A Weekend Off ~ by Jay

In an hour or so I will meet Orange! I'm in Brooklyn for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and I intend to have a good time - even though I forgot to bring any pencils.

I doubt I'll blog from here; back to home, work and blogging on Sunday.

Speaking of the Dentist... ~ by Jay

When I went for my root canal today, I watched part of an episode of Seinfeld in the waiting room. It featured impotence and faking orgasm. At first I thought they had a TV station on, but it became clear that they were playing a DVD.

I like Seinfeld, and I think it was good TV when it was on, but I do wonder about the wisdom of showing it in an office where I might have, for example, brought my daughter with me. At home I can turn off the TV and control what she watches, but in a public place I have no choice. I have a kid who gets nightmares when she sees the news, and more than once I've had to deal with being in an airport or a restaurant with CNN showing on TV.

Background music I can tolerate - sometimes I even like it - but background TV in public should vanish from the earth.

The Doctor and the Dentist ~ by Jay

We do make the worst patients.

I went to the dentist ten days ago for the first time since 2002, and of course I went because I had a problem, and of course the problem existed because I hadn't seen the dentist since 2002. So today I had a root canal to fix THAT problem, and they found ANOTHER problem so now I need a cap.

I had to cancel office hours today for the root canal; it was originally scheduled last Friday but was snowed out. So I was hesitant to cancel hours again for the cap, plus I'm going away for a week in March, so end result? I have an appointment to get the cap in a month.

They told me not to chew on that side of my mouth until I get the cap, because right now I have a temporary filling.

This should be fun.

I'm Old ~ by Jay

I remember Derek Jeter's first major league season. It was 1996, and the Yankees won the first title of the Joe Torre era. A great year, in large part because of their rookie shortstop - the one who hit his first major league home run on opening day, the one who won Rookie of the Year. He was a terrific player, and a really nice guy, and cute. And young. I turned 36 that summer and Derek Jeter was 22.

Of course we've both gotten older since then. I know that. There's a lot of baseball gone by since 1996. But I don't really think about it - I still think of Derek Jeter as young. Very young.

So today there's an article in the Times about Philip Hughes, one of the Yankees' excellent young pitchers. Hughes has a blog - his own blog, not a webpage maintained by MLB, but one he updates himself pretty regularly. No one else on the team does that. The reporter asked Derek Jeter if he'd consider doing the same, and Jeter says no. And then Derek points out that he was in sixth grade when Hughes was born, and suggests there might be a generation gap.

Derek Jeter is now one of the old veterans of the Yankees organization, looking on in bemusement at the antics of the kids. Me? I'm old.

Oh, No, She Didn't ~ by Jay

Book group tonight; the book was Eat/Pray/Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. So we spent a lot of time talking about the paths our lives take, and whether we choose our path or our path chooses us. I said "I'm always amazed when I hear someone say they decided it was time to get married, and they decided what kind of person they wanted, and boom! they got married". To which a friend of mine - yes, a friend of mine - replied "Oh, those people end up with infertility problems".

She must have thought I was staring speechlessly at her because I didn't understand, so she explained. "It's like my brother-in-law. First they had to go to law school, and then they each had to get established in their careers, and then they bought the house and joined the big Reform congregation, and then God said "Ha-ha! Joke's on you" when they decided to have children".

Oh, no, she didn't just say that to me.

Except she did.

I was proud of myself. I didn't burst into tears or leave the room - and I considered both options - but I also didn't just let it go. As we were getting ready to leave, I put my arm around her and said "Do you really think God was punishing me for going to medical school?". She said "Oh, no!" I said "Well, it sounded like that was what you were saying." She said something about people thinking they could plan out their whole lives, and not thinking she was talking about me, and maybe that's true. Sure didn't feel like that in the moment, though.

Just for Virginia ~ by Jay

Who said she'd never heard this song. Note that the other red-headed woman on stage with Bruce is Bonnie Raitt. I'm guessing the original one is Patti Scialfa; if I were ever going to be jealous of another woman, it would be Patti.

Scheduling ~ by Jay

It seems like such a simple question: when shall we go to the ballet? The season starts in May and runs through July and of course our ballerina girl wants to see EVERYTHING. Lucky girl has a grandmother who would happily take her to see EVERYTHING but the ballet is in Big City, 9o miles away, and grandmother lives over the river another 30 miles or so north of Big City. Big City is a long but manageable day trip. 8:00 PM performances are still not in our repertoire, so it's just the matinees. Saturday matinees are done once for each piece during the season....

...so when are we going on vacation? When am I on call? When are our college friends convening for a riotous weekend? When is Sam's major workshop? And why do I have to schedule everything FOUR MONTHS IN ADVANCE???

Friday Random Ten, Hopelessly Un-Hip Edition ~ by Jay

The songs on my iPod are way too old-fogy to put in the Feministe or Pandagon Friday Random Ten threads, but I like the idea, so I'm just doing it myself. Feel free to respond with your own random lists - shuffle and go!

1) Bonnie Raitt - I Ain't Gonna Let You Break My Heart
2) Abayuday (Jews from Uganda) - Mwana Ngolera
3) Joan Osborne - Pensacola
4) Indigo Girls - The Wood Song
5) Respighi (Berliner Philharmonic) - Suite III, Andantino
6) Paul Simon - Late in the Evening
7) Indigo Girls - Nashville
8) Allan Sherman - Sir Greenbaum's Madrigal
9) Dar Williams - Liar
10) Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer - The Instructional Manual

"Sir Greenbaum" is one of my favorite Allan Sherman songs. No YouTube, so you can't hear it, but it reads funny.

To the tune of "Greensleeves"

In Sherwood Forest
There dwelt a knight
Who was known
As the righteous Sir Greenbaum

And many dragons
Had felt the might
Of the smite
Of the righteous Sir Greenbaum

I chanced upon him one morn
When he'd recently rescued a maiden fair
Why, why art thou so forlorn
Sir Greenbaum, is thy heart heavy laden?

Said he, "Forsooth
'Tis a sorry plight
That engendered my attitude bluish"
Said he, "I don't wanna be a knight
That's no job for a boy who is Jewish"

All day with the mighty sword
And the mighty steed and the mighty lance
All day with that heavy shield
And a pair of aluminum pants

All day with the slaying and slewing
And smiting and smoting like Robin Hood
Oh, wouldst I could kick the habit
And give up smoting for good.

A Balance of Needs ~ by Jay

When my daughter was born, someone gave us "What to Expect the First Year". I was interested in the info about development, but when I opened the book it started to yell at me. Talk to your baby! But not too much! Eat this! But not that! Except sometimes! And whatever you do, DO IT RIGHT OR ELSE. It was like one of those Howlers in Harry Potter, with an underlying assumption that I was an incompetent parent but that I could saved if I would just do as I was told. And if I was incompetent, Sam was just irrelevant. That book was like the video they showed us at the hospital where our daughter was born, the one that said "Daddies make good burpers" in a tone that implied that was all they were going to do.

Penelope Leach was better. There were adorable pictures of British babies (don't ask me why, but they looked British) and a more moderate and soothing tone. Penelope was sure my baby would be fine, and she was confident that I'd be a good mother. She also had male parents in her charming little instructional parables. She still felt very strongly about what I Should and Should Not Do, though, and Penelope's Shoulds, especially where it came to sleep, were the precise opposite of the What to Expect Shoulds. Hmm.

For a while I just ignored parenting books entirely. My daughter was a relatively easy baby and she slept a lot, and I really didn't care if she had the Perfect Stroller or the Most Organic Formula or the Safest Car Seat. But I'm a sucker for books, and bookstores are a good place to take a baby in a stroller, so one day I found myself in Borders leafing through Becoming the Parent You Want to Be. I felt like Goldilocks: one book was too hard, and one book was too soft, but this one is Just Right.

What was the amazing revelation? That the parent's needs count, too. Want to co-sleep because you enjoy it, or it meets your needs? Great. Want to have the baby in a separate bassinet in your room? Go for it. Feel like you really, really, really have to sleep for six hours in a bed by yourself? OK, that will work, too. This book asked questions: what are your family's values? What are your particular goals? Here are some strategies; pick one that will work for you. This book trusted me. This book provided me with information and let me decide how to use it. This book said kids are resilient, and life in a family is a balance of needs. I love a book that tells me what I want to hear.

Mary's right; our decisions as parents won't doom our children to wasted lives or save them from all distress. But we take actions every day that determine how our family develops and how our days together will be spent. I make those choices with an eye toward what I want for my kid, and another eye toward what I want for myself. My third eye is looking at what works for our marriage. None of my eyes are reading what anyone tells me I should be doing.

Snow! ~ by Jay

And so it snows.

Not very much, but with the promise (threat?) that it will continue all day and turn into sleet later on, everything is closed, including my office. So we're all home. Sam is shoveling snow, I'm keeping the computer warm, and our daughter is watching a DVD of a Bruce Springsteen concert, which should result in having these lyrics warbled around the house:

It takes a red-headed woman
To get a dirty job done...
Well, listen up, stud
You're life's been wasted
'til you've got down on your knees and tasted
A red-headed woman....

Maybe we should go sledding instead.

Conversations with my Daughter ~ by Jay

Mommy, that man is riding a motorcycle. I want to ride a motorcycle but I can't because I'm a girl.

War in Mommy's head between I've-worked-in-an-ER-and-you're-never-getting-on-a-motorcycle-as-long-as-I'm-alive and dammit, girls-can-do-anything-boys-can do. Mommy takes a deep breath.

You can't ride a motorcycle because you're a kid. Only grown-ups can ride motorcycles, and when you're a grown-up, we'll talk about it.

The Importance (or Lack Thereof) of Parenting ~by MPJ

I have friends on both ends of the parenting philosophies spectrum, and (being a well-educated over-achiever) I've read my share of parenting books. Whether they are hippie parents who espouse co-sleeping or totalitarian parents who advocate crying it out, the proponents of these philosophies share one commonality: the same dire predictions for your child's future based on your actions as a parent from your child's earliest days forward. I have a friend who calls this "The Friendless Alcoholic Syndrome."

Let your baby cry herself to sleep and you are torturing her, teaching her that her cries for help will be ignored by a cruel world, and dooming her to a life as a friendless alcoholic. Of course, if you co-sleep with your baby or pick her up when she cries then you are spoiling her, teaching her to selfishly expect the world to meet her every need if she just whines enough and dooming her to (you guessed it) a life as a friendless alcoholic. But let's not stop with sleep, the prescription is the same for male circumcision, TV watching, breastfeeding, video games, curfews, cell phone usage, computer access or just about any other hot parenting topic: if you don't handle parenting the right way -- if you are (depending on which side you're on) too strict or too lenient when dealing with your children -- they will be ruined for life, society will be stuck with your selfish, violent offspring and civilization as we know it will crumble.

So which side am I on? I'm not. I've opted out of my corporate career, I've opted out of the so-called Mommy Wars and I've opted out of the parenting philosophy wars too. I simply don't buy the premise that one's parenting style substantially affects a child's outcome. I believe that my children are the way they are largely was a result of their genetic predispositions, I can tweak that slightly with a lot of love and care, but (short of outright abuse) I can't substantially change them.

I have a child who is autistic and has a variety of sensory issues, anxieties and obsessive/compulsive behaviors. Autism is neurological. My son doesn't look different, but his brain behaves differently, and some people attribute his differences in behavior to my parenting instead. My daughter, whose brain works in a way completely different from my son, has a very different (in many cases opposite) set of behaviors, which have likewise been attributed to my parenting.

My children are who they are. Aside from contributing half their genes, I didn't do anything to make my daughter happily open wide and say "ah" while my son screams and lunges at dental hygienists. They got the same parenting. One runs through grocery stores (because my lenient parenting has caused him to become out of control), the other walks serenely by my side (because my excellent discipline has instilled in her a sense of boundaries and limits). The same parenting resulted in a child who only eats three foods (because I supposedly failed to offer him a variety of healthy foods as a baby) and a child who requests broccoli for snacks (because I supposedly did such a great job offering her a variety of healthy foods as a baby).

I had a woman complain to me once that her stepchildren were out of control. They were rude, they were addicts, they were thieves, they were disrespectful, they were violent, they were felons. The reason? Her husband's lenient parenting, of course. He never disciplined those kids. He let them step all over him.

Really? That was surprising. Because my experience with addiction, violence, felony and dysfunction have taught me otherwise. I have yet to meet a person in 12 Step who grew up in a safe, peaceful household with no mental illness present in the immediate biological family. So, I pressed the woman. Well, sure, his ex-wife, the children's mother, was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and had physically abused the children for years. But the way the kids turned out was totally the fault of that dad not setting a curfew!

In my school of parenting, there are two ways to produce the kinds of kids that turn into society's problems: have a child with a genetic predisposition to mental illness or create a mental illness by abusing the child. (In fact, abuse a child with a genetic predisposition and you're working to create the perfect storm!) Go ahead and take a look at the problem people of society, from the CEO of Enron to the drug dealer on the corner. Find one of them who grew up in a loving, non-abusive environment and who has no mental illness in their immediate family, and I'll give you bragging rights that your parenting philosophy is best. But don't tell me that a child could have avoided prison if his mom had stricter rules about TV when his dad was burning him with cigarettes.

My children have a family history of anxiety, depression, addiction and obsessive/compulsive disorders. They may end up friendless alcoholics someday, but that will have a lot more to do with the genes I gave them than whether or not I roomed in with them at the hospital on the day they were born. And I'm doing the best thing I can to improve their chances for becoming happy, productive adults: I'm forgetting the arguments about parenting, about co-sleeping and breastfeeding and toilet training and "screen time" and discipline. I'm giving them a loving home, safe from abuse, with parents who think about parenting, do their best to model healthy behaviors and make decisions in accordance with their own values. That doesn't guarantee success, but it goes a lot further than Sears or Ferber could ever take us.

Overheard ~ by Jay

At Barnes & Noble, shortly after the lunar eclipse started:

Now, don't look directly at it, or you'll damage your eyes.

This is My Life ~ by Jay

Read more xkdc.

Drums ~ by Jay

We finally got back to drum class tonight - first time in two months. I've really missed it. I've never been able to meditate successfully, but I can sit there and concentrate on the drumming and lose track of everything else. It's an amazing release. After an hour I'm both relaxed and energized.

There's something profoundly satisfying about making visible progress, too. In my life nothing is ever really completed. I never actually finish my work; I never feel as if the house is really cleaned up or the laundry all washed and put away or that I've spent exactly the right amount of time with the people I love. I never get to finish a conversation. Tonight we learned a new rhythm. At first I couldn't do it at all; I was a beat behind and in the wrong place on the drum. At one point I managed to hit my own hand instead of the drum. But after we went through it a few times, I had it. We played through in parts and I hung on the whole way. Concrete, demonstrable proof that I accomplished something. A nice way to end the evening.

The Searches ~ by Jay

I don't usually make fun of people, but I'll make an exception for this one. If you can't spell "pornography", you have no business searching for it on the internet. I mean, really.

And whoever you are looking for information on how to make love to fat, middle-aged women? It's not that complicated. Most of us still have all the same parts and they work pretty much the same way.

And people are still looking for that shampoo commercial. If you'd asked me what topic would get my blog listed at the top of a Google search page, that would not have the one I would have chosen. Who knew? And why is it, with all the stuff that is on YouTube, that there's no video of that commercial?

Don't know the answer to that one. Maybe I should do a search.

Long day ~ by Jay

I've gone the entire day today without seeing my daughter.

We usually have a 7:00 AM meeting on the third Monday of the month, so I got up at 6:00, showered and left for work. Since it was President's day, and we got flexible about bedtime over the weekend, she was still asleep when I left at 6:40. The 7:00 AM meeting, it turns out, was canceled, but nobody told me that. Saw patients from 8:30-12:00, had a meeting at noon (surprise!), saw patients from 1:00-4:00, did paperwork until 6:00, drove to hospice to co-facilitate the monthly learning session. Then, finally, home (well, I had to go back to the office to pick up my computer because I forgot to take it with me the first time, so home at 9:45 instead of 9:15).

Nothing to be done about it; there are always going to be days like that. I'm lucky, I guess, that they only happen once in a while. But I still miss her.

Sacrifice, again ~ by Jay

My post about sacrifice generated far more discussion than I expected. I appreciate all of you who commented here and who wrote to me privately. I've had a lot to think about over the last few days.

I'm kind of amazed that I didn't connect this with my post about the akeydah until Mary pointed it out to me. Um, right, sacrifice. I compared myself to Abraham in the story of the primal sacrifice of Jewish legend. I went on to say that this experience of loss is so universal, so archetypal, that it explains the longevity and primacy of that story. So how can I say I don't believe that motherhood requires sacrifice?

What does "sacrifice" really mean? When I read bluemilk's original question, I heard "sacrifice" as "giving up yourself". In particular, it brought to mind a specific image of mothers, mothers who put their own lives on hold or abandon them completely and then place their children's lives in the center instead. I also felt the original question held sacrifice out as something only mothers experience. The akeydah stands to refute that; it was Abraham who took Isaac up the mountain, not Sarah.

I think the statement "motherhood involves sacrifice" bothers me because it makes my own specific journey invisible, and in some way robs me of my agency. If this is just the lot of women, why does my story matter? Where am I? I was so busy rejecting that formulation that I didn't consider the larger implications of what I wrote.

While I have experienced loss and grief since my daughter was born, I don't feel I've lost or given up who I was, essentially. I read Mary's story; I know that she, like many of you, looks back at the time before the birth of her first child and wonders who she was. That doesn't mean I'm stronger or wiser than Mary. I am older than she is - I was nearly 40 when my daughter was born - and I was one of the last of my friends to have kids. Maybe I had a clearer idea what I was signing up for. And in many ways I've had an easier road.

The visible sacrifices I have made - relinquishing Rose and Jesse - weren't sacrifices of self. I had to give them up in order to stay true to myself. We could have fought, especially in Jesse's case; we could have used our relative wealth and privilege to take him away permanently from the mother who wanted him back. I could avoid contact with Laura, my daugther's birthmother, and never have to worry about those phone calls. But that would be a sacrifice of self. Doing that - acting on my own wishes without regard for the impact on someone else, acting in way that promotes injustice and oppression - would rob me of something essential. So for me sacrifice has allowed me to remain whole.

I am not a difference feminist. I believe that we live within a patriarchal society and that our experiences are affected by that patriarchy; I don't think any of us act entirely outside that structure. Given the ubiquity of patriarchy and misogyny, I don't quite know how to think about the differences between men and women; I accept that there probably are some differences, but I think the range of variation far exceeds the difference between the means, and that if we were more open to seeing the real range, the differences would look even smaller. The best way I know to start that process is to hear as many stories as I can, and hear them without judgment, as I would hope you would all hear mine.

Valentine's Day? ~by MPJ

My son crawls into bed with us at 3am. What used to be a nightly occurrence is rare these days. He's asleep again instantly, wedged between my husband and me. I turn over and fall asleep again too.

My daughter wanders in at 4am. She is more of a challenge and doesn't easily get back to sleep once she wakes up. My husband gets up with her, escorts her back to bed and lies down until she falls asleep. By 4:30am, she's asleep again and he moves to our son's vacant bed, but can't fall asleep again before he has to be up for work at 5am.

Before my alarm rings at 6am, both kids are awake and urging me out of bed. My husband has already left for work. I get my son ready for school, strap him in on the mini-bus, hurry my daughter through breakfast and rush out hoping to pick up Valentines for her class on the way to school. (I forgot what day it was until I checked the calendar in the morning.) I drop her off, just five minutes late and short one of the two bags she is apparently supposed to have (one for giving Valentines and one for collecting them). I run errands for an hour and a half, one of which involves a trip to Home Depot for supplies to secure her bed slats, which she has been taking out (the girl can use a screwdriver, I'm telling you) and using to support her sofa cushion forts.

I pick my daughter up and we stop at the grocery store on the way home and buy lunch and some glue to fix a few broken toys. She plays while I clean and then falls asleep on the sofa, worn out from her 4am excursion to our room. She wakes up when her brother gets home, and we enter the whirlwind of dinner, bath, homework and siblings competing for my attention.

The kids play together in their room as I make dinner, how sweet! At 7:30pm, I try to get them to move toward bed, but they are drawing pictures for one another using stencils one of them got for Valentine's Day at school and are so cute and having so much fun, I can't bear to break them up. At 8pm, when my son has finished his masterpiece and presented it to his sister, who has asked him what every line was as he drew it and so already knows the drawing intimately, I get them into the bathroom and brushing teeth. I walk into my bedroom while they are brushing teeth and realize that, while they were playing together earlier, they emptied an entire container of fish food and the bottle of Elmer's glue my daughter and I purchased earlier that day into the fish tank. I didn't even fix the toys with that glue! The fish, if they are still alive, are swimming in what looks like milk. And written on the fish tank, in what appears to be ballpoint pen, is "The fish have no food." (Obviously, because it's all in the tank.)

It's already late, so the fish, if any exist, will have to wait. I tuck my daughter in and read her a story. I move my son through his elaborately ritualized bedtime routine. I stop to get my daughter a drink and tuck her back in. At sometime between 9 and 9:30 I have completed all the necessary steps and my son is lying down. At 9:30pm, as I sit with my son waiting for him to fall asleep, I hear my husband return home from his 12 Step meeting (he goes directly there from work). By 10pm my son is asleep and I walk into the living room to chat with my husband. We fill each other in briefly on our days, but he has been up since 4am and is headed to bed. I have some freelance writing work to finish up.

I finish my work and start in on the fish tank. I drain nearly all the water and find that the fish are miraculously still alive. I refill the tank and restart the filter. The fish still look like they are swimming in milk. Shit! It's 1am. Screw the fish. I'm going to bed. What day was this?

Happy Valentine's Day ~ by Jay

6:30 this morning the radio goes on and we hear Leon Russell singing "A Song for You". I love this song. I love his version of this song. We snuggle up together under the quilt and listen to it. I sing along, just a little, in my early morning frog voice, which is not all that different from Leon Russell.

Love.

Who Is this Woman? ~by MPJ

Jay has started quite a discussion about motherhood and sacrifice. It has me thinking. It has me trying to figure out why I don't want to allow a concept of motherhood that doesn't involve sacrifice, why it's so hard for me to accept that Jay doesn't feel she's sacrificed in becoming a mother. And I found I'm digging desperately through her experience to find something that makes me feel less isolated in mine.

I can't remember who I was before I became a mother. People remind me of things I did, and I just don't remember or can't conceive of it. It's like being told stories about someone I don't even know, someone entirely different from who I am, someone I don't understand and can't relate to. I can't conceive of how I could have done the things I did and I can't remember what I was thinking or feeling while I did them. I didn't just sacrifice, my whole self exploded. Seven years after the birth of my son, I'm still reeling from blow after blow, like becoming pregnant was the big bang that burst the old order apart into a new universe.

Those of you who read my blog know bits and pieces of the story, but I don't think I've ever laid out a summary of the whole story.

I was in my early 30's when my husband and I decided to try for a baby. We had been together as a couple for over ten years, married for several years of that. Our relationship was both stable and passionate: we had the giddy air of the newly in love along with solid communication skills and respect. We both had good jobs and were secure financially. And we both finally, simultaneously, felt ready for kids. I got pregnant on the first try. I knew I was pregnant right away; I felt different and radiating and horribly sick. Pregnancy was much harder on my body than I imagined, and I was eager to hold that baby in my arms by the end.

My baby boy was born and he cried almost constantly, unless he was breastfeeding. He cried these wailing, piercing screams. Screams that said nothing to me but "Mama, help me please! Please, please help me!" That baby screamed like he was being tortured. (Turns out that the cries of a baby with colic are distinctly different in pitch than those of a typical baby, are associated with pain and are much more traumatic for listeners.) He didn't sleep through the night until he was nearly a year old, and he was still waking (which means we were still waking) once every one to two hours, even at ten months old.

I was anxious and depressed. People offered help with the baby, but I refused it, because I knew that he would wail in agony if my breast (the sole source of comfort for him) were not available. I left my daughter (with her normal cries) and went out with my girlfriends the first week she was born, but with my son? I was insane from hormones and sleep deprivation and the torture of his crying. As my maternity leave drew to a close, visions of my baby boy wailing in pain in day care, pain that only I could soothe, haunted me. I cried and cried and couldn't sleep. I quit my job, even though we couldn't really afford to live on one income.

By the time my son was a year and a half old, we noticed developmental delays. He wasn't gesturing or trying to speak, the way other kids were. He went through a battery of medical tests: blood work (which caused more of that high pitched, tortured crying), EEGs, MRIs, hearing tests, psychological tests. He was tentatively labeled as "speech delayed" although we were told he was probably autistic. He was delayed enough developmentally to qualify for early intervention services, so my husband and I spent months visiting special schools and trying to decide what was best for him before starting him in preschool at age two. All of this put tremendous pressure on my husband and me and our marriage.

When my son was two, I found out I was pregnant with my daughter and wept, not from joy, but from stress and exhaustion. While I was in my third trimester, my husband decided that he needed to quit his job, which was our only source of income and health insurance. He was desperately unhappy, although in retrospect it was more with himself than the job. We had a little savings still left, and would pay for groceries, rent and extended health insurance in the interim.

It was during this period of unemployment, while I was pregnant and caring for an autistic toddler, that I found out my husband was a sex addict. The stress of the last few years had caused him to escalate his compulsive sexual behavior to the point where he realized he couldn't stop and needed help. I felt like my world was shattered. I wanted to run away or kill him or lay down and die. I got out of bed and continued eating and breathing only because of those kids: Because my unborn daughter's life literally depended on my life. Because no one else, other than my husband, could understand my (at the time) non-verbal to minimally verbal son. In addition, my son was hospitalized twice for medical problems in the months just prior to and just after my daughter's birth.

My husband found a new job. And before my daughter was a year old, we moved, causing anxiety, trauma and sleep disruption to my son that lasted more than a year. Shortly after the move, while on an IUD, I unexpectedly became pregnant again and chose to "use abortion as birth control" (I'm laughing a bitter laugh here) and terminate the pregnancy.

Less than a year later, my husband was laid off and once again searching for a new job. He was fortunate enough to find one quickly, but the stress led to a relapse and sexual acting out. In the two years since, all of our parents have suffered from cancer, and we lost my father-in-law to cancer last fall. Our finances have deteriorated to the verge of bankruptcy.

I feel like I got on a plane to go to Disneyland and found myself crash-landed on another planet, trying to survive off of whatever bits and pieces of my luggage survived the crash. I lost almost everything: my sense of what reality is, my ability to sleep through the night, my knowledge of what my marriage was, my ability to trust what other people say, my concept of what normal is. And I haven't had a moment in seven years to catch my breath and figure out what it all means before I get hit again. What was it like on Earth? Did I have a house? Did I used to eat steak? Was the sky blue? I'm looking at the Martian landscape and I just don't remember.

Do I love my kids and my husband? Am I building a life I love? Yes, absolutely. But still I do not want to hear -- do not want to hear! -- that other people can get on the plane to Disneyland and end up at Disneyland! That they can show up with their luggage intact and come home at the end of it with a little less money, a little less sleep, but an overall feeling that the trip was a happy one. I don't want to know that's possible, that some mothers get to make the trip ok. I want to believe it's life shatteringly hard for all of us.

Jay feels that she hasn't sacrificed (in her sense of the word) in becoming a mother, and that she feels that for some people this lack of sacrifice calls her legitimacy as a mother into question. But the feeling that it's possible for mothers to exist whose worlds, not only weren't destroyed but weren't really much disrupted by this experience, makes me feel all the more terribly, freakishly alone in this new landscape.

The Sacrificial Mother ~ by Jay

Back in October, Bluemilk posted a list of questions for feminist mothers. Toward the end, she asked "Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist?"

She has a follow-up now explaining why she asked the question, why she felt that sacrifice was an inevitable part of mothering and why such sacrifice can be overwhelming and make it impossible to see ourselves as fully realized individuals.

Bluemilk sees sacrifice not just as inevitable but as unique to motherhood. She says "the reality is clear to any mother that sacrifice is absolutely necessary...it is heroic..but it is also dangerous ground for women". I agree it's dangerous ground. I do not agree that it's inevitable, heroic or unique.

I understand that children require time, attention, love and material resources, and that they are not capable of paying for those services. When you sign on to raise a child, you sign on for sleepless nights, cleaning up vomit, being kicked and pinched and yelled at. All of that is true. It's hard work. But it is - or should be - hard work for all parents, not just mothers. It's our social structure that requires maternal sacrifice, not some immutable physical law.

Women are socialized from birth to put the needs of others ahead of our own. We are paid less for our labor outside the home and expected to do most of the work in the home even when we hold another job. We are then expected to give birth and breastfeed a baby with minimal support; if we have a partner they probably won't have much time off from their job (at least in the US) and so we spend that isolating, sleep-deprived, physically exhausted time all by ourselves. We're then bombarded with messages about how awful it will be if we leave our babies with strangers to pursue any life of our own, and once we have children our professional opportunities are reduced because our employers assume that our responsibilities at home will interfere with our ability to do our jobs.

So a lot of women choose to stay home, or to primarily identify themselves as mothers even if they work outside the home. There may not be much economic security, but it's a clearly defined role that has at least some social standing. Besides, everyone knows that motherhood is the best job there is - even better than, say, being a movie star.

If you question any of the givens about motherhood, your very standing as a mother is called into question. In one of my early posts, I mentioned that during my brief time as a stay-at-home mom, I couldn't wait to hand my baby off to someone else. A commenter responded "At first I was bothered by the fact that you "couldn't wait to hand over your child" but I hope it was just one of those days." I wanted to ask what bothered her, but I was too chicken. You know what? It wasn't one of those days. It was every day. I love my daughter, and I am her mother - her full mother - but I didn't particularly like doing baby care, and I hated doing it all by myself. If that bothers people - if that calls my legitimacy into question - well, I can tolerate that because I was pretty clear about who I was before I became a mother, but if I needed to see myself as a mother to feel legitimate, I'd do almost anything to avoid "bothering" people with my discomfort. I'd deny I had those feelings. I'd sacrifice myself - not for my child, but for my own self-worth.

Sacrifice is only inevitable if you accept all our underlying structure as inevitable. If you assume instead that all parents are entitled to time alone, opportunities for personal growth and interests, and attention to their own health, you could end up with a system where people come together as communities to trade off responsibilities. Someone still has to get up in the middle of the night, but that same person doesn't have to do the laundry in the morning, or the vacuuming, or pay the bills. And what if mothers got paid? Or, failing that, if they had payments made into Social Security or a 401K type of fund, just as if they were doing "real work", so they could build retirement funding at the same time as they were changing diapers. Then how much sacrifice would they be making?

There's a whole set of assumptions about what work and success look like that deserve their own post, but they play into the sacrifice of motherhood because the demands of outside work pull us away from participation in family life. Again, it's the structure we've created and tolerated that makes sacrifice inevitable.

Much as I love Bluemilk, I can't accept that idea that sacrifice is required of mothers. I realize I'm challenging the very foundation of our idea of family when I say that, but I think that foundation needs to be challenged, and shaken, and maybe even blown up completely. Children require food, shelter, love and learning. They do not require their mothers to give up everything else in order to provide for them.

How does she do that? ~ by Jay

(I swear, someday I'm going to end up leaving the ! instead of the ~ on the title. I type it wrong every time.)

Mary did the 40-ish questions meme and she says the last time she cried was a week ago, or maybe two.

How does she do that? Go a whole week without crying, I mean. I don't think I ever make it through a full 24 hours without puddling up. Sometimes I cry with patients when they cry. Sometimes I cry because I think of my father, or I'm reminded of another loss. And every time I sing "Happy Adoption Day" to my daughter, I choke up at the end. I can deal with all that. It's a good thing to be in touch with my emotions.

But then I see this:



It's not even my damn holiday, or my brand of coffee. That commercial is at least 20 years old and I practically know it by heart. And I still start to cry at the end. What's up with that?

Gadget lust ~ by Jay

I want one.

That is all.

40ish Questions ~by MPJ

I like copying easy memes by Jay:

1. Were you named after anyone?
   A character in a novel. (I won't tell you which one. I'm being all anonymous and stuff, remember?)
   
   
2. When was the last time you cried?
   I think one week ago, when I heard Hillary Clinton speak and she mentioned what a historic moment it would be if she or Obama were elected, and I thought about what a wonderful time this is for my biracial baby girl and boy to be growing up. But I definitely cried two weeks ago, when Moanna lit a little candle in the darkness for me and showed me my way. (I love blogging!)
   
   
3. Do you like your handwriting?
   Love it! Spent years in high school studying what I liked in other people's handwriting and adapting those elements to fit my own personal style. (Because I'm a nerd like that.)
   
   
4. What is your favorite lunch meat?
   I'm a vegetarian, so I guess tofu baloney. Pre-veg, it was salami.
   
   
5. Do you have kids?
   Yes, two.
   
   
6. If you were another person would you be friends with you?
   Depends on what person I was. If I were James Dobson, I'm guessing I'd probably hate me. If that other person were, Jay, I'd love me. But I'm friends with me now and that's all that really counts.
   
   
7. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
   What? Me? Never!
   
   
8. Do you still have your tonsils?
   Yes.
   
   
9. Would you bungee jump?
   If I were on the Amazing Race and someone else was standing next to me crying about how scary it was, I would totally do it to show that person up on national TV and prove that blond women aren't wimps. Otherwise, are you kidding? It's way too scary!
   
   
10. What is your favorite cereal?
    Rice Krispies, but only if they're baked into a nice marshmallowy Rice Krispie treat.
    
    
11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
    I never wear shoes with laces.
    
    
12. Do you think you are strong?
    Think? I know I'm strong. Physically, I can carry a 60 pound kid in one arm and a 40 pound kid in another. Emotionally, I can carry: marriage to an sex addict, advocating for an autistic son, financial worries, dysfunctional families of origin, family members with cancer and a whole host of other crap... I kick ass!
    
    
13. What is your favorite ice cream?
    Anything gourmet as long as it's not coffee flavored.
    
    
14. What is the first thing you notice about people?
    I'm like most people: too busy thinking about myself to notice other people.
    
    
15. Red or pink?
    Pink.
    
    
16. What is the thing that you like least about yourself?
    I can be competitive, perfectionist and arrogant. (Also, I can't give single answers to questions that require them.)
    
    
17. Who do you miss the most?
    I miss lots of people, they bring lots of different things into my life, so I can't say which person I miss most. I miss different people at different times.
    
    
18. ???
    This was one of three missing questions -- ask me any three of your own and I'll answer them as long as they don't compromise my anonymity.
    
    
19. What color pants and shoes are you wearing?
    I'm not wearing either. My skirt is grey though.
    
    
20. Have you ever re-gifted?
    All the time. I also give gifts to the Salvation Army and sell them at pawn shops. Next time, give me cash.
    
    
21. What are you listening to right now?
    When I started this: my kids playing together. As I'm finishing this: traffic outside my window.
    
    
22. If you were a crayon what colour would you be?
    Midnight blue.
    
    
23. Favorite smells?
    My husband and kids' skin and hair, rain, lilacs, the ocean.
    
    
24. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
    My mom.
    
    
25. Do you like the person who sent this to you?
    I guess that was sort of Jay. Can't stand her. And by the way, let me remind you of my total lack of sarcasm.
    
    
26. Favorite sports to watch?
    Baseball!
    
    
27. Hair color?
    My daughter says brown (especially when I haven't washed it). I say blond. It actually varies from mahogany to bronze to caramel to honey depending on the strand.
    
    
28. Eye color?
    Greyish-greenish-bluish.
    
    
29. Do you wear contacts?
    Almost 40 and still have 20/20 vision. In your face, corrective lenses!
    
    
30. Favorite food?
    Ice cream.
    
    
31. Scary movies or happy endings?
    Happy endings. Mama does not do drama or horror.
    
    
32. Last movie you watched?
    I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. (I'm a sucker for Adam Sandler, what can I say?)
    
    
33. What color shirt are you wearing?
    Navy blue.
    
    
34. Summer or winter?
    Summer.
    
    
35. Hugs or kisses?
    Are we talking Hershey? Kisses. Are we talking friends? Hugs. Are we talking my husband and kids? Both!
    
    
36. Favorite dessert?
    Haven't I made that clear already? Ice cream.
    
    
37. ???
    
    
38. ???
    
    
39. What book are you reading now?
    The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks.
    
    
40. What is on your mousepad?
    Wireless laser mouse, no mousepad.
    
    
41. What did you watch on tv last night?
    Didn't watch TV last night. But the last thing I watched on TV was House. (Mmm! Love me some House!)
    
    
42. Favorite sound?
    My family's voices/laughter, followed closely by Jay's favorite: water. Although ocean waves beat other water noises for me.
    
    
43. Rolling Stones or Beatles?
    Beatles.
    
    
44. What is the furthest you have been from home?
    China.
    
    
45. Do you have a special talent?
    Writing. Telling when someone is mentally ill/an addict.
    
    
46. Where born? The United States of America. Any more would be breaching my anonymity.
    

46 Questions ~ by Jay

Got this from Mim, and it beats paying the bills or starting work on the taxes.

1. Were you named after anyone? Three of my great-grandmothers.
2. When was the last time you cried? Yesterday, at a dance performance.
3. Do you like your handwriting? Hate it. I can't even read it.
4. What is your favorite lunch meat? Thin-sliced deli ham.
5. Do you have kids? Yes, one.
6. If you were another person would you be friends with you? Absolutely.
7. Do you use sarcasm a lot? More than I'd like.
8. Do you still have your tonsils? Yes.
9. Would you bungee jump? No way in hell.
10. What is your favorite cereal? That I admit to? Cornflakes. If I'm being honest? Froot Loops.
11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Not if I can avoid it.
12. Do you think you are strong? Didn't used to think so but I have discovered that I am.
13. What is your favorite ice cream? Ben and Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie.
14. What is the first thing you notice about people? Hair. Can't help it. Don't know why.
15. Red or pink? Fuschia, so pink.
16. What is the thing that you like least about yourself? Being overweight.
17. Who do you miss the most? My father, of those who have died; my friend Kate from residency, of those who live far away.
19. What color pants and shoes are you wearing? Blue denim jeans, dark wash; white New Balance sneakers.
20. Have you ever re-gifted? Yes; wine, house gifts, kid gifts.
21. What are you listening to right now? The dishwasher
22. If you were a crayon what colour would you be? Magenta.
23. Favorite smells? Ginger, cinnamon, peppermint.
24. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? My closest local friend.
25. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Well, I guess that's me...so yes!
26. Favorite sports to watch? Baseball, although I'd rather listen to it.
27. Hair color? Brown with touches of gold and red, now streaked with silver in spots.
28. Eye color? Hazel.
29. Do you wear contacts? Used to, not any more; glasses.
30. Favorite food? Something with noodles. Almost anything with noodles. If I had to pick, pork chow fun from our local Chinese restaurant.
31. Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings. Don't do scary movies. Ever.
32. Last movie you watched? Center Stage on TV (I know, I'm hopeless)
33. What color shirt are you wearing? Red T-shirt with a white Oxford shirt over it.
34. Summer or winter? Spring.
35. Hugs or kisses? Hugs.
36. Favorite dessert? Really good chocolate cake.
39. What book are you reading now? From Abraham to America, a history of circumcision.
40. What is on your mousepad? Don't use one.
41. What did you watch on tv last night? A rerun of That 70s Show (see? hopeless)
42. Favorite sound? Water moving - waves, white-water, rain, doesn't matter. I even like the dishwasher.
43. Rolling Stones or Beatles? Beatles
44. What is the furthest you have been from home? Switzerland or Italy, whichever is further.
45. Do you have a special talent? Sensing emotion.
46. Where born? Mt Sinai Hospital, New York, New York.


So if you're trying to avoid doing something else, consider yourself tagged.

UPDATE: When I proofread this after publishing it, I realized it's missing #18. Feel free to ask your own additional question! One question might be "Why don't you proofread before publishing posts?".

Capitalism is God, Until it's Not ~ by Jay

Let's pretend: I spend 20 minutes with a drug rep hearing about Drug A, which is New! and Exciting!, while eating my drug-rep-provided lunch. I walk away with a reprint of the major study on Drug A, and I glance at the abstract, which tells me that Drug A is as safe and effective as Drug B. Drug B has been on the market for about 10 years, and has a generic equivalent available that costs about $5.00/month. I can't say offhand how much Drug A costs - the rep didn't tell me that, although she filled up our closet with samples - but I've been around long enough to figure that it's got to be at least $100/month.

After lunch I see Mr. Jones, who has the problem for which Drug A is being marketed. He's decided he's ready to take medication. I need to decide what to prescribe. I've used Drug B for a long time, but we have all those samples of Drug A, and besides I'm kind of curious about it. So I prescribe Drug A, give him enough samples to last a month and add a prescription for 90 days that he can send in to his mail-order pharmacy.

Is that OK? Am I fulfilling my duty to the patient? Have I been unduly swayed by the drug rep? Should I have had the tuna salad sub instead of the Italian hoagie for lunch?

That's the scenario I recently posed on a listserve, and the resident curmudgeon responded that of COURSE I was being unduly swayed. How dare I spend someone else's money irresponsibly? He was incredulous: docs really do that? Drug companies really do that?

Here's the irony: the curmudgeon is a vocal anti-government type. In his view, government is Bad. Regulation is Evil. Democrats are out to eviscerate capitalism, enforce anti-American Political Correctness and make Harrison-Bergeron-esque zombies of us all.

So he's saying capitalism is God and individuals can look out for themselves - until it hits Our Hero in his pocketbook. It's not the drug company he faults, of course, but the doctor. Apparently my professional scruples are supposed to be adequate to protect my patients from a multi-billion-dollar industry. I'm supposed to forgo my own material reward out of a sense of higher purpose and thus hold myself above the base vulgarity of money-grubbing. Somehow I'm supposed to do that even if I'm one of the thousands of docs in six-figure debt for my education. Meanwhile, the drug companies go on their merry way unrestrained by any whiff of government meddling.

Sorry, I don't buy it. I do believe docs should have high professional standards. I do believe that my patient's best interests should come before my profit. But I also believe that doctors are human and that our patients deserve better protection from profiteering than I can offer single-handedly.

The American health care system is broken, and Capitalism can't fix it. My profession has successfully warded off the specter of "socialized medicine", and we have saddled ourselves instead with corporate medicine. Thousands of insurance companies with duplicate and duplicitous policies. Medicare payments to docs that are steadily dropping, no matter how you measure them. Reimbursement that favors unproven procedures over lasting relationships, and novelty over evidence. I just don't see how the government could do a worse job than the corporations are doing now.

The VA system, when it's appropriately funded, does amazingly good work with a very challenged population. Medicare, for all its faults, has provided a safety net for the elderly and improved health care for its beneficiaries. Government-funded care can work. And, amazingly enough, even libertarian curmudgeons can discover that the profit motive isn't all it's cracked up to be.

This is my kid ~ by Jay

Helps her father repair her door, which didn't latch well at all. This involves using a screwdriver and a hammer and a power drill. Decides this is fun.

Remembers that "The Daring Book for Girls", a Chanukah present from Grandpa, says that every girl should have her own toolbox. Reminds her father of this just as he's preparing to go to Lowe's for the shims and nails he needs to finish the door project. Daddy happily agrees to take her and buy her tools.

Delays the expedition until she can get dressed: capri pants with coordinating green and yellow socks and her new birthday-present shirt, a long-sleeved tee with "GUESS" spelled out in silver sequins. A pink pony-tail holder and her gold down jacket complete the ensemble.



Comes home with a blue tool bag complete with tools, a divided box of nails and fasteners and a pair of safety glasses with blue mirrored lenses.

UPDATE: When work on the door resumes, she changes from the capri pants into jeans "because I'm working on my job, Mommy". Keeps the sequined tee, which matches the sparkly sneakers.

It's not about me ~ by Jay

Never assume. First rule of life. If you meet me, don't assume that just beacuse I have a daughter, I think I'm entitled to control her body. Don't assume that I abandoned my opposition to parental notification laws. Don't assume that I think I will know about everything she does as a teenager. Don't assume that my knowing is more important than her safety.

Know this instead: I want her to have what she needs. I want her to be safe, and supported, and to feel every option is open to her. Sure, I hope she comes to me if she decides to have sex; I hope to God it's her decision, and not something that happens against her will. If asks me, I will help her find a birth control method and talk to her about protection from STIs. But if she doesn't come to me, she still deserves to have birth control, and condoms. And if all that fails and she finds herself pregnant, she deserves to have all her choices available.

If you are an adult in my daughter's life, know this: it's not about me. It's about her. If she comes to you about birth control, help her. Take her to Planned Parenthood. Give her condoms. If it means you have to take her to another state to help her get an abortion, because it's what she needs and we live in a state with parental notification laws, then take her. Go with her, and hold her hand, and hug her afterwards, and make sure she has someone to talk to. Sure, you can tell her that she can talk to me - you can offer to help her do it. But if she doesn't want to, if she's scared or ashamed or just too overwhelmed, that's OK. It's more important that she gets what she needs than that I know about it.

I am trying to be the kind of mother she can come to, but that's not entirely under my control. And if she can't come to me, let her come to you, and give her what she needs. If you're her aunt, or her teacher, or her doctor, or just a good friend, know this: it's about her.

Conversations with my Daughter ~ by Jay

Setting: dinner table conversation about a party we're going to that includes a talent show.

Mommy, what are going to do for your talent?

I might sing a song. Maybe "Daughters of Feminists".

What's that?

{sings} "Daughters of feminists love to wear/pink and white short frilly dresses and speak/of successes with boys/it annoys/their moms....Daughters of feminists beg to wear lipstick each day from the age of 3".

That's because they want to look hot.

You Go, Hillary! ~by MPJ

I've been meaning to write a follow-up post to my Blog for Choice Day post, because that was a hard day for me and a hard post to write. But I've been pushing that complicated, difficult task out of my mind and focusing on some pre-Super Tuesday campaigning for Hillary instead.

Tonight I sent out one last kick ass, pre-Super Tuesday e-mail. While I'd love to share with you what I wrote, I can't post it, because then my worlds would collide and if those real life folks ever found their way here, they'd know for sure that I'm me! (And as long as I don't post that, I'm totally anonymous. I'm sure there are tons of blond, feminist Hillary supporters with mixed race families, autistic kids and sex addict husbands all the same age as my family members. Trust me, no one will ever guess this blog is by me without that one pro-Hillary e-mail.)

Fortunately, I have blogosphere pinch hitter because Shawn wrote her own kick ass Hillary post earlier today (here's a part of it):

When will be the best time to elect a woman president? Who could be a better president? And what will be the arguments against her?

Too bitchy? Too smart? Too aggressive? Too wimpy? Too emotional? Too what?

What?

Why not Hillary?

Why not?

Because she was married to Bill? Because she is strong? Because she is political. Controversial. Because she is smarter, more diplomatic and more globally respected than the current president?

Or, is it because she is a woman?

Why not her?
Go visit Shawn's blog for the rest...

You go, Shawn! And you go, Hillary!


My hand with some of the cool schwag I picked up at a campaign rally.

Somewhere.... ~ by Jay

....my father is smiling.

Six Degrees of Unimportance ~ by Jay

So I've been tagged by Orange with the following meme:

1) Link to the person that tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people at the end of your post and link to their blogs.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6) Let the fun begin!

Now, I think everything about me is important, but I'll play along anyway.

1) I am easily startled by things like flying insects or sudden noises. When I was in high school and doing homework with my (big, old-fashioned) headphones on, my brother would come in and tap my shoulder just to see me jump.

2) I hate underwire bras. Won't wear 'em. Probably should, but I'd rather bounce.

3) I can't watch horror movies or even anything billed as "suspense". I'd hide my eyes if I had to sit through one.

4) I have the smallest toenails ever. I can't put nail polish on any but my big toes, because I can't even really find the nails. I'd be polishing the toes themselves, and that's just ucky.

5) I really like driving a minivan. I know I'm not supposed to - I'm supposed to be all "Ohh, I can't believe I'm this suburban and I wish I didn't have to drive this boring vehicle..." but really, I love it. It's comfortable and easy to drive and the doors slide open automatically and it has room for everything.

6) I love windy days. Even cold windy days, as long as I have warm clothes on. There's something about windy weather that just feels clean and new to me.

I don't always tag folks, but for this I'll tap Mary, Mama and MomVee, if they want to play.

New York Court Exhibits Common Sense ~ by Jay

Shocking, isn't it?

From the Times:

A New York appellate court ruled Friday that valid out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples must be legally recognized in New York, just as the law recognizes those of heterosexual couples solemnized elsewhere. Lawyers for both sides said the ruling applied to all public and private employers in the state.

So married people are married people. Amazing.

According to the article, the court stated that the legislature could pass a law refusing to recognize same-sex marriages from out-of-state, but that in the absence of such a law, same-sex marriages must be accorded all the rights and privileges of heterosexual marriage.

It's time to separate the civil and economic idea of marriage (insurance, beneficiaries, next-of-kin, inheritance) from the religious construct. Our rabbi is married in the eyes of Reconstructionist Judaism, but not according to the government. When she gave birth, her partner had to adopt the baby (and I was amazed they were able to do that - this is not the most liberal of states).

I grew up in New York, and never except to see decency and common sense prevail in state politics or in the judiciary there. For once, it's nice to be wrong.