Mom, I'm Fat

Mothering daughters is no easy feat for a whole host of reasons but grappling with body image problems is one of the doozies and I'm already freaked out about it. This post on Rachel Simmons' website, Mom, I'm Fat, only freaked me out more in some ways-- the thought that Sec could turn to me in two years and tell me she wishes her belly is more flat-- but it also reassured me, too. I loved the fact that the author was so candid about the fact that, though she's an expert in parenting, she has no freaking idea how to respond in one of these heart-wrenching real life parenting conundrums. Or, I should say, she has a pretty good Ida, a whole bunch of pretty great ideas, which she tries, only to find that none of them really do the trick, What matters is not that you get it right, but that you try and try again and try some more and be honest and thoughtful in the process and love your kind. Ultimately, that's the best you can do and it has to be good enough, at least most of the time. Food for thought . . .

Going North

David never ceases to be amazed at how long it takes a group of ladies to organize an outing. If where to go for dinner takes a 10 minute convo, it stands to reason that planning a weekend getaway would take ten times as long. So, for weeks, we went back and forth, mostly about location:

Vegas?
Nah.
New Orleans?
Just went.
Miami?
Next time.

And then someone suggested Montreal.

Close.
Hip.
Speak a different language.
Serve French fries doused in gravy and cheese cruds.
Done.

It delivered on all those things. Except for the primary consideration. Montreal isn't what I'd call "close" to New York, unless you're comparing it to a drive to Mount Rushmore. I realized this as we sat in the car, on hour 9 of our raucous, wild girls getaway. Apparently, its only supposed to take six and a half hours but when its 106 degrees out and cars actually catch on fire on the highway, it slows the flow of traffic a bit.

We talked about sex.
We talked about careers.
We talked about the things we hate about our husbands and the dumb fights we have over and over again.
We talked more about sex.
We talked about kids and car seats and what to pack in a lunchbox and how long it takes them to go to sleep and whether or not they should have developed a conscience by age four.
We talked about old boyfriends.
We talked about our weddings and where we bought the dress and if we wore a veil.
We talked about our mothers.
And we were still only halfway there.

I'd say between the trip there and back, we squeezed in approximately 100 therapy sessions.

Montreal was charming - hotel was SWANK, the kind with zebra skin stools and toilets enclosed in glass stalls for no apparent reason. The endtable was carefully laid with large bottles of Grey Goose and Maker's Mark, the which probably cost a months' mortgage for a shot.

"Oooh look! A baseball cap with the hotel name on it!" my friend Miriam exclaimed.
"Don't touch that cap! Its not included! Its a trap."

The only real hitch was that our room was located directly, and I do mean, directly above the nightclub. I should have realized something was up when I saw the box of earplugs on the nightstand. Of course, I was too scared to touch the earplugs for fear they weren't included in the room and I'd find a charge of $32 EAR PLUGS on my bill upon checkout.

When we turned in at what I thought was an impressive 12:30am, the nightclub was just heating up and the bass was causing the bed to vibrate. I stuck the earplugs in, put my head under a very plush pillow and promptly willed my ears to cease functioning. That worked pretty well until I woke up a few hours later to a massive, white noise which sounded like our room was getting crushed in an enormous garbage disposal. It went on and on. It occurred to me that maybe something was amiss. But then I fell back asleep and when I woke up, we were still there, so I guess it was some rave-related incident.

The next morning my friend Gigi woke at 6 and went for a run before having a leisurely, European-paced breakfast with Miriam. I continued to sleep. When they rolled back into the room at 10:40, they were aghast to find me in bed. Ten hours? Sounds about right.

Once I'd had some coffee to shake off the post-sleep-binge fatigue, we were off to sight-see.

Notre Dame. Check.
Musee des Beaux Arts. Check.
Viuex Montreal.
Poutine. Check.
Canadian flags for the children? Check.

Another night of dreaming about garbage disposals while getting a bass thumping. Next morning, we were up and in the car by 9, ready for another marathon of talk therapy.

It wasn't how the boys would do it but it was just what the doctor ordered.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter

If you've been following my losing battle against the princess parasite, you will not be surprised to hear how excited I was when I heard there was a new book out entitled Cinderella Ate My Daughter. Now, I haven't read the book yet, but the Times review by Annie Murphy Paul, had me hooked and I am DYING to dig in. In the book, Peggy Orenstein heads to toy fairs, beauty pageants, American Girl stores and Miley Ciris concerts, trying to figure out why and how the "princess phase" has become a more or less inevitable milestone of childhood for girls, what that phase morphs into, and at what cost our daughters feed the princess machine. This is Paul summing up the book's explanation of the very calculated invention of "Disney Princess":

"in 2000 a Disney executive named Andy Mooney went to check out a “Disney on Ice” show and found himself “surrounded by little girls in princess costumes. Princess costumes that were — horrors! — homemade. How had such a massive branding opportunity been overlooked? The very next day he called together his team and they began working on what would become known in-house as ‘Princess.’ ”

Kind of creeps you out, right? But as far as I can tell, Orenstein isn't arguing that Disney and the rest of the toy companies have invented the yen for girliness, they've only found a way to sate it and make bank. Here's the part that really engrossed me:

"Orenstein finds one such enlightening explanation in developmental psychology research showing that until as late as age 7, children are convinced that external signs — clothing, hairstyle, favorite color, choice of toys — determine one’s sex. “It makes sense, then, that to ensure you will stay the sex you were born you’d adhere rigidly to the rules as you see them and hope for the best,” she writes. “That’s why 4-year-olds, who are in what is called ‘the inflexible stage,’ become the self-­appointed chiefs of the gender police. Suddenly the magnetic lure of the Disney Princesses became more clear to me: developmentally speaking, they were genius, dovetailing with the precise moment that girls need to prove they are girls, when they will latch on to the most exaggerated images their culture offers in order to stridently shore up their femininity.”"

I find this fascinating because it seems so in line with what I've witnessed in Seconda. Her desire to wear princess dress-up is, in no way, causal -- it's not even a desire so much as an urgent need, and when she is not wearing a frilly dress, she gets genuinely worked up, frantic. Now sure, this is partly because I've got a kid that could get frantic over getting the wrong kind of breakfast cereal, but I see, too, that when she's not donning her dress, she feels in jeopardy in some way. And I'm reminded of how even a year or two ago, she would go apopletic when I put pants on her, insisting, "BUT I'M A GIRL!!!"

I'm wondering, though, why boys don't typically demonstrate such a fervent need as well. Maybe when I read the book, I'll find out.

In any event, I'm soon to be attending the same toy fair Orenstein mentions in her book and while I'm there, I'll be going to a talk on "Rethinking the Gender Bias in Toys", so fret not, readers, you'll be hearing more on the matter.

Tresse Francaise . . . ooh la la!

When I found out my second baby was a girl, one of my first thoughts was, “I can do her HAIR!” If I had spoken it out loud, it would have been followed by a squeal. I was elated. I had high hopes of barrettes, ponytails, pigtails and even – French braids!

I don’t want to toot my own horn but you should know that I can do French braids. To me, this is an extraordinary feat because my own mother can NOT do French braids. It was probably precisely because she could not do the tresses francaise that I loved for my hair to be in them which left me continually calling in my aunt, her sister, to execute the coif. Often, my aunt would have to do them the day before a big event and I’d sleep with my hair wrapped in a bandana. If you’re plagued with super-fine hair as I am, you will understand this is not a successful strategy. I would wake up with my hair half un-braided, totally fuzzy and unkempt, like I’d been wrestling a bear. Nonetheless they were French braids and I figured they worked a little like diamonds. An imperfect diamond is better than no diamond at all.

But, I thought with satisfaction, back when I was preggo, my daughter would not have to wage the uphill battle of sleeping with her braids in. I could do FRESH braids for her, the morning OF. Oh how fortunate she would be! Oh what a bright future of braids and barrettes and chignons we had before us!

I know Seconda is only two and a half but so far a barrette hasn’t lasted longer than thirty seconds in her hair. As soon as you put a rubber band in her hair she rips it out and throws it on the floor with chagrin, like “Oh no, we’re not going to go through THIS again, are we?”. And so her hair is always wild, untamable, and totally out of control – exactly like she is.

I wouldn’t be so surprised that she can’t keep a barrette in her hair because after all, she is still just a toddler and half-animal, except that when I look around at her little two year-old friends, all the girls have bows and ribbons and feathery silky shit stuck daintily in their dos. How do you do it, parents of the well-coiffed? It baffles me. Do you bribe, threaten or dupe? Oh, but I know without asking, that it is just because your children are more compliant, more easy-going, less eager to sweat the small stuff, like the rubbery things you put on their head to make strange shapes with their hair.

My baby girl is stunning just as she is, of course. And perfect, too. I mean, it’s not like I feel there is something missing from the way she looks, something that needs to be corrected. I’m just a girl who likes accessories and I thought it was a love we could share. Plus, in case you haven’t picked this up by now, I CAN DO FRENCH BRAIDS. It’s like being Pablo Picasso but having no paint.

But since I am a humanitarian, I will share my riches of talent with you. I will reveal to you the secret of French Braiding hair. Or ehow.com will do it for me. Click here to begin your tutelage.

The Pretty Princess Parasite

Recently, my 2 year-old has a fixation on affirming her gender. She just says, “I’m a girl!” all the time, and I know that she means it in contrast to a boy, rather than in contrast to a hippo because she will say it to me too, “Mommy, you’re a girl!” and she regretfully informs her father, “You’re not a girl!” I don’t know what it means to her to be a girl, but I like how much she enjoys being what she is so I usually reply, “Yeah, I’m a girl too – hooray for us!”

She’s right too, that I’m a girl. Not just a woman, but a real girly girl. I wear lots of pink and plenty pf makeup and Chanel perfume, and haven’t seen my natural hair color since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I love my woman parts even if they aren’t what they once were, I love to dress up and shop for shoes and drink champagne and fruity mixed drinks.

But I’ve tried, to some extent, to shield Seconda from my relentless girliness because I live in fear of the day she’ll go all “princess” on me. Am I making enemies here? I know a lot of great, smart little girls who’ve succumbed to princess mania and it doesn’t mean they’re not formidable forces in their own right, but I have to say, the princess shit drives me nuts.

Its not that I don’t like the movie Cinderella – hell, it was one of my favorites as a kid, and we let Primo watch it a bunch of times – but with Seconda, I’m a little more hesitant. I don’t want to inject her with the parasite of putting pretty before everything else. What’s so great about Cinderella anyway? I mean, she’s compassionate and beautiful, but not terribly interesting. Not terribly bright or self-reliant. Ditto for Belle, although she’s got a bit more fire in her. And the Little Mermaid is fun, she’s a redhead after all, and feisty, a rebel even, but it does bum me out that she gives up her voice – I mean, could there be a more literal metaphor for the danger here? – to be with some guy who is, when you get right down to it, a total borefest. The interesting female character there is Ursula – she’s got a slamming voice and some great rhyming skills and is incredibly powerful. What power does a princess really have, at least the Disney variety? My daughter right now, is a powerhouse. She may not be the most well-behaved kid or the most generous yet, but she’s smart as a damn whip and funny, the kind of kid you’d like to spend an hour talking to. I will just perish the day she begs me to buy her a poofy princess dress and matching glass slippers.

So, when she looks really cute, and every girl instinct in me threatens to call out, “Oh you’re my little princess!” I instead exclaim, “You look like the queen of the fairies!” I don’t know how much good it does, but at least a queen has power and fairies do magic, and anyway, it’s a reference to Spenser, which mitigates any harm.

Now she’s started to proclaim the same thing, so after we slip a flouncy three-tiered sun dress on her, she’ll run around the house yelling, “LOOK AT ME - I’m the QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES!”

We can only do our best, right?