An annoying bias

Our society has many biases that have been studied, debunked, and railed against. There's one that nobody will ever do any of that for, though, and it is one that really annoys me. I find that people, especially women, are incredibly biased toward second wives and second families (if there was a first family... thank goodness, in our case, there was not.)

I call people on it every time I see it, of course, but it's like the giant game of Whack-a-Mole. Every time I make one judgmental ass rethink their stance that just because my husband was married prior to our marriage, and I met him while he was married to his first wife (note: "met" is a whole lot different than "dated"), that I am the bad guy, and probably have serious character flaws, self-esteem issues, and possibly a personality disorder (yes, these are things people have said about second wives, in my presence, before they knew I am one), another springs up. I guess since divorce is so common these days, this is something most people have an opinion about, and I have noticed that almost unconditionally, people have the first wife's side, even if they don't know anything about the situation. It's always assumed that the first wife is this kind woman who's maybe not as pretty as she used to be after ten years and four children, but a great mother, and devoted keeper of his home, and the second wife is some scantily clad Jezebel type who stole him away, thus cheating the angelic first wife out of the life she so richly deserved for all she sacrificed, and sentencing the children to grow up fatherless.

That sounds really drastic, but that's society's perception of second wives. An acquaintance was talking about how her father-in-law was married twice. The first one, he divorced 37 years ago, and then thereafter he's been married to his second wife. This man has terminal cancer, and they're beginning to plan some of the details of his funeral. Well, one of the big questions is if the first wife (a known drama queen) should be allowed to attend. I say hell no! I swear, if I ever lost Thak (and he knows he has to outlive me by at least a day, so none of this is going to happen if he knows what's good for him), and his ex-wife thinks she will show up to his funeral, I will throw the biggest fit you ever saw, and hire ten Hell's Angels to pull security and make SURE she doesn't get in. It's just inappropriate! Losing your husband is hard enough without having to deal with his ex-wife at the funeral.

Of course, I was the only one who saw it that way. Everyone else had things to say about how the first wife should be allowed to come, and do whatever she wants, because she was wronged by her husband divorcing her and remarrying 37 FREAKING YEARS AGO!! They said the second wife is probably worried that if the first wife is there, that the stories she's told everyone about how they got together and whatnot, won't match up, and everyone will know what a skank she is. Um, ok, first off, none of us know this woman. Could she be a skank? You bet she could. Odds are, though, she's just a regular person like you or me. Most people are, you know.

This just illustrated for me, bigger than anything, the dichotomy. It was perfect because we know absolutely nothing about these people except that one is the first wife, the other is the current wife (of 30+ years!!!), and the first wife is a known drama queen. From where I stand, that's a solid strike against first wife, and none against second wife. Yet somehow, people automatically feel for first wife and vilify second wife, not even knowing any of the story.

Could I be in the wrong as pertaining to that situation? Definitely. I don't know these people either. Maybe second wife is the worst person on the planet. Maybe first wife really is angelic. Who knows? That's my point, though. NONE OF US knew anything about these people, yet that's the conclusion almost everyone jumped to. It is a bias that our society has. Women in particular, are incredibly judgmental toward second wives, and I have no idea why that is.

I guess this rubs me wrong since I've been on the receiving end of that judgment before. I'm sorry if this comes off as "typical second wife rhetoric" but even when trying to give this woman the benefit of the doubt, it's obvious before long that Thak's ex-wife was a joke from beginning to end. She's ugly and worn out, with 4 kids by 4 different men, none of whom she was ever married to. She's mean, and lazy, and the only thing she ever cooked was Hamburger Helper, and that only rarely. She never cleaned the house. She was demanding, psychologically abusive, and even unfaithful. She trapped men by spending all their money to the point that they couldn't afford to divorce her, and by beating them down so much that they lost the will to try to get out of there. She's a great person, right? No, she is NOT a great person. She's scum, and me and Thak refer to her as "The Mistake" because that's exactly what she was, a very expensive mistake that Thak made when he was young, dumb, and susceptible to falling for her type of BS, and then paid for well into his 30's in the form of alimony.

I am not saying I'm the epitome of awesome wife. Nobody is. I at least try, though. He comes home to a made-from-scratch dinner on the table every night. He always has clean clothes to wear. He doesn't have to clean (which is good, because he wouldn't anyhow). I don't spend money on anything unless he's approved it. I'M the mom of his ONE AND ONLY biological child, Orren, and of Erin, who is his just as much. The other thing is that I had to sacrifice a lot for years because of his first wife. Do you KNOW how expensive alimony is?!!! It's REALLY expensive, and every time we turned around for a while, she kept trying to up it. She once even said, "Why can't you pay more? You'd still have a few hundred a month to live on?" This woman DELIBERATELY tried to take food off my daughter's plate, and the roof from over our heads, because she could not stand the fact that Thak had moved on and was happier than he'd ever been in his life (Doubt me on any of this? Ask his brothers. They know the deal.)

In light of all this, is it any wonder that I totally cringe every time someone assumes the worst of some woman who did nothing wrong, but happened to marry someone who had been married before? I really just don't see the reason why a second wife should be automatically judged and vilified by so many, and why people feel so justified in it. The reason I am fairly open these days about the fact that Thak was married before this is because I want to try to change people's minds. I think I'm fairly normal in many ways. I'm not a bad person at all. I'm the mom who likes cheap cloth diapers and $300 car seats, and can sing every song from Dinosaur Train. I'm the one who tutored your kids in math and physics, because I'm the only mom we know who's any good at that stuff. I'm the one who can never seem to keep my house organized enough, although I try. I'm just a person with strengths and weaknesses like anyone else. I'm also Thak's second wife, 10 years younger than the first. I know it looks bad in some ways, but the reason I think it's important to be open about it at least a little bit is so that people can see that it's NOT bad. I didn't steal him. She wasn't good to him, ever. First wives aren't inherently good, and second wives aren't inherently bad. People are just people, individuals. That's really all there is to it. You know NOTHING about a person based on whether her husband was married before.

Mean, anti-kid people suck! Let these people know what you think!

I really can't imagine how ideas like the ones in this article manage to stay around when they are so outdated and just wrong. I suppose I could take it as an indication of the fact that our society is decreasingly family-oriented, that fewer people have children at all, and that those who do have less involvement with them than parents in previous generations. I'm sure all of the above would be accurate statements, but that doesn't make it right.

In case you can't click the link, the article it references is one from Better Homes and Gardens, called "The 10 Commandments of Dining with Little Children". Oooooh wee... here we go again. The non-offensive parts of the article were certainly written by Captain Obvious himself (Don't block the aisle with big strollers? Discourage food fights? You don't say!) but the offensive part was written by every anti-child piece of crap person on the planet. "Thou Shalt Not Breastfeed at the Table", it says. Then it goes on to say how nice the bathrooms in upscale restaurants are, and that certainly it wouldn't be bad to take the baby there to nurse, so as not to disturb other diners.

Let's take just a minute to break this issue down. First of all, I've ALWAYS found the notion of nursing a baby in the bathroom totally offensive. For one, where are you even supposed to sit? In most bathrooms, there are no chairs, so you have the option of sitting on the sink counter (which is generally wet and crawling with bacteria) or on a toilet (barf). So which one of these is more preferable for a little baby to eat his/her dinner on? How about this, anti-child people, which one of those surfaces would YOU like to eat YOUR dinner on. Secondly, bathrooms stink. I hate public bathrooms so much that I will do just about anything to avoid using them because they are so disgusting and fetid. The majority of people are the same way, at least to an extent. Again, why should a baby be sentenced to eat their meals in a room that smells literally like crap? Sick. For another, I don't know about other babies, but loud noises scared both of mine (a sneeze was the one sure thing to set Erin off, and Orren is scared to death of the vacuum cleaner!) and bathrooms are loud. There are toilets flushing, hand dryers blowing, doors slamming. It's like a baby horror movie!

Let's put this person's "Commandment" about not nursing at the table into honest words. It would read, "Thou shalt feed thy baby in the filthiest, smelliest, scariest environment available, because babies are not people, and do not deserve basic courtesy like a clean place to eat."

We can even take it one step farther and think about mom. Our society chastises mothers enough for breastfeeding. From disapproving stares from old people, pointing and snickering from high school kids, and being told by uneducated moms that it's disgusting, it's not easy to be a breastfeeding mom these days! I know! I tried! I've nursed both my kids in public and it was horrific. Not to mention, the actual act of breastfeeding is incredibly difficult in many cases, and in all cases, requires long term sacrifice on the mom's part (mostly dietary). So we know that, but even so, we're going to take it one step further, and say that moms who have actually made it work for long enough to be up to going out to dinner should be punished further by being exiled to the bathroom, and probably condemned to eating a cold meal because babies always need to be fed right when the food comes (it's Murphy's Law, you know).

It's just too outlandish for me. I wouldn't even think they were serious unless so many of the comments on that article were anti-breastfeeding, and anti-child. I guess it's really true that our society does not care at all about kids, or families, or anything like that.

I also wonder why this article gives parents so little credit. We don't block the aisle with a bulky stroller. We have a Britax Blink which folds up compactly enough to store under the table. Half the time, we go out to eat at 5:30 to beat the rush, and are seated immediately, so we don't even bring the stroller in. Discourage food fights? Seriously? Any PARENT who lets their kid have food fights is probably not the kind of person who belongs in any establishment more upscale than McDonald's, and it's got nothing to do with the kids. Plus, I mean, I had no idea my kids shouldn't just run all over the restaurant freely, and play with the noisiest toys imaginable. What? You don't like our Tag Reader?! How could you! OK, seriously, though, my kids color at the table, or we bring books to read, or something. I don't know anybody who brings noisy toys to nice restaurants. Who does that?? This article doesn't give parents nearly enough credit.

This all reminds me of when the "child-free by choice" people invaded a well-known moms' message board, and told everyone that all we deserved for being "breeders" was to eat fast food unless we left our kids with babysitters. Screw that. My kids can go anywhere I can go. They behave themselves, and the reason they do is because they know how to act in various types of places, some of which do not include a drive-thru lane. How about that...

To wrap up cloth diapering week:

Cloth mommies: 1 Proctor and Gamble: 0

Pampers removed their anti-cloth propaganda page from their site! We won! We raised enough valid points, and enough of us did it that it was loud enough for even the corporate giant to hear!

I know what you're thinking. What does it matter if Pampers has anti-cloth stuff on their site? Certainly we have anti-disposable stuff on the sites for the brands of cloth diapers we use, right? True on both counts, but the difference is that the facts on the cloth sites are actually facts. The things on the Pampers site were blatantly false. Anything that seeks to prove that a use-once-and-throw-away product is superior from an environmental standpoint to an indefinitely reusable product, is a blatant lie. Anything that claims caustic chemicals are better for your baby's skin than organic cotton is a blatant lie. That's not all there was on there, but it was all just as stupid. I'm glad it's gone. I actually had some moms try to use that propaganda as ammo to tell me I was harming Orren and the planet by cloth diapering. It was a pain, and we got it removed. It is a small victory indeed, but a victory none the less.

Another positive thing that's come from this Pampers Dry Max scandal is that the cloth love is growing. I'm a member of one of the more popular cloth diapering communities on the web, and our membership has exploded this week with moms (and even a few dads!) jumping ship on Pampers, and wanting to know how to get started in cloth. I have a feeling we're going to have some Huggies converts before long. I heard the other day that Huggies dyed their diapers blue to look like jeans (looks like blue plastic to me...), and the dyes have been discoloring babies' skin. I smell scandal #2, no pun intended. It's all the better as far as I'm concerned. The more you know about disposable diapers, the worse they seem. Anything that gets people to try cloth is a great thing in the long run.

That's another thing. I think a lot that's wrong with the world is misinformation, or total lack of information. If I walked up to 10000 random people on the street, and asked, "I want to get started in cloth diapering. What do I need to buy, and from where?" at least 95% of them would tell me flat diapers, plastic pants, and pins. The other 5% would be cloth diapering families. (That's a real statistic, by the way. 5% of families use cloth, about the same percentage as do non-hospital births. I found that interesting, and bet there's at least 75% crossover between the two minority groups.) That's the problem, and it's the thing that really pissed those of us in the cloth diapering community off about the Pampers propaganda page. People have no idea what cloth diapers are these days. Sure, the old stuff is still available. I even know some people who use it. It's not the majority, though. The majority of CD families use some form of modern cloth on at least a part time basis. (I do about 50% modern cloth, and 50% prefolds, which are pretty old-school, but my covers are very new millennium, NO plastic pants here!) The propaganda on the Pampers site was based on 1950's-style cloth diapers. I'm going to bet Pampers have changed since their debut in the 50's or 60's, yet they assume cloth has remained the same? It's a ridiculous and completely unrealistic assumption!

The real problem with it, though, is that people believe that crap. It shocks me how many people actually buy what they're fed by the corporations. Why would a giant corporation whose sole purpose is to make money off of you actually have your best interest in mind? It's up to you to not be blind as a consumer, and to truly research your options for yourself, ask around, and no buy into baseless propaganda generated by corporate giants. I only hope the Pampers Dry Max scandal has served to teach some people this the hard way. I'd surely hate to have had my baby get chemical burns and blistering rashes before learning my lesson about trusting corporate giants, but sometimes it takes a bigger hammer. I think this will have a positive outcome, with more people than ever finding the cloth love, and more dispersion of knowledge about modern cloth diapering options. We're actually working on something currently that would get cloth diapers shown on a very popular TV show. (The host had wanted to do a show about cloth diapering, but Huggies paid her a lot of money not to do it, so the cloth community is currently rallying for donations from our favorite diaper companies for audience gifts, and petitioning the show's producers and host to do the cloth show anyhow. We're making significant progress, and may get it done.)

In short, cloth is soft, it is gentle, and it is hanging on my clothesline flapping gracefully in the West Texas wind. It is peaceful, and kind to people because most all cloth diapering products are made in the US, UK, or Canada, by well-paid Union employees or contracted Work-at-Home-Moms. It is truly a decision any parent can feel good about, and I'm really happy that the knowledge is spreading. Knowledge is power! Power to the parents!

It all goes back to insecurity.

There was a very interesting conversation on a parenting community I visit on occasion. This vegan mom was saying that her meat eating friends are really antagonistic toward her, and when she posts pics online of food she's made, or even mentions food, people go out of their way to tell her they ate a big steak for dinner the previous night, or something else equally crappy and uncalled for. Other vegetarian and vegan moms reported similar issues with friends of theirs. It's a very common thing. People are threatened by vegetarians and vegans for some inexplicable reason, and they express that by being really mean to them every time the topic of food comes up.

I think this goes farther than diet, though. I think the reason why so many people are mean to moms who (borrowing my Drill Sergeant's words here) take the hard right over the easy wrong is because they took the easy wrong, and feel guilty about that.

Not one person who's ever told me I'm nasty for cloth diapering has ever, in fact, tried cloth diapering. They unquestioningly filled up the landfill along with Proctor and Gamble's bank account, and anyone who dares to do better is a threat to them because they feel guilty over it then. Of course, I don't go seeking out disposable diapering parents to school on their carbon footprint, but I have a toddler. Diapers come up in conversation. When someone offers me a Pampers coupon, I tell them we use cloth. That, or they see me change Orren, and from there, it's obvious that we use cloth. Then a lot of times they say something really nasty to me. I don't give it the justification of a response or anything, because I know I'm doing the right thing, and the opinions of people of no consequence don't matter, but the fact remains, there are a lot of people in this world who are as nasty to cloth diapering mommies as they are to vegans.

Ditto extended rear-facing. You would not even believe how rude people have been to me about it, and people I've said NOTHING to. They tell me that I can't bear to see my kids grow up, so I keep them in car seats forever, or that I'm depriving Orren of seeing the world (Sorry, but he can see the world OUTSIDE of the car. Plus, he can still see out the window. Who cares if it's backward?) The thing is, it's not always easy to keep a bigger toddler rear-facing, but it's far safer, so we take the hard right over the easy wrong. People feel threatened by this, even though it's something anyone can do.

Then there's the old standard, breastfeeding. Everyone who's ever breastfed can tell you at least one story about someone who told them it was nasty. Hell, I only breastfed my kids very briefly, and I can even tell you about the disapproving looks I got while trying to nurse Orren in the car at the Savannah Mall when he was about a week old. People are extremely disapproving of it, and it's always the ones who didn't even try.

I seriously think people have a hefty dose of guilt over crappy decisions they themselves made, or things they know they could have done better, and try to justify that to themselves by putting people down who have put the time and commitment in to make the better decision. I don't think anyone who's truly confident in their decision actually feels the need to put others down about theirs.

The real problem with this is that it creates a vicious cycle. These people are mean to us, so after a while, we get sick of it, and tell them some home truths, then we're the mean evil ones, when really, if they weren't so insecure as to feel the need to be mean to us, it never would have come to that point. It's stupid, but it's also pretty apparent that it comes of a lack of confidence in taking the popular route rather than the best route that causes this kind of thing.

The Information Age is both good and bad.

Recent events have lead me to one conclusion. This age we live in, in which our lives are so shaped by technology, is easier in some ways, and more complicated in others.

Of course, for me, it's easier because all the information in the world is right at my fingertips. If I want to know about anything, there's no going to the library and sorting through hundreds of books by the Dewey Decimal System (does anyone besides me even remember that crap?!) or looking at microfilm anymore. No, all it takes now if I'm curious about something (which I often am) is to flip open my computer, click the little fox icon, and type a word or phrase in the Google box when the page comes up. Upon doing that, I'll have thousands of articles on the subject of my interest right there on my desktop within a second or two. The Information Age is an information junky's paradise. In that way, I adore it. I never have to wonder about anything for long. There is hardly an off-limits fact in the world, which is awfully nice for the inquisitive among us.

The way in which it's harder stems from the fact that information is a double edged sword. The more you know, the more you notice how many other people don't know whatever it is that you know. I don't know about the rest of you, but to me, knowledge is contagious. No matter what it is, I want to pass it on. When I learned Calculus, I left my papers all over the house to show Thak how cool my new math skills were. When I learned circuits, I wanted to rip everything apart because I KNEW how it worked, and actually COULD put it back together again! Every time I get a great book, when I'm done reading it, I always end up giving it away to someone else on the condition that they, too, will pass it along when done, because I can't keep the knowledge of its greatness to myself. (Yes, due to the latter, my home library is sorely lacking, but my book expenditure probably rivals many people's.)

When it comes to parenting things, I'm exactly the same way. When I learn about something that's pertinent to life at the moment, I'm definitely going to pass that along because I like to know stuff, and figure others do, too. Car seat safety is a big one. There are also many awesome articles and studies out there on vaccine safety, chemical exposure via disposable diapers, circumcision, baby wearing, product safety, and really any other topic you can think of. When I find something that really makes a lot of sense, I always want to share it, and generally do. I'm extremely selective about my sources, and they must be objective, peer reviewed, and scientific. When I share something, it is fact. When someone shares something like that with me, I pay attention to it. I'm not interested in hearsay, or Fox News reports, or Penn and Teller. I consider the source always, but if the source is respectable (World Health Organization, Journal of the American Medical Association, etc) then I respect the information held within.

Unfortunately, others don't seem to have the same respect for information as the curious ones among us. Upon receipt of valuable information from respectable sources, these people are often likely to call the messenger condescending or rude, or to otherwise defend their right to do things ass-backward despite it being scientifically proven that the opposite is far superior in nearly every way. I can only imagine these are the same people who see some term they do not understand, and just go on about their day not understanding. I guess I never will understand that mentality. Every time I don't understand something, I at least google the term to get some sense of it, and generally do a lot more than that. I'm curious. I don't know what it's like not to be, and I'm glad I am. I've come to the conclusion that being curious leads to a more progressive and all around better lifestyle, because you're always learning.

The other hard thing about the digital age we live in, which ties in with the first thing, is that we are in each other's lives on a ridiculous level. A person you are friendly with at a coffee may add you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter, or get your blog URL (but not from me! At least 75% of the people I know have no idea I blog.) and then after that, you are now privy to 100% of each other's lives in a great many cases.

Hey, look! It's a twitpic of their kid! Look at that nasty, poorly installed, incorrectly used, expired car seat with the forward-facing baby in nothing but a disposable diaper, covered head to toe in Cheetos! (True story, by the way.) By one image, I have just learned a hell of a lot about that person as a parent, and I can admit it, judged the hell out of them. Yeah, yeah, we're not supposed to judge. Find me the one person who doesn't, and I'll sell you a bridge dirt cheap. The fact is, we're so much more exposed to each other's lives these days than ever before. Obviously it's anyone's choice what to put and not put online, but most people put a lot, and therefore let the entire world in on their shortcomings as well as their triumphs. Bottom line, social networking shows us the down and dirty version of the people we know, ignorant political views (blaming Obama for Bush's screw-ups, anyone??), crappy parenting, and all. These are things we'd probably never have known about certain people if we just knew them on the perfunctory level that we did prior to becoming social networking contacts. The problem is that now, there's the expectation that everyone from your true blue buddies to a friend of a friend's dog (no shit, a friend from a previous duty station put her dog on a social networking site) is supposed to be your contact on whatever your social media is. We're exposed on an immense level to people we would have only limited dealings with in the absence of social media, and this creates problems.

Obviously, the solution is simple. Delete, block, and deny requests from the potential ignorant fools in your life. It's not that simple, though, because the expectation is that you won't, so that opens a whole new can of worms. It's any given person's choice, of course, but the one thing that's true is that the Information Age has its good sides and its bad sides, and the good and the bad are both exacerbated significantly for us, the curious ones. ;-)

Playing the military card

Thak and I were talking today, because it occurred to me that one of the picture spammers in the photo contest we're in (which, thankfully, stopped taking entries yesterday, and will announce the winners tomorrow) is actually a friend of a friend from a previous duty station. She didn't have kids last time I saw her, but I guess she does now. Anyhow, some of this girl's ten billion photo entries just made me and Thak groan out loud. Of course, in one of them the kid was wearing his daddy's patrol cap (the baseball cap looking camouflage one). I mean, all kids like to wear their daddies' hats, but this was an obvious shameless attempt to play the military card. In others, as an equally obvious attempt at it, daddy was part of the backdrop... in uniform, of course.

That kind of thing may have flown five years ago, but today it really doesn't, and I'll tell you why:

1) Americans are so sick of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Public opinion runs somewhere between, "That's still going on?" and "I could not give a crap if I tried." Sure, there are the rare few who are military-supportive, but the majority of the nation is basically done with it, and honestly, as far as I'm concerned, that's pretty understandable. I believe in having fair laws that help with the constant moves that military families make. I believe in the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act. I believe in the new custody laws that are on the books, which make it illegal to take permanent custody away from a deployed soldier who is normally a child's primary parent. I believe in these things. These are good laws, and they serve only to level the playing field. I do not believe in widespread military ass-kissing, which is what a lot of these people want to see happening.

2) 90% of the people who serve today chose this war. What I mean is that it's exceptionally rare to find a soldier these days who was a peacetime enlistee AND who didn't reenlist within the past five years, when it was pretty obvious that these wars were here to stay for a good long time. Nobody can really pull the pity and sacrifice card when they CHOSE the war. In late 2011, it will be 100% accurate to say that EVERY soldier who's still serving chose the war, because by that time, all of the people who reenlisted indefinitely (were over their 10 year mark and above the rank of Sergeant) at the outset of the Afghanistan campaign, will have ample time in service to file their retirement papers, should they so choose. By NOT dropping a retirement packet, they are choosing the war. In fact, they are the only people in the Army today who did not choose the war. Everyone else did. Yes, that includes Thak, even though he reenlisted only a year into the Iraq campaign, and we had no idea it would go on this long, we own our mistake, and we know what it looks like to people.

3) Socially, women are getting tired of the military wives' "poor me" campaign. Granted, most web communities (parenting sites, women's forums, hobby boards, etc) are overrun by military wives. This is because military wives are alone a lot, and tend not to sleep much, so hanging out online is a good way to pass the time. It's obvious WHY the boards are overrun by military wives, but at the same time, it gets kind of stupid because of it. While I get just as annoyed as the next person when some wife of a salesman asks how she's supposed to cope with the fact that her husband has gone away on business to Denver for a week, I don't ever weigh in on those conversations because I probably wouldn't be nice. I admit, the first thought that crosses my mind when I read that is, "Give me a damned break. Suck it up and realize how lucky you are that your life is so easy you can flip out over a week apart from your civilian husband." but I never say that stuff. Unfortunately, it is a minority of military wives who ruin it for everyone, because they DEFINITELY weigh in on these conversations, and say things 10x as ugly as my internal dialogue could ever dream of being (and that's saying something). For this reason, a lot of American women really don't like military wives at all.


For these reasons, the military card is becoming less and less playable by the day, and understandably so. I don't play the military card. I usually tell people I don't know that my husband is a mechanic. It's true. He's in the ASE database. :)

Un-PC observations

1) The cuteness of a person's child is inversely proportional to the number of pictures that person will show of said child. If someone's kid looks like a the illicit love child of an alien and a bulldog, guaranteed, you've been subjected to 100 pictures of him within the past day or so. If the kid is adorable, his mommy and daddy probably haven't shown you a picture of him in a week, and when they do, there's some significance to it.

2) Passive-aggressive people come from Wisconsin. OK, they come from other places, too, but EVERY person I've ever met from Wisconsin is a total passive-aggressive ass.

3) Every one of my friends is annoying me with their constant posturing when it comes to their stance on the Obama issue. I don't agree with a lot of what this man has done in office, but at least he doesn't have a face that's just begging to be punched like George W does, and at least he's not trying to get us all killed like George W seemed to be set on, too! He's better than what we used to have. No, friends, I don't "love when I wake up in the morning and Barack Obama is president", but I also don't think his name stands for "One Big Ass Mistake America". I hope to see, in my lifetime, a day when we'll elect some dude or dudette to the White House, and then won't have to hear CONSTANTLY about how great or crappy a thing that was to do, every single day for the next four years.

4) The worse someone is at car seat use, the more pictures they take of their kid in the car seat. It's like, no, that's NOT a cute picture. That's evidence of your haphazard "I don't give a shit" parenting. Your kid is gonna fly out the window and die if you hit the curb, far less another car! How stupid do you have to be to actually think that straps gapping loose at the shoulders, and a chest clip at buckle-level is actually going to restrain ANYTHING against an impact? The reason car seat Nazis like me show pics of our kids in car seats is because SOMEBODY'S got to show the right way to do it. Car seat misusers never get the point until their kids become a statistic. (No shit. Swedes use their car seats approximately the way I use mine. 14 kids die each year in Sweden in car accidents, and nobody else generally survives those particular accidents either. In the US, over 2000 kids die in car accidents every year. 700 A DAY are severely injured. Using car seats PROPERLY would cut these numbers down to a small fraction of what they are.)

5) The less someone knows on a subject, the more they'll argue with you about it.

No need to be mean.

For some crazy reason, a lot of moms-to-be ask what kind of diapers they should use for their not-yet-arrived babies. Of course, the majority of the suggestions consist of "huggies" or "pampers" or "that's a waste of money! Use Wal Mart brand!" I always take these conversations as an opportunity to talk about cloth diapering. I mean, it is a conversation about what kind of diapers to use, right? They never said disposable only! I always tell about the different types of cloth diapers that are available currently, the cost factor, and how it's nowhere near difficult to do, and does not create the epic laundry crisis a lot of people think it will. I'm always really positive and upbeat, and I don't even mention all the harmful chemicals in disposable diapers, or the environmental crisis that every disposable diapered baby contributes to. I ONLY mention the money you can save by cloth diapering, and how it's not hard or inconvenient at all. Mostly, I just try to encourage people to think about it, and inform them enough to pique their interest. I thoroughly believe that the reason most people don't use cloth is because it never occurred to them that it's an option. I am simply trying to let them know that it IS an option, and one that's gaining popularity these days.

The thing I can't stand is the disposable diapering parents who think they have the high ground over cloth diapering parents. Dude, I used disposable diapers with Erin, and I can't get my head around that. I sort of looked up to, and definitely respected, my cloth diapering friends. I don't really know WHY I didn't use cloth full-time with Erin (I switched to it on a part-time basis when she was a toddler, but it was really disastrous because I didn't have the right stuff.) but what I do know is that I never had anything but the utmost respect for any cloth diapering parent, and never felt that I had any sort of high-ground over them. I find that I encounter tons of disposable diapering parents these days who, at the mere mention of the fact that we use cloth, want to tell me how awful cloth is, and throw out absolutely false statistics about how there's a higher incidence of infections, rashes, and such with cloth, and how disposable diapered babies are happier because they stay dryer.

I don't ever really respond to these things. I tend to do the smile and nod, and then say, "That's nice.", or "Your information is incorrect, but ok...", or something similar, before walking away from it. There is no arguing with a person who actually thinks there's a high ground to be had by using disposable diapers, which are 100% an invention for the sake of convenience, and nothing more. This argument is akin to saying that the McDonald's drive-thru is better for you than cooking a meal at home because it's harmful to be hungry while waiting for your food to cook.

I could corner them SO easily by telling them that any study which has shown a downside to cloth diapering was paid for by the Proctor and Gamble corporation, which makes Pampers. I could so easily tell them that one of the chemicals in disposable diapers has been directly linked to an uptick in male factor infertility, and that the reason why disposable diapers keep the baby's skin so dry is because of incredibly caustic chemicals just below the surface which lock away moisture. I could certainly tell them all these very true facts, and not even bother throwing in that organic cotton is certainly better for the skin than bleached paper and a healthy dose of petroleum products, but they'd never hear it, so I don't bother.

It just blows my mind that anyone could ever think they could have any type of high ground for disposable diapering. It's a lazy choice. To be sure, it's a lazy choice I made at one point in time, but a lazy choice no less. If people would just say, "Yeah, I'm not willing to put in the time necessary to cloth diaper." I'd give them props for honesty. Being rude to me and telling me what crap cloth diapers are, and how I'm putting my son at risk by using them, just really pisses me off.

I'm almost sure these are the same people who say rude things to me when I encourage someone to have a natural or non-hospital birth (when it comes up in conversation) by telling them how well it went with Orren, and not to worry about how big their baby is, that it doesn't mean anything for the pain and difficulty of it all. (For some reason, the doctors these days try to intimidate people by saying they're having a huge baby. They almost never do.) I've had naysayers tell me that I was putting myself and Orren at risk for death by cardiac arrest by bearing the pain of labor and delivery on my own, and not having any type of medication during or after the birth. When they find out how big he was, they usually say something REALLY nasty about how selfish I was to go with a non-hospital birth. (I didn't know how big either of my babies were until they were born. My midwives knew, but did not tell me, and for that, I am grateful.) Again, this is something I really do not understand. There is no moral high ground to be had in accepting narcotics, and interfering in a natural process. Again, I wouldn't give a crap where anyone had their baby, or how, if they didn't try to tell me I was wrong, and putting my son at risk for doing an all-natural non-hospital birth. According to the World Health Organization, Orren and I were safer than a comparable mom and baby who did the hospital thing. The data is on my side. I wouldn't even care about that if people weren't mean and nasty to me about doing something different.

I'm guessing these are also the same idiots who tell me I'm selfish for driving a compact car as a matter of principle. (Boy, they'd really flip if I told them my awesome mechanic husband is trying to convert it to run on hydrogen!!) What could possibly be the necessity for an urban or suburban family with three or fewer kids to drive some giant vehicle. I understand why a farmer would, but not a housewife. If you have three or fewer kids, there are enough seatbelts in a normal car for them all to ride safely. With consideration, you can even fit three car seats across the back seat. I've done it. Of course, I buy Radian, but the cost of these will be compensated quickly by the savings in fuel costs. But anyhow, I have been told that I'm selfish for insisting on driving a small car, and not putting my children's comfort first. What? They LOVE riding close to one another! They pass toys, and books, and snacks back and forth. They share juice boxes and cheerios, and just love being able to reach one another. In a bigger vehicle, there's a giant chasm between them, and they wouldn't be able to interact with each other nearly so much. They aren't as happy then. So no, I'm NOT selfish for my compact car. On principle, I won't drive anything bigger unless I have twins next time, and need more seatbelts. There is no high ground in driving a gas guzzling SUV if you live within the city limits, and have three or fewer kids. I'm not going to get onto people for doing it, but it does blow my mind to hear them trying to act like there's some high ground to be had by burning fuel as if it were an unlimited resource.

These may even be the same people who try to tell me that it's dangerous for Orren to ride rear-facing since he's nearly 1 1/2 years old, and nearing 30 pounds. Funny, the American Academy of Pediatrics has my back on this one. If you google AAP Car seat guidelines, they will come right up. Their official recommendation is that after a year old, babies will continue to rear-face in a convertible car seat until they reach the weight or height limit of that seat for rear-facing, and then ride forward-facing in a 5-point harness until weight or height limit is exceeded. They only recommend boosters for elementary school aged kids these days. Basically, if I'm endangering Orren by practicing extended rear-facing, and having a car seat that rear-faces to 45 pounds, then I am doing so with the endorsement of a well-respected organization, and it would serve the naysayers well to read some publications if they think forward facing at a year and 20 pounds (a totally obsolete recommendation, by the way! It will probably be illegal to forward face that early soon!) is actually a defendable position. When they try to defend it, I just look at them like they've lost their minds, because literally every organization I can think of, even auto manufacturers, have conducted crash tests and other research, showing that forward-facing is drastically less safe, and that long legs aren't dangerous when rear-facing, that actually there are more leg injuries from forward-facing, in addition to the really great stuff like death and paralysis. How can a person defend putting their kid at risk, and tell me I'm wrong for keeping mine safer? I can't get my head around it.

Thak says they're insecure in their own decisions, because they've taken the easy road, which is almost always the less responsible choice. I thought that may have some truth in it. I don't look at myself as the pinnacle of a responsible parent. I do some things that make other people cringe. I spank occasionally (only from the ages of 4 and up! NEVER a toddler or baby!), and hav been known to drink a cocktail or beer across the table from my kid (some people think that's wrong). I suck at homeschooling, and barely cook on the weekends. I'm not the perfect parent, but I have made good decisions, decisions I'm proud of. I'm proud that my 9 pound 9 ounce baby was born 10 miles from the nearest hospital, in a completely natural and peaceful way. I'm proud that we have been cloth diapering for 16 months. I'm proud that we're keeping our toddler rear-facing, and that I have proven time and time again that we can fit $400 worth of groceries into a compact car along with two kids, and still have room for the driver. I'm proud that Orren's first vegetable that he ever ate was organic homegrown zucchini that I'd picked just two minutes before cooking it for him. I am especially proud of Thak and myself for being honest with ourselves as pertaining to the topics we know little about, and doing research, asking questions of people who would know, and ultimately figuring out the right thing to do. I think maybe the fact that Thak and I have put so much into trying to get parenting right, and right from the start, it just comes off a little insulting when people who have obviously not researched a damned thing aside from the Sam's Club website (pricing Huggies, Pampers, and booster seats for their 2-year-olds), try to tell me I'm wrong for my decisions. I'm not wrong. Hell, I'm not telling them they're wrong for what they decided, but they are DEAD WRONG for trying to argue that my decisions were poor, and to do this with hearsay.

I've been called a MILF before, but never a NILF

...until today. So what is a NILF? Well, according to a recent study on employment and military spouses, conducted by the Rand Corporation, NILF stands for "Not In Labor Force".

OK, well, I think NILF has a far nicer ring to it than "unemployed". Have I ever told you how much I hate when people say I'm unemployed? I REALLY hate that. I'm home with my kids. I'm NOT unemployed. I'll take "Stay-at-home-mom", "SAHM", "housewife", or really ANYTHING besides "unemployed". For one, by definition, to be unemployed means to not have a job, but to want one. I don't want a job. It's completely different. Now someone apparently understands that, and we get a new category, NILF. I could get used to that classification. It's rather innocuous.

Of course, the true gem in all of this is the findings of the report. What needs to be done in the face of all this NILF-ness? Build more daycare centers, of course. Talk about totally missing the point.

In the face of high unemployment rates, and the most difficult job market ever, I think they should send single-income families a handwritten thank you card for only occupying ONE job, thus allowing the hypothetical second job to go to someone else who probably needs it a lot more, not telling us to throw our children into newly constructed daycare centers, and flood the job market even further. Are these people idiots? A popularization of a single-income lifestyle for families would help the unemployment numbers to come down because more people who wanted/needed a job could get one more easily than if all people were stuck in the two-income trap, and are occupying two jobs per couple rather than one. That's an impossible change, of course. It makes sense in a way, though, doesn't it? At least a little? I don't know, but that's what occurred to me when I read that the solution to NILF military spouses was to build more daycares. Backward logic at its finest, if you ask me.

Britax, Britax, Britax...

We used our Britax Marathon for the first time in weeks, if not a month, just now. It's in Thak's truck, which we normally don't drive when we're going somewhere as a family. In my car, we have the Radian XTSL. To recap, the Marathon is the Mossy Oak camo print car seat, and the Radian is the red one. The Marathon has a 35 pound rear-facing weight limit and 65 pounds forward-facing, and the Radian has a 45 pound rear-facing limit, and 80 pounds forward-facing.

Of the two, the Britax is the better looking seat, style-wise, but the longer Orren's legs get, the more I see that the Radian is the better of the two seats over all. See, the Britax sits as close to the seat back as any other car seat, so for families who extended-rear-face their kids (oh, and we've been EXTENDED rear-facing for 4 months today! Yay us!) that won't work too well. There's just not enough leg room. Contrary to the "forward-face at a year and 20 pounds, or be damned!" idiots, long legs do not present a safety hazard while rear-facing. There has never once been a documented case of injury stemming from that. On the contrary, it's just a comfort and convenience thing. It's just so much easier to have more leg room for the kid who's rear-facing to 2 and 3o, or beyond.

This is just yet another way it is different raising Orren due to his height. We have to look for tall car seats that will accommodate him (since he's all torso, as is very typical for boys), but he's also got longer legs than most babies his age, so he really does benefit from more leg room that he gets with our Radian car seat. In the Britax, he's been completely cross-legged for about 5 months now. In the Radian, he can comfortably prop his feet on the seat back that's in front of him, and ride all day long if that's the plan. Also, the Radian has lower sides in the seat portion, so it's more comfortable to sit cross-legged for kids who are 3-4 years old, and still rear-facing (and with a 45 pound rear-facing weight limit, that's very common!).

Radian did a really good job with this seat. It's not that I don't love our Britax seats. I do. However, I think it's fairly obvious to say they have been completely usurped as the preferred car seat for the Extended-Rear-Facing family. Unless they change their designs a lot, I would say this family has probably bought our last Britax seat.

In order to compete in today's marketplace, Britax, you must do the following:

1) Offer higher rear-facing weight limits in at least some of your models. 35 pounds across the board used to be revolutionary, but today, it is not enough!

2) Redesign your seats to offer more leg room for rear-facing toddlers. For a company which prides itself on being the leader in extended rear-facing, you sure don't make it as easy as it should be.

3) Make more seats that suit compact cars. Nobody drives gas guzzling SUV's anymore. OK, that's not true. Lots of people still do. That number is declining, though. Most of us moms today don't want to upgrade to a vehicle the size of a school bus just to accommodate a few car seats. If you want to keep my business, Britax, you must give me a seat that fits 3 across in a compact car, and has at least a 50 pound forward-facing limit. The Diplomat fits great in my car, and has the standard Britax 35 pound rear-facing limit, BUT it's only got a 40-pound forward-facing limit. Plus, it's the shortest car seat I've ever seen! Orren outgrew it in height at 13 months! For $280, that's ridiculous. If Radian can accommodate 45 RF and 80 FF, and still fit 3-across in a compact car, not to mention cost exactly the same amount of money, then the Diplomat can be improved in such a way as to be competitive.

Come on, Britax. I used to love you, but I fear the spark is gone. My Radian may be ugly, but it's got one hell of a "personality". Wink. Nudge.

Gimme a 45 pound RF limit, a tall seat, and some leg room, or I walk!

Can we really call that "parenting"?

A friend from an old duty station sent me the link to something absolutely horrible. She sent it out to all her "crunchy granola mom friends", and frankly, I was a little proud to be considered part of that! It beats the hell out of the alternative. Anyhow, there's someone called Kitty Raymond, who's supposedly a parenting "expert" (note that I generally take "experts" with an extreme grain of salt when it comes to daily routines, sleep, and other things that are very individual from child to child). In reality, this Kitty Raymond monstrosity is simply advocating child abuse! On her very website, she advocates locking children in their rooms, not reading bedtime books, and not waking up with babies who cry in the middle of the night! She advocates doing this from 12 pounds, on!

This really disturbs me. 12 pounds and up, huh? Well, Orren hit 12 pounds when he was a little under a month old, so I guess we were really doing the wrong thing by keeping him in his bassinet next to our bed, and figuring out what his needs were when he cried, regardless of what time it was. I guess we were also idiots for following our midwife's instructions to NEVER feed on a schedule, ALWAYS on demand. (Why DO people put babies on a feeding schedule anyhow? I met a schedule feeder for the first time this past year, and I just thought it was the weirdest thing ever.) I guess my 16-month-old son, who's as big as some 3-year-olds, and can already ride a tricycle, throw a football, and make the best sidewalk chalk drawings ever, is just a spoiled brat because even today, if he wakes up in the night, we go to him. Usually, if he wakes up, it's because he's really wet, and so we change him, and he goes back to sleep. Sometimes he's teething (although we should be done with that for now), and other times he's not feeling well (if he has a cold, etc). In EVERY one of these cases, Thak or I go and get our little boy, and do whatever it is we can do for him. Whether that's change his diaper, hold him and comfort him, or give him some Tylenol (in the case of severe teething pain), we do it for him, and he loves us because of it. He trusts us. He knows we are here for him. That is the best thing a baby can know about his parents.

I'm not saying we're Attachment Parents. I've never had any desire to wear my baby, as every "awesome" sling anyone recommends me seems to feel like a straight jacket and make me completely claustrophobic, but I don't think either of my kids has been harmed by riding in a stroller when we're out and about. I tried to breastfeed them both, but it never worked out long term. Again, they seem ok in spite of it. Other than these couple things, count me as a card-carrying member of the granola society. The thought of a hospital birth makes me cringe, and I actually get offended when people assume my son is circumcised. (Thak gets twice as offended by that as I do, but considering that he's a guy, it's understandable that this issue would be near and dear to him! LOL) Pertinent to this subject, we're big on not rushing things. Both our kids have had solid food between the ages of 4 and 6 months, but never sooner. They both woke up throughout the night at least sometimes until they were about 18 months (we're not there with Orren yet, but he seems to be going the way of Erin on this), and while we did have a bit of a go at the Ferber method after a couple weeks of totally sleepless nights with a 14-month-old Orren, Thak couldn't take listening to him cry, and having to wait to go get him until a certain number of minutes had passed, and ended up rocking him until he was calm, then successfully putting him down to sleep after that. Funny enough, a few weeks later, the crying all night stopped, and he's woken up minimally since then. He does one wake-up at night for a change, maybe twice a week now. It's really nice this way.

The lesson we learned from this is actually twofold:

1) Babies do things in their own time. Orren was not ready to sleep through the night until later than other babies. We continued night feedings 5 months longer than our pediatrician said they were truly necessary just because Orren is huge for his age, and he just literally would not get full enough to sleep through the night. Think about the fact that Orren is bigger than about 94% of the babies his age that you will ever meet. You will almost never meet a baby bigger than Orren. How do you suppose he got that way? He spent the first year of his life in a near constant growth spurt, and when babies go through growth spurts, they eat a lot. It was obvious to us, so we kept on feeding him. We have been honest with ourselves and each other about what his needs were, and we made it a priority to meet those needs, no matter how inconvenient. In fact, I HATED getting up throughout the night several times for the first year of Orren's life, while all my friends with babies the same age had done some crackpot "sleep training" (also known as "You need something? Tough shit. Cry.") and were sleeping uninterrupted all night long, but when you look at how much healthier and happier Orren is than those babies, I'd take one MORE year of sleepless nights to maintain it if that's what it took. That's NOT what it takes, though, because he came to sleeping through the night (for the most part) in his own time. Can't argue with intuition... his, and ours.

2) Experts are usually full of shit when it comes to what my kid needs. OK, not necessarily 100%. In fact, there are some things I really have gotten a lot of good from reading. I read up quite a bit lately on boys, and things specific to them, since I don't know anything about little boys at all, and now have a son. It's been helpful for me to learn about little boys, and just what makes them tick. I appreciate these expert accounts, and while I still read them critically (blame my science and engineering background) I get a lot of good out of that stuff. The stuff that sucks is the stuff that basically strives to tell parents how to override their babies' natural inclinations. Any sleep training thing is garbage. Anything that mandates schedules for feeding (for babies) is garbage.


This Kitty Raymond's website is the pinnacle of garbage. Would you believe this woman advocates locking babies in their rooms for 12 hours a night, and up to 6 hours a day?? That's such crap! If you follow that, and tell somebody that you do, there's better odds of an abuse report than an ass pat! I'm dying to know how anybody thinks this stuff is a good idea.

I guess it does answer some questions for me about how so many moms these days are such total idiots, and seem to have absolutely no idea how to raise their babies. If THIS woman is considered an expert, and has come to international notoriety as such, then that totally explains where the idiots came from. I remember my jaw hit the floor when someone said they began letting their baby cry it out to sleep through the night at 7 weeks. I wondered what kind of moron would ever think something like that was a good idea, since it's such an OBVIOUS crap move. Now I know.

Kitty Raymond, purveyor of crap, empowerer of idiots, and arch-nemesis of babies everywhere. It about made me sick to read her site, but if you're morbidly curious as I was, go have a look. I guarantee you will be appalled. That is one mean woman.

Just give a list of what we CAN say, ok?

It seems like the list of socially unacceptable topics in military wife land grows every single day, as does the list of things which constitute engaging in these unacceptable discussions.

The most vile and unacceptable thing in the past decade has got to be rank. On the extreme case, I can understand this. I've been the sentry who got yelled at by a Second Lieutenant's wife when I did not salute her. I have been the PFC on a 24 hour shift at my battalion's desk, who was told by a Corporal's wife to stand at parade rest to talk to her. (No, neither of them was a soldier, just civilian wives.) These people, I call Rankzillas. They expect customs and courtesies which are NOT coming to them in any way, shape, or form unless they decide to enlist or commission someday.

Rankzilla Lite is the wife who doesn't go out of her way to make soldiers' lives hell, but definitely thinks she's better than any soldier who is lower ranking than her husband, and talks a ton of trash, even to people she knows are prior-service, and served in those ranks at one time (and hell, 99% of the time, her own husband served in those ranks at one point!). The Rankzilla Lite is also the one who thinks she's addressed as ma'am because of her husband's rank, when in reality, all civilian females are addressed as ma'am because they don't have a rank to be called by, and ma'am is nicer than "hey you!". Rankzilla Lite KNOWS she's called ma'am because her husband is so high up in the unit, though. (The funny part is that 99% of the ones who think this are married to Second Lieutenants, newly pinned Sergeants, or even PFC's.)

I have dealt with more Rankzillas as a soldier, as I believe their arch-nemesis is the female soldier, in all forms, fashions, and pay grades. I have dealt with a few Rankzilla Lites as a wife. Usually, a snappy comeback about how civilians should butt out of soldier/vet business will make them leave me alone forever. They're not that big a deal. More importantly, they're not all that common, and are mostly just really clueless. A great many Rankzilla Lites will outgrow it in a few years.

The reason it became socially unacceptable to discuss rank is because everyone's met a Rankzilla or a Rankzilla Lite, and nobody likes them. If it only became socially unacceptable to BE one of these things, then that would make a ton of sense. That's not how it went, though.

Now, the following situations are unacceptable, and considered "rank wearing" on my part. FYI, these are things I have actually said:

"Hi, I'm Anna M. My husband is SSG M, the reenlistment NCO." [insert random joke about getting their husbands to reenlist. Everyone laughed.] "I'm prior service as an enlisted Engineer, and have been in some affiliation with the Army, as soldier, girlfriend, or wife, for nine years. I've been to Ft. Leonard Wood, Ft. Hood, Ft. Stewart, and here, and briefly on TDY to other places. I'm going to be serving in [role] within this organization, and look forward to working with you all."

"Hi, nice to meet you all. My name's Anna, and I'm going to be moving to your post in 3 months. My family and I are open to the possibilities as far as housing goes. We've lived on post and off, and prefer off post, but will consider living on post, depending on what exactly we'd be offered there. What I need to know from you all is what would be most realistic for us to plan for. We are an E6 family who is authorized a 3 BR house. Does the wait list tend to be short for our classification, or would we be wasting our time by messing with it? If the wait list is more than a month, we'll probably just want to live off post, so please tell me what areas are best, close to post, and within our price range."


These two things are apparently MASSIVELY socially unacceptable because I mentioned Thak's rank. This really frustrates me. I can't even tell people affiliated with the unit who my husband is when I meet them, and I can't give people an idea of our price range when putting out my feelers in the preliminary phases of house hunting.

Let me just explain these things a little. In the first situation, it's a matter of making myself familiar to people. If I walked in and said, "Hi, I'm Anna, Thak's wife", people would say, "Good for you. Who's Thak?" If I say, "I'm Anna, SSG M's wife", people either say, "Oh yeah, he reenlisted my husband yesterday!" or "I think I know him. Asian guy? About your height? Walks with a limp?" So basically, people KNOW SSG M, but they DON'T know Thak, even though they're the same person, so in a situation in which I want to be familiar to people, I need to say who I am in the most familiar way possible. I'm NOT sorry that way includes a mention of my shameful secret, er, I mean my husband's rank.

In the second situation, it's important to be honest about rank because housing allowance is determined by it. If I said, "Hi, I'm moving to your post! Where should I live?" I'd get every kind of information from the dirt on the $300 a month apartments that were built in 1985, to the dirt on the subdivision in the University district, where nobody below the rank of Major could ever afford to live. By telling people that I'm right in the middle, I'm letting them know that I'm not terribly limited in my house hunting, but I'm also not looking for the most extravagant thing in town. Knowing what we're working with lets people know we're looking for what we will like, not what we can afford. (Of course, we're looking within our price range, but our price range is forgiving enough that we can get what we like. No stairs, minimum 2 full bathrooms, minimum 2-car garage, formal dining room, big yard with fence/wall, no shared walls between master bedroom and kids' bedrooms, bedrooms far from living room and kitchen, etc). Anyhow, I think rank is applicable information when it comes to housing, because obviously, we all can afford different things. Why have people waste their time and ours, giving crappy information we can't use, when we can just be honest, and actually get pertinent facts?

I can't wait until Thak gets out of the Army. This sub-culture gets dumber and less realistic every year. I want off.

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda

Does this go on in the real world nearly as much as it does in the military? I've been annoyed with this thing for years, and it was one of the first things I noticed about military wives after I married Thak. Every time they find out about anything I did, or was doing at that time, they told me in great detail how they were about to do that same thing, and then give ten million excuses as to why they didn't.

The biggest one is joining the military. People find out within five minutes of knowing me that I'm prior service. It's not because I walk around wearing a Veterans for Peace shirt (although if I did, people would probably assume it was my husband's anyhow). It's just that the second question that's always asked in military wife small talk, right behind, "Where's home for you?" is "How'd you meet your husband?" Since I met Thak when we were both assigned to good old Six Deuce, I couldn't hide my prior service status even if I wanted to. For the record, I would NEVER want to hide that significant fact about myself. I think that would be dishonest and give people the wrong idea.

The thing that gets me is that in about 50% of cases, the wife I'm talking to says, "Oh, I would have joined the Army if I hadn't (insert BS excuse here)." Why on earth do they do that? Do they think I'll regard them as more "in the loop", or as "one of us"? Do they think it makes them cooler that once upon a time, the thought crossed their mind to join the Army? I personally think the thought of joining the Army crosses the minds of at least 75% of people at some point in their life, yet somehow, only maybe 1% ever do. As a member of that 1%, I give absolutely no ass pats to people who didn't have the conviction to go through with it. This is a very binary classification. Either you are a soldier (past or present), or you are not. There is no in-between, and intent doesn't matter. If you REALLY wanted to serve, you would have. I can remember vividly when I knew that it was my time to serve, and NOTHING would have stood between me and the Army at that moment. If you never truly heard the call, there's actually nothing wrong with that, but own it. Yeah, you shoulda, coulda, woulda served, but at the end of the day, you didn't, so stop annoying the vets.

College is another one. Every time it comes up in conversation that I went to Georgia Tech (and that actually does not come up in conversation very often at all), from that day forward, the person who gets let in on that fact incessantly tries to justify their own educational shortcomings. Dude, I simply cannot be bothered to give a flying bag of composted cow shit if you think you couldn't go to college because you got married and your E1 husband moved you across the country. There are universities everywhere, and if you don't go to college, it's because you made the choice not to go. I don't think less of you for that, however, I do think less of you for not owning your decisions. If you feel good enough about a decision to make it, you should feel good enough about it to own it. I own mine, even the stupid ones, and you won't find me justifying them to anybody. I have friends who have graduate degrees from Ivy League schools. I don't sit there and say "shoulda, coulda, woulda" to them, even though, in truth, I could probably have attained what they did. I made my decision, and I'm not sorry. If you're sorry for your decisions, why don't you change them?

Boycott the circus!!

The circus is in town, and like every other time it is, they have tons of commercials on TV for it. Of course, like every other kid around, Erin wants to go. I have explained to her dozens of times that we do not support circuses, that they are very unkind to animals, and that if we go and see it, then we are basically telling the people who are mean to the animals that we are ok with that.

I don't think she understands fully. I think six may be too young to understand animal welfare. We're still trying, though. I don't think she understands why we prefer to eat wild game rather than farmed meats, and why we always buy cage-free eggs, organic milk, and things like that. (Hey, on an awesome note, we found a store here in where we can get organic and free-range beef, chicken, and lamb!) Even if she doesn't understand, it's never too early to try to teach the idea of animal welfare, and that each of us makes a difference when we vote with our dollars for the things we support.

Every kid wants to go to the circus, and I understand that. Maybe one day, we'll take her to Las Vegas to see a Cirque de Soleil show. It is a show of human talent and skill in acrobatics and theatrics, and most importantly, everyone in the show CHOSE to be there. Animals that circuses use do not have a choice, and are basically enslaved. It's awful, and this family won't support it. You want to see a circus? See an all human one. Support THAT with your dollars, not animal abuse!

Whatever will we do with only a 1.4% raise!! Woe is us!!

If you're on any social networking site, and have logged in within the past week, you've seen a page full of posts that look like this:

"President Obama has proposed a 1.4% pay increase for active duty military in 2011. This is THE LOWEST SINCE 1973! Nice to know that during a time of rampant inflation, while war is fought in 2 theatres, our men and women in uniform get A LOWER PAY INCREASE THAN WELFARE RECIPIENTS. Please repost if you support our troops!"

That is a direct copy and paste off my live feed. Literally half of it looks like that. Half. OK, I know, consider the source. Most of my contacts are military-affiliated, but even some of the civvies are posting this thing, so I'm pretty sure there's nobody on the planet who hasn't seen this yet.

OK, so 1.4% is a rather small pay increase compared to what we're used to, but when you consider that our economy is in the toilet, and government expenditures absolutely have to be cut in order to bring it back, it was only a matter of time before the military had to bear some of the brunt of it. Frankly, I wonder why they haven't cut MORE of the pork from the defense budget, and kept it only to a small pay raise. They still plan on raising the housing allowance (which is necessary in many places since landlords love to gouge military people on rent everywhere I've been), and I don't know what they're going to do with the food allowance, but I don't see it decreasing. Annual clothing allowances for female enlisted soldiers decreased, but only by like $40, and out of the about $600 that the allowance is these days, that's certainly not a very big deal on an individual level, but will make a big difference when added up.

I think a lot of the garbage they spend money on really needs to go. They implement these new family programs every year which are so unnecessary, and most people don't even use, yet they cost millions of dollars to run. Why on earth would they keep making these useless things? Sure, study after study shows that the families who have dealt with more than two deployments in rapid succession are facing the biggest issues (Shocker.) but the solution to that is NOT to start up ten more stupid programs. How about a REAL solution? There is one, and it's easy. Keep the word of the lawmakers who have been saying for years that they are going to find and deploy soldiers with no deployments, short tours, or a long time at home between deployments, and rotate the people who have been spending every other year deployed for the past half decade or so to non or less frequently deployed assignments. This is not only far cheaper than starting a bunch of idiotic social programs, but it is a real solution, not a bandaid.

Let me tell you, as the wife of a 3-tour OIF vet, and a member of the type of family the researchers seem to love to study these days, the LAST thing I'm going to do when things get difficult during a deployment is run down to the Army Community Services and let some civilians whose husbands have never deployed tell me how to live my life, and spout the same old platitudes about how we have to live for this thing that's bigger than ourselves. (Why yes, the government fatcats and their dirty agendas ARE bigger than me... Please tell me why I'm supposed to live for that.) The Army family programs are AWFUL, and honestly, they should be cut by at least 50% to start, and more each year thereafter, not increased every year. If you've got housing, a commissary, a PX, a few things to do (on-post bowling alley and movies, parks, running trails, etc), and the phone number for the unit's rear-detachment and FRG, then that is ALL you need. What's more, most of that stuff is practically free because it utilizes existing facilities, and people pay for most of the things (activities, groceries, goods, services), so the agencies at least break even, and in the case of AAFES, can fund other agencies like MWR. (So basically, what this means is that the PX funds the bowling alley, etc.)

It is possible to run an Army on a drastically reduced budget, and that's what needs to happen. I am in favor of the smaller pay raise, and would like to see the majority of family programs cut in order to decrease defense spending. I would also like to see them settle on one camouflage pattern that they will use for 20 years or so. There's a lot of pork in the defense budget, and it needs to be trimmed. It's not going to be comfortable, but that's the way it is.

Military dependents are the most ungrateful people alive. I've been consistently disappointed in all but maybe half a dozen that I've met over the past six years. They seem to think that they should get all this money when the rest of the nation is scrimping and pinching just to make ends meet. Why on earth should that be? Isn't it enough that the pay is still steady, promotions are still happening, and still carry raises, housing allowance still increases in response to cost of living, and you can still get free medical through the craptastic military hospital if a 20% copay on Standard (FREE insurance!) is too much for you?

During the height of the recession, when others were losing jobs left and right, and billion dollar corporations were crumbling daily, our household income increased by 30%. Granted, there was a promotion, and a HUGE housing allowance increase that figured into it, but the fact is, that ONLY happened in the military that year. While our civilian counterparts were arriving at work to barrages of pink slips, Thak scrambled for promotion points, and pinned (er... velcroed?) on a nearly unattainable rank for his job. I never once had to worry about how I'd feed us, or if my bank card would be declined at the commissary. When a lot of people were losing their houses, and downsizing drastically, we moved from a 2 BR apartment to a 4 BR house in a great neighborhood. Granted, my husband is better than most at this Army thing (there's a difference between "good at it" and "meant to do it forever") but the universal fact is that the military did not feel the recession beyond the gas pump, and even then, a lot of people just bought motorcycles, and avoided the gas gouging that way. They had the means to do that.

So military people, take your own advice and suck it up! 1.4% is still a raise, and you still have a job. Be realistic about the world's situation, and realize that just volunteering to put on a uniform does not make you (or more likely your husband) a saint worthy of the lion's share of everything. You love to talk about sacrifice, and how much you give for your country, but when it comes down to actually feeling a little bit of the necessary pinch in order to begin healing our broken economy, you can't say a single good thing about it. Where's your sense of duty and patriotism now, military wife, lower-enlisted soldier... scrappy old NCO? Where'd it go? Sure, it's easy to be patriotic when it comes with a giant tax-free (during deployments) paycheck that just gets fatter every year, but when it counts, it seems you're all talk.

To brag or not to brag

I was accused today, by a person who will remain nameless, of taking Orren's milestones and accomplishments for granted. It was so far out of left field that I didn't even know how to respond. No, I don't brag about every little thing either of my kids does. I HATE when people do that! When something is notable, I tell people about it. I do not, however, feel the need to alert the media every time Orren runs a little faster, throws his football farther, or says more words than he did the day prior. I do share funny stories about the kids (and with Erin in the mix, there are plenty of funny stories!) and silly things that they do, but no, I don't brag it up every time something new happens. Orren is learning so fast that it would be constant if I did that.

I was just really taken aback that this person accused me of not being proud of my kids, when in reality, the reason I make a conscious effort to shut up about my awesome son while around here is because her child is severely developmentally delayed, and while older than Orren, has not mastered things that the average 5-month-old does without thinking. If I'm gonna brag about my 13-month-old getting good at catching his football, or wanting to sit on the potty, or running faster than ever, it is for damned sure not going to be to a person who cannot say for sure if hers will EVER walk or talk. What do I look like? The meanest person alive? Why would I brag to her about my kid who's strong as an ox and smart as can be?

I'm pretty sure nobody wants to hear the truth about what I think of Orren. In reality, I've never seen a kid quite like him. He's stronger, smarter, and more perceptive than any toddler I've ever met in my life. There is something special about that one, and I have a strong feeling that he's going to become great in something. I do not know what it will be that he becomes great at, but I believe he will be well known for his accomplishments someday. So yeah, I'm 100% sure nobody wants to listen to me go on about how I'm pretty sure I'm raising the next Brett Favre or Albert Einstein. That's a really stupid thing to talk to your friends about.

Plus, I realized recently that I was in denial about how great Orren really is because I CANNOT STAND parents who think their kid is gifted. Erin is of average intelligence, and I'm cool with that. She'll probably never be an honor student, and she will probably always struggle academically just as she does now. I'm not ashamed of that fact. As long as she does her best, I'm proud of her. In raising an average kid, I came to realize that the majority of parents are also raising average kids (obviously, right?) but a great many think their kid is a genius even though they're far from it. This annoys me big time. I cannot stand people who think their kids are so much smarter than the average bear, so to speak, when the kid is pretty much dead average. It took Thak mentioning to me multiple times that Orren is so much smarter than any other kid he's ever seen, and watching Orren with other kids his age, for me to really accept and acknowledge that he's probably highly intelligent. I already knew he was very athletic. If you've met Orren, that's undeniable. I never wanted a genius child (it's a hard life for the kid), and if Orren is NOT as highly intelligent as we suspect that he may be, I won't be disappointed, but I refuse to be lumped in with the idiots who insist that their average children are geniuses, so that's why I don't brag about Orren's accomplishments, because he's far ahead of others his age whom we know personally. Why would I rub that in?

It's one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't, situations. If you brag about your kid's every accomplishment, that annoys everyone within a 100 mile radius, and for good reason. Even so, if you only give selective highlights, mostly funny anecdotes, and don't brag much at all about what your kid does, then you're taking them for granted, and couldn't possibly be proud of them. Screw that. It takes a concerted effort to shut up about Orren once in a blue moon. That's how proud I am of him. He's the most wonderful little guy ever. He's my future Minnesota Viking with a degree in Nuclear Physics, and you will never tell me otherwise. I think it's enough that Thak and I believe in him, celebrate his accomplishments, and try to be humble in mixed company. I never thought the very people we sought to protect by being most considerate and NOT shoving our kids' accomplishments in their faces, would bite us in the back for it. Like I said, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

More misunderstanding and poor treatment of female soldiers...

This week's issue of Army Times included a small update on the Ft. Stewart soldier who refused to deploy because she had nobody to care for her son. I was glad to see that she did not get any jail time, but was disappointed that they gave her an administrative discharge under Other than Honorable conditions. That's a pretty nasty discharge, especially when you consider that all she did was refuse to leave her 10-month-old in state custody. Dude, I would NEVER leave my kids under those circumstances, not for all the gold in Ft. Knox, all the tea in China, and all the money in the world! I, for damn sure, would not do it in order to go and sit on a camp in some desert hell because the government decided I needed to.

Again, I don't think this soldier handled this situation well. I think once she knew her family care plan was shaky (and she probably knew it before the baby was born) she should have requested an honorable discharge due to single parenthood. It is a common thing, and if I had a dollar for every person I know who's gotten out that way, I'd have more than a few bucks. I don't think this soldier is very intelligent or rational, because if she were, she'd have gotten out nearly a year ago, taken her honorable discharge, and moved on with her life. That doesn't change the fact that I still think she was taken for a ride by the unit right to the end.

One thing really bothered me in the Army Times article. They said that the Army's investigation had shown that she did not intend to deploy with the unit, and said she would do what she had to in order to get out of it. While there's certainly the possibility that things are exactly as those few words would imply, I would say the odds are far greater that she said something to one of her buddies (and during an investigation, buddies turn on you quicker than anything because they are threatened just as badly as you are!) like, "If they think I'm going to leave my baby in foster care, they're crazy. I'm not deploying if they think that's what I'm going to do." I know quite well how adept the Army is at twisting words, and cannot actually think of one investigation I've been close to in which words were NOT twisted to suit the purposes of some officer hell bent on getting his way. I don't think we'll ever know the whole story, and I am 100% sure that the three paragraphs in Army Times did not tell even a little bit of the truth beyond what type of discharge this soldier is getting. It's just one more example of the Army being extremely secretive with the truth, and vilifying a young female soldier who only wanted what every other mom on the planet wants, to be sure that her child would have the best care while she was working (yeah, in this case, work was a 12 month deployment. This just makes it even more-so.) I will say it again. This soldier had a baby. She did not rob a bank. Let's have some perspective on what's going on here. The Army is punishing a mom for trying to be a mom. As a female veteran and a mom, I am greatly disappointed in my beloved Army.

In that same issue of Army Times, there was a letter from a retired Command Sergeant Major. He was discussing Major General Cucolo's policy on war zone pregnancies. MG Cucolo, the new commander of 3rd Infantry Division (Dear God, please bring back LTG Lynch. This new guy SUCKS by comparison!) said that any soldier who gets pregnant while deployed, and the soldier who gets said soldier pregnant, will face harsh punishment.

First off, contrary to the opinions of naive military wives everywhere, people have sex on deployment. Married soldier couples are allowed to live together while deployed (finally!), and of course single soldiers do what single soldiers have always done. Sure, there are married guys who cheat, too. That's why you don't marry someone you didn't serve with first... Anyhow, I digress. Let's look at the size and scope of this issue. People who support MG C's policy say that pregnant soldiers leaving the combat zone early detract greatly from the mission. I disagree. I think it's a very small problem. In a brigade of nearly 4o00 soldiers, which a previous Army Times article used as an example, there were 12 pregnancies during that brigade's most recent 15 month deployment. 12 in 15 months, out of 4000 soldiers. Yes, that is a giant and widespread problem. Please alert the President. (Rolling eyes.)

More soldiers have to leave the battlefield for injuries resulting from their own stupidity than for pregnancy. Will we also harshly punish the guys who don't use proper safety measures, and injure themselves to the point of not being returned to duty? If we penalize pregnant soldiers, we NEED to penalize those idiots, too, because the number of them, and thus the impact to any unit, is far greater. It's not going to happen, though. They always threaten it, but I've NEVER seen anyone punished for being an idiot and getting hurt.

Anyhow, this CSM who wrote in agreeing with MG C's policy about was so ignorant. He basically said (I'm paraphrasing), "With all the contraceptive measures available these days, there is no excuse. Young soldiers get pregnant intentionally, and it's blatantly disrespectful to the unit and detrimental to the mission."

OK, at face value, that sounds about right. Every military pharmacy on the planet stocks a full supply of every contraceptive known to man, and boy do dependent wives (and daughters) take full advantage! Even married female soldiers can manage to get their hands on some of this stuff... sometimes. For single female soldiers, though, it's nearly impossible. Let me tell you why.

When you need anything medical done that's non-emergency, you go to something called "sick call". Basically, it's open clinic beginning at about 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning. In order to go to sick call, a soldier must go to their unit's duty NCO that morning, fill out a slip detailing WHY they're going, and then present that slip to their Company Commander. He must sign it in order for that soldier to go to sick call. They will not be seen without their Commander's signature, and the Commander will not sign it without the reason being filled out.

You want to be that single female soldier who presents the sick call slip with "contraceptive prescription" in the "reason" block to her Company Commander? Yeah, neither does anyone else. For one, like it's his business. For another, many Company Commanders, like mine, were very religious and would refuse to sign such a slip. And finally, a great many commanders do not want to let anyone go unless it's a total emergency, and he'll always tell you that you can take care of that tomorrow, but tomorrow, he doesn't let you go either.

Now, a civilian girl can go to Planned Parenthood, and get what they need. Try getting your squad leader to release you for that. It won't happen. You don't get to take off work unless the people above you think your reasoning is good, and none of the very married men above us ever think that there's a good reason a young female soldier needs such an appointment. Maybe it's better in units which have more female soldiers, and even females within their command group. Maybe medics, cooks, and quartermasters don't have this issue. I was neither medic, nor cook, nor quartermaster, though. I can only tell you that female engineers find absolutely no understanding or cooperation in a great many cases.

It makes my blood boil when military wives talk about this, too. They act like female soldiers just pop out babies left and right because they don't want to do their job. In reality, our access to contraception is maybe 10% that of anyone who doesn't put on a uniform and combat boots every morning. Any civilian woman in America can easily time her pregnancies by her standards. Female soldiers have to jump through ten flaming hoops to accomplish that same thing. THAT is why so many single soldiers get pregnant. It's not because they are trying to get out of doing their job, or because they are trying to slack off, or anything else. It's because the choices that civilian women take for granted are damned near unavailable.

I'm so tired of the implication that if a female soldier has a baby, she had some malicious intent in doing that. Hell, I'm sick of the widely held belief that if a female soldier does anything but act like a total robot 24/7, that she's in some way wrong.

Try looking nice at a civilian clothes function. You will be accused of trying to steal people's husbands. This accusation usually comes about when you show proper courtesy by greeting your superior. (Why is it normal and expected for civilian girls to spend time on their appearance, but when we wear clothes that fit and let our hair out of its usual regulation military knot, we are wrong?)

Try having a relationship with anyone other than the lowest-ranking, crappiest, fattest, stupidest soldier in the unit. You are social climbing. You're a rank whore. (Why is it ok for civilian girls to have standards, but not us?)

Try getting married to someone you are actually attracted to, meaning in many cases that he is older, established enough to have at least a little bit of rank on him, and he's well-connected enough that he can hold his own in most units. You have just complicated things for yourself BIG TIME, and you must have some ulterior motive. (Why can't we have good men? Can't it be a good thing when we find someone who makes us happy and whom we can be proud of?)

Try having a baby. You are a whore. You want free time off work and those snazzy maternity uniforms that you don't have to pay for (but you turn in after you have the baby). You want to pawn your duties off on the rest of your squad. You are a royal pain in the ass who is definitely up to something. (Can't anyone just say congratulations? It's a baby, not an act of treason.)


We are not allowed to be people. I don't understand why male soldiers are allowed, even expected, to live a very normal life off duty, but when a female soldier tries to do just that, they are maligned until the end of the earth. We have a long way to go before the Army will be a good place for female soldiers. Anyone who thinks things are ok the way they are is quite obviously male, probably Infantry, and definitely extremely ignorant.

We are ERF!

In this picture, Orren is one year and one day old, taking his first car ride as an extended rear-facing toddler. Fittingly, we were on our way to the Minnesota Children's Museum in St. Paul. By the way, his jacket is on backward so that it does not interfere with the fit of his car seat straps. He's wearing a long sleeved t-shirt under there, then his seat harness is fastened, and then the jacket goes backward over the top. It's the safe way to keep warm in the car during winter!





Anyhow, this is yet another of my late late late bloggings. This is what happens when you spend the holidays driving, exploring new cities, and meeting your husband's enormous family.

Anyhow, as of Orren's first birthday, Christmas Day, we are Extended Rear-Facing (ERF)!! That means that even though he hit 20 pounds at about 4 months old, and he's now over a year old, we have not turned his car seat around, and we won't until we absolutely have to. In fact, since he is outgrowing his Britax Diplomat in height, we're going to be purchasing him a Sunshine Kids Radian XT SL, which will allow him to ride rear-facing until he is 45 pounds.

We are just grateful for the knowledge that rear-facing is better, and that a step up in car seats is a step down in safety. It seems that despite the pervasiveness of the tests which lead to these conclusions, and the American Academy of Pediatrics voicing their support of extended rear-facing, the knowledge hasn't reached the majority of people. I see a lot of forward-facing 1-year-olds, and it makes me sad. Then I look to the back seat of my car, and see Erin smiling back at me in her 5-point harness, and the back of Orren's seat, and I'm happy because I know that if we are in an accident, my kids have the best chances possible to walk away without a scratch.

In celebration of extended rear-facing, I give you the following:

AAP's guidelines which recommend rear-facing for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers.

And because this knowledge reached us, we can prevent this from happening to our kids.




This is a shorter video with some awesome pics of rear-facing toddlers and preschoolers, and also debunks some of the common myths. Even if you don't watch the other, watch this one. It's only 3 minutes.



Rear-face your toddlers, people. Forward facing is for big kids! Ignorance is one thing. We have all been ignorant of certain research or discoveries before. Stupidity is when you've been told and shown, and choose to still act unsafely. Don't be stupid with your kids' lives. After reading the above link and watching the above video, you can't claim ignorance. Keep them rear-facing, and when they can't rear-face anymore, keep them harnessed. Don't fall into peer pressure from other parents to compromise your kids' safety because "it's overkill" or "other kids will laugh at them". My 6 1/2-year-old rides in a car seat with a 5-point harness, and not one kid has ever made fun of her for it. Any excuse that anyone gives for not rear-facing to the height/weight limit of their car seat, and not harnessing to the weight limit of their harness, is garbage. If you value your kids' lives and safety, learn as we have, that a step up in car seats is a step down in safety, and don't be hasty to move up.