Blogger in Costume

A member of my household is wearing the guest-blogger costume at a cool online mothering magazine, MotherVerse, right now. Go see!

The Swedish Right Wing

Last year, you were almost certainly riveted by parliamentary elections in Sweden, where a center-right (or, as they put it, "centre-right") coalition came to power, displacing the more left-leaning socialist parties for the first time in a very long time. Well, those free-marketers are going nuts! Listen to this bit of Ayn Randian supply-side craziness:

Parents who want to stay at home to look after their young children will be entitled to extra money from their local councils, under new proposals unveiled by the government on Tuesday. The money will be offered to parents with children aged between 1 and 3 who do not make use of subsidized childcare. The manifesto proposed either a taxed benefit of up to 4,000 kronor per month* or an untaxed benefit of up to 3,000 kronor* per month. Parents receiving the benefit will not have to stop working entirely.

Inevitably, given the brutal nature of Swedish politics, the critics have their knives out, denouncing the proposal as too Norwegian (I'm serious!) and not generous enough.

(*4,000 kronor is about $580; 3,000 is about $440.)

Norwegian Youngsters

I wonder what would happen to the mother of an American kid who did this:

Toddler went hiking alone, in the middle of the night
Donning a backpack and going for a hike is deeply engrained in the Norwegian culture. A little girl up north took the national pastime to heart, much to her mother's dismay.

The four-year-old girl apparently woke up in the middle of the night, climbed out of bed and decided it was time for a midnight stroll. She put on her playclothes (pink), slung a backpack over her shoulders and set off into the newly returned darkness of a late summer night in Tromsø, northern Norway. Police got a call shortly after 5am that a little had been spotted out wandering alone near the Tromsdalen campground. They sent a patrol car to the spot and found the little hiker, who told them her name. She also could tell them her mother's name. The police called her, and then took the intrepid little girl home. "It was, of course, quite a message for her mother to get, but it went well," Trond Amundsen of the Tromsø Police Station told web site iTromso.no.

A picture is worth a thousand curse words

OK, this is old, old news, but I'm catching up on my bloglines and I just saw it and ... jeebus, but if this isn't a sign of the apocalypse I don't know what the hell WOULD be. Check it: there are actually people out there who pay good money to turn this:

into THIS:

Seriously. Like, intentionally. WTF? In what warped world is the bottom picture an improvement over the top? What the hell kind of message are you sending your kid when you do this to their pictures? I admit, the top photo is a little pink and precious for my taste, but the "retouched" one will haunt my dreams tonight. And there are more ...

I just don't get it.

(Via Broadsheet.)

Accio Parenting Skills

This is pretty much tewtelly ass-ome:

Parent Hex: Harry Potter Spells for Parents

* Cocodissimulatio Charm: Causes any food to taste like chocolate.
* Mucosus Recessum Charm: Causes nasal excretions to withdraw into a person’s nose.
* Ursinvenio Charm: When applied to a teddy bear or other stuffed animal, causes it to emit a loud growling sound when lost.

There are more. Go read the whole post.

Bring the Kids to the Animal Hospital

From Barbara Ehrenreich:

This year, Americans will spend about $9.8 billion on health care for their pets, up from $7.2 billion five years ago... A professor who consults to pet health facilities on communication issues justified these huge investments in pet health to me by pointing out that pets are, after all, “part of the family.”

Well, there’s another category that might reasonably be considered “part of the family.” True, they are not the ideal companions for the busy young professional: It can take two to three years to housebreak them; their standards of personal hygiene are lamentably low, at least compared to cats; and large numbers of them cannot learn to “sit” without the aid of Ritalin.

The full piece has some startling and appalling stories about kids dying for lack of medical (or veterinary!) care. More positively, trips to the doctor might go more smoothly if the kids could play with Flufffy and Fido while they're there.

Eric Carle: Influenced by the Nazis!

Maybe it's because I spend at least a half-hour each day reading, stacking, opening, reshelving my family's collection of Eric Carle picture books, but I was engrossed by NPR's recent stories on him (text - audio slideshow - audio). His art, is of course, wonderful, but this was the key bit for me:

Carle's familiar characters were inspired largely by the fox holes, spider webs, bugs and animals that he found exploring castles as a child in Stuttgart, Germany. Born in New York to German immigrants, Carle and his family moved back to Germany in 1935. In the years leading up to World War II, Carle would go on weekend hikes with his father, who would provide informal nature lessons on flora and fauna.

During the war, the Nazi educational system proved harsh, but Carle found solace in art. An influential art teacher, Herr Kraus, secretly introduced Carle to abstract artists like Picasso, Paul Klee and Matisse — all banned under the Nazi regime.

"At first I was upset," Carle says. "I thought this man was crazy because I had never seen anything like this … I was shocked and attracted to it at the same time." Today, Carle considers these artists among his greatest influences.

After 40 years of creating bright, bold illustrations, one thing still fascinates and frustrates Carle: color. Long, color-coded drawers filled with his hand-painted tissue papers line his studio wall. Each sheet of tissue paper would look at home hanging on a museum wall, but they're the building blocks for his collage compositions.

Yellow poses the biggest challenge to Carle. He can create 10 shades of green — from bright lime green to muted brown-greens and gray-greens – colors he remembers draping Germany's camouflaged buildings in World War II. But he has only discovered how to make about four shades of yellow.

So when I read Brown Bear, Brown Bear to my daughters, I'm indirectly invoking Nazi attempts to evade Allied bombers? Aieeee!

Not only that, but it turns out that his last name is pronounced like the first name "Carl," not "carl-ee." This blows my mind almost as much as learning that Richard Scarry said his first name like the state of fright, not like the quality of being covered by scars.

More Father's Day Stuff

Zen Habits recently published "How to be a Great Dad - 12 Awesome Tips". Especially with Father's Day coming up, the list is a good one. Some of the items are a little bit on the obvious side, but then that's often the nature of wisdom, ain't it. Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there, and for that matter, to all the mothers and children who make them fathers!

Come On

Father's Day is a few days away. Why not read about sperm? (It's in the Times, so you know it's classy.)

Happy Mother's Day

Yeah, so I'm a little late posting these felicitations. What can I say? My own daughter decided to show her appreciation for my mothering skills by getting the sniffles and then a fever which rendered her woebegone and snuggly in the extreme.

But I digress. It's Mother's Day, and while lord knows one day isn't near enough, let us nonetheless take a moment to send a little shout out to all the moms we hold near and dear. WOOT.

Here is a most excellent mama poem by one Lucille Clifton:

admonitions

boys
i don't promise you nothing
but this
what you pawn
i will redeem
what you steal
i will conceal
my private silence to
your public guilt
is all i got

girls
first time a white man
opens his fly
like a good thing
we'll just laugh
laugh real loud my
black women

children
when they ask you
why is your mama so funny
say
she is a poet
she don't have no sense

And, for you visual learners, did you know that CafePress has almost 15,000 mama-related designs? Ye gods! There are several good ones, but my favorite would have to be this, which I think I need to get in onesie form (for the kid, for the kid):

(x-posted at my other nest)

Happy Birthday, Baby Bean

Today is Eleanor's first birthday.

Many happy returns, baby girl!

Friday Poetry Blogging

(thanks to Connie for the poem!)


The Lanyard
by Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

In the Minds of Babes

From the New Yorker,

A Conversation at the Grownup Table, as Imagined at the Kids’ Table

MOM: Pass the wine, please. I want to become crazy.
DAD: O.K.
GRANDMOTHER: Did you see the politics? It made me angry.
DAD: Me, too. When it was over, I had sex.
UNCLE: I’m having sex right now.
DAD: We all are.
MOM: Let’s talk about which kid I like the best.
DAD: (laughing) You know, but you won’t tell.
MOM: If they ask me again, I might tell.
FRIEND FROM WORK: Hey, guess what! My voice is pretty loud!
DAD: (laughing) There are actual monsters in the world, but when my kids ask I pretend like there aren’t.
MOM: I’m angry! I’m angry all of a sudden!
DAD: I’m angry, too! We’re angry at each other!
MOM: Now everything is fine.
DAD: We just saw the PG-13 movie. It was so good.
MOM: There was a big sex.
FRIEND FROM WORK: I am the loudest! I am the loudest!
(Everybody laughs.)
MOM: I had a lot of wine, and now I’m crazy!
GRANDFATHER: Hey, do you guys know what God looks like?
ALL: Yes.
GRANDFATHER: Don’t tell the kids.

This echoes dinner-table conversations at home, where my toddler constantly asks questions about what my wife and I are discussing, obviously eager to understand the crazy shit we're talking about, like car insurance and if the library is open and what we heard on the news.

Help the Police

The five songs I've listened to the most in my lifetime (in more or less order):
1. The Pixies, "Little Eiffel" (first year of college)
2. Nirvana, "Smells like Teen Spirit" (first and second year of college)
3. Radiohead, "Airbag" (continuously since 1997)
4. Public Enemy, "Bring the Noise" (junior year of high school through college)
5. N.W.A., "Fuck the Police" (junior and senior years of high school)

Thank goodness that British comedian Adam Buxton has made it safe to listen to that last golden oldie around the kids:


(Via Daddy Types, where you can also see the complete revised lyrics.)

Family Friendly

Daddy Dialectic blogs about a report by the Council on Contemporary Families on how various countries balance work and family life. The U.S. ain't doing so well:

Out of 173 countries studied, 168 countries offer guaranteed leave with income to women in connection with childbirth... The U.S. guarantees no paid leave for mothers in any segment of the work force, leaving it in the company of only 4 other nations: Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland.

Great company; it's almost on a par with how it's the U.S., China, and Saudi Arabia that do most of the executing of criminals.

65 countries ensure that fathers either receive paid paternity leave or have a right to paid parental leave; 31 of these countries offer 14 or more weeks of paid leave. The U.S. guarantees fathers neither paid paternity nor paid parental leave.

107 countries protect working women’s right to breastfeed; in at least 73 of these the breaks are paid. The U.S. does not guarantee the right to breastfeed, even though breastfeeding is proven to reduce infant mortality.

137 countries mandate paid annual leave, with 121 of these countries guaranteeing 2 weeks or more each year. The U.S. does not require employers to provide any paid annual leave...

145 countries provide paid leave for short- or long-term illnesses, with 127 providing a week or more annually. More than 79 countries provide sickness benefits for at least 26 weeks or until recovery. The U.S. provides only unpaid leave for serious illnesses through the FMLA, which does not cover all workers. Moreover, the U.S. does not guarantee any paid sick days for common illnesses.

It's a wonder any American kids grow up okay.

Defending Marriage agains the Wingnuts

Gay-rights activists in Washington state are performing some political jujitsu to attempt to get the state supreme court to invalidate the state's gay-marriage ban. In a nutshell, they're proposing that the state annul any (heterosexual) marriage which doesn't result in children after three years. That is sick and wrong and brilliant.

According to the devilishly clever activists, "the Defense of Marriage Initiative" (what a fantastic name!) would:

add the phrase, “who are capable of having children with one another” to the legal definition of marriage;

require that couples married in Washington file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage automatically annulled;

require that couples married out of state file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage classed as “unrecognized;”

establish a process for filing proof of procreation; and

make it a criminal act for people in an unrecognized marriage to receive marriage benefits.

Further information:

The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance seeks to defend equal marriage in this state by challenging the Washington Supreme Court’s ruling on Andersen v. King County. This decision, given in July 2006, declared that a “legitimate state interest” allows the Legislature to limit marriage to those couples able to have and raise children together. Because of this “legitimate state interest,” it is permissible to bar same-sex couples from legal marriage.

The way we are challenging Andersen is unusual: using the initiative, we are working to put the Court’s ruling into law. We will do this through three initiatives. The first would make procreation a requirement for legal marriage. The second would prohibit divorce or legal separation when there are children. The third would make the act of having a child together the legal equivalent of a marriage ceremony.

Absurd? Very. But there is a rational basis for this absurdity. By floating the initiatives, we hope to prompt discussion about the many misguided assumptions which make up the Andersen ruling. By getting the initiatives passed, we hope the Supreme Court will strike them down as unconstitional and thus weaken Andersen itself. And at the very least, it should be good fun to see the social conservatives who have long screamed that marriage exists for the sole purpose of procreation be forced to choke on their own rhetoric.

These people will go far. More power to them! I hope they tackle corporate welfare next.

(Via Strollerderby.)

Can't Spell "Damnably Dumb" without D-A-D

Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive - our five-month-old is going through a very rough patch, which means her mom is suffering - but this CNN.com article on ways mothers can "help nurture a deeper connection between your baby and husband" is dreck spelled s-h-i-t. Strollerderby did a good job eviscerating the tone and content of the piece, but still, I am endlessly rankled to read patronizing tripe like this:

Your child will need thousands of diaper changes during the first few years, so why not make these hours count? Even just changing a few diapers a day is a great opportunity for bonding. Encourage your partner to view diaper changing as fun time with the baby rather than simply a messy chore. But take it from me: You'll have more success with this if you don't scold him for doing it "wrong." There may be a few messes at first, but in no time he'll get it right.

Yeah, don't scold, because then Mr. Butterfingers will feel bad about himself and sulk rather than, say, do his bit to keep the baby from getting caked in its own filth.

Even if your baby is solely breastfed, your husband can get involved by adding the finishing touches. When she's done dining, your partner can let the baby go to town on his pinkie finger for a few minutes. Another idea: When she's finished nursing and is getting drowsy, ease her off your breast and into Daddy's arms. Once she gets used to him putting her to sleep, she'll be more likely to accept him comforting her back to sleep when she wakes up -- and, later, when she loses a beloved toy or falls and scrapes her knee.

Right. Men are such beasts that they have to be coaxed into showing some understanding for the helpless. And of course

No matter how tired you are, it's not easy to convince a dad who works days to spend his nights awake with the baby -- especially if you stay home. So try striking a deal, like Martha and I did. If she could comfort the baby without getting out of bed, she did it. (Fortunately for me, this was usually the case.) But if the baby needed to be walked, then I was up. Rosa, a mom of a patient, shared her husband's contribution: "After a nighttime feeding, he gets up and uses his 'magic shoulder' to burp our baby for me."

Not easy to do night duty after working all day? From my close observations, giving birth wasn't too easy, either. Kudos to me for helping after 5 p.m., when all I want is (for someone to bring me) a cold Bud Light. And way to go, Shannon, for "striking a deal" with me! How understanding. It's a good thing we put our needs ahead of the baby's!

This unbelievable crap comes from William Sears, one of the more respected "experts" on childrearing and apparently an incorrigible condescender.

Baby Einstein Sux

I hated on Baby Einstein a while back on my other blog, but my loathing was rejuvenated last night when, glancing up at the State of the Union address, I noted Bush congratulating Julie Aigner-Clark, the founder of Baby Einstein. Quoth he:

After her daughter was born, Julie Aigner-Clark searched for ways to share her love of music and art with her child. So she borrowed some equipment, and began filming children's videos in her basement. The Baby Einstein Company was born — and in just five years her business grew to more than $20 million in sales. In November 2001, Julie sold Baby Einstein to the Walt Disney Company, and with her help Baby Einstein has grown into a $200 million business. Julie represents the great enterprising spirit of America. And she is using her success to help others — producing child safety videos with John Walsh of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Julie says of her new project: "I believe it's the most important thing that I've ever done. I believe that children have the right to live in a world that is safe." We are pleased to welcome this talented business entrepreneur and generous social entrepreneur — Julie Aigner-Clark.

That's one perspective. I too want "a world that is safe"; that's why I voted for Kerry.

Anyhow, here's another view, to which I'm more congenial, from Silicon Valley Moms via the estimable Strollerderby:

This is the woman that convinced parents that it's perfectly OK to prop up babies in front of the television because it's educational (they don't even have to be old enough to sit)! The woman that found the perfect combination of music and colors to hypnotize a baby into complete docility, to ensure that the next generation really will be passive observers, not interacting or caring much about the people around them or their environment. Or, perhaps, this is the woman that has found the way to raise the perfect Republican...

Now that's a conspiracy theory I can get behind! (Timothy Noah at Slate was also spurred by Bush's speech to rag on Baby Einstein.)

Something's Afoot

I can pick up socks and pens with my feet, but I hate the tiny snaps on onesies. This woman is my superior in every way.


Via Strollerderby.

Slippery Parenting

This faux-play from Defective Yeti is hilarious. I'll have to remember that cooking spray can be a valuable part of the kids' bedtime routine.