Martha Hirschfield and Hanna Rosin
Pandas, SUVs, and Mutual Mommy Confessions
By Hanna Rosin
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2001, at 1:51 PM ETHi there,
And a beautiful morning it is. Today we are definitely the lucky ones, free to roam the sunny streets while our working brethren stare longingly out the window at shadows. The only question for me is, to zoo or not to zoo. We are a mere five minutes walk from the famous Tian Tian and Mei Xiang, and you can feel the excitement in the air. Already this morning I've seen three saucer-eyed kids cartwheeling their way down the hill to the zoo entrance.
My newspaper today is giddy with goofy puns, publishing a special section (a special section!) called Panda Primer in which the pair is described as "So Cute, It's Unbearable," charismatic, exciting, nature's perfect beast.
On the other hand, I am married to the world's worst panda crank, so my loyalties are divided. (Loyal Slate readers will recall the article in which David describes the earlier set of pandas as bores, dreary, anti-social, nature's couch potatoes, unpleasant, neurotic, among other insults.)
Do I risk exposing Noa to bitter disillusionment so early in life? I suppose I'll just have to decide for myself. I will head out to the zoo, either this afternoon or tomorrow, and report back to you.
As for the rest of the mommy-centric stories, you're right, it is sort of Obvious Day today: Diets don't work; big cars roll over. On the other hand, I like both those stories, the diet one because it bursts the Atkins bubble. For the last few years I've watched friends and colleagues bow to the Atkins cult, load their breakfast plates with greasy eggs and sausage, and convince themselves they're losing weight. Now it turns out it's the high-carb diets that work long term. Next year's diet trend: Back to Bagels.
The SUV story I like because I like all stories that demonize SUVs and because I dream of one day becoming an urban terrorist who wanders suburban streets slashing SUV tires, spray-painting CVS windows, etc.
OK, I can't stand being inside any longer. Must take a walk.
I only propose one last thing. I feel we can't end this "Breakfast Table" without making some mutual mommy confessions--minor of course, nothing serious, just serious enough to horrify the safety nazis. I will begin with a few questions:
1. Do you ever leave your child unattended on the changing table? If so, for how long?
2. Do you ever know your child has dirty diapers in the middle of the night and fail to change them?
3. Do you ever use your child as a lap table and prop books, newspapers, notebooks on him?
4. Have you ever mistakenly written on your child's face, hands, body?
With honesty,
H
Pandas, SUVs, and Mutual Mommy Confessions
By Hanna Rosin
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2001, at 1:51 PM ETMartha Hirschfield is an attorney, a new mom, and is married to Slate's William Saletan. Hanna Rosin is a Washington Post reporter on maternity leave and is married to Slate's David Plotz, who is Martha Hirschfield's cousin once removed.
Reader Comments From The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: A lot of messages about birth control, and about penguins. Great discussion on childcare followed on from Paul Decker's post, below. Some readers--how can we put this?--weren't fully in sympathy with the Breakfast Table's new mothers: others were.]
I quote: "Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: But what if Noa want to be a zoologist, specializing in penguins?" I suppose we need to cut new mommies some slack, but there aren't any penguins at all in the Arctic. How many hundreds of emails came in with this point? Sigh. Unfortunate, but there it is, the medium makes criticism so much easier. If this were print in the pre-internet era, then you might get two letters pointing out that penguins live down below in the Antarctic and are primarily food for leopard seals and so forth. But now, with Dear Editor only a click-on-reply away, the possibility of gazillions of outraged penguinphiles writing to you at once and crashing your server can't be called a mere possibility, but rather a stone cold certainty, and cold stones naturally brings me back to the odd fascination penguins have with pebbles, which they stack in little heaps. Nearly 15 years ago, when the oldest of the offspring was a newly gooing bundle and I was the only dad in the park with a stroller, I decided to do something once a day in the company of grownups, so as not to go berserk. I wound up taking Intro Chinese. The rest is rock and roll history, and here I am in Beijing, with three and a half years already spent here in a couple of big chunks, and all four sons fluent in Mandarin Chinese-- two in fact taking end of term Chinese tests as I write-- and all because when Martin was born, there was no internet, there was no Breakfast Table, there was no email inbox, there was no Instant Messenger. Congratulations on the birth of your wee one. Says I, father and primary child care provider for nearly a decade and a half, there is nothing better. Nothing comes close.
--Mike Connelly
(To reply, click
here.)
A pacifier is not pure distraction. It has mystical properties. I believe the sucking actually produces changes in the child's neurochemistry. The problem is how to get the damn things away from them. My 2 and three-quarter month old daughter worships her pacifiers--she literally builds shrines to her pacifiers. Help!
--David Edelstein
(To reply, click
here.)
Pacifier elimination is the first cold turkey parenting situation. Later will come unlimited cable TV and internet privileges. Depending on how phone services are billed in your locality, phone call privileges may go the way of the pacifiers for some period of time so that school work can get done on time. If you are lucky to not have free local calling, you can just make them pay for the itemized charges which usually makes them stop calling their friends all night long.
The cute thing about teenagers is that they whine the same way they did as two year olds when you took away the pacifiers.
--Tom R.
(To reply, click
here.)
New mother Hanna has not spent enough time reading trashy women's novels. They often make reference to abortifacients, usually after the heroine gives it up to the hero in some ill-advised fashion, gets pregnant, and tries to keep it a secret. Fun things like wacky combinations of herbs. Even better, the birth control measures! Sponges soaked with vinegar!
As far as the Pill being an abortifacient as well as a preventive measure: it does prevent ovulation, as Momma Hirshfeld points out. However, it provides a backup plan as well. If you do ovulate anyway, the fertilized egg cannot implant into the uterine wall. So, technically, a potentially viable pregnancy is ended. The key word is technically - certain people, such as Ashcroft, will make any argument rather than accept that people should have control over their own bodies. Why do certain Republicans think the government should no power over our monetary decisions, but should have total control over our biological ones?
--Laura
(To reply, click
here.)
Apparently Martha was able to find a place in a decent child care center because of her affiliation with a federal agency. But what of the vast number of other families without access to such resources? Preschool child care is a state issue (except in the federal District of Columbia), but as far as I know, no state is doing anything to support it. Yet, there has been no organized movement to do anything to change this, either by getting state support for private preschools or by any other means (though there are plenty of efforts to get state support for private schools, and they aren't all religious).
I have thought from time to time that raising child care work from its current low-paid ghettoization in the dot-com economy would be a unifying cause that liberals, moderates, and even some conservatives would embrace. It hasn't happened yet, but I haven't given up hope.
--Paul Decker
(To reply, click
here.)
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Reader Comments From The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: A lot of messages about birth control, and about penguins. Great discussion on childcare followed on from Paul Decker's post, below. Some readers--how can we put this?--weren't fully in sympathy with the Breakfast Table's new mothers: others were.]
I quote: "Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: But what if Noa want to be a zoologist, specializing in penguins?" I suppose we need to cut new mommies some slack, but there aren't any penguins at all in the Arctic. How many hundreds of emails came in with this point? Sigh. Unfortunate, but there it is, the medium makes criticism so much easier. If this were print in the pre-internet era, then you might get two letters pointing out that penguins live down below in the Antarctic and are primarily food for leopard seals and so forth. But now, with Dear Editor only a click-on-reply away, the possibility of gazillions of outraged penguinphiles writing to you at once and crashing your server can't be called a mere possibility, but rather a stone cold certainty, and cold stones naturally brings me back to the odd fascination penguins have with pebbles, which they stack in little heaps. Nearly 15 years ago, when the oldest of the offspring was a newly gooing bundle and I was the only dad in the park with a stroller, I decided to do something once a day in the company of grownups, so as not to go berserk. I wound up taking Intro Chinese. The rest is rock and roll history, and here I am in Beijing, with three and a half years already spent here in a couple of big chunks, and all four sons fluent in Mandarin Chinese-- two in fact taking end of term Chinese tests as I write-- and all because when Martin was born, there was no internet, there was no Breakfast Table, there was no email inbox, there was no Instant Messenger. Congratulations on the birth of your wee one. Says I, father and primary child care provider for nearly a decade and a half, there is nothing better. Nothing comes close.
--Mike Connelly
(To reply, click here.)
A pacifier is not pure distraction. It has mystical properties. I believe the sucking actually produces changes in the child's neurochemistry. The problem is how to get the damn things away from them. My 2 and three-quarter month old daughter worships her pacifiers--she literally builds shrines to her pacifiers. Help!
--David Edelstein
(To reply, click here.)
Pacifier elimination is the first cold turkey parenting situation. Later will come unlimited cable TV and internet privileges. Depending on how phone services are billed in your locality, phone call privileges may go the way of the pacifiers for some period of time so that school work can get done on time. If you are lucky to not have free local calling, you can just make them pay for the itemized charges which usually makes them stop calling their friends all night long.
The cute thing about teenagers is that they whine the same way they did as two year olds when you took away the pacifiers.
--Tom R.
(To reply, click here.)
New mother Hanna has not spent enough time reading trashy women's novels. They often make reference to abortifacients, usually after the heroine gives it up to the hero in some ill-advised fashion, gets pregnant, and tries to keep it a secret. Fun things like wacky combinations of herbs. Even better, the birth control measures! Sponges soaked with vinegar!
As far as the Pill being an abortifacient as well as a preventive measure: it does prevent ovulation, as Momma Hirshfeld points out. However, it provides a backup plan as well. If you do ovulate anyway, the fertilized egg cannot implant into the uterine wall. So, technically, a potentially viable pregnancy is ended. The key word is technically - certain people, such as Ashcroft, will make any argument rather than accept that people should have control over their own bodies. Why do certain Republicans think the government should no power over our monetary decisions, but should have total control over our biological ones?
--Laura
(To reply, click here.)
Apparently Martha was able to find a place in a decent child care center because of her affiliation with a federal agency. But what of the vast number of other families without access to such resources? Preschool child care is a state issue (except in the federal District of Columbia), but as far as I know, no state is doing anything to support it. Yet, there has been no organized movement to do anything to change this, either by getting state support for private preschools or by any other means (though there are plenty of efforts to get state support for private schools, and they aren't all religious).
I have thought from time to time that raising child care work from its current low-paid ghettoization in the dot-com economy would be a unifying cause that liberals, moderates, and even some conservatives would embrace. It hasn't happened yet, but I haven't given up hope.
--Paul Decker
(To reply, click here.)