It has an electric start and is soooo much fun to drive - backwards, forwards, in circles - it goes anywhere. I bought mine used but with a rebuilt engine for about a quarter of list price.
Posted on 04/20/2005 10:08:55 AM PDT by qam1
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American women are anxious these days and no wonder: They've been vilified as inadequate mothers, desperate housewives, lackluster academic scientists and -- most rudely -- too fat to be French. These characterizations have come in guilt-edged packaging on television, in newspapers and a raft of non-fiction books about the plight of U.S. women in the 21st century.
One of the most celebrated new works takes aim at the fallacy of having it all as a mother. Author Judith Warner dubbed the problem, and her book, "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety."
It isn't just about the challenges of motherhood, Warner said in a Reuters interview. Rather, it's a revisiting of the same kinds of frustration American women voiced in the first wave of modern feminism, back in the 1960s.
Warner, an American who lived in France for the births of her two daughters, returned to the United States to find a complicated, expensive, often baffling world, where grown women dressed in the same styles as their children, were too tired to think about sex and felt compelled to spend their evenings at such child-centered events as Girl Scout cookie meetings.
She re-read "The Feminine Mystique," Betty Friedan's ground-breaking 1963 book outlining the dissatisfactions of American women in the mid-20th century, "just to see what parallels I could find."
"I was shocked by the degree to which women's inner monologues were similar," Warner said. "The world had changed enormously since the early '60s, but the kind of pressure that women put on themselves, the kind of failure they felt like they were always facing, was very, very similar."
The first chapter of Friedan's book was called "The Problem That Has No Name," and described the American woman's life: "As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night -- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question -- 'Is that all?"'
For the women in Warner's book, though, the question seems to be, "Will anything ever be enough?"
As Warner wrote of contemporary mothers: "The moms' lives were punctuated by boxer shorts on the floor and quilt-making at school, carpooling and play dates and mother-daughter book clubs, and getting in to see the right dentist ... and, and, and, layer after layer of trivia and absurdity that sometimes made them feel like they were going out of their heads."
An earlier generation of American women seemed able to deal with the demands of work and family, but Warner said this latest wave of post-baby boom mothers is different.
"We inherited a world that was created for us by women in the generation right before us, without really seeing any of the struggles or battles that went into creating that world," Warner said. "We've been a very competitive generation, a very materialistic generation and a very perfectionistic generation. and we bring all of that into motherhood now."
Husbands -- who were supposed to be part of the feminist push to give women more choices -- came in for their share of criticism from the dozens of women Warner interviewed.
In one chapter called "Wonderful Husbands," the women in Warner's coffee groups almost uniformly begin sentences about their spouses with the phrase, "I have a wonderful husband, but ..." and then proceed to trash the man's domestic incompetence and overweening sex drive.
Warner's book -- which was splashed on the cover of Newsweek magazine and the front of The New York Times Book Review -- is among a rising chorus of media mentions of problems for some of America's most publicly visible women.
On television, there are the outwardly enviable and inwardly twisted lives of the fictional "Desperate Housewives." A typical scene shows one wife in nothing but a fur coat and red lingerie, interrupting a heavy-breathing session to make sure a messy sandwich doesn't fall off the nightstand.
In academe, there is the mess at Harvard University, where President Lawrence Summers caused a furor in January by suggesting that intrinsic differences between the sexes may help explain why so few women work in the academic sciences.
In the corporate realm, the ouster of Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina and the much-monitored prison term of Martha Stewart were long-term front-page fare.
One non-fiction best-seller is unlikely to make American women's anxiety go away any time soon. In "French Women Don't Get Fat," Mireille Guiliano, the CEO of Cliquot Inc., tells how she looked like "a sack of potatoes" -- a big restaurant-size sack -- after spending time in the United States.
She slimmed down when she returned to her native France; her book is a light-hearted instruction manual on how to combat the "American way of eating."
You really have no clue what you are talking about, do you??
The general consensus is that it is far better for children to not be dumped in daycare at 6 weeks old and since at that age it is far better for the mom to be home let moms stay home without being demonized for their CHOICE to be a mom.
A high school friend and I both became pregnant with our first child shortly before our 20th class reunion. She was appalled that I planned to breast feed because that would mean so many hassles of not being able to be away from the baby, etc. Whatever. She made her choices and I made mine.
When I found out I was pregnant I closed my office and started working from home - she looked into her company's maternity leave policy. Our babies were born within a week of each other. I was on the phone with clients 3 days after coming home with my daughter - she took 6 weeks of maternity leave. On the rare occassions I needed to meet with a client they came to my house or I brought the baby with me. Her son got put in daycare at 6 weeks of age.
I prefer my choice and my daughter will be 7 in July.
It has an electric start and is soooo much fun to drive - backwards, forwards, in circles - it goes anywhere. I bought mine used but with a rebuilt engine for about a quarter of list price.
Works the same way in the Gabz house!!!!
I now I must go back outside and tend to some things - back later!
Frankly, I don't understand the desparate "need" to have the kids in all these silly scheduled activities. Why can't they just play on their own?
I know I did. I was never in any "activities" - except a few times horse-riding. Which was 2 weeks' worth in the summer a few years, and some night sessions every week a few times. Other than that, I played w/my neighbors, sometimes other friends, or by myself (oh! the horror!). We just went bike-riding together, played dodge, baseball, Colored Eggs or RedLight/GreenLight, etc. Or just plain played w/our cars, dolls, tape recorders, etc. Or went wading down creeks (LOVED that) ALOT in the summer, picking up fishies and salamandars, checking out the terrain.
What's wrong w/all this seat-of-your-pants as-you-like-it any time or not-at-all play? Why does every kid have to go to baseball leagues?
And what's w/the silly "play dates"?
I guarantee this is all **LIBERAL PAP**. They're the 1s who are so worried about "psychological" things and that every1 should be "socialized". To me, the pre-school nonsense, play dates, and forced scheduled sports are just manifestations of the liberal mindset of both hand-wringing over how to well-adjust kids, and COVER-UPS for not adequately caring for kids THEMSELVES (oh, your 2yo MUST go to our Precocious Toddler program - she'll be stupid in 1st grade if she doesn't, AND she'll never understand how to get along w/other kids or people. Plays by herself? Oh my, she could get really insular! [never mind she could be totally dependent and anxious when she finds herself ALONE in life if she's always around people]).
IT'S TOTAL BS.
All that scheduled stuff would drive me nuts and I only have one child.
We live in a rural area and have no neighbors for her to play with - but fotunately my friends with kids her age are the same type spur of the moment let's get together people I am.
Summer is a little different - swimming, soccer and Bible camp is what she did last year and wants again this year - but that's only a grand total of 4 weeks - other than that it's ort of free-for-all!!! Although there will be the matter of garden tending with mom this summer!
I understand some of the playdate and not letting kids run around outside like we used to. At a park in walking distance to our house, over spring break the cops found a non sex offender taking off his clothes in the bushes. My kids can't go to the park by themselves. It's very sad. That's out of control of the parents.
However, the over-scheduling of activities is something parents can do something about. I figure my kids can have one or two activities going on. My daughters do brownies once every two weeks. My son doesn't have anything going on this year, but he has in the past. Next year, he'll start middle school and they have more after school activities that he wants to do like the chess club.
My kids also would like to take tennis lessons, and I think that would be a fun summer activity. They can all take it at the same time, so that will be easy for me to take them to.
I just don't understand over-scheduling the kids.
You're all such Amazons! I planted a flower in a pot on Monday! I'm taking it to church this evening as a present for Sister ... she's probably in a funk over Cardinal Ratzinger. (Not a bad person, for a liberal ... James likes her!)
Actually I think sandbar was rather correct in her initial observation.
Happens every time there is a woman-related topic here. All the apparently deadly traditionalists come out of the woodwork and condemn all women who work (ESP. professionally), are 35 and not married, don't have kids, etc.
While I agree w/such things as it's really best for very young children to have (a parent) around all the time, I don't totally begrudge those who are trying to make it all work.
I hate to break this to every1, but we women have brains too. We may be better suited THAN MEN to raising kids (duh), but that doesn't mean our brains are all about "mother, mother, mother".
Any more than men's are all about "screw, screw, screw" (altho that's hard for me to believe) and "kill, kill, kill". (Original men ACTUALLY hunted, totally different from sitting at a desk. So the references to "women have always been moms" as careers is sort of poor, when men haven't always been desk-sitters.)
Some of are well aware of how things are in the world, how things work, and want to contribute DIRECTLY. We have the same basic mental and emotional processes as men; do you honestly think we can simply squelch a NATURAL desire to work on things, and ignore what our psyches tell us to pursue?
I wish every1 would stop knee-jerk denigrating every woman - "working" or "mother". Mothers have been denigrated a long time, but I see alot of more traditional mothers now, and it seems a BACKLASH in attitude toward less traditional women is in pretty high gear; insults abound. And I don't mean just on this forum.
It just sort of creeps up on you. If you have seven kids, and each one has two activities, that's 14 things to drive to each week.
My general comment on this article, is that if you let the media, or your neighbors, or your parents, decide what kind of life you should have, then you're going to be dissatisfied and miserable. If you decide for yourself what your priorities are, then you can be happy, even if nobody else wants your life!
From observing the huge number of fatasses walking the streets they need to listen MORE to the Frenchwoman.
Way cool!
We've decided to turn part of our yard into a rain garden, leaving only a small amount to mow. Lawns never made much sense to me - you plant seed, water, fertilize - and then when it grows the way you want, you cut it down!
But why does every child need to be in an "activity"? Even if they WANT, - isn't a bit of overindulgence a possibility here?
I'd say only a) if the kids wants to AND b) if I/hubby want to go along w/it. My wanting includes "can I afford it" - the non-recurring cost *as well as* the hidden costs - gassing up, wasting time at a ball field when you have other chores to do, etc.
I've seen my sister both indulge and push the kids into sports, etc, and I think it's ludicrous. She complains about time - for starters, say NO to scheduled sports. From personal experience, I KNOW it's not a necessity! Sometimes they just have to do w/o. Tough luck. Maybe they should learn to do things spontaneously on their own, rather than having some1 else entertain them. (Same goes for being "socialized" - learn how to be independent and handle things yourself. I can't help making this connection between "socialization" and dependence ["I'm bored"] w/some of the OLDER kids I've known, including my brother's.)
Thanks for the suggestions. Our family will work things out to our own satisfaction, I'm sure.
So that's what Ann is doing these days, taking care of her husband and kids.
bump for later
ROFL! That's like my theory on golf. You hit the ball as far as you can, search all over for it, and then when you finally find it what do you do? You hit it again. ;-)
We have a huge yard; but fortunately, my 17 year old son handles all the yard work for me. We have about an acre on one side our house that we rarely even venture into and for years I thought of planting wild flowers there. Similar to your rain garden, it would require virtually no maintenance. Maybe one of these days....
As would I. Somehow things got all turned around and I think we're seeing a backlash against the 'having it all' syndrome. I hope so, anyway.
Carolyn
LOL You have SEVEN kids and home-school and volunteer all over the place. YOU are the Amazon, dearest!
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