Let's stick to the cheerful for a while

The dumpling turned 19 months old yesterday.  And he is delightfully toddler-ish.

He is exceedingly good-natured, although he has a very strong preference for walking and usually spends his first few minutes in the stroller yelling.  He can (and does) walk up to a mile on his own, although the pace is rather slow.  I have lots of photos of him toddling along next to the stroller while the fusspot rests her feet.

At the playground he takes off without so much as a look back.  Even on the huge playground in Central Park with a hundred other kids he does not seem to feel the need to check in with me as the fusspot did (and does).

He is very social.  He also has absolutely no idea that he is small.  When a 5 year old cut him in line for the slide last week he just walked up to him and tried to shove him out of the way.  He happily pushes his way to the front of the preschool drop-off rush through both 50+ preschoolers and their parents.

He still nurses to sleep and snuggles next to me all night long.  He also wakes up to eat at least once a night.  And he is really hungry in the middle of the night, so I have no plans to drop that nursing session.  Also, he basically doesn't nurse during the day so he is only nursing 3-4 times per 24 hours, although 2 of those are good half hour sessions.

He loves books and will sit and read to himself for a good 10 minutes.  He will read board books, but is also fine with real books.  He also plays on his own quite well.

He loves to paint and draw.  Less interest in playdoh.

At brunch over the weekend he spilled some of his water.  He looked at the spilled water, paused, and then a huge grin came over his face as he grabbed a napkin to clean up. 

Potty training has stalled because I don't have the time.  Also, he went through a phase where he rather seemed to enjoy peeing on things and that put a damper on my enthusiasim for diaper free by 18 months.  I am however hand washing diaper covers every night so I need to return to this project.  This morning he was carrying around two of the fusspot's dolls (yes, he has his own.  He prefers hers).  He carried them into the bathroom, seated them in front of the toddler potty, and then proceeded to sit on the potty for a good while.   Apparently he does better with an audience.

He loves his sister most of all, no matter what she does to him.  In the morning he wakes up nurses on one side, then clambers over to the edge of the bed to check on the fusspot, then returns to nursing.  He spends a lot of time wandering aimlessly around the apartment going "mine" "mine."

He also happily goes to our daycare provider and seems to really enjoy being there.  He is very rarely in a rush to leave.  I know she spoils him.  He seems to have about equal comprehension in English and Chin.ese.  He does an adorable rendition of ABCs with a passable tune but never gets past D and often resorts to "AB ... AB ... AB .... AB .... AB ..."  He also sings a recognizable Langzi laohu.

He has never had a haircut and we are trying to hold out until his 3rd birthday.  Thus far, thankfully, no rat tail.

He is still not on the growth chart and frequently refuses food.  He occasionally seems to be in food-related pain, but probably only once a week at most.  His favorite foods (when he will eat) are apples, berries, pasta, and hot dogs.  He does not like olives or ice cream in any form.  He also rarely eats sweets, even when offered. 

the angst continues

It is 4 am and I am sitting here trying to send a work-related e-mail explaining exactly how the utter meltdown in my personal life has affected my work.  Fun stuff, as always.

In fact, it is so trite and predictable that I am left at a loss as to how we can really be almost done with 2012 and still dealing with this stuff.  Let's see, student who also happens to be mother of two suddenly deals with husband in tailspin, single parenting, bizarre and stressful situation at work, and potentially seriously ill child (although thankfully probably not anything serious) while still battling post-partum anxiety, and you're wondering why she missed a deadline?  And really does it matter in the big scheme of things?  (Of course, the answer may well be yes and hence my fear of sending this e-mail).

A very wise friend and one I see fairly often (read: no longer working) pointed out that a large part of this stress is being in transition from a career-oriented future to ????  She reminded me that as soon as choices are made and paths are closed I will feel better, and I think she is right.  On the other hand she had a successful career until she gave birth at age 41 so she is in much, much better position to return to the workforce in 5-10 years.  For the past 2 weeks I have been asking everyone about life choices, about working and not working, about family size.  And the short answer is that here in my exceedingly privileged pocket of NYC the options suck.  I actually only know two women who genuinely work full-time and parent, and one is kind-of superwoman and the other is deeply miserable and has a very supportive husband.  That's not so suggest that there aren't other mothers who work, I just would never even meet them or have entirely fallen out of touch (superwoman and I see each other 1-2 times a year even though we live in the same neighborhood).

Example A, the kids participate in a truly idyllic shared-tutoring in Chin.ese with another little girl.  I have e-mailed with her mother at least 20 times, but we've never met.  Her nanny arrives at 7 am and leaves at 8 pm weekdays, and puts in a shorter weekend day.  Everything indicates that she's an involved parent: planning activities for her kids, nursing, co-sleeping ... but I am never going to meet this woman because she's simply too busy with work to take a day off and see what her daughter does on an average day (just like JD has yet to step foot into the fusspot's classroom and apparently the teachers were playing the game guess-that-kids-racial-identity game because they've never so much as laid eyes on him, and probably never will.  School drop-off is at 9 am and pick up is at 3 and he'll be at work during this hours every day this year).

Exhibit B, the friend who had us over for dinner on Saturday night.  She is worried about her fertility (with possibly some cause) but has decided to put off children for another 5 years to establish her career.  She doesn't want to, but feels like she has no other option.  She also has a boss who "can't afford childcare and has to leave her baby with her elderly mother" and "is putting off #2 until after a big work event next year."  Now this is all hearsay and I've certainly never met her boss, but it is exactly the type of hearsay floating around our neighborhood.  In summary, sub-par childcare, a mother crying at her desk at work, and delaying her second child until after a work deadline (for the record she's neither a political candidate nor a scientist about to cure AIDs, in fact the boss has a rather low-level job that is not exactly saving the world, and she's also pushing 40).  Working women who really want careers (as opposed to jobs, which is what happened in Lalaland.  All of the women worked but they never advanced, and many simply stopped trying to do so) are unhappy.   Or they are too busy to see their kids or their friends.  Like say my friend of 8 or so years who also lives in the neighborhood and used to have her nanny put their son down for a "third nap" at 7 pm.  He would then wake up when she got home at 10 pm and they'd have a family dinner and he'd go back to bed with his mother at midnight.  Needless to say I haven't seen her in over a year, although last I heard she was trying an 80% workweek.

I have never doubted that I'd enjoy being a stay at home mother for a few years, or even a decade or so.  I love the time I spend with my kids, I know the other SAHMs in the neighborhood, and I grew up in a very hippie environment so I have hundreds of hours of fun things I would like to do with my children while they are young.  The problem is that while we could swing it financially temporarily, we couldn't do it for all that long.  And JD really doesn't cope well with the stress of being the only breadwinner.  So sooner or later I would need to go back to work, and as someone without any type of established career my fear is that work would be so extremely limited as to be problematic.  If I really want part-time work and agree to take over all of the household stuff as part of the exchange for having JD being the only worker for a year or two, I will not be ready to jump back into a high stress full-time job in a new field (since mine has zero "on ramp."  Zero).  So then I'm left with childcare, teaching middle or high school, secretarial-style work.  Nothing that I would not regret in the long run or that would bring in enough money to help pay for the kids' college, a few big trips, etc.  And the guilt of knowing that my "choices" mean that my kids will only be able to go to college if they are willing to take on huge amounts of student loans.  Or the utter disjuncture of encouraging my daughter to work hard in school ... towards what?  A future at home?  Or stuck in a workforce that cannot accommodate women?

And back to today.  I was not getting anything done at work, so rather than pick the fusspot up from school at 3 and walk her to daycare, then go back to work for an hour and a half, I took the afternoon off.  And as I was walking down the street, pushing the double stroller with one hand and carrying the dumpling on my hip, I ran straight into a female professor I know quite well.  One who has not exactly been supportive, despite being a middle aged mother (of one son, now in high school and with a husband with a very flexible work schedule).  So basically one of the few women who made it through.  She looked straight at me with a look of disgust as I walked down the street at 3 pm with my two children.  And then she kept walking.  No hello, nada. 

It just feels like I am scratching my way into a fortress that I don't even want to get into anymore.  And while I am sure that I would adjust, the alternative still feels like an utter failure.  Not the more time for parenting, less stress part, but the part where I spend 26 years in school (continuously, folks, age 5 to age 31) and land up with a job I could have done at 22. 

It is the eve of the most important time for reflection in our calendar ...

I should be busy calling friends, having a serious conversation with my husband, prepping my children to behave in synagogue, preparing a break-fast and ...

instead I am sitting on the couch horror-stricken as I watch the mice run freely across the living room.  You know, the floor strewn with toys and where my children will get dressed in a few short hours.  All career angst will be postponed until the mice are under control.

The thing is that this is NYC.  We live above Dunkin Donuts (up 6 floors, but still).  And a famous pizza place.  And a bubble tea storefront.  And we are the only residents of our floor who have been here less than 40 years (nothing against old folks, but their tolerance for mice is way higher than mine).

Oh, and I am paranoid of spraying chemicals and my adorable dumpling is a toddler boy who loves to explore gadgets, so no glue traps or even kid-friendly snap traps allowed.  Instead we bleach, scrub, reseal every electrical outlet and crack ... and hope that our neighbors eventually call in the toxic chemicals.  Other suggestions welcomed (we have the plug-in sound rodent things, and don't think they work).  There have been mice before and they have always disappeared within a week.  All of our food is in glass jars or the fridge.  The bleach is out.  But I am suspicious that these are baby mice and the nest may well be near our apartment.  I am also so entirely grossed out by NYC rodents touching toddler toys that I may well spend the next week disinfecting every toy in sight (seriously, there were bite marks on two board books ... and the cardboard box where we keep the blocks ...).

Mice.  Gross.  Career angst on hold.

But in all seriousness, even if JD were living here, you'd better bet that both the mice and the fusspot's doctor's appointment would fall to me.  Speaking of which, utter success.  I priced appointments with CityMD (very reasonable), the copay at the pediatric ER (covered by insurance), got an estimate from our pediatrician ($350 and they wouldn't even commit to no higher than that) ... and then got our actual pediatrician on the phone who offered to just write off the bill entirely.  So yeah, I paid $50 cash and she wrote a note for the billing department and that was easy and done.  But 4 phone calls that I placed this morning even though theoretically any of them could have been done by JD, even from afar (this is not really a criticism of him, but more a need to acknowledge that even in 2012 household management is time consuming and annoying).

Mice.  4 feet away from me.  Not in the least scared of me.  So gross.

Let's just fess up

I had dinner last night with some of JD's friends.  You know the rather intimidating sort who you'd love to be friends with but maybe can't quite cut it.  And managed to say quite a few embarrassing things, which made me far less talkative today. 

Anyway ...

This goes against practically everything I've written here before about being a working parent (and I really and genuinely hope that it comes just from a place of pure exhaustion), but it is hard at this point in my life (age 31) to fathom exactly how my chosen career will work out with 2 kids (and dreams of more).  I realize that this is and was patently obvious to many people; that entering a highly competitive, family-unfriendly field with a very defined and limited "clock" to prove oneself and just figuring I could work harder/strategize better and make it was delusional.  But it worked for a while, and now I have to try and figure something out. 

And it really, really doesn't help that the only women I see on a daily or weekly basis are SAHMs.  The working moms I know simply don't have time to e-mail or pick up the phone or get together on the weekends.  In NYC even the working women without kids are exceedingly hard to meet up with.  One of JD's endless frustrations with the big city is living within 2 miles of at least 10 friends and seeing them once or twice a year at most, and usually at big events.  We have good friends who live 2 blocks away from us and we have not seen them except at weddings for the past 2 years.

So I spent this afternoon on the playground with 2 SAHMs and it is hard not to be envious of their lives.  One worked and has the presence of mind to acknowledge quite how delightful not working is, the other never worked and does not have the grace to realize how lucky she is that her husband can support their family in the city.  They are just relaxed (and yes, I realize that neither has any financial concerns which helps immensely).

I always said I'd love to take 5 years off and then work, but there's just no on ramp in my career, and despite having held a multitude of minimum wage jobs (waitressing, nannying, restaurant management, greeter at the Mall of Ameri.ca, retail, unloading trucks, low level secretarial work ...) my CV right now is full of things that only someone in academia could possibly value.  So if I were to step off the career track now (whether by choice or not) it is hard to imagine a good next step.  And what I conclusively don't want to do is wake up to find myself 50 and home alone with no prospects of interesting work.  So there's that.  But there's also the fact that I very rarely get to bed before 2 am, that I can't stand feeling guilty for taking 20 minutes to watch the Daily Show on my computer, the endless stress ...

Yesterday I yelled at the fusspot perhaps a dozen times.  Until this summer I had never even raised my voice at my child.  Yes, she can get into a lot more serious trouble now that she's older and sometimes the loud urgent voice is necessary to keep her out of trouble (barefoot on a playground with broken glass, for example, circa 4 pm today.  She took her shoes off behind my back and then headed straight toward the smashed bottle ...), but it's just not okay.  I try so hard every day to bracket the work stress, to separate, to slow to the pace of my toddlers.  But it is hard.  And while I can deal with the sleeplessness and the stress, I cannot handle the guilt of transferring that stress onto my kids. 

In an entirely unrelated question: any advice of finding a way to see a pediatrician inexpensively?  My silly husband signed us up for a local HMO (meaning only coverage is in an entirely different state) and the fusspot seems to have come down with a UTI.  Of course, I am also super-hesitant to give her antibiotics (I am deathly allergic) but we at least need to have the UTI closely monitored since it can turn into rather scary things quickly ... and I really don't want to pay $300 to spend 60 seconds talking to our doctor while she scribbles out a prescription.  I really doubt a target-like clinic could handle this, but any other thoughts?  And yes, of course, if necessary we'll just pay cash for the appointment.

The usual, and a few thoughts on happines

I went to bed around 1:30 am.  The fusspot woke up wet at 3 am and proceeded to wake the dumpling (we're all sleeping in one room at the moment).  I carried a very grumpy fusspot to the living room, nursed dumpling back to sleep, changed and snuggled the fusspot ... rushed out the door to school/work ... stepped on a bee in Central Park and now have a rather ouchy foot ...

Of course, I also got to spend a half hour with the fusspot in Starbucks before her Chin.ese class.  I had this fantasy that since it was just the two of us for once we would take her sketchpad to Central Park and color and read books.  But no, she was quite clear that she wanted to "go to that place with the chocolate milk with straws in the counter" and so we did.  And she had such a great time perched on the windowsill chattering about all of the people who came into the store.

Here's the thing: I have always been committed to working.  For financial reasons yes (and more importantly to reduce the stress of being the sole breadwinner on my husband especially given the uncertainty of this economy) but also because I watched my mother work part-time at a traditionally female job and have seen how her work is perpetually undervalued.  She has always wished in retrospect that she had a more useful degree.  And I have also been given every possible educational benefit: elite prep school, graduated debt-free from an elite college (ok, under $2000 in debt, and most of that was from unpaid parking tickets my ex accrued on my car while cheating on me ... always a great story when I explain exactly why I desperately needed my first post-graduate job at that ever-iconic Mall of A.me.erica), attended 7 years of graduate school with a very generous stipend.  It seems like all of that must have been toward something.

But there was a moment when I picked the fusspot up from school last week when I started to dread the future.  She's actually in a full-day free pre-K program, so her schedule is the same as the elementary and middle school kids.  And there I was lined up to collect her at 2:45 pm.  And the thought of 15 more years of mid-afternoon school pick-ups, of rushed school lunches packed in the morning, of doctors appointments squeezed into weird teacher workdays.  Absolutely nothing about the current educational schedule is set up to allow both parents to work.  And despite all wishes for an egalitarian marriage, I will be the one planning school pick-ups and calling babysitters and remembering forms and creating lovingly complex summer schedules.  For 15 years, or more if we get super-de-duper-lucky.  I'm not complaining about that at all, but just wondering what having a stressful career adds to that mix.

And right now what I am doing is fairly torturous.  And I keep reading wonderful mommy blogs about "seize the day" and "enjoy what you're doing" and such.  And I actually find that rhetoric useful in parenting.  Finding time to light a candle before dinner to make it special, packing silly notes in the fusspot's backpack, randomly agreeing to head to Starbucks because she likes their chocolate milk (even if I had planned a much "cooler" afternoon activity).  But there is nothing to suggest that my chosen career will be enjoyable for the next many years.  Of course, JD would say that such a question would never be prioritized for a guy.  He would call it decidedly self-centered to abandon my incredible privileges and revert to something easier.  It is certainly a decision I would regret later in life, as I see myself being particularly low on patience for the lack of respect given to many female-dominated careers like teaching.  But perhaps the costs are too great now?  And then what do I tell my daughter?  Study hard, plan for your college app, pull you all-nighters in school ... all so you may too marry and have children some day? (This is in no way meant to offend my SAHM readers.  For many being at home is a calling, a religious obligation, a lovingly supported position.  I just find it hard to encourage my child to push herself if that is truly the likely end outcome.  I would assuredly be as good a mother without the multiple advanced degrees.  No matter how we try to delay it, the pressure has already started.  She knows that all of her friends are in private school except for her.  And this very afternoon I was that mother dragging my 3 year old to Chin.es.e classes when she would have been just as happy at the playground running in circles.  And honestly, my two closest friends who planned to be SAHMs had much more pleasant early 20's because they held non-career jobs, focused on setting up their households, etc.  I'm not sure the friend I talked to tonight who spent 6 years getting an engineering degree and is now at home, most likely for good, really considers all of that work worth it).  Or maybe it's just giving up the idea of happiness.  Work is work and I may just need to get used to that.

We're off tomorrow afternoon to my mom's for the New Years.  Chag sameach and best wishes for a wonderful holiday for those of you who celebrate.

So back to single parenting

well, it's exhausting.  We all know that.  And it makes you doubt yourself a lot.  And at least once a day I snap at the fusspot, and that sucks and I am working very, very hard not to.

That's all background to the awful thing which happened on Friday night.  Awful.  I haven't even really been able to talk about it much.  I waited to tell JD for 2 days.  But then again, maybe it's over and done and my ambivalence is not so much a fear of exploring the "what ifs" but a genuine thought that it happened, and people are good, and everything was fine in the end.

On Friday night, while I was chatting with a friend and wrangling the dumpling into shoes at the end of services, someone opened the huge heavy wood door to our synagogue and let the fusspot walk out onto the street.  For unknown reasons my fusspot saw the open door (and it has to be held open, there is no way to prop it, and it is a heavy door) and decided to walk home.  And neither whoever opened the door nor the security guard noticed.  We live almost a mile away.  It was almost 9 pm.  Dark.  Oh, and the street happens to be a rather big one ... let's just called it Broadway. 

In summary, I lost my daughter in the big city when she decided to walk herself home at 9 pm at night on a busy, busy street.  Don't worry, it gets better.  I didn't even notice.  The fusspot had been playing with 2 other little girls and I just figured that they were playing together, or that she'd gone to sit in the stroller, or was even just standing behind me.  In short, I presumed she was fine because we were in a space we go to every week, where almost everyone knows her name and there are plenty of other children running around and very little mess she can get into, and where she is usually super happy.  A man whose name I don't even know spotted her at a street corner, picked her up, and returned her to me.  She might have only made it to the first traffic light (about 25 feet from the door), she might have only been gone 30 seconds.  It could easily have been several minutes and she could have been much farther.  I don't know because I was not paying particularly much attention to the details once I realized that she'd been out on the dark street alone.

It's hard.  She started school last week and we've been telling her she can do it, that she'll be fine on her own, that people will be nice to her.  We let her walk without holding our hands on the street because she's 3 and a half, and folks, it is hard to run all of your errands on foot with two children and not let them play/wander a bit.  And she's never once tried to cross a street alone.  She was not in the least scared and far more annoyed to have been returned when she was obviously ready to leave.  And we've talked about it every day since.

I don't know.  Part of me feels like everything that was supposed to happen happened.  A person I don't even really know saw her, asked her what was going on, and brought her back (he's a member of our shul and recognized us, I've just never spoken to him).  Presumably if she'd made it farther someone else would have grabbed her and called the police.  We live in a neighborhood full of strollers.  The traffic is dangerous, but statistically the chances of someone evil grabbing her when she was walking alone are much, much smaller than the chances she'll die in a plane crash or even the chance she'll die in a subway accident.  But of course, there's also the part of me that says I failed as a parent.  I let my not-yet-four-year-old run wild with 3 other little girls at the end of services and play and as a result she could have been hurt. 

Ah yes, and not helping my confidence at all.  Both the mother-of-two who told me "But that's why I always watch my children.  So scary" at school drop off today.  Thanks wonderwoman.  I presume that when you have a tantruming toddler who won't put on his shoes and a dear friend wants to simultaneously introduce you to his new fiance, you just pull a pair of handcuffs out of your back pocket and attach your older child to the security bar for a minute or two, right?  And of course the fact that her public pre-K seems to have no system for authorizing people to pick up children.  Most days I will either pick up the fusspot or our daycare provider will do so, but I'm sure they'll be a few days when we use a babysitter (like, say, this Thursday when she has Chinese), or next week if my father-in-law wants to pick her up.  Basically you tell the teacher, she remembers, and she releases her kid.  Except there are 18 kids in the room and what if she's out sick for the day?  And we know now that the fusspot is confident enough to try and take herself home.

Just a little venting

To start with the obvious, I know that it's not just my husband who is annoying me tonight.  There are rather a few other annoying (but none too serious triggers):

- Not knowing if I have skin cancer
- Having to break it to the fusspot that she can't do her very most favorite activity in the world
- Having broken reading glasses
- The stupid judgmental woman I had to deal with tonight

And really, these are not that big a deal.  Even the stupid skin cancer.  But for not quite fair reasons, all of them are making me pissed at my husband.  See, he's been gone a week.  A week in a new job, in a new city, but with a fully furnished apartment, plenty of friends around, and fairly normal working hours.  And in the past week (and honestly, the many weeks before), it apparently has not so much as crossed his mind to ask if I might need some help.  I know he can't change diapers or sort laundry or do dishes or supervise bedtime, but there are plenty of things he can do from 200 miles away.  And it seems to have not even crossed his mind.

Skin cancer.  Runs in my family, of the fairly serious variety.  Many years ago I had 2 moles removed and biopsies.  No problem.  I thought all was well but one of them regrew in a rather ominous shape so I saw a dermatologist about 2 weeks ago.  The good news is that when moles re-grow after being removed, they apparently always look odd.  The bad news is that it looks really odd and covers a fairly large amount of skin.  BUT, I might not need the surgery to remove it if we could get the medical records from the last biopsy (circa 2007) to find out what type of mole it was.  Cue medical records soundtrack of doom.  3 faxed release forms, 5 phone calls, and they still haven't released the biopsy (which has now been located) to me.  I'm pretty sure any competent adult could assist with nagging phone calls at this point, but nope, that'll be all me and as a result I may not know whether I have skin cancer for another full week or two.

Ballet.  The fusspot loves ballet.  She's really awful at it, and we managed to not only find a very fun, relaxed class but I loved it because it was both cheap and uber-diverse (we're on the edge of 2 quite distinct neighborhoods.  When we head South, you get the millionaires, when you head North you get the policewomen taking their sons to ballet after a long shift).  At least once a day she puts on her ballet shoes and practices and role plays being Ms. S, her beloved teacher.  Except that this year the class has been moved to 1:45 pm, when she'll still be in school.  There are options: commit to weekend classes, or find another ballet class in the neighborhood (there are at least 10 in a 10 minute walk).  This seems like an easy task for my husband and google, but nope, that'll be me e-mailing every program for their schedule and availability.  And also breaking it to the fusspot that she may not see her beloved teacher again.

Len.scrafters.  Kinda sucks.  5 visits to get new lenses in my reading glasses, and apparently this time they got the prescription right but somehow stretched out the glasses for someone with a much, much bigger head than me (they are the same frames as before).  Seems like someone could take over calling to complain since I've already been there 5 times.  I mean, it's a busy NYC store and they didn't even have to ask my name when I walked in this evening.

Which takes us to tonight.  Synagogue (and yes, I know I shouldn't be on my computer but I'm sitting here alone stewing and I figure this will at least get some of the anger out so I can be pleasant when my children wake up at 4 am again).  And very judgmental old ladies.  I spent the afternoon with some mormon friends, and like the evangelical churches where I grew up, they have a super-well-developed hot meals for new moms and childcare during services program.  Not so much my people.  There is nothing on Friday night, and if we commit to kids services on Saturday I never step foot in real services (note: missing husband, single parent).  So we go every Friday night.  And usually people are lovely, but all summer the old ladies have been giving me death glowers.  And tonight my kids were really obnoxious.  The fusspot took of her shoes and danced on the pews, the dumpling fussed non-stop unless I let him play with the door handles ... so it was a bit rough.  And nobody offered to help.  Or a kind word.  Or even just a nice to see you tonight.  All I got was judgey judgey point up their nose and turn away distastefully looks.  And it made me so pissed.  It's Friday night.  I'm exhausted.  I'm single parenting.  I need to go to services to recharge, and I am committed to raising my children in a religious community that I love.  And not a single woman there could so much as give me a smile (and this is not true of the men, mind you.  We sit separately but the men are overwhelmingly polite, friendly, and happy to help out the kids.  My guess is the men who don't like other peoples kids find it easy to steer a wide berth).

So yeah, it's just me sitting on the couch feeling pissed.  I don't get it.  I even teach this stuff: the second shift, the economics of women juggling more than men ... and yet I really can't figure out an easy way out.