What I'm Watching and Reading: 'The House I Live In' and 'The New Jim Crow'

The House I Live In - Official Trailer 

Eugene Jarecki's documentary about the war on drugs was very unsettling. While I already knew about some aspects of American justice such as California's 'three strikes' law and the problem of overcrowded prisons in this state, I was unaware just how many life sentences are being served in American jails for relatively minor drug offenses. I was also unaware of how arbitrarily draconian drug laws can be and how unaccountable police forces sometimes are, depending on state laws.

Jarecki does a great job of peeling back the layers of the War on Drugs, revealing bit by bit just how out of control drug laws have become. And yet despite the waste of $1 trillion of tax revenue for a cause that is no longer even top priority for most Americans, no politician is doing anything to initiate reform. 

Part of the reason for this is that 'judicial reform' is such an abstract concept that it just doesn't have much real meaning for most of us. Drug crime is also an issue that makes us switch off. Nobody has sympathy for potheads and crack addicts who end up in jail, let alone drug dealers. They chose to take the drugs, after all, didn't they?

One speaker in Jarecki's documentary, Michelle Alexander, was convincing enough to make me reassess this attitude, however, and I recently read her book 'The New Jim Crow' for my book club. It is a great companion to Jarecki's documentary as it highlights how the 'War on Drugs' has disproportionately affected people of color in America.

Alexander uses her considerable legal expertise through work at the ACLU, among other roles, to show how drug laws have been manipulated to corrupt the judicial system and condemn entire swathes of the poor in America to permanent social exclusion as felons. While the title of Alexander's book is inflammatory and the thesis that drug laws were deliberately engineered to oppress African-Americans not completely convincing, her point that the poor and marginalized are unfairly targeted for persecution under those laws is valid. 

As Jarecki points out too in his documentary, this is how police states start out. The Nazis didn't start with extermination immediately. Persecution in Nazi Germany started with a propaganda program to clean up society so that Germany could achieve its world-historical destiny as a great power. As part of that, certain groups were designated 'undesirables' whose removal from society would be a good thing.

Once these 'undesirables' became set apart from others, subject to different laws and sent to camps that were far away from the German heartlands, nobody really cared to ask what happened to them. It wasn't necessary for the Nazis to do very much to then progress to the extermination of these people. The apparatus of setting people apart, subjecting them to different laws and creating the camp apparatus in the first place was the key step, not the Wannsee Conference or the development of Zyklon B.

This for me was the main value in the work of Jarecki and Alexander. By highlighting the way that drugs laws can be applied arbitrarily or unconsciously to achieve very sinister social outcomes, it makes us all more aware of how fragile and precious our social freedoms are. 

Feel-Good Story of the Week: Expectant Models

Whenever I find stories like this one in the New York Times, it makes my day. It profiles Expectant Models, an agency that represents pregnant women as models to the fashion industry. The agency was set up by Liza Elliot-Ramirez, herself a model at the time, who found she was unemployable once she became pregnant.

Instead of throwing up her hands and resigning herself to 6+ months of confinement with no income, she decided to set up her own agency that would represent pregnant models only. 

I loved this story because it is a great example of how women can turn a sexist problem - nobody wanted to hire a pregnant model - into an opportunity that also changes the fashion industry mindset. 

So now, not only do I feel more empowered to change the world, I also finally know where all the beautiful sleek pregnant women come from who populate maternity clothing catalogs and Ergo baby carrier manuals.

Result: Feel-Good Story of the Week

The Perils of Life As a SAHM

Just when I thought I had made peace with my temporary status as a stay-at-home parent, along comes another article to make me groan inwardly and reach for the wine bottle. Writing in Salon, full-time parent to school-age children Jessica Stolzberg describes her upset at being asked by a mom at the bus stop: 'Can I ask you what you do all day?'

To my mind, it's a fair question. If you are an able-bodied adult without childcare responsibilities between the hours of about 9am and 3pm, then you can't be too surprised if someone wonders what you do all day. Maybe you do the gardening. Maybe you blog. Maybe you train for a marathon. It's entirely your own business but you can't be too surprised to get that question now and again.

Stolzberg didn't see it that way, however. Instead she felt that she was slighted, bullied even, by this fellow mom at the bus stop, who asked her a couple of more times after that about her day as an at-home parent. Stolzberg says that her 'blood boiled at being asked', that she felt her value as a SAHM , as a person even, was being questioned. 

This is not meant to be overly critical or belittling. Jessica Stolzberg has had her article published in Salon, after all, which is more than I've achieved after a couple of years of scribbling. This is meant to be a personal account in which the author openly admits that she is not at peace with her SAHM status and is overly sensitive about it.

What struck me about the article, however, is how self-involved it is. The article is full of 'I's and 'me's and 'my friend' and 'my life'. It even starts out as 'I think of her as...'. It is more like a journal entry than a magazine article written for an audience.

This is a great example of how life as a SAHM shrinks your world. It's easier to become self-involved when you don't have to deal with the world of work. Sanctimommies say that being a SAHM is the greatest act of self-sacrifice a woman can ever make, of course, to live for your children and martyr yourself for their needs. Nonetheless, life at home full-time, out of the workplace, away from other busy adults, does infantilize one somewhat. Instead of having to just get on with things, you have time on your hands to mull things over, nurse slights and ponder comments.

It's not that SAHMs have a lot of free time but there is a lot of empty time in the day. A spare ten minutes here and there is not enough time to build a career or do anything that requires focus but it is precisely enough time to worry whether that other mom at the bus stop hates you or not and if she does why she does and who she thinks she is anyway with her working-from-home career and her attitude.

This is one of the main reasons that I am keen to return to working outside the home in some form as soon as I can. The idea that one day, a decade hence, I might wake up to find myself nursing petty schoolyard (or bus stop) slights as outlined in Stolzberg's article is terrifying. Forget all the financial arguments and dire warnings of future bankruptcy: when you find yourself smarting over minor comments and wallowing in your sense of grievance, it's time to get re-acquainted with indeed.com.

Toddlers: STOP YELLING AT YOUR PARENTS!

We've all been there. You're at the store. You see a shiny, breakable thing and your parent insists on moving away from it, refusing to even let you pick it up or touch it. Her unreasonable attitude sparks a spiral of rage in your brain and you lose your mind. Completely. An out-and-out meltdown in the middle of Target. You scream, you throw yourself around, you bellow until your face turns an unflattering shade of purple. You have to be removed from the store kicking and screaming.

It's a tantrum. We all give in to them sometimes. God knows, we have all been told to count to three, take a deep breath and 'use your words' to express our needs. But it's hard. Emotions are overwhelming. Parents are challenging. Interesting things are always out of reach.

A new study just released, however, should give toddlers pause for thought. While research has shown that a majority of toddlers resort to tantrums to manage their parents' behavior, this most recent study from the University of Pittsburgh claims that tantrums may actually do more harm than good. Rather than minimizing problematic behavior in parents, tantrums may in fact aggravate it. 

Researchers found that parents who had experienced toddler tantrums and verbal aggression:

"[...]suffered from increased levels of depressive symptoms, and were more likely to demonstrate behavioral problems such as vandalism or antisocial and aggressive behavior."

This study is one of the first to indicate that tantrums may be damaging to parents' mental well-being. Significantly, the study also found that 'toddler warmth' such as clumsy hugs, lisped expressions of love and simpering smiles did not lessen the stressful effects of the tantrums. Parents in the study were mainly from middle-class homes, not the usual 'at-risk' profile for troubled behavior.

Based on the results of their study, researchers advised toddlers to avoid excessive verbal aggression and loud screaming when interacting with their parents. 'Letting loose at your parents might seem like the easiest option in the short run' said Professor Tang, who led the study, 'but in the long run, the deleterious effects on parents' well-being should not be underestimated.' Professor Tang suggested toddlers sit down with their parents and explain their needs and expectations openly in order to build a good communicative relationship early on. 

The toddler blogosphere has lit up in response to Professor Tang's glib advice, however. 'HOW CAN I USE MY WORDS???!?! I ONLY KNOW ABOUT 50!!!' screamed the anonymous author of Tantrums n' Tiaras blog. The most damning comment came from the Toddlerlode blog at the NY Times: 'Everybody has tantrums! It's just normal. It's not like I do it everyday, is it? I'm fed up of these STUPID studies that don't make ANY sense'.

What we have to remember here, however, is the well-being of parents. Modern-day parents suffer from higher rates of stress than any previous generation in history, forced to spend their days in child-free, bleak offices for meager pay-checks without any opportunity for physical recreation or fresh air. The 'maxed-out mom' is now a familiar figure, rushing from one appointment to the next, trying to fit everything in. Parents are under a lot of pressure.

So toddlers, next time you feel a wave of rage surging up inside you because your mother refuses to allow you to touch fire and play with knives, stop and count to three (if you can). Spare a thought for your frazzled parent and his or her worn-out nerves. Remember Professor Tang's helpful study conclusions: even one tantrum or meltdown in an otherwise good relationship can irreparably damage your parent's well-being. Toddlers: stop yelling at your parents!

Newsflash: 'Europe' Is Not a Working Mother's Paradise

This piece in the NY Times, 'Pregnant and Unemployed' about the employment discrimination faced by pregnant women elicited a lot of empathy from me. The writer, Erin Keane Scott, moved to Pittsburgh with her husband when he changed jobs, found herself unexpectedly pregnant and soon realized that pregnant women are not attractive hires for most employers. 

I can empathize because I have also been in the position - and still am - of relocating to support a spouse's career and having my own career suffer as a result. It's not pleasant when family and career get into a messy, head-on collision. 

One point raised by Erin Keane in this piece did give me pause, however. She writes: 

It’s worth noting that the United States is one of only four countries in the world that does not guarantee some form of paid maternity leave. Many countries in Europe and Canada offer at least 26 weeks of paid parental leave. 

I find it hard not to feel let down by our system. 

This theme of Europe as a working parents' paradise crops up regularly in the NY Times' parenting blog, Motherlode, too. Most recently, this post on 'maxed-out moms' ends with the comment: 

Mothers and fathers [...] should stop apologizing and start talking about the sorry cultural, societal and political choices that leave us, too often, with no chance of making it all work.

It brings me no joy to report that Europe is not the mothers' paradise Americans like to imagine. Although laws may be in place to protect women's maternity rights in most European countries, in practice many employers continue to discriminate. 

In countries like the UK, where the 'pro-business' culture (aka Americanization) is strong, you only get paid maternity leave if you have worked for the employer for at least six months and even then it is only paid (at 90% of your salary) for 6 weeks. After that, you receive a further 33 weeks at a standard stipend rate of about $200 per week. Obviously $200 per week is better than nothing but it would not cover the loss of most women's income considering that the average income in the UK is about $40,000 per year. 

In the case of this writer, if she had been job-hunting while pregnant in the UK, she would still not have been entitled to any paid time off if she had been hired while already more than four months'  pregnant  She would have been entitled to maternity leave of up to 39 weeks but only paid the maternity allowance rate of $200 per week. Again, this is better than nothing but would not meet expenses for most households.

In countries like Germany, where maternity leave is generous and employers are not allowed to make pregnant employees redundant, employers often just don't hire women of child-bearing age to avoid the issue completely.

When I worked in Germany, it was very rare to encounter women in senior management positions and when I did meet female high-fliers, they invariably had no children, as is the case with Germany's highest-flying female, Angela Merkel. It was prejudice against mothers that seemed to block the progress of German women in the workplace, not outright sexism.

Here in the US, I see women in senior management positions all the time, even those with large family commitments. It seems here that if a woman is willing to work and make the commitment required for a senior-level job, employers are happy to give her that opportunity. 

The bigger problem I have encountered here has been lack of access to affordable, good quality childcare. In some states, there is no regulation on childcare at all so working parents have no peace of mind when it comes to the care of their children. In other states, like California, childcare costs are prohibitively high.

It is definitely hard to get hired if you're pregnant. That is an even bigger problem in a moribund economy, however, and currently Europe's economy looks a lot more moribund to me than the US.