The Omnivore's Dilemma

L. said to me yesterday, "Did you know that water mandrills are omnivores, Mom?"

(No, there is no creature called a "water mandrill." No, my son cannot hit a baseball to save his life, but he knows the difference between an omnivore, a carnivore, and an herbivore. And lately he has been calling himself a "sheep-dog-hippo" and a "rhino-giraffe" and other creatures Dr. Seuss would have a field day illustrating.)

So much happens in my Momming life...and I have not been writing it down here in this blog.

So much so that I am pondering taking a break. I love you dearly, O eight followers, I do, but the truth is it's all feeling like a bit much: my writing blog, popcorn, freelance work, parenting...and something else I have up my sleeve. My dilemma is whether or not to continue Momming.

In Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, she suggests "giving something up." (I think she had refined sugar or smoking in mind.) I think she's right.

Here's one last photo of the water mandrill, dressed like a tiger, to tie you over 'til we meet again (and we will. Think of this as a hiatus).

Love,
Susie (and L.)

Reading a New Blog on a Saturday Morning

It's Saturday morning and while B and L were prepping themselves (i.e., putting on their unofficial uniforms of baggy pants, T shirts, and sweatshirts) to go out the door to get some goodies for breakfast, I stumbled upon a new blog via this post by Ruth Whippman on popcorntheblog. I found Ruth's interview with Julia completely delightful and I think you should read it too. Go now. Read.

Incidentally, as he was heading out the door I said to L, "I'm reading the greatest blog post." He stopped in his tracks. "Wow!" he said. "Wow!"

Then he asked me to carefully save the "movie farm" he is making on the coffee table (the cows are all watching a book/"movie" about rhinos and hippos) and I swore up and down I would not touch it--only to carelessly shove my laptop onto the table two seconds later and promptly knock down the barn.

Luckily he was already out the door or this would have been a Big Deal.

Late Summer Pasta from Paige's Garden

This is what was waiting for me in my garden when I got back from my travels to the East Coast this summer.

Carrots, spring onions, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, oregano...

Yesterday on NPR there was a program about school lunches in the Bay Area, namely about how crappy they are. One commentator pointed out how unconscionable that really is, given the incredible food we have here. And we do--when I think about leaving California, one of the things that holds me back is realizing that I may never have it this good again, food-wise. Besides our tiny garden that somehow managed, over the summer, to yield enough for us to do an egg exchange, we also live around the corner from the best produce market in, well, the world--plus a cheese shop, a fish shop, and the kind of butcher shop where I'd eat almost anything in the place (and trust me, I'm picky).

It all got me thinking about how, while we sometimes struggle to make ends meet and do all the things we want to do--and here in the Bay Area, there is a lot of wealth, so you notice when you have the crappiest car in the lot, if you know what I mean--we are incredibly lucky to have the resources to feed L. good, healthy food.

I am not a food blogger, but today, friends, I am posting a recipe for Late Summer Pasta, which we made last night from some of THIS incredible bounty from my friend Paige's garden. She lives a couple of miles away, which means, in this land of micro-climates, that she can grow real tomatoes and basil like they're going out of style.

Basil, tomatillos, cuke, tomatoes, squash...

Late Summer Pasta (from Paige's garden)

3 very large ripe tomatoes (heirloom or beefsteak), or the equivalent, chopped small

1 cup or so beautiful sweet yellow or orange cherry tomatoes, halved

1 bunch fresh basil, chopped

3 T. capers, or more, to taste

1-2 cloves of garlic, pressed or smooshed into paste with the flat side of a knife

1 container little fresh mozzarella balls or equivalent amount of ricotta salata

A fragrant peppery green extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Maple syrup, agave, honey, or sugar (optional; see below)

Grated lemon rind (optional; see below)

1 pound of pasta, gluten-free or regular (fresh pasta would also be divine)

About two hours before you want to eat, place all the tomatoes in a nonreactive bowl. Add garlic, chopped basil, the capers, salt and pepper to taste, mozzarella or ricotta salata, and a generous glug of olive oil. Toss gently, let sit for 15 to 20 minutes, then taste. You want a nice mix of garlicky, salty, tangy, and sweet. If the tomatoes are too tangy, you’ll need to soften the flavor with a little bit of sweetener. If they’re very sweet and you want more tang, go ahead and grate in some lemon rind.

When you're ready to eat, cook pasta until al dente in salted water. Toss with a bit of olive oil and your sauce. Correct seasoning and serve.

Serves 4.

Note: We ate this with Trader Joe's lemon-pepper pasta for the boys, and Tinkyada gluten-free penne for the Mom. That's me.

Sacrificing Career for Kids

So earlier this week a job opportunity came my way. Well--opportunity sounds lofty. I learned about an interesting teaching job and pursued it to the extent that I talked to a fellow teacher at the school and had planned to send over my CV to the headmaster. It's a temporary position, a few months this spring, at an independent middle school teaching history and Language Arts. I like my current job fine, but change is good, and since I'm adjunct I can always take a semester off and come back (this is the positive spin! The negative? They can always choose not to rehire me). A new job at a new school could be a walk down a new road. You never know, right?

A road. In California.

I was excited about it for a minute, and discussed it with B. over dinner-making the other night.

"So it's eight to eleven, every day, so you'd have to drop off L. at school every morning," I said. "And the job is so far up in the hills I'd have to drive. So you'd be biking L. every morning. And, wait, I volunteer at L.'s school every Friday, so I guess I'd have to ask the board to approve me as a non-participating parent, and pay the extra couple hundred dollars a month to be a non-participating parent, and not get to do that anymore. Hmm."

"We'd also have to start paying for early-morning care," B. said. "I can't get to work as late as 9:30 every day."

Pause. I thought about logistics for a long second. Here is what I thought to myself: We are a one-car family. It rains in the winter in Northern California. So some mornings, the bike doesn't work, and what would B. do then? Furthermore, I have committed to participating at L.'s school. I like participating at L.'s school. L. likes it when I participate at his school. And even if I made more money than I do now at this new job, the added costs of early-morning care and non-participation and gas would potentially make this job financially disadvantageous. For a one-semester gig? That might open a door, sure, but who knows?

So I let it go.

"Is that a real bummer?" B. asked me.

And that's what I've been thinking about. Was it a bummer?

The bare truth is that no, it was not a bummer. It was actually, really, totally, okay.

Bummer

But the experience has gotten me thinking. I'm always interested in momming and work, and the choices we have to make as parents. A friend with two teenage kids told me the other day that though she'd looked into a great graduate program that she desperately wanted to attend, she realized she couldn't do it because it would be way too stressful for her children. These opportunities come up, and sometimes, because we have kids, we miss them. I realize that my current job is dead-end. I realize this a little too often. Everyone knows that adjunct lecturing doesn't usually lead to tenure-track professoring, lots of prestige, or lots of money. Hell, I don't even have benefits through my job. But what it does give me is some stimulation, some experience, enough money to justify the hours I work unpaid (on writing, on blogging, on housecleaning and laundry) when L. is at school. And those things are not to be sneered at. When L. is older, maybe I will have a more prestigious work life. But that time, I'm afraid, is not now.

Eek--what would Anne Marie Slaughter think?

How about you, readers? What career sacrifices have you made for your kids? How do you balance working and parenting?

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

First change first: I believe I made it easier to comment on my blog. You used to have to have some sort of profile, but no more--now I am accepting anonymous posts. So, if you'd like to share some thoughts, now is the time. I'd love to know that people are reading!
--

L, first day of school.

The end of summer, for me, is always a time of change. Since I stopped hating school in the latter elementary years I have found these late August/early September days to be a lovely time of renewal and growth. (I've always found this a bit ironic, since actually, in fall, everything is dying.) Now that I'm on year two of living in the part of Northern California where the seasons are so subtle you barely notice when they flip over, I'm detecting a slight pigmentation change in the leaves, a little more briskness in the air, and a feeling of excitement about what's to come this year: with my writing, with my family, with my teaching. Fall is here!

L. has had a big change: he started preschool. I wasn't sure, quite honestly, what the difference between preschool and his previous daycare situation would be--and part of me lamented switching him, since life at Lorena's was so fulfilling. But a week into a cooperative preschool, I'm so glad we did. I am having a mini-love affair with the whole experience: the consistency of a daily schedule, the quality of the teachers, the nice parents, the cute kids, the sand pile and the art materials and the trains and the animals and the playdough, oh! L. is more stimulated than he's been in months, I am enjoying the community, and the transition has been virtually seamless.

A big change is the cooperative nature of this new school; I volunteer there every Friday. And we all have administrative jobs to do, like fundraising, buildings & grounds, membership. My job? Playdough maker. I repeat: playdough maker.

Here is a picture of my kitchen overrun with vomit-colored goop that was absolutely impossible to mix.

Five minutes later, it still wouldn't budge.

Finally, I wised up and got out the Kitchenaid mixer.

Of course, the biggest changes of all are in L. himself, who is growing up so, so fast. On the first day of school I had this sensation that I'd blink my eyes and find that instead of driving up to the gates of preschool I'd be dropping him off at college. He's tall, he's talkative, and he doesn't want to sit on my lap at circle time. It's all happening so fast. I guess if you love them you just gotta let them grow up, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. 

Hilarious!

A blog post you may find as funny as I did.

More soon!

Love,

S

Talk.

Today I am ruminating on talk.

I do too much of it. I wish I listened more. Not that I am a bad listener--more like, I just wish my life included less of the talking/listening/talking spectrum and more non-verbal tasks. Preschool co-op meeting last night, a friend's reading tonight, school meetings yesterday, school meetings today, school starting next week. Talk talk talk talk talk.

And then there's L. A bit over a week ago, when I was still with my parents back East, I woke around 7:00 a.m. to the sounds of L. and Grampa in the living room looking at an animal book. Grampa couldn't get a word in edgewise. L. was saying, "That's a baby cheetah. I'm the baby cheetah, you're the Grampa cheetah, Mumma's the Mumma cheetah, Daddy's the Daddy cheetah! That's an elephant. I'm the baby elephant, you're the Grampa elephant, Mumma's the Mumma elephant, hey Grampa! Did you know elephants live in Africa? And sometimes India? These are called trunks. These are called trunks. Baby cheetahs don't have trunks, of course. Ack-shley, I'm a baby tiger...."

Cute, I thought.

By one p.m., four p.m., seven p.m., same deal. HE HAD NOT STOPPED. I told someone about it the next day, e.g., "Yesterday, L. started talking at 7:00 and didn't stop until bedtime!"--until I realized it was bedtime a week later and he still hadn't stopped talking. 

I've been really thrilled--blessed, even--to have a verbal kid. I knew we were in for it when he had complete sentences well before two. I knew things were heating up when he started busting out words like "similar," "foundation," and "investigate." It is such a joy to have a kid who can convey his needs to you verbally. I have not once worried that L. is delayed linguistically (I've had other worries; we all do). But a kid who can talk well can also argue well, and attempt to talk his way out of things, and pitch fits with the rest of them when my talk isn't the talk he wants to hear.

Just this morning I attended an enlightening session on empathy in teaching. You know, instead of shutting down a problem student, empathizing. Instead of saying "That's inappropriate," you say, "It seems like you feel really comfortable sharing personal details." Instead of saying, "Please stop yelling at me," you say, "Wow, it seems like you're really passionate/angry/excited about this issue."

I'm going to try more of this in the classroom this semester. And more of it with L., especially at bedtimes. "It seems like you're really frustrated that it's time to lie quietly in your room with Daniel [blankie] until you fall asleep." Or "It seems like you're sad that it's bedtime. Should we talk about all the fun things we might do tomorrow?"

Hmm. Could I say, "It seems like you're really f&*^ing argumentative today, L., and Mumma's sick of it"?

Nah. Seems like that's over the line.

Daddy Skills

As you may have gleaned from my silence, I have been on vacation!

Well, sort of. I think before I had a kid--and before I had the nebulous career of online writing teacher--vacation meant something a little different. I have just, almost, about, finished my final grades for the semester, but for the past two weeks I've been working, albeit in a beautiful setting (coastal Maine). Which is kind of like vacation but not quite. And of course, being on vacation with your three-year-old is kind of like vacation with an early daily wake-up call. I can't complain. I have been with my parents, who have gotten up with L. approximately three out of five mornings, and have watched him while I've been working. And here in New England we're surrounded by uncles and aunts and cousins, all of whom have been amazingly helpful. That proverbial village! Best of all, the Papa of the operation has just joined us!

In that vein, I'll keep this short. B. sent me this rap by the same people who did "It's Gettin' Real in the Whole Foods Parking Lot." It's about Dadding, and it made me laugh. Enjoy.

Love,

Susie

Equality

A dear friend and I were talking the other night about equality and how it plays out in parenting, especially in the first six months to a year, when so many women choose to stay home--and often, then, either don't go back to work or feel unfulfilled when they do, perhaps because, in the intervening time, they missed a promotion or got otherwise left behind. (This talk started as yet another convo about that Anne-Marie Slaughter article, incidentally.) My friend, who is not a mom but is thinking about it, really doesn't get why so many women lose their careers when they have kids--and, on a related note, why more men don't stay home with their children instead. If society were truly equal, she said, wouldn't there be an alternative to the model of the mom staying home? Couldn't it be just as normal, just as incentivized, if you will, for dads to stay home and moms to go right back to work? Couldn't maternity leave and paternity leave be interchangeable, letting the parents decide who took what?

But moms have the goods, I said. The boobs.

But if, my friend asked, you formula-fed, couldn't you just go right back to work if you wanted to?

I've been thinking about this conversation since it happened. I think my friend's point was not that all women should formula-feed (or experience the pumping room) and get back in the saddle asap, but that women should have more choice about whether or not to work--that moms staying home should not be a given, the most obvious choice, the easiest choice. After all, she said, if society were equal, wouldn't there be another way to do things if you were a mom who just didn't want to stay home with your kid?

After thinking about this for a couple of days, I've come to these conclusions:

1. Yes.
2. But no.
3. But maybe yes.

Beyond the obvious issues with going right back to work (the bleeding, the healing, the resting after you've just run the marathon of your life, twice), I'm hung up on the tits, I must say. I'm a breastfeeding devotee. I stopped nursing my son at 15 months, but when we were in it, we were in it. Because I could breastfeed, and because L. loved it ("L," I'd ask, "Do you want to nurse?" "Hmm--hmm--hmm--hmm--hmmm!!" he'd reply), I sank right in. Breastfeeding was totally wonderful for me. I believe the many studies that show that kids who are breastfed are smarter, healthier, etc., and I think I can be this sanctimonious about this because...

I was not breastfed. And you all know I am a few sandwiches short of a picnic, plus overweight and unhealthy to boot.

(idiomcomics.com)

But seriously. Breastfeeding was my personal choice, and I was lucky, lucky, lucky to be able to do it for over a year while I stayed home with my son--sort of. At ten months I started working from home, part-time, and soon thereafter he started going to a nanny share three mornings a week, an arrangement that has morphed into our current scenario: he's in daycare three days, I'm home with him two. I think nursing L created an amazing bond between us. These days he is as partial to his dad as he is to me, but in the earlier days, nursing was this thing--this event, this experience, this verb--that stuck the two of us like glue. It was better than writing, even. It was lovely. Not the actual sucking, I mean, but the sweet symbiosis of being together in that way, that particular way that is so biologically humdrum and yet so completely unlike anything I had ever done before. I believe that, if it is at all possible, that every kid, and mother, should get to have that experience. I do.

But here's the bigger point.

I realized that when my friend and I were talking about equality, we were talking about paid work or work that has creative payoff--work that's public, intellectual, and monetarily valuable. Our whole basis for "equality" was about who "goes back to work." My issue with this notion is that in some sense it devalues Momming as work. I'm not blaming my friend for that--I'm saying that that's what we've been led to believe: that Momming is not work. Being in the office or the classroom or wherever else is the work.

When I say that it sounds like I'm making that classic and tired yet true statement that mothers aren't valued in society. Fine! We're undervalued. So are lots of other people. Let's move on. My point is more that--well, what if a woman should stay home with her kid, because no one else can really give the kid that foundation that's established by nursing? And what if that might be the most feminist, empowering choice in the world? What if nursing and nurturing were the work? What if that was just a given, and no one thought it made a woman "unequal?" I think that's what worries me: that when we talk too much about equality we end up sounding like it's the raw lot, the chump change, just more of your womanly troubles, to have to stay home and nurse your kid for a bit. Maybe it's just what you sign up for when you decide to become a mom, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Hmm.

Slippery slope.

Slippery slope because there are more and more different kinds of parents out there: adoptive parents, gay parents, parents who are parenting their partners' kids from previous marriages. Many, many babies come into this world in a very different scenario than mine did (you know, born on the Norwegian dole, for which I am forever thankful). And do I think those babies should be formula fed by their two dads? I do. Do I think those babies will be as loved, and as happy, and likely as healthy, if they're fed formula by their adoptive straight parents, both of whom have gone back to work? I do.

(sirlin.net)

I feel sort of refreshed when I meet a kid who is at the playground with his stay-at-home dad; at the same time, I feel wistful for the working mom heading to the pumping room at work (mostly because I wonder how exhausted she is). I feel sorry for some of the SAHMs I meet who seem so tired, so absolutely spent, so spiritually dead, so depressed. Amazed by the ones who are invigorated and joyful, who are clearly thriving with their three kids, one on the back, on one the playground, one off at school. Their skin is gorgeous, their family bed is über-comfy.

I know these moms and more.

And I know a few who, after their kids were born, found that their careers didn't make sense any more. They wanted to stay home, yes, but they also weren't sure what paid work would even look like anymore. Not because they missed the promotion, though maybe that was part of it; more because their mindsets had changed and what they were doing before seemed small and unfulfilling. I expect this is a tough spot to be in.

I'm lucky in a lot of ways--and I don't mean that to sound smug but rather, grateful, and since I can be quite negative, I want you to take note of this gratitude--but one of them is that I'm able, these days, to do my Momming alongside my writing and my teaching. I don't feel lost in parenting. Having a child has not changed the trajectory of what I want to do; it's slowed it down a little, diverted it, become a part of it, enriched it, complicated it, made it messier and more loveable and more meaningful, but not hijacked the whole thing of it. I still love my work. I still do my work. That hasn't changed.

I think maybe that's what my friend is afraid of: having her life hijacked. I can really understand that fear, because I had it too. I wish I could reassure her that if she does have a child, she'll figure it out.

Don't Do That in Public!

Lately I've been really aware of my public Mom persona. I think this is because L is at an extremely strong-willed age and I never know when I'll have to play Captain Bringdown in public. Ha! He'll be at an "extremely strong-willed age" for the rest of his life, I'd bet. I have a strong-willed kid. He's as likely to stop grabbing fruit from the health food store, declaring it a "sample" and cramming it in his mouth too quickly for me to stop him, as I am to win a contest for my math skills. Which is to say: not very likely. The health food store people see him coming and automatically hand me a kumquat and a couple strawberries. We all know we've lost the battle.

Yesterday we had our first swimming lesson, and there was a minor scene. I should have known when we got there and instead of sitting quietly on the edge of the pool like the other toddlers, L. asked me in a loud voice, "Did you bring any water toys, Mom?" that things might be eventful.

I did not bring water toys, I said. Shh!

We started off doing all the cute kid swimming activities, like blowing bubbles, jumping up and down in the water, and singing "The Wheels on the Bus" with new, pool-inspired hand motions. (That my friend Ben was teaching the class made this even more funny, because Ben is one of those friends from before we had a kid. In other words, he has seen me drunk as a skunk and wearing a ridiculous Halloween costume, which I later vomited on. Oh, the memories!)

But like turning off a switch, L. decided he was bored. He started straining against me, stretching his strong, muscular little 35-pound body in search of greener pastures. Imagine hard little feet in your abdomen, pushing.

"I want to go in that other pool, Mumma."

"L., we can't, we're in a class."

He strained some more.

"Let's go, Mumma!"

Finally I said, "Honey, we're in a class--when you're in a class, you have to listen to your teacher and do what they say. Let's listen to Ben!"

I swear L. shot me a look that read, you can't make me. (And that's when I had some foreshadowing of fifth grade parent-teacher conferences.)

Luckily, L. gained interest again and we made it through the class. At the end, Ben gave us a very stern and very scary talk about drowning.

"It happens quickly and silently," he said. "It's not like in Bay Watch."

So, armed with horrible images of Pamela Anderson, I kept L close to me as we left the pool and walked through a little fenced-off section with bleachers where our stuff was. I turned around to find L. trying to squeeze himself through the fence and back into the pool area. Success. Did I mention he's strong and wily like a snake?

"L!" I yelled. "Stop!" He was headed straight for the pool.

"L.!" I yelled again. "You stop RIGHT NOW!" and, catching up with him, I grabbed his arm. Roughly. And we had a very stern talking-to. That's when I noticed all those other parents, whose kids had been well-behaved in swimming class, staring. All those other parents, I should add, who had not stopped my beautiful son from squeezing himself through the gate back towards the pool even though they were in arms' reach.

I have something of an active imagination, but all evening I wondered what those parents thought of me. Most likely: smart mom, to treat the situation seriously (drowning is the silent, quick killer). Possibly: she's way too paranoid and strict; a yeller. Unlikely, but you never know: abusive.

Clearly, I have to develop a thicker skin, because there is a solid chance that in the next, oh, 24 hours, my son is going to behave in public in a way that requires me to reveal something about my parenting.

It makes one feel a little vulnerable.

But there are redeeming moments. Last weekend, we were at the same health food store with the fruit. L. discovered the bulk bins and was happily imagining me filling a bag with jelly beans for him. I kept asking him, reminding him, not to put his fingers in the bins. But lo and behold, I stooped to put some rice in a bag and damned if L. wasn't wrist-deep in the currants when I came back up. Three people's spying eyes on us.

I pulled him aside.

"L.," I said, "I need you to look in my eyes so I know you're hearing me." (Eyes scooted left, then right, up to the ceiling, down the floor...eventually they landed on me briefly before darting off on another errand.)

"I need you to do better listening. I asked you not to put your hands in the bins."

"But why?"

"Because people don't want little kids' fingers in their raisins. I am happy to buy you a little treat, but I need you to promise me you're done putting your hands in the bins. Look me in the eyes and promise. If you put your hands in the bins again, I'm not giving you the treat."

Eyes darted everywhere. Finally he promised. We chose some dates and I let him carry them.

Five minutes later I was browsing in the sunscreen aisle by myself. L. was with my husband. A woman came up to me.

"I just need to tell you," she said, "that you're such a good mom. I saw you in the bulk section with your son, and I was so impressed. Really. Kudos to you."

Talk about making my day. Talk about making my week. Having a stranger witness my disciplinary strategy--the one I made up, with no help from any books, and thus don't know if it might scar my kid for life--and pronounce me a good mom afterwards? Beautiful.

Thank you, stranger, for filling me with hope that I am doing something right.

And here, folks, is my newest favorite picture of the little devil:

--Susie

Having It All

Like a lot of people—at least according to Facebook, various blogs, and about fifty percent of the conversations I've had in the last month both on and off the playground—I recently read Anne-Marie Slaughter's article in The Atlantic called "Why Women Still Can't Have It All."

(If you haven't yet read the article, I suggest you do that right now. We'll wait.)

Welcome back!

Slaughter argues that despite her generation having told my generation all these years that the feminist dream is alive—i.e., that a woman can work in a high-powered job AND nurture a family—that maybe, just maybe, this isn't actually true. Slaughter describes life for the women in the very top sector of the working world, which is to say, women in government positions, female CEOs (turns out there are about three), and the like, many of whom have begun to admit to the immense difficulty of having careers that required that much responsibility and time-commitment while also raising happy, healthy kids. Slaughter outlines some of the myths about why women "can't have it all"; namely that we're not working hard enough, being ambitious enough, marrying the right people (i.e., men who will put their own careers on hold for ours), or doing things in the right order (having kids early, and first, then focusing on careers).

She's right, and brave, to call out these myths, and I applaud her for it, and while I'm not in that sector of the working world, and I know very few women who are, most of the women I know who have read this article recently took away an important message. And that message is that, guess what? We moms feel really torn about our home lives and our work lives and how to make both what we want them to be.

I praise Slaughter for starting this conversation and outlining these myths, the most prevalent of which is that women just aren't dreaming big enough or trying hard enough to get ahead—a myth, she says, mostly perpetrated by women in her generation. Let's throw each other under the bus, shall we, ladies?

Her solutions to the problem of balance, though, are a little less inspiring to me. As it turned out, I read this article while lying on my bed in the middle of the afternoon (3:30, to be exact). L. was at daycare, and I'd gotten up at seven with him, made breakfast, gotten everybody dressed (actually B. can dress himself these days) and out the door. I wrote for an hour or two, worked on my online classes for three hours or so, did some bill-paying, puttering, and career development, cleaned the kitchen, and then got hit with a wave of exhaustion and the realization that my day was far from over: there was pick-up, afternoon playtime, and dinnertime-bathtime-bedtime all to go. So I rested with a magazine. And my prevailing feeling after reading Slaughter's article was not empowerment (I'm understood!) but exhaustion. And then guilt for being tired. While she suggests that work rules should change, so that women can work less time in the office, for example, she never advocates less work or taking time for ourselves or praising ourselves for even trying to have a career and a kid. The picture I came away with was that if you really want to be a successful careerwoman and have healthy, happy kids, you leave work at six, come home for family dinner, then sit down again at your laptop from 8:00 to midnight. Then you're up between 4:30 and 5:30 to check email or make the house come together before bolting out the door for another fourteen-hour day.

To say this life is my idea of a personal hell would be an understatement. I also don't believe it makes anybody healthy or happy. To be totally honest, with three classes, a book to finish, and a toddler to rear, I am just about at the edge of what I can handle. How on earth do these superwomen survive? I was flooded with questions: but when do you have sex with your husband? When do you sit down with a glass of wine and watch crap TV? Maybe Hilary Clinton, Karen Hughes, and Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg--all women mentioned in the article--don't have time for sex, TV, wine, or, my personal favorite, sleep. They just work harder.

Is that really the solution?

As I like to talk about the year I spent in Norway, I'll do that now. Say what you will about Norway's social safety net, it prioritizes families. Women take a year off with each child and don't lose their place in line for tenure, for a promotion, or for partnership at the law firm. At one, most kids go to "Barnehage" (which translates to "Kindergarten," which translates to "Kids' Garden"), and there's no stigma about evil daycare or high-powered callous career mothers. I think women feel much less of that pull that so many of us feel here: should I stay home? Should I go back to work now, or in a year, or in five years, or never? I happen to know well a woman who works in a very high-powered position in the Norwegian government. She just had her second kid, is taking her prescribed year off, and then will go right back to her job—a job that gives her enough time off to spend with her kids and partner.

Is that such a crazy model?

We just love to work here in the States, and while I prize productivity and hard work, it's not lost on me that we have an unemployment problem and a number of people working eighty- to one hundred-hour weeks. If some people did less work, not more, wouldn't there be more jobs to go around?

Slaughter doesn't suggest that we institute maternity leave or reevaluate our crazy American work ethic across the board. The onus for change is put squarely on women themselves: she calls on other high-powered female careerists to change the workplace culture to include space for family dinners, for one thing. Asking women to do this for other women is not necessarily a bad thing, for now. Women should be role models for other women, and someone like Slaughter—brilliant, accomplished, poised—encouraging other women to help their employees find balance carries a lot of weight. But I'm not sure it's enough.

Interestingly, she does speak to the role of men in child-rearing, and the ways that role is changing. After reading the article, I felt a little frantic, a little old, a little underachieving, and I said to B:

"You need to get a really high-powered job now, while you're young!" (My logic? I clearly can't handle it.)

His response?

"But I want to spend time with L. too."





.

The Sticks

Well, the first urban farm exchange was a success! On Friday afternoon, a guy showed up with seven beautiful organic eggs from his backyard, four green, three brown. I should have taken a photo of them, fried to perfection on gluten-free toast Saturday morning. They were about the same size as regular eggs, but after I'd eaten two I felt extremely full. I'll bet the fat and omega-3 content of these eggs is higher than what I get at the market.

I felt like I was the director of an extremely small-scale CSA as I went out to the garden to decide what would be good for my end of the trade. I wanted some variety and bulk, but I needed to plan carefully; give away all the beets and that's, well, all the beets. Ditto the carrots, some of which are too small at the moment anyway. I ended up with a big leafy mixed bunch of carrots (we have two varieties, one a gorgeous blood-orange and one standard) and tiny baby red beets (the beets are not doing that well, so I'm erring on the side of pulling them early so we can use the space for a more content tenant); a bunch of chard; a small bit of oregano; a half a punnet of raspberries; and a bag of salad mix, heavy on the arugula, which I have been munching all spring. The produce looked good in a Priority Mail box I found in the garage, and I felt proud. And when I first held that egg carton in my hands I had this surge of excitement. Nay, giddiness.

Last week, B. and I raised the question of whether we should consider moving to what I affectionately call "the sticks." I am starting to picture myself easily in a little house with a yard and chickens, space for L. to run around, maybe an extra room in which to write. I grew up solidly in the 'burbs, or actually, in a place that strikes me as very rarified, very New England: a small town outside of Boston, with old houses and a town square and a train station. But my dad, who is also fond of the sticks, took us there often, and we spent summers hiking and on the ocean and in all sorts of sticksy places. So I'm not unfamiliar. I had a great childhood in these places. As an adult, I have been pretty solidly urban. My major reservations about moving to the country:

1). Lack of cultural opportunities for me and my kid.
2). Lack of diversity.
3). You have to drive everywhere. Not a big fan of the car. Nor is L. He actually gets annoyed when I pick him up from daycare in the car instead of on the bike, and my weak protests ("It's freezing out!" or "Mumma's really tired today, Bunny!") fall on unsympathetic ears.
4). I really do believe that, for reason #3, the city is the smarter environmental choice. Greater density and you don't always have to drive.
5). This is the biggy: all that space. Me and a kid and all that space. Since L. was a week old I have relied on coffee shops, public parks with park benches, and other urban trappings to keep the both of us sane. I'd say my momming relies heavily on community and the kinds of resources you get in the city. Out in the country, you're making your own community, and you have different resources.

Nonetheless, I fantasize about the country, as those of you who have been reading me for a while now know (here's an old post about The Simple Life).

Two bloggers I know live with kids in the sticks. The first is Laal, my friend from college, who lives on a micro-farm outside of Paonia, Colorado. You can read about her sheep-wrangling, garlic-growing, and house-building here. I love reading Laal's blog because it gives me this window into life with kids in a very different place than where I live. The other one is this mom, also from Colorado, who writes here. I don't know her personally, of course, but I like her blog a lot: great photos, light tone. She makes it sound so easy!

Today, Saturday, L. is off with his dad. I keep getting texts like "we're at breakfast!" "We're going to the beach!" Meanwhile I'm holed up in a coffee shop, about to tackle a freelance editing job. I seem to be procrastinating.

And yes, you're thinking, but wait--isn't it Tuesday? It is, my friends. More peeps read blogs on Tuesday, I'm told, so I'm saving this as a draft. I'm trying to build readership. If you like what you're reading, share me. Thanks.

And here, some photos of chickens and kids and gardens...

A girl named Leila with a chicken named Chichek:






Leila with RayRay, the Boss Hen:








Our garden a few months ago:







And now!

Abundance

Well, it's day three on Mommingblog and already I'm having the urge to write about something that has nothing to do with my child. Or does it?

I'm from the East coast, and while I love the East coast, and think about moving back there often, one thing I would really miss about Northern California is the abundance of delicious food. I'm one of those types who wants organic vegetables and meat and eggs in her life, and we're lucky to live in a place that has a very small gardening space. When we initially moved in, I think we pictured a tomato plant and a few heads of kale.

But after attending a lecture and presentation by urban farmers Novella Carpenter and Willow Rosenthal, who wrote The Essential Urban Farmer, I realized that I could plant my 6-foot-by-3-foot-bed to full capacity.

Witness: we now have collard greens, chard, Chinese broccoli, a small crop of green onions, a Lilliputian field of salad greens, a tomato plant, lots of parsley and arugula, a cucumber plant, two pots of squash, some anemic beets, and a miniature field of carrots which we have begun to harvest!

It occurred to me that the yield we might get from this small urban garden would be enough to trade. So I promptly put up an ad in the "barter/trade" section of our local list serv, and two--TWO!--people want to trade organic eggs for whatever we've got in our garden. And, in putting the offer out there, I also received:

1. An email from a woman who said she too wants to trade for eggs, and to let her know if we have too many (yeah right) because she has Meyer lemons; and

2. An email from a woman asking me to come by and help her with her garden.

The latter is sort of funny, since I am very much making this up as I go along; to #1, though, I responded, "what if we traded Meyer lemons for preserved Meyer lemons?" My husband B and are I eager to make some more of the delicious, salty, tangy, outrageous preserved Meyer lemons we made last year. It got to the point where I was eating them with every meal, in hummus, in lentil soup, in my pasta--yowsers. But we don't have any lemons. And this woman said yes.

I'm kind of an old-fashioned person and an old-fashioned mother, and I love that L. is growing up with this kind of abundance, and this kind of community, around him. In fact, just this morning, on his way to the bagel shop with his Dad, the neighbor stopped him and asked L. if he wanted to pick some boysenberries. The father-son team returned home with two punnets of fuschia melt-in-your-mouth berries. I think we'll enjoy them for dinner--along with a bunch of carrots, a few anemic beets, and a small salad.




--Susie

The Drunk Midget in the House

Recently, I read Tina Fey's hilarious book Bossypants. Ms. Fey has a five-year-old daughter whom she references in a chapter called, I think (I promptly lent out the book), "There's a Drunk Midget Running Around My House." Without stopping to think whether that might be offensive to certain society members, I laughed heartily. Like the Angel in the House, the Drunk Midget is misunderstood and frustrated. Unlike the Angel in the House, the Drunk Midget is...your kid. (Is he or she an angel? Be honest, now...)

And so, herewith, my newest blogging venture: Momming. Because that's what I do. My other main venture is writing, which you can read about here: www.susiemeserve.com and here: popcorntheblog.com.

Thanks for reading!