motherhood

Sarah Coleman Needs a Reality Check


As in … it’s not all about her. In fact, adoptive parents, in general, can step away from the victimization angle any time now. I am tired of hearing about how marginalized they are by the red-necking DNA loving society that picks on their lack of genetically connected family.

Why? Because from the way I see it, in the adoption triangle, they are the ones that come out the overall winners. They couldn’t, or preferred not to, physically reproduce. They adopted. Problem solved. Birth parents are the ones who relinquish their rights and their baby due to circumstances that are beyond their control to alter. Babies, by the way, have no say, no rights and are somehow expected to deal with a loss they are too young to mentally or emotionally wrap their wee minds around and equally too young to verbalize – and later when we do, we are mollified with fairy stories and ultimately end up feeling guilty for not being more grateful for being saved from the fate of being raised by people who loved us just as much as our adoptive parents do.

Being adopted is an emotional Kobayashi Maru. The no-win scenario that can’t be cheated.

Normally, I can muster up a bit of sympathy when adoptive parents sound off about the annoying media practice of pointing out the genetic status of celebrity children. It’s unnecessary, but I get the curiosity factor that drives it because many folks don’t know anyone who isn’t genetically tied to the family who raised them.

But what irritates me to words is the victim feel to the rants of adoptive parents driven to blog or otherwise express themselves. Sarah Coleman is the latest adoptive mother to cry “foul” when what is considered the “alternative reality” of adoption finds its way into the mainstream.

Official party line is that though there may be bumps and adjustments, the adopted children are all right. And mostly, we are. We aren’t maladjusted. We live and love and don’t seek therapy or take psychotropic medications any more than those of you blessed with “flesh of my flesh” families.

Coleman had her panties in a twist over the new movie, Mother and Child, which tells the story of a birth mother, her daughter and an infertile woman who eventually adopts in a way that portrays – in her opinion – adoption in a negative light. But the reality is that there are birth mothers whose lives stopped in any meaningful way when they gave up their babies. There are adoptees who resent having been adopted for reasons as complex as they are as people. There are adoptive parents who will admit – without guilt – that they would have preferred to have had genetic offspring and that adoption was their second choice.

Oh, wait. That last thing. The second choice? Yeah, I’ve never heard anyone admit that. Even though it’s true.

And maybe that’s Coleman’s real problem. Her inner Queen Gertrude feels guilty? If so, she should get over it. It’s not as if adopted children don’t know the score and – news flash – we still love our parents anyway.

My bottom line is this – as the baby in the whole adoption scenario – I am the only one with a legitimate right to take offense and I’m not. Why?

I know that birth mother. She’s my youngest sister who gave up her daughter at birth. And I know that bitter adult adoptee. My younger brother. I know the woman struggling with infertility who saw adoption as the last resort – she would be me. They are not far-fetched inventions of Hollywood. We are real. Our point of view should get equal play.

“Single Ladies” Are Not Seven Year Old Girls


My objections to the only slightly less morally questionable than pageants world of dance festivals has been clearly illustrated by the following video of a seven-year old group of hip hop dancers in a recent competition:

The company YAK that distributed the video has forced YouTube to remove the video but you can view some of it on the GMA link below.

Not a single group of girls at my daughter’s dance school is even a tenth that talented and I am including the older teenagers. It’s part genetic gifting on behalf of the universe and part internal combustion propelling one to work it, but … where the hell were their parents when those costumes were handed out?

And seriously, seven-year olds shaking it like their dinner was at stake?

You can argue the skill it no doubt takes to perform the dance, but it will in no way detract from the fact that whoever let those little girls dress like hookers and get up on that stage to grind out what adults would be willing to admit was the softer side of soft porn if the dancers were grown women has no internal compass where right and wrong is concerned.

Sorry.

Normally the scantily clad ends when their tummies lose the round baby fat look and starts up again at late pre-teen. I haven’t personally witnessed girls in the 6 to 10 range so tarted up, but I am not surprised either. Just feeling vindicated that my spidey sense about the whole “dance” culture is accurate and glad that my seven-year-old is losing interest in favor of soccer and yoga.

I was relieved to read that web reaction was generally uneasy to appalled.

But who are their parents? Surely at least one of them thought this was really wrong? Even if they didn’t speak up too loudly? Of course, the dance mom culture being what it is – sheep-like and creepily willing to go along with ideas and demands that I am pretty sure non-dance parents would roll their eyes at and refuse to do – I am not too surprised.

We are a sick, sad culture. Hypocrites who moan about go-go dancing tots while feeding our children’s dreams of dancing near naked on stage with our own addiction to Dancing with the Stars*.

Age appropriateness.  When did that become passe?

Update: My friend Alicia wrote an excellent bit of commentary on this at her blog. She brings up the valid point of parental responsibility in teaching our children how/when to say “no”. She also points out something that hadn’t occurred to me. Music is internalized. We become the music – taking on its intention – when we sing and dance. Think about that minute.

Additional Update: Two of the parents of the girls – who are eight and nine year olds and not seven – appeared on GMA to defend themselves. They talk about context and that the performance wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone outside family and friends and other competitors. They also fell back on the tired excuse of “but it’s pop culture and everyone else is doing it”. Naive, blinkered, and typical of the kinds of parents I ran across all the time when I was teaching  in public school. They never question or consider the long term consequences.

*Not my addiction, mind you, I watched it with my mom, BIL and sister, DNOS, over Spring Break and was puzzled, and weirded out by the way flat screens make everyone look puffy in a partied too much on the weekend kind of way.

Thistles to Me: I Am an Anti-Feminist?


With the Jillian Michaels post behind me and things settling back to a boring ho-hum around here, I thought I’d share a link to a board forum where my piece on Michaels was shared.

Well, not shared so much as lifted in its entirety via cut and paste though I appreciated the link back to my blog. That was nice of whoever scraped me*.

The poster actually liked my article until the last line, which inspired her to physical violence which she admits probably made my point, but it was the first few commenters who pegged me for a Carol Brady**.

What they seized on was a throw away line I just put in to see if anyone would notice and they did, but they didn’t find it funny.

I should just give up on the humor thing.

Any time you stretch the lower half of your body to accommodate a small person and then squeeze it out of an opening that normally only just manages to accommodate a … tampon … for example, it’s going to change things.

Some of the women seemed to think that I was referencing vaginal intercourse and the fact that things can get a little loosey goosey in the old vagina after a natural birth. Natural birth being a relative term that in reality means pretty much anything in terms of the circumstances under which babies emerge from the womb.

Okay, so they caught me on that one. I was in fact referring to what it reads like I am referring to in a way too cute to be tolerated from a feminist anyway.

However, I did not mean to imply that I thought women should forgo child-bearing to keep their “love-holes” tight. There is a lot of muscle in the pelvic floor. Loose or tight is more a matter of a woman’s fitness level than the number of children she’s born. Kegels, ladies. And yoga. But not for your partner, for you. A weak pelvic floor means that all manner of internal organs are going to start sagging and dropping out your opening when the aging process – aided by gravity – kicks it into high gear.

Here’s my favorite comment and a fave of others too judging from how many of them cut/pasted it into their own replies (or it was their reply),

I don’t think I agree with a single thing this blogger is writing especially that pregnancy is a negative for a woman’s body.  Um, ever heard of aging?  Your body is going to change over time, period.  Aging serves no purpose but pregnancy brings a life into this world.

As for being “less tight” – are we really as women going to allow a man’s pleasure to determine whether we have a baby?  Is that feminism?  Men should just DEAL.  It’s not as if their stamina and ability to get it up doesn’t change over time…what’s their excuse?

To address the aging, I won’t. I don’t think the OP had any idea of how old I really am. This forum is at The Knot, which is a bridal site, but is in their Nest forum, young marrieds mostly. I imagine there are middle-aged brides there but the board read young to me.

Age is a given. Sag is a given. No one escapes.

Pregnancy is a choice. Um, in the West, it is primarily a choice. Hmmm, among the privileged it is a choice. Probably.

It’s a choice with a roulette element because going in, one has no idea how the hormones and gestating are going to affect one physically or emotionally. Some people simply don’t want to go there – male as well as female. It will change you. No shame, nor should there be, in declining, and points should be given for being honest about your doubts and reasons.

Here’s one that gave me a giggle or two:

XXXXX said it far better than I could.  I really disliked this article.  Perhaps that’s because I haven’t yet had and really want kids, and have just now gotten comfortable with my body, so I’d like to keep that.  But I think it is also the exaggeration of the difficulties of pregnancy and raising infants: yes, sleeplessness impedes workouts, but that impossible phase passes in a couple of months.  Law school sometimes impeded workouts, too, but I didn’t drop out just because finals would make me skip the gym.

And re: the “tightness” issue, I imagine we were all tightest in our teens and early twenties.  I’ll speak only for myself in saying that I don’t think that’s exactly the best sex ever.  Experience counts a lot more than a few millimeters in diameter.

Soo boo to this article!  Not slamming the op in that.  I love to read things I can disagree with.  🙂

I remember being childlessly naive. She brings it all back. Sigh.

We all think that we will have the easy pregnancy. Gain ten pounds and jog right up to the hospital door. Our baby will not be discolored, have a misshapen head or monkey hair. And she’ll sleep through the night in no time at all.

Sure. Taking care of a newborn is not equivalent in any way to going to law school. If you fall asleep over a textbook, you won’t suffocate it, and sleeplessness during finals is finite – a kid will be keeping you up nights for the rest of your life.

Life has its own ideas, just as babies do. When Dee was two weeks old her father was already losing his mind due to his yet to be diagnosed terminal illness. Needless to say, my fantasies about getting back into shape were just that. Good intentions sometimes play out and just as often, they come to nothing.

Like the non-hating on me – the “op” in her last sentence. Unexpected sweetness of spirit on the Internet should be applauded loudly whenever it is chanced upon.

Loved this one too:

As far as tightness, that doesn’t just go to a man’s pleasure.

Sing it, Sista!

I am an inconsistent warrior in the feminist trenches at best. That I will admit to, but I don’t think taking the Jillian haters to task or pointing out that the female gender is more divided than the male makes me  Phyllis Schlafly.

Let me leave you with a classic episode of Maude – a make believe woman who was more feminist than I am.

*That comes off as ungrateful, I know, but cut/pasting excerpts is okay while plastering someone else’s post on your space isn’t kosher. Even on message boards, it’s a dicey practice.

**Let’s face it, even with the pants suits and the shag hair cut, she was so not a bra-burner.