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Back in college, I used to have a t-shirt that said something like, “Because women’s work is never done, and when it is it’s underpaid, and because we’re either prudes or sluts, either smothering mothers or neglectful parents, either passive or nags… and because a man can walk on the moon but we still can’t get an adequate safe contraceptive or decent affordable childcare… for all these reasons & more, I am a feminist.” I once wore that t-shirt to a block party in my hometown, and several quiet suburban moms surprised me by asking where they could get this t-shirt, too.
Now I often teach my students about the virgin/whore dichotomy. My students all recognize the idea that high school girls are placed in one of two categories, neither of them good. I tell my students that one of the lessons of feminism is that, whenever you get only two choices, it’s wisest to try to find a third way. Sometimes I even ask my students questions with only two binary answers, waiting for the clever ones to remember to look for a third way out of the dichotomy. I thought I knew this myself.
But now that I’m a mother, I am re-learning these binaries. I find myself fearing that I either hold Sophie too often or not enough. I either pamper her or neglect her. Moms are always extremist, it seems, and always at fault. I can’t think of any pop-culture models of a basic human mother. There are a few superhuman angelic moms & there are many demonized moms, but just a regular flawed person doesn’t seem to be modeled for us anywhere.
Example: on Sunday I was holding Sophie in my arms in a restaurant. She had been restless in her highchair, so we took her out, letting her look around. But I allowed myself to get distracted by taking a bite of toast, and Sophie took that opportunity to dive out of my arms. She hit the floor head-first. It seemed to go in slow-motion. I think I grabbed her feet soon enough to at least slow her fall. And I know I feel incredibly guilty. I could see this as giving my child independence, letting her explore her world, even learn to deal with little bruises — but I don’t see it that way. I just see it as my fault. I actually had to leave the restaurant after that, because I imagined the other people there were giving me nasty looks.
Another example: on Saturday, Sophie got sick. She was inconsolable in the middle of the night. All our normal soothing-back-to-sleep tricks just seemed to escalate her crying. Nursing her, walking her, rocking her, wearing her in the sling, singing our lullabies: nothing worked, even after we gave her baby tylenol for her pain. So then, at 2am, after two hours of futilely trying to soothe her to sleep, I gave up. I turned on a dim light and let Sophie take toys out of her toybox. I could hear, in my head, the voice-over narration of Supernanny (from that tv show), shocked: “They let her play with toys in the middle of the night! They have entirely lost control!” Really, Supernanny is usually one of my heroes. But in the middle of the night, I just imagined her insulting me. Everyone I have told this story to hurries to reassure me that I did a wise thing, that after 2 hours you can’t keep fighting a child who won’t sleep. I let Sophie play for 45 minutes, then I slowly turned on her lullaby music (Priscilla Herdman is my true hero; she doesn’t switch sides on me like Supernanny) and turned off the lights and gently eased Sophie to sleep. I think I did the best possible thing. It’s the guilt that surprised me.
A few months ago, I was at the playground, pushing Sophie in the swing & talking to her, like I usually do, narrating whatever comes into my head. Cheerfully, I said to her, “Oh, look at that, the sun is in your eyes. I’m a horrible mother.” The other moms at the playground burst out laughing. “Get used to it,” one said. “That’s a thought I have many times a day.”
It’s a thought that I should be feminist enough to analyze away — but I’m not there yet.
Sophie has a way of slowly squatting down, pigeon-toed, knees pointing out, concentrating so intensely that it’s comical, moving her body with extraordinarily deliberation so as not to fall down, until she reaches the ground and suddenly switches into quickly heading off to butt her head buffoonishly against the sofa. Do all babies move like Charlie Chaplin, alternating between care & clownishness, all with such a serious sense of play?
Sophie started school yesterday. It’s pre- pre-school, really, but it still felt like starting school, and I was nervous. But she did fabulously. She loves being around other kids, she has a good new caregiver who helps her adjust to not being the center of attention, she finished the day up happily and slept better last night than usual. I think we may finally have found reliable childcare.
But this means losing Maia. Maia was Sophie’s nanny on Mondays & Tuesdays in the fall. This spring, when my schedule switched to Tuesdays & Thursdays, Maia couldn’t switch schedules too, so we’ve been scrambling for Thursday childcare and now we’re finally admitting that it’s best for Sophie to have a consistent Tuesday Thursday routine.
This took me a while to admit because Maia is the world’s best nanny. The first time Maia came, Sophie was 3 months old and had never been away from me for more than an hour. Maia spent her first afternoon here holding my pajama-top in one hand and Sophie in the other, so that Sophie would be calmed by my familiar smell. Maia is brilliant that way. When Sophie was constipated, Maia gave her a healing massage. When Sophie was excitable with nearly all her other favorite people, Maia instead gave her a sense of calmness. When Sophie was resisting eating any food other than my breastmilk directly, Maia found ways to feed her — and then gently showed her techniques to me, too. Maia is a diplomat as well as an artist.
Maia made incredibly creative crafts for Sophie: a beautiful collaged card, a heart of flour-paste, and even a lace veil that Sophie loved wearing to our wedding. I was looking forward to when Sophie would be old enough to make art with Maia. Whenever I didn’t see Maia in time to hear how Sophie’s time with her had gone, Maia sent me beautifully poetic emails: “Sophie and I went for a walk and I think she got drunk on all the colors and shapes…” “We played peek-a-boo with a scarf and Sophie laughed so hard that little tears rolled down her cheeks…” Whenever Sophie hears someone speaking Spanish to her, her whole body relaxes, because I think she feels as if Maia is near. (Maia also speaks Hebrew & Italian & I think Yiddish too, but she chose to start Sophie on just Spanish.) When my mother visited last month, one of her favorite days was the day she spent just chatting with Maia while they watched Sophie together.
We were lucky to have Maia for Sophie’s first caregiver. Sophie and I are both going to miss her.
Sophie is an amazingly good camper. Here she is early in the morning, last weekend at Joshua Tree. We used to go camping & rock-climbing almost every weekend, in the Time Before Sophie, but now just going camping felt like a lot of work – but worth it. You can see more images by clicking on “More Photos” on the right.Will Ferrell made a video with a one-year-old girl called
Pearl the Landlord
What’s even funnier than the actual video is
the outtakes
The outtakes reminds me of Sophie, somehow. Maybe it’s how that girl is so much more interested in hitting rocks together than in anything that the adults want her to do.
I found this thanks to my sister-in-law’s blog, which is how I find most funny online videos. Shana, my sister-in-law, was surprised that directing a toddler is so much like herding cats. I think she hasn’t tried to change Sophie’s diaper.
Bill O’Reilly apparently thinks this video is child abuse, but I’m not sure. We already let Sophie carry Ben’s beer bottles around the house (briefly), and now that Ben has watched this video, he thinks it would be fun to teach Soph to say, “Gimme my money, bitch.” I don’t know.
Wedding photos are here ! Everyone looks so beautiful and beamy.
Mike Connell took these wonderful photos, but it took a while to get the photos up, because Mike&Mindy were also busy having twins. They’re beautiful, too. They’re on Mindy’s blog
We got married back in December, with just local friends here on the beach in Encinitas, and my UU minister Rev. Jim Grant. We planned it all in only a week or so, in order to keep it simple, and if it weren’t for Sarah (who appointed herself my bridesmaid, wonderfully), I probably wouldn’t have had makeup or a real dress – but I did, and it’s great to see these photos now.
The vows we said to each other were: I take you to be no other than yourself. Loving what I know of you, trusting what I don’t yet know, with respect for your integrity and faith in your abiding love for me, through all our years and in all that life shall bring us, I accept you as my husband (or wife, when Ben said it). Our friends said that it was a particularly good wedding because it was so brief. After the ceremony and the sunset, we had burritos & Ben’s homemade beer back at our house, and it was a wonderful day.
Sophie was reaching for the moon the other night, reaching for the moon and then clapping, while her dad walked her on the beach at sunset. Ben is an awesome father.
Unrolling the toilet paper from the roll.
Chasing the cats around the house. That girl is a quick crawler, and she can pull herself up to stand by leaning on anything, even a mirror, so she’s starting to be a real threat to our poor cats.
Finding every last piece of lint, dirt or stray catfood in the house, and helpfully checking out how it tastes, before reluctantly relinquishing it to me. A related skill: playing race-mom-to-the-pile-of-dust-she-just-swept-up, trying to beat me to it before I can fetch the dustpan. I’ve been winning this race, but I’m beginning to fear that it’s only because she’s letting me win.
Hiding food in her highchair. Why can she manage to put dirt in her mouth, but not cheese? This is one of the everlasting mysteries of infant-dom.
Charming everyone.
Using clever wrestling techniques in order to resist laying still on her changing table. Really, she will cross her legs over your arm, then twist: she knows how to leverage her little body. We’re so proud.
Swaying to the music, especially if it’s more like muzak than music. She doesn’t have very refined tastes, yet, but I swear: my baby dances.
Noticing when Mom is acting weird (reading a book with animal sounds, dancing like Gumby), and actually laughing at me. Is “being embarassed by your own mother before the age of one” some kind of impressive developmental milestone? I choose to interpret her laughter as delight.
Laughing uproariously whenever I try mirroring her behavior. She is really delighted if, after she claps, I clap too. We can bang on the table together for ten minutes at a time. This is how I spend my days when I’m not at work teaching students how to read dense cultural studies theory.
The longer I’m away from Sophie, the more the buttons on my blouse strain open. I know this will stop when I stop breastfeeding her, but in the meantime, I like thinking of myself as the Incredible Hulk, aka Superhero Mom.
Although Superhero Mom would probably be better than I am at figuring out the strange dynamics of Playground Moms, a whole different subgroup. Or maybe it’s just natural for superheroes to act strange around each other.
“My child is a bright light at such-and-such elementary school,” says a bumper sticker that Sophie & I just passed while we were walking her down for her morning nap. I hope I never have such a bumper sticker. It seems silly to boast about what’s already so obvious — but others have told me that I seem to be only venting & complaining on this blog, so I think it may be time to also mention that it is impossible to look at Sophie without smiling.
Of course, if I share joys, I will probably be accused of bragging. I’m not sure whether it was Ben, Sarah, or Vinton who explained to me that no matter what I post, I will be teased, and probably teased by them. But that may happen even if I don’t post. So here it is, a list of bright lights of the week.
1. Yesterday at the park, Sophie was so joyous that other children actually gathered round to watch. Other parents felt they had to apologize: “My daughter has that same hat, I think that’s why she’s staring.” “My son just likes looking at your daughter, I’m not sure why, he may be getting ready for a career as an anthropologist or a spy.” “I think my son just thinks that your daughter is cute.” She IS cute, and so full of laughter & curiosity that I have started to take it for granted that others will always gather round her, even others who are only a few months older than her.
2. This week, one of the students in my intro class told me that all our reading about Jamestown has motivated him to write a rock-song about Pocahontas. One of the students in my theory class announced, “Wait, wait, I think I get it: postmodern means sarcastic! But in a brain-twisting way.” Another student, in my second theory class, declared in all sincerity, “I can’t wait to go home and tell my mother about hegemony.” Really, he said that, and I think he meant it too.
Hegemony, for those of you who aren’t Marxist scholars, is a theory that sees power as the ability to manufacture consent. It begins, for me, with the question of why isn’t there a policeman on every corner? We generally obey the laws, even without a cop on every corner, because we generally accept the structures of society. Without hegemony, no amount of cops on corners can keep a society safe. It’s actually what Bush means by declaring that we need to “win hearts and minds” in Iraq. There’s more to the theory, of course, but it’s a really interesting one, & I love that my students think so too.
3. My family has an excellent weekend morning routine. Sophie inevitably wakes up at 6am like clockwork, but we have been teaching her the skill of lollygagging in bed. On weekends, at 6:30 or 7, whenever the lollygagging is finished, Ben gets up and takes her to the beach to watch the waves and the seagulls. Then they go for a daddy-daughter breakfast at a surfer cafe called Pipes. Sophie eats scrambled egg with avocado while playing peekaboo with the waitresses & the other customers & the pigeons too, and I get to sleep in bed, undisturbed until after 8am. This is a really excellent thing.
4. Sophie is a valued member of my Buddhist meditation group.
