Front Porch
>A fusion of driving and living
>
 |
| Sheila Smart @ Blood Orange Review |
Marilyn Martin on parenting, disabilities, and the long commute @ Front Porch.
The first time I saw the Waldorf School, my friend, Monica, drove me. I sat in the passenger seat as we inched down the entrance ramp and merged into the left lane of the Eisenhower Expressway among the stalled cars of commuting bankers, construction workers, and computer programmers. I could see harried women staring into their rear-view mirrors while they applied mascara and dipped plastic spoons into cartons of Dannon yogurt. Later, we left the Eisenhower and got onto the Kennedy. Huge trucks hauling milk and gasoline thundered by in the adjacent lanes. Forty-five minutes later we parked in front of an ugly building on a small residential street in a commercial section of Chicago. There were a few apartments, a few brick bungalows, and rows of abandoned warehouses.
We had driven in from our homes in suburban Oak Park for a monthly orientation meeting offered by the Waldorf School for prospective parents. Monica had read about the school in one of those free alternative-parenting magazines you find littering the floor of the children’s department of the library. She wasn’t seriously considering sending Celine, her precocious six-year-old daughter and my daughter’s current best friend, to a school that required a difficult commute on two expressways. We were here, she explained, to explore all the educational alternatives and “see what was out there.” But my interest in the school was more tangible. For the past six months, I had been looking for a school where my daughter, Sara, could fit in. I had pretty much rejected all the choices close to home, so I remember being disappointed on realizing just how far the school was from where I lived.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )
If it seems neurotic to put so much energy into finding a school for a first-grader, keep in mind that this was 1987, and already the twenty-first-century hyper-vigilant brand of parenting was in vogue among privileged people. Very little about a child’s life was left to chance. Every option was obsessively debated, and each decision was made with deliberation. Should the baby sleep in a crib or in a “family bed”? Should we sign up with the Italian pediatrician who recommended no solid food during the first year or the one in the next office who believed babies should eat cereal before they could sit up? But the questions that claimed the most reflection and debate among parents were the ones about education. Mothers had heated discussions about the relative merits of progressive versus traditional education. The ability to discover the best school for one’s child became a touchstone of parenting.
>The sacred and the sexual
>
 |
| Hal Hishorn @ Sensitive Skin |
Wendy Besel Hahn reflects on the complex history of the pregnant form @ Front Porch
I reclined on the obstetrician’s examination table and stared at my exposed stomach. My white skin was taut, but soft. Weeks earlier I had announced my pregnancy to my colleagues and my students, seventeen-year-olds in my junior-level English classes. Since that time my department chair had taken to cheerfully greeting me each morning, making eye contact, and quickly lowering her gaze to assess my “progress.” A male student in my eighth period class had blurted out, “Mrs. Hahn, you didn’t look pregnant before break—what happened?” Weeks later, a female student had whispered, “I can see your belly today.” She smiled so hard that she squinted. I tried not to feel insulted by the attention—it wasn’t my glowing personality or wit that garnered these outpourings.
As the doctor looked at my chart, I thought of the maternity clothing catalog. Its bikini-clad swimsuit models reminded me of Vanity Fair’s August 1991 cover picturing Demi Moore in a scandalous combination—pregnant and nude. In the photograph, she stood nearly in profile, partially covering the breast closest to the camera with her left hand to show off an enormous diamond ring on her middle finger. Her right hand cupped the underside of her belly as her eyes looked away, revealing three-quarters of her face. The lighting emphasized her pregnant abdomen, perfectly smooth and free of stretch marks. She looked incredibly sensual, a modern-day twist on Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. On first viewing the magazine cover over ten years earlier, I had judged it critically; it hadn’t seemed appropriate to depict the pregnant form as sexy. Yet it had become an image to emulate in American culture. I hadn’t ordered a bikini for the upcoming summer months, but I diligently applied cocoa butter to my growing appendage daily to keep my options open.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )After asking about the baby’s movements, my doctor produced a tape measure. She must have seen the face I made, the same involuntarily wrinkling of my nose that happened as the nurse adjusted the scale at each visit, because she smiled.
“Just remember that you are a walking miracle,” she instructed as she stretched the tape measure from my pubic bone to my navel.
I smiled blankly at her, unsure of how to take that remark. Several million “walking miracles” inhabited the planet with me, contributing to overpopulation. My major life accomplishment seemed to be getting knocked up.
altimoniere 