NYC Moms

Want a Home Birth? You Can’t in New York.

I was featured as a natural birth and breastfeeding advocate on Ricki Lake’s site MyBestBirth.com two weeks ago, and only because I read the MBB e-mail newsletter announcing my featured post did I learn that one of the most progressive hospitals in the city, St. Vincent’s in Manhattan, was closed, making it impossible for the home-birth midwives in New York to practice. They are obliged by state law to be approved by a hospital or obstetrician. So any expecting mom wanting to give birth at home can’t now, and the midwives either have to work illegally with their clients or are out of a job.

I'm outraged. This is New York City we are talking about! I’m outraged that I didn’t hear about this earlier, that this isn’t a bigger story. I actually gave birth to my son in a hospital -- we made it there, doula in tow, 20 minutes before he was born -- but I would want to have my baby at home the next time if we had another child. What are the New York midwives supposed to do, and more importantly, what is going to happen to the expecting moms who are close to their due dates, have been working with their midwives throughout their pregnancies, and now aren’t allowed to give birth at home?

Raising kids in NYC

There are many reasons for raising my children in New York City: our great community, wonderful parks, amazing resources, from museums to theater to music.

Another consideration for me and my husband – NYC has the United State’s highest population of Jews. It feels great when Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Passover are shared with the city at large; NYC public schools are always closed on these days and even if you are not Jewish, you know at least a tiny bit about the holiday.

New York has 4 Jewish museums, each with a strong component for children. The Jewish Museum,has an interactive gallery, and exhibits like the current “Curious George Saves the Day” appeal to museum-goers of any denomination. The Jewish Children’s Museum is designed for all faiths, and is in Crown Heights, with a large Hasidic and Caribbean population. The Yeshiva University Museum and the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust focus on history that is not just relevant to Jews.

Raising a Tree Hugger

The other day I finally went on a long-overdue walk in my neighborhood. The sun was shining, the birds chirping, I passed two fishermen in their boat… I took a deep breath and was really enjoying myself, thinking that I need to do this more often, when a big diesel truck drove into the street I was going to walk up. By the time I passed the truck, the driver had gotten out and was fixing something on a car next to it, but the big truck was still running. I kept walking for about ten minutes and finally turned around to walk back home. The loud diesel truck was still running. I looked for the driver but he was nowhere to be seen. My blood started boiling. Not only was this guy not showing any consideration to the people living on that street who had to listen to this annoying noise, I was outraged that he was needlessly polluting the air. He’s lucky he wasn’t around or I would have given him a piece of my mind. I don’t have any tolerance for people who pollute the earth unnecessarily, especially now as a mother.

We all do things that pollute the environment. We create trash, drive cars, or fly in airplanes. But it’s another thing to pollute unnecessarily. Like throwing trash out of the car window. Who does that?! Apparently a lot of people, judging by the wrappers, cups, and plastic bags I see on the side of the roads. One of my biggest pet peeves is people letting their cars run — I just don’t get it. Come on, turn off your car to get the mail or to see Aunt Bernice for a second. Aunt Bernice starts talking your ear off and you forget all about that running car in the driveway. Warming your car up in the winter — is that an American phenomenon? I grew up in Europe and have never witnesses someone there warming up their car in the driveway.

Eat my breast milk cheese

This takes the cake – er, cracker.  A restaurant in NYC, Klee Brasserie, is serving cheese made from breast milk.  I heard about this while running on the treadmill today and watching Live with Regis and Kelly  (actually, with Andy Richter, this am, but what the hey) and caught another mention on Good Day New York. 

Now, I was not one of those new moms who felt that breastfeeding had to be hidden – unlike, say, my mother-in-law, who banished me from the table, in my own home, no less – when I started to nurse my newborn.  I meekly slunk from the table, then said, ‘wait a minute, this is my house, I make the rules.’  Plus there is nothing shameful about breastfeeding, and nurturing your child is completely natural.

Not in My Backyard

Now that it has been determined that the terror trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will not be held in NYC, I've been asking myself if I'm relieved or disturbed.

Let me explain.  I live in New York City, one express subway stop away from where the trial had been scheduled to take place.  I took the news that the trial would be scheduled there in stride.  Other terrorists have been tried and convicted in that Courthouse. There has always been tremendous police presence in the area, escalated, of course, after September 11th.

Parenting by Social Media - Is this our future?

It's not enough that today's tweens/teenagers are preoccupied with obsessively updating their friends via texts, Facebook and Twitter but now they are literally trying to parent us parents by forcing us to change our decisions via social media. 

This weekend's New York Times chronicles one Queens, New York teenager's efforts to overturn her parent's recent punishment for what she deemed "an honest late-night mistake."  How? She formed a Facebook fan page group "1,000 to get Tess ungrounded."  

So what was her honest late-night mistake. She was caught drinking at a party and missing her 11:30 curfew by an hour. Did I mention she is only fifteen? And for this offense, she was grounded for 5 weeks that included no parties or  sleepovers.

Is that we, Web 2.0 parents are in for going forward? Anytime, we yell at our kids, make them do their homework, banish them to practice the piano, take away their electronic toys or ground them, they are going to put it up on Facebook or tweet about it??

While I admire her chutzpah and ingenuity, I think it is somewhat disrespectful to her parents to have done this. Did she really think they were going to change their mind? 

Breastfeeding Helps You Get Back Into Shape!

This Thursday was a great day for breastfeeding advocates like me. The New York Times ran an article called “Breast-Feed the Baby, Skip the Dieting?” Catherine Saint Louis wrote about what has been my experience as well: breastfeeding helps moms melt those extra pounds after pregnancy — and if you are lucky, even more. I was a size 8 when I met my husband, I gained about 38 pounds while pregnant, and I have been a size 6 — or a size 4 on a very good day — since my son was about 10 months old. He just turned 3 and I am still breastfeeding him on demand. Being able to eat what I want because I am nursing my child is one of the reasons why I am in no hurry for him to self-wean!

I have mentioned on my blog, Dagmar’s momsense, that I think breastfeeding is the best diet I have ever been on. But I have also heard the opposite and wrote a blog post about this, asking other moms to chime in with their own experiences. After analyzing the responses, it seems that a lot of women are able to regain their pre-pregnancy weight while breastfeeding, yet some feel that they are holding on to extra pounds because their body thinks it has to store some extra fat to be able to produce milk in case of emergencies.

Is Yelling Okay? No, but I do it anyway

A recent New York Times article proclaimed "For Some Parents, Shouting is the New Spanking." I say bring back spanking, just kidding.  

Back to yelling. Yes, I know it's wrong, yes, I know it doesn't work but yet I continue to do it. Do I do it all the time?  No. And not that it makes it okay that I do it at all or am I justifying my actions. Days go by that there is nary a peep of yelling. I am in a groove, patient, great at negotiating with my daughter, don't mind reminding her to do her chores, just chugging along enjoying the joys of being a parent. 

But it only takes a moment in which all hell breaks loose and I just throw my hands up, I am so frustrated. I agree with the article, that these moments can be attributed to multi-tasking, trying to get to an event/school/class on time, the need to get something done. That said, I don't really feel guilty that I yelled but I don't feel good either because, I know there will be repercussions down the road. 

I have made great strides to try to inject time into the schedule or be more in the moment so as to avoid my little meltdowns but life doesn't always work the way you plan it. 

Homework, redux

When I was a kid, homework was what just did.  Or, if you were a ‘bad’ kid, didn’t do it, and got in trouble with the teacher.  But back then, your parents were not involved.  In today’s world of hyper-vigilant helicopter parenting, homework is something parents stress over.

Not that kids don’t feel some measure of stress, too, particularly when they go to demanding NYC public school like Mark Twain Middle School or Stuyvesant High School.  My middle daughter went to Twain and routinely received over 4 hours of work a night, plus weekend and holiday papers.  She was even on Fox at Five about her homework overload. But even at ‘alternative’ schools, projects and reading can consume the bulk of an evening and some parents are enraged.

At Beacon High School, where my oldest went, and which my middle daughter still attends, teachers post homework on a school-only portal, and in addition to doing assigned work, students compulsively check their teachers’ pages to find new assignments, sometimes as late as 10pm on a school night.  I was at a PA meeting the other night where the bulk of the meeting was spent on complaints about late homework assignments.

For Shame

As parents, we try to teach our kids proper behavior.  Two recent incidents by adults show that not everyone grows up the right way.

First, South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson shouted out during President Obama’s speech on health reform, 'you lie!' (Need I add that Wilson is a Republican?).  Kids learn from an early age that they can’t scream in public - they are cautioned to use 'inside voices' - and when they disagree, say, with the teacher, they raise their hands.

Kanye West violated public mores when he interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the Video Music Awards. I’m not sure if entertainers are held to a higher or lower standard than politicians; witness scandals involving former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.