Kids
Are Moms Really That Busy?
Yesterday, for the first time ever, I watched the Dr. Phil show. No, I haven’t been living in a cave; it seems I’ve always known about Dr. Phil, it’s just that the TV here is, 99% of the time, switched off during the day. And I like it that way.
But I was compelled to watch yesterday’s show, “Are Moms Really That Busy?” in support of my Champaign-Urbana homie, Amy Hatch, who is half of the awesome duo behind chambanamoms.com. She made an appearance on Dr. Phil’s panel in order to debate a recent finding by University of Maryland’s Dr. John Robinson that moms have, on average, 30-40 hours of leisure time each week.
It’s an easy thing to get a knee-jerk reaction to – particularly if you are among the aforementioned moms who are spread reeeeeally really thin in order to be the best mom and caregiver and housekeeper and working professional that they can be. The consensus on the panel as to Dr. Robinson’s findings can be summed up the following way: “Are you freakin KIDDING me?!”. The panelists and moms in the audience were happy to provide the kind of heartbreaking detail of how patently NON-leisurely their lives really are; and how hard, in fact, they do work, and how very very much is expected of them. That they should even be put in the position of having to defend themselves on this subject is altogether insulting. Actually, “adding insult to injury” is a perfect characterization.
Of course moms will be put on the defensive by Dr. Robinson’s findings. I’m guessing that that, and the publicity surrounding it, was his aim in the first place. The absurd examples of leisure time cited by Dr. Robinson should be all the evidence we need: waiting for a tow truck (in the car w/o kids), opening business email, sitting in the dentist’s office, and the like.
But what went largely undiscussed on yesterday’s show is exactly how we should address this finding: What’s getting valued? Who’s setting the standards here? And why, for christ’s sake, is no one standing up for the very idea of leisure time? The very notion that we have leisure time carries a subtext that we’re not working hard enough.
Because if we picture it, the dream of leisure time floats above all of mom’s heads, like a detached, unattainable balloon – where one can exist, enjoying our favorite things without interruption, without guilt; outside of time and responsibility. and as much as we want and crave and need to be in that balloon, if we’re fortunate enough to have the ability to step in it, we’re afraid that others will judge us as being………..the word which can only be whispered………lazy.
Apparently, with the industrial revolution and the gadgets of the 20th century which allow for tasks to completed in a shorter amount of time, there has been a new cold war: the War on Lazy. We have become so very time and productivity obsessed that we have come to believe, as a culture, that busy-ness is the natural and right state of being. Which is counter-intuitive. One would think that the progress made in the last 200 years would allow for more leisure time, and that it would become a natural and virtuous thing. But something else happened: the standards were raised. Wash day work cut down to a few hours? Better impose a higher standard of cleanliness and sell a lot more clothes. We’ve increasingly been sold a standard that we can’t, and shouldn’t, live up to. And as moms reach a breaking point in which they can barely handle the stress of raising a family and being everything to everyone, mostly without compensation, they are made to apologize for the joke of what passes as leisure time. Shame on us.
Listen to how Brigid Schulte wraps up her fine response in the Washington Post: “it’s 1:31 in the morning; this story is two days late; the dinner dishes are still in the sink; and there’s a form I need to fill out before my daughter goes to school. For a few fleeting moments earlier this evening, however, as I searched for my son’s bike helmet, I did notice that the moon was uncannily beautiful”. The saddest of poetry, but as moms, we’ve been there. Maybe even four times already this week. So instead of going on the defensive, please join me in the following chant:
“More Leisure Time Now! Better Leisure Time Now!”
And fellow moms, when you see a television commercial which leads you to to think that your teeth should be as white as your wedding dress, and implies that anything less constitutes something sub-standard, please see this for the trap that it is, and take hold of what’s important in your life. Having flashy white teeth is not being good to yourself (though corporations would love you to believe it) – having time and a little peace in your life to enjoy yourself IS.
Diapers: Cloth or Disposable?
When I was expecting the Little One, I dreaded this question. For me, it was like the “paper or plastic” question that you feel like you never really have all of the information necessary to make an informed decision (and if you’ve ever felt the same about the ‘paper or plastic?’ question, RUN, don’t walk, to this helpful breakdown). But with ‘Cloth or Disposable?’, I felt even more lost; for one thing, I wasn’t even a mom yet, so hadn’t even honed my diaper changing skills. I didn’t know how much and to what extent diapers would consume my future life, so had no real clue of what information was necessary to make this choice.
As a sustainability-friendly person, my instinct was that ‘cloth’ was the right answer. Much in the same way that many sustainability-friendly folks believe that ‘paper’ is the corresponding right answer among bagging issues. But I soon found, upon the Little One’s birth, that the choice here becomes a far more personal one than which type bag to use. Here is how I found the path to my favorite pick:
My initial response to the dreaded question was that I intended to try cloth, but begin with disposables; I figured the learning curve of caring for a newborn would be great enough without the added stress of trying to manage a new cloth diapering system. Turns out that Whew! I had that right! So, after a little homework on the various options in disposables, I added Seventh Generation diapers to my baby registry. They were hard to find; only one shop offered them locally at the time. The best bet was to buy them online. I’d been happy with both the products and philosophy of the Seventh Generation line, so I was looking forward to giving the diapers a shot. Although they are, like most disposables, essentially a plastic-based product, no chlorine is used in their manufacture, which is helpful in a few ways: Less processing required in manufacture means less carbon footprint; lack of chlorine makes diapers friendly to sensitive baby skin; no chlorine to leach into the groundwater after the diapers are disposed of.
The Little One finally showed up in October, and I was ready with my pick for disposable diapers. My life became a diaper-changing marathon. Any supply of diapers that I had armed myself with disappeared almost immediately. No matter how many new packs I bought, it seemed I was always almost out of them. Having chosen a brand that was difficult to find was not an optimal plan for the time. I ended up supplementing with plenty of Pampers Swaddlers and Luvs, just because they were the ones I could buy at the nearest grocery store. I’m glad that that happened, though, because it learned me something important: The Little One’s bum consistently got rashy when I used any other brand than Seventh Gen.
After a couple of months when I finally felt like I was getting the hang of whole diapering thing, I began to branch out. As a stop between disposable and cloth, I tried G Diapers. This was essentially a 3-part system: Cloth outer diaper, biodegradable/flushable/disposable insert, and protective plastic liner. They were freakin adorable. I loved how they looked on him, and the fit and absorbency was generally right on. I liked that the insert was flushable, but as we have septic system out here, that option was just not for us. The use of the G diaper required a little more planning than the full disposables; there were two outer cloth diapers, which needed to have the plastic liner snapped in place, in order to place the disposable insert, in order for the diaper to go on baby. Fine to plan out for an afternoon diaper change; at 2 am, however, not so much.
And just to wade a little into full cloth, I picked up a Bum Genius set. Super cute, super soft. If I were a baby, this is what I would want wrapping my tush. Aesthetically, it’s like the infant equivalent to Charmin Ultra.
Here, however, was the dealbreaker for me and cloth, and even me and G diapers: the Little One is famous for his consistently huge, runny poops. Even at 2, that kid can fill a diaper. Full. “Man poops” is how is daycare teacher jokingly characterized them. He made an awful mess of the poor Bum Genius. The kind that never quite washed out, and left it discolored. The G diapers would get all three layers saturated, necessitating a frantic run to the washing machine on a regular basis. But the Seventh Gen held it. Sure there were blow-outs, but few and far between as compared to the alternatives.
And now, many more places carry Seventh Generation locally, making them a consistently attractive option. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I used anything else. The Little One is slowly turning his sights to the potty, but I’ve got Kid 2.0 on the way as well; if his/her claim to fame does not include “man poops”, I might be inclined to give cloth another try. Any input or advice is welcome!
My pick: The Best Little Highchair!
As a new mom-to-be, I was confounded by all of the choices among much of the baby furniture on the market, particularly the high chair. Not really knowing what features would actually help in making my and my child’s life a little easier, I was drawn by style alone. When it comes to furnishings, I’m a gal who dreams of George Nakashima and Hans Wegner, so in setting about shopping for kids furniture, I was drawn to the well crafted and beautiful, i.e. The Svan. Not quite being able to justify the high price tag, and dissuaded by the not-great reviews, I did not swing for it, nor did I put it (or any high chair) on my registry. I was happily surprised instead by the Graco Contempo Highchair
Then, when he was about 11 months old, we went on our first family vacation, and among the gear that I purchased for the trip was Phil & Ted’s MeToo! Travel Highchair
- it’s lightweight and folds flat, making it easy not only to pack in a suitcase, but it also fit in my diaper bag.
- it’s sturdy enough to easily hold a wriggly one year old.
- it’s quick to attach to a table; the clamp screws tight to many table widths and the rubber backing prevents damage to the table top.
- It sits him right up to the edge of the table, so he is close to eye level with any adults.
- It was great not just for eating at restaurants, but also in lounging — it can fit to most sturdy tables; not just dining, but also coffee tables, and most importantly, the counters affixed to the beach palapas.
We received so many positive remarks on the chair almost everywhere we used it…….”where did you get that”? “Where can I get one”? In fact, we liked it so well that as soon as we got home, this became our every day highchair. Because we used it so extensively for so long, I can also offer a few caveats: the Little One is very active, and by the time he got to be about 18 months or so, we had to move him out of the chair for daily use, and back to the Graco. His movements became such that he would actually loosen the clamps and move the chair little by little over a period of time. So though the weight restriction is 40 lbs as a travel chair, after about 25 pounds or so, I wouldn’t recommend it for everyday use with a wriggly kid. Also, the cleanability factor is not great — it can sponge clean OK, but in order to fully clean it, I would have to soak the entire chair, frame and all, in the kitchen sink.
Despite these couple of things, I cannot recommend the Me Too chair enough, especially for kids that can sit up fairly well, but aren’t quite running around yet. It gets them right up to the table and they can easily be part of the action while being securely fastened in. It’s the most versatile, and overall one of the best pieces of baby furniture that we invested in.
Simple Shoes: A larger footprint than I expected
Recently, I bought a brand new pair of toddler Simple Shoes for the Little One. They are stinkin adorable, and I liked, at first blush, the philosophy of the company…..at least the one printed on the box: It starts “with all of the overbuilt, over-hyped products out there, it’s pretty hard to find sustainable shoes that you can live with…..” Awesome! You’re speaking to me! It isn’t often that I buy new shoes simply for this reason – I do go out of my way to buy them second or third-hand when I need them, especially for the Little One, who will just outgrow them or wear them out beyond recognition in a month’s time.
It goes on: “HOW we make our shoes is just as important as WHY we make them. That means finding more sustainable ways of doing business so we can make a gazillion more”. Okay, okay, the gazillion figure is a little troubling, but still, you had me at ‘sustainable’. The salesperson at the store gushed about how Simple uses all recycled products in their shoe lines, ie soles made from rubber tires, and I am seriously digging this company. Maybe I’ll even buy a pair new for myself.
The shoes look great on the Little One. But about the third or fourth wearing, as I was putting them on his little feet, I noticed the sizing tag under the tongue of the shoe: “Made in China”. My heart drops. Simple, you lost me. I go on to wonder what else is hiding behind the philosophy of the Simple Shoe manufacturers. Recycled goods shipped to China, shoes made at a low low cost, shoes shipped back to the US? Honestly, this is a much larger (carbon) footprint than I imagined, especially given your marketing keywords. Please do not make a gazillion of them in this manner.
Back to the consignment shops I go.
