more practical parenting advice...

Here's an interesting recap of a new study of parenting styles and their impact(s) on children. I especially appreciate the affirmation of common sense instincts which suggest that successful parenting takes account of a child's needs and temperament.
http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/09/kids-depression-plummets-when-parents-adapt-to-their-personalities/

How to Land Your Kid in Therapy - The Atlantic

For those of you still contemplating what makes a monstrous mother, some more parenting advice:
How to Land Your Kid in Therapy - The Atlantic

Which words are more important -- "I love you" or "I'm sorry"?

http://www.parentdish.com/2011/05/06/motherhood-moments-love-means-having-to-say-youre-sorry/

Maternal Health Issues

Nicholas Kristof's pieces are always so inspiring -- in this one, he returns to a subject he's written on eloquently before, maternal health. In too many places around the globe, the most dangerous thing a woman can do is become pregnant -- a sobering thought that reminds me to be grateful for the obstetrical care we have access to here in the US.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/opinion/05kristof.html

Another Mother of another Ben

I wished I'd read this before our class today -- here's a lovely story/reflection to use as a wrap-up for our semester: a reminder that when we're looking at/assessing/judging other mothers, we're always on the outside looking in. And the view from the inside can be radically different and quite empowering.
 http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/a-perfect-baby/

Our 4-year (and counting!) Experiment

This past weekend, our daughter turned four (!!!), marking four years of parenting for my husband and me -- and four years of thinking maternally and paternally: you know, parentally. As I read "The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes" to her every evening this weekend (and some mornings!), I've found myself thinking about the role that books have played in our parenting. My students asked me if I read all of the parenting books when I was pregnant, and I did read a lot of them -- but really, the ones that have taught me the most have been the ones I've read her: the ones with messages I want her to embrace, the ones with sassy, spunky girls I (mostly) want her to emulate, the ones with mothers I aspire to be for her -- like the Country Bunny. The whole world is contained between the covers of books, it seems...
Happy birthday, Monkey-girl!

Why the "Research Paper" Isn't Working - Inside Higher Ed

We've been talking a bit in class about the research paper that's due in mid-May, and in that context, I found this piece quite interesting: Why the "Research Paper" Isn't Working - Inside Higher Ed

The Child You Didn't Dream Of - Newsweek

For those of you desperately seeking a happy mom facing challenges -- check out Benj's story and his mom, Priscilla: The Child You Didn't Dream Of - Newsweek

Awesome quote to share

The grad students are reading Ariel Gore's essay "High Risk: Who a Mother Should Be" for our discussion tomorrow, and this paragraph just jumped out at me:

The world tells us all--in a thousand ways--that there is no margin for error in mothering. But I am here to tell you that there is a margin, and it is wide. Just as the occasional piece of chocolate cake can't make you fat, just as a few days off won't make you a lousy employee, blowing it as a mother every once and a while doesn't spell disaster for your kids' psyches. It just doesn't.

And now I'm off to read Purplicious for the 27th time this week....

One of the scariest novels I ever read...

remains mere impressions in my mind now, decades later. I can't remember the title (even with 10 minutes of Internet searching) or the author, just the bare bones of the plot: a woman decides to leave her husband and two children to go to graduate school. When I read it (as an undergraduate), I just couldn't understand how someone could leave her children like that OR how she could live in the stultifying environment that was her life -- and the novel made it pretty clear that there was no middle ground. So I found the atmosphere of the novel claustrophobic.
Now that I'm the mother of an almost four-year-old, I have a deeper appreciation for just how gut-wrenching her decision must have been -- as well as less sympathy for her because she sidelined her own needs to follow a socially prescribed path, leading to heartbreak for her children. As we read Colm Toibin's The South and Michael Cunningham's The Hours, I'm sure we'll be exploring this dilemma from a multitude of angles.

The Natural End of Schooling - Inside Higher Ed

Here's an interesting take on some of the angst surrounding (higher) education right now:
The Natural End of Schooling - Inside Higher Ed

Hiroshima moms?

We started the semester talking (albeit briefly) about Tiger Moms, thanks to the media storm Amy Chua stirred up. This morning, courtesy of Yahoo! news, we have the Hiroshima mom:
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/the-opposite-of-a-tiger-mother-leaving-your-children-behind-2460982/
I hope that by the midpoint of the semester, we're getting very uncomfortable with judging women-as-mothers' choices (and it's my sense that we are). That said, this article is perfect for leading into our post-Spring Break readings: A Doll's House, The South, and The Hours!

On a related note, I'm more than a little disturbed by our propensity for discussing these very difficult parenting/mothering issues ONLY through a lens that relies on Asian labels -- I think that says something very telling about our own culture's inability to discuss honestly what it means to parent/mother a child.

Mommy Blogging

In class yesterday, we talked about the phenomenon of Mommy blogs -- and then mere hours later, Lisa Belkin, of The New York Times' Motherlode blog, posted about her article on Mommy blogs in last weekend's Magazine:
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/queens-of-the-mom-blog-kingdom/

And here's the article she wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/magazine/27armstrong-t.html?_r=1

How did I manage to time yesterday's discussion so perfectly for this article?

#3 - Baird: Why Mothers Should Lower the Bar - Newsweek

Baird: Why Mothers Should Lower the Bar - Newsweek

[note that I've apparently learned how to embed a link!]

Here's an interesting nod to Ms. Lessing, our author of the week. I read this piece last spring when Baird published it, and then filed it away for when I'd be teaching this course -- and promptly forgot it until a Google Search sent it my way again. Anyway -- some food for thought as we keep thinking about what makes a mother "bad". We'll come back to Lessing's comments when we read Toibin's The South.

#2 -- Things a professor likes to see -- and other pedagogical ruminations

I just wandered through my building and saw in several different nooks and crannies students of mine reading for our late afternoon class -- so fun to see their total absorption in the novel (Me Dying Trial)!

Which leads me to wonder again (as I did yesterday when I finished it) what they'll all think of the ending of the novel. I personally found the plot compelling and was totally sucked into Gwennie's perspective each time the narrative voice aligned with her. BUT... I found the ending a bit of a letdown: we got just enough of Peppy for me to be disappointed that we hadn't gotten more throughout the novel. It'll be really interesting to go into today's discussion with that reaction fresh in my mind.

As I explained to the class on Tuesday, in any literature-based course that I design and teach, I try to include 2-3 novels on the syllabus that are brand-new to me. I read a lot about them, to try to ensure they fit thematically, but I don't read them ahead of time. That way, when we discuss them in class, I can model for the students the experience of reading for the first time. I've read Frankenstein, for instance, a dozen times -- and I've read the 1818 edition, the 1831 one, the compendium of all the versions -- you get the picture. It's a novel I love, but I am far removed from the students who are experiencing it for the first time. And I think it's really important that there be moments when I literally don't have all of the answers for them, which this practice creates.

Frankenstein

So, after our discussion of Victor and our attempts to assess the morality of his decisions/actions was cut short yesterday by the beginning of the blizzard (thank you, half-mile visibility!), I've been thinking a lot about they ways that Frankenstein can serve as a cautionary tale. There's the semi-obvious (at least it feels obvious to me) issue of ART (assisted reproductive technology), which we've already discussed some in class: How far are you willing to go to have a child ("create life")? How far should people in general be allowed to go?

But there's another sticky point that Victor's actions raise: once he's created the creature (i.e., made a VERY BAD CHOICE, to use the terminology my daughter understands), what are his obligations to fix it? This dilemma is salient for mothers (I might mean those doing maternal thinking, but I definitely mean mothers) because so much of raising a child seems to be trial-and-error. How far can you backtrack? How much can you re-do? So you try one thing and it's a disaster -- how can you rectify the mistake? Is it even a mistake? Is it just an experiment that didn't work out?

#1 -- In homage to Sara Ruddick

Today I will teach Sara Ruddick's Maternal Thinking to my "Monstrous Mothers of Literature" class -- though if the past week and a half of meetings has been any indication, they'll teach me as much as I teach them through the wonderful conversation I'm anticpating from them!
One of the assignments I've given them this semetser is to keep a blog as a site for them to react to and reflect on the readings we're doing. In solidarity, I'll be blogging, too :) And maybe this blog will help keep me accountable, as well, as I work on my current book project (tentative title: Daughterless Mothers: Complicating Images of Mother Ireland and Mother Africa).