I was picking up a 10-year-old girl — for whom I'd been babysitting for a while — from school, but I'd forgotten my wallet. Her school — and her home — were in my neighborhood, so when she came bounding out of the school, I told her that instead of going straight to her house we were going to stop at my place first. She'd never been to my house, but she said, "sure," but then asked: "Is it one of those buildings where people are hanging out of the windows going 'yo yo yo'?" Hmm. I guess this was a valid question, in a way. But it still stung; basically this little white girl wanted to know if I, a black woman, was taking her to the ghetto. I'd taken her to the park, and to piano lessons, and I assumed that she trusted me — and to some extent, she did — but she was also surprised to find out that my mom's building had a marble lobby and a doorman (hers had neither) and that a pal in her class lived on the floor above us. But I think I was hurt because as odd as it seems, I thought we were friends. And you don't ask friends stuff like that. But her question reminded me of my "place."

This memory was triggered by reading about Just Like Family, a new book by Tasha Blaine, which explores the role of nannies, the people paid to become part of a family.

"I've heard nannies say a lot that you have to love the children like they're your own, but at the end of the day you have to know they really aren't. You are like family, but you are an employee," Blaine tells Salon. For the book, Blaine — who has worked briefly as a nanny — interviewed over 100 nannies, and found that that they fall into two camps: The "career" nannies, and the "amateurs."

Blaine focused on three women: Claudia, an immigrant from Dominica who has left a son behind to work in the New York but faces eviction while watching someone else's two small children all day; Vivian, an American-born, college-educated nanny who works with the International Nanny Association; and Kim, a live-in in Texas going through a divorce and forcing herself to accept that she may never have kids of her own.

Of course, in the book, there are the stories about how, though families welcome these women into their homes, line between what is and what is not appropriate is blurred. for example: One day, Claudia tries to figure out if her employer will be working from home the next day so she can plan a schedule for the children, and she "gingerly" goes to his desk and flips through his calendar. As noted in this New York Times piece, "Unspoken, but implied: She can be present for blowout fights, wash their dirty laundry, and help raise their children, but she can't look at a calendar?" Then there's the time Kim is invited to a baby naming event on her day off — and discovers she's expected to set up all the food, carrying heavy platters up flights of stairs, because she is the help. It's like, just when you think you're something more, you're forced to remember you're something less.

But most interesting is the fact that generally, these are working women working for working women. Says Blaine: "They are women who are often navigating the same issues as the women who hired them. There are class and often race differences, to be sure. But Claudia and her boss are both working mothers." As for why people look down on nannies, Blaine offers, "I think it comes right along with our society undervaluing what it takes to raise children."

And, at this point, Blaine doesn't think she would hire a nanny, even if she could afford to: "I don't know if I'd be very good at navigating that relationship. Part of the problem was, having done my book, I would start talking with them and instinctively wind up getting their life stories. So then I would have the guilt. And I would want to be their friend. And I knew that if I thought they were doing something wrong I would probably not bring it up as well as I should. Day care was a better fit for me."

The Secret Lives Of Nannies [Salon]
How Do Nannies Manage? Gingerly [NY Times]

Listen, the "miracle of life" is amazing and all that, but hundreds of thousands of women give birth every day. And surely we all know women who act normally when knocked up. But there are the others, the ones who behave in a holier-than-thou, self-satisfied manner, those who comport themselves as though they have suddenly become royalty, and make it clear that they're doing something incredible and you and your empty uterus are not worthwhile.

Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome are comedic actors and musicians who perform the ditty together as Garfunkel and Oates. The song is fairly straightforward; it begins, "Pregnant woman are smug/Everyone knows it/Nobody says it/Because they're pregnant." The ladies mock women who, when asked if they want a boy or a girl, answer, "Oh, it doesn't matter, as long as it's healthy." They sing: "I can't wait to hear someone say: 'Don't care if it's brain dead, don't care if it's limbless, if it has a penis."

Jokes aside, why is it that we feel the need to treat women differently when they are mothers? Not in terms of giving them a seat on the bus or letting them in front of you in a bathroom line — but when it comes to stuff like pretending to care that your coworker got a sonogram or acting excited that your friend from high school is naming her unborn Riyleigh? Should we put women on a pedestal and treat them as untouchable bastions of goodness just because some sperm managed to find an egg? Or are we allowed to make fun of the fact that sometimes, pregnant women are smug?

Pregnant Women are Smug by Garfunkel and Oates [YouTube]

So now post-partum depression is not just a mom issue. There's even a site called SadDaddy.com, run by Dr. Will Courtenay, who says that whether a man will become depressed depends on whether his partner is depressed: "Half of all men whose partners have postpartum depression are depressed themselves," he says. He also counts stress, economic concerns, anxiety and hormone changes as factors in male postpartum depression. Yes, hormones. "Men's hormones change. too, both during pregnancy and early in the postpartum period," he explains. "Our testosterone levels go down, and our estrogen levels go up.Our testosterone levels go down, and our estrogen levels go up."

But even more unnerving is what Dr. Courtenay calls the "signs of depression" in men:

When we think of a depressed person, we usually picture someone who's sad and crying. But if we picture instead a guy who's working 60 hours a week, is a little short-tempered, drinks a couple of beers at lunch, slips out of the office to have an affair, then speeds home to his wife, that's not what we picture when we think of depression, but those are some of the signs of men's depression, which can often look different.

Yes. An affair. Additionally, Dr. Courtenay says:

One of the things we hear from men is that they have difficulty hearing a child crying uncontrollably. It's one of the things that seems to stand out the most. There's a kind of helplessness that men are not used to experiencing. We like to feel confident, so when we can't make this helpless infant feel better it creates a lot of difficulty.

Really? Really? Look, of course we should take depressed new dads seriously. But is it supposed to be easy to hear a crying child? Newsweek's Christina Gillham asks, "Surely there are many who might think, "Hey, wait a minute-I went through the nine months of pregnancy, I went through the grueling labor, I'm staying up all night doing all the breastfeeding-and you're depressed?'" Dr. Courteney's answer is that it speaks to "our cultural denial of men's depression in general." But is this about denial? Or expectations? Because even though having a child is a life-changing event for both a mother and father, don't women expect men to put emotions aside and "man up," as it were? And if drinking at lunch, affairs and avoiding a crying baby are sympotms, what's the difference between a man with postpartum depression and a total jerk?

Understanding Male Post-Partum Depression [Newsweek]

So is she a bad mom or a bad feminist? Both, says Emma Burstall in a condescending piece in the Independent. Since she is psychic, Burstall can read Dati's emotions by looking at newspaper photos: "Behind the power suit and million-dollar smile I see only pain and heartache." Obviously Dati's return to work results from "a lack of confidence, and fear and insecurity about her job — mixed, perhaps, with a touch of swagger, of pathetic macho posturing."

All this is presumptuous, as is Burstall's assertion that her three maternity leaves make her an expert on what's best for every woman. But she does have a more interesting point — "it's a shame, [...] given her high-profile position, that she's signalling to employers that this is what job commitment really looks like." More difficult to dismiss than handwringing over Dati's health, emotions, and the well-being of her baby — all of which she probably knows more about than any journalist — is the idea that Dati is making motherhood and maternity leave harder for less powerful women by refusing to take it herself.

"You can all too easily imagine how this story percolates through to others," writes Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian, "the city boss who casually drops hints to his bright new pregnant protege that, perhaps, given the tough times, she might want to arrange a pre-planned caesarean and mark the time off as a weekend break. Or it may not even be direct pressure from the boss; it can be much more subtle." Lots of women, especially in the US where paid maternity leave is a perk, not a right, experience this subtle pressure frequently — every time anyone says that motherhood and commitment to a job are inherently incompatible. But is Rachida Dati really responsible for this pressure? According to former French presidential candidate Segolene Royal, Dati is actually a victim of it: Nicolas Sarkozy announced a major reorganization of the French justice system just days after she gave birth, forcing her to come in and deal with the consequences.

Just Five Days Off [Guardian]
Emma Burstall: New Mothers Have A Job Already — They Just Don't Go To The Office [Independent]
The Big Question: Is There An Optimum Time For A Woman To Go Back To Work After Giving Birth? [Independent]
Workplace Bullying Blamed For Dati's Return To Work [Independent]
Rachida Dati: From “Power Suits” To Maternity And Back Like A Boomerang [The F Word]

According to E! online, "Kidman's local posse loudly dished to us their doubts about the mommy status of the star, insisting to us that Antonia Kidman was Sunday's surrogate all along." Yes, Nicole Kidman didn't show until quite late into her pregnancy, but honestly, this claim is about as bonkers as the one implying that Bristol Palin was the real mother of Trig and that Sarah faked the pregnancy so that Bristol would avoid the shame of unwed motherhood. (Interestingly, Katie Holmes — now married to Nicole's ex, Tom Cruise — was also accused of faking her pregnancy.)

Apparently there is only one acceptable media pregnancy narrative, and that requires a taut and tasteful belly, with arms and legs remaining fit, followed by a month maximum of "post baby body" before a proper public unveiling of a perfectly slim figure and a smiling infant wearing a $200 onesie. Get thin too quickly or outside the approved narrative? You paid a robot to gestate your spawn in a secret underground lair. Or, like Britney, you're a drug downing bullimorexic. For an industry that so aggressively fetishizes pregnancy, you'd think they'd allow women to do it more naturally.

Two Kidmans, A Baby, And The Anatomy Of A Rumor [E! Online]

Earlier:

Have we become so precious and hyper-conscious that something women have been doing for time immemorial is now ranked alongside war as a painful event? Besides, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association, the kind of anxiety experienced by people with PTSD is felt by 1 in 10 people — about on par with the 9% of women who get postpartum PTSD. Even Shari Lusskin, director of reproductive psychiatry at New York University Medical Center, tells the WSJ, "We don't want to overmedicalize a normal part of human development…Just because you had a traumatic birth, doesn't mean you'll get PTSD."

It's sort of a pat explanation to say that the diagnosis of PTSD in women post-childbirth is all a big pharma conspiracy to get women hooked on anti-depressants, and I think that it's much more complicated than that. Certainly, having a bowling ball of a baby shooting out your vag isn't a picnic for anyone, but the hysteria surrounding something so matter-of-fact is troubling.

Birth Trauma: Stress Disorder Afflicts Moms [WSJ]

Yoffe is not suggesting women get married to abusive or otherwise shitty spouses just for a modicum of economic security, but again, she backs up her notion that it's better for mothers to get married with research. Yoffe quotes Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution, who found that the increase of single-parent families "can account for virtually all of the increase in child poverty since 1970."

She also quotes one of Obama's speeches. Barack said that "[M]any black men simply cannot afford to raise a family." Yoffe points out that the percentage of unwed mothers in the African American community is close to 70%. "I'm trying to follow the logic here," Yoffe writes. "I can understand that a woman looking to get married may decide that a man is such a poor economic prospect that he's not husband material (even if a husband with a low income is better than no husband and no income). But how then is that same man, or a string of them, worthy of fathering her children?"

What I wonder is how many single mothers, regardless of race, are actively "choosing" to be single mothers. Were they trying to get pregnant, realizing full well that they would be raising the child by themselves? Or were they careless about birth control and dealing with the consequences in the way they see fit? Or do they get pregnant on purpose, hoping that it will make a previously flinchy man rise to the occasion?

Some people will probably point out that Yoffe's article places the onus on women to make the best decisions for their offspring, and doesn't place enough blame on the men who don't support their children. But like it or not, women are the ones left holding the baby when a relationship doesn't work out, regardless of blame placed or policies changed.

Every mother, single or wed, is just trying to do the best she can under the circumstances presented to her. As a single woman myself, I can't see myself choosing motherhood without marriage, because I know how difficult it is. Of course, Yoffe's arguments don't consider the loving and monetarily supportive grandparents, friends, and siblings of single mothers who can create an environment that's just as stable as a traditional two parent household. But the cold hard economic realities of single motherhood are difficult to refute.

... And Baby Makes Two [Slate]

Earlier: Barack Obama's Mama: Bohemian Bad-Ass Boundary Breaker

Baby Mama Trailer Arrives Online [Cinematical]

Not surprisingly, Flanagan has a conservative view of Juno, branding it a "fairy tale" in a New York Times op-ed yesterday because "surrendering a baby whom you will never know comes with a steep and lifelong cost. Nor is an abortion psychologically or physically simple. It is an invasive and frightening procedure."

Following that overly-generalized statement, Flanagan gets into some sticky paternalistic territory. She mentions the Victorian era as a time when, "[G]irls used to be so carefully guarded and protected — in a system that at once limited their horizons and safeguarded them from devastating consequences." While Flanagan doesn't support the limiting of horizons, she does support the safeguarding from consequences, which doesn't seem to be realistic or ultimately beneficial. What young girls need, in my mind, is to be educated about sex so that they can make their own informed decisions. Some of these decisions, naturally, will be completely idiotic, but the only way a person can forge his or her sexual identity is through trial and error.

Sex scribe Susie Bright certainly disagrees with Flanagan on more than one level, but most glaringly when speaking of her two abortions, which caused her far from a "lifelong cost." "I was filled with happiness and relief in the aftermath of the two abortions I had," Bright writes on her blog. "I had a supportive, enlightening, and even sentimental experience at the abortion clinic, which is either an anomaly, or has simply never been shown on screen. By sheer coincidence, two acquaintances of mine were in the same recovery room; we were in each other's arms as soon as we could sit up! Physically, it was painless, and my doctors were awesome."

Bright also concedes that the lack of abortions in movies has a lot to do with needing to move the plot forward: an abortion is usually a plot ender, not a beginner. Nonetheless, would you go see an abortion comedy in which the abortion was followed through on? Could one even succeed in this country?

Sex And The Teenage Girl [New York Times]
Anatomy Of A Smushmortion [Susie Bright]
Juno, Scolded [Slate]

A truly realistic abortion movie would show a teenager going to Planned Parenthood, getting her D&C, and then going to soccer practice. If the film showed the teenager ultimately regretting her choice or agonizing about it constantly afterwards, it would be Lifetime material, not comedy gold. Which is not to say an abortion comedy is impossible (see Citizen Ruth, Fast Times at Ridgemont High), but the ultimate goal of a comedy is to be funny, and abortion is usually, well, not.

It's also insulting to teenagers to imply that seeing a single movie where motherhood was made to seem "attractive" would inspire 16 year-olds to spew babies everywhere (though A.O. Scott's description is tongue-in-cheek). Teenage pregnancy rates have a ton more to do with environment and sex education than cinematic glamorization of fetuses. Jamie Lynn Spears, for one, is probably pregnant because her deeply Christian mother neglected to tell her about rubbers and also (allegedly) let the 16-year-old live with her boyfriend. It comes down to agency, and while Jamie Lynn is not yet a voting adult, I assume she knows how babies are made and the girl just made wrongheaded decisions.

Speaking of choice, the same feminist blog that comes down on Diablo Cody for glossing over abortion, Feministe, also criticizes her being a "white prep school girl from the suburbs who decides to audition at the 'sleaziest' club she can find, for a lark and a blog, who ends up getting a book deal. She's the 'unlikely stripper' apparently... as opposed to the 'likely strippers' who are, you know, working their asses off to make ends meet, not just to be able to buy a new car." But you know, even for the most poverty-stricken, sex work is a choice. If the writer had read Cody's book, Candy Girl, she would know that most strippers don't consistently make any more than they would doing a "straight" yet low-paying job. Before they even start making any money on a given night at a strip club, they have to pay exorbitant house fees, and the strip club takes a cut from every lap dance given. They also have to spend a lot of money up front on boobs, costumes, etc.

I for one didn't find Cody's portrayal of stripping or pregnancy all that glamorous. After all, are there that many women who want to be showing their privates to crowds of men or obstetricians on a regular basis?

Juno: Movie Review [New York Times]
Juno And The Culture Wars: How The Movie Disarms The Family Values Debate. [Slate]
t Why Strip? Because It's Good For Your Blog![Feministe]

Earlier: Dear Diablo Cody: I Wish My Boyfriend's Junk Smelled Like Pie

Related: Will This Week's Rash Of Pregnancies Cost 'Juno' At The Oscars? [NY Mag]