Must Watch Video: Pregnant in America
Indoctrination in the classroom
Although I was worried that the inauguration silliness would penetrate my daughter’s school, I decided to trust its international outlook and not ask whether there were special plans for Inauguration Day. When I picked my daughter up in the afternoon, I coyly asked her if they had watched anything on TV that day. She said no, but knew what I was asking and told me that they hung Obama’s picture on the wall. She insisted showing me the picture in her classroom (my little angel! she knew I would take issue with it).
There were two photos of Obama on the wall – the first a tiny head pasted onto the calendar to mark Inauguration Day. Of course, that is without offense. But then next to the calendar hung a large head shot. I was shocked, and composed the following email to her teacher (I would have done this in person, but I pick my daughter up from the after-school program and therefore seldom see the teacher, whom I actually adore).
Dear A,
I write to express my concern about the sudden injection of politics into your classroom. I would not expect students at an international school, both in name and in student population, to pledge allegiance to the United States flag, so I was surprised today to see posted on the wall a large photograph of our new president.
Had there been a similarly large photograph of his predecessor on the wall since the beginning of the school year, I would have no word of complaint. Had I confidence that John McCain’s portrait would have found a place in the classroom, should he have won, I similarly would have no word of complaint. But the implied message, of putting a photograph of President Obama, when none was hung of President Bush, is that one is worthy of the honor to be paid by the class and one was not, an act that I deem far outside the bounds of the classroom.
Although M [A's assistant] explained to me that the students wanted a picture of President Obama on the wall, I still am not comfortable with this decision. American history and civics form almost no part of the Kindergarten curriculum (I am only aware of a Weekly Reader featuring both Obama and McCain leading up to the election), and this is as I would prefer it, if it cannot be done in a balanced way. If you were to hang a chain of portraits of all the American presidents from George Washington through to Barack Obama, I would have no problem. If I knew that a similar request by my daughter to hang on the wall a photograph of George W. Bush when he was still president would have been equally honored, perhaps I would be at ease. If I knew that other parents’ inevitable complaints about a portrait of President Bush would receive the same response that I will receive, perhaps I would be at ease.
But, in truth, never were sitting presidents so prominently displayed in any classroom from my childhood. This amounts to indoctrination, and I am not comfortable with it. A classroom is not a democracy. The children are merely echoing the opinions of their parents, which reflects the indoctrination that results from a certain type of parenting. Although other parents may choose to take advantage of their children’s impressionable mind, I do not, and I do not want the schoolroom to become an avenue for the same sort of indoctrination. This situation now requires me to explain such complex issues to my daughter at too young an age for her to truly understand them.
I apologize for having to write this in an email, but I am only at the school at a late hour and may not see you tomorrow. And please accept this critique in good faith.
New Yorker Article: Baby Food: If breast is best, why are women bottling their milk?
I have just read this fantastic article in the New Yorker. Although not seemingly written by a woman who has breastfed or pumped, it affirms my decision to leave my job and not work for six months, putting my family in great financial peril. Please read the article. Here are some highlights:
“Behind closed doors, the nation begins to look like a giant human dairy farm.”
quoting Rousseau: “When mothers deign to nurse their own children, then morals will reform themselves.”
“The stark difference between employer-sponsored lactation programs and flesh-and-blood family life is difficult to overstate. Pumps put milk into bottles, even though many of breast-feeding’s benefits to the baby, and all of its social and emotional benefits, come not from the liquid itself but from the smiling and cuddling (stuff that people who aren’t breast-feeding can give babies, too). Breast-feeding involves cradling your baby; pumping involves cupping plastic shields on your breasts and watching your nipples squirt milk down a tube. But this truth isn’t just rarely overstated; it’s rarely stated at all.”
“Pumps can be handy; they’re also a handy way to avoid privately agonizing and publicly unpalatable questions: is it the mother, or her milk, that matters more to the baby?”
The Utility of Obnoxious Children
On our way from ballet to Costco the other weekend, my daughter fixated on something that happened at her piano graduation recital a couple weeks earlier. One boy in the class, older than the rest, selected as one of his pieces a song from farther along in the book than the class had thus far progressed. My daughter had also actually learned the song, because it is well-known, which most of the songs in the book are not. She knew, however, that it would not have been appropriate to play it at the graduation recital. Why it would not have been appropriate was the topic of conversation in the car that day.
She began by asking why the boy should not have played the song. I explained that although we too had gone ahead in the book to learn the song, playing it for the graduation recital is rude to both the teacher and to fellow students. By playing a song that the class had not yet covered, the boy was saying to the teacher, “I don’t need you to learn this song” and to his fellow students, “I am better than all of you because I alone can play ahead in the book.” Second, by playing that song now, he would have one less song to choose from for the graduation recital that covers that material. Third, he had actually signed up for another piece, from among the songs we had actually learned, which many students had wanted to play, but couldn’t because he had raised his hand most fervently.
My daughter found this explanation fascination, for during this fifteen-minute car ride, she asked me at least three more times the very same question, about why this boy should not have played this piece at the recital. I made my case three times. She understood what I was saying, but the discussion fascinated her (just as do discussions about why soy can be bad for you and why smoking is a weakness in moral character).
I am thrilled that this topic fascinates her. I know she had the right instinct – away from obnoxious behavior – and empathize with her need to understand in concrete terms why humility is important. The bad behavior of others provides teaching moments and also affirmation of her good behavior. Similarly, when a girl took snowballs and threw them onto the front steps of her school, I did not hesitate, within hearing of the girl and her father, to explain how putting snow where someone has once cleared snow is not very thoughtful of that person’s efforts. Although the bad behavior of children and other adults can stress me more than it should, I just remind myself that it offers real-life cautionary tales.
Working to Week 38: Too Long?
“We don’t have a culture in the United States of taking rest before the birth of a child because there is an assumption that the real work comes after the baby is born,” said Guendelman. “People forget that mothers need restoration before delivery. In other cultures, including Latino and Asian societies, women are really expected to rest in preparation for this major life event.”
According to new research from UC Berkeley, I should consider leaving my current job quite a bit before 38 weeks, to reduce my risk of caesarean section.
Now I am torn. We need the money that I would earn from three more weeks of my working. It would provide for one more month of rent to sustain us through our self-funded maternity leave before I resume working in the fall. Is the stress-level of my job low enough that I need not worry about restore myself before the birth?
Furthermore, my daughter came into this world with amazing rapidity – only two hours of labor. I gave birth naturally, in a birth house and in a birthing tub. We are planning a homebirth this time. Is my risk of C-Section so low, that we can afford to challenge these odds?
I don’t know what to do.
Falling in Love Wisely (If you plan to get married and have children)
1. Fall in love with someone whose mother tongue is different from yours. Then you will give your children the tremendous gift of natural bilingualism.
2. Do not fall in love with someone with a history of mental illness. First, that can be inherited. Second, mental illness affects parenting.
3. Do not fall in love with someone whose own parents are divorced. Plenty of research on this. See, for example, Understanding the Divorce Cycle: The Children of Divorce in their Own Marriages
4. Do not fall in love with someone with debt (unless you have the means to pay it off).
…
Any other universals?
In Defense of Speaking Languages Other than English
My daughter is fully trilingual. I speak English with her, and my husband speaks one of his two mother tongues with her. Acquisition of the third language began when we were living in Europe and continues here in the States at an immersion program that she has attended since pre-Kindergarten. Our family language is English, but my husband only uses his language when he speaks to her, even when out in public. Some non-native English speaking parents may use English with their children when out in public, for fear of drawing attention to themselves as foreigners or immigrants, but thankfully, not my husband.
I fully support my husband when he speaks to our daughter in his mother tongue, even if that may exclude me from some conversations and even if he risks incurring the judgment of strangers. First, he has a limited amount of time to spend with our daughter, and we both prioritize our daughter’s acquisition of this language. He needs every minute. Furthermore, if he only spoke in his mother tongue at home, he would restrict the contexts in which the language is used, and, in turn, the range of our daughter’s vocabulary. As an added bonus, because his language is rarely known by non-native speakers, he can correct her behavior discretely and even comment on the bad behavior of adults and other children without them knowing. Luckily, no one has ever said anything to my husband about not speaking English (which, by the way, is better than most native-speakers).
One question I have is why bilingualism has become a dirty word among conservatives (I listened to Laura Ingraham on the radio this morning on the way to work) and the use of languages other than English on American soil an offense. With all the known intellectual benefits of bilingualism (the kids are smarter), why can’t the Spanish-speaking background of immigrants, legal or not, be cultivated to their advantage?
On a side, but perhaps related, note, a friend of mine recently asked whether by learning three languages, my daughter has had trouble mastering one completely. NOT AT ALL!!!! Although it is common wisdom that bilingual children speak later, my daughter spoke early and from a very early age articulated words and expressed herself with the sophistication of child many years older. Knowing more than one language or speaking a different language at home is not a handicap!
The key, I believe, is authenticity. Each situation should be authentic. I do not believe that children of kindergarten-age and younger should learn a language. Rather, they should find themselves immersed in one or more languages other than their mother tongue. The first thing a woman or man can do is to fall in love wisely, with a non-native English speaker. Second, you can live with your family in a country where English is not the dominant language. I suppose you could hire a nanny who speaks another language (but isn’t that a bit pretentious?). And immersion schooling is of course an option, and one that we use, but in our case, it is built on the foundation of our early years living in a country where that language is spoken and through extended visits from a grandmother who speaks that language.
Other than that, I would say that you are out of luck. This is a shame, but I think the struggling about which my friend had heard and asked me about was the result of inauthenticity (perhaps also understood as lacking a compelling reason) in the learning of the second and third languages.
Attentive Parenting
We live in a metropolitan area populated by a majority of poorly behaving adults, most clearly evidenced by the their offensively inconsiderate driving habits. I can only assume that they were all once poorly behaving children. Because I must deal with these poorly raised adults each and every day, I am very sensitive to the sight of poorly behaving children. So yes, I may not like your children (in response to the recent Motherlode post, “Do Strangers Really Hate My Kids?”)
Based on my own observations, the worse the behavior of the child, the greater the inattention of the parents to that child, at least in public. Out in the world, my husband and I never take our eyes of our daughter. We are vigilant, but we adore her, so we cannot not look at her. In December, we were at a holiday celebration at our Sunday language school. I was seated at a table, and my husband was chatting with another father. Our daughter was cavorting with the other children in the middle of the room. At one point, she walked over to a drum propped on its side and leaning against a chair and tapped it with her foot. Within seconds, both my husband and I were at her side, each in our own language, asking her what she was doing. She knew she had done bad and did not like us going on at length about her misdeed. So we let up and moved on. But she knows that we are always watching.
When we lived overseas, we lived in a country where parents made a point of ignoring their children on the playground as a statement about how they cultivate the independence of their children (attachment parenting is unknown in this country). Children could throw sand, wield sticks, and otherwise terrorize other children without any repercussions (unless, of course, I was on the playground). When we visited a neighboring country, each parent was within two steps of his or her child on the playground, and although the children were pretty wild, I felt so safe with my gentle daughter on this playground, because I knew that I was not responsible for protecting her from the bad behavior of the other children. Now, is it a coincidence that the citizens of our country of residence are notoriously out only for themselves and those of the country that we visited are known for how deeply they care about others?
So, you see, the bad behavior of children is not charming. It is the means by which nasty societies perpetuate themselves.
Staying at Home
I returned to work today after a gloriously long break, and it is pure misery. I will work until two weeks before my due date at the end of March, but from then until September, I will stay at home full time with my new baby. Now, I can easily leave this job, because I hate it. I am overqualified for it and feel my mind numbing as I perform its myriad of administrative tasks. Perhaps, if I had a position for which I am qualified and which I found intellectually engaging, I would be tempted to put the babe in daycare, but more likely, I wouldn’t have had another child at all, because I firmly believe that one shouldn’t have a child, if you aren’t going to raise it, at least for the first few years. Choosing to have a child is not about the mother-to-be’s wants and needs, but about those of the baby-to-be.
Even now, with the babe in my womb, I feel that I should be with him or her in a way that I cannot be while at work. During the Christmas break, I could rest my tired body (growing a baby is exhausting!) and just think about the baby, in a way that I cannot do while sitting at this wretched desk. I had time to prepare my home for the baby’s arrival and nourish my body with food eaten at a table instead of at a desk. I spent quality time with my daughter, this baby’s big sister, after school, rather than collapsing on the couch after tiring myself out at work. I spared my baby the stress of our morning and afternoon commute. In truth, even a pregnant mother should stay-at-home.
Now, for us, my not working once the baby is born will put us in financial peril. We will likely turn to public assistance, in some form or another (which is not easy to contemplate as a conservative). I will look for work-at-home writing and editing opportunities. But, I just cannot imagine not being with this baby once it is in this world.
