Sometimes you need a helmet… to protect your head… when you fall over repeatedly… because your helmet’s too big.
Archives for August 2007
Subscribe to Daring Young Mom
I learned a few techie things at BlogHer and now I’m trying to act on them. I’ve finally gotten friendly with FeedBurner so if you’d like to subscribe to my RSS for your reader, you can click here.
If you’d like my new posts delivered to your email inbox, you can subscribe by entering your addres below. (Mom – I’m talking to you!)
Psychosomatic Pregnancy Disorder
I have it. [read more]
Callous
I stay home with my kids. The decision has less to do with the fact that I have the option of wearing pajamas all day and more to do with the fact that I vainly think I can give them the best care out there. It may not be the most mentally stimulating, educationally sound care out there, but I think it’s the best because I love them more than anyone else on the planet. I also play Milli Vanilli and flail my limbs around the living room like an epileptic sea anemone daily. Name me one daycare that does that. Exactly my point.
Today Laylee asked, “Why don’t mommies go to work like daddies?”
Me: Some mommies do go to work.
Laylee: Why don’t you?
Me: Because we’re so lucky. I get to be with you all the time.
Her faced looked more like she’d just eaten a buttered-popcorn flavored Jelly Belly than that she felt like the luckiest girl in the world to have me all up in her grill all day long.
Me: If I went to work every day, then you’d have to go to a babysitter instead.
Her face lit up. Babysitters = no rules, endless movies and painted toenails for 4 year olds.
Me: Not all babysitters are that fun. I love you more than any babysitter could and so you’re just so lucky to be with someone who loves you all day long.
Laylee: If you die, can I go to work with Dad and drink chocolate milk all day?
Me: Nope. Dad’s not allowed to have kids at Megacorp all the time. If I die, you’ll have to go away to a babysitter all day [the thought crosses my mind that she’s seen daycare centers around here and they look like magical playlands. Dude. I almost want to go to one.] AND they won’t love you like I do and you’ll be so sad.
She begins to tear up because, dude, what a jerk am I? I suddenly envision what will happen if I ever do go back to work after, in a moment of pride, having built daycare up in her mind as a heartless Dickensian depository for unwanted children.
Me: Or we could find a really nice babysitter or Daddy could go live near Grammy or Grandma and you could stay with them during the day.
Laylee: Yay! I wanna do that.
Me: But if I die you’ll miss me so much.
Laylee: Not really cause you’ll just get resurrected someday and I NEVER get to see Grammy and Grandma. I wanna do that.
Me: No.
On one hand I’m pleased that she’s expressing a belief in the ressurection. On the other hand, how do you continue to play play-doh with someone who’s just expressed that they wish you dead? I ask you — HOW? She doesn’t even know the rules of play-doh. And her hair looks funny. And if I’m so disposable, maybe she can find someone else to fix it for her.
When Elizabeth Edwards is Speaking at BlogHer, I’m a Conservative
At church I’m a liberal.
I am repeatedly amazed at the complex nuances of personal political identity and the bizarre need we feel to categorize each other along party lines. This becomes confusing because the way I’m categorized changes dramatically depending on whom I happen to be sitting next to. In an LDS Sunday School class, I’m fairly liberal. In the BlogHer organization, I feel like some sort of right wing extremist.
Elizabeth Edwards was the closing keynote speaker for the conference on Saturday afternoon. I knew in advance that I wouldn’t agree with many of her political views but was fascinated to hear her speak. She is an intelligent, strong, candid and passionate woman who has long been involved in blogging and maintains a blog on her husband’s campaign website.
I wanted to hear about how she balances personal opinion with the consolidated public message of a presidential campaign. I wanted to hear detailed examples of how the blogosphere is shaping political policy and how politicians are trying to carve out a niche online. I wanted to hear about her personal struggles with cancer and how she and Senator Edwards decided to carry on with the campaign. There were so many non-partisan issues I wanted her to cover in her speech.
However the questions very quickly turned to policy and much of the time was spent discussing her husband’s platform. The meeting came to feel very much like a campaign stop, with talk of how Senator Edwards’ positions differ from other leading democrats and even a statement that she assumed everyone in the room believed pretty much the same things with regards to women’s issues.
You cannot talk to a diverse room of women about your plan for universal healthcare and assume we all believe the same things. Growing up in Canada, I watched a friend’s mother die BECAUSE of socialized medicine. Although I want everyone to have access to health care, I’m not convinced that John Edwards’ plan is viable.
You cannot talk to a diverse room of women about your views on abortion, the Iraq War, gay marriage and other highly divisive issues and assume we all believe the same things.
Anytime we create an assumption of political consensus in a group of intelligent thinking adults, we’re headed for trouble. By saying, “I’m sure we all agree,” in essence what you’re saying is, “Any sane intelligent person would agree with me,” and I have a problem with that.
So although I vote for various parties at election time, register as a Democrat in the primaries and consider myself an independent, I raised my hand to speak to the fact that the discussion was being dismissive to conservatives. There was time for one more question and Elisa Camahort handed me the mic, potentially annoying several other eager people in order to let a conservative have a voice. I’m very grateful.
I’m not actually sure what I said since I was shaking at the time, standing in front of several hundred people and directly addressing the possible future first lady. The session video was uploaded to the BlogHer site but my question is strangely missing, an occurrence I assume was no more sinister than the video blogger running out of tape at the end of the session, but which strikes me as an odd coincidence.
Basically, I pointed out that the session had been dismissive to conservatives and that since I wasn’t planning on voting for her husband, I’d rather talk about blogging and technology than the specific policy of the Edwards campaign. My question was, “How many people review your blog entries before you post them to the internet?” Her answer was, “ZERO!”
I was amazed. With all the spinning and planning and message management that goes on in a presidential campaign, I am completely blown away that she is given total freedom to express herself on the Edwards 2008 website. Now I’m sure she is in constant contact with John and his many advisors and she’s smart enough to know which way the wind is blowing and where she should funnel it. Nonetheless, it was refreshing to hear this response from her.
Regardless of our political differences, I have great respect for Mrs. Edwards and feel strongly that she is sincerely doing what she feels is right and standing up as a bold force to promote her beliefs.
When I approached her at the cocktail party later that evening, she said, “I was just answering the questions in the room,” and it was true. She was just answering the questions in the room. I had a problem with the whole direction of the discussion, not her responses, and not the fact that she was a Democrat.
A friend (not a conservative, if that makes any difference) came up to me after and said she had the same problem. The whole discussion was too political and party-specific for such a diverse group, especially for the closing keynote of a blogging conference.
She gave the analogy that it was similar to inviting the head of Google to be the closing speaker and then letting him spend most of the time fielding questions about how to use Blogger software.
At the end of the closing session, someone asked me, “If a Republican had been the speaker and the conversation had gone the same way, would you have called her on it too?”
Absolutely yes. Although it’s hard to imagine that I’d need to. With the number of bold articulate women of the left in that group, people would have been tripping all over themselves to bring the discussion back on track.
I’ve heard Lisa Stone say that BlogHer is a nonpartisan organization and that if you have a different opinion, you should stand up and make it known. I often think those of us with leanings to the right feel so outnumbered that we’re afraid to speak up. I for one do not want to turn my site into a political blog because I enjoy the fact that I have a diverse group of readers and I like DaringYoungMom as a place for us all to come and be silly together.
However I’d like to be more of a catalyst for diverse political discussion among female bloggers in the future, if not on my personal site, then elsewhere.
Julie Marsh has written about this over at The Imperfect Parent and you can see most of Elizabeth Edwards’ interview on the BlogHer site, minus my question at the end. This is cross-posted to BlogHer.org.