After all, if we can deputize flowers, chafing dishes and seating charts to someone else, I don't see the contradiction in bringing in expert advice where an actual human being is concerned. And apparently, with all the swag and debate clogging Babies R Us and the blogosphere, sometimes you just need a pro to help cut through the spiels.

Okay, "need" is a relative term. But services like Nest Help, the Chicago baby-planning service profiled today on Breitbart, (and that's one of the less cutesy names out there, trust) seem to serve a function, for those who can afford it. As Melissa Moog, president of - wait for it - the National Baby Planner Association (which, unlike the Catholic League, has members),

We're like wedding planners, but we're helping you prepare for your baby's arrival and all the information and research you have to deal with...to basically reduce the overwhelming feelings of stress and save time so you can spend quality time on what matters to you. If what's important to you is going to birthing classes instead of doing research on car seats, I can do that for you.

Or, as another "baby concierge service" puts it, "Whether you are having your baby the old-fashioned way, adopting, or using a surrogate, we take the labor out of your delivery."

Accordingly, they tell you what you need, find the best products, shop if needed, set up registries and can even interview midwives and nannies. (Things we'd probably want to do ourselves, but to each her own.) The price? $50 to $150 an hour, or "by packages, which can cost several hundred to several thousand dollars." From the planner's perspective, why not? It's a great idea, and clearly a service which, in this world of competitive parenting, people are willing to pay for. As Heather Cabot wrote on the HuffPo,

Big business it is. The book, Parenting, Inc. by Pamela Paul estimates the booming "mom market" nets $1.7 trillion dollars every year. Think of all of those fancy "must-have" strollers, diaper wipe warmers and designer layettes and it isn't difficult to comprehend that figure. After researching their idea for more than a year, the partners discovered that busy moms, especially full-time working mothers seemed willing to pay big bucks to outsource some of the preparation and planning.

The issue, of course, is that the services reinforce the notion that all this stuff is still necessary. They're not opting out of competitive parenting; indeed, they're reinforcing its existence and importance. Says one busy mom-to-be in the article,

A mother today looks a lot different than a mother 15 years ago...She is powerful. She is strong. She is knowledgeable. Women today know it's OK to ask for help. That's a victory for all of us.

Well, but what about the strength to throw off society's absurd expectations that a woman be a supermom? Wouldn't that save just as much time - and money? That said, this whole industry is going to inspire a killer rom-com.

New Moms Hiring Baby Planners To Help Pre-Baby [Breitbart]
The Baby Planners [Official Site]
The Baby Planners [Huffington Post]

Harris feels that, lately, there's an unprecedented amount of vitriol directed at moms.

Maybe people were nicer to our moms, maybe people weren't. In one way or another, our culture has always been weird about mothers. Love/hate, Jocasta/Joan Crawford, supermom/"evil" stepmom, you name it. But right now, in some circles, it seems we're leaning toward hate. Yes, even when you control for the anonymous online jerkwad factor. And yes, even — perhaps especially? — as more and more blogs, books, sitcoms and movies, successful or not, explore with unprecedented candor the experience of being a (white, middle-class) mother.

In Harris' view, it's no coincidence that this is all about women.

And it's not only about "parenting," either. No, I am telling you, it's about mothers. (White mothers, generally, and usually urban ones — if in part because they're out and about on sidewalks and subways, not cloistered in carpools and playrooms.) You know them, or at least their epithets: "Stroller moms," the "stroller mafia," the particularly objectionable "stroller Nazis" — and while we're at it, the "helicopter moms" and "sanctimommies."

She adds,

Women — still — are not "supposed" to take up space. Mothers, in particular. We are — still — supposed to remain in the background, doing whatever it is mothers do, smiling. We grow a belly, we need a seat, we say "excuse me, please," we speak up (or, God forbid, blog), and we've crossed the line, said or asked too much, become "entitled."

Okay. I love children. I dote on babies. I plan to have kids at some point. I'm not a child-hating grinch with a vendetta against "breeders," as the haters would have it. And yet, I totally get the mommy rage. And Harris' reaction is disingenuous: It's not about the kids. It's not even about the stroller-blocking. It's about the parents. And as she makes very clear, it's a self-selecting, moneyed, privileged and child-centric group of parents - a tiny percentage of the parents in this country and in the world at large. Much of the baby industry may be geared towards this population, but it's still a very small one. Yes, I said parents. Now, while I'm well able to believe that there's plenty of societal ambivalence coming out here towards women, this is an equal-opportunity resentment. While it's usually moms we see, when one does see an indulgent helicopter dad (and do you ever!) it provokes exactly the same reactions. I could spin you a little yarn about a father, an ill-behaved, angelic flaxen-haired child named after a jazz musician and the artisanal bread booth at the greenmarket, but there's been enough snarking. And the problem with satirizing such a population (and again - it's a specific population, as Harris makes very clear) is that it's beyond parody.

Yes, there's a class element here. But, come on, it's not just a class thing: if this were just a bunch of wealthy parents with nannies and fancy baby clothes, it would be a very different matter. It's the combination of smugness and obliviousness, Berkeley ethics funded by serious money, of campaigning for liberal politicians while complaining about nanny problems. It's people talking knowingly about the obliviousness of the 50s and Betty Draper's terrible parenting and knowing they're superior, while a toddler rolls on the floor under other coffee drinkers' feet (also this weekend). It's not that people just mind the strollers taking up the street; it's then getting mad when you won't move for those strollers. In short, it's the narcissism of single people, but expanded to fit a whole family. As Neal Pollack told the Times, "'I don't think it's a bad thing that people want to continue a semblance of their pre-parenthood lifestyle...Going to rock shows and bars, he added, is "just what their lives were.'" This is really it in a nutshell: the sense some of these parents give is that they'll have it all, on their terms. There will be no concessions made: instead, the world will concede.

Harris brings up Park Slope, the nexus of all New York's fabled mommy-snark. There was a minor fracas in '08 when Union Hall, a bar and music venue in that neighborhood, asked moms not to bring strollers and mobile kids to the bar, because the space was not kid-proof and it was a legal issue. Parents across the blogs were up in arms - so much so that the bar had to take it back. This was, in some eyes, a good answer to Harris's question.

In sum, no one reasonable hates parents. What people don't like is inconsiderate self-absorbed parents who expect the world to be reordered. Of course, what's hard is that defensive, self-righteous and oblivious parents are more than matched by total assholes on the other side of the aisle, who shout their kid-hate from the rooftops. My initial reaction to Harris' piece was, what? We don't dislike moms! And then I read the comments. Here are a few, just from page 1:

"we don't want to hate you, but we will if you deserve it."

"I resent that my choice to be child-free subjects me to condescension and pity, even though I'm not the one taking up the whole aisle at Target with said SUV stroller and screaming, unruly brats named after medieval professions."

"Quite simply I hate your baby."

"Having children these days is something that highly uncreative women do to fill their lives. PERIOD."

"You write vapid, pointless articles about how hard it is to have a kid during the most wide-open, accepting and privileged time and place(s) in history."

"One child per person. Period. The right we all share is to ensure life for everyone not just our own."

Helpful as these comments are, they do serve to underlie the total fruitlessness of this argument. No one is backing down. It's like oil and water coming together, forming a translucent puddle on the internet. Now, in some lights, that oil floating on top of the water is beautiful. But most of us would rather step over it - and help our kids do the same. "I hate moms," sighed my friend Cora the other day. We were pushing her one-year-old in a stroller. And I knew what she meant.

Everybody Hates Mommy [Salon]
Look Who's Getting Rolled Out Of The Bar [New York Times]

The Times's Laurie Tarkan describes a new study showing that low-income families benefited when fathers took parenting classes. She writes that "fathers not only spent more time with their children than the controls did but were also more active in the daily tasks of child-rearing. They became more emotionally involved with their children, and the children were much less aggressive, hyperactive, depressed or socially withdrawn than children of fathers in the control group." However, the effect was greatest when moms attended classes alongside dads, implying (unsurprisingly) that parents who communicate and support each other are best for kids. But dads may have trouble getting the support they need.

Tarkan writes that, "as much as mothers want their partners to be involved with their children, experts say they often unintentionally discourage men from doing so. Because mothering is their realm, some women micromanage fathers and expect them to do things their way." The assertion is a little annoying, reminiscent as it is of a similar narrative about chores: women just don't let men do the laundry, the thinking goes, because it has to be done their way. Similarly stereotypical are the words of Dr. Kyle Pruett, co-author of the book Partnership Parenting. He says, "dads tend to discipline differently, use humor more and use play differently. Fathers want to show kids what's going on outside their mother's arms, to get their kids ready for the outside world." Pruett adds that dads "tend to encourage risk-taking and problem-solving" — but these are pretty sweeping generalizations. I know my dad didn't "encourage risk-taking," unless you call not driving on the freeway until you're eighteen years old a risk. And slotting parents into sitcom-ready roles (Mom the protector, Dad the one who lets you get dirty) only multiplies the obstacles they have to face in working together.

But there are some ways that larger social expectations harm both moms and dads. Tarkan quotes psych professor Philip A. Cowan, who says,

The walls in family resource centers are pink, there are women's magazines in the waiting room, the mother's name is on the files, and the home visitor asks for the mother if the father answers the door. It's like fathers are not there.

By treating moms like the primary parent, research centers and other social services just make it more difficult for dads to get involved — and maybe even perpetuate the notion that only Mom knows the right way to do things. Rather than accusing individual mothers of considering motherhood their "realm," we should be tackling the widespread cultural perception that women naturally know about child-rearing and men are just bumbling babysitters who show up every now and then to teach baseball skills. Cowan says parents need to stop criticizing each other so much — "Instead, they should be saying, ‘How can each of us be the kind of parent that we are?'"— but parenting experts have some large-scale recommendations that may be even more effective. Tarkan writes,

[P]ictures of families on the walls of clinics and public agencies should have fathers in them. All correspondence should be addressed to both mother and father. Staff members should be welcoming to men. Steps like these promote early and lasting involvement by fathers.

These may seem like small changes, but they would start sending the message that parenting is a cooperative process, not Mom's job and Dad's hobby. It's a message that moms, dads, and kids all desperately need.

Fathers Gain Respect From Experts (And Mothers) [NYT]
Paying More Attention To Fathers [NYT Well Blog]

As Kate Harding points out at Broadsheet, the mom-themed commercials are aimed mainly at dudes, who are apparently compelled by colds to seek out a "fantasy of perfectly coddled convalescence." Now, I myself have been known to crave momly care during times of illness, though these days I tend to visit Postcards From Yo Momma rather than bugging my actual mom. While she did nurse me through a college bout with appendicitis, she generally took sort of a strict approach to sickness when I was growing up. My brother and I pretty much went to school unless our symptoms included vomiting or visible boils, and while I might have spread some colds in my day, I also learned to tough out sneezing, sore throats, and other minor afflictions without too much complaining. It's something of a stereotype that men never learn this, and that women must thus baby them through every sniffle. I'm not sure if I buy it — but luckily, as Harding writes, Kleenex has so many more stereotypes to choose from!

The Get Mommed website offers eight mothers to choose from, including Jessica the best-friend mom and Veronica, a hard-driving career woman who knows how to get organized. Then there's Asian-American mom Sue, who believes in "hard work" and "tough love" — and just in case you didn't get that Asians care about achievement, there's a report card right next to her face. The most ridiculous example of racial stereotyping in the name of rhinovirus relief, though, is Ana Maria, a Latina mom with a big family. She says, "I grew up with an extended family of aunts, uncles, great-aunts, cousins, grandmas, you name it" — which sort of implies that there are other types of familial relationships we haven't even heard of. Just to be clear, Ana Maria explains, "I learned so much from my family. They were from different cultures." But these poor different cultures might not have "antiviral" tissues — and Ana Maria is here to make sure that (in Harding's words) "strange young white men who show up at her door unable to cope with the common cold" never have to suffer their fate. Which is, um, just blowing your nose like a normal adult, and not relying on a creepy panel of ethnic caricatures to teach you how to do so.

"Get Mommed"? Get Real, Kleenex [Salon]
Get Mommed [Official Site]

Liz Jones is not one to back away from sweeping statements. Not content to give voice to the common complaint about the modern cult of smug maternity, the food-phobic editrix does everyone one better, launching a bizarre rant about...well, you'll see. Jones seems bound and determined to undermine the insight of some of her columns with incoherent, defiant screeds. I guess she's styling herself as a provocateur - and is apparently taking credibility lessons from Ann Coulter. If I had to describe the structure of Jones' essay, it would go a little something like this:

-I hate working moms

-I hate stay-at-home moms.

-I hate my friends' involvement with their kids.

-Moms are freeloaders.

-Kids hurt the environment.

-I hate that moms are ugly

-I hate kids

-Women only have kids because of men.

-I love my dogs.

We get Jones' initial point: you don't need kids to be a valid woman and she shouldn't be made to feel inferior because she hasn't chosen that life. "I really, really, really hate the fact mums believe that if you don't, like me, have children, you are incredibly self-indulgent and lazy." This begins and ends the only not-crazy writing in the whole piece.

Here, a few choice quotes:

I have long moaned, too, about the working mums who sprint out the door at 6pm on the dot, leaving the rest of us (the hopelessly barren, like me, and the men) holding the baby. Although not literally, of course.Hardly more commendable are the dedicated, oozing and secreting stay at-home mums, the ones who are always so tired.

I hate the way they dump their jazzy, squashy hold-alls in the hallway. I hate the way these women snatch their uninoculated germ-brewing sprogs away from the path of my cats, eyes wide with alarm in case the horrid child were to get scratched.

I once (oh dear God, never again) had a friend called Liv for tea; she was en route to a £6,000-a-week holiday rental on the Exmoor coast. She brought with her four children, a dog and a long-suffering, entirely mute husband....As she sat there, nursing her muffin stomach, she looked around at my beautiful garden and said: 'I wish we could afford a garden like this. (Afford! She spends £400 a week on food! Not to mention school fees for the oldest two.)

As a woman with no children, I am constantly outraged, too, at the way the Government heaps incentives upon prospective parents. Money for fruit and veg, child support, baby's trust fund, help with childcare, flexible bloody working, tax breaks. Never mind the ludicrous idea of putting IVF on the NHS, as if having a baby were a God-given right and not a blessing.I believe that women should pay for the services of a midwife and health visitor. I don't have a child in education, so how about the Government gives me some money towards cat food?...And do not even get me started on how incredibly bad for the environment bringing even more humans into this world is. My neighbour has two boys and has just announced she's pregnant with her third child. 'I really want a girl,' she told me, as if she were ordering something online from The White Company.

The other day, a group of mums was stood in my garden - don't ask me why - and one reached up to scratch her head, probably at me and my hedonistic lifestyle, and I caught sight of her stomach with its texture and hue of cold, congealed porridge and I couldn't help but stare, aghast.
My point here is that these mums think that to care about how they look is beneath them when they have more important things to worry about - such as organic lunch boxes and whether or not I have diluted the fresh orange juice...Which brings me smartly to the reason most women have children. They want to hang on to their husbands. While this tactic might once have worked, now that men are the giant toddlers in need of babying, to have a child for that reason will never, ever work.

By essay's end, Jones is somewhat melancholy at the thought she'll never have kids. "I might look young on the outside, still wear platforms and pigtails and ride ponies, but I know I have missed my chance to experience something that could have been wonderful." But she has her dogs. And from the sound of it, she made the right choice.

I Loathe Smug Modern Mums...[Daily Mail]

Related: 3 Reasons Ex-Marie Claire Editor Hates Ladymags
Lifelong Anorexic "Forced" To Eat Normally For 3 Weeks
Daily Mail Writer Says Drive To Be Thin Holds Women Back
Daily Mail Columnist: American Women Are "Mindbogglingly Stupid"

According to a survey, 65% of British moms say they don't breast-feed because they're worried about people looking at them. And their fears may not be unfounded  54% of women who do breast-feed they've been asked to leave the restaurant for doing so. Some have to retreat to their cars to feed their kids, and, in an unfortunate example of the differences between British and American English, "35 per cent admitted they were forced to feed their baby in a toilet."

Mammographer Ella Laseinde (pictured) has a solution to breast-feeding shyness: a special bib with a hole for the breast and a flap that goes over the baby's head. It may not cover the whole breast, but there are other options. Recent inventions include a curtain suspended from the mother's neck by a circular rod, or, for the baby, a wide-brimmed Breast-feeding Hat.

Breast-feeding advocate Dia Michels, however, doesn't think the solution lies in such innovations. She says,

The reason women are so freaked out about breast-feeding in public is because we have completely sexualized the breast. The only way to make breast-feeding easier for women is to desensitize the public to breast exposure. If these devices allow women to hide what they're doing and cover it because it's shameful and because it's embarrassing, it's just perpetuating the sexualization of the breast.

Desensitizing the public, however difficult, still seems like a better option than making a baby wear a giant boob hat.

Image via The Sexist (Washington City Paper)

Two-Thirds Of Women Too Shy To Breastfeed [Daily Express]
Public Breast-Feeding: What The Nursing Bib Means For The Right To Bare Breasts [The Sexist]

Missbehave, the Brooklyn-based alternative ladymag with a cult following, is hanging up its Poste Mistress heels. While the print version folded last year, the quick demise of the online entity - and the fact that Samantha Moeller chose to announce it casually on her personal blog, has taken some aback. Writes Moeller,"The Hipster Mom" (which just might have been a sign of changing winds to the observant)

I've been doing a lot of thinking since I went away and well I might as well just come straight out with it….I'm not going to be working on Missbehave anymore. Ouch. It hurts to say out loud. I haven't issued a statement on the site yet but I thought that I would take baby steps and start here. It's sad because Missbehave was my life for so long. It was once a great Magazine and with time could have become a really great website, but it seemed like each week my pregnancy sunk in, the more my head was somewhere else, like here, writing about funny stuff that happens at the playground or my toddler shopping addiction. I'll admit it, my lifestyle is changing. I can hardly believe that I'm going to have 2 f*cking kids! It all happened so fast, and let me tell you, the idea of the second is a doozy. A toddler and an infant scares the sh*t outta me! It's not that Missbehave won't always be part of my lifestyle, but the fact is I'm ready to move on. My first piece of business is to be a, I can't believe I'm about to say this…a s-s-s-tay at home m-m-m-om or a housewife or whatever you call it, for a little while anyway. Actually, I'm going to name my new position ‘Mom About Town'. That's better!

While some are critical of the way Moeller handled the news (we're not even going to get into the kerfuffle in the comments section with a disgruntled employee) the vast majority of her commenters are very supportive of her decision.

Supportive: good luck with everything samantha-if you have the means to stay at home and raise your kids then that is awesome and you are truly blessed.

Defiant: Why do we have to lose our identity over life changes?...since when now do we have to do what society dictate.if you want to be a housewife or a stay at home mom, so be it!
there is not enough cool, hot and hip moms like you in that area; so welcome to the dark side!

Philosophical: I congratulate you on your decision. Its not that I have to agree with it, or that anyone else has to, other than yourself...what is important is that you are comfortable with your decision and that it suits you. In the end that is what feminism is about, not doing something because society or a handful of people suggest you should but rather doing what you feel is best for you and your life. Whether that decision is staying in a job or staying home matters not.

Just sayin': Sam working hard and creating missbehave entitles her to do whatever the fuck she wants. just sayin.

Angry: Way to fucking set an example for thousands of young women everywhere. In 2009, it's okay to be a manicured, bon-bon eating housewife?...Bitch please. Get a nanny. I'll be your fucking nanny. Just do something positive, instead of being stuck in the goddamn fifties.

The Last Word: We as women need to support each other because only we know what an amazing journey it is to be a female. When other bitches bash girls on blogs and shit like this especially in such a low blow catty, crazed with jealousy way it really disgusts me and makes my skin crawl. I've had it done to me before and it just sucks. And its just such a bad look!

Missbehave, R.I.P.

This Hoe Just Got Turned Into A Housewife… [The Hipster Mom]
Missbehave Mag [Official Site]

According to the LA Daily News, the game broadcasts are designed to involve women in baseball. Part of the team's Women's Initiatives Network, they involve a play-by-play by Fox Sports pre-game host Jeanne Zelasko, who, says the team's EO, "as a mother (will) be able to bring a unique perspective to our WIN broadcasts and help spread her love of baseball to fans around the world."

And how does a mother's broadcast differ, from, say, a father's? Well, (longtime Fox pre-game commentator and respected analyst, but more importantly, MOM!) Zelasko explains, it will be "more instructive" than the typical broadcast, which assumes a level of understanding. Says she, "I like to look at our broadcast as we're not afraid to explain something most people might take for granted," adding, "we're not going to talk down to people." She and her co-host, Dodger assistant coach Mark Sweeney, will also take email questions and keep a Twitter of the game (although one hopes there's some underling to help out with that level of multitask.)

We are very glad to see anything happening that gets more people into the awesome that is baseball. We are glad to see women announcers. We are glad to see competent announcers, period. We are happy to know that some broadcasts will help include those who might find the (sorry) inside-baseball nature of commenting impenetrable. And it's nice that the Dodgers want to reach out to women.

And: thank you.

We're really glad the Dodgers understand that, as women, we feel uncomfortable learning anything that's not coming from a Mom's perspective. In college, whenever a professor tried to teach us Heidegger or Calculus, we found it necessary to ascertain her Mom credentials before we could comprehend anything. Last time I was in traffic court, I know I stared blankly at the judge and said, "excuse me, I'm really going to need a mom to explain that to me." I mean, if a mom's not available, I guess we'll settle for any woman - as long as they explain things really slowly. And, obviously, Twitter. Says Zelasko, "Sometimes as broadcasters we almost lose touch with the people that are actually out there watching and listening to the game...I'll have an ear to the ground, just being a mom and being out there."

*(This would not have happened in Brooklyn!)

Dodgers To Begin Female Broadcasts Tonight [LA Daily News]

Recently we linked to a CNN article in which a mom discussed her preference for a boy over a girl baby. Now Tori Spelling is admitting to the same feelings, prior to giving birth to daughter Stella, now a year old. The product of a famously contentious relationship with her own mom, Candi, Spelling apparently worried about replicating the dynamic. "How was I going to handle a girl?" She asks in Cookie.

Of course, now that the daughters exist, both moms have come around, presumably appreciating the differences - and, more to the point, appreciating them as individuals rather than simply defined by their sex. But soon enough, apparently, that sort of journey won't be necessary. Says Babble,

Now, according to a Swedish medical ruling, if a mother or couple discover the gender of their baby and decide "that's what we were hoping for" they can get an abortion on that basis

It seems sad to think that people like Wilson or Spelling who take advantage of this won't get the chance to challenge their assumptions and maybe have something unexpected and wonderful happen - and what's with no one wanting girls? (Selective pregnancy for boys is, after all, chillingly familiar.) Then too, this seems like a very slippery slope: what of those who want to isolate the "gay" gene to guarantee heterosexual offspring?

On the other hand, perhaps any parent who is that single-mindedly eager for a son or daughter might let the disappointment (?) color a child's life, and if that's the only way they feel capable of parenting well, then...But: there's so much chance in having a child at all that the sex is surely almost the least of it! Having children seems to be largely about giving yourself over to a loss of control: to love, to fear, to the unexpected. Control is futile - isn't that the tragedy and the beauty of giving birth to another human being? - and any parent is going to learn that soon enough. Sex would seem like a good place to start.

Don't like Your Baby's Gender? Sweden Rules 'Gender-Based' Abortion Legal [Babble]
Tori Spelling Was Worried About Raising a Girl [Cookie]
Earlier: This Mom: Brave Enough To Admit She Wanted A Boy, Not A Girl

The author, Debra Gwartney, has experienced a parent's nightmare of difficult teen years with her daughters.

Our estrangement, the not speaking, had come after years of trouble with Amanda and her sister Stephanie...To even mention their father in our household meant a dose of scorn from me, and when the two oldest girls and I began arguing about friends they hung around with, about skipping school, about staying away from the house for days on end...One night when they were 16 and 14, the girls loaded their army packs and headed for the front door, where I stood with feet planted and arms crossed. We collided there, pulling and pushing and grabbing while their two younger sisters cried, "Stop it! Stop!" from the other side of the room.

The two girls ride the rails, go missing, fall into drugs and trouble, and obviously their mother knows pure hell. This essay recounts a tentative detente, a Mother's Day bonding over a Tom Waits concert. Tom Waits, the author explains, had been the soundtrack of her divorce, and for her daughters, of their period of their wild emancipation

"the only adult who could possibly understand why they had hit the road. At least that's how they thought of it. Tom Waits knew what it was like to be torn apart by people who claim to love you; Tom Waits knew why they chose to abandon their home, their sisters, their town, their mother.

When she arrives at the concert, the author realizes her daughter's bought her a ticket some six rows away. But she's glad just to be there, to be speaking, to feel her daughter will allow her in her life. It's unspeakably sad. We've all seen or experienced these relationships: the shift in power whereby a parent becomes pathetically grateful for any contact or any sense of normalcy. To the child, it can seem inexplicable;forget authority or respect - when things get to this point, a parent is eager for crumbs of friendship, happy to walk on eggshells for the privilege of being in a child's life, eager to bond over the music of an artist who may express many things, but for whom normal parental responsibility seems fairly alien. The burden of the love is stifling and reassuring, and something about this essay expresses it perfectly.Even those of us past those tumultuous years have heard that note in our mothers' voices sometimes - eager for our time, grateful to hear our voices - and had moments of sadness at the power shift that's taken place.

I remember riding in the car with my own mom as a pre-teen and her saying how she used to know Tom Waits a little bit in the 70s and how he'd prey on young girls. I wonder if it was true; back then I didn't question it, of course. But either way it made him seem like an especially meaningful choice for a mother-daughter reunion. What's so sad about the essay is that one doesn't know if the author's relationship with her daughters will be repaired, because she clearly has so little control over the situation; she pours her 18-year-old a glass of wine, does her hair, bites her tongue. All the reader can do is hope with her that things will be okay, marvel at the power of parental love, and maybe make a mental note to call home a little more often, if only to help repay the karmic debt that teenage years seem all about amassing.

The Long Way Home [NY Times]

We usually ended up at the grocery store, or the mall, or at the dry cleaners, picking up my dad's suits, but my mom made every car ride a small adventure, turning up her Gloria Estefan or Carly Simon tapes and tapping her wedding ring on the stick shift as she sang aloud (usually words she was making up, but still) and we did the Conga on the way to Stop and Shop to pick up some supplies for tuna noodle casserole. My mother loves to danceyears later, I'd learn that my father used to sneak her into clubs when she was underage (he was two years older and they've been married for 36 years) through a bathroom window so that they could hit the dance floor to Sam & Dave and Junior Walker and the All-Stars. "Mom," my sisters and I teased, "You were such a badass!"

"Oh, for cripes sake," my mother would say. My mother is always saying "For Cripes sake." It is her "Bish, plz," if you will.

My mother lost both of her parents when she was young, and has always said that all she ever wanted was for my sisters and I to have the kind of childhood that she didn't have. Our childhood was ridiculously awesome, filled with love, and laughs, and plenty of Conga-infused car rides. There were difficult times: my mother and I both share the genetic curse of depression, and the stubbornness that comes with an Irish Catholic upbringing that makes talking about said depression quite difficult at times, but one of the most positive aspects of my recovery process from the eating disorder that swallowed most of my twenties was that my mother started a healing process of her own, and now we're closer than ever.

My mother doesn't give herself enough credit for the amazing job she did raising me and my sisters: we are all strong, independent women who were taught that we could be and do anything, and that even when things get scary or sad, those who love you will always be there. And, perhaps most importantly, she taught us that sometimes, life will drive you crazy, and all you can do is go along for the ride, dancing as you head off into whatever adventure awaits.

I love you, Mom. Happy Mother's Day. And this one's for you!

Feel free to leave a note about your mom, or the mother figure in your life, in the comments.

[Image via Someecards]

There have always been a few cranks who subscribed to this controversial - but awesome, and ecological-sounding! - theory of potty-training, "EC." (which apparently refers not to the European Commission nor to Emergency Contraception, but rather "Elimination Communication!" The more you know!) The more militant talk about the psychological harm of letting a child stew in his own, ahem, juices. The official medical line, however, has it that the toilet approach can itself be damaging - the pressure to perform leading to a host of long-term troubles - and, in any case, prolong the toilet-training process. And I guess we can see how being suspended over a pit of water for hours at a time on the off-chance of doing one's business could be somewhat traumatic. Still, one mom, Ronda Kaysen, wanted to try it.

I hate changing dirty diapers. They're messy and gross and throwing human waste in a landfill is disgusting. So when my son was eight months old, despite warnings from experts about the dire effects my efforts might have on his psyche, I put him on the potty. To my surprise, he pooped and peed. He did this nearly every morning with astonishing regularity. His willingness left me with two options: either these experts don't know what they're talking about or I am unwittingly causing irrevocable harm to my child's core.

At one year, they dispense with the diaper. The results?

My son stands before a puddle of pee on the living room floor. "Pee pee, yay!" he cheers....The word regression comes to mind. For days, he'll pee in the potty enthusiastically and then, without warning or reason, reject the whole business for a week. His wavering makes me wonder if the experts have a point: maybe we rushed into this whole bathroom business.

Kaysen, not shockingly, gets conflicting advice from different experts. One says not to pressure her son. Another says to stand firm, practically chaining him to the toilet if need be. Kaysen ultimately decides to take the relaxed approach: either way, she concludes, he'll turn out okay. Ah, but is any discussion of parenting that simple? Obviously not, say the comments, Some parents applaud the author. Many boast that their kids were out of diapers by "13 months" and cite American puritanism. A few are defensive and angry. Various people cite human development and "developing nations," which seems to have exactly nothing to say to the discussion save that all forms of "toilet training" are essentially "unnatural." Says one mom, sensibly, "Expert advice can be helpful, but should be taken with a big grain of salt, and without the extra helping of shame." But the impression we get is that, whatever choices moms make, shame is the one constant! Well, that and the certainty of "accidents."

Potty-Training Regression [Babble]

PMS time? Maybe. How else to explain weeping at the end of Jennifer Finney Boylan's
"Modern Love" essay on becoming a transgender dad? Because, I mean, this was hardly tragic; rather, it's like the Ozzy and Harriet of transgender dad stories, when you think about it. Jim has always felt trapped inside his man's body, and years into his marriage, begins his transition. His wife and sons are totally cool with it.

Because of the love of my spouse, Deedie, not to mention that of my boys, I found the courage, somehow, to traverse the weird ocean between men and women, to make the voyage not only from one sex to another, but from a place where my life was defined by the secrets I kept to a new one, where almost everything I'd ever held in my heart could finally be spoken out loud.

Deedie, he finds, "decided that her life was better with me in it than not" and their domestic routine continues, seemingly as untroubled and enviably organized as ever. Recently, the author relates, their older son came to them with a confession and the parents, Mommy and Maddy, brace themselves for a seismic revelation about gender identity. But, poignant family sitcom style, the boy just wants to become a pacifist, take up the Irish fiddle, and give up the tuba. Later, this son (who is apparently perfect) pens the following essay for school:

Once the transition had taken place, I was comfortable with it. But I was worried what my friends would think. I kept it secret for a little bit, but eventually they found out. They all accepted it a lot better than I thought they would...Maddy is funny and wise. We go fishing and biking. We talk a lot, about anything that is on our minds. One night this spring, Maddy and I had a fancy dinner at a restaurant in Waterville. It was a special night. I wore a jacket and a tie. I had a steak. It made me feel like Maddy and I were really close. Maddy said that she thought I was growing up and that she was proud of me.

In my progressive, aggressively secular elementary school, we had a bi-weekly class called "Ethics" in which we read stories, discussed them, and came to mutually satisfactory conclusions about what constituted a good person. The stories were often like this, with saintly kids undergoing family changes that other kids Don't Understand, but ultimately helping other people grow and change and appreciate difference. I was invariably moved to tears. As indeed, I was reading this. My friend returned from getting our coffees at the mediocre 60s-tinged spot where we had escaped the heat and asked me what was wrong. "This transgender father..." I choked out, and wordlessly handed her the paper. She read it and looked at me blankly.

"What?" she said. "It seems pretty straightforward. Feel-good. But isn't it pretty cliched?"

Well, yeah. Isn't that kind of the point?

‘Maddy' Just Might Work After All [NY Times]

One awesome thing about moms joining Facebook or any other "new" social networking thing is how unjaded they are: technology that seems to us old-hat is a revelation, a source of excitement, a personal discovery (even several years into a phenomenon.) Whereas we don't wish to admit there's anything we don't know about - or at least suspected - those who've lived through a less technological age feel unconstrained to marvel. While we are already preemptively embarrassed by the crudeness of today's wonders, knowing there's something even better around the corner, moms are able to appreciate the wonder of what is.

Kids today have been hooked on Facebook for years, and by now have surely moved on to harder stuff: Twitter, the narcissists' heroin, makes Facebook look practically selfless in its expansiveness. But to Kristen Hansen Brakeman, a recent Facebook convert, the addiction comes as shocking.

I began to neglect my duties at the office, so busy was I uploading photos and posting links to hilarious videos. I learned to hide my omnipresent Facebook page by keeping a work-related document open on my desktop, which I would click on whenever my boss happened by...Then my kids began to infringe on my addiction. They would want meals or other irritating things like rides to school. "Just a minute, I have to check my Facebook. Oh, how cute; my friend Karen posted a new picture of her little baby."

What is it that we find so comically bizarre about older people doing this stuff? Is it what Brakeman describes, a neglect of parental duties which, even to adult kids, feels like a betrayal? Part of it is the fact that we want to hold tight to technology I'm sure - to say nothing of our privacy. I naturally queries ex-Jezebel Jessica, as an expert on all things Mom, who replied that "we present a certain version of ourselves to our parents, and that's not necessarily the version we're presenting to the internet world." (Which is ironic as they're two constructs of the same coin, to mix.) And you know what else? In a way, I think we want better for them. We know firsthand the soul-sucking, addictive, voyeuristic, petty, mean-spirited, superficial vapidity of this world and we wish to save them, in their innocence, from such horrors. We deserve no better; in a way, they do. It's undignified, of course, and while they may be blissfully ignorant of the sordid underpinnings of all such modes of communication, we all know there's a seediness to it - to even the most average photo album - that we'd rather protect them from. Beyond not wanting to deal with their reaction to a shot of you smoking a cigarette is the wish to shield them from it. But in a weird reversal of prior generations' roles, they're always nipping at our heels, forcing us on to the newest technologies, confident at least that it will be two years before they discover it. And on that note, we'd really discourage Brakeman from Twitter.

Finished With Facebook [Washington Post]
Mother Lode [New Yorker]