Making Sense of the Senseless

I'll be the first to admit that when violence grips the most violent parts of this fair metro area of mine, I'm rarely surprised and never truly shocked. Even when it hits close to home, at the other end of the city, I'm not surprised. After all, the truth of the matter is this: I don't feel safe in my neighborhood, particularly after dark. There are a large number of addicts living around us and, while our street is generally safe and neighborly, 30 seconds around the corner(s) yields another place that is not.

I was, however, angered at the brief but seemingly random spate of violence that my own community experienced over Labor Day weekend - 24 hours of gun violence that left 3 people dead, in two unrelated shootings. The first happened about half a mile from our house, the second happened closer to home - and that headline is already too old. Within 48-hours of that event, a second man died from his injuries.

My anger has barely calmed to a simmer if only because our Mayor has dismissed these acts as "some bad actors who came to Malden", and said nothing more. There have been no updates on the investigation(s) and I suspect that we'll never know whether anyone will be brought to justice in the case of the victim from Stoneham.

Almost a month later, a section of Boston that I've never visited and probably never will...a section that I've always seen as dangerous and no stranger to the violence that's making it's way to the suburbs of Boston (can our community truly be a suburb when it's about 3 miles from the city-proper's limits, 2 T stops away, and the skyline is quite visible from certain vantage points? Boston is eating it's suburbs like a beast, incorporating them into itself...), experienced an event that rattled me. Last week, 3 men, 1 woman, and 1 toddler were gunned down in the streets. All but one of the men was killed, and he is currently on life support, not expected to live.

Boston Globe columnist, Brian McGrory, summed up my feelings about this better than I ever could have. A child killed in his mother's arms; men stripped naked and shot in the back of the head in the dark of night, on the streets...

It's too surreal. Just like a firefight just down the road from where I live is too surreal. Nevertheless, both events happened.

I understand the price we pay in choosing to live in an urban area - crime will be more in evidence, including violent crime. I don't understand the stubborn silence of my mayor and his persistent refusal to acknowledge a significant increase in crime in our city or at least parts of our city. I don't understand the extremely foreign feeling act of ultra-violence that occurred in Mattapan last week - almost a culmination to a growing number of depraved murders this year in Dorchester and Roxbury.

Mostly, I don't understand how, as my own daughter grows, to even begin to talk to her about these types of things that she will see and hear about. The crack heads and heroin addicts we see too often are easy topics to handle. Even the not-so-surreptitious drug deals on the corner can be dealt with fairly simply. This other stuff though? I can barely wrap my head around it. I'm not sure I could possibly explain the why's and wherefor's of these acts.

It's not about gun control. It's not even about crime control. There are far more deep seated issues that ultimately drive people to commit these most vicious of crimes or have to battle for their lives in self-defense (though a gunfight in a tight, urban neighborhood, even when it's home or self-defense, is still a dangerous venture for anyone to engage in what with stray bullets and all...).

Moving is not an option nor is it a solution. I suppose the best I can do is the Right Thing (as Top Telly used to say to me. Constantly.) where our daughter is concerned - and give her the tools she needs to navigate all of this. After all, soon, the cameras will be gone. In the case of our Labor Day Extravaganza, they left in what seemed like minutes after arrival, especially as it became clear that Mayor Howard is no Mayor Menino, and has not spoken out and demanded justice at any cost. No news there. Just another day in Malden. But in Mattapan, after all the outrage has been aired, all of the talking heads have said all that they can say, life will go on as well.

How much will any of these events, here or there, change anything? The best we can do is keep on teaching - street savvy, street smarts, and keeping away as best one can from a lifestyle that begets violence.

It's all I can think to do.

Never Trust a Friend

We are fortunate to live in one of the greener urban areas in this nation - and by that, I don't necessarily mean "environmentally correct" (though we are, as a community, that too). Boston and the immediate "suburbs" (hard to tell where the city ends, really) boast parks and green stands both large and small, including riverwalks, bike paths, beaches and wooded areas. These are, for all intents and purposes, Open to the Public, free to use by any and all, free to enjoy.

But naturally, with parks comes maintenance and with maintenance comes cost and with the threat of losing some of this public space due to cost come, as inevitably as the red tides of summer, the Friends.

Most Friends start off as small groups of devoted users of trails, land, parks, beaches. They are as attached to those spaces as barnacles are to the hull of a fishing boat (and eventually, prove much harder to scrape away). Friends might even be considered devotees, if one were inclined to be snarky (which one never is inclined to be, oh no). Friends have time to devote to their friendship. Friends have money to devote to their friendship. Friends are usually well intentioned at the outset (please recall the paving stones along the route to hell), but over time, and with enough money in the coffers, Friends morph into something else...something more sinister...

They are no longer Friends. They are Owners. But make no mistake, you will never meet a president of a group calling itself, "Owners of the...[insert park, beach, trail here]". It just doesn't have the same, upbeat tone to it as "Friends of the..." does it? It's not as welcoming. Of course, they're not actually owners of anything except a stake in the resource in question, owing to the fact that they've thrown so much money at it to remain devoted friends that usually, government entities like DCR throw themselves prostrate as the friends walk by, begging them not to remove their funding.

And so it has been with mild bemusement that I've watched the saga that is The Fells Land Use unfold

Gosh. I Feel Like a Woman. [snerk]

A wasn't feeling herself last night. We could see that. M told me that she put his hand on her belly while he was reading her good-night stories last night and whispered, "Hold, Daddy." She was tired and warm, two signs of pending illness for sure.

She wasn't up to par this morning either, but when I took her temperature, it was normal. So, we got on with our day. I did let her teachers know that she wasn't altogether well, but with no fever, I couldn't justify taking the day off (especially since I have next to no paid time off to take and a buffet platter of work and meetings and training that's overflowing) and, I thought, M's job won't let him go if I'm around.

And there's the rub. Mechanics, you see, are men. Men don't do women's work. At least, that's the prevailing sentiment that I see over and over again. When M told the last Service Manager they had that he was leaving to stay home with his infant daughter full-time, the man actually accused him of lying to cover up the fact that he must be going to another dealership. And when I was in the field, they were unhappy with him for leaving early by 15 minutes each day to make sure he could get to A before the center closed. Never mind that they knew this would be when they hired him...

In fact, the HR woman at one dealership he interviewed at actually reacted with a, "What do you mean, your wife may deploy? I don't know if we can

As Green as it Gets...For Us

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I'm calling the Yuppie Greenification of MA Movement. It seems that every time I turn around, another law or regulation has been passed to make the state a greener place. On the one hand, I see nothing wrong with making the world a better place. On the other, I have to wonder why, now that it's such a popular thing to do, the cost of going green has gone so...well...high.

I also wonder how, if environmental education is the latest trend in elemetary cirriculums, I will explain to my sweet little cherub (snerk) exactly why Mommy and Daddy are limited in their ability to jump on board this bandwagon.

In terms of Green Points, I present the following:

• We only have one car. It's a 2003 Impala, but it's one car. For the family. Now, with M back to work, we all commute together. He drives to his workplace (about 10 minutes from mine), and then I take the helm and drive to A's play-skool and my office. We reverse the trend going home. We don't drive when we can take the T though.
• We recycle. Two bins a week.
• I use one green cleaning product for light cleaning only. The others I've tried were ridiculously expensive and performed worse than soap and hot water, so there's still plenty of chemicals in the house - which means I don't think I can claim a full point here.
• I use a re-usable water bottle for tap water and coffee mug instead of buying them individually.
• When we buy seasonal fruits and vegetables from our commissary, we automatically get the local deal. Same with milk and eggs. They're not, however, certified organic or free-range. That might equal out to zero points.

OK. So, we're off to a, well, a start. But here's where I get annoyed and wish that the fashionistas would find something else to ruin so that prices come back down.

I recently did a cost analysis on the value of getting rid of the Impala in favor

Your Momma Wears Combat Boots - So What?

While searching for the end of the internet a few days ago, I came upon Stanford University’s Hoover Institute. There, I discovered Mary Eberstadt, a contributing editor to Policy Review. What caught my eye in the first place was her February feature, Mothers in Combat Boots. I would like to note, now, that I really wanted to post about this THATVERYMOMENT but was ultimately too enraged to write coherently. For a few days.


I have so many feelings regarding this piece that it’s almost impossible to disentangle them. In her piece, Ms. Eberstadt lambasts the “military policy” that deploys mothers. Not just single mothers. Not fathers. Just…mothers. But in order to make her point (which is, to spare you the eye strain, that the US, it’s people, it’s military, must stop this practice forthwith and offer incentives for women to either not have children or to defer their service completely), she took a long and winding road that touched on everything that had to do with mothers and women in the military.

To make her point, she cited the case of Army Spc. Hutchinson who refused to deploy last year. I wrote my own assessment of that situation here, and I was not alone in my thinking if Ms. Eberstadt is to be believed

In the end though, Ms. Eberstadt’s ultimate goal appears to be the expulsion of mothers from the military (active, reserve, and guard) for the betterment of our culture, our country and, of course, for our moral well-being. Oh. And the children. Won’t somebody please think of the children??

It’s true that the military does not give mothers of newborns the recommended period of one-year to breast feed before

For the Love of Anonymous Vitriol

Unfortunately, in recent weeks, the job that pays has taken precedence over everything except my family life and I haven’t been able to be as productive in my writing (obviously) as I would like. I feel like we haven’t talked, you and I, so let’s do that. Tonight, let’s talk about choice. More specifically, let’s talk about lifestyle choices – to have children or not – and what, if anything, that really means. Let’s talk, too, about how we teach our kids to deal with the choices they make and how things have changed since we were on the playground.

I got to thinking about this after reading Erica Noonan’s latest column, Will the Real Childfree Movement Please Stand Up? Ms. Noonan has, apparently, just learned of the existence of the so-called, “Childfree Movement” and is a little put off, as is evidenced by her writing.

Moms are Sexist

I asked if I could blog about this experience today because it didn't happen to me, unless "by proxy" counts. I was given the go-ahead by my husband, M, to put this out there for the world (or the tiny slice that reads MoR anyway) to read and I just realized that I am actually...angry. Fortunately, not too angry to write now, but a few hours ago, as I was thinking about what happened to him today, I can safely say I've never chopped shallots or basil more finely in my life.

First, some background. We live in a diverse neighborhood with loads of young children, most of whom we only catch fleeting glimpses of. The parents of the kids A's age don't tend to take their tots outside, no matter what the season, and those who we have encountered have unfortunately not spoken English or wanted to talk. So, A has no local friends. This is, I might note, part of the reason we're trying to pursue day care again this year. She's highly social and would only benefit at this point by being around children her age during the day. But I digress.

M started taking A to the Malden Library's Toddler Story Time and Sing-Along on most Tuesdays, each week. We thought that it would be great to get her out, get him out and maybe everyone involved could meet someone. M isn't a big socializer, but he's opened up a lot in the last year especially (he blames or thanks both myself and A depending on the day), so each time he's gone, I've been disappointed to hear that he wasn't really able to talk to the other parents there.

Today though...he stayed after while A played on with some of the kids and, to my amazement, approached a group of moms about a playgroup being organized. He was telling me this on the phone on my way home from work and finally blurted out, "Moms are sexist!"

He had been turned away from the playgroup because it was a mom's only affair. No boyz allowed.

I was stunned. Well...no, I tell a lie. I was really disappointed. I was disappointed because I suspect it took some doing for him to talk to them to begin with and because A lost out on a potential play date with other kids simply by virtue of her father being her caregiver. I was disappointed because there are 10,002 Mom Cafe type groups in this area, but apparently, local moms need to create more.

As if to reinforce my own thoughts on this subject, A chose tonight to be her Catastrophic Meltdown Over Everything Night. The one person who finally calmed her? Daddy.

Then I cried. I cried because her father is her go-to-guy when she needs comfort, but these women can't believe that men can be that person. I cried because I've had it up to here with the double standard we inflict on ourselves. I cried because it was just one of those nights where I felt totally impotent as a parent and a mother and a wife.

After that, I got angry again. I'd like to channel that anger into something productive though. I'm considering promoting the idea that an all inclusive playgroup, for all stay at home parents and working S/Os should be formed. Meetup.com is OK, but I want something better. Thoughts?

Turning the Tide in Custody Battles

It's no secret now that the number of working mothers who are considered breadwinners in their households is on the rise, but Working Mother Magazine recently reported another new trend on the upswing: the number of working women losing custody battles to fathers who either work less or not at all.

At first blush, it seems a 1 - 2 punch. First, here we are, working ourselves to the bone to support our families. Many of us work long hours and miss out on time we may rather be spending at home. Then, to top it off, that very fact is increasingly being used against us when the unthinkable happens and our marriages dissolve...with kids in the balance.

Juvenile Curfew for a Town With Nominal Juvenile Crime?

Yes, this is the town I live in. And I'll be honest that, as both a resident and a parent, I am actually angry about the fact that our city council is going ahead with discussions surrounding the topic of implementing a juvenile curfew here.

It's certainly not the first in the state of MA. The city of Lowell made news recently when the MA Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) struck down criminal charges for youth found to be violating the city imposed curfew, in effect since 1994.

In towns across the state where some form of juvenile curfew has been imposed, it has been in direct response to increased numbers of violent crimes committed by youthful offenders, but in Malden, MA, even the police chief has remained opposed to this idea. He cites the arrest of only 11 juveniles after 9 pm in the last year, out of 941 overall arrests (both juvenile and adult). Of the 941 total arrests, only 55 in total were of minors.

Refusal to Deploy?

I first caught wind of the story of the soldier who "refused deployment" two weeks ago over at the forums on Our Mom Spot and my initial response was to call shenanigans. Yes. There. I said it. I Call Shenanigans.

Since then, I've seen it posted and re-posted 10,002 times and it has, of course, touched of firestorms on Mommy Forums and War Forums alike. It has also had me seeing red. I can't actually read any of the forums discussing this article because I'll go nuclear. So, I would like to take this time and space to clear the air. Consider this my blanket response to the people who have asked my opinon directly on the matter - and my response to the wingnuts frothing at their e-mouths all across the great, wide internetz...

1. This soldier didn't refuse to deploy. She intentionally failed to get on the plane under orders. Part of her enlistment oath said something about "obeying and upholding" all "lawful orders"...can't quite get the verbiage straight in my head, but since I have taken the same oath 4 times now (initial and re-enlistments), I do recall those words being strung together in approximate order. Anyhoo - that she decided not to show up to the airport does, if I recall rightly, make her AWOL, possibly a deserter and definitely in violation of a couple of UCMJ articles, as well as at least one General Order.

2. Now that we've cleared the air on those finer points, let's dig in:

a. Every single parent in the military, as well as every parent married to another military member, is required to complete a Family Care Plan. This soldier had one. She enacted it. Her designated provider for her son decided that she couldn't "do it" for a year and went trucking back to GA to hand over the infant. This is where, by the way, I would like to ask her designated provider, the soldier's mother, why she agreed to this plan. Did she think that this was a game?

b. Army Regulation 600-20 gives detailed guidance for units and leadership on the FCP and other requirements for single parents and pregnant soldiers. It says that soldiers who fail to provide a workable FCP should be considered for separation from the service and are not deployable. It also notes that pregnant soldiers are to be given the option to voluntarily separate from the service at the time of their pregnancy, with honor (this means that they're eligible for all follow on benefits). I can personally attest to this since, during both pregnancies, I had to fill in this "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" paperwork. In both instances, I elected to stay.

c. AR 600-20 finally states that any FCP found to be unworkable when implemented will be reassessed and amended within 30 days (longer at the discretion of the commander, up to 90 days). If a workable plan cannot be created, the member will be separated from the service.

In short, this soldier's FCP failed. There are other options besides disobeying an order and going AWOL in this case and there's no real evidence yet that she tried to do the right thing.

Now, maybe it's because I'm anal. Maybe I'm heartless...but I have no pity for this soldier. I've had to have a FCP and it's something that a lot of thought went in to. My first thought was, what if my primary designee can't do it? There are, in fact, sections to designate alternates and alternates to alternates and so on ad infinitum. In fact, in the Special Power of Attorney I filled in to accompany the FCP, there are further designees I chose to add in case something happened.

It's not a piece of paper that you just fill in with some names because you need to check a box to be world wide qualified. It's something that needs to be considered and discussed with all potential designees - and everyone needs to fully understand what agreeing to care for the child or children will mean, as well as what may happen to the military member if the designee does an about face just before the boots hit the sand, but just after the plane's taken off, so to speak.

But here's the thing that's really sticking me in the side: The claim that she was told she would have to place the child in foster care by her commanding officer. I've known some jerks in command in my time. I've even known one or two who have only one or two brain cells fizzing around their heads and one of those two cells is wearing a tinfoil membrane and declaring itself to be the dead Duchess of Borogravia (the other cell generally appears to be in hiding from it's mate). Yet, even THEY aren't foolish or crazy enough to say something like that to a soldier, especially in this current climate where such a statement will assuredly come to the public's knowledge and probably end your career.

As an aside, if this commander really did say that and we find out that it was true, I will do 100 push ups a day for 100 days while chanting, "This Sergeant Doesn't Deserve Her Stripes". You can take that to the bank because I know that I'm supposed to care about the junior enlisted and look out for them. It's what we NCOs (are supposed to) do. And by publicly calling Shenaningans on this, I know that I'm not.

I just find it very hard to believe any of this. The first we hear of it is in a public release by her lawyer, after the Soldier lawyered up to begin with...it reminds me of the AWOL turn-in we had at my place of work a few years back. He showed up on a bus, chartered by family, filled with friends and relatives and just about every news agency in the Greater Boston Area on hand to document his story. It was designed specifically to embarass the military and ensure an expeditious discharge from the military (he deserted while on leave from Iraq). I'm having deja vu with this case too.

Oh! To the individuals who have called for all pregnant women to be discharged from service or who are using this to further your own flawed arguments about why women shouldn't serve period, please go to hell and give the devil my regards. To the military women out there, one and all, who feed these idiots' fires with silly stunts that go viral, feel free to join them and let the remainder of us not suffer the fallout that will surely happen in cases like this.

That's my not so nice opinion on this case. Do you have one?

Communication - A Dying Grace?

Leah K. over at Working (on) Motherhood posed a question to the community of parents that she serves so well today: Do you swear around your kids? Her piece, along with the question and answers brought me back to my very own thoughts on language and communication, not just with respect to swearing but in the way we communicate in general - and how we're teaching these skills (or not) to our own kids.

My own personal "Blue" vocabulary is possibly more extensive than the rest of my vocabulary. I like to think that being in a male dominated, military profession has truly helped me hone my ability to string profane words together into a higher art form. It's true - I've seen battle hardened Marines get tear eyed, moved by the sheer beauty of my words.

There is, of course, an inherent danger in this use of vulgar language. It mostly lies in the fact that people can no longer tell when you are, in fact, really angry. To compensate for this, when I am angry, I don't swear at all. And on those rare occasions when my rage is so white hot and finely tuned and directed that it makes anger look like puppy dog kisses and rainbows, I don't even yell. On those occasions, the words, "Time, Distance and Shielding" are given new, more urgent meaning.

There are those among the intelligentsia who will shake their heads sadly and point out that vulgar and profane language really only serves to make the speaker (or spewer, if you will) appear ignorant, uneducated, backwards and stupid. I do like to believe that none of those traits apply to me in a more general sense, although on some issues and topics I will cop to being all of the above plus a few not mentioned.

Yet somehow, it seems that today, profanity is less profane than it used to be. In fact, it's the ability to converse and communicate eloquently, succinctly and clearly that seems to be a dying grace. And it is a grace. So why do people find it to sound so old fashioned? James Parker, contributing editor to The Atlantic, recently wrote an OpEd in praise of Laughing Babies and the voice he chose was a high tone, with tongue firmly planted in cheek. I loved it. There were adjectives used in such a way that I haven't seen in print since my literature classes in college. But some commenters didn't and an argument broke out in the comments section over the tone he chose. He was accused of speaking like an "alien" visiting earth. [sigh]

I myself have one or two words in my arsenal that extend beyond two syllables (and I can even spell them!) and I absolutely believe that that face we put forth to the world at large says less than the utterances issued forth from said face. Accents, colloquialisms, slang and just general poor language skills do indeed detract from our ability to have others take us seriously.

In fact, I see this a lot in blogs. While I'm very aware that my proofing skills need work, I have read some publicly posted blogs on this worldwide web of ours that, frankly, make me want to stab my eyes out. It's not because I disagree with the point that the author is trying to convey, but because there are only so many "for all intensive purposes" I can take in one paragraph and, frankly, because text speak makes you sound like a moron.

By now you're wondering what any of this has to do with parenting, I'm sure. Well, it all comes back to what we teach our children, doesn't it? While we celebrate first words and encourage the language waterfall, what are we actually, unwittingly, passing on in our manners of speech?

My daughter won't inherit a Boston accent. It's a dying breed and I don't have one. I am, however, afraid that she may inherit my chronic and totally voluntary Tourrette's. One day not long ago, I let loose with a string of some of my most Prosaic Profanity to date while driving to the store. When I was done, I felt better, but it was short lived after I heard a giggle from the back seat. I took that moment to turn my tirade in to a learning experience..."Honey," I said oh-so-sweetly, "I'm sorry. Those are Mommy's driving words and they're not very nice. Please disregard them." I swear, she snorted sarcastically at me.

Now, I swear in German. It's no better if you're a native German speaker, but most people around us aren't (well, except for one of our closest friends who is...) and hell, if Eliot on Scrubs can get away with yelling, "FRICK!" 50 times an episode (yes, that is German for "F**k"), then it can't be that bad, right? Yet, there is an alarming number of babes in our neighborhood whose speech is unintelligible, except for those bits pepperd with profanity. It's shocking when I hear it from a 7 year old who uses it the way that I do, as an integral part of his vocabulary.

It does make me wonder what we, as a generation of parents, are actually teaching our offspring about the value of diction, elocution and having a broad vocabulary. Creative licensing aside, it seems as though the Ugly American has returned from Continental Holiday and is taking over our own streets once again.

Whatever my own linguistic shortcomings, I do hope that I can show our daughter how to rise above and teach her that speaking intelligently and listening critically are not, in fact, bad traits at all.

What about you? Do you swear around your kids? Do you put a focus on communication in your household or do you think it's all much ado about nothing?

Teaching Our Daughters Gender Equality or Just Being Obstinate?

I love Mystery Memberships, don’t you? By that, I mean, I love it when I get e-mails welcoming me to organizations that I don’t recall joining…especially organizations that I wouldn’t join if I were asked to. Has this ever happened to you? Anyone? Bueller? No? Well, I’ll be.


It happened to me just this very morning. There it was, in my inbox, large as life…”Welcome, Phe! And thank you for joining She Serves – the connecting point for women of the VFW.” Um, huh? It’s true, I’m a member of the VFW. And it’s also true that I am a full-fledged member which means that the Veterans of Foreign Wars recognizes my service in a combat zone for a given period of time. But I don’t remember joining a sub-set of this organization exclusively for girls, no boys allowed.

I suspect that I know who might have signed me up for this – and if my suspicions are correct, I know that it was done with the best of intentions (I am, after all, my posts ONLY female member and have been for years), but you know what’s so often said about that road to hell and its paving stones…

So now, I have a dilemma. You see, I have a personal thing against all girls clubs, especially in the military. It stems from a lot of things, even some things that happened long before I ever enlisted. But there it is. It’s My Thing. For starters, I feel that the wearing o’ the uniform negates gender and that uniform wearers should be (and, in my world, are) judged on skill set and ability alone. Lord knows, the uniform wears me like a sack anyway no matter how fit or trim I may be (or not), so it’s not a stretch to say, “Is that a male or a female under all that gear?” Really though, who cares? I am here, with you, now. I’ve met and served alongside an equal number of men and women that have turned out to be useless – and another equal number of both that I wouldn’t trade for all of the tea in China. Er…if I drank Chinese Tea, anyway.

I have found that integrating into the unit and bringing my unique skill set has served me far better than integrating into the unit and bringing my ovaries, breasts and a large helping of grrrl-power ever could. In doing so, I have also learned that the issues that may affect me actually affect all of us – that I am not a Special Snowflake by virtue of simply being myself or a woman. Yet, She Serves promises to provide me with friendships forged out of the metals of issues that are unique to me as a woman, suffered uniquely by other women – and done in the comfort of an environment I’ll find nowhere else. Because I’m a woman.

Let me make this clear: My experience was unique because of the time (immediately post-9/11) and the place and the mission I served. Any issues I may have had have long since been resolved thanks, in large part, to the camaraderie of the men and women I served alongside and the men of my VFW post who, afterwards, welcomed me with open arms and gave me a safe place to be. Should I deploy in the future I have no doubt that experience will prove equally as unique and present me with a new, unique set of issues – or maybe not – brought about by the experience itself, not my womanhood.

As you may be able to tell by now, I have little love of any group of people who claim Special Snowflake status simply by virtue of a few shared squishy bits of anatomy - or anything else for that matter.

But…BUT…I respect what they’re doing. I know that I am a minority among women when I deride such things. I know that many women haven’t had the same positive experiences I have upon return from their operations – for a variety of reasons. For that reason, I hope that this “sisterhood” serves those women well and supports them to the fullest although I wonder what is so different about them and their experiences that they can’t go through with all of their comrades in arms, regardless of gender…those who shared the experiences with them.

Now, I wonder how my attitude towards such things will affect my daughter down the line, once she realizes what being a “she” actually means. I already know that she’s going to have a different view of life than most of her peers. For one thing, unlike her little baby friends, when she falls down and hurts herself, her first instinct is to run past me, crying for “Dada” to tell him, through her tears, that she went, “Plop!” (NOTE: “plop” is her all purpose word for, “oops, I fell, tee hee” – for those inconsequential, non-pain causing falls; “I fell and it hurts!” - for the falls that cause pain; and of course, “Toss me on the pillows again it’ssomuchfun!!!”) I’ve noticed that most of the kids we know around her age tend to steer themselves towards their moms when they want comfort but usually, even if I get to her first, she’ll squirm away from me to go to her father.

There’s one gender role re-defined right off the bat. Dad is the primary care giver and therefore, the primary source of comfort.

Not being well versed myself in the need or desire for strictly female companionship, I wouldn’t even know how to begin explaining this Sisterhood concept to her or why I don’t like it on a personal level. My friends have been an equal mix of male and female over the years, friends because of the character and quality they embody. I’ve never done the “girls night out” thing and even shopping trips end up being mixed gender affairs.

I won’t say that I’ve never felt discriminated against because of my gender, but as someone whose life motto has been, “Walk softly and carry an H&K MP5 (Silenced)”, I’ve found that those who are naysayers of me, by virtue of my reproductive system, tend to be in the minority and, once they see what it is I can actually do, it’s simply not an issue. If it continues to be for them, they end of being of little to no consequence in my life and have yet to hold me back. Gnats that can be brushed aside.

These thoughts of mine are contrary to a great deal of what my fellow females of similar age and station believe and what our daughter is probably going to learn outside the home. I trust (read: hope against hope) that somehow, we’ll do well enough by her in the end to do what my parents managed to do (without apparently trying - gender was never even discussed as being a hindrance or something special) – raise a confident woman who only ever realized that she was supposed to be a Special Snowflake because of her gender when she left the home and was so informed by Outside Influences. I credit the strong maternal and matriarchal influences in my family for that.

In the meantime, I think I’ll just continue to resolve issues that are unique to myself, as a veteran, with all of the veterans who have shared experiences with me, regardless of how they look or whether or not they have a Tab A or a Slot B in their pants. If you were there with me, you know that didn’t matter then. Why should it suddenly matter now?

I suppose the other message I would hope our daughter eventually leaves home with is this: Don’t bloody well sign someone up for something without asking them how they feel about it beforehand. It’ll save someone a lot of trouble later when they try to tactfully explain that, eh heh, see, they don’t really want to be part of this and sorry, it’s just not their thing, er…erm…butgoodluckwithit, OK?

Rest assured, the next time I’m down at the post, someone’s getting the pleasure of having a nice little Sergeantly chat with me on that very subject.

What about you? Do you think that your gender has a prominent and direct impact on your experiences? Are you more comfortable in a same-gender setting? How do you talk about gender issues to your young kids?

Stay at Home Parenting - Since When is it Only for the Wealthy?

Earlier this year on the Work it Mom Blog, Nataly wrote a post on nannies at kids birthday parties. This generated a really interesting (read: somewhat ire inducing) comment thread and one theme that seemed to run subtly throughout was that parents who could "afford" to keep their kids home, out of daycare, were automatically relegated to a class of people who could "obviously" afford nannies or au pairs.

Reading through some of the comments, I could only scratch my head and say, "Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot. Over?"

We live in one of the more expensive cities in the country - Boston, MA. Granted, it's not as bad as NYC or San Francisco, but I've also lived in many other parts of this nation and it is right up there in terms of outrageous cost of living. That being said, as I've noted here before, my husband is a stay at home parent to our almost 14 month old child. But that doesn't mean we're wealthy. Rather, quite the opposite.

I suppose that on top of the title of "Working Mother", I also carry the honor of being a "Breadwinner Mom" (whoop dee doo?). That was never more apparent when, before Amelie came along, we sat down to figure out what our child care options were going to be after my maternity leave came to an end.

My husband worked as a mechanic and I work as an Emergency Manager for the Department of Defense. Neither of these job titles hold huge dollar signs behind them, believe me. Because that is the case, I also moonlight as a military reservist and a bartender at our VFW which makes a big difference - although admittedly, I had been performing all jobs long before my husband came into my life...and

No, the truth of the matter is that we're very, very lucky. Our condo is a 3 bedroom, 1000 square foot dream in a triple decker owned by a longtime friend - so we definitely don't pay anywhere near market value for it. We only own one car and we bought that from our best friend at a seriously reduced price after our old car blew a transmission (4 months after I finally paid it off). While I make too much to qualify for any form of assistance from anyone, anywhere in the universe, I did manage to sob story may way onto fixed price option utility plans. I have access to a military Commissary which means that even though I do spend 200 dollars every two weeks on food (so it seems), I still get 3x the amount that I could on the civilian market. Our furniture is a mix of rent-to-own, used and IKEA brand. My wardrobe, thankfully, will never go out of style unless women stop wearing jeans and t-shirts.

So that's how we do it...but why did we do it? Because the only daycares that we found in our area, with the schedules we needed, were astronomically high in price. My husband's entire paycheck and a little of my own would have gone to her care each week. We decided that working solely to provide daycare was pointless. Yes, it's meant a lot of sacrifice in terms of how we live, but I don't think that our daughter will ever know it. There's always food on her plate, clothes on her back and (too many) toys for her amusement. She has a bookcase brimming with books, enough stuffed animals to lose herself in (a favored pasttime, actually) and something to occupy her time, with or without our help.

To do this, it means we don't often go out. We have one night a month set aside for ourselves and we usually just go to our VFW where the entertainment is free, the drinks are dirt cheap and the friends are pletniful. To do this, it means I make my own lunches 5 days a week and rarely buy my coffee out anymore. To do this, we wear our own clothes and shoes until they simply can't be worn any longer. To do this, we rarely buy The Little Things - a book, a game, a trinket or bauble - that we might have not thought twice about in the past.

We're often down to our last before I get paid again, but that's OK. We have shelter, good food, lights, warmth, little perks like cable and yes, the internetz, phone and car. We use the subway as often as possible and limit our family outings to mostly free events and places (the beach, the parks, meandering, aimless rambles throughout the city).

It can be done without any measure of wealth. It's a matter of personal choices and for us, a lot of luck and goodwill from friends. We decided that we just don't NEED certain things and those things aren't missed. But does this mean we're well off enough to afford a nanny or to host an au pair? The idea makes me laugh. We've neither the income nor the space to do either (yes, we did research those options) and the implication that the ability to stay home equates to the ability to have this sort of child care is preposterous.

So, how's it working thus far? Well, Most days, M dreads the prospect of enrolling her in school and returning to work. That day is still a long way off, but he's accustomed to their routine and though he'll tell anyone who listens that he has the most demanding boss in the world, an observation that is pretty close to truth, he also admits to not wanting to trade this job in for anything else. Sure, sometimes the arrangement feels a little foreign to us - people seem to think that, by and large, we're an anomaly (not true!) and apparently, rich (lollerskates), but that's OK. Everyone's situation is different. Ours is no exception.