Science is fascinating!

Posted on November 10, 2011 by amoment2think

My husband and I have been watching a lot of TED talks lately. They are sooo interesting and some of them are particularly good. If you have a chance I recommend putting watching a few on your to do list.

I wanted to share one in particular with you that we found absolutely amazingly interesting to watch. Check it out. The website link is here.

Oh, wasn’t that sooo cool! Amazing really.

I really want to hear more about this. But here is what I think is absolutely fascinating about this. Oxytocin is the same hormone that induces labour and plays a critical role in breastfeeding. Think about that for a minute. The same hormone/molecule that increases trust and morality in humans, also causes a women to go into labour.

I have no idea what the implications are for that or how, really to wrap my head around it. But its seems meaningful. It seems important. Like it is a secret puzzle piece that helps us understand who we are as women.

I wish I was a scientist.

Who’s Bad?

Posted on July 27, 2011 by amoment2think

487367839 0fa84c7cf1 d Whos Bad?

I really don’t like the word ‘bad’.

Especially, and particularly, when it is applied to a person.

A couple weeks ago I noticed my daughter was saying that word a lot. “Bad Mommy. Bad Puppy. Bad Cup. Bad Toy. Bad (insert little toddler friends name here) Bad….” Anything she wasn’t happy with was bad. I don’t like hear her say it. I am sure she picked it up at day home– either from a child that is saying it, or perhaps from our day home lady (whom I love, but probably doesn’t have the exact same discipline style that I do.) Regardless of where she picked it up, I really don’t like it.

I do not believe that people are ever bad (with maybe very very few exceptions). People do bad things. In fact, most people, at some point will do something bad. But even then, I prefer to refer to what they do as a mistake, then something bad.

My whole objection to ‘bad’ speaks to my entire philosophy on how I see human nature. I deeply believe that everyone has the potential to be an absolutely wonderful person and an absolutely not wonderful person. And all of us, no mater where we fit on the scale, will do something at some time (probably many times) unintentionally or intentionally that, in some way, hurts someone else. To me, that is the definition of being human. We screw up regularly and we all have the potential for wonderful and horrible within us. What we do and who we are comes part from our personality tendencies (nature) and part from our experiences (nurture). And in all of that we have a choice.

I also tend to see most people who do a lot of horrible things as, in part, a victim of their experiences. Which is why our justice system drives me nuts. I don’t believe your average person wakes up one day and steals a car or stabs someone in the park. People do horrible things because they are in pain, they lack dignity, opportunity, love, connection, trust, mental health, a purpose, a meaningful way to contribute to society ect. I know there is a legal definition of ‘insanity’; but to me, anyone who would kill someone on purpose is insane— and not in the pejorative way, but in the way that they are not a mentally well individual and they need treatment. When I hear of people who do horrible horrible things I wonder about the intense pain they must be in– what would cause them to do such a thing? I don’t believe punishment, the way it works in our justice system right now, actually works to help anyone break the cycle of violence and crime– because the reason for crime has nothing to do with a lack of fear of punishment. Yes, we should be held accountable for our actions. We shouldn’t just shrug when someone does something horrible and say “oh well, they must not be well.” Obviously, we need to do something– provide some kind of justice. Sure, there are people who need to be removed from society to protect other members of society- but I believe that crimes rates would drop much more if we had better social services rather then more incarceration. And more programs to help people build healthy, happy, productive lives as they leave prison. Prevention, you know.

Anyway, I digress. People aren’t bad. They just aren’t well.

When it comes to children- I also don’t believe in shaming as a method for discipline. In fact, I don’t think shaming works for anyone as a method of discipline. I believe we need to give our children clear boundaries and clear natural consequences when they cross those boundaries. But I don’t believe in telling a child they are bad. Telling a child they have done something that is inappropriate or unkind- sure. But telling them they are bad- no. Because, again, I don’t think it works. I don’t think it really shapes behaviour- except in a negative way.

So it bothers me to hear my daughter say someone is bad. I repeat to her over and over again; “No one is bad. We all make mistakes.”

No one is bad. We all make mistakes.

Her friend who hits her is not bad. He/she is not a bully. They are not without compassion. They are preschoolers and are learning. They are not bad.

Imagine if we, in our communities, our workplaces and our society approached each other with that basic understanding more. No one is bad. We all make mistakes.

I think we often think the worst of each other. Assume maliciousness. Don’t stop to consider the others perspective.

Imagine if we did.

Imagine if we raised our children without the concept of ‘bad’.

Typically, I am not a stickler for language. Yes, I believe the words we use are important. But I tire of arguments purely over semantics. Because I think we sometimes get so lost in semantics that we fail to really hear the point. But in this case, I do think it is all about the semantics. Bad is a bad word, IMO.

What do you think? Does your child use the word bad? Do you? Do you think people can be truly bad?

Picture by cogdogblog via Flickr Creative Commons

Equal Pay for Equal Work; maybe we are focused on the wrong problem

Posted on March 3, 2011 by amoment2think

I feel like every time I turn around lately, there is a discussion about woman’s equality in the workforce. Are women under-represented in a certain industry? Why aren’t there more female CEO’s? Why do women still make less then men?

And it great that society is talking. I am all for talking.

However. I wonder if we are looking at this problem from the wrong angle. Or, put an other way, maybe things would change more quickly if we shifted the focus of the question.

There is certainly a lingering bias against women, particularly in certain industries. While Ol’ boys clubs are breaking down at the entry levels of many industries, those ol’ boys clubs are harder to shake at the top. Women are still seen as ‘emotional’ rather then ‘rational’ and this bias hits us hard in the workforce. (This assumption really drives me nuts. 1) All men and women have different approaches to how they think and make decisions and 2) There is value to be found in all approaches.) While women are moving to the top within certain industries (non-profit, health care, education, social services), the lack of women in CEO roles at major corporations seems to be a continuing issue for many commentators.

However, one of the things that strikes me about this conversation is that it rarely, clearly, acknowledges that part of the reason women make less then men in a comparable job and that fewer women make it to the very top of organizations has to do with the fact that many women leave the workforce for 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 years or more, to raise children. Yes, some men leave the workforce as well. But not in nearly the same numbers.

We leave the workforce. Not all of us, but many of us. What this means is both that we miss out on those yearly raises while on leave and that we don’t have as many years of experience under our belts as our male counterparts when it comes time to move into senior roles. If promotions are 100% on merit (as I believe promotion should be) those two or three years less experience can have a big impact. They may not have a big impact at the entry or even mid-management levels, but at the VP and CEO levels they do.

I believe that if we are really committed to changing this we need to address the imbalance in child care between men and women. If about the same number of men as women stayed home for about the same length in time, then I think we would see some big shifts. Men and women are both great at being stay at home parents.

I have said before, I am really bothered by the way fathers are portrayed in our society, in the media and in our lives. I can admit that sometimes I too tease about the roles of husbands/fathers. Just the other day I was talking to a colleague about how her husband got all ‘involved’ in the decision regarding the fabric pattern on the baby car seat they were trying to buy and I suggested that sometimes it is better when those darn husbands just don’t get so ‘involved’, because decision making re: baby gear is easier without them and their “opinions”. But all teasing aside, I still believe that we, as a society, are biased at against the important role fathers play in child-rearing.

Why aren’t more Dad’s staying at home? Well, other then the fact that if one is committed to breastfeeding until, lets say, two years old, that it is just more convenient for the mother to stay home then the father. (Perhaps I have a rather biased view on that, since in my short experience with breastfeeding, pumping seemed like just about the most torturous thing one could do. Anyway.)

There you have it. The sticking point. Well I believe breastfeeding is wonderful, if it works for both mother and child, our Society is pretty obsessed with it being the pinnacle of mother hood. (NO I am not saying that the reason women don’t make as much money is because women value breastfeeding… I am saying that one of the reasons women find themselves between a rock and a hard place when it comes to our careers is because it is hard to do it all.)

This might bring on the wrath of controversy… but I think we have to accept that we can’t have it both ways. Men and Women are biologically different. In that one of us (sometimes) produces milk, which is said to be good for baby, and one of us doesn’t. We just aren’t the same. The concept of ‘womens’ roles and ‘mens’ roles is totally bull. However, regardless of if it is nature or nurture, if you look at the preferences, interests, skills and qualities of a large group of men and women, I would expect there would be trends common amongst women and common amongst men. On average, more women the men choose to stay home and raise children. On average, women tend to choose certain industries over others. On average, women bring their skills and competences to types of roles then the skills and competences that men do.

So should we expect “equality”? What do we mean by equality? Do we mean equality of result or equality of opportunity?

Now, having said that. Let’s say you take women A, women B and women C.

Women A is very career focused. She wants to rise to the top, she is not particularly interested in a family. She wants to be a CEO by 45.

Women B loves her career but is excited to have a family. She wants to try and balance, as best she can, realizing she will have to make some tough choices along the way.

Women C really wants to focus on her family. She is dedicated to being a stay at home Mom and is very good at it. She knows that being a full time mother is an incredibly important and valuable job.

My definition of equality is that all three women can have the life they want to have, just as much as any man can have the life he wants to have.

Now replay those scenarios with Man A, B and C. Each man should also have equal opportunity to pursue the path they prefer as well. I wonder what it is like for stay-at-home days re-entering the work force. I would love to see a study on that.

I think that we (as individuals families and as society) need to get more men involved more deeply in raising our children. I think we need more stay at home Dads and more parental leave. I think we need to try and shift society in a direction that sees taking care of children as a partnership between parents.

I think it is hard in all the study’s and statistics and comparisons to really understand how close we are to equality. I don’t think we are totally there. But I also think that part of the reason we aren’t there is a) because we don’t always want to be and b) because we don’t let men into “our” world.

Photo by Jordan Fischer via Flickr Creative Commons

Parenting with your Instincts

Posted on November 12, 2010 by amoment2think

So I have been thinking lately about instincts and parenting. Probably one of the most common pieces of parenting advice that you hear is to not listen to all the (often contradictory) advice you get as a new parent and rather ‘follow your instinct.’ I 100% agree with this piece of advice. I truly believe that if you listen to your gut about what is best for your baby, your family and yourself you will make good choices.

But I have been thinking about this concept of ‘instincts’ lately and how it is presented as the antidote to advice overload. And how it ties in with ‘natural’ parenting. I have seen the linkage made a lot; natural parenting and instincts. And it makes sense, it appeals to our understanding of nature- that nature works on reacting to innate instincts.

In reading a bunch of the posts in the November Carnival of Natural Parenting. (You can check it out here if you are interested) a number of the bloggers I regularly read were talking about instincts in their posts. Jessica, over at This is Worthwhile spoke about being a natural parent as doing what “feels natural.” Kelly, over at Kelly Naturally wrote a post about following your parenting instincts when they choose not to circumcise their son.

These are both great posts (as I am sure many of the others in the carnival are). But in reading them they twigged some questions for me.

First off, if we all followed our parenting instincts would we all make the same choices? Because this is kinda how it is presented…. the persuasive argument for quite a few natural parenting methods are that a) your instincts would lead you to make this choice and b) it is natural and you just can’t argue with Mother Nature, she knows best. I tend to agree with argument b). Mother Nature is where its at. But the argument that billions and billions of parents would have the same instinct? I don’t know. People are pretty different. If you ran into a bear in a forest what would your instincts tell you to do? Do you think everyone else would have the exact same instinct?

The other question I have is how can you separate your ‘biological instincts’ or ‘nature instincts’ from our ‘learned instincts’ or ‘nurture instincts’? And are one set of instincts better then the other? If everything you have ever known was to do “x”, but maybe most other people would feel “x” goes against their instincts… you see where I am going with this? Very existential. But I wonder, you know?

The other thing I question is if our instincts are always ‘right’? I will give you an example. The other night Audrey woke up at about midnight and started SCREAMING. Which is very unlike her. But she had been sick and it might have been an ear infection or something, I don’t know. Anyway. She cried for well over an hour. I was there with her, trying to help her feel better, letting her know I was there. I talked to her and asked if she had a bad dream or if she had pain somewhere. She was too upset to communicate anything. I gave her advil and offered some water. And held her.

By 45 minutes in, with no idea what was wrong with my baby, my instinct was to cry. It took everything in me not to cry. Why did I try so hard not to cry? Because I was pretty sure part of why she was upset was that she was scared. And I knew logically that if I started to cry she would feel less safe and secure because she would take that to mean something was really wrong. (I do think there is a place for showing and sharing emotions with kids. I believe in being real with them. But 1am in the midst of an all out tantrum is not the time.)

So were my instincts wrong?

Or maybe I had two sets of instincts. My personal, how I relief stress and tension when I am upset, instincts. And my “mommy”, I must keep my baby feeling safe, instincts. Can we have two sets of instincts? Can our instincts tell us two different things?

I have also, on other occasions, when Audrey wakes up in the middle of the night and started to babble and cry a bit fought my instincts to go in that second, and rather give her a couple minutes. Because I know from experience that she often wakes up, babbles and then falls back to sleep in five minutes or less. Should I follow my instincts even though I know from experience that going into to her room in the middle of the night usually just gets her worked up and eventually she needs to fall asleep on her own? I know there are many people who would disagree that I should fight my instincts on this one, but they don’t know my kid.

I don’t write this at all as an argument against ‘natural’ parenting or any other school of parenting thought that advocates following our instincts. As I said from the get go- I think following your gut is good. I just think it is valuable to look at the basis for our beliefs. And the instinct-natural argument go hand in hand and are very seldom really deeply examined. I mean, suggesting that something is natural– well that is very hard to argue with.

But we do argue with it in other ‘hot topic’ debates. For example, humans are animals whom are biologically designed to be omnivores and historically were omnivores in nature. And yet there are many people who believe eating meat is wrong. And many of their reasons are very good (I am particularly persuaded by the environmental and health reasons.) But not eating meat is not ‘natural’. Does that make it wrong?

I know I am being argumentative here. And really truly, I don’t mean to. I am mostly just thinking out loud. But you hear so much of the same argument over and over again in terms of why one way is better then an other, isn’t think it is worth it to consider what that argument really means? Isn’t it reasonable to ask why instincts and nature are good? I am just saying that ‘instincts’ is not a perfectly definable concept. The word means different things to different people and trying to weed out what is an ‘instinct’ versus what is thoughts isn’t always easy. Furthermore, instincts are awesome, but where would we be without the other methods of decision making that make humans what we are: memory, critical thinking, problem solving, imagination. All of these tools in our brain are useful. And parenting is challenging- so chances are most of us need all hands on deck, so to speak.

I don’t know, what do you think?