The real cost of Facebook

To all you people out there who keep posting snarky comments about how facebook is free, for gosh sake and we should all just quit complaining about the constantly more invasive privacy policy changes, and the ever-evolving and ever-less appealing interface, I take issue with your basic premise.

Facebook is not free.

No way, no how. Your public library is free. Attendance at your local church is free. Food at the homeless shelter is free.

Facebook is NOT free.

If Facebook were truly free, Mark Zukerberg would not be a multimillionaire. But he is one. This is because he sells your time, attention and personal information to advertisers and spammers and makes a mint off of every minute you spend on your status updates and "likes". Mr Zuckerburg is no philanthropist. He is a savvy businessman-- some might even say a genius businessman. But he is not providing you with an opportunity to connect with friends, express your opinions, and "poke" people out of the goodness of his heart and a sense of civic responsibility. He is doing it because you are PAYING him to do it.

Facebook is NOT FREE.

The price you are paying is, as I mentioned time, attention and most of all-- your personal information. This information is the new currency of an ever-desperate advertising industry that is seeing their tv and print ad revenues diminish as fewer and fewer people watch tv and read print media. It is gold, people, solid gold.

Facebook is a service I use daily. I am, I confess, addicted. And I have no problem paying for a service that I use. I joined FB years ago and paid my upfront cost with a clear eye and an open mind. BUT. As time has gone by and that "price" has monthly increased, as changes have been made to the FB interface that inconvenience and annoy me, as more and more advertising takes up my side bars, and as my personal information is mined again and again to line the pockets of Mr Zuckerburg and his associates, I have become disillusioned. My rosy-colored glasses have come off. The Facebook honeymoon is over.

Imagine if your local gym raised it's monthly fees every. single. month. By significant amounts. Eventually you'd hit a price you were no longer willing to pay, right? What if they started replacing the workout equipment with couches and ice cream stands? Wouldn't you at some point start to wonder if this was really working out for you?

But before you eventually cancelled your membership and decided that jogging is actually a fine, cheap way to stay in shape, wouldn't you at some point complain to the management? Wouldn't you stand on your rights as a paying customer to air your opinions? I mean, it's part of the American Way.... And let me assure you once again, you are a paying customer of the Facebook franchise.

FACEBOOK IS NOT FREE.

And I reserve the right to complain about what I don't like on there. It's the American Way.

SICKSICKSICK

I know I will be narrowly skirting all kinds of political turmoil in this post, which I don't like to do on this blog. BUT, when J shared this with me tonight, I couldn't help but post about it and release the rage valve a little. This is the Dark Side of Corporate Capitalism.

Remember this lovely Dove ad? This one promoting a healthy self-image for young girls? This one decrying the promotion of an unattainable and un-natural body image? The one that asks you to participate in the Dove Real Beauty Workshop For Girls?

That ad makes me want to go out and buy Dove products right now.

This next ad makes me want to go out and strangle me some sexist, misogynistic ad executives right now. (warning: offensive, check for little eyes looking over your shoulders)

And the sicksicksick thing???

They're both produced by the same company.

If corporations are "people," they are some sick, messed up people. "People" with some severe multiple personality disorders. Capitalism is not a flawless system. Faceless Multinational Corporate Capitalism has replaced the personal responsibility of small businesses in a community with a self-serving, profit-driven disregard for the message a given company is presenting. This allows Unilever to reap the benfits of promoting a healthy body image to young girls with its right hand, while at the same time its left hand is tantalizing young men with unrealistic female body images.

I cannot think that this is a good example of the ideal way for a society to engage in trade and grow its economy.

... and the embarrasment just keeps on giving...

Today at a friend's for breakfast, I decided to share our "funny" story (posted yesterday) with a mom-friend who was there. Due to the nature of the story, I took her aside and began to tell the story in a discreet monotone. As other people drifted into the room, I found myself inadvertently sharing with a larger and larger group of people. By the time I got to the punch line, I found myself saying That Word in a roomful of adults, in a normal tone of voice... repeatedly. And before I could finish up, the final member of the party strolled into the kitchen to join the group who had, I now found out, congregated there to bless the meal...


"Let us pray...."


And as a bonus, halfway through the prayer, I we heard Sofi, in the other room, telling the kids all about it. She, of course, has no idea why Mommy and Daddy think Judah's new kind of prairie dog is so hilarious, but she's not adverse to trying for a laugh when she thinks she has a killer line...

I will never again laugh when my kids accidentally say a bad word. I have learned my lesson. And then some.

More on Babywise.

Since I'm FB free for Lent, would y'all click on over and comment here, instead of leaving your comments on the auto-post on Facebook? Pretty please?


I want to start off by thanking all of you for commenting on my last post about Babywise. It did my heart good to see a bunch of women, who may or may not all have the same opinion of this highly controversial book, all voicing those opinions with grace, composure and politeness. I'll tell you what, there's not enough of that on the internet today, that's for sure.

Secondly, I want to point out that I know the children of a majority of the women who are commenting and all of them, while sinners like all of us, are for the most part agreeable, pleasant, obedient, intelligent and well-adjusted. They are not whiny, clingy, needy and over-sensitive; nor are they cold, joyless and insecure. Therefore, I have to conclude that the issue that we're all discussing is What Worked For Me, and not What Is Right, in any moral sense. I strongly disagree with Mr Ezzo's claim that a particular feeding pattern produces more sinful children in any way.

So, having said that, I have to say also, Babywise is not working for us. I tell you, I was definitely at the point of trying anything to get James sleeping through the night. He was nursing about every two hours during the day-- except when we were out and about, when he'd easily wait up to four hours without falling apart. His nap schedule at the time consisted of three fairly predictable naps-- one or two hours each-- for which he went into bed happily, awake and freshly fed, and fell asleep with no crying at all. Same at bedtime. He would then sleep solidly from 7:00 or 7:30 till after midnight. Between midnight and 7:00 am he'd wake three or four times. Maybe only two, but usually more. This got to be a drag. Literally, a drag. As in, drag my hiney around the house all day with my eyelids propped up on toothpicks.

So with all the strong recommendations, I decided to give Babywise the ol' college try. The main difference between Ezzo'z plan and what we were already doing was the eat-play-nap thing and a four-hour nursing schedule. So I made it my goal to work on those two things.

As an aside, one thing I dislike about the book (which has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the method) is that Mr Ezzo virtually guarantees that if you follow his method, your child WILL sleep through the night. No ifs, ands or buts. This claim seems a little disingenuous to me.

We jumped in and began to make some changes. I put him down for naps without nursing, I offered the breast when he woke each time. And all hell broke loose. Well, I mean that in a metaphorical sense. What has actually happened is that over the course of our experiment, Jamie has gradually quit nursing during the day pretty much altogether. At the worst (which was about two days ago) he only had ONE feeding in the entire day that lasted longer than a minute. He was just too interested in things going on around him, and since we weren't even trying to nurse when he was calm and sleepy (right before bed), he just wasn't interested in nursing at all.

Now, James is a twenty-pound chunk-of-a-monkey, so you might imagine what happened to counter-balance this hunger strike. Why yes! How did you guess? He simply ate at night. His early night-time five or six hour chunk of sleep is now broken up into two more feedings, which brings the night's grand total to FIVE. Yes. He goes to sleep at 7 or 7:30 and now wakes to nurse FIVE or SIX times before morning. He didn't nurse this much at night as a newborn.

Lauren, I thought of you. Didn't Chloe do this to you for a while?

Yesterday, in tears over another half day of no nursing, I threw in the towel. I began offering the breast before and after naps. Today went a little better. He got three or four good feeds in. He's in bed now, going on two hours and my fingers are crossed...

So. While I have no doubt that manymany women implement the strategies in Babywise and have great success, it was a consummate failure for us.

I do still plan to address some of the other things about the book itself (not the method) that rubbed me the wrong way... maybe in a day or two.



Update: James just woke up- two hours to the minute since going down, but I was able to replace the binky, pat him a little and he went back to sleep.

On Reading Babywise

All right. I finally did it. I read Babywise. So many of y'all recommended it this week as I was struggling with Jamie's sleepless night, that I decided to give it another shot. I'd read bits and pieces of it over the years, larger chunks and maybe even most of the book when Sofi was a baby. I never really liked it much and it didn't seem to fit for us.

As I re-visited it this time around, my view of the book congealed a little more and I think I can share my thoughts fairly articulately now. At least, as articulately as you can expect on five hours of sleep.

First of all, the pros. I really appreciate his take on the effect of a healthy marriage on a child's well-being and his advocacy of family-centered parenting, as opposed to child centered parenting. I heartily agree with most of what he says in that chapter and have found it to be very effective and an important concept I need reminding of again and again. Good chapter.

His concept of watching your child and interpreting his/her cries, looking for hunger cues and in general tuning in and establishing some sort of schedule based on your child's needs and cycles is great. It sounds pretty much like what we've practiced with all three kids, with increasing degrees of skill and success. Scheduling, of the mild, and baby-needs-initiated variety that we practice and Ezzo seems to advocate, can be a life-saver.

I actually found, as I read, that our own parenting practices mirror Ezzo's advice very closely, with one primary difference being the timing of nursing. I still nurse James both on waking and at naptime-- a two or three hour schedule, instead of the recommended four hour schedule for his age. Ezzo states that this extended feeding schedule ensures that the infant will receive adequate hindmilk at each feeding, since a "snacking" pattern (shorter, more frequent feedings) would give him/her only the thinner foremilk. I found this a little irritating-- it's bad science. The fact is, a woman's body will adjust to fit the demands her infant puts on it, whether that is for larger quantities of milk at long intervals, or smaller quantities at shorter intervals. There's not a set, inflexible level of foremillk that must be disposed of before the hindmilk is accessed. It's flexible. It changes. Your body will adapt to your baby's feeding habits.

The only time you might have a problem with not accessing the hindmilk would be while still establishing those breastfeeding habits in early infancy. This can be easily addressed by simply offering your "snacker" the same breast each time over, say, an hour or two, until it appears to be empty. Then switch to the other side. As a healthy breastfeeding relationship is established, your body and your baby will get into sync with one another.

(Some articles discussing milk composition and production. One states that an extended, or elongated nursing schedule may actually contribute to HIGHER levels of foremilk in a baby's diet...)

The next point on which our custom differs from Ezzo's recommendations is the eat-play-nap sequence. Although I am always sure to put Jamie into the crib awake, rather than let him fall asleep at the breast (something I learned from Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, a book quoted in Babywise), I do nurse him both before and after every nap. Or at least, I offer the breast. He rarely is interested in nursing when he first wakes-- he's been asleep for two hours and he's got other things on his agenda than snuggling quietly and nursing. He's got things to do and places to go!

Ezzo doesn't say specifically WHY (that I could find) he recommends the eat-play-nap sequence, other than to simply state that it's better than play-eat-nap. He actually goes so far as to say that this ensures an early establishment of nighttime sleep, but I can't fathom why. Since James has never really had consistent day-time sleep problems, I'm willing to give Ezzo's ideas a try, but I'm not sold on the idea. It doesn't make sense to me to work against the natural relaxing effects of milk and the action of nursing. I mean, if God puts stuff in the milk to make 'em sleepy, it stands to reason you'd want to take advantage of that, no?

I have to state for the record that all the crazy, rabid, "the man's a Baby Killer!!" stuff I've read about Babywise on various blogs and whatnot is totally uncalled for. I mean, really. The worst thing I could see happening is over-tired moms getting frustrated with babies who don't want to nurse the way they're "supposed" to and quitting. He's not what I would consider a rabid supporter of breast-is-best and the book treats bottle-feeding as an almost-equivalent to breast. He seems to advocate the feeding schedule above the actual feeding method.

BUT. Anyone who reads this book and then starves their kid to death in order to Observe The Schedule To Keep It Holy ought to get their head checked. Seriously. It's the same kind of thing that people like the Pearls ("To Train Up a Child") get reamed for-- for NO REASON. People do stupid, even criminally stupid, stuff all the time and there's no point in starting a witch hunt for the author they were currently reading at the time they did what they did.

OK. So that's the (mostly) positive stuff. I'm really not sure if I want to get into the stuff I dislike about this book. I have a post already written, but I have to wait and let it gel a bit first. I know I have quite a few friends and readers who really love this book and I'm not sure I want to go there. Speak up in the comments if you care and/or want to hear :)

I'm pretty sure God put me on earth as a cautionary tale for other women.

And then He gave me a blog so I can tell y'all all about it.

Today, in preparation for our evening prayer time (which we JUST started attending) with several families from J's school, I spent the entire Florida still-summer-even-though-it's-October afternoon slaving away in a hot kitchen in order to impress our new community with my hot buttered dinner rolls.

When I went into the kitchen moments ago to remove the luscious dough from the bread machine where it's been rising, I discovered that I had inadvertently pushed the wrong button on the programmer-thingy and my bread machine had COOKED MY DOUGH. And not just like, baked it into a loaf, but rather cooked an entire batch of THREE DOZEN dinner rolls on the QUICK BREAD SETTING.

*sigh*

I've spent the last 20 minutes banging my fist into various surfaces around the apartment and trying to turn time back or figure out a way to get to Publix, buy more yeast and re-construct four hours of work in the next 50 min before we leave. J wisely took over and is headed to Publix to buy some of those tacky dinner-rolls-in-a-can instead. My Southern Soul rises up in rebellion within me.

Let this be a lesson to all of you who attempt to impress new friends with your baking skillz!!

*groans of agony and wounded pride*

Get your outrage on, ladies

I know that many of my readers do not share my political views, but seriously, this is just plain wrong. Watch and be outraged.





So basically, the insurance industry is resorting to pretty much making stuff up in order to deny coverage. "We'll only cover you if you get sterilized". WTH???

So tell me again why public health insurance-- even with the possibility of waiting periods, long lines, restricted coverage and all the other touted "risks" is any worse? (never mind, don't tell me, i don't really want to get into an argument, i just want to vent) At least then I'll have the option of voting out the the "bureaucrat" that supposedly stands between me and my doctor. Right now it's a faceless corporate lawyer between my doctor and me and my only recourse is to sit and fume....

Ohmyword. So. Embarrassing.

I really cannot believe that both these things happened to me today. It's like it's been building up for a while. Have I been having an unfairly Not Embarrassing life so far? Have some of you been taking on all the Funniest Home Video moments recently and now it's my turn?

Geez.

Today in the library Judah stared at the obviously handicapped young man as he limped his way along behind his wheeled walker. Then he points and says (in his, as you know, piercingly high and shrill "quiet" voice) "Dat man is funny, Mama? Why dat man so funny???"

I briefly contemplated hiding behind the shelf and pretending he wasn't actually my child and how rude! what kind of mother must HE have???? But he busted me by coming over and grabbing my hand.

At this point I still could have escaped by heading quickly for the elevator, but I have this policy of facing head on the embarrassing questions my children ask in public with matter-of-fact answers and instruction about the rudeness of the volume of their inquiries. So I didn't.

Yikes.

The (very nice, but surely embarrassed) young man turned! and walked over! and crouched down in front of Judah!

"Hi there, young man."

Judah waves. He's got a lotta nerve. I have no idea where he gets that from.

"I heard what you said..." He then goes on to explain that he has cerebral palsy and that's why he looks funny. We admired his "wheels" and he asked me to explain to Judah what CP is. I did my best. While dying the coward's thousand deaths.

I really suck at this. I have NO idea what to teach my kids about disabled people. I've never known a disabled person-- I have no idea what makes them uncomfortable, how they want to be treated. I try to think how I would want people to relate to me if I were in a wheelchair, but I don't really have any experiences to base it on. I don't if that guy would have preferred that I bring Judah over to ask him straight up why he walks differently, perhaps that honesty would have been more respectful than trying to hush Judah's questions? I don't know.

In the past I've simply pointed out that people don't like to feel "different", so noticing "differences" can make people uncomfortable and it's better to wait and ask Mama later. And quietly. Oh, I don't know. Blech. I don't feel like I handled it very well.

AND THEN.

On the way out the door, an old, white-haired, paunchy DUDE, with glasses and a greasy comb-over, stopped me to say "Oh, I love your boots! What great boots! Where'd you buy them??"

Me: "Ummmm.... I have no idea..."

!!!!!!!!!

Pit to whaaaa???

I tell you what, people. Just when you think you've heard the worst of the worst, you get deeper in the doo-doo (pardon my french) of our medical system in this country. What I am about to tell you in this post is going to send most of you through the roof in outrage. At least, those of you that I know are reading.... you lurkers out there might even be OBs for all I know... But that's another rant for another time.

The phrase is "pit to distress". Here's what that means, according to Jill, at Keyboard Revolutionary:

...the practice... entails administering the highest possible dosage of Pitocin in order to deliberately distress the fetus, so a C-section can be performed.

I know this sounds ridiculous. Barbaric. Surely not in America. But I kept reading. I read Nursing Birth's description of her interaction with a Dr who ordered her to "pit to distress":

Ladies and gentleman the account that you have just read is called “Pit to Distress” whether the pitocin order was actually written that way or not. What Dr. F gave me was a VERBAL ORDER to increase the pitocin, regardless of contraction or fetal heart rate pattern, until I reached “max pit,” which he acknowledged would hyperstimulate her uterus. This goes against our hospital’s policy and the physical written order that this doctor signed his name under. However, like some other doctors I work with, none of that mattered to him. What he wanted was for me to “crank her pit” regardless and from my experience with this doctor, at the first sign of fetal distress we would have been crashing down the hallway for a stat cesarean!

I read the nursing textbook page (Jill--Unnecesarean posted this excerpt from it in her article on the subject) that instructs a student nurse in how to deal with a order given to "pit to distress":

I read this article about changing birth procedures that discusses the advisability (hah! ya think???) of discontinuing this practice. Someone (sorry, can't keep track of who sent me where) posted this excerpt:

"Pitocin is used like candy in the OB world, and that's one of the reasons for medical and legal risk," says Carla Provost, assistant vice president at Baystate, who notes that in many hospitals it is common practice to "pit to distress" -- or use the maximum dose of Pitocin to stimulate contractions.

I read another first-hand account on A Midwife's Tale:

As a former L&D nurse and now a midwife, I have heard this term before. The context in which I am familiar with it is a little different than it is described on the (Unnecesarean) post. The term was used in situations where the baby was looking less than stellar during latent labor and it was already predicted that the a c/s would be likely for this reason. The pit to distress term would simply mean, go ahead and pit hard so we can section the baby.

This really doesn't sound any better at all. It's even worse, actually-- to deliberately provoke an already possibly unstable baby in order to justify an emergency section. That's practically murder! Especially if your primary reason for doing it is to avoid a prolonged trail of labor so you can make it to your afternoon golf game. That's criminal.

I tell you what. I have talked with many women about my homebirths who go on and on about how brave I am to have had my two (three, really, but again, another post for another time) births at home and how they could never do something so risky and (what they probably mean is) weird. But I tell you what. This new information, while it shocks and sickens me, doesn't surprise me AT ALL. Let me tell you, they are the brave ones. You couldn't pay me enough to take my normal, pregnant self into a hospital and put my life and the life of my innocent, helpless unborn child into the hands of men and women who do things like that. Uh uh. No way. If I need your help, I'll come ask for it.

It's late. I'll have to write more tomorrow. I'm mulling over lots of issues that I feel are connected to this one. In particular the callused attitude towards the health and well-being of the baby in these situations and how that relates to the prevalence of abortion these days. Stay tuned for that one!

Thanks so much to all of the bloggers who've been sharing this information. Here are some links to even more:

N is for Nurse (this one will super-freak you out, do not read on a full stomach)
MamaMid(Wife)Madness
Stand and Deliver

Please, go read. Inform yourself. Get mad. Blog about it. Start a Revolution!!!!!

Continuing the conversation

I really enjoyed the discussion in the comments on this post about Musical Geniuses. Thank you all so much for joining in and sharing your points of view. I wanted to revisit the topic because over the time since then I've continued to ponder the issue. I've mulled over the comments and delved deeper into the reasons behind my stated point of view. I've begun to realize a change in my reasoning-- or perhaps a clarification...

One thing that stood out to me in what many of you said was a reference to God's influence in a person's Talents. Something I hadn't really plugged into my own reasoning on the subject. Many of you also applied the idea of Prodigy to other areas-- not just music, but art, writing, speaking, etc. This also I hadn't considered before. I had been thinking of the area of music exclusively.

So after adding these two ideas into the pot brewing in my mind, and also doing some "soul-searching" about where my ideas were coming from, what was the motivation behind my aversion to the term, "Prodigy", I came up with a few new things for your consideration.

First of all, my motivation. While I've never been labeled as an actual Prodigy (although some of my siblings (who shall remain nameless) have been at times), all my life I've stood out as Different from my peers. Or perhaps I should say, a select group of myself and some close friends have stood out as Different from our other peers. We were home-schooled, avid readers, highly articulate, motivated in drama and music, practiced in sewing and other home-crafts, lovers of dance and intellectual conversation. We were Creative. We were Artistic. We were Musical. We were Intellectuals. Those were the labels that set us apart from "Normal Kids". I know that sounds arrogant. I was indeed arrogant. Not consciously. I simply accepted the labels that were applied to me and assumed that there was something slightly better about me (you have no idea how embarrassing that is to write down in black and white).

As I got older, and as I moved outside my small circle of local friends and began to encounter people with talents different than mine I realized something about myself. I was no better than the next guy. Not really. There was nothing so special about Me, Myself, that set me apart from others as Better. Different, yes, unique in the eyes of the Lord, yes, but not Better. I began to look back on my teenage self with shame. And I began to reject the labels; Musical, Artistic, Creative and Intellectual. It positively makes my skin curl up when someone calls me one of those things. Not to be ungracious, it's just the context. You know? It reminds me of my arrogance.

So here's where the Lord comes into my new way of thinking about this. I don't think He made me intrinsically different from anyone else when it comes to my abilities in music, art and general creativity. He simply gave me a desire and a joy that is only fulfilled when I'm actively involved in one of those areas. It's not that I'm such a great and talented seamstress, I just DO it. All the time. Because I love it. My voice is physically not that much different than yours, it's just that I have a desire to develop my voice, to train it and work with it-- singing to the best of my ability brings me joy and I'm not satisfied with just singing, I want to sing better and better and louder and higher and stronger. I can't stand not to create things of beauty, so I'm driven to explore new ways of doing that. I try out decoupage and smocking and embroidery, I wall paper my dining room and research cool ways to paint my walls, I buy fabric almost compulsively.

I think every human is created in the Image of God and that this creative drive is expressed in different ways in different people, but it's all basically the same thing, in that it is an expression of the Image of God in man. So therefore, the five-year-old Musical Prodigy is no greater a person than the mother with four children who fosters five more because her creative-drive-expression-of-the-Image-of-God thing expresses itself in her mothering. Or the mom who spends all her spare time volunteering with underprivileged kids, or the guy who invents a new coding language, or the teacher inventing new ways to explain Einstein's theory of relativity.

So the reason that I reject the label "Prodigy" is that it implies something Better about that person than the average guy. What I now think about that person labeled a Prodigy, is that God has created him or her in such a way that they have a drive, a desire, a hunger and thirst in their particular area. That's what sets them apart. Not a Betterness, but a stronger Desire.

I still think that environment plays a crucial role in this whole thing, but I'm now seeing it as secondary to this Desire.

Whatcha think?

Prodigy or product?

So, I have a question for all you musicians out there reading. Particularly those of you who teach (or have taught in the past). I got into a discussion not that long ago with a new friend at our new church about whether or not there is such a phenomena as The Child Prodigy. Now in this conversation I embarrassed myself badly by being over-enthusiastic and under-articulate in stating my opinion, so I feel the need for a Do-over. Hence this blog post-- an invitation to you to join the conversation and a chance for me to redeem myself.

Here are my thoughts; I doubt many of you would disagree with me that the term "Child Prodigy" or "Child Genius" is at least waaay over-applied these days. Perhaps it always has been, but at least in modern times every child that seems to show any kind of bent toward music or drama is labeled a prodigy. I would, myself, go so far as to say that there really is no such thing. Barring, of course, the idiot savant or a child who has some other physical characteristic or mental aberration that lends itself to phenomenally improved musicianship in some way. I don't include these because I think one could perhaps accurately call these people Prodigies, but I rarely hear the term applied in situations like that. More often the term is used to refer simply to a young child who seems unusual in their focus and ability. Ie; the six-year-old playing major concertos on their toy-sized violin.

Being the good Suzuki teacher that I am, I believe that environment, encouragement, habits and parental effort have a major role to play in any child's musical development. Again, I would go so far as to say that these play a much larger role than heredity or that mystical Something that people like to ascribe to the Prodigy.

I think that you can take any child and put them into an environment that has produced a musical genius and that child will be become a musical genius. But you cannot take a musical genius and put them into any other environment and have them still develop musical genius.

I think that a child that shows remarkable abilities in the field of music and performance has nothing intrinsic to his nature, nothing mystical in his spiritual makeup that causes this, but rather that his environment has been nurturing in him a desire to excel in his field.

What do you think?

Thank God for women like this

I linked to this blog earlier, but as I explored her writings further I just have to share another link. Go, read this now! I'll wait for you. I'm begging. And I have to say, I'll probably be sending my readers here quite often. All three of you :)

I don't exaggerate in the title of my post, either. The Lord has, for many, many years now, put a burden on my heart for women who are with child and laboring to give birth to those children. It has been indescribably painful for me to continue to see conditions for laboring women in this country deteriorate as the years go by. The statistics are infuriating, as are the attitudes of the doctors in position of power whose arrogance allows this trend to continue. I have been to two hospital births of women close to me and been appalled at the events of what would could comparatively be called "good" births. Compared to the peaceful, beautiful, empowering births I attended during five years of lay midwifery training, these births were not "good". (sorry, S and L, you know I love you guys) They had good outcomes, yes. Neither woman had a c-section. Both babies and mothers were healthy. But the succession of small violations of privacy, opinion and preference, the constant pressure to "conform to hospital policy", the flat-out argument neccessary to ensure that the woman's desires were respected was exhausting. And the complete disregard for the humanity and autonomy of the mother and father was sickening. It ought not to be that way, folks. I had a similar experience in the hospital with my own miscarriage.

The fact that there are still women like this out there, working in hospitals and birthing centers around the country, influencing birth one woman at a time is so gratifying to me. I know there are many others like her. Midwives, l&d nurses, doulas, lactation consultant and even doctors. Thank God for them. Reading blogs like this one make me hope that some day the medical mafia in this country will no longer rule birth with an iron fist. Someday maybe the Lord will send me back into an active role in the field. Until then I'll just sputter on in impotent rage. And send you to blogs like this.



(stepping down from the soapbox now. you can call off the dogs.)

Sheepdogs and Peacemakers

Some of you may remember a rather heated discussion on the F blogs that took place during the months leading up to last year's Presidential elections. It all began with this post, which triggered in me an emotion that I have been pondering now and again over the months since then. In the post, S quotes a talk by William Bennet (in a lecture to the U.S. Naval Academy, that he may have largely ripped off this guy) comparing Sheepdogs and Sheep. This analogy he uses to compare men who "have a capacity for violence and a deep love for your fellow citizens" (the sheepdogs) to average joe citizens who "live in denial...(and) do not want to believe that there is evil in the world." (sheep, obviously)

I took umbrage at the cut and dried nature of the two categories Bennett posed. Sheepdogs or sheep? That's it? The only two choices? You either carry a gun and actively work to hunt down bad guys and maintain justice, or else you're a sheep blindly following the crowd with no sense to prepare for the morrow?

This bothered me. It niggled deep in my psyche. It irritated, like a grain of sand in the toe of my shoe.

I understand Susi's reaction to the words of the speech and how they appealed to her pride in her husband's skills and calling and I cast no aspersions on her motives in sharing it with her readers. But due to the aforementioned sandy feeling in my shoe, felt the need to comment and object somewhat. The ensuing imbroglio went far afield from my original remarks and wandered deep into the territory of political discussion and, dare I say, even controversy and strife? I sighed and gave up attempts to explain my objections any further.

But there was still this grain of sand in the toe of my shoe. It itched. It's initials were W. B. I would have loved a chance to talk to him about his war record, to ask him whether he ever carried a gun. Has he ever stepped in to defend the helpless in a real, physical sense? His job seems pretty cushy to me. His health insurance is a lot better than ours, at the least.

What exactly was bothering me? I kept wondering... And then, a week or so ago, I had an epiphany.

Late one evening we heard yelling outside. The next-door-neighbor was having a loud argument with his adult son. The yelling and cussing escalated into fists and feet and as we watched from our porch the two hit the ground in a full-out brawl. The mom/wife screaming and trying to pull the two apart, the men hollering and spewing filth. I watched from the doorway, my heart in my throat, while Jeremiah ran over and just then, as he worked with words and his own body to break the men apart and keep the mom/wife from getting pulled into the fight, it hit me.

This was it.

This was what irritated me so much about Mr B's words. He was asserting through analogy, although perhaps not stating directly, that men like my husband, because he doesn't carry a gun, hasn't been to bootcamp and isn't A Warrior, therefore have no courage and are sheep, followers and need Protecting.

I beg to differ.

I have seen J so many, many times over the years in situations like this. Not usually physical ones, mind you, but situations where he puts himself between two people, or opposing groups and works with his mind, his heart and his words to make peace. He has a conviction that it is important to hear out the other man, to give him his say, to listen, to consider. He can see it from your point of view. He is willing to give a little. He is a Peacemaker.

Not that he doesn't have strong convictions. Oh no. Don't let me give you that impression. He is a man of ideals, for sure. But he has a very real sense of his humanity and is never afraid to admit that he might be wrong and you might be right. Is that not an excellent quality in a leader? What better way to inspire loyalty amongst your followers!

It is this kind of man that I want to see in leadership in our country. Men who think long and hard before sending the Warriors out to do their jobs. Men who are willing to talk and listen-- especially listen. Willing to see it from your point of view. Willing to give a little. Willing to admit when they are wrong and you are right. If there were more men like him in power, I think the Warriors would be better off. This kind of man isn't a Sheep! How ludicrous to say such a thing!

So this is what was bothering me. There really ought not to be such comparisons in the body of Christ. Because, according to Christ, we are ALL sheep, and He is the Shepherd. The Scriptures don't say anything about sheepdogs-- only different kinds of sheep and One Shepherd. One man may be called to be a soldier and another called to be a peacemaker, but let's leave the derogatory comparisons to those who have an overinflated sense of their own importance and instead, brother with brother, each follow their own calling in harmony with one another. And let's especially not, as Mr B. has done, stand in front of one group and cast aspersions upon the other.







Note: This post is in no way a criticism of men who are, by their God-given natures, Warriors. Nor is it an attempt to pull a "reverse W.B." and assert that Peacemakers are better/godly-er/braver men than Warriors. It's simply a chance for me to restate with more clarity my objections to W.B.'s words and the words and opinions of men like him.

The little whipersnapper ratted me out!

Today was a baby shower for a friend from church. It's also the weekend in which I have my final two recitals of the year. Church went from 10:30 to 12. Recital at 12:45, shower at 2. Tight schedule, indeed. Needless to say I did not finish the cute little outfit that I had planned to make for the darling baby boy. Typical. It's still sitting in my cupboard. I will eventually finish it. Hopefully before he's born. Realistically, possibly not before he grows out of that size. (as a side note, in case this does happen, i wonder if she'd consider having baby number four just so he could wear the outfit? probably not)

However, I saved myself the embarrassment of showing up to the shower without a gift by swinging home after the recital (west side of town) before heading out (twenty minutes late--the main violinist didn't show up on time) to the shower (east side of town) to pick up the extra toy tractor which I had called on my way to ask J to wrap for me. It was an extra tractor because we bought it just in case Mom and Dad weren't able to find one for Judah for his Birthday. They did, after all. Hence the extra tractor. I knew it would come in handy.

My cleverness blew up in my face as C unwrapped the gift and Sofi interrupted her ooos and aaahs with...

"It was supposed to be for Judah's birthday, but then he already had one, so this one got left over."

*general delighted laughter*

People love it when this sort of thing happens to Other People.

*sigh*

Ah well. All my pretensions to Proper Southern Party Etiquette have now gone up in smoke. But I do want you all to know that I own a a deviled egg plate. And I use it. Occasionally.

Okay then. Apparently THAT was a bad idea....

So. Tonight Judah is upset to be interrupted in his play to go to bed. In an effort to lighten his mood, I jokingly suggest that since he didn't want to go to bed, maybe he'd like to go to China?

Yes, yes! Go to China, he cries!

Shall I put you in this box and mail you to China?

Yah!

Are you sure? Carrying him over to the box.

Yah!

Putting him in the box.

You wanna get in the box and go to China?

Yah!

Snuggling him down in the packing peanuts and starting to wonder at what point he was going to get scared, reverse his pleas of yah, yah to nah, nah and begin to cling in fear to my neck with his adorable chubby arms-- my whole reason for this dumb game to begin with (I know, I know, bad mommy, bad mommy).
BUT noooo. Even as the box lid is closed over his head, we can hear Go to Chiiinaaa?? coming from inside the box.
I decide it is time to put an end to this.

Silly boy (lifting him out of the box) I can't send you to China! I need my little boy, I would miss you!

His face slowly crumples...China???

And he is carted off to bed amid wails of Chiiiiiiiiinaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! Judah go to Chiiiiinaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!

Somtimes I think blankies are a bad idea

This week I had to write an email to a friend to explain why I wasn't at her house when I said I would be. The worst thing is, she's a new friend and doesn't know that I do stuff like this all the time, completely unintentionally and without malice. I was very worried that she would think I had singled her out for such rude treatment and shot this email out as soon as I could get to the keyboard. Then I talked to her on the phone and she seemed to understand. I found out later that I never actually sent this email-- it got lost somewhere in my personal cyberspace. But it warrants paraphrasing here for your enjoyment.

M, I am so sorry and so embarrassed to have stood you up like this! I've been remembering and forgetting and remembering and forgetting all day. It's been a long and crazy day topped off by discovering right at bedtime that Judah had left his blanky, without which he will not sleep, at a friend's house earlier in the day. I had to jump in the car immediately and drive out and get it so he would stop sobbing heartbreakingly and go to sleep. I pulled my phone out to call you on the way and let you know I would be late, but then discovered that when Judah was carrying my phone around and sucking on it this afternoon he soaked it with drool and something had shorted out. I had to wait till I got home and got him in bed so I could use J's phone to call. At this point I discovered that J had fallen into exhausted sleep while reading to Sofi and I would have to wait around to put Sofi to bed. By that time it was already almost 8 and I was a bit past frazzled. I am so sorry... (etc. and so forth)

My phone, although the drool dried, did not recover from it's drenching. Jeremiah bought me a new one on Ebay and for the most part refrained from saying anything above a mutter about women and electronics. But for now I am phoneless and bereft. Take pity on me and email instead.



P.S. No, it's not my policy to let Judah carry electronics around in his mouth. I really don't know how he got ahold of it...

My Superpower

I bet you didn't know I was a super-hero, did you? Well, I didn't either until last Sunday. The day of the great Motrin Mamas Debacle of '08. In a nutshell, Motrin released an ad that was flippantly dismissive of babywearing moms. The internets exploded into mommy-blogger rage-- it was an awesome sight, I tell you, awesome... (you can read the whole story at crunchydomesticgoddess by scrolling through the last five or so posts) By Monday night, Motrin had removed the ad and issued an official apology.

So, I've discovered that my super power is Blogging!! Moms are a huuuuge market share in this country, and when we band together to support something we believe in, people (read; CEOs) sit up and take notice. So I would challenge you to speak out! Blog about what you care about. Don't worry that you don't have a large enough readership to matter. I don't, but I intend to badger some people who do about an issue that's on my heart this week and see what might happen. The days of the empowered consumer are here!

Here's the link to my Issue. A woman in Texas and her husband were arrested and their children removed to foster care after pics of her breastfeeding (and of the children in the bath) were reported to local authorities by Eckerd's photo developing service as "child pornography". The children have yet to be returned to their parents, despite the case being thrown out of court for lack of evidence. The parents and children are being subjected to all kinds of psych evaluation and "group treatment for sexual issues" (did I mention that the kids are one and four??). Dear God, what is this country coming to!!

This totally dwarfs the whole Facebook bans pics of bf-ing thingy. In addition to blogging about it myself and begging bigger bloggers to help too (sounds like a Dr Seuss book...), I'm going to research what else can be done. Ie; letters to congressmen or others in power and I don't know yet what all else. If any of you have any ideas after reading the link, please let me know.

Go thou...

...and read this. And consider it long and hard. Don't simply react to something that challenges a dearly held pre-conception (haha, no pun intended), but feel free to post your own counter-arguments. This is a search for truth here. Not just spouting the favorite theories de jour.

you can read part 1 here

I'm baaa-aaak...

Didya miss me? I've been absent for quite a while now. Well, a while for me, anyway. Why, you ask? Why have I deprived you of my company for so, so long? Well, I've been in a funk about this blog for a few days. I've been stewing over several political posts (of my own writing and those of many, many others in the mommy-blogger world), debating about whether or not to post them. Wondering whether it was a place I wanted to go ever again. But every time I sat down to write, the only thoughts swirling through my head were about the current state of our nation and how troubling it has been to me to see the body of Christ breaking up into factions of people name-calling and mud-slinging, just like the rest of the world. It's really been upsetting.

But, as you can see, I've decided not to get into a discussion about politics again. I just want to spend a few minutes getting this out of my system and then I'll back to my happy little world of mommy/babies/work/play.

I just have this one thing to say. Why can we not have a calm, respectful discussion about our differences of opinions? Why does every conflict of ideas have to involve name calling and accusations of the sort I do not even want to reproduce here? You are talking to your Brothers and Sisters in Christ, for crying out loud. Show some respect. Why not give them the Grace of assuming that they have good motives, even if you disagree with their methods?

(Imagine a really, really profound title...)

I've greatly appreciated watching Sofi become aware that not all people look/sound/act alike. In particular I've enjoyed watching her adjust to the different races. We live in a town that is fairly diverse, particularly for a town its size. There's a large population of Hispanics, Russians, Asian exchange-students and (of all things) Kurds, in addition to your usual Southern-small-town smattering of African-Americans. So she's gradually been introduced to a wide variety of people that do not look or sound like her. And you know what? She's been fine with that. It hasn't really affected her beyond a casual curiosity about what it would be like to have different color skin or eyes or hair.

And there's the key. The thing that inspires me.

I grew up in the South. My parents were in no way even remotely affected by race, but the larger community around us seethed with undercurrents of racism. As I got older I became more and more aware of this, and more and more uncomfortable. A local pool that we joined had an unspoken policy of segregation. An acquaintance mentioned that her pastor taught that "blacks were of the accursed race". My dear Great-grandmother, saint that she was, called the 30-some year old African-American man who cut her grass, "the colored boy". Etc. It was all around. And it made me become self-concious about the way I spoke around people of other races. Afraid that something I said might be mis-construed or cause unforeseen offence.

But at six, Sofi has not yet been corrupted by those undercurrents in our society. She refers to her African-American friend ("BEST friend, Mom") as "black-skinned". I think that is profound. Black- skinned. Not "black", not "different". She recognizes the superficial nature of racial differences. It's only a difference in skin color. It's not a label, it's descriptive. It's not a devide between us, it's a curiosity. Like having red hair, or detached earlobes, or a hitchhiker's thumb, or any of the myriad of other genetic differences that don't cause war and hatred and oppression and division.

I pray that she is able to keep this innocent perspective as she grows. I pray that the taint of this country's history of racial division doesn't stain her precious childhood friendships. And I pray that her generation will continue to take our society further and further away from its shameful history of racism and suspision of those who are different.