ProWomanProLife

You are here: Home / Archives for Children

Brave or nuts? That is the question

by 6 Comments

When I read this article about having children and career, it was like the journalist had picked my brain (wait a minute, I don’t have any left…) during my sleep (er, what sleep?). In fact, I started writing a blog post raising the same issues a month ago. But my frustration got the best of me and after 1500 raving-ranting words, I decided to spare PWPL.

Where to start? First, she is right. About everything. About gaping resumes. About “doing time” in jobs for which we are overqualified. About having to gain the trust of our employers after putting our family first. About refusing promotions for unclear reasons.

What does this all mean? Does it mean that raising children is not valuable, productive work? Why is it so wrong if maternity and motherhood affect women more than men?

Well, it’s a question of measure. What the author takes issue with — and what I certainly have a bone to pick about — is not so much that young children cramp our style for a couple of years but that these years seem to extend way past early childhood. Motherhood marks you in two major ways that are not directly related to the demands of young children. First, motherhood leaves a gap of productivity in your resume. This gap  has nothing to do with actual productivity while your career is slowing down to a crawl. It only means that this new kind of productivity and life experience is not recognized by the workplace. Secondly, motherhood marks you because you are assumed to be unable to take on as much as your child-less or male colleagues. I had this discussion recently with my child-less male colleague: maybe I cannot take on as much but it should be my choice. When have I not picked up my Blackberry on evenings and weekends? When have I missed a deadline? And last night at 1 am, when I was touching-up some communications material for a morning announcement, it was my sleep I was sacrificing. Not my colleague’s, not my kids’, not my boss’.

What frustrates me is not that motherhood makes a difference but that it doesn’t need to make as big a difference as it does. With today’s communications tools, why do I need to pass up a promotion because I cannot make the 7 am management meeting? Or because I cannot travel for meetings? Why do the years spent at home managing not-for-profit sports organizations, school meetings and family vacations count as “productive gap”? When I get up at 5:30 am every morning of every week and manage to feed 8 people three square meals a day, run 20 km a week, work 40+ hours and keep the sanitary authorities from closing down my kitchen and bathrooms — and much more — I don’t feel unproductive, far less! Why does the job market see me as a slacker?

Why?

_____________________

Andrea adds: Let’s stir things up a little, shall we? Let me take the perspective of the single, childless sucker who can go in early, also stay late, make every meeting, put in overtime, do the weekends… and does not get the joy of children in his/her life, in fact goes home to eat cereal hunched over the sink for dinner…Should someone who needs negotiations and special deals, can’t be present at various meetings and may or may not need to take off at a moment’s notice to care for child X, Y or Z  get promoted over that person? Maybe. I don’t rule it out. But the point is the workplace doesn’t owe any of us anything. We earn the right to be there. If I happen to realize I work for Ebenezer Scrooge who won’t let me get a new coal scuttle, I leave. Or I choose a workplace with rules I like. Or I create the work environment I like by starting my own business.

I just think we as humans make choices and generally speaking, we can’t do it all on Tuesday.

______________________

Véronique adds: To this I would reply that it is not about making it to X,Y, Z  commitment or letting your child-less colleague pick-up the slack. Of course, if you do the work you shouldn’t be passed-up for promotion by someone who doesn’t.

But the problem arises when you do the work and are passed-up (or not even considered) for promotion because you have children or because you took time-off to stay with your children when they were young. When you start questioning the status quo, you realize that many hiring/staffing rules don’t make sense; it’s just the way things are. For instance, I recently had to pass-up a great job for which I was perfectly qualified but lacked experience. I was sure I could figure it out quickly, given my life experience. And if anybody had given me an interview, they would have seen it too. But I wasn’t even considered. Why? Because I was home for 2 of the 5 years of required experience. That’s what gets me. So now I am “doing time” in a job for which I am so overqualified, it’s not even funny. I am so overqualified that I don’t even get considered for interviews: people know I am just “passing by” on my way to something better. Truly, I am just about to drop the Masters’ degree in law and the University teaching experience part of my resume. It scares employers.

As for leaving a job you are unhappy with or choosing a workplace with rules you like, come on! Have you looked for work lately? My job is paying the mortgage on the house that shelters my 6 children. I am not about to get fussy about the new coal scuttle!

Overqualified and all, I like my job: I have the best boss and the best colleague. I am not bitter, just frustrated.

________________________

Andrea adds: But this is my point! Those childless suckers “did the time.” They spent the hours getting other people coffee. Fact checking until 3 am. Being available for more and more work that was “below them” too. And then someone else enters the scene: someone with experience but of a very different kind. And if they are never given the chance to start where said childless sucker did ten years ago, then that is wrong. But if they aren’t willing to start where said childless sucker did, years ago…then that is a different question. My point here is that life looks differently–could a woman or man who takes ten years out of the working world possibly be in the same position as someone who didn’t? How would that be fair?

______________________

Veronique adds:  You are misunderstanding my point. Of course, it wouldn’t be fair. I am not saying that mothers shouldn’t expect to bring their boss’ coffee. I have no problem with “doing time” and I don’t consider my work to be “below me.” I take pride in doing the best job I possibly can getting my boss’ dry cleaning. My problem is when “doing time” is as good as it gets. Mothers do the time – the fact checking at 3 am, the coffee, the dry cleaning run – but don’t get ahead because they have family obligations. Even if these obligations don’t get in the way, even if they get the job done.

I was thinking about this whole issue while making supper tonight. Returning to work after having children is like being an immigrant in a foreign land. You used to be a doctor or an engineer. You leave on a journey to another country. When you get there, your diploma is no longer worth the paper it’s printed on. Your credentials are not recognized. Your experience is not acknowledged. You tell people that a broken arm or the laws of physics do not change essentially between two countries. Nobody believes you. Or they pretend to believe you but never give you the chance to prove it. When you finally find work sweeping the floors at a clinic you tell yourself that you will move up and show them what you are capable of. When you apply for the receptionist’s job, they tell you that you don’t have the appropriate experience. You try to explain that you have been sweeping the floor in the receptionist’s office for 5 years, you know you can do the job. Nope. You ask if you could help the receptionist and gain experience. You are told that people in your country of origin are known to have long afternoon naps and since the receptionist works afternoons, well… we don’t think you’ll be able to pull it off. It sounds extreme but I have been in jobs interviews like that.

Of birds, bees and captive audiences

by 1 Comment

In my family, all the best discussions happen in the car. My son asked recently, as my husband and I were discussing the purchase of our house: “Why do you always talk about important stuff while we are driving to Grandma’s?” We laughed. It seems that the car is the only place where we can actually finish a sentence. Maybe even two. In a row.

Today I was driving the six kids and my oldest daughter was reading a parenting magazine article discussing pregnancy after 40. She asked me: “Mom, would you have a baby at 40?”  “Not on purpose,” I answered. A snicker came from the back seat where my smart-alec of a son was sitting. “You mean you can have a baby by accident?” he asked cynically. That guy knows about the birds and the bees, you see. Without thinking I said “Yes, of course.” “How can you have a baby by accident?” He’s laughing even harder at this point. Obviously, our promiscuous sex-without-consequence worldview hasn’t got a hold of him yet: the guy knows where babies come from. I specify: “What I mean is that you can have sexual intercourse thinking you won’t get pregnant but you get pregnant anyway.”

So we drive a few blocks in thoughtful silence before he says: “So it means that every sexual relation doesn’t end up in pregnancy.” At this point, I am getting increasingly concerned about my oldest daughter’s eyes, who are about to roll all the way back into her shoulder blades. Nevertheless, she feels up to giving her brother a little bit about the birds and the bees. With a “duh” in her voice she says: “A woman can only get pregnant for three to five days every month.” My son got very quiet for a moment and asked: “So you can have intercourse knowing you won’t get pregnant?”

Silence.

“Did it ever happen to you?”

At this point, I was fervently hoping for a large pothole to swallow the truck, or maybe a bus to hit us. That’s when I reconsidered my pledge to never fib to my children about the facts of life. Relief came from my daughter — who had resumed breathing after turning purple — and hissed: “Dude, NEVER ask a lady that!”

His wife will thank her someday.

This post may contain offensive language

by 11 Comments

In late months I have been known as the mother of a newborn but let’s not forget that I am equally invested as the mother of a teenager (13) and a preteen (12). And with teenagers came the highjacking of radio waves and other music-playing implements i.e. my iPod.

When the kids’ music started to appear on my iPod I saw the additions to my playlists as a window into my children’s mind.  If I tell you that my daughter listens to Taylor Swift and Kelly Clarkson and that my son listens to a heteroclite mix of Barry Manilow, The Beatles, Survivor and the Arrogant Worms mixed in with full-length episodes of Mythbusters, you can get a decent outline of their personalities. At first I enjoyed listening to Taylor Swift and remembering why Thank God! I’m no longer the girl from White Horse and Teardrops on my guitar. And I have to admit that when my kids nicknamed their dark-eyed baby sister “Black-eyed pea” I found it quite endearing. Unfortunately, things never stay manageable for long and soon enough, my children had also taken over – in addition to my iPod — the car radio, my laptop and my iTunes card.

Parents, if you never listen to whatever local radio station kids listen to in your area, you must get a reality check. At first, I thought my ears were playing tricks on me, or maybe I didn’t quite get today’s slang: “Wait a minute here! Did Lady Gaga just say ‘Don’t think too much just bust that stick, I wanna take a ride on your disco stick’?? She did? Oh. My. Goodness.”

Thankfully, my children were no more eager to listen to Lady Gaga’s ravings about – ahem – disco sticks in the company of their mother than I was. They quickly learned to change the channel within the first two beats of any song with a less-than-family-rated content. That’s until they sorta’ realized that if mom didn’t get the x-rated content in a song, then maybe it would be okay to keep quiet about it and leave the radio on, if you know what I mean. And that’s why we have been listening to Britney Spears’ latest offering for the last two months.

Parents, what is wrong with Britney’s latest ditty I ask you? Check out the lyrics and tell me if you figured it out on your own or if you needed the help of a savvy teenager. You are not allowed to google “what’s wrong with Britney Spears’ lyrics” (Caveat: this may not work if you a have a home schooled or private religious schooled child who has never been exposed to profanity. I envy you by the way.)

My question for today: I have a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old who love to sing that song. They don’t know what they are singing. Should I tell them and ask them to stop singing, thus highlighting profanity they didn’t know about; not tell them the profanity part but ask them to stop singing – which may amount to asking you not to think about a pink elephant — or should I ignore it altogether and wait for the next catchy top 20 hit, knowing that Britney’s song, like all the other, will soon fade into oblivion?

One month check-up

by 2 Comments

My new baby turned five weeks last weekend and boy, does time fly or what? I am still getting the hang of surviving a six-kid family which may or may not explain the light blogging. Writing anything coherent is challenging on two three-hour stretches of sleep and the challenge is compounded by single handed typing: by the time the first half of the sentence is written, I cannot remember where the heck I was going with it. My days as a graduate student seem so far away and I can hardly believe I finished writing a whole thesis last summer. Today, I can barely keep on top of emails, to say nothing about birth announcements and thank you cards.

Many people think I’m brave to have such a large family. I think that “brave” is what people say when they don’t want to say “insane” in front of the children. I have been considered “brave” since my fourth child and I would be lying if I didn’t admit to questioning my sanity on a regular basis.

Recently, on a particularly hairy evening when my husband was away, the baby was fussy and the toddler was screaming his head off, I issued a teary “I quit this job!” to the world. The world didn’t accept my resignation and so here I am, as “brave” as ever, trying to juggle a modern life with three times the national average of children.

Over the last five weeks, I have developed a system of priorities deployed whenever the baby gives me a break. As soon as the baby settles down, I go through the list until she wakes up. The list goes a little like this: personal hygiene, prepare supper, tidy kitchen, fitness training and housework. I sometimes switch fitness and housework according to need: yesterday for instance, the bathrooms were so gross that Public Health would have closed the whole place down. As for fitness training, my rebel streak believes that a mother of six shouldn’t have to train to be fit… and so I sit on my extra 30 pounds trying to will it off my midsection. Last week, we were eating in a fancy restaurant and the waiter said: “Six children! And a seventh on the way…” To which my husband replied cheerfully “Oh, this is just leftover from the sixth” and I thought “Guys, a slow and painful death will be too good for you” and ordered the goat cheese crème brûlée to drown my sorrow. The baby sleeps so well in the jogging stroller that colic-avoidance and self-preservation should whip me back into the shape of my life by the summer. In the meantime, a brownie a day keeps the baby blues away.

That’s what I like to believe anyway.

Checking in from Planet 6

by 8 Comments

Well, I’ve done it again! I have run the 40-week long race from gamete to infant for the sixth time. My little girl is now a week old and, as many will tell you, I can’t imagine life without her. As with previous deliveries and early postpartum periods, I am going through a roller-coaster of emotions – no doubt 90% hormonally-driven — and an uncontrollable urge to binge on carbohydrates and chocolate. Must. Stay. Awake.

Being a parent for the sixth time is a lot more fun than the first three. Sure, mild neglect of house chores tends to have bigger consequences faster. I am presently staring down a 1-foot high pile clean laundry that completely covers the surface of a king size bed. But my little bundle of joy is only happy when she is held. So there goes the laundry. And most of the meals. In fact, I am writing this post cradling baby in my left elbow so I can type with both hands. She is not the first newborn who will not put up with being put down. But I remember her siblings – particularly her oldest brother, now 11 – as fussy babies whereas I think this little one is pretty easy going… as long as I hold her. What 6 children have taught me is that the laundry will not have changed tomorrow but my little girl will. At this point, it is far more important for me to enjoy every minute with my newborn – her smell, her skin, her little noises, her little fingers, her hair – than take pride in having the best folded laundry in the neighborhood. In the mean time, my little girl learns that it’s okay to fall asleep, that someone will still be there when she wakes-up. And when I get overwhelmed and wonder if I will ever get anything done, I look at the big bodies that live in my house and am reminded how quickly the last 13 years have gone by. Before I know it, this little girl will be 13 and her biggest sister will be 26 and I will wonder where the days have gone.

I love the wisdom and perspective – and helping hands — that come with a large family. The more children I have, the more I truly enjoy and appreciate them. Now, to all the people who ask me if “six is it, are you finished?” I answer that with my first four children, I couldn’t imagine having one more. Since the fifth, I can’t imagine not. And whether or not my baby ends up being the last one – and she very well could be – I am thankful for the love she and her siblings have brought into my life. Because each child doesn’t take away from the love pie: it’s the pie that gets bigger.

Before Breakfast

by 2 Comments

Charlotte's Web

My daughter got Charlotte’s Web (the book) for Christmas.  She may be only three and a half  but, at bedtime, she sat attentively through Chapter I: Before Breakfast.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, it starts out with a litter of pigs being born.  The runt among them is about to be put to death when Fern, an eight-year-old girl, steps in.

“Please don’t kill it!” she sobbed. “It’s unfair.”

Mr. Arable stopped walking.

“Fern,” he said gently, “you will have to learn to control yourself.”

“Control myself?” yelled Fern. “This is a matter of life and death, and you talk about controlling myself.” Tears ran down her cheeks and she took hold of the ax and tried to pull it out of her father’s hand…”it’s unfair,” cried Fern. “The pig couldn’t help being born small, could it? If I had been very small at birth, would you have killed me?…This is the most terrible case of injustice I ever heard of.” [emphasis added]

Now I know we all need to function within a civilized society, but perhaps we’ve all learned to control ourselves a little too well.  No, I’m not advocating we all behave like eight-year-old girls — heavens knows they can get away with worlds more than a 30-something woman like myself can — but I do suggest we remember that this cause, the pro-life cause as we typically call it, is indeed a matter of life and death.

I feel a New Year’s resolution coming on.

The gloves come off

by Leave a Comment

The kid-glove jargon, I mean. Usually the pro-choice side is very careful to focus on the whole “my body – my choice” point of view. Abortion is meant to terminate pregnancy, they say. They argue that a woman should not be forced to remain pregnant.

But Obama cuts through that rhetoric, shall we say. And in so doing, he makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. (In a bad way, for all those left wondering.)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZF-_EZ8mb0]

One more thought: If a baby is not the correct “punishment” for a mistake, is an abortion?

Health class

by Leave a Comment

My husband has been away for the last couple of days and hoo boy, the guy sure pulls his weight around here. I didn’t look at the blog yesterday — in fact, I missed turning on my lap top altogether — and there has been some highly interesting posts and comments. I was thinking of elevating the discussion but I don’t think I have the mental capacity at this point. So here is a highly educating account of a discussion I had with my two oldest while washing dishes:

Oldest daughter (grade 7): We had Health class today.

Me: Oh yeah? What do you learn in Health class?

Oldest son (grade 6), interrupting: We learn about sanitary diapers in Health class.

Me: Aren’t boys and girls separated for Health class?

Oldest son, shaking head in consternation: no

Me: Can you tell me why grade 6 boys need to learn about sanitary napkins?

Oldest son: Uh… So they’ll know what to buy their wives once they’re married? Say mom, does dad ever buy you the wrong kind?

Me: I buy my own, thank you very much. What about you, oldest daughter, are boys and girls separated for Health class?

Oldest daughter: Yes, thank God. The girls talked about puberty but the boys were too immature to talk about puberty so they got the talk on nutrition and the Canadian food guide…

Me: Great. Can you bring back any hand-outs you receive in that class? I want to make sure they teach you the right things about sex.

Oldest daughter: Yes, my homeroom teacher said she wanted us to use the right vocabulary when talking about sex.

Me: I’m not so concerned about how they teach you to talk about private parts. I’m concerned about how they teach you to use them.

Oldest daughter: Mom, what’s herpes?

Me: Herpes is a sexually transmitted disease. I don’t remember it’s symptoms but you can avoid it by not having sex.

Oldest daughter: It can be transmitted to babies…

Oldest son, interrupting again: Why would babies have sex???

See, I had this plan about keeping my kids no older than 6 years of age. But I keep feeding them and they keep growing. The task of raising kids healthy in mind and body sure seems overwhelming at times.

Quote of the day: Bioethics out of the mouths of babes

by 1 Comment

My 6 year-old daughter’s grade 2 assignment is to present her family tree. Amongst pictures of assorted siblings, we added an ultrasound picture of Nouveau Bébé at 18 weeks gestation. While rehearsing her presentation, Martha said that there were 5 children in her family, for which she was immediately corrected by her 11-year-old brother who said: “There are six children in our family. Just ask Mom…” At that point, I thought he would say something like “She’s the one carrying that baby 24/7.” But no, you can always count on Kurt to go the extra mile. Instead, he said: “She spends her job thinking about dead people so she knows a family member when she sees one. And there are 6 children in this family.” 

“She spends her job thinking about dead people.” Ahem. No doubt, he was confusing my hobbies — pro-life blogging and getting graduate degrees in bioethics — with my actual day job which involves answering the phone and filing travel claims for other people.

Malthus was wrong

by Leave a Comment

Russia is giving out cash prizes for people who have more kids and Germany, fertility rate of 1.4, is producing kinder-encouraging commercials. Encouraging a family-friendly atmosphere is one thing: I don’t think you can do this without encouraging marriage, which Europeans seem to have given up on, being so progressive and all.

Still, the ads are quite poignant. (in German, with subtitles, below.)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTh92FnV_i4&eurl=http://catholicaudio.blogspot.com/search/label/Contraception]

Meta