersey was closed and I was temporarily stuck in the city, far away from my infant. We’re supposed to fly to Virginia this weekend and I’m thinking of staying home. Airports feel way too toxic.
I met a colleague at Starbucks today and had the baby with me. It felt too crowded. She said she was thinking about asking her husband, who works in New York City, to walk to his office instead of taking the subway. When I got home I locked the door and realized, I don’t want to go out again with the baby.
For some reason, I've been thinking of the literature that we read at a young age, which is full of such deaths, most of which we could of course control today. Melanie Wilkes, dying frail and ill after childbirth in Gone With the Wind. Beth in Little Women, who had consumption. Little Eva, the angel child who (I recall) wastes away in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Dickens children are always dying of flu, as are their parents, which leaves the children prey to lives of extreme hardship. The canon is full of vulnerable children and mothers who die of colds and flu. Something like swine flu makes me feel close to the mourning parents who made such an impression on my youth. Is there something seductive in the drama of it all?
I think my hysteria is less about any real dangers the H1N1 poses and more about my realization that being a parent makes you extremely vulnerable because you love something so much that seems so helpless. The first American casualty of the virus was a toddler. I’m sure that sent a shiver down the spines of all parents.
I don’t think the flu is bringing out the better angels of our nature…as this post reports, many conservative commentators are using Swine Flu to promote racist arguments.
Are you hoarding Purell? Asking your pharmacist for Tamiflu? Avoiding crowded places? I’d like to say, as Lisa Belkin did, don’t do it. Save the Tamiflu, please, for those who need it (well, yes, please do this). Stay calm and be rational. But as such a new mother, rational is hard for me right now. I’m not proud of it. I'll try to do what BlogHer Gena Haskett told me, "Drink fluids. Reduce your consumption of the news media."
]]>As
I freaked out about my poor poisoned baby, my mother said, “Well, it’s
his world. He may have to adapt to rocket fuel in his bloodstream.”
Will
he? Can he? I'm not a scientist, I have no idea. But I think about
adaptation too when my three month old stares, transfixed, at the many
screens in our house. From laptop to TV, he’s loving it. And I love
watching TV series while breastfeeding; it’s a perk of the otherwise
tedious exercise in sitting still for many hours a day. But the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends children under two
not be exposed at all to TV, or screen media. I have never seen
recommendations about exposure to computer screens! A mother I know,
who sends her child to the tech-doubting Waldorf School, insisted to me
that exposing an infant to TV will interfere with the natural pace of
brain development, throwing off kilter some natural processes and
possibly setting my precious one back. But my digital native
will likely live in front of the screen and experience much of life
through it. If he’s going to succeed, he’ll need to thrive from a life
on the screen, to paraphrase Sherry Turkle (and I’ll need to make sure
he gets outside sometimes, away from the screen!) But surely his brain
will learn to process flickers and flashes in a way previous
generations could never imagine?
Adaptation is a big word in climate change circles. I had coffee with my friend Letha Tawney, an expert on how to create good public policy to deal with the real life impacts of climate change. I’ve been enjoying reading her blog about how communities and NGO’s are dealing with adapting to the realities of climate change and reducing vulnerabilities. For example, Letha notes an example how municipalities are needing to deal with human migration as a result of climate change-- “what happens when local risk pools are overwhelmed by climate change impacts. (Think of residents of the New Orleans Lower 9th Ward who haven’t been able to return and rebuild lives in their original community.)”
This resonates for me in a way the fervor around “Green Energy” doesn’t. Climate change is a reality. While we would all love to rebuild our industrial sectors from scratch to create efficient machines, reduce emissions, and make things better, we also need to think about how we’re going to simply cope with this new world. It seems wishful thinking to hope that, even under a more environmentally enlightened administration, the harsh impacts of climate change and environmental toxins will disappear.
I don’t diminish the terrifying implications of the world we’ve wrought unto our children (hitting puberty at eight because of hormones in meat and milk?). But like the Canada Geese teeming the sides of our highways and shopping mall greens, will our little ones adapt?
]]>They work with families, companies, and leaders to create better work+life fit (Cali Yost’s term). One of the women at my shower was Jessica DeGroot, who teaches shared care (or 50/50) parenting and whose work inspired the New York Times magazine piece from Lisa Belkin that you quote. All of the women at the shower work hard to help parents take equal (or nearly equal) responsibility for childcare and work outside the home, what Jessica calls the “Third Path.” Here are some pearls from Sharon Teitelbaum, a career coach and wise woman:
1. "Go with it." What I took away was that moderation and compromise are the keys to having kids and a career. We don’t talk a lot about moderation in our culture of extreme jobs and super parenting. But it’s how you get through with a minimum of stress.
2. Which brings me to Sharon’s second point: "Spaghetti O’s." “They’re in a can. You open them.” In short, you don’t need to prepare deluxe home cooked meals or keep an immaculate house. And I guess now you can even buy organic Spaghetti O’s.
3. "Date night": have one with your partner very often. And also, as Lisa Levey suggested, have a night for your own self often. Take care to keep your own time sacred. In my short time as a parent, this is the biggest sacrifice I’ve noticed. Which leads to the next point…
4. "Create intentional boundaries." While working and parenting, you need to be deliberate about time commitments, saying yes, and controlling your personal resources of energy, time and attention. So Jory, if you’re a mom, you probably can’t work seven days a week. Some things will have to get let go or delegated. But surely you can live with that? And, to reference Meers and Strober, who write, “every time you correct your spouse's "errors" or criticize his way of doing something, you're dealing a blow to 50/50 [parenting].” This too comes back to creating intentional boundaries. If your husband is on baby duty, don’t hover and check to see if he’s doing things right. Leave the house. Take your time (after all, that’s the deal) and let him figure it out.
And one final point from Lisa Levey, which I’ve heard over and over again and which is worth raising. Most new moms are asked, “well, if you go back to work, how much do you need to make to cover childcare”? This question is usually posed to the mother, not the father. Because the mother is often the default parent, childcare is so often thought of as a cost that comes out of mom’s salary. I did it myself. In Lisa’s words, this is a reductionist view. Investing in childcare so mom and dad can work is an investment in the whole family.
On a personal note Jory, I think about the amazing company you’ve helped to build, and which has probably required many sacrifices at times. I, and probably thousands of others who read BlogHer, am in awe of what you and Lisa and Elisa have built. If you’ve managed to birth and nurture an entrepreneurial gamble with grace, imagine what you can do with your child!
Yes, I was supposed to have written this post two days ago, except that
every time I sit down to write, the baby seems to have a meltdown. And
then, I got turned down for a job I really wanted and I’m wondering if
things will ever be the same again. The truth is, life with a child is better than anything I have ever experienced. I can’t recommend it enough. And it makes time for work sweeter too, because it is time for yourself.
Williams writes on the Fem2.0 blog,
“The American workplace is perfectly suited for the American workforce… of the 1950s. Even today, when 46% of the U.S. workforce is made up of women and 81% of women have children by age 44, most good jobs in the U.S. (those with good benefits and pay and opportunities for advancement) are designed around the ideal of a worker who is available for and devoted to work 24/7, with no domestic responsibilities.”
Women have reported high levels of work life conflict (about 40% of women, according to the National study of the changing work force) for years now, because it’s so hard to find time for work and family. Many in my mom network were scared by an article today in the Washington Post that reports a decline in flexible work arrangements because of the recession. At BlogHer, we’ve figured out how to work in many different ways. Many of us online have traded some security and income for flex on our terms. Others in the BlogHer community work traditional schedules and habits. Some raise children and wonder whether we can or should re-enter the paid workforce. What are you thinking about? What have you learned that works for you and what can your work as a blogger teach others?
Here are some statistics about women and work:
According to the Department of Labor, the number of women in the labor force is projected to increase from 68.4 million in 2004 to 75.9 million in 2014- an almost 11% increase. Men’s participation will only increase by about 9% by 2014
Today women make up about half of all paid workers and two-thirds of the part-time work force. Wives bring in more than one-third (35 percent) of their families' total income--40 percent in African American households--and many women support families on their own.
16 of the 30 jobs with the fastest growth are health-related. Six are computer-related. The other fastest growing sectors are in environmental services and education. These are traditionally female-dominated fields (DOL statistics- Hot Jobs for the 21st Century).
What makes for real, valuable work? 73% of IBM’s managers manage a virtual team. And yet many of us are stuck in an outdated model of working, where being at our desk equals perceived performance. Those of us who want more than to live at the office fear we’ll pay a price. Mommytracking is an accepted part of our vernacular.
And yet, Joan Blades writes about her method of working smart, which
“means I work at home or wherever I happen to be, and so does everyone else I work with at MoveOn.org and MomsRising.org. It is hard for me to imagine a more efficient, effective, family-friendly and environmentally sound model for my work. I am amazed by how much staff gets done every day, and how well balanced my life is overall. If my daughter gets sick, I don’t miss work. I’m still able to do what needs to be done and also take care of her. I walk downstairs to work. I have great relationships with my co-workers… I just don’t actually see them in-person very often.”
Nice!!
You can join the campaign and the conversation to raise awareness about women and work in the following ways:
1. Blog about it by Saturday, March 28
2. Participate in this week's Twittercast Sunday night, March 29, 10 PM EST -- hashtag #fem2. If you need it, review how to join a Twittercast here.
]]>“The debate about breast-feeding takes place without any reference to its actual context in women’s lives. Breast-feeding exclusively is not like taking a prenatal vitamin. It is a serious time commitment that pretty much guarantees that you will not work in any meaningful way. Let’s say a baby feeds seven times a day and then a couple more times at night. That’s nine times for about a half hour each, which adds up to more than half of a working day, every day, for at least six months. This is why, when people say that breast-feeding is “free,” I want to hit them with a two-by-four. It’s only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing."
As a new mother currently not earning a paycheck, I do wonder what my time is worth: value of my time to my new baby, priceless (I hope). Value of my time according to the IRS, my family budget, etc: zero. Right now I’m in a transition phase: looking for work and both at home and out and about. I’m mostly at home with the baby, breastfeeding, but working very hard to get out there. To aid this process, I'm a supplementer and I love being able to use formula here and there. I love breastfeeding too, but I welcome a bottle! I feel guilty saying that. Like many of you, it’s been inculcated into my brain that not only is breast best, breast is a must and if you choose not to breastfeed, you are failing in a major way. Sound familiar? It's boring already, no?
The highlight of Rosin’s excellent article is this shocker: there is no conclusive evidence that breast is that much better than formula feeding. Rosin writes upon comprehensively reviewing the medical literature,
"....After a couple of hours, the basic pattern became obvious: the medical literature looks nothing like the popular literature. It shows that breast-feeding is probably, maybe, a little better; but it is far from the stampede of evidence that Sears describes. More like tiny, unsure baby steps: two forward, two back, with much meandering and bumping into walls. A couple of studies will show fewer allergies, and then the next one will turn up no difference. Same with mother-infant bonding, IQ, leukemia, cholesterol, diabetes. Even where consensus is mounting, the meta studies—reviews of existing studies—consistently complain about biases, missing evidence, and other major flaws in study design. “The studies do not demonstrate a universal phenomenon, in which one method is superior to another in all instances,” concluded one of the first, and still one of the broadest, meta studies, in a 1984 issue of Pediatrics, “and they do not support making a mother feel that she is doing psychological harm to her child if she is unable or unwilling to breastfeed.” Twenty-five years later, the picture hasn’t changed all that much. So how is it that every mother I know has become a breast-feeding fascist?
And all that breast feeding leaves little time for other pursuits. As Lisa Belkin noted on the Motherlode, "Rosin... wonders if “it was not the vacuum that was keeping me and my 21st-century sisters down, but another sucking sound.”
"It is impossible," Rosin writes, “to do meaningful, full-time, wage-earning work while feeding a baby only breast milk for the first six months (which is the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics).”
It's a sad fact, but true unless you're able to work at home. I put Rosin’s question to the BlogHer community and got some passionate responses and links to their writings on the topic of how and when they decided to stop breastfeeding.
Renee, who blogs at Cutie Bootie Cakes responded to me:
“I returned to working full time when my son was about 4 months old. He was exclusively breastfeed, which meant I was a walking zombie. To say it was difficult to feed him and manage a department of 35 and a $65M budget is an understatement. Needless to say, I resigned after being back on the job for 3 months.
Even though her boss was supportive and supplied a pumping room, she left. Now she works part time.
Liz Gumbinner pointed me to her writing on her decision to wean as she began traveling for work. She had six great months of breastfeeding, and then she stopped, and it was still great. What a wonderful, affirming thing to read. No guilt or regrets. How rare in motherhood lit.
Rita Arens wanted her boobs back, and writes, “I see the breastfeeding choice the same as any other choice about a woman's body: her choice to use her body the way she sees fit. I felt the judgment when I declared I was so done with breastfeeding, but it was my body, and I wasn't comfortable with it. I don't apologize for making the best choices I can for my body and my mental health.” I love that she frames breastfeeding as a choice issue!
Leslie Madsen Brooks pointed me to Our Stolen Future, with this chilling quote: “In just six months of breast feeding, a baby in the United States and Europe gets the maximum recommended lifetime dose of dioxin, which rides through the food web like PCBs and DDT. The same breast feeding baby gets five times the allowable daily level of PCBs set by international health standards for a 150-pound adult.”
Oh god, is breastfeeding bad for my baby? How would I explain that choice? High fructose corn syrup in the formula pales in comparison to Dioxin.
Like so many things with parenting, there is no clear and easy choice. But I think if more women could know that not breastfeeding (especially if it’s a choice, not a necessity) is NOT bad for their child, how wonderful it would be. How freeing. And then you could worry about something else.
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