Tiger should get his priorities straight
Remember how Tiger Woods said that he would pass up a major golf tournament if, to play in it, he would have to miss the birth of his baby? Silly man. Colleen Pavelka may not be as famous as Tiger, but she has this one figured out.
"Nine months pregnant and married to a fervent Bears fan with tickets to" the NFC Championship game, reports the Associated Press, Ms. Pavelka solved the conflict by having her doctor induce her so she gave birth three days early. This way she didn't have to worry about going into labor during the game.
How about it, Tiger?
This story shows yet again the speciousness of the nature/nurture debate. The premise of the debate is that, if something is "natural," it is impossible to change. Yet changing nature is the easy part: induce the baby. What's hard is changing culture. What is it about our culture that tells us that having a baby should fit into adult life without changing it one whit?
As Ms. Pavelka's story shows, the real issue is how having a baby should fit into men's lives. Society is quick to condemn a mother who has a baby and continues to prioritize entertainment -- or ever work -- over the welfare of the child. The real work done by the nature/nurture debate is to send the message that women and children should organize their wants and needs around the ebb and flow of the kind of important stuff that occupies men. Like football. Or investment banking.
As I continue to think about the Tiger Woods story, the important message is that having a baby is a momentous event not only for mothers -- everybody knows that -- but for fathers as well, an event that will forever change the shape of their adult responsibilities.
This message hasn't sunk in. As a result, a UNICEF report said this week, the U.S. has the second to the lowest childhood well-being in the developed world.
The message we send here, in the industrialized country with the longest work hours and the fewest supports for working families, is that having children does not require a change in work habits. This leaves children poor in part because it leaves men in a vulnerable position. Men who are already multimillionaires can insist on taking an active role in family care. But other young fathers often have to choose between providing financial support and providing hands-on care.
Take the Maryland state trooper who sought 30 days of parental leave to care for his newborn and his wife, who had been ordered to bed with life-threatening pre-clampsia. He was told that he could not take such leave "unless your wife is in a coma or dead," and was ultimately driven off the force. Or the Ohio lawyer who sought to take parental leave, but decided not to after eyebrows were raised. Instead of the leave to which he was legally entitled, he snuck in small chunks of sick and vacation leave in order to be home with his newborn son. Even that didn't work. His supervisor told him his work was not up to snuff, and said she thought it was because of his family responsibilities. When he told he that he WAS a bit muzzy because the baby was colicky and he was often up at night, her message was loud and clear: "your wife should do that."
Happy story, though. His mentor, who was an employment lawyer, got wind of this and spotted the firm's potential for liability. Employers have yet to recognize that a company culture that openly discourages men from taking the Family and Medical Leave is a potential violation of federal law: it is illegal to interfere with FMLA leave, or to retaliate against someone who takes it. It also is potentially illegal when an employer insists that its employees adhere to traditional breadwinner/housewife roles as a condition of continued employment, which is in effect what the supervisor did.
So let's talk less about nature/nurture. "Nature," said Katherine Hepburn in "The African Queen," "is what we were put on earth to rise above." If nature had been allowed to take its course, I would have been dead twice over by now -- if my first delivery had not killed me, my second would have gotten me for sure. When we hear about how we can't change "traditional" gender roles because they are "natural," let's start talking about all the other parts of nature we have changed. My grandmother died for lack of penicillin at age 40. I'm not sorry I didn't follow her example.
Instead of talking about how impossible to change nature, let's start talking about how we can change culture. It's hard, but as Tiger is showing us, it's not impossible. On second thought, Tiger, don't induce your wife so you can play golf. Hang tough.
To be honest, all this post makes me think of is "a woman's right to chose."
Maybe some women actually want to use current medical technology to alter when they give birth, just like they haved used birth control to alter when they conceive. Is that ok with the social engineer types, even it's for selfish reasons?
Now if the father is pushing her to do it, that's another thing. And getting into dominant/submissive relationships is really complicated for feminism, because some women actually do chose them. I'm of the opinion that your statement that "the real issue is how having a baby should fit into men's lives" is faulty. I am willing to bet that inducement happens more often without input from fathers, that it is either more often the choice of busy women or the result of undue pressure by busy and selfish ObGyn's, both male and female. The latter is a whole 'nother issue.
But can the mother be treated as being able to make her own choices about her body and her baby? Or does society always have to hector her about the "right" choices? Why is it our business if a women selects inducement to attend a football game? Are you for a woman's right to chose about her body and her fetus or aren't you?
February 19, 2007 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm...I don't get your comment, really. I understood this post to be mostly about work and family balance and less about the decision to induce. Specifically, the way that our culture does not allow the average father to share with his wife or partner in the upbringing of his children and a culture that simultaneously insists that it's women's natural place to provide the care and in a way that doesn't inconvenience men.
To the author, thank you for this piece. I appreciate the perspective that men lose out too--and would be better able to participate in their children's upbringing if we were willing to engage cultural ideas about childrearing and gender roles. Any efforts to change policies around leave for caregiving need to take this into account. Both parents (if there are two) should be eligible for leave as both are responsible for any life they bring into the world.
February 19, 2007 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
~
Well in this particular example given. Was the father pressuring her? If not, I guess you'll have to ask Colleen Pavelka why she decided to do what she did.The question was raised:
As to the general question of, what is it about our culture? Self-centeredness? Egoism!
Next!
~OGD~
February 19, 2007 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that Erica is right that this example is maybe a distraction from the real point - no disagreement that this is a personal choice issue that must be respected, for better or worse. The real question here isn't about society hectoring her about the 'right' choices so much as limiting the choices families have by making it harder for men to exercise parental responsibility. (In truth, it's pretty hard for women, in a lot of work contexts, too - both on the shop floor and in the law firm office).
In this sense, Tiger Woods' declaration is important - as someone who has the means to stand on principle and the public profile to influence others' decisions, I'm very happy about this. At the same time, I think that real change only comes from real people standing up for what they need - it's not hard at all for Woods, not terribly hard for me (as a nonprofit professional), much harder for someone whose job is less secure and less cushy. But I suspect that one of the biggest obstacles is the thin tissue of culture - it's still considered unmanly to say you want time off to stay home with the baby, and I think that the raised eyebrows of Ms. Wm's Ohio lawyer is not uncommon in succumbing to what amounts to peer pressure. That's where the first fight has to be - you won't get enough people to make this a movement until you help them overcome the stigma of standing up for their parenting choices.
February 19, 2007 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eh. To be honest, if all this post makes you think about is "a woman's right to choose," then I have to wonder if you're really thinking hard enough.
Two brief points:
First, "choice" in the abstract, absent serious consideration of the relevant socio-cultural-economic contexts within which choices are made, is but an empty slogan, I think. We need to pay more attention to the menu of available options from which "choices" are made.
Second, it disturbs me greatly to see how the "choice" in "a woman's right to choose" now seems, increasingly, to intersect with the shallow, status-quo-oriented pieties and platitudes of that intellectually vacuous school of thought known as "rational choice theory." All is right with the world, and we don't need to change a damn thing, so long as we can say (and what scares me, frankly, is that some people really mean it, can really say this with a straight face) that people are "free" to "choose."
Or, to vastly oversimplify...Let's say I had kidnapped you and was holding you hostage on some unbelievably remote little island off the coast of Cape Breton or something (which I promise I would never do, but just play along, okay? at least for a moment or two, in this Hobbesian state-of-nature thought experiment, and let this admittedly extreme and overly-dramatic example serve to remind us that we are born into a world that is not of our own making [which world we CAN change, sure, but only if we look sharp and keep our eyes open, and beware the false prophets, not to mention the all-too-easy platitudes).
So anyway, I probably could cook you up a nice chicken stew (or, if you're vegetarian, a lentil soup or something), if enough pressure were exerted in that direction. But I'm lazy, and you're tired and hungry, and I'm not feeling the pressure. Instead, I give you the choice between eating a dead rat or eating some dead beetles. And you're really hungry, you must needs eat something, so you must choose between these two options. Personally, I'd recommend the rat, I got the recipe from the G. Gordon Liddy School of Paranoia and Cookery. But in any case, "choose" you must do, because you're so, so hungry, and, after all, you do want to survive, and more power to you.
Is it okay that I gave you that unpalatable "choice" between rat or beetle, when I could have, if sufficiently pressed, made you a chicken stew or a lentil soup? And given your extreme exhaustion and hunger and etc, did your opting for one or other of these two equally unpalatable options really amount to a "choice" in any meaningful sense of that term?
Just asking, is all.
February 19, 2007 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
The easy choices we make are easily forgotten because they are as we say "no brainers", most of the choices most americans on a regular basis are between rats and beetles. It takes hundreds of those choices before you can sit down one evening by the fire and eat some chicken stew and be thankful for what you have earned. Most of the 6 billion inhabitants of this planet will never get past the beetles. Thats what makes us lucky.
Every minute we make choices. And we are free to choose.
February 19, 2007 10:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Before I say I know what a woman is going through in those last two weeks, I don't. But having "witnessed" it up close many, many times over a period of a decade, I can say with certainty that most women in that last two weeks are very susceptible to the convincing encouragement of a Doctor who is talking to her on the phone while glancing at his golf appointment on his calendar.
We don't know if this woman decided she wanted to "choose" to induce and the husband just said, "Sounds good to me, honey".
If Tiger decided to skip a golf game to see his baby born, I wonder what we would say about the OBGYN that refused the football wife's desperate pleas to induce a past due baby, so the doctor could play a long overdue round of golf with his son.
February 19, 2007 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is it about our culture that tells us that having a baby should fit into adult life without changing it one whit?
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Having worked with my wife to raise two children (now 25 and 21) I suppose I never got the message from our culture that my life wasn't going to change. All the hours I sat up at night with fussy babies so my wife could sleep, all the thousands of diapers I changed, all the meals I cooked, all the hours spent as a coach or scout leader. I loved all of it and it was the most important job I've had. I had no expectation that my life wouldn't change and no one at work ever said that it shouldn't
February 20, 2007 3:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Um, a due date is nothing more than an ETA, it is sheer speculation most of the time. The world can send a man to the moon but they have not developed the science to accurately say when a baby's due date is. Heck, half the world still thinks pregnancy is 9 months rather than the actual 10 it is. 42 weeks, plus or minus 2 is 10 months.
February 20, 2007 5:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
A. Probably the best thing for mother and child is to let nature take it's course. The first rule of medicine is: first do no harm. Thus, avoid doing anything unless it is necessary for the health or mother or child. That should be the first consideration.
B. Just "giving birth" should never be the focus for making family decisions. The arrival of the baby is not the end of a process. It is the beginning. The beginning of a family. Taking time to bond with your child and to be with your spouse and child just after the birth can be a very important time for any parent, for any family.
C. Tiger is a great golfer. But apparently he has priorites which transcend the game of golf. I applaud that. I applaud his wanting to be there for his wife and child, his not wanting to meddle with nature and to allow the birth to come in a natural way.
D. It is a shame that the public should want to meddle in the private decisions of a couple. Why should it be our business?
E. The reader will wonder why I HAVE made this my business. I am replying to a Post, not giving advice to Tiger. This post literally bothered me enough to sign on to make a comment.
February 20, 2007 7:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
In this sense, Tiger Woods' declaration is important - as someone who has the means to stand on principle...
is he taking a stand on principle or marketing? for all I know, he's doing this to attract attention...
the last time I looked, golf was a dying sport, golf courses were being closed down, less people wanted to play, etc...
so it's entirely possible that tiger is trying to connect with the "family values crowd" because they'd help make "watching golf" a family tradition... etc...
February 20, 2007 7:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Heck, half the world still thinks pregnancy is 9 months rather than the actual 10 it is. 42 weeks, plus or minus 2 is 10 months.
I'm convinced that, collectively, we systematically downplay the difficulties of bearing a child because, otherwise, nobody would do it.
February 20, 2007 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have been through it more than a few times. To a woman, going past the due date is a broken promise and someone is going to pay. The last fortnight is like a century.
February 20, 2007 8:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd really appreciate seeing an article published here that actually helps educate and inform the bloggers here of the realities of poverty in the US, and some of the conditions that have caused the new report. In my time blogging at tpmcafe.com I've been shocked by the level of disconnect of the true realities of poverty. The disconnect is appalling.
February 20, 2007 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Believe me, I know. My DD was 5 May..the BD is 25May.
February 20, 2007 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm doubtful that you've drawn any real line of disagreement here.
First, on the point - I take it - that all choices are constrained, well, yeah they are. But there is a continuum, and at the higher end, it's not clear to me that this means very much at all. Some purported choices are so constrained that they call into question the notion of choice by making it seem like our sense of having chosen is just an overlay onto a world that operates without our exercising any agency at all. When I worked for a feminist group that dealt with women in prostitution, this question made for spirited and uncomfortable debate: on the one side, there are very cogent reasons to discount the idea that street prostitution is freely chosen (average age of entry being under 14; history of childhood abuse being rampant), but on the other, it is hardly empowering to tell someone who insists on their sense of agency that they are victim of false consciousness.
But I digress. More to the point, I don't think anyone is saying that freedom of choice alone makes certain decisions okay. The example JCW gives is - well, maybe not more than just a little creepy (and really, I can't help but think that this case has to be an urban legend). But isn't one way to think of it that it is very difficult to draw principled distinctions that don't screw up in some cases? If the issue is that these are shallow reasons, how do you distinguish between meaningful and not meaningful in a way that doesn't screw some people over?
February 20, 2007 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink