Clearly, what follows is not a traditional Nommersland post, in that it doesn't pertain to the minutiae and madness, and mostly merriment, of my mommying. There's been no time for such fodder, as my contract work has picked up at a very steady clip, with my newest gig as editor-in-chief of the BTM Institute demanding most of my typing time. That, and my monthly Better Investing column, and the writing and editing for a boutique PR firm, and any other work that should fall into my laptop. I'm not complaining! It's the demand of my workload that's driven me to nearly finish the first draft of my first novel, Hedgies. I'd originally promised myself to be done by Thanksgiving, but those paying jobs kept getting in the way. Now the Christmas deadline is firm and absolutely achievable.
Meantime, I offer you my musings on a most macabre misanthropist. I wrote it early last month, when the news broke. I'd tried to find a home for it, but it's apparently not the most sought-after fodder by most news organizations. For those who knew me as a teenage Russian lit scholar, or an early 20-something crime beat reporter, or those who just know me for my infinite oddness, this aberrant fascination should come as no surprise.
Dolls of the Dead: A Dostoyevskian Tale in 2011
By Natasha Gural
Home to nearly 1.3 million people, Nizhny Novgorod is the fifth largest city in Russia. The birthplace of Maxim Gorky, it was named after the Socialist Realist author from 1932 to 1990. It's hardly a humble village, though like most of the vast expanse of the motherland, it seems somehow lost in time despite growing into a major global IT hub. Nizhny's most internationally famous resident of the moment, Anatoly Moskvin, is like a character out of classic Russian literature, though more Dostoyevsky than Gorky. Some of the most horrific characters and crimes in Dostoyevsky's novels and short stories were born from contemporary newspaper articles, not a wild imagination. There's the child who is ripped from his mother’s womb and tossed onto a bayonet, another who is locked in a cold outhouse overnight and the boy who is ripped to shreds by his landlord’s dogs. No doubt Moskvin, who decorated his home with oddly adorned stolen corpses of girls and young women, would have inspired a Dostoyevsky character were he alive and robbing graves in the 19th century.
Moskvin, who was arrested last week by police investigating a series of grave desecrations, even looks like a character out of Crime and Punishment. Sloppily dressed, his un-groomed graying hair cropped, save for a tuft sticking up in front, with what appear to be bruises (inflicted by cops?) covering his bearded face, Moskvin's mug shots depict a man who looks at least a decade older than his 45 years. His face exudes the kind of hard-living, suffering and turmoil that afflicted the men of Dostoyevsky's sad, tragic, desperate tales. It's a face only a Karamazov mother might love.
Russian media reports chronicled the police discovery of brightly dressed corpses, or dolls as they've been called, propped up throughout his cluttered apartment. The skeletons were covered in stockings and dresses, some with masks, and one with a teddy bear for a face. Dostoyevsky could have been referring to a creature like Moskvin when he said centuries ago that: "People speak sometimes about the 'bestial' cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel."
Described by Russian police as "well-known in academic circles" Moskvin studied Celtic culture at a prestigious Russian university and has written many books and academic papers. Neighbors called him a "genius," who sometimes sleeps in a coffin or on graveyard benches and speaks 13 languages, according to news reports. Perhaps a criminal genius of Dostoyevskian proportion. Authorities believe he visited more than 750 cemeteries in western Russia to build his macabre menagerie, although it's unclear when he started exhuming graves. Russian media reports say he's a well-known "necropolist", or cemetery expert. Hardly a recluse, Moskvin lectured at a local museum and contributed to a local newspaper. He was discrete (until the embellished remains were discovered) and discerning in his fetish, selecting girls and women between the ages of 15 and 26.
Moskvin's arrest came after an investigation into the desecration of graves at several cemeteries in Nizhny Novgorod beginning in 2010, police spokeswoman Svetlana Kovylina said. Authorities initially blamed the desecration on extremist groups. Moskvin is likely to blame his actions and inclinations on a childhood experience; he said he was forced to kiss the face of an 11-year-old dead girl when he was 12 years old. "An adult pushed my face down to the waxy forehead of the girl in an embroidered cap, and there was nothing I could do but kiss her as ordered," Moskvin wrote last month in Nekrolog, publication on necrology. While this might sound strange to most Americans, who are often detached from death and the dead, it's hardly unusual for a Russian. A first-generation American, I was raised Russian Orthodox, and attended funerals from an early age. In my culture it is normal, and expected, to kiss the corpses of loved ones. My maternal grandmother was waked at my parents' home, her body displayed in an open casket overnight before being transported to the monastery where she lay overnight as monks, seminarians and others read prayers and held vigil until the morning of her funeral.
There is something very Russian about Moskvin. It's difficult for me to imagine this story unraveling anywhere else. In a 2007 interview with the newspaper Nizhegorodsky Rabochy, Moskvin said he'd been wandering cemeteries since he was a young boy, in recent years walking up to 30 kilometers (20 miles) a day and inspecting 752 cemeteries across the region from 2005 to 2007. He said he drank from puddles and spent nights in haystacks, abandoned farms and a coffin prepared for a funeral. Somehow this was not depicted as strange behavior. There were no apparent signs that this obsession was more than academic until Moskvin was arrested. As is common in Russian media, there are conflicting reports of how or why Moskvin was caught. One report claims his parents called police after returning from their country dacha, or second home, to the home they shared with him. Police found photographs and nameplates from graves, along with maps of local cemeteries in the apartment.
Nizhny, located some 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of Moscow, is a storied city dating back to 1221 when it was founded originally as Obran Osh by medieval prince Yuri II as a fortress on the Volga River to secure the area from Bulgarian attacks. It withstood many attacks, was destroyed once by the Tatars and rebuilt in the 16th century. By the early 19th century, it emerged as a trade center and host to the major Makaryev Fair, drawing millions of visitors and foreign merchants from India, Iran, and Central Asia. Selected by the Stroganovs, Russia's wealthiest merchant family, as a base for operations, it became renowned for the lavish Stroganov style of architecture and icon painting, developed around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Nizhny was closed to foreigners throughout most of the Soviet era to protect military research and production facilities. Street maps of the secret city weren't sold until the mid-1970s. Nizhny is now a IT hub, housing numerous offshore outsourcing software developers, including an Intel software R&D center with more than 500 engineers. It boasts 33 universities and 25 scientific R&D institutions specializing in telecommunications, radio technology, theoretical and applied physics. Still, there is something very medieval about Moskvin's story. It's one that would hardly shock past residents, like Gorky, who famously said, "A good man can be stupid and still be good. But a bad man must have brains."
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Pain, Pills and the Pursuit of Healthcare
I've had a trying three weeks. After a laboring Labor Day, I was looking to that post-holiday Tuesday for some normalcy. But that never came. Any chance of respite was relinquished when we had to unexpectedly head back from Massachusetts Sunday night on the holiday weekend reserved for relaxing, subjecting Michael Alexander to a car and train ride extending hours past his bedtime. I abide by the old adage to never wake a sleeping baby (even if I'm miffed I can't find its origin and hate spewing jargon of unknown intent), but I've come to believe it's much worse to force a toddler to stay awake well past schedule. Our only consolation was three early 20-somethings, a lovely woman and two charming men, who made every effort to entertain our son and swap his tears for a delirious fit of exhausted laughter and manic energy. During the car ride to the train station, our perpetually cheerful son cried to convey an agony that ripped my heart to shreds and eroded any semblance of sanity I was able to muster. He's wept passionately only when physical pain from chronic ear infections strikes, so to hear blood-curdling cries brought on by a sudden (yet completely avoidable) schedule change stung deep and hard. That disruption lingered through the week, as his napping was off, making for more tumultuous times. I did my best to avoid the Facebook photos of those who spent Labor Day at the beach, soaking in summer's last hurrah. As I battled the envy of those who kicked off the short work week with sand still in their hair, I hoped I could at least shake off the stress of the last couple of weeks. Instead I faced the most arduous stay-at-home work week, with banal task after banal task for a freelance assignment that's still ongoing, all with Michael Alexander robbed of his naps and struggling to re-acclimate after that torturous journey home. I'd had dreams the week before of someone offering to watch, or at least stay in the apartment for an hour or so while he napped, giving me some time to get ahead on my work. That was a silly expectation! I know better now. What's worse is that week before Labor Day marked a major setback in my greatest personal (non-mommy) accomplishment of recent history. I'd finally started work on a novel, and had been sneaking minutes here and there to gain impressive momentum. Then that first of three miserable weeks reared its ugly head, and all creativity was lost. I haven't managed a word since.
As I trudged through last week, I made every effort to test my physical fitness and exert as much energy as possible in a last-ditch effort to lighten my dampened spirit. It was going great, until last Thursday when I stupidly took a spin class that I know I should avoid like a plague. It involves balancing in second and third position without touching the handlebars. Sure it builds core strength and burns calories, but for someone like me with a severely damaged spine, it's a prescription for pain. Like I said, I know better. I'm to blame. And I've been paying for my bad judgement. My chronic pain -- due to a degenerated spine and slipped discs, caused by scoliosis -- is dull and constant with episodes of excruciating sharp or stabbing pains. But those inexorable episodes rarely last more than a day or two. This was the longest bout of what's regarded by doctors as debilitating pain I've ever endured. Since I'm incapable of slowing down -- both because of my personality which rejects the notion of slothenly couch-sitting or bed-rest, and because I have to care for a very active 17-month-old all day without any childcare -- I have to rely on better living through chemistry.
On Monday, I went to see a spine surgeon, who advised that if I take another hands-free spin class I'll be on his schedule sooner than later. I'm already banned from running (even though I've logged some miles since giving birth), as I was diagnosed with scoliosis and the degenerated spine while marathon training in 2006. I had to see nearly a half dozen doctors back then before finding one who'd agree to treat me if I went through with the marathon. I finished, and would have had it no other way. I've since struggled with cutting out the running as it's by far the most effective cardio, and my metabolically-challenged body needs a lot of intense exercise. The first of three doctors I visited this week gave me a cocktail of three meds, a narcotic painkiller, a hardcore muscle relaxer and an equally potent anti-inflammatory, saying I'd only feel any relief if I stacked all three. True it masked some of the pain, but it took my brain, balance, motor skills, reflexes and ability stay awake past 9 p.m. as prisoners. I was barely functioning during the day, praying I wouldn't pass out while keeping up with Michael Alexander. Clearly that pharma-concoction was a short-term fix, and he referred me to a pain specialist who could better help me cope longer-term.
I should have been suspicious when the pain specialist I was referred to was able to see me the very next day, without my even droning on about the severity of my situation. I'll spare you the brunt of the saga of this horrific experience, as some of you may have read my reviews. (It's the first time I've written a negative review online, and I was very generous to not mention he was essentially trying to defraud me.) Long story short, I gave the woman who made the appointment my insurance and personal information, and she'd promised to call back that day if there was any potential problem with the insurance. She never called. Mike confirmed the doctor is in our network. When I arrived for my appointment, there was nobody at the front desk and I waited some 15 minutes before the doctor, with his name embroidered on his top, came to the desk. I had to alert him I was a patient, and he handed me a pile of paperwork. Another 20 minutes later, he came to call in the patient scheduled a half hour after me. The other patient was kind enough to point out that I was ahead of him, so the doctor called me to the front desk to inform me I'd have to pay hundreds, maybe more, up front because of a "network deductible" and refused to bill me through my insurance. He said "that's the way we do it," and that he'd "reimburse you if you overpaid." He said I could pay him and then seek reimbursement through my carrier. Naturally, I walked out. My back pain worsened by the time I left the office as my stress mounted. This esteemed doctor illegally denied me treatment. Mike spoke with the insurance provider after my failed visit, and was told we should never pay up front for a network doctor. Mike then called the doctor and left a voicemail message. The doctor called back Mike, again insisting "that's how we do it." A woman from the office called back later to apologize for her "mistake," for not calling me back about the insurance and for giving the doctor "wrong information." Of course I've never received a direct apology.
I am so grateful Mike recognized how agonizing this experience was, and that now with a drug-addled brain and rapidly rising anxiety, I was in no condition to call doctor after doctor in search of an honest one who'd accept our insurance, abide by the law and make time to see me almost immediately. After calls to multiple in-network doctors, Mike reached a woman, who after putting him on hold for 20 minutes, understood the urgency and booked me first thing in the morning. I've finally found a doctor who carefully listened to my concerns, examined me and recognized how the emotional stress was exacerbating my physical pain. For the last 24 hours, I've been truly managing my pain, with medications that don't leave me nearly catatonic. Hopefully the cortisone injection will kick in, too. I'm slowly regaining my full capacity to react and respond to sudden movements. Another day or so and I should be back to some reasonably functioning state. I'll be damned if I let another week drain my creative conscious.
Disclaimer: While Natasha Gural-Maiello makes every effort to post accurate and reliable information, she does not guarantee or warrant that the information on this blog entry is coherent due to her recent wranglings with Western medicine.
As I trudged through last week, I made every effort to test my physical fitness and exert as much energy as possible in a last-ditch effort to lighten my dampened spirit. It was going great, until last Thursday when I stupidly took a spin class that I know I should avoid like a plague. It involves balancing in second and third position without touching the handlebars. Sure it builds core strength and burns calories, but for someone like me with a severely damaged spine, it's a prescription for pain. Like I said, I know better. I'm to blame. And I've been paying for my bad judgement. My chronic pain -- due to a degenerated spine and slipped discs, caused by scoliosis -- is dull and constant with episodes of excruciating sharp or stabbing pains. But those inexorable episodes rarely last more than a day or two. This was the longest bout of what's regarded by doctors as debilitating pain I've ever endured. Since I'm incapable of slowing down -- both because of my personality which rejects the notion of slothenly couch-sitting or bed-rest, and because I have to care for a very active 17-month-old all day without any childcare -- I have to rely on better living through chemistry.
On Monday, I went to see a spine surgeon, who advised that if I take another hands-free spin class I'll be on his schedule sooner than later. I'm already banned from running (even though I've logged some miles since giving birth), as I was diagnosed with scoliosis and the degenerated spine while marathon training in 2006. I had to see nearly a half dozen doctors back then before finding one who'd agree to treat me if I went through with the marathon. I finished, and would have had it no other way. I've since struggled with cutting out the running as it's by far the most effective cardio, and my metabolically-challenged body needs a lot of intense exercise. The first of three doctors I visited this week gave me a cocktail of three meds, a narcotic painkiller, a hardcore muscle relaxer and an equally potent anti-inflammatory, saying I'd only feel any relief if I stacked all three. True it masked some of the pain, but it took my brain, balance, motor skills, reflexes and ability stay awake past 9 p.m. as prisoners. I was barely functioning during the day, praying I wouldn't pass out while keeping up with Michael Alexander. Clearly that pharma-concoction was a short-term fix, and he referred me to a pain specialist who could better help me cope longer-term.
I should have been suspicious when the pain specialist I was referred to was able to see me the very next day, without my even droning on about the severity of my situation. I'll spare you the brunt of the saga of this horrific experience, as some of you may have read my reviews. (It's the first time I've written a negative review online, and I was very generous to not mention he was essentially trying to defraud me.) Long story short, I gave the woman who made the appointment my insurance and personal information, and she'd promised to call back that day if there was any potential problem with the insurance. She never called. Mike confirmed the doctor is in our network. When I arrived for my appointment, there was nobody at the front desk and I waited some 15 minutes before the doctor, with his name embroidered on his top, came to the desk. I had to alert him I was a patient, and he handed me a pile of paperwork. Another 20 minutes later, he came to call in the patient scheduled a half hour after me. The other patient was kind enough to point out that I was ahead of him, so the doctor called me to the front desk to inform me I'd have to pay hundreds, maybe more, up front because of a "network deductible" and refused to bill me through my insurance. He said "that's the way we do it," and that he'd "reimburse you if you overpaid." He said I could pay him and then seek reimbursement through my carrier. Naturally, I walked out. My back pain worsened by the time I left the office as my stress mounted. This esteemed doctor illegally denied me treatment. Mike spoke with the insurance provider after my failed visit, and was told we should never pay up front for a network doctor. Mike then called the doctor and left a voicemail message. The doctor called back Mike, again insisting "that's how we do it." A woman from the office called back later to apologize for her "mistake," for not calling me back about the insurance and for giving the doctor "wrong information." Of course I've never received a direct apology.
I am so grateful Mike recognized how agonizing this experience was, and that now with a drug-addled brain and rapidly rising anxiety, I was in no condition to call doctor after doctor in search of an honest one who'd accept our insurance, abide by the law and make time to see me almost immediately. After calls to multiple in-network doctors, Mike reached a woman, who after putting him on hold for 20 minutes, understood the urgency and booked me first thing in the morning. I've finally found a doctor who carefully listened to my concerns, examined me and recognized how the emotional stress was exacerbating my physical pain. For the last 24 hours, I've been truly managing my pain, with medications that don't leave me nearly catatonic. Hopefully the cortisone injection will kick in, too. I'm slowly regaining my full capacity to react and respond to sudden movements. Another day or so and I should be back to some reasonably functioning state. I'll be damned if I let another week drain my creative conscious.
Disclaimer: While Natasha Gural-Maiello makes every effort to post accurate and reliable information, she does not guarantee or warrant that the information on this blog entry is coherent due to her recent wranglings with Western medicine.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Rest Easy: Study says we're not smothering our son
Michael Alexander is suffering from his sixth double ear infection in less than a year. He's on his seventh round of antibiotics. (Eighth if you consider the course of Cefdinir we had to cease because he's allergic to the one specifically designed to treat ear infections.) He's not eating, save for milk and an occasional bite of anything we offer -- and we've tried everything, and none of us is sleeping through the night.
Last night I was plagued by nightmares as Mike and I took over the living room so Michael Alexander could have his own serene space to sleep after waking in the wee hours as he's done every night for the last two weeks or so. We've been coddling him more than usual, as we have trouble coping with his pain and our inability to do more than what the doctors say. Unless you count letting him sleep with us when he wakes around 2 a.m. We moved into the living room last night, partly because we worry maybe we shouldn't be letting him share our bed so often. After all, there's so much concern over the potential physical and mental health risks in this Puritanical, litigious and generally un-compassionate country of ours.
The American Academy of Pediatrics cautions against co-sleeping in the first year due to an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals go so far as to scare parents into believing this will happen. I understand they're scared of being sued, but new parents have enough to fear without the added AAP propaganda. While co-sleeping with your toddler is common in many cultures and countries, about a third of U.S. *experts* discourage it, another third think it's OK -- even beneficial -- and the rest are just scared to say anything. The threat of lawsuits silences far too many alleged experts in this country. Funny, though, how those with no training or data to back up their claims are constantly offering their opinions.
Researchers from the Stony Brook University School of Medicine in New York, led by Lauren Hale, associate professor of the preventive medicine graduate program in public health, released a study in the August issue of Pediatrics that shows bed-sharing or co-sleeping with your toddler does NOT lead to an increased risk in behavioral or learning problems later in life. "There seem to be no negative associations between bed-sharing in toddlerhood and children's behavior and cognition at age 5 years," the study concluded.
The "overwhelming majority of mothers and babies around the globe today" share a bed in what is "an unquestioned practice," according to Dr. James J. McKenna, professor of anthropology and the director of the Center for Behavioral Studies of Mother-Infant Sleep, Notre Dame University. It's common in much of southern Europe, Asia, Africa and Central and South America, and is prevalent in the countries with the lowest SIDS rates.
Trust I take every study avere sale in zucca, even as I may mention only those that suit my sentiment.
My sanity seeks equal doses of starlets and science.
"Children will tell you how lonely it is sleeping alone. If possible, you should always sleep with someone you love. You both recharge your mutual batteries free of charge."
_ Marlene Dietrich
Last night I was plagued by nightmares as Mike and I took over the living room so Michael Alexander could have his own serene space to sleep after waking in the wee hours as he's done every night for the last two weeks or so. We've been coddling him more than usual, as we have trouble coping with his pain and our inability to do more than what the doctors say. Unless you count letting him sleep with us when he wakes around 2 a.m. We moved into the living room last night, partly because we worry maybe we shouldn't be letting him share our bed so often. After all, there's so much concern over the potential physical and mental health risks in this Puritanical, litigious and generally un-compassionate country of ours.
The American Academy of Pediatrics cautions against co-sleeping in the first year due to an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals go so far as to scare parents into believing this will happen. I understand they're scared of being sued, but new parents have enough to fear without the added AAP propaganda. While co-sleeping with your toddler is common in many cultures and countries, about a third of U.S. *experts* discourage it, another third think it's OK -- even beneficial -- and the rest are just scared to say anything. The threat of lawsuits silences far too many alleged experts in this country. Funny, though, how those with no training or data to back up their claims are constantly offering their opinions.
Researchers from the Stony Brook University School of Medicine in New York, led by Lauren Hale, associate professor of the preventive medicine graduate program in public health, released a study in the August issue of Pediatrics that shows bed-sharing or co-sleeping with your toddler does NOT lead to an increased risk in behavioral or learning problems later in life. "There seem to be no negative associations between bed-sharing in toddlerhood and children's behavior and cognition at age 5 years," the study concluded.
The "overwhelming majority of mothers and babies around the globe today" share a bed in what is "an unquestioned practice," according to Dr. James J. McKenna, professor of anthropology and the director of the Center for Behavioral Studies of Mother-Infant Sleep, Notre Dame University. It's common in much of southern Europe, Asia, Africa and Central and South America, and is prevalent in the countries with the lowest SIDS rates.
Trust I take every study avere sale in zucca, even as I may mention only those that suit my sentiment.
My sanity seeks equal doses of starlets and science.
"Children will tell you how lonely it is sleeping alone. If possible, you should always sleep with someone you love. You both recharge your mutual batteries free of charge."
_ Marlene Dietrich
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Getting It Off My Chest
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that less than 4% of U.S. hospitals provide the full support that new mothers need to successfully breastfeed. Finally, a study that doesn't slap me with guilt.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends babies be fed nothing but breast milk for about the first 6 months and continue breastfeeding for at least a year. My son's pediatrician, my obstetrician, countless women and a few men -- mostly strangers -- who have no business telling me how to raise my son and, of course, the highly-paid breastfeeding specialist (I can't recall her exact title or name, but I remember every pound of propaganda she delivered without ever offering an ounce of useful advice) all extolled the virtues of this "natural" act and insisted I should do it, often citing the AAP's recommendations as dogma.
The first few weeks after Michael Alexander was born were fraught with frustration, guilt and feelings of inadequacy, all because I was having trouble doing "what's best for your baby" -- breastfeeding. I was able to eke out enough milk for about two months to keep my son healthy, but it was obvious he needed more than I could provide. I'll describe to anyone who asks privately about my painful, failed attempts at pumping. Suffice it to say the futility compounded with the constant "encouragement" to "keep trying" drove me to tears most days. It's not surprising to me that a study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill published this month in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology found "Women with negative early breastfeeding experiences were more likely to have depressive symptoms at 2 months postpartum."
A voracious consumer of medical data and studies, I was inundated with reports by experts insisting I was robbing my son of essential nutrients and future health by not lactating. My OB suggested I pay for a private lactation consultant, a service not covered by health insurance. It wasn't until I sought the free advice of La Leche League that I was offered any support from someone other than my loving husband, mother, mother-in-law and other dear family members and friends who advised me to ignore the professionals and (totally unqualified) propagandists who kept insisting "You can do it!"
A woman at La Leche, who identified herself only as Heidi D., asked me a series of medical questions, including whether I had thyroid disease or polycystic ovary syndrome. I have both Hashimoto's Disease, an autoimmune disease in which the thyroid gland is gradually destroyed by a variety of cell and antibody mediated immune processes, and PCOS. Of course, my OB is well aware of both these conditions. Heidi D. cited a study which found that a third of women with my condition can't produce any or enough breast milk. It was one month and one day after my son was born that someone, an authority even, dispensed any evidence that this lack of lactation may not be my own fault or failure.
While La Leche is obviously an advocate of breastfeeding, it's where I found an ally who understood that this "natural" act can be unnatural, even impossible, for some of us. As Heidi D. wrote me in an email on May 20, 2010: "Baby needs to eat! and if there isn't enough breast milk, formula is a heck of a lot better than kool aid :)"
It made me think back to New York-Presbyterian, where dozens of esteemed (ahem!) medical professionals who knew I suffered from a double endocrine-autoimmune affliction, never, ever suggested this might ever hinder or hamper my efforts to breast feed. That breastfeeding specialist, who came to my room at least once a day with her pep talks and pamphlets, certainly never considered my condition. What's worse, is she never showed me how to breastfeed or pump, and she certainly never suggested that I might have a problem or what I should do if my ability to be a "good mother" eluded me.
I still get angry when I think about my overall experience at New York-Presbyterian, and have since spoken to other *new* mothers who say they will never return to that hospital. I'm especially upset about that specialist whose voice I hear every time someone else drones on about the importance of breastfeeding. She repeatedly applauded my decision to breastfeed, making me feel like I had to stick with it no matter what. Even at the hospital, I suspected I wasn't producing enough for my son, as he'd suck (sorry to the squeamish) and suck for up to three hours (yes, three hours!) and still seem hungry. Not once did she or any of the other staff suggest that maybe this wasn't normal, despite telling me that he "should be satisfied in 20 minutes."
Of course I am still bitter about this experience, but I am relieved to see my son is strong and healthy, consistently growing at the same rate (97th percentile for height and 75th percentile for weight.) And my long, lean son is happy! He's been happy since I introduced him to formula at two months and whole foods at about six months and organic cow's milk at 10 months.
It's not often that I'll give props to a government agency, but thank you, CDC, for recognizing that maybe mothers aren't to blame for all breastfeeding blunders. The CDC concluded that: "Unfortunately, most U.S. hospitals do not fully support breastfeeding; they should do more to make sure mothers can start and continue breastfeeding." I was shocked that New York-Presbyterian (ranked No. 1 overall in New York and No. 10 nationally in gynecology by U.S. News & World Report) offered me no practical breastfeeding advice and no support when I clearly under-produced. The CDC Vital Signs report released this month says hospitals should: "Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation, even if they are separated from their infants." I was separated from Michael Alexander for what seemed like an eternity after giving birth by an unplanned C-section which I was told was medically necessary. He latched on immediately in the recovery room, but once we made it to our own private room (a topic for a future post) the only instruction I was given was on how to hold my son while he fed. I just wish I didn't latch on to all the bad advice I was given.
I can finally accept that I may not be evil for not being able to breastfeed my son for as long as the AAP recommends. As George Bernard Shaw famously, said: "Even mother's milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes.” Maybe I should have turned to a Nobel Prize winner for advice earlier.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends babies be fed nothing but breast milk for about the first 6 months and continue breastfeeding for at least a year. My son's pediatrician, my obstetrician, countless women and a few men -- mostly strangers -- who have no business telling me how to raise my son and, of course, the highly-paid breastfeeding specialist (I can't recall her exact title or name, but I remember every pound of propaganda she delivered without ever offering an ounce of useful advice) all extolled the virtues of this "natural" act and insisted I should do it, often citing the AAP's recommendations as dogma.
The first few weeks after Michael Alexander was born were fraught with frustration, guilt and feelings of inadequacy, all because I was having trouble doing "what's best for your baby" -- breastfeeding. I was able to eke out enough milk for about two months to keep my son healthy, but it was obvious he needed more than I could provide. I'll describe to anyone who asks privately about my painful, failed attempts at pumping. Suffice it to say the futility compounded with the constant "encouragement" to "keep trying" drove me to tears most days. It's not surprising to me that a study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill published this month in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology found "Women with negative early breastfeeding experiences were more likely to have depressive symptoms at 2 months postpartum."
A voracious consumer of medical data and studies, I was inundated with reports by experts insisting I was robbing my son of essential nutrients and future health by not lactating. My OB suggested I pay for a private lactation consultant, a service not covered by health insurance. It wasn't until I sought the free advice of La Leche League that I was offered any support from someone other than my loving husband, mother, mother-in-law and other dear family members and friends who advised me to ignore the professionals and (totally unqualified) propagandists who kept insisting "You can do it!"
A woman at La Leche, who identified herself only as Heidi D., asked me a series of medical questions, including whether I had thyroid disease or polycystic ovary syndrome. I have both Hashimoto's Disease, an autoimmune disease in which the thyroid gland is gradually destroyed by a variety of cell and antibody mediated immune processes, and PCOS. Of course, my OB is well aware of both these conditions. Heidi D. cited a study which found that a third of women with my condition can't produce any or enough breast milk. It was one month and one day after my son was born that someone, an authority even, dispensed any evidence that this lack of lactation may not be my own fault or failure.
While La Leche is obviously an advocate of breastfeeding, it's where I found an ally who understood that this "natural" act can be unnatural, even impossible, for some of us. As Heidi D. wrote me in an email on May 20, 2010: "Baby needs to eat! and if there isn't enough breast milk, formula is a heck of a lot better than kool aid :)"
It made me think back to New York-Presbyterian, where dozens of esteemed (ahem!) medical professionals who knew I suffered from a double endocrine-autoimmune affliction, never, ever suggested this might ever hinder or hamper my efforts to breast feed. That breastfeeding specialist, who came to my room at least once a day with her pep talks and pamphlets, certainly never considered my condition. What's worse, is she never showed me how to breastfeed or pump, and she certainly never suggested that I might have a problem or what I should do if my ability to be a "good mother" eluded me.
I still get angry when I think about my overall experience at New York-Presbyterian, and have since spoken to other *new* mothers who say they will never return to that hospital. I'm especially upset about that specialist whose voice I hear every time someone else drones on about the importance of breastfeeding. She repeatedly applauded my decision to breastfeed, making me feel like I had to stick with it no matter what. Even at the hospital, I suspected I wasn't producing enough for my son, as he'd suck (sorry to the squeamish) and suck for up to three hours (yes, three hours!) and still seem hungry. Not once did she or any of the other staff suggest that maybe this wasn't normal, despite telling me that he "should be satisfied in 20 minutes."
Of course I am still bitter about this experience, but I am relieved to see my son is strong and healthy, consistently growing at the same rate (97th percentile for height and 75th percentile for weight.) And my long, lean son is happy! He's been happy since I introduced him to formula at two months and whole foods at about six months and organic cow's milk at 10 months.
It's not often that I'll give props to a government agency, but thank you, CDC, for recognizing that maybe mothers aren't to blame for all breastfeeding blunders. The CDC concluded that: "Unfortunately, most U.S. hospitals do not fully support breastfeeding; they should do more to make sure mothers can start and continue breastfeeding." I was shocked that New York-Presbyterian (ranked No. 1 overall in New York and No. 10 nationally in gynecology by U.S. News & World Report) offered me no practical breastfeeding advice and no support when I clearly under-produced. The CDC Vital Signs report released this month says hospitals should: "Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation, even if they are separated from their infants." I was separated from Michael Alexander for what seemed like an eternity after giving birth by an unplanned C-section which I was told was medically necessary. He latched on immediately in the recovery room, but once we made it to our own private room (a topic for a future post) the only instruction I was given was on how to hold my son while he fed. I just wish I didn't latch on to all the bad advice I was given.
I can finally accept that I may not be evil for not being able to breastfeed my son for as long as the AAP recommends. As George Bernard Shaw famously, said: "Even mother's milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes.” Maybe I should have turned to a Nobel Prize winner for advice earlier.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Living Between Worlds
There are so many things I've wanted to write about this week. Last week. Every day. It's been tougher than usual this week to get anything done during the hour or two each day while Michael Alexander naps because I've been plagued by anxiety dreams. Last night was the closest to peaceful rest I've had all week. Today I'm stealing a few minutes, while he naps and I wait for the laundry cycle to finish, to get something down in print.
It's when I'm most exhausted that I feel overwhelmed, and this week has been replete with myriad last-minute requests that have made my personal to-do list seem impossible. Stealing (guilt implied and magnified with second reference) these few minutes to write -- albeit with little direction or cohesive thought -- is about the only thing I can call my own.
Summertime in New York amplifies the class divide. I cringe every time I hear another stay-at-home mom (nearly always with nanny in tow) complain in line ahead of me that she needs whatever it is she needs now because "we will not be summering in the city." Summering? (Don't even get me started on how utterly offensive such behavior is to the woman behind the counter who wishes she could have a single summer day off with her kids!) Professionally it's tough to get top people on the phone, as most key decision makers -- especially those in the financial services ecosystem -- leave it to the grunts (that's Wall Street for mid-level execs) to get anything done while they jitney to the Hamptons or jet away to Bora Bora. Personally, it's painful to endure the tales of long weekends, every weekend, ahead of a full month or more of sun and surf.
I should not (and am ashamed when I do, even silently) complain, as I among one of the most privileged people in the world, what with all that food and shelter and amenities most human beings will never even taste or dream about. But Manhattan, the land of the haves and the have-mores, can transform even the most compassionate soul into a self-loathing want-more.
We're headed to the Cape a week from tomorrow. We've rented a one-bedroom efficiency on a private "resort" on Provincetown Bay. Aaaah ... I cannot wait. We flirted with the fantasy of renting a huge house in Brewster where our friends are staying a week earlier, but the expense -- without another family to share -- was wasteful at best. We pay far too much for rent in a luxury, doorman building. And even though I am a firm believer that you should never pay to stay in a hotel that's not nicer than your home as it's always a disastrous disappointment, that's often impossible -- or at least stupid -- when you take your regular everyday Manhattan expenses into account. If we were wise enough to think ahead and sublet our place for a week, we could easily afford any luxury rental on the Cape. One day, we'll plan ahead and upgrade from a three-figure rental to a four-figure one.
As I await our week of peasant (hahaha) paradise, I am struggling with my aforementioned to-do list, as the tasks I need or want to accomplish (such little luxuries as cleaning out my closet and lugging bags to the charity shop) become more and more daunting as the requests from others mount and my own goals become tougher to attain. I am trying to take deep breaths, to make it all seem doable, but that would require an expanse of time -- like 10 or 15 minutes -- without an email, text series or other digital interference with a personal request of some kind that bumps my tasks off the radar. I treat my days at home like workdays. I prefer phone and email over text, aside from a quick exchange on when and where to meet a playdate; there is NO TV during the day; and Michael Alexander's needs and my freelance assignments (in that order, of course) take precedence over any distractions.
Library story time in the East Village (and, of course, highly-coveted but informal playdates with Michael Alexander's darling friends and their dear parents) may be my only real respite most days, as I have discovered a true community where stay-at-home parents (most without a nanny in tow!) mix with nannies and other caregivers, giving me a sense that I am not alone in this terribly unbalanced world. (More on the dying breed of mommies-sans-nannies to come.) Running errands like grocery shopping can be isolating in a universe where these tasks are often delegated to the nannies while mommies attend to baby-free mommy matters, whatever those may be. Doing laundry in the daytime may be the strangest of all. I can recall maybe a couple occasions (well, not really recall them, but I am sure they have occurred) when another tenant in the building was doing his or her own laundry. It amazes me how those who never go to an office and stay at home all day still send their laundry out to a service. They just drop that red bag off with the doorman and pick it up when they return. And some complain that's too much of a hassle. Really? (In snarkspeak that's "Riiihl-Eee?") So once a week or so, it's me and the housekeepers (a few who double as nannies) in the basement laundry room.
Maybe it's because I wear my first-generation American status like a badge that the housekeepers have always treated me like a peer. It's been nearly 15 months now that I've been home with Michael Alexander, so I've come to know them well. We rarely struggle to communicate, as my Spanglish and pigeon Polish are pretty good. They all adore Michael Alexander. They all confide in me, often about my neighbors. They all offer to help me, though I would never, ever accept such help without providing proper compensation. And they have never, ever offered me their services in exchange for a fee. And I am well aware, through our conversations, that all are seeking additional work. It's as if they know I am living between worlds. A denizen of a luxury doorman building who shudders at the thought of employing sub-wage slaves.
Some days I find this living between worlds amusing. Some days I can laugh at the banal banter of the moms who shriek on smart phones while their nannies chase after their spoiled sons. Other days I am so disgusted, appalled even. And what disgusts me more than bemoaning their existence is when I feel sorry for myself. I really do not want somebody else caring for my son. (I do, however, often miss working full time, but I'll save that for another post.) I consider it a great gift that I can witness Michael Alexander's growth, especially his burgeoning compassion and desire to share with others. It's a quality strangers and playmates' parents notice. They say "it's in his eyes." For that I am so grateful, so proud. There is no greater, truer, human quality than compassion.
We're far from (and may never have access to) the five-figure rentals some of our friends can afford, but I am OK with that. I am excited to see the sea and share a pool with the occupants of eight other humble units for a week. Until then, I'll continue living between worlds, not quite certain where I fit in or if I really want to.
It's when I'm most exhausted that I feel overwhelmed, and this week has been replete with myriad last-minute requests that have made my personal to-do list seem impossible. Stealing (guilt implied and magnified with second reference) these few minutes to write -- albeit with little direction or cohesive thought -- is about the only thing I can call my own.
Summertime in New York amplifies the class divide. I cringe every time I hear another stay-at-home mom (nearly always with nanny in tow) complain in line ahead of me that she needs whatever it is she needs now because "we will not be summering in the city." Summering? (Don't even get me started on how utterly offensive such behavior is to the woman behind the counter who wishes she could have a single summer day off with her kids!) Professionally it's tough to get top people on the phone, as most key decision makers -- especially those in the financial services ecosystem -- leave it to the grunts (that's Wall Street for mid-level execs) to get anything done while they jitney to the Hamptons or jet away to Bora Bora. Personally, it's painful to endure the tales of long weekends, every weekend, ahead of a full month or more of sun and surf.
I should not (and am ashamed when I do, even silently) complain, as I among one of the most privileged people in the world, what with all that food and shelter and amenities most human beings will never even taste or dream about. But Manhattan, the land of the haves and the have-mores, can transform even the most compassionate soul into a self-loathing want-more.
We're headed to the Cape a week from tomorrow. We've rented a one-bedroom efficiency on a private "resort" on Provincetown Bay. Aaaah ... I cannot wait. We flirted with the fantasy of renting a huge house in Brewster where our friends are staying a week earlier, but the expense -- without another family to share -- was wasteful at best. We pay far too much for rent in a luxury, doorman building. And even though I am a firm believer that you should never pay to stay in a hotel that's not nicer than your home as it's always a disastrous disappointment, that's often impossible -- or at least stupid -- when you take your regular everyday Manhattan expenses into account. If we were wise enough to think ahead and sublet our place for a week, we could easily afford any luxury rental on the Cape. One day, we'll plan ahead and upgrade from a three-figure rental to a four-figure one.
As I await our week of peasant (hahaha) paradise, I am struggling with my aforementioned to-do list, as the tasks I need or want to accomplish (such little luxuries as cleaning out my closet and lugging bags to the charity shop) become more and more daunting as the requests from others mount and my own goals become tougher to attain. I am trying to take deep breaths, to make it all seem doable, but that would require an expanse of time -- like 10 or 15 minutes -- without an email, text series or other digital interference with a personal request of some kind that bumps my tasks off the radar. I treat my days at home like workdays. I prefer phone and email over text, aside from a quick exchange on when and where to meet a playdate; there is NO TV during the day; and Michael Alexander's needs and my freelance assignments (in that order, of course) take precedence over any distractions.
Library story time in the East Village (and, of course, highly-coveted but informal playdates with Michael Alexander's darling friends and their dear parents) may be my only real respite most days, as I have discovered a true community where stay-at-home parents (most without a nanny in tow!) mix with nannies and other caregivers, giving me a sense that I am not alone in this terribly unbalanced world. (More on the dying breed of mommies-sans-nannies to come.) Running errands like grocery shopping can be isolating in a universe where these tasks are often delegated to the nannies while mommies attend to baby-free mommy matters, whatever those may be. Doing laundry in the daytime may be the strangest of all. I can recall maybe a couple occasions (well, not really recall them, but I am sure they have occurred) when another tenant in the building was doing his or her own laundry. It amazes me how those who never go to an office and stay at home all day still send their laundry out to a service. They just drop that red bag off with the doorman and pick it up when they return. And some complain that's too much of a hassle. Really? (In snarkspeak that's "Riiihl-Eee?") So once a week or so, it's me and the housekeepers (a few who double as nannies) in the basement laundry room.
Maybe it's because I wear my first-generation American status like a badge that the housekeepers have always treated me like a peer. It's been nearly 15 months now that I've been home with Michael Alexander, so I've come to know them well. We rarely struggle to communicate, as my Spanglish and pigeon Polish are pretty good. They all adore Michael Alexander. They all confide in me, often about my neighbors. They all offer to help me, though I would never, ever accept such help without providing proper compensation. And they have never, ever offered me their services in exchange for a fee. And I am well aware, through our conversations, that all are seeking additional work. It's as if they know I am living between worlds. A denizen of a luxury doorman building who shudders at the thought of employing sub-wage slaves.
Some days I find this living between worlds amusing. Some days I can laugh at the banal banter of the moms who shriek on smart phones while their nannies chase after their spoiled sons. Other days I am so disgusted, appalled even. And what disgusts me more than bemoaning their existence is when I feel sorry for myself. I really do not want somebody else caring for my son. (I do, however, often miss working full time, but I'll save that for another post.) I consider it a great gift that I can witness Michael Alexander's growth, especially his burgeoning compassion and desire to share with others. It's a quality strangers and playmates' parents notice. They say "it's in his eyes." For that I am so grateful, so proud. There is no greater, truer, human quality than compassion.
We're far from (and may never have access to) the five-figure rentals some of our friends can afford, but I am OK with that. I am excited to see the sea and share a pool with the occupants of eight other humble units for a week. Until then, I'll continue living between worlds, not quite certain where I fit in or if I really want to.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Loss, Legacy and Faith
Eight years ago today, my father, Michael William "Brother Mike" Gural, died. I wasn't by his side. I was here, sleeping after an overnight shift at the AP, because I had a horrible boss at the time. Of course I could have insisted on taking more FMLA leave, but I didn't. I will always regret that.
I think it gets harder every year. That pit in my stomach feels as deep as it did on that train ride home to Massachusetts. I weep as mournfully today as I did when I first saw him in a casket in the funeral home, and when the monks lowered it into the ground.
The loss is daunting and profound. Euripides said, "To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter." My father never got to grow old. He worked and worked and then he was diagnosed with cancer. He suffered and then he died. What stings worse is that he never met his precious grandson.
The pain is incomparable. And that's compounded by my ongoing struggle with faith. I was raised in the Russian Orthodox faith, by a devout mother and her parents, who often hosted the hierarchs and other clergy at the homes where I grew up. We made frequent pilgrimages to churches and monaserteries across the Northeast, including the monastery where my father is buried alongside my maternal grandparents.
As Aldous Huxley said, "My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing." We spent many hours on Wilbraham Mountain, a short hike from the cul-de-sac where I grew up and my mother still lives. In the early years, it was often Tex (our purebred German Shepard who had been trained as a state police dog), dad and me, and later my sister, too. As much as I love and seem to need the city to keep me sane, I do miss escaping in the mountain. Names are very important to Russian writers, and to me. (I will take any comparison I can fairly make!) My father's mother was Jadwiga Urbanski (city dweller), and his father was Wolodya Gural (mountaineer). I never met them, but in my heart I will always be a combination of the city woman and the mountain man.
In the end, my father chose to be buried by the Russian Orthodox Church. My mother asked him many times (I heard several) if he was sure, as she didn't want him to compromise his principles or make a mockery of her faith. My father went to church on major holy days and was respectful to my mother's cleric friends. He was a spiritual man, but he believed faith was practiced within oneself, not necessarily within a house of worship. Like Henry David Thoreau said, "Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads." But in the end, my father insisted he wanted to be buried alongside my mother (they will share a towering grave marker in the shape of an Orthodox cross), and that he would make the required preparations through prayer and confession. Homer said, "All men have need of the gods." I question how those needs change as we get sick and grow old, and what that means to the next generation.
Like Khalil Gibran, my father respected men of all faiths. "I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit," said Gibran. It's still hard for me to reconcile that, in the end, my father chose to "pray in your church."
It's easy to use science to dismiss religion. It's much harder to use philosophy. In his last days, my father returned to many of his "life texts," re-reading them in what I think was preparation for what lied ahead. I'm struggling to figure out where my faith fits into his final decisions.
"I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is."
_ Albert Camus
I think it gets harder every year. That pit in my stomach feels as deep as it did on that train ride home to Massachusetts. I weep as mournfully today as I did when I first saw him in a casket in the funeral home, and when the monks lowered it into the ground.
The loss is daunting and profound. Euripides said, "To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter." My father never got to grow old. He worked and worked and then he was diagnosed with cancer. He suffered and then he died. What stings worse is that he never met his precious grandson.
The pain is incomparable. And that's compounded by my ongoing struggle with faith. I was raised in the Russian Orthodox faith, by a devout mother and her parents, who often hosted the hierarchs and other clergy at the homes where I grew up. We made frequent pilgrimages to churches and monaserteries across the Northeast, including the monastery where my father is buried alongside my maternal grandparents.
As Aldous Huxley said, "My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing." We spent many hours on Wilbraham Mountain, a short hike from the cul-de-sac where I grew up and my mother still lives. In the early years, it was often Tex (our purebred German Shepard who had been trained as a state police dog), dad and me, and later my sister, too. As much as I love and seem to need the city to keep me sane, I do miss escaping in the mountain. Names are very important to Russian writers, and to me. (I will take any comparison I can fairly make!) My father's mother was Jadwiga Urbanski (city dweller), and his father was Wolodya Gural (mountaineer). I never met them, but in my heart I will always be a combination of the city woman and the mountain man.
In the end, my father chose to be buried by the Russian Orthodox Church. My mother asked him many times (I heard several) if he was sure, as she didn't want him to compromise his principles or make a mockery of her faith. My father went to church on major holy days and was respectful to my mother's cleric friends. He was a spiritual man, but he believed faith was practiced within oneself, not necessarily within a house of worship. Like Henry David Thoreau said, "Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads." But in the end, my father insisted he wanted to be buried alongside my mother (they will share a towering grave marker in the shape of an Orthodox cross), and that he would make the required preparations through prayer and confession. Homer said, "All men have need of the gods." I question how those needs change as we get sick and grow old, and what that means to the next generation.
Like Khalil Gibran, my father respected men of all faiths. "I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit," said Gibran. It's still hard for me to reconcile that, in the end, my father chose to "pray in your church."
It's easy to use science to dismiss religion. It's much harder to use philosophy. In his last days, my father returned to many of his "life texts," re-reading them in what I think was preparation for what lied ahead. I'm struggling to figure out where my faith fits into his final decisions.
"I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is."
_ Albert Camus
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Blinded by Science? The Odds Narrow
Michael Alexander is suffering from his fourth ear infection in as many months. Mike and I have become pros at diagnosing these, and I knew the pediatrician would prescribe yet another round of tummy-torturing antibiotics this morning. Our normally happy son was inconsolable last night and cried nonstop from midnight until shortly after 4 a.m. His temperature spiked above 104 yesterday, the first sign that the evil infection had returned with a vengeance.
About one in five children with a cold or other respiratory viral infection develops a middle ear infection (acute otitis media) that may range from mild to severe, according to a study published in the February issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. Michael Alexander was hit with the first one following a viral infection. When he returned to her office a month later with another ear infection, his pediatrician warned that this could likely become a chronic problem.
According to the study by Dr. Stella U. Kalu and her University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston colleagues, just 7 percent of the 294 children children ages 6 months to 3 years had inflammation of the eardrum without fluid in the middle ear. In Michael Alexander's case, that fluid is causing hearing loss in both ears. Neither of his eardrums is vibrating at all due to the amount of fluid, said the otolaryngologist, or ear, nose, and throat (ENT) doctor, he saw last week. Among the children studied by Kalu's team, eardrum inflammation was rated mild in 8 percent, moderate in 59 percent and severe in 35 percent. Michael Alexander's infection has been severe in both ears all four times. And now he's got a sinus infection.
The Galveston study said that children with the infection were treated without antibiotics whenever possible. Michael Alexander's case has been so severe, that he's been treated with antibiotics every time. During his last bout we learned he's allergic to Cefdinir, an antibiotic used to treat ear infections, when he broke out in hives on a Sunday afternoon. Now Michael Alexander is a candidate for a tympanostomy, a surgical procedure which involves the insertion of tubes to allow fluid to drain from the middle ear. Mike, who suffered from chronic ear infections as a child, had "the tubes." (Mike also had his adenoids removed, and jokes that's how I could tell him apart from an alien replicant. I explain in the next paragraph why this is no longer a course of action.) A tympanostomy requires a general anesthetic and children typically recover completely within a few hours. The surgeon makes a small incision in the eardrum -- a myringotomy or removal of fluid -- and then inserts a tube to allow continuous drainage of the fluid from the middle ear.
A tympanostomy isn't recommended until a child suffers from four ear infections in six months, but the ongoing treatment with antibiotics in the meantime may not be the best route. I haven't resisted the antibiotics for Michael Alexander because I know it works quickly (save for the allergy) and eases his excruciating pain. A paper in the April Journal of Clinical Microbiology found that in most children with chronic otitis media, biofilms laden with Haemophilus influenzae cling to the adenoids, while among a similar population suffering from obstructive sleep apnea, that pathogen is usually absent. Biofilms are resistant to antibiotics. Earlier clinical studies had suggested that adenoids might be reservoirs for middle ear pathogens, and a 1987 study had suggested that adenoidectomy was effective in treating children prone to middle ear infections. But in 2006, Luanne Hall-Stoodley of the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility in Southhampton, England, found that in children undergoing installation of tympanostomy tubes for treatment of chronic otitis media, the culprit bacteria inhabited biofilms attached to the middle ear mucosa, along with other bacteria that cause ear infections. "We therefore wondered if these pathogens might also form biofilms on the adenoid surface," said Hall-Stoodley.
I'll spare you the nitty gritty science behind the Southhampton team's study, but it's important to note that new treatments are likely to be more effective. "I think that scientists have begun to think about chronic otitis media in a new way, and investigation of the pathogenesis of this complex disease will help in the design of novel therapies that do not depend on antibiotic treatment alone," said Hall-Stoodley. "Chronic middle ear infection can cause hearing impairment, which can affect verbal ability and education in children."
In March, the Centers for Disease Control announced that ear infection diagnoses had plunged by nearly 30 percent over the past 15 years. I wish my son wasn't bucking that trend. As the odds narrow, Mike and I are likely to consent to a tympanostomy when Michael Alexander returns to the ENT in three weeks. For now, I just hope this last dose of antibiotics dulls his pain. I can't bear his cries and my inability to console him. My ears are hurting, too, along with my throat. But it's the pain in my heart that's worse. I'm trying to be well-informed without reading too many articles on the risks and arguments against a tympanostomy. Odds are I'll be blinded by science.
"A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point reached by the genius of the last generation." _ Max Gluckman, South African-born British social anthropologist
About one in five children with a cold or other respiratory viral infection develops a middle ear infection (acute otitis media) that may range from mild to severe, according to a study published in the February issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. Michael Alexander was hit with the first one following a viral infection. When he returned to her office a month later with another ear infection, his pediatrician warned that this could likely become a chronic problem.
According to the study by Dr. Stella U. Kalu and her University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston colleagues, just 7 percent of the 294 children children ages 6 months to 3 years had inflammation of the eardrum without fluid in the middle ear. In Michael Alexander's case, that fluid is causing hearing loss in both ears. Neither of his eardrums is vibrating at all due to the amount of fluid, said the otolaryngologist, or ear, nose, and throat (ENT) doctor, he saw last week. Among the children studied by Kalu's team, eardrum inflammation was rated mild in 8 percent, moderate in 59 percent and severe in 35 percent. Michael Alexander's infection has been severe in both ears all four times. And now he's got a sinus infection.
The Galveston study said that children with the infection were treated without antibiotics whenever possible. Michael Alexander's case has been so severe, that he's been treated with antibiotics every time. During his last bout we learned he's allergic to Cefdinir, an antibiotic used to treat ear infections, when he broke out in hives on a Sunday afternoon. Now Michael Alexander is a candidate for a tympanostomy, a surgical procedure which involves the insertion of tubes to allow fluid to drain from the middle ear. Mike, who suffered from chronic ear infections as a child, had "the tubes." (Mike also had his adenoids removed, and jokes that's how I could tell him apart from an alien replicant. I explain in the next paragraph why this is no longer a course of action.) A tympanostomy requires a general anesthetic and children typically recover completely within a few hours. The surgeon makes a small incision in the eardrum -- a myringotomy or removal of fluid -- and then inserts a tube to allow continuous drainage of the fluid from the middle ear.
A tympanostomy isn't recommended until a child suffers from four ear infections in six months, but the ongoing treatment with antibiotics in the meantime may not be the best route. I haven't resisted the antibiotics for Michael Alexander because I know it works quickly (save for the allergy) and eases his excruciating pain. A paper in the April Journal of Clinical Microbiology found that in most children with chronic otitis media, biofilms laden with Haemophilus influenzae cling to the adenoids, while among a similar population suffering from obstructive sleep apnea, that pathogen is usually absent. Biofilms are resistant to antibiotics. Earlier clinical studies had suggested that adenoids might be reservoirs for middle ear pathogens, and a 1987 study had suggested that adenoidectomy was effective in treating children prone to middle ear infections. But in 2006, Luanne Hall-Stoodley of the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility in Southhampton, England, found that in children undergoing installation of tympanostomy tubes for treatment of chronic otitis media, the culprit bacteria inhabited biofilms attached to the middle ear mucosa, along with other bacteria that cause ear infections. "We therefore wondered if these pathogens might also form biofilms on the adenoid surface," said Hall-Stoodley.
I'll spare you the nitty gritty science behind the Southhampton team's study, but it's important to note that new treatments are likely to be more effective. "I think that scientists have begun to think about chronic otitis media in a new way, and investigation of the pathogenesis of this complex disease will help in the design of novel therapies that do not depend on antibiotic treatment alone," said Hall-Stoodley. "Chronic middle ear infection can cause hearing impairment, which can affect verbal ability and education in children."
In March, the Centers for Disease Control announced that ear infection diagnoses had plunged by nearly 30 percent over the past 15 years. I wish my son wasn't bucking that trend. As the odds narrow, Mike and I are likely to consent to a tympanostomy when Michael Alexander returns to the ENT in three weeks. For now, I just hope this last dose of antibiotics dulls his pain. I can't bear his cries and my inability to console him. My ears are hurting, too, along with my throat. But it's the pain in my heart that's worse. I'm trying to be well-informed without reading too many articles on the risks and arguments against a tympanostomy. Odds are I'll be blinded by science.
"A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point reached by the genius of the last generation." _ Max Gluckman, South African-born British social anthropologist
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Weeping for Delight?
It's around this time of year that I am paralyzed by a profound sadness. It's been the same for nearly a decade now, yet each year it's somehow a shock and surprise when it strikes. I suddenly think I'm sinking into a deep depression, charting my failures and dismissing any successes. If I rambled on about my daily dilemmas, any mental health professional would be quick to diagnose me with generalized anxiety. But then, just as I'm reading through articles in The American Journal of Psychiatry and comparing myself to test subjects, I realize why the simplest chore seems like a herculean task, why I can't bear my own reflection, why I loathe my very existence.
Just this morning -- when Michael Alexander and I were stuck for some 10 eternal minutes in an elevator that was being repaired -- it was easy to believe the world was conspiring against me. Then it happens again like it does every year. Just as suddenly as I'm hit with sorrow, I'm struck by the sobering reality: I miss my father. He died June 21, 2002. (He was hospitalized for the first time in his life on Memorial Day weekend two years earlier.) It's not as if I forget that date. Or him. He permeates my every thought and feeling, especially when I think of the grandson her never met. Any bullshit about how it gets better as the years go by just makes me hurt more. I don't want it to "get better." I want my dad.
That month or so leading up to Father's Day is staggering. The cards come out the day after Mother's Day and every ad is urging you to buy for dad or a grad. It's inescapable. At least now I have two fathers-in-law and my son is blessed with two living, loving grandfathers. I start trolling for cards that day after Mother's Day, looking for my father's-in-law while inevitably finding the perfect one for my dad. I remember the last one I gave him on June 16, 2002. I sealed it with tears.
It's a punch in the gut -- twice. First when I enter this stage of intense self-loathing and self-inflicted suffering, and again when I realize it's just a phase of mourning. Perhaps I create pain to mask the real emotions, the immeasurable loss, the regret that I wasn't there the day my father died. The lost days, hours, minutes I could have spent with him. It crushes me to think that I chose work over his death bed. When that regret hits, it's like an avalanche. I regret everything I didn't do for people I love and worry that I continue to make too few sacrifices.
I'm cutting this short for fear I will wallow to deeply in my mourning. My father wouldn't want me to cry. "Be strong, Tash," is what he'd say, even as he fought back his own tears. He was a tough guy and he taught me to be one, too. That makes this even tougher. Brother Mike gave me many books to read for many different reasons. Some he called "life texts." Khalil Gibran's The Prophet was one of those. Maybe it's time I re-read it.
"When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." _ Khalil Gibran
Just this morning -- when Michael Alexander and I were stuck for some 10 eternal minutes in an elevator that was being repaired -- it was easy to believe the world was conspiring against me. Then it happens again like it does every year. Just as suddenly as I'm hit with sorrow, I'm struck by the sobering reality: I miss my father. He died June 21, 2002. (He was hospitalized for the first time in his life on Memorial Day weekend two years earlier.) It's not as if I forget that date. Or him. He permeates my every thought and feeling, especially when I think of the grandson her never met. Any bullshit about how it gets better as the years go by just makes me hurt more. I don't want it to "get better." I want my dad.
That month or so leading up to Father's Day is staggering. The cards come out the day after Mother's Day and every ad is urging you to buy for dad or a grad. It's inescapable. At least now I have two fathers-in-law and my son is blessed with two living, loving grandfathers. I start trolling for cards that day after Mother's Day, looking for my father's-in-law while inevitably finding the perfect one for my dad. I remember the last one I gave him on June 16, 2002. I sealed it with tears.
It's a punch in the gut -- twice. First when I enter this stage of intense self-loathing and self-inflicted suffering, and again when I realize it's just a phase of mourning. Perhaps I create pain to mask the real emotions, the immeasurable loss, the regret that I wasn't there the day my father died. The lost days, hours, minutes I could have spent with him. It crushes me to think that I chose work over his death bed. When that regret hits, it's like an avalanche. I regret everything I didn't do for people I love and worry that I continue to make too few sacrifices.
I'm cutting this short for fear I will wallow to deeply in my mourning. My father wouldn't want me to cry. "Be strong, Tash," is what he'd say, even as he fought back his own tears. He was a tough guy and he taught me to be one, too. That makes this even tougher. Brother Mike gave me many books to read for many different reasons. Some he called "life texts." Khalil Gibran's The Prophet was one of those. Maybe it's time I re-read it.
"When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." _ Khalil Gibran
Monday, May 2, 2011
Sleeping through History
We put Michael Alexander to sleep at 9 last night. He fell asleep about a half hour later and slept until about 6 this morning, just after Mike left for the gym.
Mike and I went to bed about two hours after our son and slept through the news alerts and press conference.
Ingrained superstition (my mother and her parents were born in Russia) makes it tough to write this, but I think we've solved the sleep problem. (Gasp.) Most nights, Michael Alexander had been waking at 11 or midnight, then again around 3 and again around 5 and 6. It might have been our fault. He had been sleeping in our room and we comforted, even fed (a practice his doctor condemns) him each time he woke, bringing him in our bed to snuggle. Often we'd just stare at him, admiring the way he pushes each of us closer to each edge of our queen size bed. Other times, we'd wake him with the slightest movement. As much as Mike and I love to cuddle with our son in the middle of the night, I knew we needed to make a big, grown-up step. Last night we moved his bed into the "living area" of our one-bedroom apartment.
So far, it's been a perfect morning. I slept (or at least rested, uninterrupted aside from the few trips I made to the living area to check on my slumbering son) a solid 7 hours! Michael Alexander rejected the cereal I tried to feed him, but shared my eggs and salsa, eating a real breakfast without protest. Now he's been playing on his own, allowing me a few precious morning minutes to write.
If things go well, it could be a William Blake day: "Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night."
Most days I can't write because I am so tired and all my daytime energy is focused on getting Michael Alexander to eat something besides crackers and keeping him away from household hazards like the stove and toilet. Today I am finding it hard to write because my mind is so clear I can't focus on any single idea. A good problem to have, but one that makes me worry I am just babbling in a state of unexpected energy.
I am forced to focus, though, as Michael Alexander is eager for me to join in his solo play session.
It's fascinating to read today's Facebook posts, some so stupid or self-absorbed I'm inclined to de-friend those posters. Others are funny, pithy or thoughtful, and many reflect on the poster's 9/11 moment.
The decade that's passed since Sept. 11, 2001, has been one of tremendous personal change. It's included the worst of times (the death of my father) and the best of times (my marriage and the birth of my son.)
Only one thing unites these two moments in history -- I slept through both.
On 9/11, I was single and living on the top floor of a walkup on Thompson Street in the Village. My father was in my native Massachusetts, dying of cancer. I was an editor on national desk at AP, working the overnight shift and it was my scheduled night off. I heard the first plane, but ignored it since you hear a lot from the top floor of a walkup. My landline (remember those?) rang and my best friend, Erica, blurted out, "Oh my God, sweetheart! You're OK!" Seconds after I turned on my tiny console TV, the power went out and I quickly threw on the jeans and tank top I was wearing before I went to bed. I was headed east on Houston as the horror became apparent. Survivors covered in soot were running past me, some screaming, some stunned silent, and all looking like statues. I joined the queue for a payphone (remember those?) and waited anxiously for my chance to reach an operator. Most people ahead of me failed, but using a toll-free number I recalled from an ad, I was able to make a collect call to my mother.
I recall the anger, the fear, the rage, the myriad emotions of that moment. My father was dying and now somebody was threatening my right as a (first-generation, on my mother's side) American to live in a country where I was safe from the type of unspeakable violence that wiped out most of my mother's family.
It's strange to revisit those emotions on a day like this, while reveling in the wake of my son's 9-hour rest.
Michael Alexander is calling for "mom-mom." I'm going to try to keep my brain working as I entertain him. My work is play. I don't have to go sit in a cubicle and shut it off.
"The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office." Robert Frost
Mike and I went to bed about two hours after our son and slept through the news alerts and press conference.
Ingrained superstition (my mother and her parents were born in Russia) makes it tough to write this, but I think we've solved the sleep problem. (Gasp.) Most nights, Michael Alexander had been waking at 11 or midnight, then again around 3 and again around 5 and 6. It might have been our fault. He had been sleeping in our room and we comforted, even fed (a practice his doctor condemns) him each time he woke, bringing him in our bed to snuggle. Often we'd just stare at him, admiring the way he pushes each of us closer to each edge of our queen size bed. Other times, we'd wake him with the slightest movement. As much as Mike and I love to cuddle with our son in the middle of the night, I knew we needed to make a big, grown-up step. Last night we moved his bed into the "living area" of our one-bedroom apartment.
So far, it's been a perfect morning. I slept (or at least rested, uninterrupted aside from the few trips I made to the living area to check on my slumbering son) a solid 7 hours! Michael Alexander rejected the cereal I tried to feed him, but shared my eggs and salsa, eating a real breakfast without protest. Now he's been playing on his own, allowing me a few precious morning minutes to write.
If things go well, it could be a William Blake day: "Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night."
Most days I can't write because I am so tired and all my daytime energy is focused on getting Michael Alexander to eat something besides crackers and keeping him away from household hazards like the stove and toilet. Today I am finding it hard to write because my mind is so clear I can't focus on any single idea. A good problem to have, but one that makes me worry I am just babbling in a state of unexpected energy.
I am forced to focus, though, as Michael Alexander is eager for me to join in his solo play session.
It's fascinating to read today's Facebook posts, some so stupid or self-absorbed I'm inclined to de-friend those posters. Others are funny, pithy or thoughtful, and many reflect on the poster's 9/11 moment.
The decade that's passed since Sept. 11, 2001, has been one of tremendous personal change. It's included the worst of times (the death of my father) and the best of times (my marriage and the birth of my son.)
Only one thing unites these two moments in history -- I slept through both.
On 9/11, I was single and living on the top floor of a walkup on Thompson Street in the Village. My father was in my native Massachusetts, dying of cancer. I was an editor on national desk at AP, working the overnight shift and it was my scheduled night off. I heard the first plane, but ignored it since you hear a lot from the top floor of a walkup. My landline (remember those?) rang and my best friend, Erica, blurted out, "Oh my God, sweetheart! You're OK!" Seconds after I turned on my tiny console TV, the power went out and I quickly threw on the jeans and tank top I was wearing before I went to bed. I was headed east on Houston as the horror became apparent. Survivors covered in soot were running past me, some screaming, some stunned silent, and all looking like statues. I joined the queue for a payphone (remember those?) and waited anxiously for my chance to reach an operator. Most people ahead of me failed, but using a toll-free number I recalled from an ad, I was able to make a collect call to my mother.
I recall the anger, the fear, the rage, the myriad emotions of that moment. My father was dying and now somebody was threatening my right as a (first-generation, on my mother's side) American to live in a country where I was safe from the type of unspeakable violence that wiped out most of my mother's family.
It's strange to revisit those emotions on a day like this, while reveling in the wake of my son's 9-hour rest.
Michael Alexander is calling for "mom-mom." I'm going to try to keep my brain working as I entertain him. My work is play. I don't have to go sit in a cubicle and shut it off.
"The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office." Robert Frost
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
My Invisible Paycheck
Michael Alexander was up from 11 p.m. until 4 a.m., teeming with boundless energy. I was fighting back the tears, struggling to smile while trying to soothe him into a sleeplike state. He finally fell asleep around 4:30, after a crying fit as passionate as his five-hour overnight playfest. He was back up as soon as Mike left for work after returning from his uber-early gym shift. Mike works out and goes to work even earlier on Wednesdays so I can get to the gym on time to secure my spot in favorite abs class that starts at 6:15 p.m.
Michael Alexander appears well-rested, smiling and playing without any apparent interest in a nap. I have devoured a pot of very strong coffee just to keep up with him. I put him in the Jumperoo so I could scribble my barely coherent thoughts. He's learning as he bounces, smiling at me for approval as he meticulously places plastic fruits into the corresponding spots in exchange for a light. That smile is the only thing that's keeping me from crumbling.
My dear friend Kate suggested that maybe he's not sleeping because of a developmental milestone. That's quite possible, as he learned to clap properly during storytime Monday, and was up in the middle of the night flaunting his newly perfected skill. He's also taking more solo steps without wobbling. It is so exciting to witness his rapid progress as he quickly approaches his first birthday. I just wish I could get enough rest to match his exuberance.
Mindy Greenstein, a psycho-oncologist and consultant at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, last week blogged about motherhood. She calls it "the most invisible, undervalued job that I have ever had." No doubt Greenstein commands a fat salary for her work at Memorial. It is probably even more than the estimated (and of course, hypothetical) *salary* for a stay-at-home mom in Manhattan. According to salary.com, the local median for a SAHM in my zip code is $139,888, in a range of $117,583 to $169,794. Even at the low end, that's more than most executive editor jobs I'm qualified for pay. And those figures are for last year, in a report that posts increases every year.
I don't expect a paycheck for my labor of love, but even the most grueling day at the office ends. Here I am, brought to you exclusively by the power of caffeine, focusing purely on my sweet son's smile. I have so much to do around the house, which quickly transforms into a disaster zone after two mostly sleepless nights, but I am expending every ounce of energy to keep Michael Alexander entertained.
I am actively applying for full-time jobs. I've had a few interviews, all positive, until the topic of salary arises. None match the low end of my "typical" SAHM compensation. The most interesting job I interviewed for this week pays a pittance which is less than half of my average salary of the last five years. I just received an email follow up to an interview last week. I wasn't expecting to hear back, as I thought I was out of the game once I'd mentioned at the end of a lengthy interview that I have a nearly year-old son. The job requires the editor to be on call 24/7. I'm already on call 24/7.
I'm grappling with how to reply to this email. Of course I am flattered to emerge as the top contender in a hyper-competitive market. This job doesn't pay the "typical" SAHM rate, but it's enough to offset the cost of childcare. I am tempted, as I struggle with a job title that makes me "invisible," but I shudder to think that reclaiming visibility requires me to be on call when my son needs me most. I am crafting my response now, negotiating for a slightly higher salary and some flexibility over being on call 24/7.
I'm not sure what it will take for me to trade my invisible paycheck for a living wage.
Michael Alexander appears well-rested, smiling and playing without any apparent interest in a nap. I have devoured a pot of very strong coffee just to keep up with him. I put him in the Jumperoo so I could scribble my barely coherent thoughts. He's learning as he bounces, smiling at me for approval as he meticulously places plastic fruits into the corresponding spots in exchange for a light. That smile is the only thing that's keeping me from crumbling.
My dear friend Kate suggested that maybe he's not sleeping because of a developmental milestone. That's quite possible, as he learned to clap properly during storytime Monday, and was up in the middle of the night flaunting his newly perfected skill. He's also taking more solo steps without wobbling. It is so exciting to witness his rapid progress as he quickly approaches his first birthday. I just wish I could get enough rest to match his exuberance.
Mindy Greenstein, a psycho-oncologist and consultant at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, last week blogged about motherhood. She calls it "the most invisible, undervalued job that I have ever had." No doubt Greenstein commands a fat salary for her work at Memorial. It is probably even more than the estimated (and of course, hypothetical) *salary* for a stay-at-home mom in Manhattan. According to salary.com, the local median for a SAHM in my zip code is $139,888, in a range of $117,583 to $169,794. Even at the low end, that's more than most executive editor jobs I'm qualified for pay. And those figures are for last year, in a report that posts increases every year.
I don't expect a paycheck for my labor of love, but even the most grueling day at the office ends. Here I am, brought to you exclusively by the power of caffeine, focusing purely on my sweet son's smile. I have so much to do around the house, which quickly transforms into a disaster zone after two mostly sleepless nights, but I am expending every ounce of energy to keep Michael Alexander entertained.
I am actively applying for full-time jobs. I've had a few interviews, all positive, until the topic of salary arises. None match the low end of my "typical" SAHM compensation. The most interesting job I interviewed for this week pays a pittance which is less than half of my average salary of the last five years. I just received an email follow up to an interview last week. I wasn't expecting to hear back, as I thought I was out of the game once I'd mentioned at the end of a lengthy interview that I have a nearly year-old son. The job requires the editor to be on call 24/7. I'm already on call 24/7.
I'm grappling with how to reply to this email. Of course I am flattered to emerge as the top contender in a hyper-competitive market. This job doesn't pay the "typical" SAHM rate, but it's enough to offset the cost of childcare. I am tempted, as I struggle with a job title that makes me "invisible," but I shudder to think that reclaiming visibility requires me to be on call when my son needs me most. I am crafting my response now, negotiating for a slightly higher salary and some flexibility over being on call 24/7.
I'm not sure what it will take for me to trade my invisible paycheck for a living wage.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
I didn't wake up with gum in my hair, but it turned out to be a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day for (Michael) Alexander('s Mom).
Michael Alexander has been battling a cold for a couple days. Mike and I also have been stricken with a stomach flu of some sort, but I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say, it's been a tough few days, the last two with practically no sleep. Our normally happy son couldn't be consoled the last two nights, crying from pain that was clearly beyond the obvious sniffles and cough. I suspected an ear infection and called his doctor's office yesterday. It was booked solid all day, but the nurse offered me the last appointment for today.
I muster enough ambition to drag myself downstairs, lugging laundry, ahead of the appointment. It will be quick, I think, since we have a real appointment and aren't just walking in during the daily sick hour. We'll be back just in time to transfer the loads to dryers. Running through the torrential rain, we arrive at the doctor's office a few minutes early. Michael Alexander is dry thanks to his stroller rain cover. I am drenched, my trench coat rendered useless other than soaking up about five pounds from the deluge. My eyes irritated from the congestion and sinus pressure, I wear my glasses out -- a very rare, and very bad choice. I lock up the stroller and attempt to carry Michael Alexander inside without getting him soggy from my coat.
The office is busy, as expected, and the waiting room is especially cramped as I am the only solo parent to accompany a child. How do these people always get time off? My frustration is compounded when two families arrive with a nanny to assist the couple. What I wouldn't have given to have someone help me haul the car seat and take a taxi, or at least run in for the stroller lock while I watch Michael Alexander. My wet hair plastered to my face, my jeans and sneakers slick, I sit downstairs, feeling inferior among the cabbing couples. We wait nearly two hours. So much for getting back in time for the laundry. My success keeping Michael Alexander dry as I carried him into the office and back to the stroller is squashed when I find someone had removed the rain cover. It was a little windy, but not windy enough to topple the cover. Someone clearly unfastened the Velcro. I cry as I compose my rage.
Michael Alexander is diagnosed with a double ear infection and a slight bronchial infection. We use a nebulizer at the office, and the doctor prescribes one for home, along with Albuterol (a stimulant) and Amoxicillin. The doctor calls the trinity of treatment into Bigelow and I expect to pick up and pay upon arrival. "We got the call, yes," the pharmacist says. "We will fill it now." OK. I'm not sure why it hadn't already been filled, but I am assured it was now being filled "now." A half hour later, I am still soaked, my sore throat raw, my nose running and my head about to implode from the sinus pressure. I am struggling to soothe my son, who now needs a change and more milk. I ask about the order. "Oh, it will be a half hour." Another half hour? I was told it would be filled "now!" Bigelow, by the way, doesn't accept our insurance card, so it's an out-of-pocket payment for a wait that makes the chain stores seem charming. (Well, not really.) At this point, the only thing that keeps me from committing myself to Bellevue is my suffering son. I nearly storm out of the tony landmark chemist, but compose myself enough to raise my voice just enough to speed the process.
Michael Alexander smiles as soon I give him his first dose of antibiotics while I am instructed on how to assemble the nebulizer's tubes and dispense the medication. My son is easily comforted, as the fast-acting antibiotics take nearly immediate effect. It takes me a little longer to regain any semblance of sanity. I'm not quite there yet. More than three hours later, we hustle home, again pounded by rain. The rain, of course, started just before we left in the morning and stopped shortly after we returned home. The trip home seems to take twice as long, as the water-fearing masses huddled under obnoxious oversized umbrellas seem completely oblivious to my need to get home quickly. The slow-walkers, who have no business in a city like New York, are especially loathsome in inclement weather. Those who lurk under awnings and construction canopies are the worst. How pathetic is one's existence if s/he has time to wait for the rain to taper? I am disgusted by this always, and annoyed on a day like today.
I barrel into our building and try to distract Michael Alexander as we head to the basement. I adamantly abhor the practice of leaving loads in the washers and dryers, and I often fantasize about dumping the dissenters' duds onto the floor, but I have only ever carefully placed an abuser's clothes into a cart. (Of course, I curse them under my breath, but I have never taken it out on their washables.) I am more upset than outraged to find one of my wet loads dumped onto the filthy floor. The machine from which they were ejected was not in use, so at least I am able to *quickly* rewash our sheets and towels.
Michael Alexander went down for a nap about 15 minuets ago, but already is tossing and turning. I feel guilty for stealing this time to write, but it might be my only respite in the next few days. Did I mention that Albuterol is a stimulant? I need to administer it three times a day, sanitizing the mouthpiece ahead of every use. He's waking. My 15 minutes are up. The way today's been going, putting away laundry will be my break. At least it's dry.
Michael Alexander's on the mend, albeit slowly, thanks to modern medicine. I just hope this Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day ends with a relaxing evening. And maybe even some sleep! And maybe I'll order Judith Viorst's children's classic. Even the worst days can spur the best literary memories.
Michael Alexander has been battling a cold for a couple days. Mike and I also have been stricken with a stomach flu of some sort, but I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say, it's been a tough few days, the last two with practically no sleep. Our normally happy son couldn't be consoled the last two nights, crying from pain that was clearly beyond the obvious sniffles and cough. I suspected an ear infection and called his doctor's office yesterday. It was booked solid all day, but the nurse offered me the last appointment for today.
I muster enough ambition to drag myself downstairs, lugging laundry, ahead of the appointment. It will be quick, I think, since we have a real appointment and aren't just walking in during the daily sick hour. We'll be back just in time to transfer the loads to dryers. Running through the torrential rain, we arrive at the doctor's office a few minutes early. Michael Alexander is dry thanks to his stroller rain cover. I am drenched, my trench coat rendered useless other than soaking up about five pounds from the deluge. My eyes irritated from the congestion and sinus pressure, I wear my glasses out -- a very rare, and very bad choice. I lock up the stroller and attempt to carry Michael Alexander inside without getting him soggy from my coat.
The office is busy, as expected, and the waiting room is especially cramped as I am the only solo parent to accompany a child. How do these people always get time off? My frustration is compounded when two families arrive with a nanny to assist the couple. What I wouldn't have given to have someone help me haul the car seat and take a taxi, or at least run in for the stroller lock while I watch Michael Alexander. My wet hair plastered to my face, my jeans and sneakers slick, I sit downstairs, feeling inferior among the cabbing couples. We wait nearly two hours. So much for getting back in time for the laundry. My success keeping Michael Alexander dry as I carried him into the office and back to the stroller is squashed when I find someone had removed the rain cover. It was a little windy, but not windy enough to topple the cover. Someone clearly unfastened the Velcro. I cry as I compose my rage.
Michael Alexander is diagnosed with a double ear infection and a slight bronchial infection. We use a nebulizer at the office, and the doctor prescribes one for home, along with Albuterol (a stimulant) and Amoxicillin. The doctor calls the trinity of treatment into Bigelow and I expect to pick up and pay upon arrival. "We got the call, yes," the pharmacist says. "We will fill it now." OK. I'm not sure why it hadn't already been filled, but I am assured it was now being filled "now." A half hour later, I am still soaked, my sore throat raw, my nose running and my head about to implode from the sinus pressure. I am struggling to soothe my son, who now needs a change and more milk. I ask about the order. "Oh, it will be a half hour." Another half hour? I was told it would be filled "now!" Bigelow, by the way, doesn't accept our insurance card, so it's an out-of-pocket payment for a wait that makes the chain stores seem charming. (Well, not really.) At this point, the only thing that keeps me from committing myself to Bellevue is my suffering son. I nearly storm out of the tony landmark chemist, but compose myself enough to raise my voice just enough to speed the process.
Michael Alexander smiles as soon I give him his first dose of antibiotics while I am instructed on how to assemble the nebulizer's tubes and dispense the medication. My son is easily comforted, as the fast-acting antibiotics take nearly immediate effect. It takes me a little longer to regain any semblance of sanity. I'm not quite there yet. More than three hours later, we hustle home, again pounded by rain. The rain, of course, started just before we left in the morning and stopped shortly after we returned home. The trip home seems to take twice as long, as the water-fearing masses huddled under obnoxious oversized umbrellas seem completely oblivious to my need to get home quickly. The slow-walkers, who have no business in a city like New York, are especially loathsome in inclement weather. Those who lurk under awnings and construction canopies are the worst. How pathetic is one's existence if s/he has time to wait for the rain to taper? I am disgusted by this always, and annoyed on a day like today.
I barrel into our building and try to distract Michael Alexander as we head to the basement. I adamantly abhor the practice of leaving loads in the washers and dryers, and I often fantasize about dumping the dissenters' duds onto the floor, but I have only ever carefully placed an abuser's clothes into a cart. (Of course, I curse them under my breath, but I have never taken it out on their washables.) I am more upset than outraged to find one of my wet loads dumped onto the filthy floor. The machine from which they were ejected was not in use, so at least I am able to *quickly* rewash our sheets and towels.
Michael Alexander went down for a nap about 15 minuets ago, but already is tossing and turning. I feel guilty for stealing this time to write, but it might be my only respite in the next few days. Did I mention that Albuterol is a stimulant? I need to administer it three times a day, sanitizing the mouthpiece ahead of every use. He's waking. My 15 minutes are up. The way today's been going, putting away laundry will be my break. At least it's dry.
Michael Alexander's on the mend, albeit slowly, thanks to modern medicine. I just hope this Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day ends with a relaxing evening. And maybe even some sleep! And maybe I'll order Judith Viorst's children's classic. Even the worst days can spur the best literary memories.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
The Business of a SAHP
I was excited to read the headline of Sarah E. Needleman's blog yesterday on The Wall Street Journal Online: "Can Home-Based Entrepreneurs Be Stay-at-Home Parents, Too?" Like all creative types, I have myriad business ideas percolating on a daily basis and wonder how ambitious one can be as a SAHP (stay-at-home parent.) I know people, mostly moms, who work from home in varying degrees, but have at least part-time childcare. I have nobody to help me during the day and I do some freelance work from home. Right now I am stealing the time I should be spending writing a column on stock splits and cobbling a pitch about green energy. Michael Alexander has gone down for a nap and could wake in 20 minutes so I need to act fast on the keyboard. Yesterday he didn't nap at all and woke several times throughout the night, so I am taking this precious time to write while I can, sleep deprived and all. I haven't posted to Nommersland in so long I nearly abandoned it over guilt. But reading this WSJ post irked me enough to overcome any self-reproach.
Needless to say, I was needled by Needleman's post. "Christine Perkett, a mother of two, is usually home before and after her kids go to school. But she’s not your typical stay-at-home mom," writes Needleman. OK, I'm intrigued, even if I can't yet relate to a mom with school-aged kids. I'm also confused, wondering how a SAHP can sometimes not be home and still actively parenting. "Ms. Perkett, 40 years old, runs PerkettPR, a public-relations firm, out of her family’s Marshfield, Mass., home. When she started the company, she hired a nanny to take care of the kids while she’s on the clock. 'I needed a solution to dig into my work without feeling guilty,' she says, adding that she also requires her 20 employees, who also work from their homes, to make comparable arrangements if they have young kids." OK, I am pissed off! Perkett is NOT a a SAHP! She is using her likely sprawling South Shore home (judging from the photo of her kitchen) as an office. Perkett doesn't want to feel guilty? Hope she is paying her 20 employees enough to really offset the cost of providing all those nannies with a living wage.
Needleman reveals that "Ms. Perkett says parenting and working from home don’t mix. 'People think they’ll stick (their kids) in front of the TV,' she says, but adds that the move isn’t practical or fair. 'It’s nearly impossible to work productively and watch your children at the same time. And it’s not good for the child because they’re vying for your attention and they can’t get it.'" Now I'm fuming. Perkett assumes all SAHPs who do "outside" work are sticking their kids in front of a TV? I am typing on the MacBook Pro we bought to replace the one Michael Alexander knocked off my leg while I was writing a personal finance column when he was just a few weeks old. Sure, that "move" wasn't "practical or fair," especially in terms of the cost of replacing a laptop, but I wasn't neglecting my son while working.
As someone who contemplates the possibility of really becoming a SAHP entrepreneur (sans full-time childcare like Perkett), I'd like a breakdown of the startup costs and where she got the capital to pay 20 people's salaries. Launching a business like Perkett's isn't a reality for most people.
I am not out to vilify Perkett or any other entrepreneur or business owner. But I am calling out Needleman for classifying Perkett as a SAHP. Perkett gets props for her
savvy by saving on overhead and office costs by running her business from home. The blog post, which features a photo of the PR maven with her elementary school aged son and nanny, is raising kid(s) who spend most of the day in school, according to the lede. I know Needleman is banging out a couple of grafs on the quick just to fill a page, but by serving us just this little slice of Perkett's life, she dis-serving SAHPs like me who grapple with the guilt of "not working" by identifying Perkett as a SAHP.
Needleman also mentions "Jason King, also a home-based entrepreneur, (who) says his wife is a stay-at-home mom and takes care of their two kids during the workday. Still, he says he wouldn’t get much work done if he didn’t have a solid door blocking his basement office from the rest of his Odenton, Md., home." A solid door? I guess that means a hollow one wouldn't work. The founder and CEO of Accella LLC, a website and mobile-application developer, tells Needleman that “Being able to create some type of separation and a way for the kids to know their boundaries is important," and that without the door, his kids “would feel the freedom to come and go as they please,” adding that they’d also be a distraction if the door was made of clear glass. "They’d always be sitting outside looking in.” I guess you need to have a basement and live in suburbia where you can create a fortress from your offspring in order to build a business from home.
Needleman who signs off by asking "Readers, if you run your business from a home office and have kids, is a nanny or daycare necessary?" raises an important question with her lede, but falls short by giving us two examples of people who work from home but are anything but SAHPs. Instead of asking her readers if this is possible, perhaps she could have sought out someone who has actually tried to be a SAHP with a career or business venture. Instead, Needleman has simply produced another self-promoting link for Perkett's "In The News" section of her website. I'm not begrudging Perkett for her headline-hoarding, but I do knock Needleman for false advertising.
Needless to say, I was needled by Needleman's post. "Christine Perkett, a mother of two, is usually home before and after her kids go to school. But she’s not your typical stay-at-home mom," writes Needleman. OK, I'm intrigued, even if I can't yet relate to a mom with school-aged kids. I'm also confused, wondering how a SAHP can sometimes not be home and still actively parenting. "Ms. Perkett, 40 years old, runs PerkettPR, a public-relations firm, out of her family’s Marshfield, Mass., home. When she started the company, she hired a nanny to take care of the kids while she’s on the clock. 'I needed a solution to dig into my work without feeling guilty,' she says, adding that she also requires her 20 employees, who also work from their homes, to make comparable arrangements if they have young kids." OK, I am pissed off! Perkett is NOT a a SAHP! She is using her likely sprawling South Shore home (judging from the photo of her kitchen) as an office. Perkett doesn't want to feel guilty? Hope she is paying her 20 employees enough to really offset the cost of providing all those nannies with a living wage.
Needleman reveals that "Ms. Perkett says parenting and working from home don’t mix. 'People think they’ll stick (their kids) in front of the TV,' she says, but adds that the move isn’t practical or fair. 'It’s nearly impossible to work productively and watch your children at the same time. And it’s not good for the child because they’re vying for your attention and they can’t get it.'" Now I'm fuming. Perkett assumes all SAHPs who do "outside" work are sticking their kids in front of a TV? I am typing on the MacBook Pro we bought to replace the one Michael Alexander knocked off my leg while I was writing a personal finance column when he was just a few weeks old. Sure, that "move" wasn't "practical or fair," especially in terms of the cost of replacing a laptop, but I wasn't neglecting my son while working.
As someone who contemplates the possibility of really becoming a SAHP entrepreneur (sans full-time childcare like Perkett), I'd like a breakdown of the startup costs and where she got the capital to pay 20 people's salaries. Launching a business like Perkett's isn't a reality for most people.
I am not out to vilify Perkett or any other entrepreneur or business owner. But I am calling out Needleman for classifying Perkett as a SAHP. Perkett gets props for her
savvy by saving on overhead and office costs by running her business from home. The blog post, which features a photo of the PR maven with her elementary school aged son and nanny, is raising kid(s) who spend most of the day in school, according to the lede. I know Needleman is banging out a couple of grafs on the quick just to fill a page, but by serving us just this little slice of Perkett's life, she dis-serving SAHPs like me who grapple with the guilt of "not working" by identifying Perkett as a SAHP.
Needleman also mentions "Jason King, also a home-based entrepreneur, (who) says his wife is a stay-at-home mom and takes care of their two kids during the workday. Still, he says he wouldn’t get much work done if he didn’t have a solid door blocking his basement office from the rest of his Odenton, Md., home." A solid door? I guess that means a hollow one wouldn't work. The founder and CEO of Accella LLC, a website and mobile-application developer, tells Needleman that “Being able to create some type of separation and a way for the kids to know their boundaries is important," and that without the door, his kids “would feel the freedom to come and go as they please,” adding that they’d also be a distraction if the door was made of clear glass. "They’d always be sitting outside looking in.” I guess you need to have a basement and live in suburbia where you can create a fortress from your offspring in order to build a business from home.
Needleman who signs off by asking "Readers, if you run your business from a home office and have kids, is a nanny or daycare necessary?" raises an important question with her lede, but falls short by giving us two examples of people who work from home but are anything but SAHPs. Instead of asking her readers if this is possible, perhaps she could have sought out someone who has actually tried to be a SAHP with a career or business venture. Instead, Needleman has simply produced another self-promoting link for Perkett's "In The News" section of her website. I'm not begrudging Perkett for her headline-hoarding, but I do knock Needleman for false advertising.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Grimm Reality
Over the last month I've discovered a whole new world of storytimes. There's yoga storytime and library storytime followed by playtime. There's something to do nearly every day without even boarding a bus. These free activities have had a tremendous impact on Michael Alexander, who is interacting with his peers and toddlers, mostly toddlers. I hate to miss one, as we are right now while Michael Alexander takes a rare nap that's allowing me to bang out by personal finance column and cobble something here. Most infants and toddlers that attend these mixed playgroups are accompanied by nannies. In the East Village there are more moms and dads than there are in the West Village, where nannies replace parents. But there are still more nannies in general, often nannies that accompany the moms. I had hoped these sessions would both boost Michael Alexander's social development and help me meet other moms (or dads) who've opted (or been forced by unemployment) to stay at home and raise their babies. It's certainly helped him grow, as he interacts well with the others, save for his not-so-uncommon fascination with hair-pulling. We even had a playdate with one his fellow baby yogis yesterday. I've met some moms, to mixed results in boosting my mommy confidence, profile and general understanding of mommyhood in the city.
The nice thing about Manhattan (and I'm sure some neighborhoods in Brooklyn) is that it's the anti-suburbia when it comes to mommyhood. Storytime reflects our unique lifestyle, as books and songs about transportation are edited to elevate the MetroCard and reduce the car's status to a vacation rental. Our offspring are cosmopolitan creatures born into a culturally rich landscape that will nurture their aesthetic tastes and a diverse streetscape that will spur a savvy that suburban sprawl can't cultivate. City kids talk about painting and sculpture and theater and opera and open mikes and know not to run into traffic or step too close to the platform. While I wish we lived within walking (or driving, if we had a car) distance to a great shoreline so my son and I could swim and sun, I believe raising a child here is superior to subjecting him to a closed community, even if he'd have a big lawn. Really, he's got his choice of the biggest lawns, from Central Park to Union Square to Tompkins Square to Madison Square. (The last three within quick walking distance.)
As I wonder how these early influences will shape my son's development and future, I'm also trying to figure where I fit in this new and evolving role as mommy. In her new book, Kids or No Kids, Zoe Slater considers interviews she conducted with women across the world. "In today's society, women often choose to have children later in life. New value systems mean that we are pickier about picking a partner, and embrace the lifestyles enabled by financial factors and modern living arrangements. The common denominator for all of us, is to one day confront the question of motherhood. Regardless of age or location, motherhood is like a sisterhood that bonds us," Slater writes. Manhattan is clearly representative of "today's society" in terms of waiting to have kids. A little over a week away from feting my 40th, I'm one of the "young" moms in these storytime groups. Sure some of my fellow moms, I learned just this week, are raising a baby with their *new* partner or spouse nearly two decades after raising their first with their ex. Still, we're all facing the same challenges of a digital parenting age where our babies are born masters at navigating our iPhone touch screens.
What Slater fails to address is how these demographic differences are truly divisive. Sure I can relate to suburban moms on many matters from sleepless nights to teething pains, but the challenges of being a mother in Manhattan are unique and can be more isolating than a house tucked away on a quiet cul-de-sac. In most suburban, country or low-income communities, moms are generally in the same socioeconomic situation, save for a few hundred grand in mounting debt for many of the suburbanites *living* well beyond their means. Manhattan is a mix of struggling artist moms and dads who tuck their toddlers into a nook in a one-room walkup -- to those who spa and shop and socialize while nannies tote their toddlers to the same free storytimes -- to everyone in between. It's tough being trapped in the middle (is that how we define class in this city?) where your sensibilities, academic and artistic achievements, professional prowess (even when it's on hold) and choice to mommy (in varying degrees) bridge the real estate and childcare gaps. Motherhood is no more a sisterhood than a shared career goal or haircolor. In fact, motherhood is the source of the same -- or more severe -- competitive strife that pits women against other women in the workplace or the salon. And in this city, it's a struggle on steroids as the haves are so preoccupied with the have-mores that we often forget the have-nots.
As I try to do best by my son, I strive to put my plight into perspective. I can't shake brownstone envy, especially when I take Michael Alexander to his pediatrician's office on a picturesque Village block where a nice family home (a renovated late 1800's townhouse) just sold for $12 million. Mike and I want more than anything (other than to have a healthy, happy son and a blissful marriage) to be famous novelists or magazine editors. Famous authors with a Village townhouse, of course. Meantime, I'll try to not complain about my life as one of the haves, even by a New York perspective. I hate when I compare myself with the have-mores, especially when I'm confident they're not nearly as content as I when it comes to my son, my husband, my family and my appreciation of this city's myriad perks, many cheap or free. I'm comforted by conversations with like-minded moms, who agree that the backdrop of storytime -- the tales of babies sleeping through the night and sleeping in until mommy-only yoga -- are clearly a Grimm reality.
The nice thing about Manhattan (and I'm sure some neighborhoods in Brooklyn) is that it's the anti-suburbia when it comes to mommyhood. Storytime reflects our unique lifestyle, as books and songs about transportation are edited to elevate the MetroCard and reduce the car's status to a vacation rental. Our offspring are cosmopolitan creatures born into a culturally rich landscape that will nurture their aesthetic tastes and a diverse streetscape that will spur a savvy that suburban sprawl can't cultivate. City kids talk about painting and sculpture and theater and opera and open mikes and know not to run into traffic or step too close to the platform. While I wish we lived within walking (or driving, if we had a car) distance to a great shoreline so my son and I could swim and sun, I believe raising a child here is superior to subjecting him to a closed community, even if he'd have a big lawn. Really, he's got his choice of the biggest lawns, from Central Park to Union Square to Tompkins Square to Madison Square. (The last three within quick walking distance.)
As I wonder how these early influences will shape my son's development and future, I'm also trying to figure where I fit in this new and evolving role as mommy. In her new book, Kids or No Kids, Zoe Slater considers interviews she conducted with women across the world. "In today's society, women often choose to have children later in life. New value systems mean that we are pickier about picking a partner, and embrace the lifestyles enabled by financial factors and modern living arrangements. The common denominator for all of us, is to one day confront the question of motherhood. Regardless of age or location, motherhood is like a sisterhood that bonds us," Slater writes. Manhattan is clearly representative of "today's society" in terms of waiting to have kids. A little over a week away from feting my 40th, I'm one of the "young" moms in these storytime groups. Sure some of my fellow moms, I learned just this week, are raising a baby with their *new* partner or spouse nearly two decades after raising their first with their ex. Still, we're all facing the same challenges of a digital parenting age where our babies are born masters at navigating our iPhone touch screens.
What Slater fails to address is how these demographic differences are truly divisive. Sure I can relate to suburban moms on many matters from sleepless nights to teething pains, but the challenges of being a mother in Manhattan are unique and can be more isolating than a house tucked away on a quiet cul-de-sac. In most suburban, country or low-income communities, moms are generally in the same socioeconomic situation, save for a few hundred grand in mounting debt for many of the suburbanites *living* well beyond their means. Manhattan is a mix of struggling artist moms and dads who tuck their toddlers into a nook in a one-room walkup -- to those who spa and shop and socialize while nannies tote their toddlers to the same free storytimes -- to everyone in between. It's tough being trapped in the middle (is that how we define class in this city?) where your sensibilities, academic and artistic achievements, professional prowess (even when it's on hold) and choice to mommy (in varying degrees) bridge the real estate and childcare gaps. Motherhood is no more a sisterhood than a shared career goal or haircolor. In fact, motherhood is the source of the same -- or more severe -- competitive strife that pits women against other women in the workplace or the salon. And in this city, it's a struggle on steroids as the haves are so preoccupied with the have-mores that we often forget the have-nots.
As I try to do best by my son, I strive to put my plight into perspective. I can't shake brownstone envy, especially when I take Michael Alexander to his pediatrician's office on a picturesque Village block where a nice family home (a renovated late 1800's townhouse) just sold for $12 million. Mike and I want more than anything (other than to have a healthy, happy son and a blissful marriage) to be famous novelists or magazine editors. Famous authors with a Village townhouse, of course. Meantime, I'll try to not complain about my life as one of the haves, even by a New York perspective. I hate when I compare myself with the have-mores, especially when I'm confident they're not nearly as content as I when it comes to my son, my husband, my family and my appreciation of this city's myriad perks, many cheap or free. I'm comforted by conversations with like-minded moms, who agree that the backdrop of storytime -- the tales of babies sleeping through the night and sleeping in until mommy-only yoga -- are clearly a Grimm reality.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Working on "Not Working"
Before Michael Alexander was born, I never expected to be a stay-at-home mom. I'd spent too many years, made too many sacrifices, to get where I was as a journalist after abandoning my first career pursuit, academia. I'd planned to go back to work after three months, like most (it seems) moms in the city. Now I can't imagine being in an office every day and missing the moments that are most precious, knowing I can care for my son better than anyone else. Not because I'm infinitely more qualified, but because I love him more than anyone else could. I'm unwilling to debate that.
Motherhood with all its joys has its pains, most inflicted by others. There's the worry that you're not giving your child enough. In Manhattan, that's an uber worry as the megarich, and those who drown in debt to feign such wealth, perpetuate a culture that compels you to spend a fortune on childcare. I see nannies every day. I see them tow children from townhouses to pricey play facilities where they chat away with other nannies. I see them shop for cosmetics, for clothes, for anything that's not for the babies. I hear them blab away on their cell phones or with other nannies as the children they are caring for cry, scream, laugh, whatever. The kids are being ignored, at best. In the rare case, I see a nanny abuse a child, like the one who slammed a stroller into the brick wall outside a Babies"R"Us. The toddler was yelling and weeping while the nanny was on the phone. I'm guessing it wasn't the parent/employer on the other line. I am not trying to malign nannies. I am not trying to guilt or scare the parents who fork over a big chunk of non-Wall Street salaries for this service. I am not even trying to make myself feel better. Really, I'm not. At least not by hating on paid childcare workers. I believe those who care for children should be paid -- and treated -- well. And I also believe those who care for their own children should be treated well, or at least with some respect. At least as much respect as they demanded in the workplace they left behind to stay at home.
My biggest struggle isn't keeping up with the Manhattan standard of hemorrhaging money hand over fist for activities that babies don't even understand or enjoy. It's accepting the terms and the tone used to describe my decision to "stay at home." Even my supportive, loving husband has said "Natasha isn't working, so ..." He'll deny it, I'm sure. But I have witnesses. I know Mike means no offense and isn't displeased with my staying at home to raise our son. But hearing anyone say "Natasha isn't working" makes me cringe, and when I'm alone, cry. I do some freelance, as much as I can with a very active son who seems allergic to napping. Michael Alexander demands constant attention and I give it to him. That may be a mistake on my end, at least according to many childcare experts. But I can't abandon my work ethic, even if I'm "not working" by most people's standards, and my job is to care for my son every second he's awake and to check on him every few minutes on the rare occasion he naps for more than half an hour. I'm actively seeking a full-time job, but I'm not sure I want to go back to work, yet. I don't want to take a job just to offset the cost of a nanny. I want to send Michael Alexander to a daycare where he interacts with other children and with other adults. The costs of such daycare in our neighborhood are astronomical.
As I consider when and why I want to return to an office, I try to maintain a positive perspective on my current condition as "not working." A 2010 Kansas State University study found that people value, and do not differentiate between, mothers who stay in the home full time and mothers who find a compromise between working and at-home motherhood after they have a child. People also devalue mothers employed full-time outside the home, relative to their non-employed counterparts, and perceive their children to be troubled and their relationships to be problematic, the study showed. But I'm not in Kansas. I'm in Manhattan, where we're measured by very different criteria. I'm supposed to be a supermom and a superwoman executive and, oh yeah, a size 2 at most, and that's with the baby weight. "The most interesting, and potentially dangerous, finding is the view that if a child has a working mother, people don't like that child as much," said Jennifer Livengood, a graduate student in psychology who did the study for her master's thesis and collaborated with Mark Barnett, professor of psychology. "People really devalue a mom who works full time outside the home in comparison to a mom who doesn't. People like mothers who fulfill traditional stereotypes, like staying at home. That's just not a reality and not a preference for women as much as it used to be." Ha! Well, at least people -- all kinds of people -- like my son, regardless of my work status. He's too charming to be measured against my career path, even when I've careened off course.
Another study published this month in the journal Child Development found that the longer a mother works outside the home, the more likely it is that her kids will become overweight. So far, Michael Alexander is long and lean, like his father's father. I hope Michael Alexander continues to be blessed by those genetics (not my sluggish thyroid), and I will not let him consume poisons such as high fructose corn syrup and will encourage him in any and all athletic pursuits. Researchers from American University in Washington, Cornell University and the University of Chicago studied data on more than 900 children in 10 U.S. cities, focusing on kids in Grades 3, 5, and 6. They found that every five months or so that a mother was employed was linked to an increase in her child's BMI that was 10% higher than other kids their age. Before I take credit for my son's infant fitness, I'll be first to acknowledge such studies are often anecdotal, at best. And lead researcher Taryn Morrissey notes that "We want to emphasize that this is not a maternal employment issue; this is a family balance issue. This is not about maternal employment per se; this is about some other environmental factor or several factors." As for environmental factors, I do take pride that Mike and I are raising our son in a city that bans trans fats and a borough that battles evil behemoths like Walmart.
It's taken me over an hour to bang this out, as I steal seconds while Michael Alexander engages in toys instead of tapping the keys. If I were "working" in an office I could have banged out thousands of words of copy in that hour or so. Back in the AP days, I'd have filed dozens of stories in the first hour of a busy shift. It's tough to recall more than a dozen stories that stood out in that frenzy. But now that I'm "not working" I can count every word that I manage to bang out. And every one of those words count, even if they don't command a salary. I'm not working, but I am working on being the best mother I can, and if Michael Alexander's disposition and development is any indicator then I can take pride in my joblessness.
Motherhood with all its joys has its pains, most inflicted by others. There's the worry that you're not giving your child enough. In Manhattan, that's an uber worry as the megarich, and those who drown in debt to feign such wealth, perpetuate a culture that compels you to spend a fortune on childcare. I see nannies every day. I see them tow children from townhouses to pricey play facilities where they chat away with other nannies. I see them shop for cosmetics, for clothes, for anything that's not for the babies. I hear them blab away on their cell phones or with other nannies as the children they are caring for cry, scream, laugh, whatever. The kids are being ignored, at best. In the rare case, I see a nanny abuse a child, like the one who slammed a stroller into the brick wall outside a Babies"R"Us. The toddler was yelling and weeping while the nanny was on the phone. I'm guessing it wasn't the parent/employer on the other line. I am not trying to malign nannies. I am not trying to guilt or scare the parents who fork over a big chunk of non-Wall Street salaries for this service. I am not even trying to make myself feel better. Really, I'm not. At least not by hating on paid childcare workers. I believe those who care for children should be paid -- and treated -- well. And I also believe those who care for their own children should be treated well, or at least with some respect. At least as much respect as they demanded in the workplace they left behind to stay at home.
My biggest struggle isn't keeping up with the Manhattan standard of hemorrhaging money hand over fist for activities that babies don't even understand or enjoy. It's accepting the terms and the tone used to describe my decision to "stay at home." Even my supportive, loving husband has said "Natasha isn't working, so ..." He'll deny it, I'm sure. But I have witnesses. I know Mike means no offense and isn't displeased with my staying at home to raise our son. But hearing anyone say "Natasha isn't working" makes me cringe, and when I'm alone, cry. I do some freelance, as much as I can with a very active son who seems allergic to napping. Michael Alexander demands constant attention and I give it to him. That may be a mistake on my end, at least according to many childcare experts. But I can't abandon my work ethic, even if I'm "not working" by most people's standards, and my job is to care for my son every second he's awake and to check on him every few minutes on the rare occasion he naps for more than half an hour. I'm actively seeking a full-time job, but I'm not sure I want to go back to work, yet. I don't want to take a job just to offset the cost of a nanny. I want to send Michael Alexander to a daycare where he interacts with other children and with other adults. The costs of such daycare in our neighborhood are astronomical.
As I consider when and why I want to return to an office, I try to maintain a positive perspective on my current condition as "not working." A 2010 Kansas State University study found that people value, and do not differentiate between, mothers who stay in the home full time and mothers who find a compromise between working and at-home motherhood after they have a child. People also devalue mothers employed full-time outside the home, relative to their non-employed counterparts, and perceive their children to be troubled and their relationships to be problematic, the study showed. But I'm not in Kansas. I'm in Manhattan, where we're measured by very different criteria. I'm supposed to be a supermom and a superwoman executive and, oh yeah, a size 2 at most, and that's with the baby weight. "The most interesting, and potentially dangerous, finding is the view that if a child has a working mother, people don't like that child as much," said Jennifer Livengood, a graduate student in psychology who did the study for her master's thesis and collaborated with Mark Barnett, professor of psychology. "People really devalue a mom who works full time outside the home in comparison to a mom who doesn't. People like mothers who fulfill traditional stereotypes, like staying at home. That's just not a reality and not a preference for women as much as it used to be." Ha! Well, at least people -- all kinds of people -- like my son, regardless of my work status. He's too charming to be measured against my career path, even when I've careened off course.
Another study published this month in the journal Child Development found that the longer a mother works outside the home, the more likely it is that her kids will become overweight. So far, Michael Alexander is long and lean, like his father's father. I hope Michael Alexander continues to be blessed by those genetics (not my sluggish thyroid), and I will not let him consume poisons such as high fructose corn syrup and will encourage him in any and all athletic pursuits. Researchers from American University in Washington, Cornell University and the University of Chicago studied data on more than 900 children in 10 U.S. cities, focusing on kids in Grades 3, 5, and 6. They found that every five months or so that a mother was employed was linked to an increase in her child's BMI that was 10% higher than other kids their age. Before I take credit for my son's infant fitness, I'll be first to acknowledge such studies are often anecdotal, at best. And lead researcher Taryn Morrissey notes that "We want to emphasize that this is not a maternal employment issue; this is a family balance issue. This is not about maternal employment per se; this is about some other environmental factor or several factors." As for environmental factors, I do take pride that Mike and I are raising our son in a city that bans trans fats and a borough that battles evil behemoths like Walmart.
It's taken me over an hour to bang this out, as I steal seconds while Michael Alexander engages in toys instead of tapping the keys. If I were "working" in an office I could have banged out thousands of words of copy in that hour or so. Back in the AP days, I'd have filed dozens of stories in the first hour of a busy shift. It's tough to recall more than a dozen stories that stood out in that frenzy. But now that I'm "not working" I can count every word that I manage to bang out. And every one of those words count, even if they don't command a salary. I'm not working, but I am working on being the best mother I can, and if Michael Alexander's disposition and development is any indicator then I can take pride in my joblessness.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Shardstorm, Shitstorm, Snowstorm
Every weekday morning starts the same. I have goals for the day -- what I'd really like to get done before Mike gets home from work, usually around 6:30, when I escape to the gym for my only alone time. And then there are the minimum goals I can realistically hope to achieve, and that's on a good day. Most days I'm lucky if Michael Alexander naps for 20 minutes, giving me that much time to hustle even as I would like to join him in a nap. Writing, even answering emails, is a constant challenge as he wants to pound on the keys as soon as he sees the laptop open. I steal away what little time I can in the minutes he'll entertain himself in the jump-a-roo. Like right now. I am typing as quickly as I can because I am determined today to write something, anything.
The day started with a shardstorm. I placed Michael Alexander in the jump-a-roo as I ran to the bathroom to pee. (Little luxuries that stay-at-home moms cherish. I have become a master at holding it to keep toilet visits to a minimum.) I had just unzipped my jeans when I heard a colossal crash that rattled me to the core. I can see and hear Michael Alexander from the bathroom, so I knew he was fine, but I still dreaded the source of that scary sound. The light fixture on the kitchen ceiling had thundered down, showering the black tiles with shards of white polished glass. Some pieces were large enough to scoop up by hand, most had to be swept up and a powder had to be very carefully removed. The kitchen floor and parts of the counter and stove were covered in what looked like a dusting of snow. Tiny shards and some powder made it into the living room. I carefully stepped into a pair of flip flops just outside the kitchen every few minutes to soothe Michael Alexander as I scoured the floors for every last razor sharp shard. It took a full hour just to be sure all visible powder was discarded. I sliced off a sliver of my right middle finger as I carefully pulled a chunk of glass from under the dishwasher. I've managed to keep Michael Alexander out of the kitchen all day. That's a tall order, as he insists on following me in there and enjoys searching for any remnants and pushing the dishawasher buttons and opening the oven door. He's so tall that at 9 months, he can reach higher than most 18-month-olds. To be sure, I scrubbed the floor and the oven and the counters. That called for a another series of sweeps to distinguish between the clean shine and stubborn shards.
Shardstorm over, save for the particles I missed and the ongoing battle to keep Michael Alexander out of the tiny kitchen he finds so fascinating. As much as I dread grocery shopping ahead of another threat of stormageddon, I had to get to get food and water just because we're one of those unusual Manhattan households that prepares most of its meals despite the endless delivery options. We went to Whole Foods first, but too many staples, like the sports cap electrolyte enhanced water, were sold out, so we returned to slippery sidewalks and headed to Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's in Union Square, unlike its sister stores in suburbia, is cramped and always crowded beyond capacity. I was relieved that there was no line outside, as that often stretches half an avenue while people wait to clear the entrance. Trader Joe's is boring. Boring for anyone, especially an extremely active 9-month-old confined to a stroller for what seems like an endless, sluggish journey snaking the narrow aisles. Michael Alexander is such a happy baby, so animated and engaging he earns the adoration of child-hating hipsters. Shoppers are rabid and packed like sardines. There are no pleasantries. Michael Alexander isn't accustomed to such a somber scene. He's used to constant compliments and a sea of smiles. Understandably, he got a little cranky as we weaved our way around the weary sourpusses and sad saps. As always, there is plenty of carriage slamming. There's always a shopper who repeatedly rams her cart into the backs of my ankles as if that will expedite her trip to the register. The woman behind us on line today was particularly nasty. The bitter old hag hates babies. I could sense this even before her verbal assault, as my radar was honed in my years as a bitter young hack who had little tolerance for crying babies in crowded stores. As the hag slammed her push cart into my back, she knocked a package of ground turkey from the stroller. It landed near her feet. "Please, remove that immediately," she barked. "I cannot be exposed to meat. I cannot handle meat." I said nothing as I retrieved the warehouse sealed package from the ground, inches away from her filthy rubber rain boots. Meantime, her face was closer to the shelves of beef than her boots were to the single package of poultry. "Disgusting," she mumbled. "Children should not have contact with meat." Hmmm ... I was a vegetarian, briefly, as a younger person. We all make mistakes, go through phases. If she's so adamant about her problem, err, I am mean choice, perhaps she could avoid stores that stock the flesh she so fears. Even the vegans that nibble away at their bowls of overpriced leaves and legumes from the trough where these items sit all day turning every shade of food poisoning don't scoff at the carnivores flanking them at the Whole Foods checkout line. Maybe it's because they're technically stealing (and breaking state law) by chowing down on the food that's priced, and supposed to be purchased, by the pound. In any case, this hag's anti-meat madness was above and beyond the worst offenders I've encountered in the mixed (omnivores and other uber eating races) retail company. As if her veg venom were not vile enough -- or perhaps my lack of response annoyed her -- the hag sought to set me off by swearing at my sweet son. "Ugh!" she launched into tirade No. 2. "Uuuugh! Why is that child here?!" Again, I ignored her. "Children should not be allowed here! There is no room for children!" My stubborn silence sent her seething, it seems. She pulled out her ancient flip phone and greeted the unlucky number with another, louder round of "Ughs!" "I am at Trader Joe's," she grumbled into the telecom artifact. "There is this woman, with a baby, throwing meat on the floor!" Lady, if my baby or I were throwing meat, you wouldn't be standing. Yet it was my very calm, my refusal to acknowledge her tedious tirade, that really ticked her off. She groaned and groaned some more. "This line is taking forever. This is bullshit! This woman with the baby! This is what nannies are for. To stay home with the babies!" Really? Nannies are for stay-at-home moms who need to grocery shop solo? Fascinating! I am pretty sure the uber rich who afford such leisure and luxury need not shop on their own, at Trader Joe's. We made it to a register, where we were greeted by the charming cashier. He is named Mike, like so many a kind-hearted and quick-witted man. "How was your shopping experience?" he asked with a smirk. "I've had better days." Curious, he quizzed me for more. I summed up the hag's harassment. "Want me to get a manager? We can ban people like that from the store." I thanked him, but explained that this hag's misery was self-inflicted punishment enough, and the manager need not endure her fury.
Having a baby changes everything. Back in my pre-mommy days. Back when I was a bitter young hack, I'd never have kept shut and I'd likely have been banned when the other oldy-moldy meanies joined forces to counter my youthful rage against the hag. Today I am just happy to escape the hag's shitstorm, all that after surviving the shardstorm, at least relatively unscathed. All this and I thought today's super struggle was supposed to be a snowstorm. New Englanders and other non-New Yorkers, I shudder to say that I might have -- just for today -- preferred shoveling snow to shielding my son and self from the shards and shit.
The day started with a shardstorm. I placed Michael Alexander in the jump-a-roo as I ran to the bathroom to pee. (Little luxuries that stay-at-home moms cherish. I have become a master at holding it to keep toilet visits to a minimum.) I had just unzipped my jeans when I heard a colossal crash that rattled me to the core. I can see and hear Michael Alexander from the bathroom, so I knew he was fine, but I still dreaded the source of that scary sound. The light fixture on the kitchen ceiling had thundered down, showering the black tiles with shards of white polished glass. Some pieces were large enough to scoop up by hand, most had to be swept up and a powder had to be very carefully removed. The kitchen floor and parts of the counter and stove were covered in what looked like a dusting of snow. Tiny shards and some powder made it into the living room. I carefully stepped into a pair of flip flops just outside the kitchen every few minutes to soothe Michael Alexander as I scoured the floors for every last razor sharp shard. It took a full hour just to be sure all visible powder was discarded. I sliced off a sliver of my right middle finger as I carefully pulled a chunk of glass from under the dishwasher. I've managed to keep Michael Alexander out of the kitchen all day. That's a tall order, as he insists on following me in there and enjoys searching for any remnants and pushing the dishawasher buttons and opening the oven door. He's so tall that at 9 months, he can reach higher than most 18-month-olds. To be sure, I scrubbed the floor and the oven and the counters. That called for a another series of sweeps to distinguish between the clean shine and stubborn shards.
Shardstorm over, save for the particles I missed and the ongoing battle to keep Michael Alexander out of the tiny kitchen he finds so fascinating. As much as I dread grocery shopping ahead of another threat of stormageddon, I had to get to get food and water just because we're one of those unusual Manhattan households that prepares most of its meals despite the endless delivery options. We went to Whole Foods first, but too many staples, like the sports cap electrolyte enhanced water, were sold out, so we returned to slippery sidewalks and headed to Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's in Union Square, unlike its sister stores in suburbia, is cramped and always crowded beyond capacity. I was relieved that there was no line outside, as that often stretches half an avenue while people wait to clear the entrance. Trader Joe's is boring. Boring for anyone, especially an extremely active 9-month-old confined to a stroller for what seems like an endless, sluggish journey snaking the narrow aisles. Michael Alexander is such a happy baby, so animated and engaging he earns the adoration of child-hating hipsters. Shoppers are rabid and packed like sardines. There are no pleasantries. Michael Alexander isn't accustomed to such a somber scene. He's used to constant compliments and a sea of smiles. Understandably, he got a little cranky as we weaved our way around the weary sourpusses and sad saps. As always, there is plenty of carriage slamming. There's always a shopper who repeatedly rams her cart into the backs of my ankles as if that will expedite her trip to the register. The woman behind us on line today was particularly nasty. The bitter old hag hates babies. I could sense this even before her verbal assault, as my radar was honed in my years as a bitter young hack who had little tolerance for crying babies in crowded stores. As the hag slammed her push cart into my back, she knocked a package of ground turkey from the stroller. It landed near her feet. "Please, remove that immediately," she barked. "I cannot be exposed to meat. I cannot handle meat." I said nothing as I retrieved the warehouse sealed package from the ground, inches away from her filthy rubber rain boots. Meantime, her face was closer to the shelves of beef than her boots were to the single package of poultry. "Disgusting," she mumbled. "Children should not have contact with meat." Hmmm ... I was a vegetarian, briefly, as a younger person. We all make mistakes, go through phases. If she's so adamant about her problem, err, I am mean choice, perhaps she could avoid stores that stock the flesh she so fears. Even the vegans that nibble away at their bowls of overpriced leaves and legumes from the trough where these items sit all day turning every shade of food poisoning don't scoff at the carnivores flanking them at the Whole Foods checkout line. Maybe it's because they're technically stealing (and breaking state law) by chowing down on the food that's priced, and supposed to be purchased, by the pound. In any case, this hag's anti-meat madness was above and beyond the worst offenders I've encountered in the mixed (omnivores and other uber eating races) retail company. As if her veg venom were not vile enough -- or perhaps my lack of response annoyed her -- the hag sought to set me off by swearing at my sweet son. "Ugh!" she launched into tirade No. 2. "Uuuugh! Why is that child here?!" Again, I ignored her. "Children should not be allowed here! There is no room for children!" My stubborn silence sent her seething, it seems. She pulled out her ancient flip phone and greeted the unlucky number with another, louder round of "Ughs!" "I am at Trader Joe's," she grumbled into the telecom artifact. "There is this woman, with a baby, throwing meat on the floor!" Lady, if my baby or I were throwing meat, you wouldn't be standing. Yet it was my very calm, my refusal to acknowledge her tedious tirade, that really ticked her off. She groaned and groaned some more. "This line is taking forever. This is bullshit! This woman with the baby! This is what nannies are for. To stay home with the babies!" Really? Nannies are for stay-at-home moms who need to grocery shop solo? Fascinating! I am pretty sure the uber rich who afford such leisure and luxury need not shop on their own, at Trader Joe's. We made it to a register, where we were greeted by the charming cashier. He is named Mike, like so many a kind-hearted and quick-witted man. "How was your shopping experience?" he asked with a smirk. "I've had better days." Curious, he quizzed me for more. I summed up the hag's harassment. "Want me to get a manager? We can ban people like that from the store." I thanked him, but explained that this hag's misery was self-inflicted punishment enough, and the manager need not endure her fury.
Having a baby changes everything. Back in my pre-mommy days. Back when I was a bitter young hack, I'd never have kept shut and I'd likely have been banned when the other oldy-moldy meanies joined forces to counter my youthful rage against the hag. Today I am just happy to escape the hag's shitstorm, all that after surviving the shardstorm, at least relatively unscathed. All this and I thought today's super struggle was supposed to be a snowstorm. New Englanders and other non-New Yorkers, I shudder to say that I might have -- just for today -- preferred shoveling snow to shielding my son and self from the shards and shit.
Friday, January 21, 2011
First Lady of Walmartians
Shame on you, Michelle Obama, for selling out -- again -- to the evil empire that is crippling the nation and chipping away at any goodness in the world. The White House announced that "First Lady Michelle Obama joined Walmart executives today to help launch the company’s Nutrition Charter, a groundbreaking new initiative that has the potential to have a transformative impact on the market place and help families across America put healthier, more affordable food on their tables." Even less appetizing are the *news* reports that rewrite this repulsive release without any mention of how this is another crime against our citizens. You'll need to read The Telegraph for anything more than a gratuitous endorsement masquerading as news: "The apparent contradiction between Sen Obama's political calculation to join the Wal-Mart-bashing lobby, and his wife's profitable role with a company that makes money from Wal-Mart, is being closely scrutinised by "opposition" research teams working for rival White House candidates, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt." For more on Obama's re-election to the board of Treehouse Foods, the Illinois-based union- and worker-hating pickles and peppers producer, click here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1551441/Obama-called-hypocrite-for-wifes-Wal-Mart-link.html
Walmartians aren't looking for "healthier" food. They consume processed crap in lieu of anything that resembles whole food. The socially conscious aren't going to trade down from their local farmer's market or Whole Foods to be fooled into believing they are saving money at the behemoth that sucks dry any semblance of humanity from the masses. The world's biggest retailer claims it is "reformulating thousands of everyday packaged food items by 2015 by reducing sodium 25 percent and added sugars 10 percent, and by removing all remaining industrially produced trans fats." Why is this poison loaded with so much sodium, sugar (no doubt mostly high fructose corn syrup) and trans fat to begin with? And why is it taking until 2015? Because the chemical concoctions on the shelves are forever fossilized in their processed state and "good" for years after they come off the production lines. Specifically, Walmart has vowed to "reduce sodium by 25 percent in a broad category of grocery items, including grain products, luncheon meats, salad dressings and frozen entrees." This death by diet campaign is acknowledging it doesn't stock whole grains but "grain products." Good luck finding lean protein at any price in this mecca of mock. There you'll find "luncheon meats." Luncheon meats? I guess that's what you serve with American cheese, a blend of milk, milk fats and solids, with other fats and whey protein concentrates. I'm too nauseous to even comment on the contents of the "salad dressings and frozen entrees." Walmart also promises to "reduce added sugars by 10 percent in dairy items, sauces and fruit drinks." Added sugars in "dairy items?" Want to commit to health Walmart? Don't sell diabetes causing "dairy items, sauces and fruit drinks" to human beings! Even fruit juice (just fruit without any of the fiber reduced to a "healthy" sugar) needs to be doled out in moderation. That something called "fruit drinks" is even legal is heinous. To round out the trinity of "reformulation," Walmart says it will "remove all remaining industrially produced trans fats (partially hydrogenated fats and oils) in all packaged food products." Thanks, Walmart, for introducing me to an even deeper, darker circle of dietary hell known as "industrially produced trans fats."
I dare doubters who still think I'm a snob to show me any evidence that even the slightest improvement in any packaged Walmart product will transform it into anything approaching healthy. Take a serving of Sam's Club frozen pizza. The store brand supreme pie packs 350 calories per serving. Sounds OK, right? That serving is a tenth of the pie, or 5.57 ounces. How many Walmartians really eat one slice? Let's be conservative and say a family of four shares the pie, with three slices doled out to dad, the biggest eater of the bunch. That means dad's scarfing down 1,050 calories, 48 grams of fat (24 saturated), 120 mg of cholesterol, 2,340 mg of sodium and 42 grams of sugar. And that's before the fruit drink. And what if mom, who's only eating two slices, decides to serve a healthy salad with store bought dressing? I'll spare you the staggering statistics.
Since I'm nowhere near a Walmart (one legitimate reason for paying astronomical rent) and I have vowed to never step foot in one, I can't give you a price comparison. But I assure you that you can find bulk items of whole foods like grains and legumes much cheaper at Whole Foods. I tried to search online for Walmart prices. Funny that a site search for "organic" in the grocery department yields just 10 results. Those items include tea, coffee, infant formula and diapers. What more do you need for a healthy, organic diet?
The press photos of the First Lady and Walmart President and CEO Bill Simon against a backdrop of super shiny peppers and tomatoes makes me squint (from the grotesque glossy veneer) and shudder. I challenge any Walmartian to monitor that produce pile, watch for any takers or any turnover of the shellacked racks.
Walmartians aren't looking for "healthier" food. They consume processed crap in lieu of anything that resembles whole food. The socially conscious aren't going to trade down from their local farmer's market or Whole Foods to be fooled into believing they are saving money at the behemoth that sucks dry any semblance of humanity from the masses. The world's biggest retailer claims it is "reformulating thousands of everyday packaged food items by 2015 by reducing sodium 25 percent and added sugars 10 percent, and by removing all remaining industrially produced trans fats." Why is this poison loaded with so much sodium, sugar (no doubt mostly high fructose corn syrup) and trans fat to begin with? And why is it taking until 2015? Because the chemical concoctions on the shelves are forever fossilized in their processed state and "good" for years after they come off the production lines. Specifically, Walmart has vowed to "reduce sodium by 25 percent in a broad category of grocery items, including grain products, luncheon meats, salad dressings and frozen entrees." This death by diet campaign is acknowledging it doesn't stock whole grains but "grain products." Good luck finding lean protein at any price in this mecca of mock. There you'll find "luncheon meats." Luncheon meats? I guess that's what you serve with American cheese, a blend of milk, milk fats and solids, with other fats and whey protein concentrates. I'm too nauseous to even comment on the contents of the "salad dressings and frozen entrees." Walmart also promises to "reduce added sugars by 10 percent in dairy items, sauces and fruit drinks." Added sugars in "dairy items?" Want to commit to health Walmart? Don't sell diabetes causing "dairy items, sauces and fruit drinks" to human beings! Even fruit juice (just fruit without any of the fiber reduced to a "healthy" sugar) needs to be doled out in moderation. That something called "fruit drinks" is even legal is heinous. To round out the trinity of "reformulation," Walmart says it will "remove all remaining industrially produced trans fats (partially hydrogenated fats and oils) in all packaged food products." Thanks, Walmart, for introducing me to an even deeper, darker circle of dietary hell known as "industrially produced trans fats."
I dare doubters who still think I'm a snob to show me any evidence that even the slightest improvement in any packaged Walmart product will transform it into anything approaching healthy. Take a serving of Sam's Club frozen pizza. The store brand supreme pie packs 350 calories per serving. Sounds OK, right? That serving is a tenth of the pie, or 5.57 ounces. How many Walmartians really eat one slice? Let's be conservative and say a family of four shares the pie, with three slices doled out to dad, the biggest eater of the bunch. That means dad's scarfing down 1,050 calories, 48 grams of fat (24 saturated), 120 mg of cholesterol, 2,340 mg of sodium and 42 grams of sugar. And that's before the fruit drink. And what if mom, who's only eating two slices, decides to serve a healthy salad with store bought dressing? I'll spare you the staggering statistics.
Since I'm nowhere near a Walmart (one legitimate reason for paying astronomical rent) and I have vowed to never step foot in one, I can't give you a price comparison. But I assure you that you can find bulk items of whole foods like grains and legumes much cheaper at Whole Foods. I tried to search online for Walmart prices. Funny that a site search for "organic" in the grocery department yields just 10 results. Those items include tea, coffee, infant formula and diapers. What more do you need for a healthy, organic diet?
The press photos of the First Lady and Walmart President and CEO Bill Simon against a backdrop of super shiny peppers and tomatoes makes me squint (from the grotesque glossy veneer) and shudder. I challenge any Walmartian to monitor that produce pile, watch for any takers or any turnover of the shellacked racks.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Mass. Emotion
It's taken me nearly a week to write this. Largely because I've had very little chance to write anything, and have stolen what little time Michael Alexander naps during the day to bang out my personal finance column. And this week I've struggled to even answer emails after he goes to bed. We're all sick with stuffiness, sore throats and sniffles, so my energy is zapped by the time the baby falls asleep. It's nearly impossible to eke out a sentence when Michael Alexander's awake, as the keyboard is far more fascinating than any of his baby toys and he dives in as soon as I start tapping.
There's also the emotional impact of writing about emotions. I might be writing this only because I have such limited time to put anything in print. My restrictions may be freeing me to get this out without overthinking whether I'm oversharing.
Michael Alexander and I last week spent four nights in western Massachusetts, two without Mike. We were there to celebrate Rosghestvo, Christmas by the Julian calendar. That's two nights of sleeping -- alone -- in the bedroom where my father died, right next to the bedroom where my grandmother died. And just a hallway away from the room where my grandmother was waked. Every childhood home is awash in memories, good and bad. Few childhood homes in today's America are like mine. Americans love to divorce themselves from the reality of their family's disease and death, shipping them off to nursing home where strangers bathe them, change their bandages, refill their IVs and generally regard them as flesh waiting to go cold and and be replaced. I have many friends who didn't see grandparents for months at a time, as they were removed from their reality, dying a sanitary (at least by emotional standards) and soulless death in some money-making deathpit.
As my favorite undergraduate professor, Charles Kay Smith, said, Americans are as Puritanical about death as the Victorians were about sex. We changed the name parlour (or parlor) to living room (what an absurd term!) to erase any trace of dying from our homes. Up until 1918, Americans and Europeans called the front room of the house the front parlor (or parlour). The 1918 flu pandemic (or Spanish Flu), a pandemic which wiped out between 50 million and 100 million people from June 1917 to December 1920, reportedly forced people to pile bodies in the front parlor. (The first cases were reported in the continental U.S. and the rest of Europe long before creeping to Spain. But the pandemic was dubbed "Spanish flu" because as a neutral country in World War I, Spain had no censorship of news regarding the disease and its consequences. Spanish King Alfonso XIII became the high-ranking poster child for the disease after getting sick.) All this death was far too depressing for American society to bear! The desire to boost sales of its lifestyle magazine drove the editors of "The Ladies Home Journal" to rename the parlor the "living room" in honor of those who survived. God forbid Americans grow too sad to seek advice on redecorating their new room!
Though I grew up in a bucolic New England suburb, cushioned by the liberal utopia of America's higher education mecca, my life was very different, at least at home. My mother, a fashionista who shopped at Saks in New York and walked the red carpet to her various executive roles, made every effort to ensure my sister and I were clad and coiffed to fit in with the proud Protestants and fallen Catholics. We played sports. We were Brownies and Girl Scouts (my mom was a troop leader.) I was such an archetypal New England child that I won a Memorial Day poetry contest and read proudly in patriotic red, white and blue. I marched in parades dressed as a pilgrim. But beneath all the costumes and conformity, I was buffered from the uptight American denial of death. I went to wakes and funerals as a baby. And Russian Orthodox wakes and funerals involve open caskets and close contact with the corpse. I am grateful I was raised this way. I cannot imagine the detachment and denial that plagues so many of my peers. Sheltering your children from reality and the natural cycle and ritual of life is absurd and unnatural. "The Ladies Home Journal" is not an infant care handbook. It can make for good comedy, though.
As always, I digress. While I wouldn't trade my old world upbringing for the milktoast, mundane, Main Street mainstream, I do acknowledge that my early emotional intelligence makes some adult experiences more volatile. Like coming home. Home, where my father and grandmother died. My mother cared for both of them, after she helped my grandmother care for my grandfather. She was incapable of discarding them in our nation's dollar-driven deathcare system. With names like Home of the Innocents, South Mountain Restoration Center and Cokesbury Village (among the winners of U.S. News America's Best Nursing Homes rankings), America disguises these places to die and makes people think they are doing something humane in exchange for a small fortune amassed in a lifetime. Some 1.5 million people are living in the nation's 16,000-plus nursing homes, and in a typical year more than 3.2 million Americans will spend at least some time in one. That statistic saddens me far more than the purpose of a parlor.
But I struggle to sleep when I am my mother's house, where I grew up. I am startled by nightmares (often re-runs from my childhood), flooded by emotion and angry at myself for how I neglected my mother in some of her greatest moments of need. I suppose if I were raised in a home that banished the old and ill at the first sign of convalescence I wouldn't have this problem. Sorrow aside, I am comforted most by compassion and empathy which can only come with experience. I wouldn't trade my tossing, turning and night terrors for a bland background.
"Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain."
_ William Hazlitt (1778-1830) British essayist (and Irish Protestant)
There's also the emotional impact of writing about emotions. I might be writing this only because I have such limited time to put anything in print. My restrictions may be freeing me to get this out without overthinking whether I'm oversharing.
Michael Alexander and I last week spent four nights in western Massachusetts, two without Mike. We were there to celebrate Rosghestvo, Christmas by the Julian calendar. That's two nights of sleeping -- alone -- in the bedroom where my father died, right next to the bedroom where my grandmother died. And just a hallway away from the room where my grandmother was waked. Every childhood home is awash in memories, good and bad. Few childhood homes in today's America are like mine. Americans love to divorce themselves from the reality of their family's disease and death, shipping them off to nursing home where strangers bathe them, change their bandages, refill their IVs and generally regard them as flesh waiting to go cold and and be replaced. I have many friends who didn't see grandparents for months at a time, as they were removed from their reality, dying a sanitary (at least by emotional standards) and soulless death in some money-making deathpit.
As my favorite undergraduate professor, Charles Kay Smith, said, Americans are as Puritanical about death as the Victorians were about sex. We changed the name parlour (or parlor) to living room (what an absurd term!) to erase any trace of dying from our homes. Up until 1918, Americans and Europeans called the front room of the house the front parlor (or parlour). The 1918 flu pandemic (or Spanish Flu), a pandemic which wiped out between 50 million and 100 million people from June 1917 to December 1920, reportedly forced people to pile bodies in the front parlor. (The first cases were reported in the continental U.S. and the rest of Europe long before creeping to Spain. But the pandemic was dubbed "Spanish flu" because as a neutral country in World War I, Spain had no censorship of news regarding the disease and its consequences. Spanish King Alfonso XIII became the high-ranking poster child for the disease after getting sick.) All this death was far too depressing for American society to bear! The desire to boost sales of its lifestyle magazine drove the editors of "The Ladies Home Journal" to rename the parlor the "living room" in honor of those who survived. God forbid Americans grow too sad to seek advice on redecorating their new room!
Though I grew up in a bucolic New England suburb, cushioned by the liberal utopia of America's higher education mecca, my life was very different, at least at home. My mother, a fashionista who shopped at Saks in New York and walked the red carpet to her various executive roles, made every effort to ensure my sister and I were clad and coiffed to fit in with the proud Protestants and fallen Catholics. We played sports. We were Brownies and Girl Scouts (my mom was a troop leader.) I was such an archetypal New England child that I won a Memorial Day poetry contest and read proudly in patriotic red, white and blue. I marched in parades dressed as a pilgrim. But beneath all the costumes and conformity, I was buffered from the uptight American denial of death. I went to wakes and funerals as a baby. And Russian Orthodox wakes and funerals involve open caskets and close contact with the corpse. I am grateful I was raised this way. I cannot imagine the detachment and denial that plagues so many of my peers. Sheltering your children from reality and the natural cycle and ritual of life is absurd and unnatural. "The Ladies Home Journal" is not an infant care handbook. It can make for good comedy, though.
As always, I digress. While I wouldn't trade my old world upbringing for the milktoast, mundane, Main Street mainstream, I do acknowledge that my early emotional intelligence makes some adult experiences more volatile. Like coming home. Home, where my father and grandmother died. My mother cared for both of them, after she helped my grandmother care for my grandfather. She was incapable of discarding them in our nation's dollar-driven deathcare system. With names like Home of the Innocents, South Mountain Restoration Center and Cokesbury Village (among the winners of U.S. News America's Best Nursing Homes rankings), America disguises these places to die and makes people think they are doing something humane in exchange for a small fortune amassed in a lifetime. Some 1.5 million people are living in the nation's 16,000-plus nursing homes, and in a typical year more than 3.2 million Americans will spend at least some time in one. That statistic saddens me far more than the purpose of a parlor.
But I struggle to sleep when I am my mother's house, where I grew up. I am startled by nightmares (often re-runs from my childhood), flooded by emotion and angry at myself for how I neglected my mother in some of her greatest moments of need. I suppose if I were raised in a home that banished the old and ill at the first sign of convalescence I wouldn't have this problem. Sorrow aside, I am comforted most by compassion and empathy which can only come with experience. I wouldn't trade my tossing, turning and night terrors for a bland background.
"Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain."
_ William Hazlitt (1778-1830) British essayist (and Irish Protestant)
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Tooth and Nail
I've been fighting tooth and nail today to stay smiley. I'm finally feeling better after battling a monster headache. It's the intense throbbing and pounding pain that moves from temple to temple like with a migraine, but mercifully without the blinding nausea. I have to keep grinning and giggling, even as I grind my teeth and chomp the insides of my cheeks to offset the fear my head may implode. Michael Alexander has cut his first two teeth and he needs Nommers to be especially cheerful and patient and attentive and concerned with his pain, not hers.
Of all the baby gear people are convinced parents need, teething rings are the most useless. Michael Alexander cut his first tooth -- bottom left front -- on Thursday, the day before Rosghestvo (Christmas by the Julian calendar) and the second -- bottom right front -- on Saturday. He wants to gnaw on everything. Well, everything except teething rings. Clean socks. The diaper box. My knees. Just about anything seems to offer at least a few seconds of comfort. But the teething rings get ousted almost immediately.
Michael Alexander might be one of the happiest babies ever. He doesn't complain and rarely cries. Cutting teeth is the first thing to rattle (rattles, another useless item, as babies prefer the packaging) him. He had a fever over the holiday weekend at his Babushka's, but quickly perked up after a dose of Baby Tylenol. Now Daddy's sick with a cold, I have a sore throat and he's starting to sniffle. We can't all be sick at once.
Michael Alexander's being a champ compared with most teething babies. I just hope I'm feeling better tomorrow. This teething is tough enough without my being ill. And I'm going a little crazy as he demands much more of my attention. I've already spoiled him just a teeny tiny bit, so I am not allowed to so much as glance at the laptop when he's awake and watching. He wants to help me, pounding on the keys and striking macros I didn't even know existed. At just a couple months old, he killed one MacBook by shoving it off my left thigh as I attempted to write an article with the laptop balanced on my right thigh. He's since removed the Control keys from the new MacBook Pro and the the new PC. There is a major cost associated with focusing on anything other than his sparkling eyes.
But I'm not complaining. I know this is a major developmental milestone and I am so thrilled when he lets me peek inside that little mouth. They may be baby teeth, but they are sure sign my baby is growing up quickly. I'm so glad I get witness every amazing moment. As James Brown said, "Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he's got it all."
Of all the baby gear people are convinced parents need, teething rings are the most useless. Michael Alexander cut his first tooth -- bottom left front -- on Thursday, the day before Rosghestvo (Christmas by the Julian calendar) and the second -- bottom right front -- on Saturday. He wants to gnaw on everything. Well, everything except teething rings. Clean socks. The diaper box. My knees. Just about anything seems to offer at least a few seconds of comfort. But the teething rings get ousted almost immediately.
Michael Alexander might be one of the happiest babies ever. He doesn't complain and rarely cries. Cutting teeth is the first thing to rattle (rattles, another useless item, as babies prefer the packaging) him. He had a fever over the holiday weekend at his Babushka's, but quickly perked up after a dose of Baby Tylenol. Now Daddy's sick with a cold, I have a sore throat and he's starting to sniffle. We can't all be sick at once.
Michael Alexander's being a champ compared with most teething babies. I just hope I'm feeling better tomorrow. This teething is tough enough without my being ill. And I'm going a little crazy as he demands much more of my attention. I've already spoiled him just a teeny tiny bit, so I am not allowed to so much as glance at the laptop when he's awake and watching. He wants to help me, pounding on the keys and striking macros I didn't even know existed. At just a couple months old, he killed one MacBook by shoving it off my left thigh as I attempted to write an article with the laptop balanced on my right thigh. He's since removed the Control keys from the new MacBook Pro and the the new PC. There is a major cost associated with focusing on anything other than his sparkling eyes.
But I'm not complaining. I know this is a major developmental milestone and I am so thrilled when he lets me peek inside that little mouth. They may be baby teeth, but they are sure sign my baby is growing up quickly. I'm so glad I get witness every amazing moment. As James Brown said, "Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he's got it all."
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