The difference between Day 2 postpartum and Day 3 was dramatic for me. One day I was a bit withdrawn and anxious as the nurses assisted me with breastfeeding; the next day I actually could not stop crying. I also couldn’t sleep or eat. I paced in my hospital room with a horrific sense of doom, like something was wrong with the baby or something was wrong with me and certainly like life would be terrible as soon as they released us.
Read moreIf 1950s Women Were Trapped, So are We
What ensnares women today is not that different from what ensnared them when our mothers were young. Instead of being the best wife, however, we’ve moved on to being the best mother. And even if we follow all the rules and recommendations, more rules will come along to show us that we’ve failed (that Fisher Price bike holds an electronic tablet for more ridicule-worthy screen time). We no longer worry about what our husband thinks of our hands, but we sure do worry that our son’s packed lunch won’t measure up to the one we saw on Instagram.
Read moreLessons From My First Colonoscopy
Of the many things that shocked my husband about the idea of me having a colonoscopy, the most immediate was his discomfort with how easily I talked about it. When I saw a friend at the grocery store, I explained my basket of chicken broth (see below) by telling her I was having a colonoscopy. When I took the day off work, I said it was for a colonoscopy. When I had to cancel a meeting, I said it again: “I’m having a colonoscopy that day.” Each time I said the word, Dustin cringed.
Read moreLies People Tell You at the Lake
Summertime means that it's lake time, and when you go to the lake, there are a host of lies people tell you. There are the traditional lies about how big the fish was that someone just caught (hint: it’s always bigger than the one you caught the day before), but there are other lies, too, that have become so commonplace, they’ve mostly been accepted as truth.
Read moreDebate Over Women and the Draft Will Turn Politics on Head
Since the draft’s inception, women have not been required to register. The legal basis for this largely rested on the fact that women were not eligible for combat positions anyway. All of that changed overnight with the Pentagon’s decision, which of course created an immediate, new legal problem: now women have access to all the same positions that men do, but under current Selective Service laws, they do not face the same requirements or burdens.
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