ProWomanProLife

No no no, not the Mel Gibson movie (does anybody even remember that one?). I think that if someone were to ask me what I as a woman want, I think it would be simple (aside from ice cream, puppies, and a hot tub in my living room of course). I’d like “professional women” to stop telling me what I want. I don’t mean women who are professionals – I mean those who make a profession out of being a woman.

I suppose this article does try to tell us what we want, but I think it hits closer than anything else:

Many in the media and academy think working women are one way, and that stay-at-home wives and mothers are another way. This overlooks the fact that many women who work outside the home would like to work less or not at all. That is, they are working because they feel they have to, not because they want to.

. . .

Wilcox bases his analysis on the 2000 National Survey of Marriage and Family Life, which, he explains, “indicates that, among married mothers with children in the home under 18, only 18 percent of married mothers would prefer to work full-time; by contrast, 46 percent would prefer to work part-time, and 36 percent would prefer to stay at home.”

Which brings us to what women want:

Will this authentic view of womanhood usurp the old political archetypes of what women want? The conversation has begun to rise above self-identified feminists’ assertions as to women’s desires. May it continue and bear fruit. And, whoever wins or loses, this is a whole new playing field in politics, one that more accurately reflects who American women actually are and, yes, what they really want. The American woman wants to annihilate this idea that career is everything. She wants a life. She wants life. And she wants help in being adaptive, not pressure to be something she’s not.

I’m think even a hardcore professional career woman would have a tough time arguing with that.

Read the whole article here.

It’s not like they don’t need to smile sometimes…

During my recent trip across the border, I spent my time reading statistics (fun stuff) on reasons given for abortion. The majority of reasons, from financial to emotional, amounted to one answer: being unprepared for motherhood. Which started me thinking, when does motherhood begin?

My health insurance company answered this question as the moment of “active labour,” but for many of us, the answer still remains as elusive as defining the role itself.

When does one become a mother? Is it the moment of conception? The first time you hear your baby’s heart beat? When you hold your small miracle for the first time?

“I had my first maternal feeling driving home from the lab after having my pregnancy test. I was so excited and wanting to race home to share the news. I realized I was driving too fast and didn’t have my seat belt on. It was a strange feeling, but great!” – Leah, mother of 2 year old Ainsley

“My first son died when he was four months old. Mother’s day followed two months later and I remember feeling like a mother, but being fearful that no one else saw me that way. When all of the mothers were called up for a special blessing in church that day, everyone was urging me to step forward. It felt really good to be recognized as a mother.” – Amanda, mother to Adam, 3 year old Angela, and baby-to-be

“I think I was in shock during the whole pregnancy. I was excited about the baby, but just found it so hard to believe. They handed me the baby and I still didn’t feel connected right away. That night he was crying in the bassinet and I felt overwhelmed with emotions. After 9 months it finally sunk in, ‘I was a mommy!’” – Sally, mother to two year old Trey and 6 month old Abbey

For some women, motherhood may begin prior to conception, with fertility treatments, prenatal vitamins, decorating and shopping for baby. The very idea of a baby has changed these women physically and mentally towards motherhood. For others, motherhood may begin after adoption papers are signed and the baby is finally brought home. After conception, is it really something that can be avoided?

… are leading to older, much older, mothers.

For centuries, being childless in India was a stigma so severe that it drove many women to suicide and gave men grounds to take another wife. [...]

…they have increasingly been seeking in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment from thousands of unregulated private clinics that have sprung up across the country.
As a result, the issue now is that women who are old enough to be great grandmothers are risking their health by undergoing fertility treatment so as not to die without a child.

The doctors who provide the treatment, mostly in the conservative northern states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, say they are helping women who feel it is their social and religious obligation to produce an heir.

Deaf child hears his mother’s voice for the first time:

[h/t]

Ha!

A loving mother who kisses her child’s boo-boos may be providing more health benefits than she knows.

New research indicates that early childhood experiences can have a lasting effect on health by influencing a person’s risk for chronic inflammation, the immune reaction that is the body’s first line of defense against disease. Moms who soothe a child can help reduce stress, calming the hormones that can contribute to inflammation, the study suggests.

I wonder if it works with daycare workers?

To my mom, to all the moms:

…Mothering remains a profoundly worthwhile undertaking, one that Chesterton calls nothing less extraordinary than “the mystery of the making of men.”

…And women. Happy Mother’s Day.

I just noticed this story in my recent edition of Costco Connection (I read them all!), and thought some of you might enjoy it. Seems like not all women have to choose between being a mom and being successful in the big old world of business. Good for them, I say!

Don’t look at me like that – it’s not me saying it:

In a recent interview with the Hill Times, Dr. Carolyn Bennett, an otherwise pretty sensible MP, manages to offend a very dangerous constituency: stay-at-home mothers of young children.

I say dangerous, because as such a new mother (or technically, a work-part-time-from-home-into-the-night-while-my-nine-month-old-sleeps single mother) I can attest that the exhaustion involved can sometimes turn even the cheeriest parent into a crazed zombie.  Dr. Bennett risks life and limb if she campaigns near any mom-and-tot playgroups in the next federal election.  And in case she thinks people will forget her words, the family-friendly Tories will undoubtedly plaster them at every Rainbow Songs and Gymboree class in her riding of St. Paul’s.

Here is what Dr. Bennett said, while criticizing the record of the embattled Minister for the Status of Women, Helena “Air rage” Guergis:

“Women of Canada want to hear about early learning and child care; that is the key to their economic independence, to be able to get back to school, to get a real job, to be able to go to work.”

Ah yes. Because these little ones just raise themselves, right?

_____________________

Andrea adds: I disagree with the idea that Dr. Carolyn Bennett is “otherwise sensible.”

Seriously: I haven’t watched five minutes of Olympics coverage (one, I don’t have television, two, I don’t have time these days to watch anything, and three, the limited time I get for athleticism I spend in my dojo). But I’m enjoying stories like this, and this:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Even after nearly 20 years of skating and traveling the world with his ice dance partner Isabelle Delobel, Olivier Schoenfelder was never expecting the phone call he received from her last winter.

The good news: Delobel was pregnant. The bad news: Delobel was pregnant and the Winter Olympics were in little more than a year.

[...]

The petite, dark-haired Delobel and the tall, blond Schoenfelder, both from France, were world champions in 2008 and were looking like favorites for the gold medal in Vancouver after climbing the ranks for many years, an ice dance prerequisite, and finishing fourth in the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy.

But a shoulder injury that Delobel sustained in December 2008 during an exhibition interrupted their season, and it was during her injury layoff that she became pregnant.

“I was still convinced we’d make it to the Olympics,” said Delobel, 31, in an interview after the compulsory dance Friday night in Vancouver.

The reaction from their rivals is a blend of admiration for Delobel’s ability to return so quickly and of sympathy for Schoenfelder.

[...]

Though Delobel continued to train and skate deep into her pregnancy, even suffering the occasional fall in practice, she left the ice in late July, giving birth on Oct. 1 to a son, Loïs, and then returning to practice in late October at their longtime training base in Lyon, France. She began three-a-day sessions and intense physical training in November.

“You better believe it was tough,” said Delobel, who had gained close to 20 pounds during pregnancy. “It was really a physical challenge, but I’m proud to have managed it.”

And she has every right to be. Well done!