If you hang out online and read enough blogs about health, especially pregnancy and childbirth, you’ll eventually run into people claiming one should trust one’s body and/or trust birth. I absolutely refuse to do so. If I trusted my body I would be dead several times over by now, as my body has systematically been out to betray me since I was about 3 years old. I keep it in line through various threats and removal of offending organs (mostly tonsils and teeth… so many teeth). But if I trusted my body and listened to it… well. Let’s just say I’d be spending most of my time curled up in bed with the covers over my head, subsisting on chilli cheese fritos, cold pizza, and coke.

Here is a list of the following ways my body has attempted to over throw my benevolent reign:

• From the time I was 3 until the spring break of my 20th year when I had my tonsils out, I was sick constantly. My tonsils were so large they touched, as a matter of course, and often became so swollen they would literally split and bleed. DELIGHTFUL. After I had my tonsils out I went from getting bronchitis 1-2 times a year as a matter of course to getting bronchitis once every 10 years. My tonsils had turned to the dark side, man.
• I have asthma, which means when I get sick (say, with bronchitis) it takes me forever to get better and it’s not uncommon for me to cough until I puke, pull abdominal muscles, break blood vessels in my eyes, etc. Let’s get with the program, respiratory system!
• I’m allergic to dust, mold, and mildew. Good luck avoiding all that. Trips to the subway are really hard on me.
• I have extra vertebrae in my tail bone. Like, two. Sometimes if I sit down too hard it hurts.
• I’m sensitive to latex. I don’t break out in hives all over or go into anaphylactic shock, but I do get a raised itchy rash where it touches me. Do you know how many doctors/nurses I’ve encountered who’ve made a big fucking deal over having to get out the latex-free gloves? One is too many, and I’ve had to deal with more than one.
• I’m also allergic to many adhesives, so even if I find latex-free bandages I sometimes react to the adhesive.
• Actually, I’m allergic to most dyes and perfumes as well, and a bunch of metals, which is why I’ve never gotten a tattoo.
• I’m allergic to raw fruits and vegetables. I am not making this up. If I eat, say, carrots or pineapple or a bunch of other stuff, I get an itchy rash on my mouth/tongue. If they’re cooked I’m fine, though. I weep over the loss of baby carrots; I rejoice in roasted/grilled pineapple.
• I’m allergic to my own sweat. Again, not making this up. Apocrine sweat causes these disgusting cysts/boils/I don’t even want to talk about it on my armpits, under my boobs, behind my ears… in various places. The human body begins producing aprocine sweat during puberty. It was hell for me. It still is.
• I got my first zit when I was 6. I’m 32 and still have acne.
• Let’s discuss my reproductive system! I have fibroids, endometriosis, and cysts on my ovaries! Hooray! And yes, these all affect both the ability to conceive the ability to actually carry a child to term. Well, the PCOS affects so much more.
• Most pain killers work at about half strength and wear off in literally half the time they should, which made child birth SUPER EXTRA FUN. It also makes dental work happy fun times. You know how some drugs are restricted because people get stoned on them? I don’t. I can take vicodin and make math lesson plans. I really liked being on morphine because I was clear headed and alert and not in pain.
• I’m lactose intolerant. It makes me puke out my butt.
• I can’t see without my glasses. If my glasses fall, I have to stand very still and call for help or else I’ll step on them or else not be able to find them. Or both. Even with my glasses, I walk into doorways more than the average person does.
• I’m tone deaf. Nesko KNOWS this, but apparently hadn’t REALIZED it until the other day when I was singing a song from “Baby Signing Time” to Niko and Nesko asked me if I’d actually heard the song before and was amazed that I had because what I was singing didn’t actually sound like the actual song.
• Five words: An Abundance Of Body Hair (profact: telling a patient that she’s “really furry! Wow! Like a bear!” is not a good way to gain her trust, nurse who refused to remove all my medical tape because it was just too hard)
• I had super numery teeth. In fact, let’s list all the ways my mouth has failed me:
• 1) It’s too small
• 2) My teeth are too big
• 3) I had too many teeth (I literally have had something like 6 adult non-wisdom teeth removed. Six. SIX. Because I just HAD TOO MANY TEETH. Which means when I go to the dental college for my dental care, because I have no insurance and that’s the only way I can get dental care, the student working on me is all confused by my dental anatomy and I become A Valuable Teaching Moment with like 5 dental students clustered around my mouth checkin’ my shit out.)
• 4) One tooth was lurking around backwards and sideways. They had to cut out a hunk of gum, attach a bracket to the front of the tooth (which was the side of the tooth facing my throat/tongue/etc), rotate the tooth until it was facing forward and also pull it into an upright position instead of sideways. What the hell, tooth. How did you go so wrong?
• 5) I had an overbite and an underbite at the same time not because of jaw issues but because my teeth were like a collapsing picket fence pointing in every random direction. I had my first set of braces when I was 7, and finally had them off when I was 17 or 18.
• 6) I have TMJ and can’t chew gum (plus, my orthodontist gave my jaw a stress fracture when he tried to cram his enormous (and ungloved) hands into my tiny mouth)
• I have Depression, Anxiety, and obsessive thought patterns which, if I’m not careful, lead me into very self destructive (both mentally and physically) behavior.

Why the hell would I trust this heap of meat and neurosis? I try to trust it and it tells me to buy and eat a can of pineapple and some ice cream. I try to trust it and spend several thousand dollars on getting 3 wisdom teeth removed and a year later the fourth one, which I was told would “probably never” descend “well, maybe when you’re like 80, or if you lose a bunch of teeth,” comes right on down. FUCK YOU TOOTH. I try to trust it, and it gives up on actually processing the insulin it produces. Whaaaaaaaaaaat! This is like the failboat of bodies.

Which is why I’m really glad that stuff like “science” and “medicine” exists, because in a perfect world I can see a doctor and get drugs for my brainmeats, get my extra teeth pulled so I can do stuff like “chew” and “talk,” get my tonsils yanked out, get oral insulin so my heart doesn’t give out or whatever. It means after 3 days of back labor and The Laziest Baby Ever refusing to descend I had the option of a C-Section instead of death. It means when my body didn’t produce enough milk to feed a kitten let alone a human baby I had the option of formula. It means I won’t have to be like my grandma and watch my precious boy get Polio, nurse him through that, teach him to walk again, and then have him live with post polio syndrome decades later, nor do I have to worry about him dying, going blind, or getting brain damage from measles or scarlet fever or rubella or whooping cough. We are basically living in a fantastic future here, one where the concept of  a parent burying a child has become almost unheard of, the greatest tragedy as opposed to life as usual.

I don’t trust my body. I try to eat well and exercise and get enough sleep and take care of myself, but my body literally sends out messages urging me to kill myself (either literally via suicidal ideation or metaphorically by craving foods/behaviors that make me ill), and it has literally failed to keep me healthy on its own (helllooooooo tonsils and ovaries, I am looking at yooooouuuuuuuuuu step back from the edge! turn away from the dark side! oh wait, tonsils, it’s too late for you, isn’t it. BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Reform, ovaries, before it’s too late!). It’s very telling that most of the people advocating that everyone should “trust their body” (and ‘trust birth’) are people who are mentally and physically healthy and have had continual ongoing access to top notch medical care.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

I’ve been seeing a little bit of discussion floating around on the intarnutwebizenbloggz lately about “stay at home parents” and how it’s foolish and short sighted to call what a parent who does not work outside of the home does as “work.” Because it’s not! Parenting should be joy and sweetness and light and we should never ever ever make our kids feel they are a burden!

Except here’s the thing.

If you walked up to someone who wasn’t related to you and said “Hey, could you spend 12 or more hours alone with my kid(s) cooking and serving healthful, nutritious meals and snacks; scraping poop off the underside of his nuts; potty training him; cleaning up after him; teaching him colors, numbers, shapes, the alphabet, rhyming songs, and which feet his shoes go on; reading the same book six times in a row; etc PS YOU WILL NOT GET PAID ANY MONEY, you won’t get any sort of health benefits, and you won’t accrue any kind of retirement benefits except a kid who might decide to put you in a crappy home, and society will look at you like a giant sucking leech” they would look at you like you’d lost touch with reality in a very big way.

When stay at home parents tell people they are stay at home parents, unless those people are ALSO stay at home parents, there’s this expectation that the parent staying at home is just goofing off and having fun all day. Perhaps a sofa and bonbons are involved. And don’t get me wrong! I’m a stay at home parent and I love huge chunks of it; vast swaths of it. My kid is HILARIOUS. We sing songs together and dance in the kitchen and he cracks himself up with jokes I don’t understand yet. But I also work really hard trying to prepare him for school and for life, trying to help him become a human being who can function in and contribute to human society.

And people who do that kind of work, whether it’s a stay at home parent or a paid child care provider, are generally treated like crap. Because it’s “just” child care… which HAPPENS to be “woman’s work.” And in the USA, as in many other countries, jobs that are “woman’s work” (like cooking, cleaning, child care, teaching) are shit jobs. They have shit pay, shit benefits, shit hours, shit job security, and no respect. What’s that you say? Teaching is an honorable profession? Ah. That must explain why so many teachers are getting laid off, having their benefits stripped, and expected to work more hours for less pay. There’s no government bailout for our schools but Wall Street? Let’s give them some money and tax breaks while telling teacher’s unions to go screw.

By insisting that parenting isn’t work, parenting is devalued.

The act of washing laundry is work. The act of cooking a meal is work. The act of cleaning a pile of ground up cheerios off the floor is work. Teaching a child the alphabet is work.

It can be enjoyable work! Just like hand crafting a mahogany table, rebuilding a car engine, sculpting a statue, or writing a poem can be work. But it is still work. And how many jobs– how many careers– are there where people are expected to work for nothing more than love?

You can’t eat love. You can’t pay rent with love. You can’t retire on love.

Parenting is hard work that can take your all. It’s stressful. It’s difficult. Sometimes, it’s dangerous. It’s work that is forced upon some people whether they want it or not. It’s frequently enjoyable. But it’s still work. And saying that it isn’t work sets a dangerous precedent that strips parents of dignity and respect and puts children in a dangerous place. Because if we’re not respecting and supporting parents, we aren’t respecting and supporting kids, either. If parenting isn’t work, then new parents don’t really need maternity/paternity leave, do they? Or child care subsidies? Or respite care? Or subsidized insurance? Or WIC? Or La Leche League? Or postpartum support? Because parenting, child care, is all long sweet walks in the park and “got your nose” games and fun sunshine times, right?

Except it’s not.

It’s work. Unpaid, disrespected, difficult, stressful, wonderful, awesome work.

Technorati Tags: parenting, sahm, sahp, social justice, stay at home mom, stay at home parent, toddler, working mom, working parent

Mirrored from Now Showing!.