Cynical Mom

Politicians aren't the only ones who need good PR

The pro-breastfeeding lobby really needs to improve its marketing and public relations. Take for example this quote from a list of breastfeeding myths by one of the current gurus of breastfeeding, Jack Newman:

6. A mother who bleeds from her nipples should not breastfeed.

Not true! Though blood makes the baby spit up more, and the blood may even show up in his bowel movements, this is not a reason to stop breastfeeding the baby. Nipples that are painful and bleeding are not worse than nipples that are painful and not bleeding. It is the pain the mother is having that is the problem. This nipple pain can often be helped considerably. Get help.Sometimes mothers have bleeding from the nipples that is obviously coming from inside the breast and is not usually associated with pain. This often occurs in the first few days after birth and settles within a few days. The mother should breastfeed! If bleeding does not stop soon, the source of the problem needs to be investigated, but the mother should keep breastfeeding.

Uh, gee. How comforting that you can BREASTFEED THROUGH THE BLEEDING. Nipples that are painful and bleeding are not worse than nipples that are painful and not bleeding!? Spoken like a man who has never had personal experience with nipples that are painful and bleeding. Get help - such as help from someone who will tell you that don't worry, you can continue breastfeeding through the pain, and the bleeding! [full disclosure: I had a la leche league leader tell me this once in an attempt to make me feel better, I nearly hung up on her]

Yes, I know the point he's trying to make. But he really needs to learn more about marketing the point versus just stating it flat-out. Take into account the target audience, which I presume is women who are already something other than wholly committed to breastfeeding (and perhaps these women are also currently in pain or bleeding, yes?). Is that audience going to respond well to advice that says "don't worry about the blood, cheerio, spit spot!"?

Then there's the whole night-sleeping aspect. I recently ran across this gem ("Myth: good babies sleep through the night"):

One more thing. Who says 8 hours of solitary uninterrupted sleep is (1) normal, (2) healthy, or even (3) possible? I'm 52 years old, not trying to double my weight, and I wake up every 3-4 hours at night. I sleep with another human, a dog that snores, and occasionally a cat. So what? Does that mean I've failed to meet some standard of "Sleep Excellence?"

Again, who are you trying to convince? Chances are it is someone who is currently extremely sleep deprived. Your little "wake up, blink, turn over and fall asleep" twice a night does NOT compare. I could go on some more, but I've already ranted on this subject before. Let's just say it's a touchy issue.

KellyMom has a much more balanced take on the whole sleeping-through-the-night-as-a-goal issue, making the point that if mom and baby don't mind, then back the heck off. I'm totally down with that way of stating it.[1] What I think is ridiculous is the naive way in which these pro-breastfeeding messages are marketed to potential or current breastfeeding mothers. If you want more women to breastfeed, you should actually listen to them instead of just telling them what to do. When they're reading your pro-breastfeeding comments, do you think it's possible they might be sitting at their computers sobbing tired tears because they haven't slept more than 120 minutes in a row for five months? Or maybe they're doing that while simultaneously bleeding from the nipples? You're just not going to win them over with these types of messages.

Just so it's clear... I'm all for breastfeeding - iff it works for mom. If breastfeeding or pumping don't work or the mom doesn't want to, then can we just back the heck off and let mom make her own decisions?

[1] When I was struggling with breastfeeding myself, I found kellymom to be the best site around, mainly because it's very data-driven (see example), which is exactly what I want when I am researching such issues. It does get preachy, but I don't mind the preachiness as long as I can see the data behind it.

"All" isn't just a laundry detergent

Fred at Stone Court & Elizabeth at Half-Changed World talked recently (here and here, respectively) about different aspects of career + parenting and "having it all".

Fred's discusses the nuances of what 'having it all' really means, and my knee-jerk reaction was "But I thought 'having it all' was all about being happy with whatever you had?" It's like the current debate I've seen floating around the blogosphere about whether or not the point of feminism truly is choice, and is it "ok" for a feminist to choose a stereotypically female role, if it makes them happy, or is that anti-feminist.

I've had a career and a family for a couple of years now, and only in the last 6-9 months (and only really intensely in the last 2-3 months) have I finally felt like I had it all, because I was finally happy with both parts of my life.

I love the quality and quantity of time I spend with my son, I love my job and what I get to do at work, I love my company, my group and my manager for their willingness to adapt to my needs and desires, I love my son's daycare and the amazing things he learns there, I love how much he adores his friends at daycare, I love the person my son is growing into, and I love myself more for finally not being so stressed out or worried that I've made an incorrect choice.

What made the change? A few things, one of them happened only as recently as last night:

• Last night, I realized my son was ready to move his bedtime back For roughly the first 18 months of his life, he went to bed at 6pm. This didn't work so well with our 9-5 jobs. Lately he's been waking up earlier and earlier and so last night we put him to bed at 7:30 to see if that would help, and he slept in to a very reasonable hour. Tonight we kept him up until 7:15 and had a blast swimming in the hot tub together. I am very hopeful that he will keep to this new schedule, allowing us more sleep in the morning as well as more time with him after work and before bed, a win-win if I've ever seen one.
• My job has gotten more and more interesting over the last few months. 6 months ago I stepped down from a high-stress, high-reward, very challenging job that I enjoyed but that was pushing me over the edge. I moved into a part-time position with more flexibility in responsibilities and expectations on my time. Over the last six months my responsibilities have morphed, I've gotten to work on very fun projects that were very rewarding internally and yet I saw clear benefit to the team in me being involved.
• For a long time I struggled with doubt about whether or not I was making the wrong choice in continuing to work, will I regret it ten years from now, etc. I have finally achieved peace with my current choice. Part of this was the realization that I do not believe that having a stay at home parent (of either gender) is always better than having "outsourced" childcare. In our particular case, I think my son is happier in daycare than he would be were I at home all day with him (and vice versa), and that he and I will both reap many rewards from this environment over the coming years.

The last point will surely come across to some as a defensive reaction to the fact that I like working, that I have to convince myself that daycare is a good thing for my kid. I don't know how to respond to that, it's not the kind of point you can ever successfully argue against ("You're being defensive!" "No I'm not!" "See? There you go again!"), except to say that I know myself and my son better than anyone else.

I've spent a long time over the last few weeks turning around this idea in my head, I couldn't quite believe how comfortable I was with my position as it just doesn't seem natural - "Do I really believe that my son is going to be just fine with someone else raising him 30-40 hours a week instead of me? How could it be possible that this is better for him than me always being there?" I think the second question only comes up because of our society's current inclination to push that  by default, mother care is best. Of course, I'm going one step further and saying that it's not just that father care is also great, but that even other solutions that don't involve a parent as a primary caretaker during the day may be more than just "an acceptable solution given no alternatives", but rather  a perfectly valid choice even with full-time parental care being an alternative - for some families.

I feel very naked right now, standing up and saying that I'm a mother, and at this point in our lives, I think my son's better off in a daycare than with me all day. It is a very unnatural and unnerving thought, even to me.

Now let's just turn the clock forward three more months and see what happens when POTUS arrives... :-)

What a great discount!

Check out this lovely easel. Normally $115, but it's on sale for $114.99!

I think I was just threatened by a two year old

While eating breakfast (waffles, which he enjoys very much), he said "Chicken nuggets?" I told him no, we're not having chicken nuggets, we have waffles.

He thought for a minute and then said "Mama... chicken nuggets... I cry... remeber?"

Aka "Hey Mom, remember the last time you refused to give me chicken nuggets and how much I screamed? You wouldn't want that to happen again, would you?"

Again with the nature/nurture

My parents recently left after spending most of a week with me. During that time, I had a variety of interesting conversations with them about life, the universe and everything. I introduced them to Freakonomics and Malcolm Gladwell, and I learned more about the grandfather I never met.

One of the conversations my mom and I returned to several times over the course of the last few days was nature vs nurture. My mom's position is that she tried very, very hard to make sure her four girls (out of five children) were not exposed to too much gender stereotyping, and yet they (we) all adored Barbie, so there you go, nature it is.

My position is that if she were the only influence on us, then perhaps we wouldn't have adored Barbie quite so much, but it's just the way of the world that children's peers and other people with whom they have some contact end up influencing their direction as well... and well, I know all my friends played with Barbie too. Although there was that one kid, Kevin, who in second grade could draw the most amazing Ninjas, I hope I complimented him on them at least once as I found them fascinating.

My perspective, being one of those four girls, is that she did a fantastic job, as best she could have, given the rest of the societal influences on us wee ones.

I clearly remember playing with barbie and my little pony, but I also clearly remember my box full of little green army men and hating wearing dresses or skirts. I managed to make it through high school without having any idea of how to put on makeup (still true). I early on ditched purses for the much more convenient wallet in the back pocket or, if needed, backpack. I believe I managed to make it almost to adulthood without any idea that some people considered it odd for women (and more specifically mothers) to work if they don't absolutely have to. My mom was mostly stay at home when the kids were young, although I do remember that at least when I was young, she took on a variety of jobs or outside interests such as writing for the local paper, participating in various organizations, etc. I always figured that I myself would work when I was a mother, and since I crossed that threshold, I've had a much harder time struggling with the idea of staying home than the idea of staying at work.

In a visit to my parents' house last year, my mother said to me: "My wish for you is that you have a daughter some day, because they are a wonderful thing for a mother." One of the reasons I wanted a boy with my first pregnancy was my fear of raising a girl. I struggled mightily with self esteem issues until about... three years ago. Now it's only a wee struggle instead of a mighty one. I've gained enough mothering confidence with my firstborn that I feel I will be able to tackle what I perceive to be the challenges of raising a girl, and I would welcome those challenges indeed if this one turns out to be a girl. Of course, I still hope that I will be able to forge and maintain a relationship with my son(s) as strong as any I would have with a daughter, but that statement really sticks with me.

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Thanks for the warning, Mr. Gas Station

I always wonder... did they have to put this warning up there after they caught someone siphoning gas with their mouth? Or got sued by that person when the mouth-based-siphoning didn't work as expected?

Shake your sweet thang

He's known the word 'booty' for a while, because of Veggie Booty[1], this "food", I guess you'd call it, that is basically miniscule pieces of kale and spinach sprayed on top of flavorless puffs. It's not exactly nutritious but it's better than most of the crackery concoctions out there and so it's a popular thing for toddlers to munch on, at least here in granola Seattle.

Then a while back, we taught him that "booty" is another word for pirate treasure because we  A)  are huge beastie boys fans, B) have yet to get burned by him saying 'bad' words in front of someone else and C) are huge beastie boys fans.

Last week while flipping through radio stations in the car, a song from the 90s with the refrain "Shake your booty" came on. It was only on for a few seconds and Jared started singing "Shake your booooteeee" with a gleeful giggle.

Now this week, he acts it out. While eating a cupful of booty in the car, he started shaking the booty up and down and saying "Shake your booooteeeeee".

Oh boy, I lost it laughing so hard. I have got to remember this the first time he hits his younger sibling or gets detention.

[1] I searched on safeway.com for 'booty' and the second hit is toilet paper. That's all I'm sayin.

Swear words

At some point in my late teens, I don't recall if I was in high school or college, I was eating dinner with my mom and dad, and in the conversation I used the word "frigging". I don't remember the context.

My dad pushed his chair back and stood up and said "There will be no truck driver talk at this table young lady!".

I can't remember if I was enough of a smartass at the time to share my doubts that a truck driver would ever say 'friggin'.

But to this day, I never use the F word in front of my parents. S-word, sure, I can get away with that. But certainly not the F-bomb (and on that note, how come it's never the S-Bomb? Or the A-Bomb? Oh, wait...)