The Good: Aaron had a gig this weekend: the Ashville Viking Festival. It’s a small event, but the pay is better than other festivals in the area, plus the organizers are good guys and friends of ours. He and his partner had a good time, the crowd enjoyed their show, and the weather was mostly nice. Plus I met a new mommy friend – yay!

The Bad: They were performing today through sheer will due to being poisoned by something they ate last night. It was either the Dominos pizza or the Killians beer, and neither could ever believe the sacred beer could have caused it. They were also up late gaming with friends. This morning both of the upstairs bathrooms were occupied by men who wished for death over the stomach pain they were enduring. Poor Aaron is asleep on the couch right now, recovering from exhaustion and food poisoning.

The Good: Aaron had a job interview this week. It went well, and we’re both crossing our fingers for this one.

The Bad: When stopping by the ATM so he could get out of the parking garage after the interview, he left his debit card in the ATM. I normally wouldn’t embarrass him by mentioning this, but the interview was Thursday, he realized his card was gone Friday, and today is Sunday and he still hasn’t called to report it missing yet. Grrr…

The Good: Saturday night, while the guys were gaming, I went to Cincinnati for a party. It was hosted by friends I haven’t seen in a long time, and many of the other guests were friends I also hadn’t seen in months. I also was childless and husbandless at this party; I spent a lot of time chatting with old friends about things that happened long before I met Aaron. Good conversation, good alcohol, good times.

The Bad: I didn’t get to stay as long as I would have liked. I carpooled with two friends, one of whom is chronically late. Very late. We were supposed to leave at 5:30, then she called and pushed it back to 6:00. They arrived at 6:45, and we had to stop to get food on the way, too.

The Good: Cordelia was cute and charming all weekend at the Viking Festival. Everyone made a fuss over her as she ran, jumped, played shy, talked nonsense, ate dirt (seriously!), and even threw a fit. If you think a child throwing a tantrum is cute, you’re clearly not a parent. Still, Cordy loved the attention and was happy to perform.

The Bad: Cordy’s newest trick: grabbing mommy’s shirt and pulling it down to expose bra, or sometimes boob. She thinks it’s hilarious. I am less than amused. I once thought the only time I would expose my breasts in public was for breastfeeding or beads at Mardi Gras. I never expected to be exposed for a toddler’s entertainment.

At the park this afternoon:

Cordy runs up to a 3yr old boy. They stand close and look each other over.

Cordy: BwaughbEUYdtlllOMM.

Boy: What?

Cordy: MyUHHhdduffnutrrsSEEE.

Boy: What?!?!

Cordy: FuuubbbNOOOwaaacceeyyy.

Boy: (becoming distressed) I don’t understand what you’re saying!

Cordy: Ggeeeewahttttaaa! ViwwwuuubbKKKAAA!

Boy: (running away, near tears) Mommy! I don’t know what she’s saying!

Cordy: (following) Hi! Hi! Ruuuuvviinnoobbsss!

Boy: (clinging to mother) Mommy, make her stop following me! I don’t understand her!

Me: I’m sorry, she’s just trying to be friendly.

Mother: Oh, it’s OK! (to boy) Honey, she’s little and can’t talk yet. She just wants to play with you.

Boy: Mommy, she scares me.

—–

There you have it, folks. My child can scare other children just by talking to them. She rocks.

Now that I’m registered for Blogher 06, I need to start planning the remainder of the details. I looked at the hotel’s website to reserve my room, and I noticed they want to know when the plane arrives so they can be sure to pick me up. So, the room has been put on hold until I have picked out my flight.

I pulled up Expedia to look at flights to San Jose from Columbus, and slowly started to feel my chest getting tight, my palms sweat, and my head feel light. I closed the browser window, recognizing this sensation.

Today’s confession: I have a fear of flying. It’s not so great a fear that I refuse to fly, but I do have some pretty strict guidelines when it comes to choosing my travel.

First, I won’t fly anywhere that I can reasonably drive to. Chicago: 6 hour drive. New York: 8 hour drive. Virginia Beach: 10 hour drive. Florida: 16 hour drive. I’ve done them all versus flying. They are mostly single day drives (we even did the Florida drive in one day once), so I see no reason not to drive. Besides, I enjoy the process of getting there.

There have been places I couldn’t drive to, like when I spent a summer in England. Even then I said that if they’d just build a road to get there, I’d drive it. Obviously, driving out to San Jose in order to spend 4 days there is not reasonable. It would take that many days just to drive there. Plus I’m still taking classes, and I doubt I could take that much time off from my classes. So flying is clearly the logical answer.

Second rule of flying for me is only large jets. I’ve been on one of those damn turbo-props, or as my family calls them, turbo-plops. It was an unfun, nauseating, up and down experience. The larger the jet, the less likely I am to feel every little bump of air, and the more secure I feel.

In order to fly, I must mentally prepare myself weeks in advance. Meditation, relaxation exercises, going over the details in my head, etc. When I went to England, it took me two tries to finally walk down the hallway to board the plane. I walked up to the doorway, handed them my ticket, then asked for it back and walked right back to my mom for one more hug. Deep breath, then I turned around and was successful on the second try.

I also dislike flying due to an inner-ear problem I have. We discovered it when we flew to Florida when I was nine. My ears have a lot of trouble with pressure equalization. Going up isn’t so bad, but going down is painful. The pressure won’t release, and I usually spend several hours after the flight with diminished hearing and one hell of an earache. Nothing a little lot of ibuprofen can’t fix, but still annoying.

I know it’s crazy to be so scared of flying. You can recite the statistics, but I already know them. Yes, more people die in car crashes every year than in plane crashes. It’s not a rational fear. If my car stops working, I can get out and walk. If I’m on a boat and it sinks, I can swim for at least a little while. If the plane stops working, I can’t fly on my own. I guess I’d be less scared if they didn’t travel so far away from the ground.

No worries, this issue will not stop me from going to Blogher. My fear of flying is strong, but not strong enough to keep me from the things I really want to do. I’m just glad that, unlike my trip to England, I’m now (well) over 21, and can beg for alcohol to help me relax just a little bit during the flight.

I thought I was done in my previous post, but it turns out I’m not. I can’t leave this topic alone.

The United States (and Australia) needs to implement a paid parental leave policy. It has been attempted several times, and shot down each and every time. Why? Because businesses are scared of the possible costs in instituting such a program, and they worry that they will lose workers due to paid time off. Also, the rich fatties up in Congress are so far removed from the average American family that they have no idea of the financial struggles a child can produce. I’m sure W would love to see women returning to the home to raise their children (if they’re married, Christian, and not gay, that is), but you can bet he’s not going to provide the funding to make it possible.

Businesses worry that paid leave will cost them, both in money and employees, yet the opposite has proven to be true. The more parental leave benefits a company offers (paid time off, flex-time, telecommuting, etc.), the more likely the employee is to return to their job, and less money and time will be needed to hire and train new employees. Amazing, eh? You take care of your employees, and they will reward you with loyalty!

Now, the American society will inevitably ask the ever important question: what’s in it for them? Sure, providing longer and paid leave will help those who are having the children, there’s no doubt to that. But why should we have to pay for others to stay home with their children?

Much of the answer to that can be found in this document. There are plenty of studies confirming that breastfed children have many long-term benefits from breastfeeding, including stronger immune systems. Women who can establish and continue a breastfeeding relationship with their child will require less sick time to care for their children when they are older. Children will miss less school. And women who are given plenty of time to recover from childbirth will be able to resume their duties with fewer long-term health issues.

Also, forget No Child Left Behind – the truth is that many of our children, especially those in poorer areas, are being left behind in large numbers. Paid leave demonstrates that we as a society care about the well-being of our children. It recognizes that children are the future of the country as the future workforce, and should be considered just as important as today’s employees and employers. If children feel valued, it will likely help their emotional and cognitive development, hopefully resulting in improved grades in school and less teen crime.

However, the United States tends to not think in this kind of way. We focus only on the short-term gain and not on the greater long-term benefits. Even though mothers (and fathers) are raising that next workforce, our labor as parents is considered worthless. There is no immediate benefit from a mother taking a leave from her career to help establish a solid foundation for her children. There is no immediate benefit from a mother choosing to breastfeed her child, and therefore needing a private space to pump at work. An educated woman who chooses to stay home with her children is considered a loss to the economy instead of a benefit for the economy to come.

As mothers, it’s time to step up and defend who we are. Queen of Spain was right: moms are the “in” thing to discuss right now. So let’s use that platform to demand some notice of what we do, and force people to realize that as a country, we are failing our future generations at the moment. We need a national paid parental leave policy. We need greater time off from our jobs to spend with our newborns. We need parenting to be given just as much respect and value as a job as we do doctors, teachers, CEOs, and congressmen. We need a way to help those moms who have NO CHOICE to finally have that choice.

Some of you may have seen MomsRising.org. If not, go there and get involved! (If you’re in Australia, you can also go here to get involved in your country’s fight for paid leave.) If you’re in the privileged class, use that privilege to help your fellow woman. If you are a woman with no choice, speak out about it any chance you get.

It reduces me to tears to know that there are so many mothers out there who want so much to be there for their children, but feel they can only half-ass it because they have no choice but to work. My own mother was in that situation, and I still hear the guilt in her voice when we are together. She has nothing at all to be guilty about.

*deep breath* OK, I think the rant is finished. For the moment.

Ladies, I think we have some work to do.

Remember that article by Linda Hirshman that caused the fury late last year? The one about the feminist elite choosing to ditch their executive jobs for motherhood? The “Opt-Out Revolution” where women were now choosing to stay home with their kids instead of continue on the fast track for their careers? I thought you might remember that. It sparked a lot of debate over SAHMs vs. WOHMs, including bringing up the dreaded Mommy Wars.

But I have something different to say today. Another aspect of the debate, one that is less often talked about.

For some women, there is no debate, no choice.

The role of motherhood in the United States is that of a second-class citizen. Oh sure, we have Mother’s Day, but for those who aren’t privileged, being a mom makes life more difficult for those other 364 days a year.

To begin with, the United States has a reprehensible parental leave policy. 12 weeks unpaid leave is granted to us through FMLA, but even that only applies to those working for larger companies. That’s unpaid leave, meaning all they do is guarantee you’ll have a job to come back to in 12 weeks. Of the industrialized nations of the world, only the US and Australia do NOT provide paid parental leave for the birth of a child. (And Australia provides one year of job protection.)

What woman who lives in a tiny apartment, works for just over minimum wage, and struggles to pay the bills has the luxury to take 12 weeks off of work unpaid? Many of these women have to give birth and then get right back to work. For those who do have the ability to take 12 weeks, is that really enough time? Do we as a country really feel that our young are ready, at 3 months old, to be handed off to someone who is only paid to care for them?

And then there is daycare. $1,000 a month is the average cost in most cities for full time care at a licensed daycare center. It’s even higher in many places. For a family with two adults making minimum wage, that cost is more than 2/3 of their monthly income. Even for a family making $50,000 a year, that’s just under 1/3 of their monthly income (figuring in taxes). Even for middle-class families, the cost of daycare is a struggle.

If you can’t afford a daycare center, there’s always private babysitters. But now you’re taking a bigger risk for your child’s care. Many babysitters have no licenses and no specialized training in child care. Plus, it’s a private home, so you have no one to check in to make sure your child is being cared for properly.

Some might argue that we have the Flexible Spending Accounts in place to help with daycare. Well yes, but it’s just a savings account – you still must have money to put into it in order to reap the benefits. If you need every last cent from your paycheck, a FSA won’t help at all.

So then there is a choice. If you can’t afford daycare, then stay home and it’ll balance out. Ah, it’s not that simple. For this case in point, I shall use myself. Aaron and I made decent money together working full-time. Cordy joined us, and due to work screwing me out of benefits, I took my 12 week leave and then was forced to put her in daycare at 3 months old. The mental and financial costs were very heavy on us. Sure, we were still paying the bills, but suddenly we were no longer able to devote any money to future savings, and unexpected expenses went to the credit card.

We looked at our finances. Two people working full-time with daycare was getting us nowhere. But if I quit working, we wouldn’t have enough to meet the bills. Some would argue that if you really wanted to do it, you could. Sure, we could sell the house we just bought and live in a small apartment, but again, we would be getting nowhere. And thanks to the quirkiness of the Columbus market, rent is nearly as high as our mortgage payment. We were stuck, and there was no good choice.

Thank goodness we have family. Our current situation is I work part-time, and our family pitches in to help watch Cordy the days I work. We’re still financially at the same place we would be if we both worked full-time, but the advantage is that we’re not paying strangers to care for Cordelia. And I would consider us privileged – just think how much harder it is for those who have no choice at all, due to finances or being a single parent.

So to those fighting the Mommy Wars, I want you all to stop for a minute. Stop fighting over your choice to be a SAHM or your choice to enjoy your career. Stop arguing for the fact that thanks to feminism we women have the choice to work or stay home with our kids. Think for a moment about those who have NO CHOICE. Those who would love nothing more than to spend more time with their child, but due to financial constraints and a lack of laws protecting them, must instead hand their child over to someone else who they hope will care for that child properly and return to their low-paying job whether they want to or not. They have no choice. Feminism, and the United States government, do not protect them and do not give them choice.

Shouldn’t we be fighting for them? Shouldn’t we be arguing for parental leave reform and greater assistance with child care? We know it can work – it’s already working in so many other countries. It’s time that motherhood be recognized as something valid and worthy of this country’s time, assistance and appreciation. We are the ones raising the next generation, and yet as mothers we are treated as second-class citizens.

We know mothers are fierce. Now let’s turn our attack towards those who see no value in motherhood (or parenthood for that matter – you dads out there deserve just as much respect). It’s time to make sure we all have CHOICE.