Author: Beth Caldwell

Children’s Television Survival Guide: Charlie and Lola

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

I’m gonna be honest for a moment: there is very little on the Disney Junior channel that I enjoy. Jake is just as bad as Dora, and don’t even get me started on Sophia the Whiner and her horrible snob of a stepsister who fakes like she’s learned a lesson about friendships after being a bitch for the entire episode. VOMIT. Still, we all know I adore Days of Handy Manny’s Lives, and then there’s my favorite show on that channel, which is the subject of today’s edition of my Children’s Television Survival Guide series: Charlie and Lola.

First off, this show is fucking ADORABLE. Not in a “My Little Pony” or “Care Bears” too-cute-by-half way. I mean it’s adorable the way Mr. Rogers was adorable. The way watching your kids cuddling on the couch while watching this show is adorable. It’s sweet without being cloying. It’s dark chocolate ice cream with unsweetened raspberry purée. It is, in a word, perfectly adorable. If you are so cynical as to find Charlie and Lola to be anything but adorable, then you, my friend, are a grinch and may need a heart transplant.

Charlie is Lola’s older brother, and they are drawn in a scribbly fashion. I’d guess Charlie is about 9 or 10, and Lola appears to be about 5. They speak with English accents, and they share a room and attend the same school, so I would guess Lola is in kindergarten, since she can’t read yet. Charlie is kind to Lola, and Lola is loving to Charlie, but like real siblings, sometimes they disagree and get frustrated with each other. Unlike Sophia and her bitch of a stepsister, however, their relationship is clearly built on mutual respect, and they often do extremely kind things for each other.

For example, in one episode Charlie organized a pretend camping adventure in their back yard, and although Lola wasn’t enjoying herself that much due to the extremely poor weather, she played along because it was making her brother happy, until she really couldn’t take the rain anymore and expressed her unhappiness to her brother, and then Charlie came up with a way to play camping adventure indoors instead. Did you get that? The older brother actually wanted to include his little sister in his activity, AND she participated even though she wasn’t having fun because she wanted to be with her brother, AND he thought about her feelings and found a way for them both to be happy. And you know what? Neither of them once went tattling to their parents. They worked out their problems themselves based on mutual respect and love. See? Mr. Rogers-Style Adorable.

The other thing I like about the show is, it really is a show about two regular kids. They don’t need some kind of hook, like princesses, or pirates, or monsters who like to hug and have annoying voices, to sell the show. Charlie and Lola are enough, just as they are, to draw us in. No fancy animation, no obvious product tie-ins, just good quality television.

Final selling point, and I know this isn’t a huge deal, but I also love the opening theme song for this show because although it’s a bit catchy, it has no words to get stuck in my head. (Come to think of it, neither does Handy Manny really.) It’s the little things.

The downside of Charlie and Lola is that when it ends, you have to change the channel as quickly as possible or you’ll wind up in the hell that is most of the rest of the lineup on that channel. (Chuggington’s theme song is horrible. I’m just saying.) Perhaps consider watching this one On Demand?

And there you have it, Charlie and Lola: another to add to the list of survivable children’s television. Do you have a show that you think I could make survivable for you? Post in the comments and I’ll see what I can do!

Time Away

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

You guys, I am gonna call out yet another Judgy McJudgerson behavior in this post. And I am sure, like the post I wrote about people who judge formula feeding moms, there will be readers who will think I am shitting on them and their life choices, when in reality I am doing nothing of the kind. But whatever, I can’t control whether people hear my message, or the message they want to hear. So here we go.

Lately I have heard a few moms I know talk with…is it disdain? Feigned pity? Sadness? I’m not sure exactly how to describe the sentiment, but it appears in sentences like “I feel so sad that my mom friend was so excited for winter break to end. Doesn’t she enjoy spending time with her kids? I mean, how sad she just wants them to be away from her.” It also comes in different flavors–sometimes it’s “I can’t believe she works when she could afford to stay home. I can’t imagine missing all my kids’ special moments, they’re only small once.” They stop short of accusing their mom friends of being heartless bitches who don’t love their children, but it’s definitely implied that something is wrong with the mom who chooses to be away from her children.

I work outside the home. I do it for the money primarily, but also because if I spent every day with my children, if child rearing was my job, I would be miserable. I would burn out spectacularly. I would be frazzled and stressed and probably do a pretty shitty job of parenting. This doesn’t mean I don’t love my children. It means I have a temperament that doesn’t fit with 24/7 child rearing. And luckily for me, I live in an era when it’s possible for women to work outside the home. In addition, I take non-work time away from my kids–for example, a weekend away with my girlfriends, a night out with my husband, or quiet time away from my ridiculously messy house so I can write more effectively. I benefit from relaxation and recharging my batteries, because when I get over stressed, I am not my best self.

Am I missing some magic moments with them? Sure. But I also appreciate the time I do spend with them, which I would not be able to do if I was with them all the time. I would be too frazzled and stressed to think it was funny when The Boy told a penis joke instead of putting on his shoes like I asked him to, let alone have the bandwidth to take that opportunity to explain to him that although Mom thinks penis jokes are funny, the nice woman who runs his sister’s daycare might be offended by them, so we need to think of a different joke to tell her when we see her. If I was Stressed Out Mom, I’d be snapping at The Boy for not following directions and missing the opportunity to explain to him about his penis jokes potentially being offensive. I am a better mom when I don’t feel overwhelmed by stress, and being with the kids all the time would make me very stressed out. That is to say, I wouldn’t have any magic moments at all with them if I tried to hold onto every one of their magic moments.

So, think of it this way: when you say stuff like “How can she not want to be with her kids every minute of everyday” you’re talking about me. You’re talking about every mom who is actually in a financial position to choose a career, and does so. You’re talking about moms whose personalities are different than yours. And you’re phrasing it in a way that sounds like you believe people who need a break from their kids are not loving parents. In short, you’re judging me for not being like you.

The thing is, what frustrates me about the “you like time away from your kids, you are a bad mom” meme is not just that I am personally insulted by it. It’s that it reflects a mindset that says that anyone parenting different, feeling different, or having different values must be a bad parent. That’s The Cult of Perfect Motherhood talking right there. That’s the part that says we have to be constantly vigilant in our parenting choices, because the slightest slip up will ruin our child’s life. So, we say “That parent doing it differently than me? They’re the one who is wrong. They’re the bad parent, not me.” We say that because the Cult tells us that the only other possibility is that they’re right and we’re ruining our children’s lives. And that is too terrifying of an idea to face.

We have to take that chip off our shoulders. We have to remember that every child is different, and every parent is different, and that’s OK, and other people’s choices have nothing to do with the validity of our choices. And we have to believe that our friends are good parents who love their children, not horrible people who are parenting wrong just because they are parenting differently. It’s the only way we can move forward as a community of mothers together–to respect each other enough to trust that other moms are making the right choices for them. Even if they would be the wrong choices for us.

Grown Up Movies for Kids: A League of Their Own

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the lack of women in films, let alone fully realized female characters. One of my all-time least-favorite movies is actually Gone in 60 Seconds, not simply because it’s kind of a dumb movie–there are tons of kind-of dumb movies that I put up with. No, my biggest beef with it is that there is exactly one female character in the whole movie, and the point of her is to be someone for Nicholas Cage to find sexy. What year is this again? Because, seriously, I am so over that shit.

And that’s why a few weekends ago, me and the kids watched A League of Their Own. Because I don’t want them, particularly The Boy, growing up to think that women are only sexy sidekicks. And the sports hook convinced The Boy that this was his kind of movie, and the women in it convinced The Girl that this wasn’t just some dumb sports movie. Is this a great movie? No, it’s really not. But I am really sick of movies about men. Just, really sick of them. So, once in a while, it’s nice to watch a movie about women, and Geena Davis is lovely and tough and makes up for Rosie O’Donnell’s overacting.

I actually find this movie to be a little schmaltzy. OK, a lot schmaltzy. But so is Secretariat, and we all know how much The Boy loves that one. He just really gets worked up about who’s gonna win a sports event, so he gets really into movies with sporting events in them. He also likes rooting for a team, which made this movie hard for him, actually. He got that the Peaches were the team we were supposed to be rooting for, so when (SPOILER ALERT) the younger sister goes to play for a different team and they win the big game, we literally had to pause the movie so he could process his feelings about that. And by process his feelings, I mean we had to talk it through for 10 minutes, he was that upset. You know The Boy likes a movie when he has to process his feelings about it.

There’s some swearing in this movie, and the coach is drunk an awful lot. These are not deal breakers for us–we have lots of conversations about how you shouldn’t drink too much alcohol because it will make you sick and do stupid things, and we’re working on teaching him appropriate use of swear words right now. (“Honey, we say crap when something is bad, not just when we’re surprised or excited. Don’t waste crap on something piddly–you may need that word later when you stub your toe.”) But, if the swears are an issue in your family, I am pretty sure you can watch this movie on a network that edits them out. And if the drinking is an issue, well, I dunno, fast forward or something.

Speaking of the drunk coach, The Boy’s favorite scene in this movie is probably the one when the coach really really really has to pee. A lot. For like five minutes. The Boy almost peed himself laughing.

And there you have it, another non-cartoon movie for your kids, and one that has strong female characters that even The Boy can get into. I hope you enjoy it!

Control

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

I have been watching some friends of mine go through their first pregnancies recently, and it’s brought back a lot of memories of when I was pregnant with my kids. And the lessons that pregnancy taught me, the most important of which was that we don’t really have control over our lives as much as we think we do.

We get to make a lot of choices in our lives, every day. Which shirt am I going to put on? What kind of coffee will I order at Starbucks today? What route will I take home from work? What will I cook for dinner, or will I just order a pizza? What TV show will I watch? We make so many choices that we think we have control over everything in our lives.

But we don’t. And pregnancy, and parenthood, remind us of that every day. Our bodies change when there is a fetus in them. We get morning sickness, and we pee ourselves. We become anemic and our thyroids go wonky and we develop diabetes. Our feet swell and our hips ache. None of these are things we have any control over. They just happen, because we don’t have control over our bodies.

I, like a lot of women, had a lot of plans for how the birth of my first child would go. In no version of any plan I had was there a NICU team present. My body made that happen when it decided it couldn’t carry The Boy to term. I didn’t choose for him to be born the way he was, or to spend the first 9 weeks of his life in a hospital. It was a harsh lesson for me that I didn’t have control over everything that happens to me, and I certainly didn’t have control over what my body did.

When I was pregnant with The Girl, I didn’t make plans about her birth, because I knew that in the end, I wouldn’t have control over what my body did. The best I could muster were wishes, and even those didn’t all come true. There was a NICU team at her birth too, because there was meconium in my amniotic fluid. And although her birth was a much happier experience than The Boy’s was–complete with Frank Sinatra playing, and surrounded by wonderful, supportive people–having the NICU team in the room was not one of my wishes.

When I hear my friends talk about what they want for the birth of their children, about their plans for the birth, my heart drops a little. I hope they will get what they want, but I also know that in the end, it isn’t going to be their choice to make. That c-section may have to happen, no matter how much they want a home birth. They may want an epidural, but labor may move too quickly for it to happen. There may be a NICU team in the room. They might not get to hold their baby right away, or for days. None of these things will be their choice, because they don’t have control over what their bodies do, or what the baby needs. And that’s just the start of the lack of control we have over our lives when we become parents. Nobody chooses to clean up baby puke at 2 AM, it just happens. That’s life.

This is one of the main reasons I believe so strongly that it’s really stupid to judge each other for how things go when we parent, and why mommy wars over the best way to give birth seem particularly absurd to me. Because, in the end, having the birth we want, or having the child we imagined, is not something we have much control over. The best we can do is play the hand we are dealt and hope for the best.

Beth’s Classic Film Club: Kitty Foyle

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

You guys, I love old movies. No, not Forrest Gump, what are you, 20? Get off my lawn, you whipper snapper. No, I mean OLD movies, preferably black and white. Classic movies, as the folks at Turner would say. So, I started a classic movie club. It’s like a book club but you don’t have to read a book. You just come over to my house, drink box wine, eat popcorn, and watch a film. It’s so much fun!

What’s that, you say? You say you don’t know me in real life and don’t live in Seattle and you’re bummed you can’t come watch old movies with me? Me too…but let’s do the next best thing: I will give you movie suggestions, and then you go watch them and post your comments here. I’ll even introduce the movies like they do on that classic film channel. I don’t have a film studies degree or anything, but I do watch a lot of old movies and I love to talk about them. I’ll also try to pick a mix of famous films, and also some more obscure titles you might not have heard of.

First up, from 1940, it’s Kitty Foyle, starring Ginger Rogers. You guys, Ginger got an Oscar for her performance in this movie, and not only that, she beat out Kate Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story for it. (Hepburn was offered the lead role in Kitty Foyle but turned it down.) Did you know she wasn’t just a singer and dancer, she also had some serious acting chops? She’s one of my heroes. In this film, she plays a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks who falls in love with a rich guy. I don’t really want to say any more about the plot than that, because I don’t want to spoil it for you, but I will say that the rich guy is played by Dennis Morgan, who is a little bit dreamy.

The film was a huge hit, and it was based on a novel of the same name by Charles Mosley, which was a best seller. The plot was changed a bit from the book–in the book, there’s more sex, and Kitty has an abortion, both of which were WAY too racy to be in a film during the production code days. One more tidbit of info: One of Kitty’s dresses in the film was so popular that women all over the place were wearing it, and the style is still called a Kitty Foyle in the fashion industry today, or so the Internet tells me. (I know nothing about fashion.)

Warning: the movie has a couple of race-related lines that will probably make you wince. At one point Kitty refers to herself as “free, white and 21” and at another point, when discussing whether she should date the rich guy, she says, “Well, we’re both the same color.” Ouch…I hope that doesn’t spoil the film for you, because it really has a lot to offer, including the introductory sequence about the death of chivalry. Me and my friends had a bit to say about that sequence…

So, once you’ve seen the film, drop a comment or two here about what you thought of it. And maybe invite some of your mom friends to come over and watch it with you! Box wine and popcorn are best when shared with friends.

Public Transit and Kids

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

So, here’s where I tell you something profoundly weird about myself: I don’t drive. If I were 15 years younger, or lived in Manhattan, you probably would think nothing of it, since Millennials drive less and less, and loads of people in Manhattan don’t drive. But I live in Seattle and I’m 37. People often ask how it works for our family, and the answer is, The Hubs drives, and we live in a city filled with buses. It’s not that huge a deal.

When I tell people I don’t drive, they often say, “I can’t imagine taking kids on the bus.” Honestly, most people of my income level don’t take their kids on public transit much, but if you ride the bus, you’ll see plenty of kids. Having a car is expensive, it just is. You have to pay for the car, the insurance, gas, sometimes a place to park it. So, a lot of poor folks in cities rely entirely on transit to get around. That includes a trip to the grocery store, picking kids up from daycare, and getting to work. If poor folks can do it, so can the rest of us. You just have to know what you’re doing.

First off, the key to using public transit, with kids or without, in your own town or while traveling on vacation, is to pack lightly. Do not bring your ginormous travel system barely-foldable stroller. Do not bring your largest diaper bag packed to the gills with everything you might possibly want while out and about. Instead, bring an umbrella stroller, or if your kid is still small enough, a baby carrier or wrap or sling. In my city, you have to fold your stroller and carry it, your kid, and your bag on and off the bus. An umbrella stroller, especially one with a shoulder strap so you can toss it over your shoulder, is better. And my easiest bus trips with the kids have been when they are small enough to be in a baby carrier. It keeps them calm, and contained, and my hands free.

The more you have to lug up the steps of a bus, the more unhappy you will be. To paraphrase the great Rick Steves on packing light, I don’t know anyone who, after multiple trips on public transit, brags that each trip they pack heavier. Don’t ask yourself “Will I use that heavy board book on this bus ride.” Ask, “Will I use it enough to warrant carrying it around all day.” If you find yourself without something you really need, remember that you’re in a city and there is likely a drug store or grocery store nearby where you can buy replacement supplies. It’s a different mindset than most parents are used to having–there is this sense of panic, like, what if I get there and I don’t have what I need? I will ask you this: are you taking public transit to a three-day backpacking trip in the wilderness, or to the mall for a couple hours? Honestly, you’re gonna be OK.

I’m also a fan of a backpack vs. a shoulder bag. A shoulder bag can fall off your shoulders while you’re wrestling with a squirming kid, but a backpack keeps your hands free. Super double bonus if you can wear a backpack on your back and your kid on your front. Also: once your kids get older? Make THEM wear the backpack. Did I just blow your mind? I totally did, didn’t I? Make them schlep their own crap around, WHAAAAAA?!?! I know, it’s brilliant.

Another practical tip: sit near the driver of whatever transit mode you’re on. You’ll be able to ask questions if you’re confused about where to get off the bus, and you’re likely to be closer to the door, so it’s easier to get on/off. The Boy LOVES sitting by the driver on the Monorail, and often the driver lets the kids blow the horn when the Monorail is leaving the station.

The other thing is, it can be hard for car-oriented people to get past the idea that the bus takes longer than driving. It does take longer, i am not gonna lie. But, try to see transit not just as a way to get from here to there–see it as entertainment for your kid, especially if you don’t use it that often. The Boy and I love to take transit adventures together. One time on a day off from school, I took the kids downtown on the bus, where we rode the streetcar, the monorail, and the light rail. They had a BLAST. Also, a couple years back, The Boy and I took a one-night cruise from Vancouver back to Seattle, so we took a bus downtown to catch an Amtrak train to get to the Skytrain to get to the cruise ship in Vancouver. He LOVED that trip.

Now, here’s the other thing about public transit: it’s public. So, anyone can ride it, including smelly homeless people and people with bad manners and crack heads. I see this as a teachable moment. I want my kids to know that there are homeless people in the world, and that they’re people, and that it’s right to want to help them. I want them to not be afraid to say hello back to the friendly old lady who says how cute they are, AND, I want them to learn to trust their instinct that the mean crack head is not someone they want to talk to. If I am there with them, I know they are learning these lessons in a safe environment where I can protect them.

If all that freaks you out and makes you uncomfortable, well, the bus is probably not for you. But if you’ve got a sense of adventure, give transit a try. You might be surprised how much you and your kids enjoy it!

Cocktails with the Cult: Lena’s Mason Jar Margaritas

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

I am so lucky to have two awesome BFFs. One of them went to college with me and she lives back east, so I don’t get to see her that often, but we talk on the phone pretty regularly and when we do get together, it’s like we were never apart. I call her my College BFF. The other is a friend I met when I moved back home to Seattle after college, and I call her my Local BFF. Her name is Lena and she blogs over at Beginner’s Runner. Both of these women are FANTASTIC, I mean, funny, and smart, and generous almost to a fault. They’re the kind of friends you can count on no matter what, to laugh with you and to pick you up when you’ve fallen.

On top of all that awesomeness, my Local BFF makes a MEAN margarita. I mean, this thing is so damn delicious. DELICIOUS. And halfway through it, you’re like, “Holy crap, am I buzzed already?” Last year, I threw her a baby shower, and her thank-you gift to me was 3 of these bad boys in mason jars. Now, here’s the reason why she puts them in mason jars: because she is a GENIUS. Because when you’re throwing a party, you don’t have time to stand around with a pitcher pouring drinks for everyone. Better to just have your drinks in mason jars, and all your guests have to do is take the lid off and drink up. GENIUS.

When she gave me the margaritas after her baby shower, she said to me, “By the way, these freeze beautifully.” And they do–OMG, when they thaw, they’re like a delicious slushy glass of awesomeness. And, when you’re hosting a party, you can make a batch of these ahead of time and keep them in your freezer. SHE IS A GENIUS.

So I asked her if she’d be willing to share the recipe with you all, and lucky for you, she said yes! Without further ado, I bring you Lena’s Mason Jar Margaritas.

 

Mason Jar Margaritas
Makes just over 6 – 16oz jars
Adapted from Brittanyherself.com Knock You On Your Ass Margaritas

1 container Frozen Lemonade, melted
6 oz. Roses Lime Juice
8 oz Triple Sec
4 cups of Tequila
40 oz of water
– Then if you want to add kick or flavor to your margaritas, 4 oz Cointreau, Grand Marnier or a flavoring of your choice. I usually leave it straight or put in a little more Triple Sec.

Clean out and dry 7 – 16 oz mason jars with lids. Mix all the ingredients and fill the jars as much or as little as you want. I usually go to the neck of the jar, but you can leave it a little less full to put ice in there when you serve.
Put the lids on the jars and put in the fridge. Best if left overnight and served next day.
To serve, open lid, throw a few ice cubes in, put lid back on tightly, shake, then remove lid and serve. Easy peasy and less glassware cleanup!

And there you have it, a margarita for the ages. In a mason jar. That freezes beautifully. GENIUS. Cheers, y’all!

What We Need: Paid Maternity Leave

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

One of my biggest beefs with the feminist scholarship of my college years (the mid 90’s) was how detached it felt from the everyday lives of the women I knew. A lot of the feminist theory we studied then was about reclaiming language. Like spelling women with a y, so “men” isn’t part of the word anymore, so women stop being defined in relation to men. My reaction then, as now, is “I mean, that’s all fine and dandy, but is that REALLY what women need most? Like, shouldn’t we be doing something about domestic violence and equal pay?” Not that there haven’t always been plenty of feminists pushing for equal pay and combatting domestic violence, including the ones working on theory, but the feminist movement seemed to be mired in the weeds of stuff that wasn’t important to me. No offense, feminists theorists of the 90’s, but I got bigger fish to fry than how we spell things, and no amount of your theorizing was able to convince me that changes in spelling would bring about a feminist utopia.

I feel like maybe that’s why less and less women identified as feminists in the 90’s. From the outside, it can look like a movement that is about minutiae, not about what is important to women. We argue about whether this musician or that film are “feminist” but we don’t seem to be making much traction on the big stuff. In fact, it can feel like we are moving backwards at times.

I feel really impatient about women’s rights. It makes me completely insane that the glass ceiling is still a thing. I am so sick of celebrating the first woman this, or the first lesbian that, or the first Latina whatever. And if I have to see one more video montage of women pioneering their fields, followed by a tagline like “Keep on dreaming” or whatever, I’m going to vomit. “Hooray, we aren’t barred from having jobs anymore, we must rejoice!” BLEEAARRGGGHHHH. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act is a lot older than me, and I’m no spring chicken anymore. We should be past the pioneer phase of change by now. We should have equal pay by now. We should have adequate funding for domestic violence survivors’ services by now. We should have paid maternity leave by now. That we still are begging for this stuff in 2014 makes me completely insane.

I think part of the problem is that we as women are distracted. We’re distracted with the Mommy Wars. We’re distracted with how to spell words. We’re distracted with the argument about whether Beyonce is a real feminist. Meanwhile, we lose our access to birth control pills, and we watch our mothers, daughters, and sisters hide bruises because they’re in even bigger risk of being murdered by their abuser if they leave him.

Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t have patience for the distractions anymore. The distractions are killing women. It’s time we moved past them. It’s time we stopped arguing WITH each other and did something FOR each other. There are plenty of things to disagree about, but there are even more things that bring us together.

So, I’m gonna start with one issue here today that I hope we can agree on: paid maternity leave. Did you know that the US is one of only FOUR countries in the entire world that don’t have at least some kind national law requiring paid maternity leave? That’s right, we’re in a club with Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and Liberia. The next time someone complains about strong US labor laws pushing companies to move jobs to Mexico, I’m gonna point out that in Mexico, women are entitled to 12 weeks of 100% paid maternity leave. Also, when someone complains about how complicated it must be to reassign work when women are gone from the office for three months, I’m gonna point out that EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD except us 4 have managed to figure it out. I think US employers are at least as smart as the ones in Uruguay, don’t you? Also, has nobody ever heard of a damn temp? Seriously?

But what really moves me isn’t arguing with people who say no. It’s stories from women about why it’s important. When I came back to work when The Girl was 8 weeks old (I took a few weeks off before she was born, and was completely out of money, and not entitled to more leave even if I had the money to pay the bills while I was taking unpaid leave), I was still so sleep deprived, it is fair to say I wasn’t doing my best work. Imagine how much worse that was when The Boy was in the NICU and I went back to work right away, so I could save the sick leave I had saved up for when he came home from the hospital. Was I focused on my job? Not really, no.

Now imagine you are a woman living in poverty, where every spare dime you have is going to have to go to child care so you can go back to work immediately after birth because your employer is too small to be covered by the FMLA and you have no right to even unpaid maternity leave. How is this good for families? For babies? Or frankly, for employers? Are stressed out, overtired employees really a benefit to a company? Wouldn’t it be better if we let those families bond and those women get some rest before throwing them back into the workplace?

If this is an issue you care about, what can you do to help move our country to join the vast majority of the world that has paid maternity leave laws? Well, you can write to your members of Congress, repeatedly, and tell them to support the FAMILY Act. Also, you can also get involved with groups like MomsRising.org and the National Partnership for Women and Families. And you can also tell your friends and families the facts about the US’s shameful lack of paid maternity leave and ask THEM to write to Congress and get involved. That’s basically how it works to advocate for stuff–you connect with like-minded people, and you ask for what you need from those with the power to grant it. And you keep asking, no matter how many times they say no, until you get it.

I’m going to do several of these posts on topics I feel passionate about–things that women can do to help each other to improve our lives. I hope it will make all of you feel empowered and connected. And I know it will make me feel like at least I am doing something positive and practical to help women. If you have an issue you’d like me to write about, share it in the comments!

Children’s Television Survival Guide: Mighty Machines

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

It’s time once again for another post in my continuing Children’s Television Survival guide series! OMG you guys, I am so excited to share this show with you. I can’t believe how many people have never heard of this show–probably because you can only find it on Netflix, I guess? But it’s so fantastic, everyone should be watching it. Without further ado, I give you Mighty Machines.

Mighty Machines was made in Canada, and it features real footage of all different kinds of mechanical devices. We’re talking trains, dump trucks, street sweepers, bulldozers, airplanes, mining equipment, submarines–if it has an engine, they probably made a Mighty Machines episode about it. But it’s not just footage of the machines, because, yawn, that would be dull. It’s that the machines are talking. TALKING. Like, “Hello, my name is Spike, and my job is to drive over the garbage at the dump and crush it down.” This would be one of those times when I desperately wish I wasn’t a square and was into drugs, because imagine how cool that would be if you were high while watching this show. THE MACHINES ARE TALKING, MAN.

My favorite episode is probably the one at the airport, uncreatively titled “At the Airport,” because a big part of the episode is following Sammy the Suitcase (who is actually a duffel bag) along the conveyor belt under the airport and being tossed onto an airplane. Sammy talks too, for some reason, even though he isn’t a machine, but you don’t care about inconsistencies like that, because he and the airplane are TALKING TO EACH OTHER. In a Canadian accent, because it’s filmed in Canada. But when the British Airways plane appears, it has an English accent. And once in a while, a machine will have a Quebecois accent, because it’s Canada.

There are over 30 episodes on Netflix, so the good news is, you don’t have to get bored watching the same 10 episodes over and over. And there’s enough variety of episodes that there is bound to be at least one that appeals to your kid. In fact, there are several on garbage/recycling, several that are set on the water, and three that have to do with airplanes. So even if your kid is obsessed with a particular topic, you can probably find more than one episode on that topic.

True story about this show: one time I had to bring The Boy with me to work because his school was closed, and I brought along a DVD player and a DVD with an episode of Mighty Machines. One of my coworkers came in at lunchtime to say hi to me and The Boy (I love my coworkers, they are super kind to my kids on the rare occasion they are at the office), and The Boy said, “Hey, I’m watching Mighty Machines” and proceeded to explain the show to my coworker. And I swear to god, the two of them sat there watching the whole episode together and commenting on how cool the machines were. Literally, it is so good, it sucked in an adult.

Big kudos to Canada for bringing us this show–it almost makes up for Caillou. Almost.

Success

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

Over the summer, my favorite college professor was passing through Seattle and so I got to have a visit with her. She is a women’s studies professor, which means she is ridiculously underpaid and will never have tenure. It’s not that she’s not brilliant and extremely well respected in her field–she is one of the smartest people I know and gets flown to conferences around the world and invited to the White House because of her expertise. She doesn’t get tenure because she’s in a field that academia does not reward with tenure and high pay. Women’s Studies is often one of the first programs cut when a college has to make cutbacks–it’s seen as expendible in a way that, say, biology is not. So, unless they are also teaching in another department as well, women’s studies professors don’t tend to be eligible for tenure, which means they don’t tend to make much money. And so my favorite professor, who has published books that were literally best sellers, crashes on futons at her former students’ houses when she takes the few vacations she can afford.

We had a lovely brunch while she was here, during which we had a great conversation about careers. And she said that she has noticed that her east coast friends tend to say things like “What a pity you never got tenure” as if her life is not complete and her career is not a success because she didn’t get that label. But that her west coast friends don’t seem to care much about titles like that, so they tend not to think much of her non-tenured status.

That cultural difference between easterners and westerners resonated with me too. Professionally, I am doing work that I find interesting that I think is important, but I will never be rich or famous doing this work. And honestly, I am OK with that. I am proud of the work I do, even if I do it quietly and without big monetary rewards. Living on the west coast, it feels easy to stay in a job that I am comfortable with, and that gives me the flexibility I need as a parent of small children, without feeling pressure to climb a ladder. I think if I lived back east, I might feel more pressure to move up than I do living in the Pacific Northwest. I’ve had parents of my east coast friends ask me how much money I make and say point blank that they think I should take a more high-pressure, prestigious job. As in “You want to do public interest work? No no no, you should get a job at a big firm and just donate your money to legal clinics or do a little pro bono work on the side.” (That one actually came from my ex-boyfriend’s dad. Thank god he dumped me, because that would have been one awful father-in-law.) I have never had that experience on the West Coast.

So, I was thinking of that conversation the other day as I was thinking about people who see momming as a competition. Like, they brag about how much better their kids are turning out than their friends’ kids, or they look down their nose at other moms who aren’t putting their kids in piano lessons and all that at an early age, or whatever. And I realized that one of the reasons I find people who talk that way so grating is that there aren’t as many of them out here as in, say, Manhattan. We worry about our kids and we want the best for them, but we just don’t seem to put the same value on external measures of success that Easterners do. I joke about The Girl curing cancer and The Boy founding the next Microsoft and taking care of me financially in my old age, but it’s a joke, and it’s funny because I don’t really care if my kids are big shots someday. What I care about is that they are happy. If curing cancer and being a billionaire entrepreneur make them happy, then great, but if they find their joy in a quieter field, and if they aren’t rock stars, that’s great too.

I think if I lived back east, I would find more parents who do see prestigious careers and status labels as the pathway to happiness, and I would probably feel a lot of pressure to pour all my resources into producing the next Bill Gates and Marie Curie. I would worry about choosing the right daycare that will get them into the right school that will get them into the right college that will get them access to the right people, so they can climb into a prestigious career that I believe will bring them happiness. When I talk to many of my east coast friends, the accepted wisdom among most of them is that this is how you create a good life for your kids.

In the end, I don’t necessarily think either parenting style is right or better. I think it’s just a cultural difference. The Cult of Perfect Motherhood tries to tell us that if we’re not parenting perfectly, then we are horrible people and our children’s futures are doomed. But, if different cultures place different value on things like financial success and status and prestige, then clearly there isn’t one perfect way to parent, and we are not failures for parenting differently. And that’s why competing with each other to see who’s the best parent because of how their kids turned out is futile. Because, some of us aren’t trying to produce rock stars. Our goals are different.