The Sitter

It is summer, so my kids are not in school. Some years we have done camp, but this year, for a variety of reasons -- our travel schedule, the kids lack of interest -- we got a sitter to cover as many days as possible so that I could work (write a few articles, prep classes, proofread and index a manuscript). We hired a teacher from the kids' school so we already knew her and trusted her. It is so great having a sitter! She comes at 8 and leaves at 4PM. She takes the kids to the pool or a beach, the park, the zoo, bowling, and/or plays with them here in the house. She gives them lunch, and makes sure they clean up whatever toys they get out. They like her, she likes them, and we are all happy.

Part of me feels guilty, of course. It is weird to pay someone to take care of your kids when you are in the house, as I often am. And I regret a little that they are having fun with her instead of me. I think occasionally that I should be taking them to the beach more. But I also know that I am not always fun. Since I am not paid to take care of them, and have other stuff to do in the house besides take care of them -- like laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, etc., as well as my own academic work -- I know that I would not spend 8 hours being a nice mom, but would drag them on an errand or fill the days with "hang on"s and "just a sec"s. So I try to make the time we do have pleasant -- knowing that I have been able to get most of my work out of the way so I can be a nice mom when they are with me. On weekends, in the afternoon, and at night, we do lots of fun things and usually with my husband, too.

But mostly I feel jealous that I can't have a sitter all the time. Or at least for the crucial gaps in our childcare schedule -- Someone to take care of the kids on sick days, so my husband and I don't have to take a day off work. Someone to cover school vacations. Someone for Monday holidays and the "teacher conference" days. I don't want one all the time. I like dropping the kids at school and picking them up. I think it is important that I, or my husband, is with them when they do homework. I like meeting their friends when they have playdates. But I'd love to have access when I need a sitter. Without family nearby, and living in a city, where we do not have neighbors we can count on, or even know that well, we are somewhat isolated and self-reliant when it comes to childcare. We don't have the money to have a full-time sitter or to keep one on retention. So, we usually patch things together -- a sitter or camp usually covers us for about 3/4 of the summer. And that still costs a lot! We take a lot of days off to cover the rest of summer, when inevitably our sitter becomes unavailable, or camps end (they still operate on some assumption that parents will be in the Hamptons for August!). I start teaching weeks before they go back to school. It is all the scheduling issues -- the days off from school, sick days, vacations -- that make our life as parents difficult and that make it especially difficult to have two working parents. Every summer, I find myself thinking that maybe next summer I will somehow be able to be a full-time mom, just for the summer. This means no writing, no work beyond the most basic prep for teaching. It means giving up a lot of what I do and who I am. But, until they get old enough to be independent in the summer -- unimaginable now -- it will pull on me and urge me away from work.

Shame

How much shame is okay? Seemingly, one of the by-products of post-feminism is a loss of bodily shame. On the one hand, this signals a positive body acceptance, a move away from the beauty and body ideals that can be so terribly constricting for women -- leading to such diseases as anorexia and bulimia, as well as self-loathing. This is "Dove campaign" feminism -- love me and my curves and my flaws. It is also the backbone of the Fat Pride movement. But pride in fat is tricky, a step or a few steps beyond acceptance of imperfection. Fat Pride signals a more defiant stance -- women and men "claiming their fat" as the song "The Ladies Who Lunch" puts it. But Fat Pride seems dangerous -- do we want to have pride in diabetes, pride in heart disease, pride in the myriad health problems caused by obesity? Should we be angry when an airplane tries to charge us for two seats or embarrassed that we require two seats? Isn't a little bit of shame a good thing?

I ponder this not simply as summer starts and I am seeing way to much flesh paraded shamelessly around my neighborhood (male, female, young, old -- too many bellies, too many giant legs, giant arms, too much cleavage); but as I am raising two kids, and wondering whether to instill shame or not. In part, it is an issue related to weight. My mother used to touch her fingers to my stomach when it got pudgy and let me know if I was looking fat, to encourage me to lose a few pounds. It was demeaning but effective. But was it a good idea? I never had an eating disorder -- I didn't have what I took to be the resolve (I took laxatives once, had to get off a public bus to find a bathroom in a Chinese restaurant and vowed never to go that route again). (I know thinking of it as resolve is sick, but like many girls I was a little envious of anorectics until I understood the depths of it better and knew a few friends who suffered from it -- then I recognized that it was a terrible illness, not willpower). I never had an especially good body image. Now, I look at pictures of myself as a kid and I see a healthy relatively lean kid but then I was convinced that I was pudgy. So, did I have too much shame?

What do we tell our kids? When my son got chunky a few years ago, we worked to teach him better portion control and better habits. We didn't shame him or call him fat but we did tell him that he was gaining too fast and needed to take better care. It helped him learn and he now thinks about what he eats a bit more, but still enjoys food. If we didn't teach him, but "accepted" his fat, would we have been doing him a favor or leading him into a lifetime of bad health?

With my son and my daughter, I have discussed food and body in terms of health and fitness, not appearance. I have made clear to both kids that they should be healthy, that they should not worry about the ideals in magazines, that plastic surgery for appearance is unnecessary, that they are normal, wonderful kids. That's relatively easy.

But what about other kinds of bodily shame? As puberty looms, I think about sexual shame. How much should I worry about my daughter's changing body? What can she wear and what can't she? I feel a prudishness growing in me, a desire to cover her, hide her, protect her from the gaze. But that seems a wrongheaded shame. My shame, not hers, as she has none, not yet at least. Part of me wants to keep her shameless, proud, open, and free. Still, I want to teach her to protect her body, to know it privately and share it wisely, not to show it heedlessly. Is this too focussed on the body? Too alienated from it? Or just realistic?

Gender bending toddlers

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/navigating-gender-in-pre-k/?scp=1&sq=gender%20toddler&st=cse

This article from the Sunday NY Times deals with gender bending kids and their parents. Unlike some of the parents I've discussed in previous posts (see Child X and the discussion of Harry vs. Haley on Oprah below) who decide to change their kids gender according to which behaviors they adopt, these parents are trying to let their kids be whatever they choose -- meaning girls who wear "boy" clothes, boys who play with dolls or paint their toes. It seems potentially like these parents could really break down some barriers and create new ways of understanding gender, and disentangling behavior and biology. Still, the article gets at some of the difficulties -- how the parents sometimes feel they have to apportion their open-mindedness according to societal rules (nail polish at home but not at school) or when they choose to ignore those rules, and how parents can potentially differ on these issues (in one case, a dad is more forgiving than the mom, and in another the dad is grappling more than the mom).

who rules redux, with new voices

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=p72UqyVPj54

Here is a young feminist posting on Beyonce's Run the World song. Apparently, this gal isn't so sure that girls rule. It is nice to hear a cranky YOUNG feminist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmMU_iwe6U

The video itself would lead one to believe that when girls run the world, the world will be some strange mad max-esque nightmare of burned out vehicles in a desert landscape, and that "ruling" will consist of wearing sexy designer bondage outfits, double-stick tape to avoid breasts popping out, and impossible shoes. There is something creepily colonial about the footage, in addition to its pseudo-empowering postfeminist message. I am not sure what is worse -- the fantasy that girls will run the world only after some apocalytic nightmare, that ruling will consist only of asserting rule, the costumes, or the way Beyonce "disarms" the enemy (whose reasons for attacking are unclear) by (I think) opening his shirt or touching his chest? When the men all pop their shields up at the videos' end, is that supposed ot be as foolishly phallic as I think?

child x

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110524/ts_yblog_thelookout/parents-keep-childs-gender-under-wraps

This is an amazing story. I get what they are doing, sort of. I mean, I understand that they don't want to box their kid into stereotypical roles, or have assumptions imposed on the kid. But, once again, I feel like sex and gender are getting tangled. Let's say the kids has a vagina and no penis. (The article says there is no biological ambiguity.) So, in conventional terms, we'd call that kid a girl. The parents are worried that the girl would face undue expectations of female gendering -- that grandma would buy a doll, or that people would talk about how many hearts she'd break later in life, or that nobody would ask her dad if he planned to toss a football with her. But isn't this something we all manage by saying "she can do what she likes, and we'll see what her tastes and interests are, not decide based on her sex."

The parents already have two biological boys who like to wear their hair long and wear pink. And the parents are "unschooling" (an extra loose version of homeschooling) them. Which, I guess removes them from some social strictures as well as some forms of socialization. But, still, the boys face difficulties, because people don't know how to "read" them. So, the boys ask their parents to please let people know they are boys. The boys don't think ambiguity makes their life any easier. And, despite wearing long hair and pink, they do not perceive themselves as girls. They believe they can be pink wearing, long-haired boys. And so do I. But somehow the parents feel that isn't enough, that removing the "stigma" of sex would help them more -- despite the fact that the kids say they feel bad about not being able to be in a conventional school and that they ant to tell people they are boys.

Now, the new kid, Storm, will not be assigned a sex. Therefore, the parents reason, nobody will impose definitions. But, in not assigning a sex, aren't the parents assigning their own definitions. If Storm is a biological female, and it turns out that she likes things that have historically been gendered masculine, then does that mean she is not a girl? Only by assuming that our gender and sex have to match do we decide that sex is something to be re-named.

Once again, I have to ask whether the parents' sense of gender ambiguity is too narrow. As with the kid on Oprah I discussed in an earlier post, I feel that the parents here are imposing stricter gender definitions by denying sex than if they let their boys be gender bending boys and let Storm, whoever and whatever she is, be whoever and whatever she is, without worrying about whether who she is fits or does not fit conventional gender stereotypes. Wouldn't the parents serve him/her best not by turning his/her sex into a guessing game but by allowing her to be herself, wearing pink or blue or green and playing with dolls and balls and dinosaurs and tupperware, or whatever s/he likes. Break the stereotypes by all means. But don't impose stereotypes of your own by removing labels like "girl" and "boy" as if that fixes everything.

in loco parentis

I teach film and gender studies at a University. Usually, I think about my relationship with my students and not about their relationships with their family. But every year, on graduation weekend, I come into contact with student's families and I realize that my relationship with the student has become part of that student's relationship with his/her family. Usually, this means that the parents have heard of me, or heard about a class I taught. This year, for example, I talked to a lot of parents about my Sinatra class. I also had a lot of general conversations with parents about what the student's major meant to them. In the case of gender studies, there were some parents who spoke very approvingly of their child's choice to major in gender studies. They saw that it had been very beneficial to their child. Some were not as convinced, perhaps, or were glad that the student had a "practical" major as well. The most amazing conversation I had, though, was with a dad whose daughter majored in film and took many film/gender classes from me, as well as one on feminist and gender theory without a film component. The father took me aside and told me that he and his wife had been worried by the fact that their daughter was somewhat narrow minded and conservative about gender. Living in LA, the dad said, they felt she should be more open. So they were delighted when she took my courses. He said it really made her think and change her views -- on abortion (which I don't think I ever explicitly addressed, but would have come up in a few films), gender roles, feminism, homosexuality, transgender, and more. He said that I was not only his daughters' favorite professor but the family's. It was an amazing conversation. I was very surprised and pleased -- nobody has ever ever thanked me for making their daughter less conservative! But it was also amazing to remember the impact that we can have. When sometimes it seems all students care about is grades and the market payoff for college, along comes someone who seeks just to expand her mind. And parents who appreciate that and seek it with her and for her. It made me appreciate my role as mentor in a whole new way. And it gave me a model for how to think about my own kids and what they can find at school.

Volunteerism

Today, I dodged a special Volunteer Appreciation breakfast at my kids' school. I was included because I volunteered last week to cover the classroom during teacher appreciation when the teachers are taken to lunch outside the school. (One of the kids in the class remarked that he thought it was odd that the teachers left the school in order to feel appreciated. Ha ha.) I felt that they could best appreciate the time I had taken to volunteer by not taking up more of my time thanking me. I am appreciating myself today by cleaning my office, getting rid of the traces of this semester's classes, and organizing the materials I need for this summer's writing and class prep.

The volunteer system at school never feels very voluntary to me. Nobody has ever said that I have to volunteer, but there is an ethos that assumes that you will volunteer for field trips, classroom parties, special events, etc. All of this on top of attending the frequent assemblies, concerts, class presentations, parties, and other in-school events that parents are expected to attend. So I generally allocate one to two things per child -- meaning I try and do one field trip for each kid if possible and one in-class volunteer session. So, this year, I did Teacher Appreciation in the 4th grade (which had me in the classroom for about two hours, just making sure the kids didn't run amok) and Ellis Island Day for the 2nd grade (in which the kids pretend to be entering Ellis Island and we check their medical status, papers, money. I like to make them change their names.) I brought home made donuts to my son's "half birthday." I fell down on the field trips, but am going to the zoo in two weeks time, getting one in just before school closes for the year. Along the way, I attended holiday concerts, an assembly in which they celebrated reading (I missed one in which they presented on infectious diseases because I was away at a conference and felt guilty for weeks), plus a Native American museum (kids make dioramas and you walk through the classroom talking to them about their work) and an Egyptian museum (for this, they also wore costumes). All within working hours. (The band concerts are at night).

I understand the impulse -- parents should be involved in their child's education, it takes a village, etc. But there seems to be little understanding from within the school or even among the parents that people might not be able to frequently attend events between 8 and 3PM on weekdays when people work. When I was a kid, the school day was when my parents didn't have to worry about me or take care of me. But now, we are supposed to be on call all the time. Some dads do volunteer and dads often attend the concerts, assemblies and presentations. But, of course, most of the volunteering falls on moms. Many of the moms at our school are stay at home moms. Actually, a surprisingly large number. Most of whom had jobs, and big serious jobs, at some point in time. The volunteer system feeds on them, because they are seen as "easily" able to show up for any and all school events. It also, I suspect, helps some of them feel that their stay at home status is a necessity, because paid work would make it hard to volunteer. The school becomes another unpaid job for them. The temptation for me and other moms and dads who work for pay is to rely on these stay at home moms (and few stay at home dads) to take up the slack. The temptation for the school and for our kids is to see these parents as more committed. Along the way, we erase the idea that postfeminism taught us that being a stay at home is as valid and as hard as working outside the home. We extend the stay at home parent's nurturing role beyond their family and ask them to be substitute parents for the rest of us.

I'd rather that the school would make clear its expectations. Rather than assume that everybody can just skip out of work whenever they feel like it (and amazingly there are doctor and lawyer parents and other people who have much less flexible jobs than mine who manage this stuff), just say up front that the price of school (on top of its exorbitant price tag) is one volunteer activity per year per parent. This would equalize the gender imbalance, create more equality between working and stay at home parents, and make clear that it is an obligation not a choice.