an open letter to jessica valenti

This post could be subtitled: Wherein I Refer Not To Your Book (which I haven't read) But To The Interview I Heard On The Radio The Other Morning. 

Jessica Valenti founded a website I like a lot and has recently written a book: Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness. She is mother to a toddler (I gather) and has been making the rounds as a "young feminist" who is tackling "the issues" or, diving headlong into the profitable and ridiculous "Mommy Wars" which is a phrase I already regret typing despite that last thing I said being (subjectively) true. I was disappointed at many points during her interview in ways that I frequently feel disappointed with my contemporaries in the feminist community. 

Dear Ms. Valenti,

I realize that mine is a difficult undertaking, given that I haven't read your book. To be honest, my reading wish list is long, and includes many things I plan to read for reasons other than providing thorough refutations of Internet Personalities' views on parenting. So, please cut me some slack in that department and I'll stick to what I heard you say in this interview on NPR to which I would link if I could find it. 

You seem to be taking the position that I've read and heard so often in the past few years: that parenthood is too hard on women. That attachment parenting is demeaning and demanding in unreasonable ways, particularly to women. That "problems" with these newfangled methods are, then, a feminist issue. I heard you smugly chuckle at the idea that some parents choose to watch their babies for elimination cues and take them to the toilet rather than change diapers. You scoffed, audibly, at the recommendation that parents wear their children as much as possible; at co-sleeping. You implied that these choices -- made by adults, generally after doing some research -- are making women unhappy, and that if it were more widely publicized that parenthood sucked so bad, if there were more affordable avenues for leaving your kids with someone else while you get on with your life, maybe fewer people would respond so negatively to the experience of raising children. 

I'd like to talk a little about this, personally. While obviously not the case for everyone, my children were my liberation. After years of working jobs I didn't like to make ends meet, putting off the possibility of seeking out work I found fulfilling because I couldn't afford to fail, I got pregnant. There was nothing noble or progressive about the job I had when I got pregnant, but quitting it to raise my children has easily been the most controversial parenting choice I've made. Politically active, feminist-identified friends have given me figurative head pats, pep talks about re-entering the workforce someday, and treated me like a twee relic because I choose not to work outside the home. They have congratulated me on being self-sacrificing enough to take on things like cloth diapering because, while they'd really love to, they just can't imagine having the time. Like many people, I've had lifelong struggles with my body image. It wasn't until having children -- birthing them, unapologetically feeding them in public, witnessing their guileless exploration of my flabby upper arms, acne scars, and stretched belly -- that I began to accept and eventually appreciate my body for what it was and expect that others do the same. I found myself hoping for my kids to find meaning and joy in their days and, in trying to engineer that for my children, I've learned to search for and value the same for myself, whether it's a paid, intellectual pursuit or not. Because it almost never is.

When asked the perfunctory question (why have kids?), you said there were two answers, a real one and a jokey one: you came from a large Italian family, and (basically) because kids say the darndest things. I realize that this was oversimplified but it still gave me pause. I had kids because I wanted to create a family with my partner, because I thoroughly enjoy children and because I knew I'd be good at it. Familial expectations didn't play into my decision, and similarly, I didn't have another child just to give my son a sibling. People should be parents because and only because they want to be, and believe they would be good at it. I agree that parental unhappiness stems in part from the lack of resources, but cheap daycare is not on my list of ways to make parents generally happier (It is, however, on my list of things we should do because it makes sense.). Instead, I take issue with a society that throws weddings to which children are not invited or relegated to a "childcare room" (because 200 adults can't just redirect a kid sticking his fingers in the wedding cake? Or, god forbid, hang out with some children?). I blame a country wherein breastfeeding in public is a debatable issue, and 30-something year old friends meeting my daughter for the first time say they've never held a baby before. We are setting up parents to fail by treating children like burdens we need to escape from, rather than welcoming them into the communities they'll inherit. We keep kids' normal behaviors a secret until those often confusing traits are foisted upon underslept, stressed parents focused on maintaining their "normal lives" and wondering why nobody told them that newborns actually eat every 3 hours...for 2 and a half hours. Including our children in our lives in both meaningful and mundane ways, incorporating them into everyday life so that they become as much a fixture as our phones, exposing others to the normality of childhood so that they know what to expect of young people: that's a way to make people enjoy parenting. Realistic expectations breed success. Attachment parenting, allowing a place for children in our everyday lives, enables that.

The question: are you mom enough? is not a question posed by well-meaning fellow mothers or even sympathetic feminists. It's yet another shitty patriarchal device used to pit us against one another, and it, along with all the other trappings of misogyny, are what's making women unhappy. Just as I don't allow the patriarchy to dictate where my value begins and ends, I don't want to teach people that their value will begin when they can make themselves useful (by my standards), or that I will put up with their difficult nature as long as it doesn't hinder my own pursuits. I had kids to teach, to love, to pay attention to and nurture in whatever way they need. I hope to have many years of watching my independent offspring fend mostly for themselves, but that just isn't the deal when they're little and I knew that when I signed up for this gig. If it were a more widely known fact about parenting, perhaps that would make for happier parents. 

Attachment parenting isn't making women unhappy. Following others' whims rather than deciding what works for your family? Sure, that'll do it. Uncertainty makes judgment feel harsher, hurt worse. Trying to squeeze your child into a philosophy that doesn't resonate with her? Failure: that'll make everyone unhappy. But don't blame women who believe fervently in and advocate for a more responsive way of parenting. Don't chuckle about parents who make educated choices that differ from yours. Then you're just throwing fuel on Time Magazine's beach bonfire. Some people find liberation in raising babies and chickens and the freedom to go to the library at 11am any damn day of the week, and nobody gets to tell me that isn't a part of my feminism.

Respectfully,

Stefanie

for girls

On Sunday, as we meandered Goodwill waiting for the baby to fall asleep so we could go eat Mothers' Day lunch, I asked George if he was in the market for anything in particular. He said he wanted a new baby, so to the baby section we headed. Lest you think he was trying to trade in his sister, he did mean a doll; Baby Tony, his little vanilla-smelly Corolle doll, needed a friend, he told me. On the way to the toys we stopped off at the shoe section, because once I spotted a thrashed pair of Wall-E sneakers there and hope to someday find another, wearable pair because I believe in dreaming impossible dreams. I picked up a pair of sandals -- teva-ish numbers in brown and hot pink -- and asked George what he thought. 

"Those for girls." 

What?! "Silly mama, those for girls!" he repeated. 

Okay. I can say with absolute certainty that neither I nor Nathan have ever told him that something was "for girls" or anyone of any gender, for that matter. He owns and regularly chooses to wear hot pink (and purple, and sparkly unicorn-emblazoned) clothes. He doesn't even have a great grasp of who in his life IS a girl (according to him, everyone but his sister is a "guy"). And yet, there he was, poo-pooing the pink sandals. 

There have been a few moments in recent times where I've felt like a contestant on some sort of mean-spirited game show: one where your kid does something, asks a question, makes a comment that requires you to be the perfect parent in response. In this game show, you make the right call and life goes on sort of tenuously as you wait for the next terrifying opportunity to turn your child into a sexist, racist homophobe who eats only simple carbs. An incorrect response, however, is met with a flash forward to your derelict 40 year old son catcalling women on the bus or something. This was one of those moments. I had to stop and suppress the urge to be like what in the hell? I took a deep breath and said, 

"There are no boy or girl shoes, just different shoes that different people like for different reasons." Yes, that ought to do it, I thought. I may have even peered around to see if anyone heard me pull off that expert move. George looked satisfied, even appeared to rethink his dismissal of the hot pink shoes (until he spied a pair of black and red crocs). Feeling like I'd dodged a bullet, or even like I stood my ground and dirty-looked the bullet until it turned around in disgrace, I steered us down the toy aisle in search of a baby doll. Before we made it to the sad pile of naked dolls with one eye permanently stuck open and sharpie stained heads, George got distracted by cars. Something Batmobile-esque caught his eye, but an oversized purple VW Bug with working seatbelts seemed more his speed. I held it up. Then. 

"Mama, this car for GIRLS! I want to hold that one! The scary one!" Good lord. What the crap? I thought we had just settled this! 

"George." I said, "This car is for boys or girls! It's purple; you like purple. Papa has a purple shirt, right?" He looked at me warily. "The black car is for bigger kids." "For bigger GUYS," he insisted. "No," I told him, "bigger kids. Any kids. Any bigger kids." Things were taking a...less articulate turn. I scanned the microfiche in my mind for some relevant article or text on feminism or gender studies and how not to reinforce stereotypical expectations of gender presentation and allow for free expression while supporting your child's own gender identity and and and...

"I want to hold THAT." Huh? "That baby! Oh, so cute! I want to hold that baby! I love it." He was shoving the purple car back at me and pointing excitedly at a half-lidded, cloth bodied doll with limbs akimbo. I took it off the shelf and he snatched it up, cooing at and rocking it like he sees me do with Zelda. He planted a big kiss on its plastic hair. "Is that the toy you choose?" I asked him, and he nodded emphatically. At the cash register, he tried to garner compliments for his new baby by repeating to the cashier, "so cute! Aww, so cute!"

He didn't notice that the woman behind us was buying a black and metallic blue remote control car, and I didn't point it out. It seemed that, despite all my reading, despite my anxiety over the right way to correct him -- gently, factually, without overloading or shaming him -- he figured it out. You know, I'm sure some real a-holes wear pink shoes, but it takes a pretty nice "guy" to fawn over a lazy-eyed, misshapen baby. 

america's pastime

Did you have a security blanket when you were a kid? I did. A literal security blanket called blanky, homemade and possessing of one perfect blue broadcloth square that I could find in the dark, with my eyes closed, by running my fingers along the blanket's hem until they lit on the threadbare area I liked to work between my thumb and forefinger. I always assumed this was a universal thing, the security blanket. Not necessarily a blanket, but some soft, snuggly object dear to each child. Before George was born, I bought a few different things I anticipated might become his blanky -- a Kathe Kruse sheep head with a floppy flannel body, a little "taggy", a beautiful upcycled monkey -- and I made some quilts but none of them took hold of his little heart. For awhile, I actually worried that George's lack of attachment to an object was abnormal. It turns out, however, that often securely attached children don't need a security object (go figure). So, eventually I gave up on finding him a blanky of his own.

Fast forward to the opening of Christmas stockings, 2010, when George received not one but two small, vinyl soccer balls. The ramp-up to complete ardour was gradual enough that I didn't notice it happening until Soccer Ball's (and, for that matter, Number Three's, as he dubbed the other one) accompaniment was necessary for leaving the house. This coincided with the beginning of a very unexpected body-and-soul obsession with sports.

We are not "sports people." Nathan has a passing interest in baseball; we go to one Mariners game a year, on Fathers' Day, and he watches the World Series when he can, as we don't have cable. We don't get invited to Super Bowl parties; we don't follow basketball; I am confused by soccer and despite several promises to attend, I've never made it to any of my friends' hockey games. I actively avoid buying clothes for George that have sports themes, because they're usually so tackily gendered and come emblazoned with stupid sayings like Daddy's Little Super Slugger All Star Champion. And yet. 

My son -- the one for whom I bought ballet slippers and baby dolls -- began not just running, but "running the bases." He started talking about "baseball guys," "football guys" and "basketball guys." He perfected his slide into home by practicing it over and over on the living room rug, and would gleefully demonstrate it for you regardless of the venue and how appropriate it may or may not be to lie on the floor there. When he outgrew his cool old Adidas, he picked out some new sneakers, declaring them "baseball shoes" and begged in specific terms for a red baseball shirt unlike a toddler whose whims are forgotten in a matter of seconds, but daily, randomly, like someone who was legitimately pining for a freaking red baseball shirt. 

All of this without owning books about sports, without watching television shows or movies about sports, without any friends or family who are particularly enthusiastic about sports. 

Before I had kids, I argued vehemently that, in the nature vs. nurture debate, children's interests are nearly 100% nurture. That we feed our girls pink princesses and our boys blue trucks and thereby they learn to be docile or aggressive, caretakers or just-plain-takers. I really, really believed this to be true until having my own kid who has flatly rejected so many of my attempts at piquing his interest in things he just doesn't care about. It pains me on two fronts: 1) I feel like a Feminist sell-out, because this implies that male and female humans may actually be wired differently, to play and process things differently, and 2) because I HAVE A SPORTS-OBSESSED SON. 

Real talk: When I found out George was a boy, I consoled myself (I always imagined myself with only girl children) with my steadfast knowledge that I could make him the good kind of boy. A pint-sized feminist from the get-go, who was equally happy in dress up dresses and mud puddles. A kid essentially without a gender identity, until THE MAN weaseled his way into my radical son's little brain somewhere around school age. The funny thing about that, aside from...you know...its fundamental absurdity, is that I never considered that I would fall so madly in love with my kid that his interests wouldn't matter. I didn't have a fantastic model for this, myself, so who can blame me for my misconceptions?

 

I still shake my head in amazement over George's full-bore love affair with sports. I'm consistently baffled by the details he knows, and where he could've picked them up. But, I'm pretty proud to say that we found him a red baseball shirt on one of two excursions specifically for that purpose. Pre-George me would've said hell no; no child of mine will wear a Super Slugger Baseball Game Day t-shirt. But? Mine does. I never thought you'd hear me yelling, "go, go, go, run the bases!" or telling my child that baseball players do, in fact, wear rainbow striped pajamas similar to the ones he didn't want to put on after his bath. But I yell that multiple times a day; I have used that line not only for jammies but food, socks and boring errands. The most surprising thing of all is that I think it's really cute. All of it. The clumsy slide, the devastation over being too little for the bat he keeps eyeing at Target, the rapt attention to Ken Burns' Baseball documentary, the requests to see "basketball kids" whenever we drive past the high school where Nathan took him to see a game once, and the undying love for his now well-worn, filthy soccer balls that appear in nearly every un-cropped photo of him. 

He is most assuredly not the child I envisioned myself having, but what I've learned is that I appreciate other qualities more than the superficial things I pictured, and those traits I truly value are not mutually exclusive with sports fandom. I'm raising an empathetic kid who gives hugs freely, who frets over pictures of sad cartoon animals, who loves being read to, who loves music. He's trusting and confident and communicative. And he has interests that he's cultivated all on his own, which assures me that he's not too easily influenced. I'm still hopeful that he'll be amenable to the idea of dance class, but I also can't wait to see how cute he looks in his tee ball uniform. I hope he always feels supported in his interests, no matter how misaligned they are with mine. 

body politics and the willies

When I made it through the first trimester of pregnancy with my milk supply intact and no soreness like I'd been warned of, I thought George and I were free and clear to keep nursing through this pregnancy. My goal has always been to breastfeed on demand until two, when we'd switch to the no offers/no refusals game plan, which would lead to weaning in due time. George has nightweaned himself, with the transition from our bed to his own, and, anymore, only asks to nurse a few times a day; on some especially busy days, he's only asked once. Regardless of frequency, however, it's a part of our relationship I don't want to give up, and certainly not prematurely (not to mention: it's my only way of getting him to sleep without the aid of one adept papa). 

One thing I hadn't worried about and, hence, hadn't prepared for, was the nursing heebie-jeebies. As in, a total aversion to breastfeeding my child. We've had a great and easy road and I've never felt even a twinge of the body-related resentment toward George that I'd heard expressed by some other mothers or discomfort with breastfeeding created by the over-sexualized and unfriendly-to-nursing culture in which we (unfortunately) live. So when, a few weeks ago, slight soreness gave way to OH MY GOD DON'T YOU DARE COME NEAR MY BOOBS, KID I was shocked and bummed and guilty-feeling. My poor, sweet, little dude just wanted some noms. I hoped the feeling would go away -- that it was just a fluke -- and I'd be able to enjoy that part of our day like I had in the past. But it hasn't gone away. And it's kind of messing with me. 

I am so incredibly comfortable with enforcing my need for personal space. Anyone who's shared my bed can tell you that I am not to be bothered in the middle of the night. Cuddling? Hell no. I don't like to be tickled, either, so call me a joykill but stay away from my knees if you value your nose's structural integrity. I can say no, believe strongly in my right to do so and can safely say I've never willingly compromised my body for someone else. Until now. And I'm doing it three + times a day. 

Maybe I just need someone to feed me cotton candy while I nurse?

Every time George's little hand opens and closes to say he wants milk, I cringe. It hurts, it's hot and I just want it to be over. And I feel like the world's worst asshole. My supply is dipping, so there's no telling how much he gets, and as though he's trying to make up in time what he's lacking in product, he wants to stay latched on FOR. EVER. Through the entirety of the morning -- 6:30 to 8am, and again through his whole nap, waking when I desperately extricate myself. I've read so many articles and blog posts  for tips, and some of the suggestions work, if briefly. Some of the voices are genuinely reassuring. But I'm still having a hard time parsing my belief in respecting my own body and limits while maintaining what's obviously an important facet of my relationship with my son. 

Parenting comes with a healthy dose of self-sacrifice and I daresay anyone who argues otherwise is doing it wrong. I don't think, however, that you're obligated to hand over all body autonomy if doing so is giving you the willies. To forsake my own comfort especially around such a potentially intimate body part seems innately un-Feminist. Is it? Is there an intersection of feminism and motherhood with a permanent red light? It seems that the short answer is yes; the long answer no with a but. And that makes me uncomfortable, too. To be the first woman to yield to my son -- whom I am (with luck) teaching that women's (and everyone's, really) bodies are to be respected and protected, especially in a political climate that decreasingly supports that idea? I'm probably over thinking it, but it seems to set a precedent I don't like. My best bet may be to grin and bear it: to never let him think he has to convince me, both because that's the kindest way, and because it doesn't teach him that coercion is an option. 

I'm devoted to child-led weaning, so I'm sure I'll continue gritting my teeth until oxytocin overcomes the heebie-jeebies, George gives up on his own or the new baby brings back my supply, any illusions of control over my own chest wash away with a new, never-ending batch of spit-up stained laundry, and breastfeeding becomes the hormonal love-fest it used to be. And I'll continue to question my own politics, my own motivations -- to check in with my methods -- because doing so is healthy. It keeps me relevant, or at least as relevant as a stay-at-home mom can be (ha!). 

on tramps

This week, a male sports columnist -- a single father to a son -- wrote an opinion piece for CNN.com, a website I only visit when I'm directed there by others' outrage. He asked the parents of America to stop dressing their daughters "like tramps" and, in an undoubtedly purposefully creepy and inflammatory way, described a young girl as "the sexiest" person in the room. He posits that we can blame retailers like Abercrombie & Fitch if we want to, but the problem is really that parents don't set boundaries in favor of acting like their childrens' friends, allowing them to wear halter tops and Juicy Couture track suits, enabling perverty weirdos (who may or may not work for CNN) to leer at them. Lowering their self esteem via teensy padded bras. 

Well. 

I agree with him on one point: parents DON'T set boundaries, but it's nothing to do with buying size 6X thongs. Little girls live in the world with the rest of us. The world where famous women are simultaneously glorified and demonized for their bodies, their appearance, the lengths to which they go in order to stay relevant and beautiful. These little girls have mothers who diet, buy fashion magazines full of altered images of already nearly physically "flawless" women. Mothers who buy Spanx and padded bras and minimizer bras and ask apologetically before they leave the house if they look halfway decent. We present to them a framework of femininity that leaves no room for fat unless you're also hilarious (and sexless). No room for short. Or too tall. Or broad-shouldered or thin-lipped or round-assed lest you suffer the same fate as Jennifer Lopez who cannot be called beautiful without the qualifier of CURVY, even after carrying twins. 

And if you misstep? If you somehow fail to strike that perfect balance of demure but hot, available and eager but hard-to-get, if your skirt is half an inch too short and your expression reads less-than-interested? WHORE. You think you're too good for me, bitch? Fat slut. Ugly. You'd be kinda hot if you weren't such a bitch. These have all been said to me, without provocation, after polite refusals of come-ons. If you find that surprising, you haven't been in a bar recently. And by recently, I mean ever.

What LZ Granderson's article (which I will not link to, but is fully google-able) about child tramps failed to address is what got us here in the first place. What makes little girls want to dress scantily, suggestively. Why it's not their fault, or their mothers' fault for buying the stupid crap, but all of our fault for wondering aloud in the doctor's office while reading US Weekly if Jessica Alba is pregnant again because she looks a little... thick, if you know what I mean. We don't set boundaries, but failing to do so at the mall is the least of our problems. We need to identify the ways in which we propagate this poison. Start saying, in front of our daughters, I LOOK FUCKING GREAT TODAY, instead of, "Do these give me a muffintop?" Better yet, I AM A GOD DAMNED GENIUS WITH A CROCK POT or whatever other affirmations actually matter to their lives. Start setting an example of good. Of smart and interested and involved instead of not-really-pretty-but-trying. Yes, stop buying that glittery "girly" junk, those track suits and gross underthings, but if we imbue girls with worth beyond or instead of their looks, they won't want it anyway. 

There are ways to address the problem of sexualizing children without further marginalizing women, without insulting sex workers, without contributing to the very mindset that created all those horrific screen printed slogans. LZ Granderson just wasn't interested in going there. I am, though, and I'll keep rooting for girls, advocating for them instead of shaming them for participating in the cultural mess we made long before they got here. 

Sorry, Chelsea; it was just too perfect not to use. Love you/miss you.