Two Good "Nurture" Books for Skeptical Parents (Or Any Parents, Really)

Like many American parents of my generation, since having kids, one of my main pastimes is reading about the latest in understanding childhood development. This isn't a casual interest. It is a serious undertaking with the goal of developing optimum parenting strategies. Or at least it was.

 The American middle class is shrinking. Good jobs for people without college degrees have largely been shipped overseas, but the rising cost of higher education has way outpaced wage increases. Rising health care expenses have cost many people their homes and retirement savings. Many of my peers are choosing to have less kids or no kids because they don't want to be forced to choose between saving for their children's education and saving for their own retirement.

In short, American parents of my generation are all too aware that we do not live in the economy of our parents. We fear that if current economic trends continue, things will be even worse for our kids. So we're desperately searching for anything that might give our kids an edge.

Like most parents in my demographic, I was reading to my first child before she was even a year old. When she turned three I started her on Suzuki Piano, a pre-ballet class, a phonics program, a Spanish language program, and began doing age-appropriate math exercises on an almost daily basis. One might think I felt like a super-parent, but that was not the case. As a former teacher at a small, independent school, I was aware of progressive theories in early childhood education that insist that workbooks and flashcards are no-nos. I had also been reading about current theories in early childhood education for a college course I was teaching, and these supported the idea that "play is the work of children". As a result I became increasingly anxious that all the piano, ballet, language, and math might eat up too much of the much more valuable play time. I sought a middle ground out of uncertainty.

In January my local secular humanist group's book club read the book The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out The Way They Do by Judith Rich Harris. Just recently I finished reading NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. These books are similar to each other in that they both challenge common assumptions about how to best raise children to be intelligent, moral, confident and capable individuals. Both books are written for the layman, specifically targeted at parents. Both rely on scientific research to support their claims, though they are written by outsiders; Bronson and Merryman are journalists, and Judith Rich Harris had dropped out of graduate school and was writing college textbooks on developmental psychology when she began to form unique conclusions based on comparing the research of others.

What I like best about both of these books is that even though they assert their own conclusions about several aspects of childhood development and the ability of parents to influence children's development, parents would have a difficult time developing any formulaic strategies in response. This is partially because the analysis presented is complex and nuanced. It is also because both books, especially The Nurture Assumption, emphasize the important influence of factors other than parenting.

Scientific studies require narrowing a focus down tight and conducting experiments in very specific context. Therefore it is usually only after many related studies are compared and analyzed over a significant period of time that we can start to see a complete enough picture that allows us to develop effective strategies for achieving specific goals in the real world.

Unfortunately, too often the results of specific studies are reported and people immediately react based on assumptions that go beyond the scope of those studies. For instance, parents read reports about how babies who hear more words develop more extensive vocabularies more quickly, so then those parents begin babbling on in a contrived manner endlessly to their infants and toddlers before they (or the researchers who did the studies) understand the more complex mechanisms behind those results. In NutureShock, the authors explain how the popular series of Baby Einstein videos were developed based on research in childhood development. But because the maker of the videos made false assumptions about what the research meant, the result was a product which achieved the opposite of its intended results. (Babies who watch the videos end up having smaller vocabularies.)

As a parent seeking optimum strategies for giving my kids an edge in an uncertain economy, these books have left me feeling a bit dis-empowered. NurtureShock convinced me that I couldn't trust common wisdom or even my own intuition. And The Nurture Assumption left me thinking that I have basically no control over the values and personalities that my children develop. Yet I feel I'm better for having read them.

Being a skeptic who was raised religious, I've been down a similar path before. I'm at peace with the idea of no cosmic justice or afterlife. In fact, I've now come to a point where I find my secular worldview preferable, not only because I think it is true, but because I find honor in having the courage to face an imperfect universe, and humble awe in viewing life as a precious, fleeting, gratitude-inspiring anomaly. I can, too, come to peace with the idea that my parenting style is but one (perhaps even minuscule) factor, in a complex wave of elements that will influence who my kids become. More than just come to peace with it, I can see how much that takes the pressure off and allows me to more fully enjoy parenting.

My oldest child is now four. She still does Spanish, math, ballet, phonics, and Suzuki piano on a regulated basis (although combined these all take up a relatively small percentage of her time, and stimulating free play time does dominate her waking hours.) I no longer feel so torn and anxious over whether I'm doing the best job I can or not. After a year, these supplemental activities have become an integrated part of her and my lives. They have become simply what we do in our home. It feels right because we both often take pleasure in them, and there is a ordinary give and take going on between mother and daughter.

Once upon a time I made a plan. I had developed a formula because I felt that was necessary. But it's not a formula anymore. Now I'm just being the parent that I am. I see that the approaches I take and choices I make for this child will be somewhat different for her younger sister, because they are different people. If there is an optimum parenting style for raising them, I can't know what it is, so why worry about it?

Life is uncertain. Making choices is complicated. Of course I'm going to keep trying to give my kids an edge in the world in the best ways I know. But most of the time I'll simply enjoy watching them grow up.

How to Respond to Oprah's Ideas About Atheism

In college I briefly worked as a server in a faculty club. One day, while clearing empty plates at a large table of diners, I asked one, "Would you like me to take your plate?" The man flew into rage, shouting a lecture at me. He roared that it was "basic etiquette" that the placement of the fork and knife on his plate communicated to me that he was finished. Therefore, my speaking to him was unnecessary and rude. I stood there with my gaze down, no doubt with a red face, and felt like an ill-bred kid. Later I grew so angry about the incident that I quit that job. For years the memory popped into my head from time to time, and I fantasized about how I should have reacted. How I should have lectured him back about how it was more rude of him to publicly humiliate me than it was for me to ask if he was finished with his plate. Yes, I had unwittingly caused a breach of etiquette. But his reaction to my mistake turned a teachable moment into conflict and strife.

I can't help but think something like this has happened between Oprah Winfrey and the freethought community. Oprah Winfrey has unwittingly insulted a large group of people, and now instead of calmly trying to understand the mistake within the context it was made and gently correcting it, the freethought community has started yelling.

Before I go on, if you haven't seen the interview Oprah Winfrey did with swimmer Diana Nyad, check that out first:

The Internet has exploded with freethinkers responding to this interview, specifically taking issue with Oprah's disparaging view of "atheism" as being a worldview that negates feelings of awe over nature, beauty, love, y'know, all the big stuff.

The first response I read was that of David Niose, president of the American Humanist Association (AHA). I am a proud, card carrying member of a local chapter of AHA, and have enjoyed conferences hosted by the AHA, and so when I saw the headline Why Oprah's Anti-Atheist Bias Hurst So Much, I was ready to be deeply disappointed or even angry with Oprah Winfrey. But after I watched the interview, I just didn't see anything that I thought justified the harshest of Niose's criticisms. I mean, Niose went as far as to paint Oprah as worse than the Religious Right, saying that she's done more to "perpetuate negative attitudes toward nonbelievers than Pat Robertson or James Dobson ever could."

The Boston Atheists have started an online campaign where they create memes featuring fictional exchanges with Oprah using real atheists' quote. However, even if they are primarily intended to spread the word about how much atheists can be in awe, they do just as much to make Oprah look stupid.

PZ Myers just went right ahead and labeled it "Oprah's bigotry." (Too be fair, Myers sort of has a reputation as a shock jock in the world of atheist blogging.)  

Isn't this all going way too far?

The criticism of Oprah comes across the spectrum of the freethought world. Friendly Atheist blogger Hemant Mehta is critical of Oprah's "nebulous spirituality" and says:

Nyad’s explanation is the same sort of breathtaking awe that scientists will often tell you they feel when they gaze at the stars or look through a microscope. It’s not religious. It’s not spiritual. It certainly has nothing to do with a Higher Power. It’s just amazement at how life, the universe, and everything works — how evolution made it that way and how lucky we are to be a part of it at all.

Mehta glosses over the fact that in the interview Nyad herself calls herself a "spiritual" person, defines that in a nebulous way. More importantly, Nyad opened her atheism up for questioning with her statement, "To me, my definition of 'God' is humanity. And is the love of humanity." It is right after this statement that Oprah says "Well, I don't call you an atheist then!" Didn't Nyad just define "God" as something real (as humanity and love)? Why didn't she say something more like, "To me, God is a presence, a creator, and I just personally don't believe in that." Instead, she went ahead and defined "God" as something everybody knows is real, and Oprah came back with an affirmation that such a definition of "God" is perfectly acceptable. 

Oprah emphasizes this point further when she says "God is not the Bearded Guy in the Sky." Listening to Oprah talk about her type of faith (Oprah calls herself Christian), her beliefs seem more similar to members of Unitarian or Quaker congregations (which generally welcome atheists.) In that she thinks about these philosophical issues and abides by her own conclusions rather than taking a cue from any authority figures, she fits the broad definition of a freethinker. And yet, the freethought community doesn't want to give her any benefit of the doubt. 

Oprah Winfrey likes to emphasize that she is accepting of all faiths, and she acts on this sentiment by bringing on guests who represent many different worldviews. When Diana Nyad explains why she calls herself an atheist by saying that she doesn't believe in a "presence", Oprah takes no issue with that. In fact the only point they seem to disagree on is how the term "atheism" is properly applied. So does Oprah Winfrey have an anti-nonbeliever bias, or is she really just confused about the meaning of atheism? I assert it is the latter.

Let's consider why Oprah might be confused about the meaning of atheism.

Atheism is a dirty word in the mainstream. It isn't just a dirty word to religious fundamentalists. It isn't even just a dirty word to theists. It's a dirty word to a lot of people who are non-God-believers. C'mon. How many people who are technically atheists won't call themselves atheists? How many atheists just can't let go of religious words like "spiritual" and "God" and "soul", and so they re-define them to be broad enough to have a secular meaning? Didn't Spinoza redefine God as nature? Didn't Einstein called the universe God? Atheism has been a dirty word for a very, very long time, and that's not just going to go away. 

It probably doesn't help that now one strain of the freethought movement that has been written about in many mainstream publications is called the New Atheism, and is known for its aggressive criticism and intolerance of all forms of religious belief. 

Is Oprah Winfrey's view of atheism a personal bias against non-God-believers or is she simply understanding the term as it is most commonly used? 

Yes, it is frustrating. Yes, when our own allies use the term in a disparaging way, it confirms the bias of those who truly are bigots against us. To me, the label atheist carries all kinds of wonderful connotations. I associate God with authoritarianism and escapism, and conversely associate atheism with freedom and an embrace of reality despite its flaws. I find labeling myself an atheist liberating and courageous. And it bums me out that most people seem to think we atheists are arrogant, immoral curmudgeons. So, yeah, I'm annoyed with what Oprah said. But over-reacting isn't going to help anything, and it might make things worse.

As I've helped my fellow freethinkers try to build strong communities, I've heard a lot of talk about the benefits of this type of organization. Rarely do I hear talk about the drawbacks. The problem with like-minded people getting together a lot is that we re-affirm and eventually exaggerate each other's views. Just as we strengthen our communities, we insulate ourselves, risk narrowing our perspective and failing to see the bigger picture.

The bigger picture: Oprah Winfrey's not our enemy. In fact, in this instance she's probably helping us out. 

Think about it: Oprah gave a platform to Diana Nyad, a self-declared atheist. She presented this atheist as an inspirational and heroic person. She conducted a friendly, respectful conversation with this atheist. Oprah's comment about Nyad not really being an atheist was followed up with Nyad repeatedly re-affirming her chosen label and further explaining it, so that it was abundantly clear that she lacks a belief in a personal god or divine presence, but is still a person with a deep sense of wonder, awe, as well as respect, tolerance, and love for all of humankind. Seems like an obvious net gain for freethought to me!

Oprah rejects the bearded man in the sky, but how many monotheists do believe in God, heaven and hell, angels and demons, literally? Oprah Winfrey calls herself a Christian, but her faith is certainly not traditional. The type of faith she personally professes would have gotten her burned at the stake five hundred years ago. More theologically conservative Christian have declared that Oprah Winfrey is not a Christian. (Yes, I see the irony in Oprah telling an atheist she's not an atheist when she's had critics do the same shitty thing to her.)

I liked the interview. It reminded me of a lot of conversations I've had with believers. They say silly things to me such as, "I'm so surprised you're an atheist because you're so spiritual..." And then we go on to have a meaningful, casual exchange about our very different perspectives. They learn something. I learn something. That wouldn't happen if I got offended and started lecturing them on how ignorant they are about real atheists. I'm sure I'm ignorant to plenty about their actual perspective, too. That's just how these sort of things go.

Sinead O'Connor and Mylie Cyrus, the Difference Between Art and Porn, and Why Omnipresent Soft-Core Porn Masquerading as Entertainment is Maybe Not So Good

Pop culture matters. There are those who lament that Miley Cyrus twerking gets way more Americans' attention than events in Benghazi or Syria or even serious domestic, state, or local news events that impact public education, the environmental policies, and the health of our economy. Yes, that is true. However, given the level of fact-gathering and analysis that most people (don't) bother doing before expressing strong opinions, maybe it's better that most people are too bored with that sort of news to care. 

Pop culture matters. Trends in pop culture and public reaction to these trends tells us about who we are as a society and help us understand when things take a bad turn in real life. So it's worth it to look at these trends, do a little analysis, reflection, discussion, and critique. Otherwise we'll all just end up merely titillated by spectacle when we're young, and annoyed by those damn kids when we're old. 

It is fun to watch and gossip over the spectacle. Fun to look at parents who are outraged by the new image of Miley Cyrus and think, how the hell did they not see this coming? Fun to watch a pop star switch from a very wholesome facade to an oversexed facade. Fun to mock the people who take these pop stars' brands as earnest, personal expression. Fun to feel superior and enlightened. But now recess is over and I'm yearning for a little deeper breakdown. 

In a recent Rolling Stone interview, when asked about her video "Wrecking Ball', Miley Cyrus commented: 

It's like the Sinead O'Connor video [for "Nothing Compares 2 U"], but, like, the most modern version. I wanted it to be tough but really pretty – that's what Sinead did with her hair and everything. The trick is getting the camera up above you, so it almost looks like you're looking up at someone and crying. I think people are going to hate it, they're going to see my ass and be like, "Oh my God, I can't believe she did that" – and then when we get to the bridge, they're gonna have a little tear and be like, "Fuck you!" I think it will be one of those iconic videos, too. I think it's something that people are not gonna forget. 

Before I go further into Sinead O'Connor's open letter in response to Cyrus's statement, I'd like to analyse it myself. Cyrus is obviously not especially eloquent here, but maybe I can give her some credit and try to interpret what she means. Cyrus has interpreted Sinead O'Connor's shaved head as an attempt to look beautiful in a cutting edge, rebellious fashion. She also admired the emotionally charged nature of O'Connor's video. And she intended to emulate both of those qualities in her video. 

Both songs contain moving lyrics from a woman who regrets a breakup and is expressing her love and desire to rekindle that relationship. Here are the two videos back to back. 

O'Connor looks tremendously beautiful simply because she has a beautiful, young face. In fact, throughout the entire video the only part of her body you see is her face. I presume that's the point. She even covered her neck so that only her face, filled with raw, pained expression is there for the viewer to deal with. When she appears walking around in other parts of the video she is wearing a bulky black outfit, which I take is meant to suggest a state of mourning. 

In the Cyrus video, she does the whole face up close thing, but her makeup is the sort of gawdy stuff that accentuates generically, sexy feminine features such as lips and eyelashes, and distract from unique qualities of Cyrus's face. Her facial expressions while she sings suggest pain, but compared to O'Connor she comes off as overacting. Then there's the rest of the video, which is a lot of her either naked or in underwear writhing around, straddling a wrecking ball, or licking a sledgehammer as if it is a lover's body. In those interludes, she no longer reads as a woman who is genuinely suffering because of a lost love, but rather, like a stripper attempting to sexually stimulate her audience. This works against the song lyrics. The song becomes merely a vehicle for her to perform a strip tease. 

Now I want to be clear about something. Nudity is not the problem. I've read many criticisms of the Cyrus video that simply include "she is naked" in a list of qualities that make the video more like soft-core porn than art, and I feel this is part of the problem. 

My freshman year of college I took my first figure drawing class, which is basically hours and hours of drawing live, nude models. When I brought my portfolio home to show my boyfriend, his little sister (15 years old at the time) reared back and turn her head in disgust at the first drawing of a naked person. When I told her about the class she exclaimed, "That's sick!" But people wouldn't have those attitudes if most of the images of nudity or near-nudity we saw weren't intended purely to arouse. As a fine artist, I feel like the proliferation of soft core porn images have ruined many peoples' perception of the human body. We're afraid to let toddlers run around the beach naked for fear that strangers will sexually ogle them. Hell, some people are generally uncomfortable with little children running around naked. If so many of us can't see a naked body as anything but a sexual object, we have a problem with our visual vocabulary. 

I can easily envision the Cyrus video using nudity in a way which was relevant to the song. Other musicians have done this such as Lady Gaga in Marry the Night and Lena Katina in Never Forget You (although the vast majority of nudity in music videos is really just naked women behaving generically sexy in order to titillate, aka porn.)

Cyrus's song "Wrecking Ball" is about a woman humbling herself after she's been too proud and angry to really open up to her lover and work through their issues. It is easy to imagine using nudity as a metaphor for presenting oneself as vulnerable in order to establish trust. Such imagery juxtaposed against imagery of a fully clothed Cyrus angrily smashing walls with the sledgehammer (instead of doing so in her underwear) could have driven home the swings of emotional extremes people often experience in a tumultuous relationship. In other words, Cyrus had an opportunity to make a video that included nudity for a creative purpose. Instead, she made a video designed to sexually arouse viewers. In other words, she made porn. 

Typically, if we choose to enjoy porn, we do so in private, most often as an aid during masturbation. The amount of porn that a person can enjoy is limited by the amount of private time they have to devote to it. And yet an endless parade of soft-core porn in media can be and is consumed just about everywhere. The idea of what is essentially porn being consumed constantly by youth who grow up in a society where parents are loathed to think about or talk about their kids as sexual beings is unsettling. 

We've basically found a way to be surrounded by sex without having to talk about it or even acknowledge its presence. This was addressed in the South Park episode The Ring. In the episode, Mickey Mouse forces the Jonas Brothers to wear purity rings. He explains: 

Oh gosh, fellas, let me explain this to you one more time. You have to wear the purity rings because that's how we can sell sex to little girls, haha! See, if we make the posters with little girls reaching for your junk, then you have to wear purity rings or else the Disney Company looks bad, haha!

I found the episode hilarious because it was so refreshing to see satirists tackling this issue head on with enough of a sense of humor to make the message palatable. But I was still shocked to find that the Jonas Brothers spraying their audiences down with white foam was a real thing. 

I really wouldn't have a problem with this if people widely acknowledged what this is, but they don't. The lack of awareness is what I find disturbing. If we don't call things what they are, we can't effectively discuss, evaluate, attack or defend them.  

So back to Cyrus and O'Connor. At this point I'm fairly confident in asserting that any influence that Sinead O'Connor has had on Miley Cyrus involves Cyrus only noticing the superficial and completely misunderstanding O'Connor's work. 

That said, probably many if not most of people's enjoyment of the O'Connor video was and is superficial. In other words, they like it because they enjoy looking at O'Connor's beautiful, young face. Had she not been so beautiful, it is doubtful the video would have been so popular. And at the time, people were not praising O'Connor for shaving her head to look beautiful in an edgy way. They were making fun of her, as we see in Gina Riley's parody: 

It is doubtful that any parody of Cyrus's video would poke fun at her hairdo.   

Of course Riley's parody only emphasizes just how seductive the power of a pretty face can be, because while Gina Riley looks rather silly in her bald cap, Sinead O'Connor looked gorgeous. As a fourteen year old girl, I remember reading about how O'Connor had shaved her head so as to avoid becoming a sex symbol, and I remember thinking at the time, but she's even prettier with no hair. Despite her attempts to be appreciated for her musical talent and not her looks (not only shaving her head, but wearing odd and often shapeless clothing), O'Connor's mainstream popularity was no doubt at least partially due to her beauty. After O'Connor aged and gained weight, many in the media pitied her. such as Richard Price here lamenting how she lost her "ethereal beauty", as if her looks had been her best asset, and as if maintaining a woman's looks should be of utmost importance. After losing weight, O'Connor commented, "I only feel better because people aren't being so abusive to me any more about my weight."

Fans who appreciate Sinead O'Connor for her musical talent never stopped loving her and probably didn't give a damn about her changing physical appearance. Fortunately for O'Connor, at least from what she's always said, those are the only fans she ever cared to attract. 

However, the big money is in quantity, not quality of fan base. And thus we are bombarded on a daily basis with images of people (usually women) displayed in a way as to sexually arouse viewers (also known as porn.) I'm so tired of this crap about female empowerment and women's rights to express their sexuality however they choose. That argument has merit when talking about artists as creative, innovative, and personally ambitious as Madonna. But Madonna is a rare bird. Sex sells, but what's cheap and easy usually sells the most. 

Sinead O'Connor responded to Miley Cyrus's comments about her as an influence with an open letter. She started by saying that her letter is written out of motherliness and love, which actually comes off as a bit condescending. She harshly criticizes Cyrus's sexy new image and people in the music industry who will "pimp" her for money and who "don't give a fuck" about her. She suggests that Cyrus doesn't care for herself enough, though also tells her that she is very talented and makes great records. In the conclusion she writes; 

Whether we like it or not, us females in the industry are role models and as such we have to be extremely careful what messages we send to other women. The message you keep sending is that its somehow cool to be prostituted.. its so not cool Miley.. its dangerous. Women are to be valued for so much more than their sexuality. we aren’t merely objects of desire. I would be encouraging you to send healthier messages to your peers.. that they and you are worth more than what is currently going on in your career.

I am skeptical of how motivated O'Connor was out of personal concern for Cyrus. Obviously putting her criticisms out there for everyone to read puts Cyrus in an awkward and embarrassing position. Which leads me to suspect that O'Connor's true motivation was to publicly defend her legacy as a musician who actively resisted being valued for her appearance and to promote her values which are against the sexual objectification of women. 

I'm glad O'Connor wrote her open letter. If there were just occasional images of sexually objectified women in our society it wouldn't be that big a deal, but those images are everywhere, and there has to be some kind of counter from people other than conservative, religious-types who label any sexually active woman a slut and want to go back to before the women's liberation movement. 

Sinead O'Connor has always been an iconoclast with her heart in the right place even if her execution isn't always the most effective. Her most famous act of rebellion is of course her ripping up of a photograph of Pope John Paul II during her appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1992. She did this in protest of the Vatican's cover up of child sex crimes, but at that time it would be ten years before the scandal would be exposed in America. People were horrified and infuriated. Those who even bothered to consider her message dismissed it outright as untrue. O'Connor's popularity with the mainstream public was permanently damaged. 

I was fourteen at the time, raised Catholic, and newly (and still uncomfortably) settled into an atheist/agnostic worldview. I felt sort of lost and alone a lot about my religious skepticism at the time, but I knew I couldn't make myself believe things that seemed obviously not real. When I read about O'Connor ripping up the Pope's photo, I was fascinated and curious. I wondered, what did the Pope do that so upset this musician? The public outcry against O'Connor also showed me just how crazy people when they feel their religion is being attacked. I learned that criticizing peoples' most sacred belief will make them furious long before they ever consider investigating the accusations. People at that time were not even bothering to defend the church. They were just mindlessly aghast that O'Connor would dare to deface a religious symbol precious to so many. They went on the offensive and criticized her. They cared more about the Pope as symbol than what the actual Pope was doing with his power and position. Of course in 2002 O'Connor was shown to be dead on in her criticism of the Vatican. 

Miley Cyrus's response to O'Connor's letter has been to tweet about O'Connor's struggles with mental illness and her ripping up of the pope's picture (because apparently she thinks that is worse than covering up widespread child sex abuse?) I'm surprised she hasn't tweeted unflattering photos of O'Connor when she was overweight. 

Earlier this year Minegishi Minami, a Japanese woman in the popular girl band AKB48, shaved her head in contrition before giving a tearful public apology. Her sin? She had violated the part of her contract where she agreed not to date. Much like the fictional Jonas Brothers from the South Park episode, the handlers of AKB48 have the teenage and young women performers sing songs and make videos that are sexually titillating, but then require that the girls in their real lives present an image of purity and availability. It is easy to dismiss this whole incident as foreign. Japanese culture is different. American women are more liberated, more powerful, more free. Right? 

I'm confused by this idea that an otherwise talented woman engaging in cheap, soft-core porn is her exercising her sexual power and freedom. I thought modern women's lib was about creating a society where women have equal pay, equal work opportunities, and where people doing traditional "women's work" receive due respect and compensation. If we achieve that, isn't sexual freedom a given? None of the defenses of these images of cheap, light-core porn ever address the concern that all these images being out there have the potential to shape the social norms, identities, and behaviors of both men and women. We know that advertising impacts our decisions as consumers, even when we are aware that the advertisements are bullshit. Just because we know something is exploitative doesn't mean we don't internalize the associations it presents, especially when we are exposed to them over and over and over again. 

Edit: Amanda Palmer wrote an excellent open letter to Sinead O'Connor, giving further depth to the conversation. Check it out here. 

Appreciation for Pink and Purple LEGO Bows

I want my daughters to play with LEGO. Which is sort of funny, because I never did. I have no nostalgic memories of constructing houses, cars, or abstract reliefs with these most famous of building toys.

My husband on the other hand so cherished his childhood LEGO bricks that when his dog occasionally ate a few he would go out into the yard and dig them out of turds. Having something to bond over with dad is a great perk, but that's not really why I want my daughters to play with LEGO.

LEGO sets are expertly-designed with high quality materials. As a consumer I see purchasing LEGO as putting my money toward quality products and quality jobs, opposed to shoddy toys made under cheap and sometimes abusive labor conditions.

Most importantly to me as a parent, playing with LEGO exercises mathematical reasoning, fine motor skills, sorting, following directions, and imaginative visual planning. Also nice for parents, LEGO encourages children to engage in long periods of quiet concentration, and yet can be also easily adapted to working together in pairs or small groups on a project. In short, LEGO is friggin' awesome.

Any parent knows that you can't make a kid like a particular toy. They can't be tricked or manipulated, at least not in any long-term and deeply transformative way. Kids are who they are. They might act a certain way around their parents to please them or to avoid conflict, but that doesn't change how they really feel or what they are really interested in doing. So I'm basically stuck just hoping that my girls will like LEGO.

After the birth of our first daughter, my husband and I longingly eyed the beginner sets of LEGO for ages 4+ and waited for her to grow. Just as she was about to turn three a male peer of hers had already started playing with and often talking about his LEGO sets, so during the holidays, three months after her 3rd birthday, we went ahead and bought her the blue box starter set. At first when she unwrapped the gift she repeatedly squealed with joy, then jumped up to hug my husband, saying, "Thank you, daddy! Thank you so much!" I thought we were golden.

But in the coming weeks I noticed that she didn't really want to play much with the set. In fact, she only really played with it when her male friend came over and played with her.

There was hope, however. She told me that for her next LEGO set, "I want pink and purple LEGO." I swear she'd never seen the pink LEGO box set or any of the Lego sets marketed mainly at girls, and yet, she assumed such things were out there. So after she completed a math activity book that we'd been doing, we went out and bought the pink box set as a reward.

She was overjoyed. The set came with a white horse figure, which interested her more than anything else. My husband mixed his old Star Wars LEGO sets in with her sets, and she started building and role playing scenarios. (At some point she was convinced Chewbacca was a bad guy and had built him a jail.)

This week she finished a second math activity book, so it was off to an actual LEGO store to buy her another small reward. She was the only girl among several boys engaged with the brick stations set up for play. As my husband drooled over the Death Star and Millennium Falcon sets, I fluttered with excitement over the huge number of small, simple sets which I knew would appeal to my daughter's interests. A girl magician, a girl with a foal, and a girl's karate class, each under ten dollars. Most sets of interest were from the new LEGO Friends line, the result of a four year study aimed at making LEGO more appealing to girls. Although there was  also a bride and groom set and a princess with horse and carriage set from the traditional LEGO line that I thought might also catch her eye. I briefly scanned the larger, more expensive sets to consider for future birthday or holiday season gifts, and was thrilled to see a LEGO Friends veterinarian clinic, since my daughter loves to play doctor with her stuffed animals.

In the end my daughter choose two $5 sets from the LEGO Friends series: Turtle's Little Oasis and Cat's Playground. Both animal figures came with little removable pink and purple bows on their heads. My daughter put them both together as soon as she got home (while wearing a pink bow in her own hair, which got me to smile and take the above photograph.)

The new LEGO Friends products have been met with some controversy and criticism, as can be expected. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood even nominated a LEGO Friends set for a 2012 TOADY (Toys Oppressive And Destructive to Young Children.) Okay, that just pisses me off. They wrote:

How do you turn one of the all-time great toys into a TOADY contender? Give it a makeover! Introducing LEGO Friends, just for girls and so jam-packed with condescending stereotypes it would even make Barbie blush. Bye-bye square, androgynous figures; hello, curves ‘n  eyelashes! And at the LEGO Friends Butterfly Beauty Shop, your little princess won’t need to worry her pretty little head about icky boy things like building. Instead, she can “get primped and pretty and have some serious salon fun,” “shop for makeup and hair accessories,” or “gossip out on the bench by the scenic fountain.”

What the hell is wrong with curves and eyelashes? Human bodies have curves and eyelashes, so that is basically a complaint about the figures being more detailed and naturalistic. What else is LEGO supposed to do about girls being plainly turned off by the "square, androgynous figure?" What are these "condescending stereotypes"? The set is two figures in fairly generic female attire in a generic beauty salon. This is a harmful stereotype? Don't real women get their hair done in salons? Don't real women wear makeup? I fail to see the kind of disturbing hyper-sexualization of the figures as featured in Bratz dolls, so what is the problem? Finally, how is she getting "primped and pretty" instead of building? Doesn't she have to build the set before playing with it? Don't boys role play scenes with their LEGO sets? (Often scenes of violence, which is arguably worse than getting a makeover.) Also, can't the pieces from this set be used interchangeably with all LEGO bricks to build new and unique creations? (The answer is yes.)

It seems to me a bit like LEGO is damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they don't reach out specifically to girls, they are criticized for exclusion (which is rather dumb to begin with because lots of girls do like and play with Star Wars, ninja, zombi, etc LEGO sets too) but if they do, they are criticized for encouraging gender stereotypes. I'm not saying that there aren't horrible toys out there that really do reinforce harmful gender stereotypes (which can hurt both girls and boys.) But, people, this ain't one of them!

I enjoyed and agreed with most of KJ Dell'Antonia's response to this TOADY nomination.

In another column, KJ Dell'Antonia worries that LEGO Friends sets (and that many of the new sets marketed to boys) are too specific, and are less likely to encourage kids being creative with their designs. She and others fear the girls will just put together the set and then play with it as it is seemingly intended without any creative deviation. Dell'Antonia suggests parents pour out the box of LEGO we already have and "help her to dig in." I tried that with the first set for my kiddo, and unfortunately it didn't work. But I'm not worried. The the first thing my daughter did with her new LEGO Friends sets was to follow the directions from start to finish. However, the next day she partially dismantled both the oasis and playground and re-made them into new props for her role play games. Kids are just naturally creative.

My daughter's interest in playing with LEGO seems to be ignited by two things: cooperative LEGO play with peers (not parents) and pieces which include more appealing colors (shades of purple, pink, and peach) and cuter, more detailed figures. Frankly, I have to agree with her. I never understood the appeal of the iconic yellow Lego figures. They just seemed blockish and generic to me. Sorry traditional LEGO fans!

This blogger is one proud feminist, no make-up wearing, buzzed hairdo mom who is thrilled that my daughter will benefit from playing with LEGO bricks and figures, in no small part because LEGO made the effort to market to typical girls. Bravo.

Six and a Half Days of Smoothies

My husband Will and I decided that for the first week of the new year we would consume nothing except smoothies made with fruits, vegetables, and a sparring amount of yogurt, coconut milk, and almond milk. Although I also supplemented with a single portion of plain oatmeal each morning.I hesitate to call it a "juice fast" or even a "smoothie fast" since it really didn't resemble a fast in that we were consuming normal and healthy amount of daily calories. At least I definitely was. Will went a little more extreme with it and was probably consuming 500-1000 less calories a day less than typically recommended for a man his age and size. But he can get away with that for a week better than I can since I'm still nursing my one year old, and I need to be careful to get enough iron, protein, and vitamins, as well as calories.

One would think that eating nothing but smoothies and oatmeal for a week would be cheaper than our normal grocery bill, but it was actually slightly more expensive. Fresh produce isn't cheap! Groceries for the week included:

• fresh kale, spinach, and cilantro 
• fresh strawberries, apples, pineapple, and tons of bananas 
• fresh avocados 
• frozen berries, peaches, and mangoes 
• 100% carrot juice (not from concentrate) 
• 100% orange juice (not from concentrate) 
• 1 block of silken tofu 
• half gallon almond milk (unsweetened) 
• half gallon coconut milk (unsweetened 
• a large container of low fat, plain yogurt 

I also purchased a few Naked juices for Will to take to work. Those are also pricey. There were some cheaper competitors in the same section of the grocery store, but I read the ingredients and they were mostly made of juices from concentrate.

The title of this blog post is "Six and a Half Days of Smoothies" because we decided to end it one dinner early, and on the 7th day had whole wheat crust pizza topped with roasted red peppers, spinach, and mushrooms. We didn't regret it since such a dinner was still keeping in the spirit of the whole thing, and we didn't overeat. I should also mention that I also had 2 cheats during the week. On the 5th day I ate a small bowl of shrimp fried brown rice left over from the kids' lunches, and that night I ate a chicken wrap sandwich from the grocery store.

Of course I had to keep feeding the kids normal meals while doing this, but it was easier than I thought it would be. I just made them all the normal, healthy stuff I usually make them: baked zucchini  sauteed tofu, scrambled eggs, mixed vegetables, lots of fresh fruit, etc. After nearly a week treating food as merely fuel, I'm convinced that a lot of unhealthy eating kids do is because of the unhealthy things their parents are eating. Visiting family over the holidays it was pretty much impossible to slow the steady stream of desserts that entered my toddler's mouth. After all, how can I expect her to not have a tantrum when she's told she can only have dessert after a meal, but she has to watch adults nibbling treats throughout the day? I went into this holiday season with my arms up in surrender to it all. Although I was pleasantly surprised one day when my toddler went up to my mom and requested a bowl of cauliflower! I guess we all have our limits with desserts, no matter how big our sweet tooth.

I didn't enjoy eating only smoothies in the slightest. I became irritable even if I'd had enough calories. And many times I forced myself to drink a smoothie because I knew I needed something to eat, but I had no desire for a smoothie, no matter what the ingredients. I'm glad I did this once for the experience, but I would not do it again, ever.

A week of smoothies sounds a little extreme, and it kind of is, but the idea was to counteract the extreme gluttony of the holidays. We get so used to it, but it is really ridiculous how much the eating gets out of control during the holidays. I threw a holiday party and ended up with more than half of the desserts leftover. When so many tasty cookies and cakes are just sitting around, they get nibbled on constantly, and I started to feel just as crappy from the constant sugar highs and crashes as I did drinking nothing but smoothies.

The point of the week of smoothies was for Will to lose the weight he'd gained in the month of December, and for both of us to re-set our taste-buds so that we could again appreciate foods less decadent and fattening than ham and shortbread cookies. It worked. Will lost ten pounds. And for me, garbanzo bean pasta and steamed kale with walnut sauce sounds really yummy again, and I don't feel a desperate need for chocolate after every meal anymore.

Of course a simpler solution is to enjoy all the delicious holiday fare in reasonable quantities, and thus have no need to swing to the opposite extreme afterward. But what fun would that be?

Dumping the Santa Myth

My three year old is a fan of the book series Angelina Ballerina, about a little girl mouse who is very talented and passionate about ballet dancing We've been taking the books in the series out one by one from the public library, and as the holidays loomed nearer, I saw that, of course, there is one in the series titled Angelina's Christmas. My first impulse as a secular humanist mom was to ignore it. But I decided to read it first and see if there was any religious content other than the word "Christmas" (which arguably is used in a secular way as often as it is used to refer to the birth of the Christian savior). There's wasn't. In fact, I immediately approved of the book's unique message, checked it out, and was thrilled when a friend gave a copy of it to my daughter to keep. 

What is the message of Angelina's Christmas? Well, the more overt message was the usual holidays are a time to show care and concern for others. In the story, Angelina notices that an elderly man in her neighborhood is all alone, so she and her family make him cookies and get him involved at her school's holiday celebrations. 

But the side story is what really interested me. Angelina's younger cousin, Henry, makes a special cookie just for Santa Claus. Henry is brought to tears when he's told that he cannot give it to Santa in person because Santa only comes when people are sleeping. Henry keeps the cookie in his pocket when they visit the old man. The old man turns out to be a retired postman. He notices Henry's sad mood, and puts on a Santa outfit to cheer him up. Then he tells Henry a story about how he used to deliver presents to families on Christmas even in terrible weather. Henry enjoys the company and story so much that he is moved to give the postman the special cookie, instead of saving it for Santa. 

The implication is that real people bring joy and good to the world. Such people might embody the symbolism of Santa through their actions, but Santa Claus as a person is not real. So if we want to express gratitude for good works, we should express it to those who actually do good works. 

I don't tell my kid that Santa is real. They knows about Santa (mostly from the Korean cartoon Pucca where Santa Claus is a main character, and incidentally also a ninja and former thief.) In fact, we have conversations about how Santa is a character, and compare him to other characters they know are fictional. They enjoys the concept of Santa, but know that the guys they meet wearing red suits are regular people in costume. This hasn't become an issue yet with peers who believe in Santa and whose parents want to encourage that belief, but I suspect that at some point it might be. Either way, I'm sticking to my guns and refusing to lie to my own child. 

Over a decade ago, and then again 2 years ago, I heard Tom Flynn, notorious secular humanist and "Anti-Claus" speak about why non-Christians shouldn't celebrate Christmas. The full expression of his opinions and support for them are outlined in his book The Trouble With Christmas. Included in Flynn's talks was a harsh critique of "The Santa Myth" and the many dark and unintended consequences of teaching children that Santa Claus is a real person, opposed to a fictional character. 

A decade ago I came to my own conclusions. I think celebrating the holiday season in a variety of secular ways is both fun and beneficial for humanists who want to celebrate, so long as it is done in a way that emphasizes charity, generosity, and family togetherness, downplays the grotesque materialism, and ignores the baby Jesus.  

However, I was then and now totally persuaded by Flynn's anti-Santa arguments. In fact, I found his arguments relieving. I had been one of those kids who believed longer than I really should have, and letting belief in Santa go was emotionally painful, humiliating (because most of my peers had figured it out at much younger ages) and reduced my trust in adults, including my own parents. As Flynn argues, and I agree, parents and other adults lie to kids about Santa. People try to dress it up as something else. Something about celebrating innocence, indulging in a fun fantasy, or whatever. The the problem is that it's one sided. When a kid asks if Santa is real, that means the kid has enough of an understanding about what is real and what is fictional. That kid is asking if Santa is literally real, or merely a character like Clifford or Curious George. When adults say that Santa is real, they are in every sense of the word, lying. 

In the episode of South Park titled "Crack Baby Athletic Association" the writers make the point that Santa is really just a lie adults tell children. In the episode, all the kids know and like Slash (who actually is a real guitarist who used to be in the band Guns and Roses) and he apparently plays at many of their birthday parties and other events. Some of the kids try to get Slash to play for a benefit they are organizing, and in the process they discover that Slash isn't real, but a lie their parents have told them, and that whenever they've seen him play it was really one of their parents dressed up in costume. One of the kids, bewildered by this information, calls his father and asks him directly if Slash is real, and his dad says something about the spirit of Slash being real in our hearts or something like that (think "Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus".) The kids then express annoyance and disappointment that their parents have lied to them. They don't interpret what has happened as anything other than being deceived. In the end, the writers parody the end of Miracle on 34th Street; a mysterious donation has built a center for the crack babies (I'm not explaining that, you have to see the whole episode) and the kids notice a guitar that looks just like Slash's in the corner. 

The whole Santa Myth often puts teachers in a precarious position. Students will ask if Santa is real. Teachers can risk getting in trouble with parents who want to perpetuate the myth by telling the kids the truth, or they can participate in the lie. When I was a teacher in a school with young children I chose to treat it like I treated religious beliefs - I told them to ask their parents. But it felt weird to do that. 

Once I watched a second grade boy stand up in front of the entire school and lecture all the kids about how Santa was really real, and how he knew because his grandfather had taken him to the North Pole to see the toy factory, and so they'd better be good and believe in Santa or else they would get coal for Christmas. As he went on this tirade, other students giggled and rolled their eyes, and teachers flashed each other looks and awkward smiles, but of course nobody was going to correct this kid, because the Santa Myth is one of our sacred cows. Events such as this poor 8 year old kid's lecture (which likely resulted in teasing and humiliation when he discovered Santa's fictional nature) show how out of control this whole Santa Myth can get. 

While working as a babysitter, I had a lovely afternoon with a 5 year old girl. We had gotten onto the subject of the continents, and from there we got online and were looking at maps of the globe. It was so much fun to be teaching a young child about the earth, and feel in awe of how much humans have come to understand and document about the geography of our planet. All of the sudden, she jumped up and asked, "Hey, where's the North Pole?" I pointed it out. This is what we saw: 

You might notice that the North Pole is smack in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. There's no land, only constantly shifting ice. So unless Santa's a very cold merman, there isn't any home or factory of his there. The girl looked at the spot on the map. I could see she recognized that it was water, not land, and looked confused. "Where's Santa's house?"  I sort of panicked. I hadn't expected this to suddenly come up. And I hate lying to kids. I told her to ask her parents. 

Now these are just some personal experiences I've shared on this blog. There are actually a whole list of fully fleshed out arguments as to why the Santa Myth is a bad idea that shouldn't be perpetuated, but instead of going into all that here, I'll direct you to this article by Austin Cline. And for those who find visuals more persuasive, check out some of the endless parade of pictures of not-so-happy kids on Santa's lap. 

Happy Holidays! 

Baby Food: Saving Money, Reducing Waste

I've recently noticed that the little pouches of baby food which squeeze out of a little opening only slightly larger than the opening on a tube of toothpaste have exploded on the market. I first noticed them from companies such as Happy Baby in health and specialty food marts. But now it seems that every baby food company is making them and countless varieties now line the shelves of every grocery store's baby section.

These products are marketing genius. Babies and toddlers can suck the food down with little mess. The problem is that the packaging produces a lot of waste and the price is pretty steep for a mere 40-60 calories of pureed fruit and veggies. The obvious solution is to just puree fruits and veggies at home and put them in some sort of re-usable pouch. I did a Google search and so far haven't found any reusable pouches for sale. The closest I've found is baby spoons with attached food dispensers, but that really isn't any less messier than spooning baby food out of a jar; it's more of a travel convenience. 

My mother suggested using a pastry pouch. I did happen to have one at home which I could try out on my 8-month-old. It was the type of pouch with an open back, but I took care of that with a giant chip clip. And huzzah - it worked! But if you try this at home, just make sure the baby food you puree is thick enough, or else it'll just spill out all over the kiddo's face and clothing.

Other money-saving must-haves for parents with babies and young toddlers are a mini-food processor/chopper/blender (which can be purchased for as little as $15.) and mini steamer (which can be purchased new for as low as $5.) With that parents can make all the baby food they want for way cheap and with very little waste. Save the jars and disposable pouches for traveling.