Martha Hirschfield and Hanna Rosin
What Have We Become?
By Hanna Rosin
Posted Monday, Jan. 8, 2001, at 3:48 PM ETHi again.
I hadn't considered that, about the euthanized pets. But that might explain the sinister nature of most lullabies, which seem to involve babies falling out of trees or animals killing lesser animals. "Rock a Bye Baby" is the obvious one, but our children's songbook is a National Geographic bloodlust special: foxes eating geese, snakes eating frogs, and sheep eaten by everyone.
As for the new parent brain chemistry, I wonder if it might produce some interesting stream-of-consciousness-type writing. Often, the brain on parenting reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson--a sleep deprived stupor punctuated by bursts of wonder, and so much happening after midnight. I read a bit of his diary the other day. All those entries in the wee small hours--"Christ. It's 5:40 AM." "Cazark. It's 5:57." Maybe I too should keep a typewriter by my bedside.
I read a bit more of the paper in between messages (with one hand of course). Did you happen to see that article about Laura Bush's dressmaker? So many conservatives complained about how style-types catted about Katherin Harris' excessive makeup--Mascaragate, as Margaret Talbot dubbed it in the New York Times Magazine. But what about poor Laura Bush. People have started sizing up her Inauguration outfits like she were a cow at auction. "She maintains her weight beautifully," one "friend" told the paper. "She's a handsome woman. You can't call her pretty, but in the hands of the right designer she's just going to bloom." Ouch.
I do wonder, though, how this town will look under Republicans. My hairdresser has already complained that her reputation is at stake since all these Texas women are coming in for the Inauguration and insisting she tease their hair to the moon.
Have you started reading parenting magazines yet? I just checked out this month's Parenting, where His Eminence Dr. Sears has a long advice column on how to deal with colicky babies. Don't you suspect parents ask about colic every month, as if if they could figure that out they'd unlock all the mysteries of good parenting.
I know what you mean about The Handoff. Since David's gone back to work it does feel like a bit of a relief. But even then, listen to us. You wrote "We do the Handoff" not so you can go read a book or write a brief but to "get dinner together." Oh, what have we become?
OK, time for an afternoon walk.
H
What Have We Become?
By Hanna Rosin
Posted Monday, Jan. 8, 2001, at 3:48 PM ETMartha Hirschfield is an attorney, a new mom, and is married to Slate's William Saletan. Hanna Rosin is a Washington Post reporter on maternity leave and is married to Slate's David Plotz, who is Martha Hirschfield's cousin once removed.
Reader Comments From The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: A lot of messages about birth control, and about penguins. Great discussion on childcare followed on from Paul Decker's post, below. Some readers--how can we put this?--weren't fully in sympathy with the Breakfast Table's new mothers: others were.]
I quote: "Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: But what if Noa want to be a zoologist, specializing in penguins?" I suppose we need to cut new mommies some slack, but there aren't any penguins at all in the Arctic. How many hundreds of emails came in with this point? Sigh. Unfortunate, but there it is, the medium makes criticism so much easier. If this were print in the pre-internet era, then you might get two letters pointing out that penguins live down below in the Antarctic and are primarily food for leopard seals and so forth. But now, with Dear Editor only a click-on-reply away, the possibility of gazillions of outraged penguinphiles writing to you at once and crashing your server can't be called a mere possibility, but rather a stone cold certainty, and cold stones naturally brings me back to the odd fascination penguins have with pebbles, which they stack in little heaps. Nearly 15 years ago, when the oldest of the offspring was a newly gooing bundle and I was the only dad in the park with a stroller, I decided to do something once a day in the company of grownups, so as not to go berserk. I wound up taking Intro Chinese. The rest is rock and roll history, and here I am in Beijing, with three and a half years already spent here in a couple of big chunks, and all four sons fluent in Mandarin Chinese-- two in fact taking end of term Chinese tests as I write-- and all because when Martin was born, there was no internet, there was no Breakfast Table, there was no email inbox, there was no Instant Messenger. Congratulations on the birth of your wee one. Says I, father and primary child care provider for nearly a decade and a half, there is nothing better. Nothing comes close.
--Mike Connelly
(To reply, click
here.)
A pacifier is not pure distraction. It has mystical properties. I believe the sucking actually produces changes in the child's neurochemistry. The problem is how to get the damn things away from them. My 2 and three-quarter month old daughter worships her pacifiers--she literally builds shrines to her pacifiers. Help!
--David Edelstein
(To reply, click
here.)
Pacifier elimination is the first cold turkey parenting situation. Later will come unlimited cable TV and internet privileges. Depending on how phone services are billed in your locality, phone call privileges may go the way of the pacifiers for some period of time so that school work can get done on time. If you are lucky to not have free local calling, you can just make them pay for the itemized charges which usually makes them stop calling their friends all night long.
The cute thing about teenagers is that they whine the same way they did as two year olds when you took away the pacifiers.
--Tom R.
(To reply, click
here.)
New mother Hanna has not spent enough time reading trashy women's novels. They often make reference to abortifacients, usually after the heroine gives it up to the hero in some ill-advised fashion, gets pregnant, and tries to keep it a secret. Fun things like wacky combinations of herbs. Even better, the birth control measures! Sponges soaked with vinegar!
As far as the Pill being an abortifacient as well as a preventive measure: it does prevent ovulation, as Momma Hirshfeld points out. However, it provides a backup plan as well. If you do ovulate anyway, the fertilized egg cannot implant into the uterine wall. So, technically, a potentially viable pregnancy is ended. The key word is technically - certain people, such as Ashcroft, will make any argument rather than accept that people should have control over their own bodies. Why do certain Republicans think the government should no power over our monetary decisions, but should have total control over our biological ones?
--Laura
(To reply, click
here.)
Apparently Martha was able to find a place in a decent child care center because of her affiliation with a federal agency. But what of the vast number of other families without access to such resources? Preschool child care is a state issue (except in the federal District of Columbia), but as far as I know, no state is doing anything to support it. Yet, there has been no organized movement to do anything to change this, either by getting state support for private preschools or by any other means (though there are plenty of efforts to get state support for private schools, and they aren't all religious).
I have thought from time to time that raising child care work from its current low-paid ghettoization in the dot-com economy would be a unifying cause that liberals, moderates, and even some conservatives would embrace. It hasn't happened yet, but I haven't given up hope.
--Paul Decker
(To reply, click
here.)
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Reader Comments From The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: A lot of messages about birth control, and about penguins. Great discussion on childcare followed on from Paul Decker's post, below. Some readers--how can we put this?--weren't fully in sympathy with the Breakfast Table's new mothers: others were.]
I quote: "Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: But what if Noa want to be a zoologist, specializing in penguins?" I suppose we need to cut new mommies some slack, but there aren't any penguins at all in the Arctic. How many hundreds of emails came in with this point? Sigh. Unfortunate, but there it is, the medium makes criticism so much easier. If this were print in the pre-internet era, then you might get two letters pointing out that penguins live down below in the Antarctic and are primarily food for leopard seals and so forth. But now, with Dear Editor only a click-on-reply away, the possibility of gazillions of outraged penguinphiles writing to you at once and crashing your server can't be called a mere possibility, but rather a stone cold certainty, and cold stones naturally brings me back to the odd fascination penguins have with pebbles, which they stack in little heaps. Nearly 15 years ago, when the oldest of the offspring was a newly gooing bundle and I was the only dad in the park with a stroller, I decided to do something once a day in the company of grownups, so as not to go berserk. I wound up taking Intro Chinese. The rest is rock and roll history, and here I am in Beijing, with three and a half years already spent here in a couple of big chunks, and all four sons fluent in Mandarin Chinese-- two in fact taking end of term Chinese tests as I write-- and all because when Martin was born, there was no internet, there was no Breakfast Table, there was no email inbox, there was no Instant Messenger. Congratulations on the birth of your wee one. Says I, father and primary child care provider for nearly a decade and a half, there is nothing better. Nothing comes close.
--Mike Connelly
(To reply, click here.)
A pacifier is not pure distraction. It has mystical properties. I believe the sucking actually produces changes in the child's neurochemistry. The problem is how to get the damn things away from them. My 2 and three-quarter month old daughter worships her pacifiers--she literally builds shrines to her pacifiers. Help!
--David Edelstein
(To reply, click here.)
Pacifier elimination is the first cold turkey parenting situation. Later will come unlimited cable TV and internet privileges. Depending on how phone services are billed in your locality, phone call privileges may go the way of the pacifiers for some period of time so that school work can get done on time. If you are lucky to not have free local calling, you can just make them pay for the itemized charges which usually makes them stop calling their friends all night long.
The cute thing about teenagers is that they whine the same way they did as two year olds when you took away the pacifiers.
--Tom R.
(To reply, click here.)
New mother Hanna has not spent enough time reading trashy women's novels. They often make reference to abortifacients, usually after the heroine gives it up to the hero in some ill-advised fashion, gets pregnant, and tries to keep it a secret. Fun things like wacky combinations of herbs. Even better, the birth control measures! Sponges soaked with vinegar!
As far as the Pill being an abortifacient as well as a preventive measure: it does prevent ovulation, as Momma Hirshfeld points out. However, it provides a backup plan as well. If you do ovulate anyway, the fertilized egg cannot implant into the uterine wall. So, technically, a potentially viable pregnancy is ended. The key word is technically - certain people, such as Ashcroft, will make any argument rather than accept that people should have control over their own bodies. Why do certain Republicans think the government should no power over our monetary decisions, but should have total control over our biological ones?
--Laura
(To reply, click here.)
Apparently Martha was able to find a place in a decent child care center because of her affiliation with a federal agency. But what of the vast number of other families without access to such resources? Preschool child care is a state issue (except in the federal District of Columbia), but as far as I know, no state is doing anything to support it. Yet, there has been no organized movement to do anything to change this, either by getting state support for private preschools or by any other means (though there are plenty of efforts to get state support for private schools, and they aren't all religious).
I have thought from time to time that raising child care work from its current low-paid ghettoization in the dot-com economy would be a unifying cause that liberals, moderates, and even some conservatives would embrace. It hasn't happened yet, but I haven't given up hope.
--Paul Decker
(To reply, click here.)