This question is part of the GRAB(ook) Club, an online book club open to anyone and everyone.

Throughout the book, a piece of advice — “just ignore it” — is repeated in several different ways.  On page 133, Atticus recommends that Jem tune out Mrs. Dubose when she attempts to upset him.

“Easy does it, son,” Atticus would say.  “She’s an old lady and she’s ill.  You just hold your head high and be a gentleman.  What she says to you, it’s your job not to let her make you mad.”

Of course, we’re not just talking about the impolite, personal remarks.  Atticus is telling his son to ignore the blatantly racist remarks too.

It is advice that is often repeated on the Internet: don’t feed the trolls, don’t react to negative comments, let other people’s baiting roll off your back.  I know I’ve told the twins to ignore bullies in their class.  Ignoring — in other words, not doing anything — seems to be an easy solution that is offered for a variety of situations.

Yet we also see the effects of a town that has ignored its racism and turned a blind-eye to its bullying.  Change rarely comes from people who ignore a situation.

Do you think “just ignore it” is ultimately more helpful or hurtful?

After you answer my question, please click over to read the rest of the book club questions for To Kill a Mockingbird.  You can get your own copy of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee at bookstores including Amazon.

This is a post for the GRAB(ook) Club. Like the idea of a book club where you don’t have to leave your living room? Then read more about the GRAB(ook) Club which holds the book discussion on blogs, a Facebook group, and a GoodReads group.

August’s Book is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. You can jump into the discussion by clicking any of the blogs below (links will appear when the post goes up), or joining the Facebook or GoodReads group (links to those groups are in the information post).

• Stirrup Queens
• Are You Kidding Me?
• River Run Dry
• The Road Less Travelled
• Notes from the Ninth Circle
• The Book Diva’s Reads (on FB)

NEXT STEP: sign up for the September book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins(discussion on September 12) by leaving a comment below telling me that you’re in, the name and url of your blog, or whether you are blogless and will be discussing on the Facebook/GoodReads groups.

The number of married couples diagnosed with infertility has dropped from 8.5% to 6% according to a new study.

About 6 percent of married women under 45 failed to get pregnant after at least a year of sex without contraception, according to the report. That’s down from less than 9 percent some three decades ago.

The emphasis on married is mine.  It has been a long-standing divide in the infertility community between those who are situationally-infertile and those who are biologically-infertile.  Or rather, the divide comes more at the scientific and political levels; down here in the trenches, assisted conception is assisted conception.  But it’s seen quite clearly in the study itself, which only questioned married, heterosexual couples rather than looking at single parents by choice who also turn out to need IVF to conceive or lesbians who suffer from recurrent pregnancy loss.

In other words, if you’re only asking married couples about their fertility, you’re not really getting a very clear picture of fertility rates since a person can be both situationally and biologically infertile at the same time.  I would have a lot more interest in the study if they looked at individuals.  A fertility study that only looks at married heterosexuals doesn’t really tell the full story despite media outlets reporting to the contrary.

What it comes down to is whether you believe someone who needs assistance to conceive should be counted amongst others that also need assistance to conceive.  There isn’t a clear-cut, black-and-white answer.  We could debate this incessantly, trying to find the boundaries.  It isn’t helped by the fact that such a large percentage of people diagnosed with infertility are considered “unexplained” (nearly 20%).  That lack of why also creates a problem when creating the definition for infertility, and because it is such an amorphous disease at times, excluding populations that don’t neatly fit into the definition is one way of making it specific.

The problem with that is, of course, that (again) people can be a single-mother-by-choice or lesbian who can’t conceive despite numerous IUIs, making them both situationally and biologically infertile.  But those people aren’t counted in studies like this despite existing.

So yes, infertility rates are down amongst married couples.  But that says nothing about whether infertility rates are down overall for individuals.

This week, the ChickieNob and I finished the final Ramona Quimby book.  I got choked up reading the final pages of Ramona’s World, which came out long after I had finished with the Ramona books.  It felt a little bit like the cat ears Ramona puts on her Qs, a little extra since the series originally ended for me with Ramona Forever.

That morning, before we read the final two chapters of Ramona, we placed three books on the floor. (We originally had Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg in the running too, but we decided to read that with our book club along with the From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler so we could do a author comparison.  So… er… if your kid is in my book club… that’s probably what we’re reading this year… surprise!)

It was time to read Judy Blume.

Sure, we had read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing with the Wolvog and Super Fudge.  But when I say Judy Blume, I’m talking… Judy Blume.  Like read-with-your-mother Judy Blume.

She chose to start with Are You There G-d, It’s Me Margaret.  The Wolvog was getting together with a friend, so we swung by the organic market and bought Vietnamese summer rolls and popcorn.  I told the cashier that we were on our way to read our first Judy Blume.  She leaned over the counter and peered down at the ChickieNob, giving her that “you’re a woman now and will one day need to buy tampons because of it” smile as she invited her into the sorority.  “Aaah, starting with Margaret.  A good choice, a good choice.”

We then settled ourselves at Starbucks.  As the barista made our drinks, I told her that we were right on the cusp of reading Judy Blume.  As in, it was going to happen in her store and it was going to happen in the next ten minutes.  “Oh my G-d!” she shrieked, adding extra whipped cream to the ChickieNob’s chocolate frappuccino.  “Enjoy it, honey.  Those books will teach you everything.”

And then we said goodbye to Ramona after those last two chapters, kissed the cover of that book, and slipped it back into my bag.  “We’ll visit you,” the ChickieNob promised, her eyes already focused on Margaret.

You know how people talk about losing themselves in a good book?  We lost ourselves in that book.  Nine chapters later, we emerged, the ChickieNob finally understanding the chant, “I must I must I must increase my bust.”  (Plus, she got a whole run down of how bra sizing works as well as my first bra story).  We talked about periods and religion and friendships and girl drama and crushes and peer pressure.  We ate an entire bag of popcorn.  Like one of those bags that is meant to last you a few days?  We ate it in one sitting while we read.  Or, more accurately, we tried to eat it, except the ChickieNob was so engrossed in the story that she kept missing her mouth.  So we had to pause to clean up the floor.

I’ll read Then Again, Maybe I Won’t with the Wolvog one day, and Iggie’s House with both of them.  But right now, it’s just me and the girlie, talking about boobs and life.

The ChickieNob is very lucky to be growing up with a lot of Aunties, some actual family and others fictive kin.  Some have daughters, but most of them don’t.  All are women and are willing to have frank conversations with her, answering any questions that pop up.  I like that there is a sorority of women who step in and out of her life, influencing it, cheering her on.  I think it goes a long way to mold the woman I want her to become; the sort who will turn around and do the same for the next generation.

So thank you, to all the women who help shape the ChickieNob (including all of you) and to Judy Blume who kicks off a good conversation.

And your favourite Judy Blume book is…?

(And feel free to suggest a non-Judy Blume book you think the ChickieNob must read in order to understand Life… with a capital L.)

A few years ago, we were coaching the ChickieNob through a social situation, and we suggested that we role play.  First we had to explain what role playing was, and then we told the ChickieNob that I would pretend to be her and she would be the other friend so she could see how the conversation could go.  But she was more mesmerized by this idea of pretending to be someone else for a moment and asked if we could sidetrack.  She told me that she was going to pretend to be Josh, and she started miming him answering emails on a phone.

I snickered until she mimicked me.  She started darting around the kitchen, muttering to herself.  “I am so stressed, so stressed.  Did you empty out your lunch box because I’m washing dishes in a second.  And then I’ll make dinner.  And then I’ll help you with homework.  Crap, I have an article due.  I am so stressed.”

That is sort of not how I hoped I appeared in my daughter’s eyes.

Not that I wanted her to believe that everything was so easy because that just sets up unrealistic expectations for her future.  But who the hell wants to be known by the words, “I am so stressed”?  I wanted to at least appear to be in control.

A friend told me about a book she saw on Galleycat by Katrina Alcorn that is about the concept of Lean In.  It’s sort of the anti-Lean In, which is farther than I’m willing to go since I think Sheryl Sandburg makes a lot of valid points.  We do need to be more assertive within reason.  But Alcorn asks the question whether we’re leaning in so far that we’re falling.  Because that scenario doesn’t really help anyone either.

Sometimes I think we’re just collecting it all: we’re collecting the degrees and jobs and board positions and awards.  We’re collecting the friends and family members and partners and kids.  We’re collecting the vacations and events and parties.  We’re just collecting it, checking it off, recording it.

And that is very different from having it all, from possessing it all, from living it all, from being it all.  From really experiencing and enjoying those experiences, not just getting through them.

I know I’m guilty of it: Of working through the vacation.  Of racing from Point A to Point B to Point C, and thinking ahead to the next place while I’m still in the last one.  Of constantly worrying about the next day while I’m still in the present; or even worse, worrying about the distant future before I truly have to worry about it.

It’s hard to be in the present, to remain in the present.  It’s hard to sit with an accomplishment and say, “that’s enough for now.  I’ll try for something again later after I’ve enjoyed this for a while.”  Perhaps it’s because we don’t know if there will be a later and we’re constantly also reminded to carpe diem.  If you really seize the day and suck all the marrow out of life, taking up every opportunity that comes your way and actively seeking more than that, you’ll be exhausted, you’ll be drained, you’ll be… stressed.

But how can you keep up with the Joneses if you’re not constantly moving?  And not just moving; moving at warp speed so you too can look like a superwoman from the outside.  The answer is to get off the merry-go-round as John Lennon suggested, but not all of us are comfortable with the concept of living our lives at that speed.

I guess somewhere between leaning in and leaning out and falling over is this wish that I could stop collecting and simply appreciate and sit with what I have for longer before I move on to the next big thing.  But I guess I could only do that if I knew for certain that if I waited, if I paused, if I leaned in and leaned out in order to create that balance, that those next big things would still be guaranteed to be down the road for me.