A Baby Post

I know some of you readers aren't very interested in kids (or are you?), but over the past two days, there have been three things that came up in the media (CBS and Facebook, specifically) that have come up, and I will explode if I do not address them.  Say what you will about my opinions about babies in the media - please do take advantage of my comments section! - but, in no particular order:

• Octopulets' Family Filed for Bankruptcy (and had six kids before octopulets)
  
• Vaccinations are GOOD!  No, they're BAD!
  
• Having kids = bad or no sex, no money, and no life. 
  

Let's start from the top.  There are now reports all over the media that this "miracle," this woman who gave birth to eight babies after over 30 weeks of pregnancy, has a lot more dirt under her collar than thought.  First, it seems that she already has a healthy brood - six children, to be exact - and she is only 33 years old.  Two of these children are twins.  Somehow, she was able to go to a fertility clinic, ask them to implant fertilized embryos in her, and they decided to plant eight - EIGHT! - fertilized embryos in her.  And they all took, and she chose not to selectively abort them, effectively more than doubling her offspring in the span of mere months. Furthermore,  she is living with her parents in a two to three-bedroom house.  She has filed for bankruptcy and has abandoned a house already.  The grandfather is planning to head back to his native Iraq to bring in money to support the family.   And no one knows where the father of these children are.  

What kind of lives will these children have now?  No matter that, if I had asked for fertility treatments, I would not have selectively aborted them, either.  I think that's the only good choice this woman has made in her life, to be quite honest.  We have these fertility doctors at Kaiser who decided to let this woman participate in fertility treatments, even though she is a multiparous young woman who has plenty of kids, between the ages of 7 and 2.  Then there's the question that she abused her fertility medicine, which may have contributed to the sudden fertility of her uterus to accept eight embryos for implantation.  There's her parents who are somehow enabling this to happen by caring for the grandchildren, but also letting the mother off without any sense of responsibility to herself, her fertility or her independence.  

Last of all, the woman herself... I have to say it:  She is an embarrassment to women everywhere, women who have tried to convince others that they are equally powerful as men, that they should be treated the same, that they are capable of taking care of themselves.  Over the years, women have fought for pay equality, for voting rights, for positions of power, and generally trying to get rid of that pesky, cliched glass ceiling.  And then we find these women who make the news by having 14 children, living with their parents, letting welfare do all the work, with an absentee father, no less.  Who is to blame?  The woman?  The doctors who decided to allow a woman with kids to go through more fertility treatments?  The absentee father, the accommodating parents, the welfare system, who?  This country is already fascinated with the likes of Jon & Kate and the Duggar families, so it's no secret that a woman who had 14 kids in six pregnancies has created a sensational media lion pit, with people screaming about the miracles of medicine versus those who are sickened by the Baby Glut.  

Next:  Are vaccinations good or bad?  Who the heck knows any more.  You'll hear all sorts of arguments:  

• Vaccines are bad because of the mercury.  Vaccines are good because they removed the mercury in current vaccines.  
  
• Vaccines are bad because there are only outbreaks among the vaccinated.  Vaccines are good because they prevent outbreaks from turning into epidemics.  
  
• Vaccines are bad because they pump our bodies full of inorganic crap.  Vaccines are good because they help prevent diseases like polio, which, most people my age do not remember when FDR was crippled from the disease and wonder why there wasn't a cure or prevention for it.  
  
• Vaccines are bad because they cause autism.  Vaccines are good because we can't prove they cause autism. 

So, you get the point.  People have opinions about vaccines, and mine is quite simple:  I don't want unvaccinated kids.  Granted:  There are some vaccines that should be optional, such as the flu vaccine, which is based on a virus.  New Jersey recently put a very controversial policy that requires all kids ages 6 months to 5 years to be vaccinated against flu, and that I do not agree with.  I refuse to vaccinate my daughter against a virus, no matter how threatening.  At the same time, however, I don't know where you get your vaccines, but the ones I got for my daughter were guaranteed mercury-free.  I also do not feel like dealing with diseases that devastated the population, diseases that my parents remember, where most older folks see that the risks of vaccination greatly outweigh the benefits provided by saving our kids from polio, meningitis, hepatitis B and rubella (which is even more threatening if a pregnant woman is rubella positive).  

Furthermore, I take issue with parents who decide to lie to schools about their religious exemption from vaccinations:  These people claim it's against their religion to vaccinate their kids, but they just say that so they can get around it.  Look:  If your kid pisses in the sandbox, I'm not letting my child play in there until it's cleaned out.  The same goes if an unvaccinated child brings mumps to school.  Have fun taking care of them while my child stays healthy, okay?  There are countries in this world who still know what polio looks like, and it is horrible.  The benefit to risk ratio is clearly in my children's favor. 

Finally:  I am not going to let people without kids feel guilty about this one.  If you know deep in your heart that you do not want kids, thank you for making a conscious decision and being honest with yourself.  I am proud that you know exactly what you want, and your decision will not be scorned here. 

However, I do take issue with childless people who think having kids means you are banished to a lifetime of no sex (or infrequent, obligatory sessions), being broke and covered in baby puke, sacrificing your looks for rolls of fat and cottage cheese thighs, and sleepless nights that have nothing to do with how much you imbibed the night before.  These people perpetuate a myth that I, in my personal opinion, am offended by and would like to clear up once and for all:  You don't get what you want without a little work.  

1. You want good sex after parenthood?  Choose the time of day (or night) wisely.  Looking forward to a night of naughtiness is a lot better than wondering if you'll "get to tap it" after going to a bar and bringing home an anonymous bar crawler.  
2. You want money after parenthood?  No one is stopping you from working your job and sacrificing that new car you want, which is, of course, the most important thing in the world.  (Insert sarcasm here.)  
3. You want to not smell like baby puke?  Take a shower and find a burp cloth.  The baby puke stops for a while until they start getting sick for real - hah!
4. You want to not sacrifice your looks and get rid of the fat?  Then start working out like you used to before having kids and not buying so much junk food - it's the same thing your doctor's going to tell you, so that should save you the copay.  
5. You want a night with sleep?  Well, if you have a newborn, nothing's going to save that, but there are ways to get your kid to sleep through the night, in their own crib, at around six months of age.   You are not banished for life to a family bed. 
6. You want nice stuff and money to spend?  You're right - kids can be a wallet drain.  You really do have to choose carefully between your toys and your kids if you want to retire properly (which is to say, without the help of our government, who will burn through Social Security and leave my generation nothing.  You heard it here first, folks.)

In essence, it is possible to have a life after children.  Maybe it's changed, but you can still play by your own rules.  Parents are not asexual, ugly creatures who stink.  Trust me on this:  I have seen with my own eyes beautiful, appealing couples who love their kids and smell equally as fresh.  To borrow a personally hated phrase that is overused and will probably sum up my argument best:  Parenthood and sex/beauty/sleep are not mutually exclusive.  

I'd blame this post on my pregnancy, but that's too easy a cop-out.  There's also many myths that I would love to banish about babies, such as those perpetuated by commercials with babies in them, but this post is long enough.  I think I've skewered the popular media - and those who participate in it- enough for one day. 

Barack Hussein Obama, a Man

So today, we watch the inauguration of the first black United States President.  Millions of people have flocked to D.C., a kind of political pilgrimage, to see history made, and around the world, people are saying, "It's about time you got someone other than a white, male president in there.  We've been doing it for years.  Now get back to work." 

Sorry.  Maybe it's not that pessimistic.  Perhaps since the U.S. is such a young country, we can give ourselves a little leeway not electing a female or minority president until 2009.  But I still wonder amid all the hype and partying and celebration, that being caught up in the moment will soon jump up to bite me in the behind later.  Between the outgoing, unpopular President and an incoming President with a message of hope and responsibility, therein lies a country torn to bits by their feelings about war, about economic strife, about whose fault it was that we can't pay our credit card bills and mortgages, and about watching their jobs disappear.  

Let's step back and ask ourselves why we are so excited.  I am, to clear the record, so proud of President-elect Obama (he's still got a couple hours to go before inauguration) that he has made this journey and given hope to a constituency that has long waited for - shall I say it? - justice.  It seems that much of the black population is finally seeing change, seeing retribution for past injustices by a community largely white and middle class.  I don't doubt the historic implications.

However, our excitement lies in many different places.  A well-spoken gentleman from the bitter, embattled Illinois government has preached and taught a message to us, and it goes against everything that we cried for when Bush was in power.  After 9/11, we cried for blood.  We cried for retribution.  Don't think you didn't want revenge; you're lying if you think that the loss of over 3,000 innocent souls on U.S. soil didn't anger you and want you to point a finger at someone.  We screamed for Bush to find who did this and destroy them.  I don't care if you were Republican or Democrat; we saw our lives crumble with those towers, with the Pentagon, with those four airplanes.  

Then war began and we thought it would be over in, oh, six months.  A year, tops.  How sadly we are mistaken.  Do we not remember wars of our past, and how long it took before peace was restored?  Wars are not about turning governments or countries into parking lots and leaving behind the mess.  We made shock and awe and now are trying to teach an Iraqi police force how to do jumping jacks and dealing with Marines ghost riding government vehicles.  We listened to Lewis Black talk about Hans Blix and Colin Powell, and the government's search for weapons of mass destruction or "ice cream."  It quickly turned into a parody of our current President, the big ears and the honky-tonk accent, standing on an air carrier with the banner "Mission Accomplished."  We went from a country scorched to a country scorned, and other countries' support waned through a leaky ideology of "staying the course."  Eventually, we were left with not knowing what we wanted.  People died; we tried to get revenge; it didn't work.  The man likely responsible is hidden in the Afghani mountains, probably passing on ideas or leadership to other sects who scream jiahd, not unlike our screams for revenge after 9/11. 

Is it so hard to understand that we are like those we despise, more so than we'd think?  What makes us so different from President Bush, or Osama bin Laden?  What makes you different from the woman who wears a hijab or a Muslim who celebrates Ramadan?  How are you different from murderers on death row or white supremacists?  In the same vein:  Is it so hard to understand that we are also like those who we love and glorify, more so that we'd think?  Is Obama so much of a political savior that we put him on a pedestal, clamoring for just a glimpse of him as he swears an oath, or is he more like us that we should be able to say to him, "We elected you - enjoy your party today, but please get to work."  I don't doubt he is ready for that, and even doubt further that he will want to sit back and enjoy taxpayer's money on an additional five days of celebrations before starting on his likely first order of business.  

I have anticipated this day as much as anyone.  Like I said, I want the Obama family to be celebrated today and congratulated.  At the same time, however, I wonder how long it will be before we realize his humanity and start screaming for the change he has so long promised.  It didn't take long for Mrs. Biden to open mouth, insert foot, according to CNN; her husband's not even Veep yet.  Will Obama's smooth talking get him better luck with the red tape that blankets our nation's capital like a Sherwin-Williams globe?  Will Obama's withdrawal or re-allocation of troops prove success or civil war in Iraq?  What will we judge are his successes?  Will he be judged less stringently than his past fellow Presidents because of his poorly-liked predecessor or the color of his skin?  Should we take it easy on him because he has such a huge mess to clean up?  

Answer honestly.  The man - and he is only a man - will have to face his own humanity sooner or later, and we will flame him for it, no matter what kind of intelligence he receives, no matter how well he can utilize our military to protect us.  We will judge him based on the end result, not the sleepless nights or the necessity of pissing us off in order to keep us safe.  I would like to give Bush the benefit of the doubt in that regard, but history will write his Presidency soon enough, and those who write history will decide if he was a success.  As will we decide if Obama is truly the Presidential salvation we all voted for. 

Forecast: It's Cold and Quote-Worthy Today

In light of a BBC article that outlined some of the famous Bushisms we've been treated to in the past, I found an article on CNN that deals with a pretty serious issue:  STDs in the U.S.  (I promise to show you why Bush and STDs belong together.  Trust.)  Apparently, STDs have been on the rise, according to the CDC, especially among women, minorities and adolescents (15 to 24 years old).  I was somewhat surprised by this - why are the cases going up?  Are folks becoming more comfortable with reporting symptoms to their doctors?  Are parents screaming that there's too much STD talk in schools?  Lack of condom use?  Are parents embarrassed to tell their kids that no matter what your partner tells you, they might still be sick with an STD?  The possibilities are endless.

But what cracked me up was the final paragraph of the article.  I have a feeling the media relished the fact that this doctor, the director of the CDC's Division of STD Prevention, Dr. John Douglas, made this wonderfully apt statement.  Dr. Douglas states:

If the parents assume that's the doctor's business, or the teacher's business, and don't roll up their sleeves and get in there themselves, and if our schools aren't giving comprehensive education, and if our clergy and other community leaders who are interested in youth well-being aren't including sexual health on the agenda, we're going to create missed opportunities.

Erm.  "Roll up their sleeves and get in there themselves"?  Well damn.  C'mon folks, let's roll up our sleeves and get in there with our kids!  Couldn't this doctor think of a better way to say that intervention and education is key to preventing STDs?  At least churches wouldn't have to do the sleeve-rolling in that sense; educate people on what could happen when you jump into bed with someone's nether regions which have been to far-off lands and brought home one too many viruses back to the homeland.  So to speak. 

I think Bush said it best with a laugh-worthy Bushism in September 2004:

Too many good docs are getting out of the business.  Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country. 

Right.