I have a friend who is not in academia. We spend a lot of time together. And every time we meet (which is about twice a week every week), she asks, “Did you teach today? Did you teach yesterday? No? And Klara was still at school??? Why?”

Every time.

I have tried opening every encounter with a list of everything work-related that I’ve done this day. I have explained the tripartite nature of academic work (teaching-research-service). I have shown my publications. I have quoted my CV. But it didn’t work. When I meet her and her husband, they both go at me with this question, so I have to answer it twice in a day.

And it’s getting to me. I don’t feel any guilt over Klara being in preschool. She’s objectively happier doing fun activities with friends part of the day than stewing at home with me. The week before last, a chef came to school every day to teach them recipes. Klara learned how to make tiny pizzas, tacos, etc. Last week, they had a woman from the science museum who showed them science experiments.

“She taught us to make soda water out of gummy bears, mommy,” Klara reported. “It was pshhhh, bam!, into the ceiling!” I have no idea what this means but the kid seemed wildly enthusiastic.

This week they have a puppeteer who will teach them to make puppets and put on shows.

I’m not supposed to feel guilty about Klara doing all this fun stuff while I work on 3 articles in different stages, a new book, organizing a conference, and running a scholar organization. But I’m beginning to feel guilty. See this long post? That’s my guilt speaking.

Maybe other people would make a different choice, and good for them. But this is who I am and I just want to be left in peace by my closest friends to run my life as I see fit.

There is a point to this ranting, so wait for the second part of the post for me to get to it.

N watched a documentary about Soviet Wunderkinder, the “genius kids” who graduated high school at 11 / defended doctoral dissertations at 17 / broke Olympic records / received adult poetry prizes at 6, etc.

“So how did they turn out?” I asked N.

“They didn’t,” he said grimly. “They all died too young to turn out as anything much. Suicide, drugs, stroke. They are all dead.”

And to think we all spent our childhoods being made to feel deeply inferior to these kids.

Russian media are going nuts over the upcoming meeting between Putin and Trump where Trump is going to endorse Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The only positive outcome for the side of the good (to which I hope we all here belong and if not let me know and I’ll boot you from here in a flash) that can still be hoped for is that Trump won’t hand over a 100% validation of Russia’s actions. Maybe he’ll stick at 99%.

If people are about to start arguing that Trump can’t hand over anything but a symbolic victory to Putin, I’d ask them to stop making fools out of themselves. Both the Crimea and the Donbass war only have a symbolic meaning to Russia. They are an enormous economic drain. Russia is raising the retirement age to beyond the life expectancy for males to pay for this shit. It’s all about the symbolic.

I’m not nearly as heartbroken about this as I was about the massive betrayal by Western liberals of Ukraine and of every progressive value defended by Ukrainians during the initial stages of the invasion. I knew Trump was going to do this the moment he won the election. I grieved it back then but it’s not like I ever expected anything else from him. There is even a bit of a relief in not having to wait for it anymore.

I promise not to rant about it in an unhinged way once the meeting starts happening. Although if anybody is justified in ranting, it’s me on this occasion.

I think that the recovery period for the gallbladder surgery is considered to be 6 weeks because people who get the surgery are usually about 300 years old, and it does take longer at this age to heal.

I’m sitting in the doctor’s office for my post-op appointment, and every patient here at least doubles me in age.

Fucking Ukrainian food.

After kicking Russia out of the World Cup, two of the Croatian players recorded a short video with the words “Glory to Ukraine!”, which have been the slogan of the 2013 revolution and the subsequent war against Russian invasion. FIFA immediately sanctioned the players.

This explains why Russian media have been so eager to point out Croatia’s history in WWII.

For the first time in three weeks, I feel healthy. God, I love feeling healthy. I never want to feel sick again.

It’s been 17 days since the surgery and I feel completely recovered. I don’t feel any desire to hit bacon-and-lard-laden dishes but it does feel good not to be terrified of eating-out situations.

It seems that people genuinely don’t know, so here is a brief history of the anti-feminist backlash.

After the feminist advances of the 1970s, a protracted backlash set in. I highly recommend Susan Faludi’s classic Backlash that traces the origins of the phenomenon. It’s a brilliant, brilliant book.

One of the aspects of the backlash is the so-called attachment parenting. The tenets of attachment parenting (also known as natural parenting) were created by ultra-conservative religious organizations that were always very open about their belief that women should have no interests outside of child-bearing and child-rearing. Anything that simplifies the pregnancy, the birth, and childcare and makes them less painful (epidurals are one example) were declared to be evil.

The movement’s proponents aggressively insist that you are a horrible mother and are doing great harm to your children if you don’t choose unmedicated birth (ideally done at home), if you don’t breastfeed on demand until at least the age of 3, don’t wear the child on your body at all times (meaning no solitude for mom even for 10 mins a day), etc.

It’s really clear that a woman who follows all of these precepts is not doing anything else. Her body belongs to the baby not only during pregnancy but for quite a while after birth. People who never breastfed might not realize that breast-feeding means you don’t eat what you want, you don’t drink what you want, and your freedom of movement and activity is severely limited. (You are not supposed to use a pump, by the way. Remember, no stepping away from the child!)

Obviously, feminists have been disturbed by this assault on women’s bodily autonomy in service of “ideal” motherhood. The feminist approach has always consisted in the idea that women should be left alone to figure out what to do with their bodies. Want to give birth? Great. Don’t want to use your body for the purpose of procreation? Equally great. Want to breastfeed? Fantastic. Don’t want to breastfeed? Equally fantastic.

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that breast-feeding has any benefits at all in developed countries. No evidence. Zilch. There is ample evidence, however, that the bullying of women at a very vulnerable time after giving birth is causing harm. The agents of the backlash have been extremely aggressive. Their tricks obviously don’t work on jaded feminist scholars who give birth at 40, like myself. But most women are less jaded and less old when they give birth. The shaming and the berating works on them.

I highly recommend the blogger I linked in the penultimate post who has been studying the backlash for years.

I’m glad Russia was finally kicked out of the World Cup. But could it have been done by a country that wasn’t Nazi during WWII? Because now we won’t hear the end of it.

My Russian-language newsfeed is populated by nothing but mentions of Croatia’s behavior during WWII. It’s getting very boring.