Cuts both ways

I recently read MMs post here on the judgement SAHMs face and my comment ended up being too long so it is coming up as this post -

I think it it cuts both ways. I see plenty of SAHMs that tend to have a sanctimonious attitude when they talk to and of working mothers "I don't know - my family is so important to me that I could never leave them and go out to work". "I could never leave my child the way you do and go somewhere outside to work". Err, I think that a majority of mothers anywhere in the world would place their family and children on the top of their important list, working or not. WHy then do I have to hear statements that imply that by choosing to work, I have somehow brought down my family's importance in my life? That I choose to add something to my list of what is important in my life (in this case, me, namely because I don't need to work for the money but for the rush I feel from working))?. A lot of SAHMs behave like they have martyred themselves to the cause of raising their babies, especially when they sound defensive and qualify their choice with how important their family is to them and how they have placed their children over their selves. Plenty of SAHMs go to a gym, go shopping, get on the telephone with their chums everyday - arent they choosing a few minutes or an hour or two for themselves during those times? That is their "me time", granted. My "me time" takes up more time in a day than their "me time". So what?

The bottom line is this - each of us have to be at peace within ourselves for the choices we have made. For the longest time, statements like the ones above made me feel less of a mom somehow, that somehow I was committing a crime for leaving my children under someone else's care. As time (and a short 3 month stint at home) went by though I realized this - you do what you have to to be in a happy place deep inside. The happy place changes, what makes you happy changes but only you can judge what that is - you only need to be flexible enough to recognize that and move with the flow. Something that another mother does is not necessarily one that puts you in your happy place. As your kids grow and mature, their needs increase in certain areas and decrease in others and as a mother, you instinctively recognize the increased pockets of need and step in while pulling away from other places where they don't need you anymore or need you less (and I believe that pulling away is as important as stepping in). As more and more mothers choose to either join or leave the workplace, we have to recognize that it is OUR" choice and cease to make excuses for making them, other people be damned! Nobody else walks in my uniquely fitting shoes and nobody else is qualified to make a pronouncement on how those shoes pinch their feet, whether I am an SAHM or a work outside the home mom!

Breastfeeding - the right to choose?

There was a recent report here that talks about how exclusively breastfeeding can save more lives every year. The report states that new moms should not be blamed but instead lays the blame on latching on problems and grandmothers dissuading against the practice. I breastfed each of my children exclusively for 6 months and then almost till each was almost 13mths and 19mths respectively. I can tell you what an effort it took to stick to my beliefs. First of all my children were diagnosed with a dairy allergy so that if I took even a spoon of any dairy product, they would pass blood in their stools. I went through 2 excruciatingly painful months for mother and child when we put baby(ies) on a special formula and waited to flush the dairy out of their system. All this while, I still wanted to keep my supply up and ended up pumping and throwing - I know how much it hurt to throw 30 to 40 ounces of pumped milk each day while my children would refuse to drink that nasty smellling formula. All this while, the doctors kept telling me to stop eating most of the food that I eat because they were making my children gassy until all that I was left with eating was rice, green beans sauteed in a little oil and chayote squash cooked with mung beans every single day for 3 months! There was not even a gaurantee that I could go back to feeding them myself if they didn't stop the symptoms. Once I started work at 6 weeks, there were other challenges. My employer fortunately is one of the few that have made provisions for breastfeeding moms (and deserves a kudos for taking these steps) - our sites are fully equipped with rooms that have pump bases and refrigerators and access to support groups to connect to other working and breastfeeding mothers. However, when you go back to work after a baby, you are already aware that people are watching how much you let that affect your work. When you take 15 (and sometimes 30 minutes) every 3 hours to pump to keep up supply and baby's needs, there is a ton of guilt associated with that. That of course is my problem to deal with because at the end of the day, I was lucky that my employer had provided the facilities and once they do that, they are aware of the time spent with the activity. I however know other women that have not had that luxury - some of them have actually used a restroom and a hand pump and tried to relieve painful mastitis because there was nowhere for them to pump! Employers also do not take kindly to a woman that has just come back from a 6 week "vacation" (a lot of single guys would ask me when I was going off on "vacation" to have my baby:)) taking off what would amount to a hour of each day trying to pump milk to keep up breastfeeding. The other aspect that needs mentioning are lactating consultants. While what they do is laudable and they do help so many women with supply and lactating issues, many of them come across very strongly and refuse to consider the possibility that mom is actually trying hard but baby just will not drink. One woman told me how much the lc blamed her for not trying hard enough that she ended up thinking she was committing nothing short of a crime by switching to formula. The "grandmother" factor is very strong too. My children were advised not to have any solids till they were 6 months old and to be fed exclusively on either breastmilk or formula during that time. I met a woman on the flight back from India who was shocked that any one would consider "starving" the baby that way (and she was'nt a grandmother to be sure - she had a baby girl 4 months older than my son at that time!). It was quite annoying to listen to someone tell me I was starving my children after all the trouble I went through to stay off dairy just to be able to breastfeed them. And ofcourse the numerous people around that will jump up and say that baby is crying so much because mother probably doesn't have enough milk? Or to be made to feed the baby within half an hour of feeding because baby was making sucking motions with his mouth in his sleep which can only be interpreted as hunger again? No wonder women find it hard to stick to exclusively breastfeeding their baby, with all the pressures they face today. The benefits are many, I believe in them tremendously. However, like the right to choose, I do believe this is one issue that is a mom's right to choose and she should be allowed to make that choice without society blaming her for being a bad mother or predicting doom for baby.

PS: Since I last wrote this, I came across an article here detailing that President Obama has signed into that it is mandatory for companies with more that 50 employees to provide a private, secluded area for mothers to safely express breastmilk. Awesome!

Dream for your daughter?

I am living the feminist dream - I am married to an utterly wonderful, non-chauvinistic man, who is not even aware while he is making them that his choices speak of equal rights for women. This post is not about my husband, but he is my excuse for why I have not had a single feminist rant on my blog so far. I read about issues women face and feel far removed from it all in my day to day life. Sometimes though, I read or come across something that shakes me out of my stupor and make me rethink my whole "I don't have a single reason to rant" lifestyle - what affects one woman affects all women as a collective and advocacy for women's rights cannot be dependant upon our individual life experiences - in that you can start advocating for a cause because of a negative experience you may have had, but you cannot stop because of one positive or continuing positive personal experiences. So here goes ...

I recently was speaking to a group of working mothers, most of us had cajoled, bribed and pushed our children into getting ready for a swim class and were exhausted and one mom started talking about how hard it was working and taking care of home and children and how going to part time hurt her career so she had to switch back to full time. What she said next made me sit up and take notice. She said " What do I tell my daughter about careers? I am personally at a point where I feel tired and exhausted and that I have completely wasted a good portion of my life following a dream that I am even debating that I needed in the first place. I could have just stayed at home, never had a career and hence never had a conflict of interest. Do I tell my daughter that she would have a better life if she decided to stay at home ?".
This stayed with me the whole day - how much our mothers influence our choice of life styles, career choices and life goals. I have sons and have never given much thought to their career choices or whether they will even have one. I hope I haven't been sexist in assuming my children would of course work outside. My own mother dreamt for my sister and me and she dreamt big. My grandfather used to joke that she had determined that I was going to get a Ph.D. at 2. Anyway, I wonder whether my life would have been different if my mother had decided to work outside, if she had become disillusioned with the inequities that exist in the pay structure based on sex, if she had tired of the constant battle to manage home and her job outside, would she still have pushed us as she did?

While you hear more and more about the stay at home dad, Woman is still largely the parent that quits her once loved job to look after her children. Woman is still the parent that has her career stunted because of a choice to cut back on responsibility or go part time. Woman is the parent that will hang herself out on a limb for missing bedtime because of a deadline. Woman is crying on the inside for giving up the opportunity to work in another country for two months while the mother in her thanks her for sparing them the separation. Woman is the parent that in many jobs earns lesser than Man for the same load of work - apparently, as a society we still are under the impression that women produce lesser throughput than men. Woman is the parent that has to learn to not act like a girl to be taken serioulsy - apparently, men will promote only if a woman is man like in nature. Woman is the parent whose choice is constantly reviled - her choice of working outside makes her seem uncaring and unloving to some and her choice to stay at home makes her seem antiquated and unambitious to another. Woman is the parent whose right to choose is constantly threatened - she must have her baby even if it means she will not survive the pregnancy to raise it. Woman is the parent who is under constant pressure to live the image of the "perfect mom" touted on any which magazine she reads. Woman is the parent who constantly has to maintain the perfectly spotless home, cook perfectly nutritious meals, coach perfect little soccer games, make the perfect presentation at work and have the perfect bedtime story. Woman is the parent that must be super-mom.
Little wonder then that my friend was confused about whether she wanted this life style for her daughter. I wonder what I would have told my daughter.

Do you have a daughter? What would you tell her?