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  • Drama Mama: Product, parenting and paranoia

    By Anjalee Deshpande Nadkarni June 26, 2008 9:17 pm

    Recently I’ve been reading news reports on studies that link autism with multiple immunizations administered on the same day. This is a common place practice at my pediatrician’s office. In addition to this there are phthalates in 90% of my son’s toys. These are his favorite toys, the ones he’d rather die then give up. There is sodium laurel sulfate in his bubble bath, baby lotion and shampoo. These are all items marked “gentle for your baby.” As I pack up my life to move across state lines, I have been re-examining our “stuff” and what I have been using to keep me and my son happy, healthy and hygienic.

    An old friend of mine whom I reconnected with recently (loving facebook) asked me about what I thought about the immunization issue. I had no idea what she was talking about. I just pretty much do what my kid’s doctor tells me to do. Why would she not act in his best interest? That’s her job right? After speaking with more of my pregnant friends – I realized that may not be the case. I read in another friend’s phenomenal blog (facebook reconnection again) about how she found sodium laurel sulfate in her face scrub and how it is not only a possible carcinogen but lends to the killing of marine life as well. I checked all my labels and most of my products including the kid products contain this and/or other cancer causing ingredients, like artificial fragrances. I like fragrances. I used to buy shampoo after sniffing the bottles for the best smell. So sad it all might be toxic. And that new car/shower curtain smell? Toxic. Last month I threw out or got rid of all my plastic dishes and toddler cups and bought all glass and ceramic. We have had some breaks, but not surprisingly it was me and not my son who dropped them.

    Lately, I find myself swinging between two distinct paradigms. One is the “Well, its one paranoia or another here in America” and perhaps all these chemicals are not evil, that health scares sell news reports and we grew up fine on Mr. Bubble and Pantene. But then other times I feel like there is a huge government/big business conspiracy trying to kill me and my offspring – slowly, while making a profit. And why is organic food and product so expensive? Okay, pragmatically I understand why but philosophically – WHY? It’s all so overwhelming and disheartening. When I was telling my mother about this last month she laughed. She told me a story about how they used to use, (and often still do) stainless steel cups and plates in India – no plastic. How on one trip to India she bought one of those cups back for my brother to give to his friend as a souvenir. When the friend showed his mother she was very upset and said “You do not drink out of metal cups! Only plastic!” My mother felt very embarrassed about the whole thing back then. I think my plastic cup expulsion made her day. Well, at least product paranoia is nothing new. I wonder what that friend’s mother thinks now.

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Comments on Drama Mama: Product, parenting and paranoia

  • Posted by Diana on June 27, 2008 at 2:05pm EDT

  • This blog is so bad it's almost unreadable. Shame on you, IHE, for throwing women academics a bone in a blog concept that excludes women who are not mothers, and, evidently, women who like to read coherent writing based on actual, cited sources and not hearsay and doomsday rumors.

  • Posted by Anjalee on June 27, 2008 at 4:45pm EDT

  • Hey - it's a blog, take it down a notch sister. Good lord, if I am incorrect in what I have been reading and/or hearing by all means correct me instead of trashing the blog in general. If you don't like it don't read it. No need to be rude. Do you treat your poor students this way? At any rate, Drama Mama will continue, incoherent or not. Theatre folks are used to criticism and for these particular moments I enjoy this quote:

    "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

    -- Theodore Roosevelt

    Feel free to respond Diana - with your own blog.

  • Expert facebook friends
  • Posted by cheddar on June 27, 2008 at 5:20pm EDT

  • "Lately, I find myself swinging between two distinct paradigms. One is the “Well, its one paranoia or another here in America” and perhaps all these chemicals are not evil...But then other times I feel like there is a huge government/big business conspiracy trying to kill me and my offspring..."

    Maybe you could swing over to a third paradigm, which emphasizes the importance of scientific evidence. You are a smart person - should you be getting your knowledge of science from your facebook friends?

  • Posted by anjalee nadkarni on June 28, 2008 at 6:55am EDT

  • Wow, such a big response to one post. Cheddar, please share your scientific knowledge. If you have evidence one way or the other about any topic I am posting, please share! I never professed to be an expert - I am only relating my current "paranoias" which is a part of parenting. I welcome any vivid facts on either side of the subject. I am searching for them. I am hereby stating, for the record, - I don't have all the answers. If you have them - share. Lastly, "facebook" is just a resource for connecting people - my "facebook friends" are students, scholars and parents. Don't be so quick to judge. I'll admit they aren't scientists but when I begin research which is not in my field of study, I begin with people. Communal learning - as another commenter noted last week - might be the wave of the future.

  • Posted by anjalee again on June 28, 2008 at 10:05am EDT

  • One last thing - my friend with the other blog corrected me in stating that lauryl sulfate was killing marine life, she said "It's not the lauryl sulfate that is harming marine life it's the polyethylene which is basically a fancy word for micro-plastic." Lauryl sulfate, according to some sources (that's my disclaimer - ok) has been connected to nitrate contamination which can be carcinogenic. Both of these chemicals were in the face scrub she was using. PS - check out this site from the Environmental Working Group's Website:

    http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

    and also this one on SLS:

    http://www.healthy-communications.com/slsmostdangerousirritant.html

    and let me know what you think!

  • Posted by Cheddar on June 28, 2008 at 11:50am EDT

  • "Cheddar, please share your scientific knowledge. If you have evidence one way or the other about any topic I am posting, please share! I never professed to be an expert — I am only relating my current “paranoias” which is a part of parenting."

    As someone who reads parenting blogs and participates in parenting forums, I'm just wondering how a blog titled MamaPhD should be expected to differ from a blog titled Mama. Regular parenting boards contain discussions of the causes of autism and cancer that seem to come right from snopes.com (like yours). If the Phd isn't doing anything to differentiate you from a non-PhD mama, then why does this blog exist?

  • Posted by arduous on June 28, 2008 at 12:50pm EDT

  • I don't understand why a PhD would mean that you wouldn't ever get paranoid about your child. Obviously DramaMama isn't a PhD in the Sciences, she's said as much. And even a PhD can't know everything about every topic. So she turns to her friends and parenting boards to share.

    If you have scientific evidence that there is no link between autism and immunizations, awesome! Please share. We would all love to learn more as Anjalee has repeatedly said.

    This is a blog of her own personal experiences. As she is not a professor in the sciences, and because college professors tend to be very segregated, she turns to the people she trusts and knows: that would be her friends, families, and parenting boards.

    If misinformation is being disseminated by parenting boards or the media, perhaps that is not the fault of non-science PhDs. Perhaps it is hard for the media and non-scientific community to understand the scientific jargon. And if you are a scientist, then we would love it if, instead of dismissing non-scientists, you instead properly shared to us what the myths are and disseminated proper information.

    Anjalee does not expect you to be an expert in Brecht, why should you expect her to be an expert in what causes and doesn't cause autism? And that's why she didn't write this with any scientific claim, but was more writing a personal, human story about the paranoia mothers feel because the media, the government, scientists, other parents, all feed anxious mothers various different stories.

  • Posted by anjalee again!!! on June 29, 2008 at 5:50am EDT

  • What's even worse is that I am an MFA, not a PhD. This blog is connected to Mama PhD, which is a book about mothers who are working or who once worked in academia and the difficulties that lie therein. I love the idea you thought this was a blog about being an expert mother! Yikes! You'd be right in thinking I was not a legitimate "expert" in that field of study. Who is? Maybe someone who has a lot of kids? I am not aware of a master's or PhD program in being a mother- but if anyone knows of one, Hey - sign me up man!

    FYI: There's this great blog called "PhD in Parenting" that I enjoy. It might be more what you are looking for in terms of "expert mothering" discussion. It's at http://phdinparenting.wordpress.com/. Check it out if you have a chance. The author does have great guidelines for making comments on her site. She says, "if you feel moved to comment or ask questions, by all means jump in. I enjoy a good conversation. However, I would ask that you be respectful of who I am and my parenting philosophy in doing so." Too bad she needed to state that at all. Maybe it's time I did the same.

    At any rate thanks to arduous for defending my non scientific background and thanks to cheddar for inadvertently giving me a website to check out that actually does have another viewpoint on the subject at hand.

    At least the title to my blog is accurate - there is always a little drama here.

  • MamaPhd
  • Posted by cheddar on June 30, 2008 at 12:10pm EDT

  • "This blog is connected to Mama PhD, which is a book about mothers who are working or who once worked in academia and the difficulties that lie therein."

    Ok, so this blog is just about women who work or have worked in a particular industry. I actually thought there was more to it. As a parent with a PhD, I do think I approach (or maybe I just wonder if I approach) parenting differently than other mothers. Some of the other bloggers here seem to have some sense of those ideas in their posts.

    The first two comments both mention the importance of evidence and lament the lack of it in the original post. What I think PhDs have in common is the belief in the importance of expertise and respect for the expert. Importantly, one of the commenters wants us to know that the original poster is an expert on a particular topic. Hence expertise appears to matter in our profession. So how does our belief in the importance of evidence and our repsect for experts affect our parenting? When a friend passes along some urban legend (i.e., shampoo ingredients cause cancer) to a MamaPhd, wouldn't the parent whose training is based so closely on the importance of evidence and respect for expertise stop to think twice about this? That is what I meant when I was talking about adding a third paradigm to your thought process.

    "I love the idea you thought this was a blog about being an expert mother! Yikes!"

    I'm not sure who you are responding to. None of the commenters said anything like this.

    I understand now that this blog is just about women who have or have had a shared industry background (where the industry is higher education.) I actually had hoped that the writings on this blog might consider how being a PhD (or having another terminal degree) affects parenting. There is rich ground to cover on this latter topic, but it doesn't look like this blogger has considered it.

  • Posted by anjalee on July 3, 2008 at 12:10pm EDT

  • Okay you win cheddar. I give. My blog has failed your expectations. I get it. Consider this more creative writing (that you doesn't suit your taste) than research and analysis. My field of study is more tailored towards topic exploration then hard evidence and my posts will reflect that background. We can agree to disagree on which is more relevant in our own personal lives. Let’s call it a draw shall we? If you enjoy the other bloggers please by all means read the other fine Mama PhD posts.

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