The Anti-NaNoBloMo: recovery roundup

** Now With Fixed Links **

As you can see, in celebration of NaNoBloMo in November, we made our fewest posts ever in a single month. In an attempt to get things going around here again, here are some posts we've enjoyed reading on our unplanned hiatus:

Two Hot Mamas >> thoughts on (possibly not) nursing
N writes about many thoughts in anticipation of feeding her soon-to-be-born baby. She writes things that often don't get said out loud, but I'm sure many women will recognize. She has a very nice bit in there about how decisions around feeding in a two-mom family can be a little more complicated than in a mom-dad family, and I think she's right.

Adjustment Disorder >> Who is a Rabbi?
SWMama writes about her take on a court decision in the UK regarding who is and isn't Jewish, and what that means to her and her daughter. I have had many of these thoughts and feelings, but have never managed to identify (let alone write) them quite so clearly.

Totally Smitten Mama >> My Leo
Lex writes about falling in love with the son her wife gave birth to, and the differences and similarities compared to her experiences with their first three boys. I love how she captures how beautiful and enriching this path to motherhood can be, even when you already have plenty of mothering experience under your belt.

It's not like a cat...>> Mommy on the Sidelines
JM wonders how life would be different if she wasn't the taskmaster around her house. She's dissatisfied with her current situation but not sure how to shift the division of labor to something more egalitarian (which would leave her more room for fun with her son).

Parenting Roundup

• Bedtime Stumblings from Killing the Buddha Peter Berbergal writes about his brother's suicide, how he talks about it with his six-year-old son, and his own religious faith. It's a
  lovely look at those challenging bedtime conversations.
• Must Hollywood dads be so clueless? from Salon.com "Moms and dads alike, single and partnered -- not to mention their children -- deserve more than this myth that women instinctively know what they're doing with kids while men, left to their own devices, will neglect their young at all times except at playtime." Amen to that.
• Census: Stay-at-home moms are not who you think from Penn State News Interesting article on stay-at-home moms (which makes me wish for a corresponding census study of stay-at-home dads). However, I take exception to some of the things they say. For instance, "though there's a perception that many well-educated, well-to-do moms are opting out of the work force to stay home with their kids, the census found that only 7.4 percent of stay-at-home moms had a master's or more advanced degree." This isn't the number that you need to make the argument they are trying to make. Only about 9.4 percent of people in the US have a masters degree or higher (and I don't have the figures for women of an age to have young children). Thus we should expect the percent of stay-at-home moms with higher degrees to be low. The percentage that we need is the percent of all women with masters degrees and higher that are stay-at-home moms, and then we need to compare that to the percent of women in the general population (or other restricted groups) that are stay at home moms. That would tell us something about whether there is an "opt-out revolution." OK, now I'll stop ranting about mathematics.
• Daddy Dialectic: Does parenthood make men more conservative and women more liberal? Jeremy Adam Smith's take on a recent study showing that men and women move in opposite directions on the political spectrum once they become parents. He asks the question, "Does taking care of kids push men in a more liberal direction?"
  
• rad dad -- a zine about parenting: Parenting Has Everything to Do With You Rad Dad writes about why you should read a parenting zine even if you aren't a parent and about the whole parenting zine scene. Makes me want a copy of Rad Dad 15, if only I'd get off my butt and get one!
• A Somewhat Shallow Exploration of Gender Preference « Project Kjetil Bree writes about wanting a boy and having a girl.

Parenting Blog Roundup

• Double X: Why won't feminists admit the pleasure of infants? This article by Katie Roiphe touched off many discussions, including the comments on the original post, a follow up post on double X, a great response over at Shapely Prose, a response to the response from Blue Milk, and many more discussions on other blogs. Personally, I've fallen in love with a couple of babies, and it is great. But of course life goes on, those babies grow up to be toddlers, kids, and eventually adults, and no parents can indulge in the newborn crush phase forever. And in many families there's more than one parent, and I don't hear that parent getting to be a part of this newborn lovefest. What I'd really love to hear is dads writing essays about how society seems to completely ignore their overwhelming love for their children. Loving children isn't a feminist issue, it's a human issue.
• Two Women Blogging: Eve and Her Two Mothers I found this post by Jay moving because she's trying to deal honestly with the difficulties of interacting with her daughter's birth mother. It made me think about our own family choices and how Leigh and Ira have a donor and donor siblings that may someday be important to them. That fact makes me uncomfortable, and has at times felt threatening to my family. For me, it helps to remember that while they aren't people I consider to be part of my family, my children may feel differently. I really appreciated getting to see how another family, constituted differently, deals with this issue.
• Free Range Kids: Dear Abby -- Again with the Abductors? Lenore weighs in on Dear Abby's fear-mongering and the fact that are kids really aren't in much danger from random abductions and molestation by strangers. It's nice to be reminded once in a while to be a little less afraid.
• Adjustment [and] Disorder: In Which I Add My Two (Make that Ten) Cents to The Bad Mother Dialogue…Here's an great post by SWMama about "The Bad Mother." In it, she discusses the way that confessing "I'm such a bad mother because...." actually "only serves to continue the already damaging trend of mothers judging, criticizing, and putting down other mothers."
• Damn Straight. Those of us that parent queerspawn would probably do well to learn what they think when they grow up. This blog isn't very frequently updated, but I enjoy reading what Abigail had to say and checking out her links.
  

Parenting Roundup

• Fatherhood Friday post: A different kind of delivery « Jesus has Two Daddies. I'm on a quest to read more dad blogs, and I recently stumbled across this great blog and the post about their new son Elijah and the amazing foster family that had been caring for him.
  


• The problem with equal parenting « blue milk. Blue Milk contemplates going back to work while her partner stays at home. It would represent a role-reversal for them, and she discusses the good and the bad behind this reversal.
  
  
• Flying Pumps « oneofhismoms. Oneofhismoms writes about how nursing has changed since she stopped pumping. Things got a lot easier, but there's a bit of the bittersweet in there too.


• Book Review « Equally Shared Parenting. Review of the book Couples, Gender, and Power, including some discussion of how gender norms impact our relationship in unexpected ways and "the myth of equality" -- how many couples have relationships which are equal in name only. Queer couples I think tend to have more equal relationships than most hetero couples, but gender norms (and parenting norms) can still mess with us in ways that we can't even see.


• Family Week 2009: Coming Home « Green Dads. Brian speaks eloquently about the importance of family week to his family and all GLBT families. We've been to family week once and hope to go again regularly. (If only P-town weren't so expensive!)

Parenting Roundup

Here are some of the interesting things we've read about parenting recently.

• mommyhood 2.0 « l.i.b.e.r.a.t.i.o.n. theory. Liberation Theory writes about finally feeling like a mother and it seems to have everything to do with getting lots of time with baby LA.
  
• Attachment Parenting or not? « PBX makes four. Clark posts about attachment parenting -- the practices, the principles -- and wonders if she's parenting the best that she can, why does she feel so obsessed with it?
  
• Totally Smitten Mama: On Becoming the Other Mother. In this post of a few weeks ago, Lex talks about the challenges of being a new non-bio mom. You should also be sure to read her followup post "Finding My Way." I meant to post this series of posts on our last blog roundup because they represent some great writing about the real challenges and rewards of becoming a non-bio mom.
  
• Bionic Mamas: so...which one of you is the man?. Sugar Mama on answering questions about who will be carrying your child in a lesbian relationship. After telling us why the question bugs her, Sugar Mama lets us in on how she really feels at the prospect of becoming an NGP/non-bio mom. And you should hit the next post as well in which her wife talks about her miracle vaginas. Yes, she has two.

Parenting Roundup

One of the reasons that we started this blog is that, when I was pregnant with Leigh, Lyn could find very few resources to help her learn how to be a mom. We thought that our posts could provide a voice that might help other parents looking to swim in uncharted waters. There are lots of other folks swimming in those waters, both queer and straight, and here are several posts we've found lately that hit home:

• why biology? « Looking for a little turtle on the need to be pregnant, having to justify the desire for pregnancy and a child, and the lesbian double-standard.
• Back to Adolescence « Adjustment [and] Disorder on the confusing changes that come with the first year of motherhood.
• Pride and Provinciality « oneofhismoms on the perks of living in a place where gay people are a part of normal, everyday life. Once-a-year pride is great, but being able to live pride every day is even better.
• Mombian » Blog Archive » Utah Court Says Non-Bio Mom Has No Rights to Her Child. Mombian's discussion of the sad Edvalson v Dickson case in which a non-bio mother loses her rights to her son. See also the followup at Mombian.