The google hits have been coming thick and fast this week, for some reason. �transparent bathing suit,� �just keep goin� on,� �wolf pigs blow down house,� and my personal favorite, �drunken Scotsmen image.� The list goes on and on. I can�t figure out how I went from one or two google hits a day to huge amounts of traffic overnight. Weird.

One page that�s been getting some more traffic is my write-up of Caitlin Flanagan�s �How Serfdom Saved the Woman�s Movement,� an entry I no longer agree with. I was taken with � and still am, to some extent � Flanagan�s frank acknowledgement of gray areas for working mothers, the impracticality of the feminist ideology when confronted with real situations and real people. However, after reading Flanagan�s subsequent work and especially her ill-conceived responses to readers angered by this article, I am inclined to think Flanagan is far more conservative than I gave her credit for. Still, although I am possibly guilty of not reading her article closely enough, I felt feminist critics like Ann Crittenden over-reacted to the article.

All of the hubbub serves only to draw attention to the fact that the issue of working mothers is incredibly complex and hard to pin down by theories and recommendations. We�re all flying by the seat of our pants. We all do things that we might not agree with ideologically in the interest of domestic tranquility or merely expedience. Yes, to take one of Flanagan�s examples, I sew my husband�s buttons back on his clothes. But I refuse to read an anti-feminist sentiment into such a gesture. It�s merely practical. My husband hasn�t got a clue how to sew on a button. True, the reason he doesn't know how to sew a button and I do is probably due to traditional domestic stereotyping. But it would take me far longer for me to show him how to do it than for me to do it myself and I really don�t mind. I like working with my hands and I don�t get to do it very often. And I'm happy to help him with things he needs as he does for me (as I'm typing this he just brought me a cup of coffee and some toast because he thought I needed it).

But this isn�t really what I wanted to talk about. The issue I�m interested in is my desire to retro-edit. The article I wrote was true for me at the time I wrote it, but it isn�t anymore. I�m uncomfortable with the idea that people could google the article and associate it with the rest of the diary or the person behind the diary when in fact it no longer feels true. I�ve toyed with the idea of deleting it or putting it in a private folder, but that seems disingenuous. It is a relic. People change. It shouldn�t surprise me that I don�t want to acknowledge older stuff. Still, I�m not sure what to do about it. Perhaps I�ll stick a disclaimer on the entry.

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AJ got in trouble at school yesterday, which resulted in me getting called before the teacher. Apparently there was some hitting and pushing, although we haven�t been able to get the story out of AJ. He was, however, placed in solitary confinement (minus the bars and with graham crackers and milk substituted for bread and water). AJ a bully? That doesn�t seem like him. He wouldn�t dare try that behavior at home.

I suspect it�s a combination of his general attempts toward autonomy, which result in him attempting to argue with anything anyone asks him to do (even if its something he wants to do), and only child syndrome. As an example of AJ�s desire to overthrow the current power structure, if you ask AJ if he wants to go out for ice cream, he will say yes, because he loves ice cream, but he will endeavor to tell you which store to go to and which car to drive to get there. It would be hilarious if I didn�t find it so maddening. If it were possible, AJ would demand that every conversation be a negotiation. Instead, his forays into control have resulted in us having to dig our heels in about rules with which we might otherwise be more flexible in order to prevent a coup. As for only child syndrome, well, he goes from being one kid home with two parents to being one of 18 in a room with two teachers. He loves having kids to play with, but he gets frustrated when he can�t do what he wants to do and when he doesn�t get the attention he�s come to expect. But that is exactly why he needs to be in a classroom with other kids and without us. I just hope he figures this out soon.

I have reacted very badly to this whole event. I�m taking it very personally, probably because it�s my own personal control issue. I can�t control his behavior when I am not there to watch it. And, in fact, I can�t really control his behavior at all, not directly. I can only show him how I think he should behave. I find it incredibly frustrating to get called aside by his teacher and talked to as if I�m the one who�s been punching kids.

I�m in a bad frame of mind to be writing today. I�m tired and grumpy and my head hurts. I think I need some tea and a nap in the sun.

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