I'm a troublemaker. Come be one with me.

The Era of Lawsuits: That's what this time period will probably become known as when the history books review it period hundreds of years from now. How did we get to a point where we are so interested in making money off of the stupidity or simplicity of others and care so little about fellow human beings. 

You might be thinking, "Okay, that's a valid question, but what does it have to do with parenting?" Well, lucky for you, I'm going to tell you. 

The media poisons everything we know about our environment, our society, parenting, food, health, any subject at all really. Sometimes that poison is actually beneficial to us, as humans, other times it brings us to our knees. Parenting is one of the most hit victims of media poison in this day and age. Everywhere you turn, some commercial or magazine ad or billboard or television show or movie is giving its portrayal of how parenting "is" or how it should be and whether you feel the opinion shown is a good one or not, it is attempting to influence you. 

What To Expect When You're Expecting is the most recent in a string of movies where parents are portrayed as selfish asses who want nothing more than to fit their pregnancies and soon to be children into their schedules and plans. Its as if society wants us to veer so far away from the "barefoot and pregnant" female oppressive structure of the 50's and prior that we are willing to risk injury to our children-both physical and psychological-to get there. 

We vaccinate out children supposedly to keep them healthy even though numerous studies are showing that this has the opposite effect and yet we think nothing of pushing babies out on our own timeline without regard for how this can impact them. Doctors don't tell women everything, and nurses don't do any better after they walk into a room, hand a patient a consent form and stand there waiting for the mother to sign away her rights to keep herself and her baby safe. Why? Because we might offend the doctor or nurse? Because we think we don't know what's right? Because its simply too inconvenient to fight the system that we already allowed to become such a huge and dangerous part of our culture?

F**k that. Be inconvenient. The doctor is put out because he might have to stick around a few hours more waiting on your baby to come out? Oh well. That's his or her problem. You certainly didn't tell them to choose this career. Have your baby at home and you'll likely not inconvenience anyone. You'll rarely find a midwife (especially one doing home births) who will say that the labor is not progressing fast enough when they really mean "I'm late for dinner". If the midwife wants to leave, they'll either get someone in to replace them or they'll just suck it up and deal with it. 

That's right, I am telling you to be inconvenient in your birthing process. I don't mean inconvenience people by making sure that your baby is born with physical problems that require being solved because you convenienced yourself and the medical staff by consenting to that epidural or induction. I'm talking about being inconvenient by asking for what you have fully researched to be the best for birth and for your child. Not blindly listening to the medical staff who have their own agenda. Having worked previously with nurses who have less than adequate ethics, I've seen women be given sleeping medications so that their contractions lighten up and those births don't end up happening on the night shift. Understand that many medical personnel do not care about you or your baby (I'm sure this will raise eyebrows as well as voices, but notice I said "many" not "all") and are primarily interested in doing as little as they possibly can to get through their shift and get closer to another payday. Why? Because they don't want you to inconvenience them. Do it anyway.

I'm also telling you to be inconvenient in your parenting.Other adults are inconvenienced because they might get a glimpse of your breast while you attempt to latch on your screaming infant at a bookstore during the rare occasion you actually made it out of your house? Screw 'em. Besides, everyone will be a whole lot more inconvenienced by the continuous and subsequently louder crying that will occur if you don't feed your child right then and there. In fact, while you're nursing your baby, change their diaper too. Be as inconvenient as possible to those around you so they'll get used to life not revolving around them. The people who are smiling at you as you do this, or who offer to help when you drop said diaper two feet away and can't reach it without unlatching your child are the ones who might be inconveniencing those people again later.

As long as it is what is best for your child, be as inconvenient as possible to yourself and to those who live with you or are ever in the same location as you. The well-being of your child depends on it being inconvenient to others. Join in the inconvenience movement. Let's be inconvenient together!

Inconvenienced by food and kids

Yesterday as I perused the local mega mart (insert generic, overly large store name here) looking for frozen peas for a dish I am making this week, I was overcome by irritation at the lack of frozen vegetables in my supermarket. Where there once was over half an aisle of various frozen veggies (though, sadly, at this particular grocery store, none were ever organic), there is now little more than what fits behind three glass doors worth.
As I searched for peas, I walked by frozen french fries and other potato products and over an aisle and a half of pre-prepared, frozen meals and this does not include pizza or breakfast stuff. Long gone are the droves of stay at home mommies (and even daddies) who lovingly cook for their offspring. Gone are the days when children learned to make food from their parents instead of a high school class where "cooking" equals taking pre-cut cookies and placing them on a baking sheet and putting them in the oven for eight to ten minutes. Aisles upon aisles of frozen items, pizzas, microwaveable meals, breakfast "foods", desserts, breads. Its even hard now to find frozen vegetables that don't come in a microwave ready, "steamer package". (For more info on why you shouldn't expect anything nutritious to come from a microwave, see here)
I live a busy life. I have seven kids who, all but the littlest, are in school and involved in after school activities. I spend the majority of my week running kids to school or from school or sitting at a dance studio or at voice lessons or running errands or helping kids with homework. I am lucky right now to be staying at home with my kids. Its very tough financially to do this, but necessary because of my breast cancer-for more info see my other blog. Despite being a stay at home mom, I don't have tons of free time to make meals and yet my kids eat pre-processed and fast foods type foods probably twice a month at most. I make use of crockpots and soups/stews that take little time to prepare. I make meal plans for the week so I know what I'm doing ahead of time and I change my mind at the last minute if it turns out I'll only have 30 minutes to cook. Between taking kids to school and picking them up, I am usually only home for about 4 1/2 hours max during the week and dinner has to be ready for me to take at least part of it with me when I get kids from school since some of them go immediately to after-school activities (dance mostly). Our food has to hold up to being kept hot for awhile. It has to travel fairly well.
I manage to cook healthily and almost completely from scratch, for nine people (plus a little because leftovers are great the next day) on very limited time, an extremely limited budget and with a toddler at my feet or on my hip. It is completely worth the inconvenience to make sure my and my family's health are priority.
Apparently not all parents in America feel that their children's nutritional needs are worth it. Heaven forbid you might be inconvenienced by having to feed your kids something that someone else didn't make for them.
School lunches are crap, usually and yet kids eat them because their parents can't be inconvenienced enough to get up in the morning and make them something, or do it the night before, or here's a novel idea...teach the  kids how to make their own!
My fridge is full of fresh fruits, some cut, some whole, cooked pastas and rice (I cooked them), veggies that are easily placed into containers, salad fixings ready to go, boiled eggs and more. The cabinets are full of the small amount of pre-packaged foods I buy: canned salmon and beans, crackers (organic, thank you), fruit leathers and other dried fruits, cereals (no high sugar stuff here), dehydrated veggies and other similar things. Its very easy for all but my kindergartener to fix their own lunch without direction or help.
Good food is one of the best gifts you can give your child and its one that you should require yourself to give them. So get off your ass and cook something. If you don't know how, learn and teach your kids at the same time; that way, when you are out of the house, they can still eat healthfully without your help. Preparing meals for my children is an inconvenience with which I am glad to be stuck.

Some people should have been born sterile

There are people all over this world who have difficulty conceiving children of their own. Many of them are completely ignorant and go on to have expensive and usually truly unnecessary fertility treatments. Many more, the informed ones, go on to adopt, an even more expensive, but necessary option. I never had any real, long term issues with fertility and so with the blended family of my husband and I (his, mine, ours kind of thing), there are seven children we have or are still raising. I do not, by any means, count myself as a parenting expert, I simply have a strong opinion of irritation at people who, often from pregnancy, treat children as if they should fit into their parents' lives as opposed to the reality, which is that you will never be more inconvenienced than by the pitter patter of little, or big, feet in your house.
From the time my first son was born, when I was 21 years old, I knew he would turn my life upside down. I knew he would become my world and everything else would suddenly be less important. I went on to have two more children before I became a single mother for five years and then, with my second marriage, I bore two more beautiful little parasites. I gave up my life, my dreams, sleep, food at times (when times were really hard), money, time, everything so that they could have what they needed. I spared no expense of myself. I knew it was what was right, as a parent.
I see so many other parents who seem to think that children should be brought into the world on their parents' timelines, when it is convenient to the adults in the situation. Doctors want babies to be born on schedule, and will put mom and baby at risk, with inductions and medications, so that they can get home to their families by dinnertime. Parents want babies to come on schedule so that mom can make her sister-in-law's wedding, or so that dad can get back to work before the work load increases. Families want babies to come on schedule so they know when they should come into town. None of this is on the baby's schedule and none of it is for the good of the infant. Babies and children are an inconvenience from the time they are conceived, sometimes from the time you begin to think of conceiving them.
Children will create a huge disruption in your life. A beautiful, wonderful, aggravating, silly, frustrating, embarrassing, inconvenient disruption in your life. Get over it. Decide to love every intolerable minute of it before they grow up and you're left with a huge void that only a huge inconvenience can fill.