No, this is not another birthday cake-inspired story that can be used to embarrass Holden when he is older.  I have been thinking a lot recently about how I am in the enviable position of being H’s sole caregiver most of the week while also having two dedicated work days each week in which I am able to maintain my professional identity.  Thus, I have my cake and eat it too.  I don’t have to miss any special moments with H, and I also enjoy the freedom of working (yes, work is freedom after staying home with a baby day in and day out for 10 and a half months).  It’s a win-win situation.

Now that I am back at work part-time, I am thinking more acutely about my long-term career goals.  Actually, that’s not entirely accurate.  I am thinking more acutely about my long-term goals with H, and how my career can be made to fit around the contours of H’s many, constantly changing, needs and preferences.  Maintaining the career-family balance without going bonkers isn’t a new problem.  The questions that are posed and summarily answered with purely anecdotal evidence are dichotomous and ultimately, not very useful:  “Is having your child in daycare better than having your child stay at home with his/her mom?”  “Are stay-at-home moms better than stay-at-home dads?”  “Are working moms better/worse nurturers than stay-at-home moms?” and so on….

These are terrible questions to be asking ourselves.  They are devisive and provide no insight.  They presuppose that every family has identical priorities, attention spans, patience, education, money, opportunity, support, you name it.  These questions assume that families require formulaic solutions.  What’s worse is when researchers empirically tackle these questions by comparing two groups (e.g. kids in daycare versus kids who stay at home with a parent) to generate some conclusion of the “which one of these two alternatives is better” variety.  Better for who??  The research question is bullshit to begin with.  And usually, the dependent measure is a flawed index of whatever ill-defined variant of “better” the researcher wishes to assess.

Irrelevant questions aside, I’ve begun to use an evolutionary perspective to frame my exploration of family life and parenthood, which may itself seem irrelevant to the many people flocking to popular magazines for answers about the “best” way to raise a family.  For example, throughout much of their evolutionary history, human beings have lived in close proximity to their kin, and thus have cultivated intimate ties among closely related members of these groups.  This dynamic is similar to what is observed in most other primate species, although it is worth noting that monogamy is atypical for primates (generally fewer than 3% of primates are monogamous).  Nevertheless, important hygienic, cultural, nutritive, social, defensive, and emotional resources are conveyed between kin in these primate groups, and for human beings, this has been the case at least up until relatively recent history.  We are an extremely mobile society, and it is not uncommon for individuals to live hundreds, if not thousands of miles, from their kin.  This is a far cry from the conditions in which modern humans evolved.  This form of dispersal puts limitations on cultural transmission (sharing information from one generation to the next), as well as on the amount or quality of assistance that can be provided to offspring with whom we share our genes.  This is a recent problem and is one of the many ways in which we are straining the limits of our adaptability.

If you wish to apply these evolutionary principles to how we live our lives as modern humans, you could make the argument that the offspring of early hominids had the advantages of BOTH a stay-at-home mom AND the exposure to conspecifics of the same age, much like spending time at a daycare, except with Mom present.  By this logic, both “sides” of the modern-day “working mom” versus “stay-at-home mom” shouting match are meeting the needs of offspring in ways that are similar to the conditions in which we evolved.  But you could also make the argument that both “sides” of the shouting match are wrong.  If you’re a stay-at-home mom who doesn’t get the kids out enough to see/interact with other kids (relatives or not), you’re missing half of the evolutionary equation.  Relatedly, if you’re a working mom who rarely sees her kid(s), you’re also missing half of the evolutionary recipe.  What I am saying here, (so I can offend everyone equally), is that NO ONE IS RIGHT!  By evolutionary standards, we are all  failing miserably.  As parents, we are all uncomfortable, feeling guilty, and DEFENSIVE about our choices, because there are aspects of those choices that don’t sit well with us, or tax our minds and bodies so completely that we are bone tired at the end of the day.

I emphasize the word “defensive” here, because I have seen many friendships between moms sour when it comes out that one or the other has passed judgement on her friend’s choices regarding her parenting.  I have also seen (as I am certain many of you have also observed) women being SO NASTY AND DISRESPECTFUL to other women on comment threads on the Internet.  I have seen stay-at-home moms tell working moms that they should have kept their legs shut and not had kids, because why should they bother having kids if they’re not actually going to be around to raise them?  I’ve seen working moms slam stay-at-homes (although less often) for being lazy, privileged, etc.  I just can’t believe that women are being so nasty to each other, when what we are ALL suffering from is a cultural attitude that does not permit healthy, evolutionarily-adaptive relationships.  The dichotomy of working versus stay-at-home mom is a symptom of a larger problem.  It is not the case that one of those choices is the problem itself.

Working moms have it tough in a lot of respects.  If they choose to breastfeed, it is damned difficult to pump enough milk for daycare.  Our production of breastmilk is experience-dependent, meaning that being away from baby all day really stacks the cards against you.  Plus, our bodies were not designed to produce milk in anticipation of need, which is exactly what your body has to do if you are a breastfeeding, working mom.  Many working moms (although not all), also feel left out of certain parts of childrearing, and some report that they miss engaging with their children.  On the other hand, stay-at-home moms can feel lonely and isolated.  This problem is particularly acute if you don’t have a good support network (e.g. you live far from family), or do not have the monetary resources to do activities with other moms.  Arranging playdates and opportunities for interaction with others takes an enormous amount of effort, and is something that is made more difficult by the nature of our highly individualized living conditions.

It is hard for everyone, no matter the choices they make.

And of course, the messages we receive make us second-guess these difficult choices and put us on the defensive.  We receive messages from Dr. Laura Schlessinger (who holds a degree in physiology, NOT in psychology, just so you know), who recently authored a book called In Praise of Stay At Home Moms.  In this book, she argues that being a stay-at-home mom is the optimal (read, ONLY) way to raise a family.  My question of course, is why can’t Dads stay at home?  Are Dads not good at it?  Do they scar their children for life?  Will the neighbors think it’s weird?  I mean, really, why can’t Dads stay at home if they are willing and able?  I’ll be honest here and say I haven’t actually read the book (only excerpts), but I think it is damaging for the central tenet of this book to rest squarely upon the assumption that only mothers can care for their children.  It’s damaging to children, it’s damaging to women who can use the help raising their kids, and it’s damaging to MEN, whose ability to care and nurture children should not be undermined!!!!

On the other side of the radical spectrum are the feminists.  Now, I will tread carefully here because I know that many feminists aren’t crazy bra-burning wackos who pretend that biology doesn’t exist.  However, I have read a number of alarming articles recently that have offended me deeply.  Take for example, Hannah Rosin’s gem of an article “The Case Against Breastfeeding.” Whether you feed your child formula or breastmilk, you will likely feel offended by what Rosin has to say.  Essentially, she describes breastfeeding as a “prison” that is keeping her “down”.  In regards to breastfeeding, she goes on to say:

“It is a serious time commitment that pretty much guarantees that you will not work in any meaningful way. Let’s say a baby feeds seven times a day and then a couple more times at night. That’s nine times for about a half hour each, which adds up to more than half of a working day, every day, for at least six months. This is why, when people say that breast-feeding is “free,” I want to hit them with a two-by-four. It’s only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing.”

When I first read this paragraph, I actually gasped out loud.  The implication of her statement is that your time is only valuable if you are being paid.  And in the realm of parenthood, and actually in life more generally, we do valuable and important things all the time for which we are not paid money.  Rosin’s attitude encapsulates everything that is wrong with conspicuous consumer culture.  Reading bedtime stories and singing songs to Holden at bedtime are also free, but perhaps Rosin would argue that they are free because my time is worth nothing.  Maybe I should stop doing those things, too.

An intriguing article published in the New Yorker earlier this year,  Baby Food:  If Breast is Best, Why are Women Bottling Their Milk? explores the history and politics of pumping breastmilk.  The author, Jill Lepore, describes the Human Milk Gap, a period of time when a baby’s needs for breastmilk must be met following a mother’s resumption of work.  The three ways of filling this gap are longer maternity leaves, on-site child care, and breast pumps.  Breast pumps are cheap, relatively speaking, so of course they have been the solution for this so-called milk gap in the United States.  This solution, although inferior to the alternatives such as a longer maternity leave, has been lauded by many organizations, including the National Organization for Women, whose president has been quoted as saying that “only one-third of mega-corporations provide a safe and private location for women to pump breast milk for their babies.”  To this, Jill Lepore quips:  “When did “women’s rights” turn into “the right to work”?

In many ways, I feel like Hannah Rosin’s disdain for breastfeeding stems directly from the attitude that women’s rights = the right to work.  Rosin’s criticism of breastfeeding seems to be a manifestation of her belief that women deserve to be paid for their time.  One wonders whether she would be opposed to breastfeeding if the government paid women to breastfeed by the hour.  If our biology can be used to earn money, can we applaud it?  And if so, what makes this different from the prostitute who earns her money through exploiting her sex-specific anatomical characteristics?

But I digress—the real “oh my god, really???” of Rosin’s argument is that she herself is a breastfeeding mom.  She discusses in her article how she resents her husband’s uninterrupted sleep and loathes his ability to simply leave for work, unfettered.  I would be lying if I said I too never had a single second of “OMG, please stop nursing now so I can brush my teeth/sleep/answer the phone/not feel like a cow.”  I do have those moments, although they were more frequent in the beginning, when nursing was more frequent.  Rosin clearly resents breastfeeding, and in my opinion, should probably just stop so she doesn’t take her resentment out on her kid and husband.  Breastfeeding isn’t a good thing if it engenders anxiety and strife.

And blogging isn’t a good thing when you’ve been doing it for a couple of hours and your one-year old is repeatedly tugging on your shorts to get your attention.  I have lot more to say and don’t have a tidy way of wrapping this all up, so I will end here.  Expect more on these topics in the future—-