DCUM Weblog

Diary of a Date Night

By Sarah Pekkanen

6 p.m.: Date night officially starts in 45 minutes. Plop Trader Joe’s pizza in front of kids, plop kids in front of television, and sprint to shower. Husband is already in shower. Yell, “Are you almost done?” He yells back, “Just got in.”

6:08 p.m.: Husband still hogging shower. Turn on sink water to brush teeth, causing him to squeal as shower water turns scalding hot (love these old Chevy Chase homes!) Say innocently, "Oops." “You did that on purpose,” he accuses. Date Night not off to rip-roaring romantic start.

6:17 p.m.: Ask husband to get the kids some juice. “What kind?” he asks. Impatiently bark, “What do you think? That they’ve suddenly started swigging pomegranate juice or apricot nectar?” He responds huffily, “No need to be sarcastic,” as he gets the lemonade. Date night still sorely lacking romantic ambiance.

I made a disturbing discovery the other day almost by accident.

When I first put some family pictures up on Flickr, I thought it would be a good way to share pictures with family and friends especially since some of the grandparents are always on me to "send pictures!" My parents thought it was a little weird to post pictures in a public forum, in particular the 3 shots of the kids swimming naked in the mountains.

Hey, dude, I'm a hippy. We swim naked. Big deal.

To appease them, I made the 3 nudie pics "private" for family only and didn't think any more of it.

I happened to be clicking through my flickr album noticing for the first time that flickr records the number of "views" per picture when, like a cold bucket of water on my head, I noticed that the three private, naked, family-only pictures had over a thousand views each.

My immediate reaction was shock and disgust. I immediately deleted the pictures. Then I had some questions. Who viewed my kids 1000 times? How did they gain access to my private account? How did they even find these three pics among more than 100 non-nudie pics? I had not named them in any obvious way- I think they were called something like "img 0048". Who? What? How? My mind did not want to go to WHY.

I have asked these questions to Flickr via their online support (they do not offer phone support) and they have offered no satisfactory answers. Their reply was that maybe I needed to check my privacy settings. I wrote back, insisting on a more substantive answer. I have not heard back.

Kids are meant to be naked. Their bodies are beautiful and I mourn their growing body-shame. I went to art school where we deconstructed essays decrying Sally Mann and her supposed exploitation of her children and their beauty, their nakedness. We debated what should and shouldn't be sacrificed for the sake of "art". We agonized over the tension between the artists "intention" and the viewer's "perception".

And now I am agonizing over my own intention to take beautiful photos of my beautiful children so that when they're regular buttoned-up adults they can catch a glimmer of a memory of what it was like to splash and play in a mountain stream, to feel the chill water on their skin, to warm their whole bodies in the sun without a single notion of embarrassment or fear or shame. It's clear to me that perception, in this case, trumps intention.

The whole notion of public and private is shifting in the age of the internet. I understand why my parents (and many others, to be fair) have concerns about privacy and safety, and I too will now be more cautious. But I can't say that this will drive me to join the ranks of the deadbolting, paper shredding, alarm-setting, password touting fear-mongers who try to sell us on the illusion of security. That's just not who I am.

The pictures are down, the children are snug in their beds. I'm doing my job as best I can.

Today was a milestone day – I finally got Baby Boo his first real haircut, since far too many people were calling him "her." So by rights, I should be thinking about that happy milestone. But instead, I left the salon steaming mad about one of the most egregious examples of greenwashing I’ve come across – an “all natural, organic hair care for children” line of lice treatment products called Fairy Tales Hair Care for Children.

I happen to really be in the market for an organic lice treatment – in fact I even included it in a post called “Humor Me Not: The Top 10 Organic and Eco-Friendly Products Moms Really Need.”

As I sort through the piles of medical bills, insurance forms, and other paperwork related to my recent pregnancy, I'm reminded how complicated the health care system in our country has become.

Up until this past year, my family and I were fortunate not to have to deal much with health care issues – my dear husband (DH) and I were relatively healthy, so doctors' visits were few and far between.  But 2007 brought us our son, and consequently, more contact with the medical community than we'd ever had before.  I'm sorry to report, however, that it was extremely difficult to get the care and personal attention we needed.

From overcrowded doctors' offices with long wait times and rushed visits, to overworked (and sometimes indifferent) medical personnel, to battles with insurance companies over procedures that our physicians ordered but insurance wouldn't cover, we had to fight constantly to get adequate treatment.

New Year’s Resolutions for 2008: Get bathing-suit ready by springtime. Eat less bread and chocolate. When running errands, park minivan at farthest point away in lot and power-walk to door, strengthening biceps by dragging along protesting kids. Practice rhythmically clenching stomach muscles in line at supermarket while reading about Brangelina in tabloids.

Diary entry on 9:01 a.m. on January 1, 2008: Exhausted from long trudge to door of Whole Foods. Buy dark-chocolate bar (organic, though) to revive oneself. Whole Foods has no tabloids! How can this be? Buy dark-chocolate bar to console oneself.

How can it be springtime already?

My bathing suits have somehow all shrunk during their long winter hibernation. Time to whip myself into shape. Time for a diet.

One of the things I have learned from my involvement with the DC Urban Moms and Dads Mailing List and website is that parenting is a great equalizer. Individuals of all socioeconomic, racial, religious, and ethnic backgrounds deal with similar issues. Loss of sleep, anxiety about a baby's health, uncertainty about parenting choices, and the joy created by a baby's smile are not bound by any of the lines we often draw across our society.

I was reminded of this by reports that Lynne Spears's parenting book has been "delayed indefinitely". Lynne, of course, is the mother of Britney Spears. The book's delay cames amidst the news that Britney's 16-year-old sister, Jamie, is pregnant. The idea that Lynne Spears should have been given the opportunity to author a parenting book was greeted with derision by many. "[J]ust change the title to Raising Skanks the Spears Way" crowed one of my favorite bloggers. "[O]ne can't help wondering who was the genius who contracted the sisters' mother..." opined the Philadelphia Inquirer. My own first reaction — once I figured out who Lynne and Jamie Spears were — was also that Lynne might have been a poor choice for a parenting advice. But then I thought about it further.

I have a secret fantasy (no, not that one, you perverts). It’s this: Sometimes I dream about being one of those women in a J. Crew catalogue – you know, the kind who glides around with a sleek Golden Retriever at her heels, tossing a football to her sons (who are clad in crisp matching Oxford shirts) before retreating to the serenity of her living room, where glossy magazines arc across a gleaming coffee table.

Here’s the sad truth: My coffee table usually holds a few crumpled newspapers with half-finished Sudokus, a mug of coffee that’s so old even the flies turn up their noses at it, and a random, linty sock. It’s often one of the neater areas of my home.

I put the blame for this, like most things that have gone wrong in my life, squarely on the shoulders of my own parents. Once I helped my mother clear out her bedroom. Halfway through a tower of papers, I discovered a book entitled “Lighten Up! Free Yourself From Clutter.” We laughed merrily – oh, the delicious irony! – until, another foot or so down, when I unearthed the identical book.

I'd like to address an issue that was raised last month on the DC Urban Moms forums.  It began with a poster who was upset that her Jewish inlaws would not acknowledge Christmas or answer their grandson's questions about the holiday despite the fact that the poster and her husband had decided to raise their son in the Catholic faith.

As someone who was raised as a relatively religious Jew, my initial instinct was to side with the inlaws.  I posted a response saying that while I was not trying to condone hurtful behavior by the grandparents, some people (like me) feel very left out during the holiday season.  The ensuing dialogue on the forum  made me think more about my feelings on this issue, and led to a conversation with my husband about how to deal with the holidays when our newborn son becomes old enough to know what's going on.

[ Portions of this article have been rewritten based on reader input. ]

It starts with a simple, innocent-sounding post. Someone is available to babysit. "I've heard that you are great," states a response. "I plan to hire you on Friday so my husband and I can go out," follows another. "I hired her and she was great," exclaims an additional accolade. And then, "Thank you for the kind words. I appreciate the great response." Taken nearly word-for-word from a recent thread in the DCUM nanny forums, this is an example of a sock puppet in action. The entire exchange was composed by a single individual hoping to drum up business.

In 1993, the World Wide Web — what many people have wrongly come to consider synonymous with "The Internet" — was launched. That same year, The New Yorker published a cartoon by Peter Steiner showing two dogs sitting in front of a computer with the caption, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog". According to Wikipedia, Steiner didn't attach a "profound" meaning to the cartoon. Nevertheless, he managed to capture an essential truth of the online age and the underlying message — intended or not — is one of which we frequently need to remind ourselves. As a number of anecdotes from my experience with the "nanny ads" on DCUM illustrate, this is especially the case when using the Internet as a means of finding a nanny or other childcare professional.