Zoe has never showed any indication that she distinguishes between races. Sure, there was that one time when I wondered. But never before and never since have I sensed any sort of tendency on her part to distinguish individuals according to their race, beyond the use of the adjectives “brown,” or “light tan” when tasked with describing someone in a crowd. I’m fine with that.

This year, with the advent of the MLK holiday, Zoe has been coming home with her lessons about Martin Luther King, Jr :

“Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great man!”

“He won the Nobel Peace Prize.”

“He once said, ‘I have a dream!”

They’re sweet and simplified lessons and are a nice introduction to the holiday, the man, and the history of our country.

Or, are they?

“Those peach skinned people were craaazy back then! Why in the world would someone make the brown skinned kids go to a different school?!” she said one day last week on the way home from school.

“Mom, did you know that police men once told their dogs to attack some brown skinned people? Why in the world would they do that?!” was her comment the next day.

And then, “Rosa Parks was a woman who stood up by sitting down. Why did the peach skinned people want her to go to the back of the bus?”

There are no simple answers to these questions. And the answers certainly aren’t sweet.

Thing is, there’s nothing about this country’s history of racial relations that’s simple or sweet. And while I realize that I cannot raise children in this society without at some time broaching the topic, I fear that simplifying it into oblivion at an early age isn’t the right answer, either. How do you talk to a six year old about race?

I’ve always taken a very open approach to talking to my kids about sex. As they’ve asked, I’ve provided information — clear, concise, and, yes, simplified — as best as I was able. It’s made for some interesting conversation and more than once taxed my ability to find just the right words to allow them to understand the answers to their questions.

The difference, though, between sex and race is that one is decidedly natural and normal and the other — in terms of our history — is decidedly unnatural and abnormal. Describing just how a baby gets in mommy’s tummy — and out — requires far less moralizing than describing why some children were barred from their fundamental right to an education. And while one can leave out some particular details about sex and still maintain an accurate description of the course of events, leaving out some details about the history of our race relations seems only to minimize something that simply cannot be minimized.

So, how do you talk to a six year old about race?  I don’t have an answer to that question any more than I have an answer to why the peach-skinned people wanted to send Rosa Parks to the back of the bus.

[I never intended this blog to turn into a “birth” blog.  Certainly, I knew I’d have birth stories peppered here and there to reflect that very big part of what I do these days.  But, I certainly intended (and intend) to continue posting the every day minutiae that would continue to make this blog, well, me.  Obviously, that hasn’t happened lately.  One day I’ll get my groove back.  In the meantime, more birthy stuff from me.)

I’m in the middle of reading Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care, by Jennifer Block.  Published this year, it includes the most up-to-date information on our modern birthing culture.  I picked it up just because it was so new, and I wanted to see what fresh research was out there. (Mind you, I actually keep up on the research; I just wanted to see what was being published about it.) I began reading it the other day.

Thing is, this book just published? It reads much like Born in the USA, by Marsden Wagner, published last year.  In fact, it reads a lot like The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth, published in 1999; like Birth as an American Right of Passage, published in 1994; like Open Season, published in 1991; like Silent Knife, published in 1983; and like Immaculate Deception, published in 1977.  1977.

That’s what’s so troublesome.  The critiques of our maternity care system?  Age old.  The data to back up the need for change? Likewise, as old.  Things are broken, and that’s not an opinion.  But things aren’t changing.  They aren’t.  So the problem is bigger than just making note of what the research says and implementing it in day-to-day practices.  The problem is cultural.  It’s doctors being concerned, legitimately, for their practices and financial well-being.  It’s generations of women missing a history of normal birth, missing the wisdom — and confidence — that comes from stories passed down, from births witnessed and shared.  It’s a generation of technology, and know-how, and pictures, and tests, and science — all for our benefit, for our improved well-being, for our civility.  It’s all of this, and more.

I’m not stating anything earth-shattering here.  I’m not.  What’s earth shattering will be the answer to the question, “So, what will it take?”  What will it take for women to once again believe in their ability to give birth to a child?  What will it take for women to understand that they are not broken? What will it take for women to embrace — not fear — the power they have within them?  What will it take for care providers to acknowledge that birth is a natural, normal process that — for the most part — needs little intervention?  What will it take for those same care providers to sit on their hands, watch, and wait?  What will it take?

I don’t know the answer to these questions.  For me, the answer was the research.  It was quite convincing.  For me.  I’m not saying this in a patronizing manner:  I’m educated about the issues.  You’re not.  The information has been out there — for years.  1977.  2007.  Yet, for so many people, the information and the research hasn’t been the answer.  The research and the information aren’t making the change.  So, my question really isn’t patronizing.  It’s honest and open.  I want to understand.  I really do.  What will it take?  What will it take for you?

The question came up quite naturally.  There was a logical segue to the query, certainly, and the tone behind it was nothing short of friendly.  We were two dear friends sharing an afternoon of poolside conversation, flowing freely  from children’s eating habits to tattoos and topless sunbathing, with a good dose of protective mother-child exchanges peppered in between.  Nonetheless, the question landed like a bomb in my lap.

“My son was born with thick meconium.  They whisked him away with all sorts of neonatologists scurrying about.  How could that situation have been safe during a home birth?”

Again, my friend wasn’t being particularly doubtful or skeptical.  She wasn’t feigning interest while remaining steadfast in her belief that home birth was nothing short of insanity.  I believe she was truly curious.  Still, I needed to take a deep breath before answering.  This wasn’t some highly doubtful, holier-than-thou anonymous exchange on an Internet chat board.  Those exchanges far too often lead to nothing but further entrenchment of divided camps.  This was my friend.  And perhaps this exchange could lead to something different.

So, I took a deep breath and offered my answer.

“Well, in two ways, probably.  In the case of thick meconium being present in the waters, there would have been a conversation well before the actual birth about the prudence of continuing the birth at home.  Perhaps a transfer to the hospital would have occurred in your case, but certainly not under immediate emergency circumstances.  There would have been time to act prudently.”

Ok, that was the easy part.  Now, the more difficult part.

“Secondly, there are some things that occur in hospitals that make things appear to be incredibly dire and emergent, when, in actuality, they aren’t.  In the case of the presence of meconium in the waters, the science and research doesn’t actually support some of the actions they take in the hospital.”

There, I’d said it.  As gently and tactfully as possible, I’d basically told her I felt her beliefs were wrong.  What would come next?

“Oh,” she replied with a bit of a pause.  “All that hustle and bustle was a bit of a self-important show, then, huh?”

I smiled and just let the conversation end.  She could make what she wanted of it.

Talking about birth is a bit like walking through a land mine field.  Talking about home birth?  Nothing short of stepping on a land mine.  Too often, the conversation goes nowhere, with one party convinced the other is sacrificing the fundamental safety of her child all for an “experience,” and the other party believing the first to be uninformed about and deaf and blind to the harsh realities of the hospital birthing culture.  All of it, judgmental.  Yeah, that’s productive.

So, while I believe passionately about informed birthing practices,  whole-heartedly endorse home birth, and am vocal about both here in this blog, when it comes to face-to-face conversations, I tread particularly lightly.  I’m doing neither myself nor my “cause” any favors by alienating people.  I meet them where they are, and I talk.

Whispers.  Hints.  Respectful dialogue.  And room for thought.  Somewhere in there is a place where women can birth at home and not be seen as being selfish.  Somewhere in there is a place where women can birth in the hospital — and yes, still have an epidural available to them — with deserved respect and evidence-based care.  Somewhere among those conversations, those poolside encounters, somewhere in there, I believe, is change.

I have always described myself as someone who doesn’t have a lot of friends. I’m no misanthrope, mind you, but I’m just not the gregarious girl juggling lots of girlfriends, large gatherings, and grand festivities. I stumble through life with a few close friends, and I find that is all I need.

So it isn’t often, then, that I find myself sitting down for coffee with someone and carrying on the equivalent of a first-date conversation. Where are you from? What do you do? Where’d you go to school? I’m just not the one to make new friends. But that’s precisely what I did today.

The coffee was hot and strong, and the day was blissful. We sat on the deck in the shade as our children played together in the back yard. The conversation was light — the moment it slipped toward a potentially awkward topic, it veered with nervous laughter to a less demanding subject. Our shared revelations were generally more lightweight than earth-shattering: Cheez-Its are far superior to Cheese Nips; Heinz Ketchup is the only real ketchup; quesadillas are the new grilled cheese. But with each small discovery, there was a certain fortification of a sense, an intuition — born from countless smiles and brief exchanges of casual hallway conversation — that there’s a friendship to be had here.

My daughter’s been singing songs from her end-of-year school program these days. Make new friends, but keep the old; One is silver and the other gold. I couldn’t help but think of that song today as I sat at the table over that hot cup of coffee and warm, inviting conversation. I’m not trying to sound mawkish or effusive; certainly, I’m not describing school-girl fireworks flitting in the sky after a first date. I’m just saying: it was a nice day. Making new friends is something that I don’t often do. But, today, I did, and it wasn’t all that bad.

Years ago, while visiting Yellowstone National Park, Tim and I were struck by how much timber simply lay all over the forest floors. Timber not only from the fires of 1988, but from trees toppled by years and years of storms. The forest floors looked like piles of pick-up-sticks, logs toppled and entwined and tangled together, decomposition nearly frozen forever by the deep cold winters and the dry, dry air. For fifty years or more, that timber will struggle to become dirt once again.

In contrast, it takes hardly five years for the ravages of a good storm to simply disappear from sight here in the humid, wet, hot temperatures of home. Great trees toppled by angry hurricanes, felled by fierce Nor’easters — they melt into the forest floors, crumbling into rich, fertile soil in mere moments, it seems.

I really hadn’t thought about it in the better part of five years.

Sure, I’d thought about the day — that awful, awful day, when everything went so wrong.

I’d thought about how I’d been greeted in the elevator, calmly carrying my pillow and bags, by a doctor presumptively declaring, “C-section this morning?” “Oh, no!” I’d said, correcting him firmly, “Induction.” In hindsight, I can imagine the smile of smug pity he must have suppressed.

I’d thought about the arched eyebrow from the nurse as she listed to my plans to “avoid an epidural as much as possible.”

I’d thought about the confused, doubtful, and surprised expression on my doctor’s face as she discovered I’d in fact dilated completely, chagrined by her failed predictions.

And I’d thought about — oh, how I’d thought about! — the hateful, irritated tone in her voice as she declared she didn’t “have time” for my nonsense — for my screaming and pleading and crying because I could still feel, and that knife was so, so close.

I’d thought about all of that.

But one little detail had slipped past me. One little detail, lost, but for a chance.

Room 237.

I was following Mom and Dad into the Labor and Delivery ward. I had their bags; I was helping them get settled in. All of a sudden, Mom and Dad parted, leaving me a clear view of where we were headed. The door partially open, the great bed looming there, backlit by the window beyond. It all came back. It all came back.

Room 237.

A deep breath, and I stepped inside. This was not that day. This was a different day. A different Mom. A different Dad. A different me.

It’s hard to say how I felt about being back there, back in that room.  Yes, every once in a while, I’d remember my own moments in that room so long ago.  But, almost instantly — as quickly as it had all come back — it all went away. I forgot about that room’s history. I was there for Mom and Dad, not me.

So much had taken place in that room in the years since, and so much would continue to take place in the years to come.  It seemed as though my story was insignificant, lost the next day, really, as yet another mother walked anxiously into that room.  It was no longer that room.  It was only a room.

I thought of the trees.   I was sadened to think that nothing of my story remained.  There was no great tree, toppled in the wood, a frozen monument to my own story.  Mine had disappeared into the forest floor, along with thousands of others.

Then, that sadness passed.  Those great trees, frozen in time?  They’re mere ghosts, refusing to go gracefully from one life into the next.  My story wasn’t insignificant.  My tree, sunken into the forest floor, is now rich, fertile ground — the very ground upon which I stand today.

(In which I get a little bit…preachy? radical?  Humor me.  I’m really not all that off the wall.)

The other day, I got tagged by Chichimama for the “International Women’s Day” meme. My assignment? To name my five favorite things about feminism. As much as I believe in the principles and goals of the feminist movement, I found myself surprised by my initial, gut reaction to this prompt. Surprised because my initial reaction was that of indignation. Because, in some ways, I fear that feminism has done women more a disservice than a service.

Do not get me wrong. As I already stated, I believe in the principles and goals of the feminist movement.  I can easily list five (and more!) fruits of feminism I wholeheartedly embrace.  We have, however, borne some strange and surprising fruit, too.

Firstly, and, most obviously, as we’ve worked hard to gain equality in professional circles, to prove our mettle — our worth — in environments traditionally dominated by men, we’ve unwittingly devalued our roles as mothers. By aspiring to greater professional heights and by measuring our standard of success against the traditional masculine model, we’ve, in a sense, implied that the home from which we “fled” is a lesser goal, a less-worthy accomplishment. I am happy to know — to truly, truly know — that I can obtain any professional goal to which I aspire. But that, for many, being a mother is not considered a professional (read: valued by the masculine standard) goal — one capable of providing intellectual, social, and spiritual fulfillment — is an unfortunate by-product of feminism.

(I’m not advocating that all mothers stay at home with their children. Hardly. What I’m advocating for is a culture in which the respect paid to a mother — or father — staying at home with her children is equal to that paid to anyone showing up for work each day, and a culture in which a new family is given the respect and honor befitting it, including a maternity (or paternity) leave allowance that isn’t the laughable farce we have today.)

Secondly, less obviously, but more importantly in my mind, feminism has borne surprising fruit in our birth culture.  For me, feminism’s negative impact on our birthing culture isn’t about what it has done, but is about what it has failed to do. Feminism, in all its efforts to emphasize equality and sameness, has failed to recognize — and celebrate — the very differences our biology bestows upon us.  Birth is decidedly feminine, and decidedly…unequal.  The definition of inequalty dictates that one entity has a greater value than another entity; yet, somehow, in a perverse distortion of values,  feminist calculations on birth fail to celebrate the greater value we own in this “inequality.”  Instead, following from a history of trying to prove our equality, we end up trying to measure our biology against a masculine standard.   In doing so, we come up with a result that deems birth as messy, painful, degrading, and — ultimately — broken.  Something that needs to be fixed.  (That some women are practioners of the obstetric model of care, by definition a system that believes in the pathology of birth, is, to me, the ultimate insult of feminism.)

To get it right, feminism must embrace our “inequality” and refuse to measure us against a masculine standard.  We must foster, in ourselves and our daughters, an ownership, pride, and fundamental trust in our biology.  To get it right, feminism must celebrate birth not as messy, but as beautiful; not as painful, but as powerful; not as degrading, but as ennobling.  And not as broken, but as entirely…feminine.

For so long, feminism has advocated for equality and a measurement against an equal set of standards.  In too many cases, though, the “equal” set of standards defaulted to the masculine set.  These strange fruits borne from feminism are the result of applying  standards for measurement that do not, and cannot, make sense.  Triumph will come when redefine those standards entirely.

I wrote these words on New Year’s Day, 2006:

I meet this New Year with detached boredom. I feel no excitment at the prospect of turning a new page. It’s cold, dark, and wintry. Certainly not the time of rebirth. These resolutions, they simply slip past me. I’m unwilling to set yet another goal, only to see it not attained. An absurd form of self-loathing. Games, they are. I’m tired of playing games, only to lose each time.

I titled the piece, “Nothing Changes on New Year’s Day,” finding the title dark, bitter, and pessimistic enough to reflect my mood. Nothing Changes. I felt trapped in my shortcomings, shackled by my failures, and utterly incapable of overcoming them. Worse, I found the prospect of attempting to change to be a cruel mockery; certainly, I was destined to fail.

I couldn’t bring myself to publish those words. Too dark. Too depressing. Not for public consumption. But, I held on to them. I didn’t erase them, delete them, or send them off into unindexed, lost, bitspace. There must have been a reason.

It is now a little more than a year later, and I now understand why I saved those words.

A lot of things have happened in the time since I wrote those words. I smile more and I laugh more — at myself more than anyone. And I no longer feel so trapped. My shortcomings and my failures? Many of them are still there. But they no longer anger me or sadden me. They just “are.” I have changed, for the better. And I will continue to change as time goes on. Sure, there will be mistakes, there will be failures, and I’ll stumble and trip along the way. The point is, I have a way, and I always will.

Nothing changes on New Year’s Day. I now read that title and am filled with a sense of optimism, a sense of joy. It’s all a matter of expectations. True, nothing does change on New Year’s Day. Likewise, nothing changes on Tuesday, or Friday, or any other given day. Our opportunities for change aren’t bound by a single day, destined to crumble and disappear should we fail in a twenty-four hour span. We can change, slowly and methodically, on the collective time of each sunrise.  Nothing changes on New Year’s Day;  to me, that is the very definition of optimism and faith.

I never suffered from insomnia until I got pregnant. Each time I was pregnant, I would, for days on end, wake up at two in the morning and struggle to get back to sleep by five or six. I suppose it was my body’s way of preparing me for the upcoming days with a newborn. Funny thing, though, my babies treated me far better than I treated myself; I got far more sleep with a newborn than I ever did while pregnant.

I’m not pregnant these days, but the insomnia creeps up on me every once in a while, still. Most of the time, I’m really annoyed with it. Sometimes, when I while away the hours in a breathtakingly quiet house with a good book, I grudgingly accept its acquaintence. And then there are other times, like today, when I wish I could spend all my night-time hours in such bliss.

It’s 5:30 in the morning, and I’ve been awake since two. After my son woke me up to use the bathroom (Yeah! Evan!) I tossed and turned for an hour until I decided sleep was not to be reclaimed. I headed upstairs, and proceeded to spend the next hours reading and reminiscing. Coffee mugs, mathematics, good books, good food — they all were my companions in the wee hours this morning, along with a warm smile. Through an incalculable web of coincidence and interrelation, my wee morning hours have been the inspiration for several forth-coming entries and a confirmed urge to start a new knitting project.

There was a time in my life when I thought I was getting “dumber”. Growing up, each day was filled with new experiences, new knowlege; by the time I’d reached a certain age, I feared that my intellectual potential had been capped. Bills, commutes, grocery lists and the stuff of every day adult life were far less invigorating than the adventure that was each day of my youth. But lately, I’ve come to re-think my position. I think, more than ever, that my potential is far from capped. I’m reminded that its very definition — far more than a discrete capacity — implies boundlessness and inexhaustibility. And it’s mornings like this, where the day breaks and I’m straining at my reins, anxious to leap into the day and plunge into work, that I’m a little sad that I don’t always have these wee morning hours at my fingertips. So much to do, so little time. And that’s not at all a lament.

There is a plant, “the century plant,” that only blooms once in its life. But, oh, how magnificent that bloom is! Extravagant and showy, it grows fast and tall, regally reaching toward the sky. The prodigal bloom is both the plant’s final swan song and its own undoing, sapping the plant of all its resources and, eventually, causing the plant to wither and die.

I’ve had a plant in my home for the better part of fifteen years. It’s somewhat ungainly, that plant. Its broad leaves reach out singly from the root system, with little more to show than bright, waxy greenness. Rather plain, really. Given to me by my mother upon moving into my first home, the plant has seen me through many joys and tears. Its own health has often mirrored my moods, its wellness and vigor waxing and waning over the years. Whittled down to a few paltry leaves at one point, then nursed back to health by the caring love of my husband, it has now enjoyed a warm state of continued vitality for the past few years. Mirror, mirror.

The other day, Tim called me into the living room.

“Kristy, come here.”

As I came to the doorway, I saw my husband pointing down to this plant. Peeking out of the bundle of leaves was a single stalk, punctuated by a bulging, fertile blossom. It’s actually quite beautiful, this bloom. Graceful and delicate, it dances like a ballerina in white atop a stage of peaceful green. The plant’s unremarkable foliage, for fifteen years belying its secret beauty.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years.

I really hadn’t thought it capable. No, this plant wouldn’t, couldn’t bloom. But, it has. And, once again, it is my mirror. In a relative state of contentment the past few years, I was utterly unaware of just what growth lay within me. Slowly though, this year, I’ve seen a blossoming, a surprise, a graceful transformation that I did not know was there. Unfolding from my own soul, a blossom.

This blossom, though, is not my last. It is not my swan song. Far from it. While the century plant’s destiny is a fiery, striking exit, I believe my unfolding is just a beginning. My plant kept a secret for many, many years. It made me believe it was limited, its potential grounded by dirt. But, out of that soil came the unexpected, and suddenly its potential was boundless. Now, I trust — I know — there are many more blooms to come. Each one, a surprise.

I left a small but significant observation out of my post the other day. That drama belonging to my daughter that I’m so often tired and annoyed by? She comes by it honestly. Very honestly. As much as I’d prefer not to admit it, I can be quite the drama queen on my own. No, I no longer have the tendency to crumple into a heap on the floor when I find out there’s no cranberry juice, but a sad revelation on the part of a friend or even an acquaintance can tax my empathetic soul to its maximum. My emotions bubble and boil at the slightest injustice. And my heart leaps out of my chest on a sunny day.

Seeing my heightened emotional make-up reflected back to me in my daughter can be very disturbing at times. For years, I’ve struggled with these emotions of mine, placing value instead on the ability to be calm and collected. Emotionless. It’s taken a lot of work on my part to come to accept the value of my emotions. Still, as I see that part of me so obviously stamped upon my daughter, I can not help but feel a twinge of anxiety. Will she struggle as I did? Has my genetic makeup taxed her unfairly? Why can’t she just be more like her father in this respect?

I realize, of course, that my reactions to these observations are merely indications that I have more work to do on my own part. And, for that insight, I am grateful. I keep the line drawn, and try to be very cognizant that she is her own person. I am not looking into a mirror; I’m merely looking through a lens — a lens clouded by my own biases.

The reflections and images I see in my daughter, though anxiety-invoking at times, have also been surprisingly therapeutic. When I recognized it was a deep, soulful empathy at work in her display of drama upon understanding the concept of mortality, I didn’t grieve for her, feeling guilty for burdening her with my emotional tendencies. Instead, I saw in my daughter a beautiful ability to connect, to feel, to understand the emotions of others. I saw that as a gift, and, in turn, I was able to see, for a moment, that beauty in myself. I smiled in recognition. A little bit of work, accomplished.

A favorite poem of mine, one that has meant a lot to me as I’ve come to understand myself better, boasts that emotions are gifts — sent from beyond — with a purpose. And although it might appear to be laying a heavy burden upon my daughter to say this, I believe my daughter is in the same sense a gift from beyond. Certainly it is not her responsibility, nor do I require it of her, these therapeutic revelations. But I do believe a little bit of magic is at work, a little bit of wonder, when I catch little glimpses, like the one the other day, reflecting light onto my own soul.