“Mrs. Clinton’s recent candidacy was a moment of reckoning for women of her generation, who treated her run as a mirror in which to examine their own lives. With Ms. Palin’s entry into the field, a younger generation of women have picked up that mirror, using her candidacy to address the question of just how demanding a job a mother with such intense family obligations should tackle.”

An interesting story in The New York Times, about what Sarah Palin represents to women: A New Twist in the Debate on Mothers.

Conservative women, who have traditionally criticized women for working, are super-excited about Sarah Palin being a mother of 5 and being a potential Vice President.

Feminist working mothers are questioning whether Sarah Palin can pull off being a good mother and be Vice President.

I’m so confused.

Image source: www.johnmccain.com

Post from: Blisstree

Sarah Palin, Debate on Mothers

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 hear mothers talk about how sacrifice is “worth it” for their kids. I especially hear this if mother’s have given up something valuable – economic independence, dreams, ambitions, time, goals, careers, autonomy, hobbies, interests, etc.

When did I – as a human being – lose my inherent value? Was it when I stopped being the child so worthy of my mother’s sacrifice? Or was it when I became the mother, expected to sacrifice everything for my children, and then say, “it’s worth it?” Or was it when I turned 18 and stopped being a legal child?

I’m just curious how one human being has elevated value over another – children over mothers specifically – but then somehow they grow out of it?

Post from: Blisstree

Sacrifice, “It’s Worth It”

I found these fascinating statistics in FEMININE MISTAKE, THE: ARE WE GIVING UP TOO MUCH?.

One Harvard and Cornell study found that

Women who were homemakers at the beginning of their three-year study and and then went to work full time reported a decrease in psychological distress.

A Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University and Women’s eNews study found that

Women who were employed full time and then dropped out to stay home reported an increase in distress, regardless if they had children. Women who had a child but stayed in the work force showed no increase in distress. But women who had a child and dropped out of the work force experienced a major increase in stress.

Dan Baker, author of What Happy People Know: How the New Science of Happiness Can Change Your Life for the Better, explains the

seemingly counter-intuitive decreased level of distress in working women by giving a high happiness priority to “a sense of freedom,” proactivity and security. A sense of working women feeling a measure of control over their own destinies.
Versus what he terms “the lesser life,” characterized by fear, a lack of options, a narrow focus, a sense of purposelessness, anxiety and depression. The emotional reality for many women who are economically dependent.

Other statistics report that working is physically healthier for mothers.

By the age of fifty-four, those who combined roles of employees, parents and parters were significantly less likely to report ill health than were those whose lives did not include all three roles. The women who had been homemakers for all or most of their lives were most likely to say that their health was poor, followed by single mothers and childless women. The study, which was reported in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, also found that 38 percent of the long-term housewives suffered from obesity, in comparison with 23 percent of the working mothers.

Another report by a Dr. Anna Fels in Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women’s Changing Livesreports,

Employed women are healthier than their homemaker peers, despite the pressure of their added responsibilities. They have lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol levels and lower weight. Psychologically, working women have less depression than their domestic counterparts, and they have, astonishingly been reported to have less anxiety.

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Stress for SAHMs v. Working Moms

Feminism has long suffered from one major logistical problem.

The “build a career years” and the “raise the baby years” are the same years.

Women on the career path are leaving the workforce in droves because of this logistical conflict.

Both deserve our full attention so women either feel they have to choose or live with perpetual guilt for dividing their attentions.

Enter Barbara Walters with a 150 year solution.

According to the Barbara Walter’s Special my children could very likely live between 100 and 150 years.

The difference is science and our ability through stem-cell research and other advancements to cure disease. Eradicate disease and our lives are lengthened.

They examined the possible impacts of living for so dang long. We’ll need to save mucho, mega bucks for retirement. Cures and medicines ain’t cheap.

Also we know from Centurions, those currently living past 100 years old, that we’ll have to learn to cope with change, deal with loss of loved ones, including our own children and spouses.

Some experts predict monogamy will die and serial monogamy will take it’s place. We might have a starter marriage, a kids marriage, A retirement marriage and an assisted-living marriage. Not so much because people will be worse at marriage but their spouses are more likely to die off. (I thought it was hilarious that they predict a high geriatric lesbian rate because men will still die sooner and old women still need companions.) They talked about people having more than one career.

This is exactly what feminism and motherhood has long needed!

We’ll have plenty of time. This is how that time might’ve looked for me.

* College Years 18-22

Would you feel less consequence about your choice to stay home or be a working mom if you were given 150 years?

Oh and the men? This applies to them too. On the same show, I saw how research labs are growing body parts and organs. Taking a small cell and manufacturing a bladder. It’s not unlikely they’ll manufacture a uterus and some men will begin choosing the Mommy Years themselves.

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Logistical Problem with Feminism

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

It’s hard to fathom exactly why.

 She’s too ambitious.

But certainly she’s not more or less ambitious than any male presidential candidate. To run for president it’s necessary to be ambitious and certainly you don’t hope for an unambitious president.

She’s not a good role model.

In what sense? The current president is a recovering alcoholic and cocaine-user with a criminal record, but many religious people still voted for him and perceive him as a great role model. Hillary has a clean record, is as religious as any of the men running. It’s inconsistent.

The most baffling is when you hear ambitious women make these remarks about this other ambitious woman.

I think women’s issues with Hillary is really a deep conflict within ourselves. We haven’t resolved our own ambition with our own motherhood internally. Every woman I know struggles with it.

If we choose to work we feel terribly guilty about not being a good enough mother and feel we need to defend our choice. If we choose to mother we feel like we’re missing validation and acknowledgement and feel we need to defend our choice.

We certainly haven’t come to peace with other women who react to this same inner struggle by making a different choice. Isn’t that what the work vs. stay-at-home mommy wars are all about?

One woman chooses to honor her ambitious self while raising children and another chooses to forgo her ambitious self to raise children. Neither woman can comprehend the other’s perspective because the battle is so personal and so much is at stake for both.

When women look at Hillary we see her choice in color. And it’s too raw a wound for vivid emotions not to be drawn out.

Maybe the women’s movement is too young to expect resolution and inner-peace out of it yet.

I think when we resolve the conflict within ourselves, each individual woman inside herself - the mommy wars and Hillary-hatred will flutter aside.

Post from: Blisstree

Women’s Issues With Hillary

I’ve had a second child since then and I have had five years to reflect on the massive overhaul of identity that happens when independent and empowered women become mothers and I’ve never felt like the reality of what becoming a whole new entity gets any validity.

So allow me to rant about becoming Mommy. Maybe, if you’re a new mom and feeling not at all like yourself and kind of depressed, you can relate. And hopefully, actually my prayer is, that if you find yourself relating this will bring you a little bit of peace about what you’re going through.

In America we totally minimize birth and the real trauma of the whole ordeal. One minute you’re You. A woman who gets things done. Maybe you order underlings around at work or earn the respect of coworkers with your skills. You have money to play around with, gets to wear clothes you like, cash a paycheck and invest in whatever. You make deals or writes articles or manage a business or do whatever you do in your career. You communicate with adults frequently and daily on an intellectual level.

Your body was yours and you shared it when you felt like it and didn’t when you didn’t want to. You had a regular cycle and hormones that had been predictable.  Therefore you’d learned how to manage your monthly issues since you were 12. 

Now BAM you’re body has experienced this traumatic violent event – birth. Personally, I thought it was about as violent as being hit by a car. You wouldn’t emotionally bounce back from that in six weeks, I don’t understand why Americans expect women to bounce back from birth in a month and a half. The event changed your hormones, shape, vajayjay and everything else about you. You gave up your body for nine months to grow a foreign life and told yourself you’d be back to normal after birth. Dream On. Now you’re a milk machine. Now you smell of puke. Now you never sleep.

You feel like you are no longer YOU anymore. Your whole entire identity has gone through a dramatic and intense transformation. That’s takes more than six weeks or twelve weeks or four months or a year to adjust to. You don’t do the things that used to define You as You.

If you’re staying at home not working means you’re not getting any outside validation for the job you’re doing. You’re getting no paycheck. You’re only getting poopy diapers and the occasional smile or giggle, but it’s hard to cash that at the bank. You have to cut costs as expenses rise and you kind of resent not having your hair done like you used to.

Your husband thinks you’re doing fandiddly-taskic – so obviously he’s not very tuned in to what is actually going on with you. Which equals even less validation. But, there’s no way he can really understand because becoming Dad may be an awesome journey for him, but he’s still going to work, cashing a check and gets a lot of time away from the needy baby. And no one is sucking on his body half the day.

So what I’m saying is that what you are going through is NORMAL. It sucks but it’s normal. You are doing everything right. What you are doing does matter in the long run and it’s a valid and legitimate thing to be doing right now. You just have to realize that you are never ever going to get the same emotional kick-back from diapers and naps that you used to get cutting a massive deal in pharmaceuticals or whatever you did. The pay-off is different and there’s not a lot of instant gratification staying home with a baby. It takes time and practice to get used to. 

I now believe that being a stay-at-home-mom is a craft. Just like writing or any other profession. You have to learn how to do it. You have to make a structure for yourself. If you wake up everyday and just wander around and only do whatever you feel like doing then you will become clinically depressed. Period. You used to look forward to weekends cause it was Your time-off. But, now what do you look forward to? I can tell you the answer – you look forward to your husband coming home from work and you look forward to his time off.

I know you don’t want to, but you really have to get out of the house every single day for something – anything. A walk. A neighbor’s house. A grocery store trip. A mommy-baby sign language class. You have to leave the house daily.

You also have to “accomplish” at least one thing every day so you don’t feel like a total loser. Laundry is something. Cleaning the bathroom is something. Doing a budget is something. Find something every day that you can accomplish and then feel proud of yourself for doing it.

And really you must ditch that baby! If you are taking the baby on your dates with hubby, that’s ridiculous! You mustleave the baby sometimes or you will lose Self. If You lose You all is lost, because the baby needs You to be You and not some drone who smells like puke and feels like crap. Go out with other women without the baby. Supplement with formula or pump, it’s not that big of a deal. Join a book club. Go to a movie. Go out to dinner. Join a gym and leave her in the nursery for an hour while you work out or take a yoga class. You can not become only mom. You must also be You who has other interests outside the home. Otherwise you’re just the weird crazy lady who believes the baby will die if she goes out to lunch. That’s the definition of insanity! The baby can be without you for a few hours. The baby shouldbe without you for a few hours or she will have attachment issues in only a few short months and that will not be fun for you or her.

Stop reading parenting magazines. They should all be titled “How many ways can you accidentally kill your baby.” They induce anxiety and you do not need that much information. They are full of crap most of the time. Too much information is just scaring you can creating anxiety. You don’t need to know about every freak accident that might possibly happened to a kid. Throw them away, stop your subscription and buy Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: How to Calm, Connect, and Communicate with Your Baby. She’ll give sound advice without making you a panicked mess.

Honestly, physiologically and psychologically, you need to exercise. You just have to force yourself to do it. The endorphins you get from exercise are worth any anti-depressant on the market. Your poor body just went through a massive hormonal surge with way to much estrogen and then almost none overnight. Be kind to your new body and feed your brain some endorphins.

You probably don’t want to follow this advice if you’re suffering from PPD, but get off your butt and do it anyway.

If you are having compulsive thoughts about hurting yourself or your baby, which now that my child is five, I will admit to having had them. You need to tell your OB/GYN that you’re having brief flickering thoughts of hurting your self (really, I think that’s enough information to give him a picture of what’s going on without getting any authorities involved) and get some medication. The Le Leche League has a list of anti-depressants that you can take while breast feeding.

That said, I wonder if what new moms are really experiencing is a full-blown identity crisis resulting from adding MOM to the mix of SELF.

Post from: Blisstree

Mommy Pains, PPD or Identity Crisis?