More Bluster

Mother's day was splendid this year. It was my fourth as a mom, but my first as a mom of two so it was, you know, especially special. We all had breakfast in bed together, including the dog. Lowell gave me a card that had lovely things he said about me written in it (Matthew was kind enough to edit out "She gets really angry sometimes.") It did make up for a pretty dreadful Friday and Saturday filled with fever and vomit. Willa has an ear infection (her first, squeee!) so it's been a little rocky. But she is on the mend and only retching up about half of the daily doses of Amoxicil I have to give her. And she is napping a lot more which really helped my sanity today. Lowell and I actually made a kite while she napped this afternoon. We used bamboo skewers, tissue paper and dental floss but it still came out pretty okay. After the glue dried we took it out on the deck and launched it up into the bluster and, lo and behold, she flew! (Of course they were gale force winds so we could have tied string to an alarm clock for the same effect). Lowell, who has been talking about kites a lot lately (thank you TV!) loved it. After we went inside, both shivering because we weren't wearing jackets, he looked up at me with his thrilled little face and said, "That was FUN." It was one of those moments where you just want to dip your kid in acrylic so they stay exactly that way forever.

We have a subscription to Atlantic Monthly. (Why? Because we have too much pride to admit that we don't have time or energy to read anything intellectual anymore. We also get Harpers. God help us.) They must be facing some pretty dire newsstand sales numbers up there at AM HQ because I have noticed that their covers are getting more and more sensational. Israel is doomed! Religion will kill us all! Ack, Iraq! Britney is trainwreck (so let's figure out some pseudo-intellectual spin on the story that lets us put her on the cover!)  This month's issue just arrived and, I am not kidding, the cover has an asteroid heading straight for earth with the headline "The Sky Is Falling." OMG chillax, Atlantic, here is some ad money, okay?

Also in ridiculous media: this Wall Street Journal article. Ostensibly about how women executives who left their careers to be SAHMs are an untapped resource of seasoned professionals with flexible schedules. But the real gist of it is: "Hey! Corporate America! There is a whole pool of talented workers just waiting to work for peanuts. They don't deserve to be compensated for their training and experience because they have to pad their resumes to be hired again someday by schmucks like us! Let's be unapologetically exploitative and call it win-win!" I really don't understand how anyone can sit there with a straight face and offer a $21 hourly consulting fee to a Stanford PhD. Wow, I didn't know that growing something in my uterus was license to fuck me in the a**! But at least my skills are fresh now. I just hate that not-so-fresh feeling.

Comments

[jon deal]

Very well put about SAHM, and it made me smile that you edited "a**", but left the "fuck" intact.

:-]

[Mocha]

All you'll ever hear from me on the subject is AMEN.

Why are they looking for "cheap"? Shouldn't they be looking for "qualified" and "talented"? Oh, wait. They found that, too. It's just that it was women so they added the CHEAP in there. Dolts.

[Orange]

Well said, particularly the part with the swear words.

[Manager Mom]

I read that WSJ article too.

Yeah, it's a little insulting, but the women take the jobs.

And how much do you discount for flexibility? I have two days a week of telecommuting, and I have turned down jobs that pay $10-15K more than I'm making, becuase I'd lose that privilege.

[supa]

one of those posts where i could never choose my favorite sentence.

i've considered acrylic-dipping as well.

[E.]

Yes, I agree about not being able to choose my favorite sentence. But I loved the kite anecdote,and the rant re: the Wall Street Journal BS was satisfying and right-on-target.

We get Harper's as well, and they may not be sensational in the way you describe the AM being, but I was sort of surprised to see a lead story on "contagious cancer" (esp. since the story itself made this phenomenon seem much less scary than the headline suggested). But really I'm just annoyed that their short readings in front have been getting less funny and weird, which is hardly a solid journalistic critique.

[juliloquy]

"SWAT team." The acronym, for "smart women with available time." I wonder, what is this "available time" of which they speak?