Feminist Mom in Montreal

A disconnect between "mother" and "feminist"

2011-04-04T22:04:00.001-04:00

"What does a feminist mother look like?" This is a question that I'm sure many feminist mothers have asked themselves and it is a question that has been asked over at blue milk along with the following ten questions. I feel like maybe I've answered them before, but I can't find this anywhere in my blog so I'm answering them again or maybe for the first time.

1. How would you describe your feminism in one sentence? When did you become a feminist? Was it before or after you became a mother?

Feminism for me is freedom of choice for women no matter what the choice may be. I don't really remember when I became a feminist, but I think that I was a feminist before I started calling myself one. I was fairly young. It was definitely long before I became a mother.

2. What has surprised you most about motherhood?

It's really difficult to pick the surprise that has been the biggest because there has just been one surprise after another. The other morning I was surprised to be woken up at 6 am by my son shoving a tomato into my mouth. The tomato had been squished into an unrecognizable shape so for the first five minutes I had no idea what it was or what was happening. That was pretty surprising, I must say, but it's not one of the bigger ones. I guess I'll just go through the top five surprises in chronological order:

I. Breastfeeding is the most difficult thing ever for me at first. Everything else, knowing what to do, knowing what the baby wants, comes naturally. I thought it would be the other way around. Breastfeeding is supposed to be natural and beautiful. Where is this "bonding experience" that I keep hearing about? My baby and I seem to bond much more when he is asleep.

II. I no longer have the same personality. My sense of humour has completely disappeared. Nothing is funny. Everything is serious.

III. The physical and emotional exhaustion. This child is sapping all of my energy.

IV. Oh, hey! My personality is starting to come back.

V. The constant judgement from other people. How much effort it takes not to judge other parents. Oh my god, is that mother feeding her two month old baby apple juice in a bottle? What is she thinking? Wait, stop. It's none of your business. Apple juice is not a form of child abuse.

3. How has your feminism changed over time? What is the impact of motherhood on your feminism?

My feminism? I think it keeps getting a little angrier. The more I read and the more I learn, the more pissed off I get. Motherhood has had a huge impact because I'm focusing on new things. For example, now that I'm a mother, I'm seeing first hand how little domestic work is appreciated or valued. Since domestic work is often considered women's work, it is a feminist issue.

4. What makes your mothering feminist? How does your approach differ from a non-feminist mother’s? How does feminism impact upon your parenting?

My son is only two, so right now my main purpose as a mother is take care of his basic needs, such as food. He has a lot of curiosity about the world around him and I have a lot of curiosity about how he's seeing the world. I think that I'm curious about things that non-feminist mothers wouldn't be curious about. My son loves anything with wheels: cars, trucks, trains, bicycles, etc. A non-feminist mother probably wouldn't think about this very much because these are things that boys are "supposed" to like, but I do wonder how this happened. Is it really a boy thing? If it's really a boy thing, then why are there pink cars being made? Isn't pink supposed to be a girl thing? What happens when I give my son a doll? He puts it down and picks up a truck. Why is that?

And, of course, I cannot accept that "boys will be boys."

5. Do you ever feel compromised as a feminist mother? Do you ever feel you’ve failed as a feminist mother?

My boy won't play with dolls.

6. Has identifying as a feminist mother ever been difficult? Why?

When I was pregnant I felt a big disconnect between "feminist" and "mother." I felt guilty about becoming a mother because I felt like I was betraying my feminist ideals. Now I realize that the two are definitely connected but it was something that I had to work through.

7. Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist?

Well, before I became a mother, I was sacrificing my free time doing work that I was okay with but for a company that I thought might be evil. There was little chance that I would ever make any advancements within this company or that the job would lead to a fulfilling career. I got laid off while I was on maternity leave and so did everybody else that I worked with, including the managers who I'm sure had sacrificed a lot of time to prove to the company that they were dedicated employees who should be managers.

What exactly was it that I was sacrificing when I had a baby? I didn't have a career. I wasn't on the up and up. I would have been laid off anyway. I wasn't even taking any classes or going out all that much. Looking back, I do not have any difficulty reconciling the decision to have a child and what I gave up to have him and stay at home with him.

10. Do you feel feminism has failed mothers and if so how? Personally, what do you think feminism has given mothers?

I think that feminism has approached motherhood from the wrong angle. Yes, there is inequality between the sexes when it comes to parenting. There is kind of this idea floating around within feminism that the best way to deal with this problem is to not perpetuate it by having children. This is how I found myself pregnant and feeling guilty about taking a part in setting the movement back.

I have since realized that women becoming mothers are not the problem. Women choosing to be stay at home moms are not the problem. The problem is that mothers' work in the home is not valued. The subsidized home daycares in Quebec went on strike last year. Why? Because they wanted to have the same salaries as the people working in CPEs. The people in CPEs make anywhere from $13-22 an hour. $13 an hour is not a lot, especially when you consider that they need to have post-secondary education to get these jobs. A couple of blog posts ago I wrote about the documentary the Nanny Business, which explores the ways in which nannies are exploited in Canada. People question my sanity if I say that I'm going to pay a babysitter minimum wage; I've been told by more than one person that this is way too much for a babysitter. People are not willing to pay very much money for childcare because it is work that they do not value.

What needs to change here is the way that people look at parenting. It's a job with little reward. I'm not saying that having children isn't rewarding at all; it is. But is saving a life rewarding for a doctor? Is winning a court case rewarding for a lawyer? Feeling good about a job well done is not the only compensation that they get. They also have colleagues, such as nurses and assistants, who are working with them.

The biggest problem, in my opinion, with motherhood is the lack of respect that is paid to it as a profession. If a woman does not want to have children, that is her choice, but other choices that other women make need to be respected, such as the choice to have children and even the choice to stay at home and raise them.

This post has been brought to you by cigarette cravings

2011-03-21T19:31:00.001-04:00

According to popular opinion, parents who smoke cigarettes are the root of all evil. It doesn't matter if a parent steps outside and walks twenty paces away from their house before lighting up. They still suck and everyone feels sorry for their children.

A little story not related to parenting but related to tobacco: a town in the area where I grew up was recently a candidate for CBC's Hockeyville. They did not make the top ten. The local hockey team also has a picture of a tobacco leaf on their uniform. Does anybody think that this is a coincidence?

Anyway, to get back on topic, everybody hates smokers, especially smokers who have children, because parents who smoke are jerks.

I am pleased to announce that I am officially no longer a failure as a parent because I quit smoking for good two months ago.

You have probably heard that smoking while pregnant is also a bad thing to do. I quit for the first time while I was pregnant. After doing some research online, I discovered that I could not chew nicotine gum, use a nicotine patch, or use any medications to help me quit smoking because they are all bad for pregnant women and fetuses. I did read that cutting back gradually would probably be okay and gave myself a week to do so.

My week was cut short a couple of days in when I saw a rather terrifying commercial on TV about how your entire uterus gets filled up with smoke every time you take a drag from a cigarette. If you are pregnant and you want to quit smoking cold turkey, I recommend watching commercials about smoking which have the intention of scaring the crap out of you. I gave the rest of my cigarettes to my neighbour. Since I still wasn't telling anybody that I was pregnant at that point, I told her that I had given up smoking for Lent and she believed me.*

I did not smoke for my entire pregnancy, but I did politely ask for a cigarette while I was in labour.** Once I was a new parent, I was very stressed out and at a loss when it came to coming up with solutions for dealing with my stress. My son's father would come to my house to see the baby and after ten minutes would sigh and say, "I need a break. I'm going out for a smoke."

And dammit, I wanted a break too. I stole a cigarette from my ex three weeks post-partum. I wanted more, but I also did not want to go all the way to the store because I had just had a baby and it still hurt to walk. I asked my neighbour, who was pregnant herself by this time, to go to the store to pick up my cigarettes for me. I am certain that anybody who saw her buying them thought that she was buying them for herself and they are probably still judging her to this very day.***

So then I recently quit smoking again. This time I'm using the nicotine gum, but sometimes it's not enough to just chew the gum; sometimes I have to stand outside while chewing the gum so that I feel like I'm having a cigarette. Sometimes I have to write an entire blog entry about cigarettes because I cannot stop thinking about them.

EDIT: I just want to add that I do not think that you are a jerk if you smoke, even if you have kids.

*Everyone always forgets that I'm not religious because I like church music.
**I may or may not have screamed, "Give me a cigarette or I'll kill you!" in the middle of a contraction.
***Sorry, Wendy.

Review of the Nanny Business

2011-03-18T02:00:00.001-04:00

Last Saturday, the Philippine Women Centre of Quebec (PWC-Quebec) presented the Nanny Business, a documentary which focuses on the experiences that women have had with Canada's Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP).

The viewer is first introduced to Edelyn. In an attempt to provide for her family financially, Edelyn has left her three children behind in the Philippines so that she can obtain work caring for another woman's child in Canada. She hopes that she will be able to bring her children to Canada once she has completed the requirements of the LCP program; she must live with her employer for 24 months within three years. She has borrowed money from a loan shark so that she could pay an agent to find her employment in Canada and for her plane ticket. She has a contract with an employer who she has never met. When she arrives in Canada, nobody meets her at the airport.

Edelyn finds her agent and it turns out that her employer does not want her services after all. She is now in an unfamiliar place with nowhere to live, very little money, no job, and no way to complete the requirements for the LCP. Later on in the film she speaks with Melanie, the woman who was supposed to be hiring her, on the telephone. Melanie offhandedly tells her, "I thought that I was going to need you but now I don't."

Unfortunately, Edelyn's story is not unique. The viewer follows Susan McClelland as she does research for an article that she is writing about nanny abuse. She learns about the many problems that women encounter within the LCP at the hands of their employers and agents. The nannies are often forced to work long hours for little pay and asked to do tasks that are outside of their job descriptions. For example, one woman in the documentary had her employer ask her for a massage when she arrived home from work. The women in the LCP are not protected from abuse and they often find themselves in vulnerable situations when their employers threaten to have them deported if they do not do what is asked of them.

The viewing of the documentary was followed by a discussion of the issues within the LCP. The 24 month live-in requirement is a huge problem; those 24 months must be spent with the same employer. If a job situation does not pan out for someone, she has to start the 24 months all over again with a new employer if she wants to stay in the program. For many women, this means an even longer separation from their own children who they are hoping to bring to Canada once they have completed the program. While there are laws in Quebec protecting the live-in caregivers from being fired for no reason, an employer can get around this by saying that they can no longer afford to have a nanny. The live-in requirement also makes the caregivers more vulnerable to exploitation; if they are living with their employers, they cannot just go home at the end of a shift. They are essentially on call for 24 hours a day. If they end up working 18 hours in a day, they will probably still only be paid for eight hours.

The members of the PWC-Quebec also shared many opinions about the situation of the caregivers in the LCP. One person said that Canadian women, in a bid to obtain their own freedom and follow their careers, are oppressing other women so that they may do so. Mae, one of the founders of the PWC-Quebec, pointed out that nannies are being paid low wages for long hours because caring for children is traditionally a woman's job and it is still not valued as legitimate work.

Since the documentary was filmed, one change has been to the LCP; the 24 month live-in requirement is now within a four year period instead of a three year period. This small change does not even begin to address all of the abuse and exploitation that occurs because of this program. There is a lot more that needs to be done to protect the people who come to Canada through the LCP.

Eliot dances along to the guitar marathon

2011-02-27T09:42:00.004-05:00

My son Eliot dancing along to his Grandpa Duane's 48 hour guitar marathon. The guitar marathon is still going on for another 10 hours and you can watch the live stream here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/duane-r...
Duane is raising money for the Camp Trillium Childhood Cancer Support Centre.

48 hour guitar marathon

2011-02-26T11:20:00.003-05:00

Webcam chat at Ustream

This is a live stream of my step-dad Duane's 48 hour guitar marathon. He is playing his guitar for 48 hours to raise money for the Camp Trillium Childhood Cancer Support Centre. This is happening right now. If you're in Ontario and in the Haldimand-Norfolk area specifically, head on down to Fred Eaglesmiths Hobo Java Robot Cafe in Port Dover and check it out! Here is some more information about Camp Trillium.

If you're in Quebec: how did you find daycare?

2011-02-01T12:19:00.000-05:00

Parenting comes with many challenges and it is essential that we help each other. A huge issue for many of us is finding a daycare.

I posted a few months ago about how I found a spot in a $7 a day daycare in Quebec. One person sent me an email telling me that she tried the same thing and going to a CLSC did not work for her.

I would like to hear stories from other people about how they found daycare in Quebec. You can comment on this post or send me an email. The goal is to be able to give other parents some ideas about where they can start when looking for daycare. So what worked for you? What didn't work? Tell us everything!

Personal boundaries

2010-12-16T20:06:00.000-05:00

I'm currently teaching my two year old son about personal boundaries. This mostly consists of me chasing him around at public events and shouting, "No, Eliot! We use kleenex, NOT PEOPLE!" It's never too early to teach them that no means no, right? So I don't let him pull the cat's tail, I don't let him pick my nose, and I don't let him wipe his snotty nose on random strangers.

There are some adults who don't get the concept of respecting personal boundaries and I hope that he won't be one of them. I could tell you what I think of the response that people have had to the Julian Assange rape allegations, but Kate Harding already did. Words mean things, including the words "no" and "stop."

Google search

2010-12-16T11:39:00.001-05:00

I have a little gadget on my blog that tells me what people are googling when they find my blog. I usually get things like "$7 daycare montreal" and "what's the best hospital to give birth at in montreal." Today I checked it out and discovered that someone had found my blog when they googled "which bronte sister would you fuck."

I guess that somebody really couldn't decide and they needed to find some other opinions.

Just for the record, I would pick Anne. Who would you pick?

Daycare strike

2010-11-11T09:36:00.000-05:00

The $7 a day home daycares in the Montreal area went on strike yesterday, including my son's daycare. I was a little bit worried because I also had a French test at school yesterday. In the end, my neighbour watched my son while I wrote my test. His daycare closed a couple of weeks ago as well and I ended up taking him to class with me; I thought that he would be too much of a distraction during a test.

This is what the home daycare workers want:

The union wants the employees to receive better salaries, paid vacations and a pension plan. Home daycare providers and those who operate out of commercial spaces both receive $19 a day per child from the Quebec government and another $7 from parents. The union wants another $12 a day so salaries will be similar to employees who work in the larger Centres de la Petite Enfance (CPEs). The union also says home daycare workers work longer hours than their counterparts in CPEs.

It's not a terrible thing to ask for. They basically want the same benefits and salaries as people who are doing the same job that they are. I hope that this is resolved soon; there's a rumour going around that there may be a week long strike if the union's talks with the government don't move along.

Transitions

2010-08-21T19:44:00.000-04:00

Well, I've moved to Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue. I was thinking of changing the name of this blog to "Feminist Mom in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue," but I'm still on the island of Montreal so I don't think that will be necessary. If anyone would like some helpful tips about moving with a toddler, the only sage advice I have to offer is "Don't do it."

I think that I would prefer to have my son grow up in this small town than in the city. The best part about the new place is that we now have a backyard! At our old place we just had a lot of pavement. We did live a couple of blocks away from Jarry Park, which was awesome, but I prefer having a backyard.

In other news, in my Internet travels I recently discovered a free subscription to PETA magazine for kids. No thanks, PETA!

How to get a spot in a $7 a day daycare

2010-05-25T18:16:00.001-04:00

We have subsidized daycares in Quebec that charge $7 a day. That's fantastic. A $7 daycare is a wonderful lifeline for low-income families. But how do you get a spot in one?

If you're a parent in Montreal, you know how long the waiting lists are. They can be anywhere from two to four years long. Some people put their names on waiting lists as soon as they find out that they're pregnant. They call the daycares up and say, "Okay, I peed on a stick, can I put my name on the waiting list please?"

I recently found myself in a difficult position when I decided that I was going back to school. I had my son's name on waiting lists in my neighbourhood, but now I'm moving to a different town to be closer to my school. This was not something that I had anticipated when I was pregnant, so I was not on any of the waiting lists there. I put my son on the waiting lists for the $7 daycares in the area before I had even received my acceptance letter. It looked like there was absolutely no way that my son would get into one of these daycares before I started school in September.

I started looking for private and home daycares. A lot of them seem to charge $25-35 a day, but there is a tax credit available for people who are unable to find a spot in a subsidized daycare. All of the non-subsidized daycares that I found were also full.

So what's a single mom returning to school supposed to do? How do you find a daycare?

I went to the CLSC and asked to speak with a social worker. A nurse spoke with me and I told her about my situation. She said that she would speak to the social worker who works with the daycares and get back to me. She called me back today and told me that the social worker had found a spot for my son in a $7 a day home daycare close to my school.

Some of the $7 a day daycares are required to keep emergency spots open. The daycare directors are not allowed to fill these spots without a reference from another organization such as the CLSC. If you are desperate for daycare and low-income, you may be eligible for one of these emergency spots. I strongly encourage you to see a social worker or a nurse at your local CLSC if this is your situation. The CLSC has many resources that are there to help people; use these resources.

Since we're on the subject of daycares, I visited Whiteside Taylor in Baie-D'Urfé last week. Whiteside Taylor is another $7 a day daycare. It's in a beautiful location and it looks great, but it has a four to five year waiting list. The director wants to open another daycare; she has the funding and she's ready to go. The only roadblocks for this new daycare opening are politicians. If you live in the West Island and you think that the director of Whiteside Taylor should be allowed to open another daycare, contact this person and tell him:

Geoffrey Kelley
Place Scotia
620, boulevard Saint-Jean
Bureau 206
Pointe-Claire, Quebec
H94 3K2
Telephone: (514) 697-7663
Fax: (514) 697-6499
gkelley@assnat.qc.ca

Joining the chorus by not shutting the fuck up

2010-05-13T21:17:00.001-04:00

Canadian feminists have been pretty pissed off lately, and with good reason. Debra over at April Reign has a pretty good explanation about why we're angry:

Throughout history those who seek to reign despotically first seek to silence and disenfranchise the women, this current PM scrabbling after a majority like a junkie jonesing for a fix is no different. He started by all but completely destroying SWC and has continued to show disdain for women with quotes about “left-wing fringe groups” and Bush style gag laws on abortion for women in war-torn countries, and of course he continues to defund women’s groups and programs.

Senator Nancy Ruth caused a furor when she told aid groups “to “shut the fuck up” about abortion funding, or risk a government backlash.” She speaks the truth. Harper wants nothing more than for women to shut the fuck up and let him get on with destroying healthcare, social housing, women’s groups/shelters, eroding human rights, forwarding a right-wing fundamental christian agenda, and creating a climate of war, building prisons in place of social programs and spending all our tax dollars on funding corporate welfare payments.

My Canada is not a place where women shut up and do as they are told. My daughters are not incubators. We will continue to work for a Canadian society where all are valued and cared for and welcomed.

We will not Shut the Fuck Up!

Nasheen at Feministing warns us not to be complacent and tells that we can't afford to shut the fuck up while Pogge asserts that silence is assent. Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe is pissed off at the Conservatives too:

The uproar coincides with the release of Marci McDonald's book, The Armageddon Factor: the Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada:

What’s more, The Armageddon Factor, which examines the religious right across the faiths and how Stephen Harper’s government has forged bonds with it, comes after weeks of reports on Conservatives opposition to abortion and family planning, the defunding of activist womens’ groups, the withdrawal of subsidies to gay pride events across the country, the cuts to KAIROS and the publication of an unprecedented amount of grants to Bible schools.

“My problem was, as my book went to bed, headlines were coming daily,” McDonald says over the phone from her Toronto home. “All my worries about having to prove my case that this government is intent on cultivating the social conservative constituency in this country were nothing to worry about. They were doing it so openly that you could hardly keep up with the headlines.”

These recent developments have opened a can of worms. Pro-life campaigners are seeing this as a great opportunity to get some anti-abortion laws in place:

Heartened and emboldened by Canada’s new anti-abortion stand on foreign aid, thousands of pro-life campaigners flooded in unprecedented numbers to Parliament Hill on Thursday, daring to hope that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government will take further steps against abortion at home as well as abroad.

The debate that Harper says he doesn’t want to reopen in Canada arrived literally on his doorstep on Thursday, with high spirits and demands for the Conservative government to do much more to discourage abortion in this country.

There were MPs at the rally, too:

Dean Del Mastro, an Ontario Tory, said he's ready for a renewed abortion debate in the House of Commons.

"Maybe the first step is to determine when this place believes that life begins," he said. "I'm prepared to put my case forward. ... I'm prepared to have that conversation. Is the other side?"

Well, unrepentant old hippie has a pretty good response for Dean Del Mastro:

In a word, Dean? Fuck no. We’re not prepared to have “that conversation” because… *rimshot* …it’s none of your business. If you don’t want to have an abortion, then don’t have one. Dean.

As you can see, many Canadian feminists have already said this and I'm just joining the chorus; no, we are not going to shut the fuck up. We have absolutely nothing to gain by being silent.

Cyberbullying not just for kids: moms get bullied too

2010-05-12T17:05:00.002-04:00

Motherhood is supposed to be like apple pie and a warm hug. Wholesome. Dependable.

But online, it can be anything but. Right next to support groups on diaper rash and the terrible twos are mean girls, all grown up.

It's mom on mom cyberbullying and as the popularity of mommy blogging rises, so do the often stinging criticisms. [...]

Norie said Ally went through psychological bullying throughout school. It made Norie want to speak out to other mothers to prevent that humiliation from happening to their daughters. But going public triggered a wave of mommy bullying that shocked her even more.

"A lot of mothers called Ally a slut and a whore," she said. "It was a lack of parenting and we should have taught her morals and we should have taught her self-respect. Basically that I was a horrible parent and it devastated me because they know where to get you. Mothers go after your mothering."
-from the article Grown up mean girls: Mom on mom cyberbullies by Anna Wild

I see a lot of this in the parenting communities that I'm in. Back in January, a mother made a post in parenting101 asking for advice about her sick child:

My 14 month old is sick.

2 days ago he barely ate any food at daycare or at home for dinner. Was cranky. Put him to bed with boob. He vomitted HUGE. (Mind you - this kid never spit up even as an infant. Piles of unused burp cloths!)
Slept a little restless but ok. Boob at 6am, vomit again. Fever of 101. Stays home from daycare. Barely eats except crackers. Barely wants boob, water, cows milk. Goes to bed ok. This morning, boob at 6am. Off to daycare and barfs in car 24 hours after last barf. He barely ate food at daycare. Only ate a little dinner. Put to bed with boob tonight but then he wakes up and is nuts. Crying, head banging, jumping on bed. Refusing boob. Tried all normal tricks (patting, hugging, motrin) and he stayed up for an extra 3 hours! Finally going down with boob now.

Slight runny nose.

What is this? Is it a molar thing? Stomach bug?

Help!

The first few comments were helpful, but then somebody asked her why she would send her kid to daycare when he was sick, and she offered this response:

Daycare is an hour away at daddy's office. Daddy was the one that checked him in at daycare after he puked. I didn't hear about it til the end of the day. I don't think that he told daycare that kiddo puked.

Today I asked Daddy if he could stay home in the morning while I have an interview and he can't. They just laid off a bunch of people so he is worried about his job.

Here's where I am selfish: Unfortunately I have interviews all this week. I'm a PhD candidate and these are interviews to be an assistant professor -- scheduling them is a pain (a time that works with 6 people's teaching schedules? Next to impossible) and academia is not family friendly at all. Mentioning that I have a child would be an unwise move, for better or worse.

It sucks, but sending the kid to daycare sick just happens sometimes. I feel bad about it, but there is nothing that I can do about it.

That's when the bullying started. Heaven forbid that a woman focus on her academic career when she has a small child!

The other moms said that she was selfish for sending her kid to daycare where other kids could catch the stomach bug. When she said that she'd been working on her PhD for five years and that this was her one chance at getting a job for the year, she was told that she should just get another job for the year; choosing the interviews over staying home with her sick child was selfish. They said that if her career really wasn't child friendly, then maybe she should have chosen a different career or chosen not to have children. Many people were angry with her for creating a situation where other children would get sick because her son went to daycare that day. She should have known that this was going to happen and had a back-up sick-care nanny available just in case.

A few people pointed out that it was the father who took him to daycare, but it was the mother who was bearing the brunt of all the anger.

After a landslide of angry comments, the mother said that since there had been a lot of lay-offs at her partner's office, her son was the only child in his classroom at daycare. Now the people who had been upset about other kids getting sick and the people who had told her that she should have made previous arrangements with a sick-care nanny were asking her, "Well, what about the daycare workers? What if they get sick now?"

How many people does this woman have to sacrifice five years of PhD work for in order to not be called selfish? A friend of mine said something to me that I think is very fitting here:

A woman can never, never, never win. If she devotes herself entirely to her kids, she has no identity. If she tries to have a career at any point when her child also needs her, she's selfish. If her husband leaves her for someone prettier and younger, it's her fault for "letting herself go." If she takes time away from her family to exercise or go to school, she's cold. If she doesn't, she's lazy and eats bon bons all day.

We. Can't. Win.

The mother in the story that I've outlined today must have been under an incredible amount of pressure; her academic career was hanging in the balance with her interviews, her child was sick, she was worried about the possibility that her partner might be laid off from his job, and after a long and busy day she found out her son had gone to daycare after he had vomited in the car. She was already feeling guilty about being selfish; when she explained her situation with the interviews, she said that she thought that she was selfish. Did she really need a gang of cyberbullies playing on her insecurities about her parenting choices?

Where is the solidarity between mothers? Why do we feel the need to attack the choices of other moms? We all have a heavy workload. We have all made sacrifices even if the sacrifices that we've made are not the same. Wouldn't motherhood be more fun if we supported one another when we're going through rough times?

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T18:10:00.004-04:00

I know that some people criticize Mother's Day as a commercial holiday, but we all like to feel appreciated once in awhile. This post is dedicated to my mom, a very strong and very brave woman.

My mom had me when she was only 17. She married my dad and took on a huge responsibility that many teenagers are not ready for. She never complained that she didn't get to have fun like other people her age. She got a job, she kept the house clean, and she took good care of me.

Whenever I sift through my childhood memories now, I think about how young she would have been at the time and how scary it must have been for her. For example, when I was about three or four years old, my dad was away at college and for the most part it was just me and my mom. We lived in an apartment in a two-story house that didn't have screens on the windows. One night a bat flew into our apartment. My mom put me in my bedroom and closed the door and went to find the bat so that she could chase it back outside. (She never found it, but a tenant who lived there after we did found a bat skeleton behind the stove.) I can't imagine how scary it would have been for someone so young to have to deal with a bat when she was alone with a child.

Although she didn't finish high school, my mother is very smart and has educated herself over the years. She's good with computers and has probably read as many books as a university graduate. When I was a kid, I thought that she knew everything, and even now I'm pretty sure that she knows almost everything. Her logic is always sound and she can come up with a good explanation for just about anything. A couple of months ago she wrote her GED test; she said that it was too easy. I'm very proud of her.

Happy Mother's Day, mom. I love you.

My mom with my son on the day he was born.

And happy Mother's Day to my step-mom, son's paternal grandmother, grandmas, aunts, cousins, friends, family friends, and to any other mother who is reading this. I hope that you're all having a wonderful day.

Brontë sisters power dolls

2010-05-07T18:15:00.001-04:00

Thank you to my friend Sarah for sharing this wonderful video on facebook:

I don't really have anything to say about this aside from "Brontë sisters power up!"

Kathleen Hanna on leadership

2010-05-03T20:17:00.002-04:00

A few days ago, somebody posted this interview with Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre in ontd_feminism:

In the interview, Hanna discusses how she feels about donating her zines and other papers to the New York University Library. More information about this is available in this article at Village Voice:

After a series of trivializing articles appeared in Newsweek, USA Today, and some alternative press outlets, many in the Riot Grrrl movement called for a media blackout, which left much of Riot Grrrl unrecorded in anything other than private and piecemeal fashion. A Riot Grrrl archive would thus function as a remarkable resource, providing scholars of feminism, gender theory, and music history with a trove of unpublished and undocumented primary sources. As Jenna Freedman, a librarian who maintains a zine collection at Barnard College, explains, "I think it's just essential to preserve the activist voices in their own unmediated work, especially because of the media blackout that they called for. What the young women have to say in the unedited, un–'corporate stamp of approval' way is really powerful."

Another thing that Kathleen Hanna discusses in this interview is leadership:

I want more interesting leaders. I think the thing that um is really hard for feminist women who are also interested in challenging like all kinds of oppression is that we're freaked out about leadership, and so there's not more interesting leaders, and a lot of times we kill off our own leaders. I mean not because I think because we're women but because we're in a culture that you know we create products and then we destroy those products, the same way that we lift people up and it's like the kill your idol syndrome, and then we're like, "They're not good enough, and this is wrong," and we get all picky about everything and I just, I don't know, I just wish there was more feminist leaders to choose from and more variety.

I think I agree with her. A recent example of "kill your idol syndrome" is some of the negative reaction to Jen McCreight's Boobquake. And maybe we were all a little hard on McCreight:

The main feminist objection to Boobquake seemed to be that the women who participated were letting ourselves be exploited. They argued that many men reacted to the event with sexist, "Show us your tits!" idiocy—a reaction McCreight should have foreseen, and was therefore responsible for. Even if the intention behind the event was good (a point on which anti-Boobquake feminists differ)—even though the event was initiated by a woman and voluntarily participated in by women—the result was simply another round of female bodies being objectified by men.

Ah. I see.

Women ought not to display our sexuality—because men can't be trusted. In the presence of a display of desirable female flesh, men will lose control of themselves. Women ought to dress modestly, and ought not to encourage other women to dress immodestly... and if we persist in our immodesty, and men respond by behaving badly, it's women's fault.
-Greta Christina

On the other hand, I also agree with Kathleen Hanna that it's better to have more leaders, and because there were some people who disagreed with Boobquake, Negar Mottahedeh and Golbarg Bashi created Brainquake. Because we had Boobquake and Brainquake, we had more leaders to choose from and we could choose to follow the movement that we were more comfortable with.

Now, don't think that just because I think that it's better to have more leaders that I've changed my mind about men as feminist leaders. I still think that the oppressor leading the oppressed is counter-productive to the feminist movement. It doesn't seem that Maymay sees himself as an oppressor, but I've noticed some viewpoints from his supporters that are a danger to feminism. There were two comments in particular in response to this debate (one on Maymay's twitter and the other on the Femquake facebook page) that I found to be very unsettling:

I think it means more when more privileged people acknowledge the problems and contribute to solutions.

and:

If anything, I think it’s better that you’re a man.

If we're going to place more importance on men's roles within feminism than on women's roles, then what's the point of even having feminism?

If you agree with Maymay that men can be feminist leaders, then I suggest that you read Feminism 101. There are some good articles in their FAQ about what roles men should have in feminism and why. If you read that and you still think that men should be feminist leaders, then we're not in this together.

Eleven reasons to have a mommy business card

2010-05-02T20:51:00.002-04:00

As I've mentioned before, I'm fascinated by the idea of mommy business cards. I've been looking into this, and one website I found has a list of top 10 reasons to use your mommy cards:

1. New moms you meet and want play dates with
2. Contact info for Babysitter
3. Neighbors
4. Existing friends (the cards are just too cute not to share)
5. Put in holiday cards, birthday cards, thank you cards and more
6. When dropping off your child at someone’s house for a play date or birthday party
7. If your child is lost you can give out the card with their picture on it to help find them
8. Keep one in your suitcase or diaper bag in case it gets lost
9. Will make grandparents smile
10. Just for fun!

I have one more to add to this list:

11. It shows everyone that you're an important person; mothers are important people, too.

Children's tylenol recall and chocolate flavoured formula

2010-05-01T17:21:00.000-04:00

McNeil Consumer Healthcare has issued a recall for more than 40 over the counter medications for children. The recall includes children's versions of Tylenol, Tylenol Plus, Motrin, Zyrtec, and Benadryl. The medications in question have been sold in 12 countries, including Canada and the U.S.

The recall is a precautionary measure and no children have had reported illnesses due to taking these medicines, but it's still pretty scary. More information about the recall is available here.

In other news, an infant formula company is now selling chocolate flavoured formula:

Mead-Johnson, the company that prides itself on its "decades-long patterning of infant formulas after breast milk," now goes one better. It sells chocolate- and vanilla-flavored formulas for toddlers, fortified with nutrients, omega-3s, and antioxidants.

Allow me to just point something out here.

"Decades-long patterning of infant formulas after breast milk."

Chocolate flavoured formula.

"Decades-long patterning of infant formulas after breast milk."

Chocolate flavoured formula.

And with that, I'll leave you to think about what the similarities could possibly be between breast milk and chocolate flavoured baby formula.

Carnival of children's literature

2010-05-01T17:04:00.000-04:00

I submitted a blog entry to another blog carnival, this one dedicated to children's literature. I'm looking forward to reading the articles, it looks there's a lot of interesting stuff.

Man empowers women by encouraging them to pose for nude photos

2010-04-30T04:13:00.000-04:00

I think a preface is in order here. On my blog post "Men as feminist leaders?" there was discussion about whether or not the event Femquake was still empowering for women with the knowledge that it was created by a man. Some of the people who commented feel that a man can be a feminist leader and that people who think otherwise have "a toxic lack of imagination."

These comments made me wonder: would they feel the same way about a man being a feminist leader if a man had come up with Boobquake? While I was pondering this, I came across an article at The Onion called Man finally put in charge of struggling feminist movement. I suggest that you read it, it's hilarious. This was the inspiration for my own mock article. (Mockticle?)

The Pope issued a statement yesterday that floor length skirts will now be the mandatory uniform for all Catholic school girls.

"Girls who wear short skirts encourage boys to educate themselves about contraceptive methods and support the pro-choice movement," he said. "This, in turn, causes earthquakes which kill millions of people, not to mention fetuses. It's science."

Canadian Apparel founder and self-identified feminist Dave Barney was outraged by the Pope's comments.

"Forcing young women to cover their beautiful forms is disempowering," he wrote on his blog. "This really makes me question the Pope's expertise when it comes to science. Do girls who show a little skin really cause the things that the Pope says they do?

"It's time for Pornquake! I propose that on Monday, female bloggers everywhere post nude pictures of themselves on their blogs and on facebook to show the Pope that he can't just oppress women by forcing them to cover up like that. Then we'll test his 'science' by seeing if there are more google searches on 'birth control' that day. That'll show him. Plus pictures of naked women are good for everybody."

Pornquake has received an enthusiastic response from feminists and men alike.

"More free porn on the internet can't be a bad thing," said one blogger, who preferred that we use his online handle, BigCock69.

When asked if she was concerned that Pornquake was being led by a man, one feminist said, "Not at all! Dave Barney knows what he's talking about when it comes to feminism. And besides, I think that feminist ideas mean more when they're coming from a man."

Dave Barney agrees.

"Feminism is about equality for women," he said. "If I want women to be equal when I'm not even a woman, then that's really saying something."

The Vatican declined to comment on Pornquake.

Music teacher dismissed for being a lesbian parent

2010-04-29T12:29:00.001-04:00

This is an absolutely disgusting display of discrimination. Little Flower Academy, a Catholic school in Vancouver, knew that Lisa Reimer was a lesbian when they hired her to instruct their all girls choir. Reimer went on leave when her partner gave birth to a baby and was told not to come back after parents of the students expressed concerns that "the girls might follow Ms. Reimer's lead."

Of course parents want to be involved in their children's schools and have a say in what goes on in their classrooms, but it is the school's responsibility to ensure that they don't discriminate against their teachers and students because of their sexual orientation. It would have been nice if the school had organized a tolerance workshop for the students and parents, but it's a Catholic school, so why would they do that?

Men as feminist leaders?

2010-04-28T23:20:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned in my post about Boobquake, feminists don't always agree about everything. One of the things that we don't all agree on is the role of men in the women's movement. When Mary Daly taught at Boston College, she refused to allow men to attend her classes on feminism. Then we have bell hooks who believes that feminism is for everybody:

As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media.

When I wrote my last blog post, I credited Feministing with the idea of Femquake. Maymay commented to correct me; he had come up with the idea. He also informed me that he is a man. Upon learning the true identity of Femquake's creator, an anonymous commenter had this to say:

awesome. a man is leading the femquake charge. That's all great and lovely, but I guess I was hoping that it was a woman. If that makes me sexist, well, I guess maybe I am.

Not gonna lie, it means a little less to me now.

The point is still there and the point is a good one, but meh...some dude on the internet leading the charge on us uniting our boobs and our brains is just, IDK, ironic.

Thanks for the help, though.

When Maymay wrote about the anonymous comment in his blog, it sparked a debate about leadership, men as feminists, and whether or not a hierarchy exists within feminism. I had this to say in a few of my comments:

I think that Femquake was a good idea, but I can see where the anonymous commenter on my blog was coming from. Men have been the ones who have been the leaders throughout history, and while there are more women in government now, it is still made up of mostly men. Part of being a feminist (for me and I think for anonymous, too) is believing that women can be leaders as well, and when a man comes up with an initiative like Femquake, it doesn’t really strengthen that idea. When men step up as leaders for the women’s movement, it looks like we can’t even lead ourselves. I don’t think that the comment came from a belief that men don’t have good ideas and valid opinions, but from a desire to be independent. [...]

A leader can be somebody organizing a protest or it could be someone who says something that nobody else has said before. In the case of Femquake, you were leading; you came up with an idea and you asked people to participate in your event. Maybe you don’t feel that you were the leader of Femquake, but when you saw that I credited Feministing in my post, you did point out that you were the one who came up with the event. [...]

Men have been leading themselves for centuries and they’re still the ones who are making most of the laws. Our society is still a society where women constantly have to prove themselves as a whole. Men don’t have to prove that men are good at math and science or that men are capable of leading.

Here are a few excerpts from Maymay's blog post and comments:

...it’s absolutely baffling to me that when men stand up for gender equality, it somehow means less than when women do it. The reality is that no matter who is standing up for gender equality, it means the same thing: that we are all working towards the same goal of equality and opportunity for all souls on this planet, regardless of what body those souls inhabit. [...]

I have to respectfully disagree with you when you say that supporting ideas that men come up with makes it look like women can’t lead themselves. To me, that feels like a grave indictment of women, one I’d be uncomfortable making. Would you say that men who support women make it look like men can’t lead themselves? Sexism is sexism, and there is nothing I find worth honoring about sexism regardless of its source or its target.

Furthermore, the idea that somehow someone has to “lead” equality strikes me as faulty. Equality is by definition non-hierarchical. Leadership, by contrast, is necessarily hierarchical. To say that I am somehow “leading the charge” is misrepresentative of the ideal of self-empowerment that I tried to put forth in coining “femquake.”

In other words, for people to realize a desire to be independent, regardless of whether they are women or men, “following leaders” is not the way to do it.

I suggest reading the section of his post about the anonymous comment and the rest of the comments on the post before you read this next part. I'm responding to his last comment to me here, because I'm curious about what people who read my blog have to say, particularly the original anonymous commenter.

Did you hear me say that leaders weren’t necessary, or useful, or valuable, or important? If so, then, oops, either I misspoke or you misinterpreted or both! I’ll try to say things another way, next time.

What you said was, "for people to realize a desire to be independent, regardless of whether they are women or men, 'following leaders' is not the way to do it." What is the way to do it then?

It’s certainly a terrible thing, in my view, that black women are treated with less dignity than white women merely for being black and women. Does that make feminism or feminist ideals hierarchical? You seem to be saying so, and I disagree. Feminism is about gender equality, and that concept–even in an imperfect world–is distinct from racial equality.

It does make feminism hierarchal. So do homophobia, transphobia, and classism. I'm going to use another quote from your comment to illustrate this. "Is it oppressive for a woman who wants to be a homemaker to have equal opportunity to choose between homemaking and astrophysics? No. It is only oppressive when she is not given that choice, or is disempowered from enacting either reality."

Back in the day when middle-class white women were rebelling against being homemakers, they weren't thinking about other women who would have fewer options in terms of work that they could do. Not everyone has the option of having a wonderful career. They may not be able to afford the education that they would need for a career and they're stuck working at an unsatisfactory minimum wage job. When feminism was taking the "women should work" direction, women in lower income households weren't being empowered.

...adultism is discrimination against anyone who is not an adult. Would you say that black children face more discrimination than white children? I would say so, and while the intersections of adultism and racism are prevalent, I don’t think it’s helpful to view the concept of racial equality as hierarchical, just as I don’t think it’s helpful to view feminism/gender equality as hierarchical, either.

Is the concept of racial equality hierarchical? I'm going to quote bell hooks again, because I think she has a good answer to this one:

No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have black women... When black people are talked about the focus tends to be on black men; and when women are talked about the focus tends to be on white women.

and:

What had begun as a movement to free all black people from racist oppression became a movement with its primary goal the establishment of black male patriarchy.

I admit that I'm not an expert on the black rights movement, but I trust that bell hooks knows what she's talking about.

Being good at math and science or that we are capable of leading does not mean that men don’t have to prove themselves as a whole. Feminism aims to liberate men as well as women. Feminism is wonderful because it can liberate the oppressor as well as the oppressed.

Men have to prove that it is okay for them to be ’sensitive,’ that it is okay for us to look ‘pretty,’ that it is okay for us to desire care and protection from our partners, rather than take assumed roles as “protectors” of women.

People looked at us funny when my girlfriend hugged me while I curled up into a ball in her arms on the subway in New York City. They aren’t used to such a scene. I feel that this is as much a sign of men’s oppression as it is of women’s.

I appreciate that I have privilege as a man, but that privilege comes at a huge cost. That painful cost is invisible to most men and, unfortunately, to many women who call themselves feminist, too. Please don’t belittle the negative effects gender inequality has on men when you speak of feminism.

I don't think that I was belittling the negative effects that the patriarchy has on men. We were talking about leadership. I said that men don't have to prove themselves as leaders. It's unfortunate that you aren't accepted when you show your emotions, but that goes both ways, too. Little girls are socialized to be sensitive, yet if a woman wants to appear competent in business or in politics, she must control her emotions so that others don't think that she's not up to the job. It's also important to remember why being sensitive is perceived as a negative trait; society views sensitivity as being a female trait.

Is pointing out misinformation the same as leadership? Is creation the same as leadership? These are distinctions I don’t see you making, but they are important.

Leadership is a concept devoid of intent and full of action: a leader is someone who rules, guides or inspires others.

I believe the misinformation that you're referring to is when I credited Feministing with creating Femquake. I didn't see that as leadership, but I did see it as taking credit for leadership. You were guiding and inspiring others by coming up with Femquake.

In segregating the “*quake” events from one another and placing me at the head of Femquake independent of the full context, it feels to me that you disavow the inspirational, necessary role that McCreight, Negar Mottahedeh, and Golbarg Bashi played in inspiring my actions. I view them as my leaders here. Please give them as well as the unnamed masses of courageous women (and men, in some cases) who participated that same courtesy when you discuss Femquake.

I'm not trying to discredit the creators of Boobquake and Brainquake at all. I was responding to your response to the anonymous comment on my blog, which was about Femquake being started by a man.

I think feminism’s allies–regardless of their gender–deserve equal support. They are your allies, and you are after equality, aren’t you?

Again, we were talking about leaders. Allies and leaders are two different kinds of people. One person can choose to be an ally in one instance and a leader in another, but declining to follow a leader is not the same thing as denying support to an ally.

Ultimately, the issue is that if one is more willing to hear support for “get everyone on an equal footing” from a woman than from a man, the issue is not really about leadership, is it? It is about gender.

That's a very black and white way to put it. It's not about these two genders being different from each other. One of them has historically made all of the decisions for the other and had had power over the other. The issue isn't about wanting to exclude men; it's about wanting to empower ourselves instead of letting somebody else do it for us. It's about women who don't want to rely on men and who want to be independent.

Brainquake, Femquake, and Anne Brontë

2010-04-27T00:01:00.002-04:00

In response to Boobquake, some people who disagreed with the idea came up with Brainquake:

"Everyday women and young girls are forced to 'show off cleavage' and more in order simply to be heard, to be seen, or to advance professionally. The web is already filled with images of naked women; the porn industry thrives online and many young girls are already vulnerable to predatory abuse. Violence against women and girls has a direct correlation to the sexualisation of women and girls. The extent of their sexualisation is evident in the hundreds of replies that pour into the 'Boobquake' Facebook page where women write, apologetically: 'I don’t have boobs, not fair' or 'Hey, I only have a C cup...' and 'What about those of us who no longer have cleavage? They sag too low.'"

"Brainquake's" creators say Sedighi's comment was no news to Iranian women, nor was it funny. They note that for the past 30 years, the Islamic Republic has violated women's rights with what they describe as repressive policies.

"Iranian women have fought back in various ways, one of which has been to dress 'subversively,' but as is evident in the Green Movement, it is not their 'beauty' or bodies that they have utilized in fighting against a brutal theocracy but their brains, their creativity, art, writings, etc."

Some people are offended by Brainquake because they feel that it encourages women to feel ashamed of their bodies. In an attempt to unite the two sides, maymay has come up with Femquake:

Both breasts and brains are good for humanity and deserve our respect. Don't coerce women into being proud of one over the other, or feeling ashamed of either! YES WE CAN all get along.[...]

Part of what that means is that every woman has the prerogative to do as she pleases, from showing off cleavage on Boobquake to showing off intellect on Brainquake. [...]

Regardless of your gender, please join Femquake on April 26th, by blogging, tweeting, and publicizing the achievements of women, whether physical, intellectual, or (preferably) both! Tag your blog post with "Femquake" and your tweets with #Femquake to participate.

Since I feel that she is often overshadowed by her sisters Charlotte and Emily, I am writing about Anne Brontë.

A few years ago when I read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, I was surprised at how bad-ass the book was. It wouldn't be considered to be "bad-ass" now, but for the 19th century it was ahead of it's time. The book is about a single mother, Helen Graham, who moves into a new neighbourhood and supports herself by painting. One of her neighbours, Gilbert Markham, discovers that she was not widowed; she had left her husband and was hiding from him. Her real name was Helen Huntingdon. She had been unhappy in her marriage; her husband was an abusive alcoholic. She left him and took her son with her because she felt that her husband was a bad influence on him.

It is easy today to underestimate the extent to which the novel challenged existing social and legal structures. May Sinclair, in 1913, said that the slamming of Helen Huntingdon's bedroom door against her husband reverberated throughout Victorian England. Anne's heroine eventually leaves her husband to protect their young son from his influence. She supports herself and her son by painting, while living in hiding, fearful of discovery. In doing so, she violates not only social conventions, but also English law. At the time, a married woman had no independent legal existence, apart from her husband; could not own her own property, sue for divorce, or control custody of her children. If she attempted to live apart from him, her husband had the right to reclaim her. If she took their child with her, she was liable for kidnapping. In living off her own earnings, she was held to be stealing her husband's property, since any income she made was legally his.
-from The Oxford Companion to the Brontës, by Christine Alexander and Margaret Smith

You may wonder, as I did, why this daring and radical novel receives so little attention compared to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. Well, it seems that the responsibility for this slight lies with Charlotte. After Anne's death at the young age of 29, Charlotte, who had been offended by the content of her sister's novel, prevented it from being republished.

"Wildfell Hall it hardly appears to me desirable to preserve," Charlotte wrote. "The choice of subject in that work is a mistake, it was too little consonant with the character, tastes and ideas of the gentle, retiring inexperienced writer." While Charlotte and Emily's novels continued to be published, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall fell off the radar. When it was finally republished (shortly before Charlotte's death) six years after the second edition, there were many omissions which weakened the novel. At this point Charlotte and Emily had gained literary fame while Anne remained unknown; having her novel butchered didn't help matters.

"My object in writing the following pages was not simply to amuse the Reader," Anne wrote in the preface to the second edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. "Neither was it to gratify my own taste, nor yet to ingratiate myself with the Press and the Public: I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it." Well, I hope that Anne Brontë will one day be seen as being equal to her sisters, which she was, and that the honesty in her novel will receive the recognition that it deserves.

Boobquake brings out different feminist opinions

2010-04-25T21:07:00.000-04:00

One thing I've learned about feminism is that we don't all agree about everything. We all have different views and ideas. You can see this when you look at all the different responses to Boobquake.

Boobquake is feminist Jen McCreight's response to Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi's statement that "Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes."

Time for a Boobquake.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that's your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I'm sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn't rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it'll be one involving plate tectonics.
-Jen McCreight of Blag Hag

Boobquake has received a mixed response. As of right now, Sunday night, more than 170 000 people have RSVPed to the facebook event to say that they're participating. However, nearly 240 000 have clicked on "not attending." Beth Mann feels that Boobquake is turning into Girls Gone Wild:

I appreciate McCreight's intentions behind this; she meant it as a feminist response to a ridiculous statement. Unfortunately, it seems to be turning into something else, with many men chiming in, with their "show us your tits" camera-ready attitude. Women on parade again...sigh.

Since when did we "stick it to the man" by wearing low-cut shirts or short shorts? [...]

Women have been objectified to such an extreme point that even our so-called feminist undertakings include more objectification. I don't relax when I find something disproportionate and unfair. Nobody should.

Reviewing the hundreds of comments that continue to pour onto the Boobquake FB page, many women apologetically replied, "Sorry, I don't have enough cleavage to show" or "I'm as flat as a board...sorry!" A movement that encourages more body issues! Yay for us. Go team go. [...]

Women should be able to wear what they want. That's a given. Women should be able to sexually express themselves how they see fit. Of course. And underneath it all, I guess that was Boobquake's intention.

Liztopia also feels that Boobquake is counterproductive:

Boobquake to me is a minefield of contradictions; women are choosing to get their breasts out in order to make a statement against sexism. For me, because we live in a society where women are treated like sexual objects, the statement falls a little flat. Sexism manifests itself in the UK through enforcing women to self objectify, tits out, will be assumed to be ‘tits out for the lads’, even if that’s not the case. Women in the UK are also pressured to cover up and told that if you show too much flesh you deserve rape. As I said, it’s a minefield.

Liztopia's observations about society in the UK are true for Canada and the United States as well. We're not exactly an open-minded "let it all hang out without judgement" society over here. Just look at all the people who feel that mothers shouldn't be allowed to breastfeed in public. Of course, those who are saying that Boobquake is a perfect opportunity for women to be objectified certainly aren't wrong, either.

McCreight has made a second entry meant to clarify Boobquake. "I don't think the event is completely contrary to feminist ideals," she says. "I'm asking women to wear their most 'immodest' outfit that they already would wear, but to coordinate it all on the same day for the sake of the experiment." Other feminists agree with her, too:

Women equate clothing with power, or subjugation, and these vibes run deep. Throughout history there have been revolutions in woman's clothing that proclaim freedom in a way that doesn't seem to mirror men and their fashion sense. The scandals caused by Amelia Bloomer and others - the affront caused by women wearing pants in the early 20th century - the horror of the two piece bathing suit... these issues rocked the social sphere. [...]

But while I will take responsibility for the way in which I respect my body, I am never going to take responsibility for the way men choose to act towards me because of what I wear, and I am never going to take responsibility for natural disasters.

I can understand where feminists on both sides of Boobquake are coming from. I appreciate the idea behind it, but I agree with Beth Mann and Liztopia. In a society like ours where women are subject to sexual objectification, this kind of event is ineffective and the point is lost when so many people are just excited about seeing women in revealing clothing. I would be much more inclined to attend a public nurse-in with other breastfeeding mothers.

Book review carnival

2010-04-25T14:14:00.000-04:00

I love books. I've always been an avid reader. Since becoming a mother, I've had less time to read, unless I'm reading out loud and the book has pictures. I've only recently found the time to start updating this blog again, so I suppose that's a start to reclaiming my brain.

The Book Review Blog Carnival is making me miss books. It looks like they have a lot of interesting reads on that list and I'm quite flattered that my last entry about unconditional love in children's stories was included.

Stories of unconditional love for children

2010-04-23T10:48:00.001-04:00

Throughout history, parents have told their children cautionary tales. Fairy tales are full of witches putting spells on people and locking them away in towers, evil stepmothers, and hungry wolves disguised as benevolent grandmothers. The message is that the world is a dangerous place and you should be careful.

Nowadays, we also have children's stories about unconditional love. When I was a kid, one of my favourite stories in this category was Love you Forever by Robert Munsch. It's about a mother who sings a song to her son, "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be." When the mother grows old, the son sings the song to her, replacing the word "baby" with "mommy." Afterwards, he goes home to sing the song to his newborn daughter. It's a very popular book and has been known to make people cry.

Last year, Love you Forever came up in an online parenting community that I'm in. Some people said that they found the book to be creepy because of the part where the mother drives across town with a ladder and climbs into her adult son's bedroom while he's sleeping to sing him the song. They have a point. Entering somebody else's house without their permission is a criminal offense. A mother climbing in through her adult son's window to sing to him while he sleeps is unhealthy and it's probably time to cut the umbilical cord.

A couple of other people in the parenting community pointed out two things when defending the book. One, the instance with the mother climbing into her son's room is in line with Munsch's usual writing style. Part of the charm of his stories is that they are often exaggerated and over the top. His books have giant fathers who eat chocolate covered bricks for dessert, trains that come out of nowhere and stop in houses that have just been cleaned up, and snowsuits that have five zippers, 10 buckles, and 17 snaps. Two, some children feel happy and secure about the idea that their mothers will always love them enough to sing lullabies to them, even when they're all grown up.

Either way, I love Robert Munsch, but I'll never feel the same way about Love You Forever again.

I Love You, Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt takes a more lighthearted approach to a mother's unconditional love. When the mother tells her son that she loves him, he asks her if she would still love him if he were a super smelly skunk, a meat-eating dinosaur, or a scary swamp monster. His mother, of course, assures him that she would love him no matter what.

"But, Mama, but, Mama, what if i were an alligator with big, sharp teeth?"
"I'd buy you a bigger toothbrush! And if your throat hurt, I'd look inside your huge mouth. I'd tell you, 'I love you, my dangerous alligator.'"

It's a fun and warm story, and the illustrations are nice, too.

To stay home or not to stay home?

2010-04-20T21:48:00.009-04:00

I'm currently a stay at home mom. In September, I will be going to school when my son will be a month shy of two years old. I never finished getting a university degree; I now plan on getting getting a technical diploma at a CEGEP.

I don't know if this was exactly my choice. I was planning on staying home for the first year of his life and returning to work when my maternity leave was finished. My plan was disrupted a few months into my leave when I found out that everybody at my job was getting laid off, myself included.

I've looked at job postings, sent out CVs, and gone to job interviews. I saw a job counselor who suggested that I try McDonald's. My son is still on waiting lists for the $7 a day daycares, so a big chunk of my hypothetical McDonald's paycheck would go to a private daycare. This plan didn't seem to be worth my trouble; my time would be better spent at home taking care of my son. Staying home was my choice when I was looking at the alternative. If I hadn't been laid off during my maternity leave, I probably would have chosen to go back to work (I was a relay operator for the Deaf and hard of hearing, which I would prefer to being a burger flipper.)

Regardless of whether or not this was my choice, being a stay at home mom is an option that many mothers choose. It's a valid career choice. I've mentioned this on my blog before, but in this piece the author recounts a story about meeting a stay at home mom who handed her a business card:

Those four words on that business card speak volumes about this woman. Some people will think, "Oh, that's sad that she feels like that's all she is now: Greg's Mommy." But I could tell this woman obviously thought her baby was the bomb, and she saw it as a real privilege to be attached to that radness. Seemed like the words on her card were there to say, "Yeah. I made that with my magic lady body. Jealous?" Or maybe she just made the cards as a public service to every frazzled mom she meets who's got zero chance of remembering her name, let alone her kid's name.

Some may feel that this is a silly idea, but why not? They may not work in offices, but stay at home parents are still important people making a valuable contribution to society. It's wonderful that women have more choices than they used to and that they now have the option to work outside of the home, but it's crucial to remember that staying home with the kids is a choice for some mothers, too.

This sums it up quite nicely:

Feminism is all about the power to choose. Half a century ago, it is likely that my current stay at home status wouldn't have been mine to accept or reject. Instead it simply would have been the way it was. That was the case for the brilliantly stifled Betty Friedan, an Ivy League educated genius who launched the modern women's movement when she wrote The Feminine Mystique after finding herself literally imprisoned by societal expectations that she confine her interests to home and hearth. Twenty years later, Friedan re-explored the lives of American women in The Second Wave, in which she argued that the assumption that every woman should construct a life centered primarily around earning a wage could be just as limiting as previous social paradigms.

"Mom Idol" puts mothers in the spotlight before putting them back in the kitchen

2010-04-08T20:16:00.004-04:00

A friend of mine mentioned "Mom Idol" on facebook today. I thought that sounded like a nice idea. What better way to put moms in the spotlight than to have a singing competition with just moms? It would be a competition completely unrelated to their parenting abilities and it would help them stay connected to their sense of self.

As it turns out, that's not what this competition is. It's just some online ballot that some appliance company made up so that some lucky mom can go to the American Idol finale and be on TV for 20 seconds.

This is what's included in the prize package:
-a trip for 2 to the American Idol finale
-a makeover (because we can't have any frumpy moms at the season finale of American Idol!)
-$5000 to a charity of the winner's choosing
-a bunch of kitchen and laundry appliances

"The Electrolux brand is all about helping Moms be even more amazing; now it's time to celebrate Mom for all the amazing things she does," says a spokesperson from the appliance company. Way to be selfless, mom, here's some money to a charity and some appliances so you can keep being selfless.

Maybe you're wondering why I'm dissing the appliances and the charity money. It just bothers me that this competition is aimed specifically at mothers. "Oh, here's a makeover so you can conform to society's image of beauty, some appliances so you can cook, a washer and dryer so you can do laundry, and, oh yeah, here's some money for somebody else." I can think of a lot of things that many mothers would appreciate: some alone time, a night out without kids, a massage, a drink- if they're going to have a mom competition, then why not do something for her?

My favourite bookstore in the world

2010-04-06T18:53:00.008-04:00

It's that time of year again. The Montreal Mirror has opened voting for their Best of Montreal special. They have a category for "best local blog." What? I'm just sayin' is all.

Every year when it's time to vote for the Best of Montreal, I relish the opportunity to vote for my favourite bookstore ever. No, not Chapters. I'm talking about The Concordia Community Solidarity Co-op Bookstore. It has a cozy environment, friendly and helpful staff, a great women's studies section, and a great gender and sexuality section.

When I first started going to the Co-op Bookstore, they were located in the basement of Concordia's Hall Building. They've since moved to a new location and I was very happy for them. Their new space is much more cheerful. On top of all the good things that I've already mentioned, they're also a non-profit organization. This is their mandate:

- Strives to make education and information more accessible to University Community through its products, services and pricing policies.

- Will offer and provide a wide range of products including alternative forms of media and information.

- Provides a viable example of a business alternative to the capitalist norm.

- Is responsible to the needs and concerns of it’s user, worker and support members.

- Will act responsively and respectively to user input and concerns.

- Will use it’s profits to ameliorate the services and products it can offer it’s clients and members.

- Will favor to do business with businesses and organizations with ethical and environmentally friendly operation standards.

- Will make environmentally friendly decisions when ordering products and conducting daily business.

- Supports and respects student initiatives.

- Will work in solidarity with community groups who represent positive initiatives.

- Will work towards maintaining a positive relationship with Concordia University.

- Will ensure it’s store space and events are accessible to those with disabilities.

- Is a non-discriminatory positive space.

- Will hire new employees based on abilities and competences that compliment a retail environment and our mandate.

- Offers employment to full-time students at above minimum wage standards.

- Will provide a safe work environment.

I highly recommend that you check them out if you haven't yet had the chance.

Would you kill for your child?

2010-04-05T16:36:00.008-04:00

I read Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi last summer. Bugliosi was the prosecutor in the famous Manson trial for the Tate-Labianca murders. After reading the book, I did some googling online and found Susan Atkins' website. The website includes Atkins' account of the murders and her part in them.

In the fall of 1986 I received a letter from a group of young people living in a commune in Colorado. There were about two dozen of them between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, and they wrote to tell me how “cool” they thought my commitment offense was. Apparently they had failed to discover that I had disavowed Charles Manson over 15 years earlier. I wrote them back explaining that nothing that happened back when I was with Charles Manson was “cool.” Not the drug use, not the physical abuse, and certainly not the crimes. I suggested they find more enlightening role models and heroes.

According to Atkins, the Helter Skelter motive was bogus; she claims that it is a myth that Charles Manson invented to hide the real motives behind the murders from his followers. What's even more interesting is Atkins' description of life as a mother in the Manson family:

...by the late summer of 1969, my son was over half a year old and I was becoming very attached to him. This was not allowed by Charles Manson. Mothers were kept away from their own children under the pretense that parents put too much guilt and structure on children and that they should be allowed to grow up free.In truth it was an iron-clad way of ensuring the mother would do whatever Charles Manson told her to do.
In my case, I became so persistent about seeing my son and trying to look after him that I was constantly being sent away from Spahn’s Ranch with the men when they went to take care of business.

Atkins asserts that she did as she was told because she feared for the life of her son. Even during the trial when her son was no longer with the Manson family, she did not feel that he was safe. After all, even though she didn't have any identification, she and other members of the family hadn't had difficulty before when they had retrieved her son from a foster family:

Manson sent me to social services to find out where my son was and then he sent four men to escourt me to the house and ask to see my son. When the couple who were looking after him left the room the men ushered me and my son back into the car, drove me back to Manson, my son was taken out of my hands and returned to where the other children were being kept “for his safety.”

What would other parents do if they were in Atkins' situation? She thought that she was joining a happy hippie commune and instead found herself isolated in the desert with a cult run by a racist, misogynist sociopath. She feared for her son's life because he was kept from her and she did not know if he was okay. Linda Kasabian was in the same situation and ran away, leaving her daughter with the Manson family. What would others do if they were faced with Atkins and Kasabian's dilemma?

I like to think that I would keep a cool head, run to the police at the first opportunity, and lead them back to the ranch to find my child. Still, I feel badly for Susan Atkins. She made a misguided attempt to protect her son and was never allowed to see him again.

While I was on Death Row my son was legally taken from me because no one in my family was willing to raise him. His name and identity have been changed and sealed, so I have no idea where he is or how he is doing. [...] My continuing separation from my son, even after all these years, remains an incredibly poignant and enduring loss.

I feel badly for Sharon Tate too, who pleaded for the life of her baby and was told by Atkins that she had no mercy for her. I also feel badly for the other victims of the Manson family.

Although Susan Atkins didn't show any outward signs of remorse during the trial, she later denounced Manson and said that she was sorry for her participation in the murders. "Sorry is such a pitiful word for what I feel about those people who lost their lives because of me and my willingness to participate," she said. "It is not an adequate word." She displayed good behaviour while in prison. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2008 and requested a compassionate release from prison. Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi did not oppose her release:

Former Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi said it was time for the state to show Atkins mercy. He told The Times last month that it was wrong to say "just because Susan Atkins showed no mercy to her victims, we therefore are duty-bound to follow her inhumanity and show no mercy to her."

"She's already paid substantially for her crime, close to 40 years behind bars. She has terminal cancer. The mercy she was asking for is so minuscule. She's about to die. It's not like we're going to see her down at Disneyland," said Bugliosi, who wrote the best-selling book "Helter Skelter."

-from the The L.A. Times

Her parole hearing was in September, 2009 and her request for compassionate leave was denied.

Susan Atkins on a gurney at her 2009 parole hearing.

Whether or not I think that Atkins' request should have been granted is irrelevant; she died a few weeks after her parole hearing.

Feeding a baby is not child abuse

2010-04-02T02:56:00.004-04:00

Some people seem to care an awful lot about what other people are feeding to their kids. Some say that breastfeeding is selfish, and some say that formula feeding is selfish. Some say that breastfeeding is child abuse and some say that formula feeding is child abuse.

Breastfeeders and formula feeders both get tired of other people getting upset over their methods of feeding their children. Breastfeeding mothers get dismayed by all of the misinformation about breastfeeding that's available; sometimes they even hear inaccurate facts from their doctors. Sometimes people tell them that breastfeeding is gross, that it's wrong to breastfeed in public, and sometimes they're asked to go go breastfeed in the bathroom. This can make things pretty stressful for a mom who just wants to feed her baby.

These are all reasons why we have lactivism. Lactivists educate others about the benefits of breastfeeding, stand up for a mother's right to nurse in public, and offer support to new mothers who want to breastfeed.

Unfortunately, there are some lactivists who feel that nobody should feed formula to their children. Some people are upset when lactivists are labled as boob nazis while other lactivists embrace the term and take pride in it. It upsets me that someone would be proud of being called any kind of nazi. It also upsets me that a lot of these women are feminists, but "her body, her choice" goes out the window when it comes to breastfeeding. A woman could have any number of reasons for not breastfeeding, and she's not obligated to share her reasons with anybody else.

New mothers need emotional support whether they choose to formula feed or breastfeed their infants. They don't need to be bullied, looked down on, or made to feel inferior. Unless they're feeding their babies antifreeze, what parents choose to feed their children isn't anybody else's business.

So, for those of you who think that breastfeeding is wrong:
-breastfeeding is not child abuse.
-nobody wants to eat their lunch in a bathroom and mothers don't want to feed their babies in one either. That's just gross!
-breastfeeding has many benefits and breastfed babies are not starving.

and for those of you who think that formula feeding is wrong:
-formula feeding is not child abuse.
-infant formula is not poison.
-her body, her choice, end of.

Now can't we all just get along?

Spinning things

2010-03-31T18:35:00.008-04:00

This post is going to be about my son but it will be interesting and relevant to feminist parenting, I swear.

That's him on his first birthday back in October. Isn't he cute? ANYWAY.

I don't remember exactly when it started, but at one point he became very fascinated with things that spin. I have a friend who has a pipe coming out of her floor with a washer on it; when we went to visit her, he would sit on the floor spinning the washer. He would turn the umbrella stroller over so he could spin the wheels. He has discovered other things now, but he still likes to sit quietly and play with objects that spin.

Because of his passion for spinning things, he's developed an inclination to play with toy trucks, trains, and cars. Someone told me that his interest in spinning things is a "boy thing" and that's why boys like cars. I don't think I believe this and I haven't found any evidence to support it. I think that girls are just as likely to enjoy spinning things as boys are. And if girls don't like cars, then why do they make Barbie cars? Barbie cars are definitely not marketed to boys.

For what it's worth, my son also has a doll that he sometimes waves around while chattering away happily. He also loves to look at books, which definitely isn't a gender thing. His favourite toy is a Thomas the train that has wheels that spin and also opens up into a book. It has the best of both worlds in his opinion.

Quebec's new budget

2010-03-31T11:43:00.004-04:00

"Quebecers can look forward to paying a new 'health contribution' and a 15-per-cent sales tax in 2012 under the budget Finance Minister Raymond Bachand brought down yesterday. [...]
Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois pointed out that in the 2008 election campaign, Premier Jean Charest gave no hint of higher taxes, fees and hydro rates to come.
'The government is going to pick the pocket of Quebecers,' she said."

The budget includes:

-four annual fuel-tax increases (Montreal and Quebec City are also authorized to add a fuel-tax increase)
-a new "health contribution" ($25 per doctor visit this July and $200 by 2012) with a ceiling of 1% per taxable income
-an increase of the price of electricity by 1 cent a kilowatt-hour
-increase in tuition funds in 2012 (it has not yet been determined how much they will increase)
-frozen salaries for two years for Premier Jean Charest, his ministers and MNAs, and managers in the public sector
-a 25% cut in advertising, training, and travel spending
-the possibility of eliminating 28 government agencies
-an increase from $3.50 to $5.50 to visit a provincial park

Can you guess which of these things is rubbing me the wrong way? I don't care about the increase in fuel tax or paying $5.50 to visit a provincial park. $5.50 doesn't seem like that much. I understand that Quebec has a lot of social programs and that the money to fund these programs needs to come from somewhere. But $200 per doctor visit seems like an awful lot and 2012 doesn't seem to be very far away. Are we living in a land of free health care or not?

I suppose it's nice that the Quebec government is attempting to pacify it's citizens by freezing Charest's salary for two years, because he's not going to be earning less money while Quebecers are paying more now, is he? I'd also like to know which 28 government agencies are at risk of being cut.

Edited to add a correction: The $200 health contribution would be annual, not per visit. The $25 would be per visit with a ceiling of 1% taxable income. I am still unimpressed.

The real life Lowood School

2010-03-30T18:53:00.006-04:00

I recently reread Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Those of you who have read the book probably remember Jane's arrival at Lowood School when she was a child. You probably remember how she described the inedible food, the drafty building, the long walks to church in the winter while wearing inadequate uniforms and shoes, Miss Scatcherd's mistreatment of Jane's friend Helen Burns, and how Helen died.

I was fascinated to learn that Lowood School was actually based on The Clergy Daughter's School at Cowan Bridge, which Charlotte attended with three of her sisters. The character Helen Burns was modeled after her eldest sister Maria.

What's left of the real life Lowood School.

Those who had been pupils at the same time knew who must have written the book, from the force with which Helena Burns' sufferings are described. They had, before that, recognised the description of the sweet dignity and benevolence of Miss Temple as only a just tribute to the merits of one whom all that knew her appear to hold in honour; but when Miss Scatcherd was held up to opprobrium they also recognised in the writer of Jane Eyre an unconsciously avenging sister of the sufferer.
-from The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Brontë sisters were sent to the school at Cowan Bridge because it was an affordable option. When Elizabeth Gaskell wrote Charlotte's biography, she interviewed other people who had gone to school there in an attempt to get to the bottom of what the conditions were really like. She discovered that during the first few years that the school was open, there had been a cook working there who didn't prepare the food properly. The students were often unable to eat the food and became malnourished. Jane Eyre's descriptions of the weekly walk to the church and how cold the building was also seem to jive with the experiences that Charlotte's classmates had. The treatment of her sister Maria, if anything, seems to be toned down a bit.

One of these fellow-pupils of Charlotte and Maria Bronte's, among other statements even worse, gives me the following:--The dormitory in which Maria slept was a long room, holding a row of narrow little beds on each side, occupied by the pupils; and at the end of this dormitory there was a small bed-chamber opening out of it, appropriated to the use of Miss Scatcherd. Maria's bed stood nearest to the door of this room. One morning, after she had become so seriously unwell as to have had a blister applied to her side (the sore from which was not perfectly healed), when the getting-up bell was heard, poor Maria moaned out that she was so ill, so very ill, she wished she might stop in bed; and some of the girls urged her to do so, and said they would explain it all to Miss Temple, the superintendent. But Miss Scatcherd was close at hand, and her anger would have to be faced before Miss Temple's kind thoughtfulness could interfere; so the sick child began to dress, shivering with cold, as, without leaving her bed, she slowly put on her black worsted stockings over her thin white legs (my informant spoke as if she saw it yet, and her whole face flashed out undying indignation). Just then Miss Scatcherd issued from her room, and, without asking for a word of explanation from the sick and frightened girl, she took her by the arm, on the side to which the blister had been applied, and by one vigorous movement whirled her out into the middle of the floor, abusing her all the time for dirty and untidy habits. There she left her. My informant says, Maria hardly spoke, except to beg some of the more indignant girls to be calm; but, in slow, trembling movements, with many a pause, she went down stairs at last--and was punished for being late.

The two eldest Brontë sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, were both sent home from the Cowan Bridge school with consumption and both of them died shortly after. Charlotte and Emily returned home within the next year "as it was evident that the damp situation of the house at Cowan's Bridge did not suit their health."

I don't know anyone who would want their children at a school like this. Things were different back then, I guess.

Should it seem incredible that Mr. Brontë [...] suspected nothing of the privations which endangered the girls' lives, we must hark back other accounts of the singular unconcern manifested at that day by parents in every rank of society with respect to the school experiences of their children. They were passed over, body and soul, to instructors paid to conduct their education. Punishments were severe, and, to our notion, barbarous in variety and ingenuity. The ferule, the rod, dunce-cap and stool, the dark room, fasting upon bread and water for a week at a time, --were some of the commonest and mildest penances inflicted for imperfect lessons, untidiness, and trivial lapses in speech and deportment.
-from Charlotte Brontë at Home by Marion Harland

It just makes me sad that schools like this actually existed and parents had no problem sending their children to them.

Information for new and expecting parents in Montreal

2010-03-30T00:29:00.007-04:00

Before you read this blog entry, I suggest that you click on "Info for Montreal parents" at the top of this page; all the info from this page is there as well, and I update it when I find new information.

I've noticed that I get hits on this blog when people are trying to find information about giving birth in Montreal on google. I don't know how useful the information here is, since I've only given birth at one hospital and I've only shared my experience there. I've decided to do an information post about this and other things that might be helpful.

CLSC
My local CLSC was a wonderful source of support when I had a newborn infant. A nurse came during the first week to weigh the baby and to ask me questions so she could assess what kind of help I would need. After her visit, I went to see her at the CLSC a few times so she could continue to weigh the baby and continue to help me.

One of the things that I needed help with was breastfeeding. The nurse did her best to help me improve my latch, and when I was still having difficulty, she gave me a list of lactation consultants and circled the ones who were able to speak English. The fees for lactation consultants aren't covered by the CLSC, but it's nice to be handed a list with a few specific recommendations so that you don't have to try to find one on your own. The CLSC also has a breastfeeding meeting once very two weeks. There's a nurse who runs it who can answer questions and you can also meet other breastfeeding moms.

The CLSC also set me up with an auxiliary nurse who would come to my apartment once a week for three hours to help out with the baby. While she was there, I was free to do whatever I wanted. I could do laundry, take a shower, etc. My son also gets his vaccinations for free at the CLSC. We were very lucky to find a pediatrician, but if we hadn't, we would have been able to take him to the family doctor at the CLSC too.

You can find your local CLSC by entering your postal code here. You can also contact the nurse's hotline by dialing 811.

Daycare
Quebec's $7 a day daycares are nice if you can get into one. You can search for daycares here, but make sure you put your name on as many waiting lists as you can as soon as possible; my son is on one waiting list that is four years long! The shortest one that he's on is a two year waiting list.

If you can't get your child into a subsidized $7 a day daycare and you have to use alternate child care, you can file for a child care tax credit.

Diaper service
If you like the idea of using cloth diapers but you're daunted by all the laundry that you would have to do, then check out Baby Auric diaper service. They come to your place once a week to pick up your soiled diapers and bring you clean ones.

It costs $25 a week for the first six months and $20 a week after that. You also have to buy a diaper pail and diaper covers, which you can purchase from them, but you can sell these things back to them if they're in good condition. They sometimes have used diaper covers that you can buy from them for a lower price. When I did my calculations, I figured that it ended up costing around the same amount as buying disposable diapers.

A representative comes to visit you before you start the service to show you how to use the diapers and they also sell other natural baby products.

Exercise
When you're looking after a baby full time, it's good to get out and do something. A mom and baby exercise class is a good option for doing something that makes you feel good while meeting other moms. I had good experiences with Cardio Plein Air and Yogaspace.

Cardio Plein Air is an exercise class that is held outside in various parks in Montreal. They have a mom and baby class where you can exercise while pushing your little one in a stroller (sleds are used in the winter.) It's good, vigorous exercise, and I would fondly refer to the class as "mom and baby boot camp."

Yogaspace offers pregnancy yoga and mom and baby yoga. The instructor, Clearlight, is just awesome. I didn't take the pregnancy class, but the mom and baby class is laid back with mothers frequently stopping to breastfeed. It's a good way to strengthen your core after giving birth.

From Tiny Tot to Toddler
Have you ever heard the phrase, "Babies don't come with a manual?" Well, in Quebec they do! A book called From Tiny Tot to Toddler is given to everyone in Quebec who will be giving birth to or adopting a baby. This book provides a lot of information, including information about breastfeeding, starting solids, and government services that are available.

Hospitals and birthing centres
As I said before, I've only given birth at one hospital so I can only tell you about what I experienced there and what I've heard from other people. The Royal Victoria Hospital has a reputation for being very good with high risk pregnancies and births. I know somebody who planned on having a birth with a midwife but ended up having a high risk birth and was rushed to the Royal Vic. From what I understand, they handled her situation very well even though she hadn't been going there for her prenatal care. I, on the other hand, had a very low risk pregnancy and had a different experience.

I've heard good things about the birthing centre at LaSalle Hospital. They're natural birth friendly; they have jacuzzis and you can bring a midwife.

If you would like to have a midwife, you can contact the Maison de Naissance which is affiliated with the CLSC in Côte-des-Neiges.

You can also ask your local CLSC for a list of hospitals with maternity wards.

Parental leave
We have it pretty good here when it comes to parental leave. There's maternity leave for the mother, paternity leave for the father, and parental leave can be for either of the parents or shared. There is also adoption leave. Everything you need to know can be found here.

Pediatricians
I don't have very much advice to offer about finding a pediatrician, I'm afraid. My ex found our pediatrician and it was really just luck. The hospital where you're giving birth will have a list, and then it's a matter of calling all of them and finding out if any of them are taking new patients. If you can't find a pediatrician, you can still bring your child to a doctor at the CLSC for a check up.

Prenatal classes
I took a child birth class and infant CPR class with Bientôt Bébé at the Royal Vic. I thought that the instructor was fun and great. The child birth class had a bit of a natural birth slant, which didn't mesh with my actual birthing experience, but it still helped me feel prepared.

The CLSC also offers prenatal classes.

I'm back!

2010-03-29T20:14:00.004-04:00

Well, hello there. I haven't updated this blog in over year. I think that it's pretty hilarious that the majority of the posts on my feminist parenting blog were made while I was still pregnant and not actually parenting yet. I had a lot more time when I wasn't actually taking care of a child, I guess.

So, to sum up, sorry for my long absence; I've been up to my elbows in fecal matter and getting accustomed to the whole mothering thing. I'm back now, though, because I've been reading some things lately that have prompted me to come back to this blog. There were three pieces in particular that brought my return:

1. A friend of mine posted a link to this column by Margaret Wente about why she doesn't blog. Wente asks, "Why are bloggers male?" This column is a load of crap. First of all, how is blogging remotely anything like driving a snowmobile into an avalanche? Is she serious? Second of all, this column is an insult to female bloggers everywhere. My answer to her question is, "Not all bloggers are male," and I'm coming back to my blog to prove it. There are loads of bloggers who are women.

2. In the post where my friend linked to Margaret Wente's column, somebody else commented with a link to a female blogger's reaction to the column, and this blog entry had another link to an article about mommy bloggers. I thought it was interesting, and I wanted to get back into the world that the author was talking about. I also enjoyed her story about the mother who was handing out business cards. Parenting is a full-time job, why shouldn't we have business cards?

3. Somebody in a parenting debate community that I'm in posted a link to this feminist blog where the author writes, "I think if some type of study was done concerning what women were quick to call CPS on other women, it would be proven that more women who are the mother of boys run to CPS about 'bad mothers.'" Oh, come on now. Mothers who have sons are the enemy now? We're a bunch of judgemental pearl-clutchers who go around calling child protection willy-nilly? If this is the feminist voice that people are reading, then there need to be more feminist voices out there, mine included.

Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to hit that "publish post" button so that I can feel the adrenaline rush associated with driving a snowmobile into an avalanche.

Breast cancer screening for breastfeeding mothers

2008-11-20T11:27:00.003-05:00

Getting screened for breast cancer can be difficult for a mother who is breastfeeding. Breastfeeding mothers are often told to wean before having a mammogram due to the difficulty of reading one when a woman is lactating.

When I spoke to a nurse at the breast health center of my local hospital about the possibility of having a mammogram while lactating, she told me that a mammogram of someone in my situation would be 'only about 45% effective' so it wasn't worth having one until after weaning. She delicately suggested that I decide for myself which were more important 'nursing my child or 'having a mammogram you can trust.'

According to breastfeeding expert Dr. Jack Newman, "Mammograms are harder to read when the mother is lactating, but can be done and the mother should not stop breastfeeding just to get this done. Furthermore, there are other ways of investigating a breast lump." One of the other ways is a biopsy, and a group in the U.S. called Army of Women is currently seeking another way to test for breast cancer in lactating mothers.

The purpose of this study is to determine if breast cancer and breast cancer risk can be accurately assessed from a breast milk sample. Currently, there is no accurate way to give women information about their personal risk of developing breast cancer. We will use the cells naturally present in breast milk to examine changes in DNA that occur in association with benign and cancerous breast lesions. Learning about the genetic changes associated with both breast cancer and non-cancerous breast lesions will help us develop a way to provide women with information about their breast cancer risk. Using breast milk to screen for breast cancer will reduce unnecessary biopsies among nursing women.

Women who live in the U.S. and are scheduled to have a breast biopsy are being asked to participate in the study.

Birth story

2008-11-14T18:30:00.009-05:00

I apologize for not making a post for such a long period of time. I was busy getting ready for this little guy and it's been taking awhile to get some structure in my life since his arrival.

I went into labour the night of the Canadian federal election. I had trouble getting comfortable all night and it turns out that it wasn't just because of Stephen Harper.

My contractions started at around midnight and we left in a taxi at about 2 am. (My ex-boyfriend had been staying in my spare bedroom every night that week so he would be able to go to the hospital with me.) My friend Leah, who was my birthing coach and had gone to prenatal classes with me, met us at the hospital. The nurse put me in a small room and hooked me up to the EMF reader (a machine that measures the contractions and the baby's heartbeat.) This made me a little grumpy. I was also a little grumpy that I had to wait in this room before going into one of the nice big birthing rooms with windows and showers. I had to wait in this room because they had to make sure that I was in labour before letting me go into one of the nice rooms. My contractions were about seven minutes apart at this point so I was fairly certain that I was going into labour.

Now I understand why natural labour advocates feel like hospitals rely on machines too much. My contractions weren't showing up on the reader. This was partly because I was uncomfortable and couldn't sit still and I also had to keep going to the bathroom. The nurse would come in and check the read-out and it would look like my contractions were really far apart. It seemed like she didn't believe me about being in labour. She didn't have to look at the printout to see how far apart or how big my contractions were. She was at a desk right by the little room. She could have asked me or the people with me how far apart my contractions were or, you know, listened to my screams. They were pretty loud because instead of thinking, "breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out" I was thinking, "breathe in, scream! Breathe in, scream!" I don't think that the machine could have been a more reliable source of information about the situation than I could have been.

The floor doctor came in twice to see how far dilated I was. The second time she checked I was 3 cm dilated so they finally let me go into a nice birthing room. I was in a lot of pain at this point so the nurse who was now looking after me hooked me up with some laughing gas. My birth experience was pretty psychedelic after that happened and it's kind of a blur. Apparently I was making a lot of jokes between my contractions. I remember my ex-boyfriend getting into an argument with the nurse. I also remember yelling at him and Leah saying to him, "We learned about this in baby class, it's normal."

The labour happened very fast and I knew that it was happening fast, but again, it didn't seem like anybody believed me. I can't even describe the pain. It felt like my entire body was part of the process. I had a spiritual revelation at one point but I can't remember what it was now. At one point I was screaming that I could feel the head but I guess everyone just thought I was being a drama queen. I started pushing and I went temporarily blind (or maybe my eyes were closed.) I had no idea what was happening around me, but I suddenly heard voices saying, "Saraline, stop pushing! We have to wait for the doctor! Don't push!" I thought that their advice was absurd so I kept pushing. I felt the head come out and I felt my perineum tear and then I blacked out completely. When I opened my eyes again there was a baby on my chest.

Someone took the baby away and I noticed that my legs were shaking and there were a lot of people staring at my vagina. It was rather disconcerting. Leah talked to me while they were stitching me up. I wanted the people to leave my vagina alone and let me curl up under a warm quilt, but they did not. When they were finished a young woman was apologizing to me for something that happened during the labour but until my baby was on me I'd had no idea that she was in the room.

I found out afterwards that an intern (the young woman who apologized to me) had come in while my doctor was on her way to the hospital. The intern was afraid to deliver the baby without the doctor there so that's why they were telling me not to push. She ran out to get the floor doctor and when he came in my son's head was already halfway out. The doctor yelled at her for running to get him instead of just delivering the baby. My son Eliot was born at 8:25 am.

If I could do it all over again, I still wouldn't want to give birth at home. Maybe at a birthing centre with a midwife, but not in my apartment where all my neighbours could hear me screaming. I would definitely keep Leah. She was a fantastic birthing coach. A few of the nurses asked her if she was a professional midwife. I would still have my ex there as well. It was sweet to see him singing to the baby afterwards.

I did like staying in the hospital after the birth because I could press a button to move my bed up and down or from a laying position to a sitting position. I also didn't have to worry about food because it kept showing up at mealtimes. I felt that my one-night stay in the hospital was a little too short.

A faithful reader of mine (hi J.P!) has requested that I make a list of things that I recommend bringing to the hospital when you're in labour. I've seen many lists like this, but the one thing that they were missing that I wished I'd thought of was toilet paper. One of the indicators that a pregnant woman is going into labour is a soft bowel movement. I had mine at the hospital and I sure would have liked to have something better than one-ply hospital toilet paper!

PETA asks Ben and Jerry's to replace cows with women

2008-09-23T18:29:00.002-04:00

PETA often doesn't treat women's issues very delicately. Apparently we're not as important as animals. There was the ad linking animal abuse to Robert Pickton's victims, and the ad labeling women who don't shave their pubic hair as unattractive, and of course the numerous ads portraying idealistic and unrealistic images of women's bodies. Now they're taking on breastfeeding mothers.

This morning PETA sent a letter to Ben and Jerry's asking them to replace cow's milk with human breast milk. PETA argues that breast milk is better for the health of Ben and Jerry's customers, but they don't take into consideration that mothers may prefer to reserve their milk for their infants.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

So a better option would be to forcefully impregnate women every nine months and to force them to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally? Screw you, PETA.

Women's and families' issues in Canadian politics: Part III

2008-09-23T13:03:00.006-04:00

If you're just catching up, here's part I and here's part II.

Since they were left out of Code Blue's child care report card, today I will be discussing the Bloc Québécois. (Please note that some of quotes from the Bloc Québécois website may be bad translations since my French has a lot of room for improvement.)

Bloc Québécois

Code Blue says that they left the Bloc Québécois off of their report card because "they do not express an opinion on child care outside of Quebec." I agree that the Bloc Québécois platform is very, erm, Quebec-centric. I disagree that this is a good reason for them not to be included. Quebec is still a part of Canada and people in Quebec will be voting in the federal election. Quebeckers don't care about child care any less than people who live in other provinces.

Furthermore, the Bloc Québécois MPs also participate in parliamentary votes, so how they feel about issues like child care and women's rights is important to the rest of Canada, regardless of whether or not their focus is on Quebec. For example, if they were voting on whether or not to implement nationwide $7 a day daycare, do you think that they would all vote against it when it's something that they're defending for Quebec?

Language is a very important issue to this party, but other things are important to them as well:

Equality Between men and Women. This fundamental value is not unique to Quebec. What is unique, however, is our way of turning it into concrete reality, with pay equity and affordable daycare that makes it possible for many women to participate in the labour market. The Bloc Québécois defends this fundamental value in Ottawa despite attacks by the Harper government, which cut off funding to women’s groups and would like to reopen the debate on abortion.

They have defended these values by "transferring necessary funds to implement parental insurance in Quebec" and by "refusing conditions attached to federal transfers to Quebec for health, education, social programs, and daycare." Don't worry, Quebeckers, as long as the Bloc Québécois has some clout in federal politics, our parental leave and $7 a day daycare are here to stay.

Green Party of Canada

Code Blue gave the Green Party a B, an F, and three incompletes on their child care report card. They believe in cleaning up the environment and creating a better world for our children and grandchildren, but what about our children's other needs?

If we vote for them, they promise that they will exempt GST from purchases of children's clothing and books. They also promise to:

Ensure universal access to excellent childcare and early childhood education.

Support parents who take time from their career for child rearing.

It isn't clear to me how the Green Party got a B for "universal services." Is it because they used the word "universal?" The Conservatives used the word "universal" for their child care plan too and they got an F. I feel that the Green Party's child care plan lacks details. How will they make the access to childcare universal and what will be excellent about it?

I like the idea of exempting GST from children's clothing and books, and in their budget they've set aside $110 million a year to "top up income for single parents on welfare going for retraining," another excellent idea. Despite these nice ideas, I feel that the Fs and incompletes were fully deserved. I agree with Code Blue's conclusion that the Green Party shows "Improved effort, but must do homework and complete projects."

Unlike the Conservatives, the Green Party at least mentions women. They promise to "ensure women's rights are respected" and to "Enforce pay equity." That's all they say about women's issues in their platform. Again, details are lacking. There's no mention of abortion (which has been a controversial subject in regards to party leader Elizabeth May) and no mention of whether or not they would repair the damage to Status of Women Canada made by Stephen Harper's conservatives.

In other news

Critics pan Harper youth crime plan

Should violent kids be sent to jail? Does this help society or does it hinder it?

In Montreal, response to the Harper plan was similarly skeptical. Angela Campbell, who specializes in children and the law at McGill University's law faculty, doubted Harper's proposal will curb youth crime.
She called it a "hard-line, law-and-order approach that is very simplistic and doesn't look at the social nuances that lead young people to criminal behaviour."

Chucking kids into the pen is just ignoring the problems that led them to commit a crime at a young age. It would be hiding them away instead of looking at the problem and finding solutions to end their violent tendencies.

Women's and families' issues in Canadian politics: Part II

2008-09-21T18:18:00.005-04:00

A doctor's point of view about children's issues in this election.

It would be wonderful if, over the next few weeks, serious, thoughtful proposals would emerge from all parties, particularly the Conservatives, on the issues that matter to children. It would be great if, rather than simply being the background to another announcement, children became an election issue in and of themselves.
But, as there is no magic wand in my pocket, I really don't think I will get my wish. Instead, I will be satisfied if, perhaps, I could convince Harper that, while I appreciate that a Conservative government would stop candy flavours from being added to cigarillos, maybe there are bigger fish to fry.

Dr. Brett Taylor discusses issues that effect children in his opinion piece. These issues include child care, access to medication for poor or working class families, and access to pediatricians and child psychiatrists. I really like this quote about why child care is important:

Competent daycare decreases the incidence of child abuse and neglect in our communities, and is an enabler, allowing parents (very often women) to seek employment and thus escape from the trap of poverty that so often accompanies single parenthood.

Something else worth checking out is Code Blue's Child Care report card. They've graded the political parties' child care plans. (The Bloc Québécois was left out). The Conservatives, who I discussed the other day, received four Fs and one D-. Let's move on to a party that received two As.

Liberal Party of Canada

In their brand spanking new platform, just released today, the Liberals have a section called "A Fairer Canada."

Includes: The 30-50 plan, Investing in Our Children, Health Care, Women's Equality, Immigration: Welcoming New Canadians, EI Changes, A New Relationship With Canada's First Nations, Inuit and Métis, Minority Language Rights, A Safer Canada, Respectful Federalism

The Conservatives accused the Liberals of promising new child care spaces for 13 years and not fulfilling their promise. However, as was pointed out in a comment on my blog entry the other day, the Liberals had a plan for child care set in motion when the Conservatives came into power. The Conservatives promptly scrapped it, even though the Liberals had already signed agreements with the provinces to implement the new plan. Here's some more information about the child care plan that Paul Martin's Liberals had ready to go in 2006.

The Liberals want to bring this plan back:

The provinces will find a new partner in a Liberal government as we will work with them to rebuild what was torn down by the Conservatives.
Our long-term goal will be coast-to-coast high-quality, universal, community-based, early education and child care. In pursuit of this objective, we will allocate substantial new federal funds. This investment will increase over a four-year period and at full implementation in the fourth year, the will climb to $1.25 billion annually.

It's a lot better than the Conservatives' plan, but I wonder how long it would take them to "rebuild what was torn down by the Conservatives." Another thirteen years?

As for their plans for parental leave, it sounds rather similar to what we currently have in Quebec:

To give families the flexibility they need to bridge to quality child care, a Liberal government will introduce the choice to take a shorter parental leave at a higher benefit level, or a longer leave (up to 18 months) at a lower benefit level.

In Quebec we don't have parental leave for as long as 18 months, but the concept is similar. It's good to have more than one option available when it comes to parental leave.

Unlike the Conservatives, the Liberals provide the heading "Women's Equality." The fact that they included this already tells me that the Liberals care more about women's issues than the Conservatives do.

While the Conservatives claim that law and order is their biggest priority, they have taken no real measures to combat violence against women. A new Liberal government’s efforts to fight this problem will begin with an amendment to the Criminal Code to include “gender” in the hate propaganda provisions to help end societal acceptance for those who would incite hatred against women.

It's appalling that the word "gender" isn't already there. The Liberals also promise to repair the damage made to Status of Women Canada, and to create an independent Commissioner for Gender Equality. They also point out other areas of their platform that would be beneficial for women, including their affordable housing plan and their plan to combat poverty.

It's an appealing platform and the Conservatives did undo some of the good things that the Liberals had in place while they were still in power. If our only choices were the Conservatives and the Liberals, the Liberals would be by far the better choice for women and families. However, we have more parties to choose from than just two. Are the Liberals the best out of the bunch? Keep checking back to find out.

Women's and families' issues in Canadian politics: Part I

2008-09-19T12:19:00.006-04:00

We have a federal election in Canada coming soon, so I'm going to examine what the different parties are saying about women and families. There are other important issues to consider when deciding who to vote for, but due to the nature of this blog these are the issues that I will be discussing.

Conservative Party of Canada

I'll start with the Conservative Party of Canada, since I've been seeing ads on TV about how much Stephen Harper cares about families.

Under the heading "key issues" on their website, we have child care. Child care in Canada wasn't in good shape before the Conservatives came into power, and there hasn't been very much improvement. On their website we learn that since coming into power the Conservatives have:

Delivered choice and support to parents through the Universal Child Care Benefit: $1,200 per year in direct support for every child under six – over $3.7 billion in 2006 and 2007 to help parents with the cost of child care

Invested $250 million per year to assist the provinces and territories in creating new child care spaces

Sounds good so far. Money for people with children and money to create new child care spaces. Money keeps people happy. How helpful is $1,200 for a family who has a child in daycare?

In Quebec, we have $7 a day daycare centres. If parents work full-time, they probably work five days a week. That's $35 a week. With 52 weeks in a year, that costs $1,820, so the tax benefit covers all but $620 of child care costs. That's pretty good, if you live in Quebec and can get $7 a day daycare.

It's difficult to get a spot in $7 a day daycare and not every province has that option available. Looking at private daycares, many of them seem to go for $30 a day. That's $210 a week and $10, 920 a year. After the $1, 200 tax credit, day care would still cost $9,720 a year. And if you have two kids under the age of six? That's $21, 840 a year, minus two tax credits at $2, 400, leaving the family with $19, 440 a year in child care costs. For a low-income, single parent, that pretty much covers their annual earnings.

What about the $250 million per year to create child care spaces? I think it's great that the Conservatives want to create new child care spaces, but what about the money that will be needed to maintain them after they've been created?

According to www.universalchildcare.ca,

Canada's Universal Child Care Plan addresses these needs, and provides universal support for all parents of young children. The Government of Canada understands that parents want choice and real options for child care.

Canada's Universal Child Care Plan contains two components:
The Universal Child Care Benefit - to provide direct financial assistance to parents.

Funding to provinces and territories as well as a new investment tax credit for child care spaces – which businesses can use to create new child care spaces each year.

The investment tax credit for businesses that create new child care spaces is great for parents who work for businesses that provide good benefits for their employees. Businesses that pay low wages and offer sub-standard or no benefits to their employees aren't likely to offer child care for them, even with the tax credit. People who work for fast food restaurants, large chain stores, etc. don't make very much money, don't have any benefits, don't have unions, and have trouble affording child care. The businesses they work for don't care about them and aren't going to spend the money to help them; the businesses would still be paying for the new child care spaces out of pocket even with the tax credit.

As for women's issues, apparently the Conservatives have nothing to say about that. It's not mentioned under "key issues" on their website. They caused a big stir when they made cuts to Status of Women Canada in 2006 and removed the word "equality" from their mandate. Obviously women's issues aren't important to the Conservatives.

RIP Sylvia and Katelynn

2008-09-16T15:37:00.006-04:00

The other day, I read in somebody's livejournal that she had watched a movie called An American Crime. Afterwards she looked up the true story that the movie was based on and was horrified.

I had not heard about the movie and I was curious, so I looked it up too and learned about the death of Sylvia Likens. (The details of her torture and death may me triggering for survivors of abuse.)

Sylvia Likens was a 16 year old girl in Indiana who, along with her 15 year old sister, Jenny, went to live with a woman named Gertrude Baniszewski and her family in the 1960s. The parents of the Likens girls were travelling carnival workers. When their mother was arrested for shoplifting, their father made an agreement with Baniszewski to board his daughters for 20 dollars a week.

Soon after the girls moved in, Baniszewski began abusing Sylvia and Jenny. The abuse became worse and worse for Sylvia, and Baniszewski allowed her older children and other kids in the neighbourhood to join in. They tortured Sylvia to death. Gertrude Baniszewski received a life sentence for the death, but was granted parole after 18 years.

Gertrude Baniszewski, the Karla Homolka of the American mid-west.

What kind of mother was Gertrude Baniszewski and how could she do this to somebody's child?

She was an impoverished single mother of seven children and a survivor of abusive relationships. When Sylvia and Jenny came to live with her, her latest boyfriend, Dennis Lee Wright, had left her with their baby. She may have had postpartum depression and no options for having it treated. Child support payments were sporadic and she made very little income doing laundry and babysitting.

Baniszewski was under a lot of stress and then along came two girls who were not her flesh and blood. She had someone to take out her frustrations on. She had very little control over the path her life had taken but she could have control over the life of defenseless Sylvia. She could make someone as miserable as she was, and it was not one of her own children so she could still be a good mother. She allowed her children and the neighbourhood children to bully Sylvia. Instead of empathizing with Sylvia when her daughter's boyfriend practiced his judo moves on her and relating her own experiences with abusive males, she let him get on with it.

The situation with Sylvia got out of control and perhaps it was out of Baniszewski's control. At her parole hearing in 1985, she claimed to have little memory of the time that the Likens girls spent at her house. "I'm not sure what role I had in it," she said, "because I was on drugs. I never really knew her... I take full responsibility for whatever happened to Sylvia."

I am not saying that Gertrude Baniszewski's circumstances excuse her actions. I am just saying that maybe if she had had the emotional support and financial support that she needed, maybe she would have become a compassionate person instead of a monster.

The house where the Baniszewski's lived and where Sylvia died had plans to be turned into a women's shelter. However, according to this website (again, there are details here that may be triggering), "It served as a shelter for abused women for a time, but apparently has been boarded up since."

Have things changed for single mothers since the 1960s? Are there resources available to us now that could have stopped Gertrude Baniszewski from going off the deep end? I know several single mothers who have achieved success and I hope to join their ranks when I become a single mother. However, the single mothers that I know have also had to struggle to arrive where they are now.

People witnessed Sylvia's abuse and it was not reported. One would hope that awareness of child abuse could prevent deaths like this. Sadly, deaths like Sylvia's are not something that have been eliminated. Last month, a seven year old girl in Toronto named Katelynn Sampson died under similar circumstances.

More details about Gertrude Baniszewski are available than details about Katelynn Sampson's foster mother. Very little about is known about Donna Irving in comparison but so far I see two differences: Irving had a boyfriend at the time whereas Baniszewski did not, and Katelynn's mother was acquainted with Irving whereas Baniszewski was unknown to Sylvia's parents before their arrangement was made. Was Irving under as much pressure as Baniszewski? I guess we will have to wait and see, but we do know that we still live in a society where a child can "fall through the cracks."

Book review: Opting In by Amy Richards

2008-09-15T18:55:00.006-04:00

In Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself, Amy Richards explores the relationship between motherhood and feminism.

When I am asked, "Can you be a feminist and a mother?" I answer yes, but not if that means escaping the realities of your own life. Being exclusively a mother can be an easy way out, seeing yourself in a relationship to others rather than figuring out what you uniquely want or who you uniquely are. In fact, the initial tension between feminism and motherhood developed because the former advocates the pursuit of independence, while the latter is based on dependence. In its most basic definition, feminism is about self-worth and dignity, which mothers need in order to parent effectively.

Richards points out that many early feminists were mothers seeking better lives for their families and discusses the way feminism has changed throughout history, and also how feminism has helped mothers. (Maternity leave, focus on "parenting" instead of "mothering," etc.) She also discusses working and parenting, parents sharing responsibilities, how different women feel about their fertility, and how friendships can change once someone has children.

I found this book to be very reassuring. Feminism does not necessarily exclude motherhood, nor does motherhood exclude feminism. I can choose to have a baby and retain my personality, even if everything else in my life changes (including my friendships). This is not a "how to" guide but I would still recommend it to any feminist who is preparing for parenthood.

How much stuff do you really need to buy if you have children?

2008-09-06T13:24:00.008-04:00

Do you need to be a millionaire to have kids?

Potential parents need to be able to not only afford daycare (which in Vancouver is around $1200 a month, if you can get a place) or a nanny, expensive kid gear like strollers and fashionable baby clothes and the keys to their own house. There's a growing expectation that one parent will take a year off work, and given the cost of living and housing, that means an even higher level of affluence is required.

I guess I'm lucky to be living in Quebec where we have seven dollar a day daycare, although it is difficult to find a spot.

In our society, we have a "necessary consumerism" complex. We think that we need things that are completely unnecessary. Baby formula is not necessary when we have breast milk and breast milk is healthier. The other day I saw an ad in a magazine for baby sleeping bags. You can put your baby in one of these bags so that she doesn't keep herself awake by waving her hands around. You can achieve the same effect by swaddling your baby in a good old fashioned receiving blanket.

Fashionable baby clothes are also unnecessary. Babies grow so fast that it makes more sense to get used clothes if you can. People sometimes place ads on websites like craigslist selling bags of baby clothes for a set price. Friends and relatives with babies and young children pass on hand-me-down clothes to each other. Babies don't care whether their sleepers were designed by Versace or by grandma, or if another child wore them once before they outgrew them.

It is unlikely that new parents will have to buy everything that they need. Relatives and friends get excited about new babies too and are eager to help out. They may throw a baby shower for the mom and dad to be or they may pass on things that their children have outgrown that can still be used. Accepting help from loved ones may be a more realistic option than becoming a millionaire for people who would like to have children.

You can't spoil a child with too much love, but you can spoil a child with too much stuff. The opinion piece that I linked to focuses on teenagers on television shows who have rich parents. These shows are hardly a reflection of reality. Sure, teenagers care more about their clothes than babies do and they want all kinds of expensive stuff. However, it is the parents' job to feed, clothe (not necessarily with designer clothes), and provide shelter for them. It is not the parents' job to give them everything that they want. I'm not saying that giving them a few nice things is wrong, but if they want more than what their parents can or are willing to provide, then they can get after-school jobs.

Of course, this "necessary consumerism" complex is not restricted to people with children. Do we really need dog masseuses and cable TV?

Update: Natural birth in the hospital

2008-09-04T20:54:00.003-04:00

I had an appointment at the Royal Victoria Hospital today, and after speaking with the nurse and with the doctor, I feel confident that I will be able to have a natural birth there. I was told that episiotomies are not routine, having a cesarean is my choice, and I can sit up when I am giving birth. They do not make a habit of intervening with an episiotomy or cesarean unless it is absolutely necessary. I will need an IV, but I do not have to have one for water.

The nurse told me not be scared because having a child is a natural occurrence and it does not mean that the woman is sick. This is how I already feel about having a baby and it was reassuring to hear that from somebody at the hospital, especially when I have been reading that people who work in hospitals think that they are rescuing women from childbirth.

The nurse also said that she was surprised that I do not want a cesarean, as most people who broach the subject really want to have one. This supports my theory that the cesarean rate in Canada has as much to do with the attitude of the patients as it does with the attitude of the doctors.

Book review: The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch

2008-09-03T09:57:00.004-04:00

This was one of my favourite books when I was a child. It was written by Robert Munsch and illustrated by Michael Martchenko.

Princess Elizabeth is engaged to Prince Ronald. When a dragon comes and destroys the castle and kidnaps Prince Ronald, Elizabeth sets off on a journey to rescue him.

She finds the dragon and outsmarts him and then goes into his lair to get Prince Ronald, who berates her for her shabby appearance. Elizabeth decides that it is not worth it to rescue her prince after all and dances off into the sun set.

In a culture where a lot of traditional children's stories put women and girls into a passive role, this is a fresh twist on the "princess in distress" story. Princess Elizabeth is a determined girl who cares more about her dignity than her clothes or her selfish and snobby fiance.

If you are going to a little girl's birthday party, this book will be a better gift than a "bratz" doll.

Home birth vs. hospital birth

2008-09-01T16:26:00.005-04:00

I plan on having a natural birth. That means no cesarean, no forceps, and no epidural. At first I wanted to have an epidural, but then I read in Henci Goer's The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth that an epidural, which numbs you from the waist down, interferes with pushing, and a woman who has one is more likely to need a cesarean or an episiotomy.

This book and a natural birth forum that I have been following give the impression that you cannot have a natural birth in a hospital. They give the message that a hospital will not respect a pregnant woman's wishes while a mid-wife who assists with a home birth is more focused on the woman's needs. The doctors and nurses in hospitals are mean and will bombard you with pro-epidural propaganda and try to "save you" from having a baby. They will not even inform you first if they give you an episiotomy and they will do their best to convince to you that you should have a cesarean. They will even sneak formula to your exclusively breastfed newborn when you are not looking.

I am wondering if this view is more American than Canadian. When I went for my first appointment at the Royal Victoria Hospital here in Montreal, the nurse asked me if I wanted to have a natural birth. I said "Yes" and she made a check mark on her clipboard. Now that I have read Henci Goer's book I will have a lot more questions to ask at my next appointment, but since they asked me first if I want to have a natural birth, I am assuming that it will not be a problem when the time comes.

The cesarean rate in Canada is lower than that of the U.S. although it is still quite high. (In 2005, the cesarean rate was 26.3% compared to 30.2% in the U.S. although the rates in Canada varied drastically between different regions.) Goer mentioned in her book that hospitals are paid more money for a cesarean than they are for a natural birth. I doubt that this is true for Canadian hospitals since our health care system is significantly different from health care in the States.

I wonder if the high cesarean rate in Canada has something to do with the mentality of the women as much as the mentality of the people who work in hospitals. Some women are scared of childbirth. The hospitals do not have to convince every woman who comes in to have an epidural. Some women really do want them. As I mentioned before, a woman who has an epidural is more likely to have a cesarean, and some women do not take much convincing to have a cesarean either. Maybe some hospitals try to convince women to have procedures while giving birth that they do not want, but I do not think that it is to the same extent as what happens in the U.S.

You may wonder why I would want to give birth in a hospital if I want to have a natural birth. Why not just stick with a mid-wife who I know will respect my wishes to have a natural birth? I have my own reasons for not wanting to give birth at home.

First of all, at one of my appointments I was told that I tested positive for Group B Strep. The nurse explained to me that this is bacteria similar to that which causes strep throat, but it is located in your vagina instead of your throat. She told me that it is very common and that you can catch it from a swimming pool. The only time it causes anyone any harm is when a woman gives birth to a baby. The bacteria can be transferred to the infant, and it is very dangerous for a newborn infant.

The doctor prescribed antibiotics for me for a week, and while the antibiotics will kill the Group B Strep, there is no guarantee that they will get rid of it permanently. Most likely I will need to be hooked up to an IV with antibiotics while I am in labour. I do not want an IV for fluids, but this Group B Strep sounds like something not to fool around with, and I would rather have the IV with antibiotics than risk the bacteria being transferred to my child. I feel that this problem will be cleared up more efficiently and more effectively at the hospital than it would be at home.

Also, I live by myself. Who will clean up the mess afterwards if I give birth at home? My cat?

Sarah Palin: A friend of the American mom?

2008-08-30T19:45:00.004-04:00

As I'm sure the entire world knows by now, John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his vice-presidential running mate yesterday. Palin is the governor of Alaska, married with five children, and presents an image of a strong woman. There has been speculation that McCain chose her in order to win Hillary Clinton's supporters over to the Republican side.

Fat chance of that. Palin is pro-life, against gay marriage, and likes guns. Still, she is a mother. Can other mothers relate to her?

In a discussion in a breastfeeding community that I've been watching, a woman said that she thought it would be cool to have a breastfeeding woman for the president or vice-president, although the poster also said that she does not like Palin's stance on some issues. Just because a woman is a mother does not mean that she is pro-life.

Breastfeeding awareness is important for many mothers, and having a high-profile politician who breastfeeds would be fantastic. However, there are other issues that American mothers are facing.

I'm an outsider looking in at the situation of mothers in the United States. Right now I'm sitting up here in Quebec and looking forward to starting my maternity leave in two weeks, which is four weeks before my due date. I will be taking 18 weeks of paid maternity leave and 32 weeks of paid parental leave, 50 weeks total. I will only be getting a percentage of my wages, but that's better than not getting any money at all.

Mothers in the U.S. are not as lucky. According to www.babycenter.com,

Actual paid "maternity leave" — while the norm in every other developed country — is unusual in the United States, although some enlightened companies do offer new parents paid time off, up to six weeks in some cases.

Most likely, you'll use a combination of short-term disability (STD), sick leave, vacation, personal days, and unpaid family leave during your time away from work.

The picture did improve in 1993 with the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which entitles most workers to up to 12 weeks of job-protected medical leave for birth or adoption. However, the FMLA doesn't cover those who work for smaller companies and guarantees only unpaid leaves.

Some women enjoy their careers and want to "have it all." Sarah Palin, who returned to work three days after her youngest son was born, is evidently one of them.

Lower income women, however, who have "jobs" instead of "careers," may not enjoy their work as much as somebody who is a governor and may have a more difficult time finding child care for a newborn infant. These women are "doing it all" instead of "having it all." They work because they have to and not because they want to.

Taking care of a child is hard work. If you get somebody else to do it for you, you have to pay them. If a parent is getting paid parental leave, they are getting paid for doing a job that they might enjoy more than the job that they had before their child was born. Doesn't a low-income mother with a job that she does not get any fulfillment from deserve a chance to nurture her newborn child instead? How can a low-income woman afford to do that? Will Sarah Palin, a woman who has it all, be an ally to women who are doing it all for next to nothing?

Book review: The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer

2008-08-30T19:02:00.005-04:00

Henci Goer admits to being biased in her introduction to The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth. "Yes, I will be trying to convert you with my way of thinking but with a couple of differences," she says. "First, I will play fair. I will lay out the research data behind my thinking so that you can make up your own mind."

Goer's opinion is that a home birth with a mid-wife is a healthy and safe option, while a birth in a hospital with an obstetrician is scary, impersonal, and sometimes dangerous.

She covers many different procedures that are often performed in hospitals during birth and pieces of equipment that she considers to be unnecessary: cesareans, episiotomies, IVs (although she makes an exception for IVs with antibiotics for women diagnosed with Group B Strep), epidurals, forceps, inducing labour, and machines that monitor the heart beat of the fetus while the mother is in labour. (Goer explains that the electronic fetal monitor is the machine that goes "Ping!" in the birth scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. She says that the readings from this machine often lead to unnecessary action that could be harmful, such as a cesarean.)

Whether you decide to have a home birth or a hospital birth, this book will provide you with the right questions to ask your mid-wife or doctor, and being able to ask the right questions will help you make decisions about your birthing experience that are right for you.

Pregnancy education

2008-08-28T07:46:00.004-04:00

Since becoming pregnant, I've taken measures to educate myself on what to expect. I've been reading books, reading blogs, and asking lots of questions while talking to women who have had babies.

While I was reading books on the subject of pregnancy and giving birth, I found out about getting an episiotomy. (For those of you not familiar with pregnancy lingo, an episiotomy is when they cut your vagina open to make it bigger when you're giving birth.) How come nobody told me about this? I had never heard about this before. There was no mention of an episiotomy in the "angry vagina" monologue in The Vagina Monologues or in the monologue about giving birth, for that matter. In sex ed in high school, we learned about the reproductive system and different forms of birth control, but there was nothing in the curriculum about actually giving birth let alone getting an episiotomy. My handy spell check tool doesn't even want to accept the word.

Ever since I found out about this type of surgery, I've been asking a lot of moms if they had it when they had their kids. It turns out that everyone I've asked had episiotomies. Maybe nobody thought to mention it to me because it's so commonplace.

There are many other things that I wouldn't have thought about in regards to pregnancy if it hadn't been for books: mucous plugs, the first bowel movement after giving birth, the fact that the drugs could be dangerous, artificial rupture of membranes (breaking the water), etc.

All of this would be terrifying if it were to happen without the pregnant woman knowing about it beforehand. What about people who don't have the books or the patience to read them? What about people who are scared to ask a lot of questions of people who have already gone through the experience? The CLSCs in Quebec offer free pre-natal classes, but I have to pay to take the classes at the Royal Victoria Hospital because my local CLSC only offers these classes in French. What about women who are in my situation who can't afford to pay for the classes?

Pregnancy must be especially scary for teenage mothers. As I mentioned earlier, giving birth wasn't covered in the sex ed curriculum at my high school. There has been debate about whether teaching about birth control or teaching abstinence only sex ed is more effective when trying to stop teen pregnancy. Although I'm on the birth control side, I know that neither method of teaching will stop teen pregnancy entirely.

It would be more fair to young expectant mothers to have a general idea of what will happen to them once they start going into labour. They should know the pros and cons of having an epidural, having a c-section or an episiotomy, being hooked up to an iv for fluids, etc. so that they can make their own decisions about whether or not they want these things when they're giving birth. Why not fit the basics into a high school sex ed class?

Choice

2008-08-27T20:53:00.003-04:00

Fetus rights

Here's an excerpt from the article:

The Harper government moved yesterday to extinguish an emerging debate over fetal rights by distancing itself from a Conservative private members' bill that would make it a separate crime to injure or kill a fetus while committing violence against a pregnant woman.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, whose government might go to the polls this fall, said he will introduce his own competing bill that would make pregnancy an aggravating factor for judges to take into account when sentencing those who assault expectant mothers.

But he stressed that he intends to make it clear that the new law is worded in a way that "leaves no room for the introduction of fetal rights."

There's this show that I like called Ghost Hunters and sometimes I'll look up the places that they're investigating to learn a little bit about the history. Once they were investigating a house believed to be haunted by victims of the Manson family. I didn't know very much about Charles Manson at that point, so I googled him and found out about Sharon Tate being murdered when she was eight months pregnant. This was a few months ago, early in my pregnancy, and it really freaked me out. I think that what happened to her is awful.

Having said that, I don't think that it should be a separate crime to kill the fetus because then they could make it a crime for a woman to have an abortion. But I think that by attacking a pregnant woman and killing the fetus, the attacker is taking away the woman's right to choose whether or not she wants to have a baby. "Choice" means that the woman as the right to not have a baby OR to have a baby. I think that the conservatives are looking at this from the wrong perspective. Even making a bill that's more "tame" and making it extra-bad to kill someone who is pregnant without saying why it's extra-bad is alluding to giving rights to the fetus. If a pregnant woman is attacked, she is the one who is the victim.

Thoughts?