You Can Have It All

Enjoying Career and Baby: There's a difference between being a mother and a caregiver

A mother on one of my internet moms' groups posted a question asking how other moms "reconcile" working with raising children. I found this an odd question, since I've never considered that the two were incompatible.  All the more odd since this was a site for mothers who choose to be single, in which case unless you're independently wealthy, someone has to pay the rent. This is an excerpt of my response:

I don't see any need to reconcile working with raising a baby.  Indeed that's what most parents (women and men) do.  Perhaps I also see this differently because my mom had a thriving career.  She was much happier and healthier than most of the stay at home moms I knew.  I never once considered, growing up, that I would want to stay at home. 

I had four glorious months of maternity leave and then I was ready to go back to work and the baby was ready for outside influences to learn and grow.  It makes a difference, I think, if you find a great nanny - I found a recent nursing grad and I could tell the baby was so comfortable with her.  I've become efficient at working during the day and finishing all those phone calls and errands I can't do with him.  I was interested to find I wasn't sad at all to go back to work, but that's because I did take that 4th month (using FMLA and some vacation) and then knew I was ready. I have to say I look so forward to spending the evening with him, and the weekend days when I "get to" spend all day with him are just a joy.

 

Many moms in my new moms' group who've chosen to find husbands to provide for them so they can stay at home, seem chronically exhausted with tending to the baby's needs all day every day (and spend a great deal of energy nursing grudges against their husbands for not helping).  I think it takes a special person with special patience to tend to a baby's needs all day every day, and many stay at home moms I see don't have that. If I stayed home much longer, I would spend more and more time at the computer with Spencer in my lap bored and frustrated.  Tina Fey has a great line that her toddler's favorite game is to switch roles: when she plays mommy she sits at the computer and says, "Not now, honey, mommy's doing her work."  I know Spencer is healthier and happier because I bring a patient, calm nanny he trusts to nurture him during my working time. Indeed, I can often see him doing things I know she taught him and I think that adds to his growth.
 
That's not to say that I wouldn't enjoy some opportunity in the future to work at home - of course I would love to see my baby more (I hope all parents would), but that still involves having a caregiver in the home because I couldn't meet his needs all day and perform my work.  Before I was pregnant I used to fantasize about writing at home full-time - and taking care of the baby - once I get my partially finished book and theoretical screen play sold.  My mom, the wise working mother of seven, laughed and said, "That's a great plan. You and what nanny?"
 
I agree working and mothering is tiring, and I've been near tears at times at the exhaustion because I'm still waking up with night feeds, and can't figure out how in the world to find time to fold the laundry if I'm lucky enough to get it washed.  And my hair is up in a bun now because I haven't had time to wash it in over a week  -- but then I nurse my baby and know it's all worth it.  I wouldn't do it any other way (except if I win the lottery I would hire a housecleaner). 

Of course, if there are moms or dads who really feel they're suited to being full-time caregivers, by all means I don't want to suggest staying home wouldn't be a good thing for them.  As for everyone else, our culture seems bound up in its own mythical belief that there ever was a time that moms stayed home with babies and everyone was happy.  Moms were forced out of the work force and back home in the 1950s after the men came home from the war.  This was a brief anomaly in our country's history, and I would differ with anyone who thought everyone then was healthy or happy.

A British nurse who founded Day One, a new parents' center in San Francisco, noted in our moms' group one day that this notion that the middle and upper classes have in the U.S., that babies should be raised by only one parent (the mother), who's all alone, isolated in a big house out in the suburbs away from any other influences is rather peculiar.  I see moms all the time who stay alone at home all day with the baby and their loneliness is palpable.  What effect is that having on the baby?  Indeed, most other cultures, as uber leader and mother Hillary Clinton noted, know it takes a village to raise a child.

I recommend Leslie Bennett's book The Feminine Mistake, in which she explores some of our romanticized myths about staying home and provides positive tales of how rewarding she and other professional women have found their full lives to be. 

For me, I'm Spencer's mother 24/7 - no one else will ever have that role.  And I've been lucky to find caregivers to enrich his life.

Unsolicited Product Advice for New Mothers

Below are my unsolicited recommendations for three products I couldn't live without. I was motivated to write this because I met both company founders and was so impressed with them and their products that I wanted to pass on the good word.

Mommy's Bliss Products - I met the founder of this company at a San Francisco screening of Rikki Lake's movie, The Business of Being Born. She's from the Bay Area, and handed out nifty sample packs. She's a nurse and midwife and the products are all natural. I love the nipple cream, which will be my gift at all future baby showers. And I also take the Omega 3 supplements.

Baby's Bliss Gripe Water - Same company as above. My baby thankfully didn't suffer from colic, but he does get the mysterious late afternoon fussies that from what my mom remembers, seems to be one of those phases that babies just go through. I'm reluctant to use medicine for the baby and prefer to search for natural solutions.The gassies and fussies plagued him so, and I was curious about the British gripe water. My ped said it certainly wouldn't hurt. I tried two brands and baby loves this one. He thinks it's a�treat.�I think it calms him a little (it has ginger and fennel) if I use it before the fussies strike.� I could be imagining it - a pediatric intern and new mom in my mom's group said she thinks at worst it could have a placebo effect.� I thought she meant for the baby, but later I wondered�how could the baby... then I considered whether she meant�placebo for the parents.� Could be.

Mamatotowear Nursing Tanks - � I bought three of these, in black, brown and green,�and literally lived in them for a few months.� The top flips up right below the breast for the quickest breastfeeding draw in the West.� It also allows for discrete nursing - last time we flew there weren't any empty seats in the far corners of the terminal so I had to sit across from others.� I went ahead and nursed baby confidently, and I don't think anyone around me even noticed cause you really can't see anything.�

I bought my first tank at the Day One new parents center�in San Francisco when the baby was about eight weeks and immediately tried to order two more online.� The Post Office didn't forward the delivery properly and while it was in limbo I had a mini-new mommy breakdown.� One of those sleep-deprivation, post C-section recovery exhaustion breakdowns.� My nursing bras were cutting into me and didn't work at night, I leaked without a bra and pads, and I was too exhausted to be washing the one tank top everyday.� The owner and designer, also a mother, understood my pain.� She DELIVERED the tanks to my house (a few miles from hers).� How's that for customer service, and for mothers looking out for one another?� After she delivered the extra tanks, and I started feeling a little more like myself, I relaxed into my baby's third month and simply wallowed in�the blissful joy of breastfeeding my boy.� Spread the word.� Quality products and a quality company. If that weren't enough, her clothes are made in the US - by seamstresses in San Francisco.

Also recommended:

Nursing Teas - My favorite is Herb Lore Nursing Tea, but Yogi Tree from my college town of Eugene, Oregon, is a close second.� I tested both at the Natural Resources new parent center on Valencia in San Francisco.� They both have fennel and chamomile and offer a relaxing caffeine alternative for afternoons, and a nice drink to keep near the rocker while you're breastfeeding.�A nurse advised me these teas are mild and wouldn't cause you to overproduce milk (people take special supplements if they actually need to increase their milk supply).� I found making the loose leaf Herb Lore tea was a nice afternoon ritual during the lazy days near the end of my 4-month maternity leave.

Baby Bumps

When I first became pregnant last summer, the pregnant celebrities all in the news were Salma Hayek and Naomi Watts. As I first started looking for maternity clothes, it became immediately apparent I was not going to be pregnant and hip, like the trendy movie star moms. Which was okay by me, since I was more interested in comfort than anything else. But I have to admit, seeing a few very unflattering shots of Hayek and Watts looking as big as I am right now, gave me a wee bit of guilty satisfaction. To see such beautiful women looking bloated and unchic made me feel better. I know that's petty.

But just about as soon as those two had their babies, news came that J Lo, Halle Berry and Cate Blanchette were all due about the same time as me. Great. It would be hard to pick three more glamorous women that I would now have to compare myself to. My Mom suggested I go for J Lo's blousy look and I told her I'd tried - I couldn't find clothes like that in tall women's sizes. Without my own designer, I'd have to fare with what I could find.

When I got to the third trimester, I surrendered completely to comfort - and the simple ability to find something to keep my pants up. Thanks to modern gizmos like the Bella Band and maternity suspenders, I have a few outfits to get me by.

And now come Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie. Looks like I timed this just right. Baby and I will be moving on from our pregnancy journey any day now and I'll be able to wish Kidman and Jolie happy and chic pregnancies, in good conscience.

Pregnancy and Politics

Most people may not have cause to think about what was happening when they were in utero.  I do, only because that’s where I was when JFK was shot in November 1963.  Forty-four years later my baby has the luck to be in utero during these wild 2008 presidential primary races.  He was just fine-tuning his ability to hear what’s going on outside the womb at the time of the Iowa caucuses.  The poor kid. 

He probably thinks Wolf Blitzer is his father, since that’s the voice he hears second most to mine.  I’ve been working from home this month with CNN on practically 24/7.  He also used to hear Chris Matthews’ voice every evening, but anyone who reads my political blogs knows we don’t watch Matthews in our house anymore.

As a political junkie, I get all worked up with the ups and downs of this campaign and worry my blood pressure is rising, but the midwife tells me I’m still in good health, despite the campaign.

After I was up very late one night to finish a deadline for a piece, I decided at this stage of pregnancy I better think a little more about what the baby is experiencing.  I try to counteract the incessant news with classical music when we go to bed. I try to balance my political aggravation with calming yoga.

But overall I resigned myself that any kid of mine is going to have to adapt to his Mom’s obsession with politics.  I know it doesn’t always rub off.  I inherited my Mom’s love of politics, but not all my siblings did.  Heck, he might even turn out to be a Republican and I’ll still love him.   

But as long as he’s captive in utero for these last few weeks, I’m going to try to expose him to more of public television's Charlie Rose and Gwen Ifill.  And if he decides to be born the night of the March 4 primary coverage, you can be sure I’ll get a TV into the delivery room. 

Opening Lob in Mommy Wars

(Cross-posted at Damsels in Success.)

I've watched the new phenomenon of Mommy Wars with intrigue the last few years. I always figured that women who are happy with their choices (whether to marry, their career, their life) wouldn't need to be taking shots at women who make different choices. And I've marveled at women who assume that child-rearing is exclusively a female responsibility; they completely absolve men, including their chosen husbands, and then go after other women a la Cruella de Ville.

I wondered how long it would be until I officially weighed into the debate. I'm barely into my 2nd trimester and now I receive the first lob from a stay-at-home Mom. I haven't even had the baby yet! Just when I thought I'd recovered from the 1st trimester nausea, now I have a mother trying to make me dizzy.

I joined a couple of parenting internet groups and a woman posted a question about nausea and what drugs to take for it. I responded that I'd felt like I'd been at sea for the last 5 weeks, but knowing that drugs prescribed in the past for pregnancy symptoms have caused defects in babies, I tried to be supportive by suggesting indirectly that if I could handle it, maybe she could too. I added that I've been able to continue working more than full-time. Again, I thought if she had the kind of encouragement my mother has always provided for me, it might help her buck up a little. (My Mom worked through the last four of her seven pregnancies and she tells me, "You just get through it.")

So the woman replies back, telling me how "impressed" she is with "women like you" who can keep working. She added condescendingly that she realizes some women have no choice but to work (as if working when you're 3 months' pregnant is some kind of sacrifice). Then she said she "could never" work full-time while pregnant.

A day later I couldn't get her response out of my mind. First the suggestion that women might work only because they "have to," and any woman with a choice would want to stay home. And her condescension suggests that somehow she is privileged and I am not. I don't consider staying home a privilege and don't care for the assumptions she flung my way. Why did she need to trot all of that out?

I wrote to her that I was equally intrigued with women who could stay home, since it's something "I could never do."

I have to admit that she apparently picked up on the "Just buck up" undertone in my email and took offense to it. She wanted commiserating, not tough talk. Where do these women come from? Washington Post writer Lonnae O'Neal Parker makes a similar point in her book, "I'm Every Woman." Parker writes that black women are proud of a centuries-old tradition of providing strength and financial support for their families. Parker notes that many of those lobbers in the Mommy Wars are upper class white women who were raised with the odd notion that women can be educated now but it's still "unfeminine" to have the kind of demanding careers that the men they marry do. I laugh at my local Bay Area upper class women (who by the way have married status husbands to provide for them) moan they could never work through their pregnancy nausea, meanwhile women in the Third world are out working the fields until their delivery.

Parker's book resonated with me because I also come from a long line of strong women, who crossed the country in wagons on the Oregon Trail and took up farming in the rugged Oregon Country. The women in my family are not only strong, but fertile. My Grandma raised five children while running a farm and a store, and my mother raised seven while working. If I whined to them "I just can't work" at only three months' pregnant, they'd laugh out loud. Not out of cruelty, but out of the knowledge that after the fourth or fifth child comes along you gain a little perspective. I'm grateful for the perspective they've handed down to me. If they could handle that many, I think I can handle one, and hopefully two.

My mother's thriving career in government forged a large part of my self-confidence and personality and I can't wait to provide that same mentoring for my baby. I know that's the right choice for me- it's the way my Mom did it and I've never seen it done better.

High-powered male execs rarely value families

My punishment for getting the idea into my head that I needed to go to a status law school, was spending three years being treated to the multitude of double standards that the lawyer/corporate class [historically white, upper class men] have for everyone else in society.   

While I fully admit that becoming a lawyer has made me a classist, I don't form these judgements for the entire upper class - only those who run the legal/corporate world of which I am, begrudgingly, intimately familiar.

I offer just a taste of the double standards, lest any readers think I'm paranoid or exaggerating: We read a case in law school whereby a learned judge, from the upper class, opined that workers in white collar professions are more reliable and trustworthy than blue collar workers, and - based on that "truth"- laws needed to regulate blue collar workers strictly while white collar workers can be trusted to regulate themselves.  (I'll pause a few moments for the laughter.)  I wonder if they still teach this case post-Enron.

And when we move to family values, you need a shovel to keep up with the double standards.  We were told in our Ethics Class that women lawyers should consider not even starting to work as litigators in their childbearing years, because their eventual parenting demands will interfere with their work.  That was the extent of the discussion.  I was the only one in a class of 100 who asked the <em>female</em> professor to please explain why we were assuming that only women lawyers, and not male lawyers, were responsible for raising their children. She, along with the rest of the class, turned and stared at me.  This was 1994, not 1954.

Which brings me to my title.  A writer named Penelope Trunk wrote a great op-ed carried in the San Francisco Chronicle, "<a href="http://www.sfchroniclemarketplace.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/08/19/INJERIC52.DTL"target=_blank">High-powered executives rarely value families</a>."  First she makes the point that needs to be made, that male Fortune 500 CEOs are rewarded for basically ignoring their families.  She notes that Fortune Magazine profiled a male CEO who said he's been working 100-hour weeks for 20 years, who also happens to be married with a child.  And another male CEO who has two children was quoted as saying "I don't see my family much. My family is [the company]."  Trunk's response:
<blockquote>
"I can't decide which is more pathetic - the way these men approach their roles as parents, or the way that Fortune Magazine writes about it without any commentary."</blockquote> 

Then she makes a brilliant point about the upper class double standard:  "If you are poor and abandon your children, you are a bad parent.  But if you are rich and you abandon them to run a company, you are profiled in Fortune Magazine."  As if she needed proof, she cites a US government publication aimed at low-income fathers, telling them that children need emotional support from both parents, and encouraging low- income fathers to get involved in their childrens' lives.  I also see racial undertones, here.  How often does the media take absentee black fathers to task?  I can testify after spending three years in a confined space with the offspring of these absentee CEOs, that a wealthy father who is technically present but never really there exacts a toll deeper than a father who leaves and never comes back.

Of course the same double standard is held for women executives - if they work 100 hour weeks they get questions about balancing family life.  White male execs have absolved themselves of any responsibility in their childrens' lives.  If you didn't come into law school already believing that child-raising was women's work, you'd learned to repeat it by the time you graduated.

Don't get me wrong - I know that children benefit from parents with thriving careers.  A big part of my personality and confidence was formed watching my Mom thrive in her government career, and I plan to provide the same role model for my child.  But I've worked for men like these CEOs - they just flat out ignore their kids' lives completely.  One man I worked for dictated formal memos to his children.  He stayed at the office at night to dictate memos to his children, while they were sitting at home without him.  And, yes, he's been profiled in Fortune Magazine.

40 is the new 35, for mothers

I walked into my obstetrician's office, expecting some sort of fanfare. After all, I was pregnant at 43 with my own egg. A walking urban myth. I somehow thought the staff would cheer and the doctors would marvel. When the medical assistant asked me my date of birth I emphasized the "1964" part, waiting for a reaction. Not a blink. I sat down with the doctor to go over some basic information. He ran down my list of vitals, including that I was 43, and didn't linger on my age at all. I asked about it - was I at any greater risk, was there anything special I needed to do or eat? "Nah," came his non-plussed response.
I know the lack of surprise is in part due to the fact that I live in the Bay Area, where older parents abound and when you see a gray-haired person holding a baby you're never sure if it's a parent or grandparent. This is one of the reasons I moved here. When I was 36 I lived in Portland, Oregon, and worked as a county counsel in a small town on the Columbia River. I found a local gynecologist for my annual pap smear and filled out the usual forms, with information such as date of last period and "never been pregnant." While she was poking at me she asked, "So how come you decided never to have children?" I blurted out the thought that was in my head, "I'm only 36. Why would you assume I've decided never to have children?"
The second contributor to the indifferent reaction is that more women are delaying childbirth and "over 35" isn't automatically high risk anymore. One of my many friends joining the over-40 baby boom recommended the terrific Plum Magazine, designed for pregnant women over 35. The Winter 2007 issue featured an interview with high risk OBs. Thirty-five used to be the point where the risk of a miscarriage with amniocentesis was less than the risk of carrying a child with genetic abnormalities. But nowadays, screening technology has much improved. Thus, one of the doctors said, "40 is the new 35."
While age is a huge factor, fertility varies greatly between individuals. I learned that some women are infertile in their 20s, and some start losing the capacity to use their own eggs in their late 30s. Apparently it has to do in part with when you started your period, and I was a late starter. When I turned 40, I took some tests to measure my “ovarian reserve” and the OB told me I was in very good shape for my age. 
Fertility also, not surprisingly, depends on the father. Half of fertility problems are due to a woman’s plumbing and half are caused by quality and speed of the man’s little swimmers.  Older women tend to marry even older men, which in part explains some problems for older women. And studies are proving that after men turn 40, their sperm become more likely to produce chromosomal abnormalities.  Knowing all that, I went young.
It's amazing how the media like to say that older mothers are somehow "desperate." I recall once being desperate, when I was 30 in my second year of law school and had unprotected sex with my fiancé. I was desperate not to be pregnant and went out and took a morning after pill just to seal the deal. I didn't for a moment consider seeing if I actually got pregnant. Babies were not in my immediate future and, it turns out, neither was marriage. I let a wonderful man go so he could find someone who wanted to "settle down."
Another prevalent myth is that "career" women who wait to have children are living barren, forlorn, lonely lives. That doesn’t describe anyone I know.  My six older siblings started having babies when I was nine and the current count is at 13. I've been changing diapers for 34 years, cheered at countless tennis, gymnastics, kick and chase, soccer and baseball games, celebrated lost teeth, planned Winnie-the-Pooh birthday parties and played in the germ-filled Chuck E. Cheese play structures. I’ve also been spit up on, stayed up all night with babies crying so hard it looked like they couldn’t breathe, and survived the trauma of wondering whether I’d ever see two of my nieces and nephews again.  Children have always been an integral part of my family.  My mom taught by example to include your kids in your lives and I can’t wait to enhance my life with my own child.
I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that it took me longer than it would many younger women, and I had one very early miscarriage (two weeks after the plus sign), which is common.  I stayed positive, feeling good that I was finally trying.  But there were some months that the negative sign on the stick discouraged me more than others.  So I’d go visit my 44 year-old high school friend and her 2 year-old son.  He was a living reminder it was possible.  If she had at least one good egg to produce that beautiful baby, I trusted that I had one in me. 
At 11 weeks baby and I cleared a big hurdle this week when we passed the "neck test" (that measures for Down's Syndrome). It's not a confirmation, but it's a good indicator. Plus it gave me a great chance to see the fetus via ultrasound. A few weeks ago she looked kind of like a salamander, with her odd-shaped head and tail. A colleague, a Republican, wanted to call her "Newt." So she was Baby Newt for a while. It was nice to see the tail is now gone and all limbs are intact. 
I’m enjoying every moment, save for the nausea, and have no regrets.  I wouldn’t do it any other way.  I became pregnant for the first time in my 43 years with this burgeoning baby exactly when I was ready to.

<em>Note to Readers:  Stay tuned for my new blog "You Can Have It All," offering commentary on pregnancy in your 40s ("Those Darn Blue Lines"), the hideous choices these days for maternity clothes ("Baby Doll or Vixen?") and morning sickness ("Three Weeks at Sea").  </em>