Feminist Fantasies

from Phyllis Schlafly's book- Feminist Fantasies, in a section called "Choosing a Career"

"Marriage and motherhood have their trials and tribulations, but what lifestyle doesn't?  If you look upon your home as a cage, you will find yourself just as imprisoned in an office or a factory.  The flight from the home is a flight from self, from responsibility, from the nature of woman, in pursuit of false hopes and fading fantasies.

If you complain about servitude to a husband, servitude to a boss will be more intolerable.  Everyone in the world has a boss of some kind.  It is easier for most women to achieve a harmonious working relationship with a husband than with a foreman, supervisor, or office manager.  

That American women have always been fortunate (as opposed to oppressed as feminists would have us believe) was confirmed more than 150 years ago by the famous French commentator Alexis de Tocqueville:  "Although the women of the United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some respects one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman occupying a loftier position; and if I were asked, now that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply:  to the superiority of their women"

MOVING!

I have been meaning to update for a while because so many things have been going on!  And, then I come into our computer room, and the USB thing that connects the memory card for our camera to the computer has been packed!!!  grrr...  so, no pictures.  

We are moving!  One block away, literally.  The housing company on base said that our house would probably be remodeled in August.  Turns out they are ahead of schedule.  So, 2 weeks ago we got this notice saying we had 30 days to move, we go to the housing office and they say it won't actually be until late May/early June.  I'm like uhh... no!  Moving with a newborn??  I think not.  So, thankfully, there was a house available sooner and we are moving this weekend.   We got the keys today (we had already seen the inside a week and a half ago because there were no doorknobs on any of the outside doors... so we "broke" in) and the whole house must have been painted like yesterday, it smells horrible!  

I have been slowly packing our house for 2 weeks, so it hasn't been overwhelming.  I hate being pregnant and not able to lift heavy things!  Though, I have successfully disassembled a twin size fully wooden bed and our 8 foot dining room table by myself!  

The house is nice though, the master bed & basement are much bigger, it has nicer bathrooms, and a fireplace and a garage... with a garage door opener!  Oh, but we will be having to move out around the 20th of this month for a few days while they re-do the kitchen counter tops (apparently the shipment was delayed)... hmmm great.  Anyone know if I should take everything out of the cabinets while this is happening?  I don't want everything covered in dust!

I'm also excited about having a new address, people don't understand our address now which is 4518E E. streetname (thats right 2 'E's)... and then to live in a 'city' that is an acronym including the similar sounding letters of S & F.  Now we will be at 4501A W. street name... less confusing I hope.  

I'm 36 weeks now!  27 days left hopefully (and not 41 days!).  

I'll have pictures after we unpack.  

Compulsory Schooling

I recently read John Taylor Gatto's "Dumbing Us Down:  The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling".   The author taught in NY public schools for 30 years.  The first chapter titled The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher, is a speech he gave upon being named "New York State Teacher of the Year".  He goes on to explain how he and all teachers teach confusion, class position, indifference, emotional & intellectual dependency, provisional self-esteem, and that one can't hide.  This guy is gutsy!  

"...there are some studies that suggest literacy at the time of the American Revolution, at least for non-slaves on the Eastern seaboard was close to total...pick up a 1850 5th grade math or rhetoric textbook and you'll see the texts were pitched on what would today be consider college level.  The continuing cry for basic skills practice is a smoke screen behind which schools preempt the time of children for twelve years and teach them the seven lessons I've just described to you." p 12

"Schools take our children away from any possibility of an active role in community life- in fact, it destroys communities by relegating the training of children to the hands of certified experts- and by so doing it ensures our children cannot grow up fully human.  Aristotle taught that without a fully active role in community life one could not hope to become a fully healthy human being... look around next time you are near a school or old people's reservation if you wish a demonstration." p 13

"... without the exploiting the fearfulness, selfishness, and inexperience of children, our schools could not survive at all... No common school that actually dared to teach the use of critical thinking tools would last very long before being torn to pieces." p 17

"the method of mass schooling is its only real content.  Don't be fooled into thinking that good curriculum  or good equipment or good teachers are the critical determinants of your son's or daughter's education.  School is a 12 year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned."  p 19

"Schooles are inteded to produce, through the application of formulas, formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled.  Well-schooled people are irrelevant... as human beings they are useless.  Useless to others and useless to themselves"  p 23.  sheesh!

"It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to sit in confinement with people of exactly the same age and social class.  That system effectively cuts you off from the immense diversity of life and the synergy of variety; indeed, it cuts you off from you own past and future, sealing you in a continuous present. It is absurd and anti-life to move from cell to cell at the sound of a gong for every day of your natural youth in an institution that allows no privacy and even follows you into the sancurary of your home, demanding that you do its 'homework'." p 24

"Think of the phenomena which are killing us as a nation: narcotic drugs, brainless competition, recreational sex, the pornography of violence, gambling, and alcohol- and the worst pornography of all:  lives devoted to buying things, accumulation as a philosophy.  All off these are addictions of dependent personalities, and this is what our brand of schooling must inevitably produce." p 26

On the "victories" of women's rights "The predicament of women is a bit trickier to see, but if sharply accelerated rates of suicide, heart disease, emotional illness, sterility, and other pathological conditions are an indicator, the admission of women en masse to the unisex workplace is not an unmixed blessing.  Further, some disturbing evidence exists that the income of working couples in 1990 has only slightly more purchasing power than the income of the average working man in 1910.  In effect two laborers are now being purchased for the price of one... And an unseen social cost of all of this has been the destruction of family life, the loss of home as sanctuary or haven, and the bewilderment of children who, since infancy, have been raised by strangers." 

"Teaching must, I think, be decertified as quickly as possible.  That certified teaching experts like me are deemed necessary to make learning happen is a fraud and a scam."  p 93.

It was a really great book (and less than 100 pages)!  And shocking that it isn't even written from a Christian perspective and yet he still sees all of the problems & dangers!  There are also quite a few youtube videos of John Taylor Gatto if anyone is interested.

Picture update coming soon... probably.

Vaccinations

Michael and I went to a seminar on vaccinations this past week.  We had already decided prior to this not to vaccinate, but we still learned a lot.  Here are some highlights:  

• By the time a child is 6 months old they are suggested to be injected with 25 vaccines, and 32 by 1 year.  
• Study conducted by Christchurch Health and Development of 1265 children... immunized 23%  had asthma, 30% had other allergic illnesses.  non-immunized 0% had asthma or other allergic illnesses. 
• Study by McKeever, Lewis, Smith- children vaccinated with DPPT (or MMR) had 14 times more asthma and 9.4 times eczema than non-vaccinated.  
• US Food and Drug Administration- "Doctors underreport adverse vaccine reactions by 90%"
• By Dec 2002 (12 years after inception) VAERS (vaccine adverse effects reporting system)  received 244,424 reports of possible reactions to vaccines- 99,145 ER visits, 5,149 life threatening reactions, 27,925 hospitalizations, 5,775 disabilities, and 5,309 deaths
• Incidence of pertussis (the P in DPT) is at a much higher rate now than before the introduction of the vaccine.
• 80% cases of measles are contracted by vaccinated people.
• All deaths in 2000 from whooping cough were infants under 4 months.  
• Rubella is so mild it is often mistaken for a cold.
• Hep B (usually given before leaving the hospital after birth)- the only way to contract is through IV drug use, sex, & if the mother has it.  "The risk of a serious vaccine reaction may be 100x greater than the risk of hepatitis B...asthma and diabetes, autism and ADD/ADHD disorders have increased greatly since the introduction of many new vaccines.." Jane Orient, MD, Executive Director Assoc. of American Physicians and Surgeons.
• Hib Vaccine linked to increase incidence of type 1 diabetes.  Hib infections increased 4 fold after introduction of vaccine.  
• Tetanus associated with improper wound cleaning, malnutrition, and a weak immune system.  Decreased 92% from mid 1850- early 1900 (before the vaccine was introduced).  Today it occurs most in those over 50.
• Polio was on a rapid decline when the vaccine was introduced.  The epidemic also ended in Europe where the polio vaccine was not extensively used. 
• Meningitis outbreak in Brazil linked to MMR vaccination 3 weeks after 'National Vaccination Day' - American Journal of Epidemiology
• No adequate studies to determine long term effects of vaccines.
• Average time for monitoring safety of a vaccine in studies & testing is 4 days.  
• In '75 Japan raised the minimum age of vaccination from 2 months to 2 years.  Crib death, infantile seizures, meningitis, and other infectious diseases in infants virtually disappeared.  But, seriously infectious diseases such as meningitis sharply increased in 2 year olds.  And, since '88 parents have been given the option to vaccinate their infants- SIDS has quadrupled. 
• In vaccines:  formaldehyde (or formalin- 50 studies have shown link between exposure and leukemia, brain, colon, and lymphatic cancer), mercury (or thimerasol, symptoms of mercury toxicity resemble those of autism), aluminum, phenol, borax, ethylene, glycol (antifreeze), dye, acetone, latex, MSG, glycerol, sorbitol... monkey, cow, chick, pig, sheep, and dog tissues & cells, gelatin, casein, human fetus cells, human viruses, antibiotics, genetically modified yeast, animal/bacterial/viral DNA.
• Allowing children to be sick helps boost immunity.
• History of infectious diseases associated with decrease cancer risk. 
• Diseases contracted naturally are filtered through series of immune system defenses, but vaccine virus & chemicals are injected directly into the blood stream- with access to all major tissues & organs of the body without the normal advantage of a total immune response. 
• 62 studies from 30 worldwide labs link polio vaccine to brain tumors, bone cancers, lung lining cancers and leukemia.  The rates of these have increased dramatically in the last 30 years  - American Assoc for Cancer Research.
• Childhood cancers are increasing at 1% per year (since '74).  35% rise in pediatric brain cancer between '73 & '94.
• The number of 2-4 year olds taking psychiatric drugs like Ritalin & Prozac jumped 50% between '91 & '95. 
• in the 70s one in 10,000 births were autistic.  in the 80s one in 500.  in the 90s one in 100.
• Rate of autism among the Amish is almost non-existent.  
• Juvenile Diabetes increased 300% from '62-'76 with no official explanation.
• "As well consult a butcher on the value of vegetarianism as a doctor on the worth of vaccination"- George Bernard Shaw (I thought this was funny)

*I have been told the trustworthiness of some of these studies are questionable... so I don't want to spread misinformation.  Do your own research & know the companies supporting the study.  *I've heard* that a lot of the "vaccines are safe" studies are sponsored or supported in some form by pharmaceutical companies or "co-sleeping is unsafe" studies sponsored by furniture manufacturers.

Calvin & Headcovering

John Calvin (1509-1564).

“So if women are thus permitted to have their heads uncovered and to show their hair, they will eventually be allowed to expose their entire breasts, and they will come to make their exhibitions as if it were a tavern show; they will become so brazen that modesty and shame will be no more; in short they will forget the duty of nature…Further, we know that the world takes everything to its own advantage. So, if one has liberty in lesser things, why not do the same with this the same way as with that? And in making such comparisons they will make such a mess that there will be utter chaos. So, when it is permissible for the women to uncover their heads, one will say, ‘Well, what harm in uncovering the stomach also?’ And then after that one will plead [for] something else; ‘Now if the women go bareheaded, why not also [bare] this and [bare] that?’ Then the men, for their part, will break loose too. In short, there will be no decency left, unless people contain themselves and respect what is proper and fitting, so as not to go headlong overboard” (Sermon on 1 Cor 11:2-3 in Men, Women and Order in the Church, trans Seth Skolnitsky, Presbyterian Heritage Publications, pp.12-13).

“St Paul now continues with the subject which he had begun: namely, that women must have the decency not to come to the public assembly with their heads uncovered; and that men must also be decently attired so that there be no beastly confusion. To confirm it, however, he adds a further reason. ‘Does not nature itself teach that if a woman have no head-covering, it is a shame to her?’ he says. One would surely say that a woman was mad, if she came without hair. When he says ‘her hair is for a covering,’ he does not mean that as long as a woman has hair, that should be enough for her. He rather teaches that our Lord is giving a directive that he desires to have observed and maintained. If a woman has long hair, this is equivalent to saying to her, ‘Use your head-covering, use your hat, use your hood; do not expose yourself in that way! Why? Even if you have no head-covering, nor hood, yet you also have something to conceal yourself. You see that it would not be fitting to go bare-headed; that is something against nature.’ This is how this passage of St. Paul’s must be understood” (Sermon on 1 Cor 11:11-16, op. cit. pp. 52-53).

“4….Prophesying I take here to mean — declaring the mysteries of God for the edification of the hearers, (as afterwards in 1 Corinthians 14,) as praying means preparing a form of prayer, and taking the lead, as it were, of all the people — which is the part of the public teacher, for Paul is not arguing here as to every kind of prayer, but as to solemn prayer in public… 5. Every woman praying or prophesying… Here we have the second proposition — that women ought to have their heads covered when they pray or prophesy; otherwise they dishonour their head. For as the man honours his head by showing his liberty, so the woman, by showing her subjection. Hence, on the other hand, if the woman uncovers her head, she shakes off subjection — involving contempt of her husband. It may seem, however, to be superfluous for Paul to forbid the woman to prophesy with her head uncovered, while elsewhere he wholly prohibits women from speaking in the Church. (1 Timothy 2:12.). It would not, therefore, be allowable for them to prophecy even with a covering upon her head, and hence it follows that it is to no purpose that he here argues as to a covering. It may be replied, that the Apostle, by condemning the one, does not commend the other. For when he reproves them for prophesying with their head uncovered, he at the same time does not give them permission to prophesy in some other way, but rather delays his condemnation of that vice to another passage, namely in chapter xiv.” (Calvin, Commentary on 1 Cor. 11:4-5).

Child Training

I feel like its been a while since I updated...

I've been doing SO much research on parenting and child training lately, I need to organize my thoughts.  Michael basically puts me in charge of deciding & researching things like this, and I just end up really confused.  I borrowed the book "Preparation for Parenting" by Gary Ezzo; author of the more popular title "Babywise",  from a woman at our church.  I guess I had already formed an opinion by hearing too many negatives (and going to this website).  But, the program seems to be really popular among Christian parents.  And, all the people I've known who used it have really well behaved/mannered children (teenagers too!).  But... some things that bothered me are the fact that Mr. Ezzo has no medical/pediatric background (his wife was a nurse though) and he was excommunicated from the church he started the program at.  He has 2 daughters.  And, if I'm remembering correctly, conducted all of his studies himself (I don't remember reading any independent research studies in the book).  Throughout the chapters on feeding, he mentions multiple times that its not breastfeeding vs. formula feeding that matters, its the manner in which the feeding takes place.  Which doesn't sit well with me or the American Academy of Pediatrics.  I've read of numerous incidence of low milk supply, failure to thrive, etc... due to the scheduling (though, he does say if baby is showing signs of hunger then feed him).  Plus, he is all about sleeping through the night by like 12 weeks, I doubt that would be profitable for milk supply.  He also says breastfeeding past 1 year has no basis in health but is a personal preference.  And, since we have to train baby to 'self-soothe' to get him sleeping through the night, I wonder if baby would even try to communicate hunger (or anything else) to mom if he is used to not getting his needs met (its like negative reinforcement of the cues baby is sending mom, thus he would stop sending them?).  I think there is a reason why God gave us emotional reactions and instincts to baby's crying.  But, I do like the idea of having uninterrupted sleep & being able to schedule the day by knowing what baby would be doing at that time.  And, I do think, to some extent, the schedule would be comforting to baby (by having a routine).

And, a little side note, because I think its really interesting... women will keep producing milk until the baby stops nursing (like years & years).  If God didn't intend women to keep nursing until the baby didn't need it anymore, wouldn't he make it so we stopped lactating 12 months after birth?

On the other side of the coin, is Dr. Sears (the "father of attachment parenting").. a Harvard graduate Pediatrician (for 30 years I think?), father of 8... he is also a Christian.  I read a quote from him in the LLL book that said the healthiest kids in his practice were breastfed in terms of years.  I can only think of one family that has older kids that did a lot of the AP things (like baby wearing, child-led weaning, co-sleeping).  But most things that I read (haha, ok everything!) are pro-AP, so there is probably a lot of bias.  But, AP just seems like common sense to me... you know, follow your instincts.  There is a book called "How Would Jesus Raise Your Child".... I haven't read it, but I just think its interesting to think about (especially with the whole spanking issue, which I'm still unsure of...).  But, when I think about it... do I really want to deal with the possible results of a lot of the AP things (like interrupted sleep, having a child unable to sleep in his own room or nursing a 4 year old [lol, I think I read average age for child-led was like 2 or 2.5]).  I guess there just needs to be a balance and we will just have to wait and see what our baby is like.

I don't even want to post this, because I feel like I'm totally bashing non-AP... but I'm not.  And I've wasted like an hour if I don't post this (I think I'm wasting an hour even if I do...).  And, I'm sick of sitting here and need to get off the computer!

Ohhh... but, Michael and I watched this video from the website Christian Monotheism.  Its about the Trinity.  I don't know if its really interesting or really questionable.  So now we are studying up on the trinity and biblical unitarianism....

Ultrasound

Yesterday I had another ultrasound. It was 3d, and really cool! (I know the effects of high-power 3d ultrasounds havent been tested, but it was free & I'm selfish & want to see my baby in real-time). The ultrasound tech said she had really long fingers/toes/neck- so maybe she will be a ballerina and/or pianist!! :-) So here are some pictures

her face, it was either completely buried, or partially buried like this, the whole time.

arm/hand/elbow

back of her head/shoulder

face again

little toesies!!! foot/leg/knee