Mr. Limbaugh, I am not a slut for using contraceptives

I am a woman who planned her family carefully, so that we would not be an undue burden on society when my husband and I chose to have children. We had been married for almost 4 years before our first child was conceived, and have been together very exclusively for nearly 16 years. How long has your most recent marriage lasted, sir?

Your non-apology is not acceptable. You repeatedly point out your "problem" with insurance paying for contraceptives, medication that has many other usages other than simply preventing pregnancy. Where is your outrage over the same insurance companies (who often do NOT cover contraceptive medications) offering unquestioned coverage of medications the sole purpose of which is to make MALE reproductive organs behave in a different way than nature is directing them to? Why is Viagra OK for the rest of us to pay for, but not contraceptives? The ripple effect costs of Viagra are MUCH higher, in fact - since it increases the chances of the female partner becoming pregnant, thus putting the insurance company (or Medicaid) on the hook for prenatal care, childbirth expenses, and the associated costs of that new human being. This is why, when all is accounted for, the insurance companies actually really don't have a problem with footing the bill for contraceptives - it SAVES them money. It saves ALL of us money, when there are not more unhealthy, unwanted pregnancies happening in our country - that result in medical complications and births that the state and/or other hospital users wind up bearing the costs of instead. In my own state, about half of all births are paid for by Medicaid last I looked. If a laboring woman goes to a hospital without insurance, they can't turn her away so they wind up writing off the cost of the birth - by passing on the expense via increasing the costs of other hospital services that people who CAN pay need. We all lose.

I am also asking anyone who reads this to not send me any gifts from ProFlowers until they pull their advertising from Mr. Limbaugh's show, and advising that you think hard about whether to use their service at all with others whom you'd like to send a gift in the near future. When contacted regarding the controversy, they have been sending the following robo-reply email (I verified it is verbatum what others have posted):

Thank you for your feedback. We spend our advertising dollars across a wide spectrum of media channels. The views and opinions of the media outlets and personalities we advertise with are not necessarily those of our company.

We simply wish to delight our customers with fresh and unique gifting products, and that will continue to happen to the best of our abilities.

My response:

If the views and opinions of the media personalities are not in line with those of your company, then I respectfully ask that you cease advertising during their show. If anyone sends me flowers from ProFlowers before you cease advertising on that vile man's show, I will refuse delivery. As far as I'm concerned, you're as effectively calling women who use contraceptives prostitutes as he is, and that does NOT make me want flowers with your logo on it. Being treated to gender slurs for expecting that insurance companies that cover medication for erectile dysfunction will also cover medications that benefit WOMEN'S reproductive organs is NOT something that "delights" me, and until your company ceases advertising with the spewer of such vileness, I will envision your logo on Rush Limbaugh's face every time I see it. While that may be a UNIQUE image, it is not fresh nor delightful.

I encourage all of you to push companies you do business with to have the courage of their convictions, and ask them to find better ways than hatemongers to promote their goods and services.

Uproar over new Lego Friends sets

So, I've been hearing (well, mostly reading online.. and making myself) a lot of fussing especially from mostly Adult Fans of Lego (aka AFOL) about the new Lego brand "Friends" line that is targeted specifically at girls (read what you may into the fact that my biggest problem with it is NOT the gender stereotyping of the activities presented - my biggest issue has to do with functionality of the humanoid figurines. I've always been much more of a nerd than a feminist.). Even given that, I was still surprised to get the following email from change.org - and really bothered by the level of inaccuracy in the claims they make about the product. It concerns me because now I will be questioning the veracity of the claims they make about much more important issues than children's toys (though, as a sociologist-in-training specifically interested in child development and symbolic interactionism, toys are a VERY important issue to me - ESPECIALLY those that are targeted specifically to one traditional stereotype subset of gender).

The text of the email was:

Tell LEGO: Stop marketing sexist toys to girls Dear Ahmie, Iconic toy brand LEGO recently launched a new line of toys meant just for girls -- but two young women, Bailey Shoemaker-Richards and Stephanie Cole, think the products are unfairly "dumbed down" for girls. The new line is called LadyFigs, and it's made up ofbusty, pastel-colored figurines that come with interests like shopping, hair-dressing, and lounging at the beach. The uninspired toys even come with pre-assembled environments -- so there is no assembly (or imagination) required. Bailey and Stephanie say they're frustrated that LEGO is pushing outdated gender roles on girls and cheating them of the opportunity to build and discover. So they took to the internet, blogging about what they call the new "Barbielicious" LEGOs andpetitioning the toy company to lose the sexist LadyFigs line and go back to empowering both boys and girls with its original products. Click here to sign Bailey and Stephanie's petition today. LEGO hasn't always thought its toys were only for boys. In the 1980s, the company was actually celebrated for a major advertising campaign that spotlighted a young girl and her LEGO creation with the tagline "What it is is beautiful." But since then, LEGO reversed course and decided to market its products only to boys. The company claims its research shows girls just don't appreciate the original LEGO line. But Bailey and Stephanie argue that with LEGO's renewed emphasis on boys -- featuring only boys in its ads and stocking products in the boys' aisles of toy stores -- it's no wonder young girls wouldn't think LEGOs were meant for them. Bailey and Stephanie's fight to get LEGO to return to its gender-neutral toys is already making waves, with the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Time weighing in on the issue. But LEGO is stubbornly holding its ground and told Business Week that the LadyFigs launch is a "strategic" move to "reach the other 50 percent of the world's children," as if girls have never been part of LEGO's focus. Public pressure can prove LEGO wrong. If enough people sign Bailey and Stephanie's petition, it could convince LEGO that the new LadyFigs are bad business and the company should return its focus to empowering boys AND girls with toys that inspire creativity and innovation. Tell LEGO to stop selling out girls -- sign Bailey and Stephanie's petition today. Thanks for being a change-maker, - Shelby and the Change.org team

My reply (which I suspect may have gone to an unmonitored email address - I didn't research who to reach Shelby specifically yet and am unlikely to get a chance to tonight - hopefully I will remember to do so tomorrow) was:

I don't know if this message will ever be read, but I feel the need - as an Adult Female Fan of Legos and mother of three sons ages 7 and under, to clarify some inaccuracies in your email.

First, the sets do NOT come pre-assembled. Basic investigation reveals that they are full of standard bricks in addition to the human-esque figurine. The other parts are standard Lego products, and work fine with any of the other sets they've made in the last 30 years and beyond for the most part. The tools are the same size as standard minifig tools, in fact most of them are actually from the same molds as long-existing parts, just in new colors. The $10 sets have about 80 pieces each, of which only four are the humanoid figurine. Many AFOL (Adult Fans of Lego - gender neutral but mostly males) plan to buy the sets and get rid of the dolls, because the sets themselves are actually quite a nice assortment of parts. The Cafe set will be finding its way into our own expansive Lego village. These sets actually have more complex builds than many of the sets targeted to boys or gender-neutral over the years (many of which are in our own large personal Lego collection). For instance, the Harry Potter series sets often had large prefab wall pieces that offer much less repurposing flexibility than what is in much of these sets (though as a caveat: that's not apples-to-apples entirely, as I have not had chance to examine the most expensive set currently on offer on the Friends line - the house may have the same pre-fab walls like much of the Castle/Kingdom/Harry Potter sets used; I can't tell from pictures). They are comparable in complexity, from all appearances, with the currently offered Superheros line Lego is offering.

Secondly, Lego refers to them as "mini-dolls" not "LadyFigs".

Third, this is just the first few sets to come out. Barbie didn't become a doctor or an astronaut for a LONG time after she hit shelves, I would predict that Lego will be having its Friends in space much sooner (and the new Series 6 Collectible Minifig set features a female surgeon along with the uber-pink blond-bombshell-in-space that I affectionately refer to as "astrobimbo"... baby steps, I guess...). Given that Lego is headquartered in a country that is lightyears ahead of the US in pretty much every indicator of social inequalities (I say this as a sociologist-in-training), I trust them to advance the cause of women pretty rapidly. The "Olivia" character seems a pretty competent budding scientist with a well-stocked personal lab (including microscope) in which she appears to have built her own robot, "Mia" with a little imagination becomes an animal rights activist, and "Emma" has a nice complex design studio that is NOT dumbed-down (yes, she appears to be designing fashions, but swap out the "whiteboard" piece - it is a standard shape available without the printing on it - and she could be a budding architect with the rest of the stuff in the $10 set... this would be the ONE time I am sorry to NOT have had a sticker instead of a pre-printed brick come out of the box).

As for Lego being in the "boys" part of stores, every Target and Toys R Us I have been in in the last decade has a "Lego aisle" (if not several) that has nothing but Lego products, many of which I, as a female, have considered as interesting as my husband and other Lego fans in my social circles have.

I do not hold Lego innocent in this at all - I am actually working on an academic research project that will hopefully be a published academic journal article about what I believe are the REAL roots of the "lack of affection" girls have for the standard minifigs - number one problem being the horrible gender imbalance in the Lego Minifig population (it's less than 20% female, and the female offerings generally are not as interesting and detailed as the average for the male offerings). I do believe Lego made many missteps in this new Friends line. I am severely irritated that they have less articulation in their joints than the minifigures do (their wrists don't turn, their legs don't move independently, and they can't lean backwards - I do not believe that evolution should reduce functionality) and the shape of the feet is problematic with positioning in relation to built components on baseplates, and they can't sit on the studs/pegs of the bricks and be locked into position like the minifigs can - all of these are functional design problems that they should have solved before going to market if they wanted to prevent the severe negative response they've gotten.

My personal opinion is that the company AND consumer base would have been better served by first bringing the standard minifig population into gender-balance via offering all-female minifig packs (similar to how they offer "battle packs" for various lines), making some new female face and torso designs, and releasing those as well as the already-available minifig hair pieces in every color option through their online pick-a-brick store at minimum (as a box set assortment similar to they have done with "community workers" and the "fairytale figures" sets for retail shelf purchase would be a good move too). THEN work on evolving the minifig - taller, rounder, more humanly shaped like the mini-dolls without losing the functionality of the minifigs, ESPECIALLY if it meant they didn't look somewhat anorexic (I do commend them on giving the mini-dolls a more realistic breast size than many other dolls-with-breasts on the market over the years, but those arms are scary-skinny in relation to the hand size, and the skinniness of the arms is why the physics of a functional wrist don't work). It is the lack of functionality that makes these mini-dolls less appealing to my 7 year old son (who, when given free reign to build three minifigs for $10 at our local Lego store generally goes for female minifig parts without prompting since he knows intuitively that he doesn't have as many of those as the male parts on offer). When looking at the Friends sets on the shelves at our local Target, once he realized they were actually Lego products (he was more confused by them not being in the Lego aisle and mini-dolls than by the actual content of the sets or color of the boxes), he was actually quite interested in playing with them. I have video recorded his initial impression at the store as well as his initial reaction to the mini-dolls themselves, and have his permission to share those publicly.

I will be reposting this message on my blog. I believe more discussion is better, all around, and that nothing is furthered by folks going off on a crusade based upon faulty first impressions.

Thank you for reading.

Ahmie

Mom, writer, Sociology graduate student, and AFOL - amongst other things.

I will be uploading the videos of my eldest child Liam (age 7.5 years) and his reaction to the products shortly and will edit this post to include the link when I do. If you have thoughts to share with me about this, please do so here on my Blogger blog (http://dragonmama.blogspot.com) instead of on Facebook or Google+ or wherever this might be reposted, so that the conversation stays in one place visible to all interested participants.

Ahmie

edit: update - after kids fell asleep I did some googling and sent a @ message on Twitter to ShelbyKnox with a link to this blog post, hopefully she sees it and comes to engage here, if time allows. She sounds like a busy woman.

On my 7th World Breastfeeding Week as a lactivist

I type this with my 14mo asleep across my lap, nuzzled up to my breast while his father snuggles the older two into unconsciousness. I'm exhausted but felt the need to post something, this may be rambling nonsense so preemptive apologies if it gets too tangenty.

It's been a wild seven years since my first, first week of August(aka World Breastfeeding Week) as a breastfeeding mother in 2004. Back then, my state didn't recognize the legal right of my baby to eat wherever he was when he happened to be hungry and I could have been asked to leave a store for feeding him. Now, I still might get hassled for it but at least there's a law in place (thanks in very small part to Liam and I going down to our state capital to testify for the legislation). Teeth to it would be nice sometimes.

We just got back from an exhausting trip to NYC (whose state law does, incidentally, have "teeth" - there's at least a stated fine for harassing people for breastfeeding) where we stayed with my bro-in-law, visited with my mom-in-law's friends (NOT my idea of a great time after driving 500 miles in 11 hours with 3 young children, to have to then drive MORE to sit around a table for more than an hour while people socialized in a language I can't understand... but... whatever. I got to see the Harry Potter exhibition with my kids before it leaves the continent so I can't complain TOO much, right?). The baby H.A.T.E.S. his carseat, and is only somewhat mullified by playing music (when I want to be listening to audiobooks, of course). I had just got a new cell phone (my first Android, because my 2.5yr old Blackberry was dying), and had a new stereo installed in the van so I could do hands-free calling, and wound up streaming music from my phone through the stereo via bluetooth since it was easier to switch back to the audiobook if Little Bear allowed me to. Luckily my kids don't insist on listening to "kids music" (Liam's favorite song is by Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics, Del's current favorite song is by Alanis Morrissette, and Col tends to want Take to the Sky by Tori Amos, which is a b-side from Little Earthquakes and my "theme song"). I wasn't even sure what was ON my cell phone's memory card, I'd just copied everything over from the Blackberry since I used some of them as ringtones. Turned out to have some stuff that made me sentimental, and brought out a little of the militant lactivist/DragonMama in me, possibly to the chagrin of some of the other people in the restaurants we dined in bwahahahaha (no you obnoxious Jersey Shore types, I'm NOT interested in your parenting advice as your inappropriately dressed teens act like total cretins in public, thankyouverymuch).

The music pulls me back to my younger, more-steamroller-than-diplomat days (err... yes... I *have* gotten better about it, believe it or not). I find that I've needed to find a balance point between the assertive no-I'm-going-to-do-what's-right-up-yours-if-you're-gonna-try-to-oppress-me attitude (tho yeah, that still comes out... pretty much daily, to be honest) and the let's-see-if-we-can-find-a-win-win-compromise-that-doesn't-make-me-want-to-vomit-from-compromising-my-integrity end that I fear I may have to cultivate if I ever want to be a college professor. Motherhood has really helped me learn to SEEK that balance point more, even if I still tip to the former quite often.

I had Tori's From the Choirgirl Hotel album playing today while running errands. The album was written after the musician had a miscarriage. I don't think I've listened to it beginning-to-end since becoming a mother myself. I almost started crying during Playboy Mommy. It hit me hard when I first heard it, years before Liam was conceived, but now it reminds me of how very blessed I am to have had uneventful pregnancies and healthy children (especially since we had a friend's 4 year old daughter in the van with us - the friend is newly pregnant again currently, had miscarried a very wanted child shortly before I conceived Col then got pregnant again, the new baby will be less than 2 years younger than that baby). It made me think of the bonds motherhood has formed between me and other women, both child-bearers and not, and how much it has made my maternal line mean to me.

This has also been on my mind today because my mother forwarded to me an article written about my grand-uncle (maternal grandmother's brother, my grandmother is the only one of her siblings to ever marry, her siblings were like additional grandparents to me), which deeply touched me that my uncle's work has survived to be appreciated more than two decades after his death. I wonder what kind of ripples my own life's work will have. If long after I'm gone someone has such kind words to say about me that my descendants can come across, that will tell them that my life was well-lived. I wish I knew more about Uncle Norvin, I hope that my descendants will know more about me (and that I'll live long enough to know more about them... he was only in his mid-60s when he died, I was in kindergarten).

The milk of human kindness flows in many ways, but our babies deserve it first from their mother's breasts. How, in this scary economy, can we make that possible for more women? I am blessed to have had the privilege to breastfeed my children full-term (biologically - other mammals do not wean their young before they have enough teeth to eat a full adult diet... ponder that the next time you hear someone say "that baby is too old to be breastfed". If they're still young enough to have jars of baby food marketed to them, they're still young enough to be fed the way they were born expecting to be nourished). How can we be more kind in a meaningful manner, with mothers who have so many barriers to the way they might want to live? How can we make it possible for the cashier at the grocery store (who mentioned that she is hoping to have another child while commenting on the coolness of the baby carrier - a traditional Chinese style one - we had with us) to breastfeed her own for as long as she might like to, without making her feel like we have no understanding of the complexities of her life that just BEGIN with the chaos of her work schedule? Meaningful, PAID parental leave when a child is born would be part of it, but making breastfeeding mothers feel welcome and accepted in public places instead of abiding the mentality of the few that breastfeeding should only be done at home, behind closed doors - that'd be a start, I think. We've got such a long way to go. I hope that we get there before I'm a memory like my uncle.

Facebook says this is offensive

I think it is a demonstration of utilitarian artistry.

The chain mail was made by a friend of mine at my request, and apparently my 6 week old having a meal during a wedding is offensive. (baby Col's ubercool newborn chain mail vest was made by the same couple, as far as I know they're not taking orders being busy with their OWN wedding planning)

Methinks someone is just jealous that they're not cool enough to have a chain mail nursing bra & newborn layette, or the guts to wear AND use one. Wanker.






I'm also pretty sure I know who the WOMAN who reported the image is. A breeder who spends more time complaining than being a role model worthy of the title "mother", who told me to go fuck myself for standing up for a friend of mine when she went off on her.

Guess what?

Don't fuck with the lactivist in the chain mail nursing bra.

Or her friends.



Or Doctor Who fangirls.

Welcome to your last year of binary dates

Yes, I'm totally embracing my nerdhood in this post. Not exactly "New Year's Resolution" worthy as I've been embracing my nerdhood in various ways for a while (years, if not decades - depending on your perspective and what parts of me you've come to know). One "New Year's Resolution" I'm making is to try to post here more often (this is being posted on my blog, which cross-posts to my Facebook profile, for those of you confused since I am very active on Facebook).

Last Veteran's Day (November 11, for you ingrates who don't bother to spare a thought about those brave folks who defend your liberties on one of the few days set aside for them in our American calendar) it occurred to me that Veteran's Day 2011 will be a very cool date to write out (11/11/11)... it then occurred to me that this past Vet's Day (11/11/10) was the last binary day of 2010 (when all days in the short form of the date are either 1s or 0s). Then the thoughts just totally did a pile-on and I realized that 2011 is likely the last year I'll be able to write dates in a binary format a few times for the rest of my life as I don't really expect to see the year 2100 (possible, but living to be 123 seems rather unlikely. I would turn 124 at the end of 2100).

So all this pondering made me feel like I should do something to more than just say "huh, that's somewhat cool and interesting" every time I notice that the date is binary this year. I've decided that I will take a moment to send wishes of pure contentment to those who see things in a more binary way than I typically do (you could say I'm a bit more hexadecimal than binary I guess... see, the nerdiness just keeps on coming aren't you glad you continued reading???). Not just people I disagree with or don't particularly like (yes, I'm giving YOU a hairy eyeball, Speaker Boehner), but also friends of mine with mental health conditions that can seem rather binary at times (bipolar comes to mind immediately, and there are some aspects of OCD that can be kinda binary too). So if that happens to fit you, if there's something binary about a label applied to you (even if you don't feel at all binary yourself!), I hope you'll feel a little psychic hug from me whenever you write the date and it's all 1s and 0s.... and also if you look at a digital clock on one of those days and notice that IT is only displaying 1s and/or 0s ("or" being appropriate in this case since some folks have digital military clocks that actually display 00:00 once every 24 hours) - maybe consider noticing that the clock is displaying that way on a binary day could feel like a friendly little psychic kiss on the forehead AND hug from me since it's an extra special little quirk of a moment.

So why am I wishing contentment instead of happiness? There is reason for this distinction. I think our society is actually a bit messed up in its seeing the "pursuit of happiness" as a be-all-end-all thing... Happiness is nebulous, undefinable, and fleeting. As a species, anything that seems for a a moment to make us "happy" we seem all too quick to habituate to and be taking for granted in the blink of an eye. Happiness has become a commodity to be sold, almost as much as in the episode of Doctor Who during David Tennant's tenure when he took Martha Jones to New(to the Nth) New York and street vendors were trying to sell him "Happy Happy". Happiness has become linked to that which is disposable in our society - we are a culture of Happy Meals and the associated Made in China plastic crap. I wouldn't consider it a blessing to wish happiness like that on someone, particularly someone who already has an abundance of everything that SHOULD, theoretically, bring happiness - wealth above 90% of other individuals in the world, alleged freedom and equality under the law, and at least one person who gives a crap about their continued existence (me).

For those who have so much, I wish contentment. I wish them, for moments on a regularly occurring basis, to see all that they've got going for them and be content with it instead of constantly trying to acquire more and better and living in a constant state of low-level fear of losing any of what they have. I wish for them to realize how even a small portion of what they have could sustain those less fortunate - here in the U.S. and abroad - for a significant amount of time. I wish for them to take a moment to calculate what percentage of the necessary monthly expenses their pleasure discretionary expense of the moment might cover for a family less fortunate (for reference, the average monthly rent around my home is about $600 for a 2 bedroom unit with bathroom, kitchen, living, and dining rooms. Heating bills in the winter can run between $50 and $200 per month to keep such a home at 68 degrees while occupied, depending on how often someone is home and how well insulated the place is and how old its windows are, so someone who finds themselves confined to the house due to poor health in a poorly insulated place with old windows is really financially screwed unless they can qualify and obtain financial assistance... guess what? That's kinda us, only we don't qualify because my husband makes "too much" money while I'm home with the kids - "too much" in this case being a few hundred dollars a month above our recurring expenses [mortgage, payment for the family van & vehicle insurance, utilities, student loans, food, etc - not luxuries]).

Even with all this, I am content. Even with my physical disabilities that make that van a necessity not a luxury (without it, I would barely be able to leave the house, I can't physically get in and out of the 1991 Honda Civic my husband uses as a commuter car). Yes, there are other things and adventures I'd to have, pleasurable activities I'd like to do that I am prevented from doing because of lack of resources (financial, health, stamina, etc), but my ability to experience the pristine moments real happiness that flit through my life on a regular basis as I hobble from one splashy puddle to another of contentment is not in any way inhibited. Even when I do it in a mobility scooter on days (too frequent recently) when my legs aren't being cooperative.

That recognition, of how good we all really have it, is what I wish for everyone else.

May you be so blessed... and pass it on. Happy New Year.

Hospital Gifts

Let's say that, to entice women to give birth at a specific hospital, the hospital started giving away really nice baby sleeping device to every family that birthed there. While the mom and baby were at the hospital, the baby would become accustomed to the sleeping aid, which would serve to sooth the newborn to sleep quickly and keep them asleep longer. Some were concerned that there could be potential negative side effects - such as newborns not gaining weight appropriately due to not waking often enough to feed - but the manufacturer, hospital, and society in general assured the new mothers that the device was a godsend and would help them get that thing they were constantly being told they'd long for in the coming months: a decent night's sleep.

There's one drawback to this "free" sleep device, though. It only comes with a starter battery that will last for less than a week after discharge, then the replacement batteries cost about $150 per month. And the babies have been trained to really want the device in order to go to sleep by the time it leaves the hospital, so much so that it will reject (with very loud screams) any other method used to try to get them to sleep.

Mothers are pressured - subtlety and not-so-subtlety - to use the device, in some cases being called names if they chose other methods to get their newborns to sleep and willingly "suffer" through the many night-wakings. More hospitals start feeling market pressured to provide this wonderful "free" gift to new families and institute them, until almost every baby born in the country spends their first few unconscious spans of post-birth life in one of the sleep devices.

A few hospitals start to rebel against this trend, instead teaching new parents how to sooth their newborns to sleep in their own arms, only to be criticized for not giving a nice "free" gift to new mothers who live in poverty.

Think this sounds surreal? Guess what... it's what we've been doing as a country for decades, only with infant formula/breastmilk instead of sleep device/mother's arms. And yes, people raise a rukus when hospitals stop giving away the "free" formula samples to new families, even though "free" breastfeeding education, training, and support would save the families more than a THOUSAND DOLLARS in just the first year of the child's life on groceries alone. But we tax-payers get to pay for a lot of that formula instead. Where's the ruckus to do what's right for babies and poor families from the start? Some WIC agencies will provide a breastpump for new moms if they ask for one, but from what I've heard it's a LOT easier to get the "free" formula than the breastpump, and many times the pumps given are inadequate and inefficient (which results in the moms falling back to using formula instead out of frustration).

Can this situation be changed? Only if more of us demand better for American families and stand up to support them instead of looking the other way - or worse, harrassing the new moms who DO try to breastfeed when that happens to be in the presence of others.

Do your part, for us.

Handicap-accessible bathroom stalls

So my twittering/Facebooking about my annoyance with an OBVIOUSLY able-bodied tween using the only handicap-accessible bathroom stall out of 7 stalls (5 of which were empty) at Cedar Point has a fellow UU accusing me of being closed-minded because maybe the young lady (who, I must first inform you, SKIPPED out of the stall past me without so much as an "oops, sorry!" as she headed back out toward the middle of CEDAR POINT - where a disabled person would have needed some assistance - cane, wheelchair, scooter, something - to get to from either entrance) had an "invisible disability" that lead to her needing the hand rails, thus excusing her making an actually, obviously disabled person wait to use the ONE toilet that was safely usable. The fact that the person having this discussion with me is able-bodied enough to vend at various events and is calling me out on behalf of her "disabled friends" and because she took some "Right Relations" seminars at our denomination's annual conference is irritating me a bit (I've been in chronic, daily pain since I was 10 years old - 2/3rds of my life - and have actually done advocacy work with various disabled populations since I was a child, up to and including this week when I've been interfacing with my local school district on behalf of another disabled mother and her child, who lived with us for a week earlier this month).

So, I've decided that I will make a little list of who it doesn't irritate me, personally, as a disabled person, to see coming out of a handicap-accessible stall when I've had to wait with my legs crossed to keep from making a mess on the floor when there are other stalls available for people who don't need the rails.

• Other disabled people who use some kind of assistance to move (cane, wheelchair, etc)
• People with small child(ren) in the stall with them (I totally understand not wanting/being able to squeeze into the regular stalls)
• People changing a baby's diaper (tho it annoys me greatly when the establishment puts the diaper changing station inside the accesible stall, it's obvious that sometimes they don't have any other place to put it safely because of traffic flow)
• People who are in pain (as someone who regularly tries to hide the amount of physical pain I'm in, I can tell when someone has a sore back and needs to use the rails even if they're only temporarily disabled and don't need a walking assistance tool)
• Pregnant women (the body dynamics of pregnancy make it hard for many women to stand up without something to leaver on)
• Obese people who can't get the door of a regular inward-opening stall closed around themselves
• Able-bodied people who take the accessible stall because all the regular stalls are already in use

Those are the ones that come immediately to my mind, there are probably others. Now for the list of people who get the hairy stink eye when I see them coming out of a handicap-accessible stall:

• unattended kids who skip/run out of the stall without so much as an "oops, I probably shouldn't have used that one" when they see a disabled person waiting
• teenage girls in groups who go into the handicap-accessible stall for more than just a pee
• mothers who let themselves be bullied by society into breastfeeding in the stall (I swear I'm filing an ADA complaint against a store if I ever get delayed using the toilet because of this - just hasn't happened yet tho I hear from plenty of women who are told that's where they should nurse their baby if the need arises in a public place, and I did have my local YMCA tell me last winter that I should have gone to the family changing room/bathroom to feed D after someone complained about me nursing him in the WOMEN'S locker room)
• women in heels so high there's no way they'd be able to walk if they actually had knee/hip problems

Those are pretty much the only ones that I actually give stinky-eye to (well, I wouldn't give stink-eye to the nursing mom, I'd give her some contacts for learning her and her baby's rights and offer to help her become more comfortable nursing in public - tip #1 try nursing in front of a mirror to see how little is actually visible, even without a blanket/cape/whatever.). Having been "invisibly disabled" for over a decade before I started needing a cane (and still getting comments from people occasionally when I park in a handicap-accessible parking space because apparently even when I'm dressed in a grubby t-shirt and sweatpants, the cane looks like a fashion accessory) I'm actually pretty likely to assume that the other person has an actual need for the stall's handrails or width. However, there have been several times (including last week at MSASS orientation) where the person coming out of the accessible stall to see me waiting there has actually apologized for their thoughtlessness in using that stall when regular ones were available. Some people really do just use them because they have a preference for them, not a need for them, tho I don't really get that (maybe it's the shiney of the metal hand rails?), without even thinking for a second that other people have a greater need for that stall than they do (at least, until visibly confronted with the evidence of their thoughtlessness). Thoughtlessness and lack of courtesy is pretty epidemic in our society at times, and this isn't exactly an issue people talk about, even when they're discussing manners and courtesy. This is also evidenced by how many times I've been (or seen some else obviously disabled - cane, walker, wheelchair, etc) in a women's restroom line and how rarely the person(s) in front of the disabled person will let the disabled person "skip" in line if the handicap-accessible stall comes available. At least 80% of the time (yes, this is something I'd actually like to quanifiably research), the safe-to-assume-able-bodied person walks right into the handicap-accessible stall and the handicapped person has to let people skip in front of THEM as the regular stalls come available while they wait for the able-bodied person to be done in the ONE stall the handicapped person can use. This isn't because there are so many "invisible disabilities" out there, the numbers just don't work out for how often this kind of thing happens. This is a factor of the me-first, oblivious to the actual needs of strangers around us, mentality of our culture (which, in addition to various other places, I've also encountered as a breastfeeding advocate - the "wants" of non-breastfeeders to not have to see "that" in public are assumed to be more important than the NEED of a baby to eat when it's hungry. The emotional discomfort/squeemishness of an adult who could walk away or look somewhere else are often given higher priority than the physical discomfort and basic need of a baby unable to help themselves). Personally, I refuse to excuse and enable thoughtlessness and discourtesy in our society by not offering any rebuke when someone crosses the line like this. And give me a break, it's just the freakin' stink eye! I don't even say anything to the "offending" party, and for all I know they're mildly Autistic and don't recognize the facial expression anyway (to be clear: mild autism is not generally a disability that requires the accessible stall - I know enough people with mild autism to know that as many cases as otherwise able people, they can use a stall without the rails... moderate/severe autism is of course another story). I'm not verbally confronting people as they come out of toilet stalls, I do have better things to do with my time (usually, at that moment, it's taking a pee).

What I'd really love to see is a world where ALL public restroom stalls have hand rails for people who need them. A lot of people who need the accessible stall would be able to use the other stalls with just that one little addition, the extra space isn't actually needed in many cases. My church has gone partway there - there are two stalls with rails in the women's bathroom, one that is large enough to easily maneuver a wheelchair/scooter and one that's standard stall size, and the changing table is not in a stall, plus there are two other family restrooms. Not sure how the accessibility is in the men's room but I know they've got a diaper changing station in there and I'm pretty sure it's not in a stall either.

Until then, it'd be nice if people would reserve the accessible stalls for people (such as those in my first list above) who actually need them.

IT'S A LIVE!!! ALIVE!!!

OK, yeah, I've done it again - gone on over a month without an update. It's been a hectic month, to say the least.

On May 5th I became co-chair of the Lakewood City Schools Phase III Construction Project District Configuration Sub-Committee. Yes, this was something I volunteered to do, it was (is - the last meeting of the subcommittee is tomorrow) annoying as hell at times, but I really do feel like it was the most important thing I've done outside of the creation and well-being of my little family. Lakewood City Schools is reducing from 7 elementary schools down to 6 due to lowered enrollment and Ohio not giving us as much funding (Ohio says we only need 6 elementary schools so they'll only contribute toward the cost of 6 elementary schools). 4 of the 7 existing schools have already been remodeled in the last couple years, so that left 3 to look at to figure out which one(s) to close (there was a proposal to close two of them and open a new school geographically between them where there is currently a city park smooshed between the train tracks and a strip mall - I don't think I need to tell the reader exactly how popular THAT idea was with everyone aside from the person proposing it ). If current decision making process that I was being strongly encouraged (almost to the point of arm bending, but not quite) to use is any indicator, the decision making process for the prior remodels/renovations was rather flawed - as evidenced by two of the schools already done having DRASTICALLY lower percentages of households with enrolled children in them than the other two (one has 4.1% of households in its boundary line having enrolled children, the other has 6.9%, the average for the district as a whole is 9.4% and all 5 of the other schools in the current configuration are at or above that average, with those two removed the average for the remaining 5 schools is 10.9%). There are certain powers within this city who would really like to see one of the schools in particular (the one in the highest-child-density district, ironically) closed, bulldozed, and redeveloped as commercial property. This seemed like a rather bad long-term plan to me, so I went in search of data months before becoming co-chair to check my gut reaction to that plan. What I found demonstrated that it wasn't just a bad idea, it also could potentially wreck our happy little you-better-walk-cuz-there-ain't-enough-parking already existing commercial district if it encouraged families to move to the perimeter of the town to be closer to the elementary schools, reducing foot traffic to the shops (and also discouraging them to keep their spending in Lakewood, since if they live in the perimeter in all but one of the other elementary school boundaries, they've got really easy access to Big Box stores just across the town's boarders - and most parents with little ones, if they're going to have to load up the car anyway, they're going to go where they can park ONCE and get the majority of what they need without having to go inside and outside repeatedly in likely inclement weather). So I went in search of hard data, got access to the census data and a lovely person at the county auditor's office who crunched data in highly sophisticated mapping software that I didn't have time to learn to use (tho apparently there's some decent stuff available open-source), I learned Google Earth to a fairly high level of proficency and counted LOTS of expanding dots (dots representing enrolled children, geocoded into Google Earth so if I went over them with a mouse they expanded so I could get an accurate head count). I also found out that Mandell School of Applied Social Sciences aka MSASS (at Case Western Reserve University, aka CWRU, my alma mater) turns out not just social workers of the knock-on-doors or therapy kind, but also of the policy wonk kind. We'll see tomorrow and in August/September what others make of the data I've gathered and crunched, but the MSASS saga continues in the next paragraph in a life of its own.

So, the dean of MSASS, Gover "Cleve" Gilmore, was my undergrad prof for both statistics (a challenging class since I wasn't aware that I have mild dyscalculia - you mean EVERYONE doesn't have to do every equation on the calculator 3 or 4 times to get the same result twice???) and research design (which I totally rocked, thankyouverymuch). He and I had been in occasional contact in the time in between and he very much still remembered me when I asked him if he could put me in touch with someone who could help with the census access stuff I was seeking for the above project. As I think I mentioned earlier in this blog, I'd applied to CWRU's Sociology graduate program (or did most of the application, at least - never took the stinking, time-wasting, back-throwing-out GRE) but was not hearing anything encouraging on the funding for part-time study so kinda let it drop (there's no way with my fatigue, physical disabilities, and family I could manage full-time study, a fellowship, AND not be a danger on the roads and/or zombie mommy, so the being safe on the roads and human with my family won). Cleve encouraged me to apply to MSASS, pointing me toward their Community and Social Development degree (policy wonk heaven I think, if only I could manage to do the dual degree with the law school at the same time *sigh* yeah, that's not gonna happen). Deadline for the Sociology program for fall admission was back in April so it never occured to me that MSASS's deadline would be so late - TOMORROW, JUNE 30TH! Sooo... I've got most of my application completed, just need to spend some time today updating my resume (which I haven't done since sometime around 2001, so, yeah, WAY out of date - nothing I've been doing in the interum has required a resume so I hadn't bothered to keep it up-to-date). I've also gotten 3 spiffy new recommendation forms filled out, and I'm planning to hand-deliver everything non-digital today. It'll be nice to finally meet Churyl, the lovely admissions lady I've been emailing back and forth and apparently sending into bouts of active laughter in the office with my weird sense of humor (which I see no need to hide from anyone, even someone responsible for helping decide if I get into grad school or not). I'm getting everything in on time for consideration for fall admission, though if the funding isn't there for me to go part-time (I *might* try full-time study if there's scholarship/work-from home fellowship promised, just can't deal with communting and family safely on top of ~40hrs outside the house). If funding looks more promising for starting in January (aka "spring" semester), then I'll do that instead.

In addition to all that, we've also celebrated Liam's 5th and Delano's 2nd birthdays and gone to Cedar Point twice and Kalahari Indoor Waterpark-Resort-and-Spa once (the 3 night stay at Kalahari was paid for by Garvin's work's sponsors or something, he was at a conference there while the kids and I were playing in the water). And I got myself a new laptop that I'd been drooling over for over a year (HP TouchSmart tx2) which I'm typing this up on (the keyboard is very nice, the tablet conversion with multi-touch will come in more handy while reading massive amounts of hopefully online journals for grad school, and it's small -but not too-and light and has decent battery life).

I will make another post with links to kids birthday party pictures soon. Haven't had time to organize and upload anything for ages.

OH, and if you're seeing this on Facebook and waiting for a response from me I haven't been ignoring you - I've not logged in to FB since around Easter, everything on my profile there has been posted via conduits (aka my cell phone, cross-posted by Twitter, or from this blog). I'm going to try to make some serious time to work on my novel in the next month (I want to complete it before the end of July) after getting this grad application finished, plus spend time with my family, plus sometimes post on my blog, Facebook priority comes in around this slot. I'll be back eventually.

WOOHOO! Med. exam mom won her appeal!

Congrats to Sophie Currier on winning her appeal (title is a link to the yahoo news story)! I'm so glad the appeals court judge gets it - accommodation to one issue (dyslexia/ADHD) doesn't preclude the need for accommodation for another (breastfeeding)... and shame on the medical examining board for discriminating against her in the first place, they should have gotten it without the need for a lawsuit. Hell, her pre-existing learning disabilities make her need for the extra break time INCREASE, not decrease - "oh, other breastfeeding mothers have taken the exam without needing extra break time" - yeah, but were they ALSO dyslexic and suffering from ADHD and needing extra testing time for those issues? If they're fast test-takers anyway, they probably made it through the test sections fast enough to go pump/pee/eat/whatever without NEEDING to ask for accommodations.

What if it'd been someone with dyslexia, ADHD, and fecal incontinence issues? Would the extra break time so they could change their undergarments on a regular basis have been questioned?

Go Sophie! Can't wait to see what advances in pathology you bring to the world, I have faith that you're going to go on to great work.

When in distress, go statistical

I'm such a Hermione.

Anyway, analysis of stuff going on inside my head since the news of the last post.

From the dates of the emails my uncle forwarded me, it looks like my sister wasn't released from the hospital for at least 3 days after the birth, which suggests she may have been the 3rd of my generation to birth via c-section (out of 4 of us thus far to have children). The baby is the 5th child of it's generation on that side of the family (as far as I know), and the one I'm carrying now will be the 6th (again, as far as I know). Liam was the 3rd born of his generation, but the first to be born vaginally (and also the first to be born in wedlock). One of my cousins who had a c-section (actually the first to birth of my generation) has since had a second child via VBAC (and had married her firstborn's father in between births).

So, as long as I'm not missing someone (I do also have male cousins and a brother, who presumably could have impregnated a girl that I'm not aware of - there are 15 members of my generation on that side of the family, 7 of us are female and one of the females is mildly mentally retarded, 3 of the girls are daughters of the uncle who informed me of my niece so I'm pretty sure if he'd had another grandchild he would have mentioned it on the phone, his eldest daughter - my only cousin older than I am - has been married for a few years now), and presuming that I'm able to birth this child as easily as I did Liam, and if I'm right about my sister's situation... out of the 6 members of Liam's generation, 3 were c-sections (50% section rate). All three of the other mothers of my generation were also 20-21 years old when their first babies were born (I was 27 when Liam was born). And all three of them had the constant presence of their fathers in their lives throughout their childhood (two of them are products of "intact" parental marriages and the other cousin has a very actively involved father).

I'm just marveling at the statistics a bit more because I don't fit in with them than any judgmental thing about unwed mothers or anything like that (heck, my mom had her second kid out of wedlock... my only real issue with it is how much more of a struggle it makes everything).

Another interesting factoid... of the 6 kids in Liam's generation, 5 are multiracial (apparently the father of my niece is Hispanic, and one of the cousins that has kids is herself half Puerto Rican, her kids' father is Mexican). Considering my paternal grandfather had a hissy fit and disowned my aunt for a couple years over her relationship with said Puerto Rican uncle (to whom she is still married ~30 years later, mind you - out of the 6 kids in my dad's generation only the two girls are still on their first marriages... 1 of the boys never married and my dad is on his second marriage, which has lasted ~27 years now)... I find it a little ironic that the majority of the great-grandchildren (thus far) of this guy are multiracial. This is my dad's dad, so you see, my dad comes by his dickwadness honestly at least. Like I mentioned in my comment response to Serena, we're taught how to cut one another out of our lives early and well in this family.

Oh, and since I blogged about it before... another interesting note. I've not cried about this finding out I'm an aunt thing. I'm a little surprised about that, since at this point the hormones have me crying over random commercials on prime time television. It's a dull ache but not the stabbing pain I thought it might be. I'm angry, but not surprised enough to be upset I guess. My dispassionate response at the moment is making me wonder how I'd have taken it if I'd heard a member of that side of the family died instead of being born.

Breastfeeding in public

Probably getting more obsessed with this concept since I'll be doing it again so soon (when Liam could handle finger foods I "weaned" him from nursing in public because it was simply too hard on my arms/back, so it's been probably almost 2 years since I've nursed in public regularly). I was sorting through pictures to upload to our online photo gallery and came across many pictures of Liam nursing (gee, considering the percentage of his time he spent doing it, big surprise there). None of them have us covered, and the ones in public places you pretty much have to KNOW what you're looking for to realize what you're seeing (which is part of the argument I have with "certain people who shall remain nameless" about how "no one ever does THAT in the US" - yes, they do, you just look right past them without realizing it...)

So I ask you, which is more discreet... this type of breastfeeding in public:

(both of the above images are swiped from commercial websites wanting to sell you these nursing covers, which I have problems with on two counts - one, it furthers the idea that breastfeeding is something that should be hidden and hence bottlefeeding is more "convenient" and two, it's just another way to commercialize motherhood and make money off of people's insecurities, so I'm being evil and not linking to them. After looking through a few hundred results of google images for "breastfeeding blanket", "breastfeeding cover", and "breastfeeding drape" I couldn't find a SINGLE NON-COMMERCIAL PICTURE of a mother covering herself with a blanket to nurse - surprise surprise).

Or are these more discrete:

(funny, i think I'm wearing the same outfit both times, the first one he's less than a month old because that was when we still lived in Virginia, the second one he's about 2 months old at the Feast of the Assumption)

Yes, I'm using a sling in both pictures, which adds to the ease of being discrete, but I've shown an equal amount of skin when not using a sling, just can't find those pictures (the one that wound up in the Plain Dealer of me nursing Liam at the CWRU bookstore would be an example).

I swear I'm going to take one of the five trillion receiving blankets we have around here and write on it in big red letters "HEY LOOK I'M BREASTFEEDING!" and keep that in the diaper bag in case anyone gives me crap this time, see if that makes them more "comfortable".. or at least it'd be fun for a photo-op ;) I've got a couple lactivist pictures that I want to take floating in my mind as it is. I'll post them here when I do them (one of them will probably be in the coming weeks while I'm still pregnant).

History of artificial baby feeding

This topic seems to come up with unnerving frequency among the lactivist community, and there is a lot of misinformation going out about how long artificial baby feeding has been going on - most people think it's a post-WWII societal issue, hand-in-hand with the increase in births occurring in hospitals. Yes, it increased then and breastfeeding rates dropped, but we also have better statistics across social classes in the 20th century. Furthering the misperception that breastfeeding was the way ALL babies were fed prior to the 20th century keeps us from looking at this important factor in infant and maternal mortality rates of our foremothers. Only the wealthy could generally afford a true full-time wet nurse (to the detriment of that woman's own nursling, supposing she hadn't already weaned her baby, since it doesn't seem common to allow the wet nurse to bring her own infant along on the job and tandem nurse the two), though informal cross-nursing (nursing mothers sharing the "duty" of feeding their infants so that one could go do something else for a while) has been going on most likely since before we evolved into humans (it's a common primate practice when there are 2 or more lactating females available to care for the infants).

Lack of breastfeeding, especially in the first few days, is detrimental to the mother in many ways - the act of IMMEDIATELY breastfeeding after birth encourages uterine contractions that help prevent hemorrhage, helps shrink the uterus quickly, encourages the ongoing release of hormones to facilitate bonding, relieve pain and promote rest via continued release of ocytocin, and on and on. There are "traditional" societies even today that discourage women from feeding their newborns their colostrum, believing it to be worthless until the "real milk" comes in, and proscribe waiting 5 days before feeding the infant from the breast, substituting various alternatives (many of which contain honey) to keep the baby hydrated instead. This was (and still is) common practice in parts of India. What effect does this have on infant mortality? Maternal hemorrhage? Successful initiation of breastfeeding, when the baby has been allowed to feed from a non-breast for the first 5 days? Doesn't take much to figure out the effect on all these rates might be, especially now when "modern alternatives" are so widely available and socially acceptable. But when women hand off their babies to be fed other than at their own breasts from birth, they increase both the infant and maternal rates of early postpartum complications. And when new mothers aren't supported in their efforts and struggles to nurse their newborns, they're set up for depression over their supposed "failure" - a failure that is more due to our society than anything to do with the mother. Pushing women to not nurse openly and publicly places further barriers to the natural learning of how to accomplish the task in those first early days, as much as lack of availability of profession lactation consultants (not that both groups don't sometimes give misguided or downright wrong advice - it happens, but I believe it's less likely than misinformation coming from anyone without firsthand experience at nursing, regardless of gender).

Before the 20th century we can just make presumptions based mostly upon bodies in cemeteries/mummies/etc about how many babies died at which ages in which social classes (death records are not nearly as common for anyone below upper middle class prior to the industrial revolution, especially outside of urban centers). Not the best data collection method by any stretch of the imagination. Some of these early deaths do include clues as to infant feeding method (ancients tended to bury feeding containers with the infants that weren't breastfed). There are surviving medical advice documents from ancient times that talk about when infants should be weaned, how often they should be fed, etc. So it's not just modern morons encouraging mothers to put their babies on feeding schedules, to watch the clock instead of the baby. They have a long, sordid history of giving this shoddy advice - surprising that it's mostly from males who were probably not even nearby when their own children were being nursed.

Artificial infant feeding is much MUCH older than 50 years. The Sears catalog from 1897 contained at least 8 different brands of artificial baby milk. There are infant feeding artifacts left over from the ancient Greeks. Wet nursing wasn't the only way a baby would survive, but it definitely gave the kid a better chance of survival (in the Victorian era only 20% of infants made it to their 2nd birthday, one wonders how many of those deaths were due to not being breastfed combined with other factors of Victorian life). These are facts that I've researched in the past when people have tried to tell me how dangerous childbearing is because our ancestors DIED in childbirth. I point out that sanitation has never been as good as it is now and a great many of the "ancestors" who were well off enough to get their statistics recorded (not mine, I'm of peasant stock!) were handing off their babies to be fed elsewhere so they could get pregnant again ASAP (and deplete their bodies' nutrient supplies, not letting their uterus have a rest, etc etc etc - the risks of frequent, rapid-fire childbearing are well known to anyone who has dealt with breeding any species of mammal). Of course, young mothers did die, for various reasons (not all associated directly with childbirth) and other ways of feeding their infant if no other lactating woman was nearby had to be devised. Our ancient ancestors were ingenious, just as we are. The infant found in the group of bodies called the Cherchen Mummies has an artificial infant feeder buried with it, the baby has been dead for 3,000 years. The family is presumed to be nomads (they have Caucasian features though they died in China) and it's postulated that the mother died before the infant did.

Here are some online references:
early infant feeders - http://www.babybottle-museum.co.uk/the%20early%20feeders.htm
Ted Greiner's Breastfeeding History - http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/3156/history.htm (hate using Geocities references but it's the version available online)
An article about Cherchen mummies - http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20060828/ai_n1669651


Oops.. I think my sociology degree is showing ;) Darnit I want to go to graduate school already! *sigh* Kids first, academia later.