Parental Anxiety and Children's Wings

 

My mother's combination of fearlessness, faith in God, and experience with 5 younger brothers made her wonderful mother of 5 boys. She didn't worry; she didn't clip any wings. She didn't let little things like sons on the roof or a son out of touch hiking the Appalachian trail for months upset her.  Joe looks so pleased with himself, without any fear he might fall off the roof or get in trouble with is parents. Her shy, timid, anxious daughter was a mystery to my mom.  I am a  lifelong worrier, from early childhood  telling my parents: "I'm scared."

What my mom did effortlessly, I have had to struggle with every day of my 37 years as a mother. All my daugters are braver and more adventurous than I am. For the most part, my anxieties have not infected them. They respect my fears.  I have decided to concentrate my worries when their planes are in the air, not when they  are on the ground for days or years in Kosovo, Rwanda, Niger, Sydney, Shanghai, etc.. They always call, email, or text when the plane lands, at any hour, in any part of the world. Flight Tracker is my best friend. 

My oldest daughter Emma has inherited her grandmother's bold fearlessness.

From my journals, 1974-1975
From the time Emma was 10 months old, I took her twice a day to Central Park, particularly one very large playground. Emma would casually wander off almost 100 yards away. As long as I was within eye range and met her eyes and waved when she glanced at me, she seemed perfectly confident. One nightmarish day, she managed to slip out between the playground bars and head for Central Park West. I didn't know I could run so fast.
At 15 months Emma would go down slides and climb up jungle gyms that three year olds would avoid. By 2 she was so physically competent that I felt confident about sitting on a bench and watching from a distance as she clambered over a climbing structure designed for children 6 and up. She hardly ever cried if she fell down or bumped into something. Emma was happiest learning new physical feats. She loved the water; at age one she would fearlessly walk into the ocean and laugh if she were knocked down. She was physically fearless yet not particularly reckless except about things she could not possibly know about. She was always ahead of other kids in trying something new physically like walking up the slide backward.


Emma in Niger, 2000                                                                      
 One month ago, I sat in a grass hut in a small village in Niger called Koyetegui, and watched democracy in action, Nigerien style. The five members of the Bureau de Vote sat on overturned pestles normally used for pounding millet, and offered me a seat on a woven mat. And so I sat, as the sun set and the kerosene lantern was lit, and watched as the chickens were chased out of the hut and the entire village crowded into this cramped space to watch the solemn counting and recounting of the 132 votes that had been cast in this tiny district. When the vote counting was over and the report had been filled out and duly sealed with wax, I rode back to the regional capital of Dosso with the ballot box to turn in the election results. It was only the next day that I learned from my driver that the chief of the village had presented me with a gift of an enormous river squash. I spent the entire ride back to Niamey replaying the events of the past few months in my mind, wondering how I had ever gotten to be so lucky.

From applications to graduate schools in International Relations in 2000:
In three and a half years, I visited over 75 cities in 53 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. In several countries–Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Nepal, Benin, Curacao–I was the first AIRINC representative to conduct a survey. I have had the opportunity to do amazing things in my life. I have seen some of the truly wondrous places in the world, from the Sahara desert, to Machu Picchu, to the Mekong River Delta. I have jumped out of a plane in Maine and been seventy feet underwater in the Caribbean. I have witnessed one of the poorest countries on earth usher in a new era of hope and democracy.

My post to a Salon Group, 2001:
My 28-year-old daughter has just accepted a summer internship in Rwanda. Seven years ago, a million people were killed in three months in the worst genocide since the Holocaust.  At Columbia she is specializing in human rights, transitional justice, and Africa. If she wasn't going to Rwanda, she would have gone to the Congo. I am fiercely proud of her. But I worry about how to handle my fears as she goes from one world flash point to the next. I want to support her, not burden her with my anxieties.

2013

Emma, her husband, and their 2 kids are spending two years in Paris, so she can work for an international organization.

Letting your fear of what could happen clip your children's wings  and undermine their confidence and autonomy endangers them most of all

Mom, They Hate Each Other

When Emma and Michelle were young, I often called my mom, the wise mother of 6, lamenting, "Mom, they hate each other." Emma was born April 3, 1973; Michelle, June 17, 1975. Even now,  40 years after I became a mother, I don't want to masquerade as an all-wise grandma. No mother of 4 daughters ever masters sibling rivalry.

I am so glad I kept journals when the two oldest were young. i could not possibly recapture my earnestness, my conviction I had a magic solution to sibling rivalry.

Fall 1976--When Emma  (3 1/2) came home from nursery school, she asked me to read Green Eggs and Ham. She settled on my lap in the small black chair, and I began the book.  Michelle (17 months) immediately came over protesting, tried to climb into the chair. I assumed she wanted to listen to the story, so I asked Emma to move to the couch, so we all could fit. But then Michelle grabbed the book, bringing me her books to read.

I discouraged her, feeling she had had my exclusive attention for 4 hours; now it was Emma's turn. My friend Anne offered to read to Michelle, but she struggled down from her lap 2 or 3 times. I finished reading Green Eggs and Ham. Anne started to read to Emma and  and her daughter Elizabeth, so I could read to Michelle. Michelle got down from my lap and tried to grab the book away from Anne. When that failed, she tried bribery--3 books, her blanket, a slip, her rabbit skin. Elizabeth wanted the rabbit skin, but every time she took it away from Michelle she protested and only stopped when Anne took it back from her daughter.

Finally Michelle used one of the cardboard blocks to climb on the ottoman; from there she lunged for the big black chair where Emma was sitting with Anne and Elizabeth. She didn't quite make it and had to be rescued, but she had achieved her purpose--the reading stopped. I've noticed that she often starts fussing if someone picks up Emma, reads to her, pays her exclusive attention in any way, shape, or form

I'm glad to see such self-assertion on her part, even though I feel pulled in two directions now, with both of them clamoring for exclusive attention. It frees me from being Michelle's defender. More and more I can let them learn to handle their disputes by themselves. I know Emma's worst won't really hurt Michelle, and Michelle protests more than enough to warn me if any mayhem is actually occurring. Once or twice lately I've rushed in ready to scold Emma, when Michelle's protests had absolutely nothing to do with her. Emma's being away at school mornings seems to have encouraged Michelle to increase her demands. If she could get rid of Emma in the mornings, why not all day?

I can't count the number of times I called my mom, who had raised six kids, wailing, "Mom, They Hate Each Other."

Early Diagnosis of Childhood Mental Illness

This post was a reaction to another mother blogger who worried that her three year old was autistic, when it appears he just didn't fit in with his daycare center.

Reading parent blogs, I have been taken aback by how frequently mothers worry that their preschool boy is autistic. I don't want to offend any of you great parents, trying to do what is best for your child. In all my years around young children(5 brothers, 45 younger cousins, 4 daughters) none were tested for autism as a preschooler. Has autism increased so dramatically or is there now so little tolerance for divergent thinking and unconventional minds? I am desperately uncomfortable with psychiatric diagnoses for preschoolers. And some of the softer austic symptoms bother me.

 I always wondered why I was different, but being told I was a manic depressive at age 7 when my mom worried about my worrying would have been nightmarish. My dad just told me I was smarter than other people and read much more, and I could live with that:) I wouldn't have dared to have my 4  wonderful children if I knew I was mentally ill. Thank God I was not diagnosed until the youngest was 4.

If being a scientist happily working all hours in a lab is being a loner, so what? Both chemistry professors, my brother met his wife in the lab at MIT, and they are happy loners together.  Another brother who is an elementary school teacher is very dubious about special ed for kids within normal limits. He thinks the stigma is far worse than the extra services justify.

People who weren't diagnosed, who wish they had been, haven't been exposed to the stigma and discrimination and mistreatment that accompany diagnoses. They possibly exaggerate the wonderfulness of the special services they didn't receive. We are not an enlightened society; stigma is very real. I would have never gone to social work school at age 46 if I had realized that  many mental health professionals obviously don't believe in the efficacy of their own treatments and would fear an open wounded healer..

Loners and losers outgrow it, invent software, have TV shows made about them:) Nerds and geeks are the new prince charmings; they make great husbands. Diagnoses are forever. How do kids "along the autistic spectrum" do with chemistry sets and microscopes? Are they your own computer geeks?  I recall a kid in my daughter Jane's traditional kindergarten class. The teacher insisted he be tested for developmental disability. He tested at genius level.

My kids desperately needed to be intellectually challenged, and only the two-day-a-week pullout gifted program was adequate.  I let Michelle, my scientist,stay home from school so much because she was obviously learning at a higer level than she could reach at school. Using her sister's math textbook, she brought herself up two grade levels in three days. She managed to run fevers only on nongifted days.

 I always thought I could do something for my kids, that I knew and understood them better than the "experts."I admit my dad's legacy was intellectual arrogance.  I could read the same books and journals as the experts, and I knew my weird kids better. Certainly that approach was the key to taming my own bipolar disorder 15 years ago. I researched psychiatric journals and the net to find the best possible medication and shopped for a psychiatrist who was willing to prescribe it. My psychiatrist has frequently expressed his gratitude for my educating him, since he now frequently prescribes the med I told him about.. I needed a psychiatrist who was a partner, who would discuss journal articles with me as a peer, who was as willing to learn from me as I was from him, who would admit when he didn't know and when he was wrong. Only then would I feel comfortable enough to be fully honest with him about my medication.

Using what you learn from blogs, books, and journals about autism is brilliant. I am sure they would have helped me cope with my dad, two brothers, two husbands, and two nephews:) I am very curious to read them; I love to think about how different minds work. Learning all you can is different than a formal diagnosis that might convey to a child, his teachers, his peers that there is something wrong with him. Different, original minds  can't and shouldn't be fixed.

Do read For Her Own Good: 200 Years of Experts Advice to Women, by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English. Thank God I first read it when it only covered 150 years in 1979, the year after my writer was born. Thank God I never consulted experts about her. Some minds are too mysterious to be meddled with. She probably would have qualified for bipolar disorder, autism, and social anxiety disorder, with a subtle oppositional defiant disorder.

The label "autistic" might be less frightening to your generation, but in 62 years I have never personally known a child so labeled. I have known many children who could have been so labeled, but they found their ideal career niche and the spouse who can translate for them. The more I read about it, the more I suspect it explains so much about my men:)  My father was an actuary. Two brothers are accountants; one is a chemistry professor. My first husband is a radiation physicist; my second husband is a computter programmer.

My Fearsome Foursome

Top L, Writer (Jane); R, Scientist (Michelle); Bottom L, CEO (Molly); 

R, Adventurer (Emma)

Top, Scientist, Explorer; Bottom, CEO, Writer

My four daughters have turned out wonderfully--well educated, professionally successful, happily married. They are excellent mothers. Such a happy ending was not predictable during their childhood and teen years. I wonder what diagnosis they would earn now. Certainly, I worried at least three of them were bipolar, if not spawns of Satan, when they were younger.

Here were some diagnostic indicators. Obviously not all applied to all four daughters.

• They were chronically late. No one could get off to school in the morning without substantial maternal help, usually involving driving.
• They never picked up their toys. I have stepped on 20,000 lego pieces in the dark. To this day I cannot walk across a dark room without my toes' going on alert.
• Emma and a friend decorated their bedroom with a mixture of desitin and baby power while their grandpa benignly looked on.
• Emma painted her entire body purple when I was on the phone.
• Bedtime was a joke. A friend said you could call our house at any time of the night; someone would be sure to be awake and delighted to talk to you about anything for as long as you needed.
• They told their mommy " "I hate you" with not an ounce of guilt or remorse. When I asked Emma why she was acting like a devil child at age five, she explained "Mommy, I used all my goodness up in school." She now uses her goodness working for world peace.
• Jane, the Writer absolutely refused to do the assigned kindergarten homework, writing sentences using a list of words. "Writers don't use other people's words." The teacher had no answer to that. 
• Mysteriously shy Jane convinced the high school art teacher to allow her to miss classes and submit a portfolio. She argued that artists decide what art to make.  "Jane has such integrity," the teacher marveled.
• They almost never lost power battles with their doormat mommy. Emma should have been born with a printout, "You will win exactly five battles with this child. Choose them carefully." I did win the important battles, but I only learned their importance by losing the rest. By the time her sisters came along I was so demoralized that I didn't fight battles that I could easily have won:)
• At various ages the Writer melted down because the new washing machine wasn't blue; the pretty blue rental car had vanished; her aunt and uncle didn't have a second child her age; she was not attending a school that closed three years previously; there wasn't enough snow; election day would be a day before her 18th birthday four years from now. She was a lovely, sensitive child, eager to please when she wasn't battling the existential order of things. She is now a human rights lawyer and writer, heroically battling the existential order of things.
• Michelle, the Scientist, only ran fevers, thereby missing school, on the three school days without the gifted program pullout. I conducted ad hoc home schooling for bored students who could cough convincingly.
• Emma only pulled the hair and dumped sand over the heads of playmates whose mommies would reliably go round the twist. (She has traveled to over 75 countries, and has lived in Niger, Rwanda Kosovo, and France.) She ended her three-year sand eating on the day our doctor looked her in the eye and assured me that her sand-eating must account for her excellent health. For old-times sake, she would occasionally revert to the diet when babysat by a hysteric mommy. A good friend confessed to me that she thought Emma would be in jail by the time she was 16.
• At age 2 Michelle magic markered $2000 painting. To be fair, artist was able to fix the picture.
• The same culprit at age two also destroyed another family's audiotapes of their kids when babies and toddlers.
• Notice I omitted my baby Molly,  the CEO. The most mature, disguised as the youngest, was perfectly sane from birth and struggled valiantly to contain, organize, and direct her crazy family. This is a lifetime job. All my difficult communications with her sisters are best filtered through the CEO. Every teacher immediately noticed the difference. Notice her smile in the above picture. When Emma made then 24 year old Molly, her son's guardian, everyone applauded her wisdom.
• Molly  idolized Madonna when she was 3. She memorized all Madonna's songs, danced around with her grandma's rosary beads around her neck, proclaiming she was a material girl. If only You Tube had been around then!

Michelle Obama would be horrified. I questioned my sanity again and again throughout their childhoods. But I am very proud that I could cherish their intelligence, creativity, and individuality and was never tempted to drug their uniqueness, no matter how it disrupted our lives. They insisted they were going to emphasize order more and creativity less with their own kids:) I foresaw much amusement watching them try. But in the last 7 years when7 grandkids were born, I haven't seen any but halfhearted attempts.

"When I Whisper, Everyone Listens"

Machiavelli, the Whisperer, and Her Baby Sister Jane. Wouldn't You Be Bamboozled?

For years I thanked God that Michelle, my second daughter, was so much easier than her confrontational older sister, Emma, two years older..But she had carefully observed Emma and realized charm worked much better than confrontation. When asking for something, Michelle would preface it with so many appreciative compliments that I was eager to do what she asked.

Michelle was almost grown before I realized that she had gotten her way much more than Emma had. She is the ultimate iron fist in a velvet glove. I was in awe how she handled doctors and nurses whenever my mom was hospitalized. Both my husband and I have named Michelle to be our health proxy. Once, when her dad and I were squabbling, teenage Michelle suggested, "Mom, you should wear more perfume." I have taken her advice in my second marriage.

Michelle has a BS from Yale, an MS from Harvard, and MBA from MIT. She is a  director of strategic planning at a leading biogenetics company. and the mother of a 3 year old girl and an 8-month-old son. She has been strategically planning since she was born on her due date after a labor of one hour and 45 minutes in 1975. None of my other labors were anything like that, but then her sisters' don't strategically plan as brilliantly.

My favorite Michelle story occurred when she had just turned 3. She fell in the playground and needed ten stitches in her head. The ER was a horror as I had to fight tooth and nail to stay with her. Right after the accident we went on vacation with my parents, my brother Joe, his wife, and their three kids from Kansas City. Michelle was very close to my parents and had no experience sharing them with anyone but Emma. Immediately upon arriving , my chatterbox ceased talking. After a day of absolute silence, she deigned to whisper, but only to me and my mom.

Her absolute command was terrifying. Even after she woke up from a nightmare, she remembered to whisper. When I was playing with her in the water, I could coax her to make sounds, but she refused to utter sounds that were words. I was frantic, convinced that her fall had caused brain damage or a lasting emotional trauma. Was she upset that I was 6 mothers pregnant with Jane?

When her grandma asked why she wouldn't talk, Michelle whispered. "With my cousins here, when I talk, nobody listens. But when I whisper, everyone listens." Her ingenious scheme worked wonders. Everyone spent the entire ten days trying to trick Michelle into talking. I had just gotten a tape recorder, and the impact of Michelle's silence is documented. The main topic of conversations recorded was the strange silence of a certain three year old. The minute Joe and his family drove away, Michelle started talking and has never stopped. Study those pictures. Would you suspect that sweet, smiling little girl in the green bathing suit was a junior Machiavelli?

Michelle told this story on her college applications. "It is rather funny to think that in my large family of overachievers, a three-year-old's decision not to speak in one of our fondest and most memorable stories. To this day, I cannot speak a word to my Uncle Joe without receiving the loud surprised reaction, "She talks." Harvard and Yale eagerly accepted her.

Have you ever tried not talking for an hour at an immediate family gathering of 11 people? As my first grandson turned 3, I appreciated again Michelle's incredible feat. When Michael isn't talking, he is asleep.

Drugging Kids Instead of Changing America

I am a psychiatric social worker and children's and young adult librarian. I  have 5 younger brothers, 4 grown daughters, 4  sons-in-law, 5 grandkids, 4 and under, 11 first cousins, 7 great nieces and nephews,  and 45 Younger first cousins, the mother of 4, the grandma of 4. I am also a manic depressive. It took ten years to find a medication that helped; I read about it on the Internet and shopped for a psychiatrist that would partner with me to experiment.   The other meds did far more harm than good.

I am not denying a role for medication.  I am not talking about ADHD drugs like ritalin. However, childhood bipolar disorder has only been discovered in the last 15 years, mostly in America. Many discovers have close ties to Big Pharm. Until 1995 conventional psychiatric wisdom was that bipolar disorder could only be diagnosed in the late teens.  There is no conclusive study that proves childhood bipolar disorder leads to adult bipolar disorder. Psychiatrists still debate whether it exists.

 I believe you should not decide to drug your kids before you  take the meds for at least a month. Too often kids are being given anti-psychotics for behavior problems, anti-psychotics not tested with children. I was given them when I was hospitalized for mania in 1973, between 87 and 96. They made me much crazier when they weren't obliterating whole days. My intellect and education have not been able to withstand their devastating cognitive effects. Giving such drugs to a young mind until all alternative have been exhausted seems like malpractice.

 Until all the usual mood stabilizers went generic, anti-psychotics were intended to treat schizophrenics and hospitalized manics.  There is a shameful record of using them on Alzheimer's sufferers. As recently as the 2004 American Psychiatric Meeting in NY, drug reps were marketing bestsellers such as abilify and seroquel for those patients. Now they are being heavily advertised for depression and bipolar disorder as maintenance drugs.  The newer atypical anti-psychotics are heavily implicated in causing huge weight gain and sudden onset diabetes.

When my kids were young, 25-30 years ago, even in therapy-obsessed Manhattan, preschool kids weren't seeing psychiatrists, weren't taking psychiatric medications, so I am skeptical about this epidemic of very young children with serious problems requiring psychiatric drugs. If our kids were having problems in nursery school, we might decide to wait another year and find a better school.

What is going wrong with the way we are raising children? Why do we look in children's brains for the answers to be found in social reform?  Who is blowing the whistle? Who is questioning the wisdom of babies and toddlers being cared for by strangers? Who is wondering whether group care is appropriate for most children under three or four? Thirty-five years ago, children were five or six before they were expected to adapt to group standards of behavior. Who is crusading for a shorter work week and greatly increased parental leaves? Who is is dedicated to make caring for preschoolers a viable career path for college graduates, comparable to teaching in salary and benefits?

Who is demanding the economic changes required to enable parents to care for their babies and toddlers themselves? Who is comparing our rate of childhood mental illness with rates in the rest of the Western world? Who is outraged about preschoolers taking multiple psychiatric drugs that have never been tested on children? Who is fighting to outlaw drugs ads in magazines and on TV? Why are we teaching our kids that drugs are the solution to every problem? Thirty years ago we felt like bad parents if we let our kids have caffeine.

The aggressive drug treatment of mental illness in the last 30 years hasn't been a success story. When yesterday's wonder drug becomes generic, its ineffectiveness is suddenly discovered and its dangerous side effects are no longer covered up. Today's expensive wonder drug will supposedly save your life after being tested for a shockingly short time on shockingly few people who don't share your diagnoses. 

Preschoolers are so unformed, so in process. This year's four year old can seem like a different creature than last year's three year old. These diagnoses disorder

imply lifelong, incurable brain disorders for which there are no medical tests, no verifiable proof of their existence. Why do we expect little boys to adapt to schools better suited to girls? Why don't we train and recruit more male teachers in preschools, who might be better role models for little boys and help create more welcoming schools?

Why would you accept that your young child has a permanently broken brain? Why not take him out of day care or fine a different one, investigate family day care, share a nanny with a friend, change nursery schools, reduce your working hours, live more frugally, borrow money and take a leave of absence from work, ask your parents and relatives for help, search out books and activities about his particular obsessions, learn the recommended interventions yourself?

Does your child need more relaxed time with his overscheduled parents rather than tense sessions with experts comfortable with diagnosing him after a few testing sessions?Why not wait until the picture becomes clearer? Why it is so urgent to find the answer when he is 2 or 3? We are not dealing with meningitis or childhood leukemia. When I hear a 7 year old rattle off all his psychiatric labels, it breaks my heart and makes me want to man the barricades. I would love to find some comrades.

What Is Your Birth Order?

To Only Children: Being the oldest child dooms you to the responsibility chip, whether you have no siblings or 7. Until both your parents die, you are being parented by people who have no clue what they are doing. They get better with younger children, but they don't know how to parent a 25 year old, a 40 year old, a 55 year old anymore than they knew how to parent an infant or toddler. Their grandparenting skills are nonexistent. Children raise their parents to be grownups. Being outnumbered makes the job more challenging and stimulating, but you are always up to it.

In the first picture, I am two and one half; Joe is one. In the second, I am four, Andrew is six months. In the third picture, I am seven; Bob is newborn. In the fourth picture, I am 12; Gerard is 1. In the fifth photo, I was 13, Brian was 1 month.

Studying the pictures helps me clarify my family dynamics. Sibling closeness has mattered more to me than to my brothers. I try much harder to keep the family connected. Being both the oldest and the only girl seems central. I was my adult height when my two younger brothers were born; they were only 5 and 7 when I left home for college. I must have seemed a maternal figure to them. In some pictures I look like their young mother.
We did not grow up in the same family. My mother returned to school full-time when Brian was 5; when he was 7, she started teaching high school. Joe, Andrew, and I had had a stay-at-home mother until we went to college. Brian doesn't remember my mom staying at home full-time. My father retired before Brian finished college.

We have very different perceptions of our parents. Joe, Andrew, and I remember our dad as a brilliant intellectual and mathematician; Gerard and Brian remember a grail old man who disappeared into Alzheimer's Disease. The three oldest remember our childhood perceptions of my mom as "just a housewife" who never went to college. My younger brothers remember her the way her obituary describes her: "teacher, activist, trailblazer."

With the death of my mom, Joe, 18 months younger, is my only collaborator for family history. Fortunately, Joe was too busy climbing on the roof as a kid to remember very much. I could write family fiction and convince everyone it is family history.

I struggled not to favor my first daughter Anne in sibling squabbles, because she, like me, is the oldest of several siblings. Both my first husband John and I were the oldest children of oldest children of oldest children--not the best recipe for marital harmony. Certainly Anne shows the same sense of responsibility for her younger siblings that I felt. John, Anne, and I thought younger siblings owe considerable gratitude to the oldest, who has fought all the battles necessary to whip parents into shape.

In my constant discussions with friends about baby spacing when my kids were young, I noticed that adult relationships with your siblings greatly influence you. If you love your sibs, you might think a brother or sister is the best gift you will give your kids. If you don't talk to your sib, you will feel guilty about the trauma you are inflicting on the oldest. As people only have two children, there will only be younger and older older. Middle children seem to have special gifts society will sorely lack. When I told 6 year old Michelle, I was pregnant with Carolyn, she rejoiced, "Now I won't be the only middle child."
Faced with the challenge of caring for my mother during the last years of her life, my brothers and I had to confront and heal lifelong conflicts and misunderstandings. It is so easy to fall into childhood roles. My mom was always the family switchboard. We would call her, not each other; she would relay the news to everyone. I struggle very hard not to play the same role.

I adore my brothers and wish we saw each other much more often. We are scattered from Maine to North Carolina. My mother had five brothers as well. As a teenager, I used to reproach her, "Mom, how could you do this to me? You knew what it was like." My mom, a long-term care activist, used to begin her speechs, "I have lived with 12 men--long pause--only one of them intimately." Growing up with my brothers, I acquired a lifelong comfort around men. Daughters were a challenge; sons would have been easier. Taking care of my grandson revives many wonderful memories of my brothers as children.

What is your birth order? What impact has it had on your life? Being the oldest is being the oldest, whether you have no siblings or 7 siblings. You were raised by parents who had no clue. And that will continue until the day both of them are dead. They get better with younger children, but they don't know how to parent a 25 year old, a 40 year old, a 55 year old anymore than they knew how to parent an infant or toddler. Children raise their parents to be grownups. Having no accomplices just makes the job more challenging.

Confessions of Misogyny

 My four daughters would reassure you that I am one of the worst misogynists they know. Until I became a mother at age 28, I would always join the circle of men, never the circle of women. I was positive the conversation would be more stimulating. I despise women's fashion magazines and all the talk of diets , hair, shoes, and makeup. Being forced to watch Sex and the City would be cruel and unusual punishment.

Spending a year in a Catholic girls college in Rochester was the most alienating experience of my life. I was sarcastic, and no one seemed to realize I didn't necessarily mean it. One night my friends and I stayed up all night, discussing politics, sex, religion, life, death, etc. The rumor rapidly spread that we were gossiping about everyone on the floor. Learning from the college dean that "there was something in the nature of a woman that unsuits her for intellectual debate with men" elicited my jail beak to being the only girl in the political science classes at Fordham.

Working in the female-dominated fields of public librarianship and social work was a disaster for me. I never can accept that is the way it is and you can't do anything about it. I am a trouble maker pure and simple. When I am upset, I defend myself by getting more ascerbic and intellectual. I perceive that men enjoy gutsy women who giggle and smile and tease and insult and debate with them lots more than women do. I have always gone to male shrinks.

My most successful social work job was working with a great group of seriously mentally ill guys who were absolutely trapped in the system. Some had been in jail; most had substance abuse problems. I never was so appreciated by a group of people in my whole life. They were so wonderful to hang out with. I excel at eliciting the sanity in crazy people and the craziness in apparently sane people. There are lots of the latter in social work and public librarianship.

I also did extremely well with male gay clients. One told me I must have been a gay male in a previous lifetime I understand him so well. I Another paid me the greatest compliment I got as a shrink: he said I was his only experience of unconditional love. We had a strange therapeutic relationship. Until I treated him, an Irishmen from an utterly abusive family, I never realized how Irish I was.

I have never been hassled on the street by a guy in my entire life. I do smile a lot. I am perfectly comfortable being the only women in a subway car full of men. African American men and immigrants tend to find older, curvier women attractive, which is lovely fun. In the early days of women's lib, women whined incessantly about street hassles. I wondered if I was the ugliest woman in the entire women's liberation movement. I often have long conversations with homeless men. One street person teased me that I looked very friendly ,approachable, happy to talk, sometimes generous depending upon whether I had exceeded my day's handout limit, but I subtly conveyed that I could turn him to stone if he messed with me.

To My Oldest Daughter on Her 13th Birthday, 4/4/86

Dearest Emma,

Happy 13th birthday.  This will be such an exciting year of change and growth for you that I particularly want us to keep in close touch with one another.  Both of us are undergoing major transitions, so I  hope we can understand and empathize with each other.  I asked Grandma what she wished she had said to me on my thirteenth birthday.  She didn't have to think about her answer.  "Tell me everything.  There's nothing you could conceivably do or say that I don't handle.   You don't have to protect me from anything  you feel or do."  I liked that.  I wished she had told me that when I was 13  What was left unsaid did far more lasting damage than anything that was said.  So that's part of what I want to say to you as you blossom into womanhood.

I have lived 27 and 3/4 more years in the world than you have.  I will be delighted to share any of my experiences with you, well aware that you have to find your own path.  Sometimes I will forget and try to turn you into a newer, better me.  I want you to point out what I'm doing when I do that.  As you grow older, I identify more and more with you, so I will have to struggle not to force my old aspirations on you.  But I have tried very hard in the past to respect your individuality.  You were a distinct, dynamic individual from the moment you were born.  I remember looking into  your gorgeous, alert, intelligent eyes the day you were born and wondering if you would be too much for me.  And sometimes you are.  I am trying very hard to grow up enough to be a good mother to you.  I have always loved  your spirited determination to be your own person, what Barbara Williams, your nursery school teacher, called "your considerable sense of self."  I want you to continue to feel free to tell me when I am making an obvious mistake with you or a not so obvious one.

I am glad you are so close to your father.  My own teenage years would have been far happier if I hadn't been so intimidated by my father, so afraid of arguing with him, so afraid of getting close.  You never have to choose between us; we will try to give you opportunities to be alone with each of us.  You already know what very different people we are, but we are equally proud of our beautiful, brilliant, spirited daughter.

The worst thing that happened to me as a teenager is that I felt compelled to choose between my feminine and my intellectual sides.  You live in a very different world, but you still will receive a lot of contradictory messages about what is really important.  Don't choose.  You can be both.  Look at Aunt Jackie and Aunt Lynn, for example.  A boy who holds your intelligence against you isn't capable of befriending or loving the real you.  Don't waste time on such boys or men.

At this stage of your life close female friendships are far more important than boyfriends.  At no stage of your life will close women friends cease to be vitally important.  The longer I live, the more convinced I am that men and women are very different.  Our world desperately needs women's unique qualities.  Women need not become like men to succeed in life.  Women need to support and understand one another.  I would never go so far as one psychologist did when she wrote a book entitled, "Men Are Just Desserts."  But don't ever neglect your girlfriends for some boy.  I hope you continue to have friends like Michael who happen to be boys.  I think that is particularly important because you don't have brothers or male cousins you see regularly.  Peer pressure still discourages men and women from being "just friends," but I hope you can withstand that premature emphasis on pairing off.  Daddy was my friend before he was my lover and my husband.

For most of this century mothers and daughters have been at odds with each other.  That has been a tragic loss for women in general. Ideally your mother should be your most ardent supporter and confidant.  No one, except your future husband, will probably ever love you more.  In fact mothers have an even better track record than husbands.  I hope we can continue to be friends.  I know we will fight, but fighting doesn't diminish our closeness. Look at me and Daddy.  When you were born, Uncle Stephen said, "Good, Mary Jo has a daughter she can fight with.  That should make her very happy."  He remembered my epic battles with my mother.

I hope we can continue to share books with each other.  That might be one of the best ways for you to teach me lessons that you think I need to learn.  Find me the right book to read.  I often learn more from books than from my own mistakes.  And you can always write notes to me if you find something too difficult to say.  I can express myself in writing far better than I can face-to-face. I don't know if you're the same way, but you could try.  I promise to save all your letters to hand down to your daughters.  Wouldn't you have loved to see a letter from me to my mother at age 13?  I would love to see it too.  Recently I have remembered more of my teenage years.  I'm glad.  Getting to know  teenage Mary Jo again will help me to be kinder to  teenage Emma.

More than anything else, I wish I had kept a journal when I was a teenager. It would have helped me so much to mother my teenagers.  It would be a priceless legacy to had down from one generation to another.  So much rich human experience is lost when women don't write down the details of their lives.  I've only recently rediscovered journal keeping, and it has helped me clarify my own life more than anything.  Writing letters is equally important. I am delighted that you, Erin, and Liz are letter writers.  Keep them.  You'll really enjoy them in the future. I've thrown out too much of my past. (She has kept all the letters, even the intricately folded notes she and her best friend used to pass each other during boring high school classes

I should have started this a month ago. I cou ld fill up the entire book with my hopes for you and my pride in you. I hope someday you have a daughter.  Only then will you understand how much I love you, how proud of you I am.  I have learned so much about music and makeup this year:)  What remedial lessons await me next year?  With five brothers I often tried to raise myself as a boy, so I am delighted to get a second chance to experience the adolescent years with you.

You seem so much older than you did a year ago.  I know you will change even more this year.  Being a woman is wonderful, Emma.  All human experience is open to you.  Men are denied many of the most wonderful experiences.  I have never regretted being a woman.  Don't ever be afraid of your body.  It's God's most glorious creation.  Own it and glory in it.  Don't ever be afraid to ask me any questions . I might know all the answers, but I almost certainly will have heard of the book where answers can be found.  I believe knowledge never hurt anyone. I would far rather you know too much, stuff you never need to know, then know too little.  I have always tried to be open with you, so never stop bringing your questions to me.  My mother and I were never comfortable talking about sex. I had to find out the most basic information on my own.  That shouldn't happen with us.  Believe me, you are much better learning what you need to know from me, than from rumors and dirty jokes.

I have far less firsthand experience with drugs and alcohol, but I will help you find out anything you need to know.  I'm sure you will never do anything to damage your perfect body and  your perfect mind.  But no matter what, I'll always be there for you.  Not telling me something I should know is the only thing you could do that I would find hard to understand and forgive.

Emma, Emma,  only five years from now you will be finishing high school.  The last thirteen years seem but a blink of my eyes.  I have made many mistakes, expected too much, haven't been patient enough,  haven't listened enough, haven't spent enough time alone with you.  How rarely have Daddy and I spent an evening alone with you like we are doing tonight.  Too often  you have gotten lost in the shuffle of our chaotic family life.  As you undergo so many changes in your life, we need to find more ways to spend time together so we don't become strangers to one another. Maybe I should write letters to you more often--not just once a year on your birthday, but whenever I have something important to share with you.  Keep this book for my letters to you.  Whenever I have something more to say, I will leave this book under your pillow.  We can have a secret correspondence.  I enjoy writing to you.  Wouldn't it be helpful to have several books filled with words of wisdom or words of frivolity from me?  At the very least we could have a good laugh over them when my granddaughter is 13 years old.  Wouldn't you have loved to read letters form Grandma Nolan to Grandma Mary when she was 13?  Writing is one of the greatest gifts you can give your daughter--the gift of yourself.

Daddy is dying to see what I am writing,  yet part of me wants to keep it private, our special time with each other. I want to post Keep Out Signs.  This Means You, Chris and Rosalind.  A mother and her oldest daughter should be able to talk with each other without everyone else's eavesdropping.

I remember 13 years ago so vividly.  Someday I'll share with you a paper I wrote about childbirth with a detailed description of your birth.  I hope I can spend every birthday with you, that you won't move so far away that I can't make it to your birthday party every year of my life.

Emma, you have been such a joy to me--so beautiful, so brilliant, so talented, so observant, so spirited. I love to love the same books you love. I love to enjoy sharing Liz's letters together.  I am glad you are sharing school life with us.  I enjoyed being made over, but you have been making me over for 13 years since that glorious moment in the middle of the night when I first held in my arms the most beautiful baby I had ever seen and she stuck her tongue out at me.  I don't have words to tell you how joyous I am  to have a 13 year old daughter Emma, who will make me over all my life.

Love,

Mommy

PS  I wish I had some words of wisdom about sisters,  but you are teaching me about sisters. If a fairy godmother suddenly offered to grant my fondest wish, I'd wish for some sisters.  Don't take your fights too seriously.  When people constantly share such small quarters, they inevitably rub against each other, irritate each other, infuriate each other.  I could happily endure any number of fights if you would be close friends when you are grown up.  Despite all the ways they drive you crazy, I envy you your sisters.

Mother's Day, May 1986

Dear Mommy,

 Here’s to the memories.  All the laughter, tears, happiness, and sorrow that we as your children have experienced with you right beside us every step of the way, making sure we didn’t stray off the path.  Thanks, Mommy, for who would we be without you.
 Love, Emma

Would You Use a Male Babysitter?

I would have hired four of my brothers as babysitters; one might have taken his charges out on the roof. I still remember how delighted we were when one of my young uncles came to babysit. My Uncle Frank, six foot five, would hang from the top of the swing set, and we were allowed to keep all the money that fell out of his pockets. My youngest brothers were 15 and 17 when my daughter Anne was born. Going on vacation with them was pure joy for my daughters.

Several of my daughters' playgroups had helping daddies as well as helping mommies. We used a babysitting cooperative of parents when we went out; daddies were more likely to be the evening babysitter. The rest of the time we used our parents or my brothers. My daughter uses several young male actors as babysitters on the days I don't care for my grandson. I keep expecting Michael to say, "Go away, Grandma. I want Trevor or or Anthony."
My daughters had one male teacher in a one-room schoolhouse private school in Maine. On Long Island they only had two male teachers in grade school; one was their favorite teacher. My brother is a grade school teacher in Maine. He says male teachers of young children feel like everyone regards them as potential child molesters.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.men comprise:

• 5.4 % of Child Care Workers
• 8.5 % of Teacher Assistants
• 2.7 % of Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers

What are we teaching our children about sex roles. Have you used male babysitters? When did your child first have a male teacher? Has your child ever asked you why there are no male teachers in his day care center or grade school? Would you encourage your son to babysit or pursue a career in early childhood education?

Emma, Mother's Day, 1986

Mother's Day 1986

Dear Mommy,

Here’s to the memories. All the laughter, tears, happiness, and sorrow that we as your children have experienced with you right beside us every step of the way, making sure we didn’t stray off the path. Thanks, Mommy, for who would we be without you.

Love, Emma

Emma gave me a small book of family photos with this inscribed on the back cover. She was just 13. I carried it around in my bag for at least 3 years, so I could read it every time I felt like murdering her. Her eloquence was only matched by her --what word can I use-- spawn-of-Satanhood?

When she was 6, her first grade teacher said, "Emma knows exactly where my limits and she will go right to the brink, but never cross over." She didn't show such diplomacy with her mother. However, when she worked around the world in her 20's, she never had to bribe anyone at airports. After her first trip to Africa, she got several letters from cabdrivers addressed to "my angel Emma."

Emma repeatedly stuck her tongue out at me minutes after birth. If you look carefully at this picture of her at 17 months (the day I got pregnant with her sister Michelle), you will see the signs of oppositional defiant disorder. She should have been born with a printout: "You will win five battles with this child. Choose them carefully." I learned what the five battles were by losing hundreds of others. At the height of our teenage struggles, Emma used to say: "I don't have sex, don't do drugs, don't drink, don't party at all hours. I am not pregnant; I do well in school; I plan a serious career in world saving. What is your problem, mom?" Of course she was right, and that's why her sisters seemed easier. I didn't fight the silly battles.

But it was all worth it. Watching her mother my grandson gives me absolute joy. Despite our arguments, we have always been extremely close. As usual, my writer Jane says it best (2001):
"Emma is capable of more generosity than anyone I know. She holds herself responsible for you, Michelle, Molly, and me. Being incredibly brave as well as generous, though, she doesn't stop there; she is now going to try to save some people in Africa (Rwanda) too, or at least to learn how. She did more than anyone to keep you going through the years when Daddy had left and Grandma was getting sicker and Peter wasn't ready yet."

Emma deserves her 1986 tribute to me  more than I do: " Thanks, Emma, for who would I be without you?"

Growing Bookworms

1946

In my baby book my mom wrote: "A book worm--she loved all books. At 2 years her favorites were Dumbo, Children's Garden of Verses, Alice in Wonderland. Was always eager for Cinderella, Goldilocks, etc." My parents read to us every single night. I left home for college when my youngest brother was 5, and they were still reading. They tended to pick books of interest to the older children, so the younger ones were exposed to Winnie the Pooh, The Jungle Books, Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in ththe Willows, etc. at an early age. When they visited my first daughter Emma the day she was born, they brought her three picture books.

My mom and dad were consummate book worms. My mom read more books than anyone I have known. Our local library was a tiny volunteer operation in an old church. They took us to the Hempstead Library, three miles away. We were each allowed to take out as many books as we could carry; once I managed 20. My first library card seemed magical. I vividly remember my awe when I realized that card was a passport to the entire world. Wherever I have been in the world, libraries are home and church. Jorge Luis Borges wrote, "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."

1974

Three-year-old Molly's kitten-holding technique was not optimal in 1985. She assured me she could talk to animals, and I absolutely believed her. Reading to toddlers and preschoolers is one of life's supreme pleasures. It is the natural follow-up to breastfeeding. Preschoolers who are read to realize that reading aloud is a wonderful way to nurture someone. I recall my daughter Jane's saying to her doll, "Don't cry baby. Mommy will read to you." I always read aloud to the older girls when I was nursing the baby.

During his first two years, I took care of my grandson Michael three days a week. Since birth his mother, father, and I  read to him everyday. He enjoys the same books his mother and aunts did--Mother Goose, Dr. Seuss, Frog and Toad, Make Way for Ducklings, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Runaway Bunny, Where the Wild Things Are. At 22 months his attention span often outlasts my voice. Sometims he will sit on the floor by himself with a pile of books, "I read."

Michael's mother Emma loved the Curious George books. She loved them so much that both my parents and I gave her the same giant Curious George for her second Christmas. She grew up to be a curious Emma who spent her 20s and early 30s working around the world in 75 world cities, living in Kosovo, Niger, and Rwanda.

Now her son loves Curious George just as much. Watching my daughters  and sons-in-law read to my grandkids the same book I read to them is lovely beyond my powers to describe.

Do you ever go back and read your favorite children's books? At any age, it is  illuminating to try to find out what books you wanted read to you again and again. I remember Emma's calling me from college, thrilled that she had made a new friend who loved the same children's books. After my dad died, I loved to read again the books he read to me and my five brothers; the books and the memories seemed to bring him back. So many of the best children's books never go out of print, so you can buy your favorite books for the children in your lives.

Inconsistency, September 25, 1976

Reading and posting these entries from 37 years ago is a humbling experience. I feel guilty about how hard I was on Emma when she was 3, how unreasonable my expectations were. Read Favie--Transitional Object from 1973 to 2005 to see how Emma taught me what was important. My other daughters had a far better mother than Emma did; they should be grateful to her for teaching me what battles are worth fighting.

How are my new rules working? Emma dressed herself, but only because she had insisted putting on the clothes she selected for today before she went to bed. She requested oatmeal for breakfast because John had it and then age about 3 spoonfuls. Just as we were leaving, she hit me and I yelled at her. She cried and insisted on taking her bear and blanket to the playground.

Then I made the classic mistake and laid down a rule without thinking. I said, "You can't take the blanket outside. It's only for naps. You get it too dirty dragging it everywhere." I closed the apartment door, and she continued to cry. Finally, Emma said, "I need my blanket because it will make me feel better." I was touched and admitted I had made a mistake. She could have her blanket when she wanted to. She could be the blanket boss. The only reason I didn't want her to have the blanket is because I feel embarrassed she is still so attached to it. Far better if I had thought things through before I stated an ultimatum, then revoked it. Such inconsistency teaches her that crying and carrying on works.

Grandma, Kinkeeping, and the Birthday Book

1945, 1974

One of my most cherished possessions is my grandmother's small 1980 datebook. It lists the birthdays of all her children, their spouses, her grandchildren, their spouses, and her great-grandchildren. All of us could absolutely count on a card from Grandma on our birthdays, anniversaries, and graduations. She always enclosed a dollar for her grandchildren and great grandchildren. She was on a strict budget and we cherished her generosity. If you hadn't received a card from Grandma Nolan, you must have gotten confused about your birthday She had 8 children, 31 grandchildren, and 23 great-grandchilden when she died at age 86 in 1985.

Mary Catherine  King was born in 1898 and left school after eighth grade. One of her first jobs was to mount women's combs on cards. She married my grandfather, James Nolan, a widowed lawyer with a toddler son, at age 22. She had seven children, four sons and three daughters; she raised her stepson as her own. Tragically one daughter died before she was two. Her husband died when she was 40; her children ranged from 17 to 2. He had been sick for 7 years; his chronic illness made it impossible for him to secure life insurance. After his death, she discovered his filing cabinet was full of unpaid bills from poor clients. Grandma had lost her parents the year before. Abruptly, they were very poor She collected rent from three small apartments in Brooklyn, but the apartments were the source of endless headaches. She worked in a laundromat. The older children helped support the family. My mom had to attend secretarial school rather than college.

Grandma was a very loving, giving, ingenious, frugal single mother. All her children turned out well--two lawyers, two teachers, a nurse, a social worker, a computer programmer. She was unavailingly there to help out when babies were born, when someone was sick, when someone was in crisis. A very religious woman, she was empowered by her deep faith. A lifelong Democrat, she voted in the first election open to women. She was always fascinated by world affairs and extremely knowledgeable about them. I could talk to her about anything.

In Becoming Grandmothers, Sheila Kitzinger describes the grandmother's role as the "kin-keeper." I have been understudying that role since my family lived with my grandma during the first two years of my life. I am the oldest girl cousin, just like my mom and grandmother were the oldest girls in their families. Grandmothers do emotional work. They sustain and nourish the family's kinship, keeping everyone connected with one another. This is a greater challenge now when families are far-flung and both parents are working grueling schedules. There is very little time left over for extended families. Weddings and funerals are often the only family reunions. Fortunately, we have had seven big family weddings since my mom's death10 years ago. One of my brothers has 6 grandkids, another 2.

I take absolutely seriously my commitment to follow my grandmother and mother, two strong, loving, generous matriarchs. I kno the extended family's addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, anniversaries. I try to inform  the family if anyone is sick or in trouble, is engaged, lost a job,  got a new job, is pregnant. In the event of a family death, I always find out the funerael arrangements.I can always identify the people in those old pictures ande can quickly produce old pictures upon request.

I have 5 brothers, 5 sister-in-laws, 11 nieces and nephews, 5 of whom are married. I have 5 grandniece and 3 grandnephew. Twice a year I revise the extended family directory, prying the information out of everyone. Two family email lists. one for my immediate family, one for my extended family, enable us to share news and pictures. We  know what is happening in our lives, even if we don't see each other often enough. I do more of the communicating than anyone else, but I consider that my responsibility. My two husbands,  5 brothers,  3 sisters-in-law , 4 duaghters, 4 sons-in-law, most nieces and nephews are on facebookt

I have seen both my mother's and father's formerly close knit family disperse once the family matriarch dids. My extended family is scattered all over the East Coast, from Maine to North Carolina, so it is a challenge to keep us close. One daughter , usually a New Yorker, is living in Paris for two years. Two live in Boston, one in DC.  Fortunately, we have had six family weddings since my mom's death 4 years ago, so they have been family reunions as well. By next February, there will have been 6 babies in two years. Weddings and funerals are often the only family reunions. Fortunately, we have had seven big family weddings since my mom's death10 years ago. One of my brothers has 6 grandkids, another 2.

I have a small bedroom filled with  16 boxes of my parents' wartime letters.  50 boxes of family slides,  about 30 photo albums.  I have letters I, my brothers, and my daughters wrote to my mom.   I have the papers my mom wrote when she returned to college at age  42, I have three file draws full of my daughters' best drawings, school papers, letters and cards.

I have 5 brothers, 5 sister-in-laws, 11 nieces and nephews, 5 of whom are married. I have 5 grandniece and 3 grandnephew. Twice a year I revise the extended family directory, prying the information out of everyone. Two family email lists. one for my immediate family, one for my extended family, enable us to share news and pictures. We  know what is happening in our lives, even if we don't see each other often enough. I do more of the communicating than anyone else, but I consider that my responsibility. My two husbands,  5 brothers,  3 sisters-in-law , 4 duaghters, 4 sons-in-law, most nieces and nephews are on facebookt

Arranging an extended family reunion has become an impossible challenge. My mother's 80th birthday party in 1981, my oldest brother's  60th birthday in 2007, my 65th birthday in 2010,  7 big family weddings, one funeral have been the biggest gatherings.

I

When I was taking care of mother 24/7 during the last three years of her life, I scanned thousands of old family photos and slides. My husband, a computer programmer, wrote software for many family picture sites. His software enabled me to caption the photos and arrange them in chronological order. Pictures that family members had never seen were freed from boxes and closets and available to everyone, anytime. At my mother's wake, we were able to show a slideshow of her life, with pictures from 1921 to 2004.

As I learn to grandmother, my Grandma Nolan is my inspiration and role model. Looking through her date book always brings back new memories of  unfailing love,  absolute commitment,  kindness, and understanding.

Why Are Mommy Wars Not Daddy Wars?

The raging mommy wars infuriate me. The energy and passion expended on attacking other women's choices need to be directed at  American corporate capitalism.  Is feminism the unwitting tool of capitalism? Since mothers won the right and social approval to work full-time, wages have  stagnated, and the most mothers are forced to work whether or not they want to leave their infants and toddlers.

As an idealistic young feminist of the early 1970's, I was dedicated to essential social change that both parents could care for their children. As the work week got shorter, that seemed a possible goal. We did not envision a world where mothers and fathers worked far longer hours than their own fathers had.

In my 1950s and 1960s working- class neighborhood , one salary suported much larger families.  Now working-class familes often are forced to work a double shift or several jobs. Husbands and wives barely have time together as one leaves for work as the other returns. According to US Census Bureau,  "Research shows that blue collar fathers have actually changed more in terms of their involvement in homemaking and child care than have middle class fathers (including professionals), when their wives are employed away from home. "

During the Clinton years, the US abolished Aid to Dependent Children, which enabled single mothers to take care of their young children. These mothers were viciously stereotyped as welfare cheats. Would you choose a minimum-wage job at  Walmart or as a home health aide without benefits  to taking care of your children?   No wonder poorer women are deeply suspecious of feminists. How does it help them when women increasingly become doctors and lawyers and corporate executives?

From 1968 , I was concerned  that feminists emphasized abortion over child care as the essential women's choice issue. No members of my Redstocking radical feminist group were married or had children. A happily married woman was suspected of "false consciousness." Not having children was perceived as more important than providing existing children with the excellent care they needed.  Because the US is one of the least child-family nations in the industrialized world, having a baby often seems like a personal disaster, and women have no choice but abortion.

 The US is one of the only countries in the world that provides no paid maternity leave. Pediatricians advocate breastfeeding for a year, but even professional women find themselves pumping in the toilet.  My daughter, the MBA, was cautioned against storing breastmilk in the company refrigerate because it was "toxic waste." If you stand at a counter and don't have an office, breastfeeding is impossible.

Would it require a  massive reshaping of the American economy to make it feasible for parents to stay home with their babies?  If we can outsource radiology jobs to China or India, we can figure out a way for parents to work partly in the office, partly at homeThe argument that taking any time off work would ruin career advancement is absurd, particularly in the Internet Age. Soldiers fighting World War II were absorbed back into the economy, given help with education and retraining, without being penalized for leaving their jobs for four or five years.

Why not a GI Bill for caregivers, whether of children, the disabled, or the aged? If raising young children was properly valued as an essential contribution to the nation's future, parents need not suffer dire career consequences for working part-time or taking a childrearing break.

My mother, my friends' mothers, my aunts returned to school and work when their  3, 4, 5, 6 children entered school. They were outstanding students who then had rewarding careers. Their gifts, experience, and skills were honored. Things had changed  by 1988 when I returned to social work and library school after staying home for 15 years, Women who had worked full-time since their children were born often did not validate what I had learned outside their  professional worlds. What I had learned before social work seemed to be considered cheating.

Among my daughters and their Ivy League professional friends, only one parent stayed at home full-time with their child for two years.  At baby showers, the possibility of taking longer than a maternity leave from work is not discussed.   A breast pump is the most appreciated gift.  The possibility of the baby's father being the primary parent is never mentioned. These are affluent parents who could   afford to take a few years off if they lived more frugally. But they are terrified of destroying  their future careers. The more parents believe this, the more likely their belief will come true.

Early child care is almost entirely a women's job. The nannies in my grandson's playground are all women of color.  Everyone knows that a white woman taking care of a baby during the day must be his grandma. How many day care centers, nursery schools, kindergartens have male teachers? My daughters' playgroups had helping daddies as well as helping mommies.  There were often several  stay-at-home fathers among the parents..We organized a babysitting cooperative; daddies were usually the evening babysitters.  My daughters loved it when their friends' daddies babysit. "They are much more fun."

I recently encountered a meetup group of stay-at-home fathers at the Children's Center Library at 42 Street. Watching the men take creative, loving care of their babies and toddlers was one of the most fascinating, inspiring, lovely experiences I have had. I suspect if more fathers advocated for a better balance of work and child care, my daughters and their husbands would not face the same hard choices her father and I struggled with  in 1973.