Today I was shopping for Christmas presents when I came across a popular Christian product line for children.  Books, videos, even Bible story books presented in two forms: a pink “God’s Little Princess” line for girls, and a blue “God’s Mighty Warrior” line for boys.

I am not opposed to princess-play for girls.  My two oldest daughters love to don frilly dresses and parade around as princesses.  Of course, they will transform in a moment into Robin Hood and Little John or Peter Pan and Captain Hook, or even some mixed up combination.  Their princesses are often unpredictable hybrids, wearing crowns while scaling the rigging of a pirate ship.

I understand wanting to appeal to little girls’ fascination with princesses, and the desire to convey a spiritual message, but I am troubled by this gendered approach to Christian children’s books. The metaphor of princess and warrior convey very different messages.  A princess is cherished but passive; a warrior is actively prepared for battle.  The opening book in the series, Gigi, God’s Little Princess, redefines Gigi’s princess aspirations only by extending it to other little girls, saying they are all princesses because their father is God, the king of kings. It does not address the passivity of the metaphor itself.

I am troubled by this for reasons I have mentioned before.  The mixture of metaphors used in this series occur in scripture - God as king, God’s worshipers as his children, and the Christian faithful as warriors engaged in the spiritual battle between good and evil - but not with the same emphases.  We are God’s children, meaning we are loved.  God is a king, meaning he rules the world.  But the image of God as king and God as father are not combined in scripture to paint us as the pampered, cossetted princesses of a divine kingdom.

And the warrior in scripture is an image that applies to all Christians, not just those with the Y-chromosome.  Existence is a war between good and evil, and prayer and the exercise of virtue are how we fight the battle.  The warrior metaphor conveys the urgency of the struggle and the necessity for every one of the faithful to be alert and on guard against evil, both within ourselves and as an external force.  The spiritual warfare of Christian theology is not just for men.  It is powerfully necessary for both men and women.

I don’t mind buying my daughters princess gear and letting them pretend to be Rapunzel or Cinderella, but I mind terribly if those princess games are used to present to them a false, gendered view of the gospel.  Simple princess play is one thing; princess play imbued with ontological significance is something else.  My daughters are not passive in the war between good and evil; they are warriors, and books that imply they can be passive and let the boys do the fighting for them do not prepare them for battle.  I think I will be leaving those on the shelf.

(And do not even ask me about the actual Bible translations that come packaged as princess Bibles.  I fear I would rant about them with a spittle-flinging intensity.)

First, let me say that I know depression is real.  I have written about my own struggles with depression, and I understand how overwhelming and dangerous it can be.  I also know that depression can be triggered by major life changes, even good changes.  I am not ridiculing the fact that some men get depressed and seek help for it.

But calling it Male Post-Partum Depression? Please.

Men do not have post-partum depression.  Men do not experience partus.  A man can have post-partum depression like I can have prostate cancer.  He does not have the requisite parts.

Add to that the bad writing in the article and it gets downright ridiculous.  He can’t stand the sound of the baby screaming! Imagine! The sound that humans are genetically programmed to find the single most annoying noise on the planet, and he doesn’t like it!  Shocking.  He can’t stand the smell of a sweaty, poopy baby!  Neither can I.  Clearly, I have Male PPD.

People prone to depression can experience it at any point in life, and the added pressures of life with a baby could undoubtedly contribute to it.  But calling a man’s depression PPD disrespects the reality of women’s experience.  It is insulting.  What he experiences is NOT just a male version of the hormone-induced depression that many women go through.  Calling it Male PPD  trivializes the challenges and troubles unique to women.

That’s not therapy; that’s ideological quackery.

When I scheduled the ultrasound for the baby’s hips, I was told not to allow her to eat anything for three hours before the test.  This sounded weird to me, but I’ve learned from experience with this hospital that there is not much point in asking the scheduler questions.  She does not know why the baby is not supposed to eat; she only knows the instructions to give the patient.  So I followed the instructions more or less, and I arrived for the appointment on time with a hungry, fussy baby.

When the nurse called me into the waiting room, she asked me if the baby took a bottle.  I told her the baby was breastfed.  She led me to the ultrasound room and the sonographer told me to feed the baby, then left the room.  Later she explained - after I asked - that the reason for the three hour fast was so that the baby could eat during the ultrasound, which might make her lie still for the test.

I felt hoodwinked.  There had been no real reason to let my baby go hungry.  First, that method was obviously intended for bottle-fed babies only.  Second, I know my baby well enough to know that no amount of feeding will make her lie calmly while she is on an examining table, held down by a stranger who has smeared her with goo and pressed an instrument into her hip.

I am not complaining about the sonographer; she did her job well and got the information we needed (hips not dislocated, just immature; stretching exercises only, no harness).  I was just puzzled why I was not given full information so I could make the best decision for my baby.

Since I have had children, I have noticed a change in how the medical community treats me.  While I have had good doctors and have no significant complaints, I see flashes here and there of a culture that treats information to mothers as a tool for producing desired behavior, rather than facts from which she can make her own intelligent decision.  Information has become propaganda rather than education.

Take the issue of alcohol during pregnancy.  At the hospital where I delivered all four of my children, they stress absolutely no alcohol during pregnancy.  This seems to be the medical party line in the US.  A swift survey of websites will tell you there is no known safe quantity of alcohol during pregnancy. That is, strictly speaking, true.  It is difficult to ethically study the effects of alcohol on pre-natal life; doctors can’t exactly encourage women to remain part of the control group if it harms the fetus.

When I was considering getting pregnant the first time, I asked my gynecologist about alcohol.  Could I unintentionally harm my baby if I drank without knowing I was pregnant?  My doctor said there was no evidence that one drink per week harmed a fetus.  That is not something I ever heard at the hospital where I ended up for my pre-natal care.  I don’t think it was as simple as a difference of opinion between doctors; it was a different philosophy of what information should be given to a patient. The hospital did not trust mothers with information; the hospital used information to persuade mothers to do as they were told.

A more obvious example of this paternalistic attitude toward mothers can be seen in the changing policies over free formula for maternity patients.  When my first two daughters were born, I received a diaper bag and free formula from a formula company.  When my third daughter was born, I had to fill out a card at my OBGYN’s office to receive the formula.  When my fourth daughter was born, I had to ask the hospital nurse to receive the free formula.

Many hospitals are changing their policies on allowing free formula.  Patients now must request it.  The goal is to encourage breastfeeding.  When mothers don’t have the formula handy, they are less likely to use it.   The claim is that when hospitals allow formula companies to give formula to mothers, the mother believes the formula comes with the recommendation of the hospital.  She thinks to herself, If it comes from the hospital, it must be good for the baby, so I’ll use it.  Wouldn’t it be better for her and her baby if we kept the big bad formula companies away from her so they can’t confuse her?

There are many things I find offensive about this thinking.  First, I am thirty-six years old; I understand what an advertisement is.  I do not believe that the formula companies are offering me free formula out of their deep concern for me and my baby, and I do not need the enlightened policy-makers to protect me from a basic element of life in the media age.  Advertisements do not “make” anyone buy anything; if they did, we would all be drinking Tab and eating Reddi-Bacon.   But since I know that I will eventually need the formula, I take it.  I take it and fill out whatever forms I need to get more, because that’s stuff’s friggin’ expensive.

But let’s say that there are women who do not understand that the formula cans they receive at the hospital are advertisements, not prescriptions.  What should we do with these confused and benighted women? Shouldn’t we, smart people that we are, kindly act in their best interests, hedging their choices so that they will be more likely to make the “right” one?

Here’s a simple rule: if the problem is a lack of knowledge, then the solution is the supply of knowledge.  Explain it to them.  My overwhelming objection to hospital policies that interfere with the free formula is that they try to encourage breastfeeding NOT by presenting accurate information and allowing women to make informed decisions, but by treating goods and info as tools for manipulating women into the desired behavior. It treats mothers not as responsible adults who need facts to determine choices, but as children who are easily confused and need a little cajoling to get it right.

I am not a child.

I think our ideals of motherhood sometimes become so important to us that as a culture or as an ideology or as a group of activists we decide we CAN’T let mothers think for themselves.  Too much is at stake.  If we leave it all up to her, she might make the WRONG DECISION.  She might sip that champagne or feed her child that formula.  She might decide she knows more about her child than we do, and act accordingly.  And that would be a DISASTER.

But I think the real disaster is this: we compromise our standing as women when we deny mothers the independence and information to make up their own minds.  Women have fought in past centuries to be treated as fully human, as rational beings capable of thoughtful decisions, rather than pretty, helpless things needing authority figures to make decisions for them.  Yes, knowledge doled out carefully in little doses may help produce the behavior you desire, but it comes at the expense of something even more dear.

And it just ain’t worth it.

• After four babies, I have a hard time believing that the little orange level that car seat designers put on the car seat actually shows the safest position for a baby.  When my infant’s head flops over on a normal car ride because the level position doesn’t offer enough head support, I cry foul.
• I  cannot buy into any supposedly child-centered philosophy of childcare that depends for its success on people having small families or widely spaced children.  Whether it’s the always-pick-your-baby-up-the-minute-she-cries school, or even the spanking-is-child-abuse hysteria, some fashionable ideas depend on parents having the time and attention to devote to each child as though that kid were the only one around, and big brother wasn’t currently wiping his poo on something or screaming for his own dinner or sitting on his other younger brother’s head.  If I sense even a whiff of the motive “I love children so much that I think there should be fewer of them,” then I know that is not a childcare expert; that is a con artist.
• “Just plain folks” do not want to be president.  Stop telling me you are one.
• When someone tells me that something is “just part of being a man,” I know they are about to justify something stupid.  No, not every man refuses to apologize/consumes porn/cheats on his wife/gets drunk.  Some things really do happen not because you are male, but because you are a jerk.

My first baby was a few weeks old and Az and I decided to go out to eat.  We had moved to our current neighborhood when I was eight months pregnant, and we still hoped that we would find some little hole-in-the-wall restaurant with great food.  I have always been partial to diners and comfort food, so we decided to visit a little, ordinary place called Julia-Marie’s Family Dining.

It was small but clean, with the standard 1950’s style tables and vinyl chairs.  There were a few other customers.  There was a television in the corner, playing a videotape of an old Elvis movie.  Clambake, maybe, or Blue Hawaii.  We ordered the special off the menu and waited for our food.

After a few minutes we noticed that there was a woman sitting on the floor by the tv.  She was the eponymous Julia Marie.  A few more minutes and she noticed us.  Actually, she noticed baby JellyBean.  She came over to our table, and from the pinched shape of her eyes and mouth, we realized that she was mentally handicapped.  She made a few vowels sounds of excitement, and then she lunged at our baby.

I was a very protective mother, especially given JellyBean’s issues as an infant.  I know there were times that I felt my first baby was threatened that, now as a more experienced mother, I would not view the same way.  But this was not one of those times.  I was not overreacting.  Julie, as her parents called her, kept trying to grab my newborn baby by the head and pull her away from me.  Az and I were grabbing Julie’s arms and saying, “No no no no no no.”  Her parents, apparently the owners of the restaurant, came over and told her that this baby was not a doll, and they tried to distract her with other things.  It was not very successful.

During a brief period that Julie was distracted, I put JellyBean in her car seat, reasoning that Julie could not grab her fragile head as easily that way. We put the car seat in the chair next to the wall, and and Az and I each ate with one arm free, sheltering the car seat from Julie on her next forray.  It was one of the most anxious meals of my life.

The next time Julie came back, I tried to chat easily with her, though I was still far from comfortable.  “This is my baby.  She is four weeks old.  Her name is [JellyBean].  Can you say [JellyBean]?”  I had not paid close attention before; she was not capable of speaking much beyond a grunt, but she was intelligent enough to be conscious of her limitation.  When I asked her if she could say by daughter’s name, she glared at me, turned up her nose and stalked away.  She did not visit our table again.  If I could have planned it, I would have.

I remembered this incident when I read Carmen’s post about her daughter’s terror at a local park.  Carmen wondered whether or not she should have explained her daughter’s particular issues to strangers.  She framed the question in terms of “What Do You Owe the Public?“  In the case of Carmen’s daughter, she was terrified of a loose dog, and there’s no question that Carmen’s little girl suffered the most in that situation.

Many of Carmen’s commenters voiced the opinion that she owed the public nothing, no explanation.  I am inclined to agree, at least in terms of “owing.”  When a child is frightened, what else matters beyond easing the fear?  But the question reminded me of that restaurant experience almost five years ago, and I wondered if some of the commenters would make the same insistence that the public is owed nothing, when the child’s issues make her the aggressor.

Julie’s inability to understand the fragility of a baby made her the aggressor who was acting unsafely toward our daughter.  What did Julie’s parents owe the public, or, in particular, us?

Even at the time, I thought that Julie’s parents were fortunate to run their own business where they could make their daughter welcome and structure the environment to suit her.  When we left that restaurant, I was a little surprised that Julie’s parents made no apology to us for their daughter’s behavior, but even then I thought they must get tired of people expecting apologies.  Perhaps they’ve decided never to apologize, feeling it’s a betrayal of their daughter.

The only definite opinion I had was that they should not have called their place a “family” restaurant.  That title implies certain promises about the suitability of a place for children.  If babies are not welcome and safe at your restaurant, then don’t call it a family restaurant.  But beyond that, I don’t know that anything could have gone differently.  This is part of the complicated nature of life together, each of us stepping on each other’s toes in ways we never predicted.  I am glad that no one was really hurt.

I don’t know what happened to Julie and her parents.  We never went back to the restaurant.  It closed, as have two of its successors.  It’s a difficult location for a restaurant.  But I think of them every now and then, and wonder.