Half Changed World

The American Prospect has a special report out on work-family issues which has a bunch of interesting articles.  Brian at RebelDad has posted quick comments on a couple of them already.

Not in the print edition, but online, the Prospect has added a response by Linda Hirshman.  While she is, as usual, gratuitously obnoxious toward anyone she disagrees with, she does make a point that I think is on target:

"even if by some miracle male employers could be
persuaded to enact the reforms discussed, without a real change in
women’s attitudes about the family most of the effect would be to make
it easier for women to continue to bear their excessive share of an
unjust household. And allow the women to think they chose it!"

In their discussion of a recent conference on Rethinking Gender Egalitarianism, Laura at 11d and Harry at Crooked Timber responded to a similar point made at the conference — that things like paid parental leave are an obstacle to gender egalitarianism, because they are disproportionately taken by mothers rather than fathers.  Laura and Harry argue that parenting is not a "shit job" (as Hirshman clearly believes), but rather a source of great fulfillment for many people and that if barriers are removed, men will voluntarily take on more domestic responsibilities and joys.

I don’t think parenting is a shit job, or one that makes your brain rot.  But I also think that it’s almost certainly true that absent a massive societal shift or highly prescriptive government policy, family friendly policies probably would increase the gender gap.  Because, as Rhona Mahoney explains, every choice you make changes the hand that you have when you make the next set of decisions.  And unless we get to the point that working fewer hours or taking time off from work has zero career cost (which seems unlikely anytime soon), it’s always going to make sense for the person who has already stepped off the fast track to be the one to accommodate the other’s career.  And because of both biology (pregnancy and breastfeeding) and gender ideology, the one taking that first step off is far more likely to be a woman. 

Mahoney also makes the interesting suggestion that this is a tipping point phenomenon; e.g that if SAHDs were more common, more men would make that choice.  And on that note, I have to point out the Colbert report piece on SAHDs.  (And a look behind the scenes.)

This week’s book, The Places in Between, should win some sort of an award for having the blurb that best captures exactly what the book is about: "Someone in Kabul told me that a crazy Scotsman had walked from Herat to Kabul right after the fall of the Taliban… I thought the story was an urban legend.  I was wrong.  The crazy Scotsman was called Rory Stewart…"

Stewart is certifiably nuts.  It would have been crazy for him to walk from Herat to Kabul on his own in any case.  But then he decided to take the straight path (according to the map) and walk through the central mountains in the middle of winter.  Oh, and he decided to adopt a dog halfway along, even though he had no way to feed it and dogs are considered unclean by most Afghanis.  Why he did any of this, he never adequately explains.  He was violently ill most of the way, and if it had been a slightly worse winter, it would have killed him.  But it makes for a fascinating read.

The book includes a bit of history (Stewart’s path was the same as that taken by Babur, the first Mughal emperor of Afghanistan; he names the dog after Babur), and a bit of modern political commentary (he is critical of westerners’ claims to understand Islam and of modern aid workers who travel from crisis to crisis), but the heart of the book is Stewart’s description of the people he met along the way.  He traveled with a minimum of gear and depended utterly on the Moslem tradition of hospitality to get people to feed and house him.  And, while the quality of both food and shelter was not always great, he didn’t starve and he didn’t freeze to death. 

What makes the book a pleasure is that Stewart is neither judgmental nor sentimental about the people he meets.  He describes their casual attitudes towards violence and their generosity toward him, their frequent disinterest in their own history and their understanding of the wider world.  He describes communities that are incredibly isolated from the rest of the world, where feudalism still reigns — in the sense that loyalties to individuals far outweigh any sense of ideology or a nation-state.

I don’t think I’d have picked this book up on my own if my brother and sister-in-law hadn’t given it to me for Hanukkah.  I’m very glad they did.

The seller got back to us this evening with a counterproposal.  We’ve agreed on general terms, but her lawyer made some changes to the contract, so we want to run them by our lawyer.  So I can’t quite say we’ve bought a house, or even that we’ve got a contract do so, but we’re getting awfully close. 

I’m simultaneously excited and exhausted, and totally overwhelmed by the amount of work that we have to do over the next few months.  We’ve agreed on 60 days to close, but I’d like to get our current house on the market well before then.

Instead of obsessing here all the time, I’m starting a new blog, Feels Like Home, to post about the process of actually buying the house, selling this one, and moving.  It’s probably going to be fairly boring to anyone except those  — like Jackie— who are also going through the process (or plan on doing it soon).  But I think it will help me stay aware of the progress we’re making, not just the list of things that remain undone. 

I do promise to post some pictures.

A few weeks ago, one of my commenters wondered: "What is your criteria for getting rid of books – how do you decide which
one goes out??? – I’m having a hard time getting rid of them, maybe I can be enlighted??"

We’re struggling with this now as we contemplate packing our large collection of books.  (We have a good sized room with two walls entirely built-in bookshelves, and are still overflowing.  We are definitely going to need to buy or build more shelves if we get this new house.)

Fundamentally, we’re pretty terrible at getting rid of books.  We purge reluctantly, and with pain.  The only reason that we’re not completely overrun with books is that we mostly get books out of the library rather than buying them.  (I pretty much only buy books these days when neither of the local systems has them available or when I need a paperback to read on an airplane.  I stay out of used book stores because I’ve discovered that my propensity to walk out with piles of books is by no means limited by my lack of reading time.  At least when my eyes are bigger than my stomach at the library, I eventually have to return the books.)

Via Jenny Davidson at Light Reading, I read this interesting discussion of whether your personal book collection should consist of mostly read or mostly unread books. I’d guess that mine is probably about 90 percent read.  I used to re-read a lot, but these days almost never do — too many
books I haven’t read that I still want to read.  But I keep books that
I’ve read around for a number of reasons — because I want to lend them to friends, because I want to be able to look up passages from them, because I know they’re impossible to find, because they’re of sentimental value, or just because seeing them on the shelf reminds me of the pleasure I had when I read them.

So, what categories of books do I get rid of?

• Books that are disintegrating, unless they are truly irreplacable.  1970s-era paperbacks are not worth keeping around.
• Books that I’ve read and I know I won’t ever read again (and don’t want to keep to lend to friends).  Maybe I didn’t like them, or I liked them but they were fundamentally fluff, or I liked them but they were 800 pages and life is too short.
• Books that I’ve had for several years and not read and I finally admit to myself that they’re never going to make it to the top of my to read pile.  Some of these were gifts, but these days they’re also likely to be very long and dry history books that I had all the best intentions of reading.
• Classics that I know I’ll always be able to find at a library.

*****

I’m up to the last chapter in reading I Was a Rat! by Phillip Pullman to D.  I thought it was great, but I’m afraid most of the humor went over D’s head.  It’s definitely suitable for younger children than Pullman’s The Golden Compass, but I’d still say probably better for a 9 or 10 year old than for a 6 year old.  Oh well.

As I indicated a couple of weeks ago, we may be moving.  We made an offer this evening.  We gave the seller 48 hours to respond, but I expect that she will accept: it’s a fair offer in a buyer’s market, and she likes us.  If she accepts, posting may become very erratic for the next month or so while we deal with all the logistics and get this house ready to put on the market.

Everyone we talk to seems to be assuming that we’re moving because we’re unhappy with the local school.  It’s certainly a factor, but not the only one.  Overall, I’d say that D’s had a pretty good year at school.  He’s learned to read (to the point that I find myself having to explain newspaper headlines), to count up to a thousand or so, to color between the lines.  He considers almost all of his classmates to be his friends, and was heartbroken last week when he was too sick to go to school to perform his role in the Black History Month skit.  (He was supposed to be the manager who hires Jackie Robinson.)

But we do have some frustrations with the school.  D’s teacher has been out sick for two extended periods.  That’s not something that the school can control, but it would be nice if they had sent a letter home saying something about it, rather than leaving me to interrogate D each day about whether she was back.  When I commented to the principal that it was hard on the kids for her to miss yet another day for training right after she had been out for 3 weeks, the principal got all defensive about it, instead of agreeing that it was unfortunate.  None of the kids in D’s class got awards (other than attendance) at the first honors assembly, because the teacher had been out and hadn’t submitted them, so the principal said that they’d have a separate assembly just for that class.  It didn’t happen.

I’m also frustrated by the lack of community.  Only a very few kids ever play on the playground after school.  The PTA is essentially inactive.  And in spite of D’s popularity — kids rush up to him at school to give him hugs — he’s been invited to exactly one playdate and one birthday party by kids from school.  (My guess is that this is a class thing — as Lareau discusses, working class and poor kids are far more likely to play with the kids next door than to go to an arranged playdate.)  And this might be ok if there were other neighborhood kids for the boys to play with, but there doesn’t seem to be much of that either.  T and I finally figured out that, having chosen a place to live based largely on its convenience and access to the metro, we’re surrounded by other people who chose a place to live largely on its convenience and access to the metro.  And our attempts to build community through drop-in-dinners have been a flop.

We’re also bursting at the seams a little bit.  I feel more than a bit silly and self-indulgent saying that, given that my parents raised 3 children to adulthood in an apartment smaller than this house, not to mention the vast majority of people in the world who live in smaller spaces.   But the idea of having a place to put the boys’ bikes that isn’t in the middle of the living room is really appealing.

Wish us luck.

So, N’s preschool has a casino night/auction every year as its major fundraiser.  Admission is $50 a head, plus you get an "opportunity" to buy your child’s artwork. 

So, last week, we get an email from the fundraising committee telling us that there will be treats for each class where 100% of the kids’ parents buy tickets to the auction.  In other word, if we don’t buy a ticket, we’re the bad guys who prevent the whole class from having cupcakes.

Does this seem like a reasonable policy to the rest of you?  This sort of thing makes T and me *less* inclined to buy tickets, not more.  Are we over-reacting?

Last year, Landismom wrote that the essence of organizing is to give people anger, hope, and a plan.  In that spirit, I offer these links:

• Anger:  I was filled with fury at this story in today’s Post, about a 12 year boy who died for want of a dentist.  By the time he was seen, the infection in his abscessed tooth had spread to his brain.  My office is opposite the break room at work, and all day I heard my coworkers exclaiming in outrage as they picked up the newspaper.  We work on poverty issues, and so sometimes we get a little jaded, lose a little of our outrage.  But this story hit home.
• Hope:  Via Miriam at Everyday Mom, and Nanci at From the Mom Zone, I read about Wakanheza, a program of the Ramsey County public health office to get people to identify people in stressful situations and reach out with a helping hand.
• A Plan: Campaign for Children’s Health Coverage.  Insuring all children is only a start of a solution — adults need health insurance too.  But kids are relatively cheap to insure, and there’s an existing program — the State Children’s Health Insurance Program — that provides a lot of the framework for doing so.  And it’s up for reauthorization this year.  So sign the petition, and write your Senator and Representative.

I’ve had Ella’s Song stuck in my head for half the day.  I’d like to see as many people learning about the death of Deamonte Driver as about the death of Kyle Miller.  (And yes, I know the odds of dying from an abscessed tooth are probably about as low as the odds of dying from seat belt failure.  But a kid shouldn’t have to walk around with his teeth rotting out of his mouth for months either.)

Today I’m reviewing two books that were sent to me by their publishers.  Both are about health and disease prevention, and have a forward or introduction (what’s the difference?) by the authors of YOU: The Owner’s Manual.  One focuses on kids, while the other is organized decade by decade, from pre-natal to "the eighth decade and beyond."  Both of them basically tell you to exercise regularly, eat your veggies, and wear sunscreen.

First up is the book about kids: Good Kids, Bad Habits: The RealAge Guide to Raising Healthy Children, by Jennifer Trachtenberg, MD.  The email I got offering me the book showed the cover, which has the title spelled out in refrigerator magnets, with a carrot and some broccoli magnets thrown in for good luck, so I knew it was likely to push some buttons for me.  As long-term readers of this blog know, I have some issues around nutritional advice for parents — I know darned well what a healthy diet looks like, and that my older son’s diet isn’t quite making it to Planet Power but have more or less accepted that we can only control what we offer him, not what he eats.

So, when I got the book, I was predictably irritated by the blithe assumptions that involving children in food prep and cutting food into fun shapes would be enough to win over a picky eater.  But I was somewhat surprised (and pleased) to see that the book covers far more than nutrition, covering topics from good hygiene (wash your hands, floss your teeth) to safety (buckle your seatbelt, wear a bike helmet) and emotional well-being (spend one on one time with kids, develop relationships with extended family).  Overall, the book offers pretty solid, standard advice. 

My fundamental concern about the book is who is the audience for it.  It seems to me like the sort of well-educated middle-class parents who are likely to buy this book will generally know almost everything that’s in it already.  Certainly, that seems to be the conclusion of the parentbloggers who have reviewed it.  Anxious new parents might buy it, but relatively little of the book is about babies. Maybe it could be a text for a parenting class?  Or you could give it to grandparents who might listen to a doctor about seat belts more than to their children?  I don’t know.  I find it pretty hard to imagine anyone reading the book cover to cover.

The second book is The Checklist: What you and your family need to know to prevent disease and live a long and healthy life, by "Dr. Manny" Alvarez.  I focused on the chapters for 0-9 (the age of my children) and 30-39 (that would be me). 

The chapter on young children suffers from the problem that they’ve only got 38 pages to cover a huge developmental range.  So Alvarez makes no attempt to discuss the full range of health issues, but rather goes through a checklist of topics that you might have heard about in the news — cord blood, circumcision, vaccines, autism, ADD.

The chapter on 30-something adults has a different problem, that there are very few health problems that are unique to this age group.  So instead you get a bland discussion of nutrition, skin care, and urinary tract infections, and then a laundry list of ailments that (fortunately) relatively few people in this age group are actually likely to experience, from cervical cancer to MS.

Fundamentally, I think the decade by decade organization just doesn’t work.  Good preventative habits don’t really change that much from decade to decade, and the litany of diseases would have worked better in simple alphabetical order.   The only people I could imagine reading this book cover to cover are hypochondriacs looking for new diseases to obsess about.

Also, the writing/editing was sloppy.  For example, from the circumcision discussion: "The AAP also found that the risk of penile cancer in an uncircumcised man is three times more likely than in a circumcised man, though penile cancer is rare in the United States, just one in one hundred thousand males has it."  Someone get this man a semicolon.

If you’re on any parenting listserves, you’ve probably seen this YouTube video already.  It was made by the family of a little boy who was killed in a car accident; even though he was in a booster seat and belted in, the seat belt failed, and he was thrown from the car.  The video is a tearjerker, and argues for keeping kids in car seats with 5-point harnesses for as long as possible.

A friend forwarded me the video today, and I responded with this link from CarSeat.org, which points out that seat belt failure is extremely rare.  She responded that both CarSeat.org and AAP recommend keeping kids in car seats until they reach the height/weight limits, and so that it seems like a "no-brainer" to use a seat with higher limits if one is available.

I had to think for a while to figure out why I had such a strong reaction to this argument. Part of it is defensiveness — at 6, D is shorter and lighter than many 4 year olds.  He’s probably going to need a booster until he’s 12.  Or maybe 21.* But we haven’t made him stay in a car seat.  He’s happier in the booster, and it’s vastly easier to move it from car to car.  I don’t like being made to feel like a neglectful parent as a result.

But it’s also that I object to the idea that we’re supposed to protect against any risk we can, no matter how low probability.  It’s the same reason I’m not a fan of cord blood banking.  So much of parenting seems to be driven by fear these days, and I don’t want to buy into that world view.

* Heck, I sit on a wedge that is essentially an adult booster seat when I drive our older car, which doesn’t have fully adjustable seats — I’m 5′ even, and without the wedge, the curve in the seat hits my back in the wrong places.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned here that we’re thinking about moving (within the general area).  We are, and things may be happening faster than I had expected.  So I’m too busy obsessing to post right now.  So instead, I offer this caption contest from my job:

What do you think the caption should be?  Details of the contest here and here.

Update:  The winner is…