Posted in Me

For years I have read Mothering magazine whenever I got a chance: while waiting at the birth center, rare chances when I was waiting sans kids at the library, etc.  I bid on a year's subscription twice at a silent auction (I didn't win).  But I never subscribed.  Why?

Well, because I didn't want to subscribe to something that had a lot of views I disagree with.  I am not into environmentalism.  I do vaccinate my children.  While I have used cloth diapers in the past, I don't now.  I am not vegetarian nor will I ever be - one of the few things I have consistently liked this pregnancy is veal!  So I never wanted to give Mothering my money.

On the other hand, there are things that I am absolutely 100 percent in agreement with.  For example, a recent editorial decried the fact that babies are no longer carried in people's arms, something that has bothered me for years.  If you go to a LLL meeting, you can barely walk because the floor is littered with car seats!  I felt so strongly about this that I did not buy that kind of car seat for my twins.  Nowadays people take the car seat out of the car and attach it to the stroller and hardly touch their baby.  And I am a firm advocate of exclusive breastfeeding, to the extent that neither of my twins ever had a bottle.  Mothering also supports natural birth and homeschooling.

So it's like a Venn diagram with about 50% overlap.  However, last year, something pushed my thought process over the top and so this year, I decided to give myself a combination Mothers' Day/birthday present and subscribe.  Last year just before my husband lost his job and we decided that I would work, I read a book published by LLL called Hirkani's Daughters: Women Who Scale Modern Mountains to Combine Breastfeeding and Working.  Despite the really unfortunate title of that book, it taught me that it is possible to work and still be the kind of mother that I want to be.  I never really tried before because I didn't think it could work.  Of course, as all my avid readers know, I found out that I could actually be a happier/better mother by allowing myself to have interests once again.  This book highlights Mothering magazine as being one of the pioneers of employees bringing their children to work with them and combining both working and parenting.

At my first prenatal appointment this year, I searched the waiting room for copies of Mothering and was disappointed not to find any except an old one which I had already read.  And that's when I thought, "Why don't I just give in and subscribe to this magazine already?!"  So I did.

My first issue came this week.  I started reading it and immediately thought, "Ugh.  Why did I get this magazine?"  But that's because this issue seems to be highly focused on the part of the Venn diagram that doesn't overlap.  Hopefully the next issue will!  In any case, I am sure I will learn from it, and either I will finally get wanting to read Mothering out of my system or I will enjoy it and keep subscribing.  I'll let you know about this time next year.