The fact that mothers are under scrutiny for how much time they ‘waste’ while at work (taking phone calls from kids and having to pick them up on snow days etc) is itself sexist. Why don’t we ask how it is men can be productive, considering how constantly distracted they are by sex? Why don’t we ask how it is smokers can be productive? I repeat: the focus on women parents is sexist – and I’m not even tackling the inherent hypocrisy in pretending that we as a society care about families, while offering to pay those who do the family work less than others, thereby making it necessary for them to work even longer hours to make the money needed to cover the costs of working etc.

Only women are under this kind of scrutiny: how they dress, how much they weigh (overweight women make less money), how assertive they are or aren’t, how they choose lower paid jobs naturally (without consideration to why the jobs women choose pay less or what influences job choices), if they have children can they be as productive as those without children, if they don’t have children they are going to take maternity leave. Only women face these stereotypes; only women are always found wanting, found to be the makers of the sexism that prevents their success.

Yet, there are literally thousands of ways to ‘waste‘ time at work. There are studies which show how much time male office workers waste surfing pornography (literally hours every day), yet there is no outcry about whether or not men should make as much money as their non-porn-surfing counterparts (women). By and large, it is men who are in the media for various sex-related scandals, much of which occurred during working hours and/or on company related trips. Do we see any media stories questioning – making everyone engage in a debate – about whether or not men can juggle their libido with dedicated work?

Do men have to give up sex in order to be productive workers? We don’t ask this question: not because it is inherently more ridiculous than asking if women should be forced to give up family (or sex) in order to be productive, but because the many ways in which male workers will ‘waste’ time at work are normalized, considered so acceptable as to be invisible, and remain unquestioned.

Young people (and certain older people) often get drunk the night before and stumble into work unable to think clearly and waste time going for multiple coffees and describing just how drunk they really were, take ‘sick’ days because they chose to get so drunk the night before they can’t face a computer screen. Smokers go for multiple smoke/gossip/stress-release breaks. People play computer games; people chat; people do their online banking. People with pets run home to check on a sick cat. Fathers leave work early to get junior and he is a dedicated father, whose standing at work generally increases, studies show. Yet, it is only women who are suspiciously incapable of having a life outside of work (in this case, children) and working too.

The debate is sexist. Nobody at work spends all their time at work working. People at all levels spend time at work doing personal things. It is only when women engage in parenting activities during working hours – activities she cannot ignore without being guilty of child neglect – that any group comes under extended media criticism.

While there are studies to indicate how much time is wasted through the use of on-line porn (I am not going to go to the effort of finding and linking to these studies because the point isn’t that men surf porn, but that we do not question the way another group ‘wastes’ time while at work, but only women parents), there are no studies which actually prove that women parents spend more company time than others doing non-work activities or that women parents have any trouble completing the work they need to complete, even when junior has a sick day, or calls her from school to ask a question. (Anecdotal evidence is ridiculous: I can tell you how a certain short man I knew spent all his time at working doing non-work-related activities, yet that doesn’t mean all short men do that all the time.)

And you know what? If someone actually did engage in a real comparative study of that sort (I can’t imagine how it would be put together), they would find that women parents in particular are often more efficient than their non-parental counterparts (male and female) because they have to be and because parenting is the best teacher of the ability to multi-task out there.

But even if that study were to prove that, it would not be published. Because what people need is an easy scapegoat, an acceptable target to resent, a canvas against which they can make themselves look like harder workers (than a parent who is working 24/7) – and above all else, an excuse to be able to pay women parents less than anyone else.

First: This is what we call a paradigm shift.

Because of the release of the new movie, this great love letter to Ginny Weasley.

A judge’s proposed celebration for the birth of a girl. Via feministe.

And a story about the wealth gap between the older and younger generations.

It wasn’t my idea; I recall discouraging the idea a bit, put off by the cost. But she persisted and I relented and a little violin appeared  in our house.

I learned with her, scraping out rhythms like tucka, tucka, stop, stop and one, two, wait, four. Then came the first song: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. We practiced together and, looking back, it is probably true that I enjoyed it more than she did; watching her learn pleased me even more than learning myself.

Encouraging a five year old to practice required effort.

But we managed a few minutes of practice most days of the week. At first. By her second year in violin, her attention had noticeably flagged. Lessons were fun, but practice seemed tortuous. I experimented with motivation techniques, tying her practices to points and stars, praise and play dates.

I stopped the lessons once, but started again when she promised to practice regularly. We got through another year this way.

Summer break and lessons ended for two months. Promises were made to practice a couple of times a week aover the summer. Three times, the suggestion of practice met with such resistance or ended in such frustrating bouts of tears that I didn’t mention it again. She did not pick up the violin all summer.

Still September came and she wanted to play, wanted it more than dance class, than basketball, than anything else except Brownies. So I enrolled her again.

The pleasure it gives me to watch her play. To listen. Busy with my own studies, I had given up learning along with her. She had progressed beyond my  skill and musical knowledge. (I never learned to play an instrument.) The pleasure I took in her pride, in her sense of accomplishment when she would play a song for Deda or Baka on skype.

But practicing. Practicing became a battle. Any practice at all. She could resist with the passive strength of a  professional protester, a veteran of repeated sit ins and group arrests.

I am busy. Too busy for imagining ways to get her to practice. The money we spent on lessons could have gone so many other places. The time wasted nagging; the evenings ruined feeling angry with her instead of, oh, getting homework done peacefully, or reading together on the couch.

I stopped mentioning it. I did not take her to her lessons and did not mention it. She did not notice. The teacher e-mailed. I felt sick; I was surprised by how much I wanted her to play violin.

Before I ended lessons for good, I talked with her about it after school that day. Did she miss violin? Yes. Ddi she want to continue? Yes. Did she want to practice. She would, but later, tomorrow sometime. Deal: practice today when we get home before bed and I’ll take you to your violin lesson, practice anything, practice twinkle, twinkle.

She didn’t want to. We talked: she didn’t have to play; she was good at other things, like reading and singing; if she wasn’t interested enough to practice, perhaps she just wasn’t interested; she could take a break now and begin again later, when she was ready to practice; next year she would learn an instrument in school, she could pick any instrument she wanted; we would not sell or give away her violin.

It was settled. She was satisfied. She hasn’t mentioned the violin since. She hasn’t picked up her violin since, or even looked at it. But I miss the idea, the idea of one of my girls playing the violin. Miss F got out of it what she wanted, in two years and a bit of violin lessons she learned to play a few songs. Now she is ready to move on to other things.

Maybe the little one will take to the violin. When she is old enough, we’ll see.

Because to do all this, I have my youngest, Little F, in daycare. 

I worried when she began in September. How I worried. Considered giving up my MA. But she was offered a spot in the university childcare program and after spending two mornings a week there all summer to familiarize my girl with it, I was so impressed with the quality of care and instruction. Little F loves it. After just two months, she is a much more confident child than she was before.

But I’m not sure how long this will last. I don’t know where we will find money in the budget to pay for daycare. I have funding from the university that covers tuition with a little left over that doesn’t cover the cost of daycare. I hope we can scrape by. But I wish we didn’t have this struggle.

I’d like  a society which values families and children and believes that everyone benefits (including those without children or whose children are grown up or who have decided to stay at home) when children in daycare receive excellent care, when one caregiver at home is not expected to do the impossible: be everything to their children at all times. I wish for  a country in which daycares are funded well enough to offer quality instruction, care, and nutrition, allowing caregivers to work or go to school or just get a break for at least a few hours a week.

That won’t happen by next semester. I will have to find some way to pay for daycare. Or quit, decreasing my chances of qualifying for the kind of job which will provide a good future for my girls.

Col. Russell Williams photographed his victims; why are news organizations publishing any of these photos? For whom are they publishing these images?

From Red Light Politics.

What would happen if newspapers published a daily list of rapes and sexual assaults reported the day before? Just one or two lines containing the city and a very brief description of the circumstances, followed by the next victim and the next one and the next one. I contend that such reporting would be much more powerful than the current “rape as sanctioned erotica”, if only because it would be impossible to ignore the numbers.

Part of the reason I have followed the Russell case is because I have been interested in the emerging narrative about how the police responded to the pattern of thefts and assaults. Police failed to understand that lesser crimes, such as theft of underwear and personal items, are the acts of a sexual deviant working up to more serious crimes. Stealing panties isn’t considered serious, regardless of how unsafe victims of the theft feel afterwards.

An excellent column on the subject by Rosie Dimanno on the subject via Broadsides.

It might come as a surprise to many that, despite the high profile fallout of The Balcony Rapist case, there is no protocol in place yet throughout Canada compelling police to warn the public about sexual predators on the loose, even when a pattern has been established.

I’ll just say that I first noticed the motherhood penalty when I was working full-time when my second daughter was born. No woman in my office who chose to have children escaped some sort of repercussion. One woman asked, after she had been shifted from regular day work to irregular day/evening shifts, if she could be given a set schedule two weeks ahead of time so she could plan childcare. Management said “we didn’t ask you to have kids”. She left. Her husband, who worked in the same office but was apparently free from the responsibility to arrange childcare, stayed.

Anyway, more analysis on the new research here. And more about the motherhood penalty here.

Dannika was by the light switch in our bedroom and Elise was on the bed.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I want the light off and she doesn’t,” Dannika said. Her voice held that plaintive, whiny note that drives parents, particularly these parents, to distraction at times.

Dannika then turned the light off.

“Turn the darkness off. Turn the darkness off!” Elise wailed.

Dannika turned the light on again. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow and a funny face. We  began laughing.

“She always says that,” Dannika said between giggles, forgetting her complaint now. “When we are in our beds and she wants the light off she says, ‘turn the darkness on’.”

The argument was forgotten and I returned to the dishes.

Although, honestly, it might have been a book I was reading when their argument interrupted me. I don’t remember. It could have been the dishes; I feel I am always washing dishes around here. But really, I just wanted to pretend I was a better housekeeper than I am.

This last week though, I’ve had final papers to put together and was too tired to rely on late nights so Monkey was at the sitter’s two days in a row for almost full days. This is the first time she has been with another person besides her father and I for so long.

The second day she ran into my arms and declared that she had missed me. She kept hugging me tight and repeating how much she’d missed me all the way home. Back at home she threw herself in my arms again and declared that she had missed me. “Oh, I missed you too little bug,” I said. She put her hands on my cheeks and said, “tell me why”.

So I did.