A bargain for whom?

I'm going to take a break from my usual mom-themed posts to talk about why I buy the majority of my clothes from thrift stores and yard sales even though I can afford to do otherwise.  The recent collapse of the clothing factory in Bangladesh where 400+ people died due to shoddy construction and other safety violations (see www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22364891) has brought the issue of the human cost of cheap fashion back into public consciousness. So yes, that great shirt you found for next to nothing at H&M probably came from a factory very much like this one.  I could go on to bemoan the consumerist nature of fashion and scold people for buying into this, but why? I don't have a problem with wanting to look good, follow trends, etc.  What I do have a problem with is doing this at the expense of someone's right to safe working conditions (preferably) at a living wage.  This especially angers me when the cost of improving factory safety to conform with legal standards in a particular country is often pennies to the shopper.  A bargain brand's price is its main selling point, and these brands rightly assume that shoppers will go elsewhere if they have to pay a bit more.  For every person like me that says "no thanks", there are hundreds of others who want that bargain and really don't care why it's so cheap.

So then why bother? Normally, I would agree.  I tend to prefer to be an informed observer about social/political issues that I care about because I recognize that there are very few things I can do about them.   With apologies to my more politically active friends, I believe that activism is largely a gathering of like-minded souls and rarely yields any tangible results.  I say "rarely" instead of "never" because my friends' determination and committment has shown that it sometimes works so I do sip that haterade less frequently.  I think this is an issue where people can actually do something although I'm under no illusions that my decision not to shop at Target, H&M, etc will force these brands to change their wicked ways. By buying clothes at Goodwill, a consignment shop, etc, I'm not contributing to the problem.  Plus, it saves lots of money, and I'd rather put the money I would spend on a new piece of clothing towards our mortgage, my daughter's college, etc.  There are some things that are gross or impractical to buy used.  Also, not everyone likes to grub around thrift stores and/or feels ok wearing used clothes.  I think these are situations where someone can and should become part of the solution which is to buy from brands that use fair and safe labor practices.  Major bargain labels won't die if you opt out, but individuals can make a difference for these smaller guys.  Supporting a smaller or mid-sized ethical brand can help it grow into something like American Apparel, which can/does attract buyers away from the major offenders. 

I'll end with this website/blog that has resources to help find things made in the US (www.usalovelist.com) as well as a plug for American Apparel, Fluevogs, Doc Martens, and thrift stores.  Hope y'all think about this and see you at Goodwill!

Oh no, you didn't..

I was out at the playground with Ms Frog when I ran into another mom I know from the neighborhood.  She said she was looking into daycare for her daughter who is around the toad's age and asked what we were doing.  I said that she had just started and that we all love her school.  We then talked for a while about different daycares and preschools in the neighborhood while making sure our kids weren't getting into any lethal trouble.  She then asked what our hours were at school and whether there was some flexibility.  I said that Ms Frog is there full-time, but that there is the option of a shorter day and/or fewer days per week.  She replied that the shorter day option is still too long for her.  Here's where I could have changed the subject, but I didn't.

I asked her why she felt that way and she answered that it's too long a day for a small child.  Again, I should have nodded, smiled, and changed the subject.  Instead I asked her how she felt about that for families that don't have a choice.  She acknowledged that she was coming at this issue from a privileged position as someone who can afford to stay home, but said she understood even though she felt bad for the kids.  Once again, this was my cue to either run away or change the subject.  I couldn't resist and asked how she felt about a situation where both parents care about their careers.  She replied verbatim that "those people really shouldn't have children".

Oh no, she didn't... Dear readers, I assure you, she did.  I really wanted to go white trash on her or mention that I feel bad for the children of helicopter parents even though I understand the situation.  I took a deep breath, looked at my daughter, and did none of the above.  I looked her in the eye and said in my stern mommy voice that my husband and I care deeply about our work and our little girl is proof we're doing something right.  She tried to backpedal, but the words had already come out.  Maybe I shouldn't have fed the troll, but my actions didn't change what this lady feels in her heart.  This makes me more upset than angry.  I've said it before and I'll say it again that it really upsets me how much women tend to hate on each other.  It's so much worse when the women doing the hating are mothers; doubly so when they're mothers of daughters.  We're all trying to be the best wives, moms, and friends that we can be in the way that makes sense for us.  My way is probably not someone else's and it's upsetting that some women honestly believe that others who make different choices are the enemy without thinking about the reasons behind those choices.

I was much more judgmental before the toad entered my life, but have backed off considerably because I see the responsibility I have as the mother of a daughter to teach her to support rather than condemn other women.  I've learned a lot from peers and elders who have or are making different choices from mine.  My closest women friends and I don't always see eye-to-eye and while we may engage in some heated debates, a spirit of mutual respect prevails and we [mostly] come away having learned something.  I've also learned quite a bit in talking to people who aren't close that have different ideas.  I want my daughter to grow up to be someone who can learn from differences instead of condemning them.  Seeing her mom, her elders, or her aunties approach difference with reason and understanding instead of judgement may help her learn this.  Had I gone white trash and given that lady on the playground a piece of my mind, this lesson would have been lost.  I might not have learned something feel-good here, but this situation reinforced something I learned from a very dear friend; judge not lest ye be judged.

Why it's important to act like a lady or the importance of manners

I'm part of an online forum for parents in our neighborhood, which I occasionally look at while I'm drinking my coffee in the morning.  Amidst the chaff about how vaccines, toy guns, princesses, and refined sugar are the root of all evil are occasional informational and/or thought-provoking posts.  The former are good fodder for snark, but the latter are why I subscribe to and occasionally contribute to this forum.  One such thought-provoking comment was a response to a recent post about a mom's concern about her language.  The person writing the comment made the observation that swearing is a benign example of how women and moms worry too much about being "nice".  They wrote that they believe that this pressure is damaging to women and plays into the cultural stereotype of moms having to be nice/good/accepting all the time.  She advised the person posting to swear away and revel in causing a bit of "cognitive dissonance". 

I chewed on this idea on my drive home from work that day because I both agree and disagree with this statement.  I agree that many women my age were encouraged as children to not stand up for themselves or pursue their interests to the same degree as their brothers, cousins, or male friends.  I remember being routinely told off for asserting myself and seething every time I was encouraged to
to be "pleasant and agreeable" instead.  I grew up in an environment that did not prize outspoken women and had pretty rigid gender roles so this seethe boiled into a predictable teenage rejection of everything "nice" or "feminine".  Like all teenage rebellions, this wasn't particularly grounded in sound logic.  I believed that looking like a girl, using good manners, or being attracted to anything that my elders considered nice or appropriate was somehow colluding in a plot to force me down a path I didn't want to go.  Predictably, I wore mens' clothes, did sports, and read/listened to things with the maximum possible shock value.  Choosing to stand out had some positive effects.  I stayed out of trouble and learned lots of good life lessons thanks to sports and discovered some great bands and authors.  I also attribute the presence of many good things in my life to the choice to step away from the expectations that many of the adults around me had of girls and, by extension, of me.

Gradually, though I grew to realize that a wholesale rejection of "nice" or "feminine" served its purpose during my teens and early 20s, but is not applicable in the adult world.  As I've grown older, I've realized the importance of manners, and shockingly, of acting like a lady.  I believe that good manners, which includes being mindful of one's language, are an outward statement of self-respect.   People that are secure and respect themselves respect other people and can assert themselves without being aggressive or shrill.  I believe this is equally true for men and for women.  I also think that women tend to equate being aggressive and shrill with being strong, which I think is a mistake.  The ladies who I consider to be both my personal and professional role models are able to get what they want in life while managing to be (mostly) kind and respectful to other people.  This kindness and respect is what I consider to be acting like a lady.  Although the outward appearance of "lady-like" behavior is eerily similar to the one I grew up with, the rationale is much different.  Growing up, I was taught to use good manners to stifle dissent and to discourage me from asserting myself.  As an adult, I try to use what I was taught as a child to speak my mind and assert myself in a way that is respectful both of myself and of other people.  The difference also is that I understand when it's appropriate to be "nice" and "good" and when it's appropriate to unleash my inner fury.

Gender isn't completely fluid

Some people believe that gender should be completely fluid and that it's something that kids need to completely figure out on their own.  I disagree.  I believe that there is a broad range of gender-normative behavior and that each kid needs to figure out how to fit within these boundaries with adult help.  There are exceptions to this such as intersex individuals or kids that come from families with rigid gender roles, but let's assume for the purposes of this discussion that we're talking about anatomically normal kids from relatively open-minded families. 

I suppose this is why the attitude of crunchier parents towards their anatomically normal and normally identified sons' desire to play with Barbies or wear sparkly pink dresses in public creeps me out.  Kids don't know that certain things aren't ok unless adults tell them.  This doesn't mean I'm equating wearing girls' clothing with torturing kittens, but it's still something that's not quite acceptable in my book.  Maybe I'm more traditional in this way, but I still believe that it's good to tell a child that they need to fit themselves and their behavior into some relatively broad norms.  That same little boy doesn't have to play football or macho games with his friends to be masculine, but he also shouldn't be wearing a pink tutu.  Boy clothes can be boring, and a kid who wants to jazz up his wardrobe with a sparkly dress can be redirected into blinging out a shirt.  Although the two things are similar, one is on the girly end of socially acceptable, but the other crosses the line.  It's not that I don't think boys can be feminine or girls masculine, but there are limits. 

Going past these limits can make life really difficult and affect things like a kid's ability to make friends, focus at school (hard to do when teased), or develop aspects of themselves outside their gender identity.  I believe in pushing boundaries, but not to the extent that a small person's healthy development is compromised.  If my daughter wants to play football and/or dress like a dude, I'll probably encourage her to take a small step to the lady side.  Hockey, basketball, rugby, and soccer are all contact sports that people of both genders enjoy playing and are just as, if not more physically demanding than football.  Likewise, there are lots of gender neutral or menswear-inspired clothes that she can wear.  The difference is subtle, but it is the difference between a mannish woman and a person of unknown gender.  Unfortunately, she might be subject to ridicule for both, but falling within the broad definition of feminine will save her a lot of heartache.  I don't think this will be a problem for us because Ms Frog already seems like a girly girl, but who knows?

I don't think that everyone should be the same and I'm all for expanding definitions of "normal" whether it's gender, sexuality, religion, or life choices.  However, there are certain really broad things that I think people agree to do in a society in order to live, work, and play with others.  It's not required to like or even agree with these others, but it's necessary to be able to co-exist.  This co-existance requires some very broad similarities.  For instance, I've got very little in common with the mother of a Quiverfull family (speaking of rigid gender roles) who lives out in the boonies and home-schools her brood of 8 according to the precepts of the Bible.  However, we both identify as women and are both mothers so we could recognize each other enough to interact if necessary.  People in this culture break others down into either male or female and identifying someone as one or the other is a basic thing that governs the nature of an interaction between people.  I'm not arguing whether this is good or bad here, but acknowledging that it exists.  A family's definition of gender that is too broad or too restrictive can derail this process through hampering development of a gender identity that is both true to a particular child and falls within certain boundaries.

What about men?

There was a lot of buzz this summer about an article in the Atlantic about the idea of women "having it all".  The idea of separating work and home life began in earnest with the industrial revolution and men and women alike have had to figure this out.  The only group that didn't have to do this were middle or upper-class women who were denied employment or educational opportunities that would have forced them to do so.  This changed in the 1960s and 70s when more of these women began to pursue jobs and educational opportunities previously closed to them, at which point the discussion about "having it all" began.  Let's forget for the purposes of this post that the idea of "having it all" is heavily steeped in race and class privilege.  Let's also forget that success means different things to different people.  I am a middle-class white lady who has an advanced degree in science, a reasonably demanding job, and a small child so this conversation is relevant to my personal set of circumstances. 

What has annoyed me about this conversation is how it has evolved to exclude men.  The author of the article in the Atlantic mentions her supportive/loving husband and talks about their partnership.  A TED talk that proceeded this article by a few years also mentioned the importance of men.  Subsequent buzz has largely ignored the guys.  Why? Men balance work and family and have always been expected to do so.  All the men I know have a deep and abiding love for their families.  It's a different relationship than moms', but no less affectionate and nurturing.  No one talks about the anxiety a man feels when they leave a sick kid to go to work.  Likewise, there's radio silence about how sometimes a guy feels stressed about meeting his work and family obligations.  Are we that dumb as a society that we don't recognize a man's capacity for loving his children? That we exclude half the human race from this discussion? Are the ladies facilitating this conversation so short-sighted as to not understand that support is mutual and that men and women face similar challenges? The assumption that a man isn't/cannot be as caring and nurturing of his children as a woman makes me angry.  Furthermore, it is assumed that a man struggling to meet his work and family obligations can handle it and will suffer in silence.  We ladies can learn something about powering our way through difficulties quietly and gracefully like guys do.  Likewise, men can learn from us about the value of talking things through with a friend or asking for help.

Maybe I'm not seeing the problem clearly because my family is not a traditional one.  My husband and I both have careers that we're highly invested in.  We're both mildly obsessed with working out to the point where it always seems like we're training for a race.  We both want to support each other in reaching our career and personal goals and recognize that sharing responsibilities is an essential part of supporting each other.  We each want the other to be happy both for its own sake and so we can raise a happy, confident daughter.  Plus, there are a lot of places where traditional gender roles are reversed in our household.  He's a much better cook and is the more nurturing/permissive parent.  I'm often "bad cop" and am a bit more detatched, but we both love Ms Frog and want the best for her.

It's only stuff. Or is it?

When we go over to other kids' houses, there are lots of toys that light up, make cool sounds, etc.  We don't have a whole lot of these things and sometimes I feel like a bad parent for not providing them.  This isn't to say that Ms Frog has nothing to play with; we've got blocks, stuffed animals, plastic figures, hand puppets, and tons of books.  There's also a house full of things that make great toys from pots to big people books.  I do feel a bit guilty that her toys, like her clothes, are mostly gifts or yard sale/thrift store purchases, but maybe we're doing her a favor in the long run.  I'm sure we're going to run into problems with this as she gets older and notices that she doesn't have as many cool toys/trendy clothes as some of her friends.  We'll probably have to buy some of those things (or have her grandparents do it), but I really want to limit this.  I want her to learn that stuff really isn't that important and that fun doesn't require tons of props.  I'd much rather she roll in the mud or trash the kitchen baking a cake with her buddies than sit in her room playing with some silly toy.  I want her to realize that doing something or spending time with someone is much more important than having something.

The culture we live in is all about things; what someone buys is as much or more of what defines them than other qualities.  This applies to anything from the clothes someone wears to where they buy their groceries to where they don't shop.  This bothers me to no end because there are so many more things that define a person; relationships, values, hobbies, taste in books, etc.  Marketing to kids through media or peer influence brings them into consumerism before they are old enough to decide if/how they want to participate.  I don't believe it's necessary to put walls around what my child watches or who she plays with.  I do think, however, that it's necessary to (largely) say no to marketing campaigns.  I can do this by choosing not to buy her everything she asks for and by encouraging her to laugh at ads and go beyond the pitch.  For instance, if she wants a princess costume, we can make our own instead of buying it.  Ours can have more frills, sparkles, etc than the store version.  Or we can skip the thing and pretend to be princesses using our imaginations.  I imagine the latter won't fly and that we might end up buying that princess costume.  Still, I hope that placing some limits will encourage her to question who's telling her that she needs stuff and to realize that she usually doesn't.

On Judgement

Note: I am not a religious nut job and this isn't a post about Revelation or the fifth coming of Flying Spaghetti Monster.  Now that we've cleared that up, that awful Time cover has brought the issue of judgement to the front of my mind.  I'm not surprised that a judgemental piece about moms and/or women was printed in a major magazine, because that's unfortunately par for the course.  Unfortunately, the judgment doesn't stay in the media, where it can be laughed at, but migrates into people's daily lives.  Admittedly, I can be a pretty harsh critic of what I consider to be stupid and/or irresponsable behavior.  I try to keep that out of people's parenting decisions as long as they don't harm the child in question or my child.  By "harm" I don't mean Junior not getting into Harvard or a similar first world problem.  I mean harm as in causing irreparible damage. It's the difference between someone letting their baby "cry it out" versus never vaccinating their child.  The former isn't a decision that we made, but is perfectly reasonable.  The latter, however, is criminally stupid and endangers other children. 

Oftentimes, these relatively benign choices are judged by other moms, who are the very people that probably shouldn't be doing so. When people are in what they assume are a group of like-minded individuals, there are often things said about those "other people" that are pretty nasty.  Sometimes I'm one of those "other people" and it's not a comfortable place to be.  Sometimes I'm not, but still find it a warning sign when another mom, who seems really nice, starts going off on people that do X.  If X is putting them in a sensory deprivation tank, then ok, but it's often something like playing with water pistols (which are awesome).  It's almost like we're all back in high school and are using cattiness as a way of mitigating some of the fear and insecurity.  The sad thing about this behavior is that it plays into the stereotype of women who are too busy hating on each other to behave like real adults.  My feelings is that motherhood is hard enough, so why make it worse by adding another minefield to navigate.  I've found myself getting less, not more judgemental as my daughter grows because I realize that most people love their children and try to make the best decisions for them given the kid's temperment and the individual family's situation.  This doesn't mean that I'm a saint and that I won't silently flip off the person who gives me the death-stare because I let my kid play around off-leash dogs or crack up when she makes mouth farts.  It means that I'll try to not give THEM the death stare and then run to tell all my friends about it.