Category Archives: childhood studies

The line between free range and foolish

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How many of you out there have seen this nostalgic ode to a childhood “before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good” that has been circulating on the Internet for years:

“No matter what our kids and the new generation think about us, WE ARE AWESOME !!! OUR LIFE IS LIVING PROOF !!!
To Those of Us Born 1925 – 1970 :

~~~~~~~~~
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE
1930s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then, after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies
in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets, and, when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps, not helmets, on our heads.
As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter, and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And we weren’t overweight..
WHY?

Because we were always outside playing…that’s why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day.
–And, we were OKAY.

We would spend hours building
our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes… After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Play Stations, Nintendos and X boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound or CDs, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms…

WE HAD FRIENDS
and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from those accidents.
We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping-pong paddles, or just a bare hand, and no one would call child services to report abuse.
We ate worms, and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and
-although we were told it would happen- we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.
Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers, and inventors ever.
The past 50 to 85 years have seen an explosion of innovation and new ideas..
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

If YOU are one of those born between 1925-1970, CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.
While you are at it, forward it to your kids, so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it ? ”
~~~~~~~

Well, actually, no it doesn’t.  It isn’t that I don’t think I and the rest of my generation are awesome — we are!  I played outside all the time as a child, and continue to do so as much as possible as an adult.

Yet, like many tributes to the “good old days,” this message has a very selective view of the past.  It also reminds me a bit of Dana Carvey’s Grumpy Old Man character from Saturday Night Live.

Let’s look at smoking  during pregnancy.  Prior to the 1960s, mothers didn’t know that this increased the risk of premature birth, low birthrate, and fetal and infant death (not to mention increasing maternal morbidity and mortality). Lots of people like myself survived (despite being born eight weeks early in my case), but others didn’t, or were permanently disabled.
Today, we know better.

The same can be said of other “intrusions” listed above.  Maternal and infant mortality has been reduced because of screening for gestational diabetes and high blood pressure. Children no longer suffer serious brain damage from ingesting lead paint chips.  Seat belts, bike helmets, and car seats have saved countless children from death and disability.

I think there’s a lot of good ideas at the blog Free Range Kids.  However, let’s not forget that some “intrusions” are here for a reason.

Blog for International Women’s Day 2012: the Girl Scouts have always had a feminist agenda

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via Gender Across Borders.  The theme for 2012 is“Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures” and Gender Across Borders asks us to address one or both of the following points:

  • How can we, as a culture and as members of the global community, involve, educate, and inspire girls in a positive way?
  • Describe a particular organization, person, group or moment in history that helped to inspire a positive future and impact the minds and aspirations for girls.

Since it’s the 100th anniversary of Girls Scouts of America, I’ve decided to use this organization as the focus of my post.

By now most of you have heard of the  accusations by Rep. Bob Morris (R-Indiana) and other conservatives that the Girl Scouts have a “radical feminist lesbian agenda” (and if you haven’t, here’s an article that summarizes the issue, and Stephen Colbert’s hilarious commentary)

Those of us who remember our days in the Girl Scouts are naturally puzzled by this statement — seriously, what’s radical about selling cookies or singing songs by the campfire?

However, it is true that since it’s beginnings the Girl Scouts of America in 1912, the organization has promoted a feminist ideology for girls, although the term “feminism” needs to be placed in historical context. According to Rebekah Revzin, Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts of America during a time of significant change in women’s social and political roles. Low’s life was a microcosm of the southern women’s movement: raised to be a good southern belle, her disastrous marriage impressed upon Low the necessity of training girls and women to be self-sufficient.  Furthermore, Low’s disability (she was deaf in one ear) ensured that the Girls Scouts were ahead of their time for promoting inclusion for girls with disabilities.  The organization welcomed girls from various racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds as well.  Revzin observes that while a significant portion of Girl Scout literature focused on traditional notions of femininity, the literature also contained “a significant amount of material that challenges the more conventional feminine doctrine espoused at the time.” The most persistent theme that runs throughout Girl Scout literature is the notion of self-sufficiency: “Because traditional view of women, particularly in the South, implied that dependent or weak women were more desirable, the Girl Scout emphasis on female self-sufficiency appear particularly progressive” Revzin argues.  Providing for oneself included “cultivation of the body through physical activities that further empowered girls by giving them a sense of strong physical ability.” This support for physical fitness, says Revzin, “attributes a ‘natural’ desire for outdoor exercise to young girls, an innovative idea for its time.”  In order to ensure that girls would be economically as well as physically self-sufficient, the Girls Scouts “advocated professional careers for women.” The Career section of the handbook advised girls to pursue occupations that traditionally been reserved for men — physician, stock broker, managers, accountants, architects, even fire chief!  Revzin concludes that the Girl Scouts was more than a social club for girls: the leaders and participants aspired to go beyond “true womanhood.” Many of the “new women” of the early twentieth century “began their path toward social activity and political participation under the guiding influence of the Girl Scouts of America. These young women desired a forum in which they could express their independence, take part in outdoor activities, and provide help to others.”  Although the GSUSA never explicitly endorsed feminism, the organization “did advance women’s place in the public arena and their right to lead strong independent lives.”

Today, the Girl Scouts continues to empower girls — see its latest campaign, To Get Her There. In honor of its 100th birthday, Girl Scouts is also “setting out to raise $1 billion to achieve, in five years, a generational leap in opportunities for girls. This initiative will ensure that every girl in this generation will have the opportunity and the tools and the access she needs to reach her fullest potential. That is our promise. Together, we can make 2012 the Year of the Girl.”

Yet another reason to buy some cookies. . .

Toddlers have bad teeth so let’s blame Mom

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via Tenured Radical,who riffs on an article from today’s New York Times reporting on a “Rise in Preschool Cavities”

TR writes:

“Just when you thought that middle-class parents had reached the limits of ignorance, the New York Times reports today that children under the age of five are showing up at the dentist’s office with a dozen or so cavities.  Some need the kind of extensive repair that is usually characteristic of people my age. One little darling featured in the story had 22 cavities, and was due for a root canal — at the age of two and a half years.  Go read it here.

My first thought was, well, these are probably parents working 3-5 jobs between them: things like toothbrushing just fall through the cracks as Mom and Dad pass each other in the hall like ghosts between day shift, night shift and swing shift.  But apparently not. The kid with the root canal?  Mom is described as a homemaker and Dad is in IT. Homemaker is not an easy career, I’ll grant you, which is a reason I checked the “historian” box after college instead of “baby machine.” But isn’t part of the job description of the stay-at-home-Mom “Take care of the kids?”

Commentators at TR’s blog have rightly called her (and the NYT article) out for putting all the blame on mothers.  I’m going to put in my two cents as a historian of child and adolescent health. Over a decade ago I participated in a Surgeon General’s Conference on Children and Oral Health, so this problem was not news to me. My paper was entitled “From Oral Health to Perfect Smiles: Advertising and Children’s Oral Health.”  You can read the whole thing at the conference website, but here are the main points:

During the Progressive Era (1890-1920), toothpaste advertisements reinforced the dental profession’s claim that good oral hygiene was essential to good overall health. Poor dental hygiene was seen as the root of other diseases, and cultivation of health teeth was an integral part of this period’s larger public health agenda.  You can see this in advertisements for toothpaste.  many physicians and dentists at this time believed that “without good teeth, perfect health is not possible.” Not only did poor teeth spoil one’s appearance, bad oral hygiene caused serious health ailments both in children and later in life. Public schools were the most common vehicle for teaching children good health habits. Teachers gave lessons on personal hygiene in the classroom, and distributed health “report cards” to children, who could earn points for brushing their teeth, and other good health habits such as hand-washing before meals, drinking milk, and getting plenty of sleep.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the link between oral health and the health of the rest of the body gradually disappeared from public health messages disseminated to lay audiences through advertising, and was replaced by a growing emphasis on creating “perfect smiles.” This focus on the appearance of the teeth rather than oral hygiene was fed by two trends: the growing popularity of motion pictures, and psychological theories about the link between physical appearance and self-esteem. Movie stars embodied high standards of physical attractiveness, and endorsed specific personal hygiene products that promised to impart beauty and glamour to the masses. The psychologist Alfred Adler popularized the idea of the inferiority complex, the notion that those who did not appear “normal” suffered from intense feelings of inferiority and low self-esteem. Advertisements for personal hygiene products capitalized on this concept, and warned consumers that even the most minor physical imperfection could interfere with a person’s success in life. The link between physical appearance and success became even stronger during the 1930s, as jobs became scarce, and employers preferred to hire workers who were young, healthy and fit.

During the 1940s and 1950s, this emphasis on perfect smiles continued. At the same time, advances in dental science reduced the incidence of dental hygiene problems. Before World War II, the exact cause of dental caries was not known, and it was common for even well- off Americans to lose many of their teeth by middle-age. By the late 1940s, scientists had identified the bacteria that caused tooth decay and gum disease, and demonstrated that regular dental visits and fluoridation of public water supplies could dramatically reduce the incidence of cavities and other dental hygiene problems. The reduction in oral disease led to an even greater emphasis on the appearance of the teeth and mouth.

Dental health professionals did continue to promote messages of good dental hygiene, but it was advertisers’ association of “perfect smiles” with personal success that made the most impression on lay audiences. Indeed, even dentists found themselves emphasizing how healthy teeth contributed to self-esteem and physical attractiveness. This strategy was double-edged: on the one hand, it helped sell regular dental check-ups and good oral hygiene to a middle-class public obsessed with physical appearance and its link with popularity and professional success. On the other hand, the emphasis on self-esteem and appearance made regular dental care appear to be a “luxury,” that did not need to be covered by private or public health insurance, nor did it need to be a priority for those concerned with bettering the public health. This has had made it difficult to justify federal programs that would give access to dental care to all Americans regardless of the ability to pay. Those who wish to improve the face of the child need to take a lesson from the past, and promote the idea that oral health is not just a route to a perfect smile, but to perfect health as well.

 

More Viral Politics: Teaching Students with Autism is Not Much Different than Teaching the Neurotypical

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via Tenured Radical, who kvetches about the problems of teaching students with autism. I was shocked to see that someone as intelligent as TR repeated erroneous claims about autism and vaccines (see the CDC website for accurate information).  What was even more disturbing, though, was her rather dismissive attitude towards students with autism.  From the main article:

“What seems not debatable is that our sense of fairness, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is way ahead of any conversation about what it will mean for young people who need a great deal of support to realize their human potential to attend college.  It seems certain is that increasing numbers of children on the autism spectrum — many of whom have unusual abilities — will go to college. As USA Today reported three years ago, they are already in our classrooms.  This is happening in a context in which there is little to no attention being paid to giving full-time faculty the training to teach students who have a wide range of capacities when it comes to what counts for normal classroom discipline:  sitting still for an hour and taking notes, being in crowded rooms where they risk being bumped and touched, overcoming obsessive behavior to get to class or hand in a paper on time, working in small groups with other students, or being in large classes with crowds of strangers.  It is also happening in a context in which being full-time faculty is becoming anomalous, and the financial “flexibility” of running higher education on per-course labor makes it unlikely that the vast majority of faculty will be eligible, or open to making unpaid time available, for the training that would make their classrooms accessible to autistic students. The challenges are somewhat different from the vast category of “learning disabilities” for which responsible colleges and universities provide learning centers to provide the support that makes what we euphemistically call “accommodation” useful.”

First, I’ll say that I’ve had several students with Asperger’s (aka Aspies) in my classes.  In general, they have been among the best students I’ve had.  In my experience the “obsessiveness” means that Aspies are more diligent about understanding assignments and meeting deadlines.  Yes some like to hog the conversation, but so do quite a few neurotypical students.  I’ve had plenty of neurotypicals fail to pay attention, sit still, or hand work in on time.

In the comments section, Elizabeth Switaj wrote:

“Yes, training and having the time to implement training is important, but if faculty are going to learn to support autistic students, a good first step would be to listen to autistic undergraduates themselves and to put the needs they express first instead of responding primarily to the perspective of the neurotypical parents of autistic children. The perspective of autistic undergraduates, which seems to me to be the most important on the subject, is entirely missing from this post.

One of the fundamental tenets of the disability rights movement is “nothing about us without us”–and this is no less important when it comes to autistic people (and I’m sorry but a single secondhand statement from an unnamed teenager really isn’t sufficient).”

I couldn’t say this better myself.  Unfortunately, TR didn’t get it. She said, ” And back to the “nothing without us” principle of political organizing: it’s incredibly attractive, ethical and powerful. But although bringing disabled people together as an identity group is important in terms of theory and social movement, there should be concern about the similarity that mandates, and silencing, within the group, in the name of empowerment for all. This is the lesson of other social movements. ASD children *can’t* speak for themselves, mostly because they are children, but for other reasons too. Without a movement largely driven by parents up to this point, which may evolve as ASD kids come together as adults in future decades, there would be no attention to this issue at all, vaccinations or no vaccinations.”

First, those of us in history of childhood and youth have pointed out time and time again that children CAN speak for themselves and we as adults should listen  More importantly, there IS an autism rights movement led by and for persons with autism.   Seriously, would TR have said that GLBT children and youth need parents to speak for them?  I doubt it.  So why not acknowledge the rights of persons with autism to speak and organize for themselves?

Thoughts on Bachmann’s “Viral Politics”

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via Student Activism(among many others).  At Tuesday night’s CNN/Tea Party Republican presidential debate, Michelle Bachmann chastized Texas governor Rick Perry  for his 2007 support of a mandatory state program vaccinating girls against Human Papilloma Virus — a sexually-transmitted virus that can lead to cervical cancer.  during the debate, Bachmann called the vaccine  a “government injection,” and Perry’s decision as “a violation of a liberty interest.” She also suggested that Perry’s support of mandatory vaccination was payback for Merck’s support of his campaign (Perry’s former chief of staff was a lobbyist for Merck). After the debate, Bachmann went even further:

“When you have innocent little 12-year-old girls,” she said, “that are being forced to have a government injection into their body — this is a liberty interest that violates the most deepest personal part of a little child. … A little girl doesn’t get a do over — once they have that vaccination in their body, once it causes its damage, that little girl doesn’t have a chance to go back.”

Student Activism says he was “gobsmacked by the language itself — the use of such heavily loaded molestation imagery to describe a non-invasive, voluntary medical procedure.”

I wasn’t going to get mixed up in this but because I contributed to the volume picture at left, and I’ve been getting links to articles about this asking for my thoughts, I’ve decided to weigh in after all.

I agree that Bachmann’s rhetoric is outrageous (especially since she shows little  concern for women who have been sexually assaulted, or those who need basic reproductive health care like pelvic exams or cervical cancer treatment).

Even the conservative paper  Wall Street Journal has condemned Bachmann’s “viral politics” and demagoguery, calling this “the kind of know-nothingism that undermines public support for vaccination altogether and leads to such public health milestones as California reporting in 2010 the highest number of whooping cough cases in 55 years.”

Wow, it’s not often I agree with the WSJ!  It’s also not often that the WSJ critiques a Republican candidate — obviously Backmann is beyond the pale (and I bet Perry’s ties to Big Pharma is a plus for the pro-business publication).

At the same time, I’m going to plug my and my colleagues’ work in Three Shots of Prevention and suggest critics get it and learn about the multiple moral, ethical, and scientific questions regarding HPV vaccines.

Update:  I’m addressing Dr. Pete’s comments here rather than in the comments section.  First, I and others who work on adolescent health issues acknowledge that there is a qualitative difference between young children and teenagers.  One of the keys to successful adolescent health care is involving teenagers in the process (and as they age, asking Mom and Dad to step out of the room). In other words, girls (and boys) who are being offered the HPV vaccine should be part of the conversation about whether or not to receive it.  So individual liberty includes teenagers too, not just parents. The imagery used by Bachmann in her remarks does not acknowledge the developmental differences between teenagers and younger children.

 

 

 

Reminder to Certain Feminists: Teenagers have rights to choice and bodily autonomy too

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via Historiann, who discusses Mary Elizabeth Williams’ Twitter battle with Katha Pollitt and Amanda Marcotte over her Salon article about her daughter getting the wrong vaccineat her annual checkup. Williams knew she would get flak for the article, but she “wrote it anyway, because I felt strongly about two key issues of the story. If you’re going in for any procedure, drug or vaccination, take a moment to double-check that the person administering it is giving you what you’re there for. Also, I believe my daughters should have final say in whether or not they receive the HPV vaccine. And flak, indeed, I got.”

As  an expert on the history of adolescent medicine and contributed to an edited collection on the politics of HPV vaccines, I have to say “right on.”

Certain feminists in the twiterverse disagreed, though:  “Amanda Marcotte took some mighty big umbrage on Twitter,”  calling Williams’ piece an “‘overreaction’ and then proceeded to engage in something that looks remarkably like overreacting.

“A single tear shed over this causes everyone else to wonder if you don’t have real problems,” she wrote. “I’m honestly not invested in freaking out on an innocent mistake that resulted in no real problems… I mean, I have real shit to deal with in my life… If that’s the most awful thing you’ve learned at 11, you live in a big time bubble…. I’m sure her mother’s reaction to it had nothing to do with the little girl thinking this was the worst thing ever.”

Author Katha Pollitt also jumped into the fray, calling the story “ridiculous.” Not the review I’d wish for, but all right. But I’d like to correct her assessment that “I just felt this woman was hyperfreakout helicopter parent, infecting her kids with anxiety.”

Unlike Historiann, I’m a twitterstorian who tweets regularly (see my feed to the right) although I must confess I find it impossible to keep up with all the people I follow and use an automatic aggregating program to compile all these posts into the Knitting Clio daily (paper.li does this automatically — I don’t stay up late at night putting the daily together!)  I went to Twitter to look at the exchange between Williams and her critics (and fans).  I especially liked Angus Johnston’s comment:  “I think it’s utterly reasonable for a parent to want to choose when and how she discusses the HPV vaccine with her daughter.”

I made the following comment at Historiann’s blog;  “Wow, this woman dares to treat her adolescent daughter as a developing adult (i.e. follows the recommendation of experts in adolescent medicine). Kudos to her. Interesting that feminists like Marcotte and Pollitt are all for choice and bodily autonomy, unless the body in question belongs to a teenager.”

Now looking forward to my own Twitter battle!

Finally: My report from #SHCY2011

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Last month I attended the bi-annual meeting of the Society for the History of Childhood and Youth.  After that, I was fully conferenced out and the thought of writing yet another report was too exhausting to contemplate. So, here at last are some of the highlights — but I’m going to be brief otherwise this will never get done!

My session on Children, School, and Health went well and was well-attended despite being the first panel slot on the first day.  It was also nice to get my paper done and out of the way early.  If you attended and liked (or disliked) what you heard, feel free to comment here.

Later that afternoon, Judith Warner gave the keynote address entitled “The Construction of the Medicated Child” based on her best-selling book, We’ve Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication.  As in the book, she deflated the myth that children and adolescents are overdiagnosed and overmedicated for mental health problems.  In reality, many children with mental health issues — especially those who lack health insurance — don’t get good care or worse, get no care at all.  She also reiterated what many scholars in childhood studies have noted about earlier “panics” over issues affecting children (e.g. early motion pictures, television, comic books, and most recently, video games) — that children serve as lighting rods for adult anxieties and social problems that affect the larger culture.

Another important “take-away” came from the discussion following the panel on Childhood in the 1970s.  Lori Rotskoff presented on her work on feminist childrearing in the 1970s and observed that even though feminists were challenging established sexist norms they were still children what was “right” — where is the children’s liberation within women’s liberation, she asked.

I spent most of the conference listening (and knitting) and didn’t take very extensive notes unfortunately.  I also must confess that I skipped the last day so I could attend the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum and see a matinee of “The Normal Heart.” (which was great, but I didn’t like it as much as “Jerusalem” which I saw the night before).

Lesson here — don’t attend so many conferences in so short a span of time!  What was I thinking?

“Emerging Adulthood” or What’s the Matter with Kids Today?

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via Historiann who criticizes yesterday’s the New York Times magazine story bemoaning “failure to launch” and “boomerang kids,” who take longer to reach adulthood than generations past. [ “What Is It About 20-Somethings?”]

Historiann reminds of the work of  Stephanie Coontz, who shows that the low average age of first marriage during the 1950s was an aberration compared to the rest of American history, and much lower than among free people in colonial America, where the average age at first marriage was mid-20s for women and later 20s for most men.

Even during the heyday of early marriage — the period following the Second World War — experts in marriage and family life warned, “Wed Before Twenty, Trouble Aplenty” (this is the title of an article on sex education from the American Journal of Public Health).  Young people who married as teenagers were more likely to have severe marital problems and had higher rates of divorce.

Experts during the 1930s worried about young people whose journey into adulthood was during the Great Depression — but they blamed this on the terrible job opportunities of the era, not on some vague new life stage called “emerging adulthood.”

I’m sure there are many young people who would gladly “get a life” if someone would offer them a decent job that would provide a salary adequate to live independently.

Of course, I may be biased, since my selfish refusal to fulfill my biological destiny child-free by choice status means I have failed to achieve one of the “five milestones” of adulthood listed in the Times article.

Mommy wars and children’s rights

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via Kittywampus

This is an excellent commentary on the latest cat fight to erupt in the feminist blogosphere, prompted by guestblogger Mai’a at Feministe

Mai’a writes:

“you do not have a right to child free spaces.

there is this weird thing in western culture, especially n american culture, where people/adults seem to believe that they have a right to discriminate against children.
recently, i was hanging out at a bar, when a friend called and invited me to come hang out for a few drinks and chill time as the sun came up. cool. then, i heard a bit of whispers in the background and the question posed to me: is aza with you?
ummm…what? why? does that matter? . .

im not a feminist ( yeah, i said it…shrug). but i dont understand people who claim to be feminist on one hand, and on the other hand think that children should be designated to certain public and private spaces, not mixing in ‘normal’ public areas, such as restaurants, stores, airplanes, etc. cause in us culture, when you create little reservations for children, you are really creating little reservations for mothers. it is the mother who will be sent away to take care of the child. and how is that supporting all women and girls?”

I’ll set aside for a moment the irony of someone who says she’s not a feminist being invited to guest post at a blog called “Feministe” and get to the heart of the matter: this woman seems to have a rather narrow vision of children’s rights. As someone who works in childhood/youth studies I acknowledge that children deserve the same human rights as adults (e.g. free speech, due process, bodily autonomy), but their rights also include being cared for in a manner appropriate for their developmental stage.   At the risk of sounding anti-Mom (I’m one of those “selfish” childfree women after all), bringing your child to a bar and keeping her up to the wee hours while you drink the night away is, as both Kittywampus and Karmithia at Alas sagely pointed out just plain irresponsible.

On the other hand, I cringe at the anti-child and anti-mommy snark in the comments on this post at Jezebel.  Can’t we all just get along?  I don’t mind if you and a few of your mommy friends bring your little ones along to the pub for a early evening cocktail, as long you make sure the little darlings don’t wreck havoc on the waitstaff and the other patrons.

So, back to question of  why this “not a feminist” post is on a feminist blog — well, here’s the conspiracy theory I offered at Kittywampus’ blog:

” It makes me wonder whether there is a male chauvinist puppet-master behind these blogs who likes to create and then watch cat fights!”