another Berkeley parenting phenomenon

I went into my mentor's office in downtown SF today to learn a new software from one of her colleagues, a medical anthropologist, "Jane". Jane and I both have two boys, her older one about the same age as Noah, and her younger one only 6 months old. This shared mommy role has helped us connect quickly. As I was sharing toher about the challenges of me being away from the family, I learned of her daily challenges as a researcher and as a mom, which sound pretty darn tough! Her husband is a stay-at-home dad (he's a musician and they figured he wouldn't make as much as a full-time nanny, so it made sense for him to stay home for a few years). They don't have any family in the area, and her work is quite stressful--medical researchers are almost always on "soft-money", meaning she has to constantly look for funding to sustain your research/position and it's not easy. Partly because she is nursing, somehow when she is home with the baby, he is very easy-- eats and sleeps well, but with him (who is without the sweet smell of milk), he often gets fussy and demanding.

Anyway, she looked rather frazzled today, and I learned that their older child has had pneumonia last week. The ongoing fever, bad mood, night wakings of both kids, you can imagine why she seems exhausted.... She told me the long story of how they reached the diagnosis, and reluctantly, offered him his first dose of antibiotics ever. "What?" I said, "Your child is almost five and you've never given him antibiotics?" Exactly--and she expressed how upset they were for having to give in to such terrible stuff that would damage the great system they have helped maintain in his son. I was shocked, as our pediatricians in Arlington seem to never hesitate (they seem to use the "when in doubt..."mentality) before writing you a prescription for various kinds of antibiotics, even for small ear infections. And even though both of our kids are pretty healthy, they've definitely had many rounds of antibiotics. Well... I hope I haven't ruined our boys' systems!! I guess compared to the frequent medicine-taking in Taiwan, we are definite moderates.

I realized from our conversation that many parents in Berkeley don't believe in too much Western medical interventions. I would not be surprised that the same women gave birth without drugs, nursed for a long time, and sent their kids to the very open schools that I last wrote about!