Seeing is Believing

In the social psychology literature, there is a theory known as stereotype threat, described in Claude Steele's wonderful book Whistling Vivaldi. Steele elegantly goes over the massive evidence that negative stereotypes about our identities can inhibit our performance in a multitude of ways. If white men think they can't jump, the social psychology research shows that it turns out they can't. This phenomenon doesn't just negatively impact white men's athletic performance - it has been shown to explain the academic underperformance of black students and women in math. When psychologically battling a negative stereotype, one vehicle for overcoming a threatening environment is to have what's known as a "critical mass" of others like yourself. If a social setting (like a workplace or classroom) has amassed a large enough number of individuals like you, that will reduce your feelings of threat. For example, scholars have shown women perform better when they take a math test with other women in the room compared to when they take the same math test with only men in the room (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, 2000). Sharing the identity of people in your environment makes that environment more "identity safe" and helps you to psychologically dismiss negative stereotypes about your group. Seeing others like yourself succeed helps you to believe you can succeed in that environment.

I have been thinking about this issue of critical mass while reading my children Bible stories. We own The Jesus Storybook Bible, by far the most popular Christian children's Bible these days. And for good reason. Sally Lloyd-Jones, the author, has done an amazing job writing Bible stories in a way that is accessible for young readers. The subtitle of the book is "Every story whispers his name," and she takes the approach of telling stories of Biblical characters and connecting them back to God's story. It's enchanting for my kids, and they bring me the book at bed time frequently (a clear sign that they like a book). However, I've been troubled for some time about the lack of critical mass of women in the stories. There are very few Biblical characters who play the lead role in these stories that are women. In the Old Testament section, the only story that features a woman as a lead character is the story of Leah, and it's entitled "The girl no one wanted." It emphasizes that Leah wasn't loved because she wasn't beautiful on the outside, but that God showed her His love and made her feel wanted. It says, "You see, when God looked at Leah, he saw a princess. And sure enough, that's exactly what she became. One of Leah's children's children's children would be a prince - the Prince of Heaven - God's son" (p. 74). While Leah's story is an important story, it struck me that the only Old Testament story featuring a woman's story reinforces stereotypes that women are only valued by their looks, and that Leah's entire narrative hinges on the issue of external beauty. What of Ruth, whose story centers on her unwavering devotion and kindness to her mother-in-law? What of Rahab, who played a crucial role in a spy adventure in order to save her family? What of Deborah, a judge who led the people of Israel to battle and pronounces to the cowardly men around her that their nation's victory will belong to a woman? What of Abigail, whose wisdom and hospitality cools the many hot heads around her? The same is true in the New Testament section. Absent are the women who prophesy about Jesus' birth, like Anna or Elizabeth. None of the followers of Jesus who were women, like Mary Magdalene, are featured as a lead character in the chapters on the life and teachings of Jesus. None of the chapters on the early church name the women who played important roles, like Lydia, Phoebe, Junia, or Priscilla.

Photo by Saint Joseph

If seeing those like you in a group helps you to believe that you belong there, when our daughters don't see themselves in God's story, I worry they won't believe they are uniquely created and gifted by that God. I put out a call to friends for suggestions, and was pretty disheartened with what is out there to tell the stories of women in the Bible for our youngest readers. Sarah Bessey who wrote Jesus Feminist describes the problem well: "I began to search for faith-based picture books, in particular a few with female lead characters. Most of what I found wasn't that different from the stories for girls in the mass market: pink, sparkles, cupcakes, princesses, dress-up. 'Boy' books featured knights and princes, battles and heroics. There isn't anything wrong with those things--heaven knows we enjoy some of those stories and activities here--but I did long for more than stereotypes about the experiences and adventures of men and women following in the ways of Jesus." (pp. 89-90) 

I ordered a few children's books that share the stories of women in the Bible, but they are all designed for slightly older children. So I drafted a preschool-level book to read to my girls - it's a collection of rhyming tales that share God’s love for every child through the stories of the women in the New Testament. From the mother Mary to the deaconesses in the early church, many women played a special role in the story of Jesus and the church, and I hope my girls will know their names and stories. In the meantime, I am grateful they see a "critical mass" every Sunday as they are surrounded in our church family by women represented in every role from pastoral leadership to worship.

Wrestling with my place in the body

Before I became an adult born again Christian in 2006, I was an agnostic, politically liberal woman with a strong feminist ideology. My favorite singers in college were Ani DiFranco and the Indigo Girls, whose messages of female and queer empowerment resonated with me (and still do). Enter Jesus into my adult life - I was moved by the message of the gospel, which I had never understood before despite lots of church experience in my childhood. I wanted to be a "Jesus freak," as my ex-boyfriend labeled me when we broke up shortly after my conversion. But as much as the gospel moved me to make a huge spiritual commitment, I began to wrestle with The Church, trying to figure out my identity in it.

photo by János Csongor Kerekes

For example, a few years back, I was reading some Facebook posts by an acquaintance about leaders in Church history who lived out an inspiring vocation as a result of their faith (e.g., William Wilberforce was among those profiled). I was struck that they were all men. I commented that he should consider entries on women in Church history, and he invited me to write such a profile myself. I had always wanted to read more about the American women's rights movement, so I told him I intended to research Susan B. Anthony for a profile, who is a well-known American suffragist and was a Quaker. Of course (being me), I could not just do a Wikipedia-based profile of her. I set about reading her official biographies, written by a fellow suffragist and journalist who Anthony charged with writing her life story. Her biographer had access to Anthony's journals, speeches and personal friendship, so it was an amazing multi-volume biography that is over 1500 pages.

As I dug in to Anthony's biography, it began to dawn on me that I could not profile her for my acquaintance's purposes. Though Anthony was raised and remained a Quaker, I could not write a profile arguing that her vocation as a suffragist and abolitionist was connected in any way to her faith. I could cite several passages in her biography to explain my reasons, but one short anecdote illustrates well the relationship between Anthony and the Church. Anthony and her close friend and fellow leader in the movement for women's rights, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, attended a sermon by a well-known preacher of the time on "Women and Skepticism" in which the preacher argued if women left their natural sphere, they would become skeptical and even immoral. He believed this was a black and white issue biblically, and cited the suffrage movement as evidence of his claims that when women leave their proper sphere, they become skeptical and immoral. Anthony and Stanton confronted the preacher afterwards, and Anthony informed him that his mother should give him a good spanking for the sermon. Stanton reportedly followed Anthony's rebuke with, "'O, no, allow me to congratulate you. I have been trying for years to make women understand that the worst enemy they have is in the pulpit, and you have illustrated the truth of it.'" (The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Vol. II), p. 596)

Male American church leaders were very often the enemy of Anthony's and Stanton's efforts for equality in property and voting rights, not their allies. In fact, I found that Anthony's biography detailed many examples of her doubts and disappointments in her faith, and in reading the many accounts of the roadblocks men in the American church leadership put in her way, I wasn't surprised. How could she not have had significant doubts in an institution that was frequently her enemy as she fought for justice for women? I left the research project full of admiration for Anthony, who died before American women won the right to vote, and disgust for the role (or lack thereof) that the church played in the women's movement.

When I was a newly minted Jesus follower, I didn't know where to situate myself and attended lots of churches to figure out where to go on this journey. I ultimately began attending a non-denominational church, where a spiritual mentor was attending. I was learning a lot about the faith and loving meeting people in the community. However, early on in my time in the church, the issue of women in leadership came up in an all-female small group I was participating in. Ironically, the leader of the group argued (citing scripture) that women couldn't be leaders in the church, and I realized in my time attending the church, I had never once seen a woman on the pulpit. This was so jarring to my identity and beliefs that I called the church and asked to speak to a pastor about the church's position on the issue. The church's position was that women could be pastors and leaders, but not the lead pastor. I chewed on this and wrestled with it. As I got more involved, I attended a church board meeting and was disappointed when I saw all the elders and deacons were men. As I continued to attend, I never once saw a woman give a sermon. Yet, I stayed because I loved the community, despite the cognitive dissonance I felt within it as a woman and a feminist.

A crisis point for my cognitive dissonance in the community was a sermon in a series entitled "Black and White" in which a pastor preached that "homosexuality" is not biblical, and that this was a black and white issue as far as the bible was concerned. Without getting in to the theology here (as there has been much written on this by scholars), as far as I was concerned, biblically this was just as "black and white" as whether women could lead (or have their heads uncovered or even speak) in church. I thought of all the LGBTQ friends and family in my life, and imagined what it would be like for them to be sitting in the congregation and hearing that this issue is black and white. I knew they would be offended and hurt. Much like I was offended and hurt to see women marginalized in a community I loved. I didn't know how to be me in this community.

A few months later when Jeff and I got married and began our life together in Ann Arbor, we sought a spiritual home where women were affirmed in leadership. We found a new church home, and we appreciated that early in our time attending, there was a sermon series on the book UnChristian in which leaders in the church invited conversation about the issue of the LGBTQ community in the church. The church leaders acknowledged differences of opinion, presented multiple perspectives, and invited members to discuss with each other in small groups. However, a few years later, the national denomination of our local church affirmed the belief that gay marriage is immoral, and our local church preached that the leadership agreed. I prayed for months about whether I could stay in a community full of people I love that would exclude from leadership and marriage friends and family who I also love. As I prayed about this, many times a scripture kept coming to me. When Jesus was asked the greatest commandment, he said the most important is, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Mark 30-31). I didn't feel I was loving my LGBTQ neighbors, friends and family members as I myself would want to be loved if I stayed in a community that pronounced they were immoral and could not lead in the community, even if God gave them the gifts and passion to do so.

I had several conversations with close, straight friends in the church as I wrestled with these issues. Oftentimes, I heard people say that it was not an essential issue. In other words, rather than a basic theological position that is required for Christian orthodoxy (like the crucifixion of Christ), it is a non-essential belief. I concede that point. There are lots of non-essential beliefs I often disagree with people in the church about, like how to reconcile the God of the old and new testaments, predestination, the role of God in suffering, etc. There is no such thing as a spiritual community where I am going to agree with every interpretation and issue (I can't even find that community in my own marriage!). Yet, while they might not be "essential," the issues of women and LGBTQ people in leadership are about who belongs in the church - who can embody and represent Christ in and outside of the church body. When communities say that entire identity groups are excluded from being able to use their spiritual gifts within the community, that is striking to the very essence of who can bring the kingdom here on earth. This feels quite different than other non-essential doctrinal disagreements, like how we reconcile scripture about predestination with passages about free will.

And then there is the treatment within the church towards these identity groups based on such so-called non-essential beliefs. Denominations and churches splinter, excommunicate members who come out, deny women the ability to use certain spiritual gifts, fire pastors who identify as LGBTQ or sanction LGBTQ marriages, remove LGBTQ Christians from positions of leadership if they reveal their identity, and/or turn a blind eye and hope that members will live closeted so these issues don't have to be confronted. Jesus said, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35) Outsiders see how the church treats its LGBTQ members and typically conclude the exact opposite about how disciples of Jesus treat one another.

My feelings on this issue have only strengthened since becoming a mother. I see that those who typically speak out on behalf of the LGBTQ community either self-identify as LGBTQ or they have a child who does. If my own children do not identify as cisgender or straight, I will love and support them unconditionally. Jesus didn't put conditions on who he died for on the cross. Unearned, unconditional love and blessing is what grace is all about. To put conditions on who we embrace in the church is the ultimate un-Christlikeness. I like how Greg Boyd put this in Repenting of Religion: "We have seen that the church is called to be the corporate body of Christ that unconditionally loves and embraces all people, regardless of their sin, and invites them into its own celebration of the cessation of the ban [on judging others]. The only exception to this otherwise unconditional embrace is the sin Jesus confronted in the religious leadership of his day. (...) Religious sin [judging others] is unique in that it is the only sin that can keep a community from fulfilling the commission to unconditionally love and embrace everyone.” (p. 204)

I don't want to be the kind of person that only speaks out against injustice or abuse when it affects me or my own kids. In fact, if I take seriously Jesus's call to love my neighbor as myself, I would strive to see and love every person as I would myself or my own children. It grieves me that so many straight, cisgender believers just dismiss this as a non-essential issue and leave the battle to those who themselves identify as LGBTQ or their parents.

It's been about a decade since I began to wrestle with figuring out my identity in the church. I know I'm not there yet, and I've failed in how I myself have done the wrestling. I haven't spoken with church leaders I disagree with, I haven't put myself enough in conversation with LGBTQ Christians, and I haven't tried to change the church from within through loving dialogue with those with whom I disagree. I've stayed silent many times when I felt called to speak out. I would ask forgiveness for these failures from both my LGBTQ loved ones and from those I have silently disagreed with in the church. Jesus's prayer for the body of believers in John 17 was that we may be one, and even brought to complete unity. My hope at this point in my faith journey as I see the church ripped apart over the issue of LGBTQ rights is that I can do a better job of being a part of the effort for unity while still being true to my belief that women and LGBTQ people are unconditionally loved, called and qualified to lead in the body of Christ.

The Hot Zone

We unexpectedly had our childcare arrangements change at the start of this year. We transitioned both girls to 4 days in daycare at the center where Lydia had been attending pre-school part-time. We were anxious about the change for lots of reasons: How would Anna adjust to being in group care? How would the girls (who love to play together) react to being separated in care settings? Would Anna bond with her new primary care giver? How would the girls react emotionally to not seeing their former care giver (who they were very much attached to)? Would Lydia, an introvert, be able to establish closer bonds with the kids in her pre-school class, where she insists she has no friends and likes no one? I lost sleep due to the persistent anxiety and worries. However, it never occurred to me to worry about the thing that would end up breaking all of our spirits most - the disease hot zone of daycare. I had assumed that because Lydia had been in pre-school part time, we had already begun our exposure to the germ factory of daycare. I. Was. Wrong.

The first month that the girls were in daycare four days a week (March), they were actually only in attendance on average every other day. We were paying through the nose for daycare we weren't able to use while at the same time losing productivity at work and depleting all of our sick days. We were struck by one illness after another (respiratory, gastrointestinal, you name it) and to make things worse, we had two children each getting the illnesses that were brought home, which doubled the duration of our collective misery. After their bouts with norovirus, Anna learned what "puke" means and Lydia began obsessing about not kissing people in order to avoid contracting illnesses. Jeff has to insist now that he wants to kiss Lydia despite the risk of catching her germs. This complicated a lot of the emotional adjustment issues we had worried about, especially for Lydia, who learned that if she complained of an ailment, she could stay home from "school." For a month afterwards, she periodically proclaimed she had a stomach bug in the hopes of staying home for the day. April we had some reprieve, but now in the month of May we have had a wave of successive viruses. First Anna was sick with an extreme fever for a week, followed by Lydia catching a bug with high fever. We assumed it was the same bug, until Anna spiked a fever again starting yesterday. I haven't slept well in three weeks now due to the night parenting that comes with fever discomfort awakening kids throughout the night, and as anyone who has experienced prolonged sleep deprivation can understand, I am on the verge of a breakdown. We are all so emotionally exhausted from it that I think at least once daily that I should just quit my job so that we can have some semblance of health and happiness in our lives. During this past week, I saw a post on a friend's Facebook page complaining of the constant illnesses her infant in daycare was contracting, and chimed in with supportive words. I also carefully read the other responses, hoping desperately to see more experienced parents saying it is all worth it to build up immunity (something I often hear from parents of older kids). Some asserted that to be the case and I wanted to believe them, but it got me wondering. Is it at all worth it? Are the anecdotes of improved immunity supported by data? Or is this toll on our family's health just a huge sunk cost that will never be repaid?

I started to dig (thankful for my U-M library privileges!). Several articles (Haskins et al., 1989; Carabin et al., 1998) that I found focused on the financial costs (individually and socially) of illnesses contracted in group daycare. The policy prescription was to better educate daycare centers about good hygiene practices. Considering Anna sucks her fingers all day long and touches everything with those figures, and that most kids have similar habits, I have little faith that hand washing education is going to help with this problem. Maybe my public health expert friends will persuade me otherwise, but the spread of illness in large group settings at this young age seems largely out of the control of daycare centers. Taking the significant costs of these illnesses as a given, I tried to find articles that spoke to the long-term impact (if any) of child care on a child's health. The first such article I found was a study (Wald et al., 1991) that compared illness frequency in children in home care, group care (2-6 kids) and day care (7 or more kids) over 3 years. What they found was a significant difference between kids in day care compared to home care for the first 2 years, and that those increased rates for kids in day care only stabilized by the 3rd year in care. Considering we are 2 months in to our stay in the hot zone, I just about cried imagining that this hell of constant infections is going to continue for 2 full years. A systemic review (Ochoa Sangrador et al., 2007) of studies of the relationship between daycare attendance and infectious disease depressingly noted, "Child day-care attendance could be responsible for 33%-50% of the episodes of respiratory infection and gastroenteritis among the exposed population. In conclusion, it can be said that the risk for childhood health attributable to the child day-care attendance is discreet but of high-impact." (Insert my groan of despair.)

Sick Bento by Amorette Dye. This cheered me up a bit.

However, I thought it would be useful if I could find similar studies with a longer-term scope, given I often hear parents saying that the daycare hot zone pays off in elementary school years. Along those lines, I found Ball et al.'s (2002) article, "Influence of Attendance at Day Care on the Common Cold From Birth Through 13 Years of Age," and my desperation lifted a bit. These researchers similarly compared in home care, group care and day care kids and the frequency of common colds from 0-13 years of age. They found: "Attendance at large day care was associated with more common colds during the preschool years. However, it was found to protect against the common cold during the early school years, presumably through acquired immunity. This protection waned by 13 years of age." A similar conclusion is drawn from a German cohort study (Zutavern et al., 2007) that studied children from ages 0-6. It found children attending day care were more likely to have a variety of infections (common cold, bronchitis, pneumonia, and diarrhea) within the first 2–3 years of life. From 4 years onward, this relationship between day care attendance and infectious disease rate was not significant anymore and even reversed for many of the infections. The authors conclude, "We interpret our findings that children in day care centres acquire infections at a younger age resulting in a certain level of immunity for some infections. In children who have not attended day care centres within the first years of life acquired immunity gets delayed."

The day care hot zone is real. The desperation and pain of children and parents during this time is real. The financial and career costs to families are real. The immunity payoff also appears to be real. I'm not sure if that is cold comfort or a silver lining right now... the answer probably will depend on how sleep deprived I am at any given moment.

Cognitive Dissonance

Photo by Deborah Leigh

People often talk about how stressful it is to become a new parent, and the emphasis is typically on the physical and emotional stresses that result from giving birth, caring for a newborn (the feeding, diapering, etc.), and being sleep deprived. Those stresses are real and awful, but it seems to me that the most significant mental stress of becoming a new parent for me has been the constant cognitive dissonance I'm experiencing. In psychology, cognitive dissonance refers to the feelings of mental discomfort that result when there is a discrepancy between our beliefs and our behaviors. In becoming a parent, I encounter an almost daily mismatch between who I think I am inside my head/heart and what my behaviors suggest about who I am.

I became a parent in my 30s, and thought I was a relatively self-aware person who knew my strengths and weaknesses. However, it turns out that who I am is a lot more dependent on situational pressures than I had realized, and those self-discoveries are usually mentally and emotionally painful. "Know thyself," said the Ancient Greek philosophers. Well, below are some things I "knew" about myself before having children that turn out to be untrue.

I am a punctual person.
I used to be one of those people that was always on time or early for scheduled commitments or events. I thought my punctuality showed that I respected other people. I'd even say that those who are perpetually late for things clearly think they're more important than other people, since they think their time is more important than other peoples' time. Well, now I'm constantly late for things. It turns out that I am one of those people that thinks my time is more important than other peoples'. To deal with the pain of this realization, I rationalize my lateness by telling myself it's "better late than never," since the alternative is just not showing up at all to events/parties/meetings because it's such a hassle to get anywhere.

I am a good steward of the environment.
In eighth grade (1990, when the "Earth Day" movement went global), I won an essay prize for a state-wide Earth Day writing competition. The essay was way melodramatic... the first line said something about a dead fish floating in polluted waters. Because of my love of nature, I wanted to major in biology when I went to college, and I went to a school with a strong reputation for being institutionally environmentally conscious. Well, it turns out I am no longer a good steward of the environment. There is a landfill full of disposable diapers from my two kids to prove it. We wanted to do cloth diapers, but our condo association didn't allow people to wash things contaminated with pet (or human!) waste in the communal washers. By the time we moved in to a house and baby 2 was on the way, we just didn't have the energy to make the switch (or so I rationalize it...).

I am organized and detail-oriented.
I was often told by teachers and bosses that I was appreciated for my organizational skills and my attention to detail. As an adult, my desk and bedroom were always immaculate, and I had excellent filing systems at home or work. When I studied for my preliminary exams in graduate school, I had a thematically organized binder with detailed notes (all answering the same five questions) on every reading I'd done in my focus areas. Now, I leave my wallet in random places, like Lydia's school (twice). I find myself in the airport changing a poopy diaper only to discover I forgot to replenish diapers OR wipes. If I don't write something down on a "to do" list at work, I forget that I ever promised someone I'd do it. Half of the spoons in our flatware set are missing. HALF. I could go on, and on, and on...

I am a thoughtful friend/sister/aunt/daughter.
I used to send cards on friends' and siblings' birthdays, and remembered to call my amazing nephew and nieces on their birthdays. I used to carefully plan what I wanted to buy loved ones for special occasions, and always made a special arrangements on Mother's Day for my mom. Now, I don't remember anyone's birthday. I actually have to do the math to remember how old I am. I haven't mailed a paper card in... wow, I don't even know. Maybe our last paper Christmas card 3 years ago? So the evidence of any thoughtfulness towards loved ones on my part is desperately lacking.

I am healthy and take good care of myself.
I used to work out 4-5 times a week and sleep 6-7 hours a night. But now, I have quit the gym and I am lucky if I get 4 hours of sleep a night. At least I'm still cooking healthy meals. (I think? My health nut brothers claim that half the stuff I eat is mildly toxic. I don't have time to do the research on their claims.)

I have hobbies and interests, including reading, travel, learning foreign languages, photography, singing, museum-going, etc.
I used to do all those things. Now, I do not. Unless an annual trip to New Jersey counts as travel and taking pictures of my kids count as photography. Recently someone who hadn't seen me for 6 months asked me, "What's new?" I couldn't think of anything new I'd done since I saw her. I rationalized it by telling myself that I also couldn't remember what I ate for breakfast that day (see above section about being detail-oriented).

My spiritual life is important to me.
I used to read scripture, meditate, and pray pretty much daily. I used to have deep theological debates and discussions with friends in my spiritual community and my husband. I used to spend significant amounts of time serving my community. Now, I barely do any of these things. I pray with Lydia about monsters in her dreams at bedtime, host a community group at our house (during which I mostly chase kids all over the house), and tell myself that's all I can manage right now.

I'm never going to (insert parenting choice here)/I'm only going to (insert parenting choice here).
I had lots of ideas about the parenting choices I was going to make. I pretty much was wrong about everything I thought I'd do. Below is just a brief list of examples.

• I was only going to breast feed. That didn't work out.
• I was going to do cloth diapers. See above.
• I was going to make my kids eat what I cooked or let them go to bed hungry. The evening I wrote this, Jeff and I had quiche, Lydia ate PB&J and Anna had mac and cheese.
• I was not ever going to yell at my kids. It's happened. More than once.
• I was going to do a weekly date night with Jeff to maintain the health of our marriage despite having kids. We've gone to a movie once since being married.

To reduce the pain of cognitive dissonance, our brains cope in a few ways. First, one can change her mind about a belief when presented with new information or a behavior that is inconsistent with that belief. But we all know how hard it is to change our beliefs, especially those about ourselves. Second, one can come up with excellent justifications and rationalizations to explain the inconsistency. One truth I have learned about myself as I daily face parental cognitive dissonance is that I am a master at justifying/rationalizing my behavior.

Jeff suggested that instead of continuing to rationalize, I could change my belief system about myself. He took a look at my above list of beliefs about myself and labeled me a perfectionist. He suggested that I could change my beliefs about myself to be more consistent with Pete the Cat's philosophy. Lydia loves her Pete the Cat books, and I'd recommend them to fellow parents! In our favorite Pete story, Pete is in love with his brand new white shoes. So much so that he sings a song about them, "I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes." When Pete steps in a variety of crap along his life path and soils his shoes, "Does Pete cry? Goodness no! He just keeps walkin' along and singin' his song. Because it's all good." Pete still has joy about his shoes, even if they don't turn out the way he expected. Instead of a set of beliefs that sum up to "I have to live up to my expectations for myself," I could try "It's all good," on for size for a while. The perfectionist in me suspects I won't be very good at that, though!

Gendered

Lydia has a doctor's kit that she really enjoys using while pretending to be a doctor. She kind of reminds me of my own pediatrician, since she seems to relish giving me shots. Recently, her stethoscope broke, and she expressed interest in a new doctor's kit. The conversation went like so many conversations we have lately seem to go - in the direction of pink.

"Mom, I want a pink doctor's kit," she informed me. "With a pink stethoscope."
"Pink?" I scoffed, "Real doctors don't use pink stethoscopes!" I tried reasoning.
"That's OK. I'm not a real doctor."
Darn, her logic was unassailable.

The thing is, why do they even make pink doctor's kits? Don't get me wrong - I love pink. It's not about pink, it's about the gender norms it represents. Why are so many toys gendered from such a young age these days? Why are floaties, pull-ups, sippy cups, receiving blankets, popper push toys, bibs, strollers, car seats, kids' flatware/plates, and now even Legos (this list could go on and on) gendered? Why did we move away from babies in white gowns?

Photo of two babies taken 1905-1913, by Beverly

Everything around my daughters seems to be pink, even though I am a mother who actively resists societal norms about gender. Lydia definitely has gotten the message from the world around her that pink is for girls, and she always chooses pink if given the option. I find myself constantly being torn - I want to allow her to have agency to make her own choices, even if they are pink ones. I get that it is a normal part of development to understand and assert sex differences - the cognitive development questions at Lydia's 3-year check up included, "Are you a girl or a boy? Am I a girl or a boy?" Yet, I worry that if something doesn't come in pink - like a soccer ball, a science kit, a guitar, or hiking boots - she won't even see those activities as in the realm of her life possibilities. I'm concerned that she will see boys as so fundamentally different from her that she won't form healthy relationships with them. Despite the feminist movement, it seems like social norms about gender limit possibilities for our children at a younger and younger age.

I recently heard an interesting radio program on understanding gender non-conforming children. The one guest who is a mother of a gender non-conforming child shared about how her son gravitated towards Barbie and pink shoes starting around age 2, and how challenging it can be to support him as he is bullied and mocked by others for his gender non-conforming preferences and behaviors. The experts talked about understanding and support for gender non-conforming children, but what none of the guests talked about was the fact that pink is not something that is inherently feminine - that is an American social construct! There are biological differences between men and women, but the intra-sex variance is greater than the inter-sex variance on all of the areas of difference. It seems to me that at least part of the solution for supporting gender non-conforming children - and all of our children - is to stop teaching them from the moment they come out of the womb that boys and girls are so different that they each need separate toys, hygiene products and clothes. Yet, I haven't successfully figured out how to do that in the age of pink Legos.

Parting with my pump

Anna is just shy of a year old, and I'm packing up my breast pump to part permanently with it. It's not a fond farewell. For the first 3-5 months of their lives, it was with a hefty dose of pain and difficulty that I breast fed both of our daughters, but I grew to enjoy the breast feeding relationship as they grew older and overcame their physical struggles to breast feed. There have been many beautifully intimate moments nourishing my daughters cradled in my lap. However, what I never grew to enjoy was pumping. It is a huge burden for mothers who work outside the home while attempting to continue to provide breast milk. 

When I read Suzanne Barston's book about baby feeding battles, Bottled Up, I was intrigued by her reference to the scholarship of Orit Avishai, who has conducted qualitative research on breast feeding among middle-class American women. Particularly, I wanted to read her 2004 Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering article entitled, "At the Pump." Appropriately, I finally got around to reading it this week, just as I determined I am done pumping. Avishai sums up her own paper as follows: "The paper tells a pessimistic story of working mothers who often push their bodies to the limit as they attempt to meet a goal, measured in the number of ounces of milk extracted per day, and who are deeply ambivalent and conflicted about their lactating bodies." (p. 140)

Several things about the article resonated with me as I packed up my pump. First, Avishai discusses the challenging time bind that women who balance family and work outside the home find themselves in. She refers to it as a "'simultaneous double shift': pumping is experienced both as work, and as a maternal practice that competes with real work." (p. 142). When I was in college, I read The Second Shift (Hochschild 1997),  which investigated two-career couples and the time each partner spent on work and domestic duties. The women in the study working outside of the home were still doing most or all of the household chores and taking primary responsibility of the day-to-day care of the children, resulting in an extra month of work per year for women compared to men (dubbed "the second shift" by the author). I vowed that I would never enter in to a two-career marriage in which I took on all the heavy lifting of domestic duties. And I'm happy to say that I absolutely have not. But Avishai's reference to the simultaneous second shift of pumping is apt. Lactation is the sole responsibility of the mother, and I felt to be a good mother working outside the home, I had to pump. But unlike breast feeding, which at least has the potential to be an intimate act, pumping is work. In an average pumping session, I'd be rushing between meetings, attempting to hook myself up to a machine to express milk, while ideally working at my computer so I didn't "lose" or "waste" that time. I lugged my pump, hands-free pumping bra, nipple shields, breast shield connectors, multiple bottles, ice pack and cooler all over U-M campus for the first year of both girls' lives.

All the gear I daily lugged to my office in order to pump.

I felt I had to apologize when I declined requests to visit 3-hour classes, and bent over backwards trying to figure out how to attend professional events in locations without any lactation facilities. Once, I visited an environmental journalism course that had a field trip scheduled for the first 2 hours of class, so I pumped in my car on the side of the service drive of the Recycle Ann Arbor facility before speeding back to campus to meet the class back at their classroom. While moderating a series of panels on alternative academic careers that I had organized at Rackham graduate school, I rushed to take pump breaks in the public restroom to save time (the nearest lactation facility was a 5-minute walk away and required that I ask a building facility person for the key). When I heard other women come in to use the bathroom, I cowered in my stall hoping no one would ask me, "What in God's name are you DOING in there??" There were times with Lydia when I would stay up late or get up early to try to squeeze in an extra pumping session so that I could be sure she'd have enough milk the following day, and then go in to work zombified and exhausted. According to Avishai's interviews, I'm not special - all the women she interviewed reported a challenging, stressful and physically and emotionally draining juggling act to pump at work.

Avishai also talks about individual attempts to negotiate one's self-image as worker with the embodied practicalities of being a lactating mother. It's kind of comical the things that happened to confound my attempts to appear "professional," which I felt meant revealing as little as possible about lactation. Several times, in my rush to pump and work at the same time, I forgot to attach bottles to the breast shield connectors, leaving a pool of several ounces of milk on my dry-clean-only lap. There was also the conundrum of how to communicate that I was pumping to my coworkers. Initially, when I returned to work after having Lydia, I would put notes on my door saying things like, "In the library" (my first lactation space) or, "Will return in 20 minutes." My boss once came knocking at the library door thinking that the note was communicating to people where they should seek me out if they needed me - we were both mortified. But I felt I couldn't just put it out there and say what I was really doing, since people don't want to know about my biological functions. A coworker (and mother of two) pulled me aside one day when Lydia was about 7 months old and told me that I needed to quit with the euphemisms and just put it out there. So I did. By the time Anna was born, I had adopted a hot pink post-it note that simply said, "Pumping." When I was co-teaching a 5-hour professional development class, on the first day of class I shared with the 60 students that I would occasionally do a disappearing act because I'm a lactating mom. I figured better that they know the truth about my bodily functions than think I'm disrespecting their time. When I told my boss last week that I was finally done pumping, she (half-jokingly) suggested I put a hot pink post-in note up for a week saying, "Done pumping!" One of the women Avishai interviewed put the negotiation between her productive work self-image and pumping this way, "So I'm partially undressed in the closet with this weird apparatus that looks faintly obscene hanging from my breasts. For someone who's in a professional context, it's kind of a mind bender." (p. 145)

Needless to say, I'm not shedding any tears saying farewell to my pump. I also find myself wishing mothers didn't feel so much pressure to do a simultaneous double shift, though I realize that's not easy in our society where workplaces and homes are typically worlds apart and professional and private lives are largely separate. 

In celebration of 3 years: Lydiaisms

Lydia is three years old today.

Lydia with the birthday balloon she selected for herself.

I cannot believe she is growing so fast. And yet, with some of the things she says, sometimes I can't believe she's just turning three. In celebration of her witticisms and sly sense of humor, I present some gems I've kept track of over the last year of her life:

Post-nap, inexplicable tantrum.

5/6/12
"I don't want to go to night night in my big girl bed."

6/16/12
Lydia upon seeing a stuffed Angry Birds toy at Target: "Are those mad penguins?"

6/19/12
"Isn't daddy sexy?" while looking at a photo album with pictures of Jeff.

6/27/12
Me: "OK! It's bath time!"
Lydia: "I want to cuddle on your bed."
Me: "Oh, OK!" (cuddling commences)
Lydia: "I love you!"

7/22/12
Lydia: "I don't have a tail. I have a butt only. I can jump with my butt!"

8/13/12
As Lydia and Jeff Schram are having a rave dancing to The Glitch Mob, Lydia screamed at me, "Mama! You can dance - you have a tutu!!" 
For the record, I was wearing a skirt. 

Typical outfit for a basement dance party.

8/26/12
Mommy: "Do you want to go to church today?" 
Lydia: "Yeah!" 
Mommy: "Are you going to play with kids?" 
Lydia: "I'm going to cry and say, 'I want my mama.'"

Lydia the tattooed lady.

8/28/12
Lydia: "I farted!" 
Me: "Oh, yeah, I smell it. That's stinky." 
Lydia: "Yeah. It's a deep, dark fart."

9/7/12
Conversation that ensued when I went to get Lydia out of bed: 
Me: Opens door. 
Lydia: "Hi, Laura." 
Me: Laughs. 
Lydia: "Are you Laura?" 
Me: "Yes, but you're supposed to say, 'Hi, Mommy.'" 
Lydia: Laughs. 
Me: "C'mere. Gimme a hug!" 
Lydia: "No. Let's go downstairs."

9/27/12
Insight from Lydia on breast feeding: "That's not chocolate milk in your nipples."

10/3/12
"The whole wide world is my cookies."

Penny the pumpkin.

10/16/12
Me after Lydia fell in the mud: "We just need to change your pants."
Lydia: "We need to put on some new hand-me-downs."
10/22/12
Lydia's position on the philosophical debate about the moral status of plant life: "Apples and oranges don't talk."

A Michigan football Saturday.

10/27/12
We drove by Cobblestone Farm and said to Lydia, "That is where mommy and daddy got married!" 
She said, "Are you still married?"

11/4/12
On a new cheese sample: "It's like feta. It's stinky and yummy."

11/9/12
Lydia: "I wanna breast feed." 
Me: "You can't breast feed until you have a baby." 
Lydia: "I have a baby. A baby sister."

First underwear. She picked "Cars" themed.

11/20/12
Lydia's response to my statement that she is being rude: "I like to be rude."

11/26/12
Lydia says she has to sell tofu so she can "festicate." 

12/2/12
Me: "You can just sip your soup out of the bowl since that's how they do it in Japan." 
Lydia: "Where's Japan?" 
Me: "It is far away across the ocean." 
Lydia: "I wanna go to the ocean and find Japan."

12/7/12
Lydia was pretending to make me a pie, and I asked her, "Is it pumpkin pie?" 
"No, it's donut pie," she replied.

12/21/12
Lydia looked in her potty and told me, "I pooped a 's'!" 

1/4/13
Lydia: "I just got married!" 
Me: "What? Married?" 
Lydia: "I got pretend married." 
Me: "Who did you marry?" 
Lydia: "I married myself."

1/16/13
Lydia, whining. 
Me: "What's up?" 
Lydia: "I wanna love you." 
I try to hug her. 

Lydia's first Christmas concert.

Lydia: "Don't do that!!" 
Me: "OK!" 
Lydia, whining, "I LOVE YOU!" 
Me: "I love YOU, too!" 
Lydia" "DON'T SAY THAT!!!!!"

1/20/13
Lydia: (Burps.) 
Me: "What do you say when you burp?" 
Lydia: "Hai-YA!" (accompanied by a karate chop.)

1/27/13
Me: "Lydia, why are you throwing your costumes all over the floor?" 
Lydia: "I'm just sprinkling them."

2/7/13
What Lydia told me when I went into her room in the morning: "I can't get outta this bed cuz it has poop on it."

2/8/13
"I want to float in the air like Mary Poppins. I can do that when I get bigger." 

2/15/13
Lydia: "I want everyone to go to work." 
Me: "Really? Why?" 
Lydia: "I wanna be home by myself." 
(Long silence as I contemplate that this conversation shouldn't happen for at least 5 more years.) 
Me: "You can't stay home by yourself for a loooong time. Not until you are 12 years old." 
Lydia: "I'll do that tomorrow. When I wake up I'll be 12 tomorrow."

2/28/13
"My baby sister's not gonna go back in your belly."

3/8/13
"Mom, go away so I can be naughty."

3/31/13
Me: "Lydia, how was church?" 
Lydia: "The play church was really awesome, mom."


4/12/13
"Are you my real mom?"

4/14/13
Lydia: "Mom, you're married." 
Me: "Yeah. Who am I married to?" 
Lydia: "Me!"

4/16/13
As I attempted to get Lydia dressed after bath time, she informed me: " Mom, I'm a pirate. Pirates don't wear underwear."

4/19/13
Lydia is curious about other languages and kept asking me how to say things in various languages. She asked, "How do you say 'taco' in Spanish?" 

4/23/13
"Princesses don't pick their noses."

4/29/13

Jumping off her birthday gift.

While driving in Kerrytown, Lydia informs us: "This is near Zingerman's, guys." 

5/4/13 (Her birthday)
Her thoughts on her Toy Story cupcake that we baked together: "It's yum."