The American Family

I read an article yesterday (forgive me, I can't link to it using the Blogger iPhone app) on Slate that more women in their 20s are having babies out of wedlock. Most of these single moms have lower education levels.

Among those holding college degrees, the story is completely different. These women are getting married later, having babies after marriage, and then staying married.

The article suggests that an explanation for both phenomena is that marriage has become a "capstone event" in people's lives. Rather than being something that happened along the path of one's life, marriage is now the cake-topper. First you go to college, then you explore the world, then you get married.

And this idea that you need to progress up a life achievement ladder to marriage also explains why some people have babies and yet feel unready for marriage. They haven't reached the premarriage rungs yet, so they're not "ready" to slap the capstone of marriage on their lives. The existence of babies apparently doesn't change this.

This is a fundamental shift in the conception of marriage in just a generation.

But it makes sense:

When my parents got married, birth control was in its infancy (pardon the pun), abortion was illegal, and not a lot of women completed college or had demanding careers.

But that wasn't the case for my generation. We had the opportunity to prevent unwanted pregnancies. And we were encouraged by our mothers to get educations and delay marriage until we'd done some stuff.

This shift in the conception of marriage from a place where babies happen to a place where personal fulfillment is realized is a direct result of ladies like me delaying marriage and family in favor of education, personal exploration, and career.

Which brings me to gay marriage....

The argument goes that gay marriage will threaten the fundamental shape of the American Family by decoupling procreation from the marital unit. Leaving aside the obvious arguments that such a position fails to take into account infertile heterosexual couples or those heterosexual couples who choose not to have kids, the argument that gay marriage decouples marriage and children and turns marriage into an emotional and relational achievement is false.

Gay marriage does not and will not do that because it has already happened. And it happened under everybody's noses, and to many a parent's delight, as girls like me went to law school and delayed marriage and childbearing until we were in our 30s and 40s.

So don't blame the gay folks for the reimagining of the marital state. Marriage changed when your daughters went to school and work. Blame feminists for the change in the conception of marriage. Blame me. I reimagined it first. They're just following my lead.

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

Oh yum! I found a recipe online for vegan peanut butter cookies, and adapted it according to my tastes and pantry. The result is a yummy, chewy cookie that you'd probably not guess was animal-product-free. You could also probably make almond butter cookies, or even make them gluten free by using almond flour. ( I wonder if tahini cookies would be too weird.) I like playing around with recipes to make them my own. It's what makes cooking fun...a little bit of art, a little bit of science, a little ingenuity when you're missing an ingredient.....

So...anyway...recipe! Here we go!

1 tube Ella Organics butternut squash, carrot, apple, and prunes (or a little over half a cup of apple sauce)
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup soy milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt

Bake at 375 (or 350 convection).

Sift together dry ingredients. Cream together the fruit/veg purée, peanut butter, soy milk, vanilla, and brown sugar. Add dry ingredients to the wet in three batches. Roll the stiff dough into 1.5 inch balls. If you want to be a traditionalist, roll the balls in white sugar before you place them on the cookie sheet. Do that peanut-butter-cookie-crosshatch-thing with a fork. Bake 8 to 10 minutes. Makes about 3 dozen cookies that look like the ones below. Yum!

Sleeping on the floor

When your little guy cries out at 11:30 pm.... And you've soothed him and put him back to bed..., And you're still up an hour later...worrying, for no rational reason.

The only thing there is to do is make a pallet for yourself and sleep in the nursery floor, listening to the slow, soothing cadence of your sleeping toddler's breathing. Nighty night.

Veggie Barley Risotto

We've made Chicken Barley Risotto for years. I adapted from a recipe Mark Bittman created for Thanksgiving Turkey left overs, which I'd run across in the New York Times.

In an effort to reduce the amount of animal products we eat, I decided to see if our barley risotto could go vegan.

Oh yeah, it sure can!

I actually love this recipe better than the chicken version, so much so that I'm planning to put it into weekly rotation. And, The Working Dad went back for thirds. Whoop!

Here's the recipe:

First, a note: except for the barley, broth and water, I just eye-ball the measurements.

1 cup pearled barley
1.5 cup vegetable broth
1.5 cup water
2 table spoons canola or olive oil
2 shallots chopped
1.5 cup mushrooms (I used portobellos this time, but whatever you've got.)
1.5 cup chopped veggies (Here, you can experiment or just use what's in your fridge. I used asparagus and carrots because that's what I had on hand.)
3 handfuls baby spinach
1/3 cup soy parmesan (optional)
1 to 2 tablespoons of the herbs of your choice (You'll need less if you use dried. I just grabbed the Italian blend from my pantry, but dill or tarragon are lovely in the chicken version and would probably be great in this too.)

In a skillet, sauté (in the oil) the shallots, mushrooms, and chopped veggies until the veggies start to look bright whatever-color-they-are. Throw in the spinach and allow to wilt. Toss in the barley and toast it for a minute to a minute and a half. Pour in the broth and water. Add the herbs. Simmer on low until the barley cooks, 30 to 45 minutes. The barley and mushrooms make a nice sauce, so you can skip the soy cheese, if you like. But for a little added richness and flavor, toss in your soy cheese at the last minute and allow to melt. Serve by itself or with a salad and toast.

I can't wait to experiment with various farmers market veggies with this recipe this spring! Yummers!

So what if I wrote a novel?

Seriously.

What if I wrote a novel? What would it be about? You often hear the advice to "write what you know."

But if everyone wrote what they knew, we wouldn't have fantasy or horror fiction.

But I'm not sure I can sustain that level of whole-cloth creation. Nor am I sure that I've the patience to create a whole alternate universe and all of its rules. Plus, I like to read fantasy type stuff, but that doesn't mean I want to write it.

So....

Write what you know.
Write what you know.

Here's what I know:

What it's like to grow up in a small town....
What it's like to be a sorority girl at a small state college....
What it's like to go to law school....
What it's like to struggle with a legal career and then come to terms with it....
What it's like to be a single woman into middle age....
What it's like to marry your best friend....
What it's like to struggle with infertility....
What it's like to be a professional woman in "this man's world"....
What it's like to own and care for a diabetic cat....
What it's like to parent a toddler....
What it's like to struggle with your weight....
Some combination of some or all of the above...
Probably other stuff too that I've not thought about in this moment....

So there's got to be something there, right?

Then, where to find the time?

Downtown Abbey

Imagine our surprise when we were watching The New Normal last week and one of the characters referred to it as"Downtown Abbey." That's what we call it! Has Ryan Murphy been spying on us?

Anyway, so now that everyone knows that Matthew and Sybil have joined the choir eternal (you didn't know?  Sorry! Spoiler Alert!), I figured I might as well delve a little into the Masterpiece Theater sensation, Downton Abbey.

When it first aired in the US, a couple of years ago, The Working Dad and I were all a'twitter. It was right up our street: Edwardian British costume drama. And the fact that it was written and produced by Julian Fellowes -- author of perhaps my favorite movie ever, Gosford Park -- was even more reason to tune in. And Maggie Smith! Professor McGonagall has never looked better.

So, of course we did tune in, and it did not immediately disappoint. It starts with the loss of the last male heir to Lord Grantham, squire of Downton, on the Titanic. Oh dear!

But in those days of entailed estates, it was a serious matter. So, here, Lord Grantham found himself with a distant cousin, a lawyer, son of a doctor, as his next male relative. A major part of the storyline deals with the ersatz romance of Mary, the Earl's eldest daughter, and Matthew, the new heir. (And I should say at the outset that this pairing has never captivated me, nor have I found it believable. Mary is a cold fish and Matthew should have gone for Lady Edith instead and left the haughty Mary a spinster.)

Still, there were things to keep my interest: the Bates/Anna romance was sweet (if not somewhat weird and uncomfortable), and Lady Sybil's political interests and her kindness to Gwen the housemaid who wanted to be a secretary are stand-outs for me.  Also, Thomas and O'Brien's machinations were classic moustache twirling soapy fodder. Somewhere in there, we learn that Thomas is gay and has had a dalliance with one of Mary's potential suitors. Oh and Mrs. Patmore's cataract surgery.....

But then: Oh, Julian, you nearly lost me!  Mr. Pamuk and Mary.

Really? We were really supposed to believe that such a vibrant, randy young man would just collapse and die whilst taking Mary's maidenhead?  (Or even that she would give it up to a virtual stranger, however hot, so easily?)  But, however improbable, it was certainly possible, so I went along with it. And I mean, look at those lovely dresses! So Season One ended with The Working Dad and me mostly still on board and more-or-less looking forward to Season Two.

So Season Two begins with World War I.  Matthew, having been spurned by Mary, gets engaged to Lavinia Swire and goes off to war.  Thomas, the evil footman, and William, a lesser footman also join Matthew in France, somehow all conveniently assigned to the same regiment. Thomas gets himself intentionally injured, so he can return home. William and Matthew are also injured, William fatally, but in a slow way so that he can return home to be a source of anguished guilt for Daisy, the kitchen maid, who likes him but doesn't like-him-like-him and who eventually marries him on his deathbed for pity (or friendship or both).

During the war, Downton Abbey is turned into a hospital/convalescent home for wounded soldiers, and Matthew, Thomas, and William are returned there.  There's some vague power struggle between Matthew's mom, the former nurse whose name escapes me, and Cora, Lady Grantham.  (A potentially interesting character:  she's one of those American heiresses known as Buccaneers, who were spirited off by title-rich-cash-poor young English noblemen in crass efforts to save the family manse with an infusion of American capital via their wives' fat dowries.)

Lady Sybil becomes a nurse and Lady Edith generally hangs out with the injured officers playing book-reader and secretary, while Mary pines unconvincingly for Matthew.  (Also Sybil falls in love with and eventually elopes with the chauffeur, the brooding Irishman Tom Branson, but more on them later.)

But what of poor Matthew? Lest you forget that this is a soap opera, Matthew sustains a back injury that has left him paralyzed from the waist down. This worries all concerned for, if Matthew cannot reproduce, Downton lacks an heir and the estate is doomed . . . again.  Matthew attempts to release Lavinia from the engagement, but she stands by him, like a good plot device and soon enough, with the help of a little physical therapy, and the sang froid sort of love that only Mary can provide, Matthew walks again!

But that's not the only heir excitement that our aristos experience at Downton Hospital. A mysterious Canadian officer, face covered in bandages, claims to be the true heir, presumed drowned on the Titanic!  Yes!, he has no British accent, but somehow, Lady Edith is convinced it must be he.  Alas, he hoofs it when people start to question his veracity.  So Downton is safe for Matthew and Lavinia!

Yes, Matthew and Lavinia.  For even as he recognizes his love for Mary, and even as she covets what she cannot have (e.g., Matthew and the Downton estate that comes with it), Matthew is going to stand by Lavinia as she stood by him.  He will marry where he does not love because, after all, it's the right thing to do.

Good thing for him that the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 takes Lavinia out quickly and with very little fuss.

Hooray!  Matthew's free to marry Mary (I guess).  So after some hand-wringing on his part and a lovely Christmas episode, he proposes to Mary and she accept him.

I've got to tell you that the bandaged-faced heir nearly lost The Working Dad and me.  Actually, it did lose The Working Dad.  Combine it with the miracle cure of Matthew Crawley, and the framing (or not) of Mr. Bates for the murder of his estranged and charactaturely evil wife, and it's starting to feel a bit like One Life to Live, but in really fancy dress.  We swore we'd not watch Season Three.  It was getting to be too ridiculous.

But then . . . Season Three rolled around and, well, there wasn't much else on, even with Bunheads returning for a second season, so we set the DVR and started watching again.  In this season, I fear, Mr. Fellowes, you may have lost us for good.

Not because you killed off Matthew (thank you, by the way) and Lady Sybil (a shame, she was nice), but because your lovely program has wandered so far down Soap Opera Avenue as to become an unintentional parody.

First, the best thing about Season Three:  The episode in which Lady Sybil dies in childbirth of eclampsia.  It was affecting and gripping.  It was a great episode with excellent acting, but particularly by the man who plays Tom Branson.  Well done.

But one episode cannot make a season, but a lot of silly can ruin it.

For instance, it appears that the overarching theme of Season Three is "Lord Grantham is a puddin'-headed douche."  Don't believe me?  Here's a general run-down, of his increasingly stupid and/or destructive moves:

• Loses Cora's fat dowry in an improvident railway investment in Canada.
• Forbids his middle daughter from marrying/seeing the only guy who has ever given her a bit of attention (except for Bandages in Season Two), and succeeds in running him off in such a way that she is jilted at the alter.
• Having ensured Edith's spinsterhood, scorns Edith's efforts to be useful by becoming a journalist.
• Insists that a doctor even more toffee-nosed and douchey than himself treat Sybil during her labor, thus ensuring that she would receive inadequate treatment for her pre-eclampsia and ensuring her untimely death.
• Insists that Tom Branson not name Sybil's child after her departed mother and further insists that Baby Sybil be Christened Anglican and not Catholic like her father.  (Thankfully, Lord Destruction loses this battle.)
• Throws a hissy fit when Matthew points out that he might not be a good manager of money, and suggests investing with a guy named Ponzi.

I suppose that Fellowes was trying to illustrate that Lord Grantham was watching himself become a relic in his own lifetime and was not coping well with the rapid changes in his world, or his loss of power.  But did he really have to suggest investing with Charles Ponzi in one of the later episodes?

Other silliness in Season Three:

• Ethel, the former-housemaid-former-prostitute-turned-cook, is too proud not to put "prostitute" on her resume.
• The suicide by pie-crust by the late Mrs. Bates.
• The convenient inheritance by Matthew of Lavinia's father's money to save Downton, again, and then Matthew's even more convenient death at the end of the season leaving the run of the estate to completely and totally inept Lord Grantham.

I could go on, but you get my drift.  The series has steadily spiraled into "evil twin" territory.

Julian Fellowes says that he had to kill off Matthew Crawley and Sybil Branson when their actors did not renew for a fourth season because it was the only thing that made sense.  (Which I dispute . . . I think it was spite that killed the characters, but that's for another day.)  However, I wonder . . . could it be that he's setting up a Jazz Age resurrection plot for Season Five, should one of them wish to return?  I mean, why not at this rate?  Surely, it can be explained by the discovery of some forgotten identical twin cousin or something, like on The Patty Duke Show.

But before I leave it, I want to make clear:  Sure, it's all good fun, I guess.  But this series could have been so much more.  The Tom and Sybil relationship could have be so interesting in Ireland, had we been allowed to watch it there.  It would have been even more fascinating to see Tom hanging out with Patrick Pearse or, I don't know, William Butler Yeats and Maud Gonne.  It could have been so interesting.

But I suppose stories of political intrigue in Ireland during the fight for home rule aren't really the sort of upstairs/downstairs affair that Fellowes was looking to generate.

Anyway, I was disappointed at the end of Season Three, not because of Matthew's death.  (That came as a welcome relief.  At least we won't be tortured further by the literally unbelievable romance of Matthew and Mary.)  I was disappointed that the series seems to drift ever-more-cartoonish.

Will we watch Season Four?  Oh, probably, if there's nothing better on . . . but we won't like it.  Maybe we could make a drinking game:  every time Lord Grantham makes a ridiculous pronouncement, take a shot.  Every time Mary gives someone a withering look take two shots.  Every time a fellow gives Edith attention and then leaves take three.  Hate watching can be fun.

I reject your definition of feminism and substitute my own.

I wrote a little about Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In movement yesterday. Marisa Mayer, the new CEO of Yahoo, formerly of Google, who famously foreshortened her maternity leave to return to the struggling Yahoo, is another powerful Silicon Valley lady who, like Sandberg, doesn't really want to be labeled a feminist.

I get that. These ladies are around my age. And to women in their early 40s, and younger, the image of feminism can be a sort of self-serious, angry, bra-burning, placard carrying woman in a pantsuit and sensible shoes wearing very little make-up.

What a buzzkill, right? Who wants to be that angry bitchy lady?

Not I! Not Sheryl and Marisa either.

But what ladies like me and Sheryl and Marisa have to understand is that we needed that be-pants-suited lady to be a bit unpleasant in 1979 so that we, in 2013, can sit in our chairs formerly reserved for men and comfortably reject the discordant notes and angry refrains of feminism past.

But that doesn't make us not feminists. Feminists, at their core, believe in the equality of and equal advancement of female persons. Surely, that's me and that's Sheryl and that's Marisa. We know that's them because that's the way they talk. Sheryl's starting a whole marketing campaign, I mean, movement, premised on helping other women advance professionally.

That's not feminist???

Here's the problem with ladies like me and Sheryl and Marisa who either do, or have in the past (because I have, in the past), reject the word feminism as a label for our general state of opinion that women should get all the same breaks and shakes that men get.

In rejecting feminism as a descriptor of some dour, placard-waving harpy, we have adopted the image of feminism set up by feminism's opponents. Feminists are angry. Feminists hate men. Feminists hate children. Feminists don't like to look pretty. Feminists are humorless scolds. Feminists whine.

I'm not saying some feminists along the way weren't those things. I'm not even saying that some feminists today aren't those things.

But if we accept that grim definition of feminism, we're ceding ground to feminism's opponents, aren't we? We're letting them define us? And when we adopt their definition of feminism and then claim not to be feminists, what we're saying is, "Geez, you're right. Feminism is a drag, but I'm cool and you guys can totally like me.  It's all those other sour ladies over there that are the problem.  But you can hire me because I'm cool."

See the problem there?

Instead, may I suggest an alternate definition of feminist: Feminists love families. Feminists love their kids. Feminists love and respect their husbands and are loved and respected back. Feminists are intelligent and competent. Feminists want everyone to be treated equally, even men. Feminists want you to succeed.

Nice, huh? Feminism without the frowny face.

So it's okay, Sheryl and Marisa, smile, you're feminists, just like me.