I’m not going to address the latest dad blogging controversy (You guys! You have a controversy! You’ve arrived! AGAIN!), mostly because it’s a debate over trolling, and I am just so, so tired of talking about how mean we can all be to each other online. I’m tired of even thinking about how mean we can be to each other here, because, seriously, there’s enough horrible crap in the world to be depressed by that the question of WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG in an inclusive, communicative space like the Internet just seems stupid. Really, really stupid. Also: dumb. We should just all be getting along. We should just all be endeavoring to be gracious toward one another. We should all be trying to be nice. Which, yes, is very probably a girly thing to say, but whatever. GENDER STEREOTYPING ALERT.

There is, of course, that whole other controversy, about the gender stereotyping, which I am also not going to dig into here, because my inner academic, the one who spent the better part of a decade studying the place of women in public life, just gets really agitated if she thinks about the arc of that particular conversation, and I don’t like to agitate her, if I can avoid it. Bad things happen when she gets agitated. She kind of turns into this great, raging storm of discursive aggression. PHILOSOPHER-SMASH.

Anyway. In lieu of digging into those things, I am going to revisit/tweak/repurpose something that I wrote a little while back, for Babble, when we were building our dad section, and talking a lot about the whys and wherefores of dad blogging. Dad blogging matters, I kept saying. In different ways than mom blogging matters, but still. It matters. I still think this, but sometimes, when I get frustrated with the discourse on dad blogging, I have to stop and reflect on why it matters. Which is what I’m doing here.

When I started blogging, way back in the horse-and-buggy era of the Internet, I had no idea that there was such a thing as a “mommy blog.” I barely understood the concept of the blog itself: I’d stumbled upon some online accounts of parenting, stories that seemed equal parts memoir and meta-commentary, and they were awesome, and I wanted to be part of whatever it was that they were part of. I wanted to tell my story, in the same way that the authors of those accounts were telling their stories. I didn’t think of these as ‘daddy’ stories or ‘mommy’ stories. I certainly didn’t think of my own as a ‘mommy’ story. It was just a story, told by me, a woman who happened to be a brand new mom.

The blogs that I read back then – and still do, for the most part – weren’t just about motherhood, or parenthood. I read Dooce because she spoke to my experience of depression. I read Sweet Juniper because Dutch and Wood – as I knew them then – were smart and literate and posted beautiful photographs that made me long for the west coast. I read Ask Moxie for her amazing parenting advice, sure, but also for her Lost recaps. I read the Blogfathers – remember them? – because they made me laugh. I read Laid Off Dad for the same reason. I was drawn to them all because they were parents, but I didn’t keep reading them for that reason. I stuck around and kept reading every word that they wrote because they were, and still are, wonderful writers. Their parenthood was just a bonus.

In the years since, a whole culture – a whole industry – has developed around the phenomenon of the parent blogger. Sorry, the mommy blogger. There is no ‘phenomenon’ of parent blogging, qua parent blogging. Sure, those of us who write about parenthood online are, strictly speaking, all parent bloggers, but inasmuch as there’s a parent-related blogger phenomenon, it’s a mommy blogger phenomenon. Mommy bloggers have the page views. Mommy bloggers get the attention. Mommy bloggers have the conferences. Mommy bloggers get their space in the New York Times and on daytime television and have movies made about them. Mommy bloggers have a queen.

Mommy bloggers are a ‘thing’ in a way that dad bloggers – nobody ever calls them ‘daddy bloggers,’ which is another topic for another time – simply are not. But what does that mean for dads who blog? Are they just a minor part of the vast mom blogging community? Or are they their own specialized community? But if they are their own community, couldn’t we also consider them a ‘thing,’ in some sense? But can dad blogging be a ‘thing’ in the way that mom blogging is a ‘thing’ if dad bloggers don’t have the events, the media coverage, the royalty, and the whole industry that moms have? Does it even matter? Why are we even talking about this?

I would argue that it does matter, for two reasons. The first reason is this: Dad blogging matters as a phenomenon in and of itself because it points to a shift in how we understand fatherhood, and, arguably, in how men practice fatherhood. Dad bloggers narrate their experience of fatherhood, and in so doing they legitimize, and even celebrate, the public practice of fatherhood. That this is a public act is important: Dad bloggers are saying to the world, loudly and clearly, that fatherhood is something to be proud of. This is something worth talking about. This is something to praise and evaluate and celebrate and share and discuss, out loud and in public. This is something that changes both the discourse and the practice of fatherhood: When so many men are talking publicly about changing the diapers, does it not make it more likely that men changing diapers becomes more of a cultural norm? Fatherhood as lived and narrated by the dad bloggers is engaged fatherhood, is activist fatherhood, and the more they push this cultural narrative upon us, the more likely it is to take hold in our imagination as the ways things should be.

On the other hand – and here is reason number two why talking about dad blogging as a phenomenon unto itself matters – if we can say that dad blogging points to a shift (radical, revolutionary?) in how fatherhood is understood and practiced, inasmuch as it makes fatherhood public, can we not also say that it points to something more conservative, something that represents less of a movement forward than it does a staying-the-same? Men have always been the spokespeople for the family. Men, indeed, have always been the spokespeople for parenthood. The family has long been a subject of fascination for philosophers, lawmakers, artists, and poets, but with very few exceptions, these commentators on the family have always been men. The stories of the family have long been told, for the most part, by male storytellers; if one was to imagine a library filled with all the works of literature or philosophy or law or science on the family, one would see shelves upon shelves of books written by male authors. (A quick glance at a virtual shelf in the relevant sections of Amazon will demonstrate to you that things have not much changed; sure, moms have written a lot of memoirs in the 21st century, but who are the authors of the parenting manuals, the heavy texts that we all buy when we’re 6 months pregnant and starting to panic? Sears, Karp, Ferber, et al. All men.) I’m not saying that women need to replace men as storytellers of the family – moms don’t need to be the only spokespeople for parenting and family, and indeed, moms/women shouldn’t be the only spokespeople for parenting and the family, lest they trap themselves in that role – but it is something to keep in mind when we talk about the revolutionary potential of the 21st century dad that the father has has always been the figurehead of the family. For, like, forever. Until relatively recently, there was no ‘bumbling dad’ or ‘absent dad’ stereotypes; the the marginal figure in the family was ‘Mother,’ who was relegated to the private spaces of the household while ‘Father’ represented the family in name and form and voice. Moms have only just - just – come into their own as authors of the stories of the family and spokespeople for the family and experts on the family; dads have held that space comfortably for a very long time.

It remains, however, that there is something different – powerfully, meaningfully different – about the discourse that’s promoted by today’s dad storytellers — by dad bloggers. Theirs is a narrative that insists upon an understanding of parenthood that reaches beyond the conventions and tropes that have surrounded parenting and the family for so long, the classic storyline that has Dad in the easy chair and Mother baking pies, and that even disrupts and subverts that storyline, placing themselves – Dad – in the kitchen, on the playground, in the soccer carpool, at the playdate, or in front of the computer, blogging. They’re taking the work that mom bloggers have been doing in pushing forward the idea that these stories, our stories, about parenting and the family, matter, not just to us, but to everybody, and they push that work further, by saying – by insisting – that they’re part of that work, too, and that they’re proud.

That’s kind of awesome, and I, for one, think that we – we mothers-as-storytellers, who have fought so hard for the legitimacy of what we do, and everyone else – should celebrate it.

It’s my birthday today. My husband has been asking me for days what I want. I don’t know what I want. A day off, maybe. A day off, with a nap. Which is totally not going to happen, not today, anyway. By some accident of fate, I’ll be spending part of my birthday this year at the White House, and I’m pretty sure that they’re not going to let me nap in the West Wing.

In any case, a nap, according to Emilia, is not an appropriate wish for one’s birthday. One must aim significantly higher than naps, according to Emilia, because, she says, ‘naps aren’t special.’ (A pause to reflect on the bitter absurdity of this claim, which only a child, or any being that is not a parent, could make.) According to Emilia, there are other, more special things that I should be asking for for my birthday. Other, fluffier things.

“You want a kitten, Mommy.  I know that you do, because you have kittens on your phone, which means that you want one, right Mommy?”

(For what it’s worth, I also have pictures of honey badgers, lemurs, unicorns and Jesus riding a T-Rex on my phone, so we can reasonably assume that Emilia’s interest here is somewhat self-directed. Which also prompts the question: why not a honey badger? Why not a unicorn? She and I are going to have to talk about this.)

And: “if you want a kitten, Mommy, you should ask for one for your birthday. But it won’t be wrapped. Kittens don’t get wrapped.”

They do, however, get hats:

I don’t really want a kitten. I’d like to have that kitten, the one with the beret – Tequila Kitten, I call her, because La Petite Chat Avec Beret just doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily – and maybe a few of its friends, at a party. I’ve been saying this for weeks now, that I want to throw a party that features kittens and tequila, because that would be an awesome party, what with the margaritas and cucumber lime martinis and kitten-cuddling and all – but I wouldn’t want to keep the kittens. That is, I would want to keep the kittens, or even maybe just one or two, but I wouldn’t be allowed to. Which sucks, because, my god:

If there is any creature cuter than a fluffy kitten in a wee black beret, I have yet to encounter it. This kitten could kill you with its cuteness. Smite you with its adorableness. LOOK INTO ITS EYES. IT WILL MURDER YOU WITH ITS CUTE.

I don’t have time in my schedule for dealing with cute-murder. And in any case, I already have two cats – two skittish Siamese, whose egos would not be able to cope with the presence of a being cuter than themselves – and also two children, and a husband who believes that our household is already overfull of living beings, cute and otherwise.. Which means that I’m going to have to get my kitten fix by rifling through all the pictures I took of Tequila Kitten and watching video of Tequila Kitten and drinking tequila and pretending that my two Siamese are sort of somewhat like Tequila Kitten.

And then I’m going to demand that nap.

(This napless birthday post is brought to you by Sauza. Tequila Kitten: also brought to you by Sauza. Also, tequila. THANK YOU SAUZA.)

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing…

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.

 (and then… )

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

(and still…)

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds

(and always…)

you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you’re young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever’s living will yourself become.

Your life becomes you, Jasper. I am blessed to be part of it. Happy 4th birthday, love.

The superman… has organized the chaos of his passions, given style to his character, and become creative. — Nietzsche.

(And what is the leaping, be-clogged Space Ranger but an Uber-Mensch? What is he, indeed? Ecce Jasper.)

(Because she celebrates me every day. Because she is – as she said – so lucky to have me. Because it’s worth knowing that, and saying that.)

(Check out Every Mother Counts. Because they do.)

]]> http://herbadmother.com/2012/05/a-day-for-all-the-other-mothers/feed/ 0 http://herbadmother.com/2012/05/on-being-mom-enough-to-have-the-conversation-that-time-started/ http://herbadmother.com/2012/05/on-being-mom-enough-to-have-the-conversation-that-time-started/#comments Fri, 11 May 2012 15:52:00 +0000 Her Bad Mother http://herbadmother.com/?p=5125

Here’s the thing: I don’t much care one way or another about the photo that appears on the cover of the upcoming issue of TIME. I mean, I have opinions about it – I have opinions about everything – but it doesn’t rile me up in any way. Nor am I provoked by the subject matter of the article at hand. It’s about attachment parenting, which is as worthy a topic for discussion as any. Sure, it’s more substantively about whether attachment parenting sets too high a bar for moms, which is somewhat provocative, but I think that that’s a worthy question. The title that appears on the cover – ‘Are You Mom Enough?’ – is probably the most provocative part of the package – I mean, it pretty much shouts the question and demands an answer, and I think that that kind of challenge, the challenge to moms to ask themselves whether they measure up, is problematic at its core – and I kind of really hated it. But even given that, I don’t know that I would change it.

I wouldn’t change it, or the photo that accompanies it, or the articles that appear inside, because these are provoking discussion. It’s a discussion that is uncomfortable at times, to be sure – how we measure the success or failure of our motherhood is a particularly sensitive pain point within our community, for obvious reasons – but the fact that it’s an uncomfortable conversation doesn’t mean that it’s not worth having. Because regardless of we feel about questions concerning judgment and measurement and how we evaluate ourselves and each other – whether we should, in fact, evaluate ourselves or each other at all – they are questions that persist. They’re there. Sometimes we talk about them, sometimes we don’t; sometimes the conversations that we have about them are public, sometimes they’re private. But whether or not they’re out in the open – on TIME magazine covers or on blogs or around kitchen tables or in hushed whispers over glasses of wine – they’re there. And they inform our motherhood, and our understanding of our motherhood, and the communities that we build around our motherhood. Ignoring them doesn’t change that.

So when I see people deploring the conversation – the cries for us all to just stop talking about it already – I recoil a little bit. Why should we stop talking about it? Because it fuels the so-called Mommy Wars? The tensions underlying those ‘wars’ are already there. Those are live wires. We should be paying attention to them. We don’t make the judgments and vulnerabilities and pain points go away by pretending that they don’t exist. Sure, there’s an argument to be made that media discussion of these things foments conflict – but whatever conflict emerges here does not emerge from nothing. It emerges from real tensions, real issues. And I’m enough of an old-school Habermasian to believe that we need a robust public discourse – an engaged, lively community conversation – about these issues if we’re to work them through. Or perhaps not work them through – and here I become less Habermasian and more Socratic – but keep them alive and apparent and part of the ongoing discourse that makes us who we are.

This is power of this space, as I’ve said here many times before: we have not just created a robust public platform for our storytelling and community building, we have transformed storytelling and community, and with our story-driven, discursive community are changing how we think and talk and engage and connect around motherhood and womanhood and family — things that were so for long marginal to public discourse. We’re not just changing the conversation, we are changing the very nature of public conversation such that it almost no longer makes sense to distinguish public conversation from private.

We are the conversation. So why are we trying to shut ourselves down? Let’s embrace this conversation – even, or perhaps especially, the parts where people say that they don’t like it or that it makes them uncomfortable or that they thing that the conversation itself hurts us – and dig into it. Let’s talk it out – or at least talk it forward. These discursive provocations are a gift, an opportunity.

Let’s seize them. Who’s with me?

I’ve been participating in the ‘No Mother’s Day’ campaign – the brainchild of Christy Turlington Burns and her organization, Every Mother Counts – and will continue to do until Mother’s Day on Sunday. But not everyone agrees with the campaign. For some, it’s the message of the campaign – that we set aside the celebration of ourselves as mothers in order to draw attention to those who die in childbirth (isn’t celebrating mothers central to valuing mothers, and shouldn’t we seize every opportunity that we can to turn our attention to the value of mothers?) For others, it’s the strategy of the campaign, which encourages silence (not everyone agrees that silence is a useful – or empowering, or effective, or meaningful – strategy. Shouldn’t we raise our voices, they ask? Shouldn’t we FIGHT silence?) It’s a controversial campaign, and one, I think, that raises great questions around how we use our platforms for social good. So I sat down with Christy to talk it through.

Catherine: So, Christy… obviously I know about the campaign. I was in the video. I get it. But tell us- what do you hope will happen when people see this campaign? What is your goal?

CTB: Well first of all I just hope they watch the video- I really think it does a great job explaining what we’re trying to do. And I hope they’ll share it with their networks as well. I love that we have some comments and questions coming in on the website- that’s the whole idea! My original hope was just that people would consider the facts we present in the No Mothers Day film and then in turn question them. People are thinking about it, talking, reacting. All those people are now aware. And that’s incredible because now hopefully those same people will come join us at everymothercounts.org to solve it together.

Catherine: Right, but going silent won’t save lives, right? What do you say to those who worry this effort won’t really have an impact?

CTB: No if all we had to do was go silent then I think we really could solve this pretty quickly. No Mothers Day was not designed to be an immediate solution. By not answering your phone or responding to email on May 13th you won’t save a life today, but you could be a part of saving thousands of lives from that day onward. Until a majority of the public is aware that there is a problem, we won’t be moved to solve it, and this is the role of No Mothers Day – to get their attention, begin a dialogue and build a community of activists. We believe that once people know the facts, they will want to do what they can and come to us to find ways to engage. We want people to become aware of the problem but perhaps more importantly, become aware that there are solutions and that their participation is needed and welcome.

Catherine: So what do you say to moms of young kids? Is this really about ignoring your kids on Mother’s Day?

CTB: We understand how important Mother’s Day is to you. All of us are mothers too, and having our children bring us breakfast in bed or making us a special gift is something we’d be really sad to go without. But the scale of the tragedy of maternal mortality is so great, and there are so many families around the world unable to celebrate Mother’s Day, that this is a sacrifice that we’re prepared to make if it raises awareness around the problem and encourages people to provide support and funding to help solve it. What action you choose to take is up to you. Say no to gifts and phone calls, or no to gifts and yes to phone calls, or just go silent on social media – it’s your choice. Or maybe the options we came up with on our Facebook page don’t work for you- that’s ok. Come up with your own way to engage and ‘disappear’. It’s about finding a way to spread the word and join in solidarity with our sisters in motherhood and that can be a very personal choice. Our primary hope is that you spend a few moments on May 13th to think about those unable to do the same.

Catherine: Do you have any advice on how parents might use this campaign as a ‘teachable moment’ with their kids? How are you talking to your children about ‘no mother’s day’?

CTB: I think of everything as a teachable moment so yes, most definitely. If our children ask, as mine have, what we may want for Mother’s Day we can explain to them that many moms do not survive childbirth and that that leaves millions of children without mothers every year. I tell my kids I am lucky to have them and they are lucky to have me.

Catherine: And what next? How does this fit into your overall plans with EMC?

CTB: NMD is a moment in time – it’s designed to get attention. Every Mother Counts is an ongoing advocacy and mobilization campaign. As such, we hope to educate and inspire new audiences to engage on this issue. We hope that No Mothers Day will get people’s attention and shock them with facts, and then in turn, we hope they’ll be moved to do more. Following the No Mothers Day campaign we will have a revamped, action-oriented website with the goal of becoming the epicenter for maternal health information. We hope that those interested in engaging will come to think of us as an action resource center.

Please consider taking part in this campaign (I am, obviously). Even if it only prompts a conversation with your spouse or your kids or your friends, consider that meaningful. Every show of support counts. Every mother counts. Let’s make this count. You can find more information, and the video, at Every Mother Counts. Please check it out.

*cross-posted at Bad Mother Confidential.

This Mother’s Day, I’m foregoing Mother’s Day. I’m asking my family to forgo the flowers and the brunch. I’m telling my husband that I don’t need a gift. I’m telling my mother that I adore her and esteem her, but that instead of a card I’ll be making a donation in her name to Every Mother Counts.

I’m foregoing Mother’s Day, as a show of solidarity with all those women – all those mothers – who don’t get a Mother’s Day. If we don’t all get Mother’s Day, why should I get Mother’s Day? If Mother’s Day isn’t for every mother, why should it be for any mother? We are all important. We all matter. Let this be for all of us, or for none of us.

So. I’m participating in a campaign of silence. I hope that you’ll join me. It’s up to you how you interpret this silence, how you engage in this silence – whether you do this literally or figuratively, in large ways or small – but I do hope that you will join me.

Let’s bring our silences together. And let’s let them be deafening.

So, this party that I’m going to have. It’s coming together.

But it hasn’t been easy. You can’t just get materials for a Kittens, Firemen & Tequila Party at your local party supply store, because they tend to not keep kittens and firemen in stock. So as I’ve already made clear, the fireman is going to have to have a virtual presence. Which is fine, I think. He’s not nearly as important as the kittens.

The kittens, however. I have to admit that I may have difficulty acquiring the kittens. Live kittens just aren’t practical, you know? And kitten plushies just aren’t as compelling as real kittens. So I may just put cunning little French berets on my two aged Siamese and try to pass them off as kitten-ish.

The tequila, though? That’s the easiest part. I even have a Very Special Tequila Drink that I will be serving, and I usually don’t do Very Special Drinks. I’m usually an on-the-rocks kind of girl – yes, even with tequila – or a margarita on the rocks with salt. But this drink? The one that I’m going to share with you now, so that you can practice making it and drinking in advance of The Kittenish Cats, Virtual Fireman & Tequila party? It is AWESOME.

So, behold:

Catherine’s Very Special Super Awesome Tequila Drink That Will Totally Make You Think That An Aging Siamese Is Actually A Himalayan Kitten (aka Cucumber Lime Martini,  Reverse-Engineered From One That I Once Had In Austin, Texas.) (You can totally drink this on Cinco de Mayo, by the way. In fact, I encourage it.)

Ingredients:

Sauza Tequila (duh)

2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced as thin as you can get them (see-through thin, not cucumber sandwich thin)

4 cups water

Quarter cup of sugar

Tablespoon or two of lime (with some lime left over to squirt)

Chili-lime powder (or cayenne)

What to do:

In small saucepan, bring the water and the sugar to a boil over medium heat. Simmer the mixture until the sugar has dissolved into a sugary liquid. Set it aside to cool for a minute. Resist doing tequila shots. Or don’t.

In a blender, combine the syrup (melty sugar water mixture), cucumber, water, and lime juice until smooth. Strain the mixture into a pitcher. Add a quarter cup of tequila and mix well. Fill a martini shaker with ice and add about 1 cup of the mixture, which you shall heretofore regard as the nectar of the gods. If you like a little spicy garnish, rim your martini glass in chile-lime, or cayenne (I like cayenne.)

Shake well and serve. And enjoy. And it you’re inclined to share your favorite drink recipe, I would not be averse to that.

(This post is sponsored by Sauza. As I said last time, I was invited to visit the set of this video – with this lovely lady – which invitation I did of course take advantage of, and so got to meet the fireman and the kitten and it was really pretty awesome. And caused me to think that I should have a Fireman & Kitten & Tequila party. As one does.)

Make a wish, and let…

it…

go.

(Way, way up, to soar and soar and soar and dance and touch and kiss the clouds.)

(This is how we navigated, with our children, the sometimes difficult truth that balloons – and especially Disney balloons, which cannot be transported home on airplanes to live out their natural lives in Emilia’s bedroom – are not forever: we told them that if you set a balloon free, you get a wish.

And wish they did.)

(On location at Disney World, Disney Social Media Moms event, where many wishes danced.)