Momartfully

Mommyblogs are like reality TV

I confess - I don't watch TV much anymore. Well, aside from some inadvertent Treehouse TV (Canadian preschool channel) or the odd Star Trek rerun.

I really stopped watching TV years ago when the networks were forced to create a pile of shows that weren't dependent on traditional writers. The networks decided to place bikini-clad drama-addicted wannabe spokesmodels in front of TV crews in remote locations and told them to writhe and cry on cue for the camera crew. It seems they felt their experiences would "represent" what isolation, starvation and pain were really like. They called it "entertainment". They called it reality TV.

It was... nothing like the reality. It still isn't.

I could only stand to watch one episode of "reality" TV. The suspension of disbelief was too much for me - I couldn't get past the fact that the spokesmodels were performing for what I knew was a very comfortable and well equipped TV crew on site - with craft services, honey wagons, dressing rooms, microphones, generator trucks, Key Grips, Best Boys and overpaid Teamsters.

It wasn't real - it wasn't even believable - but it sold, it sold like crazy, and it was cheap - and audiences loved it. The drama, the gossip, the cruelty and pain - the audiences loved it all because it was entertaining and constantly fresh - and deep down they knew it wasn't real.

Real starvation, real deprivation, real illness doesn't sell like "reality" TV does. Watching pretty people cry for money doesn't make us uncomfortable. Documentaries are about real pain - and so documentaries are rarely commercially sucessful because real pain is hard to watch and it hurts us - and most importantly it makes us angry or motivates us to make a change.

That's what many documentaries want to do - they don't just entertain - they want to share, build a community, make a change. What's real motivates documentarians to do something, to learn and grow - to challenge preconceptions and be brave enough to find out errors. It is hard - incredibly hard - it is anything but passive - but it has integrity because it's real.

That's a huge the appeal of "reality" TV - we can walk away from the drama of "reality" TV and gossip about it, speculate about outcomes, complain or admire - but we don't feel the need to do anything personally. We aren't outraged or threatened or introspective - It's not about us - it's not real - it's entertainment. We know in the end that the mock-suffering of the pretties will be rewarded with a seat next to Barbara Walters.

I was comfortable with the decision to skip out on what TV had become, and I moved on to content online. For a while my documentary loving soul found a huge amount of amazing real content in blogs - filled with integrity and genuine voices. Then blogging started to change - blogging for profit hit the mommyverse - and suddenly there were "celebrities" and "fans", conventions, endorsements and compensated reviews. Discussion was no longer wanted and dissenting opinions were punished. Profit was king and content was demoted to serving wench.

I realized this change was remarkably similar to what the TV industry went through a few years prior. Suddenly blogging - mommyblogging especially - was no longer about genuine experiences, unique points of view, creating a community, discussion of issues or growth.

The real voices were mocked by the simulated reality, pretend pain and commercialized angst that celebrity bloggers engaged in for profit. We were entertained - but we should have been angry.

The consequence of all this simulated "reality" is that the issues - the real issues - have been shunted aside in the name of profit and entertainment. It has became more fashionable and popular to participate in ridiculous polarizations on TV - like on Dr. Phil's divisive mommy debate - or Momversation's insulting segment on working moms. TV producers no longer research issues to pitch - they run to Google to find a "celebrity". Who cares if they know anything about the subject? Celebrity has replaced authority. Celebrity is the new authority.

As long as you're famous your opinion - about anything - matters. It shouldn't.

We shouldn't tolerate it when celebrities are encouraged and rewarded for speaking on an issue they have no experience with. Speaking on our issues. We should be furious that our realities are being cheapened and mocked for profit. We should all be furious that our voices are being silenced and discounted - we are not what they'd like to pretend we are, and it's about time they found out. We don't need a celebrity or a spokesmodel simulating our lives, our challenges and our pain for their profit. Our realities deserve respect, a genuine voice and integrity.

We all deserve more real in our "reality".

The Sadder But Wiser Girl

Evidently the "Opt Out Revolution" is over: Recession Drives Women Back to the Work Force

To be honest I never really saw or felt that there was a huge "Opt Out Revolution" in the world around me. In my world the majority of moms are working moms.

I rarely saw the other side of the "Opt Out Revolution" - called "On Ramping" - widely discussed. It was almost as if in the era of "Opt Out Mommies" that re-entering the workforce was widely assumed to be easy, requiring little effort, completed very quickly and with little planning.

Riiight.

The reality I saw was that Moms re-entering the workforce all around me were having an absolutely hideous time. They couldn't find decent and affordable childcare, they were trying to figure out how to squeeze a career in between morning drop off and noon pick up. Moms all around me were facing work realities they had no idea existed.

Even worse - they were also being played - everywhere they looked there were plenty of bloggers and advertisers pushing the idea that moms could "work from home" and enjoy a huge income. It turned out that the "work from home" evangelists were either exceedingly rare pro-bloggers who ignored anyone who wasn't also working as an exceedingly rare pro-blogger - or they were salespeople selling some work-at-home "solution". Both groups often ignored the fact that a huge portion of women dominated careers are in industries that can't be delivered from home or with a toddler or two hovering in the background - like nursing or teaching. To hear some moms talk working from home was the new working mom paradigm - nobody did that silly, frantic working mom commute, daycare thing any more. 

Except that isn't true.

The reality around here - the only moms I know of who ended up with a decent income and the opportunity to sometimes work from home are myself, my co-worker and one other mom. None of us were working as the newest "miracle career" and working from home was only a portion of our work time. There were still some basic working realities for those of us who could sometimes work from home, our employers still demanded plenty of on site "face time" and telecommuting was a privilege that we had to demand from our employers and earn through a combination of seniority and a history of above average output for years in our careers. Teleworking was not an option for any mom we knew who was just returning to work after years of "Opting Out".

So much for the "new" paradigm of working from home for the vast majority of moms.

A lot of the "On Ramp" moms around me found that while they were "Opting Out" there was also a series of wholesale revolutions in the workplace - and they were expected to already have a working knowledge of those changes and to have their own coping mechanisms in place as soon as they returned;

• Layoffs and trimming (like in every recession cycle) created philosophical and technological revolutions across entire corporations
• transparency and privacy law changes that have swept across many organizations and changed everything, from reports to file storage, resource usage...
• technologies and procedures in areas like Nursing completely changed in a short span of a few years
• most Microsoft "houses" (and most businesses are) have rolled out - or will be rolling out huge technological changes like SharePoint and other software upgrades and changes - and employers aren't going to provide training for those returning to work. Either you know it, or you don't.
• we're in a recession - in a time of job and expense cuts, not expansion. New employees face even harsher competition among applicants than ever before - and any weaknesses in your resume could cost you the chance for even an interview - let alone the job

There's another reality that isn't widely discussed among moms - unless you have spent a lot of time with single, divorced or otherwise sadder but wiser girls;

It turns out that "Opting Out" has a proven financial and professional penalty built in:

"Studies have found that for every two years a woman is out of the labor force, her earnings fall by 10 percent, a penalty that lasts throughout her career." (NY Times) 

While the emotional benefits of "Opting Out" can sometimes make a compelling argument for many emotionally vunerable moms - the financial and professional and personal realities of "Opting Out" should never be ignored or minimized for any woman. It's a gigantic disservice to moms to completely ignore the realities of financial health and instead emphasize and concentrate on a short period of emotional gain.

I still remember sitting in a room filled with newly single divorcing women discussing their new financial realities. Most of them were returning to work after a significant "Opt Out" time period when they relied on their soon-to-be ex-husband's income - they were universally devastated by the financial realities that their choices and now their divorces forced on them.

They couldn't go back to work in previous careers - because exiting the workforce put them on the sidelines professionally - the work world had moved on without them. Missing years in the workforce had a huge, punitive impact on the lives of those women, and nobody told them it could happen. Nobody told them that the emotional benefit of exiting the workforce to stay at home with their kids would harm their careers. The entire group thought they could take turns at both working and mothering without any penalty. Many of the group members expressed that they wouldn't have made the same choices if they just knew what would happen, that there was a 50/50 chance of this happening to any woman - many said they felt cheated - the wished they had never "Opted Out".

The sadder but wiser girl, indeed.

My Son's Value Is Beyond His Price

As a Canadian I believe health care is a basic human right. Period.

I believe that ALL humans have the RIGHT to have access to health services regardless of their gender, religion, race, sexuality, nationality or income level. Preexisting or new, chronic or acute, systemic or isolated issues, inexpensive and straight-forward or complex and expensive... it doesn't matter. It is humane to heal the sick, it is decent to tend to those who are wounded, it a basic and universal.

To be human is to care for those in need.
 
It is simply part of being Canadian to share the cost of caring for all - and despite what you may hear - it works.

I watched US newscasts last night to try to understand the health-care debate - and I was profoundly shocked to hear that some Americans do NOT believe that health care is a basic human right.

Health care is NOT a basic human right.
 
That is a jaw-dropping and astonishing concept for a Canadian. In Canada it IS a right.

I have a medically complicated special needs child. He has a congenital syndrome, he was born that way - different from the time he was a Zygote due to a series of changes in his very DNA. He had multiple birth defects (most are surgically corrected) and systemic issues (brain damage, a profound hearing impairment, Epilepsy, and much more). He was also premature and required a number of surgeries - and will need more.

If I lived in the US not only would I have been bankrupted by the costs  of providing for my son's rocky start in life - but both my children may have never been born at all. I would have felt that I REQUIRED extensive prenatal testing - not for any known preexisting condition - but because I would feel that I could NOT give birth to a sick child that would not have it's medical needs met. I would know that anything BUT a healthy child would be catastrophic.

My entire family's future could be destroyed, our house could be taken away, any other children traumatized and everyone's futures ruined - just because a child wasn't genetically perfect. My son has immeasurable value as a person - and while he had a complicated and shaky start in life he is now a sunny, brilliant child filled with promise. He overcame his neurological problems and now hears and walks and tests in the gifted range.  Nobody predicted his amazing progress and he continues to push forward against the odds.

He will do amazing things for our world.

In the US my son would probably never would have been born - because it would have cost too much.

In Canada my son's value has been - and always will be - far beyond his price.

recommended reading: 

• PhD in Parening: "Public Health Care: Canadian Perspectives on Myths and Reality"
• book discussing expecting a child with genetic issues: "Choosing Naia" (Amazon)

Single Moms - Web Outcasts

I'm frustrated by the lack of voice that single parents still have in online content. I half-jokingly remarked to a friend (also a web geek and also a single mom) that we single parents seem like web outcasts. We live outside of the "normal" communities. We have our own little enclaves of content, but we are not part of most of the large communities.

It's not as if we aren't out there - and contributing some great content: Single Mom Seeking, Dad's House, Single Mom Says (check out the Singlemommyhood.com list for more).

So why hasn't our voice been heard? Why are we regarded as an invisible minority?

I think it's due to a few factors. One of them is misconceptions about single parents - who they are, what they are, and how many there are:

• only 24% of all households (US) are a married couple with children
• 45.8% of (US) marriages end in divorce
• single mothers are not just teenage mothers:
  
  • teenage mothers are only 11% of births (US)
  • almost half of all single mothers (US) are divorced single moms (3.392 million)
  • 33% percent of single parents have never been married
• 11.2% of ALL (US) households are currently single parent households
  
  • 27.7% of households with children are single parent households
• almost 30% of all US parenting content goes to single parent households

• 37% of (Canadian) marriages end in divorce
  
• 31% of all family households* (Canada) are not married:
  • 15.5% of family households (Canada) are common law families
  • 15.9% of family households (Canada) are single parents:
    
    • 12.8% are single moms & 1.3% are single dads
• 31% of all Canadian parenting content goes to single parent households

In short: ONE THIRD of the US/Canadian parenting content consumers are single parent households.

Also worthy of note: Canada has a much higher single parenting rate than the US - in part because common law households and married same sex couples are more common (and legal) here in Canada.

Canadian crime rates are lower than US crime rates - and we have more single parent households (per capita) than the US.

There goes Ann Coulter's theory that single parent households cause crime:

osolomama also does a great job of taking Ann Coulter apart and pointing out that  correlation does not equal causality

This means that based on population numbers - every "parenting" panel, every "mommy" group of contributors and group of "parenting" content award winners should have more single parents. For every 10 married mom bloggers out there there we should also see at least three single mom bloggers and at least one single dad blogger as well.

Popular single mom bloggers and single mom community leaders are often regarded as "unusual" - while single dad bloggers and community leaders are as rare as hen's teeth. The online market is saturated with married blogging moms. Unfortunately many content providers and marketers view married blogging moms as representative all parenting issues and priorities.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

What's even worse is when a commercial community desperately attempts to market to the single parent demographic and they do a horrendous job of it. Like when Momversation deliberately chose to ask their panel members to represent an issue they don't even have; being "a stressed working mom" or when they tried to bring in a single mom audience with the inflammatory and prejudicial question "can married moms and single moms be friends?". Or how Blogher chooses to not have ANY single parent content or an editor for single parent content.

Imagine if someone tried to speak "for" another race or speak "for" another gender? Speaking "for" a group implies they can't speak for themselves, that they don't have a voice, are incapable of understanding their own issues, or that some other voice has more "authority".

I can't list how many times I've heard married moms compare themselves to single moms (or working moms) and outright stating what single (or working) mom issues must be because they think so.

They don't ask what our issues are - they tell us.

One third of the market continues to be under-represented or to have our view presented "for" us - and the massive single parent audience is left with web content that is largely irrelevant, unappealing, useless, misleading, inaccurate and sometimes even insulting.

The single parent population reality is not reflected in other ways, too. Recently I sent out a Tweet asking if any single parents have attended or will attend Blogher.

It turns out there are just a handful of single mother attendees at events as huge as Blogher (a search on Blogher of their attendants with the tag "single mom" yields three names for the 2009 event). Although some single moms responded to my Tweet and expressed interest in going to Blogher 2010 - they all specified they would only attend if other single moms went too.

Why? Why don't we feel welcome? Why do we need to have other single moms with us? Why aren't we attending large events like this?

I suspect their reasons are the same as mine:

• expense: Airfare, hotel costs and conference costs ad up to thousands of dollars - which narrows the attendees down to the wealthy or the sponsored - with the sponsored attendees almost universally married blogging SAHMs. Unfortunately sifting attendees through a financial sieve ensures that the conference will not be representative of the parenting reality.
• childcare: events like Blogher often have no provision for childcare - which seems bizarre when considering their huge "mommy-blogging" audience and when compared to other conferences with whole supervised streams of content for conference kids. I'm guessing a "BlogHerKid" component would be a huge success and good-will gesture.
  (Especially if one third of spots were reserved for single parents, which I doubt they'd do)
• exclusion: there is no content that is relevant, there are no groups of single moms attending, no parties for single moms, no recognition of single mothers as a valuable and large demographic, no topics that apply to single moms. Single moms have no reason to go
• no understanding: despite a few attempts to reach out to single parents the vast majority of parenting communities do not understand our issues and do not understand our community

Why would commercial web communities exclude single parents? Is it a deliberate choice or an unconscious choice? Single parents recognize that we're being excluded (unconsciously or otherwise) and we want to change it.

So we need to know why - and change what online communities know about single parents:

• publishers of online content are genuinely unaware of how large the single parent audience really is - and that the single parent demographic is growing much faster than the married parent demographic (we are one third of the market and growing - fast!)
• leisure time, lack of appeal or inclusion:
  
  • working and parenting alone leaves single parents with much less leisure time than other parenting families for publishing content and participating in online communities
  • single parents publish much less quantity content - but often publish higher quality content. Quantity of online publishers should be minimized and quality should be emphasized.
  • do not speak for us - invite us to speak instead
• the image of the single parent - false perception that single parents are poor, uneducated, unemployed and inactive on line
  
• broken homes nonsense: the mistaken belief that single parent households are a sad and broken - a real "downer" for their audience. Single parents are often empowered and positive images out there - LOTS of us have IMPROVED our situations by becoming single parents, including higher income levels
  
• our discretionary spending power - the mistaken belief that single parents are raising only one child and that we do not have discretionary spending budgets. We often have entire households we maintain, more than one child - and the budgets to go with it.
• age range - single parents are NOT only (or even mostly) teen mothers
  
• fear of single parents as a negative "moral" influence - when many single parents are single parents because of their moral choices or beliefs

What do you think?

* Stats Canada counts households differently than the U.S. Census Bureau
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, National Center for Health Statistics, Stats Canada

Golden Eggs and Haystacks

I get the whole "blogging with integrity" concept and the current debate in various mommyblogging communities. I agree, something's got to give.

After returning to the blogging world after my divorce hiatus I surfed around the mommy blogosphere. I was shocked - and disappointed - by the wholesale change in blogging - the lack of community and exchange, the blatant commercialization, and the lack of content.

I can completely respect that some want to make a living off of blogging or supplement their main source of income. It's the approach that's all wrong. I don't know why PR professionals would be approaching online marketing in this way (direct endorsements, spamming online communities, hijacking content that captured the audience in the first place).

Evidently young PR workers (so! old!) did not listen very well to the story of the goose that laid the golden egg.

Stop eating the geese, people. You're destroying quality content and driving away your audience.

Build a nice goose nest with lots of good quality twigs and feathers for the nice geese and do what you can to make the geese happy to stick around - and the eggs will show up.

Remember banner ads?

At first we advertisers (yes, I was on the dark side) were golden. We tried plastering advertising all over content to "capture eyeballs" and to drive up click-through rates. Only overzealous and intrusive banner advertising didn't work very well - and our advertising was standing in the way of communication and our communities - not supporting them. And we got roasted for it.

We strangled the content that was drawing our audience. We also greatly annoyed the audience with the intrusiveness of many banner ads - which lead to damage to our image. It just wasn't worth the dismal sales generated.

The best advertising either contributes something useful or entertaining or is supportive and unobtrusive to the content. Build a community or a discussion and support it with advertising. Web professionals have known for a decade now that eye blistering online advertising banners don't work well and that spam is professional suicide.

Just last night I un-followed some Twitter accounts because they spammed their followers for a large portion of the evening. There is no other word for it. Dozens and dozens of tweets with the same "#topic" in a very small period of time. A whole group of participants were voluntarily acting like Twitter bots - pushing out quantity instead of quality.

For the sake of a cheap freebie.

Be the needle - not the haystack. Nobody cares about the hay.

Here's my proposal (if there's a PR person out there listening). Take the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television broadcasts as an example - they push out high quality content that has a variety of niche markets. Their content is not dictated by the sponsor. They have an established audience because of the value of their content and the freedom they have with their "voice". Their reputation for great content is golden. They do NOT let advertising interfere with the content or dictate the content - advertising is supportive and visible, but does not block or frustrate the audience. 

And it works.

Imagine the mommyblogging universe with this approach - micro-communities all over with authoritative, respected, independent, creative, quality, distinctive voices. Two way discussions. Niche markets with deep topic exploration and outstanding product and market feedback. Attractive design instead of fifty ka-gillion competing/flashing ads.

It's not that hard, or even new. It's golden eggs and haystacks.

(image from Getty Images)

On not "raising my own kids"

If there's one phrase, one concept, one prejudice out there guaranteed to annoy me to the point where I'm almost chewing my own arms off in frustration... it's the idea that working parents aren't "raising their own kids".

"When you're raising children, you don't both go off to work and leave them for somebody else to raise." "This is not a statement against daycare. It's a statement about their belief in the importance of raising children properly."   Iris Evans, Alberta finance minister

It drives me bananas to hear anyone stating that a parent who isn't a stay-at-home parent is inferior and is not raising their children "properly" - especially if they're also claiming that due to the sheer audacity of actually working you have now reduced yourself to not "raising your own kids".

To hear statements like that come from a Finance Minister who was supposed to address the topic of  teaching children about financial responsibility and fiscal knowledge (like, oh, say, girls maintaining their own financial resources by working...?).

Well.

It's appalling, yes - but not surprising.

It takes a village

The argument that working parents are not "raising their own children" has never seemed logical to me. Some random questions I've wondered...

• Where did we first get the idea that raising a child is only a one person task? It certainly isn't from an anthropological/evolutionary basis (that stance would dictate a "tribe" of caretakers)
• Where is the border between not "raising" your child and "raising" them? When do parenting efforts become negated? How much time erases any "raising"? Does one hour "away" from your children negate it all?
• If "raising" a child is only one-to-one time with a parent - then is the job of "raising" a child done once they begin to spend any time with other people? Is "raising a child" transferable depending on who is spending time with a child?
• What about school - are we their parents while they're at school and not with us? Are teachers "raising" our children, too? After all, over the entire course of childhood teachers spend more time with our kids than early childcare providers do. Why isn't this argument made against sending our children to school?
• If we uphold that working mothers aren't "raising" their children because they are not with their children 24/7 - then why aren't we saying that fathers who also work out of the home or spend any time away are also NOT "raising" their children? If not, then why do fathers get time away with no negative impact, but mothers do not?
• are you still "raising" your child when your child is on a sleep-over? At camp? In the hospital? At a co-parent's house? If working isn't "raising" your child because you're not  with them - how can you still be "raising" them when they're not with you for other reasons?

My belief is that raising a child is the management of ALL of that child's influences, environments, exposures, lessons and morals through their growing years in their community - not just with me.

I admit it, I am fully a "it takes a village to raise a child" mom.

My kids are surrounded by loving, trusted adults every single day. Our "family" is huge. I welcome almost everyone - and their input - even if their input sometimes contradicts what I've been teaching, it opens a discussion for my kids and I - and that's how we all learn.

My village - my family - also includes our childcare provider.

I believe that my children learn invaluable lessons from our day home provider. I know that my kids get complimented everywhere we go because of their behaviour with even the smallest of babies - and it's entirely due to the fact that they spend time in a home with lots of kids of all ages. My kids get the benefit of living in a large family (day home) with all varieties of "siblings"... and they also get the benefit of individualized attention and a small family at home.

Who determined that parental care is always superior to professional care?

My childcare provider has a lot of superior aspects that she offers compared to what I would offer if I cared for my kids at home by myself.

I do not have the craft, toy and activity supplies my day home provider has. She has a garage filled with Rubbermaid totes of different "play centers" and "themes" that she rotates. I could not afford that amount of equipment - let alone find the room to store it. She has a swimming pool and she's a former lifeguard and she teaches the kids swimming in the summer - I take my kids swimming on weekends - but not every single day. She bakes - and I don't. She has a garden - and I kill plants no matter how hard I try to care for them. My kids try new foods at her home, they see different routines, values and  traditions than we have here. My daycare provider has loving, trustworthy young adult children who spend time with the little kids - offering my kids a great mentoring opportunity that I can't offer myself.

My kids also get the benefit of spending their day with other kids so they learn about modifying their behaviour for all ages and they learn about sharing, taking turns, compassion, empathy, generosity and they learn how to be mentors and heroes themselves.

IMHO raising a child is an inclusive lifestyle, not an exclusive one - we welcome the world in, we don't shut them out. We cannot exclude others from having influence unless we wall ourselves and our kids in to a cave. Learning to live in the world, to incorporate and evaluate our community influences and establish themselves as persons with their own ideas and morals in a varied community is the entire point of raising my children.

Parenting marathon

Raising a child also changes over time, which is a reality that is woefully absent in comments about how to parent "properly". Why do critics insist on myopically focusing on a small time frame - infancy - as the determining framework for an entire parenting career? A common argument supporting mothers as sole and constant, endless care provider is that mothers are ALL "designed" to care for children - forever - because they carried them when pregnant - or because they breastfeed the child as an infant.

I've always wondered how is the ability to breastfeed relevant when you're now raising a preteen - wouldn't the parent's temperament, skill set and a million other factors be more important?

Properly speaking

I guess I'll never measure up to Iris's image of "proper" parenting - and I don't think I'd want to. I want my parenting to be responsive, dynamic, inclusive and varied. I don't want to adhere to a narrow standard that is available only to a privileged few. I'd rather evaluate child care by it's result than by a personal moral stance.

I don't see a problem with any kind of child care with a positive outcome - for everyone. If the child's welfare is the guiding goal and desired outcome of any child care arrangement - and the child is happy and healthy... it might not be "proper", but that doesn't make it wrong.

Working Moms Don't Balance

I commented on Momversation - in response to the video post "Are You a Stressed Working Mom?" (below).

Missing the "Target"... again

There were a couple things that bothered me about the Momversation video "Are You a Stressed Working Mom" - and I'm not alone.

The first issue (beyond a knee jerk "DUH" reaction) was that the panelists commenting on this issue are not typical working moms - they work from home and they work at what they love. Daphne acknowledged this issue by saying "We're not talking about real work". Yay for Daphne and her sensitivity to this issue... but unfortunately... misconceptions and a lack of experience in a typical, standard, normal working mother's schedule influence many of the other responses from panelist members.

Secondly, there's also a disturbing a defensive tone to the posts - "I work because I have to". Many of the responders seem to feel a need to apologize that they can't give up working. Why, for the love of Pete, can't we move past defending ourselves about working and parenting? Why should we even have to defend it to anyone? Why is even questioning any mother's working status even considered acceptable behaviour? We don't need to apologize, we aren't doing anything wrong by working.

Maggie responded to the idea of working with "I'm not cut out for that" - as if working is something you do if you're different, or it's a choice but not a need. Why do we continue to regard working as a choice or as unusual or a deviation from normal instead of a simple necessity for almost all adults?

Third, the assumption that working moms are miserable, stressed, scattered and that we all live like we're two-dimensional characters on television was also irritating. Where is Momversation getting their information - or rather their perceptions - from? TV? Blogs that are selling "balance" solutions or yoga or organizational programs?

C'mon Momversation, step away from the Target Moms "Lisa, Tara, Jodie, and Emily" (yeeech) and take a look at real moms with real lives. Either cover working mom topics with a reasonable amount of depth and respect - or don't.

About "balance"

Most of the working moms I know of gave up on the faulty idea of "balance" almost immediately. We aren't jugglers, we prioritize and compromise. We stay flexible.

I've been a F/T working single mom for years (recently not so single).

Kudos for noting that working from home as a blogger is worlds away from what the vast majority of working mothers deal with. I don't think it's entirely fair to represent working moms with work-at-home bloggers - most working moms do NOT enjoy that kind of flexibility, do-what-you-love fulfillment or work at home benefits. Most working moms have issues that weren't even touched on here.

What have I done to survive (these might not work for everyone - but can't hurt):

SHARE

The BEST thing I ever did was invite all the OTHER working, single moms (like there's any other kind) in my area to pool our resources and help each other out. We have an after-school/babysitting pool, we share unwanted gift certificates & coupons, we have a "night out" together so our kids are supervised and we have a social outlet with people who understand our realities.

Set up a clothing exchange and toy exchange with other moms. Offer to shop for other moms if you see a bargin or they can't squeeze it in.

Ask a SAHM if she'll help out (emergency child care?).

Ask relatives if they can provide before or after school care, summer care, or other support.

Find a reliable babysitter, or two and treasure them. Ask a single friend to babysit (best birth control ever - even if they LOVE your kids!) Let go of the idea that only mommy can care for the kids. Embrace the community that can be trusted and may enrich your child's life.

MAKE THE KIDS WORK

A three year old can make their bed - not very well, but it's a start. Train your kids to understand that everyone pitches in with chores, even if the results won't pass Martha standards. Adjust your standards and be happy with good enough house cleaning. In the grand scheme of things if it's healthy but not perfect - that's good enough.

PRIORITIZE

Don't waste time on things that don't matter to you (I don't watch TV, for example).

Feed all aspects of your kids and yourself first: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

Find a workplace that meets your needs. USE LEVERAGE - nice girls don't stay quiet they ASK FOR and GET what they NEED at work. Always shop for better jobs. Do everything you can to create flexible options at work.

Don't waste - cut back or eliminate TV, junk food, junk time or time wasting hobbies. Concentrate on your nearest and dearest.

Take multivitamins and eat well. SLEEP before ANYTHING else. Recognize that advice to indulge in a formal exercise program is usually coming from people who don't understand how time squeezed working moms REALLY are (in reality I don't know of any  working mom friend who has time for a formal "workout" aside from a working mom who is actually a fitness professional). Instead of trying to hit a gym - create fitness activities in your life - ditch the car for local errands and walk. Take the kids swimming every week. Try to get your hands on a jogging stroller or some bikes for all of you (second hand? auctions?). Coach a kids' team.

SUPPORT

Create a social event with other like-minded moms and MAKE time for it to feed your soul.

You are NOT ALONE. Realize that while you feel alone you're actually in the MAJORITY. We're all so busy we forget to look up from our lives and find and support each other. You may not hear voices like yours - but it's usually because we're too busy to share.

IGNORE CRITICS

Realize that most people who criticize are doing it from a place of privilege and have NO IDEA. None of us can change their minds, we can just be amazing at being working moms. If you're not doing it perfectly SO WHAT? Any artist will tell you that mistakes lead to some of the greatest discoveries or lessons there are. Accept happy accidents and imperfections, they may be the best gift you get.

Dr. Laura on Working Moms

Being a SAHM is, according to Dr. Laura, "the best gift a woman can give herself, her family and society". Being a SAHM is "the sweetest thing you can do for your family". But this isn't a slam against working moms - Dr. Laura insists. It's just that working just isn't as important as staying at home - but she wouldn't want working moms to feel guilty.

That's her "sense of humour".

According to Dr. Laura it's so tough being a SAHM - "they're told they're setting themselves up for terrible things". What precisely does Dr. Laura want? Does she want deliberate denial of some harsh, but necessary realities? Does she want SAHMs to live in ignorance of the need for an education, health care coverage, pensions, the possibility of divorce, the need for their own credit rating, self-development, their own needs and a million other realities... so they don't feel bad?

Yes, it's harsh being a SAHM when confronted by those issues. It's also harsh being a working mom confronted by those issues. The decision to be a SAHM should be an informed decision, shouldn't it? Aren't we adults? Why do we need to be shielded from reality in order to make our choices?

Notice Dr. Laura's mocking tone when she speaks of herself as a career woman. She states that her son "didn't even know his mother worked". Why not? Why hide that fact? Is it that horrible for her darling son to realize his mom was just like the majority of moms - and like the majority of adults - she worked?

Dr. Laura asserts "you can do both as long as you're not wearing yourself out" - then she lists all the priorities a mom should also be concerned with. This is just laughable. She implies that working moms should pursue flexible working options. I guess she believes flexible work options are easy to come by.

In a recession.

The reality is flexible work options often have to be earned over time... by career moms. You'd better believe that my kids knew I was a working mom long before I got my career to the level where I could telecommute in my jammies once in a while.

Don't fret says Dr. Laura - once the kids are in school you have that whole "middle of the day" to do... and she stumbles here... to do whatever. Like that law career you left years ago... you can squeeze that in between Kindergarten drop off and pick up - right?

There's a missing reality here. Most work opportunities you can squeeze into the "middle of the day" - especially if you've been out of the workforce for a while - will be in the service industries. Part time - lower pay than you'd need to support your family on your own - and probably without benefits.

Meridith asked "Don't [moms] have to live in the real world?"

Dr. Laura asserts that the real world is women leaving work and being SAHMs. Really. After all, day-cares are going out of business for lack of children! Really! All moms are leaving the workforce - and now they're shocked to realize they didn't need to work after all. None of them - even in this recession (which she doesn't seem to think matters very much). "They don't let things like this economy get in the way..." says Dr. Laura. Those moms just need to be forced into staying at home to recognize the errors of their wrong-thinking about needing to work.

I love how Dr. Laura excuses her own working mom career as being, well, special. She wasn't like all the other working moms. She's the only special working mom who made arrangements for her child that weren't harmful. The rest of us working moms apparently throw our kids into a pit of howling wolves and bubbling acid (otherwise known as "child care") as we saunter off in Prada to our silly, unnecessary careers.

Not that Dr. Laura's attacking us.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

If you're a SAHM who doesn't have an independant financial welfare plan for yourself and you believe Dr. Laura whole-heartedly then I highly recommend reading "The Meaning of Wife" by Anne Kingston.

If Dr. Laura's telling the truth this book won't change your mind about Dr. Laura's opinion - but if Dr. Laura is wrong in fifty million ways... then you might be in for some good, useful information that could help you... and your kids.

Working mom or SAHM - I'm not going to tell you you're doing is wrong - I just want to make sure you're doing it right.

So Tired of the Homogenization of Moms (Oprah)

I am SO tired of the homogenization of moms.

Let's get one thing straight, Oprah - raising a child does NOT mean we're not all the same or that our issues are the same. There isn't a mommy cookie cutter. We don't deserve to be homogenized.

We're not all middle class blogging SAHMs that you keep claiming represent us all. Yes, I'm inviting vilification from the Internets for saying that - because I give voice to the reality that the vast majority of web-based mom voices are SAHMs - and the vast marjority of moms on this planet are NOT SAHMs.

The blogging mommies are typically not fond of having that pointed out. Web moms like the crowd from Momversation view themselves as universal moms, representative of every "mom issue" that exists even if they have no personal experience with it.

And that simply isn't true.

(Don't get me wrong, I have read & adored Heather (Dooce) for years - and as proof of my unswerving devotion I just bought and read her full-priced, hardcover new book just after it's release. I. Bought a hardcover book. As soon as it came out. At full price.
Can you feel the love?
I'm also pretty darned sure that Heather would not claim that her life is the same life that all moms have - I'd put money on her saying the exact opposite, actually. Still, others view her as "typical" and present her as such - which is a disservice to her... and to us.)

Haven't we moved beyond that repugnant social habit of grouping "all" people with a common denominator together as one homogenized lump? All women aren't the same. All men aren't the same. All people of one colour or religion aren't the same. Let's admit that moms are not the same. There is no universal, homogenized "sample" mom in a neat little package.

Much as marketers would love that. Just look around the "mom" online communities to get a sample of how homogenized the view of mothers is. Granted, I'm practically an online fossil, so I've seen a lot of communities. I swear there's a portfolio of just twelve topics they trot out annually as the defining universal every-mom-cares-about-this "issues" to discuss including breastfeeding, circumcision, sex and body image. Nothing else matters to moms they'll try to tell us. It's all driven by marketing dollars, marketing perceptions, marketing goals.

We let them tell us who we are. Who said we're the same? Who said I give a rat's tushie about plastic surgery or circumcision - because I don't. I never have. Why is it one of those never-ending constant topics? I have other fish to fry and I'm pretty sure other moms out there have an entire ocean of fish of their own to contribute.

Where are our voices?

Moms are not even the same over time. Infant issues were short lived (seriously Oprah, a whole discussion on poop and pee? There's nothing else to talk about?) The Kindergarten quandary fades within a year, potty training is a small slice of our lives, and really not that important in the grand scheme of things. As our kids grow, our issues change. But there's this... insistence on viewing every single mothering issue of the first year - just the first year - with a microscopic crisis lens.

Why is there no perspective? Everybody has a crisis - agonizing over a birthday party theme seems to be equivalent to agonizing over your child's chemotherapy. Yes, they're both issues, but come ON. Why can't we be honest about the variety of challenges in our lives? Big and small. 

Why are we diminishing real challenges? I nearly gagged at the response from a panel member on Oprah to an audience member (a working mom). The panel member quipped that tired old chestnut; "All moms are busy" and shut down the audience member. This happens all the time - the voice of the mom with concerns about the extra demands she is experiencing is silenced, diminished, discounted, refuted so that we can congratulate all moms - as Oprah puts it - on performing the "hardest job in the world".

Because congratulating all moms as equally busy and equally challenged as a group gets a nice round of applause. Why? Characterizing motherhood as the hardest job in the world for everyone is a vast over generalization. I'm a mom, and I'm fully aware that a career as a Neurosurgeon or Instantaneous Translator at the U.N. is  slightly more stressful than my mothering experience - and with more risks. If I fail as a mom, my kids probably won't cause brain damage or an international crisis.

Probably.

This homogenization of moms seems to have the greatest effect at the most extreme ends of the mom range. The deadbeat mom who sees her kids for a couple hours a month is the same as the single mom with three jobs. They both have "the hardest job on earth" according to popular culture - except that one is given importance and credit she has not earned while the other isn't given credit she deserves.

Shocking as it may seem some moms have a hell of a lot more on their plate than others.

We need to be willing to recognize that some moms have it tougher and also admit that motherhood isn't always the "hardest job in the world". Oprah got it wrong - she isn't the authority on this, we are. We need to be honest about our realities. Some are overloaded, some aren't and we're okay with saying that.

Working moms work and SAHMs don't work. Custodial parents raise kids and deadbeat parents don't. Single parents manage it all alone while married parents share their responsibilities. If we're all proud of the choices we've made and what they entail then let's stop parroting ridiculous statements like "All moms are working moms" that diminish one group in order to elevate another.

We don't need to pretend it's the same for all of us. We are not all the same.

I've promised myself to be (an even louder) voice for grateful, working, single moms of kids with special needs kids. My life is fabulous, thanks! I'm strong, capable, independent and determined. I wouldn't choose to be anything else because I like who I am and how my kids are being raised.

But I am busy, busier than many moms, and that's okay.

That's my voice as a mom.

Supermom

I'm sooooo buying one of these for my desk at work: Supermom Action Figure.

"Up at the crack of dawn and working long into the night, this heroine magically creates extra hours each day juggling kids, schedules, chores and career. Navigating jungles of toys and mountains of kiddie stuff she prepares tasty-yet-healthy snacks, tames dust bunnies and banishes stubborn stains. With an invisible third arm and a never ending pursuit of work / life balance she can help with a school project and answer an all-important business call while wrist deep in dirty diapers. Part teacher, part doctor, part chauffeur, part boss… she's all SuperMom."

She comes with "8 accessories of mommy might" and a manual that recommends: "While SuperMom can sustain long periods of noisy, kid-related craziness, she requires an occasional breather and downtime. Be sure to arrange a girl's night out or a romantic outing."

That made my day.

I think we deserve better than Oprah (Momversation)

Today's topic is Oprah. The panelists asked "How do you feel about Oprah?"

I'll be honest here... I'm not a fan of Oprah... or daytime television. Most television, really. For a long time I was fairly neutral about Oprah, but lately I've harbored a distinct dislike for her.

I've watched her show over the years when I was home on sick days or maternity leave... through her tabloid journalism phase, her spiritual rebirth phase, the read-a-book phase, the mega-publishing monopoly phase... Oprah has never really "stuck" with me. I admired her rise from poverty and thought she was a great journalist in the past.

I tried reading her magazine - but it talked about buying things that were unaffordable, holidays that were unreachable, recipes that were impractical.. lifestyles that nobody I knew even had. There was this assumption that everyone had lots of disposable income... and lots of spare time... and just needed to know what to do with themselves.

For the most part I was indifferent, but I admit it irked me when Oprah's Book Club constantly recommended... for lack of a better word... melodramas. I found it... insulting.

That's what women were supposed to read? Can't we do better?

Oprah speaks down to others - it's been years since I've seen her treat anyone as an equal - unless they were another celebrity. There's an arrogance in her "interview" style now - she's as much of an expert as her guests (and she isn't, she just has staff to do research for her).

I do admire her for climbing out of poverty and recovering from trauma, but I don't believe that person has anything to do with Oprah any more.

Do I think she's too powerful? Maybe - that depends on each audience member. I do have friends who could use a little less Oprah in their lives. I do think there are other ways Oprah could spend her money... but that's her choice, not mine. Oprah doesn't have a lot of power in my life - and that's my choice.

The thing is... I think we all deserve better than Oprah. We all deserve someone who assumes her audience is smart and capable. Someone who chooses books that are challenging, topics that are challenging, stories that aren't always a happy ending.

Less melodrama, less celebrity-of-the-week-with-a-book-to-shill... more thoughtful topics, more respectful portrayals, more depth... more... real.

We need someone who doesn't view life as a reality show - sensationalizing everything. Endless drama isn't entertaining, it's draining.

We need someone who is comfortable with the peaceful, quiet moments of life, who isn't driven to make everything entertaining and all-consuming and profound at every single moment of every single day.

We need someone who understands real life, the challenges, budgets, stress, love, hate, pain and happiness of everyday people... not the shallowness of celebrity worship.

That's not Oprah, but it could be ordinary, every day moms. Let's buy less into Oprah, and more into ourselves.

Work it, Mom

Interesting article from the NYT; Off to Work She Should Go - some of my favourite snipits:

"new mothers with husbands in the top 20 percent of earnings work least". As most working moms already know, 'choice' doesn't exist unless you're rich. The vast majority of Sanctimommies I've encountered over the years preach against working moms from their own position of wealth... "why on earth would those women work, I don't need to!"

"women lose an average of 18 percent of their earning power when they temporarily leave the work force. Women in business sectors lose 28 percent."
In a society with a 50/50 chance of divorce... that's one huge risk to take with your future income and your children's security. A 28 percent fall in income plus the lower wages women already demand in the working world add up to a financial crisis...

I also love this; "the National Institute of Child Health reported recently that long hours in day care added but a single percentage point to the still-normal range of rambunctious behavior in children". One of the constant criticisms (and there's plenty to choose from) that working moms hear is that their children will be harmed or reduced in quality as a result of non-mother childcare. There are often pronouncements of doom for all children who are not enjoying the benefits of helicopter parenting - or sniffy comments questioning a working mother's dedication.

I fear there's a huge number of women out there who are headed for financial and emotional disasters once the kids are off to school or they land in divorce court. They're sacrificing their financial future for emotional gain.

The Husband

One of the on-line parenting groups that I recently joined had me thinking. Don't get me wrong, I adore and enjoy the group and have found some dear the friendships there... but... there is a negative side, for me.

The group has a disturbing lack of diversity in family types. Canada is a multicultural country, we have a 50/50 divorce rate, a large number of single or unmarried parents, the majority of mothers work outside the home, mothers delayed childbirth until an average age of 30 and families are, on average, middle class.

This group has developed as predominantly newly-married 20-something stay-at-home mothers from high income households.

One of the most frustrating aspects with this group is the myopic focus on The Husband... so much less about the kids, parents, siblings, friends, career, environment, politics, interests, hobbies, books, movies, activites... or... imagine... themselves. The Husband is their best friend, closest friend, only confidant, constant companion, center of attention, chief frustration, counsellor, expert and show-stopping, drop everything reason for being... 

A common enough attitude in the "he completes me" neo-traditional wifelash era we currently enjoy.

Personally, I feel that a husband should add to a woman's existing circle of interests, not draw a new boundry that excludes all else -  lives coincide, perhaps blend a little on an edge or two - but they don't overlap.

Of course I think having a friend as a mate is essential - nobody cherishs the thought of a lifetime of barely controlled distain for their mate. But... should The Husband be the center of a woman's life - pushing all of her other relationships and issues to the far edges of her life?

I'm so stunned by this attitude of The Husband Above All. Is it because I'm older? Working? Independant? Because I've maintained numerous meaningful and emotionally intimate friendships outside of any romantic entanglements (and always will)? Or is it because I'm a single mom who has seen first hand the fallacy of relying on one person. Maybe I'm bitter... or I just don't get the "romance" of it all... I didn't buy into the fairytale. My sense of logic won't let me.

Anyone who has taken rudimentary physics or design courses know that a structure that is interconnected with multiple support structures is much stronger and will survive much longer than a structure that has only one main connection to support everything.

We are social animals, meant to exist within a network of friends and family and to have multiple, meaningful and profound realtionships of all kinds with our friends and family. If we exclude them to completely focus on only one other... we're creating a very unhealthy environment that can easily tip into obsession or collapse under the weight of constant pressure... or we risk a complete collapse of ourselves with a loss.

I was astonished to open up Chatelaine (Chatelaine!) and find a related article by Katrina Onstad "Just (not) Married";

In her 2005 book Marriage A History, historian Stephanie Coontz writes that our contemporary view of marriage as the most pivotal relationship in our lives is a development of the last century. Prior, the notion of favouring marriage above all other bonds would have been considered hubris, a betrayal of one's service to the public and extended family.

In a recent New York Times column, Coontz points to a study that suggests the time Americans spend socializing with others outside the workplace has declined by almost 25 per cent since 1965. Free time is spouse time; let the world beyond the hearth wait. But fewer intimate relationships mean fewer people to lean on and more pressure on marriages. No wonder they break. Maybe you and me against the world needs a tweak: You and me in the world.

Of course she's being roasted in the comments - you wouldn't expect anything less than wifelash from Chatelaine readers - this isn't Pink or Salon.

Today Show

There are some seriously ruffled feathers in the Parent blogging universe right now, and rightly so. Mom Melissa of Suburban Bliss was invited to be a guest of the Today Show.

The topic of discussion was a segment about Mommy playgroups where the Moms might share an alcoholic drink.

Of course they had the requisite celebrity mom Meredith Vieira and expert Dr. Janet Taylor aka "Dr. Elegant Pantsuit" (credit to Laid Off Dad) who enjoyed their task of labeling all Moms who so much as look at a glass of wine when a child is in a 50-mile radius... as slobbering, negligent bad mommies.

Obviously Meredith and "Dr. Elegant Pantsuit" may feel that the are far superior to a merely human mom... (a blogging mom, no less!) and had no problem with their little bar-be-que.

I on the other hand see nothing wrong with a martini play date... especially as;

• both Meredith and "Dr. Elegant" are obscenely wealthy and live charmed, unreal lives
• even the mother of GOD drank wine when her son was in the same room

I, sadly, will never achieve Meredith's level of perfect mothering... so will have to aspire to Mary's lowly example, instead.

(Image: painting of Joos Van Cleve 1490-1541)

Old grey mare

When is a mother old?

One of the on-line mothering communities I've become a member of recently had me thinking of this issue in a roundabout way. The community was divided by the administrators into age categories; "young moms" (under 20) and "old moms" (over 30). Over 40 didn't exist.

Like a large chunk of our world I think their expectation is that women are supposed to become moms between 20 and 30 - and that moms over 30 were, well, unusual... let alone moms over 40.

It didn't really sink in until there were questions from younger moms asking why we "waited so long" to have our babies.

Waited so long?

I was stunned. Since when is over thirty old? Granted there is a perception among the general population that having a child after 30 is playing the genetic lottery (despite the fact that the vast majority of babies with congenital issues are born to those under 30 and that the risk only rises marginally every year). In spite of that perception, almost every mom I knew of was pursuing babies in the years between 30 and 35 and many even older.

Add to this 17-year old cover girls pretending to be women... and medical terms like "elderly gravida" and it's enough to make an old mommy cry (or maybe it's just dementia setting in...).

Maybe it was just my faulty perceptions of the average age of moms around here... being an old mom myself and friends who are old moms (I had my first child well after 30... let alone my second). I needed an objective source.

So I checked Stats Canada's analysis of birth rates;

The average age of women giving birth in Canada was 29.7 years in 2004, a slight increase from 29.6 in 2003. This continues a long-established upward trend.

The change in the age distribution of mothers is particularly striking compared with one generation earlier. In 2004, women aged 24 and under made up 20.6% of all mothers, half of the proportion of 40.7% in 1979.

The bulk of the births now occur to women aged 25 to 34, who accounted for 62.1% of all births in 2004 compared with 54.7% in 1979.

Births to older mothers, those aged 35 and older, were almost four times as frequent as a generation earlier. These mothers accounted for 17.2% of births in 2004, nearly four times the proportion of only 4.6% a quarter century earlier.

The average Canadian mom in 2004 was 30 years old - and the average age is climbing.

For now I am content with the perception of my advanced maternal age... I am quite content to wait. That's the thing about having an "old" mom's perspective... time is a great equalizer... eventually the young moms will all get "old" too, and I suspect their perceptions about what makes a mom "old" will change.