Everyone Wins

I’m aware that the purpose of many of The Atlantic’s opinion pieces are intended to provoke commentary and generate traffic. In and of itself, that’s not a bad thing. The world needs more analytical thinking, and if even a fraction of that traffic engages in some critical thought, society will benefit. I do wish, however, that they would steer the conversation in directions that are controversial in a more positive manner. This article is a case in point.

The article’s main thesis questions a basic assumption about paid leave for new Mothers versus Fathers and addresses the potential fallacy, especially in modern times, that one is more useful than the other. This seems sufficiently controversial and socially progressive by itself. Unfortunately, it stumbles by trying to make the benefits of paternity leave into a competition:

“While paid paternity leave may feel like an unexpected gift, the biggest beneficiaries aren’t men, or even babies. In the long run, the true beneficiaries of paternity leave are women, and the companies and nations that benefit when women advance.”

First of all, don’t “companies and nations” include men and children? Second, how exactly are they going to accurately measure a fuzzy word like “benefit” to the point that they can rank who receives the most? Instead of wasting time picking a fight about this, our focus should be on the fact that this policy should improve everyone’s lives in some way. Men will feel less pressure to return to the workplace, women will face less discrimination by being “baby tracked,” and even those without babies will reap the benefit of retaining a greater percentage of female talent. The policy would especially help the lower socioeconomic levels that are sometimes overlooked by feminist policy making. When both parents are working to make ends meet, giving paid paternity leave is a financial boon which defers day care costs without reducing the net household income.

The article then goes on to say this:

“paternity leave [...] is a brilliant and ambitious form of social engineering: a behavior-modification tool that has been shown to boost male participation in the household, enhance female participation in the labor force, and promote gender equity in both domains”

All of those results sound great, but quite a few men don’t need to be engineered or psyched into spending more time with their children. Many are already frustrated with their work-life balance, and their numbers are increasing. Was it really necessary to use words that, dare I say, patronises men and possibly alienates the women who are partnered with these men, never mind gay male parents who adopt. The rest of the article presents a sound, cogent, and sometimes impassioned argument in favor of paternity leave, but I nearly missed it all because I was so irritated by these two passages.

We cannot avoid biology (until someone invents a reliable artificial womb), and that means women are the baby makers and need time off work after giving birth. What we can change is the attitude that women are more naturally suited to the raising of children than men are. Women are socially conditioned to the role just as men are led away from it, but that needs to stop if we are to achieve gender equality in all spheres of life: home, career, and child care. Antagonising men by making social change into a competition isn’t going to help bring it about. Emphasizing the point that all of society, including the men, will benefit tremendously just might sway some opinions.

The Blueberry Milkshake Moment

This post is written in service of soon-to-be birth Mothers and their support crew that this moment may be in your futures as well.

Here's the back story. I am not normally a milkshake drinker (yes, I'm weird like that...and many other ways), but I am a sucker for chocolate. Toward the end of my pregnancy, my husband made a delicious shake that involved chocolate chips, blueberries, and vanilla ice cream. At the time, I enjoyed his concoction quite a bit so he stocked up on all three ingredients thinking that this was a quick, high calorie food that I could consume during the early newborn weeks.

Fast forward to one evening when our new baby's age was still measured in days, when my postpartum hormones were crashing, and when I was exhausted from a marathon two hour nursing session. I was hungry. Very hungry. I was also immobile due to the nursing infant on my lap. My wonderful, supportive husband offered to make me a milkshake, and I eagerly accepted. 

Upon his return, I snatched the full glass from his hand and gulped at the drink like a parched woman emerging from a desert, but my thirst quencher turned out to be a mirage. The drink had not nearly enough chocolate chips. The balance of flavors was all wrong - terribly, horribly wrong! I broke down weeping and handed back the vile thing, accusing him of being thoroughly inconsiderate to a half-starved new Mother. How could he be so careless? So unthinking! What sort of lousy husband would do that to his wife?

He watched, half offended, half alarmed, as I sobbed uncontrollably. I do not normally cry like this, not for sad movies, not even over great human tragedy, but this was far from a normal moment. No, this was a moment that many a woman who has recently given birth will recognize: when she loses all grip on sanity and self-control and realizes she is at the mercy of the biochemical stew encased in her bag of skin and bones. 

In our family, it's become known as The Blueberry Milkshake Moment.

Had one (or more) of your own? Ready to laugh about it? If so, please share!

You'll Never Sleep Again

I had heard plenty about sleep deprivation after having a newborn baby so I was prepared for a few months of disturbed slumber. My baby would be sleeping through the night sometime between six months and a year old, according to all that I'd read.

Yeah, right.

Not only did that not happen, but not one piece of writing admitted that I would never again have a year with unbroken sleep. 

Here's the rundown.

0-3 months: you slept for 3 hours straight? Lucky you!

3-9 months: did you know that all those sleep experts' definition of "sleeping through the night" means five hours straight? That's right, FIVE whole hours. Actually, five hours sounds pretty good after you've lived through those first three months. If you have the luck of the ages, your baby will sleep for 12 hours at night. If you're one of the ordinary folk, your baby will continue to have diaper blowouts and hunger pangs at why-oh-why-o'clock.

9-18 months: pretty much the same story as 3-9 months, but now you can add in wake up calls for stuffy noses, vomit, and attempts to stand or walk while sleeping. Variety is the spice of life!

18-36 months: I'm going to assume the best here - no more middle of the night eating! You might actually sleep a normal 6-8 hours a night, most nights. Bodily fluids will still escape from containment, however, and you can add in night terrors (about five orders of magnitude worse than nightmares), and getting yourself out of bed to put the kids back in bed. Oh, and if you're working on night time potty training (Exciting and exhausting! A two-for-one deal!), you can tack on middle of the night calls for help to either visit the bathroom or change the bedding.

3 - 8 years: you might be wishing your child were still wearing night diapers at some juncture during this period. Other than that, the laundry list (ha ha ha) is about the same as before, plus run of the mill nightmares. On the flip side, your child now knows that the house does not go to sleep when s/he does. You may even reach the milestone of seeing midnight on New Year's Eve again.

8 - 12 years: these are the years when your child will be able to handle everything on his or her own all night long, and you will find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Okay, fine, I can dream, can't I? Night terrors and bed wetting should be in the past (if not, you have my sympathies), and your child may even deal with middle of the night bathroom trips alone. Vomit, high fever watch, and bad dreams are still on the agenda. 

13-18 years: you will now be imagining all the terrible ways in which a) you are screwing up your child's future, b) your child is screwing up his/her own future, or c) both, and then wondering why you aren't busy sleeping while your kid is peacefully slumbering in bed. Seriously, go back to sleep! They're finally leaving you alone. In fact, they're afraid to imagine what happens in your bedroom at night.

18 years and beyond: I don't even want to know what's in store for me after my daughter is an adult. Will I finally sleep well every night, as I did when I was growing up while my parents suffered? If you're not going to answer, "Yes, absolutely, no doubt about it" in the comments, then keep quiet please. We all need  a little hope in life.