Slut

Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a slut because she made the unremarkable admission that she is a single woman who uses birth control.  He ought notta done it.

But he reminded me of something I've been meaning to write about:  the so-called effort among certain lady-circles to "reclaim" the word slut . . . like gay guys have reclaimed "queer" or like the colloquial use of the N-word by some in the African American community.  In reclaiming such epithets, the argument goes, the community strips them of their power.  Does that really work?  Eh . . . .


Look.  I am a feminist.  I am a feminist.  I am a feminist.

We can go to good ol’ m-w.com for the definition of feminism:  “the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.”

I ascribe to this theory.  So I am a feminist.  I believe in female agency: all of it.  We can be stay at home moms; we can be doctors; we can be lawyers; we can be heads of state; we can be heads of households; we can be CEOs.  We can choose to marry.   We can choose to be single.  We can choose to be mothers.  We can choose to be childless.  We can be biochemists and biology teachers.

And I also believe in female dignity.

And so, I just can’t get behind this idea that if only all of us gals would start calling each other slut, it would strip the term of its power.  Nope, I swear to you that if Rush Limbaugh started calling Barney Frank a queer or used the N-word to describe Barack Obama, those words would be just as powerfully insulting, despite their in-the-clubhouse use by some.  So you can't really "reclaim" words and strip them of their power.  You can use them ironically within your community, but you can't make them not insulting when used by an outsider.

One of the reclamation methods used by certain segments of the lady-sphere is the Slut Walk.  Slut Walks were originally organized in Toronto about a year ago to protest sexual assault in reaction to a statement by a police officer that if women wanted to avoid rape, they shouldn't dress like sluts.  But some of these events have morphed into a more in-your-face sort of assertion of female pride, generally.  As if by parading around in the worst Frederick's of Hollywood has to offer will win us our due respect in society and the workplace....  Behind these boobs lies economic independence!  

I mean, don't get me wrong, a woman's sexy attire does not mean she's asking for a sexual assault.  But I just can't get from, "My short skirt is not a rape invitation," to total female empowerment.  I guess the point is that we can be what we want to be.  We are free women.  We can get our boobs out any time we want.  Slutty, empowered, independent me!  As an expression of outrage, I totally get the Slut Walks.  As an expression of female power, I really don't.

Because we can't – we shouldn't – get our boobs out any time we want.  We live in a society in which people are judged by their looks, men and women.  I’ve touched on this issue before, the fine line between sexy and powerful that women seem to walk.  And I firmly believe that if you want to be respected by your peers – and that includes your female peers – you have to dress and act and talk in a way that commands that respect.  And that means sometimes, you have to put your boobs away when circumstances dictate.  I am not empowered because I have some powerful cleavage.  I am empowered because I am well-educated, articulate, professional, intelligent, witty and quick.  My powerful cleavage may have turned a few heads in its day, but it has never stood up to oral argument in court like my gray, old, wrinkly brain has.  Maybe I just don't get it, but the attempt to reclaim the word slut as a feminist power-word seem so retrograde.  Honestly, it feels juvenile, even fatuous.  These are not two adjectives I wish to be affixed to my sex.


So, frankly, I don’t want to take slut back.  Rush Limbaugh can keep it.  I want that word to continue to have the sort of negative power and the negative implication that it has always had.  I want for Rush Limbaugh to be excoriated every time he says it.  I want people to be embarrassed when they say it and I want others to be shocked when they hear it.  I want for the word not to shut women up, but to inspire women to stand tall and fight back in the face of that ugliness.  Let’s not make that word easy on our ears by being all post-modern about it.  Please.

Nate

I may have mentioned this before:  I love Nate Berkus.

His show will not be renewed for the 2012-2013 season.  This is an epic tragedy in my life.

Nate and I started our budding one-sided romance in February 2011, when I was put on bedrest for gestational hypertension.  Nate was always there for me twice a day:  at 11 a.m. in rerun and at 3 p.m. as a first-run show.  Nate is always warm, always cheerful, always polite, and often quite funny.  Nate definitely does not take Nate too seriously, and that's what's great about Nate.

Nate has taught me about many useful things:  Spanx, Not Your Daughter's Jeans, fashion on a budget, repurposing old stuff to make it seem cool and new, decorating on a budget, ruffles, pops of color.

Nate would love my new shoes:

His show is, fundamentally, a simple, standard daytime TV talk show aimed at the ladies:  a little cooking, a little decorating, a little fashion, a little home maintenance . . . occasionally, some health topic or a celebrity interview.

And, of course, the surprise home makeovers.  My favorite!

Did you know that Nate survived the tsunami in Sri Lanka in 2004?  (Tragically, his boyfriend was lost.)

But I think that what makes Nate's show so special is, it goes without saying, Nate.  Nate is self-effacing, savvy, stylish, and smart.  And for this, I love him so much that I record the show while I am at work so that I can watch it in my gobs of spare time at home.

He was Oprah's designer, you know, and she gave him is start in TV.  In fact, she (well, Harpo Productions) produced his show.

I love him in spite of his connection to this, honestly, very weird seeming rich lady.

I will miss you, Nate.  Others may not have appreciated you, but I always did.  You helped me get through a very frustrating four weeks.  I hope that our paths cross again via some other small-screened medium very soon.  But for now, adieu, my sweet daytime prince.

Quantifying Mommy's Worth

Mint.com is not the first outlet to attempt to quantify the worth, in terms of dollars and cents, the value of a stay-at-home-mom.  They're just the latest, and the one that, therefore, has stuck in my craw this week.

So before I address the fatuous, pandering article/blog post, I want to, once again, reiterate my enormous respect for my stay-at-home-mom friends and family.  In addressing this article, I do not intend to denigrate my loved ones.

But what I do intend to do is say, "Hey, wait a minute!  I do that too!"  Or at least some of it . . . .  I think that even my SAHM friends and family can easily see that this Mint.com article serves only to fan the flame of the Mommy Wars.  In quantifying the work of SAHMs in this way, Mint.com implies that Working Moms (and Working Dads) don't do these things, that we hire all of this stuff out.

Mint.com says a stay-at-home-mom's worth is $96,261 a year.  That's a pretty nice salary.  They come up with that figure by adding up the salaries of professionals who do the work that SAHMs, by the estimation of Mint.com, do.

Private Chef:  $52,261/year
Really?  First off, it may come as a surprise to Mint.com, but my husband and I actually are able to get a meal onto the table without the aid of a personal, private chef.  This cooking-dinner thing is something that SAHMs would be doing even if they were at the office all day.  Rarely, rarely do we order out or eat out. So, add $52,261 to the annual net worth of my family because we're saving the expense of a weekly private chef.  Awesome!  (And, P.S., are we really to believe that every meal prepared by a SAHM is chef quality?  I mean, I am willing to wager that even SAHMs will open the occasional blue box with the noodles and orange powder in it.  Tom Colicchio would not be amused.)

House Cleaner:  $6,136/year
Okay, yes, we have a maid service that comes in once a week.  But that doesn't alleviate our nightly need to clean the kitchen (not to mention the minefield around the high chair of an 11-month-old table-food-eater-and-occasional-thrower).  And, too, we have been known to re-clean something after the maids have "cleaned" because it has not been "cleaned" to our satisfaction.  I am, therefore, taking $2,000 of this and adding it to The Working Mom & Dad's yearly take.

Childcare:  $31,000/year
OK, total give.  Because we both work 40 hours a week, we don't do this (except for early mornings, evenings, mid-nights, weekends, holidays, when The Boy is sick, and the occasional SAHM Friday).  The Boy goes to the most awesome daycare ever.  It costs approximately $18,000/year, though.  Still, assuming two or more kids, daycare could easily top $30,000.

Driver:  $4,168/year
Yes, in fact, most working parents also have to chauffeur their kids to doctor visits, Scout meetings, school functions, and extra curricular activities.  Maybe Siri Cruise has her own car, but I can assure you that The Boy will have to settle for rides in his mom's Civic.  Yippee, another $4,168 per year added to our family income!

Laundry Service:  $936/year
I. Do. Laundry. All. Freaking. Weekend. Long.  And during the week too.  First of all, it's worth way more than $936 when you consider time value of money.  I mean, say that my husband and I billed a fairly modest lawyer's hourly rate of $350 an hour.  My husband and I probably spend, conservatively, 15 hours a week doing laundry, folding it, and putting it away.  That's over $5200 a week!  But then, I guess you can't charge lawyers' rates to do the work of a laundress.  More's the pity.  So I guess that's another $936 to The Working Family's yearly net worth.

Lawn Maintenance:  $1,560/year
Okay, let's be honest, most middle class families have lawn services, whether or not both parents work outside the home.  And if they don't have a lawn service, honesty must again prevail upon us to admit that it's usually Dad who is pushing the mower, not Mom.  (Although, this Mom, before she was a Mom, really enjoyed mowing the lawn, and probably will again in the fullness of time.)  We have a lawn service, now, post-birth-of-The-Boy.  So we get dinged here.

In all, based upon Mint.com's valuations, my husband and I can consider ourselves enriched to the tune of $59,365 per year for all of the work that we do ourselves that we could otherwise hire out to other folks.  Lucky us!  Now, how to spend this new-found wealth . . . .

So what is my point here?  My point is not to devalue the work of the SAHM, but simply to point out that many of these quantifiable tasks that Mint.com has ascribed to SAHMs are not just done by those parents whose workplace is the home.  Many of these tasks are tasks that all parents do, whether they work outside or inside the home.  The point of, and the value in, being a stay-at-home parent is that there are unquantifiable intangibles in that occupation.  In attempting to quantify the "worth" of SAHMs, Mint.com has simultaneously devalued the worth of the working parent's contributions to the home and of the stay-at-home parent's intangibles.  And, well, that irritates me.

(P.S.  Thank you, Friend With Whom I Had Lunch Today, for encouraging me to write this post and for getting me back into the blog.  I will try not to let a whole month pass before the next entry.)

The Working Dad

My husband is awesome.  I think that he is typical of a lot of modern husbands and daddies.  The dads of the mid-twentieth century sort of left the heavy-lifting of parenting and housework to the mommies, even if the mommies worked outside the home.  It was the curse of economic equality for the ladies:  you get to have your job, ma'am, but you've still got to cover all the bases at home.  That's not the way we are, now, not at my house, and not at a lot of houses I know.

There's been some criticism of the "companionate marriage" in which the husband and wife are contented friends as much as, or even more than, lovers.  (Does anybody else hate that word?  I couldn't come up with a better one.)  These sorts of marriages are criticized for being sexless and devoid of romance and excitement.  Rather than romanceless, I would say that a companionate marriage, like mine, is realistic, practical, fun . . . and still very loving with room for romance.

I think that our mid-twentieth century mothers helped us out by raising their sons to be helpmeets.  My mom has often spoken with pride about how she taught my brother how to do the laundry and other "women's work" sort of chores.  And I know that my brother is an awesome daddy and househelper.  He does not leave it all to his wife.

Neither does my husband.  My husband is also a lawyer.  His job is, pretty much, just like mine.  It's stressful.  It's demanding.  It's frustrating.  It's enervating.  And, just like me, he's got to balance that job with home and family.  He definitely does not leave it all up to me.

Here's a typical evening at our house:  I come home first, with The Boy.  I try to get dinner started for my husband and me, if The Boy will let me.  I may throw a load of laundry into the washer or dryer.  I feed The Boy.  At some point during the feeding, his dad comes home.  Dad immediately gets to washing all of the bottle parts and other hand washing stuff.  He loads the dishwasher.  After that, he either starts dinner, or picks up from where I left off.  Meanwhile, I finish feeding The Boy, change his diaper, give him a bath (or at least wipe him down really well), get him dressed for bed and then put him to bed.  My husband, during this time, also cleans up the kitchen, cleans the floors and, sometimes, even changes my cat's catbox.  He helps me fold the laundry.  He pays the bills online.  And sometimes, when The Boy is cranking, he comes to help me settle the little guy down and put him to bed.

In the mornings my husband gives The Boy his first bottle of the day so that I can attend to The Cat, who is diabetic.  He fixes The Boy's bottles for school.  He makes his coffee-addicted wife a cup of coffee every morning as she scoots out the door so that she can get to the office early.  If I have not had time to change The Boy and get him dressed for school, he does that too.  Then he takes The Boy to school.  Only then does he get a shower himself, get his own breakfast, and get to work.  And maybe he will play his piano for a few minutes before he heads to the office.  He deserves those few minutes for himself.

Honestly, sometimes I feel guilty that my husband does so much.  And here, in this blog, I have been calling him "Mr. The Working Mom."  Well, that's not fair.  He's not just my husband, defined solely by his marriage to me.  He's his own person, just like me.  And so, he shall be called in this blog, from now on, The Working Dad.

Mom Jeans

I bought some Mom Jeans.  Not Mom Jeans like these:

I bought some Not Your Daughter's Jeans.

I'd heard of them many times before, but it took me a long time to actually buy some.  Well, a long time and the birth of my child . . . .

I know it sounds a bit scary, but hear me out.

I was intrigued by the higher back, lower front design that, nevertheless, looks stylish.  My sweet and adorable husband often points out that I get plumber's crack when I wear jeans.  The problem is that in order for jeans to fit my rather generous thighs, they end up being too big in the waist and the result is a little too much exposure in the posterior.

Still, I was hesitant to buy them.  I mean, Not Your Daughter's Jeans is just code for Mom Jeans, right?  I wasn't excited about wearing Mom Jeans, even though I am, you know, a mom.  I like to think of myself as a moderately fashionable, even youthful, forty-one year old.

But then my boyfriend, Nate Berkus, and his show-guest, Tyra Banks, talked about Not Your Daughter's Jeans.  And Tyra mentioned how they did a really good job covering her booty.  I think that she may have even mentioned, in not so many words, that these jeans have excellent crack coverage.  As a sufferer of chronic plumberscrackitis, I was sold.  I got online and I ordered two pair, a straight legged pair and a boot cut pair.

When I first put on a pair of Not Your Daughter's Jeans, I wasn't sure that I liked them.  They've got a lot of lycra, so they're pretty stretchy.  But they covered my behind, even in a squat . . . and the stretchiness meant no muffin-top (which has become a special blight, post-partum).  I got used to them pretty quickly.  It doesn't hurt that they are actually pretty stylish and super-comfortable.  So I like my Mom Jeans.  They may be "not your daughter's jeans," but they're also not your mother's.

P.S.  Check out my friend's recent blog post about her Mom Jeans experience!

"Do you work?"

My sweet little son has RSV, respiratory syncytial virus.  Merry First Christmas, right?  He caught it at school.  Actually, I'm pretty sure who he caught it from.  I think he caught it from The Dude.  Poor little guys.  RSV is highly contagious, so I fully expect that nearly every kid in his class will catch it.  It's one of the well-known downsides of daycare:  your kiddo is going to catch everything.

Yesterday, we took The Boy to the doctor because we had learned about the RSV outbreak, and The Boy had a cough.  We wanted to get on top of it if it was, indeed, RSV.  My fellow working mommy friend, whose daughter just had RSV last week, also encouraged us to get in there early to get on top of the disease.  So we did.

The pediatrician, not our normal one because of the holidays, watched him breathe and determined that his breathing wasn't too bad, especially given that his blood oxygen level was 100%.  She noted that his nose was quite congested, and had two nurses come in to suction his nose.  It took three of us to do it:  Mr. The Working Mom and I to hold The Boy down, and one of the nurses to do the actual suctioning.   The Boy is an incredibly strong little creature.  That same nurse also swabbed The Boy's sinuses to get a sample to test for RSV.

While all this was going on, the other nurse, who was in there for God knows what reason other than to annoy me, prattled on about the benefits of nose suctioning, even going so far as to imply that The Boy's RSV infection may have been prevented had we but regularly suctioned The Boy's nose.

Give me a break.  The Boy has RSV because he, The Dude, and all the other kids in his class suck on the same toys five days a week.  For Heaven's sake, they steal each other pacifiers.  When one of those kids caught the virus, it was inevitable that The Boy would get it too.

So I was a frowny-faced mommy.

They offered me the bulb syringe, when it was all over.  I responded, snippily, "I use a NoseFrida to suction his nose," and did not take the stupid torture device.  Mr. The Working Mom, however, politely took the bulb syringe because he doesn't like that I tend to catch whatever The Boy catches by way of the NoseFrida.  (Mister is, generally speaking, more polite than I am, I would say.)

And I really do feel that this nose suctioning is torture for The Boy, even with the NoseFrida, and I don't really like to do it.  Here they were telling me to do it every couple of hours!  (Anyway, I always understood that you shouldn't do it too often or you could give the kiddo a nosebleed.  But nevermind that, 'tis not the point of my tale.)

Around 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon, I got a call that the RSV test on The Boy had come back positive and the doctor wanted us to come back today for a recheck.  So I made an appointment for 1:15 p.m. today.

I took The Boy to the doctor on my own today, which may have been a mistake.  (See superior politeness powers of my darling spouse.)  The Boy and I arrived in the exam room and among the questions asked of me by one of the very nurses who attended to us yesterday was, "And what is the purpose of your visit today?"  Really?  That's not in your notes on your little computer screen there from yesterday?  But I just said, "Recheck because of the RSV," flatly.

Not-Our-Regular-Pediatrician came in to check The Boy.  Among the things she said was that she had heard that I had gotten mad yesterday about the nose suctioning and so she wanted to apologize that the incident was so upsetting.  I wasn't planning to say anything about it, but since she brought it up, I explained to her that it was not the nose suctioning itself, but the unhelpful commentary by the, to my observation, superfluous nurse.  She didn't seem to understand the distinction.  For all I know Not-Our-Regular-Pediatrician also believes in the miracle cure that is nose suctioning.  I sort of let it drop, though.  No sense beating a dead horse.  We were there to get The Boy medical attention, not belabor a trivial personality dust up.  And besides, we are suctioning his nose, not every two hours, but several times a day.  And it comes right back.

The Boy's oxygen level was down and he was showing signs of labored breathing, so the doctor recommended that we do breathing treatments.  We did the first one in the doctor's office, me and a nurse (not the offending nurse).  The nurse commented several times about how strong The Boy is and how difficult it is to control him.  Yes, try to suction that nose all by yourself without two other adults to hold him down.


The doctor came back to check him again after the treatment and he was, sort of, instantly better.  His oxygen level went up a little and his breathing was not as labored.  She told me that she was sending us home with a nebulizer and that the nurse would give me the breathing treatment schedule.

So the same nurse who did the breathing treatment with me came back to give me the schedule.  Twelve days:  four treatments on the first three days, then three treatments for three days, then two treatments for three days, then one treatment for three days.

I somehow feel that it is necessary at this juncture to make crystal clear that I will do anything and everything to make The Boy well again.  Anything.  Everything.  Name it.  I'll do it.

After being given that treatment schedule I muttered (which I am want to do when stressed, I am given to understand) that the schedule might pose a bit of a logistical challenge, especially in the early days with so many treatments a day.  She said, sort of surprised, "Do you work?"

!

She never would have asked a dad that question.  Never.

I snapped back, "Yes, I work."  I went on to say (mutter) that I barely have any leave because I was on bedrest before The Boy was born, and that this will be hard, but we will figure something out.  It is not a question of whether or not to do it, but managing it.

Still, I was so angered by that remark that I really couldn't think of anything else.  Do I work?  Do I work?  Shit, lady, do you?  Look, some girls actually have fulltime jobs that are just as important as boys' jobs and stuff, golly!

I know I over-reacted.  I wanted to cry.  I just left the office and did not make a follow up appointment. I just could not stay and burst into tears and make a fool of myself.  (And the follow up appointment that I will make when I call back tomorrow is going to be with Our-Regular-Pediatrician.)  I was already stressed about the work that I am missing, deadlines that I have to meet somehow while not actually being in the office, and even more stressed about my very sick little boy.  Do I work?  I have two fulltime jobs, lady!

I called my aforementioned working mommy friend as I was walking out of the doctor's office.  And while talking to her, I did cry.  (And, she also rightly suggested that I was overreacting a bit, and very patiently listened to me and calmed me down.  Yay, friend!)

But this question that nurse asked carried with it all sorts of assumptions that just would not be made of a man.  To assume that I don't work, that I do not have other obligations that need juggling, just floored me.  I haven't asked him, but I suspect that when my brother, just last year, was staying home with his daughter while his wife worked, no one ever asked such a question of him or made any such assumptions about him.  You just wouldn't do that to man.

Who knew that I would face gender inequality at the pediatrician's office?  Certainly not me.

Man.  Wo-man.

Taking Christmas

I guess every new mom and dad faces the same dilemma at holiday time:  We've got our own little family, now, and we want to start our own traditions.  And, still, we want to honor our parents and their traditions.

It can be stressful.

Fortunately for me, I've got some pretty easy-going parents and a doting mother-in-law.  Still the guilt and the stress remains.  Above all you want everyone, especially your husband and your child, to be happy.

This year holiday plans just seemed to pile up and up.  They really weren't any different from the plans of years past.  It's just that, this year, we have The Boy.  Above all, I do not want The Boy to be cranky for the holiday.  But I saw plans with my immediate family, plans with Mr. The Working Mom's family, and plans with extended family as opportunity after opportunity to crank.  Now, The Boy is an incredibly good natured little guy, but when he starts to crank, he is a full-bore master cranker not likely to fill the room with holiday cheer.

So I decided to invite everyone -- grandparents, uncles, aunt and cousin -- to our house for Christmas Eve late-lunch/early-dinner.  The plan was that we would have a lovely meal, open presents, have coffee with a tasty dessert, listen to the Mister play the piano . . . .  The Boy would be in his own environment and would not be wagged around the near geography in the car, minimizing the opportunities to crank.  I was so pleased with the simplicity of the plan.  One big celebration on Christmas Eve with our nearest and dearest.  And then on Christmas Day we would go see my 94-year-old-sharp-as-a-tack grandmother and my extended family.

My Type A, organize-and-plan-everything personality was at peace.

Now, however, I sit in my living room as The Boy sleeps in the pack and play, occasionally coughing a very congested, sputtery cough.  This was not part of my master plan.  The pediatrician seemed to indicate this morning that he would be better, or at least on the mend, in a few days . . . . still in time for Christmas celebrations, in other words.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

So I thought I was going to take Christmas for my little family and start our own traditions.  I still may be doing that, but here lies the lesson . . . one that I should have learned a thousand times over by now, with a nine and a half month old boy.  Something unexpected will always come up.  Plans, it seems I needed reminding, are merely suggestions when you have an infant.  In the end, The Boy makes the plan, whatever it may be.