Alia

In our culture, we often talk about marriages as insular units. You do everything together! You share interests! You’re each other’s best friend! You never share secrets with friends that you wouldn’t share with your spouse! And while happy marriages often include some of these elements, there is danger in becoming so dependent on each other that we cut ties with the outside world. It’s such an easy and socially encouraged path to take—staying in and watching Netflix when you could go out, not bothering to call your friends back—but it can be dangerous to isolate ourselves. Amy’s brave post explores why we need a broader community to give us support, and tells the story of the road back home.

—Meg

by Amy

I was twenty when I made a gigantic mistake. I married the man I was madly in love with surrounded by my extended family, most of whom I see once every two to five years now. Only one of my close friends was there. The rest? They weren’t invited because my groom didn’t like my friendships with them. I should’ve recognized this red flag, but my mother had never had many close friends in her life, so I thought that was just part of being married.

I was twenty-four when I found the courage to leave. I didn’t tell anyone in the city that I lived for at least a month. I was alone with little family support and only one friend who I thought I could call. When my distraught husband showed up on my doorstep late one night telling me he had bought a gun, there was no one to go to that would calm me down or help me feel safe.

I was twenty-seven when I moved to Canada. I was still depressed and carrying with me the shame from my first marriage ending. I had drifted through a series of unhealthy relationships, afraid to be on my own. I moved to re-evaluate my career. Little did I know that in addition to finding work that held meaning for me, I would also find a group of amazing women who would help me find myself. They showed me how to be a self-fulfilled, confident single woman. They modeled how being in a relationship doesn’t mean closing your heart to other people. I discovered that I love to cook and hike. I lost weight, gained a better wardrobe through clothing swaps, and found joy in a community of friends who supported each other through challenges big and small.

I was twenty-nine when I reconnected with my friends from my freshman year of college. I showed up at their annual New Year’s Eve party and they welcomed me back with open arms. The decade I had spent not interacting with them was erased by their love and forgiveness. I talked with them until 6:00am, cramming years into one night. We kept in touch. I returned from the holidays to Canada and less than six months later met the man who would make me want to say, “I do” again.

I was thirty when he moved into my cozy apartment. I celebrated my independence with a solo trip to Berlin on my birthday, but slowly opened my life to him while guarding my time with friends like a precious jewel. I subconsciously waited for him to try to limit that time, but he embraced my friends as his own and the dinner parties I enjoyed hosting became larger as his friends mixed with mine. When our first holidays together arrived, he suggested we find a way to see everyone, so we drove 6,000 kilometers together in just over a week, visiting his friends, his parents, my parents, my grandmother, and once again spending New Year’s Eve with my dear friends I had once thought I had lost. He proposed while we were hiking. I said yes.

I was thirty-one when we moved across the continent to the West Coast. In our new city, we struggled with the decision of where we should be married. We considered eloping, but neither one of his could bear the thought of not having our closest friends beside us. We debated where would be most convenient for our friends, prioritizing locations near major airports, and struggling to find a place with meaning before deciding on the obvious choice—our new city that wasn’t quite home yet, but would be by the time we married. We searched for a venue until we found the perfect location—a house we could rent for the weekend, so that everyone could stay with us.

I will be thirty-two when we marry. This time, there will be no extended family there. Instead, I will be surrounded by the family I have built through friendship. This time, instead of being married by an officiant I’ve only met once before, I will be married by one of my best friends. This time, instead of being given away by my father, we will ask for our friends blessing on our union. As they vow to stand beside us and not between us, I will silently vow to do the same for my husband’s relationships with his friends. This time I will not let go of my friendships and I know he will not ask me to let go. Friendship is a gift not to be taken for granted. I will prioritize our limited vacation time and funds towards maintaining the relationships that I cherish. This time, I will celebrate my new marriage with laughter and dancing, knowing that while I might not be able to find the words to express how much my life has been enriched by their presence, they will feel how much I love them.

Photo by APW Sponsor Gabriel Harber

Dear APW,

Last week, I was down in San Diego, tagging along on David’s business trip, and hanging out with friends that I don’t get to see enough. The baby and I had margaritas with Jamie, a friend I made through wedding planning on the internet, and her family (well, I had margaritas and he ate his toy). And I got time by the pool with one of my ladies who I’ve been friends with for the last twenty (!) years. We’ve been through three weddings together (hers, mine, hers but way better), and three pregnancies (hers, mine, hers again). This made me think (margarita in hand) about the way friendships helped me make it through my wedding planning, and how friendships are one of my patented marriage secrets.

Let’s be for real. If you’re female, and you tell me that you have an uncomplicated relationship with friendship, I’ll think you’re lying. Friendship stretches its tangled roots back as long as we can remember. There was the friend I made because we had the same bus stop. The friend I made by inviting her to my Halloween party in kindergarten. Matching BFF first day of school outfits from JCPenney’s the first day of 4th grade (but not knowing if my friend was as into them as I was). Friendship bracelets and pen pals at Girl Scout camp. Friends you passed fancy folded notes with. Friends who broke up with you by letter. Friends you thought you’d be close to forever that you lost touch with. Friends you never thought you’d talk to again, who have been there for every life marker.

This shit is complicated, ladies.

Wedding blogs present a blissful image of friendship—lifetime friends in artfully mismatched hip dresses, grinning at the camera. Once we get past the fact that it’s insanely hard to find artfully mismatched dresses without employing a design professional, who the hell has a wedding party made up of only lifelong best friends these days? Most of us are mashing together our high school friends, with college friends, a sibling or two, and newer friends that we’re not sure how to honor. We’re hoping that our high school friends don’t say something to offend our college friends, and that our college friends won’t be too insulted by the antics we get up to with our hometown crowd. We’re wondering if so-and-so will be insulted if we don’t include them, and if so-and-so will be weirded out if we DO include them. We’re trying to make our wedding fun for our friends, not impose, and ask for help, all at the same time.

This shit is complicated, ladies.

For me, the rubber meets the road when it comes to friendship and marriage. We’ve talked a lot on APW about the validity (or not) of the phrase, “Marrying my best friend.” Personally, I did marry my former platonic best friend, and as such, I no longer consider him my best friend. He’s my husband. It’s a totally different role. For me, this is a reminder that the role of friend has to be filled by others. All of my relationships can’t be handily balled into one person.

And it turns out, friendships matter.  I mean, scientifically speaking, not just friendship-bracelet speaking. They matter to our health, they matter to our marriages, and sadly, we’re getting worse and worse at friendship. We may be friending more people on Facebook, but we’re losing real life in-depth relationships. This year, according to The State Of Friendship In America Report (yes, that’s a thing), 75% of Americans said they were unsatisfied with their friendships and 63% said they were not confident in their friendships (amazing info-graphics here). Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was no relationship between number of Facebook friends and satisfaction with actual friendships. Plus, we now have fewer close friends. Studies show that in 2004 people had an average of only two people to confide in (down from three people in 1985), and 25% had no one to confide in at all. More pressingly, according to USA Today, “The percentage of people who confide only in family increased from 57% to 80%, and the number who depend totally on a spouse is up from 5% to 9%.” Why does this matter? Well, besides the fact that it’s dangerous to make one person your entire safety net, The New York Times reports that, “Friendship has a bigger impact on our psychological well-being than family relationships,” according to Rebecca Adams, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Tara Parker-Pope’s article further explains, “Exactly why friendship has such a big effect isn’t entirely clear. While friends can run errands and pick up medicine for a sick person, the benefits go well beyond physical assistance; indeed, proximity does not seem to be a factor.” And according to For Better, also by Tara Parker-Pope, involvement in a wider community strengthens marriage too.

It turns out, at least for me, the science is right. My marriage is strong when my outside relationships are strong. Luckily for me, this particular scientific solution means more margaritas, not vitamins, so everyone wins. It does, however, mean I have to do the hard work of maintaining those friendships, because I deeply need them. I need my pack of girlfriends to listen to me bitch about family and relationship issues, and to give me advice after I lay it all on the line. I need my local friends to come over to barbecue, to house-sit when I’m out of town, and to gossip with me. I need to go out to dinner with the friends I made online through wedding planning, and giggle over the kids interacting, and talk about motherhood and tequila. I need to get excited about new babies with my lifelong friend, and laugh at inside jokes we’ve had for twenty years. Each of those relationships strengthens a different part of my personality. They allow me to come to my partnership with stories to tell and perspective gained. They give me a chance to be my true self in a very different way than I am in partnership.

Getting married made all those years of broken-heart friendship necklaces worth it. They gave me a primary relationship to come home to, which in turn made my friendships so much more important.

And by the way. I’m pretty sure friendship bracelets are back. Luckily, I still mostly remember how to make them. I’m gonna get on that this month. Happy July, kids. Happy Friendship Month.

xo

Meg

P.S. We still have a few slots open for Friendship Month, so if you have a story to tell, please send it in! We particularly want to hear your stories about friendship and weddings—because we all know that can be painful… and blissful… sometimes all at once.

 

Photo: Amber Marlow Photography (APW Vendor)

 

by Meg Keene, APW Founder & Executive Editor

The other night, the baby was in bed, the weather was lovely, and I asked David to come downstairs with me and hang out in the hammock. David’s never been one for sitting and staring into space with me (ruining many a perfectly good vacation moment, if you ask me), meaning a double hammock is the smartest thing I’ve ever bought. Once he’s IN the hammock, it’s hard to get out, so I’ve effectively trapped him with his own laziness. Marriage!

Anyway.

So we were lying together in the hammock, holding hands, watching the sun turn the tops of the trees pink, and listening to the birds sing their farewell song. I realized the moment reminded me of the best parts of my childhood, and that I hadn’t been able to just sit and enjoy my surroundings like this for ages. The hard work of unplugging was finally paying off, and for the first time in a long time I felt like my work was serving my life, instead of my life serving my work.

We all know that the American media landscape is currently obsessed with work-life balance. Every other second this year we’re discussing leaning in, leaning out, having it all, not having it all, and the time juggle. It is, perhaps, a particularly American idea, having it ALL. We’re the land of huge houses, huge cars, huge credit card debts, and hugely long working days, so we were never going to be worried about having just enough. Nope. We want it all. And we’re juggling and hustling and stressing and guilting ourselves as we strive for a goal that we are convinced isn’t impossible, even with kids (especially with kids!). And you know, that goal might not be impossible if the average American work week wasn’t 46 hours, plus another 7 hours at home, plus 18 hours a week on housework (I’m a failure, apparently…), plus an hour of commute time a day, and we were not spending 21 hours a week doing intensive parenting of kids (up from 10 in 1965, when the majority of mothers didn’t work outside the home). That goal might not be impossible if Americans didn’t take only 2–3 non-consecutive weeks of vacation a year (that they worked during). But if having it all means 53 hours of work a week plus 18 hours of chores plus 7 hours of commuting plus 21 hours of parenting plus only 2.5 weeks of (working) vacation a year, whelp. You do the math. (No, I’ll do it for you. If you add that up and assume 8 hours of sleep a night, that gives the average American a grand total 13 free hours a week, give or take. And by “free time” I mean time they need to spend eating and dressing themselves. Holy. Hell.) The American system is rigged for exhaustion and over work, and instead of lighting the system on fire, we’re playing into it by filling our hours with even MORE. More emails, more status updates, more websites to check, more guilt. More.

Apparently, as with all cultural questions, the French do it differently. (I didn’t even like Paris that much when we visited, so it’s annoying that they have all the good wine and socialism, and answers to cultural riddles.) According to Pamela Drunkerman in her book Bringing Up Bébé, The French strive for équilibre. Equilibrium. The idea is that a life should be balanced, with not too much of any one thing. Work, sex, marriage, (parenthood), a social life, pleasure—all aspects of your life should be present, but no one thing should overwhelm the other. Instead of a mad dash to be it all and do it all, to work a sixty-hour week and be the perfect mother with the iconic marriage, the goal is a balance that results in pleasure. The goal, in essence, is less. (With wine.)

Huh.

Last month, I wrote about my quest to unplug on weekends. I described the issue this way, “My problem wasn’t so much working in front of computers all day. My problem was the way my brain was reacting off of computers. My old, less jumpy brain was what I was missing. I missed that unspooling reel of thought. I missed writing longhand and not wondering if an email had come in while I was doing it. I missed staring up at the leaves on a tree and thinking about nothing in particular.” And said, “Even as I watch myself, and those around me, cramming our days with messages to check, alerts to read, and Pinterest boards to fill, I know those actions are not really our goal. We’re reading blogs because we crave smart conversation and connection. We’re pinning things to remind us of what our lives could be. We’re finding places online that we fit, to remind us of who we are. But at some point you have to stop pinning, and start doing. Sure, those pinboards of party ideas are great, but what’s really excellent is lying around the deck with your friends eating cake, not thinking about doing it.”

The tricky part was this: my brain has gotten used to the pleasurable feeling of the internet—of waiting for the next email to come in, of going from website to website, of looking for the next status update on Twitter or Facebook. At some point, my brain’s desire for the next hit of dopamine out-stripped why I originally loved the internet: finding and reading interesting things, meeting cool people. Because with so much content, so many tabs open, so many constantly updating feeds, I stopped doing what I used to do online: poking around and reading stuff. Alexander Nazaryan recently wrote a piece for The New York Times about how he uses the internet to soothe his anxiety, which, God knows I know a thing or two about. When his daughter was born, he went online to avoid thinking about the terrifying and huge change he just made to his life. He said, “I don’t want to call it addiction, to trivialize the suffering of alcoholics and compulsive gamblers. It is more like reliance, a psychological craving that will only be satisfied by the calming swipes of my finger across the smooth, shimmering screen of a device. Thus, as my wife was going into her tenth hour of labor, I was blasting through my Instapaper reading list, making sure I was fully informed about both the future of Syria and hipster mustaches. The next day, the first day of my daughter’s life, I was back on Facebook, wallowing in inanity like a pig in mud.” And he further noted, “I am far from alone. Some researchers are pushing for inclusion of Internet Use Disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” Which makes me think we’re avoiding calling it an addiction to make ourselves feel better, if we’re being honest.

Going online feels good, in the way that addictive behaviors often do. Going online makes me feel good right now. I can check for those emails, re-pin a few pretty images, and delay taking action on things by doing some more “research.” (Seriously. What amount of research do I really need to do on legging jeans?) I do this, and my brain lights up with pleasure. But that short-term rush takes prescience over the harder work of building long-term happiness. The search for that momentary dopamine high supplants the creation of real pleasure.

I thought I would be reporting back about how good I’d been at unplugging, and if it had helped solved that jumpy feeling of internet addiction. But it turns out, in the last two months, the changes are bigger than that. When I was a kid, growing up without a TV, I was regularly asked, “What do you DO with your time?” And my response would always be, “When do you have time to watch TV? I don’t get it.” If you don’t have passive media to consume, you just get on with living your life. You don’t ponder an absence; you just focus on what’s present. Set in that context, the changes in our lives in the last two months make sense. What’s really changed is the amount that we’re doing. I’ve kept up my needlepoint. We started a new chore plan (and the kitchen is currently spotless). I started project “Let’s get some postpartum clothes that make me feel hot” (which means actually going to stores with the baby in tow to try things on, because I don’t go online over the weekends). We cheered the baby in his jolly jumper. We spent time in the hammock. We started a massive Parenthood marathon (because I didn’t sign up for no TV). We made a lot of trips to the farmers market. I got into a good groove on doing laundry. And I learned two new hairstyles (after a lifetime of not knowing what to do with my hair) and am finally working to learn how to do the cat eye. Oh yeah, and we went to some parties.

Good stuff, right?

The thing is, as enjoyable as life has become, and as many cool projects as I’ve taken on, unplugging has been hard. I don’t want to pitch it to you otherwise. It’s gotten easier, but it’s something that usually takes vigilance. My brain has adjusted to the idea that in a moment of downtime, I should check something. If I’m sitting on the couch bored for two seconds, I want to flip through my Instagram feed, or check in on Facebook (even though I don’t care what’s there). So I find myself saying no, and refocusing on the moment a lot. I’m having to learn how to be bored again.

It also means that my time online is limited, and that I always feel a little behind. There is a lag time for me answering emails, these days (though after getting down to inbox zero on maternity leave, I’m still able to stay on top of things). And there are always things I mean to do and haven’t done yet: order something, check a blog post, flip through a specific Pinterest board, read an article. But it does mean that I’m forced to consume media more consciously. And as my brain has gotten used to working without distraction, it’s changed the way I use the internet. I’m writing this without other tabs open to distract me, for the first time in a long time.

But mostly, it’s changed my relationships. Jonathan Safran Foer wrote an op-ed for The New York Times last weekend where he said, “Everyone wants his parent’s, or friend’s, or partner’s undivided attention—even if many of us, especially children, are getting used to far less. Simone Weil wrote, ‘Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.’ By this definition, our relationships to the world, and to one another, and to ourselves, are becoming increasingly miserly.” And he’s right. As I’ve worked on unplugging, I’ve noticed more when we’re really present. I’ve noticed when I have to ask for David’s complete attention by asking him to put down his phone. I’ve noticed when he’s had to ask for mine when I’m busy checking email. And I notice those moments when we could be chilling with our kid, but are instead checking for Facebook updates we don’t even care about. Of course, it’s not always that simple. There are times when work needs to be done, and emails need to be checked, and God knows the baby doesn’t need us in his face all the time. But building a life takes the unspooling of time. Life is the moments in between. Looking around your kitchen and thinking about how it reminds you of your grandmother’s. Glancing over at the baby and seeing him go wild with glee. Having that long conversation with your husband. Being bored and seeing where that takes you.

In many ways, fixing the American system of ALL-ness is out of our reach. We can opt in or out of its insane hours and quest for more stuff, but it’s often hard to find a middle ground, or work to achieve structural change. But what we can stop creating false busyness, of trying to prove something with our frenetic energy. The New York Times article “The Busy Trap” contains a line that has become my new mantra. “If your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary.” I have a job I really love. It makes me happy, and often it matters to others. But at the end of the day, I’m not a brain surgeon. I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life, and a lot of jobs that mattered. Some mattered in terms of creating joy (the Turkish coffee house), some mattered in terms of function (the gas station), some mattered in terms of money (the investment bank). But none of them, no matter how they were spun by my bosses, were life or death. We’re pros in this country at creating false urgency. And the internet has turned us all into our own mini-bosses: must check that email, must read that blog post, must respond to that tweet, deadline deadline deadline.

Unplugging allowed me to step back and get some perspective on what matters in the flesh and blood world. And it’s my kid, my husband, my friends, and doing work I love. It’s not if this particular blog post goes up late, or unedited, or not at all. It’s not responding to my endless social media messages. It’s not the tyranny of my email inbox. So much of my internal landscape is devoted to proving my enough-ness. I worked enough today, I contributed enough, it was hard enough, I was miserable enough. And what matters way more than the struggle, but the joy. It’s not the emails, it’s the glass of wine with my family.

I don’t have it all. But I do have just enough. And I’m aiming for équilibre.

****

Some of you vowed to join me in some version of unplugging or doing something on your pinboard, and I cannot wait to hear your thoughts.

View from my hammock, as taken on an unplugged Polaroid camera, by Jillian (aka, APW Sponsor Little Bat Photography). 

A writer that has contributed somewhat regularly to APW over the years is in the process of getting a divorce. She offered to write for APW as she works her way through this process, to try to demystify something often treated as shameful. As always with difficult topics, the editorial team is working with the writer to edit her work in a way that allows her to share her experiences and that feels safe. But to add another layer of protection for everyone involved, she’s decided to write under the pen name Prudence. We’re calling her series Resigning Wife. I know you all will treat her with the same care and kindness that you show to all writers who discuss difficult issues here. With gratitude for her bravery…

—Meg

by Prudence

In January, it will hit you that you are married. Really married. You will be in therapy, for what you initially thought was a sleep problem that would need just a few weeks of behavior changes. It will suddenly feel safe enough to start to realize some things about your situation. You don’t feel loved, for example. You know that he loves you, but that isn’t enough. You are white knuckling it and you are so, so tired. Wish you hadn’t realized these things. Not that they aren’t true; wish that you hadn’t realized them.

He will say that you not feeling loved is your own failing. Try your hardest to swallow that, to be better. Wish you could just be happy with what you have. Don’t wish things bigger; wish yourself smaller. Say that in therapy and see how it goes over. (Heads up: It will not go over well.)

Under no circumstances are you to tell anyone any of this. Things are great. We are so happy. You aren’t going to carry on your family legacy of divorce. You aren’t going to be the first person in your graduating class to end a marriage. If you decide this, maybe you can hold it together a little longer.

You will hold it together for five months. You won’t make it to your third anniversary. When you cry about this to your best friend, about how this makes your failure come into much sharper focus, she will tell you that you have been in love with this man for seven years and you have done everything you could to stretch yourself, to make yourself fit, and there is no way to push the car up the hill by yourself if he won’t help.

Go to your old college for the weekend and see all of your old friends. Let a few shots of marshmallow-flavored vodka soften your tongue, and then confess to a couple of people that things are kind of not great, exactly, maybe. In the morning, be amazed that you couldn’t even be honest under the influence of marshmallow-flavored vodka. (I mean, really.)

Tape the bottom of a moving box together. Sit on the kitchen floor and cry for a few minutes. Wish for the luxury of having an apartment big enough where there would be a place he couldn’t hear your sobs. Stand up. Wrap three coffee mugs. Leave the rest. Leave the hand mixer he bought you for your birthday, the one he surprised you with after you made him a cheesecake with a wooden spoon. Leave almost everything. Remember the cross-country trip you made with him when you moved, taking only what would fit in your car. Appreciate the symmetry.

Tell yourself that you really shouldn’t be crying anyway, because this is your idea. You were the first one to say it, gave it as one of two options the same day you woke up, saw your wedding ring on the nightstand and it was suddenly to heavy to pick up.

Make a list of reasons to stay. He’s letting you keep all the money. He wants to help you out until you get on your feet. When you try to backtrack when things get scary, he won’t let you. He says not to diminish what you want, because you aren’t happy. Weigh these things against the fact that you don’t feel loved. Double-check the math.

Your friends will come forward, friends you haven’t talked to in a long time because it made it harder to delude yourself about things. Your phone will start making more noise than it has in a long time. Several people will call you after you casually text them that you’re pretty sure your marriage is over. You feel like this is text-able news. You are still delusional.

You will get offers to stay with people all over the country. You will divide up your cats. You will take all of the family photos off the wall. Your husband will come pick you up off the floor while you cry, will hold you upright because you’re so far gone you can’t stand. It will be the hardest he’s hugged you in a long, long time. You will need to finish packing. Quickly.

Photo by APW Sponsor Gabriel Harber

Prudence is in the process of getting a divorce from her husband of almost three years. She’s currently on the road sightseeing, writing, and engaging in general vagrancy.

 

 

 

Via XOJane.com: Hey Total Strangers, Please Don’t Feel Entitled to Touch my Pregnant Tummy.

A very small part of the reason I don’t want to have children is a fear I couldn’t survive 9 hormone-saturated months without physically assaulting strangers who touch me or give me unsolicited advice about childbirth. The only thing worse than people invading my barren uterus would probably be people intruding when there’s an occupant.

I can’t fall asleep if the person I’ve just fucked senseless is still touching me, even to cuddle. Don’t think I won’t cunt-punt a stranger for invading my dance space.

Pajiba nails it:

“No one should be spoken to or about the way West has been in the past week. No one.

“We can argue for days about whether rape can or should be joked about, whether it is more or less unspeakable than infanticide or hate crimes or pedophilia or any other type of horrific act. But let the conversation be bigger than that. Don’t just ask if rape can be funny. Ask why a woman’s body is the go-to target for the majority of internet conversation and criticism. Ask why that body is the go-to cause for a complete dismissal of opinion and violence is the go-to threat when a woman is deemed ‘wrong’ on the internet.”

by Meg Keene, APW Executive Editor

A Wedding Invitation Is Not A Media Pass

I knew something was changing when a few years ago, I got this question: A reader’s uncle had videotaped her vows on his iPhone, and the day after the wedding had uploaded them to his Facebook page and tagged her in the post. His message was that her vows were so lovely that he felt compelled to share them. Her message was that she felt like her privacy had been violated. She wondered if it would be tremendously rude to ask him to take the video down. “Of course it’s not rude,” I replied. “What was rude was to record one of the most personal moments of someone’s life, and to share it as if it belonged to you.”

Fast forward to 2013, and that exchange already feels dated. Mark Zuckerberg thinks that the amount that we share online and through social media will double every year. I don’t think that’s exactly true, since already we’re all shutting down feeds we can’t keep up with (for me, that’s Facebook—sorry Mark). But it’s true that the way people share has changed drastically in the last few years. It’s not just the ubiquity of social networking sites, it’s the way smart phones have put effortless power in our hands. If we can easily take a video, or snap a picture, we can just as thoughtlessly share those photos or videos. We’ve forgotten the person who records the moment (and makes it pretty) is not the person the moment belongs to. We’ve forgotten that privacy has value.

You Don’t Need A Reason 

The other week, I was reading an advice column about a woman who didn’t want her children’s pictures shared on social media. Since I’m in a substantially similar position (I share my kid’s pictures in very limited and reasonably private ways), I related. But the advice columnist’s response threw me. They told the woman to tell people, “I know I’m paranoid, but I’d rather you didn’t share my kids picture online.” And thanks for playing, but no. I don’t ask people to not share pictures of my kid because I’m afraid of predators; I just think that he should get to choose how he lives on the internet. I don’t want to make that choice for him, and I definitely don’t want some random person making the call. I disagree with the advice columnist because I don’t think asking people not to share your private life online requires an excuse. I just think it requires a please and thank you.

If you’re asking people to not share your wedding pictures on social media, you might feel like you need a reason, or feel compelled to make an excuse. You might think, “I’m not comfortable having my pictures shared, but it’s not like I’m famous, so what right do I have to ask for that?” But the reason is simply that weddings are private. You invited your uncle, not your uncle and all of his Facebook friends. You’re collecting a community of people to witness a very personal commitment. By doing that, you have the right to request and expect privacy. Figuring out how to do that well is the key.

How Do You Want Your Wedding Shared?

As with all things wedding, this is a conversation best had with your partner first, and then clearly articulated to vendors as well as friends and family. Let’s walk through questions to ask yourself and others.

The Moment

Of course, there is a hidden upside to limiting people’s social sharing of your wedding: it forces people to be in the moment. As I talked about in my “Don’t Pin It—Do It” post, we’ve all become so used to sharing what we’re doing online, that we sometimes don’t know how to turn it off. Sometimes the reminder to put away your phone, to put down your camera, comes as a relief. I don’t have to document this one, I can just experience it. Thanks for that.

**Note: For a different (but equally important) take on technology and weddings, check out Offbeat Bride’s classing The Unplugged Wedding.**

Photo by APW Sponsor Kara Schultz

It seems like seconds ago that I was packing all of our earthly possessions from our two very separate apartments into a Ryder truck and driving them across the country to move them into one apartment. It was a life changer. The life changer, really, since our day-to-day life changed very little after getting married (transcendent spiritual moments aside). And it was expensive. We had zero jobs, and I had $2,000 in savings and an open unemployment claim with the state of New York. I don’t say this for pity, because it was oddly exhilarating. However. Moving was expensive, and logistically hard, and we really needed curtains, and we got basically zero social and financial support. Fast forward two years, and we couldn’t keep up with the number of plates coming in the door from our registry… and we already had plates. Today’s post is about exactly that: the invisible wedding of moving in together over long-distance and our misallocated cultural capital in a changing world.

—Meg

by Anna Wilhite

Right now my brother and his fiancé are planning their October wedding. I am planning to move cities in August to move in with my long-distance partner. For different reasons, my future sister-in-law and I both have ended up doing most of the heavy lifting in planning our respective events. We are both drowning in spreadsheets, budgets, and stress. We are both working full-time while trying to coordinate life-altering events involving massive amounts of money. We are both receiving well-meaning but unsolicited and irritating advice. We are both struggling to communicate with our partners, to merge finances, to find a place to live where we’ll start our new lives, to learn how to protect our identities and independence even while we intertwine our lives closer and closer with another person’s.

There are some big differences, though. One of us has a brigade of friends convened specifically for providing moral support throughout the planning process. One of us is given (right or wrong) a blank check on behavior due to stress levels. One of us is participating in a societally approved rite of passage that merits gifts and congratulations starting with our closest family right on down to workplace acquaintances.

Hint: It ain’t me.

Though I think preparing for marriage and planning a wedding absolutely deserves the special attention and care it is given (my partner and I plan to marry at some point), it is more than a little frustrating that major life changes not related to marriage—or having children—are not given this kind of care. My mom brags on Facebook about the wedding, or about my other brother’s children—and she should! Because oh my God they are cute. But she doesn’t brag that I too am making a permanent, if not yet legal, commitment to my partner, or that we too are beginning to build a life together as a baby family. Similarly, I don’t feel comfortable sharing with work associates that I’m moving in with my partner in the same way that I’d feel comfortable sharing that I was getting married. There isn’t an entire industry churning out magazines and blogs about how to make this happen—actually, there is a terrible dearth of any kind of meaningful advice that digs deeper at what moving in together means. Mostly what I found was, “Make sure you really like this person;” “Don’t move in together just to save on rent;” and—from a men’s magazine—“Be ready to give up Monday Night Football for Say Yes to the Dress.” Okay. Got it. (They’re wrong about MNF, by the way. I’m a football fanatic.)

In fact, I found APW a few months ago by searching “moving in together for the first time” and found a whole series of very high-caliber posts (and comments) about moving in. Um, jackpot! I had found a safe haven where whip-smart, progressive women and men rally together to make sense of the very difficult task of growing up. Whenever anything is tagged with “The Hard Stuff” I almost always feel that I could Exactly! the whole post because I am experiencing the same things— just outside of the context of getting married. For example, while for some moving in together is as simple as renting a U-Haul, driving twenty minutes, and arguing about how to arrange the furniture, our journey to live-in bliss has been a tiny bit more difficult. Here’s a taste:

I am leaving my hometown where I have lived all of my twenty-four years, where all of my family lives and almost all of my very close high school friends still live. I am moving about eighty miles away to a small city I don’t like very much, where I know no one except my partner and his friends and family. We don’t currently have a place to live. We’d been searching fruitlessly awhile when a great opportunity came up for us to rent the house owned (and lived in) by one of my partner’s coworkers. We met with them, saw the house, verbally agreed to move forward. A huge burden was lifted from my back and we made all sorts of happy plans for the spaces and the lot. Wind chimes, a fire pit, a picture wall, a no-cats-allowed room dedicated to my partner’s vinyl collection. But… you guessed it. They called us last week and said they’d changed their minds about moving and the house was no longer available to rent. So, we’re back on the hunt, trying to find a place that will allow three cats and include all appliances including washer and dryer in a residential neighborhood for under $1000. (This is the part where you laugh and say, “Good luck, honey.”)

You can see how this is not just “moving in together to save on rent.” This is the real deal. This is our invisible wedding: a serious, long-haul commitment between the two of us as partners, involving major life decisions that affect our goals and our identities—which happens not to involve wedding vows, rings, dresses, or cake. (Though it does involve large quantities of Mexican food and snuggling, which is at least as nice as cake, don’t you think?)

The most difficult part of our invisible wedding is my struggle to balance my career goals with the move. I work for a company I love and am terrifically proud of, one that I have invested a lot of time and tears in, and I am not willing to give that up or take a step back within the company in order to accommodate the move. I can’t telecommute in my current job, so this means I am currently job searching within the company to find a position at a higher level that will allow me to create a custom mix of commuting and telecommuting. I’ve had several interviews but have been declined each time. Our Plan B is to keep my current role and open up our budget to a five-day commute. Originally we had committed as partners to a very aggressive debt-repayment plan to be put in place once we move in, but if we go to Plan B, we’ll be reevaluating that to allow for the extra gas money I will need. This was a difficult decision to make because it will push back our “We are debt free!” celebration day by almost a year, but my partner and I agreed that since we were both unwilling to leave our jobs, we would have to find a way to make this work for us even if it meant changing something else we wanted.

Compromise, dealing with disappointment, coming to terms with the reality of your budget, adjusting your expectations…sounds a little like wedding planning. And without the books, blogs, or financial and emotional support from family. Or the beautiful pictures. Invisible.

Planning this move has been the most difficult thing I’ve ever experienced. I’ve begun experiencing anxiety attacks for the first time. I haven’t gone much more than a twenty-four-hour stretch without crying in more than six months. I pack my weeks full of hangouts and get-togethers because I’ll be gone soon, which means I don’t get much sleep, my house is a wreck, and my cats are practically raising themselves. I keep asking my partner why he hasn’t left me yet, when I am so clearly unhinged and unstable. But that’s the beauty of it. He hasn’t left me, and he’s not going to. Invisible or not, this is our version of a wedding. He’s sticking around because he loves me, and he’s committed to me, no matter what. We’ve grown so close throughout this process, even when it’s difficult—especially when it’s difficult. He’s learned what kind of communication I need from him to help me stay calm. I’ve learned to trust him to complete tasks without my help. Through having difficult conversations and yes, doing some arguing, we’ve gained invaluable skills that help us communicate more effectively and connect more powerfully.

We can’t be together during the week because of the distance, so every night when I’m falling asleep alone in my cold bed, I’m reminded why we started this process in the first place. It’s because at the end of it, I’ll fall asleep next to him every night for the rest of our lives. And that is worth every minute of the journey.

Photo by APW Sponsor Kara Schultz

Ugh. 

I sort of already hate myself from weighing in on this but people keep asking me to tweet about it and forward their petitions, and I really thought it would quiet down by now but it hasn’t, so I’m going to give my big, fat, stupid, irrelevant and probably wrong opinion on the changes Disney made from the original I-might-trust-her-to-babysit-my-kid-when-she’s-a-little-older Merida to get-the-fuck-away-from-my-husband Merida.

There are all sorts of calls to action to get Disney to admit that the new Merida looks a bit skanky and they’ve met with some success and that’s awesome.  Go team.  I hope you succeed.  But (in my opinion – stop yelling at me) the majority of people do not give a shit.  Mostly because we’re busy personally teaching our kids what strong women look like instead of letting Disney do it for us.  And in a way, Disney did us a favor here.  Did you have a talk with your kid about the new Merida? Because if you didn’t you missed a good opportunity to see where your kid stands on this, and to talk to them about over-sexualization.

I showed the new Merida to my eight-year-old and she assumed that it was Merida’s evil twin.  Which actually would make an awesome story, and personally I plan to tell stray children I see buying backpacks with the new Merida on them that the original Merida was eaten by the new Evil Merida because she was so hungry.  And they will probably believe it because seriously, look at her waist…the girl needs a damn sandwich.

Anyway, my incredibly dumb and probably ill-informed point is that it’s really uncomfortable to see a strong, child-like character get tarted up and flash bedroom eyes at you, but it’s equally sucky to rely on a giant corporation to teach your kids what strong women look like.  Strong women look like Amelia Earhart, Rosie the Riveter, Asmaa Mahfouz, or Elizabeth Smart. Or Wonder Woman, or Sally Ride or Sojourner Truth, or Amy Poehler, or Ada Lovelace, or Anne Frank.  Or your grandmother.

Or you.

I support and admire the men and women who speak out in the cause of feminism, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that there are so many amazing women who may never end up on a lunch box (Wonder Woman and Word Girl excluded) but who can make a great difference in the life and perceptions of our sons and daughters.

Okay.  Your turn.  Who’s your favorite female hero?

PS.  There aren’t any right or wrong answers here.  It’s totally okay to like pretty dresses and sexy princesses.  It’s totally okay not to.  No judgment.  Probably.

This is our final Tradition Month post about the varieties of ways women shape their lives around children and work. We’ve discussed the Work-From-Home Mom, the Stay-At-Home Parent, and now daycare. While we’re wrapping up this discussion for the moment, we always want to hear more from you about shaping your life balance. Childless? Childfree? Daycare with a corporate job? Currently a single mom? Send it in, we want to discuss it all.

 by Meg Keene

Babies and Writing Don’t Exactly Mix

When I first announced I was pregnant, and that APW wasn’t changing or shutting down, many people commented that they were “continually amazed by my energy and my ability to do it all.” My reaction to these comments was one of confusion. I mean, I assumed we’d all watched our share of babies (this has proved to be my first incorrect assumption), and knew that while babies are great, babies and writing don’t exactly mix. And secondly, I thought we all knew the answer to the question of how you do it all, right? Also incorrect.

The short answer, which seemed obvious to me at the time: help.

The long answer, which I’ve since realized is perhaps not that obvious: help. Or more specifically in our case: daycare.

But there is a reason that people were leaping to the wrong conclusion about what we’d do after the baby came: the ball is being hidden on childcare. The puzzling thing is, I don’t know why. Families that have two parents who work full time have help of some form or another. They just do. I don’t want to be the one to burst the bubble, but it’s a fact. More than that, families with two full time, working parents, assume you know they have help, because have you ever MET a baby? But the trends of entrepreneurship and telecommuting, mixed with the current cult of motherhood, have muddied the waters. We’ve taken to pretending that if you work full time from home, you can do it while bouncing a baby on your hip. We’re being asked to suspend our disbelief and pretend that women, particularly entrepreneurial women, are able to do it all. And by do it all, I mean literally Do It All, all of it, At The Same Time.

I’m Calling Housewife

The Feminine Mystique, the feminist classic about the destructive myth of the perfect middle class housewife, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary earlier this year. I read it early in my pregnancy, expecting a fascinating feminist period piece, and was gripped (and troubled) by its immediacy. Because the new feminine mystique is of the “whole mother.” The one who keeps her kids in her own care, makes organic pureed baby food, has a small urban farm in her back yard, runs a full-time business, and keeps an impeccably decorated house. Now, all of those things are pursuits I happen to personally enjoy. I love me some business running and baby wrangling, have a recently planted garden, think my house is pretty cute, and might even (ask my husband to) puree some baby food. But I don’t do all of these things at the same time. I work on making the garden and the house awesome on weekends, I wrangle a baby morning and night, and I work during the day. While my kid is at daycare.

I can’t count the number of articles I’ve read about professional bloggers, women I’m friends with, that just flat out get the assumptive facts wrong. There is the “Better Homes & Bloggers” post, “The Feminist Housewife“ article, the recent “Mommy Business Trip“ travesty, and the Mormon Housewife piece. (Which is possibly the most offensive?) While I’m interested in questioning the feminist implications of the “new domesticity,” there is danger in confusing cultural trends with actual people. The women discussed in these articles happen to run businesses focused on motherhood or women’s lifestyle—in some cases, awesome feminists businesses focused on motherhood or women’s lifestyle. Unluckily for them, that means that while I’m a small business owner, they’re housewives—even though we do exactly the same job. The articles always start with the premise that these women are living some sort of vaunted June Cleaver existence, living and documenting their perfect domestic lives, while staying at home to raise their children. And you guys? They’re not. Many if not most are professional women whose businesses happen to focus on motherhood. They sometimes do crafts for the same reason I sometimes do crafts: it’s in the job description. They by and large have full-time childcare and run a business that supports their families (often as the primary breadwinner, at that). But here is the weird part: they’re forthright about having childcare, yet the world somehow wants to assume that they don’t have help.

Last week, at Mom 2.0, I heard Rebecca Woolf speak. Rebecca was one of the women misrepresented in “The Feminist Housewife” article, presented as a mommy to her husband’s professional. She talked about how she recently wrote a (beautiful, must-read) post about having help, because even though she’d mentioned having a full time nanny over and over again on her site, people somehow missed it (or, to personally editorialize, perhaps they didn’t want to see it). They thought she had some secret that they didn’t—and that would be a serious secret, since Rebecca has four kids and a full-time writing job.

And the way we think about mothers and work is truly fucked. We’ve constructed a no-win paradigm—a jail for mothers. Women who stay at home with their children are deemed ”privileged,” and then roundly dismissed as unimportant. (Even though caring for children is hard and important work, whether it’s done by a parent in the home, or a childcare provider.) When women work, and their partners are deemed able to support the family, their work is deemed a “luxury.” (Somehow it’s never the partner’s work that’s a luxury.) And for women who work because they have to work, to feed and house their children? Well, our worst judgment is reserved for them—the women not properly providing their children with “options.”

And while mothers are damned before they even begin, they’re doubly damned by the pervasive myth of the woman who does it all. It hurts everyone: in the public eye, out of the public eye, writing about motherhood, or working at lawyering. It puts the onus of childcare on women and their careers, while letting men totally off the hook. People never ask about how our childcare situation affects David’s job. No one compares our childcare costs against David’s salary. And no one thinks of childcare as an investment in David’s career. All of that is on me. And funnily enough, even though I’m married to a successful attorney, my salary primarily supports our household because my salary has been the steady one for years in this volatile legal market. But it doesn’t matter. My work is still a hobby, the luxury, the job that simply pays for childcare.

This is the point at which I’m supposed to tell you that I wish I could have it all. That I wish I could stay home with my little butterball, and run a business. But I really don’t. I love my kid as much as anything else in this world, and I simultaneously want to inhale him and spend hours making him laugh at baby jokes (he goes pretty lowbrow). But I don’t really want to be home with him. I have periods every workday where I miss him so intensely I could cry, but honest to goodness? I want to be at work. And frankly, he wants to be at school. Because that’s what we went with: Daycare. Known by his daycare ladies as School.

Fuck The Nanny, Let’s Go To Daycare

I just got back from dropping my son off at daycare. When I got there, a tiny girl was standing there with her short golden curls all over the place, sobbing her little eyes out. And I hear a voice pipe up from the other room, “You’ve been asking for the baby all morning, and here he is!” ”You’ve been asking for him?” I say. “He’s right here!” And she shakes her head to pull herself together, breaks into a big smile, and sounds out his name. And then he smiles his big toothless baby smile.

Before I had a kid, I thought (logically, it seemed) that having done childcare since I was eleven was going to help my mothering. And while it generally made me calmer (kids are really hard to break, y’all), its very different to be caring for a kid whose cry makes your skin crawl (hey, hormones). Instead, it turned out what all that childcare work helped with was daycare. There is a lot of heightened rhetoric around childcare, and I had been around the block enough times to know that ninety-nine percent of it was bullshit. That whole ,“Why have a kid if you don’t want to raise them?” meme? Crap. I’ve nannied some kids in my day, but I didn’t raise one of them (they would have been a damn sight better behaved if I had). That whole thing about it being awful to smell another woman’s perfume on your kid? Possibly true, but destructive if you give into it. Because there is nothing worse as a childcare provider than to work hard to build a relationship with your small charge, to begin the process of loving them, and then have the mother yank them away because she’s envious.

Because I’d worked in a lot of childcare settings, I wasn’t set on one particular kind of childcare. Funnily enough, working in a daycare at a battered women’s shelter was more or less the same job as nannying kids in Greenwich Village. Or more specifically, my job was the same: loving the shit out of those kids, though the way the families interacted with me was very different. So we examined all our options, this was my personal score card:

Full-time nanny: Crazy expensive, plus hard to work with the baby in the other room.

Nanny share: Complicated, and oddly… expensive?

In-home childcare: Less oversight, and no waitlists? Please, sister.

Institutional daycare: Ding, ding, ding!

Since day one, my kid has learned to socialize (though at first this meant lying on the floor and staring at the other babies). More important to me, as he’s currently an only child, he spends his days learning that his needs do not take priority over everyone else’s needs. He adores his caregivers. I adore his caregivers. I mean, I get access to their expert skill set. (At our daycare, almost all of the teachers have, or are working on their AA’s in Child Development, and have tons of experience. Their advice? The best advice. Lazy girl mothering, FTW.) Plus, he’s in a stable and well-run environment where there are uniform reporting practices, and I have administrative staff to bring my concerns to.

Imperfection, Pink Skinny Jeans, and Aching

What I’m saying is, we skipped the prestige options and I feel great about it. Bringing Up Bébé was the single most helpful book I read in terms of putting the idea of childcare in a broader perspective. Turns out, in other countries, daycare is the preferred option. We look down on daycare in the US, because it was developed to deal with the crisis of impoverished children, while preschool was created as the province of the wealthy. Possibly because of that, we’ve neglected our daycare system, leaving it with very little government oversight or mandatory training requirements. (Note: that article is designed to scare you to death, but does have good facts amidst the emotion.) There are great daycare centers out there (we’re in one) but they can be slim pickings. (Interestingly: we found them to be both cheaper and easier to get into than other options, but I was shocked by how few centers there were.)

I will say that my experience of daycare is bizarre. The other parents within my social circle have generally taken the more zeitgeist-y options: staying at home or using some sort of nanny care. The people choosing daycare in our area are often (though not always) older professionals, not, say, writers in their early thirties. I show up in pink skinny jeans, with my hair piled on top of my head, and a baby wearing a grey bodysuit with tiny motorcycles on it (it’s an adorable hand-me-down). I look, for lack of a better word, nuts. I look nuts to the corporate parents, I look nuts to our creative friends with creative childcare. But you know what? Our kid is happy. We’re happy. It’s worth looking nuts.

On some level, I expected daycare to just be good enough. But it’s not. It’s kind of perfect (in a deeply achingly imperfect way that seems to infuse all of parenthood). My extroverted kid spends much of his days avidly watching the other babies (he’ll refuse naps just so he can watch the other kids play). And sometimes when I pick him up, he’s burying his head in his caregiver’s neck, the way a baby does when they know they’re loved. He’s already brought home two “art” projects. And there is a tiny little girl who waits for him, blond curls a-bouncing, every single morning.

And meanwhile I work. I ache with missing the baby, and I work, knowing all is well.

Photo: Me and the kiddo, from my Instagram feed

I remember being endlessly entertained by the adventures of my toys. Some days they died repeated, violent deaths, other days they traveled to space or discussed my swim lessons and how I absolutely should be allowed in the deep end of the pool, especially since I was such a talented doggy-paddler.


I didn't understand why it was fun for me, it just was.


But as I grew older, it became harder and harder to access that expansive imaginary space that made my toys fun. I remember looking at them and feeling sort of frustrated and confused that things weren't the same.


I played out all the same story lines that had been fun before, but the meaning had disappeared. Horse's Big Space Adventure transformed into holding a plastic horse in the air, hoping it would somehow be enjoyable for me. Prehistoric Crazy-Bus Death Ride was just smashing a toy bus full of dinosaurs into the wall while feeling sort of bored and unfulfilled.  I could no longer connect to my toys in a way that allowed me to participate in the experience.


Depression feels almost exactly like that, except about everything.

At first, though, the invulnerability that accompanied the detachment was exhilarating. At least as exhilarating as something can be without involving real emotions.


The beginning of my depression had been nothing but feelings, so the emotional deadening that followed was a welcome relief.  I had always wanted to not give a fuck about anything. I viewed feelings as a weakness — annoying obstacles on my quest for total power over myself. And I finally didn't have to feel them anymore.

But my experiences slowly flattened and blended together until it became obvious that there's a huge difference between not giving a fuck and not being able to give a fuck. Cognitively, you might know that different things are happening to you, but they don't feel very different.


Which leads to horrible, soul-decaying boredom.

I tried to get out more, but most fun activities just left me existentially confused or frustrated with my inability to enjoy them.


Months oozed by, and I gradually came to accept that maybe enjoyment was not a thing I got to feel anymore. I didn't want anyone to know, though. I was still sort of uncomfortable about how bored and detached I felt around other people, and I was still holding out hope that the whole thing would spontaneously work itself out. As long as I could manage to not alienate anyone, everything might be okay!

However, I could no longer rely on genuine emotion to generate facial expressions, and when you have to spend every social interaction consciously manipulating your face into shapes that are only approximately the right ones, alienating people is inevitable.


Everyone noticed.


It's weird for people who still have feelings to be around depressed people. They try to help you have feelings again so things can go back to normal, and it's frustrating for them when that doesn't happen. From their perspective, it seems like there has got to be some untapped source of happiness within you that you've simply lost track of, and if you could just see how beautiful things are...


At first, I'd try to explain that it's not really negativity or sadness anymore, it's more just this detached, meaningless fog where you can't feel anything about anything — even the things you love, even fun things — and you're horribly bored and lonely, but since you've lost your ability to connect with any of the things that would normally make you feel less bored and lonely, you're stuck in the boring, lonely, meaningless void without anything to distract you from how boring, lonely, and meaningless it is.


But people want to help. So they try harder to make you feel hopeful and positive about the situation. You explain it again, hoping they'll try a less hope-centric approach, but re-explaining your total inability to experience joy inevitably sounds kind of negative; like maybe you WANT to be depressed. The positivity starts coming out in a spray — a giant, desperate happiness sprinkler pointed directly at your face. And it keeps going like that until you're having this weird argument where you're trying to convince the person that you are far too hopeless for hope just so they'll give up on their optimism crusade and let you go back to feeling bored and lonely by yourself.


And that's the most frustrating thing about depression. It isn't always something you can fight back against with hope. It isn't even something — it's nothing. And you can't combat nothing. You can't fill it up. You can't cover it. It's just there, pulling the meaning out of everything. That being the case, all the hopeful, proactive solutions start to sound completely insane in contrast to the scope of the problem.

It would be like having a bunch of dead fish, but no one around you will acknowledge that the fish are dead. Instead, they offer to help you look for the fish or try to help you figure out why they disappeared.


The problem might not even have a solution. But you aren't necessarily looking for solutions. You're maybe just looking for someone to say "sorry about how dead your fish are" or "wow, those are super dead. I still like you, though."


I started spending more time alone.


Perhaps it was because I lacked the emotional depth necessary to panic, or maybe my predicament didn't feel dramatic enough to make me suspicious, but I somehow managed to convince myself that everything was still under my control right up until I noticed myself wishing that nothing loved me so I wouldn't feel obligated to keep existing.


It's a strange moment when you realize that you don't want to be alive anymore. If I had feelings, I'm sure I would have felt surprised. I have spent the vast majority of my life actively attempting to survive. Ever since my most distant single-celled ancestor squiggled into existence, there has been an unbroken chain of things that wanted to stick around.


Yet there I was, casually wishing that I could stop existing in the same way you'd want to leave an empty room or mute an unbearably repetitive noise.


That wasn't the worst part, though. The worst part was deciding to keep going.


When I say that deciding to not kill myself was the worst part, I should clarify that I don't mean it in a retrospective sense. From where I am now, it seems like a solid enough decision. But at the time, it felt like I had been dragging myself through the most miserable, endless wasteland, and — far in the distance — I had seen the promising glimmer of a slightly less miserable wasteland. And for just a moment, I thought maybe I'd be able to stop and rest. But as soon as I arrived at the border of the less miserable wasteland, I found out that I'd have to turn around and walk back the other way.


Soon afterward, I discovered that there's no tactful or comfortable way to inform other people that you might be suicidal. And there's definitely no way to ask for help casually.


I didn't want it to be a big deal. However, it's an alarming subject. Trying to be nonchalant about it just makes it weird for everyone.


I was also extremely ill-prepared for the position of comforting people. The things that seemed reassuring at the time weren't necessarily comforting for others.

I had so very few feelings, and everyone else had so many, and it felt like they were having all of them in front of me at once. I didn't really know what to do, so I agreed to see a doctor so that everyone would stop having all of their feelings at me.


The next few weeks were a haze of talking to relentlessly hopeful people about my feelings that didn't exist so I could be prescribed medication that might help me have them again.


And every direction was bullshit for a really long time, especially up. The absurdity of working so hard to continue doing something you don't like can be overwhelming. And the longer it takes to feel different, the more it starts to seem like everything might actually be hopeless bullshit.


My feelings did start to return eventually. But not all of them came back, and they didn't arrive symmetrically.

I had not been able to care for a very long time, and when I finally started being able to care about things again, I HATED them. But hatred is technically a feeling, and my brain latched onto it like a child learning a new word.


Hating everything made all the positivity and hope feel even more unpalatable. The syrupy, over-simplified optimism started to feel almost offensive.


Thankfully, I rediscovered crying just before I got sick of hating things.  I call this emotion "crying" and not "sadness" because that's all it really was. Just crying for the sake of crying. My brain had partially learned how to be sad again, but it took the feeling out for a joy ride before it had learned how to use the brakes or steer.


At some point during this phase, I was crying on the kitchen floor for no reason. As was common practice during bouts of floor-crying, I was staring straight ahead at nothing in particular and feeling sort of weird about myself. Then, through the film of tears and nothingness, I spotted a tiny, shriveled piece of corn under the refrigerator.


I don't claim to know why this happened, but when I saw the piece of corn, something snapped. And then that thing twisted through a few permutations of logic that I don't understand, and produced the most confusing bout of uncontrollable, debilitating laughter that I have ever experienced.


I had absolutely no idea what was going on.


My brain had apparently been storing every unfelt scrap of happiness from the last nineteen months, and it had impulsively decided to unleash all of it at once in what would appear to be an act of vengeance.


That piece of corn is the funniest thing I have ever seen, and I cannot explain to anyone why it's funny. I don't even know why. If someone ever asks me "what was the exact moment where things started to feel slightly less shitty?" instead of telling a nice, heartwarming story about the support of the people who loved and believed in me, I'm going to have to tell them about the piece of corn. And then I'm going to have to try to explain that no, really, it was funny. Because, see, the way the corn was sitting on the floor... it was so alone... and it was just sitting there! And no matter how I explain it, I'll get the same, confused look. So maybe I'll try to show them the piece of corn - to see if they get it. They won't. Things will get even weirder.


Anyway, I wanted to end this on a hopeful, positive note, but, seeing as how my sense of hope and positivity is still shrouded in a thick layer of feeling like hope and positivity are bullshit, I'll just say this: Nobody can guarantee that it's going to be okay, but — and I don't know if this will be comforting to anyone else — the possibility exists that there's a piece of corn on a floor somewhere that will make you just as confused about why you are laughing as you have ever been about why you are depressed. And even if everything still seems like hopeless bullshit, maybe it's just pointless bullshit or weird bullshit or possibly not even bullshit.

Spring is in the air, graduate school has wrapped up for the spring semester, and the wind carries the feeling of renewal. The next two weeks will be filled with more rest and leisure than I have had in the last four months combined—a welcome break to stretch my limbs and a chance to play around in the kitchen. Even though I have a summer of classes before me (and a graduation date looming on the horizon), the job hunt has already begun.

Reality can never quite escape me completely.

Each job application represents a new road, an unknown path, a concrete possibility in a world filled with dreams. Each application is a window into a potential future, a peak at what my life might become. Even though the process can be arduous, each time I hit the submit button, I take a deep breath as a bright future flashes before me. The moment is brief, but exhilarating. I take a second breath to calm myself down and remind myself not to get my hopes too high. While full of hope and opportunity, job applications can also bring about feelings of rejection and sorrow.

The trick is to keep your head held high, your feet facing forward, and to replace lost dreams with new possibilities. To add new roads to the map of life.

My job search has led me down interesting paths, as I send off applications to other states and cities I have never been. It feels a bit like fishing; I have cast my line and now I must hope the fish are biting. As I anxiously awaited replies (or a lack thereof) this weekend, I made a batch of cookies to calm my nerves. Baking has a way of bringing peace into my life, as I mix ingredients by hand and move slowly around the kitchen to make the moment last longer.

While these Honey Chocolate Chunk Cookies will not make time pass faster, they bring about a sweetness that makes the wait much more bearable.

Honey Chocolate Chunk Cookies have a coveted soft-baked texture that lasts for days. A classic chocolate chunk cookie batter has a few added tablespoons of honey, which lend a soft flavor and chewy nature to the cookies. The addition of whole wheat flour gives the cookies a nutty undertone. Fresh from the oven, warm with melted chocolate, these cookies are a sweet fantasy.

One Year Ago: Tiramisu Cake and Peanut Butter Cornmeal Cookies
Two Years Ago: Vanilla Pear Muffins and Chocolate Filled Buns

Honey Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Yields about 3 dozen cookies

8 tablespoons (1 stick or 113 grams) butter
1 cup (195 grams) dark brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
3 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cups (125 grams) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (90 grams) whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 ounces (170 grams) chocolate, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, honey, and vanilla extract. Stir in the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Gently fold in the chocolate chunks. Refrigerate the cookie dough for 15-20 minutes, or until chilled. Do not skip this step. The cookies will spread out too much if the dough is warm or room temperature.

Drop cookies by the tablespoon onto a cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Allow the cookies to rest on the cookie sheet for a few minutes to firm up before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.

A few weeks ago, we ran a post from longtime APW contributor, Manya, called “How To Be In Love.” It was a beautiful narrative about the small gestures that make her relationship meaningful, and it cataloged the ways that she and her partner are growing their love together. It was moving and illustrative and it became one of the most shared posts we’ve ever featured on the site (thanks Facebook).

You know what else it did? It turned me a little crazy.

When everyone else was sharing and commenting on the post, I was slinking off to a corner to push away doubts and worries that my relationship wasn’t at all like the one I was reading about. I couldn’t help but think to myself, “If this is what goodness looks like, and my relationship doesn’t look anything like theirs, what am I doing wrong?” It was during this reflective-moment-bordering-on-shame-spiral that I saw this comment on the APW Facebook page come through:

Sappy, but good advice. I envision most men trying their best to finish this article, with their partner’s urging. Most will finish paragraph two, and then say, “So can we do it yet.” I’ve been married fourteen years, just for the record.

And without warning, something inside me snapped a little. Part of me was upset at the comment for not giving men more credit. But part of me was also upset because the commenter had struck a familiar nerve. She was talking about my husband. And it made me sad. It made me sad because all of these people were connecting to this lovely story and I just…couldn’t. I wanted to. So badly. And I couldn’t. (I was jealous. Don’t make me say it out loud.) I was frustrated at the idea that I didn’t connect to something that so many people recognized as truth. I was frustrated that my Saturdays in bed are spent bickering over who’s going to make the coffee, not spent bringing it to each other. In the simplest of ways, I read the title “How To Be In Love” and thought to myself, “Well, then, obviously we aren’t.”

But shame has a funny way of presenting itself. Rather than acknowledging my insecurities and analyzing where they were coming from, I decided that the commenter was just wrong and it was my job to show the internet what was what. While simultaneously throwing a very quiet snit fit that involved a lot of shouting things from within the recesses of my brain like, “YOU DON’T KNOW ME,” I also did something else. I emailed Michael the article.

I thought, “I’m going to show you, commenter. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Husbands aren’t like that at all. Ever.” So I emailed Michael the post, setting a delicate trap that included a little note that said, “I really liked this. It’s a little sappy, but whatever.” (Subtext: I don’t actually think this is sappy. I think it’s BEAUTIFUL. But I recognize that this might not be your cup of tea, so join me in ignoring this knowledge and help me prove a point to the internet, will you?) Within half an hour he replied, “Good f*cking lord… I could only get through half of it…”

Manipulation fail. Internet—2; Maddie—0.

When Michael came home, I picked a fight about the article, the email, life. You name it. I cried in front of our roommate. I made Michael have an hour-long conversation with me about being nicer to each other while simultaneously implying that maybe he didn’t have feelings. Patient, sweet, kind Michael listened to my concerns, while lying facedown on our bed, possibly thinking about what I was saying, possibly trying to suffocate himself. When it was over, I felt better (as one does when they take their feelings out on an entire household).

Later that night, when I came to bed, Michael was still awake. As I crawled under the covers, he looked at me seriously and said, “Come here, would you like to nestle into the crook of my arm? I’ll be the big spoon. We can whisper sweet nothings to each other as we fall asleep.” He was mocking me. Bless his heart. It’s like he doesn’t know when to quit.

And you know what? It was the best thing he could have done. As I fell into a fit of giggles, I realized what I know is true: what we have is good. It’s just…it’s our good.

But that doesn’t stop scenarios like the one above from playing out again every few months. Because the truth is, my meltdown was never about Manya’s story. It’s never about whoever’s story has set me on edge this time. It is always about me worrying that I don’t measure up. I mean, here I am writing for this website, in front of thousands of you, talking about marriage like I know anything, all the while bickering with Michael about whose job it is to choose what’s for dinner.

The good news is, I think I’m starting to wrap my head around what’s going on. I remember reading something online not too long ago that stirred the same twinge of jealousy in me. I remember thinking to myself, “Damn, their relationship sounds so romantic. I wish Michael and I did nice things like that for each other.” Turns out? That couple is getting a divorce.

I’ve never been the kind of person who keeps up with the Joneses. I understand that when I walk into someone’s house, I can’t just have the things they have by wanting them. The things have to make sense with my life. I need to be able to afford them. Michael and I should probably both agree that the things are indeed good things that we want. But the internet, with its delicate balance of being both real life and fantasy, has a way of making me covet the emotional property of those around me in a way that I don’t in the physical world. Maybe it’s that it seems that much more normal when its online, that much more attainable, more possible.

The problem, also, is that the internet exists without context. If I’m keeping up with the Joneses in real life, chances are I at least know how much the Joneses make. I’ve probably seen them yell at their kids from the front lawn (well, if growing up we were the Joneses, that would’ve been the case). By the nature of proximity and occasionally witnessing them air their dirty laundry, I am that much more capable of understanding what’s reality in my perception of the Joneses and where I’m filling in the blanks on their lives. But the internet is an entirely different beast. Because the internet has no inherent boundaries, we’re all just constructing them as we go, deciding what’s appropriate to share and what’s not. So while maybe not fully intentional, our lives are more curated online. And as a viewer, it’s difficult for me to know if certain aspects of life are being omitted because they didn’t happen, or because it wasn’t appropriate for sharing.

Even now as I tell you this story it probably seems like I’m letting you in on some raw truth of my relationship with Michael. But this story is still safe. It has a happy ending. It’s within my boundaries. I’m not telling you about the fights we have that don’t get resolved, about the real anxieties I have about marriage and long-term commitment. And I probably won’t ever. I regard my online identity like I regard my house when I have guests over. I’m not going to wax the floors or anything, but I’m probably going to close the door to my bedroom, which is littered with dirty clothing. Similarly, I’m not going to suggest that Michael and I don’t fight, like, all the time. (Actually, I’m the only one who fights. Michael likes to win arguments by refusing to rise to the occasion. No fun.) But I’m also not going to fight in front of you. Because that would be inappropriate, online or off. Perhaps it’s because of the perception that everyone overshares online, but the internet seems to be the place where we are more likely to supplement this lack of information with assuming that there is a lack of bad stuff. Which I understand. Because clearly I do it all the time. (Sorry again, Manya.)

Yesterday Meg talked about the lure of Pinterest and building up a digital file of all the things we want in our lives without actually taking action on any of them. I think it’s only fair to assume that if we’re doing that with physical things, like hammocks and chevron-painted walls, we’re probably also doing it with experiential and emotional things, like Saturday morning coffee and snuggles and sweet nothings. In some cases, we can do as Meg suggested and take our inspiration to the streets. We can initiate a Saturday morning routine with our partners or spend a few minutes longer spooning on the weekends. But the rest of the time, I think it’s our job to see the internet for what it is: the reality TV of our time. Just as I can’t expect myself to keep up with the Kardashians, I should also learn that I can’t be expected to keep up with Joanna Goddard either. Because she has a real life that is more complex than what exists online, and I have a real life that is more complex than what exists online (well, my social media feeds are disproportionately filled with photos of my dog and my hair, so maybe that’s not true). And my suspicion is that if we looked very closely, our two lives are, in fact, much more alike than the internet might suggest. But the point is—that shouldn’t make a difference anyway. Because what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is yours, and our relationships are far too nuanced and magical to be comparing notes composed in 140 characters or less.

—Maddie

Editor’s Note: When I told Manya about the subject of this article, she sent me the “dude version” of her original post. I thought it was too good not to include here. Michael told me it was readable, which is like getting a three star Michelin rating from him.

How To Be In Love, Dude Version

1. Cuddle (sometimes)
2. Coffee (always)
3. Don’t let her see you taking a shit (ever.)
4. Call her by a special name
5. Travel
6. Sex. Also, sex.
7. Keep doing interesting stuff alone and together
8. Accept she’s not perfect… You’re no prize yourself
9. Buy her impractical gifts, lavish ones when you can
10. Sex.

Photo by APW Sponsor Emily Takes Photos

This post includes Sponsors, who are a key part of supporting APW. For more information, see our Directory page for Emily Takes Photos.

By Meg Keene

I want you. I need you. Oh baby, oh baby.

We’ve always had rules in our household about technology use. Bedrooms are technology free zones. No checking email from bed, no watching TV when you go to sleep. The table is the same way. Meals are unfettered by technology, please and thank you. But the truth is, we have a problem. More specifically, I have a problem.

The problem is that the lure of connectedness is following me wherever I go, and not allowing technology at the dinner table isn’t helping the situation. Not anymore.

The problem, of course, is dopamine. A recent Life Hacker article on why technology is so addictive explains, ”We can develop a dopamine release from many kinds of addictive behavior. Checking email is one in particular. You may not like spending long amounts of time in your inbox, but you probably think about checking it pretty often. When you hear that ding (or vibrate), you know there’s something waiting for you.” An article from The New York Times series Your Brain on Computers explained it this way: “The lower-brain functions alert humans to danger, like a nearby lion, overriding goals like building a hut. In the modern world, the chime of incoming email can override the goal of writing a business plan or playing catch with the children.” In short, I’m increasingly feeling like I’m missing parts of my day-to-day life because I can’t hear it over the hum of technology addiction.

I’ve had something of a slow slide into technology use. I grew up without a single screen in my house, which is a fancy way of saying we didn’t have a TV (personal computers were years away). We weren’t a Waldorf family, we were just something of a lazy, slightly hippy family. My parents didn’t want to have to bother monitoring our TV intake, so they didn’t get a TV. We got a (actually kind of usable) personal computer somewhere around 1994, along with dial up internet. In 1996, I moved beyond AOL chat rooms, to the beginnings of my more modern relationship with internet, in the form of Ani DiFranco fan sites. (The internet has always functioned a bit as portable counterculture for me). My graduation gift in 1998 was my own (huge) computer to take to college, which I mostly used to write my papers, and check email once or twice a day. And then, in about 2003, I got a laptop. That, of course, was the beginning of the end. With a laptop, I checked my email…whenever I was home. I resisted iPhones for quite awhile (much to David’s dismay). I’d tell him, “The last thing I need is more internet. Internet on the bus? No thank you.” But in 2010, I gave in. Since then, things have moved pretty quickly downhill.

My parents, of course, were right. The problem with technology is that when you have it, you have to limit it. And limiting it is really really hard.

Last month I was in the car, listening to an NPR story about the national day of unplugging, digital shabbat, and the slow tech movement.  I kept thinking that I really needed a space for a tech Shabbat in my life, but was unsure if we could pull off unplugging for a day. That, frankly, was embarrassing.

But that isn’t what made me snap. A few weeks later, I was downstairs in our garden on a mid-day break, and had that feeling of seeing double that too much screen time brings. I looked around and had the crushing realization that I had what I wanted, and I was missing it. I had the superficial wish listy things that I’d wanted since I was a little girl: wood floors, vegetable garden, and one recently acquired hammock. But beyond those physical things, I had an awesome partner, a job I loved, a great community of friends, and one hilarious and amazing tiny baby. It had been a long road, and life was still glorious in its imperfections, but I had so much goodness around me.

And I was still pinning things to my Pinterest boards.

Pining and Pinning

I have a great Pinterest board for our garden. It has hammocks and Adirondack chairs and bougainvillea on it. I also now have hammocks and Adirondack chairs and bougainvillea in our garden. But instead of being out there every single sunny moment that we could, far too often I was inside, pinning new ideas. When I was playing with the baby, I was also instagramming with my phone. (He’s really cute, you guys. Such things must be documented.) I was missing out, and I was increasingly aware of it.

The problem, of course, is that so much of our lives are now tied to the computer. There is the mundane stuff: looking up where a restaurant is, emailing for an appointment, shopping for…hammocks. But there is the good stuff too. As I sit and write this, I’m looking at a screen, doing a job I love. My life is filled with real-life friends I’ve made through the internet. The blog-o-sphere has enriched my life for a decade, and I’m so honored to get to give back to it. Tamera of Verhext has called the internet “The fog layer on the real world,” and that’s it. The internet can be an amazing place, but it’s not, in fact, the real 3D physical world.

I’ve found so much good stuff online. I found my people, my style, and half of my best ideas. But the problem is, I wasn’t drawing a line. Since work and play are so intermingled on our screens, I wasn’t demarcating where all of that stopped, and offline life began. And God knows it’s not just me.

Digital Shabbat

Two weeks ago, I finally hit a wall. It was Friday afternoon, it was beautiful out, and I was about to go get the baby. I’d had a great, super productive week at work. And I looked at the screen, and realized I wanted out. At five pm, without any advance warning, I pulled the plug. And the second I did, I realized that if I wanted to break this addictive behavior pattern, even for a few days, I had to give into the fact that I couldn’t be trusted. I couldn’t go online to look up our bank balance, because I would then quickly check email, and Google+, and the blog, and it would all be over. For me to pull the plug, I had to pull the plug completely. No internet for two days.

The first twenty-four hours were hard. I’d think, “I just need to check…no.” “I just need to sit down at my desk…no.” I’d compose tweets in my head, but not write them. I’d take pictures on my phone, but not instagram them. I felt jumpy.

Troublingly, this is our new normal. Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco told The New York Times, “We are exposing our brains to an environment and asking them to do things we weren’t necessarily evolved to do. We know already there are consequences.” The New York Times further pointed out, “While many people say multitasking makes them more productive, research shows otherwise. Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress. And scientists are discovering that even after the multitasking ends, fractured thinking and lack of focus persist. In other words, this is also your brain off computers.”

My problem wasn’t so much working in front of computers all day. My problem was the way my brain was reacting off of computers. My old, less jumpy brain was what I was missing. I missed that unspooling reel of thought. I missed writing longhand and not wondering if an email had come in while I was doing it. I missed staring up at the leaves on a tree and thinking about nothing in particular. And these days, I had new things to miss. Cuddling the baby without a thought for anything but his wriggly little self. Long conversations with the kiddo where I focused on his new little sounds (the new B sound is pretty adorable, with its tiny spit bubbles). I missed time with David, where our undivided attention was on the moment.

In the instant classic New York Times article “The ‘Busy’ Trap,” Tim Kreider posits, “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.” And even as I watch myself, and those around me, cramming our days with messages to check, alerts to read, and Pinterest boards to fill, I know those actions are not really our goal. We’re reading blogs because we crave smart conversation and connection. We’re pinning things to remind us of what our lives could be. We’re finding places online that we fit, to remind us of who we are. But at some point you have to stop pinning, and start doing. Sure, those pinboards of party ideas are great, but what’s really excellent is lying around the deck with your friends eating cake, not thinking about doing it.

When I unplugged, I picked up my needlepoint for the first time since the baby was born, because I needed to keep my hands busy. We finally got that hammock. I cleaned out our basement. We spent hours and hours in the garden, weeding with a pitchfork all slathered up in sunscreen. We threw a party. But mostly I just focused on what was right in front of me: my partner, my kid, my friends. After all that work I’d done to shape a life I wanted, I let myself live in it. I climbed in the hammock, instead of looking at a picture of one.

That first weekend seemed three times longer, possibly because I had to think about each moment, instead of just mindlessly filling the empty ones with web surfing. On Sunday night, I realized that I felt like I’d been on vacation. The second weekend was even better. And the third weekend, unplugging finally started to feel normal. My brain was jumpy for an hour after I pulled the plug, and then reading a novel in the hammock, or doing needlepoint while the baby kicked next to me, seemed to pretty clearly be the way to go.

Or as the author of “The ‘Busy’ Trap” says, “I’ve always understood that the best investment of my limited time on earth was to spend it with people I love. I suppose it’s possible I’ll lie on my deathbed regretting that I didn’t work harder and say everything I had to say, but I think what I’ll really wish is that I could have one more beer with Chris, another long talk with Megan, one last good hard laugh with Boyd. Life is too short to be busy.”

Screw it. Let’s do it.

So here I go. I’m going to publicly commit to spending every weekend unplugged for a whole month. I know that habits take time to create, so I need to sign on and hold myself accountable. (I want to unplug every night as well, but I’m taking this one step at a time.)

As embarrassing as I find my technology addiction, I at least know I’m not alone. So many of us have been blindsided by the lure of that email ding, and we are not sure how to shake the habit. So this is where I ask you to join me. I’d love for some of you to commit to spending the next month unplugged on the weekends. The exact rules are yours to craft, because you know where your dopamine traps lie. I let myself text, but not touch the internet or web-surf. I sometimes Instagram a picture, but don’t let myself catch up on my Instagram feed. Your rules for yourself will be different. For those of you that join me, I’d love for you to notice how unplugging affects your relationships. Notice, and report back next month.

And then there is one other thing. Those Pinterest boards? I dare you to take one idea you pinned, and actually follow through with it. Maybe you’ll love it, maybe you’ll hate it, but at least you’ll have bitten the bullet, taken action in the real world. Because that’s what those Pins are there for, right? To remind us to change our lives, not to catalogue the things we don’t have.

Who’s with me?

Photos of life unplugged, as taken on an unplugged Polaroid camera, by Jillian and Maddie

BRAS BRAS BRAS BRAS BRAS. It’s time to talk about bras! (Because you guys asked.) Here’s the deal. For the longest time, I hated my boobs. I was convinced I needed a breast reduction, that my boobs didn’t fit my body, and I even spent the majority of college pricing out the surgery for when I graduated. Then, while shopping for my wedding dress one day, I stopped into a tiny lingerie boutique in New York City to find a strapless bra, and walked out a changed woman. Thanks to the delightful saleslady there and a heavy-duty bra from the UK, I now love my boobs. (Love them. It’s actually kind of unhealthy.) Thus, the power of a good bra. So today, APW reader Michelle (who actually has a bra store, y’all), offers up some advice for finding a bra that fits. She’ll be back soon with more information about what kinds of bras work with formal wear (like, say, wedding dresses). But for now, let’s dig into the post that I wish was around in 2003 when I was under the impression that you could totally wear a center-seamed cotton bra from the Gap on a pair of DD’s.

—Maddie

I have no idea how bra shopping got to be such a complicated and generally dreadful ordeal, shrouded in mystery. I mean, the majority of women need to wear a bra every day. Yet, a properly fitting, supportive, comfortable bra is some kind of mystical item we think only exists in legend. So ladies. If possible, grab the friend you take with you when you want an honest opinion and head to your nearest specialty shop. The specialty shop part is important—most box stores or chains don’t carry a wide enough range of sizes—which, I suspect, is what helped get us here in the first place.

For those of you who have never been to a specialty bra shop before, word of mouth seems to be the best way to find places, but there is a delicate balance of helpful versus snobby in boutique stores. You’ll know you’ve found the right spot if you feel comfortable and the salespeople genuinely help you. In my opinion, aside from getting your general wishes around color of your new bras, your salesperson should do all the work. They should fit you, get you all the bras (and maybe take the ones you’ve picked up and put them away…) and check every. single. bra. you try on. I don’t have any suggestions for online shopping because I just can’t even imagine how people buy bras online. I would have a really hard time buying bras online, and I sell bras for a living. Unless you can return them, but then that seems weird.

Next, forget everything you think you know about bra fitting. Unless of course you read this and think, “Isn’t that what everyone does?” If you think that, go give whoever taught you how to buy a bra a big high five and then go start converting your girlfriends to your ways. They need your help and probably don’t even know it.

The most important thing is to buy a bra with a band that fits. This is where you need to start your sizing since bra bands and cups are proportional*. The band needs to be snug and low. Your band should be so snug that the saleslady and/or friend you brought can’t pull it more than two inches (three at the very most) off your back when it’s on the loosest hook. The band should also be parallel with the bottom of the cup. All those cute girls in movies who nonchalantly take off their tops? All wearing the wrong size bra. Even the Hollywood costume folks can’t get it right. Pull the band down. Farther. You’re smaller lower on your back, and if it’s properly snug it will stay low and in place all day. Your bra should never ride up your back. If it does, you’re not getting any support from it (because contrary to popular belief, straps aren’t meant to do all the work there).

Now this may be feeling slightly uncomfortable. It’s because wearing something snug and low is foreign after years and years of looseness. After a day, you won’t even notice, and next time you go shopping you’ll be the one saying, “Hmmmm, that feels a bit loose I think.” Unless, there is pain. Pain is bad. Pain means size up.

Now that you’re in the right size band, we can focus on a cup that fits. Many of you will now have the experience of letters you didn’t realize existed in regards to bras. Pop culture has done us another disservice here—a D cup is not large. A specialty store will carry to a J cup at least, and should have access to larger if needed. So, without changing your newfound awesome band size, you need to find a cup that fully contains your breast tissue without any spilling over the top or gaping/hollow spots when you move around. Test this out by moving around, jumping, waving your arms, etc. If your bra only fits when standing still with your arms down while you stare at yourself in the mirror don’t buy it. Unless you have a job where you never move, of course. If you haven’t been bra shopping in ages, take the time to try on all kinds of different cup styles, even if you think you won’t like them. Bodies are always changing shapes in subtle ways, and that style you hated eight years ago might now be the most flattering thing in the store on you. This is especially true after any kind of weight loss or gain. Breasts have this amazing ability to remain the exact same size yet be a completely different shape. So if everything “fits,” but you feel it looks a little funny, first try on a lightweight top. Staring at yourself in underwear for too long can make you feel like everything looks funny and seeing yourself in a top can confirm or disprove this. If, with the top, it looks not as you’d like, grab the same size in a different style.

Et voila! Buy your new awesome bra(s)! Use this size (mostly) as your benchmark for all future shopping (sadly, bras are just like jeans—you have to try them on before you buy them because sizes are just guidelines). Try not to get hung up on the numbers and letters associated to your bra size—you and the saleslady (or your trusted shopping friend) are the only people who know. What everyone else knows is you look fabulous and you’ve stopped pulling your bra band down/bra straps back up every fifteen minutes.

*Cups and bands are proportional. A 34D is roughly equivalent to a 32DD (or E depending on brand) and a 36C. Always (always!) wear the snuggest comfortable band size. Also, A DD is the same as an E, a DDD is an F, and so on. Some European companies run single letter sizing (C, D, E, F…), and some include doubles (DD, E, EE, F, FF…). Just because it wasn’t confusing enough.

Editor’s Note: We know that there are plenty of readers in our midst who have put time and energy into finding a great bra, and more importantly, a great bra shop. So in the comments, we’d love it if you could leave a link to your favorite bra store and/or your favorite bra. We’ll be setting up an underthings board on Pinterest later with your suggestions so that we can all have something to go back to later for reference and for shopping.

Photo by Lisa Warninger for APW Sponsor Favor Jewelry

Submitted by: Unknown (via Tastefully Offensive)

Tagged: fur , Cats , disguise , dogs Share on Facebook

Last week we gave you part one of Marriage and Early Motherhood, a two-part interview series where I get to pepper Meg with questions about her thoughts on choosing to have kids, being pregnant, and her perspective on the past few months of being a new mom. While the idea for this feature might have been ours (well, mine. I possibly harassed Meg into talking more about motherhood in one post than she probably plans to for the rest of time), the content is decidedly yours. The questions we’re asking were sourced from the almost five hundred comments you left in our open thread on the same subject back in March. And man are they good ones. If I’m being honest, part two is my favorite half of the interview, because today we get at some of the more taboo topics in motherhood—the stuff we aren’t talking about in a lot of other places: bodies, support systems, and the pressure for motherhood to be an all-consuming force. So if you missed part one, go check it out and come back. If you’re here for round two, let’s dig in.

—Maddie

Cage Match: My Thighs vs. Awesome Baby

Maddie: Ok, I just want to throw a few words out there and have you respond to them. I want to hear you talk about vanity. Because I feel like there is a lot that goes into, just, body stuff.

Meg: I think people are kind of ashamed to say that they have issues around vanity. And I mean, I think humans do. I don’t even think that’s something just women do. I gained more than forty percent of my body weight during pregnancy, and I was not made to feel awesome about that by the medical establishment. I did not do anything funny; that’s just what my body wanted to put on. I then turned around and it is almost all gone, I have a four-month-old, and I have not spent an inordinate amount of time at the gym. In fact, I could not go to the gym until week twelve because of medical stuff. So, my point there is not that you should be required to lose all of your pregnancy weight. If you can’t breastfeed, for example, it’s just going to take a long time. My point is the human body is way more resilient than we’re led to believe.

That said, there are parts of your body that will never be the same. There are things that’ll never be the same, but I hear people talking about it like that’s a reason to stop themselves from having kids if they otherwise want to. My problem with that is not the vanity, because you’re allowed the vanity. My problem with that is that shit’s going to happen anyway because you’re going to get older. So if you want to have kids, the idea that you would, like, worry that your boobs aren’t gonna look as awesome? Newsflash, your boobs are not going to look as awesome. That train has already left the station. So, there are parts of your body that will never look the same, though for me it hasn’t been terrifically extreme. I don’t want to say this in a minimizing your fears kind of way, but it literally is like, I look at my thighs and think, “I have a lot of stretch marks,” and then I look at my baby and think, “There is a new human being who lives here who is awesome.” I’m not saying I don’t have huge amounts of vanity like everybody else, but you can’t even compare. I’m like, “My thighs vs. awesome baby? Whatever, I’m going to buy a different swimsuit this year. Moving on.”

Everything Will Change…Right?

Maddie: Okay, so the other word. Motherhood and identity and all that goes with it. Motherhood and identity. I feel like you have a lot to say about motherhood, so I’m not even going to ask you a question.

Meg: Not everyone shares my opinion on this, but I do not feel like I have a new identity. At all. Period. The interesting thing about this is there are a lot of very smart women in my life who I’m very close to and respect a ton who have really felt like motherhood sort of internally rebuilt them. And I do not feel like that. I feel like I am exactly the person I was before I had the baby. I just now have a baby and in a lot of ways—and I don’t mean this in an everyone should have a baby sort of way at all—but the change for me is that I feel like I have a richer and deeper interior life than I did. I would say that I’m happier than I was, but you know, my interests are not any different. And my identity is not any different. And if I can say that now, when I am still deeply in the thrall of hormones, then that is a pretty radical thing to say. Because I think often your identity really shifts when you’re in the thrall of the hormones, and then by the time you’re the parent of a twelve-year-old, you’re not—I have friends who are parents of twelve-year-olds because, again, people we know got pregnant right after high school—by the time you kid is thirteen, you’re not like, “My identity revolves around my teenager.” But I didn’t even really experience that in the short term. Your mileage may vary, however.

Maddie: What about the flipside? Maybe it’s because, I dunno, I’m a couple years behind, or because of where I lived, or whatever, but on the flip side, I feel this extreme pressure to, if we do have a kid one day, to make it sort of no big deal. I did the same thing with my marriage where I was like, “Just married, no big deal. I think I like this guy, he’s okay,” kind of thing. And I’m afraid that I will be…

Meg: Why is that?

Maddie: I think it’s a rejection of the cultural narrative that it’s this huge, life altering…

Meg: …everything will change.

Maddie: Yes, exactly. So I feel like I need to say, “Nope, all the same here. Fine and dandy.” And I don’t know if that’s something that will change, or if I’m shooting myself in the foot with that.

Meg: I think you have to allow for the fact that things change. My identity has not shifted, but that doesn’t mean that all kinds of things haven’t changed. You know, there’s a whole new person in our lives. So, I think it’s a little bit of a balance. I also think that I’m in a weird situation in terms of identity, because super weirdly to me—because friends of ours had kids twelve and thirteen years ago—but super weirdly to me we are young within our friends circle to have kids, young within the greater Bay Area professional scene to have kids. In David’s office, the people who have kids the same age as ours are partners in their early forties. So, I’ve been in this weird situation where I roll up to daycare and I’m wearing some—David always mocks me that I’m wearing some trendy crap. I’m wearing like, Hunter wellies and patterned tights and a jean skirt and a striped shirt. And everyone else is noticeably older and wearing office clothes. There really can be this sort of mismatch, I feel like I look like the babysitter. Which is ridiculous because I’m thirty-two. So it can be sort of interesting the ways your identity maybe doesn’t shift, and then how you relate to other parents. I haven’t figured that part out yet. At all.

How We Stay Sane

Maddie: One thing I want to talk about is this idea of support. Because I feel like there is this myth of you and your partner, and that’s it, and you just do this. And I’ve noticed just by spending time with you—you have a pretty big support system.

Meg: Maddie knows that because she had my baby at her farm all day on Saturday. And she couldn’t do it alone at her farm.

Maddie: I couldn’t!

Meg: She had a husband and a roommate and a box of Chicken in a Bisket. And a dog.

Maddie: So true.

Meg: I think support is the most key thing to talk about. I’m going to go out on a limb and say you can’t do this and stay sane if you don’t have a lot of support. And I don’t mean that that support has to come in a particular form. We have not paid for babysitting—I wrote my first babysitting check yesterday. And I have a four-month-old. And we don’t have family in the area. We just have a lot of friends that really stepped up. There’s this idea with weddings that maybe you think that people want to support you, but they don’t. And I’ve found that with having a baby, people genuinely do want to support you. Babies are cute, so that helps.

Your support may look like paying someone. It may look like having family in the area. It may look like just having friends you can call. But we needed so much support. People brought us meals for a month. We had someone that lived nearby that we could call at two in the morning to bring us stuff from the house when we ended up in the hospital. We had people that were willing to help us throw the Bris. We have people that come over and get us out of the house. And I think that the modern idea that you can do this on your own—I sort of wonder if that isn’t where a lot of the real crazy-making comes in. Because I think you can totally be a parent and be sane, but if you are trying to be a parent and be sane without drawing on support—whether that’s your church or our family or your friends or someone you pay—then it’s going to be really hard. And I would not still be sane.

Maddie: And I’m curious, just because I know, but I don’t think the readers will know, how much of that support has come from people with kids themselves?

Meg: Oh! Almost none of our local friends have kids. People always talk about—and this was a question I saw pop up a lot in the comments, was like, “How will this affect your relationship with your friends without kids?”—most of our friends don’t have kids. This has been amazing. Yes, we get invited out less, but we get supported more, so I think we’ve actually gotten closer to people, even if we’re out less. But because a lot of our friends don’t have kids, they’re super willing and often super eager to babysit, to hang out with him, to make meals. They’re not completely absorbed by their own life with kids. I think it will shape up differently when our friends have kids—we’ll know the kind of support they need—but I would say almost all our support has come from friends without kids.

Role Models Of A Different Sort

Maddie: What’s the biggest lie you think you were fed? From deciding through now?

Meg: I just thought, on some level, that my entire life would change and I would have to give up all of the stuff that mattered. That was not my conscious philosophy, but I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to avoid it. And that has just one hundred percent not been true. I mean, I don’t want to say that it’s easy or you get the same amount of sleep or whatever. But we’ve already taken him to Salt Lake City. We’ve booked international tickets for his first birthday (we’ll see how that goes). We still read every night. We didn’t for a while, but now we read every night in bed. We still watch the same shows that we’ve always watched. And again, it’s that you’re going to sacrifice some things, but whatever the core things that you decide are really important to you, you have an opportunity to not sacrifice. Certainly if you are able to work out a balance, where you have some sort of support. If you don’t have any support and you’re doing it one hundred percent by yourself, I don’t know. I can’t speak to that. I think it’s going to be a lot harder.

Maddie: When I hear you talk, I feel like you represent a new narrative that I’ve never heard before. And I’ve said this before, but watching you interact, watching you while we were at Alt, interacting with other mothers and still looking like people, it was life altering for me. And I’m curious if—one of the questions that was asked in the open thread was whether or not you feel pressured to do things a certain way, like family pressure to not hold the baby a certain way. But I’m curious if you feel pressure to be a role model against the popular cultural narrative, and to do things like write for a certain group of people.

Meg: I have felt a tremendous amount of pressure to write about motherhood publicly. I think if you are a public woman who writes, and you become a mother, there is a tremendous amount of pressure to change your professional identity so that it revolves around being a mother. And I have really no interest in doing that. Some of that is because I just want to keep private things private, and some of it is because it’s very political for me that being a mother isn’t the thing that defines my professional life. It doesn’t define David’s professional life, why should it define mine? So in that sense I do feel a lot of pressure—that people want to know what’s going on with me, either because they want me to be a role model or because they want to judge me. And I’m just sort of not interested. This interview is probably the most anyone’s ever going to get from me on the subject.

Maddie: Do you think that is more or less dangerous or on equal footing with this myth of the mom with spitup in her hair who can’t keep her shit together?

Meg: I don’t find it dangerous. I felt like I was only able to move forward with being a mother because I watched people that I am five years younger than, like Maggie Mason, I’ve watched how she navigated motherhood for the past five years. And I now know her personally, but I was watching very closely from the time that she got pregnant on, when I certainly did not know her personally. So for me it was super important to have role models for being able to do it differently, and being able to still be happy and be professionally fulfilled. There are so few of those, or there were so few of those for me, that I think that is really important.

And while I’m not interested in being a role model, I don’t think that being professionally fulfilled and being happy as a mother is necessarily far-fetched at all. It’s just that there is not a lot of messaging that it’s possible. There isn’t a lot of messaging around key things, like you need to have support, you need to work really hard to have an egalitarian relationship before you go into it, you don’t have to give everything up. So I think just those sort of basic broad strokes messaging, if there were more of it, I think a lot of us would feel like it was easier to make decisions that made us happy.

What If We Said, “I’m A Good Mom Because…” Instead?

Maddie: Do you have anything else you want to say?

Meg: There is this idea that you can’t be happy as a mother unless motherhood consumes you, so you’re either going to be really unhappy or you’re going to lose yourself. And I just found that not to be true. Again, everyone’s going to react differently. So I don’t know what will happen for someone else, but I feel like I am happier now than I was before and that feels fairly radical to me, because I didn’t give up my career or I didn’t give up the rest of my life. There’s this message that you’re not going to be able to have it all: if you’re happy with your kid, you’re not going to be happy with your professional life. If you’re happy with your professional life, you’re not going to be happy with your kid. That messaging isn’t out there for men, and I feel like it’s really just fear-mongering for women, and that I’ve been able to be really happy with both in this very early part of motherhood, at least. And nothing is perfect. Like, I miss my kid when he’s at daycare and sometimes I miss my work when I’m with my kid, and that’s because I’m lucky enough to have a kid that I love and work that I love, so some part of me wants to be doing both things constantly because I like them both. And I can’t. So there’s always trade offs. And I’m tired and whatever. So it’s not perfect. But I just think that it’s a total myth that you can’t be happy with both.

Then the other thing that I would throw out there is that I’ve made a really conscious effort to not ever say, “I’m a bad mom.” That phrase is so much the part of the cult of motherhood, that when you’re out with mothers, if you took a drink every time someone said, “I’m a bad mother,” you would be plastered within an hour. And “I’m a bad mom” is sort of this meme for: you’re a bad mom if you’re interested in something besides your kid. You’re a bad mom if you’re bored by an infant sometimes. You’re a bad mom if you wish you were back at work. You’re a bad mom if you want to take a shower. And I think all of that is ridiculous. Wanting to be a fully-fledged human being and a mother does not make you a bad mother. I think arguably it has the potential to make you a better mother because you’re a happy person. And then you’re raising your child as a person and not as a mother. So I really make an effort never to say that. Also because, I’m the only mom he’s got! So I better just be imperfect, right? I just am what I am.

Top photo taken by Elizabeth Clayton of Lowe House Events, second photo by me while traveling with Meg to Alt

When I first approached Meg to do an interview with me about early motherhood, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to get out of it exactly. It’s not so much that Michael and I are even in a place where we want kids yet, but I’m definitely in a place where I want to be able to talk about wanting kids without having to spiral down into hyperbole. So much of what’s available for conversations about parenting is either fear-mongering, or condescending, or prescriptive, and none of it allows for me to safely express my anxieties about having children in a space where I feel like I’m being given platform for honest discussion (both online and off). And if the 500 plus comments from our open thread on the subject are any indication, I’m willing to bet that the same goes for a lot of you.

Over the past few years APW has played the role for me of best friend’s big sister, who will tell it like it is. So, I thought maybe an old fashioned sleepover-type confessional could be the answer. As some of you might know from Meg’s pregnancy announcement last year, Meg and David are choosing to keep their family life pretty private, so this might be the most I ever get out of her on the subject. Meg will be the first to tell you that she’s no expert on child-rearing (her words were “I’ve been at this for exactly four and a half months. You can call me in for expert advice when I’ve had ten kids.”) Which means that this interview is not meant to be in any way prescriptive, nor is it meant to represent the experience of all new mothers everywhere. Rather, in the same way that I once found solace in these pages hearing that marriage wouldn’t fundamentally change who I am if I didn’t let it, and that a career move isn’t a prison sentence, this interview gave me the reassurance that having children doesn’t mean getting on a roller coaster ride and enduring it until it’s time to get off. When Meg and I first started talking about this interview, she told me, “I don’t want to offer any advice on motherhood, other than the magic that is overnight diapers. The rest is just thoughts from the trenches. Your mileage may vary.” I think that just about sums it up. So here is part one of Marriage And Early Motherhood (part two to follow next week). May it spark a non-terrifying conversation that makes you feel a little better too.

—Maddie

That Gut Feeling

Meg: Are you going to set the scene? Wisteria. A lime popsicle. The sun. Chicken enchiladas, cooked by Meg’s husband.

Maddie: [Laughing] Yes. The enchiladas were really good. Ok, so one of the first questions people asked in the comments of our open thread was about the issue of confidence with the decision to have kids. Because I think a lot of people are concerned that if you aren’t 100% certain that you want, want, WANT a baby, that you have no business having one. And I’m curious what your take is on that?

Meg: Yeah, I think that’s bullshit. There’s this Elizabeth Gilbert quote in Committed where someone says to her something like, “Having a baby is like having a tattoo on your face. If you’re not sure about it, you shouldn’t get it.” And I just don’t think that’s true. There are very few decisions in life that you’re that sure about, period. Right? And I think that probably anyone who is 100% sure about having kids and never has any questions about it, that is where I might question whether or not you knew what you were getting into. Because you’re committing to a very big life change, and the scary thing about having kids is that it’s the one of the few things in your life you can’t get out of. The dirty secret about marriage is that if it doesn’t work you get a divorce. Yeah, it sucks, and it’s going to fuck up your life but you move on. The scary part about having a kid is that it’s irrevocable. So if there isn’t some part of you that’s like, “Uh, is this a good idea?” I just worry that you haven’t applied your analytical self to it.

Maddie: I feel like there’s this thing that’s happening, where there’s celebrity pregnancies are really oddly sexualized, and then in educated, urban communities there is this glorification of pregnancy and motherhood. I’m curious how you anticipated, and also dealt with that. Because that’s something I’m scared of… having to explain why I’m either bottle feeding or not using cloth diapers, or on the flipside having to explain doing all those things… I guess, it’s the whole mainstream versus indie thing.

Meg: Right. In some ways we were protected because we’re so early in our friends circle having kids.

Maddie: Which is hilarious also.

Meg: Right? Because I’m, what? 32? But we have a couple of friends who have kids… our friends who have kids have kids who are either five or thirteen (we have a lot of friends that got pregnant right after high school, or are a little older than us, or who just don’t have kids at all.) There was no one that was contemporaneously having children. So we were able to do things the way we thought were logical, which has led to some interesting social moments later, when we were around parents, because we, like, didn’t know that everyone got an infant car seat and it just didn’t seem logical to us, so we didn’t get an infant car seat. We got a convertible car seat, and then we didn’t have an infant carrier to carry the baby around with and I totally looked like I was making a political statement when I was out with other mothers. But that sort of protected me in some ways. I did feel a lot of pressure around the, what I call the Cult of Whole Motherhood: give birth at home, don’t have an epidural, don’t ever bottle feed, etc. Though ultimately a lot of that stuff worked itself out. I sort of fundamentally (no surprise here, the whole site is built around this) am just not a dogmatic person. So I went into labor being like, you know it might be nice not to get an epidural, but we’ll see, I had a pretty precipitous labor so—our doula actually said it was the most intense labor she’d ever witnessed—so I got an epidural. I had milk supply issues right away, so I supplemented with formula. Because it seemed like the baby was going to starve if we didn’t. And now, he’s 95% breast fed. So I sort of worked it out by doing what was logical. But there does have to be a certain amount of just tuning out what different people want you to do.

Do Your Hormones Eat Your Rational Brain?

Maddie: Shifting to post-baby, one of the questions that really struck me in the comments of the open thread was whether or not you can avoid your own hormones? And this idea that there’s a lot of inevitability built into having a kid, in that you can say you’re not going to want to do X, or you can think you don’t want do Y, but once the baby’s there and your hormones kick in, it’s a whole new ballgame.

Meg: Sort of yes, sort of no. I think the way the narrative is built is really damaging. You’re not going to become a new person unless on some level you want to become a new person or are secretly hoping you’ll become a new person or are just really embracing that. So this whole idea that “You just don’t now, you just don’t know”—I think in the big picture I don’t know that that’s actually true. I knew I wanted to keep working, and people said “Oh you just don’t know, you just don’t know,” and, well, no. I know who I am, right, so I do want to keep working.

However, you don’t know what your hormones are going to do. But the idea that your hormones take over your rational brain is not true. I was not aware the I was physically going to go through withdrawal having the baby in daycare, I was going to be physically shaky at first because my hormones were at conflict with my rational mind. My rational mind wanted to be at work, but also my baby was happier in daycare, I was happier with him in daycare, but my hormones were telling me something else. So yes. In some ways you can’t avoid your hormones and they are super powerful, and they’re going to do what they are going to do, but your rational mind is still as much in play as ever.

Maddie: When it comes to a lot of the other stuff that I think people try to caution you about: the lack of sleep, how much attention they need, how many physical needs they have, I know a lot of people expressed concern over just being able to function as they know themselves in those early days and whether or not they could physically survive it.

Meg: [Laughing] Everyone has physically survived it since the dawn of time. Everyone has not physically survived childbirth, so without modern medicine, you should probably be worried. But everyone has physically survived having a tiny child. You’re going to totally physically survive it. David wanted me to tell you that it’s not so bad.

Maddie: Of course he did.

Meg: What former APW staff member Alyssa told me before I gave birth was that you can be tired, or tired and mad about it. Just choose tired. And that’s totally the case. You’re going to be tired. If you physically give birth to the child, your hormones are actually going to help you. I, in some ways, did a lot better than David did, because my hormones were there to help get me through the chopped up sleep. But at the end of the day, it’s not as bad as it’s sold, at all. There are still days where I’m exhausted. We’re still up and down all night, but good things are always hard, in my experience. But for me the good was so big, that the fact that it was hard just sort of made sense. I still actually really miss the newborn days. (And a lot of people don’t. Everyone experiences it really individually.) But I really miss that bubble of brand new person-ness. There was the whole lack of sleep that came with it, but it was this amazing sort of magical time.

Pretend Your Feet Are Broken

Maddie: How do you think the newborn phase would have been different if you hadn’t had the kind of self-employed schedule and flexibility that you have? Because I feel like a lot of our readers are probably in 9-5 jobs where they don’t have that kind of flexibility. Or can you even say? I just want to get at the bigger cultural thing of how we structure new parenthood.

Meg: Well, what I will say is I went into thinking “Oh the British are so lucky. They get a year off. The Canadians are so lucky. They get nine months off. I wish I had that option.” And I came out of it thinking [Breaks for popsicle. Gets brain freeze] I came out of it thinking “Thank God I’m not British because if I were British I would have felt huge pressure to stay home for a year.” I was really unhappy just being at home one on one with the baby at a certain point, after David went back to work. And he was really unhappy. The baby and I are both extroverts, we were both getting bored.

It would have been very different for me if David hadn’t been able to take off. David took advantage of California’s Family and Medical Leave Act that says that both parents are entitled to six weeks off paid at 55%. So we took full advantage of that. And because of life circumstances we ended up with seven weeks, so we were home together for seven weeks. And it would have been really different for me, and I think it would have really shaped our family differently over the long term if only I had been able to be home. And if we have another child, I think we’re going to work really hard to do the same thing where we both take time off.

But I ended up only really taking seven weeks. He started some daycare after seven weeks and I was working pretty heavily before that anyway. The one thing that would have really changed things is if I didn’t want to go back to my job. I have some friends who had kids around the same time as us, some of them didn’t like their jobs and didn’t go back to their jobs because they didn’t like their jobs. They sort of used this as a way to transition. So if I didn’t really like my job, I think it would have been a different situation.

Maddie: So, I want to talk about David. One, because I like him. And also because one of the most liked comments on the open thread was “How has your marriage changed since having a kid?” It got like 150 exactly’s or something crazy like that. So I think people are afraid that after having a kid that it’s all going to go to shit.

Meg: Ok, so there’s a couple of things I need to parse out. And the first one is your actual relationship. Our relationship got a lot stronger through the pregnancy, particularly because it was difficult. I’m really glad that happened, because there’s naturally going to be things that happen directly after the birth that put strain on your relationship, so it’s nice that it was built on an even firmer foundation than it was. I didn’t think it could have been on a firmer foundation, and then I got pregnant and things were difficult and it sort of strengthened infinitely.

The second thing is the way your relationship changes directly after the birth. Directly after the birth you’re thrown together in a super close way because you both have incredibly strong feelings for this brand new person that nobody else shares in the same way. And you’ve just gone through this enormous thing together, of child birth. You’re also working together on a project, for lack of a better term, so it really throws you together. But there is this element of just, on a pure sort of hormonal level, and a pure the-way-nature-designs-it, you’re both, I think, just sort of overwhelmed with this love for this new person, and I think there is probably almost always a period of time where that sort of takes primacy to your relationship. We’re still sort of in that period, but there is obviously going to be a time that our lives will sort of re-balance as we settle in, and as the baby becomes more a part of the family, and as the baby gets old enough to, you know, be a little shit. And then it’s going to re-balance again and it’s going to be fine. So having a baby changes your relationship in ways that I think are both profound and also temporary.

But the third thing that has to be parsed out is the gender dynamics. And we have found those to be terrifically difficult, and I think that most people probably find them to be terrifically difficult. There’s just the fundamental imbalance that if you are a woman and you give birth to a baby, you have more demands on you. You had demands all the way through the pregnancy, which are super challenging (let’s not kid ourselves, you’re the one who went through birth.) But then you’re very much recovering. I had surgery, I’d put on a lot of weight. I was really deep in the recovery for probably about ten weeks, because I had other medical stuff come up. And then you’re feeding, which early on is like half your life, and they’re supporting you through that. So there’s all these demands that are on you, that are not on them. Which means that you really need to have a fundamental foundation of equality before you go into it. The reason we have been as OK as we have been is going into it David already did all of the cooking, David already sort of took the lead on the cleaning, which is not gender usual, but maybe should be! Because what happened was, I was in physical pain and tied to the baby all of the time feeding, and he was able to make sure we were fed  and make sure the house was clean, and all of that. And had that been primarily my responsibility and I was trying to walk him through it, I think it would have been a complete physical disaster, and an emotional disaster.

And then the final piece is sort of the way the world views it. It got much harder for us when he went back to work, because there’s a work culture where men are expected to have less primary responsibility. I also have a flexible job, but I think even if I did not have a flexible job, this would happen—because there’s this assumption that the woman’s job is always going to be more flexible. So, if the baby needs to be picked up from daycare, he finds it really hard to say, “I need to leave early because the kid needs to be picked up from daycare.” If he were a woman, then the reaction would be, like, “Well, of course, daycare is going to close. You gotta get the kid.” But because he’s not a woman, there’s sort of this unspoken assumption that, well, your wife can get the kid, are you slacking if you leave? So those outside pressures are what makes it really difficult, and then leads to changes in internal behavior, where the male partner can really start to act like, “Well, I’m just helping out. I just want to do what I need to help you. I just want to support you.” Which then ends up feeling like, “Why are you helping me? Shouldn’t you be in a primary role as well?” So, balancing outside pressures can be really difficult as well.

Maddie: Because now that we’re talking about it, that’s kind of my biggest fear. I mean, Michael and I have a good partnership, but there’s still stuff that we’re working out regarding equality and I find that the hard part is this idea of “You’re just better at it,” and that’s still stuff we struggle with, like, “Can you make that appointment for me? You’re just better at it.” And I’m curious if that’s something you have to actively fight?

Meg: Luckily for me, David is just better it.

Maddie: David’s just a special guy. Can I make a disclaimer on the post that says David is very special?

Meg: [Laughing] David’s just better at a lot of crap than I am. So that helps. I’m genuinely not better at a lot of that stuff. He had to step up also in pregnancy in a lot of ways that I think really benefited us later on, because I was incapacitated in a way that I just couldn’t make appointments, I just couldn’t take care of things for myself. And if you have a less bad pregnancy, you might be incapacitated to a lesser extent, but you’re always going to be somewhat physically incapacitated. Which was good practice, because it was like, when you’re hugely pregnant, if your partner is like, “You’re just better at making appointments,” you’re going to be like, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Maddie: Well that’s my fear is that, I know I trust Michael. I know that Michael would step up. But there’s this tiny voice in the back of my head that’s like, “What if I don’t have the kind of husband that can step up when I need it?”

Meg: Start practicing. Incapacitate yourself one day a week. Pretend your feet are broken.

Shower Strikes and The Walking Dead

Maddie: Ok, so I’m curious. Because I look at your relationship and it’s all fine and dandy, but I want to know, you know, are things getting done? Are the dishes getting done? Is dinner being made? Or have you had to make allowances for yourselves? Have things gotten more permissive?

Meg: Yeah, I mean, things have gotten… I wouldn’t say more permissive, but yeah we order in more than we did. In some ways, I feel like one of the reasons I’ve really taken to motherhood is I’m sort of a constant motion kind of person, I function best in constant motion. And it used to be that nights and weekends were not constant motion times. And I get a little glum if I don’t have things to do. And I’m always doing something now. I’m cleaning the floor, or making sure the laundry is folded, or unloading the dishwasher or whatever. And not in a gendered way, just in a “there’s a lot of shit that needs to get done” way. And for me, that has been very good, and I’ve sort of taken to it.

But I would say the sort of changes have been a lot less dramatic than you’re led to believe. There’s never been a day since I gave birth, including the day after I gave birth, where I did not shower. David was in there with me in the shower in the hospital room because I couldn’t stand on my own and there was blood everywhere, but I was like, “I’m going to take a goddamn shower.” Our house was very, very clean when we had a newborn, because it was a priority for me to feel like there was normalcy and feel like I was not living in a house that had just gone to chaos and there was baby stuff everywhere. There is still not baby stuff everywhere. I never wore sweatpants, I wore yoga pants.

Maddie: You’re making me feel terrible by the way. I didn’t shower today and I spent half of my morning in sweatpants. Thanks.

Meg: But my point is that I think everybody prioritizes different things, but for me, going into it, having a neat house and showering were super important so those happened. But I’m sure there are other things that you would prioritize that didn’t even occur to me, that didn’t happen.

Maddie: Like Dance Moms.

Meg: Like Dance Moms. I actually did watch a fair amount of bad TV. Weirdly, we also have managed—we are up-to-date on Girls. We are up to date on Project Runway.

Maddie: And the baby is up-to-date on The Walking Dead.

Meg: The baby is up-to-date on The Walking Dead! But what people didn’t tell me is that whatever is really important to you you will mostly be able to prioritize (in most situations, obviously there are exceptions and extreme situations that require more of your attention.) We did not have everything fall our way. We had a baby that was in NICU, and there were other problems, but we were able to prioritize what was  important to us. So I think that people really are going to be able to prioritize what’s important to them. Even if it’s not showering.

Maddie: And I do prioritize… not showering. I did do my hair though.

Meg: See! I didn’t do my hair! That is it. I did not do my hair. You could probably get your hair done every single day after having a baby in a non-extreme situation.

Maddie: I feel much better now.

Meg: But you would not shower.

Maddie: No, I would have my hair and eyebrows done, but I’ll probably be sitting around in sweatpants not showering.

** To be continued, next week.**

Photo of Meg and baby from the APW Staff Party by Maddie (Back when he didn’t go to bed at 7pm sharp. Sigh.)

I got a picture of this long time WIP- it's another tank top done in this totally crazy rainbow ribbon yarn.

I also finished this project- another one started after the challenge, though. These socks are done sideways. Other than maybe needing a bit of knitting elastic at the top to keep them up better, they are super comfy. I love the pooling that happened!

I put my first Colourmart order in and got these beautiful cones of yarn. They're various combinations of silk, merino and cashmere. I was hoping they'd be white enough for my veil (they all looked white on the site and had no colour info...) but sadly, even the white looking one at the front is distinctly cream.
I'll still use them, and they were still a great deal, but I was disappointed. I will probably try dying them, though, which should be fun.

This is the new project. I'm finally starting on my lovely merino/firestar in it's fantastically bright rainbowness!
I unfolded the two batts and refolded them together. I want to make one long, continuous rainbow. I'm hoping I have enough for a shawl or a small cardigan. I'm really pleased with how fine I'm able to spin it. I'm spinning much more fine than I ever have before. I thought I couldn't do it, but it turns out I was just really nervous about spinning that fine. It seemed waaay too thin! I had a bit of trouble with part of it last night, but mostly it's gone well.

Also, I made these the other night for dinner and OH MY GOD they were SO good. I keep eating them long after I was too full. They're pretzel rolls, and they tasted just like soft pretzels. Mmmm...
I got the recipe here: http://une-bonne-vie.blogspot.ca/2010/08/pretzel-rolls.html

Now off to get ready for the afternoon of DND with my friends! What project to work on, that's the question...