Gal bloggers — including yours truly — will be heading up to Burlington, MA this Saturday for a day-long BlogHER event which will feature speakers such as Lisa Stone, founder of BlogHER, and Boston Mama’s Christine Koh.
The Manic Mommies podcasters, who are based in Massachusetts, along with Parents & Kids Magazine editor Heather Kempskie will be there, among other New Englanders.
Of course I’ll be toting a massive cup o’ Joe in order to make it through the first few sessions on how to bring you folks some exquisite bloggin’ goodness. But with Game 1 of the American League Championship Series featuring the Old Towne Team starting after 8:30 tonight, I’ll be in need of a gallon of java.
The Eldest Son plays football, so I suppose, by definition, The Spouse and I would be considered football parents. And, from what I’ve been able to discern, the parents watching their sons play Pop Warner football are no more or less engaged — shouting everything from encouragement and cheers, to criticism and frustration at the refs — than are the soccer parents on the sidelines of The Girl’s soccer matches, or the baseball parents on the sidelines of The Eldest Son and The Youngest Son’s epic baseball games.
But a recent column in the Boston Globemakes football parents out to be a little bit more, oh, what’s the word, crazy, than your average, garden variety sports parent. While writer Chris Bohjalian did say that “parents scream at umpires and referees” at more than just football matches, he penned these observations after watching a middle school football game:
“All of a sudden, an attractive woman sitting near me in capri pants and a fashionable hoodie stands up and bellows, ‘Gut check, boys, gut check! Now’s when you have to stick it to ‘em!’ She is, apparently, a mother of one of the young warriors.
. . . Other parents were screaming at their children to ‘hit ‘em’ or ’stand tall’ or ’show ‘em what you’re made of.’ One grandfatherly looking gentleman in a windbreaker barked, ‘Take it to ‘em boys, take it to ‘em! Pop ‘em! Pop ‘em hard!’”
Wondering what it was about youth football that made parents go berserk, he wrote that the sport “appeals to our usually dormant atavistic core” and that he “left the field that Saturday morning feeling a little bit bloodied.”
And maybe, in some respects, he’s got a point. I know that whenever my kids are physically hit or knocked around while playing sports – whether it’s on the football field or during a soccer match — the mama bear inside me wants to rise up and protect my cubs. But I can’t. My only hope is that the refs and coaches watch out for all the children’s safety and that my kids hold their own against the wretched children who would dare to jostle my kin. Although if I were sitting near the woman Bohjalian described in his column, I likely would’ve rolled my eyes.
A U.S. intelligence officer and terrorism expert with decades of experience, Gina M. Bennett, a mom of five, wants us to think of national security, terrorism and foreign policy issues in an entirely different way, from the perspective of a mother who’s raising her children.
Teach your children that, at the end of the day, telling the truth is always better than lying. Stand up to bullies and don’t allow them to define who you are. Pick up your own messes. Choose your friends wisely. Always try to understand why your child’s doing something obnoxious/irresponsible/insane/irrational so that you can try to figure out a way to try to stop or dissuade her from doing that in the future.
Bennett recently fielded six questions from me about her book (published by the woman who published my book, FYI) and about national security and parents, as we prepare to go the polls and pick a new president in less than a month.
Meredith O’Brien, Picket Fence Post:Why did you write this book and for whom did you write it?
Gina Bennett, author of National Security Mom: After 20 years of countering terrorism from inside the covert world of the Intelligence Community, I came to realize that the most powerful weapon America can wield in this fight is the courage of the American people. For years, my colleagues and I have worked daily to collect intelligence, uncover plots, identify key leaders and figure out how to stop terrorists from carrying out their attacks. But no matter how hard we work, there will be times when terrorists will succeed in getting past our security efforts. But when that happens, it does not have to mean that America was defeated. As long as Americans stand united in the aftermath of such a tragedy and refuse to change because of it, the terrorists are the ones who will be defeated.
Terrorists don’t seek death and destruction alone. They want to use the horror of their attacks to shake our faith in our form of government. If we remain committed to our democratic principles and ideals, we rob them of their attempted victory over us and undermine their future influence. The men and women in government can’t do this alone. Every American is our partner, and I wrote this book to convey that message. I also wrote with parents, and especially mothers, in mind because I felt the national security debate was overwhelmingly dominated by “insider” jargon that left many parents feeling like outsiders. But you don’t have to understand all the intricacies of the intelligence, law enforcement and military efforts in countering terrorism to be an informed participant in the national security debate.
Item #1: ‘Mad Men’ Drawing Reflects My Mood This Week
Mad Men-loving artist Dyna Moe (who has created 25 Mad Men-inspired illustrations) expertly captured not just the frustration of betrayed 1960s housewife Betty Draper, but reflected my mood over the past couple of days, although I haven’t taken my dourness out on the furniture. (If you’re a Mad Men fan, check out the illustrations, particularly the one with Sally Draper serving as her parents’ bartending. Quite cheeky, the lot of ‘em.)
Item #2: Breastfeeding on Film
An Ithaca College professor surveyed has 150 films that included either a depiction or discussion of breastfeeding or a nursing mom and found that most of the depictions or references sexualized the subjects. “American women continue to be harassed and kicked out of restaurants, museums and swimming pools for nursing their babies, despite the overwhelming evidence that breastfeeding is the ideal way to nourish children early in life,” said Professor Sarah Rubenstein-Gillis, who wrote a piece called “Reel Milk” for Mothering Magazine. “Hollywood films illustrate and often validate these mixed messages and moviegoers continue to be informed by them.”
Huffington Post blogger Heather Cabot agreed, saying, “. . . [S]ince the entertainment industry and celebrity culture remain so influential it would seem really constructive for filmmakers to think more about the way they present breastfeeding and to depict it in a way that reflects what it is really all about — the health and well-being of baby and mother.”
(Rubenstein-Gillis also has a Reel Milk blog which lists films which mention breastfeeding.)
Item #3: Care for Breast Milk in Your Soup?
I was perusing the headlines on the Drudge Report and saw a sensational one about a Swiss restaurant which plans to serve dishes that include human breast milk. I felt compelled to mention it here because what’s a “Three for Thursday” blog entry with not one, but two breastfeeding stories? The Telegraph news story quoted the restaurant owner as saying, “We have all been raised on it [breast milk]. Why should we not include it in our diet?” The restauranteur has been advertising for milk donors.
I had the pleasure last week of sitting next to Alice Domar, the keynote speaker at the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce’s Women’s Initiative dinner. (Note: One of the event sponsors was skirt! magazine, which is owned by the same company as P&K Magazine.) Domar, an internationally known expert on what’s called the mind-body connection, discussed the main themes of her new book, Be Happy Without Being Perfect, specifically on how and why women should let go of the illusion of perfection.
What struck me about Domar, wasn’t just that during dinner, she was a down-to-earth person who spoke with ease about how her tween-aged daughter was upset that Domar had to be out for the evening and about her exploits helping her daughter sell Girl Scout cookies outside a local grocery store. It was that what Domar said — both at the microphone and away from it – was real, didn’t seem rehearsed/polished (even though this is a person who toured with Oprah in 2004-2005 and regularly appears on national television) and indicated that she understands what it’s like to be a working parent circa 2008 during an “epidemic of stress” like the rest of us.
Why the attempt to label mom voting blocs? “Married women and women with children vote in higher proportions than single women,” an expert on women and politics told NBC this spring. “. . . Whatever affects their families, whether [it] is their children or their spouses or their own aging parents, family issues are of central importance.”
I don’t necessarily agree. Not every mom I know votes on the same issues. Not every mother votes on family issues. Or on education policy.
Believe it or not, it’s been my experience that women base their votes on all kinds of different issues, reflecting their individual values and priorities. And, like dads, they don’t vote in lockstep. Not all the soccer moms I know, for example, vote for the same people.
I’m with blogger and mom of three Erika Jurney who told NBC: “The people who place value on labels like ’security moms’ are pollsters and politicians, but in real life people are multi-dimensional and these tight labels are meaningless.”
When it comes to crazy-long school supply lists, apparently my kids’ public schools aren’t the only ones doling them out. The New York Times ran a page one piece about schools in the New York area and elsewhere which are asking parents to shell out big bucks for supplies, including one mom who had ”10 boxes of baby wipes” on her kindergartener’s list.
“. . . [A]ccording to the New York State School Boards Association, supplies run an average of $100 for high school students and $60 for middle schoolers,” the paper reported. In some school districts, the school supply lists have grown so large that school boards have stepped in and placed caps on how much families should be asked to spend:
“In the suburbs of Rochester, the Gates Chilli Central School District last year capped the amount that parents were expected to spend on supplies at $10 a child, adding $100,000 to the budget to make up the difference. The sprawling Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Ky., set the limit this fall of $120 a child for the year, including field trips.”
Item #2: How Palin Does It
Answer (according to press reports): Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has a husband named Todd. Who’s the father of their five kids. Who works part-time. And takes care of the children (all but the baby and the eldest – who’s deploying to Iraq this month – are in school all day). The Palin family, you see, works together. Just like the Obama family, only no one’s asking Barack Obama how he’s managing to parent his two school-aged daughters while he’s on the campaign trail. So let’s back off the Palin-is-a-bad-mom garbage, why don’t we. It’s an unbecomingly sexist attack. ‘Nuf said.
Item #3: ‘Hockey Mom’ Humor
The line of the night, as Sarah Palin accepted the Republican’s VP nomination: “You know [what] they say [is] the difference between a hockey mom and a pit-bull? [*pause*] Lipstick.”
Palin’s speech — including the lipstick comment, at 8:50 – can be found here.
Savaging a working mother of small children for her choices instead of just trying to understand her decisions and realize that each family and each woman is very, very different.
This time it’s GOP VP nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a mother of five, who’s in the cross-hairs. She had a baby in April. And returned to work days after giving birth. Before the birth, Palin reportedly got on an airplane while her amniotic fluid was leaking after consulting with her doctor. Now, because she went back to work, because she boarded that plane and because she’s got a baby and is running for vice president, people are all over her. Calling her a bad mom and questioning her competency, particularly because her 4-month-old has Down Syndrome. (And I’m not even talkin’ about Palin’s policy positions, qualifications or her teenage daughter’s private situation which even her opponent says should be kept out of the political arena. Let’s leave those items aside and focus on the attacks on her bio.)
Today’s New York Timeshas a page one story about what they coyly dubbed, “The Mommy Wars: Special Campaign Edition:”
“. . . [T]his time the battle lines are drawn inside out, with social conservatives, usually staunch advocates for stay-at-home motherhood, mostly defending [Palin], while some others, including plenty of working mothers, worry that she is taking on too much.”
The article continued:
“In interviews, many women, citing their own difficulties with less demanding jobs, said it would be impossible for Ms. Palin to succeed both at motherhood and in the nation’s second-highest elected position at once . . . Many women expressed incredulity — some of it polite, some angry — that Ms. Palin would pursue the vice presidency given her younger son’s age and condition.”
I donned my TV critic’s cap and dished with one of the two Manic Mommies about the new fall television season, the national political conventions, the Olympics, Mad Men, 90210, The Office and what I think about the title of the new CBS show, The Mentalist.
You can get directions on how to download/listen to the Manic Mommies podcast here. (It’s a radio show on the internet, for the uninitiated.) Or you can just go to iTunes and download it for free — gotta love the free! – to listen to our sparklingly witty conversation.
As I continued to marvel at the surprising GOP vice presidential selection, I fired off a column about my impressions of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s first national speech to the folks at Mommy Track’d in a piece entitled, “McCain & The Working Mom.”
Additionally, I wrote an essay about the difficulties working women have when they are asked to speak at national political conventions when their spouses are running for president, called, “Michelle As First Lady: General Election Edition.”
Local mom and author Meredith O'Brien gives you a peek behind the picket fences of modern day parenting. With humor and candor, it's her take on real parenting in the real world.
Gal bloggers — including yours truly — will be heading up to Burlington, MA this Saturday for a day-long BlogHER event which will feature speakers such as Lisa Stone, founder of BlogHER, and Boston Mama’s Christine Koh.
Local mom and author Meredith O'Brien gives you a peek behind the picket fences of modern day parenting. With humor and candor, it's her take on real parenting in the real world.
