bearing blog

bearing blog


bear – ing n 1  the manner in which one comports oneself;  2  the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~];  4  pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation;   5  the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

  • Two different takes.

    Ann Althouse brought it up, quoting a NYT story:

    The groundswell of single women deliberately having babies reflects their increased ability to support a family. It helps, too, that the Internet has done away with the need to leave the house to find a donor. A woman can now select the father of her child from her living room and have his sperm sent directly to her doctor. It is faster and cheaper than adoption, and allows women to bear their own genetic offspring.

    She provoked a heated discussion by titling the post, "Female Autonomy:  Does it frighten you?"   I’m the first in the comments, with Kids need dads.  Either Ann doesn’t agree, or she was deliberately provoking her readers.  (If the latter, she succeeded — and that’s fine.  If the former, well, I’m surprised!)  There’s some good stuff in the comments.

    David Blankenhorn at Family Scholars Blog linked to the same article.   He’s less provocative and more critical, especially of the women’s claims that, because they chose single parenthood, the problems of single parenthood won’t befall them:

    I see. None of the traditional problems of one-parent homes apply to these women — (not even the problem of deliberately bringing into this world a child who will never know her father?) — but nevertheless some people are “uneasy” over a practice that “may seem threatening to men’s roles.” Well, that’s one way to put it.

    P.S. The more you think about it, the more amazing is this idea that “the usual problems don’t apply.” Right. If there is no father around to begin with, that pretty much does away with the experience (if not the feeling) of “abandonment by fathers.” And if there is only one parent, that certainly means that there won’t be any “parental conflict”! I don’t see how such claims could possibly be any sillier.

    Deliberately conceiving a fatherless child or a motherless child is like setting out, deliberately, to genetically engineer and conceive a child with some congenital disability, perhaps something like Down Syndrome, or maybe a missing arm or some kind of congenital blindness, because you’ve always dreamed of  bravely raising a disabled child.

    Of course, most children with Down Syndrome are aborted, presumably to prevent them from suffering.   I am sure there is some irony here.

    —

    |

    No comments on Two different takes.

  • Lactantius.

    Part of a series.

    Lactantius (260-340), professor of rhetoric, converted during the persecutions.  He has been called the "Christian Cicero."

    Today’s piece is from Chapter II of his Of the Manner In Which the Persecutors Died.  It is a sort of summary of the beginnings of the Christian church, plus a description of contemporary speculation about the fate of Nero.

    In the latter days of the Emperor Tiberius, in the consulship of Ruberius Geminus and Fufius Geminus, and on the tenth of the kalends of April, as I find it written, Jesus Christ was crucified by the Jews.

    After He had risen again on the third day, He gathered together His apostles, whom fear, at the time of His being laid hold on, had put to flight; and while He sojourned with them forty days, He opened their hearts, interpreted to them the Scripture, which hitherto had been wrapped up in obscurity, ordained and fitted them for the preaching of His word and doctrine, and regulated all things concerning the institutions of the New Testament; and this having been accomplished, a cloud and whirlwind enveloped Him, and caught Him up from the sight of men unto heaven.

    His apostles were at that time eleven in number, to whom were added Matthias, in the room of the traitor Judas, and afterwards Paul. Then were they dispersed throughout all the earth to preach the Gospel, as the Lord their Master had commanded them; and during twenty-five years, and until the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Nero, they occupied themselves in laying the foundations of the Church in every province and city.

    And while Nero reigned, the Apostle Peter came to Rome, and, through the power of God committed unto him, wrought certain miracles, and, by turning many to the true religion, built up a faithful and stedfast temple unto the Lord. When Nero heard of those things, and observed that not only in Rome, but in every other place, a great multitude revolted daily from the worship of idols, and, condemning their old ways, went over to the new religion, he, an execrable and pernicious tyrant, sprung forward to raze the heavenly temple and destroy the true faith.

    He it was who first persecuted the servants of God; he crucified Peter, and slew Paul: nor did he escape with impunity; for God looked on the affliction of His people; and therefore the tyrant, bereaved of authority, and precipitated from the height of empire, suddenly disappeared, and even the burial-place of that noxious wild beast was nowhere to be seen.

    This has led some persons of extravagant imagination to suppose that, having been conveyed to a distant region, he is still reserved alive; and to him they apply the Sibylline verses concerning "The fugitive, who slew his own mother, being to come from the uttermost boundaries of the earth;" as if he who was the first should also be the last persecutor, and thus prove the forerunner of Antichrist!

    But we ought not to believe those who, affirming that the two prophets Enoch and Elias have been translated into some remote place that they might attend our Lord when He shall come to judgment, also fancy that Nero is to appear hereafter as the forerunner of the devil, when he shall come to lay waste the earth and overthrow mankind.

    So some people thought that Nero was sort of miraculously preserved, and would return as the Antichrist!  That lends some credence to the idea that the "number of the beast" is meant to be code for the emperor Nero. 

    Not everyone believes today that Peter came to Rome and was martyred there.   But the early Church did, as recorded by the early Christian writers; Lactantius is only one example.   He’s only a few generations removed from Peter and the other apostles.  Why not rely on this oral tradition?

    —

    |

    No comments on Lactantius.

  • AAP says: Put the baby in your room.

    The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has revised their infant sleep recommendations for the prevention of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).   Notably:

    …there is growing evidence that room sharing (infant sleeping in a crib in parent’s bedroom) is associated with a reduced risk of SIDS. The AAP recommends a separate but proximate sleeping environment.


    In other words, while it still recommends cribs, the AAP now recommends that babies sleep in the same room as their parents.  I applaud this recommendation, which makes sense on many levels.  Because their waking will be heard sooner, babies will cry less and suffer less.  Perhaps breastfeeding will become well-established for more newborns, so that fewer mothers will have problems that drive them to give up nursing.

    Our family cosleeps.   The benefits to us of co-sleeping are apparent, and the risk of SIDS is small (and not at all, to my knowledge, studied in exclusively co-sleeping families — most of the data comes from families who occasionally co-sleep).  I personally recommend it to every nonsmoking parent who asks me. 

    But I am still pleased by the new AAP recommendations.    Because they are palatable to the average American, they stand a good chance of becoming the new norm in nighttime baby care — I mean, there is a good chance that the typical newborn will move from the nursery down the hall to the crib a few feet away.  That’s a tremendous gain in mother-baby closeness.

    Here is another interesting statement.  I had no idea that this research even existed:

    Research now indicates an association between pacifier use and a reduced risk of SIDS, which is why the revised statement recommends the use of pacifiers at nap time and bedtime throughout the first year of life. The evidence that pacifier use inhibits breastfeeding or causes later dental complications is not compelling enough to discredit the recommendation. However, it is recommended that pacifier introduction for breastfed infants be delayed until one month of age to ensure that breastfeeding is firmly established. In addition, if the infant refuses the pacifier, it should not be forced.

    Fascinating!  Why do you suppose that a pacifier should reduce the risk of SIDS?  Does suckling stimulate breathing, or keep the airway open?  Well, my night nursers have always nursed so much when they were small…

    I’m pleased to see that they recommend waiting until breastfeeding is firmly established.  Do you suppose that this part will be noticed, or will pediatricians just start telling parents, "Use a pacifier.  It lowers the risk of SIDS."  I hope that they remember that pacifiers do cause problems.

    The rest of the recommendations are not very much changed.  One part I disagree with has to do with avoiding flat-head: 

    Avoid development of positional plagiocephaly (flat back of head): Encourage “tummy time.” * Avoid having the infant spend excessive time in car-seat carriers and “bouncers.”

    Parents certainly should avoid putting the baby too much in car-seat carriers and bouncers, but the solution isn’t "tummy time" (which is a pleasant-sounding euphemism for "leaving the infant awake face down on the floor"), it’s carrying the baby, in arms or a soft carrier.  Get a sling and use it.  Better yet, get several.  (Here or here are good places to start.)   

    All in all, pretty good, but — as usual — there’s a general lack of perspective.  We should care about total infant mortality, not just SIDS.  And morbidity too:  good quality breastfeeding prevents so many problems that it’s hard to see why it’s not a higher priority than SIDS.  For a while, a major disposable-diaper manufacturer printed diapers with the "Back to Sleep" slogan.  Nobody printed "Having trouble breastfeeding?  Before you give up, dial 1-800-LALECHE."

    Possibility the first:  The unexpected, unexplained nature of SIDS scares people more than other causes of infant death and illnesses.  Possibility the second:  Nobody stands to lose a lot of money if people decide to do what’s best for their babies when it comes to sleep.

    UPDATE:  Of course, if you look for it on Google News, the headlines are all about the benefits of cribs and pacifiers.  Not about the benefits of putting your child in your room, which is surely the change that has the most significant impact on standard U. S. parenting practices.

    UPDATE AGAIN:  Dumbest headline award goes to the Washington Post, for this gem:

    To cut crib deaths, separate beds are urged for babies

    Think about it.

    —

    |

    2 comments on AAP says: Put the baby in your room.

  • “Parents have lost touch with the notion that these charts are guidelines, not rules.”

    Doctors too, apparently.  Well, it’s about time someone pointed this out:

    It turns out most advice parents get about weaning infants onto solid foods — even from pediatricians — is more myth than science.

    That’s right, rice cereal may not be the best first food. Peanut butter doesn’t have to wait until after the first birthday. Offering fruits before vegetables won’t breed a sweet tooth. And strong spices? Bring ’em on….

    "Parents have lost touch with the notion that these charts are guides, not rules," says Rachel Brandeis, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. "Babies start with a very clean palate and it’s your job to mold it."…

    The difference is cultural, not scientific, says Dr. Jatinder Bhatia, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ nutrition committee who says the American approach suffers from a Western bias that fails to reflect the nation’s ethnic diversity.

    Yep.  I remember well, before I became a mother, sitting at lunch with some other graduate students and postdocs.  One, an Italian man, had brought his wife and baby son, maybe seven months old.  When the food came, the Italian woman pulled the "baby food" from her purse:  a whole, raw tomato.  I was shocked!  But that baby chowed down!  I remembered that, and never bothered with prepared baby food for our kids.

    Thanks to Danna for the link.

    —

    |

    No comments on “Parents have lost touch with the notion that these charts are guidelines, not rules.”

  • Two things went away this week.

    1.  The white picket fence.  We used to own a duplex with a double lot and a garage and a white picket fence.  Then, after we paid the City of Minneapolis a bunch of money, it waved the Variance Wand four times, and the property changed into two lots, one with a duplex and one with a garage, all surrounded by a white picket fence.  (It will turn back into a pumpkin at midnight on December thirty-first.) 

    Now the fence is gone, except for the lonely posts.  This makes it easier for the backhoes to get in.  (Actually, not all that much easier for the backhoes.  But our neighbor, who builds fences, promises to give the painted planks a good home.  He would not be able to do so for many thousands of partly painted splinters.)

    2.   The changing table.  For the first time in more than five years, I have no children in diapers.  This situation will persist, by definition, for at least nine months.  So to the basement with you!  My bathroom is now much roomier.   

    We filled the space with laundry baskets.  That’s the kind of wild, crazy home decorators we are.

    —

    |

    No comments on Two things went away this week.

  • Now that he’s out of diapers, he’ll probably start asking for a hair shirt.

    Sunday Mass this week ended with Benediction.  (The congregation is blessed by a priest who is holding and elevating the Blessed Sacrament.  More on this lovely rite here.)  I happened to be in the church foyer, because Milo had gotten loud and squirmy in the Communion line, so after receiving I carried him right to the back. 

    While the Sacrament is exposed, we kneel.  It’s understood, of course, that moms with squirmy toddlers can’t always do this, but I usually give it a shot.  So I knelt on the carpet where we could see through the doors all the way down the aisle to the altar and held Milo and whispered in his ear, pointing:  see the priest?  see the altar?  see the monstrance? 

    Another woman was already kneeling there, with a little girl about his age.  The girl had flopped down on her belly and was rolling around on the carpet, but she was not bothering anyone, which is the important thing that allowed her mom to remain kneeling.  Milo, entranced by the little girl, tore away from me and flopped down next to the little girl.  They lay there on their bellies and grinned at each other.

    I muttered under my breath, "Okay.  Fine.  Prostrate is good."    I didn’t mean for anyone to hear me, but the little girl’s mother laughed. 

    I love Benediction.  But solemn is just hard to do for longer than a few minutes with a two-year-old.

    —

    |

    No comments on Now that he’s out of diapers, he’ll probably start asking for a hair shirt.

  • A successful seminary.

    A piece on our local seminary, St. John Vianney, and the 100 or so young men studying there.  The entering class this year:  49 men.   That’s a lot.

    There’s no room at SJV for what some call "the beige church" — the "whatever turns you on" spirituality that became popular in the 1970s and ’80s. In Baer’s view, the recent clergy abuse scandals had their roots, in part, in the freewheeling seminaries of those years.

    "Today’s young men won’t give their entire lives for a cynical, watered-down life of church work," he says. "Either the priesthood is essential for the salvation of the world, or they’re going to go somewhere else to make a lot more money and have a lot more fun."

    Exactly.  Who is going to give their whole lives for something if they don’t really believe in it? 

    …SJV’s watchword is accountability. "The era of the Lone Ranger priest with a secret life has got to end," says Baer. Seminarians meet twice a week in small groups to encourage and support each other. "They take each other to task for things as small as ‘your room is a mess.’ We want them to get used to correcting their brothers."

    I like that. 

    "We’re normal people, average Joes," responds Kregg Hochhalter, a transfer student from the Archdiocese of Bismarck, N.D. St. Thomas football fans can attest to this. At the Tommies’ games, seminarians clad in purple T-shirts lead the crowd in rowdy cheers. Football cocaptain Ben Kessler, an SJV senior named First Team Academic All-American by ESPN the Magazine, was recently featured on Fox Sports Net. Another SJV athlete, Nick Donohue, turned down a chance to become a tennis pro to attend the seminary.

    Baer still chuckles about the raucous "half prayer meeting, half pep rally" the seminarians staged after Pope Benedict’s election in April 2005. Campus security guards chased them off a roof, so they led an exuberant procession through the campus, as other students enthusiastically cheered them on.

    I know one SJV seminarian — we used to attend the same parish and belonged to a young adults’ group there.  When my family switched to a parish with a more traditional reverence for the Eucharist, we ran into Chris there and were pleasantly surprised to find he’d entered the seminary.  He’ll be great for the Church, and he doesn’t fit the stereotypes.  He’s a techie, he’s got a biting sarcasm, he’s a heck of a lot of fun to have a conversation with.  All of these things are perfect for the priesthood, if you ask me.

    H/t Amy Welborn.

    —

    |

    No comments on A successful seminary.

  • Chicken in foil packets with grated root vegetables.

    Dinner tonight in twenty minutes of prep and twenty minutes in the oven:

      • 4          boneless skinless chicken breast halves
      • 1          peeled large sweet potato
      • 1          small onion
      • 1          peeled large carrot
      • 1          turnip (thanks for the turnip, Hannah)
      • 4         slices from one ripe tomato
      • Salt and pepper and balsamic vinegar to taste
      • 4          one-foot squares of heavy aluminum foil

    Grate the sweet potato, onion, carrot, and turnip in the food processor.  Salt and pepper to taste.   In each square of aluminum foil place about 3/4 to 1 cup of vegetable mixture. Top with chicken breast and slice of tomato.  Add salt and pepper and a few drops of balsamic vinegar.  Seal packets and bake 20 minutes at 450 degrees F.

    Adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything.  Have with a tossed salad and, if you used lots of pepper, some late harvest Riesling.

    —

    |

    No comments on Chicken in foil packets with grated root vegetables.

  • Diaper-free babies in the NYT.

    Here’s the article.

    About 2,000 people across the country have joined Internet groups and e-mail lists to learn more about the techniques of encouraging a baby – too young to walk or talk – to go in a toilet, a sink or a pot. Through a nonprofit group, Diaper Free Baby (www.diaperfreebaby.org), 77 local groups have formed in 35 states to encourage the practice. One author’s how-to books on the subject have sold about 50,000 copies.

    Nice to see this getting some mainstream attention. 

    Soon after my second son Milo was born, I taught him to pee in the sink or potty, or wherever I wanted him to, in response to a "cue" noise (a low, glottal growl).   It worked like a charm; he would "hold it," he would squirm to let me know he needed to pee, and he would pee when I held him in position.

    I wasn’t consistent with it, though.  We used diapers too, first just as a backup or in the car,and gradually we got lazy and "lost" the cueing.  By the time he was a year old he was back in diapers whenever we left the house.  At home, though, we kept the potties out, and he would still use them if he happened to be butt-naked.  Just a couple of months ago, he refused to wear diapers anymore, and that was it.   Definitely an easy toilet training.  I wonder if his early experiences as an "EC’ed" baby (where EC stands for "elimination communication," a common term among those in the know) helped him toilet train as a toddler.

    A couple of our little friends were/are being raised diaper free.  I can vouch for it — the method works beautifully, if your lifestyle allows for it. 

    For families who practice the technique, the advantages are many: savings in the cost of diapers, which can reach $3,000 a child; less guilt about contributing to the 22 billion disposable diapers that end up in landfills every year; no diaper rash, and a nursery that doesn’t reek of diaper pail. They also note that age 2, a common age for toilet training, is a time of notorious willfulness and a terrible age to start teaching any child anything.

    Misconceptions abound:

    "It doesn’t sound like anything I would ever even attempt to try," said Erinn Marchetti, who has two preschool-age children and was shopping recently at Toys "R" Us in Times Square. "It’s hard enough when they’re 2 and 3."

    Sounds like she assumes it would be harder to train a baby.  It’s not.  I’ve done both and the baby was easier.  My first son, I tried to train starting at age 2.  We didn’t finish until he was 3 years, 7 months.

    And get a load of this one.  I wonder how many Toys R Us shoppers the reporter had to interview before hearing this one.

    Another mother in Toys "R" Us, who offered her opinion but wanted to remain anonymous, was aghast at the notion. "Have you read Freud?" she asked, worrying about the method’s long-term effects. "I imagine it’s going to come out in sexual ways."

    An "expert" weighs in:

    "Even if you’re getting them to go in a pot as a young infant, I don’t know if it will have any long-term impact for all the effort you have to go through," said Dr. Mark Wolraich, author of the academy’s "Guide to Toilet Training" (Bantam Books, 2003). "The risk is, if it’s not working and the parents are frustrated, they’re creating more negative interactions with their child."

    Seems to me that "if it’s not working and the parents are frustrated," they’ll… buy diapers.

    Anyway, I was glad to see it in the news.

    —

    |

    No comments on Diaper-free babies in the NYT.

  • “Narnia: Deep magic.”

    What a relief.  Barbara Nicolosi’s seen the new Narnia film, and she says it’s great.

    The movie is lovely. The print we saw had some special effects still in stages, but it didn’t detract from the stunning vision the movie radiates off the screen. England is musty and dreary. Narnia is a wonderland. Tke kids are going to love it. They are going to want to walk through that wardrobe with Lucy time after time.

    But best of all, contrary to Peter Jackson’s agenda-aversion manhandling of Tolkien’s classic, here, the tone of LW&W is as close to the book as probably could have been achieved. All the lines the Christians are worrying about are in there. All the scenes you want to see are here and lovingly rendered. So everybody can relax and get ready to enjoy, and we can all take the Wonderful World of Disney back into our hearts — and save the studio for 2005! Truly, our forgiveness is completely saving…

    I truly cannot wait.  H/t Amy Welborn.

    —

    |

    No comments on “Narnia: Deep magic.”

  • They should get a better machine.

    I decided to Google myself — the blog, actually — and Google’s black box chewed up  "bearing blog" and spit out this link for No.2:

    Nicolas Chaunu, carrying the project Emob, "the effective, dynamic elearning and deeply humanized", informs us of the creation of a bearing blog on the elearning.

    The corner of the e-learning was launched one month ago. The other part of the blog relates to the creation of a company which will be born next October and which will be specialized in the creation of contents of multi-media formation on line.

    Good corner to exchange with the actors of the field and to make known themselves on the Fabric.

    Huh?  Oh, I get it, it’s a machine translation from the original French.  The term "the creation of a bearing blog on the elearning" is really supposed to be "the creation of a blog bearing on the subject of e-learning."

    By this post I hope to make known myself on the Fabric (Toile).  Does that mean the Web, or the Net?

    —

    |

    No comments on They should get a better machine.

  • You know who you are.

    The name of this blog made me think of some friends of mine.

    —

    |

    No comments on You know who you are.

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Categories

…more to come later