I went to Madonna when I was pregnant cause, like, that’s who I love. My fetus danced the whole freaking time and still loves it to this day.

But, alas, I’m not that hip.

Still know people who are though.

Via Julie Pippert on Twitter I found out about Pandora – a music genome project which will create a custom radio station for you based on you favorite music.

Only after entering Natalie Merchant (you may not think you love her but you LOVE her and always will) and Meatloaf (you shut up he ROCKS like. no. other.) I realized I needed something NEW.

So, to Mrs. Blogoway I went. Cause dude, she’s to an iphone and she’s always talking about being sick to death of music I’ve never freaking heard of. So I asked her for some recommendations.

Curious?

The Ting Tings (cardio)

Duffy (r&bish_)

Adele (famaliar)

Manu Chao for cooking (really, cooking? special music?)

Thievery Corporation for yoga and drinking wine.

And so I will test these recommendations. Join me.

Do YOU have tunage recommendations for the unhip?

Post from: Blisstree

Pandora and Mrs. Blogoway

You know what I find fascinating?

The religious conservatives, by which I mean the specific people in my life, who have always been the biggest influences on my own Internal Mommy Wars are in full, unequivocal support of Sarah Palin and have no doubts that can be both an effective mother and vice president.

Then why do you doubt that I can be both a great mom and fulfill my professional ambitions using the gifts and the calling God gave me? I wondered, as I lay sobbing during one yoga practice last week. If there is some distinction between she and I – and our worthiness for my family’s support – I don’t get it.

My whole motherhood and professional, experience would have been vastly different had these same people in my life been as unquestioningly supportive of me and my abilities to do both as they have been about Sarah Palin.

The economic and emotional toll of my own internal Mommy Wars can be added up to include: poverty and massive amounts of debt including a bankruptcy, unbelievable strain on my marriage almost leading to divorce, addiction to anxiety medication including a hospitalization that incurred yet more debt, severe post partum depression, not to mention the decision to stop having children so I could return to work without debilitating guilt and extreme economic “sacrifice” sooner.

But, at least I was a “good mom,” according to the specific narrow definition my family and cultural influences – religious conservatives, represented by Sarah Palin – have held out as the one virtue I must live up to above all.

Go figure.

They don’t even know her, they’ve never met her, they’ve never seen her with her children, they know very little about her politics even. Yet, they support her without reservation, judgement or criticism. If only I’d been worthy of the same support.

Thank God for Sarah Palin - I’m choosing to make their full support of Sarah Palin apply to ME and all other women. Her mission is no more important than mine, her abilities to both be a good mother and ambitious in her work is no more developed, her values no more sacred, and above all – she is no more entitled than the rest of the working mothers of this nation to respect, equal pay and working hours that adjust to acknowledge the existence of a family.

I’m choosing to let go of their judgement that has so effected my choices. It’s quite liberating really. Its like releasing a burden that has weighed heavily on my soul and tainted my experience of motherhood.

My motherhood experience has been about unnecessary guilt and sacrifice – false choices really. False choices that have made me teeter on a fence between working and motherhood, judgement and approval, fear and love, economic stability and poverty as sacrifice, powerfulness and powerlessness, economic independence and social acceptance - it’s not as though choosing to not work to be a good mom to acquire the currency of their social acceptance and approval came without serious consequences.

Forgive them for they know not what they do. I want to be free of their criticism and judgement, therefore I forgive it.

I don’t think they knew. They didn’t know they would feel this positively and supportive about a working mother character. They may or may not realize the kind of inner-turmoil they’ve caused in my own emotional life. Likely, it is only a reflection of their own inner conflict about themselves – not really about me at all.

I’m going to expect them to feel the same about my abilities as they feel about Sarah Palin’s and if they choose not to, well, this time I’ll perceive that choice as their failure, instead of my own. I’ll figure out a way not to internalize it.

Surely, I had this power all along – lots of other women have done it – but I wasn’t strong enough to apply it. So, I forgive me too.

Thank God for Sarah Palin, she’s liberating me from a social construct and false choices and a deep inner conflict about working and motherhood.

Image source: JohnMcCain.com

Post from: Blisstree

Thank God For Sarah Palin

The Battle Ground of Feminism is the Home.

Because I don’t necessarily want to have that battle in my home today, I’ll stick with citing examples from FEMININE MISTAKE, THE: ARE WE GIVING UP TOO MUCH?, by Leslie Bennetts.

“This opt-out thing is about false choices,” says sociologist Barbara Risman. “If you’ve been raised thinking you can do everything, and your husband works eighty hours a week, and you work eighty hours a week, and he’s not willing to budge an inch, and you never see your chilren, so you opt-out – that’s not really opting out; that’s being pushed out.”

” If you hate your job, you’re overwhelmed with work, the workplace is family-unfriendly, you want to have another child, and your husband won’t share the workload, then do you begin to convince yourself that quitting your job is a reasonable choice because you can depend on your spouse. . . But thesse women are not exploring other options . . .like ‘How can I get my husband to share more of the workload?’”

“From a female point of view, the problem with the self-sacrifice model of marriage is that it’s usually the woman who’s being asked to sacrifice.”

“Here’s a newsflash for you: Jeremy (not Tracee’s Jeremy) may be wonderful, but it’s not as if I’m sitting around with my feet up. He performs a reasonable share of the labor generated by our home and children, which I would argue are as much his responsibility as mine. But I have almost always done more. The sainted Jeremy may look like Husband of the Year in comparison with a lot of other guys, but that just goes to show how low we set the bar for men in this society.”

Maintaining some semblance of equity in your marraige can force you to deploy all those nasty tactics you swore you would never stoop to as a parent. . .Bribery and punishment work; so do yelling and complaining. Threats are also effective, as long as everyone knows you mean business. . . These strategies admittedly take a lot of energy, but not as much as performing all the functions necessary to maintain home and family by yourself.”

“In one revealing study, the found that male managers blood pressure and stress-hormone levels dropped dramatically at five p.m., but the women managers’ levels actually jacked up as they turned their attention from their “first shift’ jobs to their ’second shift’ responsibilities as wives and mothers.”

The question is: Are you winning or losing the battle?

Post from: Blisstree

Battle Ground of Feminism: The Home

I find very few flaws in the logic of Leslie Bennetts in her book FEMININE MISTAKE, THE: ARE WE GIVING UP TOO MUCH?

Her logic is such that I find myself saying, She’s right. Why did I make such a self-defeating choice to quit my fulltime professional newspaper job?

Until the chapter where she reminds me why, exactly, I did just that as she advises women that Yes, working fulltime with little babies is a hell on earth where everyone loses – but take the “long view,” it’s only for 15 YEARS!

15 YEARS! Is that all?

Seriously, I lasted less than one year of dropping my kid off at daycare and not seeing her at all until I dropped her off the next morning. And during that year I was popping Xanex like crazy to quell the ever increasing and intense feelings of, “I don’t want to do this. This is not necessary. I don’t give a shit about that pothole – I haven’t seen my kid all day.”

It wasn’t the working that got to me. It was the lack of flexibility insisted upon by my newspaper’s management. The rigidity about being in the office while writing at 11 pm. after a city council meeting. Why, exactly, can’t I do this at home?

The part that really got to me was how unnecessary the rigidity and inflexibility was.

With the invention of email and the cell phone many parents time away from home really can be minimized with little company sacrifice. But, corporations HATE change.

The bottom line is you need a wife if you’re going to make it in many professional environments. When you ARE the wife, and you don’t want to take on the role of “absent daddy,” it’s a bit of a problem.

Leslie Bennetts, a New York Times Reporter, says as much in her book.

Leslie Bennett’s is also right to say that professional women aren’t truly “opting out” – they are being pushed out by rigidity and hostility towards mothers who aren’t willing to make unnecessary sacrifices.

Her solution to this eat shit (work 60 hrs week) or suck ass (drop out of professions completely) dilemma mothers face? Don’t let them push you out – it’s only 15 years.

Compared to the 50 years of your career 15 years really isn’t that long, she says.

I agree 15 years out of the 50 years of a career doesn’t seem like that long.

But 15 years is your kid’s ENTIRE childhood. 15 years is also one’s ENTIRE motherhood experience.

Looked at that way it’s a bit more of a freaking sacrifice, isn’t it?

I’m taking the detour in Bennett’s “long view.”

Post from: Blisstree

15 Years – Suck It Up

The Feminine Mistake

t imagine a workplace that changes to meet the needs of both the genders upon which it relies for labour.”

“Family law courts, working conditions, and employment discrimination are all untouchable. They and their inequities are facts of life. It is you, lady who will need to adapt to survive,” writes Blue Milk.

 “Regardless of the book’s polarising nature I became convinced that all mothers should spend some time in self-reflection considering their contingency plans. What if they had to do it all alone, what would they do and how would they do it? Even if those plans are ridiculously optimistic it would pay to consider what they might be,” Blue Milk continued.

 From reading Blue Milk’s review I wonder as well, As mothers and women – who claim stay-home, work part-time, work freelance and contract, or work-at-home status, or even take time off during the children’s early years –  are we making an educated choice with a full understanding of its consequences?  

 Are we understanding the math? Or are we ignoring the math? 

Do we realize that while we make our choice in the best interest of the whole family – it is we, alone, who takes the massive financial risk? If we realize it why are we passively accepting it?

If we were sane about it wouldn’t we be taking aggressive action to lower our risk while championing our stay-at-home status through political action groups like Momsrising?

In a society where there is a 50% divorce rate and women we know are retiring in abject poverty due to divorce after 25-30 year marriages, long after the children have moved on with their own lives, it is a valid question to ask “Have we gone mad? Where is our sense of self-preservation? Have we overly romanticized self-sacrifice to the detriment of ourselves and our daughters?

I’m going to read this book. I’d love for some others to pick up a copy and join me in a lively debate about it’s contents.  Blue Milk ’s insightful review is a very good start.  It will give you a taste of how thorough Bennett’s logic is. 

Post from: Blisstree

The Feminine Mistake