11D

The Enemies of Health

 Since this summer, when I read Michael Pollan's book on the banks of Lake George, I've been closely following his articles on food. Indeed, I've been able to drastically change our eating and exercise habits in the past few months. (Thank you, Mr. Unemployment Check.)

I've been meaning to do a post on the two degrees of separation between Pollan and my folks. One of his interviewees was part of my parent's earthy/crunchy group from Rockland County. Maybe next week.

In yesterday's Times, Jane Brody highlights some of rules for eating well  from Pollan's new book, Food Rules. His rules are perfectly fine. We should cook more, eat more vegetables, and eat less processed food. Absolutely true. 

The problem with Pollan and Brody and others in that group is that they have a very poor understanding of why people eat crappy food. The solution isn't to tell people that they should eat their lima beans. People know that. They often just can't do it. 

The biggest enemies to healthy eating are kids, suburbs, and two jobs.

It's really, really hard to find the time to figure out recipes and shop for fresh vegetables when there are two people working stressful jobs with long hours. Then throw kids into the mix, and it's even tougher. Shopping with a three year kid isn't for the faint of heart.

Kids are picky. I decided to make sausages and rice pilaf for dinner tonight. Jonah doesn't like sausage with the seeds in it. Got to remember that when I go the store this afternoon. Neither kid will eat the rice pilaf, because it has spinach and feta in it and because there are too many things touching each other. So, the kids will have plain rice and peas with their sausage. That took some thought to figure all that out. I still have to go to the store.

This was a meal that I made a few months ago. By the way, taking appetizing pictures of food is very hard, especially when the meal is finished after dark and you can't use natural light. Hats off to Pioneer Woman who styles her food so nicely. But I'm showing you this picture, because I had to make two meals that night for dinner. Jonah and Steve got the shrimp scampi. Ian only likes pasta with marinara sauce and won't eat shrimp. It's twice as hard to cook like this. 

Tuesdays are very complicated, because Ian has a social skills class from 5:45 to 6:45, which means that dinner has to be on the table by 5:00. Sometimes Jonah has soccer practice on Tuesdays as well, which really makes things insane. 

I really need to buy food on Tuesdays with multiple activities, but there are no good options. The only fast and affordable options are Wendy's, Boston Market, KFC, or Burger King. There are some good restaurants around, but they are Saturday night places, not racing to soccer practice places.

This is why people end up at the fast food counter. 

If you're childless living in Manhattan, there are a ton of options for a quick, affordable, healthy meal outside your apartment. Not so much out here.

I think we could use a little less Food Rules. We need more ideas about how to eat well given these massive restrictions. For example, plan out menus on the weekends or freeze things for later in the week. We also have to figure out how to have healthy life styles that include socializing and exercise, given these same restrictions.

Links on Women, Work, and Divisions of Labor

Last week, we had a couple of good discussions about the Pew study which found that 22 percent of wives now earn more than their husbands and about a new study on divisions of household labor and women scientists.

Lagging behind the witty conversation at Apt. 11D, the New York Times followed up. Sandra Tsing Loh griped about the demise of the Art of the Wife. They also had an article on the Pew study.

Why Out Earning?

Yesterday, I threw out a quick link to a Pew study that found that more women out-earn their husbands than did in the past.

This study is getting a lot of press. CNN and NBC mentioned it this morning.

Yesterday, Ragtime bought up some important methodological questions. I have some other concerns about this study.

First of all, 22 percent of women make more than their husbands. That's not really all that big of a percentage. Really, the question should be why aren't more women making more than their husbands. 

Secondly, I want to know why women are making more than their husbands. Is it because women are taking higher paying jobs than they did in the past? Are they getting access to higher management positions that would have been barred to them in the past? If so, that's great.

Or is it because blue collar, male dominated jobs have gotten nailed in the past thirty years.

My brother-in-law is a skilled worker. He has an associates degree and specializes in using CAD. He works for a company that makes parts for cars. His wife is an administrative assistant at a hospital. A few years ago, he made more money. Now, she makes more money. Her salary hasn't gone up tremendously. His salary has shrunk. His company took a tremendous hit, because it is so tied to the economic fortunes of Detroit. He only works four days per week now, instead of six days like a few years ago. The whole factory shut down for two weeks over Christmas -- no paychecks at all. 

So, I'm not entirely sure if this chart is good news or not.

Women in the Workforce

The Economist has a great article on the status of women in the workforce in America and in other nations.

The article points out some of the great advances.

Women now make up almost half of American workers (49.9% in October). They run some of the world’s best companies, such as PepsiCo, Archer Daniels Midland and W.L. Gore. They earn almost 60% of university degrees in America and Europe.

However, the article rightly points out that society has not made the necessary adjustments to cope with these changes. Women are forgoing motherhood entirely or they drop out of the workforce after children arrive.

I'm going to come back to this article, because it includes some references to new studies. I am also rereading the Feminine Mystique, so I've got women and work on the brain.

Fish Sauce and Tater Tots

Jeremy S. sent me a link to a Hanna Rosin article talking about her struggles to remain in the kitchen as her foodie husband micromanages the microplaner.

I usually like Hanna Rosin and her story was amusing enough, but she makes the error of assuming that her family drama is a typical family drama. She moves from the first person singular pronouns to the first person plural pronouns. There's no evidence that macho chefs on the Food Network are leading to a mass movement of men in the kitchen. As Michael Pollan wrote, the Food Network has resulted in food spectators, rather than food makers.

After we were married and Jonah was a baby, Steve and I cooked together a lot. We made Jonah fresh, organic baby food, and Steve brewed his own beer in a vat in a closet. We were able to be happily chopping vegetables together at 5:30, because we were in graduate school. We didn't have jobs. 

Now, Steve doesn't walk in the door until 6:30 or 7:00 or later. He's lucky if he can eat with the rest of us, instead of warming up leftovers in the microwave. He'll cook one meal over the weekend, but it usually involves frozen tater tots.

Even when Steve was home, he wasn't cooking porcini risotto. He was making fish sauce.

Steve doesn't like nouveau cuisine. He prefers traditional cuisine. Really old cooking. From the Roman Era, if possible. He got his hands on a cookbook of ancient Roman dishes. I think the cookbook was meant for historical study, rather than actual implementation. The Romans were really into a fish and wine sauce that was reduced into a viscous consistency. I think it was called golum or gorum. I can't remember. Steve'll give you a long lecture on how the modern Worcestershire sauce is a descendant of the Ancient Roman fish sauce.

Anyhow, this stuff was nasty and really smelled up the place. I can't say that I miss the fish sauce at all.

Most men might not be the porcini risotto-types like Rosin's husband, but they are slowly, very slowly, doing more domestic work. The annoying thing is that as men take on domestic work, it suddenly becomes cool. Example A has to be all the articles on Stay at Home Dads. There have to be more articles about Stay at Home Dads, than actual Stay at Home Dads. In a few years, there's going to be a guy version of Martha Stewart. He's somehow going to make vacuuming cool. Get ready for it.

The Recession and Marriage

Hanna Rosin points to new research that finds that divorce rates have dropped to their lowest levels since the Great Depression. While some claim that the shift is a result of a return to traditional values spurred on by the economic downturn, Rosin believes that people are not divorcing, because they can't afford it. She says that working class women are suffering right now, but when the economy picks up, more men are going to be kicked to the road.

The Impact of Working Parents on Children

Ingrid at Crooked Timber writes a blog post about the book, What Children Need. The author, Jane Waldfogel, discusses the needs of children with two working parents. I'm not sure if the author compares children with two working parents and children with one working parent. I'll have to check the book out.

I also need to check the book out, because I also can't figure out how she created a valid study. There are so many variables to consider -- how much both parents work, how stressful their jobs are, the quality of childcare, the availability of help from the extended family, how crazy the parents are, the amount of commute time. I also can't figure out how does she determine the well-being of the child -- grades in school, aggression levels, overall happiness levels, future success.

Over the years, I've observed hundreds of families. I've watched nannies with babies at the playground. I've watched kids at various types of daycare, because my kids have sampled many. While there are a gazillion variables, I think I can make some very unscientific observations. 

The mental status of the parents is more important than their work status. Family A has two working parents. They work locally and can get their kids from Aftercare fairly quickly. However, the parents fight all the time. The fight in front of the kids about details of the husband's infidelities. One of the kids is so freaked out about this fighting that he isn't sleeping at night. He's been pouring out his heart to Jonah, who's a caretaking soul, and had to leave the classroom last week, because he couldn't stop blinking. The kid is miserable, but the problem is the fighting not his parents' employment. In fact, it is probably good for him to spend lots of time away from his parents.

Kids who have attentive parents have a huge advantage. Family B has one tween daughter (having just one kid makes things easier, too). They both work, but their minds are always with their girl. The father is able to get home by 5:30, early enough to get her to soccer and to help her with homework. As soon as school is out, the mother texts the daughter to make sure she walks right home and does her homework. The mother texts the neighbors to make sure the daughter is indeed at home. If the girl gets anything less an A on a test, the mother is immediately e-mailing the teacher to get her extra help. The parents don't work or talk about work or worry about work when they get home. They turn it off. That girl is happy and well adjusted.

Work pressures vary, and two demanding jobs can mean trouble. Family C has two working parents who live and breathe their jobs. They don't have any extended family support. To save money, they put their son in an overcrowded unlicensed home daycare setting. He's in the daycare for fifty to sixty hours a week starting when he's six months old. The woman who watches him can't give him that much attention, because she's watching nine other children. The parents are stressed out messes when they pick him up, because they need to be spending even more time at their jobs to advance. They snap at the kid for being slow about getting his backpack and immediately get on e-mail when they get home.

I agree with many of the conclusions that Ingrid discusses in her blog post at Crooked Timber. Children need parents who are able to shut off work when they get home. They need parents who aren't constantly stressed out. They need stability. They need non-crazy parents who are involved even if they aren't there. They need good quality, affordable daycare. They need a network of people around them - smart babysitters, caring neighbors, doting grandmas. 

Smart public policy can address many of these needs. It's smart politics to frame these reforms in terms of children's needs, rather than work-family balance. That's why research like this is so important. I have to get my hands on the book.

Who Doesn't Have Food on the Table?

The Washington Post reports that 49 million people did not have dependable access to food last year. They also report,

In 2008, the report found, nearly 17 million children -- more than one in five across the United States -- were living in households in which food at times ran short, up from slightly more than 12 million youngsters the year before. And the number of children who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million.

Bad Mothers

Sandra Tsing Loh sort of reviews Aylet Waldman's Bad Mother. Loh mostly talks about her life, since she publicly self-combusted on the pages of Atlantic Monthly. Her marriage is over and she's homeless. Her essay isn't even really about motherhood. It's about tragedy. It's about the fragility of the intact, middle-class family and the heroics of the extended family. That woman needs a hug.

Cough, Cold, Kid

My Facebook friends are all sick. I wonder if there is a wonk at Facebook graphing the rising trend of the status updates including the words "sick" and "ill" and "coughing a lung out."

In the comment section of the previous post, Western Dave writes, "Significant Other and I have been dealing with major stress with sick kids. It's been over a month since either of us spent a full week at work. Any chance of having an open thread or discussion on this?"

My kids are healthy right now (salt, wood, spit) and I don't have to be in the classroom, so I am not dealing with work pressures and vomit on the floor right now. But sick kids and work have been a huge issue for us in the past, example here and here.

So open thread. Vent. What reforms should be made?

UPDATE: Lack of Paid Sick Days May Worsen Flu Pandemic 

UPDATE2: Check out Jill at Feministe.