wandering, day #2: race and the room

Race and the Room:

The conference takes place in a small auditorium with a balcony seating area. The first thing I immediately notice is the racial segregation of the room - it seems that most of the minority scholars are sitting in the balcony section, while the bottom section is holding mostly white men (older white men at that - it was like a sea of gray hair.) It is not very strict, as a well known white sociologist is sitting right next to me on the top row, and a white foreign sociologist is next to him. And, I think a big part of the segregation is that mostly students are sitting on the top, and perhaps most of the students present are racial and ethnic minorities.

Related to the segregation: a panel was presented on culture and entertainment, and one of the panelists presented a paper on hip-hop. The paper was very interesting, although the presenter, a non-black male, used the N-word when quoting some of the aspiring rappers he was studying. Every time he said it, in the slangish linguistic patterns of these young black males, in the halting patter of someone trying to speak in the black vernacular who is not used to speaking that way, it made my skin crawl.

Related to the old white men: I had a question for the panel, and was sitting in the very front row of the balcony. Time and time again, I raised my hand, only to be ignored each time in favor of a white man. It seemed that the moderator was making a special effort not to call on me, because by the time it was time for the forth question, the white man sitting next to me also raised his hand. He and the moderator were from the same university, and he then called on him by name. There was almost a riot in the balcony, for questioning was finished after his question. At least 15 people sitting in the balcony approached me during the rest of the day to discuss the blatant racial and gender issue that was going on.

wandering thoughts

I am currently in the Northeast for an academic conference. I’m not sure if what I will do in the future exactly fits with the theme of the conference, since it sounds pretty gritty and hard-core, but I love the method and the substance, so I trust that it will be an insightful and rewarding weekend. But as I travel more and more these days, things keep happening all the time that I just want to comment on them:

1. Men take up a lot of space that is not their’s to take. If I am sitting, let’s say in the window seat, on an airplane next to a man, who is in the middle seat, he seems to think that his knees, feet, and arms are entitled to extra space outside of the seat he paid for. I’ve had to say “excuse me” to insert my foot right up to the boundaries of my space just so he won’t take it. This has happened on several flights and at a concert I went to recently too. And they always have the nerve to look like I’m ignant for claiming my space.

2. The airport is extremely small. It reminded me how city-fied I am. My first instinct when I got off the plane was to call my hubby and say, “Yo, this airport is so small!”

3. US Air will never receive any of my money ever again. Last time I flew with them, earlier this month, they lost my luggage on the way to Philly, and I missed my connecting flight on the way back, having to spend the night in Vegas before getting home. This time, my luggage was lost again. I am supposed to attend this conference tomorrow, and I don’t even have a toothbrush or any toothpaste to rub on my teeth. And the guy at the ticket counter had the nerve to ask me if I had been through the claims process before so he wouldn’t have to waste his breath talking me through the process. This should not be something that happens to people multiple times. No more money from me. Next time we fly Southwest.

That’s all for now. Until tomorrow…

cultural contradictions of motherhood and choice

So at this lunch I attended where we talked about motherhood, one of the male participants made this statement about his wife (again, paraphrasing):

I would like nothing more than to be at home all day, being a kept man, but my wife wanted to stay at home with our children. It was totally her choice.

While I am not privy to the inner workings of this particular relationship, I am wondering for how many women is the decision to stay at home or to work truly a choice. For there are competing cultural logics out there, at least for middle-class women. [For working class and poor women, the choice often revolves around money, as in "Can I afford day care, so I can work?" or "Can I afford not to work, so I can stay home with my kids?"]

These logics are pretty simple. One says that a woman’s place is in the home. Another says that as individualistic Americans, everyone should be selfish and do things in their own best interests. Another says that women should sacrifice everything for their children. The first logic has pretty much been debunked by most of society, but the other two truly present a puzzle. Sharon Hays, in “The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood,” does a good job in discussing these competing logics if you want more than my spin on it.

Attachment parenting is all the buzz now. Read Sears, and they will tell you that to be a good mother, you must be there. “Being there” means just that - physically being up in your kid’s face 24/7. Children need the constant presence of their mothers in order to feel safe and secure in the world. Many books urge you to not put your child in day care at least until their second birthday, and then many others say not to do it at all. As for your sanity, your well-being — that has to wait. Children will only be children for a short amount of time and you will be sorry if you miss it .

On the other hand, try to get a job after being out of the job market for several years to “be there” for your kids. Motherwork is not seen as legitimate work with transferable skills to other occupations - studies show that being a mother actually carries a penalty on the job market. The individualistic logic in America is to always be working at your craft, behaving like a rational actor, maximizing your utility - in other words, being selfish. Penalizing a woman for motherwork says that caring activities, where someone else’s needs are put in front of your own, is not valuable in the society.

So then how does a woman truly choose given these competing logics? To me, choice denotes equal alternatives. It’s kinda like how Chris Rock says we shouldn’t praise men who take care of their kids, as if it’s a choice - taking care of your kids is what you’re supposed to do, according to the dominant way of thinking. So when it comes to choice in motherhood, is there really a choice? The competing logics tell you very clearly what you are supposed to do, so depending on which logic most appeals to you, you then do what you are supposed to do.

So much is made about educated middle-class women “opting-out,” as if it were a choice. The link is to Stone, a sociologist who wrote a book about it. Am I the only one who thinks that it isn’t such a choice when the logic of attachment parenting is so strong, especially for the middle class? When class privilege makes the competitive logic less persuasive over decisions? Do middle-class women truly feel like they have a choice, at least one that they can feel good about? The little blurb about the book says this:

They have been unsuccessful in their efforts to find flexibility or… because they found themselves marginalized and stigmatized, negatively reinforced for trying to hold onto their careers after becoming mothers.

So this is my point - it is really such a choice when the social pressures are so strongly pushing that way?

I’m rambling here, as my thoughts are not well spelled out here. Feel free to ignore everything I just wrote.

making it work

Last week I attended a brown-bag series at the education school about graduate school and parenthood. Although I’m not in the ed school, I thought it would be nice to get to know some other parents who are also juggling/balancing the grad school thing. The round-table discussion was also billed as a “thinking about parenthood” information session for childless students. Faculty were invited, so there was about a 60/40 split of students and faculty, respectively. There were a lot of things that came out of this meeting that I think are blog-worthy, so this week I’ll be taking each topic in turn. First up:

Making the Decision vs. Making the Decision Work

Only one non-parent showed up for the meeting, so while there was a a little bit of advice about making that decision, it was mostly about making the decision work. Which was probably best anyway. There is so much consternation amongst graduate students about when the best time to start a family is. I’ve heard it everywhere along the grad student - tenure continuum: wait until after classes are done, no, wait until you’ve defended your proposal, no, wait until you’ve landed your first position, no, wait until after you’ve gotten tenure. I remember a professor back in my freshman year of college saying,

There’s never a good time to get married or have children. Just do it.

I followed his advice.

Now that’s not to say that life will not be 10 times as hectic depending on your timing for having kids as compared to some other timing. I was in grad school last year as well, and going from one child to two children is much more difficult than I thought it would be. Living away from extended family is much more difficult than I thought it would be. Maintaining my relationship with my husband is much more difficult than I thought it would be. But it’s all doable.

Do Not Quit

One of the faculty members said (paraphrase),

The keys to making it work is to make a commitment to yourself that you will not quit. Anything.

Sometimes you’ll need to stall - I deferred grad school when I got pregnant with my first child, but there was no doubt in my mind that I was going the following year. I’m holding off on the second part of my joint program for another year because my kids still need so much from me physically, but there is no doubt that I’ll be there in another year’s time. Although it’s hard for me to truly imagine this whole process being over, I know that I am going to do it, all of it, no matter what. When having kids, a husband, and advanced degrees stop being a choice, in your mind, getting on with what has to be done get easier. My yoga teacher in Philly told me the same thing, when I was hemming and hawing about whether I even wanted to go to school or if I wanted more to teach yoga or do something more holistic. While her personal feelings seemed to said more with teaching yoga, she told me that what I needed to do was make a decision and go on with it. Looking back and wondering “what if” only leads to suffering and is totally unproductive.

The Juggling Act

Another faculty member said (paraphrase, not a direct quote),

“If you think about the juggling metaphor for balancing life and work, some of the balls you juggle are made of crystal, while others are made of rubber. The crystal balls - your children’s physical and mental health and safety, your relationship with your partner - can never be dropped, or if they are, they must be very carefully put back together. The rubber balls - work deadlines, weekend work, etc. - we can be a little more cavalier with as they will bounce right back up, if you give it a little time.”

Although I don’t like it - I want all my balls in the air, at the same time - I am going to need to start doing this, and suggest that those thinking of having families and going to school think about this too. Before kids, I tried my hardest to be perfect, turning things in early, reading every last sentence, never taking shortcuts. But once I had my kids, striving for perfection is futile because you’ll never get there, and your kids remind you of this everyday. During the first four weeks of my daughter’s life, she cried and cried and cried, and nothing you did soothed her. Efforts to be perfect for this child were doomed to fail, so you just stopped trying. You let her know that you were there, by holding her or singing to her, but after that you let go of the expectation that something you could do would make things better. When she stopped crying, everyone took a nap until the next episode and we kept it moving. I was happier that way, and happiness felt so much better than trying to be perfect.

Now, the same applies - if I’m tired, and my kids are asleep, and I have a plan for getting stuff done, I go to bed. My son was hospitalized for several days last year near the beginning of the semester, and I missed several deadlines. But those balls bounced up so quickly, I hardly remember any fall out from them. But my baby’s crystal ball was cracked, and I had to work hard at getting that back together. Along the same line, the faculty suggested making a list of things to get done during the week, and prioritize it. Stick to the list unless a crystal ball item comes up - if it ain’t about your kids’ mental, physical health and safety or your partnership (which I will devote a whole ‘nother post to) then let it go.

Biological Imperative

People have to have children in order to repopulate the world. Of course not everyone does, but if it’s an urge you have, it’s totally warranted by biology. On the other hand, people do not have to get PhDs. Honestly, I chose this career partly because of the flexibility it lends to doing the biological job quite nicely. Is it hard - sure, but what worth having in life isn’t difficult to come by? So, make the decision, and then strategize about making the decision work. It made me sad that there was only non-parent at the discussion - as much as it’s on people’s minds, why wouldn’t they want to hear the real deal from the horses’ mouth’s?

Some other thoughts to be addressed this week:

Cultural contradictions of motherhood and choice

Being a good spouse, being a good parent

Reluctance to admit resentment

in my backyard

There is a child screaming their head off at 10:15 at night and it is NOT my child. How I love living in this community of families! Finally, the real experience of knowing that it’s not just my kids that occasionally act crazy

a couple of things…

1. New resolution to not do housework during the traditional working hours: Thanks for all the words of encouragement. I couldn’t stick to it perfectly the last two days. Monday went well, but then my hubby put clean clothes with dirty ones in an effort to help out (thank you!) and it all went kind of downhill from there. I couldn’t take the mess (or the smell, yuck) so I set the timer on my microwave for 60 minutes and I cleaned up. I actually accomplished all I wanted to in 35 minutes, which was just picking up the mess, washing the dishes, and organizing the clean clothes away from the dirty ones. I think I am going to stick to the resolution, but allow myself to set the timer and just clean up like crazy and be happy with what I accomplish in the time frame.

2. I saw a black man being talked at by the police in my parking lot when I got home from getting my kids this afternoon. At first, I’ll admit that I was annoyed because there was a cop car parked in my usual spot, and I had to park on the other side of the lot, which is inconvenient for me. But then I noticed a cop talking at this young black guy and my defenses automatically went up. The cop wasn’t being offensive, from what I could tell 4 cars away, and maybe a minute after I got there he told the guy that he could get back in his car and “good luck with everything.” The guy started putting things back in his pockets - I don’t know why he had taken them out - and then got into the back seat of a parked car. Several minutes later, these guys who were counting traffic (I see them in the mornings too) got into the car and drove off.

Update: when I originally wrote this, I didn’t mention what I found wrong about the situation. It’s really that I can’t put my finger on it, but it just rubbed me the wrong way to see police officers talking at this young black guy in my parking lot where there are very few black people. I mentioned it cause it was something on my mind. And I think campus police are pretty cool - they were on it when my bike got stolen

3. I gave a presentation yesterday about some preliminary findings of an ethnographic study I did where I suggested some racial differences and implications. I talked about how prior research largely privileged the experiences of white middle-class women, and gave some examples. Despite this, there was considerable push back on my suggestions by…guess who? Middle-class white women. I thought perhaps by priming them to think about how these experiences I was talking about are mostly studied through middle-class white women’s eyes that would cause them to question their comments before they came out of their mouths, but, alas, I was wrong.

4. This week is National Crime Victims Rights Week. I saw a brochure about it at the post office today while I waiting in line to mail a paper to a paper competition. Of course I was waiting for a long time with all the last minute tax-filers. I didn’t know there were so many national hotlines for victims of crime. Almost all of them are for child abuse or domestic violence, so I assume these are hotlines for resources for these extremely sensitive situations where calling the police is not the best option . But I wonder what the National Center for Victims of Crime, National Crime Victim Helpline is for? What about the National Crime Prevention Council? National Organization for Victim Assistance? I think they should be a bit more specific about what they do in their name. If I was a victim of crime (which I have been) and I was in need of assistance (not sure what kind outside of police) I wouldn’t want to have to wade through these numbers to find which one was best for me. If you want to volunteer, click here.

no more

I used to spend every morning before class devoted to stuff around my house. I would wash all the dishes, pick up stray toys, sweep and mop the floors, and sometimes take a pass at the bathroom. I would cook dinner and do laundry. No more.

I cannot be a full-time homemaker and a full-time student. I have to stop treating school as something to be done in my spare time. I feel bad because when I was growing up, I always had a hot cooked meal for dinner, and my house was always clean. I want the same for my children.

But no more. With two small kids, both of whom are now mobile, there is no end to the mess. It may be clean when I’m home by myself in the middle of the day, but as soon as they all walk in they track in with them dirt and sand, crackers and spit-up. It seems futile to devote a lot of time towards cleaning up.

So the plan is to know treat 8:30 - 4:30 as if I was at work away from home, unable to do the things that traditional working moms also cannot do because they are not home. I already feel less stressed just thinking about this plan. Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner?

it’s all coming back to me now

I had all these thoughts last night about bloggable topics - I’d even starting “writing” them word for word in my head - but it was hard for me to then settle down and go to sleep. Eventually, I must have got rid of them and fallen asleep, but now I’m so sad because I can’t really remember any of it. I have vague memories of talking about discipline, baby separation anxiety, something rude I said yesterday, a letter to someone close to me who passed away…cool, it’s starting to come back!

mummy tummy

My daughter is now 7 months old and I still have a mummy tummy. For the past seven months, I have felt bad about it. But they say that misery loves company, and I obviously have lots of it. According to a survey of 7,000 mothers by BabyCenter.com (a leading source of information for new and expectant mothers), 87% of mothers who’s youngest child is between 1 and 2 years old say that their tummy is not back to “normal:”

You may weigh the same or less after your pregnancy, but your clothes will fit differently!” lamented one mom in our survey. “I weigh less now, but I wear a larger size.” If you’ve been surprised by the way pregnancy has reconfigured your body, you’re hardly alone.

More than half of our moms said their breasts are different now, and more than a third said they have wider hips. But the post-baby tummy — “my mommy fluff,” as one woman put it; “this bulbous tire around my middle,” another complained — is what really seems to blow most moms away. One to two years after having their baby, 87 percent of women say their stomach still hasn’t returned to normal.

When I lament about this, I invariably get the “Oh, but you have done the most important job in the world!” But I am not, and I suspect most women are not, immune to the beauty standards of today. And as a closest fashionista, having a mummy tummy does not really work with today’s fashions. But unfortunately,

On the down side, muscle tone is not the same as skin tone. Some women are genetically vulnerable to stretch marks and saggy skin. These may look better over time, but they may not go away completely. Skin will also lose some elasticity after each birth — and with age. So if you had your kids later in life, it will be that much harder to restore your tummy to its former firmness.

“Some women” include me. But there are some baby-body upsides to other “challenged” areas:

Still, not all changes are unwelcome. As one new mom noted, “I have boobs now — and I didn’t have to pay for them!”

I know that there are some people reading who are going to tsk, tsk my concern with the shape and look of my body. Is it anti-feminist to care about what your body looks like?

i’m back

Thanks for your kind words concerning the death of my family member. All are doing well. Now it’s time to get back to being a gradmommy. Tales concerning this aspect of my identity are forthcoming.

For now, let me leave you with this piece of advice: never fly on USAir. My baggage was late arriving on the East Coast, and I missed a connecting flight on the way home, meaning I had to stay in a hotel, with a baby, in Las Vegas. With no luggage. And they were rude and extremely non-helpful. So, whatever you must do, please do not give any money to USAir.

Oh, and another piece of advice: I believe having a washer and dryer is the single most important piece of anything a gradmommy of two kids needs in this world. They are here, I am washing and drying, and life is good.