With two kids home today I haven't made it to end of this article, but check out the
New York Times on nursing mothers, "On the Job, Nursing Mothers Find a 2-Class System." The reporter investigated Starbucks, and compared the conditions for mothers who are executives and get lactation rooms or can pump in their offices (though the picture of a woman pumping in her cubicle after posting a small Do Not Disturb sign did not seem like such a good deal to me) with mothers at the stores themselves, who must pump in the public bathroom, or who stop breastfeeding their babies because it's just too impossible to continue breastfeeding, pumping, and working without better support.
Nursing Moms at Work
September 1, 2006, 3:01 pmScooters
September 1, 2006, 2:54 pm
It's odd being the mother of an almost eight-year-old, and a baby all at the same time, but perhaps the juxtaposition opens the way for those life moments, you know the types, where you feel how it all fits together even if not everything makes sense. Today, I am noticing this particular paradox. With one child my eyes are constantly on her, and she's always near me. With the other, I'm learning how to let go, and none of that is easy.
Parenting an eight year old sometimes leaves me aching for the kind of parenting book I hate: those that tell you what a baby should be like at each month, and how exactly you should go about parenting them. Yes, at times, I want the assurance of a roadmap, even though I know it's impossible, and usually more frustrating than the alternatives. Today Samira and her friend J had their scooters out. You must imagine me hanging with two athletic baby tweens dressed in red, looking quite cool in their black skater shoes. Ready to walk fast alongside them, baby in back-pack, peering at the big girls from around the side of my head. Then: the question that stops my heart for just a moment, before opening it wider.
Mom, can we ride in the street?
Can it be possible that I am now the parent of a child old enough to ride her scooter in the street? I remember when she was three, and still in a stroller. I would see older girls and their scooters, and think, they're in fashion now, but I'm sure scooters will be forgotten by the time Samira's that age. Thank goodness.
But here she is. Ready. Today. Asking the question.
And the answer is.....
My answer was yes. On most streets. Stop at the corners. On busy streets we're back on the sidewalk. Still, I was taken aback. There's not yet a parenting consensus in our neighborhood about kids, bikes, scooters and the street, nor on when they're ready to ride alone to each other's homes a few blocks away. It's the wild west frontier or parenting, so far as I'm concerned. So much of parenting young kids is about keeping them safe. Keeping them on the sidewalks. The "don't-let-em-run with scissors" take on parenting conflicts with the "send 'em into the backyard to play in the mud" but where's the spotlight on those day-to-day small questions we face as we balance protecting our kids (those cars! they drive so fast! ) with giving them the confidence to take on the world, starting with the asphalt in front of their homes.
There should be a medal for this, or at least a patch, for moments like this.
ps. I'm really going to need a medal next week when I let her take the bus to school, too. Repeating question in my head: if Samira takes the school bus, will the school receptionist think I'm crazy if I call at 8.15 to make sure she got there okay....
Parenting an eight year old sometimes leaves me aching for the kind of parenting book I hate: those that tell you what a baby should be like at each month, and how exactly you should go about parenting them. Yes, at times, I want the assurance of a roadmap, even though I know it's impossible, and usually more frustrating than the alternatives. Today Samira and her friend J had their scooters out. You must imagine me hanging with two athletic baby tweens dressed in red, looking quite cool in their black skater shoes. Ready to walk fast alongside them, baby in back-pack, peering at the big girls from around the side of my head. Then: the question that stops my heart for just a moment, before opening it wider.
Mom, can we ride in the street?
Can it be possible that I am now the parent of a child old enough to ride her scooter in the street? I remember when she was three, and still in a stroller. I would see older girls and their scooters, and think, they're in fashion now, but I'm sure scooters will be forgotten by the time Samira's that age. Thank goodness.
But here she is. Ready. Today. Asking the question.
And the answer is.....
My answer was yes. On most streets. Stop at the corners. On busy streets we're back on the sidewalk. Still, I was taken aback. There's not yet a parenting consensus in our neighborhood about kids, bikes, scooters and the street, nor on when they're ready to ride alone to each other's homes a few blocks away. It's the wild west frontier or parenting, so far as I'm concerned. So much of parenting young kids is about keeping them safe. Keeping them on the sidewalks. The "don't-let-em-run with scissors" take on parenting conflicts with the "send 'em into the backyard to play in the mud" but where's the spotlight on those day-to-day small questions we face as we balance protecting our kids (those cars! they drive so fast! ) with giving them the confidence to take on the world, starting with the asphalt in front of their homes.
There should be a medal for this, or at least a patch, for moments like this.
ps. I'm really going to need a medal next week when I let her take the bus to school, too. Repeating question in my head: if Samira takes the school bus, will the school receptionist think I'm crazy if I call at 8.15 to make sure she got there okay....
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