Stuff White People Like: Talking About Birth
Friday, December 4, 2009 at 7:28PMI intended to post the comment I left on Pamela’s blog (She’s blogging again!) a few days ago prefaced with something like “Please critique fiercely. Send it to a sociologist or a picky friend. K thx.” I’ve had it in the queue along with some historical stories of interest and after this conversation, which is still going, I’m posting it now.
Pamela, I have so many ideas that I’ve been sitting with for over a year. I’m reluctant to dig in because, well, among other reasons I really don’t want to come across as a white woman defining and speculating on the experience of people of color.
The one thing I have arrived (it’s a theory in work) at is that white privileged women are more likely to shocked by medicalized birth, not solely because they came in with preconceived notions that it should be different, but because it’s a window of time in which we are profiled, discriminated against, told our bodies are defective and insufficient, our rights to bodily autonomy are repeatedly violated and there doesn’t seem to be any way of navigating and changing “the system.” It can be a microcosm of the societal oppression of females, which many of us felt we previously had some control over because of education, privilege, whatever.
As an emergency service or if used for personal preference (i.e., preferring an anesthetized birth), the medical birth system is great. It fails in its desire to control the births and bodies of ALL women, using drugs and procedures to standardize and expedite the birth process, and it ultimately places the self-interest of the physician or hospital above that of the patient as evidenced by the collective justification of hundreds of thousands of unnecessary “medical” procedures performed each year on women who are not told the real reason for their cesarean/induction/augmentation/intervened upon birth.
While I can’t speak to the experience of the women of color in the medical birth system, I feel somewhat comfortable speculating that the reason why white women speak up so much more often is because we were more likely than women of color to be raised with the idea that our bodies are not broken, defective or property of anyone else… or at least that’s what we’d convinced ourselves until we got pregnant. When we come face to face with someone arguing otherwise without any solid scientific evidence to fall back upon or trying to get us to throw in the towel before even trying, it’s really disgusting. I personally don’t mind trusting medical authority, but it had better be backed up by data and facts, not anecdote, personal preference, opinion, a half-baked appeal to the authority of “the system” (as in “it’s just the way we have to do things”) or plain-old demanding compliance with the established patriarchal value system.
That’s what I arrived at after my hospital experience of refusing unnecessary meddling disguised as prophylaxis or “preventative medicine.” I walked away thinking about how much harder it probably would have been to negotiate for a regular old vaginal birth if I hadn’t been (any or all of the following) white, middle class, educated, English-speaking, insured, average-weight, neurotypical and able-bodied. Wouldn’t it have been harder to self-advocate if I didn’t come in with a heaping helping of privilege on my side?
Reader Comments (90)
Very interesting points. As Women Of Privilege, birth may be the first, even only, time in our lives where we experience oppression. Do we therefore get angrier about it than Women Of Color, or are WoC so used to being trodden on that they don't get as upset? Maybe both?
I think it is a wonderful and brave post examining privilege.
I trained at a birth center with a great racial and ethnic diversity of patients, including a 30% Medicaid population in a poor, mostly black part of South Florida. I also cannot speak to anyone's individual reasons for choosing to deliver at a free standing birth center,especially not a woman of color, but I know I was surprised (since I am privileged and assumed most of the patients would be middle class white women like myself) and pleased at the diversity.
I know I may be inaccurate in making this suggestion, since I am speaking from my point of view, but it seemed to be that more women of color, especially the ones who had Medicaid, expressed about seeking midwifery care for better treatment prenatally, and the white women expressed more concern about having autonomy over their birth process. I think it may be very well be that women of privilege may be more likely to feel the right to autonomy over their births and are shocked by the lack of autonomy in medicalized birth process. And, women of color and poor women may tend to get poorer treatment prenatally from providers.
Definitely have noticed a higher expectation among my "white privelliged" clients than my "in some way oppressed in general" clients. So, my Maori, PI and Asian clients as well as my teen mums and socially marginalised clients, have lower expectations generally than my thirty something well educated white clients. Having said that, their expectations are more that they won't fight. They just assume that whatever they want to do, be it medicallised or non medicallised, will happen. It might get them yelled at some, but, at the end of the day, they will make it happen. So, a marginalised Maori woman who wants a home birth... well, she is as likely not to mention it till I offer it as an option, and then say, "Oh, yeah, I am having one, I was just going to call you at the last minute." Where my highly educated white clients will come in at thier first appointment and say "I Want to birth this baby at home in a pool, and nothing you can say will change my mind. What do you think of THAT!" And epidurals, at the other end of the spectrum... when they come up with a marginalised PI client who wants one she will say "I just want to know that you will get it for me. i am not really interested in all that stuff" when I try to give her informed choice info. My White educated clients, again, come in at their first visit, saying "I need to know you are not one of THOSE midwives who will trick me out of an epidural. If i ask for one, I want it, quick smart." I wonder if it is less a difference of colour, and more one of social position. Because, I have had well educated Maori/PI clients present me with birth plans five pages long, and White Mum's who look at me like I am insane for asking what they have in mind for thier birth. I think colour is less the issue these days, and that in fact socio economic status and privellige are the biggest issues.
Thank you for opening this discussion. I've struggled with these thoughts myself, and how class issues affect other related issues, particularly breastfeeding.
Interesting observation from MomTFH on the differing priorities of the two groups. Much food for thought.
Socioeconomic privilege give some of us the time and space to speak up. We can find time to use our internet connection, electricity and computer to write about birth. Philosophizing, theorizing, exploring ideals and debating birth, infant feeding, parenting, diet, exercise, medication and more is most likely an exclusive practice in developed countries.
I think it’s safe to conclude that the women of Sierra Leone, even those with a laptop and an internet connection, do not blog about making childbirth a better experience. One in eight of those women die while during pregnancy or giving birth from a variety of reasons, one of which is lack of access to emergency obstetric care.
Similarly, people who are starving aren’t analyzing protein-carb-fat ratios. They just want food.
“Just be grateful that you and your baby are alive” doesn’t totally fly here and yet so. many. people. continue to divert attention from the many improvements that need to be made to our U.S. maternity care system by using what amounts to my mom’s old “There are starving children in Africa. Eat your canned peas” line. I am grateful and I remain reverent of necessary and wanted procedures, but I wonder what could be.
Socio-economically speaking, my state's cesarean rates are highly in favor of the underprivileged. The richest county in our state has the HIGHest cesarean rate, while the hospitals/practices who take mostly medicaid patients (read: WoC) have the LOWest cesarean rates. I know this is the opposite of what many states see though.
In fact, one of the most "VBAC-friendly" midwifery practices in our area is a low-income clinic in the Austin area of Oak Park.
Why is this? The place is a dump, but scarred white women with excellent insurance flock there when they want a VBAC.
My thought has always been that the low-income hospitals simply aren't going to throw unnecessary interventions at a woman because they can't afford that nonsense. Of course, with my nice "white-people" insurance, I got a whole big buncha unnecessary and damaging services provided to me.
Also, in my experience, WoC (at least in the Chicagoland area) seem to put up with birth interventions MUCH less than their rich, white counterparts. The first person I knew in real life to have had a planned home birth was a woman of color. I believe that WoC grow up thinking their bodies are the cat's pajamas, and nobody is going to tell them they can't do something. Whereas most of the women I know who drink the "my pelvis is too small" koolaid are white girls who have always been made to feel that their bodies are messed up in some way. First we're all too fat, then we're all too "teeny" to birth. I honestly have very few friends of color who sit around crying over some body dysmorphic disorder. In black culture, shapeliness is celebrated. It's not so in our oppressed white "privileged world".
Stop me before I start quoting Sir-Mix-A-Lot. ;)
The Feminist Breeder:
You know, I've experienced a lot of the same things that you have. In fact, in my law school I know a lot of women who have planned or will plan scheduled C-sections, simply to put them on the books. They're amazed that I just "let it happen whenever." On the other hand, I think that wealthy white women (WWW, if you will) are better able to access education and care and therefore more knowledgeable about how the system works and how to use it (or escape it). It's sort of a conundrum in my head.
Doctors/hospitals/etc. clearly don't want to "waste" resources on poor folks (WoC or not), but they are also the easiest to railroad because they don't feel they can or should stand up to the white coat.
Perhaps it is (and pardon me for "thinking out loud") that WWW are more likely *request* that sort of intervention (out of the group who requests it) while poor women/WoC are more likely to be *forced* into that sort of intervention? Mind you, both can escape it, although it tends to be a lot easier for WWW, perhaps leading to Amy's conclusion that the only people who want "natural childbirth" are WWW.
I feel very lucky as a (not exactly wealthy) white woman. While we are on military insurance, which does not cover homebirths, I can afford to pay for one out of pocket. I can afford the internet access that lets me pull down medical journals. I have the education to READ those medical journals and comprehend them. I can afford the books I read to help prepare myself. I can afford to turn down interventions because, as an apparently WWW, no one would suspect me of trying to "hide something." I can afford a homebirth in a state where the midwife isn't legal because I can afford a lawyer to defend us (and who would convict a WWW of anything that would put her kids in danger?). As a (not exactly) WWW, I was raised with enough "say WHAT?" in me that when I'm told that my pelvis may not be "adequate" I question the doctor soundly...before walking out the door to my next choice. I have that choice.
NB: It's late, it's right before exams, and I just spend hours keeping the kids from shooting the cats with Nerf guns, while the newest addition happily attempted to empty my bladder. If this comment does not make sense, feel free to ask questions - or send chocolate. I could totally do with some chocolate.
I have also heard, and experienced, the other side of the coin: the underprivileged (low-income, Medicaid, possibly unmarried and/or young) recieving MORE interventions because the doctors know that the government will pay for them, or possibly because their "care" providers care less about them because they ARE "less" than them. It's been postulated by others and seemed to be what happened to me, even though I was being seen by what was touted as a low-intervention, natural-friendly CNM practice. I'm not sure how true this theory might be and if it is I'm sure it's not a standard for all as evidenced by posts above. I loathe the term "med-wife" but that is exactly what I got, even though other clients were treated well and had very good birth experiences. The difference? They were married, had private insurance, and were not 20 and looked 14. Correlation doesn't always equal causation but sometimes it makes me wonder - why was I the one who got shit on? I'm sure the reason why WoC have much higher maternal/infant mortality rates is due to inadequate prenatal care and bad environment/lifestyle, but maybe there is a bit of truth in the theory that they are not worth taking good care of because they are poor.
This thought is coming at an interesting time as a WWoP, I'm applying to graduate school for researching birth issues. Let's hope that the professors reading my application, don't also read this post!
To all: an interesting and relevant article, I think: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/us/27infant.html?_r=1
Jill:
I had much the same experience with my son. I was 19, and with a midwife (covered by Medicaid) and interventions were pushed on me, and it didn't help that I didn't know better. Fortunately (???), it was horrid enough that I decided I was either having no more children or it HAD to be different. When I found out it could be different - and oh how different - it not only made me sad, but righteously angry. Informed consent? My "informed consent" for my induction was "if you don't do this now you and/or the baby will die, there's absolutely no risk to it, but you'll die without it." My son was born later that day, and still suffers the effects of iatrogenic prematurity, nine years later.
I've got a thought to add (as a poor educated white woman). I've heard repeatedly the thought 'only rich white women' have homebirths/natural births. My first thought is always "yeah, because all the women who have them in Africa, Asia, Indian, South America et all are rich white women in hiding or make-up right? Its the statisical norm for 'rich white women' in America to be the highest category of natural/home births because, with our flawed medical system, they are the only ones able to afford it." America is not the only country that matters in the debate of intervention vs nature in birth situations, it just happens to be most relavent to most of us talking about it on these blogs/websites (I've come across a few from other countries but they are definately in the minority and I haven't heard anything, for obvious reasons, from somewhere where natural/home birth is the norm) My husband and I had private insurance through his job with our first birth that partially covered a midwife, but we still skimped, saved, and did without a lot to afford the 'copay' for a midwife. Now, with our second birth approaching, we have medicaid (due to jobloss/move) and there is one midwife in the area that can accept it, we are doing our best to contract her and manage (somehow) to pay her 'extra' fee because medicaid doesn't pay her enough (and problems with the local OB community signing off on it, the law in this state, because, while the pregnancy is healthy, I have a genetic disorder they aren't familiar with). We are extremely poor right now and despite all our wishes may simply not be able to have a homebirth due to cost. So saying that 'only rich white women' have natural/home births says far more about the system than it does any one woman's, race's, social economic group's etc WANT or WISH. Or the statisics of the whole world.
Like previous posters, I'm intrigued with this post and happy that this discussion is now out in the open. I am a privileged white woman and have had two home births, both perfectly normal. And I have been teaching childbirth education classes for 2 years. But I am surrounded by other women who are at least moderately educated (having received a high school diploma and most having received college degrees), who live in nice neighborhoods, and appear to "do their research." But I live in the South. And down here we are in a hierarchical society stemming from the religious community. While I am a Christian and follow Christ and His teachings unapologetically, I have noticed that my fellow sisters in Christ have taken some of the precepts of obedience to a totally new (and un-Biblical) level. Now, they trust anyone in a position of power (OBs, hospital staff), keep their mouths shut as things happen to them (unnecessary intervention, inductions, c-sections), and meekly walk away self-convinced and openly proclaiming that "the doctor saved my baby". I am obviously speaking in generalities here, but out of all the white, privileged, childbearing women that I know (and in my sphere I know hundreds) if you remove my students, I only know one other women who had a normal, non medicalized birth. And I am fully convinced the reasons are two-fold. 1- Fear of the repercussions of "disobeying" someone in authority. 2- Fear of making a decision that would result in a negative outcome and then being blamed for it.
Not many people are willing to raise this issue (the influence of race and class in the natural childbirth movement) and it is brave of you to do so.
There are a number of scholars writing on this topic. Rebecca Kukla is one of the most interesting. I particularly admired her paper in the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics entitled Measuring Motherhood:
"As a culture, we have a tendency to measure motherhood in terms of a set of signal moments that have become the focus of special social attention and anxiety; we interpret these as emblematic summations of women’s mothering abilities. Women’s performances during these moments can seem to exhaust the story of mothering, and mothers often internalize these measures and evaluate their own mothering in terms of them. "Good" mothers are those who pass a series of tests — they bond properly during their routine ultrasound screening, they do not let a sip of alcohol cross their lips during pregnancy, they give birth vaginally without pain medication, they do not offer their child an artificial nipple during the first six months, they feed their children maximally nutritious meals with every bite, and so on. This reductive understanding of mothering has had counterproductive effects upon health care practice and policy, encouraging measures that penalize mothers who do not live up to cultural norms during signal moments, while failing to promote extended narratives of healthy mothering."
And:
"The rhetoric surrounding these moments suggests, on the one hand, that they will determine the success of the future mothering narrative (whether the mother will bond properly with her baby; whether the baby will develop a lifetime of secure relationships and healthy eating habits) and on the other hand, that they reveal the truth about a woman’s fitness to mother (whether she is sufficiently engaged, self sacrificing,risk-adverse, disciplined, etc.)."
As Kukla points out these purely social standards implicitly disadvantage and demean women who are not privileged culturally and economically:
"Thus to the extent that we take "proper" maternal performance during these key moments as a measure of mothering as a whole, we will re-inscribe social privilege. We will read a deficient maternal character into the bodies and actions of underprivileged and socially marginalized women, whereas privileged women with socially normative home and work lives will tend to serve as our models of proper maternal character."
Why is social privilege such an important component of the natural childbirth movement? There are my thoughts:
At its most basic level, natural childbirth is about achieving self-actualization and self-actualization is a luxury that very few people can afford. Self-actualization also presupposes a culture that values individuation and autonomy, and scorns subsuming individual needs within the collective good.
Natural childbirth depends absolutely on living in a wealthy society. Advocates never have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, how to obtain or afford the basic necessities of life, how to stay safe in a dangerous world of gang violence, or tribal warfare, or war.
Natural childbirth presupposes a world with easy access to birth control and abortion. Every child is a wanted child, and every birth a celebration.
Natural childbirth depends absolutely on the assumption that high quality medical care is only a short drive away (and everybody has a car to get there). It can only take root in a society with low perinatal mortality, because only people living in those societies can pretend that perinatal mortality is intrinsically low and that childbirth is inherently safe.
There is nothing wrong with the values and beliefs underlying natural childbirth. Natural childbirth advocates must take care not to assume that it represents some sort of universal truth, and that women of color and poor women just need to be "educated" (or have barriers to understanding removed) in order to see how the superior Western, white, well educated women give birth and learn to copy them.
Thanks, but I don’t know that there’s anything brave about bringing it up. I’ve only held off for so long because I figured if I was going to dig in, it should be with something more scholarly and researched. I’ve had that Kukla article sitting on my desktop for months and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with it. Plus, I really resist talking about racial issues a lot because I just always think that no one wants to hear what another white person has to say about race and I really want other (non-dominant culture) voices to get the audience they deserve. Does that make sense?
Frankly, few things would make me happier than bumping the rhetoric of childbirth up to the next level. There are a lot of us that discuss birth and social justice, women’s rights, discrimination, race, class and intersectionality, but there’s not really anything that feels like a solid, collective effort to really make change.
Yet.
I had jotted down a few notes this morning that I was going to ask you, but this comment addressed everything. I was going ask you to clarify your definition of natural childbirth and what exactly Grantly Dick-Read invented or fabricated, whether it can actually be attributed to him exclusively and also your evidence that natural childbirth is exclusively a white, wealthy, western phenomenon. Again, without a definition of natural childbirth, that wouldn’t be something I could investigate, but it would also be hard to know because how many of the people of our world really have a voice, get published, speak up, etc.
If you hadn’t written this comment, I seriously would have thought that your Dick-Read/intellectual heirs/natural birth theory was based in some annoyance with your white, upper class patients getting in the way of you doing your job or not appreciating your skill set… a kind of vendetta. I wasn’t getting that “Ah ha! Gotcha!” zing from the Dick-Read stuff that I think you were going for. It’s entertaining, but there are way too many holes in it.
But if THIS is what you’re talking about and you were just being obtuse, then keep going. Please. I would have had no idea that this is where you were coming from and I’m usually pretty good about reading between the lines. At least I thought I was.
Pasting this comment from the Facebook fan page by Tamika:
It's not necessarily true that only White women talk about childbirth. For instance, here in Atlanta, we are having our first Doulas of Color Collective meeting this morning. The International Center for Traditional Childbearing (or the Black Midwives organization) holds a conference every year for Black birthworkers and activists, and next year, they are holding their first Full Circle Doula conference. I think it IS true, however, that there is a lack of access, and a lack of attention to the birth work that goes on in communities of color, by media, filmmakers, and White birthworkers as well. Despite the abundance of Black doulas and midwives, as well as the number of Black women who have home births (myself included), we are rarely featured in documentaries or on TV shows or websites outside of our own communities. This may have something to do with the fact that many of us work as lay midwives in states where it is illegal, or work as doulas without certification. Many women of color, simply don't know the language of the popular birthing culture, or opt out of it.
All that said, there are lots of historical issues at play. For instance, women of color were among the last women in this country to have moved into the hospital. Obstetric services were inaccessible to women of color, especially in rural areas for many years. There were systematic efforts to relate hospital -based birth and obstetrics to wealth, and even Whiteness, and home birth to poverty. This happened much later in African American communities than it did in White communities (in this country), because Black women didn't have access (either due to location or economics) to these things. As such, the push to reverse this trend is happening on a different timeline, and in a different way in our communities.
Despite this, many women of color recognize the historical and contemporary oppression that we face in medical settings, especially as pertains to race, and resist through the use of doulas and midwives, and through natural and homebirth. But many women of color still lack access even to birthworkers of color. Even still, our voices are often marginalized (as they are on a number of issues), and so it may seem that women of color talk about birth much less than do White women. But even if they are not talking about birthing naturally, women of color also love talking about birth.
Oh my goodness, *HI* there Dr. Amy. So nice to meet the person behind the cyborg for the first time. I think that was the most thought-provoking post I have ever read from you. Please do tell us more...I say this in absolute sincerity. This conversation is very interesting to me.
Look What They Gone Done to Birth on YouTube. Yeah, only Wealthy White Women are interested in natural birth and dislike medicalized birth. Um-hmm.
I loved Amy's comments on the dogma of religion and how that translates over to "obedience" toward ob's. I believe that many women who are in a marginalized position have a fear of being "disobedient" and opt for the more comfortable paradigm that says that interventions were necessary and thus they should be grateful for the services they received. Or as Tamika references they take a sort of underground approach with an unlicensed doula or midwife which would, in part, account for the lack of documentation of their option to have a home birth and is instead brushed-off as some poor uneducated woman going without prenatal care and having her baby at home. I had no idea there was an underground birth industry, I guess you do what you gotta do. In my case I did have the resources to research the true best practices of birth, when many other women do not have this advantage they are left trusting that their doctor's "best practices" are truly in their best interests.
". I would have had no idea that this is where you were coming from and I’m usually pretty good about reading between the lines. At least I thought I was."
I've written a lot about these issues on The Skeptical OB and I often cross post on Open Salon. I strongly agree with Kukla's claim that:
"As a culture, we have a tendency to measure motherhood in terms of a set of signal moments that have become the focus of special social attention and anxiety; we interpret these as emblematic summations of women’s mothering abilities."
We have made vaginal birth, unmedicated birth, breastfeeding, attachment parenting, etc. into a set of standards that all women are supposed to meet in order to be considered "good mothers." I think that this comes in part from our anxiety over motherhood and our anxiety over achievement. Motherhood brings very little in the way of awards and kudos. Your kids don't often turn to you and say, "Mom, thanks for not letting me have that candy I want. I know you are only thinking of my well being." But many of us are used to getting good grades, and awards, and praise and we have created these artificial "goals" of mothering so we can tell ourselves that we have met them and feel superior to those who have not.
My philosophical views about childbirth are, of course, informed by my years of practicing obstetrics. I spent way too much time trying to prepare women to be realistic about the pain of labor after others had encouraged them to be unrealistic, and way too much time trying to comfort them when they felt that "failed" by "giving into the pain."
My philosophical views are also informed by my years of mothering. I have four children, young adults and teenagers now, but I still remember the competition among mothers at the playground and the admonitions that mothers must do this or that in order to produce happy, healthy children. Since my children are older now, I have the opportunity to see how they and their peers are turning out. And I can tell you unequivocally that it makes no difference if their mothers had epidurals; it makes no difference if their mothers had C-sections; and it makes not difference if their mothers breastfed.
What I have learned from both experiences, practicing medicine and mothering, is that there is more than one way to do things. People make life decisions that I disagree with all the time and things turn out just fine for them. It has made me cognizant of the fact that there is no "right" way to give birth, no "right" way to handle labor pain, no "right" way to feed a baby, etc. Each woman must find what is right for her and her family.
I have no objection to unmedicated childbirth. I've done it myself. I do vehemently object to the notion that refusing pain relief is "better" than not having an epidural. As a physician, when I prescribed morphine after, say, surgery for an ectopic pregnancy I, like most physicians, prescribed a range of doses, dependent on the patient's pain and how she reacted to it. Who was I to say how much pain she had and how much medication was enough to make her comfortable? Only she knew. And I certainly didn't think that women who required less morphine for their surgical incision were superior to those who wanted more.
Similarly, who am I and who is anyone else to say how much pain a woman is experiencing in labor? Who am I and who is anyone else to say how much a woman does or does not need pain relief? Who am I and who is anyone else to say whether a woman who forgoes an epidural is better than a woman who requests one. And how dare anyone say, suggest or imply that a woman who forgoes an epidural is a better mother or loves her child more?
Mothering is a long term project that involves many complex interactions. It is about being there emotionally when your child needs you. It is trying to provide guidance while at the same time promoting independence. It is learning to separate your ambitions for your child from his ambitions for himself. And it is so much more. To suggest to women that mothering or womanhood can be reduced to signal moments is to demean women and make them caricatures. Children are not created by recipes. There is no right way to raise a child. I have four children and each of them required different things from me. How could I possibly insist that what I did for any of my children applies to someone else's child?
I don't think that the philosophy of "natural" childbirth can be understood without situating it in the context of historical views of women and pain, women and "duty," women as little more than uteri and breasts, whose "noblest" task is to fulfill their biological potential. I am very distrustful of biologic essentialism, the idea that a woman should be judged by how she fulfills biological roles. Just as I have no right to tell a woman she "must" have children, I have no right to tell her how she must give birth to them, how much pain she must endure, and how she should feed her infant.
Don't misunderstand me. For myself and I family I made choices of which you would probably approve. I breastfed, I carried them around constantly (I couldn't bear to put them down), I walked away from a career that I spent years creating because I couldn't stand to be away from them. But that's me. I'm not a model for other women. No woman or group of women should ever think they are models which other women should aspire to emulate.
Amy, I'm speechless. You should really try on this thoughtful, compassionate persona more often. It's so much more agreeable and pleasant to listen to than your abrasive doppelganger. In fact, I'm not entirely convinced that you haven't switched brains with someone else for this thread! ;)