The Good Girl ~ by Jay

I don't think I've ever called Eve a "good girl". I had dogs for so long before I became a mother that the act of saying "good girl!" to a baby or toddler just seemed wrong to me. That's how you talk to a dog, not a person (and I'm quite clear that, much as I love my dogs, they are not children). Good Girls are too passive, too quiet, too deferential.

My mother finds this amusing, because she thinks Eve is a Good Girl, just like I was. She says I was an obedient child who wore was picked out for me, sat politely in class, and did what I was told. That's not what I want for Eve. I want her to choose her own clothes, ask lots of questions, and do what she thinks is right. Every time my mother says "You were such a good girl", I grind my teeth and bite my tongue.

I was reminded of this when I saw a call for submissions to an anthology on Racialicious. The book, edited by Piyali Bhattacharya and Josephine Tsui, is called MAMA SAYS GOOD GIRLS MARRY DOCTORS – Retaining Control, Negotiating Roles: South and East Asian Diasporic Women and their Parents.

I am not South or East Asian. I am an Ashkenazic Jew, but some ideas cross cultural boundaries. Both of my grandmothers and my mother were the good Jewish girls who married doctors. My parents moved back to my mother's hometown in 1960, when I was an infant, so my father could join his father-in-law in private practice. Three weeks later, my mother went grocery shopping in blue jeans and one of my father's old shirts, and found herself face-to-face with her own mother in the produce aisle. The next thing she knew, she was at Bonwit Teller's being instructed, in a horrified whisper, about the appropriate clothing for a doctor's wife to wear in public. She took the lesson to heart; I don't remember seeing my mother in jeans until I was in high school, when denim became high fashion.

My mother was a Good Girl, and it cost her. She didn't feel she could be politically active; she had to cultivate certain groups of friends to help build Dad's practice; she had to join the hospital auxiliary. She never complained, but she felt it. Mom came to visit me my sophomore year of college and heard one of my roommates, also premed, complain about her mother's attitude toward her studies. "My mom says I should stop trying to take all these science courses and just marry a doctor", she wailed. My mother took her arm, leaned over, and said, intently, "You tell your mother that in cases of divorce, he gets custody of the degree, and you and Jay go ahead and go to medical school on your own".

Maybe I was a Good Girl at six, and maybe I didn't get to choose my own clothes when I was 10, but my mother had it right where it counted most. The next time she says Eve is a Good Girl, I'll try to remember that.

Letter From My Daughter ~ by Jay

Dear Mom and Dad,

I know we already have two dogs, but I want a puppy of my very own. A puppy I can take care of and who will be cute and cuddly like puppies are supposed to be. Puppies need a home. Where there are nice, caring, loving people who will treat them with respect and care. And if they land in this house I say lucky them.

Oh, yeah, if I can call you mom and dad and call this house "home" then so can a dog. If you can adopt me and call me "pumpkin" then you can do that with another dog. I know you can.

love,

Eve
I <3 puppies

Why I Love My Husband ~ by Jay

We're in a bar tonight, waiting for a table in the attached restaurant, and the overly friendly guy sitting next to Sam sees me pull my wallet out of my purse to pay the bill, and says

Wow, how'd you get one who pays? The girls I date all expect me to pay for everything.

and I am compelled to respond

Perhaps you should stop dating girls and start spending time with women.

And then I walk away and he gets all buddy-buddy with Sam:

Well, I guess she nailed me, but girls are more fun, am I right?

and Sam says

You have no idea what you're missing.

Back To Booze And Babies ~ by Jay

I wrote a three-part series about public-health measures that shame women for drinking during pregnancy. Turns out that drinking behavior is only one piece of the complex picture of causes for fetal alcohol syndrome - check out this post from Sociological Images.

In her book, Conceiving Risk, Bearing Responsibility, Elizabeth Armstrong explains that FAS is not just related to alcohol intake, but is “highly correlated with smoking, poverty, malnutrition, high parity [i.e., having lots of children], and advanced maternal age” (p. 6). Further, there appears to be a genetic component. Some fetuses may be more vulnerable than others due to different ways that bodies breakdown ethanol, a characteristic that may be inherited. (This may also explain why one fraternal twin is affected, but not the other.)

Exhorting women to avoid alcohol during pregnancy won't do much to reduce the incidence of FAS, and it's least likely to reach the women who are most vulnerable because they are more likely to be addicted. When "exhorting" turns into "shaming and blaming", we move beyond ineffective and into pernicious; it's one more noise in the cacophony of sound bites telling us that we are solely and completely responsible for our children, without any help from anyone, and nothing less than perfection is acceptable.

Things I Could Do Without, NYT Photo Edition ~ by Jay

This week's edition of the Sunday Times Magazine has some gorgeous photos of the Great Performers in Film. This is an annual feature. Oh, goody.

Here's the cover


and here's the next picture of a man and woman together

(sorry it's so small; my HTML skills fail me)

It's probably big enough for you to notice, however, that only one person in the pair is wearing clothes, and surprise! it's not the woman.

Sandra Bullock and Julianne Moore get to wear bras, at least. The whole section includes precisely one woman wearing clothes, and that's Penelope Cruz, who happens to be winding herself around Daniel Day-Lewis in a pose that makes it appear that she has no legs.

This is followed by a section on The Secret Live of Girls, featuring "five actresses who broke through in 2009 - in films featuring young women" because we all know that films featuring young women are daring! and edgy! while films featuring young men are, well, normal. The pictures show four women looking down at their feet or off to the side, certainly not meeting the camera's gaze. The exception is the remarkable Gabourey Sidibe of Precious, who has already challenged the status quo by daring to appear in public fat, black and happy with herself. A little thing like making eye contact would be a piece of cake by comparison.

Terumah ~ by Jay

They shall make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them (Shemot {Exodus} 25:8)

As usual, I didn't leave enough time to learn my Torah portion for today's service. I struggled to learn the Hebrew and didn't even look at the translation.

This week's parshah is a part of the Torah that Sam and I call This Old Tabernacle - a long stretch of Exodus full of instructions for building the mishkan, the structure to house the Ark and the Tablets. Two cubits of wood, covered in gold, with rings at each foot; linens and wool and dolphin-skin and cherubim and poles to carry the tabernacle from place to place. The description is so careful and detailed that you could create a measured drawing (and one of the commentaries we studied this morning had done just that). I've always found this section of Torah boring. It's not challenging and difficult, like the passages that describe the laws of marital purity; it's not compelling and mythical, like the descriptions of Creation or the Song of the Sea. It just left me uninterested - until today.

Today the Rabbi pointed out that the building of the mishkan marks a significant change in the way the Israelites encounter G-d. In previous stories, G-d dwelt in a specific place - on top of Mount Sinai, at the spot where Jacob sleeps, at the site of the burning bush - and every time someone returned to that spot, G-d would be there. Once the mishkan is built, G-d promises to accompany the Israelites on their journey. They will no longer have to come to G-d; G-d will be with them. From that moment on, the Jews will have their sacred space wherever thy go.

They shall make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them

The Hebrew can be read two ways: they will make a sanctuary {for} Me or they will make a sanctuary {of} Me. G-d is the sanctuary, and G-d is always with us.

What is holy space? asked the rabbi. If G-d is always with us, what do we need to do to create holy space?

Holy space. I sat in the auditorium at the JCC and thought about my office. I work in an inpatient hospice. We have adjustable beds and oxygen tubing and syringes and IV pumps and doctors and nurses, but it doesn't feel like a hospital. The difference goes beyond the carefully planned rooms and the handmade quilts and the fresh flowers and the music; it's in the air. We slow our pace, and we lower our voices, and our patients and families can relax. Such irony, that there is peace in this place where people come to die. This is holy space, and here we do holy work. Here we can honor the deep connections among family members, and nurture those connections for ourselves. G-d lives in those connections. It is our intention that sanctifies.

Much of our work takes place in the homes of our patients. As the Israelites of old carried the mishkan with them, I will carry the intention of that sanctity with me. I don't know how many cubits of acacia wood will fit in the back of my minivan, but I trust that I can build the tabernacle I need in my mind and heart.

Blessed are you, our G-d, Ruler of the Universe, who has sanctified us by your commandments and commanded us to study Torah.

Why I Like My Boss ~by Jay

Because when he receives the report of an event in which we had to physically restrain a patient and send her to the ER, and the report includes the patient's allegation that "the doctor kicked me", he immediately calls me to see if I'm all right.

And that's his only concern.

Conversations With My Daughter ~ by Jay

Why are we taking this car?

Because Daddy's taking the van to the shop today.

How come you don't drive this car very often?

Because Daddy drives it.

Why don't you take turns?

Well, when I drive the van, my stuff is in there, and when Daddy drives the car, his stuff is in here, and it's easier to drive the same car every day than to move things around all the time.

When I grow up and get married and have a car, I'll take all of my stuff out every night so it will be clean.

Grinding Halt ~ by Tigermom

I live in the vicinity of the US affected by the recent Snowmageddon.

Life here came to a grinding halt.

Not so much in my house as I fielded children bouncing off the walls.

But everyone was inside: not just my kids, but also my patients and my colleagues.

I had to cancel several days of patients since my childcare system broke down in the weather. And as I try to put the pieces back together, I am back in the office today contacting patients to find times for them to come in, to get their medications back on track, to return phone calls and faxes.

But no one is answering the phones!

Where is everyone?

The Angel Bus ~ by Jay

"The angel bus came last night". That's the charge nurse calling me to check in as I make hospital rounds on the palliative care service before driving over the hill to the hospice house. "They must have had extra seats".

One, two, three, four, five...

that's a lot of death certificates. 13 patients here when I went home last night. Five deaths in less than 24 hours. Only one I would have predicted.

I start to fill out the death certificates. Looking at the times, I can see that three of those deaths happened between 7:00 and 9:30 PM yesterday. I wince, thinking of the evening staff making all the phone calls, filling out all the papers, comforting all the families. Our staff prefers to spend time with families as they wait for the funeral home to arrive, and I know they must have been frustrated at the need to leave each bedside as the next patient died.

The angel bus. It's as good an explanation as any for this final mystery.

When will it happen, Doctor?

I don't know. I can never tell. It's not up to me.

I do believe that some people decide to die. They let go of this life and choose to move on to whatever is waiting. They die quickly. They do not linger. Others seem to settle in to this liminal state, and lie quietly and comfortably in bed for days. How is that possible, Doctor? I don't know. I have seen people live for weeks without appreciable food or water, just - waiting. For what? For the angel bus.

Hindsight is always more accurate. She must have been waiting, we tell each other; she died as soon as her son arrived. But we can't predict that. Maybe she's waiting for her sister, Doctor. If we tell her to come, will that help? I don't know.

There is so much I don't know. I think we are looking a few days, but I don't know. The longer I do this work, the less I know. When will it happen? When it happens. When the time is right. When his work here is done.

When the angel bus arrives and has an extra seat.

Things I Could Do Without, Misogyny in the Comics Edition ~ by Jay

Because women are always irrational, but after menopause - hoo, boy! Watch out! We're just cookie-eating crank machines, amirite?