10 Things for Tuesday – 9/4/12

Okay, so one thing that I do is that I love to share other people’s articles and content. Why? Because there are a lot of great things out there. So periodically, I’ll do what I’m doing today, which is leave you a list of things I recommend reading (or watching). Just a few notes because I’m just going to leave the links and not add any of my extra commentary (for the most part), leaving a link here does not mean I agree with everything on the site – I just think the particular link is interesting whether or not I agree with it. If you want to discuss any one in particular, leave a comment and I’ll happily discuss it with you and what I think about it.

1. Thank God for the Taco

2. Teach Your ‘Water Baby’ to Swim

3. Teach Your Kids to do Their Own Laundry

4. 10 ways to raise kids who love to read

5. Should Getting Married Before 25 Be Illegal? 

6. Stay Married . . . Get Happy (Part 1)

7. God uses goofy people too!!

8. 10 Wonderful Short Films Based on Famous Short Stories (If you only have time to watch one of these, make it the “Harrison Bergeron” one)

9. Nice Girl’s Don’t Ask

10. 13+ Things a Burglar Won’t Tell You

Happy reading (and watching)!

Melissa

10 Finds for You – August 15th

Okay, so one thing that I do is that I love to share other people’s articles and content. Why? Because there are a lot of great things out there. So periodically, I’ll do what I’m doing today, which is leave you a list of things I recommend reading (or watching). Just a few notes because I’m just going to leave the links and not add any of my extra commentary, leaving a link here does not mean I agree with everything on the site – I just think the particular link is interesting whether or not I agree with it. If you want to discuss any one in particular, leave a comment and I’ll happily discuss it with you and what I think about it.

1. What About American Girls Sold on the Streets?

2. Couple to attempt 50-mile swim across Lake Michigan

3. Women Scientists Still Face Discrimination

4. College Teams, Relying on Deception, Undermine Gender Equality

5. Sentencing Juveniles

6. ‘The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness’ Author Brianna Karp Offers Advice to Young People on the Streets

7. One-third of tween clothes are sexy, study finds

8. TTC & IF: WHO Annoyance

9. Sex and Self-Esteem: A Big Boost for Men, Not So Much for Women

10. Fathers: Key to Their Children’s Faith

Happy reading!

Melissa

On Becoming a Mother

Hi guys,

First off, I know it’s been forever since I’ve written and for that I’m sorry. I always try really hard to keep up, but I’m not always able to, for one reason or another. I will get back to my series, I just need to blog about this big life changing thing that happened.

Aka having a baby.

As I write this post, he’s sleeping in the bassinet next to me. It’s hard to resist looking at him every three seconds. He’s not even a week old yet. This is something I’ve wanted to do my whole life and now that I’m here, it feels so unreal to me in a sense.

I wanted to write about this for my blog because many women are mothers, have the potential to be mothers, and issues surrounding motherhood are women’s issues (and they’ve been in the news in big ways recently – the Time magazine cover showing a mother breastfeeding her three year old, the whole spat between Ann Romney and Hilary Rosen, things like that) because other women are capable of being mothers.

And even though I had wanted to be a mom my whole life, that didn’t mean it wasn’t hard. Because truth be told, pregnancy was really rough on me. It took a toll on me emotionally and physically and I just did not cope well with it. I loved my son and was looking forward to meeting him so much, but I hated being pregnant. It was a rough thing to go through and any woman who goes through it deserves a lot of respect.

I guess at the end of it, the real reason I am writing this post is because I think this whole journey of becoming a mother, from the moment I got that positive pregnancy test, until now is changing me. Before it was easy to talk about some of these issues because it was all in theory and when you put things in theory, you can say anything. But now, now all of this is so much more real to me, because I’m living it, and some of these questions that I had before me in theory are now ones that I have to answer honestly and in reality. I can no longer be distanced and removed from it because it is a part of my life. And I think these changes are for the better – because these are changes that I’m experiencing for myself and I can say, yes I did that or yes I would do that or no, that’s not what it’s like at all. I am sure you will see how this plays out in my posts in the future.

And at the end of the day, in perhaps the best way, being a mother is filling this place in my heart that I didn’t even know existed. Well yes, I knew there was room in my heart for children, but it’s almost like I didn’t know how much little guy was missing from my life until he got here. Not that I’m saying that women without children are unfilled – no, nothing like that – but for me, there is a sense of contentment in being able to hold him and care for him and love him and perhaps of all the things I am, this might be the one I love the best.

Anyways, I don’t know if you got my point out of all of that rambling, but I wanted to write about it. I am sure at some point I will write about my labor experience, for interested parties, but that’s not something I am doing at this point. I will also try and blog more regularly again, though no promises. Little guy and my family will always come first.

Melissa

The Women in Time’s Most Influential List 2011: Amy Chua

Amy Chua. Maybe you don’t recognize the name, but if I say Tiger Mom, would you recognize that?

Let’s learn a little more about her:

• She is a law professor at Yale.
• She wrote a memoir called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother which was about raising American kids the Chinese way.
• Her book started a huge debate over how to parent your kids.
• Her daughter has responded to the criticism of her mother by standing up for her mother.

From http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2066367_2066369_2066449,00.html

If nothing else, she is influential because she started this huge conversation about how we should parent and what effect that has on our kids. I think having that conversation is important, regardless of what you think of her style. It started a conversation that needed to be had – what kind of parenting is best for our kids? It’s something that should be talked about. I can’t say anything yet about what I think of the memoir because I haven’t read it yet (but I plan to at some point) and I shouldn’t judge a whole book based on the comments of people online. But was she influential in this past year? Definitely.

Oh and because she’s influential for writing a book, here is a link to excerpts of it and at the end, the book itself:

• ‘Tiger Mother’ explains her strict parenting – books – Family Health – TODAY.com
• Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior – WSJ.com
• Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother*

Sources:

• Amy Chua’s “Tiger Daughter” Responds to Critics – Eye on Parenting Blog – CBS News
• Hay Festival 2011: Amy Chua interview – Telegraph
• Amy Chua – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

*I am an Amazon Affiliate, so if you decide to buy the book after clicking on the link, part of the proceeds will come back to me. Thanks for supporting me!

 

Forced Abortions

I wish I could say that sex selection abortions didn’t happen. I really wish I could. Because most of the time, when an abortion is the choice to be made, it’s because the baby is a girl. It happens in places like India and China. Especially  China, where population police control the number of children you are allowed to have. Why is the rest of the world so slow to say something about it? It is girls that are being effected, more than anything, because of the high cultural preference for a boy.

I can not imagine what these mothers go through, how terrified they must be, knowing that if they get pregnant again or even if they get pregnant the first time and it’s a girl, someone might force them to have an abortion or pay an amount of money they can’t afford just to keep the child.

This is a truly sad situation that needs to be stopped. Girls are dying merely because they are girls. Watch this video about one mother in China and her daughters.

Being Female in the Recording Industry

I read this article and I’m still not sure what to think. It seems like a really big mixed bag. On the one hand, they say that being a woman doesn’t effect their careers, which is great, because especially in a male-dominated industry, like the recording industry, it is a rarity. Plus, it means that women are seen on more equal footing. In fact, other people seem to treat it like it’s cool (which it is). And they say sexism doesn’t exist . . .

But . . . one of the panelists said, “Just don’t get pregnant.” So wait, there’s no sexisim, but would you ever give that advice to a man? Would you ever say to a man, “Just don’t have children?” Now I understand that women do the actual physical work of being pregnant and having the baby, but I think statements like those put women in hard positions. Where they have to chose between having a family or having a career. And should women have to choose that? Why aren’t men ever put in that position to choose between having a family or having a career?

There is nothing wrong with a woman who wants to work and also have a family. The workforce shouldn’t penalize her because she wants to have a family. It doesn’t penalize men in the same way.

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