Mainstream and the Counterculture

The birth of my son was a planned home birth with a midwife. I've been a member of various online groups that are typically outside of the mainstream for some years. I've noticed over the years that people who are part of the counterculture in regard to parenting and birth are very quick to label other people. If you don't think the same way they do you're labeled "mainstream".

There's one lady online who I have gotten along with for years. I've always liked her. It's interesting because she has had a close friendship with another lady who I cannot stand. Her friend has, over the years, become a very judgmental evangelical Christian. I couldn't figure out how the woman I liked and respected could maintain a friendship with someone so rigid. She reached a point where she was very clearly conflicted about the friendship and had said that she planned on ending it. It reminded me of the typical girl who keeps going back to the controlling and manipulative boyfriend. Then she stopped posting on our message board. I had heard rumors that she ended up keeping her friendship. At the time I was concerned for her because I have long suspected that the friendship is a toxic one.

A few weeks ago she started posting on the board again. She's been speaking in absolutes which concerns me. I don't live in a black and white world and that kind of duality bothers me. She's making broad statements that make no logical sense and she's not backing anything up with fact.

One member of our group asked about whether or not she should report some kids who were selling pot at her son's high school. This lady insisted that all people who are convicted on drug charges are sentenced to long stints in prison. She insisted the woman should not report the kids. When I mentioned what happened to a close relative (1 month in a county jail on a drug charge) she insisted I didn't know what I was talking about. She cited the case of a pen pal who was serving a 40 year sentence in a federal prison for "selling a little pot at a concert". (40 years? How much do you want to bet her friend had more than a "little" pot and it wasn't a first offense?No, there is much more to that particular story.) I actually am in favor of legalizing drugs, but for now, it's illegal. So if you get caught selling you really should be prepared to take responsibility for the consequences of your actions. I'm certainly not going to feel sorry for someone who is stupid enough to sell on public school property.

This lady says she wants to be a midwife. Yet she moved to an area where midwifery is illegal. I thought the move was a weird one. Before she made the move it was obvious to me that she would end up disappointed. So now she's complaining. She wants to move. I asked why she doesn't move to a state where it's legal and she would have an accredited school available. She got very defensive and maintained all midwifery is illegal in this country. That is just not true. I had a legal home birth! Quite simply, her narrow definition of "real" midwifery is not legal.

I support legalized and regulated midwifery, which I believe benefits everyone involved. She maintains legality and licensure burdens midwives with certain "rules" (protocols). I would like to see midwifery care the norm rather than the fringe. The only way that is going to happen is if we have some form of regulation. Protocols are a necessary part of regulation in any health care profession. I'm willing to accept that if it raises the quality of care and reduces the complication and c-section rates for all women-which the midwifery model of care has a proven track record of doing.

In the end she got very defensive and labeled me "mainstream" and "unstable". I'm mainstream and unstable because I asked questions and brought up logical issues that she refused to address? Oh Puleeeze!

I got the same line of baloney when I chose to use disposable diapers instead of cloth when my son was a baby. (When you're sharing laundry facilities with 53 other condos, washing poopie diapers is a good way to be added to the buildings "shit" list. Pun intended.) I wasn't "crunchy" enough. I was "wrong". It was a contest to see who could be the "crunchiest", to see who went far enough outside of the mainstream. I don't see the point in going outside of the mainstream simply to say I did; simply because it's against the norm. There should be a logical reason for it. When I did the research comparing home birth to hospital birth, home birth made the most sense from a scientific, medical and psychological perspective. In retrospect I know that my decision spared me an unnecessary c-section. Breastfeeding made much more sense than formula.

On one occasion, when my son was a baby, some of the local moms from La Leche League met for a play date. I was turned away because I had brought my husband with me. After all, it was an all girls club. I chose to leave the group because I couldn't justify raising my son around a group of women who held men in such contempt. To me, that line of thinking is just as bad as male chauvinism.

So now it's several years later and I'm being labeled as "mainstream" all over again. Yet the mainstream have always thought I'm a bit of a freak. After all, what normal and responsible woman would choose to birth like a wild animal at home when she can have the comfort of drugs in a hospital? I'm fine with being a freak. But I think that it's rather stupid to maintain such narrow definitions of what is acceptable. Dualism is never healthy.

Hypocrite Girl

No, not me. Or at least I hope not! No, I met a young, single mother recently. A financially disadvantaged one, who is on Medicaid and had both of her kids on Medicaid. I'm not certain, but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's likely that she's receiving some sort of government assistance for rent and she might even be on food stamps.

During a conversation with this girl the subject of politics came up and she said, rather emphatically, "I'm completely against abortion. It shouldn't be allowed." (The second she said that I thought to myself, "No shit. Well apparently you don't believe in birth control either.") Then she went on, "And I'm against that gay marriage too. Those gays shouldn't be allowed to adopt kids either! And I'm against universal health care." Now, being a liberal Grrrl, I'm pro-choice (how dare anyone even think of legislating my body!), I'm pro-gay marriage and adoption and I'm highly in favor of universal health care. Until you loose your health insurance because you can't afford the rate increases you have no right to talk. I wasn't going to argue this poor, misguided girl on her brand of "morals" because I knew it was a loosing battle. But I wasn't going to let that crack about universal health care slide. Not when I know she's on Medicaid and so are her kids.

So I asked why she's against it and I explained that I think health care is a right, not a privilege. Yet a privilege is exactly what it's become in this country. She explained that if our country implemented universal health care we would loose specialists and anyone who needed surgery would have to wait a really long time if they got it at all. Spoken like a true brainwashed sheep, incapable of independent thought! I said, "Really? Well my husband has what is considered a very good health plan with his employer and he still had to wait almost a year for knee surgery he desperately needed. And if my son and I wanted to get on his plan we would have to pay almost $800 a month and we have no pre-existing conditions." Her chin dropped at that. Then I continued, "I have really crappy coverage right now because costs have skyrocketed so high that we can't afford anything else. I think our current health care system stinks. What has been your experience with Medicaid?" To which she replied, "Oh, I've never had any problems. If my kids or I need anything at all we get it immediately!"

That really pissed me off. She has health coverage that she thinks is great and yet she doesn't think the middle class should have the same. (No, I don't think Medicaid is the answer either.) She didn't realize that she actually made a wonderful case in favor of universal health care. Ok, admittedly I was pissed off the minute she started spouting her bigotry against gays. The feminist in me was annoyed at her attitude toward the abortion issue. Just because she is against abortion all women should have to give up the right to make life altering decisions for themselves? All women should give up their autonomy in exchange for her narrow ideology? Fuck that.

The U.S. is the only industrialized country that does not have universal health coverage. In addition our health care system is the only one I know of that is entirely profit driven. It's no wonder that Ford and General Motors are loosing millions when they have to compete against foreign auto makers that don't have to carry the burden of health coverage for their employees. Our health care system is rather oppressive and it's going to get much worse before it ever gets better. There are millions of people that walk a very tight financial line and if they get sick they loose everything. If your health insurance is provided by your employer but a catastrophic illness causes you to loose your job, who is going to pay your medical expenses? Hypocrite Girl is quite the conservative but takes advantage of government programs, socialized programs, that the right is traditionally against. She needs to see Michael Moore's movie "SiCKO"! She also needs to pull her head out of her butt.

Rant over.

On maternal deaths

I was raised from the perspective that pregnancy can be avoided and that it is smart and forward thinking to prevent unwanted pregnancies until one is emotionally and financially stable enough to raise a child. I don't know whether or not my mother has ever considered herself a feminist. While she might not be as politically vocal as I am, she is above all else, exceedingly practical.

When I was a teen she was never interested in passing moral judgments on whether or not I was sexually active. (I've never discussed the Purity Ball with her, but I'm certain she would find it just as disturbing as I do.) Moreover, she respected the fact that I own my sexuality, and as such it's no ones right to pass judgment. Her concern was making sure I had the knowledge necessary to protect myself against disease and unplanned pregnancy. She drilled it into my brain and I am extremely grateful to her for doing so. She respected my autonomy and made it clear that only I am capable of taking responsibility for my actions.

Christian evangelicals refuse to look at the devastating effects an unplanned pregnancy can have on the course of woman's life-heck, on her entire family. This article in BBC News put if very succinctly when one man was quoted as saying, "Women were too often seen as "containers" for babies and nothing more." After the jump the article is on the lack of progress made on maternal death in the past 20 years.

The article citing a study on global maternal death rates by Harvard professor Ken Hill. Also cited was a separate study on abortion by Dr Iqbal Shah from the World Health Organization. That study showed that the number of abortions taking place in "unsafe" conditions has remained the same. In other words it backs up what the pro-choice movement has known for years. That is, if you make abortion illegal it won't prevent abortions from taking place. It will just make them more dangerous.

But I want to go back to that comment referring to women as "containers". It rings true in regard to the "pro-life" movement. They place so much emphasis on a group of cells that they disregard the life of the mother in question. They disregard her as an individual, who is really the only one qualified to make the decision in question. All emphasis is placed on that group of cells-even before the fertilized egg is implanted. This attitude only continues to objectify women. And then after the baby is born the political conservatives in the US abandon both mother and child.

Can't afford this weeks groceries or don't have health insurance? Well buck up girlie! Maybe you shouldn't have gotten yourself knocked up in the first place. What's that? The condom broke? Too bad! You were raped? Oh well! Work harder, get a better education and a second or third job, but stop your damn complaining and don't expect handouts!

Fuzzy Math

"It sounds like something from Sesame Street." I don't remember if those were his exact words, but that's basically what Bush said in the 2000 presidential campaign, about Al Gore's proposed ideas regarding the budget surplus. We all remember that Al Gore wanted to use the surplus to shore up Social Security. We all remember the subsequent jokes about "lock boxes" too. Bush claimed that Gore's numbers were way off base and apparently a lot of Americans believed him. I'm not sure why they believed him, but they did.

Bush sold Americans the idea of returning the surplus to the American people in the form of a tax cut. Any idiot with half a brain saw right through that one. It was obvious the tax cut was going to go to the wealthy. Apparently half the people in this country have less than half a brain though, because they voted for Moron Boy.

Whenever you give a tax cut in one place the slack has to be picked up somewhere else. So I immediately figured that the burden would fall on the working class. Oh sure, they threw a few crumbs to the middle and lower classes! Though speaking for my family at least, money got tighter so those few extra tax crumbs didn't go toward extra purchases (and stimulating the economy), but rather paying the bills.

The bottom line is I knew Bush spelled bad news for the economy. Through his first 4 years the main thing keeping the economy afloat was the housing boom. But even that worried me. Because I knew the housing boom could only keep the country going for a limited time. Eventually it was bound to burst. I know many people who had stupidly insisted the housing bubble would not burst. They honestly believed property values would just indefinitely keep increasing!

I remember one conversation I had with a self described conservative. This person made a large chunk of her income from property investments. She told me, "If you really knew how the economy worked you could only be a Republican." I hate it when conservatives say that. It's so incredibly condescending and it reeks of hubris. Yet I somehow understood a very basic principle better than she did. What goes up must come down. The housing bubble has since burst. All those "exotic" loans are going south and it's killing the economy.

Incidentally, said conservative bought her home on a 40 year loan at the peak of the housing boom. She's in her 40's and she took out a 40 year loan. The way property values have plummeted, there is no way her home is worth what it was when she bought it. Yeah, that was a great investment!

But something else occurred to me today about Bush's tax cuts. He's very quick to spend on the war-money we don't have-but he wants to cut funding for domestic programs. Which means less money is being pumped into the economy. When you cut funding for domestic programs you cut jobs. Oh yeah-and this week he vetoed a bill that would have expanded health coverage for poor and middle class children. My kiddo probably would have been covered under the vetoed plan. We're strained to the max and that health plan would have been a big help for us.

My final economic gripe is on Reaganomics or more specifically "trickle down economics". The theory is if taxes are cut on higher incomes and business activity it will stimulate the economy and everyone will benefit. In reality it's never worked that way. The only ones who really benefit from it are the ones who receive the tax cuts. I admit I'm not an economic expert, but it seems to me that if the lower and middle classes have money to spend they will buy things and the wealth will automatically end up accumulating at the top-with the wealthy. Bush is obviously a fan of trickle down economics.

Put it all together and our economy is totally fucked up for the time being. Thanks Moron Boy-um, excuse me...Mr. Bush!

Recession

The powers that be don't want to say that we are in a recession. But the fact is we are, without a doubt, smack in the middle of a recession. We have been since April or May. (Interestingly, April was my last big hurrah in terms of income. In May my business took a nose dive. I strongly suspect that there is some sort of correlation.) I'm sure Bush and his cronies don't want to start a panic by mentioning the word. Ditto on the Fed. I'm a bit annoyed. Just call it what it is and be done with it. Then let it run through its course and we can get on with things.