by Ann Bibby

Although it shouldn’t be so, John McCain’s views on women’s issues like fair pay and birth control access aren’t as widely known as they should be. In fact McCain’s positions and thoughts about women are outdated enough that I find it hard to believe more isn’t being said.

Pundit Mom posted a great piece with must read links the other day on McCain’s missing (deliberately) the vote on the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and his opinion that women who want equal pay consideration should simply update their skill sets.

And here’s a video from The Real John McCain which sums up his views on birth control options which in a McCain presidency would amount to none.

by Ann Bibby

Until two summers ago I was blithely ignorant of bees and wasps. Having spent many a fall and spring dispatching the bees who wandered into my classroom via screenless windows I was a bit too nonchalant really.

But a lawn mowing incident in the summer of 2006 changed all that. While being the good daughter and mowing my parents’ lawn on a weekend visit, I disturbed a bee who was flitting in and around the area where I was working. Instead of being merely annoyed with me and tormenting me with facial fly-bys, it attacked. Chased me into the house and just as I thought I was safe - it stung me on the hand.

I haven’t been stung since I was a kid. I stepped on a bee while running barefoot through a lawn - not a good idea the experts remind us. This sting however was different. The pain was intense to the point where I couldn’t move my hand or wrist because it felt broken. I felt as though someone was kneeling on my chest and I began to wheeze a bit. Read the rest of this entry »

by Ann Bibby

An interesting article on MSNBC today discusses the need John McCain and Barack Obama have for women these days. Neither of them having captured the hearts and souls of the all important “woman (of a certain age) vote”. Although the Obama campaign expresses confidence that come the fall Democratic women who supported Clinton will be over her defeat in the primaries and ready to oust the Republicans, McCain sees these same voters as up for grabs to the man best in touch with his feminine side. Read the rest of this entry »

by Ann Bibby

I have always been amazed by my kindergartener’s hardiness. Long before the trees bud, she is clamoring for summer footwear which become the mainstay of her wardrobe until long after the same trees are bare again in the fall. Perhaps the shoe fetish gene skips generations, but Crocs and flip flops proliferate in her closet and in the both the front and back entry ways of our home.

But when she woke me at 3 A.M. this morning, complaining yet again of “growing pains” in her ankles and lower leg, my thoughts returned to a Newsweek article this week about a recent study conducted on the perennial favorite of warm weather footwear. It seems that free-wheeling summer foot wear is more than just a good way to stub a toe or skin a knee (or two). Read the rest of this entry »

by Ann Bibby

A year ago my fiancé and I were attempting to pack my entire adult life plus my four year old daughter’s life’s accumulations into a 6 by 12 foot U-haul for our move from the Midwest to Alberta, Canada. For a solid month leading up to June 10, 2007, I sorted, purged and packed. The intake staff at the Goodwill knew me on sight and my niece was able to furnish her first post college apartment without ever setting foot in a store.

And despite the purging, I still own at this moment well more than 100 personal items. My daughter’s Barbie paraphernalia alone dwarfs my measly stash of stuff. Which leads me to wonder, could I pare down my life to a mere 100 possessions?

Could you? Read the rest of this entry »

by Ann Bibby

A blogger at the Des Moines Register recently wrote about having to give a few of the families she provides daycare for their notice. It seems she has a policy that strictly prohibits parents from using her services outside their working hours. She will not care for children on a parent’s day off, nor is she inclined to keep them while a parent runs an errand. If these things happen on a regular basis, she will terminate her contract with them.

I understood her frustration. A family who knew her policy took advantage of her by simply not telling her when they were using her as a babysitter as opposed to a daycare provider. She had every right to be upset, but does she have a right to dictate how parents choose to parent? Read the rest of this entry »

By Ann Bibby

Does anyone remember Ally McBeal? And her therapist? The one who suggested she find a theme song for herself? I have a soundtrack for my life. I think that most people do. Perhaps it’s not appropriate but The Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go is my theme music of late.

When I emigrated to Canada not quite a year ago with my then nearly five year old daughter, it was with the understanding that I would be taking the 2008/09 school year off. My husband to be was in a position that allowed me to be a stay at home mother for the first time in my child’s life and my status as an immigrant meant that I couldn’t seek employment until I’d gone through the process of becoming a permanent resident anyway. I was set to work on my writing and be just a wife and mother. Note the order of the aforementioned and the word “just”. Telling is it not?

I came of age in the early 80’s. During the “women can have it all” phase of the movement. I fell in line like so many others. Got my degree. Established my “career”. Married and procreated in my middle 30’s - barely.

And I discovered that I could not “have it all”. Read the rest of this entry »

by Ann Bibby 

We recently replaced our gas stove with an electric range. As an asthmatic I am forever discovering new dangers to my sensitive airways, and gas stoves are one of them. Secure in this knowledge (and driven by a recent annoucment by our power company that natural gas prices were about to double, triple or worse at the end of the month), we headed off to the appliance store to make our purchase. After settling on a ceramic topped self-cleaning model, we waited patiently for it to be shipped.

While we waited, I ran across an article on Wired by Patrick Di Justo about the oven cleaner, Easy-Off. A bit tongue in cheek (my favorite part was when he referenced Brad Pitt’s lines in the movie Fight Club when his character explains what happens when one mixes lye with animal fat - the “animal” being “human”), the article is sobering. Read the rest of this entry »

by Ann Bibby

I was introduced to Fair Trade by my younger step-daughter, the same one who frowns on my patronage of Starbucks. Whenever possible she buys Fair Trade goods believing that this helps producers in third world countries, and to some extent it does. Poverty levels have been lowered. Infant mortality rates have declined. Work conditions have improved.

But, while I was conducting a bit of research about the Fair Trade coffee brand Cafe Feminino, I stumbled across something that made me think a bit about our culture’s standard approach to improving the lot of those not lucky enough to have been born in a country civilized by western standards. Money does not buy women their rights. Read the rest of this entry »

by Ann Bibby

When I was teaching middle school back in central Iowa, I was expected to ensure the learning and safety of every child assigned to me regardless of how cooperative, charming or innately intelligent that child was, and I took that very seriously. I cannot honestly say I enjoyed every little soul I crossed paths with but I can say that there were only a handful of them that I couldn’t manage or that I didn’t coerce into learning.

The recent incident in a Florida elementary school, where a kindergarten teacher had her students vote to remove a disruptive classmate after allowing them the opportunity to tell the boy what they didn’t like about him, got me thinking about some of the reasons I left the classroom and will probably never return. Read the rest of this entry »