Fleeting childhood memory

I was too young when MLK was shot to remember it. But a few years later, I started kindergarten at (I have been told) the first school to be named after him. A year or so later, the Coretta Scott King Preschool opened right next door. I remember it as a beautiful building, brand-new, with smooth curving yellow brick walls. (I have no idea how accurate this memory is.) I also remember that there was an opening ceremony, which, Coretta Scott King herself attended as honored guest and speaker.

Of course, I have no memory of what she said. I do remember, however, the buzz of excitement around the school for weeks beforehand. I remember that I knew who she was, and why she was important. I remember that my teachers emphasized not that she was carrying on her husband's legacy, but that, as his partner in work as well as marriage, she was continuing his work and her own. I remember being told that because her civil rights work emphasized, among other things, women's rights, elementary education, and the arts: and that for this reason, Coretta Scott King Preschool was not the "junior" school to Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary, but was conceived as a partner institution, established to provide arts-based early education along with anti-poverty programs to support the childrens' mothers. (I also remember it being emphasized that "Scott" was her maiden name.) It, and King Elementary, were consciously integrated, and we kids were taught a multicultural curriculum, with a special emphasis on Black American history.

When mandatory busing came in, I was in 4th grade. Because of the new busing, I had to leave King and attend another school. This was when I realized how fantastic King had really been, with its innovative curriculum, its high academic standards, and its consciously diverse sense of "Americanness."

That's my Coretta Scott King story. It's very small, but it made a difference to me.

It's been fun! Okay! Buh-bye!

This is why academic blogging exists. Now that it's been written, the rest of us can all retire.

The fact is, I’m knee-deep in elephant shit. There’s nothing pretty about it.

Psych meds and kids??

My blogging role model, Flea, is having to decide whether or not to put her son on Prozac. Now, I know what it's like having to decide to put yourself on psych meds; I can only imagine how anxiety-producing it would be to have to decide whether or not to do it for a kid roughly PK's age, especially as (my understanding is) SSRIs mostly aren't officially approved for use in kids, since they weren't tested on kids, so using them in pediatric practice is really just one giant lab experiment.

I remember when I was talking about meds that a number of readers emailed me privately because they had expertise in this area. If any of you know anything specific about child psychiatry, etc., and are willing to make yourselves available to Flea in case she has any questions about this stuff, I'd be most grateful.

Update: I want to warn against advice unrelated to the meds issue specifically, especially for folks who don't regularly read her blog--having gotten a lot of advice lately, I'm especially sensitive to the fact that, especially in really difficult situations, even the most well-meaning suggestions, in the absence of full knowledge of the situation, can be really hard to deal with when you're doing the absolute best you can.

No kidding

Buy this book. A reader sent it to me, and it arrived on my birthday--perfect timing! Even better, skimming through it helped clarify so many things; perfect timing, in light of my recent irritation with Near and Dear.

One of the challenges of having kids, maybe especially for marriages like mine, is that they exponentially increase the amount of work and committment within a relationship. Before PK, I had an astonishingly egalitarian marriage, one that was supportive enough of the mutual ambitions of each partner that we lived apart on and off for long periods of time while pursuing our careers, but one that was strong enough (in part because both of us were able to pursue our goals) that physical distance, though we missed each other, in no way threatened our mutual committment. I think, in retrospect, that this was a crucial phase of our relationship, because it confirmed for us both that it is possible to be absolutely dedicated to both one's partner and one's goals, and that the two things need not conflict with each other.

But then, we had a kid. This book points out in really clear language something that I think I intuitively understood about that: suddenly there was Something Else in the marriage, something that was bigger and more important than either our mutual committment or our independent goals. It also points out something that I don't think I understood very well: that suddenly my own bargaining power in the marriage was far less than it had been up to that point. In other words, despite the marriage we'd constructed, the introduction of a child in and of itself seriously lessened my autonomy. I remember consciously thinking, in the early days of PK's infancy, that suddenly I could understand not intellectually but emotionally why women in abusive relationships might stick around: if Mr. B. were to start acting like an asshole (which of course he would never do), I would seriously hesitate about just walking out. I remember thinking about everything that would be involved: obviously, I wouldn't leave PK, so I'd need to pack diapers, and baby clothes, and the car seat; I would probably have to drop out of my graduate program in order to get a job; how would I find a job without someone else to take care of PK? How would I balance my refusal to see an abusive ex (b/c obviously the only reason I'd leave Mr. B. would be if he were abusive) with the fact that PK would need, and be entitled to, a relationship with his father?

As I said, I had zero fear of any of that actually happening. But the reason I went through thinking about it was that I was processing an entirely new, and very unsettling, state of affairs: I no longer had the independence within my marriage that I had insisted on and come to take for granted. Freak. Out. And, I'm going to go out on a limb here, but it has only just occurred to me in the last few days, while reading this book (which does a fantastic job of talking about different kinds of bargaining power and negotiation within relationships--you really must read it, it even makes a point of not focusing only on educated, upper-middle-class heterosexual families), that the fact that I processed that realization in terms of imagining a scenario where Mr. B. turned into an asshole is significant; that is, I was taking a broad structural problem and making it personal.

Now, I think that doing that is imposible to avoid, entirely. And I think that in a lot of ways doing that is a good thing: it challenges the tendency to create cognitive dissonance ("in theory I believe this, but in my own personal case, it's not a problem"). And I will argue to my dying day, contra N&D's belief, that my ability to do that is one of my great strengths as a feminist and as a partner and mom. On the other hand, nothing is ever simple, and I think that my terror and anxiety about losing this autonomy--an autonomy that, it's important to note, Mr. B. wasn't losing, at least not nearly to the degree I was--got expressed in some really tense and rigid ways. Of course, I was also finishing my dissertation, being the primary caretaker, and hitting the job market at this time, so there was a ton of stress, which didn't help.

Here is why I really wanted to write this post. I think the really important thing is that even though, as an academic woman, this was about the best time to have a baby--Mr. B. was making good money, I could afford to take some time off teaching, we could afford childcare, having a baby gave structure and discipline to my writing day, my time was as flexible as it was ever going to be in my entire working career--these "advantages" were also disadvantages in terms of my bargaining power and independence within the marriage. I already had what Mahoney calls "a head start" in emotional bonding with PK, because I had borne him, and I was breastfeeding. I compounded this emotional bonding, which decreased my autonomy (love can trump a lot of other interests if push comes to shove) by taking care of him more than Mr. B. did. On some level, I think I recognized this, and I was, to be honest, pretty goddamn shrewish about insisting that Mr. B. limit his hours at a very demanding, 80-hour/week type of job, and about insisting that the fact that he was the primary breadwinner in no way let him off the hook in terms of being expected to do 50% of the childcare. Inasmuch as that was impossible, time-wise, I therefore expected, and tried to insist, that he do as much childcare as he was remotely capable of doing, which meant that he did not get a lot of "down time" when he got home from work. Caution, academic / career-oriented women: the "best time" to have a baby in terms of your career might also be the "worst time" in terms of equal parenting.

(Two of my in-laws saw this, and I think that to this day they still think that I was inexcusably demanding and unsupportive to Mr. B. In one sense, I absolutely was; in another sense, and this is what I believed at the time, I was being incredibly supportive, if not of his feelings at the time, then of his goals and development as a parent.)

So then we got this job, and we relocated, and Mr. B. quit working (as had been the plan all along), blah blah normal stresscakes life events blah. And I entered the treacherous ground of the ambitious career woman and ambitious mother trying to figure out how to be both without fundamentally compromising either one. And Mr. B. entered the learning curve--handicapped a bit by his gender, his upbringing, and his not having been the primary caretaker in the first couple of years--of becoming a homemaker and primary parent.

Where, in retrospect, I kind of fucked up was in being so deeply invested in figuring out my own shit, and in being terrified of fucking up, that I did not cut Mr. B. a whole lot of slack, shall we say, on the learning curve thing. I felt like I "didn't have time" in those first on-the-job years, in those early childhood years, to make many mistakes. And where Mr. B., to a far lesser degree, I think, fucked up was in, well, being behind the learning curve--not just w/r/t the child & homecare thing, which would have been okay, but w/r/t the feminist understanding of these problems and, I think, very importantly, in the "female responsibility" of doing the emotional work of figuring out "shit, there's a problem here, what's going on?"

That is to say, he knew there was a problem, and he was unhappy. But he didn't have the skill set that women (especially women who, like me, grow up being emotional caretakers for their fucked-up parents) develop in seeing "relationship problems," and tackling them by looking, first at their understanding of the issue, and then as much as they are able, at the other person's apparent understanding of the issue, and then trying to figure out where those two things overlap and where they differ, and what that means, and then trying to fit that into some larger understanding of how relationships work and what the usual pitfalls are, and what the particular pitfalls of this kind of relationship (feminist, ambitious, etc.) often are, and "here, honey, I see this, that, and the other thing as being issues, now let's talk about how to address them in ways that might take some of the pressure off."

And, frankly, I resented his not having that skill set. I saw it, rightly or wrongly (and admittedly, somewhat sexistly), as being part of the package of the primary homemaker/caretaker job, and I was pissed that he wasn't doing it, or at least not as much as I felt I was. And that didn't help things, of course. And my feeling overloaded led into depression, and led to me (and I'm amazed I wasn't more aware of what I was doing in doing this, now that I look back, but depression makes you kinda crazy) thinking "maybe I should quit this career," etc. etc., because I was casting about pretty desperately for some way to release the pressure on me, personally, and on the relationship as a whole.

But having said all that, throughout the entire thing, I had a huge advantage which I've only recently realized. Because I did have that skill set, even though it meant I was doing a kind of emotional labor Mr. B. wasn't doing (I'm sure he was doing other kinds, mind you), I did believe and realize, the entire time, that this problem was, somehow, structural. I never thought it was anything that fundamentally threatened the marriage, our marriage: I just felt like it was something we had to figure out, and I was impatient as hell to figure it out ASAP because I had a career to build. Mr. B., on the other hand, poor guy, felt like something fundamental had changed between us, and he was afraid that the realtionship wouldn't survive.

What reading Mahoney's book has helped me realize is that, to some degree, my fears about the imbalance of power in our marriage are heavily distorted. I had a headstart, but I didn't have a husband who was so silly as to interpret that headstart as an excuse to see the division of emotional labor (or economic power) as "natural," and who was determined to catch up--so much so that he responded to my pressure by trying harder and harder to do so (with the inevitable resentment). (I here have to note that Mr. B. is not, despite the picture I may be painting, a passive guy at all. He's a pretty damn strong and equal partner; I'm not into passivity, which is part of why I'm a fucking bitch, in the good sense, of course. Because I was flogging this thing so damn hard, and I had a head start, he was pretty much put into the passive position of reacting and trying to catch up, and being a not-passive guy, he didn't like that much, either.) In trying to recognize the structures of a larger feminist problem in my own marriage, I've failed to recognize the things we've done right, or at least, I've failed to give them as much weight as they really will bear.

So, hey. Onward and upward. The moral of the story is: don't get cocky.

I am a bitch

Okay, I took the post down, but I want to preserve the comment thread, so I'm leaving that up, at least for now.

Academic freedom

If you haven't already read Michael Bérubé's definitive post on the subject, you really, really should.

Feel free

to wish me a happy birthday. Google is!

And yes, I, too, am 250 years old. But damn, am I well preserved.

Great news for Brits!

Almost 20% of the U.K.'s biggest firms are paying women "significantly lower wages" than men doing the same jobs.

Are they actually going to try to filibuster????

Take a few minutes to call your Senator and ask him or her to hop on Kerry's bandwagon. Maybe mention the phrases "party discipline" and "midterm elections."

Thursday bitch fest

I have had the craziest week, and it's not even payday yet. Semi-outed myself to my awesome mentor, who gave sound advice and offered to hook me up with a discussion board for women in academia to ask about the wisdom of combining blogging (under one's actual name) with academia; got seriously ticked off at someone near and dear who apparently thinks that Mr. B. should take PK and leave b/c my relationship with C. is "unhealthy for PK" (what I do occasionally with my cunt being apparently more important to my parenting than my continued daily presence in his life); was offered an interesting writing project by a friendly professional semi-mentorish type; got last semester's evals back (upshot: I can spend even *less* time prepping for class and get away with it--yay this semester's writing plans!); was marginally involved in short-lived ridiculous internet drama; wished my sister a happy birthday; finally cleaned off my desk at work.

And now it looks like I am readying myself to be late for my first class. Shit.

"We put the 'you' back into 'uterine expulsion of unwanted fetal tissue.'"

I'm going to book my vacation early this year.

I love my TAs

Super T.A. is going to do my Thursday lecture--w00t! The grader for my other course just handed me the first assignment, all graded--and with far more helpful comments than I would've done. Oh, how I remember the halcyon days of my youth, when I was diligent and thorough in my responses to student work, before it became a matter of sheer survival to get them off my desk as quickly as possible because I have meetings all afternoon and still want to squeeze in some writing tomorrow morning....

We love you, T.A.s. Well, most of us do. And we sure couldn't do our jobs without you--or at least, we couldn't do them very well. And we know you're paid crap, and you oughta damn well have the right to organize because your labor--and it is labor--helps keep the damn univeersity running.

The striking T.A.s at NYU have had their pay ("fellowships") terminated. Back when NYU deigned to recognize their right to collective bargaining, their pay increased by 38% from around $10,000 (in NYC, mind) to $18,000. Now, because they're trying to force NYU to honor their agreement to recognize the union, the university's decided they get nothing. Fuck NYU, I say. Grad students need unions, and this situation demonstrates precisely why.

But the moral high ground doesn't pay the rent, as every union-buster knows. If you want to help the graduate employees at NYU keep themselves fed and keep the pressure on the administration, consider dropping some fundage in their Strike Hardship Fund.

Take a T.A. to lunch--even if she / he isn't your T.A.

2 days late, 2 cents worth

That Saletan op-ed on abortion y'all have been asking me to blog about? Jill at Feministe scooped me. But since she said pretty much everything I'd have said, and more, it's just as well. If you haven't read it yet, go check it out.

The pro-choice movement has been saying this for decades — minus the judgmentalism of “abortion is always bad.” Now, in my ideal world abortion wouldn’t exist. Every pregnancy would be a wanted pregnancy. Every woman and family would have access to the resources that make child-rearing possible: Insurance, a reasonable income, good medical care, childcare, education, etc. There would be no fetal abnormalities. Every pregnancy would be healthy.

But that isn’t reality. The reality is that, even if every single person uses contraception to prevent unintended pregnancies, there will still be a need for abortion. There will be extreme fetal abnormalities. There will still be life-threatening pregnancies. There will still be pregnancies resulting from rape and incest. There will still be contraceptive failures. There will still be mid-pregnancy personal tragedies that turn a wanted pregnancy into an impossible one. This is life. Abortion, like sex and pregnancy and childbirth and miscarriage, will always be a part of it.

Exactly.

I'm writing

Or maybe knitting. Or I dunno, something, other than sitting here futzing around on blogs. SUE ME. I did do some class prep this morning, though.

In the meantime, Chris sums it all up.

RIP, Roe V Wade

With Alito set to be confirmed because enough of the Democrats are fucking lapdogs, I note the 33rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade with a sense of sadness. It was nice, coming to sexual maturity in a time when I knew I had autonomy over my body. It's frightening, looking towards a future when my students and nieces won't.

Not that Roe v. Wade itself will be overturned any time soon. I don't think it will. I do think, however, that it'll end up being a hollow law. Oh sure, you'll theoretically still have the right to an abortion--but the letter of the law means nothing if the spirit isn't followed, and Alito has made it clear that he thinks that while overturning Roe might be a bit much, practially speaking, making it completely meaningless is a worthy goal.

Having a right doesn't mean crap if you can't exercise it. Roe might stick around a while, but the actual rights that Roe ensured are on their way out the door. And guess what? Lawmakers know this, and are deliberately writing laws that violate Roe v. Wade now, knowing that next month's Supreme Court will be quite happy to expand the concept of what doesn't constitute an undue burden beyond all reason. Alito's made it clear that he sees the "undue burden" clause as the all-purpose loophole (scroll down to item #10). Pregnancy will kill you? Well, most pregnancies aren't fatal, so it's not an undue burden on women *as a class.* Sorry. Can't afford another baby? Sorry, this pregnancy *in and of itself* isn't your problem; your poverty is. So the pregnancy's not an undue burden. Sorry. Husband likely to beat the crap out of you if he finds out you're pregnant? Well, most husbands don't do that, and since you're in the minority there, it's not an undue burden on women as a group. Sorry.

But hey, isn't it nice to know that, in theory, if you had the good health and the money and the time and the support to travel to get an abortion somewhere, you'd be allowed to?

Happy birthday, Roe v. Wade. I'm sorry to hear you're ailing, and that your prognosis isn't good. You're much too young to be suffering so much.



Don't forget that today is Blog for Choice day. Click on the "Blog for Choice" ad over in the sidebar to see who else is participating.

So shines an unselfish act in a cruel world

'Scuse the headline, we've been watching a lot of Willy Wonka (the original) around here lately.

Y'all may remember this post, about Laurel Hester, the New Jersey cop who was prohibited from leaving her pension to her partner, Stacie Andree because, you know, they're big ol' dykes.

Well, apparently public outcry--and I'm sure some of you were part of that--has induced a change of heart on the part of the Orange County freeholders.

following news coverage including television reports which showed Hester's deteriorating condition, freeholders were besieged with critical phone calls and emails.

Late Friday state Sen. Andrew Ciesla (R-Ocean) said he intends to bring in legislation that would amend the police and fire pension fund to permit domestic partners to receive benefits.

That was followed by a conference call between state GOP leaders from the county and freeholders.

The conference call ended with freeholders agreeing to a special meeting next Wednesday where a new vote will be taken and Hester will be allowed to transfer her benefits.

"This is one of the happiest days of my life," Hester said on Saturday morning. "I feel like David conquering Goliath."

Harebrained theory of the week

What the Democratic party *really* needs to do is make public transportation its #1 priority.

I submit, for the purposes of discussion, the following reasons:

1. It would address the global warming crisis.
2. It would go quite some way towards equity for the poor.
3. It would encourage responsible development and preserve farmland.
4. It would foster a sense of community, and expose people from different groups to one another on a daily basis.
4a. It would therefore work to counter the difficult-to-address problem of personal racism.
4b. It would help strengthen the public sphere.
4c. It would therefore help create popular understanding of the need for things like daycare, public schooling, community policing, elder care, etc.
5. It would help address some of the pressures on the middle class--the cost of maintaining two cars, the cost of commuting, the time-crunch of ferrying kids around.
6. It would improve the public health (more exercise).
7. It would foster entrepeneurial activity (opening of small, street-level businesses that are welcoming to foot traffic).
8. It would create jobs.
9. It would reduce pollution.
10. It would build support for the public sector.
11. It would support access to employment and activity for the disabled.
12. It would reduce our dependence on oil.
12a. It would therefore revolutionize U.S. foreign policy.
12b. It would therefore significantly reduce our overseas military involvements.
12c. It would therefore save lives.
12d. It would therefore reduce the size of the U.S. military.
12e. It would therefore reduce taxes significantly.
13. It would.....?

Celebrity Corner

I've never seen Desperate Housewives, but I think I'm completely in love with Felicity Huffman.

Thanks to Doctor Dave for the tip. Also for the rumor that, apparently, Ikea Germany is starting to have a problem with parents dropping kids off at the Ikea playroom and, instead of shopping at Ikea, going out and doing their errands around town. Doctor Dave says "they're going to ruin it for the rest of us," but I say "maybe this will inspire some innovative mayor or civic leader to set up public drop-in daycare centers--ideally, publicly-funded--for parents to leave kids for a couple of hours while they go to the bank, the doctor's office, take a nap, attend a meeting, volunteer, go to the grocery store, whatever. Let's say the first two hours would be free and after that you'd pay, what, $10 / hour? You could use it for short trips, or as emergency backup daycare if your regular place was closed or the caretaker were sick or something. Provide employment, encourage parental involvement in the community, decrease absenteeism, encourage commerce, please the childfree folks *and* the parents at the same time.... what's to lose?

Carnival of the Feminists #7

Over at Feministe. As always, I'm amazed at the volume and variety of interesting posts. And pleased, b/c it'll give you all tons of stuff to read while I wrap up yet another masochistically busy week.

Btw, Mr. B. didn't get the job. Damnit.

Music to my ears

Scene: The plaza in front of the library, between classes. I run into a student.

Student who's taken a class from me before: I really liked your lecture yesterday.
Me: Yeah? Thanks, that's good to hear. I'm trying to work on my lectures, it's not really my strong suit.
SWTCFMB: I liked it, it was really interesting. Only one thing, though.
Me: Oh? What's that?
SWTCFMB: Well, a couple of my friends in that class, they haven't taken classes with you before. And they said that they think you're kind of intimidating.
Me: GOOD!
SWTCFMB: ???
Me: Don't disabuse them of that notion. It's good if you guys are scared at the beginning. Means you'll do the work.
SWTCFMB (laughing): Got it. Yeah, I suppose that's a good point....

Why I posted nothing yesterday

Mr. B: In major Coastal City interviewing for a job at Very Desirable Company. Keep your fingers crossed, folks.

6:00 am: Wake up. Make coffee, shower, dress.
7:00 am: Wake Pseudonymous Kid up.
8:00 am: Leave house for 8:30 class, bringing Pseudonymous Kid. Take car, knowing that later work-school transfers will not leave enough time for the bus, even though car has cracked cylinder head, which isn't worth repairing since car has over 200,000 miles on it. Hope it makes it through the day.
8:20 am: Run by snack bar to purchase breakfast for PK.
8:30 am: Arrive in class, set up laptop with movie on it for PK. Warn him not to spill milk or muffin on computer. Realize I've forgotten to bring earphones. Argue briefly with PK over volume of laptop. Ask class if they can hear me over the sound. Teach class with only three interruptions from PK, not bad.
10:00 am: Dismiss class. Return to office with PK, attire him for freezing drizzle. Realize on way to car that I haven't remembered to bring the cell phone, so that if his school calls while I'm in class, they won't be able to reach me.
10:30 am: Stop by house to pick up phone.
10:40 am: Go through Wendy's drive-through to pick up "lunch."
10:50 am: Arrive at PK's school. Car thermostat is firmly in the red, despite freezing drizzle. Open hood, add coolant. Check oil--dirty, but full.
11:00 am: Bell rings. Kiss PK goodbye, drive back to work. Eat cold french fries on the way.
11:15 am: Car stalls twice in traffic. Very hard to re-start.
11:30 am: Park, dash to office to grab books, dash to class.
11:45 am: Apologize to class for late start. Assign in-class writing for ten minutes in order to have time to excuse self to go pee.
2:30 pm: Dismiss class. Go to office, drop books, call cab. Check email, go downstairs to wait for cab.
2:45 pm: Cab arrives. Discuss freezing drizzle, tolerate political jokes during drive.
3:00 pm: Arrive at PK's school ten minutes early. Wait in cab to avoid freezing drizzle, endure more political jokes instead.
3:15 pm: Bell rings. Meet PK at the door, bundle him in cab, return to office.
3:30 pm: Arrive back on campus. Hustle PK to office, grab books, hustle him to classroom.
3:45 pm: Apologize to class for being late. Apologize for needing to spend a few more minutes setting PK up with laptop and movie. Apologize for not having headphones, curse self inwardly for not having remembered to get them while getting the phone. Gratefully accept student's generous offer of the use of her headphones. Caution PK not to break them.
3:55 pm: Begin teaching 3:30 class. Only two interruptions from PK this time.
5:00 pm: Dismiss class. Return headphones to generous student. Thank PK for being so good all day long. Return to office, dump books, bundle up. Head to car.
5:20 pm: Buckle PK into car seat. Pop hood, add more coolant, check oil again. Cross fingers, start car. Scrape ice from windows. Drive towards home, keeping eye on climbing thermostat and unmoving oil pressure gauge. Ask PK where he wants to eat dinner. Agree with him that nice restaurant next to book store is acceptable, and yes, we will get you a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory afterwards, since you have been so good today.
5:45 pm: Park in front of bookstore. Put money in meter, forgetting that parking is free after six pm. Roll eyes at self, remind self that it's not the last time I'll waste two dollars.
6:00 pm: Be seated in restaurant. Listen to specials. PK wants the shrimp, so order shrimp and extra plate along with an appetizer.
6:45 pm: PK spills milk. Mop milk off table, seat, and floor with cloth napkins.
6:50 pm: Sit down, reach across PK's plate to put wet napkins at far end of table, knock over and spill own water glass. Get napkins off of next unoccupied table to mop up.
6:55 pm: Server, having heard tinkle of glass, arrives with broom and dustpan. Assure her that you've already gotten all the glass, thank her for removing plates, wet napkins, and broken glass, and for returning with clean towel to properly finish cleanup. When she asks if you want dessert, admit that this is a bad idea, but having promised PK, order it anyway. Note that server seems surprisingly unperturbed and gracious.
7:20 pm: Check arrives. Calculate 30% tip.
7:25 pm: Server picks up folder, peeks inside, says, "I'll be right back with change." Tell her no need. Mutual smiles of understanding.
7:30 pm: Browse bookstore, find Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for PK. Fail to find acceptable book on American Indians. Buy Charlie, return to car, buckle PK up, cross fingers, drive home.
7:50 pm: Home! Woot! Car still running.
8:00 pm: Suggest to PK that he get in his jammies before reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. "But I just got home!" he complains. Point out that it's late, nonetheless. Too tired to argue with him, go to bathroom to wash face. Return to bedroom to find him getting in his jammies. Express pleased surprise. Listen to his explanation that "he doesn't mind doing things if no one is bossing him." Take explanation in, ask if perhaps we should try new tactic of asking him once, then giving him time to do whatever-it-is on his own. Explain that you will try to do this but that in some instances--e.g., putting on one's shoes to leave the house--it may be necessary to do things immediately. "Of course," PK says. Reach agreement, feel pleased at new stage, even while knowing that it is unlikely to be fully reliable.
8:10 pm: Commence reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
8:30 pm: Go downstairs to let Mr. B. in. "I'm sorry, I forgot that you didn't take your keys on the trip." Apologize that there is no dinner for him, since you didn't know when he was returning home. Rummage through fridge, offer to heat up last night's leftovers. Put them in microwave, explain that you must return to reading Charlie to PK but want to hear about the interview once he's eaten and come upstairs.
9:00 pm: Brief squabble about whether or not PK will sleep in the "big bed," as he's been doing since Papa has been out of town for a couple of nights, or whether he has to return to his bed. Declare that you are staying out of this one and that they will have to figure it out themselves.
9:10 pm: Mr. B. turns lights out, settles under covers with PK nestled between you. Brief explanation of interviews--"I thought they went well"--followed by request for more details tomorrow, please, but I have to get up for an 8 am meeting so I'm sorry, but I'm going to sleep now, okay? Reach agreement.
9:30ish pm: Sleep.

On the other hand, we're doing well on the gender roles thing

I've spent the last two days pretending to be Harry Potter, while Pseudonymous Kid is pretending to be Colin Creevy. I think this is mostly because Colin has a camera, and PK is really into pretending the flashing emergency lights that detatch from the top of his Playmobil firetruck are a camera--but there definitely seems to be a bit of the big kid / little kid hero-worship vibe in there mixed up with his currently rather romantic stage where I'm concerned. So we've got childish homoeroticism plus a little bit of the Oedipus complex, plus the camera thing.

Anyway, playing Harry Potter actually gets really old pretty fast, as we mostly reenact scenes from the movies. So tonight I got a bit cranky about it....

Pseudonymous Kid: Harry...?
Me (cleaning the stove): Honey, I'm not playing Harry Potter right now. I have to get the kitchen clean. Harry Potter doesn't clean the kitchen.
Pseudonymous Kid: If Harry and Colin lived together in the same house, they would help each other clean the kitchen.
Me (brightening up considerably at the possibilities in this scenario): Yes, that's true! Okay, Colin, I'm Harry, cleaning the stove.
Pseudonymous Kid: Can I do it?
Me: Ab-so-lutely. Here's a sponge.
...
Pseudonymous Kid: The gunk from the scrubby powder and the water is so disgusting it kind of makes me want to throw up.
Me: If it's making you feel sick, sweetie, you can stop. I'll finish wiping it up.
Pseudonymous Kid: Okay, thanks.
...
Me: Thanks for helping! ::kiss:
Pseudonymous Kid: Harry, did you just kiss me?
Me (wondering if this is going to get me scolded for breaking character): Yes...
Pseudonymous Kid: Okay.
...
Pseudonymous Kid: Someday, when Squeaky and Micky grow up, they will have babies, and it will be so cute!
In fact, we seem to have dodged the pregnant-mouse bullet; neither of them has given birth yet, and neither looks notably pregnant
Me: Well, I don't think so, actually. They're both girls.
Pseudonymous Kid: So? My friend B. has two mamas.*

*I have explained to him how this works, and how yes, a kid can have two mamas, or two papas, or a mama and a papa, or just a mama, or just a papa--but to *make* a baby, it takes an egg from a woman and sperm from a man. Still, obviously the social cues he's working with are more important than the biology. As they should be.

What does Pseudonymous Kid need to read?

So tonight, just before bed, Pseudonymous Kid asks me if I know about the Mayflower.

Me: Yes. Why do you ask?
Pseudonymous Kid: It brought people to America, and then later it was a hospital ship.
Me: Oh really? I didn't know that. Or else I didn't remember.
Pseudonymous Kid: Mama, are there any Indians still?
Me: ?!?! Yes, sweetie, of course there are. Do you remember J.?
Pseudonymous Kid: No.
Me: Okay. Well, she was our friend when you were younger. And she's an Indian. And one of the people I work with is an Indian.
Pseudonymous Kid: Does he wear feathers in his hair?
Me: NO. Let me explain something, okay?
Pseudonymous Kid: Okay.
Me: A long time ago, when Europeans came to America, some Indians wore feathers in their hair. Mostly I think the people who lived in the middle of the country. And mostly I think only for special occasions. And nowadays, Indians are just like Americans, or Canadians, or Mexicans. It just means a group of people from a certain place. Indians lived in America before the country of the United States existed. So now we call the people whose ancestors lived here before Europeans, Indians. But they're no different than anyone else, and they dress the same way everyone else does.
Pseudonymous Kid: Can I meet the person you work with?
Me: Sure. We might see him when you come to work with me this week, actually, and if we do I'll introduce you.
Pseudonymous Kid: The Europeans and the Indians had a war, right?
Me (thinking, okay, thank god the school is at least *trying*): Well, actually there were a lot of wars between Europeans and Indians, for a couple of hundred years.
Pseudonymous Kid: What happened?
Me: Well, okay. A long time ago, before the United States, there were lots of people living in America. There were all sorts of different cultures and tribes and languages. Some of them were farmerrs, and farmed land and stayed in one place, and some of them were hunters, and they moved around. But for the most part, Indians didn't really believe in owning land the same way the Europeans did back then. For the Europeans, you had to have a piece of paper that showed you owned land, and if you owned it, no one else could use it or live on it or be on it without you saying it was okay. For the Indians, they owned land but in a different way. They didn't write it down on paper, and mostly they owned it in groups--like if you farmed, you would farm with the other people in your town, and you would kind of share. So when the Europeans came to America, they didn't really understand that, and they thought that since there was no paper and since the Indians seemed to move around, that no one really owned the land, and so they wanted it. So the Indians and the Europeans fought a lot over ownership of land, basically.
Pseudonymous Kid: And so after the Europeans won, they had all the land? But why did they win?
Me: Well, when they first got here, the Indians didn't have guns. But really, you have to remember that people fought for land for a couple of hundred years, sweetie. There were a lot of battles. Sometimes the Indians won, sometimes the Europeans won.
Pseudonymous Kid: How did the Indians win if they didn't have guns?
Me: They didn't have them at first, but they got them. And they had other weapons, and they knew how to fight with those.
Pseudonymous Kid: So what happened after they lost?
Me: Well, the Europeans set up small pieces of land in some places, called reservations, and told different groups of Indians that they could live there. Mostly it was land they weren't using. And some Indians still live on reservations, and to be honest, sweetie, the U.S. government still doesn't treat those people very well. But a lot of Indians live in cities and towns just the way we do, and you've met Indians, and you just didn't know that they were Indians because they look like everyone else, they dress the same way you and I do.
Pseudonymous Kid: Who else do we know that are Indians?


So help me out, folks. I went over and put a lot of books that seem halfway decent on the Amazon list, but for obvious reasons I really want to avoid the plethora of Indian stories or histories that focus exclusively on the past. PK loves trickster stories, so we actually have a few of those and I added a couple more, but really I'm looking for some decent history and/or children's books that are about Indians in the contemporary world. Sadly, I don't know of many. I guess it's time to start adding non-fiction, biography, and history to his book collection, which right now is mostly fiction and science. If y'all have any good ideas to nip this "Indians wear feathers and lived a long time ago" stuff in the bud, let me know....

Random wrong things that were said today

Me (to the cat): Daisy, could you possibly be more of a pain in my ass?
Daisy: MEOW! MEOW! FEED ME!
Pseudonymous Kid: Mama, why is Daisy a pain between your butt?
.....
Me (to Pseudonymous Kid): Are you on crack?*

*Thank god he failed to catch this. I don't know what I was thinking.
.....
Pseudonymous Kid: No more kissing!!!
I make a very exaggerated sad face.
Pseudonymous Kid: Okay, two more kisses.
I look happy, and kiss him three times.
Pseudonymous Kid: I said TWO! Ok, that's it. No more kisses.
I make a very exaggerated sad face.
Pseudonymous Kid (giggling): Okay, a few more kisses.
I smile big, and kiss him repeatedly.
Pseudonymous Kid: Enough! Too much kisses! No more!
I make the exaggerated sad face yet again.
Pseudonymous Kid (in a tone of sudden ennui): Mama, stop making that ridiculous sad face.

Wow. And thanks

to everyone who recommended, once upon a time, that I get The Tale of Despereaux. It was one of the featured books in Pseudonymous Kid's Scholastic book order before Christmas, so I bought it and wrapped it up and put it under the tree. We started reading it the next night. PK liked it so much that he insisted I not stop at a few chapters, but read the entire first section (there are four "books") in one go. A couple of nights later, we read the second section. Then I went away to Minneapolis, and PK and Mr. B. went away to Chicago. After we all got back, we started reading again, and we just finished the book tonight.

And what a great kids' book it is. If anyone is looking for a sweet, adventerous, gripping, morally complex story for small or not so small kids, this is a great option. The storytelling voice is conversational, but not condescending, the plot is complicated, but engaging enough that PK retained the twists and turns (which rather surprised me, actually), the illustrations--though few--are charming. PK, who refuses to listen to The Wind in the Willows, because it "doesn't have enough pictures," overcame his doubt about this book after the first page, and sat quietly listening to it. Except when Mig's mother died, when he said, "I feel like I'm going to cry," and cuddled up; or when the rats plotted in the dungeon, when he was scared and encouraged me to "read more, so I can find out if it turns out okay"; or when Despereaux's tail was cut off, when he screamed "BAD!!!" and took my scarf and hit the book, over and over, yelling "BAD! BAD! BAD!" for quite some time until I finally calmed him down enough to let me encourage him to listen while I read some more so we could find out if Despereaux would be okay.

I had a few moments of worry myself--at more than one point, it seemed as if the "bad" and "good" characterizations were too simple--ugly characters, bad; beautiful or cute characters, good--but in the end the initial sympathy that the author creates for the ugly characters (who turn briefly very bad indeed) pans out and they are, in the best fairy-tale style, given a chance to redeem themselves and be rewarded. And the good characters are revealed to have their inner darkness, as well--although Despereaux, appropriately enough since he is the hero, is pretty much just a genuinely good-hearted little guy. Occasionally fearful, and sensitive, and vulnerable, but good.

Only one warning: it will make you hungry for soup.

Why do people do this?

P.Z. Myers has moved his blog, and asks that folks help spread the word.

Only for you, P.Z.

I heart my T.A.

You know, in the past I've had graders, but not a proper T.A. At least, I had T.A.s but didn't know what to do with them. This guy comes pre-trained by someone else, and yowza!

He suggests grading schemes. He does the reading. He attends class and sets up the document reader for me while I am making opening comments. He points out after class when I made errors in lecture (must remember to tell him it's okay to point them out during the lectures). He informs me that the bookstore ordered the wrong edition of the book I want, but that they will replace the books the students have bought if they return them. He suggests lecture topics and supplementary material. He volunteers to do the lecture on the longest reading.

It's amazing. God bless good T.A.s.

Where the boys are

Here you go, guys: a thread all your own, where you can claim that feminists hate men; or that we're not going to convince anyone to listen to us, you know, if we can't say it nicely; or that maybe you'll let us have our reproductive rights if we admit that you have rights too; or that when women resist being dragged into talking about what *you* want to talk about, that obviously means they don't think men are entitled to opinions. All that kind of stuff that's really about how uppity it is of women in general, or of this bitch in particular, not to bow down to your obviously superior wisdom, logic, and choice of subject matter.

Have at it; free rein in this thread. Elsewhere, however, I'm gonna start just exercising that ol' delete key. Because I'm having a demanding week, and I'm not feeling real patient right now.

The great thing about academia is the flexible hours

Seven a.m. is an unholy hour, and nine a.m. meetings are clearly the devil's work.

Especially meetings that are accompanied by 50-page administrative documents to be read the night before. Documents that use words like "operationalize"--emphasis in original, mind--to explain how to improve undergraduate literacy. It will be all I can do at the meeting not to point out that undergraduate literacy is an even more acute problem than I thought when the provost uses the word "operationalize."

Nothing's more fun than a sleep schedule that swings two or three hours either way every semester, and occasionally within the week. Love it.

Time for coffee.

Do it!

Go google "bitch."

Bwah!

Blogging for Choice month

Started today.

Let's begin with a few details and statistics, okay? Worldwide, over half a million women die each year. From pregnancy.

Here are some of the risks of pregnancy.

In the U.S., about 300 women a year die from pregnancy. More than one in five pregnant women who is admitted to a hospital goes there not to deliver, but because of some pregnancy-related complication. Ectopic pregnancies *alone* constitute a little over 1.5% of all pregnancies in the U.S.; for women of color, for some reason, the rate of ectopic pregnancy--which is always fatal if not terminated--is 2%. Here's an interesting PDF about pregnancy morbidity in the U.S.

So, to begin with, let's acknowledge that pregnancy, in and of itself, is dangerous to women's health. In the U.S. it is much less dangerous than it is in the developing world--but it is still difficult and dangerous, especially for women with health problems, and more so for women who are poor, very young, or for other reasons unable to obtain good health care and good nutrition. (Believe me, simply eating while pregnant is not cheap: I went through a half gallon of milk every day, and I estimate that our grocery bill doubled while I was pregnant.)

We worry a lot about the number of women who will die from unsafe abortions if abortion is outlawed. And that's a legitimate worry. But look at the chart in that link; almost as many women die from eclampsia (high blood pressure) as die from unsafe abortions. (These statistics are from the WHO, so I'll assume that the "unsafe abortions" statistic can serve as a rough approximation of what would happen if abortion were illegal here.) Add in labor itself, hemmorhage, sepsis, and ectopic and other problematic pregnancies. And suddenly--if we have no doctors who are trained to abort pregnancies, even for health reasons; if doing so is illegal--we have women dying not only from illegal abortions, but from pregnancy itself.

At my age, as a light smoker, I would be ten times more likely to die from any given pregnancy than I am to die of lung cancer in the next ten years.

Pregnancy isn't just a mild inconvenience. It's wrong to force someone to risk their health against their will. Period.

What are the odds

That I can get three syllabi written and xeroxed, arrange a meeting, go to my shrink appointment, unpack, and get myself into work today?

Yeah, I thought so. Well, here's trying. I didn't get those damn Xmas cards done last week, either.

And so begins another new semester....

Introducing a new character

Everyone, I would like you to meet Hilariously Drunk Girl! Who went out for dinner last night with her boyfriend, was told there'd be a wait of about an hour or so for a table, and removed herself to a less crowded bar down the street, where she drank one--ONE--vodka martini.

Said boyfriend had to gallantly guide her back up the street to the restaurant, where when they took their table and looked at the menus, she suddenly felt rather unwell and had to ask him to point out to her *exactly* where the women's bathroom was. She weaved her way over, bumping into only one person's chair on the way, and found, gratefully, that the handicapped stall was unoccupied. Once inside, she contemplated vomiting for a while, spitting gracefully into the toilet, before deciding that what was really needed was a short lie-down on the cool tiled floor. A couple of other women came into the bathroom; one peed in the stall next to her before surrendering it to her friend. Said friend, perhaps wondering what the fuck was taking HDG so long, peeked under the stall divider (which amused me at the time; glad to see I'm not the only one who does that) before, I think, whispering something to the waiting friend who had already finished washing her hands. Somehow, without HDG noticing, waiting friend crawled under the door of HDG's locked stall to ask if HDG was all right.

"I'm fine," said HDG. "Really." She gathered herself enough to sit up. "Honestly, I'll be okay."

"It's okay," said waiting friend. "You don't have to impress anyone."

"No," said HDG, drunkenly. "Really, I'm perfectly okay."

"Are you sure?" asked waiting friend, rubbing HDG's back.

"Thanks," said HDG, rubbing waiting friend's shoulder. "I'll be all right, really."

"Darling?" interjected a male voice.

"She's okay," said waiting friend.

HDG wondered, vaguely, if that was the boyfriend's voice. Probably was, she decided. She stood up, holding onto the conveniently located handicapped stall handrail.

Waiting friend stood up. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes," said HDG. "Really. Better now." She stood, waiting awkwardly, wondering if she should just pee with waiting friend standing there. "How did you get in here?" she finally asked.

"I crawled under the door," said waiting friend.

"Oh."

"Okay, well, if you're really okay," said waiting friend, reaching for the door lock.

"Really, I am," said HDG.

Waiting friend let herself out of the stall, and HDG pulled up her skirt and sat down on the toilet for a while before standing up, collecting herself, and leaving the bathroom. Boyfriend, of course, was waiting outside the door.

"Did you come inside?" asked HDG.

"Yes," said boyfriend simply. "Are you okay?"

HDG leaned against him. "I'm sorry," she said, just as boyfriend was saying, "let's go home." "I think maybe we should go home."

Boyfriend walked her to the entrance. "I'm going to just sit down here," she said, sinking onto one of the two huge square white ottomans.

"I'll get your coats," said the hostess. Some other restaurant employee said something to the boyfriend, who said something back. HDG sat upright on the ottoman. The boyfriend appeared with her hat, gloves, and purse in hand. The hostess brought her coat, which the boyfriend took and helped her into, still sitting on the ottoman. She took his arm, stood up, and they left and stood on the curb while the boyfriend hailed a cab. He helped her in, and she noticed that the cab smelled strongly of incense. Okay, she thought to herself, let's not throw up in the cab. She leaned against her boyfriend while they drove home; he paid the cabdriver, walked her into the building, guided her to the elevator and upstairs, where she walked into the apartment, shedding her coat onto the floor and leaning against the wall next to the bathroom to unzip her boots before lying down on the bathroom floor.

"Wouldn't you be more comfortable lying somewhere else?" asked the boyfriend quietly, kneeling down to rub her back.

"No. It's cool here."

The boyfriend disappeared for a moment and came back with a down pillow. "PIllow?" he asked, gently putting it behind her head.

"No."

He got the throw from the couch and started to put it over her. "No," she said, "I'm hot." He lay it over her feet, then sat at them, reaching forward to rub her back. "That feels good," she said drowsily.

He rubbed her back while she drifted in and out of sleep. Eventually she woke up, her left arm very cold against the bathroom floor. The throw was pulled over her. Thank goodness the boyfriend is so clean, she thought, I'm not lying on a dirty bathroom floor. She shifted the pillow under her head and lay there for some time, thinking about getting up, knowing she'd be warmer if she did. Eventually she got up and closed the door. The boyfriend was seated just down the hall, at the dining room table, watching a movie on her laptop. She peed and washed her hands before wandering down to sit next to him.

"Hi," he said.

"I'm cold," she said, sitting in the armchair and leaning back. The boyfriend covered her with the throw, which she'd dragged with her, then with his sport coat and then his overcoat. She rested her feet in his lap as he lit a cigarette, which she reached for. He handed it to her, lit another, and put the ashtray on a dining room chair, which he moved to where she could reach it.

She wiggled her feet. "Can you take these off?" she asked. He removed her stockings, carefully, so as not to tear them. "Thanks," she said. He rubbed her feet.

After she finished her cigarette and the bottle of water that was on the table, the boyfriend asked, "do you think we should go to bed?"

"Yes, please," she said. He picked up the coats and she stood up and went down the hall where she crawled into the warm bed. "Can you undress me, please?" she asked, so he did, and then pulled the down comfortor over her and snuggled up to keep her warm and pet her hair.

How much do I rock?

Draft of commissioned article: DONE. Needs a bit of fine-tuning to make the last few paragraphs sound "writerly" rather than like a conference paper (yes, I do change my style depending on if the paper is to be 1. read aloud--shorter sentences, more signposting, e.g., "Back to X," a more conversational style--2. read silently in an academic journal--more complex sentences and a more formal structure, including notes, which I need to re-insert into this draft next week but which is essentially simple paperwork and will therefore be easy, if boring--or 3. bloggy, in which case I meander and allow myself ridiculously long parenthetical statements and asides, as well as conversational shorthand and the assumption that a lot of my premises don't need to be spelled out), but that will take no more than half an hour. Now to shower, dress, and head downtown to maybe reward myself with a nice book (plus I need a new moleskine notebook) and coffee with Elise of After School Snack. Who I adore, by the way; the first time I met her it was like hanging with my grad school friends. Am hoping her baby is a girl, as I have a new knitting book with a couple of very simple but adorable baby patterns . . . .

Embrace the Irony

Let's take a few minutes of procrastinating to talk about work. Here I am with this brand-spanking-new 2006 goal (I almost wrote 1996, jesus) of writing a bit every day on something that is not the blog. So far, so half-assed on actually meeting said goal. I know the strategies: write for 15 minutes, write in the morning before everyone else gets up, write w/out worrying about perfection, write before you get bogged down in email and other crap. Those things work great--when I do 'em. The tough bit seems to be revamping one's habits, of course.

So let's have a li'l brainstorming roundtable of writing habits. What I'm curious about is, what does the "writing day" look like, for you all? Like, in practice, what do you guys do to ensure it gets done?

My current habit is that I get up whenever (usually lateish); I get some coffee. I drink a bit of coffee, then I have a cigarette. At home, I smoke outside. Then I come back in, sit on the couch with PK who is eating breakfast in front of kids' TV, and check my blog email, which usually gets me started web-surfing. I do that for just a bit, thinking the whole time "just a few minutes, then I'll go get dressed." Then I either help PK finish getting ready for and off to school before heading upstairs to shower and dress, or I leave PK to Mr. B. and head upstairs. If the former, I dress quickly; if the latter, I take longer. Then it's off to work, where the first thing I do is usually check email or, if I'm pressed for time, start thinking about teaching. Then off to teach, and once I'm back from my first class it's usually people popping in to talk, or chit-chat in the hallway, or prepping for the next class, after which I usually heave a big sigh and allow myself to jump into the internets until it's time to go home. Here at the boyfriend's, my schedule is usually that once I check the blog email, with coffee & a cigarette by my side, I find it hard to drag myself out and voila: the day whiles itself away.

Obviously this isn't a schedule that includes writing. This semester, I have a couple days a week without teaching (yay!) and am on a couple of committees, which probably means that I'll have meetings on those days: but even a 2-hour meeting is only part of a longer day. So I need to figure out how to make writing more of a priority, preferably (given my writing anxiety) in a way that seems fun. I often find that having a meeting in the mid- to late afternoon is a help; it gives me a clear cutoff time, and takes advantage of my constant feeling that "I have to get X done quickly now before moving onto Y" to make me write for "just a few minutes" before I have to prep for the meeting. Best if this is late in the day, so as to leave space for me getting up late and futzing around with coffee before the feeling of time pressure jump starts me. I have the devil of a time with getting up early, which makes the "write first thing" mantra a tough one to follow: unless my day really starts late, I usually wake up with only a couple hours before my first appointment, which is about enough time to caffeinate, smoke, futz for fifteen minutes, and then shower, dress, and go.

What do you all do? Feel free to offer advice, but what I'm really looking for is different maps of people's schedules, so I can pick and choose different aspects that look adaptable to me. I'm really curious about how other people do it, and my natural extroversion seems to work best when I feel part of a community that's doing the same kind of thing.

Research + resources = success

Hey, women in science and engineering: the University of Michigan is hiring.

Having it all

Rebecca Traister at Salon responds to the really awesome article by Terry Martin Hekker that ran in Sunday's NYT. Apparently David Brooks wrote an article as well, which I didn't read and won't link to because it's behind that "Times Select" paid firewall, saying that women are happier at home--not only because home life is, in the end, more satisfying than professional life (which obviously means you should have all of one and none of the other, because if X is better than Y it means Y is BAD. We live in a black and white world, people, and you can't have both cake *and* bread), but because "the fact that men and women are wired differently."

Ok, taking a breath now.

Now, Brooks's article is in response to Linda Hirshman's American Prospect piece, which I've already blogged about. Like a dummy, he goes on to say that "Hirshman has it exactly backward . . . . Power is in the kitchen. The big problem is not the women who stay there but the men who leave." Infuriating, because THAT IS PRECISELY HIRSHMAN'S POINT: that the problem is that men don't do enough of the unpaid, unrecognized, low-status work of domesticity. And that because they don't do it, women are forced into "choosing" between home life and professional life rather than getting to have both.

Because the thing is, home life is lovely and important and I would sacrifice my career for PK in a heartbeat.

Except that I do NOT have to make that "choice." This is in part because my husband, god bless him, puts his money where his mouth is. (And god bless me for having the brains to marry a guy who walks the walk, and the huevos to help keep both of us honest.) Unlike David Brooks, Mr. B. thinks housework and home life are important AND he is willing to put HIS career on hold for a few years while he attends to them, rather than arguing that they're really important, honey, so you should do that while I go out and accumulate money and connections and status and prestige.

Not because money and connections and status and prestige are better than home life, or more important in some vague, cosmic sense. But because they are more important in the real world that we live in. Read that Hekker piece above to see why: the love of family and friends will keep you from dying alone, but the ability to pay your bills and the possession of health insurance will keep you from dying, period.

I realize I'm overstating the case, addressing it in nearly the same black and white, either / or terms that I'm accusing Brooks of using. But this is in part a reaction to the crap-ass argument, which always gets trotted out in these stupid debates, that women are just naturally better at home life--which just happens to be unpaid and low status. Counteracting that still-dominant idea, which now masquerades, as Hirshman pointed out, under the mask of "choice," requires one to point out, loudly and insistently, that low pay and low status = low power.

The fact is that taking on the primary role of emotional work may also, interestingly, be bad for women's health (pdf), as this piece by Lyndall Strazdins and Dorothy H. Broom investigates. Another interesting point about that pdf is that it acknowledges, with surprise, that men WANT to do more emotional work in their relationships--which suggests that, rather than using the "happy home life" argument to attack women who point out power inequities in the conventional distrubtion of men = paid work, women = unpaid work, advocates for home life would do better to urge men to pursue happiness by doing more of the fulfilling, satisfying, and important work of childcare, homemaking, and emotional cartaking, even if doing so means sacrificing economic power, because it would make them happier. It would also, funnily enough, free women up to mind their economic safety and pursue power without having to "choose" not to have children, or to hire full-time nannies.

It's the false either / or distinction that's bullshit, not the argument that women should--gasp--pursue money and power in realms other than at home. Does the workplace need to change to accomodate this? Hell yes, and we oughta push hard to make that happen. But we're only pushing with one arm as long as we don't recognize that this is not "just" a women's issue; it's an issue for everyone. It isn't reminding women to watch their backs, to plan for their economic futures, and to pursue direct as well as indirect power that undermines family life; it's failing to require men--and by extension, the worlds of work and politics--to take kids, family time, and other "low status" but vitally important realities into account. Instead of telling women they can't have it all, we need to remind men that they can.

And should.

The flaw in my brilliant plan

Staying up 'til 7 am this morning kind of threw the ol' monkey wrench into the "write daily" plan; the boyfriend didn't take off for work until 3ish, and then I had assloads of goddamn work-related email and the like to deal with. I swear, much as I love the internets, work email is the invention of the devil. Already I am being hassled to notify the front office of when my office hours are, to provide copies of yet-unwritten syllabi, and asked when I am avaiilable for meetings next week. I HATE the beginning of the semester. I had all these lovely plans not only to write but to finish up my Xmas cards (yes, I know, fuck off with your essentialist "Christmas is December 25th" bullshit) and put the syllabi together and really, there should be plenty of time for all these things. Why do the theoretical 8-hour days inevitably seem to winnow down to about 45 minutes of actual time doing actual work that one wants to do, as opposed to bureaucratic bullshit?

Pseudonymous Kid and Mr. B. called today: they are en route to Chicago, where it is hoped they will hook up with Flea, Mr. Flea, and the little Flea circus. PK was unwilling to leave his new mice behind, so they are in the back seat following a trip to the vet to check their general health, since Chicago relation is in the late stages of what has been, sadly, a difficult and tragic pregnancy. (No details, as the details are not mine to share.) PK was thrilled that the veterinarian checked them for parasites, explained how to do it, and let him view the slides through the microscope; but he insists that she was "STUPID!" for confirming their sex, since we know that they are both female ALREADY. He is a wee bit impatient with anything he interprets as questioning his knowledge or judgment. I hope this is a developmental phase and not a permanent aspect of his character.

Ok, it's about 6 pm now, I need to shower and then write until the boyfriend gets home and fixes me something delicious to eat.

Women's Media Center

Check it out: The Women's Media Center is a new organization with a website dedicated to women's news and women in the media--columnists, bloggers, women's magazines, women's media organizations, etc. Nice site! Check out the women columnists for some new voices you might not have heard: Cindy Rodriguez, for instance, who writes for the Denver Post, definitely deserves a wider audience.

One of those "I love the internets" moments.

This woman writer's day's work: a very satisfactory introduction to the revision of this article (goal: to finish it this week and put it in the mail to the journal that solicted it almost two years ago), one that also serves to point to the article coming out this spring and, perhaps, as a setup to an eventual book. Also, lunch and a nap. Now, a shower and what PK would call "day clothes."

Yeah, I'm having a good day :)

Happy new year

You know, much as I love and adore the boyfriend, I have to admit that one part of what I look forward to when I visit him is the QUIET. As in, there is no Pseudonymous Kid here saying and doing adorable, demanding things. Hence I am rationalizing my guilt at being gone the week before the semester starts (when will I get those syllabi written? What about that meeting I was supposed to call this week?) by telling myself that this is a WRITING RETREAT, in which I will spend a few dedicated hours to finishing up the draft of that one article and getting started on the second one. Re. second one, by the way, some of you might get an emai from me later this week.

So, for the first time in ages, a work-related post from me! Goals for the week: an hour or two of writing a day; no email or other work crap (e.g., syllabi) until after the writing gets done; blogging only after writing (this being a notable exception, b/c I am self-nagging over no posts all weekend); and, hopefully, a spot of nice quiet domesticity in the evenings to reward myself for being good during the day. Maybe if you're really lucky, I'll post thrilling writing updates.

This is the start of one of my new year's resolutions (which I don't believe in making): writing, even if only half an hour, on work-related (i.e., non-blog) stuff every day.