#gunsense: Today is the Day! (And so is tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow. And the day after that.)

Even before last Saturday’s mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, gun violence had emerged as a major issue leading up to the 2018 midterm elections. Our country’s recent history is fraught with a cycle of tragic mass shootings that stir public outcry for better firearm regulation, only for the outrage to wane with time, and with it any efforts to pass new laws… until the next mass shooting.

Recently, though, a more sustained push for gun legislation reform has taken hold, perhaps because the frequency and intensity of mass shooting incidents has increased. The most visible advocates for gun violence prevention are survivors of a February 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, during which a former student used an AR-17 semi-automatic rifle to kill 17 students and staff and injure 17 others. In the wake of the incident, students and their families organized protests andother events to draw attention to the issue of gun violence prevention. They also founded organizations advocating for the passage of legislation that would make it harder to obtain large-capacity semi-automatic weapons. One such entity is the Families vs. Assault Rifles Political Action Committee (FAMSVSARPAC), whose stated aim is to keep military-grade weapons out of schools, chiefly by backing political candidates who support legislation banning assault rifles from the general public. As their name suggests, it has pitted the students and their families squarely against the National Rifle Association (NRA). FAMSVSARPAC president Jeff Kasky, whose son Cameron is one of the students at the forefront of post-Parkland activism, contrasts the “field and stream NRA” of old with the current “Call of Duty” NRA.  He notes that though individual NRA members often respond to polls indicating their support of background checks, waiting periods, and other regulation of firearms, “NRA leadership adamantly oppose any legislation that impacts theon-demand availability of deadly weapons of all kinds, which would slow downsales and bring down revenues for their constituent gun manufacturers”.  Moreover, the NRA has weaponized the Second Amendment, religious messaging, and the general concept of patriotism in order to stoke fear and thereby increase support for candidates who promise not to address firearm regulation while in office.

Though the Parkland shooting has prompted more restrictive gun legislation in certain states, federal laws to the same effect have been notoriously elusive. In 2013, the Senate failed to pass a bill to increase background check requirements. Viewed at the time as “low-hanging fruit” of the gun-control legislation forest, the bill would have required background checks at gun shows and for internet sales, without imposing them for “private transactions” between family and friends. Although crafted as a bipartisan compromise, the political environment at the time prevented certain Senate Democrats from supporting the law. Specifically, several Democrats from Republican-leaning states were up for reelection in 2014 and feared that coming out in favor of gun regulations – even those as minimal as laid out in the bill – would doom their chances of reelection. This outcome illustrates the insidious grip held by the NRA on our political process: the organization has rather handily achieved its legislative objectives while bankrolling only a minority of elected officials and accurately representing the views of a small swath of Americans.

As a result of this fraught political climate, other groups have emerged to advocate for apolitical, community-based approaches aimed at reducing gun violence. Speaking at a recent event on Long Island, Sandy Hook Promise founder Nicole Hockley used drunk driving as an analogy. While laws against driving under the influence of alcohol were necessary in deterring the harmful behavior, marked decreases in the number of drunk driving incidents only occurred after several decades of advocacy for a change in culture among at risk groups (namely, teens first experimenting with alcohol).  Hockley urged ignoring people “at the extremes” of the gun control debate, and fighting apathy amongst those in the middle who are disillusioned about ensuring safety in our communities. To this end, a lot of Sandy Hook Promise’s programs aim to address at-risk behaviors, the signs of which often manifest in middle school and high school. They provide training for teachers and others to recognize the signals of someone in crisis, before they obtain a gun and/or attempt to use it. Sandy Hook Promise also advocates for anonymous reporting systems, whereby individuals can notify local authorities of suspicious activity without compromising their identities. When it comes to addressing harmful antisocial behavior, the organization advocates for disciplinary methods that address the underlying causes in a non-confrontational way, instead of merely pushing students away with suspension or expulsion. Another program called Start With Hello trains children to interact with their peers in a way that reduces bullying and social isolation. Teaching children to reach out and include others prevents vulnerable kids from withdrawing from society, a necessary first step in avoiding the seclusion that can set certain individuals on a path toward the commission of mass violence. Sandy Hook Promise advocates for acceptance, community, and openness, in sharp contrast with the NRA’s individualistic, fear-based methods of persuasion.

The foregoing yields a mixed message with respect to the election. Voters should visit gunsensevoter.org to learn which candidates in their local races will advocate for gun control legislation, and cast their ballots accordingly. Overcoming the NRA’s influence will require electing a sufficient majority of officials not under their financial purview, who are thereby willing to push for more restrictive firearms laws. That this has proven to be a difficult hurdle demonstrates that Election Day is merely a small part of the necessary action. The rest of the year, it is imperative that we work toward building communities in which children receive support and attention that prevents them from straying onto a path of dangerous behavior. In addition to overcoming the apathy that sets in between high-fatality mass shootings, we must push back against societal forces that weaken the bonds between neighbors and classmates. 

Voting for #gunsense is only the beginning. Acting for #gunsense needs to be something we do every day.

Balancing act

Today is Labor Day, a federal holiday that commemorates the contributions of the American labor movement and sacrifices of workers. While I'd thoroughly enjoy discussing the legal and political history of industrial labor relations, this post concerns an issue more salient to many adults in this country: maintaining a balance between work and family responsibilities. 

Because of my own experience striving for "work-life balance", I'm quite curious (perhaps even nosy) about other families' work and child-care arrangements. I've known brave and capable women who return to work soon after giving birth, often sacrificing personal time to manage a household and earn a paycheck. Some of my friends - men and women alike - are selfless stay-at-home parents who meet their children's needs from sunrise until sundown while their partner works long hours. Others have managed a mixed schedule consisting of part-time work and part-time caregiving.  Still others have arranged to work from home certain days, allowing them to maintain a full-time workload while fulfilling familial obligations such as carpools and bus stop drop-offs and pickups. In addition to day care and/or school, most parents I know also rely on help from extended family members and/or babysitters to enable them to work (or do errands and chores kid-free). 

Social media is ripe with accounts of the struggle to balance work and family - specifically care of young children. In one such article, Why I Opted In To ‘The Motherhood Penalty’ At My Job, Jordan Jayson describes her decision to reduce her work-week to four days, and accept a proportional (20 percent) salary reduction in exchange. She discusses the satisfaction achieved by having one day per week to spend with her son when she'd otherwise be working, as well as the concerns about how her flexible work arrangement will affect her long-term earning prospects and professional reputation. The "mix of doubt, guilt, and self-criticism isn’t unfamiliar to working mothers. It comes with the territory," she writes. Furthermore, she talks about policy challenges involving parental leave policies, the perception of working moms as somehow "gaming the system," and the reality that in fact they work longer overall hours, toggling between childcare tasks and after-hours work once kids are asleep. Most significantly, Jayson criticizes the treatment of women as a "one-size-fits-all" constituency when it comes to desired career trajectory and the policies offered to help mothers in the workplace. 

Perhaps because the author's child is still young, one pertinent factor that the article doesn't address is the likelihood that over the course of her career one woman may need several different variations of a flexible-work schedule before returning to a "regular" full-time arrangement. As time passes, most children grow more self-sufficient with respect to both day-to-day self-care and entertaining themselves. They eventually spend most of their waking hours in school and other structured activities. Thus, if someone such as Jayson opts for a reduced workload after the birth of a child, she will eventually be able to return to full-time, therefore allaying her fears that she has forever harmed her wage-earning prospects. Still, the zeitgeist around working moms in particular seems to cast aspersions on any departure from a full-time work schedule in which the aim is to score every possible professional achievement. A working mom who returns to a regular full-time schedule will likely feel pressure to throw herself into work and handle emergencies or other last-minute developments with the same aplomb as her previous childless self. 

Of course, as Jayson also conveys, arranging atypical work schedules depends on the willingness of employers to accommodate workers' needs. In some industries this may simply not be possible; in others, flexibility may be easier to achieve. Another factor, of course, involves the practicalities of sharing childrearing responsibilities between partnered parents. Whether or not one has children, the way in which families handle the balance between wage-earning and childcare effects us all, insofar as it impacts how the next generation of humans is raised.  In my further posts, I plan to explore policies concerning parental leave and childcare, as well as the practices and attitudes surrounding which partner handles which household tasks. As always, I'd love to hear any reader reactions (including tales of flexible work arrangements) in the comments. 

On frequency & direction

I'm happy to report that more posts are coming! When I first conceived this blog, I had lofty aspirations of semi-regular, highly researched, topical think-pieces hashing out issues through my lens as both attorney and parent. Unfortunately, the stars have aligned such that I've not had time for any of these over the last year. Nonetheless, our nation's present political situation being with it is, I've felt more of a pull to write shorter commentaries on current events. Hence, that is what you will see for the foreseeable future... with an occasional larger research-laden article should the zeitgeist yield one. 

My aim in focusing on current events is to offer relevant perspective on timely sociopolitical issues, instead of in-depth analysis of topics that happen to strike me. If the last few months have taught us anything, it's that our political voices should not be confined to election cycles. Being civically engaged means participating in salient exchanges every day, so that we all reach a greater understanding of today's policy challenges. Here's hoping my contributions are worthwhile enough to inspire productive discussions. 

Screening out screens

"Tablet! Taaaaaablet!”

For a while, this was the first thing my 2-and-a-half-year-old said when she came downstairs in the morning, or after a nap. Lately, as she’s become more apt to speaking in full sentences, variations have included “Mom, I need tablet,” “I use tablet,” and “Tablet time!”

It was never my intention to allow my child to have semi-autonomous YouTube time, at least not beginning at the tender age of twenty months. At that time, though, she was firmly fixated on cell phones. The option of keeping my iPhone out of sight made me twitch a little, driving home just how much I’d been using it before. Once introduced to the tablet, my toddler became less obsessed with the ever-ubiquitous smartphone. So, letting her click around amongst kid-friendly videos amounted to the lesser of two evils.

Don’t get me wrong; she still gravitates towards phones. If she isn’t sufficiently engaged in a non-screen activity, and someone in the room so much as glances at a device, she immediately asks to watch videos or look at pictures. Once she's given pictures or videos to look at, that's all she wants to do for (seemingly) the rest of her life.  It fundamentally scares me that she can be sitting in a room full of toys and family members and would rather be watching a screen. Even if I guide her toward a non-screen activity, I know it's only a matter of time before she remembers that Mickey and Minnie are waiting for her inside the magical touchscreen rectangle. 

Desperate to impose some limits on the situation, I came up with a system in which she gets three instances of video viewing per day on the screen of her choosing. After each session, she colors in a box on a chart. The length of the sessions are variable, usually based on however long it takes me to finish feeding her baby brother or complete half a household chore. Sometimes she turns the tablet off herself after only five or ten minutes, while most of the time I need to give her a “last video” warning. Thankfully, she understands that if she’s watching our biggest screen, the TV, I turn it off when her videos are over.

So far, the system has seemingly conveyed that watching videos is a limited activity, and not something we do all freakin' day. Still, I sometimes get the sense that every minute she's not watching a screen is just killing time between tablet sessions. Also, lest I give a toddler too much credit, on more than one occasion she's asked for her third tablet session at 4 p.m., claiming to understand that she can't ask for videos later, only to react with complete and utter despair when I point to the chart and deny her request for more tablet at 6:30 p.m. Thus, I usually try stave off that 4 p.m. viewing in the hopes that she’ll agree to “save tablet ‘til later.”

Given our predicament, my husband forwarded me a recent New York Times article addressing the slippery slope of screen time for kids. In 2013, the American Academy of Pediatrics’ 2013 recommended a limitation of two hours of entertainment screen time per day for children over 2. Without contradicting this standard, the Times piece discusses some preliminary studies indicating the existence of benefits from “prosocial media.” The example the article uses is Skyping with Grandma, saying that the positive effect of this activity is time with Grandma, and not with Skype itself.

With our extended family living close by, Skype doesn’t get a lot of use in my house. The analogous compromise we’ve made is allowing our daughter to bond with visiting relatives by looking at photos or videos of past events. My thinking has always been that this isn’t harmful if it’s kept to short sessions in-between playing games, singing songs, and reading books. In line with the Times article, I often explain that “people are more important than videos” when curtailing electronic activities. Nonetheless, it troubles me when she seems to associate certain visitors with their devices, instead of other interactive experiences. I’m also cautious about visiting with friends who tend to leave the TV on for hours at a time or permit unfettered tablet use. I vividly recall my own mother telling my friends and me to turn the TV off and do something else. “You can watch TV separately at your own houses,” she liked to point out to her basement full of preteen girls.

Aside from the usual “how much is too much?” question, the Times broaches the notion that screen time tends to replace other more enriching activities. This is especially worrisome for children under age 2, “who need direct human interaction to learn and develop.” For older children, tablets and computers aren’t necessarily detrimental in small doses, but every minute spent playing a video game or watching a show is a minute not spent playing ball, interacting with family members, or reading. Furthermore, the sheer volume of media available on the Internet makes it a Pandora’s box of mesmerization once a screen is put on. “I watch one more,” my daughter sometimes tells me – several times in a row – when I’m trying to get her to turn the tablet off.

This problem is what motivates me to plead with relatives to keep their phones hidden while I actively pepper her with books, art projects, sing-alongs, and outside playtime. This is no easy task, as our family members have significantly increased their own smartphone usage over time, as has most of Western society. (Unlike my toddler, their brains are sufficiently developed.) I also need to consider my 4-month-old son, who will inevitably experience more screen entertainment at an earlier age. The looser I am with regulating his sister's viewing, the more premature exposure he'll get. 

My hope is that pretty soon my daughter will be easier to reason with about screen viewing. As she gets older and her life becomes more routinized, we'll likely move to scheduled times for screens (e.g. one show in the morning and some tablet viewing before dinner), which will eliminate arguments about when she’s allowed to watch. My husband has also tried to foster her interest in playing number-and-letter-learning games, instead of mostly watching cartoons. She’s learned a lot from Doc McStuffins and Elmo, but games will certainly impart more educational value.

Eventually, she’ll be using technology to do research, write essays, and Skype (or use its futuristic equivalent), and I’ll be telling her to go across the street and talk to her friends in person instead of on the computer.

To freeze, or not to freeze...

For any parent - stay-at-home, working, or something in between - issues of work-life balance loom large. This can be especially true for women, who may feel pressured towards "traditional" duties of homemaking and child care while simultaneously yearning to pursue a career as modern society encourages. As everyone tries to find their individual recipe for harmonizing employment with domestic life, discussions about the family-vs.-career dilemma loom large in the media as well. 

A few weeks ago, I came across an opinion piece by CNN's Kyra Phillips, which lauds the advent of egg-freezing and other reproductive technology as empowering career-focused women. The overall message of her essay is inarguable - scientific medical advancements make it easier for women to bear children later in life, enabling them to use their 20s and 30s to advance their workplace goals. However, she displays an unnecessary level of condescension towards others who've decided to start families at the expense of promotions. Further, she insinuates that any woman who practices work-life balance is personally responsible for holding back workplace equality for women in general.

Contrary to her opinion, some women welcome the chance to bear children in their late-20s or early 30s, and enjoy taking time away from work in order to raise those kids. Others need to work to support their households, but effort tirelessly to make time for their families instead of devoting every possible moment to their jobs. This blogger refuses to view such choices as "blowing it" with respect to an individual career, nor somehow stunting the progress of female career paths at large. 


There are plenty of good reasons to freeze one's eggs, utilize other means of assistive reproductive technology, or simply decide not to have children at all. But any such decision involves reasoning unique to the individual. The world is best served when people make choices that fit their specific circumstances, instead of simply running to freeze their eggs because some TV reporter is concerned about setbacks to feminism in the workplace. In this blogger's opinion, the most feminist path a woman can choose is her own - whether or not it includes the corporate ladder. 

C-sections, freedom, gender... and how none of it is anyone's business, really.

As a new mom and New York Mets' fan (hold your boos, please), my ear's perked up when I heard Boomer Esiason's suggestion that Daniel Murphy's wife should have scheduled a C-section to better accommodate the team's schedule. I don't want to repeat what's been said in the numerous insightful, well-reasoned articles covering this topic, especially now that the former NFL quarterback has apologized, but I do have a few thoughts to share.

We're fortunate to live in a time and place where numerous life-saving medical procedures are available and performed every day. The important aspect of this issue is that all health-related decisions are a matter to be adjudicated between an individual, his/her family members, and his/her doctor. Some women give birth at home in their bathtubs under the supervision of a midwife with no pharmaceutical assistance; others go in fully expecting to be hooked up to an epidural catheter. Personal preferences and ideals aside, no one way is "better" than another. And I'm willing to bet that there are people (wives of professional athletes included) who have scheduled C-sections or labor inductions for the sake of convenience. Other women not in the public eye may elect to push or delay a C-section or induction so as not to interfere with their partners' work obligations or other commitments. A friend of mine was due to give birth at the end of August. When she remained pregnant on September 8th her doctor scheduled her for an induction the next day... then bumped it to the following day because the labor and delivery ward was full - too many women scheduling their C-section/induced births for the 9th, to avoid delivering on September 11th.

The point, which both Murphy and Esiason espoused in their comments subsequent to the initial discussion, is that the approach to childbirth and decisions about subsequent care are matters of individual choice. As long as someone with medical training approves of and can provide or arrange for any subsequent care, the patient's decision is what governs.

By the way, the same argument can be made for the availability of abortion and the use of stem cells. If these medical interventions violate someone's religious beliefs or personally-held moral ideals, he or she needn't utilize them. But calling for the elimination of the procedures altogether, depriving other people of autonomy in deciding whether or not to pursue those treatments, misapplies the First Amendment's clause protecting the free exercise of religion. In this arena, as in many others, "freedom" means that we get to believe in and practice the principles we choose, but it does not extend so far as to allow the imposition of one group's beliefs on outsiders.

Another angle to the paternity leave issue involves gender itself. Lots of people on Twitter shared the sentiment that, as a man, Esiason was somehow not equipped to make an informed assessment of the situation nor entitled to have an opinion at all because he himself cannot give birth. Nonetheless, I believe that despite being a man, he had every right to formulate an opinion and voice it accordingly... with the understanding that the world would view his opinion with the appropriate grain of salt and react critically. The notion that Esiason's sex makes him ill-equipped to form a reasoned opinion on the subject of birth is insulting to all men, and thereby undermines any attempt at "feminist" argument by being unnecessarily antagonistic toward an entire gender.

What do you all think? Where do we draw the line about who can say what about others' medical procedures? Is this whole ordeal being overblown? Will the Mets ever win a game?! I eagerly await your comments.

Coming soon! Stay tuned for posts on law, policy, and parenting.