Trip Story: Portland

I had better finish writing up our Oregon trip before the details fade completely from my memory.... The first two posts, on Mt Hood and the Columbia River Gorge and Salem and Newport were written much closer to the actual trip.

We started and finished our Oregon vacation in Portland. Overall, we were impressed with the city. Of course, we had ridiculously (and unseasonably) nice weather- so we got to enjoy the greenery and plentiful flowers without enduring any of the rain that made it all possible. We started our stay with some family friends who live in the area. We enjoyed lounging on their balcony (with a view of three mountains!) and catching up with them. They took us on a great driving tour of Portland, which gave us a feel for the different neighborhoods and a chance to visit some of Portland's wonderful gardens.

My favorite part about the return visit to Portland at the end of our trip was getting a chance to browse at Powell's bookstore. This was our first touristing stop upon arriving back in the city from Newport. I bought several books, all of which I could probably have found at Borders. But the browsing was a lot of fun. I had to limit my time, though, because I needed to catch back up with Pumpkin and Hubby (who had gone to find a park) so that we could go get dinner.

Dinner was at the Portland branch of the Deschutes Brewpub- recommended by a friendly Dad who Hubby met at the park. Hubby was definitely impressed. We went back the next day for an afternoon snack, after first visiting Cupcake Jones to pick up some cupcakes for Pumpkin's snack. I felt a bit cheated- Hubby had his beer, Pumpkin had her cupcakes, and I had... well, they have a nice lemonade there.


That morning, we had taken Pumpkin to the zoo. It is a nice enough zoo- definitely smaller than our San Diego Zoo, but also a lot cheaper. Pumpkin liked seeing the penguins and otters (we don't have any of those at our zoo). She enjoyed her first trip on a zoo train (another thing noticeably missing from the San Diego Zoo experience)- or at least she has enjoyed telling us about it later, particularly when the song about riding "the choo-choo-choo and the zoo-zoo-zoo" comes on her Noodlebug Animal Friends DVD. At the time, she seemed more concerned about the little boy sharing the train car with us, who didn't like the noises and "was sad". The only time she got excited on the ride was when we saw the elephants.



Perhaps the best part of the stay in Portland came after our cupcake and beer snack. We went to the Jamison Water Park, again on the recommendation of the friendly park Dad. The water park is like a big, flat fountain- water comes out from an artificial waterfall like structure, and floods the square. Kids splash about happily. The water drains away periodically, causing the kids to chase it and demand that it come back, which it does. Some of the bigger kids climbed on the big square "boulders" that form the "waterfall". Pumpkin never did that, but she did splash A LOT. She was clearly thrilled to be there, even after a bit of drama where a big girl kept splashing her beyond when she was enjoying it. (I just picked her up and moved her away- I am never sure what to do when an older kid isn't behaving in a way I don't really like. I certainly don't expect Pumpkin to be able to confront an 8 year old. But should I? I didn't.) She got over that quickly, and was in fact more upset when we made her leave.


We left Portland the next day, wishing we had just a little more time to explore. Which, really, is the best way to leave a place.

Zenbit: Elephants

Location: Portland, Oregon, USA
Date: May 22, 2009

This Should Make You Feel Better about Day Care

Last week's Science had two book reviews about parenting in it. Both were interesting. One was a review of a sociology book called Longing and Belonging, by Allison Pugh, about the use of consumer goods to help children fit in. The other was a review of a human evolution book called Mothers and Others, by Sara Hrdy. I've linked to the summaries rather than the full text because you'll need a subscription to read the full text.

The premise of Mothers and Others (at least according to the review- I haven't read the book yet) is that humans are actually a "cooperatively breeding species", meaning that "individuals other than the mother assist in the care and provisioning of young". This is supported by the shorter birth interval of human hunter-gatherer populations (3-4 years) as compared to great apes (6-7 years) and by the tolerance human mothers show to having other individuals hold and care for our young (apparently, this is a big no-no in great ape society). Fathers, by the way, don't count- mothers couldn't count on them sticking around. They do in some hunter-gatherer societies, but not in others. Flexible child care arrangements utilizing the larger societal group are more consistent.

Furthermore, Hrdy argues that this cooperative breeding status might explain the origin of some human interaction behaviors (such as our ability to theorize about the intentions of others) that had previously been explained primarily by the existence of warfare. The reviewer, Gillian Brown, points out that other researchers have begun to theorize that cooperative breeding might even explain the selection of some quintessentially human behaviors, such as "social learning, teaching, and language."

So, the modern trend of flexible child care arrangements that often involve members of our larger societal group isn't so new afterall. I wonder what the traditionalists who argue that the nuclear family is the only way in which humans should raise children would say to that? (No cheap shots about them not believing in evolution- not all of the traditionalists are fundamentalist Christians.)

This theory of human cooperative breeding would argue that societies that provide better "extended group" support to mothers are more inline with our evolutionary biology, and perhaps even more likely to succeed. Current demographic data certainly supports the idea that greater societal support to families leads to more successful societies, at least if we define a successful society as one that is not shrinking. Many Western countries are seeing declines in birth rates to levels below replacement. It is common to "blame" this on working women. However, as a recent article in the Economist points out, the trend of lower birth rates in countries in which many women work outside the home has been reversed, and there is now a positive correlation between birth rates and female employment rates. The article theorizes that this is due to the fact that children are no longer an economic help (in that they could work on the farm) but an economic drain (in that we need to buy them lots of things), and so many families need two incomes to support multiple children.

The article goes on to explain that countries with high female employment rates tend to have "large government cash transfers to families, generous replacement pay during parental leave, the availability of plenty of part-time work and lots of formal child care." Most mothers reading this post probably could have told the researchers this, but it is actually based on comparative data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. France and the Scandinavian countries are the examples of this sort of society.

The obvious exceptions are America and Britain, neither of which provide large cash payments to families or state-provided child care. The article posits that our birth rates are still high because of a flexible labor market that allows women to drop out and then back in and because public opinion "approves of working mothers". I'd also add that, at least in the US, quality child care is available, even if it is not state sponsored and is rather expensive. I remember a thread on going back to work at Ask Moxie in which a woman from Austria commented that it was almost impossible to find child care for a child under the age of three. Long maternity leaves are the norm, there. I can only speak for myself, but I think that if I lived in a country like that, I would not be having a second child. I don't want to spend that much time out of the workforce, not because I'd worry about my ability to get back in, but because I'd miss the work. Not all women are cut out to be stay at home mothers. Perhaps the key to our relatively high birth rate is that, despite our occasional squabbles about what type of mother is "best", we do actually allow each woman (whose family has sufficient means....) to find her own way.

Now, if we could just learn a little bit more from our evolutionary past, and actually provide societal support to ALL mothers, not just those with the means to purchase it. I think that would make us an even more successful society.

Success?

So Pumpkin finally tried some mashed potato today. We've been having mashed potatoes with our "fishies' (fish-shaped fishsticks) almost weekly for months. Really, months. And tonight, for the first time, Pumpkin ate some.

But first, she dunked it in her milk.

Is that success?

We're actually floundering a bit on how to respond to Pumpkin's new fascination with dunking everything in her milk. Her fishies also went for a swim tonight, as have many of the entrees we've served her lately. On the one hand, its kind of gross, especially when she strands stuff in there. On the other hand, she usually eats it after dunking it and I hate to make a big fuss about a basically harmless activity. I'm very much a "pick your battles" sort of parent. And Hubby, who is more likely to be willing to fight the battles over this sort of thing, doesn't seem to care about this one.

OK, I promise more interesting posts soon. I'm still recovering from the cold that knocked me flat over the weekend and don't really have the energy to work on the interesting posts I have knocking around in my head. Sorry!

Change of Plans

The cold Hubby had last weekend finally caught me this weekend. I have spent the better part of the long weekend laying on our sofa, alternatively coughing or blowing my nose. I'm feeling better now, but still very tired.

I was fairly annoyed when I realized how I was going to spend the long weekend. We had planned to take Pumpkin to the beach, and to see the fireworks, and to a farmer's market today. We did go see the fireworks last night- we live very close to a good viewing spot. But instead of the beach, we just let Pumpkin play in her paddling pool and instead of the farmer's market, we went to Target for some essentials, like more tissue for my nose. Pumpkin was happy as can be with both things- she's still talking about how she splashed in the pool with Mommy! And then Daddy! (there is only room for one adult at a time). And she likes trips to Target because I, perhaps foolishly, have her trained to associate them with big pretzels. This started because I was hungry during one trip, and has continued because, well, because I like big pretzels, too.

I had also hoped to make some zucchini bread, using up the gigantic zucchini my colleague gave me (we'd already eaten the more normal size one just fried up). That was clearly not going to happen, so I took a tip from the book I'm reading (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver) and grated the monster zucchini and froze it in recipe size portions. One monster zucchini = 4 cups grated zucchini = 4 loaves of zucchini bread when I get around to making it.

I have been told that zucchini isn't a veggie worth trying to get Pumpkin to eat, because it doesn't have a lot of nutritional value. Since it is one of my favorite veggies (I'll eat it without sauce!) I decided to check that claim out. I found a site called NutritionData that gives you "nutrition labels" for foods. The entry for zucchini (with skin) indicates that it does indeed have some useful vitamins and minerals, with vitamin C, the B vitamins, manganese, and potassium topping the list. Granted, a lot of other veggies are more impressive in the nutrition department. But I wouldn't complain if I could get Pumpkin to eat zucchini.