Maggie's Farm

Good article. Will read the book. Hard to discuss without angering somebody, but when has that ever daunted us fearless MFers? Habu, agree with your comments.

I love my children more than anything. I feel blessed to have had a pack of my own biological children, and to be raising them (quaint, isn't it?!) with their father, to whom I am still married despite daily antics that mimic Punch and Judy. I fall squarely in the social conservative camp.

But when I was approaching 30 and still unmarried I agonized about children, and the lack of them in my life (it was the era when people said a woman of 30 had more chance of getting killed by a terrorist than getting married). I wondered to myself if I should become a single parent. I wondered if I should let myself get pregnant, or go the donor route, or adopt a kid.

I remember vividly one evening looking at my beloved dog and cat, both adopted from the pound, and realizing that since I was unmarried, any child I raised would automatically have a less than ideal upbringing without a father. But that there are many children already in this world without even one loving parent, whose lives would be better being adopted by an educated, loving, stable person with a steady job who would cherish them and do their best by them. But that it would be immoral to deliberately bring a child into the world without a father. Better a single mother than no parents, but definitely not good enough to justify getting pregnant if I were not married. I started looking out for "unadoptable" sibling groups from the agency where I worked (most people want only one baby they can mold, or a "cute" kid). There are thousands upon thousands of them. Languishing in group homes and foster care, of every ethnic group...

In any case, God had other plans for me. Unexpectedly I found someone, got married, had a pack of puppies in rapid succession and have been wearing myself to a frazzle caring for them ever since. I may still adopt a bunch of kids who can't find a home when my biological kids are launched, but for now I am completely occupied.

And these are the boring, old fashioned, everyday conclusions my life these 20 years has taught me about kids:

It isn't how you get pregnant or how your labor and delivery go that show what kind of parent you are, but how you look after your kids day in day out. The best mother I know is a homeschooler who rescued two adorable boys with special needs from one of those East European hellhole orphanages.

I know another mother who went thru infertility horrors and immediately went back to work once the twins were born. But who considers herself a real mother, and the adoptive one not real. Any cat can have kittens. Go figure...

I know other women who crank out baby after baby, breastfeed them, are good "animal" mothers, but who completely lose interest and turn them over to the help past two.

One thing's for sure, the father is irreplaceable. In our family, the main role for the male until the kids were weaned at 2 or 2.5 years old was not so much as a direct parent (my spouse tended to view the offspring with affection but tended to defer to my maternal expertise, and was thrilled that breastfeeding meant he never had to get up in the night for fractious babies) but as a support to the mother. But really needed and appreciated. I can honestly say that I was partly a good mother of infants and toddlers because nursing hormones made me so (the real reason to avoid formula, apart from expense and nutritional inferiority), but also because my spouse protected, encouraged me, and earned a living so I could dedicate myself 24/7 to our children. Our kids had an idyllic life at home with me and in the neighborhood and at church until they went off to kindergarten, and it was made possible by masculine protection and care. Nothing sexist about it. A sensible division of labor. I had better grades, had a career also, but I had better aptitude for childrearing, was happier doing it, and will always be grateful to my spouse for making it possible to give our kids a loving beginning in the world.

I agree that a singular lack in the literature on infertility and "new families" is discussion of the real interests of the children. Of course, most people (at least most women) long to be parents. Most men I know were surprised by their feelings for their kids. Some of my coworkers are now as sentimental and involved in the most mundane details of their kids' lives as the moms, but they admit now that they never would have thought it would happen to them. But just because we want children, doesn't always mean we can give them what they need.

I think it cruel to bring a child into the world without a father. We have family acquaintances who are a lesbian couple, devoted parents, professionals, etc. but the kid misses out without a dad in the house. Plenty of love, attention, discipline, good education, etc. but the male-female point, counterpoint (remember the old Saturday Night Livee, "Jane, you ignorant slut...") is lacking.

I admire the gutsy women I know who are single parents inadvertently (spouse dies, or strays and abandons the family), and how well many of their kids turn out anyway. I believe that churches often do a great deal to provide these families a haven, and parental backup to the harried mom. But it is still less than ideal, and nobody should choose it. It's like starting out on a hike with just one boot.

When I had two colicky infants in a row, my spouse could hold the screaming one for 15 minutes so I could have a shower and catch my breath, could clean up the projectile vomiting, could go out to the store and bring me back a pint of ice cream to soothe my frazzled nerves, could reassure me that I was a good mother, could make a joke about the squinty watermelon turning the household upside down. When I had to carry a screaming two and a half year old out of church, I had a spouse to give the evil eye back to the old biddies at our old, nasty church who did not understand why I didn't just pop the brat one....When one kid was diagnosed with a disability that will likely mean caring for same kid the rest of their life, I had a partner to weep with and gird myself with, and to make plans to endure and make the best of it and do right by the kid with....When I have a pack of insufferably entitled teenagers making demands of me, I have a spouse who reminds me of the Nature film we watched when pregnant with the first one: it showed a pair of birds of prey (peregrine falcons, don't remember?!) who were caring for their nestlings. When smaller, the parents spelled each other keeping the baby birds warm and bringing them things and it was a nice equilibrium. As the birds got larger and larger they got more demanding, until both parents were absolutely exhausted bringing more and more food to critters almost as big as they were....the point is, those baby birds needed both parents....

I know that I have been a dreadful spouse these nearly twenty years, but I also know that I have been a better parent because I am married to my children's father than I ever would have been on my own. Maybe just my own deficiencies? I am sure plenty of women do better on their own than I do, with my comparatively cushy life....

One last thought about parenting: we are all rank amateurs, and unfortunately, just when you get good at it, the offspring have advanced to the stage of demanding a quarter of a million for college FAR, FAR AWAY....I am better at parenting than all my past academics, and work, but I am still crummy at it. I am no super parent (where I live, the trophy wives push and protect and pamper their brats to justify their own lives of idleness and tennis and lunch while brats are in school) as I have to work to keep them fed, etc.

But my bias is mothers should breastfeed infants til aged two, stay home til kids are in full time school, and compromise on their own careers so as to have the time and energy to play with kids after school, and get them to their friends and activities after school. At a minimum, stay home the first two years.

If you can't (or rather, if the mother can't) make a full time commiitment to parenting for the first years, I'd say don't have your own biological children. If you are dead set on the female having a career, go ahead and adopt. To a kid in a group home, even day care and an exhausted working mommy at the end of the day is better than a tenement with four kids to a room in bunk beds in Queens. You don't have to spend thousands and go to RUssia or China to buy a baby. Americans carelessly and selfishly produce more than enough "unwanted" children desperate for parental love. Of course, you will have to negotiate the bureaucratic maze and deal with some loathsome social workers and deal with some tricky cross cultural issues most likely....but if you want to be a parent, it's possible.

These are hasty thoughts. Day care and a single parent are better than life in a child welfare agency, but they are not half as good for a kid as life with two married parents of the opposite sex.

And what is your issue, Dr S? Who cares why a woman nurses her kids a long time, so long as she does? Better to do the right thing for the wrong reasons...Nature has a way! Or do you apply your insulting generalizations to the majority of mothers throughout human history?! What a lot of head cases!!

Do you work for Nestle? Or are you a narcissistic husband devastated by his wife's temporarily putting your child ahead of you?

There are some good reasons for not breastfeeding to protect the child [and if you can't put your baby's interests ahead of your own, you should not become a mother]: : insufficient milk [extremely rare in our overnourished society-women who say they don't have enough milk have just not
learned to adjust their lives to accommodate a nursing infant.or are under intolerable outside stress. If the mother has a communicable disease or is on meds that would harm the baby, formula after initial breastfeeding [antibodies etc in colostrum] may be better. If the mother is pregnant and not gaining weight, yes, wean the older baby.

Breastfeeding past a year hurts noone except perhaps those who want
their female workers to work as if they didn't have a family. Any nursing mother knows that by a year, nursing is primarily about comfort and quiet one on one time with a beloved infant. They drink from a cup and eat as well by then.

Why are you so threatened by a mother's continued intimacy past the age of six months with her toddler? She is not a sicko for cherishing those precious two or three years. Last I heard, my fellow nursing mothers agreed that nursing feels good, but watching the confidence and healthy development of our children feels better, and certainly is no substitute for the lusty husbands we conceived these babies with. Most of us do not bare breasts in public or draw attention to ourselves or want a medal for it. Most of us just believe that mother's milk is best for growing humans, and cow's milk for growing calves.

Enjoyed your reminiscences mc and mm! And, of course,how the little darlings turn out cannot be attributed to our nursing. It isn't all about us!

In our house, we know that we parents are to blame for any failures and the kids and good genes get credit for any successes. Parenting techniques chiefly impact the self esteem of the parent. We all need to feel we did the best we could. So DR S is crude and unkind and clearly understands little about the needs of babies [my kids would never take a bottle ever] but correct that sometimes nursing is about needs of the mother. But Dr S is ass backwards about what kind of needs most nursing mothers are meeting. It's about "am I doing right by this beloved gift from God?" much more than "how do I look?"

Obviously, the baby is the gift. And any adult knows that big breasts are not necessary for breastfeeding, just a fantasy staple for males forever stuck in middle school lust from afar [I wonder how often a person who describes women like that actually spends w a real live love interest besides themselves]