Monthly Archives For November 2009

life

The Game of Life

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Anyone out there remember playing the board game LIFE? It’s been years since I spun the wheel of fate, but during a visit with friends who have a seven-year-old daughter and nine- and 11-year-old sons&hellip

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Moms: We Hear You Loud and Clear

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Updated to share two links revealing a reality different than what the conventional mom community experiences:

Ack! What’s going on? If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d be convinced we were in the midst of a well-coordinated, full-on assault against those who can’t or don’t have children.

You may recall the judgmental Orlando Sentinel Mom’s at Work blog I referenced in my last post. Who knew it was the tip of the iceberg?
This week Mika Brzezinski weighs in.
Mika, Mika, Mika…I really expected more from you. We’re contemporaries. I watched you tackle tough topics as a reporter, saw you anchor the weekend national
news. Did you really write not one but two posts all but arguing that children are
essential to fulfillment
?

“Women face enough pressures and challenges in a workplace that is still depressingly biased against a female’s success. Add to that, the fact that the very thing many women I know find
most rewarding (having kids) is now frowned upon.”

Having kids is now frowned upon? Mika, you must be seriously distracted to have missed out of the whole mommy movement. Just check out Mom’s
Rising
or Mom 2.0 Summit or the Motherhood Project or Maria
Shriver’s latest report, A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything. As Melanie Notkin points out in her editor’s note on Savvy Auntie the report weirdly overlooked the fact that not all women are mothers:

“The study, meant to change the way government policy and businesses modernize with the new standing of women in the economy – a change I completely support – interchanges the word
“woman” with “mother” so often it’s as if all women are mothers.”

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Amadeus and The Ultimate Test

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Amadeus…

That’s a clue for my answer to some complex questions that came this weekend from Silent Sorority readers. The ideas and emotions contained in their questions were remarkably familiar — so
much so they could have come straight out of my own head a few years ago. I guess, by now, I shouldn’t be startled by the depth of the shared infertility experience. I’m sure they’ll evoke some deja
vu for you, too. The questions pose the ultimate test for infertiles who don’t succeed with treatment — overcoming anger and finding peace.

First came this email:

“I’ve been having a rough go of it lately and have been pretty messed up.It’s kind of the kick off of the fun family/kid centric holiday season and I know it’s always really hard for me.
Something you wrote about in your book and talk about at times is an issue that I’m dealing with. How did you move beyond the resentment of people who do have children? I absolutely hate
feeling this way. I’m even starting to resent my dr. and therapist, not good. I just see everyone with kids as having something I can’t, won’t. On some level, I understand it is the way it is
supposed to be. On the other hand, I just want to isolate myself from all those with kids. So frustrating,and impossible too! Does it just fade away?”

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