Interesting Posts #5: Urban Policy, Burkas, Broken Families, Dieting

I woke up this morning to find out I’m a wise, urban policy analyst.

Haveil Havalim is up at Elisson. Last week’s is over at Snoopy.

A proposed law forbidding full body and face covering: Rejecting the Burka

If you’re on Facebook, please join my new fan page.

Leora will hosting the Kosher Cooking Carnival on May 16 so go on and submit your recipes.

Dena writes about Dieting and Shabbos.

This video is about an American woman who left her husband and year-old son to live with another man. I’m not sure why it is  such big news—families break up every day. (Of course, it might have something to do with the nationwide search.) But my husband summed it up nicely: When a man abandons his children, it’s immoral. When a woman does, it’s “pathological.”

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Related:
The famous Burka Wedding Pictures.

Comments

  1. That Today clip is insane. Only in a country that fetisizes motherhood could this be national news.

  2. I agree with your husband. The implication that a mother should be MORE committed to her child and spouse than a father to his is pretty gross.

    And how sad that she felt that her way out was to essentially fake her own abduction.

  3. I’m reminded of how hard it was for my husband to bond with each of our 12 children when they were infants. I directed the midwife to hand my 4th baby to my husband first, hoping this would make a difference. I think that after carrying a baby, sharing heartbeats, and going through the birth experience engenders a special bond between mother and child. I think there is something to the idea that the mother/child bond is different than the father/child bond.

    Interesting topic!

  4. Thanks for providing thi slist. There are lots of talk about the burqa in France at present, but it is the “other” burqa.

  5. how many times have I wanted to run away from my family? Being a wife and mom is super stressful, especially when you don’t have a good support system, which I think most busy modern families don’t. I envy that woman’s courage, even though it is, of course, morally wrong to abandon one’s family.
    I wonder if the father has political connections somehow that enabled him to get this on the news– an attempt to manipulate his wife to come back. In which case, it’s all the better she’s free of him. I pity the child, though.

    • Abigail: Yes, they make it seem like everything must have been hunky-dory and the mother just upped and left this wonderful situation. 100% agree with your comments about lack of support for new moms.

  6. Interesting links.
    I was most interested by the one discussing banning the burka. I would be ecstatic if this went through. I’m all for religious freedom, but not at the expense of women’s freedom or my own personal security, both which I feel are sorely compromised by the burka (be it a Jewish or an Arab one).
    (I used to comment here from the blog DoubleDrudgery, but decided the blog was too limited in scope, and started a more general one instead. It’s good to be back to blogging and commenting!).

    • Shira, I wondered what happened to that blog. I’ll check out your new one. The problem is that it’s hard to draw the line when it comes to religious expression.

  7. Another comment– the video mentions the “unknown forces” that would drive a mother to do something like this. Idiotic journalists. It’s not a mystery to me at all. How about post-partum depression, which has been linked to higher numbers of interventions during childbirth? How about the average American man not understanding how to treat a lady with love and understanding? How about most people being so absorbed in their own lives that they don’t make meaningful connections with their neighbors, even when they know their neighbor is probably miserable? How about families living so far apart that they can’t help an overwhelmed mother with her new baby? (“It takes a village to raise a child”, right?)
    While all those people in her church were busy “not judging” each other, one of their members was driven to the point of desperation. Great job, Christians. Don’t judge, but don’t help either. Bravo. (Sorry, this struck a nerve.)

  8. FWIW, while I believe that a mom has a special bond with her child, I find this report sexist and offensive.

    I’m with your husband on this one? Why should a woman abandoning her child be considered pathological while a man abandoning his child is considered immoral. They are both immoral.

  9. oops, put the question mark in too early in that second paragraph! (it should appear at the end of the middle sentance….)
    *sigh*