Laura at 11D writes about bad mothering. I read the Belkin post she refers to, where she suggests that we may be approaching a time of less overparenting. I also read what I think are the beginnings of a longer piece by her on this issue (it just didn’t seem finished to me). Yesterday, we went to Geeky Girl’s violin recital where we experienced a cringeful moment of recognizing that our kid did not perform as well as many of the kids–because we don’t push her to practice. We are not bad parents by the definition given by Kai in the comments to Laura’s post. Our kids eat three good meals a day. They’re clothed well. We make sure they get to school on time and get their homework done (most of the time). They’re invovled in sports and music. But compared to some other parents, we don’t push them very much. We do limit computer time and tv time, but we don’t say, take them to the library all the time to make sure they have books to read or enroll them in private lessons or take them on field trips for the purpose of learning something.

I’m becoming acutely aware of how little we’ve pushed our kids as Geeky Boy approaches high school. Both of our kids are smart. We don’t have to explain homework to them and they ace state tests, but they often lack motivation. In elementary school and middle school, this doesn’t matter too much. But I’m afraid that some bad habits have set in. I’m keenly aware of the competition to get into college and I worry that if Geeky Boy lets things slide too much, there will be no college for him. And although I tell myself that I don’t care where he goes to school, the reality is that I want him to go somewhere good, somewhere that will give him opportunities and advantages that maybe I didn’t have.

Sometimes I feel embarrassed that my kids aren’t pursuing interesting hobbies on their own. Although they both play instruments, they don’t show a whole lot of interest in becoming really good at them. They both play sports and are pretty good at them, but they’re not always out in the back yard kicking a ball around or practicing head shots. They’ve shown little interest in art or writing. Back in my childhood, of course, this would be no big deal, but now, it seems if your kid doesn’t stand out in some way, you’re made to feel as if you’ve failed as a parent. Intellectually, I know this isn’t true, but I feel it emotionally more often than I’d like.

There are many things I’m proud of my kids for. Geeky Boy is really smart and he actually talks to us about current events, about philosophical issues, and shares things he’s discovered on the Internet (some hilarious, some fascinating). He’s also very empathetic and I bet he’s becoming a good friend to other people. He’s funny and charming, at ease with both kids and adults. Geeky Girl is filled with confidence, something I hope she holds on to as she moves in middle school soon. She’s good at math and science and prefers those subjects to reading. She does do some writing of stories at times and I hope she continues to. For now, she seems unconcerned about her appearance, preferring comfortable clothes to stylish ones. I enjoy being around her and she seems to still enjoy being around me.

I feel that both my kids are at the core good kids and I know that I’m doing my best to provide a supportive environment for them to develop in. I guess the overparenting movement has made me have the nagging thought, “Am I doing enough?”

Over three years ago, I wrote this post on Blogging for Choice day, explaining that when I was 16 years old, I had an abortion. That act, as painful and troubling as it was, gave me the life I have today.

As I was watching the coverage and reading the blogs about George Tiller’s death, I felt not just sad for Tiller’s family, but sad for our country. I’m really tired of the hate-mongering that ends in tragedies like Tiller’s death. We have let that rhetoric control the debate for far too long. We need to quiet the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. They are inciting people to hold this hate inside and act on it. I’ve never been to a Pro-Choice Rally where hate or violence is advocated or even spoken of. Abortion is not a pleasant experience. It’s certainly not pleasant to think about, even for those of us who want them to remain legal. And yet, the hate mongers on the right not only want abortions to end, but they want to teach abstinence-only in the schools. They want to deny that human beings have sex and that the result of that is often pregnancy, but that through the miracle of science, we can prevent that result. Pfizer is offering free Viagra if you’ve lost your job. Do you see them offering free birth control? Some insurance companies won’t even pay for birth control. Don’t you think having another baby when you’ve lost your job might be more of problem than not being able to get an erection?

Women around the country may now be fearful of obtaining care that is their right to have legally. Their lives might be literally at risk and certainly, their lives might not be filled with the kind of opportunities they could have without an unwanted child. Already, according to reports I’ve seen, in over 85% of the counties in the US do not have access to abortion services. In many places, doctors and clinics are not even allowed to tell women where they can obtain an abortion. We’re talking about health care here, people. Since when would it be okay for a doctor to say, well, I can’t perform this surgery and I can’t tell you who in the area can. You’ll just have to figure that out on your own. There are states where there’s only one clinic in the whole state where abortions are performed. There are more states with waiting periods, meaning two trips and two days off work for women seeking services.

Why do we let this happen in our country? There are a lot of people who are calling this terrorism and who are blaming the hatemongers on Fox News and talk radio and on the blogs. Sure, I blame them. But I blame us as well, for letting it happen, for not standing up to these people, for not standing behind practitioners who are just doing their job, for not speaking out if you’ve had an abortion, putting a human face on that action which makes it harder for people to rail against it. I am writing my senators and congressman today. If I could I’d go to the vigil in Love Park in Philadelphia today at 5:30. Women have a right to life. Let’s truly support that in whatever way we can.

Both Mr. Geeky and I had trouble sleeping. I stayed up playing WoW, which was fun, but as usual, I was a bit wound up afterward. Mr. Geeky was stressing a bit over a workshop he was having to lead today on writing abstracts. I started laughing because I used to run that very workshop. Lucky for him, I kept all my materials on Google docs. It made me think of all the little ways my presence might be missed at the college. They still have not replaced me, and I doubt they will for a very long time. I don’t really miss it.

In my attempt to get to sleep last night, I started reading Leslie Bennetts’ The Feminine Mistake. That probably made things worse. In reading the preface, I began to realize that her position comes largely out of her own experience of hearing about her grandmother’s desitute situation caused by her grandfather leaving and her grandmother refusing to either work or remarry (a refusal caused in part by the mores of the day, but also, it seems, by some stubbornness). Unlike her grandmother, her mother worked her whole life, but took time out here and there to deal with family issues. So, she argues that her mother lost out on much-needed income by doing that.

Her other stories of friends whose husbands left them don’t sound at all like the women I know. After all, Bennetts lives in either Manhatten or a tony New York suburb, where it takes a significant income to maintain even a modest lifestyle, and the women she describes are not living a modest lifestyle. So, yes, I might even say it’s not too smart to rely on a single income to maintain an extravagant lifestyle, but most of the women I know who’ve left the job market have done so by cutting back on many expenses and deliberately living within their means. They clip coupons and shop around for the best prices. Vacations are trips to visit family. They drive inexpensive cars that they drive into the ground. Their clothes come from Old Navy and Target, not J. Crew or Ann Taylor. While they may have their kids in music lessons or put them into summer camp, they do so through careful budgeting.

In my adventures of volunteering and trying to create more community-based connections, I’ve run into not one, but two women who have Ph.D.’s and who are not employed in their fields. Both were scientists and one is now an academic staff member, the other a SAHM. SAHM’s around here are actually a rare breed. Most of the women I have run into are nurses or work part-time in some way to allow for flexibility. I know a few men who have flexible jobs. Although I may end up a SAHM, I am hoping that the consulting works out or I find a flexible job in the future. And it irks me a bit that Bennetts would assume I’m not being smart. I know the risk I’m taking. I hope Mr. Geeky doesn’t run off with a sexy computer scientist and leave me to care for the kids. If he does, then I’ll figure it out, probably move to an area with a lower cost of living, and find a job doing pretty much anything just to pay the bills. Yeah, I’ve thought about it, mostly in those moments when Mr. Geeky is running late from a meeting and I immediately think he’s dead on the side of the road. I may be optimistic, but unlike the women Bennetts describes, I’m no Pollyanna. I’ve considered the worst cast scenario and have decided I can live with it.